I experienced, shortly after this, at Fontainebleau, one of the greatest afflictions I had ever endured.  I mean the loss of M. de La Trappe, These Memoirs are too profane to treat slightly of a life so sublimely holy, and of a death so glorious and precious before God.  I will content myself with saying here that praises of M. de La Trappe were so much the more great and prolonged because the King eulogised him in public; that he wished to see narrations of his death; and that he spoke more than once of it to his grandsons by way of instruction.  In every part of Europe this great loss was severely felt.  The Church wept for him, and the world even rendered him justice.  His death, so happy for him and so sad for his friends, happened on the 26th of October, towards half-past twelve, in the arms of his bishop, and in presence of his community, at the age of nearly seventy-seven years, and after nearly forty years of the most prodigious penance.  I cannot omit, however, the most touching and the most honourable mark of his friendship.  Lying upon the ground, on straw and ashes, in order to die like all the brethren of La Trappe, he deigned, of his own accord, to recollect me, and charged the Abbe La Trappe to send word to me, on his part, that as he was quite sure of my affection for him, he reckoned that I should not doubt of his tenderness for me.  I check myself at this point; everything I could add would be too much out of place here.

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

But with a crawling baseness equal to her previous audacity
He limped audaciously
Height to which her insignificance had risen
His death, so happy for him and so sad for his friends
His habits were publicly known to be those of the Greeks
In order to say something cutting to you, says it to himself
Madame de Maintenon in returning young and poor from America
No means, therefore, of being wise among so many fools
Omissions must be repaired as soon as they are perceived
Pope excommunicated those who read the book or kept it
She lose her head, and her accomplice to be broken on the wheel
The clergy, to whom envy is not unfamiliar
The porter and the soldier were arrested and tortured
Whitehall, the largest and ugliest palace in Europe
World; so unreasoning, and so little in accord with itself