ime of the exile of Charmel and its causes, of
which the chief was his obstinate refusal to present himself before the
King. The vexation of the King against people who withdrew from him was
always very great. In this case, it never passed away, but hardened into
a strange cruelty, to speak within limits. Charmel, attacked with the
stone, asked permission to come to Paris to undergo an operation. The
permission was positively refused. Time pressed. The operation was
obliged to be done in the country. It was so severe, and perhaps so
badly done, that Charmel died three days afterwards full of penitence and
piety. He had led a life remarkable for its goodness, was without
education, but had religious fervour that supplied the want of it. He
was sixty-eight years of age.

The Marechale de la Ferme died at Paris, at the same time, more than
eighty years old. She was sister of the Comtesse d'Olonne, very rich and
a widow. The beauty of the two sisters, and the excesses of their lives,
made a great stir. No women, not even those most stigmatized for their
gallantry, dared to see them, or to be seen anywhere with them. That was
the way then; the fashion has changed since. When they were old and
nobody cared for them, they tried to become devout. They lodged
together, and one Ash Wednesday went and heard a sermon. This sermon,
which was upon fasting and penitence, terrified them.

"My sister," they said to each other on their return, "it was all true;
there was no joke about it; we must do penance, or we are lost. But, my
sister, what shall we do?" After having well turned it over: "My
sister," said Madame d'Olonne, "this is what we must do; we must make our
servants fast." Madame d'Olonne thought she had very well met the
difficulty. However, at last she set herself to work in earnest, at
piety and penitence, and died three months after her sister, the
Marechale de la Ferme. It will not be forgotten, that it was under cover
of the Marechale that a natural child was first legitimated without
naming the mother, in order that by this example, the King's natural
children might be similarly honoured, without naming Madame de Montespan,
as I have related in its place.

CHAPTER LXIV

The Queen of Spain, for a long time violently attacked with the king's
evil around the face and neck, was just now at the point of death.
Obtaining no relief from the Spanish doctors, she wished to have
Helvetius, and begge