History tells us that he was tall, supple, and strong. He had to resort to regular diet and daily exercise to combat a certain tendency to stoutness; and yet in the chase he left the swiftest far behind, and carried away the palm from the strongest at the jousts and tourneys. His hair and beard were black, and his complexion very dark, which gave him so much more animation, if we may believe contemporary memoirs. He wore, at the time we make his acquaintance, as indeed he always did, the colors of the Duchesse de Valentinois,--a coat of green satin slashed with white, glistening with pearls and diamonds; a double chain of gold, to which was suspended the medal of the order of Saint Michael; a sword chased by Benvenuto; a collar of white point de Venise; a velvet cloak dotted with golden lilies hung gracefully from his shoulders. It was a costume of singular richness, and suitable to a cavalier of exquisite elegance. We have said in brief that Diane was clad in a simple white peignoir of a singularly thin and transparent stuff. To paint her divine loveliness would not be so easy a matter; and it would be hard to say whether the black velvet cushion on which her head lay, or the dress, startling in its purity, by which her form was enveloped, served best to set off the snows and lilies of her complexion. And surely it was such a perfect combination of delicate outlines as to drive Jean Goujon himself to despair. There is no more perfect piece of antique statuary; and this statue was alive, and very much alive too, if common report is to be believed. As for the graceful motion with which these lovely limbs were instinct, we must not attempt to describe it. It can no more be reproduced than can a ray of sunlight. As for age, she had none. In this point, as in so many others, she was like the immortals; but by her side the youngest and most blooming seemed old and wrinkled. The Protestants babbled about philters and potions, to which they said that she had recourse to enable her to remain always sixteen. The Catholics replied that all she did was to take a cold bath every day, and wash her face in ice water even in winter. Her prescription has been preserved; but if it be true that Jean Goujon's "Diane au Cerf" was carved from this royal model, that prescription has no longer the same effect. [Illustration: A King's Mistress.] Thus was she a worthy object of the affection of the two kings whom one after the other her beauty had dazzled. For if the story of the favor obtained by Monsieur Saint-Vallier, thanks to his fine brown eyes, seems apocryphal, it is almost conclusively proved that Diane was François's mistress before she became Henri's.