Since then she has not said a word or made a movement. Twenty times I should have thought her dead if I had not heard her breathing painfully.
February 20, 5 P.M.
All is over.
Marguerite fell into her last agony at about two o’clock. Never did a martyr suffer such torture, to judge by the cries she uttered. Two or three times she sat upright in the bed, as if she would hold on to her life, which was escaping toward God.
Two or three times also she said your name; then all was silent, and she fell back on the bed exhausted. Silent tears flowed from her eyes, and she was dead.
Then I went up to her; I called her, and as she did not answer I closed her eyes and kissed her on the forehead.
Poor, dear Marguerite, I wish I were a holy woman that my kiss might recommend you to God.
Then I dressed her as she had asked me to do. I went to find a priest at Saint Roch, I burned two candles for her, and I prayed in the church for an hour.
I gave the money she left to the poor.
I do not know much about religion, but I think that God will know that my tears were genuine, my prayers fervent, my alms-giving sincere, and that he will have pity on her who, dying young and beautiful, has only had me to close her eyes and put her in her shroud.