Henrietta's health, which had never recovered from the strain of the Civil War and the terrible experiences of her last confinement, became worse and worse; so that in December, 1668, she wrote to her son Charles that her remaining days would not be many. She suffered much from sleeplessness and fainting fits, and even the waters of Bourbon, which she had long been accustomed to drink every year, afforded her little relief. The thought of death had ever been to her, as to her accomplished friend Madame de Motteville, one of terror. She did not like even to speak of it. "It is better," she was wont to say, "to give one's attention to living well, and to hope for God's mercy in the last hour." But now that death was drawing near it lost something of its terror, and she said quite openly that she was going to Chaillot to die. "I shall think no more of doctors or medicine," she added, "but only of my soul." In this spirit she went out to her house at Colombes to spend there the golden days of a French autumn, until the feast of All Saints should call her to her convent. "The Queen-Mother is extreme ill, and seems to apprehend herself extremely,"[428] wrote Ralph Montagu, the English ambassador in Paris, on September 7th, 1669. A few days later the end came. To the Queen's sleeplessness was added an aversion from all food, and at the request of the King of France, who was much attached to his aunt, a consultation of doctors was held, among whom the principal place was taken by Vallot, a man of great experience, who was first physician to the Crown of France, but who, nevertheless, was believed by some to have been negligent in his care of Queen Anne. He, thinking that Henrietta's great weakness came from her distressing insomnia, advised that she should take a grain of some sedative at night. The Queen, who had explained her symptoms with great clearness, objected the opinion of Sir Theodore Mayerne that such remedies were dangerous to her constitution, adding, laughing, that an old gipsy woman in England had once told her that she would never die except of a grain. Vallot listened respectfully, but he was unconvinced, so that his patient, feeling her reluctance to be foolish, agreed to follow his advice. The day wore on, and after a quiet evening with her ladies, Henrietta retired to bed as usual; but she did not feel very well, and it was suggested that she should not take the opiate. However, she could not sleep, and when her physician was called to her bedside she asked with some eagerness for the drug. He administered it in an egg, after which the Queen lay down again, to fall into a sleep which became deeper and deeper, until it passed into the last sleep of death.[429] * * * * *