by the graces; her shape corresponded to the beauty of her face; lastly,
her arms, her hands, her bearing, and her gait were such that nothing
further could be wished to complete the agreeable presentment of a
beautiful woman."

[Note: All her contemporaries, indeed, are in agreement as to her
marvellous beauty; here is a second portrait of the marquise, delineated
in a style and manner still more characteristic of that period:--

"You will remember that she had a complexion smoother and finer than a
mirror, that her whiteness was so well commingled with the lively blood
as to produce an exact admixture never beheld elsewhere, and imparting to
her countenance the tenderest animation; her eyes and hair were blacker
than jet; her eyes, I say, of which the gaze could scarce, from their
excess of lustre, be supported, which have been celebrated as a miracle
of tenderness and sprightliness, which have given rise, a thousand times,
to the finest compliments of the day, and have been the torment of many a
rash man, must excuse me, if I do not pause longer to praise them, in a
letter; her mouth was the feature of her face which compelled the most
critical to avow that they had seen none of equal perfection, and that,
by its shape, its smallness, and its brilliance, it might furnish a
pattern for all those others whose sweetness and charms had been so
highly vaunted; her nose conformed to the fair proportion of all her
features; it was, that is to say, the finest in the world; the whole
shape of her face was perfectly round, and of so charming a fullness that
such an assemblage of beauties was never before seen together. The
expression of this head was one of unparalleled sweetness and of a
majesty which she softened rather by disposition than by study; her
figure was opulent, her speech agreeable, her step noble, her demeanour
easy, her temper sociable, her wit devoid of malice, and founded upon