Her complexion is very florid, for which she often lets blood, but without effect; she uses a great quantity of paint, I believe for the purpose of hiding the marks of the small-pox.  She cannot dance, and hates it; but she is well-grounded in music.  Her voice is neither strong nor agreeable, and yet she sings very correctly.  She takes as much diversion as possible; one day she hunts, another day she goes out in a carriage, on a third she will go to a fair; at other times she frequents the rope-dancers, the plays, and the operas, and she goes everywhere ‘en echarpe’, and without stays.  I often rally her, and say that she fancies she is fond of the chase, but in fact she only likes changing her place.  She cares little about the result of the chase, but she likes boar-hunting better than stag-hunting, because the former furnishes her table with black puddings and boars’ heads.

I do not reckon the Duchesse de Berri among my grandchildren.  She is separated from me, we live like strangers to each other, she does not disturb herself about me, nor I about her. (7th January, 1716.)

Madame de Maintenon was so dreadfully afraid lest the King should take a fancy to the Duchesse de Berri while the Dauphine was expected, that she did her all sorts of ill offices.  After the Dauphine’s death she repaired the wrong; but then, to tell the truth, the King’s inclination was not so strong.

If the Duchesse de Berri was not my daughter-in-law, I should have no reason to be dissatisfied with her; she behaves politely to me, which is all that I can say. (25th Sept., 1716.)

She often laughs at her own figure and shape.  She has certainly good sense, and is not very punctilious.  Her flesh is firm and healthy, her cheeks are as hard as stone.  I should be ungrateful not to love her, for she does all sorts of civil things towards me, and displays so great a regard for me that I am often quite amazed at it. (12th April, 1718.)

She is magnificent in her expenditure; to be sure she can afford to be so, for her income amounts to 600,000 livres.  Amboise was her jointure, but she preferred Meudon.

She fell sick on the 28th March, 1719.  I went to see her last Sunday, the 23rd May, and found her in a sad state, suffering from pains in her toes and the soles of her feet until the tears came into her eyes.  I went away because I saw that she refrained from crying out on my account.  I thought she was in a bad way.  A consultation was held by her three physicians, the result of which was that they determined to bleed her in the feet.  They had some difficulty in persuading her to submit to it, because the pain in her feet was so great that she uttered the most piercing screams if the bedclothes only rubbed against them.  The bleeding, however, succeeded, and she was in some degree relieved.  It was the gout in both feet.

The feet are now covered with swellings filled with water, which cause her as much pain as if they were ulcers; she suffers day and night.  Whatever they may say, there has been no other swelling of the feet since those blisters appeared. (13th June.)