excuses to the Marechale, saying that her bed was so clean and so well-made, that he could not hinder himself from jumping upon it; and this, although there had never been anything between them; and when the Marechale, who all her life had been above suspicion, was at an age at which she could not give birth to any.  Her servants remained stupefied, and she as much as they.  She got out of the difficulty by laughing and treating it as a joke.  It was whispered that there were times when M. le Prince believed himself a dog, or some other beast, whose manners he imitated; and I have known people very worthy of faith who have assured me they have seen him at the going to bed of the King suddenly throw his head into the air several times running, and open his mouth quite wide, like a dog while barking, yet without making a noise.  It is certain, that for a long time nobody saw him except a single valet, who had control over him, and who did not annoy him.

In the latter part of his life he attended in a ridiculously minute manner to his diet and its results, and entered into discussions which drove his doctors to despair.  Fever and gout at last attacked him, and he augmented them by the course he pursued.  Finot, our physician and his, at times knew not what to do with him.  What embarrassed Finot most, as he related to us more than once, was that M. le Prince would eat nothing, for the simple reason, as he alleged, that he was dead, and that dead men did not eat!  It was necessary, however, that he should take something, or he would have really died.  Finot, and another doctor who attended him, determined to agree with him that he was dead, but to maintain that dead men sometimes eat.  They offered to produce dead men of this kind; and, in point of fact, led to M. le Prince some persons unknown to him, who pretended to be dead, but who ate nevertheless.  This trick succeeded, but he would never eat except with these men and Finot.  On that condition he ate well, and this jealousy lasted a long time, and drove Finot to despair by its duration; who, nevertheless, sometimes nearly died of laughter in relating to us what passed at these repasts, and the conversation from the other world heard there.

M. le Prince’s malady augmenting, Madame la Princesse grew bold enough to ask him if he did not wish to think of his conscience, and to see a confessor.  He amused himself tolerably long in refusing to do so.  Some months before he had seen in secret Pere de la Tour.  He had sent to the reverend father asking him to, come by night and disguised.  Pere de la Tour, surprised to the last degree at so wild a proposition, replied that the respect he owed to the cloth would prevent him visiting M. le Prince in disguise; but that he would come in his ordinary attire.  M. le Prince agreed to this last imposed condition.  He made the Pere de la Tour enter at night by a little back door, at which an attendant was in waiting to receive him.  He was led by this attendant, who had a lantern in one hand and a key in the other, through many long and obscure passages; and through many doors, which were opened and closed upon him as he passed.  Having arrived at last at the sick-chamber, he confessed M. le Prince, and was conducted out of the house in the same manner and by the same way as before.  These visits were repeated during several months.