POISONING. 



749 



pitifully two days and then died. For this reason 

 she deemed aqua fortis too strong, and upon his 

 saying arsenic was too violent also, she proposed 

 powder of diamonds, and gave him money to buy 

 some." 



Mrs Turner was found guilty and sentenced to 

 be hung. " Many women of fashion," says Miss 

 Aikin, " as well as men, went in their coaches to 

 Tyburn, to witness the death of this woman, who 

 edified the spectators, it is said, with a very peni- 

 tent end." But one would not sure be ugly though 

 one's hung, and Mrs Turner " could not deny her 

 vanity the slight gratification of making this, her 

 last appearance, in a ruff stiffened with yellow 

 starch, a favourite fashion, imported by herself 

 from France, but to which this exhibition of it 

 proved immediately fatal."* 



But it is more than time that we should direct 

 our steps toward France, in this rapid and desul- 

 tory excursion. On the 30th of June 1670, Hen- 

 rietta Anne of England, duchess of Orleans, sister 

 of king Charles II., grand-daughter of Henry IV., 

 died at Paris. On the previous day, after drink- 

 ing a glass of cold water, in her apartment at St 

 Cloud, she was seized with a shivering, succeeded 

 by a burning heat, which threw her into the most 

 excruciating torments. She cried out, that she 

 was poisoned. The physicians were sent for. 

 When they saw her, they were struck with horror 

 at her livid appearance, pronounced her beyond 

 medical aid, and advised her to receive the last 

 sacraments of the church without delay. The 

 princess heard them pronounce her fate with firm- 

 ness ; and recollecting the manner in which Bossuet 

 had attended her mother, the queen dowager of 

 England, she desired that not an instant should be 

 lost in sending for him. Three couriers were suc- 

 cessively despatched to him, and he arrived be- 

 tween eleven and twelve o'clock at night, at St 

 Cloud. 



In the interval, the princess suffered the most 

 dreadful pains, and her immediate dissolution being 

 apprehended, she made a general confession of her 

 sins to the Abbe Feuillet, a person generally 

 esteemed, but of a harsh character. When her 

 confession was finished, her attendants were called 

 in. The whole scene was afflicting and horrible. 

 The account which her confessor gives of his own 

 conduct, makes us, perhaps unreasonably, blame 

 his merciless austerity. Her lamentable shrieks, 

 he treated as acts of rebellion against the divine 



* Mrs Turner's personal appearance seems to have been the 

 reverse of what might have been expected. She was a deli- 

 cate beauty. In a curious poetical essay, entitled Sir Thomas 

 pverbury's ghost, in the third volume of the Harleian Miscel- 

 lany, she is thus described : 



" It seemed, that she had been some gentle dame, 

 For, on each part of her fair body's frame, 

 Nature such delicacy did bestow, 

 That fairer object oft it doth not show. 

 Her crystal eye, beneath an ivory brow. 

 Rid show what she at first had been, but now 

 The roses on her lovely cheeks were dead. 

 The earth's pale colour had all overspread 

 Her sometime lively look, and cruel death, 

 Coming- untimely with his wintrv breath, 

 Blasted the fruit, which, cherry-like in show, 

 Upon her dainty lips <*id whilom grow. 

 O, how the cruel cord did misliecome 

 Her comely neck! and yet by law's just doom 

 Had been her death ; those locks, like golden thread, 

 That used in youth to enshrine her globe-like head, 

 Hung careless down, and that delightful limb, 

 Her snow-white nimble hand, that used to trim 

 Those tresses up, now spitefully did tear 

 And rend the same, nor did she now forbear 

 To beat that breast of more than lily white, 

 Which sometime was the lodge of sweet delight. 

 From those two springs, where joy did whilom dwell, 

 Gnefs pearly drops upon her pale cheeks fell." 



will, and told her that her sins were not punished 

 as they deserved. In the midst of her convulsions, 

 she received his reproofs with mildness, but often 

 inquired of Madame de la Fayette, who was at her 

 bed-side, if Bossuet were not yet come. Before 

 he came, she received the extreme unction from 

 the Abbe Feuillet. Having exclaimed, in an agony 

 of pain, " Will these torments never end?" "Do 

 not forget yourself in this manner," said the mer- 

 ciless Abbe, " you ought to be better disposed for 

 suffering ; but I must tell you that your torments 

 will soon end." 



At length Bossuet arrived. As soon as the 

 princess saw him, she made him promise not to 

 quit her, till she breathed her last. He knelt down 

 dissolved in tears, leaning on her bed, holding a 

 crucifix in his hand. With a tremulous voice, in- 

 terrupted by his own feelings, he invited her to 

 join him, as far as her sufferings allowed, in the 

 reflections, prayers, and acts of contrition, of faith, 

 hope and charity, which he should address to God 

 for her, and in her name. He was exceedingly 

 moved, and every person present sympathized in 

 the scene. Nothing could exceed the tender and 

 affecting sentiments of devotion and piety, which 

 Bossuet suggested to her. He finally subdued by 

 them, in a great measure, her sense of the cruel 

 sufferings which she endured. The princess heard 

 him with mild and composed constancy. If he 

 stopped for a moment, she gently entreated him to 

 continue, assuring him that his words were of in- 

 estimable value to her. He then read over to her 

 the recommendation of the soul in the liturgy, 

 explained it to her ; made her gently repeat with 

 him its soothing prayers, softly instilled into her 

 the sentiments, which they are intended to convey; 

 filled her soul with faith, with compunction, with 

 calm, with resignation ; and above all, with divine 

 love for him, into whose hands she was so soon to 

 yield her soul. She herself, at last, felt a con- 

 sciousness of her serene triumph over pain. " O, 

 my God," she exclaimed, " why did I not always 

 adhere to thee 1" She recollected that the cruci- 

 fix which Bossuet had in his hands, was the same 

 which he had given to her mother, the queen dow- 

 ager of England, to hold in her agony. She took 

 it from him, and kept it in her hands till she 

 breathed her last. 



An hour before she died, she turned to Madame 

 de la Fayette, and in the English language, which 

 Bossuet did not understand, desired her to observe, 

 that " full of gratitude for the spiritual assistance, 

 which she had received from Bossuet, she re- 

 quested that, after her decease, a particular eme- 

 rald ring, set in diamonds of great price, might be 

 presented to him." Her torments continued to 

 the last, but her patience remained. She per- 

 sisted in listening to the exhortations, repeating 

 the prayers, and making the humble and fervent 

 offering of herself to the divine will, which Bos- 

 suet suggested to her. Those who heard them, 

 never forgot them. The Abbe Feuillet himself 

 declared, that he had never heard any thing so ad- 

 mirable.' 



At three in the morning the princess died. The 

 particulars of her death were immediately related 

 by Madame de la Fayette, to Louis XIV. He 

 sent for Bossuet, heard them again from him, and 

 then, with his own hand, put the emerald ring, 

 mentioned by the princess, on the prelate's finger, 

 and desired him to wear it for the rest of his life, 

 in remembrance of her. He added, that he could 



