frequently administered to him that they hastened his death.

He himself said to his confessor, the Pere de la Rue, "Ah, father, I am
myself the cause of my death!"

He repented of it, but not until too late.




SECTION XIX.--THE DUCHESSE DE BERRI.

My son loves his eldest daughter better than all the rest of his
children, because he has had the care of her since she was seven years
old. She was at that time seized with an illness which the physicians
did not know how to cure. My son resolved to treat her in his own way.
He succeeded in restoring her to health, and from that moment his love
seemed to increase with her years. She was very badly educated, having
been always left with femmes de chambre. She is not very capricious, but
she is haughty and absolute in all her wishes.

[Her pride led her into all sorts of follies. She once went through
Paris preceded by trumpets and drama; and on another occasion she
appeared at the theatre under a canopy. She received the Venetian
Ambassador sitting in a chair elevated upon a sort of a platform.
This haughtiness, however, did not prevent her from keeping very bad
company, and she would sometimes lay aside her singularities and
break up her orgies to pass some holy days at the Carmelites.]

From the age of eight years she has had entirely her own way, so that it