Among other things the casket contained a pair of spectacles of which the good Queen’s eyes stood in need. “Here I am gay for the whole day from Madame de Luynes’ good-night,” she wrote to the Duke, January 2, 1751. “Do you know what I was doing when I received Monseigneur’s letter? I was with ... guess who? ... my fine new spectacles (_les beaux yeux de ma cassette_). Never did _l’Avare_ love his own so much. I am hurrying to get to High Mass. I embrace Madame de Luynes, I bow before Monseigneur, and I wish you good-day.” The Duchess’s shortest absences seemed like an eternity to Marie Leczinska. At such times she wrote letter on letter to her lady of honor, saying that long correspondences are the delights of friendship. Here is a letter which shows what a tender friend the Queen was. On receiving this heartfelt epistle, the Duchess de Luynes must have been profoundly affected:-- “January 23, 1751.--Do you know what pleasure I gave myself last evening? I went to surprise M. de Luynes in his apartment; I found him just as he had finished his supper with Monseigneur (the Bishop of Bayeux), in his pretty little room. I cannot tell you what joy I felt in seeing your apartment again; I rested there a moment in order to preserve it, for, not finding you there yet, I began to be afraid of what might succeed it. Pleasures which are only imaginary need to be taken care of. I impatiently await the real ones.” To great goodness Marie Leczinska joined solid information. She knew six languages,--Polish, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Latin. Men of letters were struck by the shrewdness of her judgments on the things of the mind. Several of her maxims have been preserved, which attest a lofty soul and a profound knowledge of the human heart. Here are some of them: “We ought not to reflect more on the faults of others than will suffice to preserve ourselves from them.--Human wisdom teaches us to conceal our pride; religion alone destroys it.--To live peaceably in society, we must open our eyes to the qualities which please us, and shut them on the follies and caprices which shock us.--The women who pique themselves most on knowing what it is allowable for them to be ignorant of are those who care least about instructing themselves concerning what it is shameful not to know.--Many princes having regretted, when dying, that they had made war, we never see any who repented of having loved peace.--Good kings are slaves, and their people are free.--The only thing which can make amends for the slavery of the throne is the pleasure of doing some good.--In politics, as in morals, the shortest way to make men happy is to endeavor to make them virtuous.” The sovereign who expressed such thoughts as these was not an ordinary woman. She surpasses all the favorites of her husband, not merely in heart and virtue, but also in intelligence, knowledge, and wit. XIV MARIE LECZINSKA AND HER DAUGHTERS