j 354 MEMOIRS OF THE DTJKE OF SAINT-SIMOK.

counsels; try to comfort your people, which I unhappily have

• not done. Never forget the obligation you owe to Madame de
Ventadour. Madame (addressing her), let me embrace him
(and while embracing him), my dear child, I give you my
benediction with my whole heart/'

As the little Prince was about to be taken off the bed, the
King redemanded him, embraced him again, and raising hands
and eyes to Heaven, blessed him once more. This spectacle
was extremely touching.

On Tuesday, the 27th of August, the King said to Madame
de Maintenon, that he had always heard, it was hard to resolve
to die; but that as for him, seeing himself upon the point of
death, he.did not find this resolution so difficult to form. She
replied that it was very hard when we had attachments to
creatures, hatred in our hearts, or restitutions to make. " Ah,"
rejoined the King, " as for restitutions, to nobody in particular
do I owe any; but as for those I owe to the realm, I hope in
the mercy of God/1

The night which followed was very agitated. The King was
seen at all moments joining his hands, striking his breast, and
was heard repeating the prayers he ordinarily employed.

On Wednesday morning, the 28th of August, he paid a com-
pliment to Madame de Maintenon, which pleased her but little,
and to which she replied not one word. He said, that what
consoled him in quitting her was that, considering the age she
had reached, they must soon meet again !

About seven o'clock in the morning, he saw in the mirror

two of his valets at the foot of the bed weeping, and said to

them, " Why do you weep \ Is it because you thought me

« immortal ? As for me, I have not thought myself so, and you

ought, considering my age, to have been prepared to lose me."

I A very clownish Provencal rustic heard of the extremity of

| the King, while on his way from Marseilles to Paris, and came

I this morning to Versailles with a remedy, which he said would

* cure the gangrene. The King was so ill, and the doctors so at
their wits' ends, that they consented to receive him. Fagon
tried to say something, but this rustic, who was named Le