Her activity was incessant, but it ended in nothing better than debt, embarrassment, and confusion.

She inherited from her father a taste for alchemy, and spent much time in search after secret elixirs and the like.

"Quacks, taking advantage of her weakness, made themselves her master, constantly infested her, ruined her, and wasted, in the midst of furnaces and chemicals, intelligence, talents, and charms which would have made her the delight of the best societies."[44] Perhaps, however, the too notorious vagrancy of her amours had at least as much to do with her failure to delight the best societies as her indiscreet passion for alchemy.

Her person was attractive enough.

"She had those points of beauty," says Rousseau, "which are desirable, because they reside rather in expression than in feature.