as thus that he held them at his bedside, making them forget whole
months of impatience and cruelty by one hour in which he displayed to them
the new treasures of his favor and a false tenderness. It was a paternal
system which succeeded infinitely better than that which his father had
formerly employed toward him. Finally he reached such a state of illness
that manoeuvres like those of a small boat entering a dangerous canal were
necessary in order to pus him to bed.

Then the day of death came. This brilliant and skeptical man, whose
intellect only was left unimpaired by the general decay, lived between a
doctor and a confessor, his two antipathies. But he was jovial with them.
Was there not a bright light burning for him behind the veil of the
future? Over this veil, leaden and impenetrable to others, transparent to
him, the delicate and bewitching delights of youth played like shadows.

It was on a beautiful summer evening that Don Juan felt the approach of
death. The Spanish sky was gloriously clear, the orange trees perfumed the
air and the stars cast a fresh glowing light. Nature seemed to give
pledges of his resurrection. A pious and obedient son regarded him with
love and respect. About eleven o'clock he signified his wish to be left
alone with this sincere being.

"Philippe," he began, in a voice so tender and affectionate that the young
man trembled and wept with happiness, for his father had never said
"Philippe" like this before. "Listen to me, my son," continued the dying
man. "I have been a great sinner, and all my life I have thought about
death. Formerly I was the friend of the great Pope Julius II. This
illustrious pontiff feared that the excessive excitability of my feelings
would cause me to commit some deadly sin at the moment of my death, after
I had received the blessed ointment. He made me a present of a flask of
holy water that gushed forth from a rock in the desert. I kept the secret
of the theft of the Church's treasure, but I am authorized to reveal the
mystery to my son 'in articulo mortis.' You will find the flask in the
drawer of the Gothic table which always stands at my bedside. The precious
crystals may be of service to you also, my dearest Philippe. Will you
swear to me by your eternal salvation that you will carry out my orders
faithfully?"

Philippe looked at his father. Don Juan was too well versed in human
expression not to know that he could die peacefully in perfect faith in
s