"But our confidence in the Blessed Virgin's influence over him was not diminished, especially when we saw him place the medal on the side of his bed. The Sister in charge of that hall had already slipped one in his pillow-case. Several days passed, his strength was gradually ebbing away, and after many ineffectual efforts to obtain his consent to see a priest, I asked a clergyman to visit him notwithstanding, and I introduced him into the sick man's presence just as some one came to tell me he could not live through that night (October 15th). We found him extremely ill, but still inflexible. After a few moments, I withdrew, and left him alone with the charitable priest, who could get nothing from him but these despairing words: 'Leave me in peace, to-morrow I shall be dead, and all will be over!' Of course, there was nothing else to be done but comply with his request, and you can imagine how painful it was. We redoubled our petitions to the Immaculate Virgin, and this good Mother soon wrought a change in the unfortunate man's heart.
"Next day, he asked the physician to tell him candidly if his case were hopeless, because he wished to arrange his affairs. That same evening, as soon as the Sister in charge of the hall entered, he said to her very gently and penitently: 'Oh! how sorry I am to have treated the Superior so badly, and the good priest she brought me! Present my apologies to them, I beg you, and ask them to come again.' You know we delayed not a moment in going to see him. Next morning he began his new life, and during the nine days M. Castillon still lived the chaplain visited him several times every day, remaining two hours at a time. One of his brother officers, coming to see him just after his first confession: 'If you had been here a few minutes sooner,' said M. de Castillon, with an utter disregard of human respect, 'you would have found me in good company. I was with the curé, and I could not have been in better.' He had the happiness of receiving the Last Sacraments with the most admirable dispositions. Here are his dying words, which he asked this gentleman to commit to writing: 'I die in the religion of my fathers, I love and revere it, I humbly beg God's pardon for not always having practiced it publicly.' And he expired in the peace of the Lord, October 23d.