“The foreboding of her loss had before never crossed my mind until I received a note from Madame de Tessé as I was leaving Chavaniac with George. I was struck to the heart. On arriving in Paris after a rapid journey, we found her very ill; there was a slight improvement the next day, which I attributed to the pleasure of seeing us; but soon afterwards her head was affected. She said to Madame de Simiane, ‘I was going to have a malignant fever, but I shall be well attended to, and shall get the better of it.’ “It was not a malignant fever; but unhappily it was something still worse. One day only Corvisart had great hopes. Our dear invalid was already beginning to wander when her confessor came to see her. In the evening she told me: ‘If I go to another dwelling, you know how much I shall think of you there. Although I shall leave you with reluctance, the sacrifice of my life would be little if it could insure your eternal happiness.’ “The day she received the sacrament she was anxious to see me near her. Delirium came on afterwards; you never saw anything so extraordinary and so touching. Imagine, my dear friend, a mind completely disordered, thinking itself in Egypt, in Syria, amongst the events of the reign of Athalie, which Celestine’s lessons had left in her imagination, strangely blending every idea that was not from the heart; in short, the most constant delirium, and withal that kindness which always seeks for something pleasing to say. There was also a refinement in the way she expressed herself, a loftiness of thought which astonished every one. But what was admirable above all was that tenderness of heart which she was incessantly showing to her six children, to her sister, to her aunt, to M. de Tessé: she thought she was with them at Memphis; for, by a miracle of feeling, her mind was never invariably fixed but where I was concerned. It seemed as if that impression was too deep to be obliterated, was stronger than sickness, stronger than death itself. Life had already fled; feeling, warmth, existence, all had taken refuge in the hand which pressed mine. Perhaps she did even yield to her affection and her tenderness more completely than if she had had the full possession of her faculties. “Do not imagine that the dear angel was alarmed at the thought of a future world. Her religion was all love and confidence; the fear of hell never came near her mind. She did not believe in it for beings good, sincere, and virtuous, whatever their opinions might be. ‘I do not know what will happen at the moment of their death,’ she would say; ‘but God will enlighten them.’ “However, had her mind been clear, she would have thought of what she called her _péchés_, though she did not believe in any other divine punishment than that of being deprived of the sight of the Supreme Being.