Note 694 — PART THE THIRD. (continued 4)
Reading edition
We have not been able to discover this epitaph, nor does it appear that it was ever translated by Cowper.
Cardinal Mazarin was minister of state to Louis XIII. and during the minority of Louis XIV. The last moments of this great statesman are too edifying not to be recorded. To the ecclesiastic (Joly) who attended him, he said, "I am not satisfied with my state; I wish to feel a more profound sorrow for my sins. I am a great sinner. I have no hope but in the mercy of God." (Je suis un grand criminel, je n'ai d'esperance qu'en la misericorde divine.) At another time he besought his confessor to treat him like the lowest subject in the realm, being convinced, he said, that there was but one gospel for the great, as well as for the little. (Qu'il n'y avait qu'un Evangile pour les grands, et pour les petits.) His sufferings were very acute. "You see," he observed to those around him, "what infirmities and wretchedness the fortunes and dignities of this world come to." He repeated many times the Miserere, (Ps. li.) stretching forth his hands, then clasping them, and lifting up his eyes to heaven, with all the marks of the most sincere devotion.
At midnight he exclaimed, "I am dying—my mind grows indistinct. I trust in Jesus Christ." (Je vais bientôt mourir, mon jugement se trouble, j'espère en Jésus Christ.) Afterwards, frequently repeating the sacred name of Jesus, he expired. (Se mettant en devoir de répéter aussi fréquemment le très-saint nom de Jésus, il expira.)
Histoire du Card. Mazarin, par M. Aubery.