When, in presence of the Holy
Sacrament, he was asked according to the ritual, 'Do you not beg
pardon for all the ill examples you may have given?' he answered,
'Yes,' but did not confess that he had ever given any. In a word, he
behaved during the few days before his death like one who had led an
irreproachable life, and had nothing to fear. And this is the presence
of mind that he retained to his last moment!"
_The Orator._ "Great in dangers by his courage, he always came off
with honor, and never was reproached with rashness,--
_The Critic._ "True; he was not rash, as was seen when the Bostonnais
besieged Quebec."
_The Orator_. "Great in religion by his piety, he practised its good
works in spirit and in truth,--
_The Critic_. "Say rather that he practised its forms with parade and
ostentation: witness the inordinate ambition with which he always
claimed honors in the Church, to which he had no right; outrageously
affronted intendants, who opposed his pretensions; required priests to
address him when preaching, and in their intercourse with him demanded
from them humiliations which he did not exact from the meanest
military officer. This was his way of making himself great in
_religion and piety_, or, more truly, in vanity and hypocrisy.
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