r in
April, autumn in May, and winter in June." In the city and in the
country, thousands perished of starvation. Famishing multitudes
crowded to the gates of the city in search of food, but in the city
the plague had broken forth. The authorities drove the mendicants back
into the country. They carried with them the awful pestilence in every
direction. At the same time, several attempts were made to assassinate
the king. Though he escaped the knife of the assassin, he came near
losing his life by a singular accident.

The Princess of Navarre, sister of the king, had accompanied him, with
the rest of the court, into Picardy. She was taken suddenly ill. The
king called to see her, carrying in his arms his infant son, the
idolized child of the fair Gabrielle. While standing by the bedside of
his sister, from some unexplained cause, the flooring gave way beneath
them. Henry instinctively sprang upon the bed with his child.
Providentially, that portion of the floor remained firm, while all the
rest was precipitated with a crash into the rooms below. Neither
Henry, his sister, or his child sustained any injury.

The financial condition of the empire was in a state of utter ruin--a
ruin so hopeless that the almost inconceivable story is told that the
king actually suffered both for food and raiment. He at times made
himself merry with his own ragged appearance. At one time he said
gayly, when the Parliament sent the president, Seguier, to
remonstrate against a fiscal edict,

"I only ask to be treated as they treat the monks, with food and
clothing. Now, Mr. President, I often have not enough to eat. As for
my habiliments, look and see how I am accoutred," and he pointed to
his faded and thread-bare doublet.

Le Grain, a contemporary, writes, "I have seen the king with a plain
doublet of white stuff, all soiled by his cuirass and torn at the
sleeve, and with well-worn breeches, unsewn on the side of the
sword-belt."

While the king was thus destitute, the members of the council of
finance were practicing gross extortion, and living in extravagance.
The king was naturally light-hearted and gay, but the deplorable
condition of the kingdom occasionally plunged him into the deepest of
melancholy. A lady of the court one day remarked to him that he looked
sad.

"Indeed," he replied, "how can I be otherwise, to see a people so
ungrateful toward their king? Though I have done and still do all I
can for them, and though for t