dame had been laid up for six weeks with
a tertian fever, for which she would do nothing, because she treated
herself in her German fashion, and despised physic and doctors. The
King, who, besides the affair of M. le Duc de Chartres, was secretly
angered with her, as will presently be seen, had not been to see her,
although Monsieur had urged him to do so during those flying visits which
he made to Versailles without sleeping there. This was taken by
Monsieur, who was ignorant of the private cause of indignation alluded
to, for a public mark of extreme disrespect; and being proud and
sensitive he was piqued thereby to the last degree.

He had other mental troubles to torment him. For some time past he had
had a confessor who, although a Jesuit, kept as tight a hand over him as
he could. He was a gentleman of good birth, and of Brittany, by name le
Pere du Trevoux. He forbade Monsieur not only certain strange pleasures,
but many which he thought he could innocently indulge in as a penance for
his past life. He often told him that he had no mind to be damned on his
account; and that if he was thought too harsh let another confessor be
appointed. He also told him to take great care of himself, as he was
old, worn out with debauchery, fat, short-necked, and, according to all
appearance, likely to die soon of apoplexy. These were terrible words to
a prince the most voluptuous and the most attached to life that had been
seen for a long time; who had always passed his days in the most
luxurious idleness and who was the most incapable by nature of all
serious application, of all serious reading, and of all self-examination.
He was afraid of the devil; and he remembered that his former confessor
had resigned for similar reasons as this new one was actuated by. He was
forced now, therefore, to look a little into himself, and to live in a
manner that, for him, might be considered rigid. From time to time he
said many prayers; he obeyed his confessor, and rendered an account to
him of the conduct he had prescribed in respect to play and many other
things, and patiently suffered his confessor's long discourses. He
became sad, dejected, and spoke less than usual--that is to say, only
about as much as three or four women--so that everybody soon saw this
great change. It would have been strange if all these troubles together
had not made a great revolution in a man like Monsieur, full-bodied, and
a great eater, not only at m