she was always
complaining. Some hours before her death she said to me, "I shall
convince them to-day that I was not mad in complaining of my sufferings."
She died calmly and easily; but she was as much put to death as if she
had been killed by a pistol-shot.

When her funeral service was performed I carried the taper (nota bene)
and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and
who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar. The prelate intended to
have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King's chapel; but
the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that
the taper and the gold belonged to them. They threw themselves upon the
Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his
head. If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the
monks, would have fallen upon me. I descended the four steps of the
altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on
the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but
laugh, and everybody present did the same.

That wicked Bessola, who had tormented the Dauphine day and night, and
had made her distrust every one who approached her, and thus separated
her from all the world, returned home a year after her mistress's death.
Before her departure she played another trick by having a box made with a
double bottom, in which she concealed jewels and ready money to the
amount of 100,000 francs; and all this time she went about weeping and
complaining that, after so many years of faithful service, she was
dismissed as poor as a beggar. She did not know that her contrivance had
been discovered at the Customhouse and that the King had been apprised of
it. He ordered her to be sent for, showed her the things which she had
prepared to carry away, and said he thought she had little reason to
complain of the Dauphine's parsimony. It may be imagined how foolish she
looked. The King added that, although he might withhold them from her,
yet to show her that she had done wrong in acting clandestinely, and in
complaining as she had done, he chose to restore her the whole.

SECTION XIII.--ADELAIDE OF SAVOY, THE SECOND DAUPHINE.

The Queen of Spain stayed longer with her mother than our Dauphine, and
therefore was better educated. Maintenon, who understood nothing about
education, permitted her to do whatever she pleased, that she might gain
her affections