"They should rather call her the Hyades!" said Hamilton, "if it be true
that she sheds tears every morning and night, and her rising and setting
are thus always attended by rain."

"Bravo, Count Antoine! she shall be so called in future," said Madame de
Cornuel. "But now, Monsieur Devereux, turn your eyes to that hideous
old woman."

"What! the Duchesse d'Orleans?"

"The same. She is in full dress to-night; but in the daytime you
generally see her in a riding habit and a man's wig; she is--"

"Hist!" interrupted Hamilton; "do you not tremble to think what she
would do if she overheard you? she is such a terrible creature at
fighting! You have no conception, Count, what an arm she has. She
knows her ugliness, and laughs at it, as all the rest of the world does.
The King took her hand one day, and said smiling, 'What could Nature
have meant when she gave this hand to a German princess instead of a
Dutch peasant?' 'Sire,' said the Duchesse, very gravely, 'Nature gave
this hand to a German princess for the purpose of boxing the ears of her
ladies in waiting!'"

"Ha! ha! ha!" said Madame de Cornuel, laughing; "one is never at a loss
for jokes upon a woman who eats /salade au lard/, and declares that,
whenever she is unhappy, her only consolation is ham and sausages! Her
son treats her with the greatest respect, and consults her in all his
amours, for which she professes the greatest horror, and which she
retails to her correspondents all over the world, in letters as long as