would persist in lying outside the bed, and thereby giving the poor,
perishing sufferer hardly room to move; the messages of affected
condolence arriving from the Prince of Wales, with requests to be
allowed to see his mother, which requests the mother rejects with
bitterness and contempt--all this sets before us a picture such as
seldom, happily for the human race, illustrates a death-bed in palace,
garret, or prison cell. The King was undoubtedly sincere in his grief,
at least for the time. He did love the Queen in a sort of way; and she
had worked upon all his weaknesses and vices and made herself necessary
to him. He did not see how life was to go on for him without her; and
as he thought of this he cried like a child whose mother is about to
leave him. Over and over again has the story been told of the dying
Queen's appeal to her husband to take a new wife after her death, and
the King's earnest disclaimer of any such purpose; the assurance that
he would have mistresses, and then the Queen's cry of cruel conviction
from hard experience, "Oh, mon Dieu, cela n'empeche pas!" "I know,"
says Lord Hervey, who tells the story, "that this episode will hardly
be credited, but it is literally true." One does not see why the
episode should hardly be credited, why it should not be taken at once
as historical and true. It is not out of keeping with all other
passages of the story, it is in the closest harmony and symmetry with
them. The King always made his wife the confidante of his amours and
intrigues. He had written to her once, asking her to bring to Court
the wife of some nobleman or gentleman, and he told her frankly that he
admired this lady and wanted to have her near him in order that he
might have an intrigue with her, and he knew that she, his wife, would
always be glad to do him a pleasure. Thackeray, in his lecture, often
speaks of the King as "Sultan George." George had, in the matter of
love-making, no other notions than those of a sultan. [Sidenote:
1737--George's settled belief] He had no more idea of his wife
objecting to his mistresses than {117} a sultan would have about the
chief sultana's taking offence at the presence of his concubines. The
fact that the Queen lay dying did not put any restraint on any of
George's ways. He could not be kept from talking loudly all the time;
he could not be kept from bawling out observations about his wife's
condition which, if they were made only in whisper