proper to take. He
relied much upon the Queen's temperance; yet he recommended me always to
have a bottle of oil of sweet almonds within reach, and to renew it
occasionally, that oil and milk being, as is known, the most certain
antidotes to the divellication of corrosive poisons.

The Queen had a habit which rendered M. Vicq-d'Azyr particularly uneasy:
there was always some pounded sugar upon the table in her Majesty's
bedchamber; and she frequently, without calling anybody, put spoonfuls of
it into a glass of water when she wished to drink. It was agreed that I
should get a considerable quantity of sugar powdered; that I should always
have some papers of it in my bag, and that three or four times a day, when
alone in the Queen's room, I should substitute it for that in her
sugar-basin. We knew that the Queen would have prevented all such
precautions, but we were not aware of her reason. One day she caught me
alone making this exchange, and told me, she supposed it was agreed on
between myself and M. Vicq-d'Azyr, but that I gave myself very unnecessary
trouble. "Remember," added she, "that not a grain of poison will be put
in use against me. The Brinvilliers do not belong to this century: this
age possesses calumny, which is a much more convenient instrument of
death; and it is by that I shall perish."

Even while melancholy presentiments afflicted this unfortunate Princess,
manifestations of attachment to her person, and to the King's cause, would
frequently raise agreeable illusions in her mind, or present to her the
affecting spectacle of tears shed for her sorrows. I was one day, during
this same visit to St. Cloud, witness of a very touching scene, which we
took great care to keep secret. It was four in the afternoon; the guard
was not set; there was scarcely anybody at St. Cloud that day, and I was
reading to the Queen, who was at work in a room the balcony of which hung
over the courtyard. The windows were closed, yet we heard a sort of
inarticulate murmur from a great number of voices. The Queen desired me
to go and see what it was; I raised the muslin curtain, and perceived more
than fifty persons beneath the balcony: this group consisted of women,
young and old, perfectly well dressed in the country costume, old
chevaliers of St. Louis, young knights of Malta, and a few ecclesiastics.
I told the Queen it was probably an assemblage of persons residing in the
neighbourhood who wished to see her. She