My eyes are little, my nose
short and big, my lips long and flat, my cheeks hanging, my face long,
my waist and my legs large, my stature short: sum-total, a little old
fright." But she was intelligent and witty, and that, in France at
least, goes a long way with a woman. She was also loyal and truthful.
No one doubted her word when once she had spoken. This makes her
testimony valuable, though many incidents circumspectly narrated by
her seem incredible. Of the young duchesse de Bourgogne, second
daughter of Louis XIV., she says: One of her amusements was to make
her lackeys drag her over the floor by her feet. It is to be presumed
that the duchess was a _very_ young person at this time.
Madame Charlotte's portrait of Marie Therese, queen of _Le Grand
Monarque_, is not very flattering: "Her teeth were black and broken,
and she ate immoderately of garlic and chocolate. She was very fond of
basset, but she never won, for she could never learn to play any game.
She ate long and very slowly, taking mouthfuls for a canary." The
diagnosis of the disease of which the queen died displays the popular
pathological lore of those times.
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