The King held at Meudon a review of his household, which in his pride the Cardinal must needs attend.  It cost him dear.  He mounted on horseback the better, to enjoy his triumph; he suffered cruelly, and became so violently ill that he was obliged to have assistance.  The most celebrated doctors and physicians were called in, with great secrecy.  They shook their heads, and came so often that news of the illness began to transpire.  Dubois was unable to go to Paris again more than once or twice, and then with much trouble, and solely to conceal his malady, which gave him no repose.

He left nothing undone, in fact, to hide it from the world; he went as often as he could to the council; apprised the ambassadors he would go to Paris, and did not go; kept himself invisible at home, and bestowed the most frightful abuse upon everybody who dared to intrude upon him.  On Saturday, the 7th of August, he was so ill that the doctors declared he must submit to an operation, which was very urgent, and without which he could hope to live but a few days; because the abscess he had having burst the day he mounted on horseback, gangrene had commenced, with an overflow of pus, and he must be transported, they added, to Versailles, in order to undergo this operation.  The trouble this terrible announcement caused him, so overthrew him that he could not be moved the next day, Sunday, the 8th; but on Monday he was transported in a litter, at five o’clock in the morning.

After having allowed him to repose himself a, little, the doctors and surgeons proposed that he should receive the sacrament, and submit to the operation immediately after.  This was not heard very peacefully; he had scarcely ever been free from fury since the day of the review; he had grown worse on Saturday, when the operation was first announced to him.  Nevertheless, some little time after, he sent for a priest from Versailles, with whom he remained alone about a quarter of an hour.  Such a great and good man, so well prepared for death, did not need more:  Prime ministers, too, have privileged confessions.  As his chamber again filled, it was proposed that he should take the viaticum; he cried out that that was soon said, but there was a ceremonial for the cardinals, of which he was ignorant, and Cardinal Bissy must be sent to, at Paris, for information upon it.  Everybody looked at his neighbour, and felt that Dubois merely wished to gain time; but as the operation was urgent, they proposed it to him without further delay.  He furiously sent them away, and would no longer hear talk of it.

The faculty, who saw the imminent danger of the slightest delay, sent to Meudon for M. le Duc d’Orleans, who instantly came in the first conveyance he could lay his hands on.  He exhorted the Cardinal to suffer the operation; then asked the faculty, if it could be performed in safety.  They replied that they could say nothing for certain, but that assuredly the Cardinal had not two hours to live if he did not instantly agree to it.  M. le Duc d’Orleans returned to the sick man, and begged him so earnestly to do so, that he consented.