ed broke upon the stillness, but at length the mourners
rose; and Marie, taking the hand of the boy-King, drew him towards her,
and murmured in his ear a few hurried words which were inaudible to all
save himself. As she ceased speaking, Louis glanced up into her face for
an instant; and then, extending his right hand towards the corpse, he
said in a clear and steady voice--

"Mother, I swear to do so."

Even at that awful moment a strange light flashed from the eyes of the
Queen, and a smile, which was almost one of triumph, played about her
lips as she glanced at the assembled nobles; but the emotion, by
whatever cause produced, was only momentary; and after having cast
another long and agonized look upon the face of the dead monarch, and
aspersed the body with holy water, she bent her head reverentially to
the King, and withdrew, followed by her ladies.

When the whole of the royal party had paid this last mark of respect to
the remains of the deceased sovereign, the coffin was finally closed;
and the death-room, in which the corpse was to remain for the space of
eighteen days, was opened to the public from ten o'clock in the morning
until six in the evening. Then, indeed, as the vast crowds succeeded
each other like the ceaseless waves of an incoming sea, the bitter wail
of universal lamentation rang through the halls and galleries of the
palace. Henri IV had been essentially the King of the People; and, with
few and rare exceptions, it was by the people that he was truly mourned;
for his sudden decease had opened so many arenas to ambition, hatred,
jealousy, and hope, that the great nobles had no time to waste in tears,
but were already busily engaged in the furtherance of their
own fortunes.

During the exposition of the body the necessary preparations had been
completed for the interment of the deceased King, which exceeded in
magnificence all that had previously been attempted on a similar
occasion; and this pomp was rendered even more remarkable by the privacy
with which his predecessor Henri III had been conveyed to St. Denis only
a week previously, the remains of the latter sovereign having hitherto
been suffered to remain in the church of St. Camille at Compiegne,
whence they were removed under the guard of the Ducs d'Epernon and de
Bellegarde, his former favourites; the etiquette in such an emergency
not permitting the inhumation of the recently deceased King in the
vaults of the royal abbey until his p