is chapel; and
it soon became clear that this was a final stroke. He rallied the last
energies of his failing body and mind to testify his firm belief in
the religion for which he had sacrificed so much. He received the last
sacraments with every mark of devotion, exhorted his son to hold fast
to the true faith in spite of all temptations, and entreated Middleton,
who, almost alone among the courtiers assembled in the bedchamber,
professed himself a Protestant, to take refuge from doubt and error in
the bosom of the one infallible Church. After the extreme unction had
been administered, James declared that he pardoned all his enemies, and
named particularly the Prince of Orange, the Princess of Denmark, and
the Emperor. The Emperor's name he repeated with peculiar emphasis:
"Take notice, father," he said to the confessor, "that I forgive the
Emperor with all my heart." It may perhaps seem strange that he should
have found this the hardest of all exercises of Christian charity.
But it must be remembered that the Emperor was the only Roman Catholic
Prince still living who had been accessory to the Revolution, and
that James might not unnaturally consider Roman Catholics who had been
accessory to the Revolution as more inexcusably guilty than heretics who
might have deluded themselves into the belief that, in violating their
duty to him, they were discharging their duty to God.

While James was still able to understand what was said to him, and
make intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice. The English exiles
observed that the Most Christian King was to the last considerate and
kind in the very slightest matters which concerned his unfortunate
guest. He would not allow his coach to enter the court of Saint
Germains, lest the noise of the wheels should be heard in the sick room.
In both interviews he was gracious, friendly, and even tender. But he
carefully abstained from saying anything about the future position
of the family which was about to lose its head. Indeed he could say
nothing, for he had not yet made up his own mind. Soon, however, it
became necessary for him to form some resolution. On the sixteenth James
sank into a stupor which indicated the near approach of death. While he
lay in this helpless state, Madame de Maintenon visited his consort. To
this visit many persons who were likely to be well informed attributed
a long series of great events. We cannot wonder that a woman should
have been moved to pity