The account given of her death by Monstrelet is to the following effect: Agnes was suddenly attacked by a dysentery which could not be cured. She lingered long, and employed the time in prayer and repentance; she often, as he relates, called upon Mary Magdalen, who had also been a sinner, and upon God and the blessed Virgin for aid. After receiving the sacrament, she desired the book of prayers to be brought her, in which she had written with her own hand the verses of St. Barnard, and these she repeated. She then made many gifts, which were put down in writing: and these, including alms and the payment of her servants, amounted to 60,000 crowns. The fair Agnes, the once proud beauty, perceiving her end approaching, and now feeling a disgust to life proportioned to the fulness of her past enjoyment of all its gayeties, vanities, and pleasures, said to the Lord de la Tremouille and others, and in the presence of all her damsels, that our insecure and worldly life was but a foul ordure. She then requested her confessor to give her absolution, according to a form she herself dictated, with which he complied. After this, she uttered a loud shriek, and gave up the ghost. She died on Monday, the 9th day of February, 1449, about six o'clock in the afternoon, in the fortieth year of her age.
This account, though bearing every appearance of probability, is yet open to some doubts, from the manifestation of a tendency, on the part of Monstrelet, to give a coloring to the event, and to the character of Agnes Sorel. He even attempts to throw a doubt upon her having been the king's mistress, treating the fact as a mere scandal. He says that the affection of the king was attributable to her good sense, her wit, her agreeable manners, and gayety, quite as much as to her beauty. This was, no doubt, the case; but it hardly helps the argument of the historian. Monstrelet finds it difficult, however, to dispose of the children that she had by the king: he admits that Agnes had a daughter which she said was the king's, but that he denied it. The compilation by Denys Codefroy takes the same view, but nearly the whole account is copied verbatim from Monstrelet, without acknowledgment.
The heart and intestines of Agnes were buried at Jumiège. Her body was placed in the centre of the choir of the collegiate church of the Château de Loches, which she had greatly enriched.
Her tomb was in existence at Loches, in 1792. It was of black marble. The figure of Agnes was in white marble; her head resting upon a lozenge, supported by angels, and two lambs were at her feet.
The writer of the life of Agnes Sorel in the "Biographie Universelle," having access to printed books and MSS. of French history which are not in the public libraries of this country, the following statements are taken from that work: the writer does not give his authorities.
The canons of the church pretended to be scandalized at having the tomb of Agnes placed in their choir, and begged permission of Louis XI. to have it removed. "I consent," replied the king, "provided you give up all you have received from her bounty."
The poets of the day were profuse in their praises of the memory of Agnes. One of the most memorable of these is a poem by Baïf, printed at Paris in 1573. In 1789 the library of the chapter of Loches possessed a manuscript containing nearly a thousand Latin sonnets in praise of Agnes, all acrostics, and made by a canon of that city.
A marble bust of her was long preserved at the Château de Chinon, and is now placed in the Muséum des Augustins.
Agnes Sorel had three daughters by Charles VII., who all received dowries, and were married at the expense of the crown. They received the title of daughters of France, the name given at that time to the natural daughters of the kings. An account of the noble families into which they married, together with the honors bestowed upon the brother of Agnes, will be found in Moreri's "Dictionnaire Historique."