Descendants of the Stuarts

OF THE STUARTS. 141
years of each other ; " Princesses, who," as Madame
de Maintenon touchingly remarks, " lived only long
enough to make themselves lamented." * " How I
should pity the poor Queen of Sardinia, had she
known them as they were!" writes this lady to the
Princess des Ursins. The dauphiness first suc-
cumbed, on the 12th of Pebruary, 1712; and the
blank caused by her premature death may be better
imagined than described. "All is dead here,"
writes Madame de Maintenon; "life has fled from
us ; — our lost princess was the soul of everything.
The court is as wretched as myself; — all is blank
andvoid; — there is no longer any joy or occupation."!
The dauphin survived his wife only a week, falling
a victim to his grief for her irreparable loss. Of the
three sons of tliis amiable pair, only one, he, who
was afterwards King Louis XV., survived. The
Queen of Spain outlived her sister barely two years,
dying, Pebruary, 1714. By a singular coincidence,
these princesses, who married two brothers, died in
the same month, at the same age, and within a
twelvemonth of each other ; while, to complete the
resemblance, they each bore their husbands three
sons : though of Mary Louisa's, more fortunate than
Adelaide's, two lived to reach years of maturity, and
under the titles of Louis I. and Perdinand VII.
reigned successively as kings of Spain.
* Correspondence of Madame de Maintenon with the Princess des
Ursins.
t Ibid.