Hardly had the Princess finished her story, when the Infanta, turning pale, said to her:  “Madame, you will see, the dream of the vault refers to me.  At the funeral of the Queen of England I noticed, and remember, that the same difficulty occurred at Saint Denis; they were obliged to push up all the coffins, one against the other.”

And, in truth, we knew, a few days afterwards, that for this poor Queen, Maria Theresa, the monks of the abbey had found it necessary to break down a strong barrier of stones in their subterranean church, to remove the first wife of Gaston, mother of Mademoiselle, and find a place for the Spanish Queen who had arrived in those regions.

There were several funeral orations on this occasion.  Not a single one of these official discourses deserved to survive the Queen.  There was very little to say about her, I admit; but these professional panegyrists, these liars in surplice, in black cassock, or in purple and mitre, are not too scrupulous to borrow facts and material in cases where the dead person has neglected to furnish or bequeath it them.

In my own case I congratulated myself on this sort of indifference or literary penury; an indiscreet person, sustained by zeal or talent, might have wished to mortify me in a romance combined of satire and religion.

CHAPTER XXXII.

Jean Baptiste Colbert.—­His Death.—­His Great Works.—­His Last Advice to the Marquise.

M. Colbert had been ailing for a long time past.  His face bore visible testimony against his health, to which his accumulated and incessant labour had caused the greatest injury.  We had just married his son Blainville to my niece, Mademoiselle de Tonnay-Charente, heiress of the house of Rochchouart.  Since this union—­the King’s work—­M.  Colbert had somewhat tended in my favour, and I had reason to count on his good offices and kindness.  I said to him one day that my quarrel with him was that he did not look after himself, that he ignored all his own worth, treated himself with no more respect than a mere clerk; that he was the indispensable man, the right hand of the King, his eye of vigilance in everything, and the pillar of his business and his finance.

Without being precisely what one would call a modest man, M. Colbert was calm of mind, and by nature without pose or presumption.  He cared sincerely for the King’s glory.  He held his tongue on the subject of great enterprises, but employed much zeal and ability in promoting the success of good projects and ideas, such as, for instance, our Indies and Pondicherry.