Maintenon had caused it to be reported among the people by her agents that the Dauphine hated France, and that she urged the imposition of new taxes.

The Dauphine was so ill-treated in her accouchement of the Duc de Berri that she became quite deformed, although previous to this her figure had been remarkably good.  On the evening before she died, as the little Duke was sitting on her bed, she said to him, “My dear Berri, I love you very much, but I have paid dearly for you.”  The Dauphin was not grieved at her death; old Montchevreuil had told him so many lies of his wife that he could not love her.  That old Maintenon hoped, when this event happened, that she should be able to govern the Duke by means of his mistresses, which could not have been if he had continued to be attached to his wife.  This old woman had conceived so violent a hatred against the poor Princess, that I do believe she prevailed on Clement, the accoucheur, to treat her ill in her confinement; and what confirms me in this is that she almost killed her by visiting her at that time in perfumed gloves.  She said it was I who wore them, which was untrue.  I would not swear that the Dauphine did not love Bessola better than her husband; she deserved no such attachment.  I often apprised her mistress of her perfidy, but she would not believe me.

The Dauphine used to say, “We are two unhappy persons, but there is this difference between us:  you endeavoured, as much as you could, to avoid coming here; while I resolved to do so at all events.  I have therefore deserved my misery more than you.”

They wanted to make her pass for crazy, because she was always complaining.  Some hours before her death she said to me, “I shall convince them to-day that I was not mad in complaining of my sufferings.”  She died calmly and easily; but she was as much put to death as if she had been killed by a pistol-shot.

When her funeral service was performed I carried the taper (nota bene) and some pieces of gold to the Bishop who performed the grand mass, and who was sitting in an arm-chair near the altar.  The prelate intended to have given them to his assistants, the priests of the King’s chapel; but the monks of Saint Denis ran to him with great eagerness, exclaiming that the taper and the gold belonged to them.  They threw themselves upon the Bishop, whose chair began to totter, and made his mitre fall from his head.  If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the monks, would have fallen upon me.  I descended the four steps of the altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but laugh, and everybody present did the same.