...
The death-rattle had begun. 'What is that?' said the king to me. I
replied: '_Mon ami_, this is death. For pity's sake let some one
fetch a priest, that my poor child may not die like a dog!' and
I went for a moment into a little side room, where I fell on my
knees and implored God from my inmost soul, if He needed a victim,
to take me and spare so dear a child....

"Dr. Pasquier arrived soon after. I said to him: 'Sir, you are
a man of honor; if you think the danger imminent, I beseech you
tell me so, that my child may receive extreme unction.' He hung
his head, and said: 'Madame, it is true.'

"The _cure_ of Neuilly came and administered the sacrament while
we were all on our knees around the pallet, weeping and praying.
I unloosed from my neck a small cross containing a fragment of the
True Cross, and I put it into the hand of my poor child, that God
the Saviour might have pity on him in his passage into eternity.
Dr. Pasquier got up and whispered to the king. Then that venerable
and unhappy father, his face bathed in tears, knelt by the side
of his eldest son, and tenderly embracing him, cried; 'Oh that
it were I instead of thee!' I also drew near and kissed him three
times,--once for myself, once for Helene, and once for his children.
I laid upon his lips the little cross, the symbol of our redemption,
and then placed it on his heart and left it there. The whole family
kissed him by turns, and then each returned to his place.... His
breathing now became irregular. Twice it stopped, and then went
on. I asked that the priest might come back and say the prayers
for the dying. He had scarcely knelt down and made the sign of
the cross, when my dear child drew a last deep breath, and his
beautiful, good, generous, and noble soul left his body.... The
priest at my request said a _De profundis_. The king wanted to
lead me away, but I begged him to allow me to embrace for the last
time my beloved son, the object of my deepest tenderness. I took
his dear head in my hands; I kissed his cold and discolored lips;
I placed the little cross again upon them, and then carried it
away, bidding a last farewell to him whom I loved so well,--perhaps
too well!

"The king led me into the next room. I fell on his neck. We were
unhappy together. Our irreparable loss was common to us both, and
I suffered as much for him as for myself. There was a crowd in that
little room. I wept and talked wildly, and I was beside myself.
I recog