Mademoiselle did not succeed in comprehending the real situation. Conde, surprised and deceived, felt his way. One evening at a dance, when talking with Mademoiselle, the King joined them. The conversation fell upon the Fronde. On the part of a man of as much _esprit_ as M. le Prince, one can well believe that this was not by chance: "The war was much spoken of," relates Mademoiselle, "and we joked at all the follies of which we had been guilty, the King with the best grace in the world joining in these pleasantries. Although I was suffering with a severe headache, I was not in the least bored." Mademoiselle had laughed without any second thoughts. Conde, clearer sighted, trembled during the remainder of his days, before this monarch so capable of dissimulation, and so perfectly master of himself. Almost at the same moment there expired another of those belated feudal ideas, which neither royalty nor manners could any longer suffer among the nobility. Gaston d'Orleans died at Blois, February 2nd,[78] his death being caused by an attack of apoplexy. They had heard him murmur from his bed regarding his wife and children, _Domus mea domus desolationis vocabitur_ ("My house will be called the House of Desolation"). He spoke better than he knew. Madame surpassed herself in blunders, and still more. She went to dinner while her husband was receiving the last unction, sent away the servants of Monsieur immediately after the final sigh, locked up everything, and concerned herself no more. Her women refused a sheet in which to wrap the body; it was necessary to beg one from the ladies of the Court. Some priests came to sit up with the dead, but finding neither "light nor fire" they returned, and the corpse remained alone, more completely abandoned than had been that of his brother, the King, Louis XIII. The body was borne without "pomp or expense"[79] to Saint-Denis, and the widow hastened to Paris, to take possession of the Palace of the Luxembourg, in the absence of Mademoiselle. The Court did not take the trouble to feign regrets. The King gave the tone in saying to his cousin, gaily, after the first formal compliments: "You will see my brother to-morrow in a training mantle. I believe that he is delighted at the news of your father's death. He believes that he is heir to all his belongings and state; he can talk of nothing else; but he must wait awhile." Anne of Austria heard this, and smiled. "It is true," pursues Mademoiselle, "that Monsieur appeared the next day in a wonderful mantle." Mademoiselle had great difficulty in keeping her own countenance. Her grief was, however, very real, notwithstanding the past, or rather, perhaps, on account of what had gone before; it was, however, only an impulse affected by the impression of the moment. She exhibited this sorrow a little too effectively: