The dignity which Anne could assume on state occasions has been insisted upon by Madame de Motteville, when, speaking of her demeanour during the regency, she describes her then as equally fair with the fairest of the Court. A vast quantity of brown hair, powdered and frizzed, indeed, and worn in curls, set off a complexion not so delicate in colour as distinguished for the softness and smoothness of the skin. She disfigured herself, after the Spanish fashion, by wearing rouge; and one defect was striking--her nose was thick and large. Her eyes varied in colour from a perfect blue to green; and her glance was full of sweetness and expression. Her mouth was small, and her lips crimson, and the sweetest smiles played upon her countenance. The form of her face and forehead was admirable; her arms and hands were celebrated for their wonderful symmetry and for their whiteness, being, without exaggeration, white as snow. The delicacy of her habits amounted almost to monomania. “Madam,” observed Cardinal Mazarin to her, “should you incur everlasting condemnation, your punishment would be to sleep in sheets of Holland cloth.”[211] Her deportment in after life, during the minority of her son, Louis XIV., and her fortitude during the agonies of her last fatal illness, showed that the gentle and attractive Queen possessed a strong natural capacity, which circumstances eventually called into action. Footnote 211: Biographie Universelle. Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu, the all-powerful minister of Louis XIII., was now in the height of his power; he reigned, in short, under the name of the King. In an unbounded, and perhaps entirely selfish ambition, and in the full fruition of their hopes, Buckingham and Richelieu may be said to have resembled each other. In the love of pomp and display, they were alike. The superb attire, the costly retinue of the English peer, were puerile attempts compared with the ordinary household of Richelieu. His magnificent palace in the Rue St. Honoré, known, during his time, under the name of the Palais Cardinal, and, since the year 1636, as the Palais Royal, recalled the glories of York House at Whitehall, in the days of Wolsey, with all the added refinements of a later period. There, in the chapel, might be seen ornaments decorated with gold, studded with diamonds. The most splendid tapestry, the most uncommon articles of virtu, pictures of rare value, busts and statues, adorned the palace in which Richelieu entertained the King and the Court in stately revels. There, on one occasion, was enacted a play, drawn from the history of the Duke of Buckingham, when all the French prelates were invited, and when the Bishop de Chartres, formerly confessor to Richelieu, arranged the seats, and finally, clad in velvet, presented himself on the stage, at the head of a train of twenty-four pages, carrying the collation which was offered to the company.