still more exhilarating popular spectacle. The heretic had been purified,
confessed, absolved. It was time for a consecration. But there was a
difficulty. Although the fever of loyalty to the ancient house of
Bourbon, now redeemed from its worship of the false gods, was spreading
contagiously through the provinces; although all the white silk in Lyons
had been cut into scarves and banners to celebrate the reconciliation of
the candid king with mother Church; although that ancient city was ablaze
with bonfires and illuminations, while its streets ran red, with blood no
longer, but with wine; and although Madam League, so lately the object of
fondest adoration, was now publicly burned in the effigy of a grizzly
hag; yet Paris still held for that decrepit beldame, and closed its gates
to the Bearnese.

The city of Rheims, too, had not acknowledged the former Huguenot, and it
was at Rheims, in the church of St. Remy, that the Holy Bottle was
preserved. With what chrism, by what prelate, should the consecration of
Henry be performed? Five years before, the League had proposed in the
estates of Blois to place among the fundamental laws of the kingdom that
no king should be considered a legitimate sovereign whose head had not
been anointed by the bishop at Rheims with oil from that holy bottle. But
it was now decided that to ascribe a monopoly of sanctity to that prelate
and to that bottle would be to make a schism in the Church.

Moreover it was discovered that there was a chrism in existence still
more efficacious than the famous oil of St. Remy. One hundred and twelve
years before the baptism of Clovis, St. Martin had accidentally tumbled
down stairs, and lay desperately bruised and at the point of death. But,
according to Sulpicius Severus, an angel had straightway descended from
heaven, and with a miraculous balsam had anointed the contusions of the
saint, who next day felt no farther inconveniences from his fall. The
balsam had ever since been preserved in the church of Marmoutier near
Tours. Here, then, was the most potent of unguents brought directly from
heaven. To mix a portion thereof with the chrism of consecration was
clearly more judicious than to make use of the holy bottle, especially as
the holy bottle was not within reach. The monks of Marmoutier consented
to lend the sacred phial containing the famous oil of St. Martin for the
grand occasion of the royal consecration.

Accompanied by a strong military escor