_Bonnétable, September 19, 1838._--Yesterday it rained all day. No one went out except the clergy, who were going to a retreat at Mans, and stopped here to pay their respects to the Duchesse. The sisters also came in for their orders. The Duchesse is in very good spirits. She has the gift of narrative, and kept the conversation going very well throughout a long day, without the smallest appearance of ill-nature. When I went down to my room she lent me a manuscript book of her thoughts. She writes wonderfully, and her writing displays a wealth and variety of astonishing description. The outpourings of her heart since her husband's death are especially touching, and display a tenderness of feeling which would hardly be guessed from her outward appearance. I shall leave her entirely overcome by the warmth of her reception, her fine qualities, and the admirable example which she sets here. _Rochecotte, September 27, 1838._--Yesterday I had a most unexpected piece of news which grieved me deeply: Madame de Broglie is dead of brain fever, though she was so young, at any rate for death--a year younger than myself--though she was so happy, healthy, beautiful, useful, distinguished, and beloved. In one short week she was carried off, though prepared for death by her constant goodness. It has been no surprise to her. Almost the same day, but after a longer illness, amid the dissipations of too worldly a life, died Lady Elizabeth Harcourt. She was of the same age, and also handsome, but I think in no way prepared for the dread passage. With the death of my brother-in-law, the Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechingen, I have heard of three deaths during the last week. Last month Anatole de Talleyrand died; in the month of July Madame de Laval; on May 17 M. de Talleyrand; on April 28 my father-in-law; in March my uncle Medem. In less than seven months eight persons have disappeared who were bound to me by ties of blood, friendship, or intercourse. Death surrounds me on every hand, and I can no longer trust either to the freshness of my daughter or to the cares of others; only the goodness of God can be infallibly trusted, and on His infinite mercy I must rely, and confide my loved ones to His care. During the last two days of her life Madame de Broglie was delirious, and chanted the Psalms so loudly that one could hear her from one end of her residence to the other. When she was not singing she talked to her brother and her daughter who had died years before.