It is painful to reflect upon the position which the Marquise had filled, and to see her thus shaken and withered both in mind and body; abandoned by the protectress to whom she had clung so long and so confidingly; widowed by violence; separated from her only surviving child; and compelled to drain her cup of bitterness to the very dregs.  Not a pang was, however, voluntarily spared to her.  She might, in consideration of her rank as the wife of a Marshal of France, and out of respect for the Queen-mother, of whom she had not only been the foster-sister but also the familiar friend, have been conveyed to the place of execution in a covered carriage, and thus have been in some degree screened from the public gaze; but no such delicacy was observed.  The criminal’s cart, with its ghastly faggot for a seat, was her ordained conveyance; but her step did not falter as she stepped into the vehicle which had been previously tenanted by the vilest and most degraded culprits.  Never had there been seen so dense a crowd in the Place de Greve; and as she glanced hurriedly around, unaware of the popular reaction of feeling, she cowered for an instant panic-struck, and murmured helplessly:  “Oh, what a multitude to gaze upon a miserable woman!”

Not a word, not a gesture of vengeance or of hate, escaped, however, from the populace.  Her deportment had been so dignified, her courage so great, her piety so perfect, that those who were once her bitterest enemies looked on her through their tears.  Her charities had been unremitting and extensive; and those whom she had aided in their necessities had thronged, through a morbid and mingled feeling of gratitude and awe, to see her die.[313]

Her head fell—­her body was burned—­and her ashes were scattered to the wind.

De Luynes had, as we have stated, constituted himself her heir; but it was not without difficulty that he succeeded in appropriating the principal portion of the coveted wealth of his victims.  Du Vair, with a firmness for which the favourite was not prepared, refused for a considerable time to countersign the letters of consignment which had been granted by the King to that effect; declaring that as the property of Concini and his family had been confiscated to the Crown, it could not be otherwise disposed of.  This difficulty was, however, surmounted after the fashion of the period, and the signature of the scrupulous minister was purchased by the rich bishopric of Lisieux; after which De Luynes himself negatived the destruction of the magnificent hotel of the Marechal, to which he transferred his own establishment, and then proceeded to enforce his claims upon the funded property in Rome.  This pretension was, however, opposed by the Pope, who declared that all monies confiscated within the Roman states must necessarily revert to himself; and Louis XIII, after having in vain endeavoured to induce the Sovereign-Pontiff to rescind this declaration, found himself ultimately compelled to make a donation of the five hundred thousand francs claimed by his favourite to the cathedral of St. Peter’s.