“‘You have already heard the description of Madame de Guéménée: now, Madame de la Motte was, in all points of outward appearance and manner, exactly the reverse of that mighty dame. She was a small, lively person, full of fire, and talking with a strong accent and active gesticulation. She was, without doubt, what, in the world, is called a pretty woman, for she had a fine complexion, with sparkling black eyes, and a superb range of ivory teeth, which she took every pains to display, by an incessant twist of her lips, which I remember to this day, as having produced the most unpleasant effect possible upon my nerves. She had a remarkable profusion of really fine chestnut hair, which was but half-powdered, and clustered in most bewitching ringlets round her face. Her age might have been about seven or eight-and-twenty—the very age most to be dreaded in woman; the mind, possessing all the experience of maturity—the person yet retaining all the bloom and charm of youth. Her attire was well chosen to set off her complexion, but it shocked my taste to witness the profusion of ornament and jewels with which she was adorned, even while speaking of herself as a _pauvre solliciteuse_, to whom a miserly government would only accord a beggarly pension of eight hundred livres. Her diamonds, indeed, rivalled both in beauty and profusion those of the Princesse de Guéménée herself, and her dress consisted of a robe of orange-coloured _brocatelle_, shot with black, and flowered with gold. Her hands and arms were hidden by long gloves of Spanish kid, and I could readily imagine that there was coquetry in this precaution, as the hardships in which her early years had been spent, must, of necessity, have left their traces _there_.