me; expressed regret that we must
part; proceeded to tell me when she should start in time for us to have
another day together; sent many compliments to Madame de Saint-Simon; and
declared herself sensible of the mark of friendship I had given her, in
spite of my engagement with M. d'Orleans. As soon as I had seen her off,
I went to M. d'Orleans, to whom I related what I had just done; said I
had not paid a visit, but had had simply a meeting; that it was true I
could not hinder myself from seeking it, without prejudice to the final
visit he had allowed me. Neither he nor Madame la Duchesse d'Orleans
complained. They had fully triumphed over their enemy, and were on the
point of seeing her leave France for ever, without hope in Spain.

Until now, Madame des Ursins amused by a residue of friends, increased by
those of M. de Noirmoutiers with whom she lodged and who had money, had
gently occupied herself with the arrangement of her affairs, changed as
they were, and in withdrawing her effects from Spain. The fear lest she
should find herself in the power of a Prince whom she had so cruelly
offended, and who showed, since her arrival in France, that he felt it,
hurried all her measures. Her terror augmented by the change in the King
that she found at this last audience had taken place since her first.
She no longer doubted that his end was very near; and all her attention
was directed to the means by which she might anticipate it, and be well
informed of his health; this she believed her sole security in France.
Terrified anew by the accounts she received of it, she no longer gave
herself time for anything, but precipitately set out on the 14th August,
accompanied as far as Essonne by her two nephews. She had no time to
inform me, so that I have never seen her since the day of our
conversation at Marly in her coach. She did not breathe until she
arrived at Lyons.

She had abandoned the project of retiring into Holland, where the States-
General would not have her. She herself, too, was disgusted with the
equality of a republic, which counterbalanced in her mind the pleasure of
the liberty enjoyed there. But she could not resolve to return to Rome,
the theatre of her former reign, and appear there proscribed and old, as
in an asylum. She feared, too, a bad reception, remembering the quarrels
that had taken place between the Courts of Rome and Spain. She had lost
many friends and acquaintances; in fifteen years o