As the King rose from the supper-table, he well-nigh fell backward when Fagon, coming forward, cried in great trouble that all was lost.  It may be imagined what terror seized all the company at this abrupt passage from perfect security to hopeless despair.  The King, scarcely master of himself, at once began to go towards the apartment of Monseigneur, and repelled very stiffly the indiscreet eagerness of some courtiers who wished to prevent him, saying that he would see his son again, and be quite certain that nothing could be done.  As he was about to enter the chamber, Madame la Princesse de Conti presented herself before him, and prevented him from going in.  She pushed him back with her hands, and said that henceforth he had only to think of himself.  Then the King, nearly fainting from a shock so complete and so sudden, fell upon a sofa that stood near.  He asked unceasingly for news of all who passed, but scarce anybody dared to reply to him.  He had sent for here Tellier, who went into Monseigneur’s room; but it was no longer time.  It is true the Jesuit, perhaps to console the King, said that he gave him a well-founded absolution.  Madame de Maintenon hastened after the King, and sitting down beside him on the same sofa, tried to cry.  She endeavoured to lead away the King into the carriage already waiting for him in the courtyard, but he would not go, and sat thus outside the door until Monseigneur had expired.

The agony, without consciousness, of Monseigneur lasted more than an hour after the King had come into the cabinet.  Madame la Duchesse and Madame la Princesse de Conti divided their cares between the dying man and the King, to whom they constantly came back; whilst the faculty confounded, the valets bewildered, the courtiers hurrying and murmuring, hustled against each other, and moved unceasingly to and fro, backwards and forwards, in the same narrow space.  At last the fatal moment arrived.  Fagon came out, and allowed so much to be understood.

The King, much afflicted, and very grieved that Monseigneur’s confession had been so tardily made, abused Fagon a little; and went away led by Madame de Maintenon and the two Princesses.  He was somewhat struck by finding the vehicle of Monseigneur outside; and made a sign that he would have another coach, for that one made him suffer, and left the chateau.  He was not, however, so much occupied with his grief that he could not call Pontchartrain to arrange the hour of the council on the next day.  I will not comment on this coolness, and shall merely say it surprised extremely all present; and that if Pontchartrain had not said the council could be put off, no interruption to business would have taken place.  The King got into his coach with difficulty, supported on both sides.  Madame de Maintenon seated herself beside him.  A crowd of officers of Monseigneur lined both sides of the court on their knees, as he passed out, crying to him with strange howlings to have compassion on them, for they had lost all, and must die of hunger.