Poor Marie!  She was little aware at that moment how soon so mournful a prophecy was to become a still more mournful reality.

FOOTNOTES: 

[284] A very low wooden stool upon which accused persons were formerly seated during their trial; an arrangement deemed so great a degradation by persons of condition that many attainted nobles indignantly appealed against it.

[285] L’Etoile, vol. iii. p. 256.

[286] Achille de Harlay was the representative of a distinguished family, many of whose members were celebrated during four centuries both as magistrates and ecclesiastics.  He was born on the 7th of May 1536, and was the son of Christophe de Harlay, President de Mortier of the Parliament of Paris, one of the most learned and upright magistrates of his time.  Achille was a parliamentary councillor at the age of twenty-two years, president of the Parliament of Paris at thirty-six, and succeeded his father-in-law, Christophe de Thou, as first president in 1582.  During the time of the League under Henri III he made to the Duc de Guise the celebrated answer which covered him with glory and paralyzed the strength of the malcontents:  “My soul belongs to my God and my heart to my King, although my body is in the power of rebels.”  He was imprisoned for a time by the chiefs of the League, after which he returned to the service of the King.  He resigned his office in favour of Nicolas de Verdun, and died on the 23rd of October 1616 at the age of eighty years.

[287] Louis Servin distinguished himself from an early age by his extraordinary learning and his extreme attachment to his sovereign.  He was indebted for the rank of King’s Advocate to the Cardinal de Vendome, and acquitted himself so admirably of the duties of his office as to justify the confidence of his patron.

[288] L’Etoile, vol. iii. pp. 255-257.  Mezeray, vol. x. pp. 277-279.  Daniel, vol. vii. p. 456.

[289] Marie de Balzac d’Entragues, in pursuit of whom the King incurred the risk of assassination.

[290] Richer, Mercure Francais, Paris, 1611, year 1605, pp. 9-11.

[291] Henri, Duc de Rohan, Prince de Leon, was the eldest son of Rene, second Vicomte de Rohan, and was born at Blein, in Brittany, in 1579.  He made his first campaign under Henri IV, by whom he had been adopted, and who had declared his intention of making him his successor on the French throne should Marie de Medicis fail to give him a son.  Henry created him duke and peer in 1603, and Colonel-general of the Swiss Guards in 1605; but after the death of the King he entered into a struggle with the Court, declared himself the head of the Protestant party, and sustained three campaigns against Louis XIII, the last of which was terminated by his compelling that monarch (in 1629) to sign for the second time a confirmation and re-establishment of the Edict of Nantes.  He next