Evening amusements became more and more frequent in Madame de Maintenon’s apartments, where, however, nothing could fill up the void left by the poor Dauphine.

I have said little of the grief I felt at the loss of the prince whom everybody so deeply regretted.  As will be believed, it was bitter and profound.  The day of his death, I barricaded myself in my own house, and only left it for one instant in order to join the King at his promenade in the gardens.  The vexation I felt upon seeing him followed almost as usual, did not permit me to stop more than an instant.  All the rest of the stay at Versailles, I scarcely left my room, except to visit M. de Beauvilliers.  I will admit that, to reach M. de Beauvilliers’ house, I made a circuit between the canal and the gardens of Versailles, so as to spare myself the sight of the chamber of death, which I had not force enough to approach.  I admit that I was weak.  I was sustained neither by the piety, superior to all things, of M. de Beauvilliers, nor by that of Madame de Saint-Simon, who nevertheless not the less suffered.  The truth is, I was in despair.  To those who know my position, this will appear less strange than my being able to support at all so complete a misfortune.  I experienced this sadness precisely at the same age as that of my father when he lost Louis XIII.; but he at least had enjoyed the results of favour, whilst I, ‘Gustavi paululum mellis, et ecce morior.’  Yet this was not all.

In the casket of the Dauphin there were several papers he had asked me for.  I had drawn them up in all confidence; he had preserved them in the same manner.  There was one, very large, in my hand, which if seen by the King, would have robbed me of his favour for ever; ruined me without hope of return.  We do not think in time of such catastrophes.  The King knew my handwriting; he did not know my mode of thought, but might pretty well have guessed it.  I had sometimes supplied him with means to do so; my good friends of the Court had done the rest.  The King when he discovered my paper would also discover on what close terms of intimacy I had been with the Dauphin, of which he had no suspicion.  My anguish was then cruel, and there seemed every reason to believe that if my secret was found out, I should be disgraced and exiled during all the rest of the King’s reign.

What a contrast between the bright heaven I had so recently gazed upon and the abyss now yawning at my feet!  But so it is in the Court and the world!  I felt then the nothingness of even the most desirable future, by an inward sentiment, which, nevertheless, indicates how we cling to it.  Fear on account of the contents of the casket had scarcely any power over me.  I was obliged to reflect in order to return to it from time to time.  Regret for this incomparable Dauphin pierced my heart, and suspended all the faculties of my soul.  For a long time I wished to fly from the Court, so that I might never again see the deceitful face of the world; and it was some time before prudence and honour got the upper hand.