a knife from his sleeve and mortally
stabbed him.[123] He lingered until 2nd August, and after pronouncing
Henry of Navarre his lawful successor and bidding his Council swear
allegiance to the new dynasty, the last of the thirteen Valois kings
passed to his doom. Catherine de' Medici had already preceded him,
burdened with the anathemas of the Cardinal of Bourbon. The people of
Paris swore that if her body were brought to St. Denis they would
fling it to the shambles or into the Seine, and a famous theologian,
preaching at St. Bartholomew's church, declared to the faithful that
he knew not if it were right to pray God for her soul, but that if
they cared to give her in charity a Pater or an Ave they might do so
for what it was worth. This was the reward of her thirty years of
devoted toil, of vigils and of plots to further the Catholic cause.
Not until a quarter of a century had passed were her ashes laid beside
those of her husband in the rich Renaissance tomb, which still exists,
in the royal church of St. Denis. Jacques Clement, who had been cut to
pieces by the king's Guards, was worshipped as a martyr, and his
mother rewarded for having given birth to the saviour of France.

[Footnote 123: The king had premonitions of a violent end. One day,
after keeping Easter at Negeon with great devotion, he suddenly
returned to the Louvre and ordered all the lions, bears, bulls, and
other wild animals kept in the _Hotel des Lions_, reconstructed in
1570 for Charles IX., for baiting by dogs, to be shot. He had dreamt
that he was set upon and eaten by wild beasts.]

Henry of Navarre, unable to carry on the siege with a divided army,
directed his course for Normandy. The exultant Parisians proclaimed
the Cardinal of Bourbon king, under the title of Charles X., and the
Duke of Mayenne, with a large army, marched forth to give battle to
Henry. So confident were the Leaguers of victory, that their leaders
hired windows along the Rue St. Antoine to witness the return of the
duke bringing the "Bearnais"[124] dead or a prisoner. Henry did indeed
return, but it was after a victorious campaign. He captured the
Faubourg St. Jacques, and fell upon the abbey of St. Germain des Pres
while the astonished monks were preparing to sing mass, climbed the
steeple of the church and gazed on Paris. Having refreshed his troops,
the Bearnais suffered them to pillage the city south of the Seine, and
turned to the west to fix his capital at Tours. In