STEANTGE ILLNESS OF M. LE PEmCEL 9&

Finot to despair by its duration; who, nevertheless* sometime
nearly died of laughter in relating to us what passed at
these repasts, and the conversation from the other world heard
there.

M. le Prince's malady augmenting, Madame la Princesse
grew bold enough to ask him if he did not "wish to think
of his conscience, and to see a confessor ? He amused him-
self tolerably long in refusing to do so. Some months before
he tad seen in secret Pere de la Tour. He had sent to the
reverend father asking him to come by night and disguised.
Pere de la Tour, surprised to the last degree at so wild a pro-
position, replied that the respect he oped to the cloth would
prevent him visiting M. le Prince in disguise; but that he
would come in his ordinary attire. M. le Prince agreed to
this last imposed condition. He made the Pere de la Tour
enter at night by a little back door, at which an attendant
was in waiting to receive bim. He was led by this attendant,
who had a lantern in one hand and a key in the other, through
many long and obscure passages, and through many doors,
which were opened and closed upon him as he passed. Having
arrived at last at the sick chamber, he confessed M. le Prince,
and was conducted out of the house in the same manner and
by the same way as before. These visits were repeated during
several months.

The Prince's malady rapidly increased and became extreme.
The doctors found him so ill on the night of Easter Sunday
that they proposed to him the sacrament for the next day,
He disputed witb them, and said that if he was so very
bad it would be better to take the sacraments at once, and
have done with them. They in their turn opposed this, saying
there was no need of so much hurry. At last, for fear of
incensing him, they consented, and he received all hurriedly
the last sacraments. A little while after he called M. le Due
to him, and spoke of the honours he wished at his funeral,
mentioning those which had been omitted at the funeral of
his father, but which he did not wish" to be omitted from