He paused at every step, for he was very feeble; he fixed his gaze first on one side and then on the other, and letting his eyes wander over the magnificent objects of art he had been all his life collecting, he said, 'All that must be left behind!' And, turning round, he added, 'And that too! What trouble I have had to obtain all these things! I shall never see them more where I am going.'" He had himself removed to Vincennes, of which he was governor.

There he continued to regulate all the affairs of state, striving to initiate the young king in the government.
"Nobody," Turenne used to say, "works so much as the cardinal, or discovers so many expedients with great clearness of mind for the terminating of much business of different sorts." The dying minister recommended to the king MM.

Le Tellier and de Lionne, and he added, "Sir, to you I owe everything; but I consider that I to some extent acquit myself of my obligation to your Majesty by giving you M.Colbert." The cardinal, uneasy about the large possessions he left, had found a way of securing them to his heirs by making, during his lifetime, a gift of the whole of them to the king.

Louis XIV.

at once returned it.