The swelling has now entirely disappeared, but the pain is greater than before.  All the toes are covered with transparent blisters; she cries out so that she may be heard three rooms off.  The doctors now confess they do not know what the disorder is. (20th June.) The King’s surgeon says it is rheumatic gout. (11th July.) I believe that frequent and excessive bathing and gluttony have undermined her health.  She has two fits of fever daily, and the disease does not abate.  She is not impatient nor peevish; the emetic given to her the day before yesterday causes her much pain; it seems that from time to time rheumatic pains have affected her shoulders without her taking much notice of them.  From being very fat, as she was, she has become thin and meagre.  Yesterday she confessed, and received the communion. (18th July.) She was bled thrice before she took the emetic. (Tuesday, 18th July.) She received the last Sacrament with a firmness which deeply affected her attendants.  Between two and three o’clock this night (19th July) she died.  Her end was a very easy one; they say she died as if she had gone to sleep.  My son remained with her until she lost all consciousness, which was about an hour before her death.  She was his favourite daughter.  The poor Duchesse de Berri was as much the cause of her own death as if she had blown her brains out, for she secretly ate melons, figs and milk; she herself confessed, and her doctor told me, that she had closed her room to him and to the other medical attendants for a fortnight that she might indulge in this way.  Immediately after the storm she began to die.  Yesterday evening she said to me:  “Oh, Madame! that clap of thunder has done me great harm;” and it was evident that it had made her worse.

My son has not been able to sleep.  The poor Duchesse de Berri could not have been saved; her brain was filled with water; she had an ulcer in the stomach and another in the groin; her liver was affected, and her spleen full of disease.  She was taken by night to St. Denis, whither all her household accompanied her corse.  They were so much embarrassed about her funeral oration that it was resolved ultimately not to pronounce one.

With all her wealth she has left my son 400,000 livres of debt to pay.  This poor Princess was horribly robbed and pillaged.  You may imagine what a race these favourites are; Mouchi, who enjoyed the greatest favour, did not grieve for her mistress a single moment; she was playing the flute at her window on the very day that the Princess was borne to St. Denis, and went to a large dinner party in Paris, where she ate and drank as if nothing had happened, at the same time talking in so impertinent a manner as disgusted all the guests.  My son desired her and her husband to quit Paris.

My son’s affliction is so much the greater since he perceives that, if he had been less complying with his beloved daughter, and if he had exercised somewhat more of a parent’s authority, she would have been alive and well at this time.