en tipsy, always melancholy, and on this
occasion he addressed his companions in a strain of bathos which, had
they been free from the effects of wine, would only have excited their
laughter. But now they were in the same condition as himself. Chapelle
finally wound up by proposing that they all proceed to a neighboring
river, and end life together by plunging into it. He expiated upon the
heroism of the act, and the immortality it would give them, and they all
agreed to it. Moliere overheard them quitting the house, and suspecting
something wrong, followed them. He came up with them upon the bank of
the river, when they besought him also to die with them. He professed to
be struck with the heroism of their plan, but demanded that it should be
executed in the broad day. They fell in with his suggestion, and
returned to the house. Of course, the next morning they were ashamed to
look upon each other's faces.

Moliere wrote many new plays and farces, but his days were fast drawing
to a close. He was overworked, and took little care of his health. The
king asked him one day what he did with his doctor. "We converse
together," he replied--"he writes prescriptions, which I do not take,
and I recover." He had a weak chest, and a constant cough.

About this time his friends persuaded him to invite his wife again to
his house, and she urged him to a more generous diet, but he grew the
worse for it. He now brought out a new play, and could not be prevented
from taking a prominent part in it. On the fourth night he was much
worse, and friends gathered around him, beseeching him not to go on the
stage longer. He replied, "There are fifty poor workmen whose bread
depends on the daily receipts. I should reproach myself if I deprived
them of it." But while making others laugh, he was actually dying. He
was, while in the ballet, seized with a fit of coughing, and burst a
blood-vessel. A priest was sent for, but such was their antipathy to the
comedian, that it was long before one could be found willing to attend
him. He expired with but few friends around him. Two sisters of charity
whom he had been in the habit of receiving in his house while they were
collecting alms during Lent, remembered his generosity, and attended his
death-bed.

The archbishop of Paris refused the rites of burial to the body. His
wife was much moved by this act, and exclaimed, "What! refuse burial to
one who deserves that altars should be erected to him!" Sh