meet again." She made no reply. "What will become of you?" he added;
"you have nothing." "Do not think of me," said she; "I am nobody; think
only of God." He said farewell to her; she still remained a little while
in his room, and went out when he was no longer conscious. She had given
away here and there the few movables that belonged to her, and now took
the road to St. Cyr. On the steps she met Marshal Villeroy. "Good by,
marshal," she said curtly, and covered up her face in her coifs. He! it
was who sent her news of the king to the last moment. The Duke of
Orleans, on becoming regent, went to see her, and took her the patent
(_brevet_) for a pension of sixty thousand livres, "which her
disinterestedness had made necessary for her," said the preamble. It was
paid her up to the last day of her life. History makes no further
mention of her name; she never left St. Cyr. Thither the czar Peter the
Great, when he visited Paris and France, went to see her; she was
confined to her bed; he sat a little while beside her. "What is your
malady?" he asked her through his interpreter. "A great age," answered
Madame de Maintenon, smiling. He looked at her a moment longer in
silence; then, closing the curtains, he went out abruptly. The memory he
would have called up had vanished. The woman on whom the great king had,
for thirty years, heaped confidence and affection, was old, forgotten,
dying; she expired at St. Cyr on the 15th of April, 1719, at the age of
eighty-three.

She had left the king to die alone. He was in the agonies; the prayers
in extremity were being repeated around him; the ceremonial recalled him
to consciousness. He joined his voice with the voices of those present,
repeating the prayers with them. Already the court was hurrying to the
Duke of Orleans; some of the more confident had repaired to the Duke of
Maine's; the king's servants were left almost alone around his bed; the
tones of the dying man were distinctly heard above the great number of