Note 382 — BOOK IX[283]

The Prince de Talleyrand died on the 17th of May 1838, at thirty-five minutes past three in the afternoon; he was horn on the 2nd of February 1754, and was consequently 84 years, 3 months and 15 days old. He was assisted in his last illness by the Abbé Dupanloup, the future Bishop of Orleans, who himself wrote the story of the prince's last moments. On the morning of the 17th of May, M. de Talleyrand had signed his retractation and a letter to the Pope; some hours later, the Abbé Dupanloup arrived. Upon a word from the abbé, saying that Monseigneur de Quélen, the Archbishop of Paris, would be happy to give his life for him, he raised himself a little and said, in a very distinct voice:

"Tell him that he can make a much better use of it."

"Prince," continued the abbé, "this morning you gave the Church a great consolation; I now come, in the name of the Church, to offer you the last consolations of faith, the last succour of religion. You have been reconciled with the Catholic Church, which you had offended; the moment is come to be reconciled with God by a new confession and a sincere repentance for all the faults of your life."

"Thereupon," in the words of the Abbé Dupanloup, "he made a movement as though to come towards me; I went up to him, and, at once grasping my two hands in his and pressing them with extraordinary force and emotion, he did not leave go of them during the whole time that his confession took to make; I had even to make a great effort to release my hand from his, when the moment had come to give him absolution. He received it with an humility, an amount of feeling and faith that made me shed tears."

He also received Extreme Unction while fully conscious. Then the Abbé Dupanloup, kneeling beside him, recited the Litany of the Saints. When he came to the invocation of the martyrs and pronounced the name of St. Maurice, M. de Talleyrand's patron-saint, the prince was seen to bow his head and his glance to seek that of the Abbé Dupanloup, to prove to him that he was joining in those prayers. At three o'clock, seeing the last hour come, the Abbé Dupanloup began the Prayers for the Dying. The sick man appeared to join in them so visibly that one of those present remarked upon it:

"Monsieur l'abbé, see how he is praying!"

He was in fact seen, with eyes now open, now lowered, to follow with evidences of perfect understanding all that was happening around him. At last his strength suddenly failed him and his lips closed for ever.

The Abbé Dupanloup ends his narrative with these words:

"God sees the secrets of men's hearts; but I ask Him to give those who thought that they might doubt M. de Talleyrand's sincerity, I ask for them, at the hour of death, the same sentiments which I beheld in M. de Talleyrand when dying, the memory of which will never leave me."(Cf. Lagrange: Vie de Monseigneur