It was a desperate but a short struggle. Disease and grief were
victorious over the most sublime courage. "It was the spectacle of a man
beside himself, who was forcing himself to keep the surface smooth, and
who succumbed in the attempt." The dauphin took to his bed on the 14th
of February; he believed himself to be poisoned, and said, from the
first, that he should never recover. His piety alone, through the most
prodigious efforts, still kept up; he spoke no more, save to God,
continually lifting up his soul to him in fervent aspirations. "What
tender, but tranquil views! What lively motions towards thanksgiving for
being preserved from the sceptre and the account that must be rendered
thereof! What submission, and how complete! What ardent love of God!
What a magnificent idea of infinite mercy! What pious and humble awe!
What invincible patience! What sweetness! What constant kindness
towards all that approached him! What pure charity which urged him
forward to God! France at length succumbed beneath this last
chastisement; God gave her a glimpse of a prince whom she did not
deserve. Earth was not worthy of him; he was already ripe for a blessed
eternity!"

"For some time past I have feared that a fatality hung over the dauphin,"
Fenelon had written at the first news of his illness; "I have at the
bottom of my heart a lurking apprehension that God is not yet appeased
towards France. For a long while He has been striking, as the prophet
says, and His anger is not yet worn out. God has taken from us all our
hope for the Church and for the State."

Fenelon and his friends had expected too much and hoped for too much;
they relied upon the dauphin to accomplish a work above human strength;
he might have checked the evil, retarded for a while the march of events,