If the Mancini girls had no heritage of money, they had at least the dower of beauty.  Each of the five gave promise of a rare loveliness—­with the solitary exception of Marie, Madame’s third daughter, who at fourteen was singularly unattractive even for that awkward age.  Tall, thin, and angular, without a vestige of grace either of figure or movement, she had a sallow face out of which two great black eyes looked gloomily, and a mouth wide and thin-lipped.  She was, in addition, shy and slow-witted to the verge of stupidity.  Marie, in fact, was quite hopeless, the “ugly duckling” of a good-looking family, and for this reason an object of dislike and resentment to her mother.

Certainly, said Madame, Marie must be left behind.  Her other daughters would be a source of pride to their uncle; he could secure great matches for them, but Marie—­pah! she would bring discredit on the whole family.  And so it was decided in conclave that the “ugly duckling” should be left in a nunnery—­the only fit place for her.  But Marie happily had a spirit of her own.  She would not be left behind, she declared; and if she must go to a nunnery, why there were nunneries in plenty in France to which they could send her.  And Marie had her way.

She was not, however, to escape the cloister after all, for to a Paris nunnery she was consigned when her Cardinal uncle had set eyes on her.  “Let her have a year or two there,” was his verdict, “and, who knows, she may blossom into a beauty yet.  At any rate she can put on flesh and not be the scarecrow she is.”  And thus, while her more favoured sisters were revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell her beads and to spend Spartan days among the nuns.

Nearly two years passed before Mazarin expressed a wish to see his ugly niece again; and it was indeed a very different Marie who now made her curtsy to him.  Gone were the angular figure, the awkward movements, the sallow face, the slow wits.  Time and the healthy life of the cloisters had done their work well.  What the Cardinal now saw was a girl of seventeen, of exquisitely modelled figure, graceful and self-possessed; a face piquant and full of animation, illuminated by a pair of glorious dark eyes, and with a dazzling smile which revealed the prettiest teeth in France.  Above all, and what delighted the Cardinal most, she had now a sprightly wit, and a quite brilliant gift of conversation.  It was thus a smiling and gratified Cardinal who gave greeting to his niece, now as fair as her sisters and more fascinating than any of them.  There was no doubt that he could find a high-placed husband for her, and thus—­for this was, in fact, his motive for rescuing his pretty nieces from their obscurity—­make his position secure by powerful family alliances.