[140] Daleyrac, chap. i. p. 33.
[141] Connor says that the grandees paid him outwardly the highest respect, never eating with him at his table, and that those who most abused him in Parliament showed him great deference elsewhere.
[142] Burnet (History of his Own Time, iii. 348) asserts that “he died at last under a general contempt.” This is curious side by side with the fact that shortly before his death the new Pope, Innocent XII., proposed to him to mediate between France and Austria.
[143] Salvandy (ii. 395) says that it was also the day of his accession. It certainly was not the day of his election, or of his signing the “pacta conventa,” or of his coronation.
[144] Connor says that he died of a dropsy turned into a scirrhus or hard tumour. The blood being prevented circulating, the humours were driven to the head, and apoplexy ensued.
[145] It is said that she attempted to procure the election of Jablonowski with the intention of marrying him. She soon left Poland and resided in France, where she died in 1717, at the age of eighty-two.
[146] Salvandy, ii. 409. The fact is almost incredible.
[147] It is said that he refused to learn Latin until he heard that the Polish hero was a proficient in that language. When he was told of his death he exclaimed, “So great a king ought never to have died.”
[148] Zaluski relates several instances of his readiness to own himself in the wrong, and of his unwillingness to avenge a personal insult.
[149] By Charles X. of Sweden. It is said that documents are in existence which prove that Louis XIV. also entertained the idea.