Page:Memoirs of Madame de Motteville on Anne of Austria and her court.djvu/36

14 In all her remarks on the Court, that "delightful and wicked place" which was often justly hated, but "always naturally loved," I fancy as I read Madame de Motteville that I am listening to Nicole, but a feminine Nicole, softened and more agreeable.

Nevertheless, we meet with many very fine expressions of vigour and moral energy. At a ball given by Cardinal Mazarin during the carnival of 1647 she describes to us, one after another, the principal beauties and queens of the festival; after which she makes the supernumeraries defile before us, and they are by no means the least pretentious or the least noisy. "The queen's maids-of-honour, Pons, Guerchy, and Saint-Mégrin, tried to make a few natural conquests by the pains they took to embellish themselves in all sorts of ways ; happy if, among so many lovers, they could have caught husbands suited to their ambition and the license of their desires." That is only a piquant stroke ; but presently, speaking more particularly of Mademoiselle de Pons, beloved by the Due de Guise, now on his way to conquer Naples for her sake, and yet, for all that, not content or satisfied with such a prize, she says: "That soul, gluttonous of pleasure, was not content with an absent lover who adored her and a hero who, to deserve her, sought to make himself a sovereign. Ambition and love combined did not have charms enough to fill her heart ; to satisfy her she must needs go promenading on the Cours, where she received the incense of all her new conquests." A soul gluttonous of pleasure! it is a sense of honest decency which here conveys to Madame de Motteville's style that expression of disgust.

Her habitual tones are much more restrained; acrimony does not touch her decent pen. Near as they are to the queen, she and her companions are deprived by the avarice of the cardinal of many of the practical and efficacious