took her to Paris.  The dispersion was general.  One or two valets, at the most, remained near the body.  La Villiere, to his praise be it said, was the only courtier who, not having abandoned Monseigneur during life, did not abandon him after his death.  He had some difficulty to find somebody to go in search of Capuchins to pray over the corpse.  The decomposition became so rapid and so great, that the opening of the windows was not enough; the Capuchins, La Vrilliere, and the valets, were compelled to pass the night outside.

At Marly everybody had felt so confident that the King’s return there was not dreamt of.  Nothing was ready, no keys of the rooms, no fires, scarcely an end of candle.  The King was more than an hour thus with Madame de Maintenon and other ladies in one of the ante-chambers.  The King retired into a corner, seated between Madame de Maintenon and two other ladies, and wept at long intervals.  At last the chamber of Madame de Maintenon was ready.  The King entered, remained there an hour, and then ’went to bed at nearly four o’clock in the morning.

Monseigneur was rather tall than short; very fat, but without being bloated; with a very lofty and noble aspect without any harshness; and he would have had a very agreeable face if M. le Prince de Conti had not unfortunately broken his nose in playing while they were both young.  He was of a very beautiful fair complexion; he had a face everywhere covered with a healthy red, but without expression; the most beautiful legs in the world; his feet singularly small and delicate.  He wavered always in walking, and felt his way with his feet; he was always afraid of falling, and if the path was not perfectly even and straight, he called for assistance.  He was a good horseman, and looked well when mounted; but he was not a bold rider.  When hunting—­they had persuaded him that he liked this amusement—­a servant rode before him; if he lost sight of this servant he gave himself up for lost, slicked his pace to a gentle trot, and oftentimes waited under a tree for the hunting party, and returned to it slowly.  He was very fond of the table, but always without indecency.  Ever since that great attack of indigestion, which was taken at first for apoplexy, he made but one real meal a day, and was content,—­although a great eater, like the rest of the royal family.  Nearly all his portraits well resemble him.

As for his character he had none; he was without enlightenment or knowledge of any kind, radically incapable of acquiring any; very idle, without imagination or productiveness; without taste, without choice, without discernment; neither seeing the weariness he caused others, nor that he was as a ball moving at hap-hazard by the impulsion of others; obstinate and little to excess in everything; amazingly credulous and accessible to prejudice, keeping himself, always, in the most pernicious hands, yet incapable of seeing his position or of changing it; absorbed in his fat and his ignorance; so that without any desire to do ill he would have made a pernicious King.