almost deserted, on the sea-shore and in the kingdom of
Valencia. His object was to eat fish there to his heart's content. He
carried out that object, and filled himself to repletion for nearly a
month. He became unwell--his diet, as may be believed, was enough to
cause this--but his illness increased so rapidly, and in so strange a
manner, after having for a long time seemed nothing that the few around
him suspected poison, and sent on all sides for assistance. But the
malady would not wait; it augmented rapidly with strange symptoms.
Vendome could not sign a will that was presented to him; nor a letter to
the King, its which he asked that his brother might be permitted to
return to Court. Everybody near flew from him and abandoned him, so that
he remained in the hands of three or four of the meanest valets, whilst
the rest robbed him of everything and decamped. He passed thus the last
two or three days of his life, without a priest,--no mention even had
been made of one,--without other help than that of a single surgeon.
The three or four valets who remained near him, seeing him at his last
extremity, seized hold of the few things he still possessed, and for want
of better plunder, dragged off his bedclothes and the mattress from under
him. He piteously cried to them at least not to leave him to die naked
upon the bare bed. I know not whether they listened to him.

Thus died on Friday, the 10th of June, 1712, the haughtiest of men; and
the happiest, except in the later years of his life. After having been
obliged to speak of him so often, I get rid of him now, once and for
ever. He was fifty-eight years old; but in spite of the blind and
prodigious favour he had enjoyed, that favour had never been able to make
ought but a cabal hero out of a captain who was a very bad general, and a
man whose vices were the shame of humanity. His death restored life and
joy to all Spain.

Aguilar, a friend of the Duc de Noailles, was accused of having poisoned
him; but took little pains to defend himself, inasmuch as little pains
were taken to substantiate the accusation. The Princesse des Ursins, who
had so well profited by his life in order to increase her own greatness,
did not profit less by his death. She felt her deliverance from a new
Don Juan of Spain who had ceased to be supple in her hands, and who might
have revived, in the course of time, all the power and authority he had
formerly enjoyed in France. She was not shocked t