to her of the cool evening air so soon after an illness such as she had just suffered from, and which had left her health still tottering.  It was specially on this account that she stuck more obstinately to her supper on the terrace, thinking that it would take away all suspicion she had been confined, and induce the belief that she was on the same terms as ever with M. le Duc d’Orleans, though the uncommon rarity of his visits to her had been remarked.

This supper in the open air did not succeed.  The same night she was taken ill.  She was attacked by accidents, caused by the state in which she still was, and by an irregular fever, that the opposition she met with respecting the declaration of her marriage did not contribute to diminish.  She grew disgusted with Meudon, like people ill in body and mind, who in their grief attribute everything to the air and the place.  She was annoyed at the few visits she received from M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans,-her pride, however, suffering more than her tenderness.

In despite of all reason, nothing could hinder her from changing her abode.  She was transferred from Meudon to the Muette, wrapped up in sheets, and in a large coach, on Sunday, the 14th of May, 1719.  Arrived so near Paris, she hoped M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans would come and see her more frequently, if only for form’s sake.

This journey was painful by the sufferings it caused her, added to those she already had, which no remedies could appease, except for short intervals, and which became very violent.  Her illness augmented; but hopes and fears sustained her until the commencement of July.  During all this time her desire to declare her marriage weakened, and M. le Duc and Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans, as well as Madame, who passed the summer at Saint-Cloud, came more frequently to see her.  The month of July became more menacing because of the augmentation of pain and fever.  These ills increased so much, in fact, that, by the 14th of July, fears for her life began to be felt.

The night of the 14th was so stormy, that M. le Duc d’Orleans was sent to at the Palais Royal, and awakened.  At the same time Madame de Pons wrote to Madame de Saint-Simon, pressing her to come and establish herself at La Muette.  Madame de Saint-Simon, although she made a point of scarcely ever sleeping under the same roof as Madame la Duchesse de Berry (for reasons which need no further explanation than those already given), complied at once with this request, and took up her quarters from this time at La Muette.