Even before the riot which had made the cardinal supreme in the state, he had succeeded in introducing into the palace a new confessor selected by himself.

In a very short time the King's malady took a new form.

That he was too weak to lift his food to his misshapen mouth, that, at thirty-seven, he had the bald head and wrinkled face of a man of seventy, that his complexion was turning from yellow to green, that he frequently fell down in fits and remained long insensible, these were no longer the worst symptoms of his malady.
He had always been afraid of ghosts and demons; and it had long been necessary that three friars should watch every night by his restless bed as a guard against hobgoblins.

But now he was firmly convinced that he was bewitched, that he was possessed, that there was a devil within him, that there were devils all around him.

He was exorcised according to the forms of his Church; but this ceremony, instead of quieting him, scared him out of almost all the little reason that nature had given him.