la Succession d’ Espagne_ (vol. iii. p. 206), was the first to deny this poisoning, relying principally on a very conclusive despatch from Lionne to Colbert, of the 1st July, 1670. Since then, M. Littré, in the second number of _La Philosophie Positive_, has incontestably established by the examination of the _procès-verbaux_, and of all the circumstances relating to the death of Henrietta of England, that it must be attributed to an internal disease, unknown to the physicians of that period. [The Duchess of Orléans here referred to is Henrietta-Maria, youngest daughter of Charles I. of England, who married Philip, younger brother of Louis XIV., and first Duke of the existing branch of the House of Orléans.--_Trans._] [14] _Grandeur et Décadence des Romains_, chap. iv. [15] The grave English historian, David Hume, has re-echoed this theory, supported also by the Marquis de Luchet, in his _Remarques sur le Masque de Fer_, 1783. [16] The _Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l’ Histoire de Perse_, Amsterdam, 1745, had already revealed the existence of Saint-Mars’ prisoner, and maintained that he was the Duke de Vermandois, a natural son of Louis XIV. and Mademoiselle de la Vallière. We shall recur to them when considering this theory, in the same way as we shall speak, with reference to the principal theories put forward, of the works which have discussed them, without regard to the period at which they have appeared. [17] _Siècle de Louis XIV._, chap. xxv. [18] Voltaire, _Dictionnaire Philosophique_, vol. i. p. 375, 376. Edition of 1771. [19] London, 1790. It is known that Soulavie used the notes and papers of the Marshal de Richelieu with such bad faith, that the Duke de Fronsac launched an energetic protest against his father’s ex-secretary. [20] “Account of the birth and education of the unfortunate prince removed by the Cardinals Richelieu and Mazarin from society, and imprisoned by order of Louis XIV., composed by the governor of the prince on his deathbed.” (_Mémoires du Maréchal de Richelieu_, vol. iii. chap. 4.) [21] This story is closely reproduced in Grimm’s Correspondence, on the assumed authority of an original letter from the Duchess de Modena, daughter of the Regent d’Orléans, said to have been found by M. de la Borde, a former valet-de-chambre of Louis XV., among the papers of Marshal Richelieu, who was the Duchess’s lover.--See _Corespondence Littéraire, Philosophique, &c., de Grunen et de Diderot_, vol. xiv., pp. 419-23. Paris, 1831.--_Trans._ [22] _Mercure de France._ [23] _Le Masque de Fer_ of MM. Arnould and Fournier, played with great success at the Odéon Theatre in 1831. [24] _Le Vicomte de Bragelonne_, by Alexander Dumas.