It is painful to reflect upon the position which the Marquise had filled, and to see her thus shaken and withered both in mind and body; abandoned by the protectress to whom she had clung so long and so confidingly; widowed by violence; separated from her only surviving child; and compelled to drain her cup of bitterness to the very dregs. Not a pang was, however, voluntarily spared to her. She might, in consideration of her rank as the wife of a Marshal of France, and out of respect for the Queen-mother, of whom she had not only been the foster-sister but also the familiar friend, have been conveyed to the place of execution in a covered carriage, and thus have been in some degree screened from the public gaze; but no such delicacy was observed. The criminal's cart, with its ghastly faggot for a seat, was her ordained conveyance; but her step did not falter as she stepped into the vehicle which had been previously tenanted by the vilest and most degraded culprits. Never had there been seen so dense a crowd in the Place de Grève; and as she glanced hurriedly around, unaware of the popular reaction of feeling, she cowered for an instant panic-struck, and murmured helplessly: "Oh, what a multitude to gaze upon a miserable woman!" Not a word, not a gesture of vengeance or of hate, escaped, however, from the populace. Her deportment had been so dignified, her courage so great, her piety so perfect, that those who were once her bitterest enemies looked on her through their tears. Her charities had been unremitting and extensive; and those whom she had aided in their necessities had thronged, through a morbid and mingled feeling of gratitude and awe, to see her die.[313] Her head fell--her body was burned--and her ashes were scattered to the wind.