e ceremony, which was to be performed in the French
capital with unexampled splendor. The most distinguished gentlemen of
the Protestant party, nobles, statesmen, warriors, from all parts of
the realm, were invited to the metropolis, to add lustre to the
festivities by their presence. Many, however, of the wisest counselors
of the Queen of Navarre, deeply impressed with the conviction of the
utter perfidy of Catharine, and apprehending some deep-laid plot,
remonstrated against the acceptance of the invitations, presaging
that, "if the wedding were celebrated in Paris, the liveries would be
very crimson."

Jeanne, solicited by the most pressing letters from Catharine and her
son Charles IX., and urged by her courtiers, who were eager to share
the renowned pleasures of the French metropolis, proceeded to Paris.
She had hardly entered the sumptuous lodgings provided for her in the
court of Catharine, when she was seized with a violent fever, which
raged in her veins nine days, and then she died. In death she
manifested the same faith and fortitude which had embellished her
life. Not a murmur or a groan escaped her lips in the most violent
paroxysms of pain. She had no desire to live except from maternal
solicitude for her children, Henry and Catharine.

"But God," said she, "will be their father and protector, as he has
been mine in my greatest afflictions. I confide them to his
providence."

She died in June, 1572, in the forty-fourth year of her age. Catharine
exhibited the most ostentatious and extravagant demonstrations of
grief. Charles gave utterance to loud and poignant lamentations, and
ordered a surgeon to examine the body, that the cause of her death
might be ascertained. Notwithstanding these efforts to allay
suspicion, the report spread like wildfire through all the departments
of France, and all the Protestant countries of Europe, that the queen
had been perfidiously poisoned by Catharine. The Protestant writers of
the time assert that she fell a victim to poison communicated by a
pair of perfumed gloves. The Catholics as confidently affirm that she
died of a natural disease. The truth can now never be known till the
secrets of all hearts shall be revealed at the judgment day.

Henry, with his retinue, was slowly traveling toward Paris,
unconscious of his mother's sickness, when the unexpected tidings
arrived of her death. It is difficult to imagine what must have been
the precise nature of the emotions o