Adrienne's house was situated in the parish of Saint-Sulpice, the curé of which, Languet de Gergy, was one of the most bigoted and obstinate priests in Paris. When the end was seen to be near, he was sent for to receive the usual renunciation and administer the last Sacraments, but accounts differ as to what occurred. Some writers declare that when he arrived the actress was already dead, or at least on the point of death; others that she firmly refused to renounce her profession, and, on the curé continuing to exhort her to repentance, pointed with out-stretched hand to a bust of Maurice de Saxe which stood near her bed, and exclaimed:-- "_Voilà mon univers, mon espoir, et mes dieux!_" What is certain, is that Adrienne died without the Sacraments, and that Languet de Gergy refused her not only Christian burial (this, as we have seen, had been the invariable practice of the Paris clergy in regard to members of her profession who had died under similar circumstances, ever since the time of Molière), but interment in the cemetery at all, even in that portion of it which was reserved for heretics and unbaptized children--a refusal _absolutely without precedent_ in the history of the theatre. In the morning of March 21, an autopsy was performed on the body of the deceased actress (according to Voltaire, on his application), when the doctors decided that Adrienne had died a natural death, an opinion to which the poet himself subscribes.[97] Later in the day, Maurepas, in his capacity of Minister for Paris, wrote to the Lieutenant of Police, informing him that it was the intention of Cardinal de Fleury not to interfere in the matter of ecclesiastical burial, but to leave it entirely to the discretion of the Archbishop of Paris and the curé of Saint-Sulpice. "If," he added, "they persist in refusing it to her, as they appear inclined to do, she must be taken away to-night and interred with as little scandal as possible."[98] At midnight, accordingly, the mortal remains of poor Adrienne were placed in a hackney-coach, and, preceded by two street porters bearing torches, and escorted by a squad of the watch and a M. de Laubinière--whom Sainte-Beuve supposes to have been a friend of the actress, but who, M. Monval thinks, was a representative of the Lieutenant of Police--conveyed to a piece of waste land near the Seine, and there buried, quicklime being thrown over the body, and no stone or mark of any kind being placed to indicate where it lay.[99]