Monsieur Vyelen had lost his nerve and cut too deeply. Madame de la Fayette had to hold Madame’s arm up. Monsieur moved away; the sight of blood made him sick.
Madame, lamentably feeble, strove with a clutching fear of death and demanded the confessor. They endeavoured to dispersuade her, vowing she was better. She shook her head with such a look of anguish that they cleared the room and brought the priest.
Madame de la Fayette remained, holding her up.
She was too weak to do more than repeat the formula of the church. When the priest had gone she lay back and tried hard to think of her real sins, but hopeless confusion engulfed her.
God was so shadowy. No one had ever told her what He wanted of her; she had thought very little about Him, very little about death. She wondered if it would ever be remembered to her that she was very young. What did it mean to be good? She had never wilfully injured any one, she had never felt wicked; but she hoped God would remember she was very young. For a while this thought gave her some ease; then it flashed across her mind that the Queen was no older, and the Queen was virtuous, obviously virtuous.
La Vallière also; she knew Louise de la Vallière was a good woman and one whom she had shamefully treated.
Surely her sins were not difficult to remember now. She fell out of Madame de la Fayette’s arms and lay silent on the pillow. The room had filled again; the King’s physician, M. Vallot, had arrived.
He was an old man and pompous; he came to the bedside and Madame lifted her head.
“Thank you for your attention, Monsieur,” she said. “But I am poisoned. Unless you can treat me for that—” She sank down again.
Monsieur Vallot smiled.