Monsieur le Dauphin, who had succeeded to the name and rank of his
father, being then only five years and some months old, and who had been
seized with measles within a few days, expired, in spite of all the
remedies given him. His brother, M. le Duc d'Anjou, who still sucked,
was taken ill at the same time, but thanks to the care of the Duchesse de
Ventadour, whom in after life he never forgot, and who administered an
antidote, escaped, and is now King.

Thus three Dauphins died in less than a year, and father, mother, and
eldest son in twenty-four days! On Wednesday, the 9th of March, the
corpse of the little Dauphin was opened at night, and without any
ceremony his heart was taken to the Val de Grace, his body to Saint-
Denis, and placed by the side of those of his father and mother. M. le
Duc d'Anjou, now, sole remaining child, succeeded to the title and to the
rank of Dauphin.

I have said that the bodies of the Dauphin and the Dauphine were opened
in presence of all the faculty. The report made upon the opening of the
latter was not consolatory. Only one of the doctors declared there were
no signs of poison; the rest were of the opposite opinion. When the body
of the Dauphin was opened, everybody was terrified. His viscera were
all dissolved; his heart had no consistency; its substance flowed through
the hands of those who tried to hold it; an intolerable odour, too,
filled the apartment. The majority of the doctors declared they saw in
all this the effect of a very subtle and very violent poison, which had
consumed all the interior of the body, like a burning fire. As before,
there was one of their number who held different views, but this was
Marechal, who declared that to persuade the King of the existence of
secret enemies of his family would be to kill him by degrees.

This medical opinion that the cause of the Dauphin's and the Dauphine's
death was poison, soon spread like wildfire over the Court and the city.
Public indignation fell upon M. d'Orleans, who was at once pointed out as
the poisoner. The rapidity with which this rumour filled the Court,
Paris, the provinces, the least frequented places, the most isolated
monasteries, the most deserted solitudes, all foreign countries and all
the peoples of Europe, recalled to me the efforts of the cabal, which had
previously spread such black reports against the honour of him whom all
the world now wept, and showed that the cabal, though dispersed, w