majestic, graceful, and a look the same; smile the most expressive, waist
long, rounded, slight, supple; the gait of a goddess on the clouds; her
youthful, vivacious, energetic gayety, carried all before it, and her
nymph-like agility wafted her everywhere, like a whirlwind that fills
many places at once, and gives to them movement and life. If the court
existed after her it was but to languish away." [Memoires de St. Simon,
xi.] There was only one blow more fatal for death to deal; and there was
not long to wait for it.

"I have prayed, and I will pray," writes F6nelon. "God knows whether the
prince is for one instant forgotten. I fancy I see him in the state in
which St. Augustin depicts himself: 'My heart is obscured by grief. All
that I see reflects for me but the image of death. All that was sweet to
me, when I could share it with her whom I loved, becomes a torment to me
since I lost her. My eyes seek for her everywhere and find her nowhere.
When she was alive, wherever I might be without her, everything said to
me, You are going to see her. Nothing says so now. I find no solace but
in my tears. I cannot bear the weight of my wounded and bleeding heart,
and yet I know not where to rest it. I am wretched; for so it is when
the heart is set on the love of things that pass away.'" "The days of
this affliction were soon shortened," says St. Simon; "from the first
moment I saw him, I was scared at his fixed, haggard look, with a
something of ferocity, at the change in his countenance and the livid
marks I noticed upon it. He was waiting at Marly for the king to awake;
they came to tell him he could go in; he turned without speaking a word,
without replying to his gentlemen (_menins_) who pressed him to go; I
went up to him, taking the liberty of giving him a gentle push; he gave
me a look, that pierced right to the heart, and went away. I never
looked on him again. Please God in His mercy I may look on him forever
there where his goodness, no doubt, has placed him!"