From the time the crisis set in, Prince Leopold-Ferdinand recognised no one, although his intelligence was not completely obscured; for when the king or queen spoke to him, he appeared to understand what they said, although it was impossible for him to respond, even by a gesture, to the loving words which were lavished upon him. He died, as so beloved a child should die, between his father and mother, who, during the last hours, never quitted his side. In his chamber at this time were Madame la Duchesse d’Ursel, mistress of the queen’s household; Monsieur le Comte Vanderstraeten-Ponthoz, maréchal of the palace; Monsieur Donny, the prince’s preceptor; MM. Henriette and Wimmer, the two Sœurs de Charité who had nursed him through his illness, and the two _valets-de-chambre_ of the Duc de Brabant. All were silent, as, awe-stricken, they waited, in the midst of that calm night, to hear the rustling wings of the Angel of Death; and the peaceful solemnity of the last hour was undisturbed, save by the voice of the chaplain who recited the prayers for the dying. Monseigneur le Comte de Flandre, brother to the king, who had been summoned to the palace by the same despatch which had brought MM. Henriette and Wimmer, arrived there at half-past ten, and quitted Laeken again at midnight; he was not, therefore, present at the last moments of his nephew. It was the same with Monsieur Devaux, the king’s secretary, who retired at half-past nine to his own apartments. When all was over, and life had finally quitted the poor little body which had suffered so much, the father and mother, one after another, strained the corpse in their arms, and covered it with kisses, until the king, desirous of sparing the queen so mournful a spectacle, led her by force from the couch where rested the inanimate remains of the sole heir to their crown. On the morning following his decease the body of the little prince was completely robed in white, and placed on the bed in the chamber where he had died, and which is next to that in which his grandfather, Leopold I., drew his last breath. A crown of white roses, fresh and pure as his own brief life, was placed on the pillar immediately above his head, and a little virgin, with several playthings with which he had essayed to wile away some of the weary hours of pain, were placed at the foot of his couch. An altar was improvised on a large chest of drawers, placed between two windows of his bedroom, where a crucifix hung in the midst of lighted candles, converting the chamber of death into a temporary chapel. Here the Sœurs de Charité watched the dead child through the night, as they had watched him for so many previous months.