Remember that you are daughter of the Church by baptism, and that this is, indeed, the first and highest rank which you have or ever will have, since it is this which will give you entrance into heaven; your other dignities, coming as they do from the earth, will not go further than the earth; but those which you derive from heaven will ascend again to their source, and carry you with them there. Render thanks to heaven each day, to God who has made you a Christian; estimate this first of benefits as it deserves, and consider all that you owe to the labors and precious blood of Jesus our Savior; it ought to be paid for by our sufferings, and even by our blood, if he requires it. Offer your soul and your life to him who has created you by his puissance, and redeemed you by his goodness and mercy. Pray to him, and pray incessantly to preserve you by the inestimable gift of his grace, and that it may please him that you sooner lose your life than renounce him. You are the descendant of St. Louis. I would recall to you, in this my last adieu, the same instruction that he received from his mother, Queen Blanche, who said to him often 'that she would rather see him die than to live so as to offend God, in whom we move, and who is the end of our being'. It was with such precepts that he commenced his holy career; it was this that rendered him worthy of employing his life and reign for the good of the faith and the exaltation of the Church. Be, after his example, firm and zealous for religion, which you have been taught, for the defense of which he, your royal and holy ancestor, exposed his life, and died faithful to him among the infidels. Never listen to, or suffer to be said in your presence, aught in contradiction to your belief in God and his only Son, your Lord and Redeemer. I entreat the Holy Virgin, whose name you bear, to deign to be the mother of your soul, and in honor of her who is mother of our Lord and Savior, I bid you adieu again and many times. I now devote you to God forever and ever; it is what I desire for you from the very depth of my heart. Your very good and affectionate mother, MARIA. From Amiens, the 10th of June, 1625. The devout sense of responsibility to Almighty God, and the spirit of submission and obedience to his will, which this letter breathes, descended from the grandmother to the mother, and were even instilled, in some degree, into the heart of the son. They remained, however, latent and dormant through the long years of the monarch's life of frivolity and sin, but they revived and reasserted their dominion when the end came.