Editing Mary of Modena (section)

==Later life==
Having wished to become a nun in her youth, Mary sought refuge from the stresses of exile at the Convent of the Visitations, Chaillot, near Paris, where she befriended Louis's penitent mistress, [[Louise de La Vallière]].<ref>Haile, p. 229</ref> There, Mary stayed with her daughter for long periods almost every summer.<ref name=Oman221>Oman, p. 221</ref> It was here, too, in 1711, that Mary found out that, as part of the embryonic [[Treaty of Utrecht]], James Francis Edward was to lose Louis's explicit recognition and be forced to leave France.<ref name=Oman221 /> The next year, when James Francis Edward was expelled and Louise Mary died of smallpox, Mary was very upset;<ref name=Oman225 /> according to Mary's close friend Madame de Maintenon, Mary was "a model of desolation".<ref name=Oman225>Oman, p. 225</ref> Deprived of the company of her family, Mary lived out the rest of her days at Chaillot and Saint-Germain in virtual poverty, unable to travel by her own means because all her horses had died and she could not afford to replace them.<ref>Oman, p. 242</ref>

Following her death from [[cancer]] on 7 May 1718, Mary was remembered fondly by her French contemporaries, three of whom, [[Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate]], [[Louis de Rouvroy, duc de Saint-Simon|the Duke of Saint-Simon]] and [[Philippe de Courcillon|the Marquis of Dangeau]], deemed her a "saint".<ref>Fraser, ''Love and Louis XIV'', p. 383</ref><ref>Oman, p. 245</ref> Mary's remains were interred in Chaillot among the nuns she had befriended.<ref>Oman, p. 247</ref>