The third, very old and very infirm, had not a better fate.  At last, being no longer able to hold out, he asked to be allowed to pay a visit to my Versailles house (after having explained himself to me), under pretext of fresh air.  He remained there several months, and died at the noviciate in Paris.  Such is the fate of all the Jesuits, without excepting the most famous, putting aside a few who having shone at the Court and in the world by their sermons and their merit, and having made many friends—­as Peres Bordaloue, La Rue, Gaillard—­have been guaranteed from the general disgrace, because, often visited by the principal persons of the Court and the town, policy did not permit them to be treated like the rest, for fear of making so many considerable people notice what they would not have suffered without disturbance and scandal.

It was, then, in this abandonment and this contempt that Pere Tellier remained at La Fleche, although he had from the Regent four thousand livres pension.  He had ill-treated everybody.  When he was confessor of the King, not one of his brethren approached him without trembling, although most of them were the “big-wigs” of the company.  Even the general of the company was forced to bend beneath the despotism he exercised upon all.  There was not a Jesuit who did not disapprove the violence of his conduct, or who did not fear it would injure the society.  All hated him, as a minister is hated who is coarse, harsh, inaccessible, egotistical, and who takes pleasure in showing his power and his disdain.

His exile, and the conduct that drew it upon him, were fresh motives for hatred against him, unveiling, as they did, a number of secret intrigues he had been concerned in, and which he had great interest in hiding.  All these things together did not render agreeable to Tellier his forced retirement at La Fleche.  He found there sharp superiors and equals, instead of the general terror his presence had formerly caused among the Jesuits.  All now showed nothing but contempt for him, and took pleasure in making him sensible of it.  This King of the Church, in part of the State, and in private of his society, became a common Jesuit like the rest, and under superiors; it may be imagined what a hell this was to a man so impetuous and so accustomed to a domination without reply, and without bounds, and abused in every fashion.  Thus he did not endure it long.  Nothing more was heard of him, and he died after having been only six months at La Fleche.

There was another death, which I may as well mention here, as it occurred about the same time.

On Saturday evening, the 15th of April, 1719, the celebrated and fatal Madame de Maintenon died at Saint-Cyr.  What a stir this event would have made in Europe, had it happened a few years earlier.  It was scarcely mentioned in Paris!