Descendants of the Stuarts

236 THE DESCENDANTS
the esteem which is due to you."* What Madame's
professions of friendship and gratitude were worth
may he estimated from the narratives preceding this
letter.
The death of the king, which took place on the
1st of September, 1715, had been long anticipated ;
for the life of a monarch whose lengthened reign
had been coeval with those of our Charles I., Oliver
Cromwell, Charles II., James II., William III.,
and Mary II., Anne, and George I., could not, in
accordance with the ordinary laws of nature, have
been much longer prolonged. He had been pre-
ceded to the tomb by his youngest grandson, the
Duke of Berry, who had espoused Madame's eldest
grand-daughter, the Princess Mary Louisa of
Orleans ; so that of the once numerous family of
Bourbon there remained only the dauphin, after-
wards Louis XV. ; Philip V., King of Spain, who,
on succeeding to the Spanish throne, had solemnly
renounced that of Prance ; and the Duke of Orleans,
afterwards Regent. Louis le Grand proved by his
death that he was really a great man, for notwith-
standing the sufferings he endured he expired with
calmness and fortitude. He was so weakened by a low
fever, from which he had suffered for three months
preceding his death, that he was reduced to a perfect
skeleton. The immediate cause of his decease was
a gangrene in the leg, which appeared only ten
days previously. Madame, with all the other mem-
* Letters of Madame de Maintenon.