This is why [continues she] I can say that I have the most beautiful and best formed figure which has ever been seen. There is none so regular, so free, so easy. My bearing is entirely agreeable, and in all my actions I have an air infinitely _spirituel_. My face is a most perfect oval, according to all standards; my forehead is slightly elevated, which aids the regularity of the oval. My eyes are brown, very brilliant, and very deeply set; the gaze is very gentle and, at the same time, full of fire and spirit. I have a well-made nose, and as for the mouth, it is not only fine and well coloured, but infinitely agreeable, made so by a thousand little natural expressions not to be seen in any other mouths. My teeth are very beautiful and regular. I have a very small chin. I have not a very white skin. My hair is a clear chestnut, and very lustrous. My neck is more beautiful than ugly. As for my arms and hands, I am not proud of them; but the skin is very soft and smooth. It would be impossible to find a thigh better made than mine or a foot better turned. The description of the physique was a rule of the Portraits, not even the _religieuses_ believing that it should be dispensed with. Among the Portraits is found one of an Abbess who visited Mademoiselle, the inspiring Marie-Eleonore de Rohan, a person much esteemed on account of her mother, the famous Duchesse de Montbazon, but very disconcerting, notwithstanding, for our modern ideals of monastic life. She divided herself between the cloister and the world, sufficiently edifying when it was needful, lively and brilliant the remainder of the time, and as natural in the one role as in the other. The Abbess composed works of piety for her nuns,--among others _La Morale de Salomon_, many times re-edited, and the _Paraphrases des sept Psaumes de la Penitence_. The lady of society placed herself before her mirror and wrote without a shade of embarrassment: "I have some haughtiness in my physiognomy and some modesty. I have too large a nose, a mouth not disagreeable, lips suitable, and teeth neither beautiful nor ugly." This "nose too large" shocked the savant Huet. In reproducing the portrait of Mme. l'Abbesse, he wrote: "As the beauty of the nose is one to which I am very sensitive, permit, Madame, that I should begin with yours. It is large; it is white, slightly aquiline, and gives something _spirituel_ to your smile." Another phrase of Huet's gives us a vision of how these pseudo-religieuses, whose species was destined to disappear with the reform of convents, a not regrettable fact, accommodated the convent garb with coquetry: "One cannot imagine," pursued the future bishop, "more beautiful hair than yours; it is ash colour, blond, curls in a very agreeable manner, and admirably suits your face, as far as I have been able to judge, when it has escaped by chance, in spite of your care to conceal it."