Overwhelmed by this new misfortune, Marie de Medicis found herself reduced to the greatest extremity.  Unable to liquidate the salaries of those members of her household who had accompanied her into exile, she was abandoned by many among them; while the few jewels which she had hitherto retained were gradually disposed of in order to support those who still clung with fidelity to her fallen fortunes; but even this resource at length failed; and during the winter months, unable any longer to purchase fuel, she was compelled to permit her attendants to break up all such articles of furniture as could be made available for that purpose.[239]

This extreme of wretchedness, however, which would have sufficed to exhaust the most robust health and the most vigorous youth, was rapidly sapping the toil-worn and tortured existence of Marie de Medicis; and, aware that she had nearly reached the term of her sufferings, on the 2nd of July 1642 she executed a will which is still preserved in the royal library of Paris,[240] wherein she expressed her confidence that Louis XIII would cause the mortuary ceremonies consequent upon her decease to be solemnized in a manner befitting her dignity as Queen of France; and bequeathed certain legacies to her servants, and to the several charitable institutions of Cologne.  This duty performed, she consented at the entreaty of her attendants to undergo a painful operation, and to submit to such remedies as were likely to prove most efficient, although she herself expressed a conviction of their utter uselessness.  She then received the last sacraments of the church; tenderly embraced those who stood about her; and after a violent accession of fever, expired at mid-day on the morrow, with the breath of prayer upon her lips.[241] Once or twice, blent with the pious outpourings of her departing spirit, her attendants had distinguished the name of her son—­of that son by whom she had been abandoned to penury; and on each occasion a shade of pain passed across her wasted features.  Her maternal love did not yield even to bodily agony; but the struggle was brief.  Her eyes closed, her breath suddenly failed:  and all was over.

Thus perished, in a squalid chamber, between four bare walls—­her utter destitution having, as we have already stated, driven her to the frightful alternative of denuding the very apartment which was destined to witness her death-agony of every combustible article that it contained, in order by such means to prepare the scanty meal that she could still command—­and on a wretched bed which one of her own lackeys would, in her period of power, have disdained to occupy; childless, or worse than childless; homeless, hopeless, and heart-wrung, the haughty daughter of the Medici—­the brilliant Regent of France; the patroness of art; the dispenser of honours; and the mother of a long line of princes.