"The great day had arrived--Paris was rushing to Versailles. The presentation was to take place in the evening, after worship. The hour was approaching. Richelieu, filling his charge as first gentleman, was with the king, Choiseul was on the other side. Both were waiting, counting the moments and watching the king. The latter, ill at ease, restless, agitated, looked every minute at his watch. He paced up and down, uttered indistinct words, was vexed at the noise at the gates and the avenues, the reason of which he inquired of Choiseul. 'Sire, the people--informed that to-day Mme. du Barry is to have the honor of being presented to Your Majesty--have come from all parts to witness her _entrée_, not being able to witness the reception Your Majesty will give her.' The time has long since passed--Mme. du Barry does not appear. Choiseul (her enemy) and his friends radiate joy; Richelieu, in a corner of the room, feels assurance failing him. The king goes to the window, looks into the night--nothing. Finally, he decides, he opens his mouth to countermand the presentation. 'Sire, Mme. du Barry!' cries Richelieu, who had just recognized the carriage and the livery of the favorite; 'she will enter if you give the order.' Just then, Mme. du Barry enters behind the Comtesse de Béarn, bedecked with the hundred thousand francs' worth of diamonds the king had sent her, coifed in that superb headdress whose long scaffolding had almost made her miss the hour of presentation, dressed in one of those triumphant robes which the women of the eighteenth century called 'robes of combat,' armed in that toilette in which the eyes of a blind woman (Mme. du Deffand) see the destiny of Europe and the fate of ministers; and it is an apparition so beaming, so dazzling, that, in the first moments of surprise, the greatest enemies of the favorite cannot escape the charm of the woman, and renounce calumniating her beauty." According to reports, her beauty must have been of the ideal type of the time. All the portraits and images that Mme. du Barry has left of herself, in marble, engraving, or on canvas, show a _mignonne_ perfection of body and face. Her hair was long, silky, of an ashen blonde, and was dressed like the hair of a child; her brows and lashes were brown, her nose small and finely cut. "It was a complexion which the century compared to a roseleaf fallen into milk. It was a neck which was like the neck of an antique statue...." In her were victorious youth, life, and a sort of the divinity of a Hébé; about her hovered that charm of intoxication, which made Voltaire cry out before one of her portraits: _L'original était fait pour les dieux!_ [The original was made for the gods!]