She died at last after a few hours’ illness, having just time to order all her household to be summoned, and before them to make a public confession of her sins.  As she lay expiring, blessing God that she died far away from the children of her adulterous connection, the Comte d’Antin, her only child by the Marquis de Montespan, arrived.  Peace and trust had then come at last to the agonized woman.  She spoke to him about her state of mind, and expired.

To Madame de Maintenon the event would, it was thought, be a relief:  yet she wept bitterly on hearing of it.  The king showed, on the contrary, the utmost indifference, on learning that one whom he had once loved so much was gone for ever.

All has passed away!  The OEil de Boeuf is now important only as being pointed out to strangers; Versailles is a show-place, not a habitation.  Saint-Simon, who lived until 1775, was truly said to have turned his back on the new age, and to live in the memories of a former world of wit and fashion.  He survived until the era of the ‘Encyclopedie’ of Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  He lived, indeed, to hear that Montesquieu was no more.  How the spirit of Louis XIV. spoke in his contemptuous remarks on Voltaire, whom he would only call Arouet; ‘The son of my father’s and my own notary.’

At length, after attaining his eightieth year, the chronicler, who knew the weaknesses, the vices, the peculiarities of mankind, even to a hair’s breadth, expired; having long given up the court and occupied himself, whilst secluded in his country seat, solely with the revising and amplification of his wonderful Memoirs.

No works, it has been remarked, since those of Sir Walter Scott, have excited so much sensation as the Memoirs of his own time, by the soldier, ambassador, and Trappist, Duc de Saint-Simon.

Transcriber’s Notes.

1.  The following typos were corrected: 
narative//narrative
Rochoucault’s//Rochefoucault’s
Ormonde’s//Ormond’s
Gramont//Grammont
Warmistre//Warmestre
Frederic//Frederick
2.  The various spellings of Shakespeare//Shakespere//Shakspeare
and Dutchess//Duchess in the original text were retained.
3.  The year Mary Fairfax and George Villiers, the
2nd Duke of Buckingham, were married is transposed
from 1657 to 1675 in the original text.  The day also
appears to be in error (6th->15th).