Marquise de Ganges | Page 6

complexion, which was of a dazzling whiteness, was illumined by
not too brilliant a red, and art itself could not have arranged more
skilfully the gradations by which this red joined and merged into the
whiteness of the complexion. The brilliance of her face was heightened
by the decided blackness of her hair, growing, as though drawn by a
painter of the finest taste, around a well proportioned brow; her large,

well opened eyes were of the same hue as her hair, and shone with a
soft and piercing flame that rendered it impossible to gaze upon her
steadily; the smallness, the shape, the turn of her mouth, and, the
beauty of her teeth were incomparable; the position and the regular
proportion of her nose added to her beauty such an air of dignity, as
inspired a respect for her equal to the love that might be inspired by her
beauty; the rounded contour of her face, produced by a becoming
plumpness, exhibited all the vigour and freshness of health; to complete
her charms, her glances, the movements of her lips and of her head,
appeared to be guided by the graces; her shape corresponded to the
beauty of her face; lastly, her arms, her hands, her bearing, and her gait
were such that nothing further could be wished to complete the
agreeable presentment of a beautiful woman."
[Note: All her contemporaries, indeed, are in agreement as to her
marvellous beauty; here is a second portrait of the marquise, delineated
in a style and manner still more characteristic of that period:--
"You will remember that she had a complexion smoother and finer than
a mirror, that her whiteness was so well commingled with the lively
blood as to produce an exact admixture never beheld elsewhere, and
imparting to her countenance the tenderest animation; her eyes and hair
were blacker than jet; her eyes, I say, of which the gaze could scarce,
from their excess of lustre, be supported, which have been celebrated as
a miracle of tenderness and sprightliness, which have given rise, a
thousand times, to the finest compliments of the day, and have been the
torment of many a rash man, must excuse me, if I do not pause longer
to praise them, in a letter; her mouth was the feature of her face which
compelled the most critical to avow that they had seen none of equal
perfection, and that, by its shape, its smallness, and its brilliance, it
might furnish a pattern for all those others whose sweetness and charms
had been so highly vaunted; her nose conformed to the fair proportion
of all her features; it was, that is to say, the finest in the world; the
whole shape of her face was perfectly round, and of so charming a
fullness that such an assemblage of beauties was never before seen
together. The expression of this head was one of unparalleled sweetness
and of a majesty which she softened rather by disposition than by study;
her figure was opulent, her speech agreeable, her step noble, her
demeanour easy, her temper sociable, her wit devoid of malice, and

founded upon great goodness of heart."]
It is easy to understand that a woman thus endowed could not, in a
court where gallantry was more pursued than in any other spot in the
world, escape the calumnies of rivals; such calumnies, however, never
produced any result, so correctly, even in the absence of her husband,
did the marquise contrive to conduct herself; her cold and serious
conversation, rather concise than lively, rather solid than brilliant,
contrasted, indeed, with the light turn, the capricious and fanciful
expressions employed by the wits of that time; the consequence was
that those who had failed to succeed with her, tried to spread a report
that the marquise was merely a beautiful idol, virtuous with the virtue
of a statue. But though such things might be said and repeated in the
absence of the marquise, from the moment that she appeared in a
drawing-room, from the moment that her beautiful eyes and sweet
smile added their indefinable expression to those brief, hurried, and
sensible words that fell from her lips, the most prejudiced came back to
her and were forced to own that God had never before created anything
that so nearly touched perfection.
She was thus in the enjoyment of a triumph that backbiters failed to
shake, and that scandal vainly sought to tarnish, when news came of the
wreck of the French galleys in Sicilian waters, and of the death of the
Marquis de Castellane, who was in command. The marquise on this
occasion, as usual, displayed the greatest piety and propriety: although
she had no very violent passion for her husband, with whom she had
spent scarcely one of the seven years