nevertheless declared that he repented having given rise to scandal among
his subjects, and only desired to live for the support of religion and the
welfare of his people."

Even this avowal the Cardinal de Roche-Aymer promised Madame du Barri to
suppress; but the royal confessor, the Abbé Mandoux, overruled him, and
compelled its publication, in spite of the Duc de Richelieu, the chief
confidant of the mistress, and long the chief minister and promoter of the
king's debaucheries, who insulted the cardinal with the grossest abuse for
his breach of promise.[8] It may be doubted whether such a compromise with
profligacy, and such a profanation of the most solemn rites of the Church
by its ministers, were not the greatest scandal of all; but it was in too
complete harmony with their conduct throughout the whole of the reign.
And, as it was impossible but that religion itself should suffer in the
estimation of worldly men from such an open disregard of all but its mere
outward forms, it can hardly be denied that the French cardinals and
prelates about the court had almost as great a share in bringing about
that general feeling of contempt for all religion which led to that formal
disavowal of God himself which was witnessed twenty years later, as the
scoffers who were now uniting against it, or the professed infidels who
then, renounced it. Such as it was, the king's act of penitence was not
performed too soon. At the end of the first week of May all prospect of
his recovery vanished. Mortification set in, and on the 10th of May he
died.




CHAPTER VIII.