diately to take
place. The king's confessor and the Cardinal de Rohan were promptly
summoned to attend to the last services of the Catholic Church for the
dying. There was a scene of confusion in the palace. The confessor, Le
Tellier, communicated to the king the intelligence that he was
probably near his end. While he was receiving the _confession_ of the
royal penitent, the cardinal was hurrying to the chapel to get the
viaticum for administering the communion, and the holy oil for the
rite of extreme unction.

It was customary that the _pyx_, as the box was called in which the
host was kept, should be conveyed to the bedside of expiring royalty
in formal procession. The cardinal, in his robes of office, led the
way. Several attendants of the royal household followed, bearing
torches. Then came Madame de Maintenon. They all gathered in the
magnificent chamber, and around the massive, sumptuous couch of the
monarch. The cardinal, after speaking a few words in reference to the
solemnity of a dying hour, administered the sacrament and the holy
oils. The king listened reverently and in silence, and then sank back
upon his pillow, apparently resigned to die.

To the surprise of all, he revived. Patiently he bore his sufferings,
which at times were severe. His legs began to swell badly and
painfully. Mortification took place. He was informed that the
amputation of the leg was necessary to save him from speedy death.

"Will the operation prolong my life?" inquired the king.

"Yes, sire," the surgeon replied; "certainly for some days, perhaps
for several weeks."

"If that be all," said the king, "it is not worth the suffering. God's
will be done."

The king could not conceal the anguish with which he was agitated in
view of his wicked life. He fully believed in the religion of the New
Testament, and that after death came the judgment. He tried to believe
that the priest had power to grant him absolution from his sins. How
far he succeeded in this no one can know.

Openly he expressed his anguish in view of the profligacy of his
youth, and wept bitterly in the retrospect of those excesses. We know
not what compunctions of conscience visited him as he reflected upon
the misery he had caused by the persecution of the Protestants. But he
had been urged to this by his highest ecclesiastics, and even by the
holy father himself.

It would not be strange, under these circumstances, if a man of his
superstitious and fanatic