Page:Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and her court.djvu/26

4 very varied years, some of which, were shaken by violent storms. Faithful and devoted, without pretending to be heroic, she was able to reconcile the timidities of her sex with the obligations and duties of her position, and pass at Court through the breakers of many reefs, visible and invisible, without being turned from her way, continuing always within the rules and delicacies of scrupulous integrity woman in many points, but the most reasonable of women, a genuine person, yet at the same time amiable. She seems never to have thought of remarrying, and never to have known a tender weakness. In that agreeable discussion which she holds by letter with La Grande Mademoiselle on the conditions of a perfectly happy life she says: "I was only twenty years old when I regained my liberty, which has always seemed to me preferable to all the other good things that the world esteems; and by the way I have used it I seem to be a fit inhabitant of the village of Kandan," a village in Auvergne where the widows do not marry again. The title of dowager, which she gained so young, did not terrify her. She enjoyed friendship and conversation; but she could also enjoy, if need were, "the sweets of solitude, which are books and revery." A true and practical religion, which did not exclude but on the contrary brought her back to philosophical reflection, sustained and strengthened her in virtue and prudence. It was thus that this soul, equable and temperate, passed through life, without great lustre, without inward distresses, and constantly ripening,

We at once ask ourselves, as we do of all women, whether Madame de Motteville was beautiful, and it appears that she was. " Her portrait, which is at Motteville," says the "Journal des Savants," "represents her as a very pretty brunette." The only engraved portrait which I have seen of her, and which every one may see at the Cabinet des