after this, she had the casket brought in which she had put the purses
which we mentioned before; she opened them one after another, and seeing
by the ticket within for whom each was intended, she distributed them
with her own hand, none of the recipients being aware of their contents.
These gifts varied from twenty to three hundred crowns; and to these sums
she added seven hundred livres for the poor, namely, two hundred for the
poor of England and five hundred for the poor of France; then she gave to
each man in her suite two rose nobles to be distributed in alms for her
sake, and finally one hundred and fifty crowns to Bourgoin to be divided
among them all when they should separate; and thus twenty-six or
twenty-seven people had money legacies.

The queen performed all this with great composure and calmness, with no
apparent change of countenance; so that it seemed as if she were only
preparing for a journey or change of dwelling; then she again bade her
servants farewell, consoling them and exhorting them to live in peace,
all this while finishing dressing as well and as elegantly as she could.

Her toilet ended, the queen went from her reception-room to her
ante-room, where there was an altar set up and arranged, at which, before
he had been taken from her, her chaplain used to say mass; and kneeling
on the steps, surrounded by all her servants, she began the communion
prayers, and when they were ended, drawing from a golden box a host
consecrated by Pius V, which she had always scrupulously preserved for
the occasion of her death, she told Bourgoin to take it, and, as he was
the senior, to take the priest's place, old age being holy and sacred;
and in this manner in spite of all the precautions taken to deprive her
of it, the queen received the holy sacrament of the eucharist.

This pious ceremony ended, Bourgoin told the queen that in her will she
had forgotten three people--Mesdemoiselles Beauregard, de Montbrun, and
her chaplain. The queen was greatly astonished at this oversight, which
was quite involuntary, and, taking back her will, she wrote her wishes
with respect to them in the first empty margin; then she kneeled down
again in prayer; but after a moment, as she suffered too much in this
position, she rose, and Bourgoin having had brought her a little bread
and wine, she ate and drank, and when she had finished, gave him her hand
and thanked him for having been present to help her at her last meal as