wished to appropriate this essential post of
confessor.

The Jansenists would have been quite willing to lay hold of it. The
Jesuits, and principally the cordons bleus, did not quit the pillow of
the sick man for an instant.

The King had himself informed of his condition every half-hour. There
was a bulletin, as there is for potentates. One evening, when the
doctors were grave on his account, I saw anxiety and affliction painted
on the visage of his Majesty.

"Where shall I find his like?" said he to me. "Where shall I find such
knowledge, such indulgence, such kindness? The Pere de la Chaise knew
the bottom of my heart; he knew, as an intelligent man, how to reconcile
religion with nature; and when duty brings me to the foot of his
tribunal, as a humble Christian, he never forgets that royalty, cannot be
long on its knees, and he accompanies with his attentions and with
deference the religious commands which he is bound to impose on me."

"I hope that God will preserve him to you," I replied to his Majesty;
"but let us suppose the case in which this useful and precious man should
see his career come to an end; will you grant still this mark of
confidence and favour to the Jesuits? All the French being your
subjects, would it not be fitting to grant this distinction sometimes to
the one and sometimes to the other? You would, perhaps, extinguish by
this that hate or animosity by which the Jesuits see themselves assailed,
which your preference draws upon them."

"I do not love the Jesuits with that affection that you seem to suggest,"
replied the monarch. "I look upon them as men of instruction, as a
learned and well-governed corporation; but as for their attachment for
me, I know how to estimate it. This kind of people, strangers to the
soft emotions of nature, have no affection or love for anything. Before
the triumph of the King my grandfather, they intrigued and exerted
themselves to bring about his fall; he opened the gates of Paris, and the
Jesuits, like the Capuchins, at once recognised him and bowed down before
him. King Henri, who knew what men are, pretended to forget the past; he
pronounced himself decidedly in favour of the Jesuits because this body
of teachers, numerous, rich, and of good credit, had just pronounced
itself in favour of him.

"It was, then, a reconciliation between power and power, and the politics
of my grandfather were to survive him and become mine, since the same
elements exist and