Such are the only documents worthy of credence we have at our disposal for studying the circumstances of the death of Madame, for it is necessary to reject in the most absolute manner the accounts of Saint-Simon and of Monsieur's second wife, Madame Palatine. Chéruel, and more especially Monsieur de Boislisle, have shown the improbabilities and absurdities of these, and we shall not refer to them again. The work of Monsieur de Boislisle is particularly interesting in showing that these two famous narratives had a common source. As to the testimony of d'Argenson, Voltaire, and others, destitute, in the nature of the case, of any authority comparable to that of the authors we have mentioned above--it is unnecessary in the points where it confirms the others; on the points where it contradicts them, it cannot prevail; and on the points where it contains new information, it is dangerous to follow, for we lack any evidence by which to check it. Littré acted judiciously in neglecting these writers when compiling his study on the death of Madame, and the reproach levelled against him by Loiseleur is without justification. On the contrary, it is perhaps to this happy stroke of criticism that Littré owed the success of his argument. II We proceed to recount, in the simplest and most precise manner in our power, the circumstances of the death of Madame; and from this narrative alone we shall see emerge one of the facts we intend to establish, namely, that Madame could not have been poisoned. Henrietta of England, 'more comparable to the jasmine than to the rose, very slender, delicate, slightly round-shouldered--not less pleasing for that--exhausted, not only by four accouchements in rapid succession, but by the fast life then led at Court, was only kept up,' says Monsieur de Boislisle, 'by that sanguine temperament which is the prerogative of high-strung women.' In 1664 Guy Patin wrote: 'The Duchess of Orleans was taken ill at Villers-Cotterets, and her physicians have prescribed ass's milk.' The presumption is, then, that she suffered from some stomachic disorder. 'The king,' wrote Hugues de Lionne to Colbert de Croissy, 'tells us that more than three years ago she complained of a pain in the side which compelled her to lie flat for three or four hours without finding ease in any posture.' Madame was constantly afflicted with a pain at one fixed spot in the breast. 'She further used to complain,' wrote the Abbé Bourdelot, 'of a cruel burning pain, not in the abdomen, but in the chest.' She was always wanting to vomit. 'Most often she could take only milk for food, and remained in bed for days together.' These facts indicate, as Dr. Le Gendre tells us, that Madame suffered from a chronic inflammation of the stomach, a form of gastritis. The reports of the autopsy show, further, that Madame was afflicted with pulmonary tuberculosis, and it is not rare for these two morbid conditions to co-exist.