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Rh times, came from life to sully life's image. The mirror placed before the mouth was clear as at first. The silence was sacred no longer. Whose ear now could be disturbed by the voice of lamentation and of weeping?

A woman's office is always to support and to console; and Francesca was roused from her own stupor of sorrow by the Cardinal's agony of regret. It was needful to perform the last offices of the dead; to fasten the dropping mouth, to straighten the convulsed limbs; but still Mazarin knelt by his dearest relative, and wasted on the inanimate ear his passionate entreaties, that his most beloved child would not leave him desolate in his old age. Francesca took his hand, and led him to the next room; exhausted by grief, he submitted to her gentle control like an infant. He asked for a glass of water, but the medical attendant gave it him with a strong opiate: he was scarcely conscious when led, or rather carried, to his carriage. At that moment a horseman galloped, as if for life or death, into the yard. Francesca's heart misgave her—it was the Duc de Mercœur. In an instant he had reached the Duchesse's chamber—they had just finished laying her out.