St. Simon affirms the person employed to have confest
to Louis XIV., having used it at the instigation of the Chevalier de
Lorraine (a favorite of Monsieur), whom Madame had caused to be exiled.
One of the finest sermons of Bossuet describes the "disastrous night on
which there came as a clap of thunder the astonishing news! 'Madame is
dying! Madame is dead!' At the sound of so strange a wo people hurried to
St. Cloud from all sides to find panic over all except the heart of the
princess."
In the following year Monsieur was married again, to the Princess
Palatine, when it was believed that his late wife appeared near a fountain
in the park, where a servant, sent to fetch water, died of terror. The
vision turned out to be a reality--a hideous old woman, who amused herself
in this way. "The cowards," she said, "made such grimaces that I nearly
died laughing. This evening pleasure paid me for the toil of my hard day."
Monsieur gave magnificent fetes to the Court at St. Cloud, added to the
palace with great splendor, and caused the great cascade, which Jerome
Gondi had made, to be enlarged and embellished by Mansart.
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