Agnes’s ascendancy over Charles VII. was purely erotic. She exercised no influence whatever upon the affairs of state, or, indeed, upon anything but what ministered to his personal pleasure and amusement. However, she was useful, and indeed invaluable, on more than one occasion of danger and suspicion. Unreservedly devoted to her paramour, she was sensitive of any dereliction of duty and of any appearance of intrigue. To her was solely due the detection of the conspiracy of 1449, which, fomented by the Dauphin, threatened the life of the King. Marie inspired the fervent love of her son, Louis the Dauphin, as she did, in truth, the devotion of all her children. When a stripling of fourteen, he championed his mother against his father’s mistress; and when Agnes made a disparaging remark affecting the Queen, the lad immediately boxed her ears, and warned her never to repeat the offence in his hearing! From that day Louis hated “_la Belle des Belles_,” and never tired of checking her assumptions. He even dared to protest personally before his father against the King’s neglect of the Queen and his partiality for her Lady of Honour. Charles on one occasion took his son’s strictures seriously to heart, sent for Marie, bewailed his infidelity, and craved her pardon. But the wanton monarch’s day of righteousness was short, for he very soon forgot his son’s vehemence, and went on fondling his favourite. “_La Belle des Belles_” died in childbed on February 18, 1450. Her end was quite unexpected, for she had gone on a visit of pleasure to her cousin, Antoinette de Maignelais, the Baroness of Villerequier, at the Castle of Mesnil la Belle, near the far-famed Abbey of Jumièges in Normandy. Her husband, André de Villerequier, was Chamberlain to Charles VII., who presented her at her bridal, as a wedding gift, the three islands, Oléron, Marennes, and Auvert, at the mouth of the River Charente. Floral games and spectacles were engaging the attention of the merry party assembled at the castle, and Agnes Sorel was the gayest of the gay, but unfortunately, tripping upon the sash of her gown, she fell heavily to the ground. She was carried tenderly to her chamber, and at once her life was despaired of. She had barely time to make her confession, and then, calling to mind the example of St. Mary Magdalen, she called aloud to Heaven for pardon of her sins and for the prayers of those standing by. She heard Mass and received the Last Sacraments, and painfully passed away in her cousin’s arms. The distracted Baroness laid the dead head of the lovely Agnes gently upon the pillow, closed the eyes which had spell-bound King Charles and many more besides, and, weeping bitterly, exclaimed: “The good God has taken away my Agnes because He feared she would never lose her beauty.”