cry of terror escaped me.

"Surely, sire," exclaimed I, "this is some wandering of your
imagination, and your medical attendants are very wrong to permit you to
indulge it for a minute."

"Peace!" returned Louis XV; "you know not what you say. I have the
small-pox, I repeat; and, thanks to La Martiniere, I now know my real
state."

I now perceived whose hand had dealt the blow, and seeing at once all
the consequences of the disclosure, exclaimed in my anger, turning
towards La Martiniere,

"You have achieved a noble work, indeed, sir; you could not restrain
yourself within the bounds of prudence, and you see the state to which
you have reduced his majesty."

La Martiniere knew not what to reply; the king undertook his defence.

"Blame him not," said he; "but for him I should have quitted this world
like a heathen, without making my peace with an offended God."

At these words I fainted in the arms of doctor Bordeu, who, with the aid
of my attendants, carried me to my chamber, and, at length, succeeded in
restoring me. My family crowded around me, and sought to afford me that
consolation they were in equal need of themselves.

Spite of the orders I had given to admit no person, the duc d'Aiguillon
would insist upon seeing me. He exerted his best endeavours to persuade
me to arm myself with courage, and, like a true and attached friend,
appeared to lose sight of his own approaching fall from power in his
ardent desire to serve me.

In this mournful occupation an hour passed away, and left my dejected
companions sighing over the present, and, anticipating even worse
prospects than those now before them.

CHAPTER XLIII

Terror of the king--A complication--Filial piety of the
princesses--Last interview between madame du Barry and Louis
XV--Conversation with the marechale de Mirepoix--The
chancellor Maupeou--The fragment--Comte Jean

Perhaps no person ever entertained so great a dread of death as Louis
XV, consequently no one required to be more carefully prepared for the
alarming intelligence so abruptly communicated by La Martiniere, and
which, in a manner, appeared to sign the king's death-warrant.

To every person who approached him the despairing monarch could utter
only the fatal phrase, "I have the small-pox," which, in his lips, was
tantamount to his declaring himself a dead man. Alas! had his malady
been confined to the small-pox, he might still have been spared to our
praye