The printing of the fourth volume occupied three months, and both author and publisher were warned that their common interest required a quicker pace.

Then Mr.Strahan "fulfilled his engagement, which few printers could sustain, of delivering every week three thousand copies of nine sheets." On the 8th of May, 1788, the three concluding volumes were published, and Gibbon had discharged his debt for the entertainment that he had had in this world.
He returned as speedily as he could to Lausanne, to rest from his labours.

But he had a painful greeting in the sadly altered look of his friend Deyverdun.

Soon an apoplectic seizure confirmed his forebodings, and within a twelvemonth the friend of his youth, whom he had loved for thirty-three years, was taken away by death (July 4, 1789).[14] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 14: The letter in which Gibbon communicated the sad news to Lord Sheffield was written on the 14th July, 1789, the day of the taking of the Bastille.

So "that evening sun of July" sent its beams on Gibbon mourning the dead friend, as well as on "reapers amid peaceful woods and fields, on old women spinning in cottages, on ships far out on the silent main, on balls at the Orangerie of Versailles, where high-rouged dames of the palace are even now dancing with double-jacketed Hussar officers."] Gibbon never got over this loss.