At this moment Bossuet arrived. He was so overcome at the sight of her that he nearly fainted.
"He spoke to her of God," says Madame de La Fayette, "in a manner suitable to her condition and with that eloquence which marks all his sermons. He made her perform such little acts as he thought necessary, and she entered into all that he told her with zeal. While he was speaking a maid of honour approached to give her something of which she had need. She said to her in English, in order that Bossuet might not hear, and preserving till death the politeness characteristic of her—
"'Remember to give M. Bossuet, when I am dead, the emerald ring that I have had made for him.'
"While he was praying with her he was nearly exhausted by the strain on his nature. Madame asked him gently if she might not take a few moments' rest; he told her that she might, and he would withdraw and pray for her. M. Feuillet" (the priest who had given her the Extreme Unction) "remained at her side, and almost at the same moment Madame begged him to recall M. Bossuet, for she felt she was about to die. M. Bossuet hurried back and gave her the crucifix. She took it and embraced it with ardour. M. Bossuet continued to speak to her, and she replied with the same clearness as if she had never been ill, keeping the crucifix pressed to her lips to the last. As her strength failed it fell from her hands, and she lost speech and life at the same time. Her agony lasted but a moment; and after two or three little convulsive movements of the mouth, she expired at half-past two in the morning, and nine hours after having been taken ill."
*****
It is only natural that the suddenness and mystery of such an illness and death should have been fertile in historical speculation.
For about one hundred and fifty years the world generally took it for granted that Madame was poisoned—especially as some of the doctors privately expressed this opinion, which was contrary to their official statement at the post-mortem. But in the early part of the nineteenth century the world suddenly changed its mind and declared that Madame died "naturally" of cholera morbus or peritonitis. As far as we are concerned one theory is as good as another. Our object is not to emulate the latest authorities and perform, like them, a literary autopsy on remains we have never seen. At this late day it is of not the least consequence to the world whether Madame was poisoned or not. By all means let us take it for granted, with M. Anatole France and many another of equal distinction, that her untimely end was natural. But as the other theory is thoroughly in keeping with seventeenth-century customs, it is, if no longer worthy of credence—which, after all, is not proved—at least pregnant with possibility.
As a good "poison story" it will always be worth telling; and as no one has ever told it more graphically than Saint-Simon we will give his version.
He says that when the news that Madame had expired reached Versailles—
"The King, who had gone to bed, rose, sent for Brissac, who was the captain of the guards and close at hand, and commanded him to choose six body-guards, trusty and secret, to go and take up Simon Morel, Madame's maître d'hôtel, and to bring him to him in his cabinet. This was done before morning. When the King saw him he ordered Brissac and his valet de chambre to withdraw, and assuming a most alarming aspect and tone—