she knew not what to do, or with what to amuse him; her constraint was tripled because he was much more with her than before.  She had often, too, experienced much ill-humour from him.  She had attained all she wished, so whatever she might lose in losing him, she felt herself relieved, and was capable of no other sentiment at first.  The ennui and emptiness of her life afterwards made her feel regret.  As for M. du Maine, the barbarous indecency of his joy need not be dwelt upon.  The icy tranquillity of his brother, the Comte de Toulouse, neither increased nor diminished.  Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans surprised me.  I had expected some grief, I perceived only a few tears, which upon all occasions flowed very readily from her eyes, and which were soon dried up.  Her bed, which she was very fond of, supplied what was wanting during several days, amidst obscurity which she by no means disliked.

But the window curtains were soon withdrawn and grief disappeared.

As for the Court, it was divided into two grand parties, the men hoping to figure, to obtain employ, to introduce themselves:  and they were ravished to see the end of a reign under which they had nothing to hope for; the others; fatigued with a heavy yoke, always overwhelming, and of the ministers much more than of the King, were charmed to find themselves at liberty.  Thus all, generally speaking, were glad to be delivered from continual restraint, and were eager for change.

Paris, tired of a dependence which had enslaved everything, breathed again in the hope of liberty, and with joy at seeing at an end the authority of so many people who abused it.  The provinces in despair at their ruin and their annihilation breathed again and leaped for joy; and the Parliament and the robe destroyed by edicts and by revolutions, flattered themselves the first that they should figure, the other that they should find themselves free.  The people ruined, overwhelmed, desperate, gave thanks to God, with a scandalous eclat, for a deliverance, their most ardent desires had not anticipated.

Foreigners delighted to be at last, after so many years, quit of a monarch who had so long imposed his law upon them, and who had escaped from them by a species of miracle at the very moment in which they counted upon having subjugated him, contained themselves with much more decency than the French.  The marvels of the first three quarters of this reign of more than seventy years, and the personal magnanimity of this King until then so successful, and so abandoned afterwards by fortune during the last quarter of his reign—­had justly dazzled them.  They made it a point of honour to render to him after his death what they had constantly refused him during life.  No foreign Court exulted:  all plumed themselves upon praising and honouring his memory.  The Emperor wore mourning as for a father, and although four or five months elapsed between the death of the King and the Carnival, all kinds of amusements were