h partially
subsided, the King issued an order that the whole Court should assume
the deepest mourning, and that no one should presume to approach him in
any other garb. Not only, therefore, were all the great officers of the
Crown, and all the Court functionaries, from M. le Grand to the pages
and lacqueys in the ante-chambers, clad in the same sable livery, but
even the foreign ambassadors, anxious alike to avoid giving offence to
the monarch, and to escape the inconvenience of being excluded from his
presence and thus rendered incapable of furthering the interests of
their several sovereigns, adopted a similar habit. The mourning of the
Queen and her household more than satisfied all the exigencies of the
King; for Marie de Medicis not only sympathized deeply with the
sufferings of her royal consort, but also felt that in Madame Catherine
she had lost a sincere friend--that rarest of all luxuries to a crowned
head!--and it was not consequently in her outward apparel alone that she
gave testimony of her unfeigned regret, for in abandoning her usual
garb, she also abandoned every species of amusement, and forbade all
movement in her immediate circle beyond that which was necessitated by
the service of her attendants.

There was, however, one exception to this general concession, and that
one was consequently so conspicuous as to excite instant remark. The
Papal Nuncio had exhibited no intention of conforming to the universal
demonstration which had draped the throne and palaces of France in
sables; and the monarch no sooner ascertained the fact than he caused it
to be made known to the prelate that he had no desire to oblige him to
assume a garb repugnant to his feelings, but that he requested to be
spared his presence until the period of his own mourning was at an end.
This announcement greatly embarrassed the Nuncio, who at once felt that
by persisting in the course he had adopted he should be deprived of the
frequent audiences that were essential to the interests of the
Sovereign-Pontiff, and accordingly he resolved no longer to offer any
opposition to the express wishes of the King; but after having written
to Rome to explain that he had put on mourning simply to secure himself
against the threatened exclusion, and thereby to be enabled to watch
over the welfare of the Holy See, he ultimately followed the example of
those around him, and demanded permission in his turn to offer his
compliment of condolence to the m