From toward the end of Book II of Rousseau’s Confessions, on the death of an early employer, Madam de Vercellis:
Elle ne garda le lit que les deux derniers jours, et ne cessa de s’entretenir paisiblement avec tout le monde. Enfin, ne parlant plus, et déjà dans les combats de l’agonie, elle fit un gros pet. Bon! dit-elle en se retournant, femme qui pète n’est pas morte. Ce furent les derniers mots qu’elle prononça.”
She kept to her bed for only her last two days, and never stopped conversing cheerfully with everyone. At last, no longer speaking, and already in the throes of agony, she let out a great fart. ‘Good?’ she said, returning to her senses, ‘a woman who farts is not dead.’ There were the final words she pronounced.
Extracts 