of her feverish political career. [2] Brought to the scaffold by Richelieu in 1632. This era of her entrance into the great world was probably the happiest, the most joyous of the fair Bourbon's life. Lofty distinction of birth, great personal beauty, and rare mental fascination, contributed to place her in the very foremost rank of the Court circle--in the "height of company"--conspicuous amongst lovely dames and distinguished men of the time. Her peerless loveliness at once meeting with universal recognition, "la belle Conde" was toasted with acclamation by courtiers, young and old--at Chantilly, at Liancourt, at the Louvre, and at the Hotel de Rambouillet. Contemporaries of either sex have rendered unanimous testimony to the varied and exceptional character of her attractions, and we will let a woman's pen add to Petitot's pencilling some of those delicate traits which neither the burin nor even the vivid tints of the enamel have the power to convey. "Her beauty," says Mdme. de Motteville, "consisted more in the brilliance of her complexion"--("it had the blush of the pearl," writes another contemporary)--"than in perfection of feature. Her eyes were not large, but bright, and finely cut, and of a blue so lovely it resembled that of the turquoise. The poets could only apply the trite comparison of lilies and roses to the carnation which mantled on her cheek, whilst her fair, silken, luxuriant tresses, and the peculiar limpidity of her glance, added to many other charms, made her more like an angel--so far as our imperfect nature allows of our imagining such a being--than a mere woman." Somewhat later, the smallpox, in robbing her of the bloom of her beauty, still left her all its brilliancy, to repeat the remark of that eminent connoisseur of female loveliness, Cardinal de Retz.