Happily for me I no longer like cards, for I am not rich enough to risk my whole fortune as other people do, and I have no taste for little stakes. Though I do not play, time does not seem long to me when I am alone in my cabinet. I have quite a fine collection of gold coins and medals; my aunt has given me others in silver and bronze; I have two or three hundred engraved antique stones; also many brass pieces which I like equally; I read with pleasure, and therefore I am never bored, be the weather good or bad; I have always something to do, and I write a great deal. When, in one day, I have written twenty sheets to H. H. the Princess of Wales, ten or twelve to my daughter, twenty in French to the Queen of Sicily [Anne-Marie, Monsieur's daughter by Henrietta of England] I am so tired that I cannot put one foot before the other. MARLY, May, 1714. We have lost the poor Duc de Berry, who was only twenty-seven years old, and was stout and so healthy he ought to have lived a hundred years. He shortened his life by his own imprudences--but I don't want to talk of such sad matters; it makes me sick at heart and does no good. It is a good thing for me that he had ceased for several years to love me, otherwise I could not be comforted for his loss. I own that at first, and even for some days afterwards, I was greatly moved; but having reflected that if I had died he would only have laughed, I consoled myself promptly. July, 1714. I cannot express the grief into which I am plunged by the death of my aunt [Sophia, Electress of Hanover, mother of George I. of England, who had brought Madame up, being the sister of her father]; and I have, besides, the misery of being forced to suppress my sorrow, because the king cannot endure to see sad faces round him; I am obliged therefore to hunt as usual. II. LETTERS OF 1714-1716. FONTAINEBLEAU, 1714. We are here since yesterday; having slept at the house of the Duc d'Antin, called Petit-Bourg, a charming residence; the gardens, especially, are magnificent. I did not come with the king, because two days before leaving Versailles I caught a bad cold in my head accompanied by a terrible cough, and I feared to disgust the king and make the young people laugh by spitting and blowing my nose; so I came in my own carriage with my ladies and dogs. Yesterday they hunted, but I could not go; it used to be great pain to me to lose a hunt, but now I do not care. [Illustration: A Hunt at Fontainebleau]