harming by her modest devotion,
and amusing by her brilliant wit. Artfully, and by degrees, she
convinced those in authority of the need of a representative in Paris.
This office she was chosen to fill. Playing her pious part to the last,
protesting with tears her pain at leaving a life she loved, and her
unfitness for so great an honor she set out upon her easy mission.
There are many tales of a scandalous life behind all this sanctity and
humility, but her new position gave her consideration, influence, and a
good revenue. "Young, beautiful, clever, with an adorable talent," this
"nun unhooded" fascinated the regent, and was his favorite for a few
days. But her ambition got the better of her prudence. She ventured
upon political ground, and he saw her no more. With his minister, the
infamous Dubois, she was more successful, and he served her purpose
admirably well. Through her notorious relations with him she enriched
her brother and secured him a cardinal's hat. The intrigues of this
unscrupulous trio form an important episode in the history of the
period. When Dubois died, within a few months of the regent, she wept,
as she said, "that fools might believe she regretted him."

Her clear, incisive intellect and conversational charm would have
assured the success of any woman at a time when these things counted for
so much. "At thirty-six," wrote Mme. du Deffand, "she was beautiful and
fresh as a woman of twenty; her eyes sparkled, her lips had a smile
at the same time sweet and perfidious; she wished to be good, and gave
herself great trouble to seem so, without succeeding." Indolent
and languid with flashes of witty vivacity, insinuating and facile,
unconscious of herself, interested in everyone with whom she talked, she
combined the tact, the finesse, the subtle penetration of a woman
with the grasp, the comprehensiveness, and the knowledge of political
machinery which are traditionally accorded to a man. "If she wanted to
poison you, she would use the mildest poison," said the Abbe Trublet.

"I cannot express the illusion which her air of nonchalance and easy
grace left with me," says Marmontel. "Mme. de Tencin, the woman in the
kingdom who moved the most political springs, both in the city and at
court, was for me only an indolente. Ah, what finesse, what suppleness,
what activity were concealed beneath this naive air, this appearance of
calm and leisure!" But he confesses that she aided him greatly with her
coun