stress, and abandonment of the guilty
duchess was more than she could bear. She begged permission, either
sincerely or insincerely, to retire to the convent of Port Royal.
Louis, whose crime was far greater than that of his wrecked and ruined
victim, was glad to be rid of her. But she was too far gone, in her
rapid illness, to be removed. It was soon manifest that her life was
drawing near to its close. She begged to see the king once more before
she died.

Louis XIV. dreaded every thing which could remind him of that tomb
toward which all are hastening, and especially did he recoil from
every death-bed scene. The wretched man would not have listened to the
plea of the dying girl had not the remonstrances of his confessor
constrained him. Thus, reluctantly, he entered the dying chamber. He
found Mary Angelica faded, withered, and ghastly--all unlike the
radiant beauty whom for a few brief months he had almost worshiped.
Egotist as he was, he could not restrain his tears. Her glassy eyes
were riveted upon his countenance. Her clammy hand almost convulsively
clasped his own. Her livid lips quivered in their last effort as she
besought him to pay her debts, and sometimes to remember her. Louis
promised all she asked. As she sank back upon her pillow, she gasped
out the declaration that she should die happy, as she saw that the
king could weep for her. Immediately after she fell into a swoon and
died.

The exultation of Madame de Montespan at her death was so indecent and
undisguised as to excite the disgust of the king. Her very name became
hateful to him. Wicked man as he was, Louis XIV. believed in
Christianity, and in its revelations of responsibility at the bar of
God. He was shocked, and experienced much remorse in view of this
death-bed without repentance. He could not conceal from himself that
he was in no inconsiderable degree responsible for the guilt which
burdened the soul of the departed. His aversion to Madame de Montespan
was increased by the report, then generally circulated, that the
duchess had died from poison, administered through her agency. The
poor victim of sin and shame was soon forgotten in the grave. The
court whirled on in its usual round of frivolous and guilty pleasures,
such as Babylon could scarcely have rivaled.

The supremacy of Madame de Maintenon over Louis XIV. was that of a
strong mind over a feeble one. The king had many very weak points in
his character. He was utterly selfish, an