her complexion the finest I ever saw; her nose and forehead well made, but her mouth has ten thousand charms, that touch the soul.  When she smiles, ’tis with a beauty and sweetness that forces adoration.  She has a vast quantity of fine fair hair; but then her person!—­one must speak of it poetically to do it rigid justice; all that the poets have said of the mien of Juno, the air of Venus, come not up to the truth.  The Graces move with her; the famous statue of Medicis was not formed with more delicate proportions; nothing can be added to the beauty of her neck and hands.  Till I saw them, I did not believe there were any in nature so perfect, and I was almost sorry that my rank here did not permit me to kiss them; but they are kissed sufficiently; for every body that waits on her pays that homage at their entrance, and when they take leave.  When the ladies were come in, she sat down to Quinze.  I could not play at a game I had never seen before, and she ordered me a seat at her right hand, and had the goodness to talk to me very much, with that grace so natural to her.  I expected every moment, when the men were to come in to pay their court; but this drawing-room is very different from that of England; no man enters it but the grand-master, who comes in to advertise the empress of the approach of the emperor.  His imperial majesty did me the honour of speaking to me in a very obliging manner; but he never speaks to any of the other ladies; and the whole passes with a gravity and air of ceremony that has something very formal in it.  The empress Amelia, dowager of the late emperor Joseph, came this evening to wait on the reigning empress, followed by the two arch-duchesses her daughters, who are very agreeable young princesses.  Their imperial majesties rose and went to meet her at the door of the room, after which she was seated in an armed (sic) chair, next the empress, and in the same manner at supper, and there the men had the permission of paying their court.  The arch-duchesses sat on chairs with backs without arms.  The table was entirely served, and all the dishes set on by the empress’s maids of honour, which are twelve young ladies of the first quality.  They have no salary, but their chamber at court, where they live in a sort of confinement, not being suffered to go to the assemblies or public places in town, except in compliment to the wedding of a sister maid, whom the empress always presents with her picture set in diamonds.  The three first of them are called Ladies of the Key, and wear gold keys by their sides; but what I find most pleasant, is the custom, which obliges them, as long as they live, after they have left the empress’s service, to make her some present every year on the day of her feast.  Her majesty is served by no married women but the grande maitresse, who is generally a widow of the first quality, always very old, and is at the same time groom of the stole, and mother of the maids.