altogether displeasing to him. Still it would be a grievous slur on so
great a character to suppose that such a weakness could have had any
considerable part in his steady and deliberate refusal to see a priest
at the last. This is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that he
believed he could not be absolved without accepting the condemnation of
his own views, and so abandoning the cause of humanity. While under the
spell of his imaginary dilemma, he was constrained to follow the rule
for a perplexed conscience, and to choose what seemed to him the less of
two evils.

After his ideal had been destroyed, and the Church could no longer be
for him the Saviour of the Nations, he threw himself without reserve
into the cause of humanity and liberty. But his aims were now almost
entirely destructive and revolutionary. His enthusiasm was rather a
hatred of the things that were, than an ardent zeal for the things that
ought to be; and the bitter elements in his character become more and
more accentuated as he finds himself gradually thrust aside and
forgotten--cast off by the Church, ignored by the revolution. Even his
friends, with one or two exceptions, dropped off one by one; some
fleeing like rats from a sinking ship, others perplexed at his obstinacy
or offended by his violence; others removed by death or distance; and we
see him in his old age poor and lonely, and intensely unhappy.

When dangerously ill in 1827, he exclaimed, on being told that it was a
fine night, "For my peace, God grant that it may be my last." The prayer
was not heard, for, as he felt on his recovery, God had a great work for
him to do. How that work was done we have just seen. Féli de Lamennais,
who would have been buried as a Christian in 1827, was buried as an
infidel in 1854.