On the intrigues with which this Queen _in posse_ beguiled her days, it is perhaps well not to look too closely. They are unsavoury, as so much of her life was. Her lovers succeeded one another with quite bewildering rapidity, and with little regard either to rank or good-looks. One special favourite of our Sultana was La Haye, a Court equerry, whom she made Chamberlain, and who is pictured by Saint-Simon as "tall, bony, with an awkward carriage and an ugly face; conceited, stupid, dull-witted, and only looking at all passable when on horseback." So infatuated was the Duchesse with her ill-favoured equerry that nothing less would please her than an elopement to Holland--a proposal which so scared La Haye that, in his alarm, he went forthwith to the lady's father and let the cat out of the bag. "Why on earth does my daughter want to run away to Holland?" the Due exclaimed with a laugh. "I should have thought she was having quite a good enough time here!" And so would anyone else have thought. And while his Duchesse was thus dallying with her multitude of lovers and stupefying herself with her brandy bottle, her husband was driven to his wits' end by her exhibitions of temper, as by her infidelities. In vain he stormed and threatened to have her shut up in a convent. All her retort was to laugh in his face and order him out of her apartment. Violent scenes were everyday incidents. "The last one," says Saint-Simon, "was at Rambouillet; and, by a regrettable mishap, the Duchesse received a kick." The Duc's laggard courage was spurred to fight more than one duel for his wife's tarnished fame. Of one of these sorry combats, Maurepas writes, "Her conduct with her father became so notorious that His Grace the Duc de Berry, disgusted at the scandal, forced the Duc d'Orléans to fight a duel on the terrace at Marly. They were, however, soon separated, and the whole affair was hushed up." But release from such an intolerable life was soon coming to the ill-used Duc. One day, when hunting, he was thrown from his horse, and ruptured a blood-vessel. Fearful of alarming the King, now near the end of his long life, he foolishly made light of his accident, and only consented to see a doctor when it was too late. When the doctors were at last summoned he was a dying man, his body drained of blood, which was later found in bowls concealed in various parts of his bedroom. With his last breath, he said to his confessor, "Ah, reverend father, I alone am the real cause of my death."