t it. The bombshell dropped all at once when nobody could have
expected it, and everybody fell on his stomach as is done when a shell
drops; everybody was gloomy and almost wild; the king himself appeared as
if exhausted by so great an effort of will and power. He had only just
signed his will, when he met, at Madame de Maintenon's, the Ex-Queen of
England. "I have made my will, Madame," said he. "I have purchased
repose; I know the impotence and uselessness of it; we can do all we
please as long as we are here; after we are gone, we can do less than
private persons; we have only to look at what became of my father's, and
immediately after his death too, and of those of so many other kings.
I am quite aware of that; but, in spite of all that, it was desired; and
so, Madame, you see it has been done; come of it what may, at any rate I
shall not be worried about it any more." It was the old man yielding to
the entreaties and intrigues of his domestic circle; the judgment of the
king remained steady and true, without illusions and without prejudices.

Death was coming, however, after a reign which had been so long and had
occupied so much room in the world that it caused mistakes as to the very
age of the king. He was seventy-seven; he continued to work with his
ministers; the order so long and so firmly established was, not disturbed
by illness any more than it had been by the reverses and sorrows of late;
meanwhile the appetite was diminishing, the thinness went on increasing,
a sore on the leg appeared, the king suffered a great deal. On the 24th
of August he dined in bed, surrounded as usual by his courtiers; he had a
difficulty in swallowing; for the first time, publicity was burdensome to
him; he could not get on, and said to those who were there that he begged
them to withdraw. Meanwhile the drums and hautboys still went on playing
beneath his window, and the twenty-four violins at his dinner. In the
evening, he was so ill that he asked for the sacraments. There had been
wrung from him a codicil which made the will still worse. He,
nevertheless, received the Duke of Orleans, to whom he commended the
young king. On the 26th he called to his bedside all those of the court
who had the entry. "Gentlemen," he said to them, "I ask your pardon for
the bad example I have set you. I have to thank you much for the way in
which you have served me, and for the attachment and fidelity you have
always shown me. I am