"What are you crying for ?" he said to them; "did you think that I was immortal ?" He was left alone with Madame de Maintenon.

"I have always heard say that it was difficult to make up one's mind to die," said he; "I do not find it so hard." "Ah, Sir," she replied, "it may be very much so, when there are earthly attachments, hatred in the heart, or restitutions to make!" "Ah!" replied the king, "as for restitutions to make, I owe nobody any individually; as for those that I owe the kingdom, I have hope in the mercy of God." [Illustration: The Death-bed of Louis XIV .-- --50] The Duke of Orleans came back again; the king had sent for him.

"When I am dead," he said, "you will have the young king taken to Vincennes; the air there is good; he will remain there until all the ceremonies are over at Versailles, and the castle well cleaned afterwards; you will then bring him back again." He at the same time gave orders for going and furnishing Vincennes, and directed a casket to be opened in which the plan of the castle was kept, because, as the court had not been there for fifty years, Cavoye, grand chamberlain of his household, had never prepared apartments there.

"When I was king.

.