Yet, withal, the real character of her mind was that of ambition. She aspired continually after new acquaintances and friends, as well as new modes of amusement, excepting only some old confidantes whom time had rendered necessary to her. This inequality in her temper produced many evils. Easily elevated, she rose to an excess of feeling; as easily depressed, she relapsed into satiety and even disgust, without being able to render a reason for the change even to herself. After overcoming the difficulty of getting into her presence, one had to experience a volubility resulting from something which happened to please her, and presently a relapse into indifference, or something worse, so that it was a task for the visitor to know whether he was in grace or disgrace. She possessed also the weakness to be regulated by confidences and confessions, and to submit to be made the dupe of religious societies. The time absorbed by her visits to convents was incredible. She believed herself to be a kind of universal abbess, and concerned herself with the endless details of numerous convents. She even figured herself to be the mother of the Church, weighing and estimating the merits or demerits of ecclesiastical officials, not less than those of the female heads of convents. She was thus plunged in a sea of occupations, frivolous, deceitful, and painful; of letters and answers to letters, directions to choice friends, and all sorts of puerilities, which resulted ordinarily in nothing. [Yet, for thirty years of her life, she played her part so well that she was the king's most confidential adviser, and shared in the obloquy of some of his worst acts, such as the revocation of the edict of Nantes. She was a virtuous woman, a devout and bigoted Catholic, ambitious and resolute, yet disinterested and charitable. Her published letters demand for her a creditable place in French literature.] COUNTESS DE GRAMMONT. [1641.] COUNT A. HAMILTON. Miss Hamilton, the eldest daughter of Sir George Hamilton, and born in 1641, was at the happy age when the charms of the fair sex begin to bloom; she had the finest shape, the loveliest neck, and most beautiful arms in the world; she was majestic and graceful in her movements, and she was the original after which all the ladies copied in their taste and air of dress. Her forehead was open, white, and smooth; her hair was well set, and fell with ease into that natural order which it is so difficult to imitate. Her complexion was possessed of a certain freshness not to be equalled by borrowed colours; her eyes were not large, but they were lively, and capable of expressing whatever she pleased; her mouth was full of graces, and her contour uncommonly perfect; nor was her nose, which was small, delicate, and _retrousse_, the least ornament of so lovely a face.