“It is the will of God! Let us abandon ourselves to him entirely! The only true wisdom consists in this—to resign ourselves to his adorable will. I have been busying myself here in putting in order my old journals, which has led me to look them over with interest. This always fills me with fresh gratitude for all the grace I have received from God, and with regret for my little progress in piety, after all the good resolutions and reflections I have so often made, but with so little profit. But there is time, always time, while God gives us life, to profit by it to prepare for heaven. This is what I beg him with my whole heart as I finish this book, praying him to shed on me, and on all who belong to me, abundant spiritual blessings. As to temporal blessings, I only ask for them as far as they may be necessary for gaining heaven, but I abandon myself with all my heart to his paternal decrees. May he bless me in my children, in my friends, in all who have loved me, and whom I have so much loved on earth!”
These are the last words Madame de Lamartine wrote in her journal. Some days after, in entering a bath, she found the water too cool, and turned the faucet. The boiling water dashed up on her chest. She fainted. Her cry was heard, but it was too late. She was removed to her chamber. Consciousness returned, and she lived two days. During her last hours she constantly exclaimed: “How happy I am! How happy I am!” Being asked why, she replied: “For dying resigned and purified.”
Her son was at Paris, and did not arrive till after the funeral. Remembering her wish to be buried at St. Point, he had her removed. The grave was opened at midnight, one cold night in December, when the ground was covered with snow.
The peasants, whom she loved and who loved her, took turns in carrying the bier eight leagues, her son on foot behind. Not a word, not a whisper, was to be heard on the way. When they approached Milly, between two and three o’clock in the morning, all the peasants stood in their door-ways, with pale faces and tearful eyes, holding lamps in their trembling hands. They all came out to follow the procession to Milly, where her coffin was placed for a while at the entrance, on the very benches where every morning sat the needy to whom she used to distribute food or medicine.
All the sobbing crowd came up to sprinkle her body with holy water and utter a prayer.
M. de Lamartine afterward built a chapel over the grave of his mother at St. Point, which bears on its cornice the inscription:
“SPERAVIT ANIMA MEA.”