Anguish of the king.
Death.
No remedies were of any avail. Her sufferings were so great that the dauphin could not remain in her dying chamber to witness her agony. She was greatly surprised when informed that she must die. All the offices of the Church were attended to. She received the rite of extreme unction, and, in the wildness of delirium, lost all recognition of those who were around her. The king, bowed down with anguish, was with difficulty prevailed upon to retire. He had but reached the door of the palace when she expired.
The king was now a world-weary, heart-stricken old man, who had numbered more than his threescore years and ten. He seemed crushed with grief, and his eyes were flooded with tears as he returned, with Madame de Maintenon, to Marly. The apartment which the dauphin paced in agony was immediately above the dying chamber. As soon as the death-struggle was over, he was induced to retire to Marly, that he might be spared the anguish of witnessing the preparations for the funeral.
The dauphin taken ill.
Death of the dauphin.
As the dauphin entered the chamber of the king, the monarch was startled in witnessing the change which had taken place in his appearance. His face was flushed with fever; his eyes were dilated and inflamed, and livid stains covered his face. It was manifest that the same disease, whatever it was, which had stricken down the dauphiness, had also attacked the dauphin. The malady made rapid progress. In the intensity of his anguish, the sufferer declared his entrails were on fire. Conscious that his dying hour had come, he, on the night of the 17th, partook of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and almost immediately expired.
The dreadful tidings were conveyed to the king as he sat in the apartment of Madame de Maintenon, with the younger brother of the dauphin, Charles, the duke de Berri, by his side. The king, anticipating the announcement, sat with his head bent down upon his breast, and clasping almost convulsively the hand of the prince who sat at his feet. Throwing his arms around the neck of the Duke de Berri, the king exclaimed, in accents of despair, "Alas! my son, you alone are now left to me."
Death of the child-dauphin.
The Duke of Burgoyne had buried three children. There were two then living. The eldest, the Duke of Bretagne, was five years of age. The youngest, the Duke of Anjou, had just attained his second year. By the death of the Duke of Burgoyne, his eldest child became the dauphin and the immediate heir to the crown. The next day both of these children were taken sick, evidently with the same malady, whether of natural disease or the effect of poison, which had proved so fatal to their parents. The eldest immediately died. The same funeral car conveyed the remains of the father, the mother, and the child to the gloomy vaults of St. Denis.
The youngest child, the Duke of Anjou, by the most careful nursing recovered to ascend the throne with the title of Louis XV., and to present to the world, in his character, one of the most infamous kings who had ever worn an earthly crown.
The Duke of Orleans.