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

338 THE PRINCESS LOUISA MARY. [1701.
teeth being forced open, a frightful haemorrhage of blood
took place, and nature rallied once more. He desired to
receive the last rites of his church, and to see his children.
After a most touching interview with his son, had taken
place, the little Princess Louisa, was brought to the bed-
side of her dying father, bathed in tears, to receive in her
turn, all that Heaven had left it in the power of the
unfortunate James to bestow, his paternal blessing and
advice. It was, perhaps, a harder trial for James to part
with this daughter than with his son. She was the child
of his old age, the joy of his dark and wintry years. He
had named her La Consolatrice, when he first looked upon
her, and she had, even in her nurse's arms, manifested an
extraordinary affection for him. She was one of the most
beautiful children in the world, and her abilities were of
a much higher order than those of her brother. Keflective
and intelligent beyond her tender years, her passionate
sorrow showed how much she felt the sad state in which
she saw her royal father, and that she comprehended, only
too well, the calamity that impended over her.
" Adieu, my dear child," said James, after he had
embraced and blessed her. " Adieu. Serve your Creator
in the days of your youth. Consider virtue as the greatest
ornament of your sex. Follow close the great pattern of
it, your mother, who has been, no less than myself, over-
clouded with calumny ; but Time, the mother of Truth,
will, I hope, at last make her virtues shine as bright as the
sun."
King James departed this life, at three o'clock in the
afternoon of the 16th of September, 1701. His son was,
the same hour, proclaimed at the gates of the royal
Chateau de St. Germains, James III., King of England
Scotland, Ireland, and France, and received the homage
of the Queen, his mother, his sister, the young Princess