e had many good qualities: he was charitable, and had assisted several
officers unknown to any one. He certainly died of grief for the loss of
his wife, as he had predicted. A learned astrologer of Turin, having
cast the nativity of the Dauphine, told her that she would die in her
twenty-seventh year.

She often spoke of it, and said one day to her husband, "The time is
approaching when I shall die; you cannot remain without a wife as well on
account of your rank as your piety; tell me, then, I beg of you, whom you
will marry?"

"I hope," he replied, "that God will not inflict so severe a punishment
on me as to deprive me of you; but if this calamity should befall me, I
shall not marry again, for I shall follow you to the grave in a week."

This happened exactly as he said it would; for, on the seventh day after
his wife's death, he died also. This is not a fiction, but perfectly
true.

While the Dauphine was in good health and spirits she often said, "I must
enjoy myself now. I shall not be able to do so long, for I shall die
this year."

I thought it was only a joke, but it turned out to be too true. When she
fell sick she said she should never recover.

SECTION XVI.--PETITE MADAME.

A cautery which had been improperly made in the nape of the neck had
drawn her mouth all on one side, so that it was almost entirely in her
left cheek. For this reason talking was very painful to her, and she
said very little. It was necessary to be accustomed to her way of
speaking to understand her. Just when she was about to die her mouth
resumed its proper place, and she did not seem at all ugly. I was
present at her death. She did not say a word to her father, although a
convulsion had restored her mouth. The King, who had a good heart and
was very fond of his children, wept excessively and made me weep also.
The Queen was not present, for, being pregnant, they would not let her
come.

It is totally false that the Queen was delivered of a black child. The
late Monsieur, who was present, said that the young Princess was ugly,
but not black. The people cannot be persuaded that the child is not still
alive, and say that it is in a convent at Moret, near Fontainebleau. It
is, however, quite certain that the ugly child is dead, for all the Court
saw it die.

BOOK 3.

Henrietta of England, Monsieur's First Consort
The Due de Berri
The Duchesse de Berri
Mademoiselle d'Orleans, Louise-Adelaide de C