Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/639

Rh marriage of her daughters, appeared no more at court, but lived in great splendor at Paris. She had a large revenue, though only for life. The king payed her 1000 louis d'ors a month. Every year she went to drink the waters of Bourbon, where she married the girls about the place, and gave them portions. Though no longer at court, she still practised the vices she had been used to, luxury, caprice, distrust, and ambition. La Bruyere painted her, in his Characters, as still adorning her beauty, contemplating with pleasure its precious remains, and at 60 years of age, asking her physicians, 'Why those wrinkles in her face, that stomach so weak, that peevishness of temper, and perpetual lassitude?' She died at Bourbon, in the year 1717. She is said to have written letters equal to those of Madame de Sevigné.

Female Worthies.

her childhood made herself mistress of Spanish, Italian, and Greek. At the age of fifteen, she was presented to Maria Theresa, when that princess arrived at Paris, and was much admired by the whole court for her eloquence and facility in speaking Spanish. She was intimately acquainted with ancient and modern philosophy and theology; signalized herself in some highly celebrated translations; and employed her pen on morality, criticism, and natural philosophy. Her letters were esteemed such a treasure, that Lewis XIV. always expressed great pleasure at receiving any. Her poems are said to have been few,