At seventy-eight his legs could carry him no longer, and he scarcely
left his bed; but his intellects continued unimpaired, except in the
last six months of his life. He expired, or, to use a more proper
term, went out, on the 1st of March, 1714, at the age of eighty years,
without any distemper, and merely for want of strength, having
enjoyed, by the benefit of his regimen, a long and healthy life, and a
gentle and easy death.
This extraordinary regimen was but part of the daily regulation of his
life, of which all the offices were carried on with a regularity and
exactness nearly approaching to that of the planetary motions.
He went to bed at seven, and rose at two, throughout the year. He
spent, in the morning, three hours at his devotions, and went to the
Hotel-Dieu, in the summer, between five and six, and, in the winter,
between six and seven, hearing mass, for the most part, at Notre Dame.
After his return he read the holy scripture, dined at eleven, and,
when it was fair weather, walked till two in the Royal garden, where
he examined the new plants, and gratified his earliest and strongest
passion. For the remaining part of the day, if he had no poor to
visit, he shut himself up, and read books of literature or physick,
but chiefly physick, as the duty of his profession required.
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