All at once a sinister rumor gets about. The King has fallen ill on August 4. His life is in danger. He thinks he has but a few moments before he must appear before God. All his religious sentiments revive. He wishes to make his confession; but the departure of Madame de Châteauroux is indispensable for that, and Louis XV., always weak, has not courage to dismiss her. He adjourns his confession under the pretext that he needs a little time in which to recollect all his faults. His mistress approaches his bed. He wants to kiss her hand. Then, thinking better of it, he says: “Ah! Princess, I think I am doing wrong; perhaps we shall have to separate.” Madame de Châteauroux parleys with the Jesuit Pérusseau. She implores him not to have her driven away. She swears she will no longer be the King’s mistress, but only his friend. But the Jesuit is firm. Bishop Fitz-James behaves like an apostle; he says frankly to the King: “Sire, the laws of the Church and our holy canons forbid us to bring the Viaticum so long as the concubine is still in the city. I pray Your Majesty to give new orders for her departure, because there is no time to lose. Your Majesty will soon die!” Louis XV. hesitates no longer; the libertine disappears; the devotee alone remains. “I made my first communion twenty-two years ago,” he says to the Bishop; “I wish to make a good one now and let it be the last. Ah! how unworthy I have been up to this day of royalty. What accounts a king must render who is about to appear before God!” Louis XV. receives extreme unction. Bishop Fitz-James, who administers it, turns toward the spectators and addresses them in these words: “Gentlemen the princes of the blood, and you, nobles of the realm, the King charges Monseigneur the Bishop of Metz and me to acquaint you with his sincere repentance for the scandal he has caused in his kingdom by living as he has done with Madame de Châteauroux. He has learned that she is only three leagues from here, and he orders her not to come within fifty leagues of the court. His Majesty deprives her of her post.” “And her sister also,” adds the King. Could one believe it? This noble and Christian conduct of Bishop Fitz-James finds detractors. Barbier writes in his journal: “People hereabouts regard the action of the Bishop of Soissons as the finest thing in the world. The public often admire the greatest events without reflection. For my part, I take the liberty of considering this conduct very indecent, and this public reparation as an open scandal. The reputation of a king ought to be respected, and he should be allowed to die with the rites of religion, but with dignity and majesty. What is the good of this ecclesiastical parade? It was enough for the King to have interiorly a sincere repentance for what he had done without making a display of it.”