of the edict of pacification previously published, and renewing his prohibition against duelling and blasphemy.  On the following morning the King ascended his Bed of Justice; and both the procession and the meeting were conducted with the greatest pomp.  He was attended by the Queen-mother, Monsieur, and the Princes de Conde and de Soissons, the Ducs de Guise, d’Elboeuf, d’Epernon, de Ventadour, and de Montbazon, and upwards of eight hundred mounted nobles, all attired in the most sumptuous manner.  On his arrival at the palace the King was received by two presidents and four councillors, by whom he was conducted to the great hall; and after all the persons present had taken their places, his Majesty briefly declared the purpose for which he had convened the meeting.  Marie de Medicis then in her turn addressed the Assembly, declaring that she had resigned the administration of public affairs into the hands of the sovereign, who had some days previously attained his majority; and when she had ceased speaking Louis expressed his acknowledgments for the valuable services which she had rendered to the kingdom, his resolution still to be guided by her advice, and entreated her not to withhold from him her important assistance in the Government.  The Chancellor, the First President,[179] and the Advocate-General[180] each delivered a harangue; after which the Chancellor pronounced the decree which declared the majority of the sovereign; and the declaration that he had forwarded to the Council on the previous day was duly registered.  This act terminated the ceremony, and Louis XIII returned to the Louvre accompanied and attended as he had reached the Parliament, amid the acclamations of the populace.

The assembly of the States-General at Sens had been fixed for the 10th of September, and would consequently have been held before the King had attained his majority, had not this arrangement been traversed by the Regent, who apprehended that they would seize so favourable an opportunity of thwarting all her views; and would not only demand the dismissal of the ministers and the Marechal d’Ancre, but also, which was still more important, dissuade the sovereign, whose minority would terminate during their sitting, from permitting her to retain any share in the Government.  The Prince de Conde and his partisans, whose interests undoubtedly demanded such a result, had, however, themselves been instrumental in the delay so earnestly desired by Marie; the hostile demonstrations of Vendome in Brittany, and the ill-judged movements of Conde himself in Poitou, having furnished her with a plausible pretext for deferring the opening of the States until the King could preside over them in person; when the public declaration made before the Parliament by the young sovereign of his intention still to be guided by the counsels of his mother at once freed her from all her apprehensions; and she accordingly lost no time in transferring the Assembly from Sens to Paris, and proroguing it till the 10th of October.