reply, and soon after died at five o'clock in the morning very
peaceably. His confessor asked him two things, whether he had acted
according to his conscience, and whether he had thought of the interests
and honour of the company of Jesuits; and to both these questions he
answered satisfactorily.

The news was brought to the King as he came out of his cabinet. He
received it like a Prince accustomed to losses, praised the Pere La
Chaise for his goodness, and then said smilingly, before all the
courtiers, and quite aloud, to the two fathers who had come to announce
the death: "He was so good that I sometimes reproached him for it, and he
used to reply to me: 'It is not I who am good; it is you who are hard.'"

Truly the fathers and all the auditors were so surprised at this that
they lowered their eyes. The remark spread directly; nobody was able to
blame the Pere La Chaise. He was generally regretted, for he had done
much good and never harm except in self-defence. Marechal, first surgeon
of the King, and possessed of his confidence, related once to me and
Madame de Saint-Simon, a very important anecdote referring to this time.
He said that the King, talking to him privately of the Pere La Chaise,
and praising him for his attachment, related one of the great proofs he
had given of it. A few years before his death the Pere said that he felt
getting old, and that the King might soon have to choose a new confessor;
he begged that that confessor might be chosen from among the Jesuits,
that he knew them well, that they were far from deserving all that had
been said against them, but still--he knew them well--and that attachment
for the King and desire for his safety induced him to conjure him to act
as he requested; because the company contained many sorts of minds and
characters which could not be answered for, and must not be reduced to
despair, and that the King must not incur a risk--that in fact an unlucky
blow is soon given, and had been given before then. Marechal turned pale
at this recital of the King, and concealed as well as he could the
disorder it caused in him. We must remember that Henry IV. recalled the
Jesuits, and loaded them with gifts merely from fear of them. The King
was not superior to Henry IV. He took care not to forget the
communication of the Pere La Chaise, or expose himself to the vengeance
of the company by choosing a confessor out of their limits. He wanted to
live, and to live in safety. He r