in them both, glad and ready in Ronsard, sombre and Lucretian
in Du Bellay, jarred indeed in youth against their vows; but that it
should have been tolerated, that it should have led to no excess or
angry revolt, was typical of their moment. It was typical, finally, of
their generation that all this mixture of the Renaissance with the
Church matured at last into its natural fruit, for in the case of
Ronsard we have a noble expression of perfect Christianity at the end.

In the November of 1585 he felt death upon him; he had himself borne to
his home as soon as the Huguenot bands had left it, ravaged and
devastated as it was. He found it burnt and looted, but it reminded him
of childhood and of the first springs of his great river of verse. A
profound sadness took him. He was but in his sixty-second year, his mind
had not felt any chill of age. He could not sleep; poppies and
soporifics failed him. He went now in his coach, now on a litter from
place to place in that country side which he had rendered famous, and
saw the Vendomois for the last time; its cornfields all stubble under a
cold and dreary sky. And in each place he waited for a while.

But death troubled him, and he could not remain. Within a fortnight he
ordered that they should carry him southward to the Loire, to that
priory of which--by a custom of privilege, nobility and royal favour--he
was the nominal head, the priory which is "the eye and delight of
Touraine",--the Isle of St. Cosmo. He sickened as he went. The thirty
miles or so took him three painful days; twice, all his strength failed
him, and he lay half fainting in his carriage; to so much energy and to
so much power of creation these episodes were an awful introduction of
death.

It was upon the 17th of November that he reached the walls wherein he
was Superior; six weeks later, on the second day after Christmas, he
died.

Were I to describe that scene to which he called the monks, all men of
his own birth and training, were I to dwell upon the appearance and the
character of the oldest and the wisest, who was also the most famous
there, I should extend this essay beyond its true limit, as I should
also do were I to write down, even briefly, the account of his just,
resigned, and holy death. It must suffice that I transcribe the chief of
his last deeds; I mean, that declaration wherein he made his last
profession of faith.

The old monk had said to him: "In what resolution do you die?"

H