chamber, approached the head of the
bed--all the curtains being pulled back; I allowed him to remain there
but a few moments, and hurried him into the cabinet, which was deserted
just then. The windows were open, he leaned upon the iron balustrade,
and his tears increased so much that I feared lest they should suffocate
him. When this attack had a little subsided, he began to talk of the
misfortunes of this world, and of the short duration of its most
agreeable pleasures. I urged the occasion to say to him everything God
gave me the power to say, with all the gentleness, emotion, and
tenderness, I could command. Not only he received well what I said to
him, but he replied to it and prolonged the conversation.

After we had been there more than an hour, Madame de Saint-Simon gently
warned me that it was time to try and lead M. le Duc d'Orleans away,
especially as there was no exit from the cabinet, except through the
sick-chamber. His coach, that Madame de Saint-Simon had sent for, was
ready. It was without difficulty that I succeeded in gently moving away
M. le Duc d'Orleans, plunged as he was in the most bitter grief. I made
him traverse the chamber at once, and supplicated him to return to Paris.
At last he consented. He wished me to remain and give orders, and
begged, with much positiveness, Madame de Saint-Simon to be present when
seals were put upon the effects, after which I led him to his coach, and
he went away. I immediately repeated to Madame de Saint-Simon the orders
he had given me respecting the opening of the body, in order that she
might have them executed, and I hindered her from remaining in the
chamber, where there was nothing now but horror to be seen.

At last, about midnight, on the 21st of July, 1819, Madame la Duchesse de
Berry died, ten days after Chirac had consummated his crime. M. le Duc
d'Orleans was the only person touched. Some people grieved; but not one
of them who had enough to live upon appeared ever to regret her loss.
Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans felt her deliverance, but paid every
attention to decorum. Madame constrained herself but little. However
affected M. le Duc d'Orleans might be, consolation soon came. The yoke
to which he had submitted himself, and which he afterwards found heavy,
was severed. Above all, he was free from all annoyance on the score of
Rion's marriage, and its results, annoyance that would have been all the
greater, inasmuch as at the opening o