a second fit in his chapel; and it soon became clear that this
was a final stroke. He rallied the last energies of his failing
body and mind to testify his firm belief in the religion for
which he had sacrificed so much. He received the last sacraments
with every mark of devotion, exhorted his son to hold fast to the
true faith in spite of all temptations, and entreated Middleton,
who, almost alone among the courtiers assembled in the
bedchamber, professed himself a Protestant, to take refuge from
doubt and error in the bosom of the one infallible Church. After
the extreme unction had been administered, James declared that he
pardoned all his enemies, and named particularly the Prince of
Orange, the Princess of Denmark, and the Emperor. The Emperor's
name he repeated with peculiar emphasis: "Take notice, father,"
he said to the confessor, "that I forgive the Emperor with all my
heart." It may perhaps seem strange that he should have found
this the hardest of all exercises of Christian charity. But it
must be remembered that the Emperor was the only Roman Catholic
Prince still living who had been accessory to the Revolution, and
that James might not unnaturally consider Roman Catholics who had
been accessory to the Revolution as more inexcusably guilty than
heretics who might have deluded themselves into the belief that,
in violating their duty to him, they were discharging their duty
to God.

While James was still able to understand what was said to him,
and make intelligible answers, Lewis visited him twice. The
English exiles observed that the Most Christian King was to the
last considerate and kind in the very slightest matters which
concerned his unfortunate guest. He would not allow his coach to
enter the court of Saint Germains, lest the noise of the wheels