Lives of the last four princesses of the royal house of Stuart

322 THE PEINCESS HENKIETTA ANNE. [1670.
not die a violent death, hath taken off the greatest part of
our suspicions ; and Mareschal de Bellefonds, who I hear is
arrived this evening, and is charged with giving the King
a more particular account of this unhappy accident, and
brings a complete narrative, underwritten by the ablest
physicians and surgeons in Paris, of her death, and the
dissection of her body, will, we suppose, entirely convince us
that we have nothing to lament herein but the loss of this
amiable Princess, without any odious circumstances to
make our grief more insupportable." *
Mademoiselle de Montpensier says: "On the third day
Lauzun assumed the baton, and attended the King and
Queen, to St. Cloud, where they alighted and performed
the asperge, by sprinkling the corpse of Madame with
holy water, as she lay in state, with her face uncovered,
with four-and-twenty wax tapers burning round it, while
solemn masses were chanted, at altars erected in the apart-
ment. The body had been embalmed, and placed in a
coffin covered with black velvet, worked with her arms ;
it had been removed to the chamber where she died, under
a pall of cloth of gold, and placed on a platform covered
with black velvet, embroidered with silver, under a
canopy of the same. The chamber was hung with
black, and the bier surrounded by heralds and officers of
state."!
After the King and Queen had performed the accus-
tomed ceremony, they visited Mademoiselle, the eldest
daughter of Monsieur and Madame, a beautiful and pre-
cocious child of eight years old, at the time she had been
rendered motherless. The terrible shock of this frightful
event affected her so much, that it was considered neces-
sary to summon medical aid, but she positively refused to
* ' Letters of the Earl of Arlington,' vol. i. p. 437.
f ' Me'moires de Montpensier.' ' Gazette de France.'