“In the midst of this delirium she repeated three times over Tobit’s prayer, the same she had recited on seeing the towers of Olmütz. We lost her on Christmas night, at twelve o’clock, in the year 1807. It was at the foot of our Saviour’s cradle that our sacrifice was accomplished. In the morning she had bestowed her blessing on each of us. Her last words were, ‘I do not suffer.’ She also said to us, ‘May the peace of the Lord be with you.’ And to my father, ‘I am entirely yours’ (Je suis toute à vous).”
M. Jules Cloquet says in his recollections of La Fayette:—
“La Fayette had a high regard for the domestic virtues, which he considered the basis of society and the only certain and pure source of public prosperity. He even wished to introduce them into politics; and his public life was in this respect a picture of his private life. He always spoke with respect and tenderness of both his parents, whom he lost almost in his infancy. In his children he cherished the memory of their mother (Mademoiselle de Noailles), whom he had loved most tenderly, and whose name he never mentioned but with visible emotion. One day during his last illness I surprised him kissing her portrait, which he always wore suspended to his neck, in a small gold medallion. Around the portrait were the words, ‘Je suis à vous,’ and on the back was engraved this short and touching inscription, ‘Je vous fus donc une douce campagne: eh bien! bénissez moi’ (I was then a gentle companion to you! So then give me your blessing!).
“I have since been informed that regularly every morning La Fayette sent out his valet Bastien, shut himself up in his room, and taking the portrait in both hands, looked at it earnestly, pressed it to his lips, and remained silently contemplating it for about a quarter of an hour. Nothing was more disagreeable to him than to be disturbed during this daily homage to the memory of his virtuous partner.” His grief for her loss may be judged of from the two following letters written by him at the time of this overwhelming affliction:—
“I was certain, my dear Masclet, that you would tenderly regret the adorable woman whom you were pleased to celebrate before you were personally acquainted with her, and to cherish from the period when she was herself able to express to you her grateful friendship. It would be ungrateful in me to entertain a doubt of your participation in my grief; but although such a doubt was far from my thoughts, I have derived a melancholy gratification from the renewed assurance of your feelings, and for that assurance I thank you most cordially. I willingly admit that under great misfortunes I have felt myself superior to the situation in which my friends had the kindness to sympathize, but at present I have neither the power nor the wish to struggle against the calamity which has befallen me, or rather to surmount the deep affliction which I shall carry with me to the grave. It will be mingled with the sweetest recollections of the thirty-four years during which I was bound by the tenderest ties that perhaps ever existed, and with the thought of her last moments, in which she heaped upon me such proofs of her incomparable affection. I cannot describe the happiness which in the midst of so many vicissitudes and troubles I have constantly derived from the tender, noble, and generous feeling ever associated with the interests which gave animation to my existence. Assure Madame Masclet of my attachment and gratitude. You know my friendship for you, my dear Masclet, and that I am yours most cordially,
La Fayette.”
Letter from M. de La Fayette to M. de Latour-Maubourg, on the death of Madame de La Fayette:—
“January, 1808.
“I have not yet written to you, my dear friend, from the depth of misery in which I am plunged. You have already heard of the angelic end of that incomparable woman. I feel I must again speak of it to you. My grieved heart loves to open itself to the most constant, the dearest confidant of all its thoughts. As yet you have always found me stronger than circumstance, but now this event is stronger than me. Never shall I recover from it.
“During the thirty-four years of an union in which her tenderness, her goodness, the elevation of her mind, charmed, adorned, honored my life, I felt myself so used to all that she was to me, that I could not distinguish it from my own existence. She was fourteen, and I was sixteen, when her heart occupied itself with everything that could interest me. I knew I loved her, I knew I needed her; but it is only now that I can distinguish what is left of me for the remainder of a life which I had thought was to have been entirely devoted to worldly matters.