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

1701-2.] DEATH OF KING JAMES. 339
Louisa, the Duke of Berwick, and all the ministers and
council of the deceased King.
The widowed Queen left St. Germains for the convent
of Chaillot, the same hour. Louisa and her brother, were
conducted to Passy, where they remained under the
cherishing care of the Duke and Duchess de Lauzun,
attended by the Duke of Perth, the governor of the
Prince, and the Princess's governess, the Countess of
Middleton, till they were summoned to rejoin their
afflicted mother, at St. Germains, on her return from
Chaillot, September 19th.
Louis XIV., his son, the Dauphin, with the Duke and
Duchess of Burgundy, paid a state visit of condolence
to the bereaved consort of James IL, her son, the titular
King of England, and the Princess Louisa, on the morrow,
and this was returned by James at Versailles, on the fol-
lowing day.
The death of William III. occurred six months after
that of James II. His last deed was to pass an act of
attainder, against the disinherited and exiled Prince
of Wales, in which the name of the widowed Queen, his
mother, was introduced in parenthesis as " Mary, late wife
of the late King James." It passed in the House of
Lords, but the Commons threw the bill contemptuously
under their table, without taking a single vote on the
question. The act of abjuration against the young Prince
passed, and was stamped by the order of the dying King
William in his presence, for he was unable to sign. His
death took place the next day, March 8th, 1702.
Louisa's name was not mentioned in any of these pro-
ceedings, and had her brother died at^that time, she would,
undoubtedly, have succeeded her sister Anne, as the lawful
heiress of the throne of the Britannic Empire. The Queen,
her mother, overwhelmed with the difficulties and per-
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