With the coming of de Riom, the Duchesse entered on the last and worst stage of her mis-spent life.  Strange tales are told of the orgies of which the Luxembourg, the splendid palace her father had given her, was now the scene—­orgies in which Madame de Mouchy and a Jesuit, one Father Ringlet, took a part, and over which the evil de Riom ruled as “Lord of merry disports.”  The Duchesse, now sunk to the lowest depths of degradation, was the veriest puppet in his strong hands, flattered by his coarse attentions and submitting to rudeness and ridicule such as any grisette, with a grain of pride, would have resented.

When these scandalous “carryings-on” at the Luxembourg Palace reached the Regent’s ears and he ventured to read his daughter a severe lecture on her conduct, she retaliated by snapping her fingers at him and telling him in so many words to mind his own business.  And to the tongue of scandal that found voice everywhere, she turned a contemptuous ear.  She even locked and barred her palace gates to keep prying eyes at a safe distance.

But, although she thus defied man, she was powerless to stay the steps of fate.  Her health, robust as it had been, was shattered by her excesses; and when a serious illness assailed her, she was horrified to find death so uncomfortably near.  In her alarm she called for a priest to shrive her; and the Abbe Languet came at the summons to bring her the consolations of the Church.  He refused point-blank, however, to give the sinner absolution until the palace was purged of the presence of de Riom and Madame de Mouchy, the arch-partners in her vices.

To this suggestion the Duchesse, perilous as her condition was, returned an uncompromising “No!” If the Abbe would not absolve her—­well, there were other priests, less exacting, who would; and one such priest of elastic conscience, a Franciscan friar, was summoned to her bedside.  Then ensued an unseemly struggle around the dying woman’s bed, in which the Regent, Cardinal Noailles, Madame de Mouchy, and the rival clerics all played their parts.

While the obliging friar remained in the room awaiting an opportunity to administer the last Sacrament, the Abbe and his curates kept watch at the bedroom door to see that he did no such thing; and thus the siege lasted for four days and nights until, the patient’s crisis over, the services of the Church were summarily dispensed with.

With the return of health, the Duchesse’s piety quickly evaporated.  It is true that she had had a fright; and, by way of modified penitence, she vowed to dress herself and her household in white for six months and also to make a husband of her lover.  Within a few weeks, de Riom led the Regent’s daughter to the altar, thus throwing the cloak of the Church over the licence of the past.

Now that our Princess was once more a “respectable” woman, she returned gladly to her old life of indulgence; until the Duchess Palatine exclaimed in alarm, “I am afraid her excesses in drinking and eating will kill her.”  And never was prediction more sure of early fulfilment.  When she was not keeping company with her brandy bottle, she was gorging herself with delicacies of all kinds, from patties and fricassees to peaches and nectarines, washed down with copious draughts of iced beer.