Madame, moaning, almost fainting, was half lifted, half dragged to her chamber.
This was a handsome room full of the summer sunshine and overlooking the rose terrace. Madame sank across the chair before her dressing-table; Mme de la Fayette held her up while the other ladies unlaced her. In an instant they had her undressed and in a night-gown; they lifted her into the great red-curtained bed.
Her constant complaints and the tears in her blue eyes startled and astonished them; they knew that she was usually patient under pain.
“You are in great anguish?” asked Mme de la Fayette.
“It is inconceivable,” she answered. “What have I done?”
She threw herself from side to side in her agony, clutching at the pillows and her thin night-rail. Mme de Gamaches drew the silk curtains over the bright sunlight and the terraces of St. Cloud. Her first physician came, stared down at her as she lay tossing.
He said she had caught a chill from her bathing, that it was nothing; he could offer no remedy.
She sat up in bed, shuddering with pain.
“I am wiser than you think,” she cried. “I am dying–send me a confessor.”
The doctor repeated that it was nothing dangerous, and left the chamber to prepare a powder.