There are characters which can only expand in a better world. Sorrow had undermined the constitution of Madame Henriette. She died February 10, 1752. “Ah! my sister! my dear sister!” were her last words. She died as she had lived: while loving. “Sad sport of fate,” says M. Honoré Bonhomme, “poor saintly girl, virgin and martyr, who spent nine whole years in climbing, step after step, the Calvary where she yielded up her soul.” After relating this death, the Duke de Luynes adds: “No one can express the sadness into which the King is plunged. The Queen is much afflicted, and also the Dauphin, Madame the Dauphiness, and Mesdames. Madame Adelaide does not weep, but silent griefs are usually the longest. Madame Henriette was much beloved. Her mild character, without ill temper and even without will, rendered her extremely complaisant toward the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and the ladies, her sisters.” On receiving tidings of this mournful death, Madame Infanta wrote her father a most touching letter. She said she wished to come and mingle her tears with those of her family. She arrived in France in September, 1752, and remained with her father for a year. Madame Infanta was not happy. She did not greatly esteem her husband, and that Prince cut a rather sorry figure in the little sovereignty of Parma and Piacenza. He had neither money nor prestige; and his wife, who was very intelligent, his wife, of whom Bernis said that she would make a good minister of foreign affairs, was constantly dreaming of some more considerable establishment for him. She thought by turns of exchanging the Duchy of Parma for Tuscany, or acquisitions in Flanders, Lorraine, or even Corsica. She fancied that, thanks to her father’s affection and the territorial changes in Europe, she would end by obtaining something. The Marquis d’Argenson, who had not much sympathy for her, wrote, September 27, 1753: “It is to be hoped she will never come back to France. Is it just that the State should suffer because she was married so badly? Along with her go a great quantity of chariots loaded with all sorts of things that the King has given her.” Madame Infanta returned to France a third time, but only to die there. She arrived at the château of Choisy, September 3, 1757. To credit M. Michelet, it was she alone who brought about the Seven Years’ War. But there is no foundation for this assertion of the great writer who, toward the close of his life, created what one might call the school of imaginative history. At the time when she reappeared at court, Madame Infanta was glowing with freshness, brilliancy, and health. No one could have foreseen that her death was so near at hand. One of her last letters was addressed to her son Ferdinand, whom she had left at Parma. It commenced as follows:--