A very clownish Provencal rustic heard of the extremity of the King, while on his way from Marseilles to Paris, and came this morning to Versailles with a remedy, which he said would cure the gangrene.  The King was so ill, and the doctors so at their wits’ ends, that they consented to receive him.  Fagon tried to say something, but this rustic, who was named Le Brun, abused him very coarsely, and Fagon, accustomed to abuse others, was confounded.  Ten drops of Le Brun’s mixture in Alicante wine were therefore given to the King about eleven o’clock in the morning.  Some time after he became stronger, but the pulse falling again and becoming bad, another dose was given to him about four o’clock, to recall him to life, they told him.  He replied, taking the mixture, “To life or to death as it shall please God.”

Le Brun’s remedy was continued.  Some one proposed that the King should take some broth.  The King replied that it was not broth he wanted, but a confessor, and sent for him.  One day, recovering from loss of consciousness, he asked Pere Tellier to give him absolution for all his sins.  Pere Tellier asked him if he suffered much.  “No,” replied the King, “that’s what troubles me:  I should like to suffer more for the expiation of my sins.”

On Thursday, the 29th of August, he grew a little better; he even ate two little biscuits steeped in wine, with a certain appetite.  The news immediately spread abroad that the King was recovering.  I went that day to the apartments of M. le Duc d’Orleans, where, during the previous eight days, there had been such a crowd that, speaking exactly, a pin would not have fallen to the ground.  Not a soul was there!  As soon as the Duke saw me he burst out laughing, and said, I was the first person who had been to see him all the day!  And until the evening he was entirely deserted.  Such is the world!

In the evening it was known that the King had only recovered for the moment.  In giving orders during the day, he called the young Dauphin “the young King.”  He saw a movement amongst those around him.  “Why not?” said he, “that does not trouble me.”  Towards eight o’clock he took the elixir of the rustic.  His brain appeared confused; he himself said he felt very ill.  Towards eleven o’clock his leg was examined.  The gangrene was found to be in the foot and the knee; the thigh much inflamed.  He swooned during this examination.  He had perceived with much pain that Madame de Maintenon was no longer near him.  She had in fact gone off on the previous day with very dry eyes to Saint-Cyr, not intending to return.  He asked for her several times during the day.  Her departure could not be hidden.  He sent for her to Saint-Cyr, and she came back in the evening.

Friday, August the 30th, was a bad day preceded by a bad night.  The King continually lost his reason.  About five o’clock in the evening Madame de Maintenon left him, gave away her furniture to the domestics, and went to Saint-Cyr never to leave it.