The king was engaged with his old preceptor; the queen sent for him; he did not return.

Fleury waited a long while.

The duke and Paris-Duverney had been found with the queen; they had papers before them; the king had set to work with them.
When he went back, at length, to his closet, Louis XV.

found the bishop no longer there; search was made for him; he was no longer in the palace.
The king was sorry and put out; the Duke of Mortemart, who was his gentleman of the bed-chamber, handed him a letter from Fleury.

The latter had retired to Issy, to the countryhouse of the Sulpicians; he bade the king farewell, assuring him that he had for a long while been resolved, according to the usage of his youth, to put some space between the world and death.