schoolgirl had the face to pass before her sovereign without stopping,
and without troubling to courtesy.

The Infanta reddened with disapproval, and persuaded herself, by way of
consolation, that Fontanges had lost her senses or was on the road to
madness.

Beautiful and brilliant as the flowers, the Duchess, like them, passed
swiftly away. Her pregnancy, by reason of toilsome rides, hunting
parties, and other agitations, became complicated. From the eighth month
she fell into a fever, into exhaustion and languor. The terror that took
possession of her imagination caused her to desire a sojourn in a convent
as a refuge of health, where God would see her nearer and, perhaps, come
to her aid.

She had herself transported during the night to the House of the Ladies
of Val-de-Grace, and desired that they should place in her chamber
several relics from their altars.

Her confinement was not less laboured and sinister. When she saw that
all the assistance of art could not stop the bleeding, with which her
deep bed was flooded, she caused the King to be summoned, embraced him
tenderly, in the midst of sobs and tears, and died in the night,
pronouncing the name of God and the name of the King, the objects of her
love and of fears.




CHAPTER XVII.