He returned word that he was obliged, but, being indisposed, he would thank me to do him the pleasure of spending an hour with him before he started for Medoc.
Shortly after my dinner I went to him.

He had laid himself down on the bed with his clothes on, and he was already, I perceived, much changed.
He complained of diarrhoea, accompanied by the gripes, and said that he had it about him ever since he played with M.d'Escars with nothing but his doublet on, and that with him a cold often brought on such attacks.
I advised him to go as he had proposed, but to stay for the night at Germignac, which is only about two leagues from the town.

I gave him this advice, because some houses, near to that where he was ping, were visited by the plague, about which he was nervous since his return from Perigord and the Agenois, here it had been raging; and, besides, horse exercise was, from my own experience, beneficial under similar circumstances.

He set out, accordingly, with his wife and M.
Bouillhonnas, his uncle.
Early on the following morning, however, I had intelligence from Madame de la Boetie, that in the night he had fresh and violent attack of dysentery.

She had called in physician and apothecary, and prayed me to lose no time coming, which (after dinner) I did.