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HE Montespan is in great beauty to-night,” said the Marquis de Vannes to the Comte de Chablais, as the two stood waiting with all the rest of the world for the entrance of the royal party. It was the grand gallery of Versailles where they stood; and from the lofty ceiling the grim warriors depicted there by LeBrun looked down in surly admiration upon the beauties of the world, so notably assembled at the French court during the first half of the reign of Louis XIV.; for Anne of Austria, always a Spaniard, loved to see herself surrounded by the dark eyes and to hear the lisping accents of her native land; nor did she fail to encourage her poor, timid daughter-in-law in the same tastes, if, indeed, Maria Thérèsa can be said to have had any thing so decisive as a taste, except in the direction of chocolate. Differing subtly from the Spaniards, and yet resembling them in racemarks, came a troop of Italy’s fairest and best-born, 1