It was but the fulfilment of the apprehensions of his friends. His lungs had been for some time affected, and he had broken a blood-vessel. Already half-unconscious, they conveyed him homeward to his house in the rue de Richelieu; but he fainted on the way, and he was carried into the convent of St Vincent de Paul and laid on a couch in the parlour, where, in sore distress, the good sisters tended him, for he had frequently shown them much hospitality and generous kindness, and in the arms of the two supporting him he passed away. His half-inaudible dying request was for religious consolation; but ere that came he was dead. The priest of St Eustache did not hurry to attend a stage-player—the “rogue and vagabond”—for what else in the sight of the law was this fine literary genius, great philosopher and noble-hearted man? Neither was it the fault of Monseigneur Harlay de Champvallon, Archbishop of Paris (“so notorious,” writes the poet’s great biographer, “for his gallant intrigues”) that he was denied Christian burial. Molière’s young wife had not been a pattern of conjugal propriety; but she revered her husband; and in her indignation at the archbishop’s refusal, she cried—“They refuse to bury a man to whom in Greece, altars would have been erected!” and asking the Curé of Auteuil, whose views differed from the archiepiscopal ones, to accompany her to Versailles, she found her way into the king’s presence and demanded justice. “If my husband was a criminal, his crimes were sanctioned by your Majesty in person,” she said. Louis’s response was elusive, as it was apt to be in the face of difficult questions. It was, he said, an affair of the archbishop’s; but he sent secret commands to Monseigneur, which resulted in a compromise, and the body of the dead poet was interred in the cemetery of St Joseph, rue Montmartre, accompanied by two priests. But it was not first admitted into the church, for he had died, as Monseigneur said, “without the consolations of religion.” “_A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling._” Irresistibly the words of that other great dramatic genius force themselves into the record of Molière’s laying to his long rest. It was still only to be secured amid the riot of a rabble which, having got wind of the dispute in high places, assembled outside the house in the rue de Richelieu. The disgraceful uproar was quelled only by Madame Molière throwing money, to a large amount, out of window. Then the mob silenced down, and followed the simple cortège respectfully.