, it was not Madame
de Montbazon who played the shabbiest part.

The aid which the Duchess had often lent the Court amidst intrigues the
most contradictory, did not preserve her from exile when the King made
his entry into Paris, on its definite pacification in October, 1652. She
did not return thither till 1657. "She was still beautiful, and as much
carried away by vanity as though she had been only in her twenty-fifth
year," says Madame de Motteville, when noting her reappearance. "She
relied all the same upon her charms," she adds with a somewhat malicious
finesse, "for she returned with the same desire of pleasing; and those
who saw her assured me that the mourning garb which she wore as a widow,
and to which she added everything in the shape of ornament that
self-love could suggest, rendered her so charming, that in her case it
might be said that the course of nature was changed, since so many years
and so much beauty could meet together."[5] Thus, by dint of care and
art, did Madame de Montbazon succeed in preserving her beauty much
longer than she could have hoped for, since, in the pride of her
eighteen summers, she declared that old age commenced at thirty, and
requested it as a favour that she might be flung into the river and
drowned so soon as she reached the dreaded period. Who would have dared
to remind her of that imprudent proposal in 1640? And who could have
refused her a respite even in the latter moments of her existence?

[5] The same sentiments were thus versified by Loret, when
announcing that the Duchess had obtained permission to return to
Court:

"Montbazon, la belle douairiere,
Dont les appas et la lumiere
Sous de lugubres vetements
Paraissent encore plus charmants...."

Permission had scarcely been given her to appear at Court, when she was
attacked by an illness which seemed nothing more than a common cold,
but which turned out to be the measles. In the course of a few days the
malady proved fatal. Three hours only were accorded to this
earthly-minded woman to prepare for death. She made confession and
received the sacrament with every indication of the most lively piety
and the most sincere repentance, saying to her daughter, the Abbess of
Caen, "that she regretted not having always lived in a cloister as she
had, and that she looked with horror upon her past life." Up to those
last three hours, she had refused to believe that there were degre