"My dear Meriadec:--Poor Renè is no more. His life was passed in the midst of labor and of benevolence. While he had all the virtues of the true Christian, and a wisdom far beyond what was usually granted to men, they have not sufficed to obtain for him the grace of a longer life. Somehow it was ordained that this glory and ornament of our family was not to remain with us. What a sad reflection it is on our restless eagerness in this life, and on the vanity of our hopes, that a genius like this must perish just when it was about to receive the fruit of its labors! He leaves to us a name, a name difficult to sustain and the example of virtues that it will not be easy to imitate. Let us hope that he will watch over us in the future as he has done in the past, and that he will still continue to aid us after his death. Although I have been prepared for this sad event, I could not suspect how much grief I was to experience in losing my {160} second master, my friend from earliest infancy, and him whom I had become accustomed to consider as my eldest brother. I must confess that for some years now we have all had to pay dear for the short intervals of happiness that it has pleased heaven to accord to us." Laennec's burial took place in the cemetery of Ploare. The attendance at the funeral was very large. Practically the entire population of the countryside came to mourn for the benefactor that they loved so much. He had made friends even among the simplest of the country people and knew most of them by name. After his return to the country, he had improved somewhat in appearance, and the neighbors had been very glad to express their feelings of gratitude for his apparent improvement in health. Undoubtedly not a little of this state of better spirits was due to the fact that he liked Brittany and the peasants of the neighborhood so well, and always felt so much at home among them. He was mild and agreeable in his manners, and of a quiet and even temper. His conversation was lively and full of quiet humor, and his friends often said that they never came away from a conversation with him without having learned something. Toward the end of his life, when his great reputation caused him to be honored by medical men from all over the world, and when his reputation made him the lion of the hour, he lost none of his natural affability and kindness of heart. He was remarkable, especially, for his great kindness and courtesy to foreigners, and he is said to have taken special care to make himself understood by English-speaking medical visitors.