of the royal abbey, in their
mourning hoods, received the body of Henri IV from the hands of De
Gondy, the Archbishop of Paris; and on the following day the
Cardinal-Duc de Joyeuse celebrated a solemn mass and performed the
funeral service of his late sovereign.

At the close of the lugubrious ceremony the iron gates of the house of
death swung hoarsely upon their hinges. The "De Profundis" pealed from
the high altar, and Henry the Great was gathered to his ancestors.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] L'Etoile, vol. iv. pp.17, 18. Montfaucon, vol. v. p.429.

[2] Matthieu, vol. 9361 of the royal manuscripts, p. 804.

[3] Dupleix, p. 403.

[4] L'Etoile, vol. iv. p. 30.

[5] Charles de Bourbon-Conti, Comte d'Anquien, son of the Comte de
Soissons.

[6] Charlotte Catherine de la Tremouille, Princess Dowager of Conde, was
the daughter of Louis III, Seigneur de la Tremouille, and was born in
1568. The Prince de Conde, the chief of the Protestant party, enamoured
of her beauty, made her his wife in 1586; and having died by poison two
years subsequently, suspicion fell upon the Princess and some of her
confidential attendants, several of whom were put to death as
accessories to the crime. Madame de Conde herself was imprisoned, and,
despite her protestations of innocence, was not set at liberty for
upwards of seven years, when she was at length liberated by Henri IV
(1596). She died in 1629.

[7] Marie de Luxembourg, the daughter of Sebastien de Luxembourg, Duc de
Penthievre and Vicomte de Martigues, and wife of Philippe Emmanuel de
Lorraine, Duc de Mercoeur.

[8] Antoinette de Pons, Marquise de Guercheville, whose second husband
was Charles du Plessis, Seigneur de Liancourt, First Equerry, and
Governor of Paris.

[9] _Remarques sur l'Invention de la Bibliotheque_, de M. Guillaume,
art. 33.

[10] _Mercure Francais,_ 1610, pp. 419-423.

[11] _Mercure Francais_, 1610, p. 423.

[12] Francois de Bonne, Duc de Lesdiguieres, was born at St. Bonnet, in
Upper Dauphiny, in 1543. He became general of the Huguenots, and
obtained several victories over the Catholic troops. On the accession of
Henri IV to the French throne, that Prince appointed him
lieutenant-general of his armies in Piedmont, Savoy, and Dauphiny. His
success in Savoy was brilliant, and he was created Marshal of France in
1608. Four years subsequently he embraced the Romish faith; and died in
1626 with the title of Connetable.

[13] Richelieu, _La Mere et le Fils_, vol.