We have lost the poor Duc de Berry, who was only twenty-seven years old, and was stout and so healthy he ought to have lived a hundred years. He shortened his life by his own imprudences—but I don’t want to talk of such sad matters; it makes me sick at heart and does no good.
It is a good thing for me that he had ceased for several years to love me, otherwise I could not be comforted for his loss. I own that at first, and even for some days afterwards, I was greatly moved; but having reflected that if I had died he would only have laughed, I consoled myself promptly.
July, 1714.
I cannot express the grief into which I am plunged by the death of my aunt [Sophia, Electress of Hanover, mother of George I. of England, who had brought Madame up, being the sister of her father]; and I have, besides, the misery of being forced to suppress my sorrow, because the king cannot endure to see sad faces round him; I am obliged therefore to hunt as usual.
II.
Letters of 1714-1716.
Fontainebleau, 1714.
We are here since yesterday; having slept at the house of the Duc d’Antin, called Petit-Bourg, a charming residence; the gardens, especially, are magnificent. I did not come with the king, because two days before leaving Versailles I caught a bad cold in my head accompanied by a terrible cough, and I feared to disgust the king and make the young people laugh by spitting and blowing my nose; so I came in my own carriage with my ladies and dogs. Yesterday they hunted, but I could not go; it used to be great pain to me to lose a hunt, but now I do not care.