The
punishment imposed on the king by his spiritual adviser was, that
he should evince his contempt for the talismanic properties of
the parchment packet, by immediately opening it.
"Louis XIV did not by any means admire this method of expiating
his fault; and a sort of involuntary dread took possession of him,
as, in obedience to the command of his confessor, he went to
procure the magic parcel, which he tore open in the presence of
madame de Maintenon and father la Chaise. The packet contained
nothing but a consecrated wafer, pierced thro' with as many pins
as there had been saints' days since the king had received it. At
the sight of this horrible sacrilege my grandfather was filled
with deep remorse and consternation, from which it was a long
time ere he recovered; and it was not until he had undergone
many severe penances, fastings, and caused numberless masses to
be said, that he felt himself at all relieved from the weight of
his crime.
"But all this was only the commencement of the divine vengeance:
and those in the secret of this unfortunate affair remarked, that
this great monarch lost from that time as many male descendants
in a direct line as he had stuck pins into the holy wafer."
Louis XV here terminated his singular history, which struck my
mind with a sort of religious terror. I strove by every possible
effort to dissimulate, concealing from the king the emotions to
which his narration had given rise.
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