k forward to man being rendered immortal, he was quite certain his
length of life could be made equal to the patriarch's." In fact, he was
composing at the time an _Abrege de Medecine_, and popular report said he
believed men could live four or five hundred years. He died prematurely of
too much faith in his own medical theories.

In 1653 permission was given to Digby to return, on condition he would not
meddle with Royalist plots. He had been in communication with Cromwell, and
had done some diplomatic business for him in Paris. On his return in 1654,
and for the next few years, he was in the closest relations with the
Protector, thereby carrying out the principle he had probably adopted from
White, of a "universal passive obedience to any species of government that
had obtained an establishment." His Royalist friends made an outcry, and so
did the Puritans; but Digby was confident of obtaining from Cromwell great
advantages for the English Catholics, and the Protector, it seems, fully
trusted the intentions and the abilities of this strange and fascinating
personality who came to him out of the enemy's camp. Delicate business was
given into his hands, that of preventing an alliance between France and
Spain. Prynne, in his _True and Perfect Narrative_, bitterly denounced
Cromwell in "that Sir Kenelme Digby was his particular favourite, and
lodged at Whitehall; that Maurice Conry, Provincial of the Franciscans in
England, and other priests, had his protections under hand and seal." Of
Digby's feelings towards Cromwell there is clear evidence. It seems his
loyalty had been questioned in his absence; and he writes from Paris, in
March, 1656, to Secretary Thurloe: "Whatsoever may be disliked by my Lord
Protector and the Council of State must be detested by me. My obligations
to his Highness are so great, etc." And again, "How passionate I am for his
service and for his honour and interest, even to exposing my life for
him." The intimacy, begun on both sides in mere policy, had evidently grown
to friendship and mutual admiration.

The illness of which he died had already attacked him, and it was for his
health he went to Montpelier in 1658. His stay in that seat of learning was
made memorable by his reading to a company of eminent persons his
_Discourse on the Powder of Sympathy_, which has brought him more fame and
more ridicule than anything else. I have already referred to the secret
confided to him as a youth in Florence