ilege and all others that might delay my
sentence."

There was not long to wait for the decree. On arriving at Toulouse,
October 27, at noon, the duke had asked for a confessor. "Father," said
he to the priest, "I pray you to put me this moment in the shortest and
most certain path to heaven that you can, having nothing more to hope or
wish for but God." All his family had hurried up, but without being able
to obtain the favor of seeing the king. "His Majesty had strengthened
himself in the resolution he had taken from the first to make in the case
of the said Sieur de Montmorency a just example for all the grandees of
his kingdom in the future, as the late king his father had done in the
person of Marshal Biron," says Richelieu in his Memoires. The Princess
of Conde could not gain admittance to his Majesty, who lent no ear to
the supplications of his oldest servants, represented by the aged Duke of
Epernon, who accused himself by his own mouth of having but lately
committed the same crime as the Duke of Montmorency. "You can retire,
duke," was all that Louis XIII. deigned to reply. "I should not be a
king if I had the feelings of private persons," said he to Marshal
Chatillon, who pointed out to him the downcast looks and swollen eyes of
all his court.

It was the 30th of October, early: and the Duke of Montmorency was
sleeping peacefully. His confessor came and awoke him. "_Surgite,
eamus_ (rise, let us be going)," he said, as he awoke; and when his
surgeon would have dressed his wounds, "Now is the time to heal all my
wounds with a single one," he said, and he had himself dressed in the
clothes of white linen he had ordered to be made at Lectoure for the day
of execution. When the last questions were put to him by the judges, he
answered by a complete confession; and when the decree was made known to
him, "I thank you, gentlemen," said he to the commissioners, "and I beg
you to tell all them of your body from me, that I hold this decree of the
king's justice for a decree of God's mercy." He walked to the scaffold
with the same tranquillity, saluting right and left those whom he knew,
to take leave of them; then, having with difficulty placed himself upon
the block, so much did his wounds still cause him to suffer, he said out
loud, "_Domine Jesu, accipe spiritum meum (Lord Jesus, receive my
spirit)!_" As his head fell, the people rushed forward to catch his
blood and dip their handkerchiefs in it.

Hen