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Memoirs and Historical Chronicles of the Courts of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici by Various
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criminal in the estimation of one another). Accordingly, the
Marquis solicited Don John to be despatched to me on some errand,
and arrived, as I said before, at the very instant the corpse
of this ill-fated young lady was being borne to the grave. He
was stopped by the crowd occasioned by this solemn procession.
He contemplates it for some time. He observes a long train of
persons in mourning, and remarks the coffin to be covered with a
white pall, and that there are chaplets of flowers laid upon the
coffin. He inquires whose funeral it is. The answer he receives
is, that it is the funeral of a young lady. Unfortunately for
him, this reply fails to satisfy his curiosity. He makes up to
one who led the procession, and eagerly asks the name of the
young lady they are proceeding to bury. When, oh, fatal answer!
Love, willing to avenge the victim of his ingratitude and neglect,
suggests a reply which had nearly deprived him of life. He no
sooner hears the name of Mademoiselle de Tournon pronounced than
he falls from his horse in a swoon. He is taken up for dead,
and conveyed to the nearest house, where he lies for a time
insensible; his soul, no doubt, leaving his body to obtain pardon
from her whom he had hastened to a premature grave, to return
to taste the bitterness of death a second time.

Having performed the last offices to the remains of this poor
young lady, I was unwilling to discompose the gaiety of the society
assembled here on my account by any show of grief. Accordingly, I
joined the Bishop, or, as he is called, his Grace, and his canons,
in their entertainments at different houses, and in gardens,
of which the city and its neighbourhood afforded a variety. I
was every morning attended by a numerous company to the garden,
in which I drank the waters, the exercise of walking being
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