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.

The Prince's malady rapidly increased and became extreme. The doctors
found him so ill on the night of Easter Sunday that they proposed to him
the sacrament for the next day. He disputed with them, and said that if
he was so very bad it would be better to take the sacraments at once, and
have done with them. They in their turn opposed this, saying there was
no need of so much hurry. At last, for fear of incensing him, they
consented, and he received all hurriedly the last sacraments. A little
while after he called M. le Duc to him, and spoke of the honours he
wished at his funeral, mentioning those which had been omitted at the
funeral of his father, but which he did not wish to be omitted from his.
He talked of nothing but this and of the sums he had spent at Ch