young couple with the usual ceremonial observed at the
marriages of the royal daughters of France.

This marriage had astonished every one, and occasioned much surmise to
certain persons who saw clearer than others. They found it difficult to
understand the union of two parties who hated each other so thoroughly
as did, at this moment, the Protestant party and the Catholic party; and
they wondered how the young Prince de Conde could forgive the Duc
d'Anjou, the King's brother, for the death of his father, assassinated
at Jarnac by Montesquiou. They asked how the young Duc de Guise could
pardon Admiral de Coligny for the death of his father, assassinated at
Orleans by Poltrot de Mere.

Moreover, Jeanne de Navarre, the weak Antoine de Bourbon's courageous
wife, who had conducted her son Henry to the royal marriage awaiting
him, had died scarcely two months before, and singular reports had been
spread abroad as to her sudden death. It was everywhere whispered, and
in some places said aloud, that she had discovered some terrible secret;
and that Catharine de Medicis, fearing its disclosure, had poisoned her
with perfumed gloves, which had been made by a man named Rene, a
Florentine deeply skilled in such matters. This report was the more
widely spread and believed when, after this great queen's death, at her
son's request, two celebrated physicians, one of whom was the famous
Ambroise Pare, were instructed to open and examine the body, but not the
skull. As Jeanne de Navarre had been poisoned by a perfume, only the
brain could show any trace of the crime (the one part excluded from
dissection). We say crime, for no one doubted that a crime had been
committed.

This was not all. King Charles in particular had, with a persistency
almost approaching obstinacy, urged this marriage, which not only
re-established peace in his kingdom, but also attracted to Paris the
principal Huguenots of France. As the two betrothed belonged one to the
Catholic religion and the other to the reformed religion, they had been
obliged to obtain a dispensation from Gregory XIII., who then filled the
papal chair. The dispensation was slow in coming, and the delay had
caused the late Queen of Navarre great uneasiness. She one day expressed
to Charles IX. her fears lest the dispensation should not arrive; to
which the King replied:

"Have no anxiety, my dear aunt. I honor you more than I do the Pope,
and I love my sister more than I fear him. I am