who, almost alone among the courtiers assembled in the bedchamber, professed himself a Protestant, to take refuge from doubt and error in the bosom of the one infallible Church.  After the extreme unction had been administered, James declared that he pardoned all his enemies, and named particularly the Prince of Orange, the Princess of Denmark, and the Emperor.  The Emperor’s name he repeated with peculiar emphasis:  “Take notice, father,” he said to the confessor, “that I forgive the Emperor with all my heart.”  It may perhaps seem strange that he should have found this the hardest of all exercises of Christian charity.  But it must be remembered that the Emperor was the only Roman Catholic Prince still living who had been accessory to the Revolution, and that James might not unnaturally consider Roman Catholics who had been accessory to the Revolution as more inexcusably guilty than heretics who might have deluded themselves into the belief that, in violating their duty to him, they were discharging their duty to God.

While James was still able to understand what was said to him, and make intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice.  The English exiles observed that the Most Christian King was to the last considerate and kind in the very slightest matters which concerned his unfortunate guest.  He would not allow his coach to enter the court of Saint Germains, lest the noise of the wheels should be heard in the sick room.  In both interviews he was gracious, friendly, and even tender.  But he carefully abstained from saying anything about the future position of the family which was about to lose its head.  Indeed he could say nothing, for he had not yet made up his own mind.  Soon, however, it became necessary for him to form some resolution.  On the sixteenth James sank into a stupor which indicated the near approach of death.  While he lay in this helpless state, Madame de Maintenon visited his consort.  To this visit many persons who were likely to be well informed attributed a long series of great events.  We cannot wonder that a woman should have been moved to pity by the misery of a woman; that a devout Roman Catholic should have taken a deep interest in the fate of a family persecuted, as she conceived, solely for being Roman Catholics; or that the pride of the widow of Scarron should have been intensely gratified by the supplications of a daughter of Este and a Queen of England.  From mixed motives, probably, the wife of Lewis promised her powerful protection to the wife of James.

Madame de Maintenon was just leaving Saint Germains when, on the brow of the hill which overlooks the valley of the Seine, she met her husband, who had come to ask after his guest.  It was probable at this moment that he was persuaded to form a resolution, of which neither he nor she by whom he was governed foresaw the consequences.  Before he announced that resolution, however, he observed all the decent forms of deliberation.  A council was held that evening at Marli, and was attended by the princes of the blood and by the ministers of state.  The question was propounded, whether, when God should take James the Second of England to himself, France should recognise the Pretender as King James the Third?