were alone excepted from this favor.  “After the peace,” said the declaration touching the regency, which the king got enregistered by the Parliament on the 23d of April.  The little dauphin, who had merely been sprinkled, had just received baptism in the chapel of the Castle of St. Germain.  The king asked him, next day, if he knew what his name was.  “My name is Louis XIV.,” answered the child.  “Not yet, my son, not yet,” said the king, softly.

Louis XIII. did not cling to life:  it had been sad and burdensome to him by the mere fact of his own melancholy and singular character, not that God had denied him prosperity or success.  He had the windows opened of his chamber in the new castle of St. Germain looking towards the Abbey of St. Denis, where he had, at last, just laid the body of the queen his mother, hitherto resting at Cologne.  “Let me see my last resting-place,” he said to his servants.  The crowd of courtiers thronged to the old castle, inhabited by the queen; visits were made to the new castle to see the king, who still worked with his ministers; when he was alone, “he was seen nearly always with his eyes open towards heaven, as if he talked with God heart to heart.” [Memoires sur la Mort de Louis XIII., by his valet-de-chambre Dubois; Archives curieuses, t. v. p. 428.] On the 23d of April, it was believed that the last moment had arrived:  the king received extreme unction; a dispute arose about the government of Brittany, given by the king to the Duke of La Meilleraye and claimed by the Duke of Vendome; the two claimants summoned their friends; the queen took fright, and, being obliged to repair to the king, committed the imprudence of confiding her children to the Duke of Beaufort, Vendome’s eldest son, a young scatter-brain who made a great noise about this favor.  The king rallied and appeared to regain strength.  He was sometimes irritated at sight of the courtiers who filled his chamber.  “Those gentry,” he said to his most confidential servants, “come to see how soon I shall die.  If I recover, I will make them pay dearly for their desire to have me die.”  The austere nature of Louis XIII. was awakened again with the transitory return of his powers; the severities of his reign were his own as much as Cardinal Richelieu’s.

He was, nevertheless, dying, asking God for deliverance.  It was Thursday, May 14.  “Friday has always been my lucky day,” said Louis XIII.:  “on that day I have undertaken assaults that I have carried; I have even gained battles:  I should have liked to die on a Friday.”  His doctors told him that they could find no more pulse; he raised his eyes to heaven and said out loud, “My God, receive me to mercy!” and addressing himself to all, he added, “Let us pray!” Then, fixing his eyes upon the Bishop of Meaux, he said, “You will, of course, see when the time comes for reading the agony prayers; I have marked them all.”  Everybody was praying and weeping; the queen and all the court were kneeling in the king’s chamber.  At three o’clock, he softly breathed his last, on the sane day and almost at the same moment at which his father had died beneath the dagger of Ravaillac, thirty-three years before.