That Carlos' suspicions were not without reason was proved when one day his Queen, after, it is said, drinking a glass of milk handed to her by the Comtesse, was taken suddenly ill and expired after three days of terrible suffering. That she died of poison, like her mother, the ill-fated sister of our second Charles, seems probable; but that the poison was administered by the Comtesse, whose friend and protectress she was and who had every reason to wish her well, is less to be believed, in spite of Saint-Simon's unequivocal accusation. Certainly the crime was not proved against her; for we find her still in Spain in the following spring, when Carlos, his patience exhausted, ordered her to leave the country. After a short stay in Portugal and Germany, Madame de Soissons was back in Brussels, where she spent the brief remainder of her days--"all the French of distinction who visited the City" (to quote Saint-Simon) "being strictly forbidden to visit her." Here, on the 9th October, 1690, her beauty but a memory, bankrupt in reputation, friendless and poor, the curtain fell on the life so full of mis-used gifts and baffled ambitions. CHAPTER XXVIII AN ILL-FATED MARRIAGE Few Kings have come to their thrones under such brilliant auspices as Milan I. of Servia; few have abandoned their crowns to the greater relief of their subjects, or have been followed to their exile by so much hatred. But a fortnight before Milan's accession, his cousin and predecessor, Prince Michael, had been foully done to death by hired assassins as he was walking in the park of Topfschider, with three ladies of his Court; and the murdered man had been placed in a carriage, sitting upright as in life, and had been driven back to his palace through the respectful greetings of his subjects, who little knew that they were saluting a corpse. There was good reason for this mockery of death, for Prince Alexander Karageorgevitch had long set ambitious eyes on the crown of Servia, and resolved to wrest it by fair means or foul from the boy-heir to the throne; and it was of the highest importance that Michael's death, which he had so brutally planned, should be concealed from him until the succession had been secured to his young rival, Milan. And thus it was that, before Karageorgevitch could bring his plotting to the head of achievement, Milan was hailed with acclamation as Servia's new Prince, and, on the 23rd June, 1868, made his triumphal entry into Belgrade to the jubilant ringing of bells and the thunderous cheers of the people.