Secondly, that he was never a Catholic at all, and so his wife acted in
bad faith.
Thirdly, that he "loathed" the Catholic religion.
It is better to deal with these charges _seriatim_.
With regard to the first, we have the positive and public testimony of
Lady Burton, which was never contradicted during her lifetime, to the
effect that her husband was alive when the Sacrament of Extreme Unction
was administered to him. As, however, this testimony had been publicly
called in question, though not until eight months after her death, we
obtained through the kindness of the Baroness Paul de Ralli, a friend of
Lady Burton at Trieste, the following written attestation from the priest
who attended Sir Richard Burton's death-bed, and who is still living:
DECLARATION.[4]
"On October 20, 1890, at six o'clock in the morning, I was called in
to assist at the last moments of Sir Richard Burton, British Consul.
"Knowing that he had been brought up, or born in, the Evangelical
religion, before repairing to his house I went to see Dr. Giovanni
Sust, the Provost of this Cathedral, in order to find out from him
what I was to do in the matter. He replied that I should go, and
act accordingly as the circumstances might seem to require.
"So I went.
"Entering into the room of the sick man, I found him in bed with the
doctor and Lady Burton beside him.
"At first sight it seemed that I was looking, not at a sick man, but
rather at a corpse.
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