Chapter 6 No.6

We proceed to recount, in the simplest and most precise manner in our power, the circumstances of the death of Madame; and from this narrative alone we shall see emerge one of the facts we intend to establish, namely, that Madame could not have been poisoned.

Henrietta of England, 'more comparable to the jasmine than to the rose, very slender, delicate, slightly round-shouldered-not less pleasing for that-exhausted, not only by four accouchements in rapid succession, but by the fast life then led at Court, was only kept up,' says Monsieur de Boislisle, 'by that sanguine temperament which is the prerogative of high-strung women.' In 1664 Guy Patin wrote: 'The Duchess of Orleans was taken ill at Villers-Cotterets, and her physicians have prescribed ass's milk.' The presumption is, then, that she suffered from some stomachic disorder. 'The king,' wrote Hugues de Lionne to Colbert de Croissy, 'tells us that more than three years ago she complained of a pain in the side which compelled her to lie flat for three or four hours without finding ease in any posture.' Madame was constantly afflicted with a pain at one fixed spot in the breast. 'She further used to complain,' wrote the Abbé Bourdelot, 'of a cruel burning pain, not in the abdomen, but in the chest.' She was always wanting to vomit. 'Most often she could take only milk for food, and remained in bed for days together.' These facts indicate, as Dr. Le Gendre tells us, that Madame suffered from a chronic inflammation of the stomach, a form of gastritis. The reports of the autopsy show, further, that Madame was afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis, and it is not rare for these two morbid conditions to co-exist.

During the journey she made in Flanders with the king and Monsieur before her departure for England, the appearance of the young princess caused much alarm. 'She was reduced to living on milk,' writes Madame de la Fayette, 'and retired to her own room as soon as she got out of the coach, and as a rule she went to bed.... One day, when the talk fell on astrology, Monsieur said that it had been foretold that he would have several wives, and judging from the state Madame was in, he was beginning to believe it.'

Madame returned from England on June 18. Her condition had become very much worse. Next day she kept her bed. 'She went into the queen's room,' wrote Mademoiselle de Montpensier, 'like a dressed-up corpse with rouge on its cheeks, and when she went out, everybody, including the queen, said that she had death written on her face.' 'On June 24, 1670,' writes Madame de la Fayette, 'a week after her return from England, Monsieur and she went to St. Cloud. The first day she went there she complained of pains in the side and abdomen, to which she was subject. Nevertheless, as it was extremely hot, she desired to bathe in the river. Monsieur Yvelin, her chief physician, did all he could to prevent her, but in spite of all he said she bathed on Friday the 27th, and on Saturday she was so ill that she did not bathe. I arrived at St. Cloud on Saturday at six o'clock in the evening. I found her in the gardens. She told me that I should think her looking cross, and that she was not at all well. She had supped as usual, and she walked in the moonlight till midnight.' The preceding lines, every detail of which is of great importance, have been neglected by the historians who have concluded she was poisoned.

'On Sunday the 29th, at dinner, Madame ate as usual, and after dinner she lay down on some cushions, as she often did when she was at liberty. She had made me place myself near her,' says Madame de la Fayette, 'so that her head was almost on me. An English painter was painting Monsieur's portrait; we were talking about all sorts of things, and meanwhile she fell asleep. During her nap she changed so considerably that after watching her for a long time I was surprised at it, and thought that her spirit must do a great deal towards adorning her countenance, since it was so pleasant when she was awake and so little attractive when she was asleep. But I was wrong in this reflection, for I had several times seen her sleeping, and had never yet seen her less lovely. When she awoke, she rose from the place where she had been lying, but with so haggard a face that Monsieur was surprised and called my attention to it. She then went away into the drawing-room, where she walked up and down for some time with Boisfranc, Monsieur's treasurer, and while talking to him, complained several times of the pain at her side.'

We are coming to the moment when any poisoning must have taken place; we see already that the mischief was done.

'Monsieur went downstairs to return to Paris. He found Madame de Meckelbourg on the steps, and came up again with her. Madame left Boisfranc and came to Madame de Meckelbourg. As she was speaking to her, Madame de Gamaches brought to her, as well as to me, a glass of chicory water that she had asked for some time before. Madame de Gourdon, her tire-woman, gave it to her. She drank it, and then, replacing the cup on the salver with one hand, she pressed her side with the other, saying, in a tone that betokened severe pain, "Oh! what a dreadful twinge! Oh, what a pain! I can bear it no longer!"

'She reddened in uttering these words, and the next moment turned a livid pallor, which surprised us all; she continued to cry out, and told us to take her away, as she could no longer stand. We took her in our arms; she tottered along half doubled-up; I held her while some one unlaced her. She moaned all the time, and I noticed that she had tears in her eyes. I was amazed and affected by it, for I knew that she was the most patient creature in the world. Kissing the arms I was holding, I said that she was evidently in great pain, and she told me I could not imagine how great. She was put to bed, and as soon as she was there, she cried out more loudly than she had yet done, and threw herself from one side to the other like a person in infinite agony. Some one went off to find her chief physician, Monsieur Esprit; he came, said it was colic, and prescribed the ordinary remedies for such ailments. All the time the pain was dreadful. Madame said that it was much worse than we thought, and that she was dying, and begged some one to go in search of a confessor for her.'

The young princess believed that she was poisoned. A sort of antidote was brought her in the shape of oil and powdered adder, which made her vomit. After some hours of frightful agony, Henrietta of England expired while Bossuet was reciting the last exhortations.

Face to face with death, Madame displayed a greatness of soul to which all who approached her have borne touching testimony. 'Madame was gentle towards Death,' said Bossuet, 'as she had been with all the world. Her great heart was neither embittered nor wrathful against the dread foe. Nor did she face him with proud disdain, but was content to look him in the face without emotion and to welcome him without distress.'