"Will the operation prolong my life?" inquired the king.
"Yes, sire," the surgeon replied; "certainly for some days, perhaps for several weeks."
"If that be all," said the king, "it is not worth the suffering. God's will be done."
The king could not conceal the anguish with which he was agitated in view of his wicked life. He fully believed in the religion of the New Testament, and that after death came the judgment. He tried to believe that the priest had power to grant him absolution from his sins. How far he succeeded in this no one can know.
Remorse of the king.
Openly he expressed his anguish in view of the profligacy of his youth, and wept bitterly in the retrospect of those excesses. We know not what compunctions of conscience visited him as he reflected upon the misery he had caused by the persecution of the Protestants. But he had been urged to this by his highest ecclesiastics, and even by the holy father himself.
Energy of fanaticism.
It would not be strange, under these circumstances, if a man of his superstitious and fanatical spirit should, even in a dying hour, reflect with some complacency upon these crimes, believing that thus he had been doing God service. It is this which gives to papal fanaticism its terrible and demoniac energy. The sincere papist believes "heresy" to be poison for the soul infinitely more dreadful than any poison for the body. Such poison must be banished from the world at whatever cost of suffering. Many an ecclesiastic has gone from his closet of prayer to kindle the flames which consumed his victim. The more sincere the papist is in his belief, the more mercilessly will he swing the scourge and fire the fagot.
Deplorable condition of France.