Bourgoin went last:  having reached the farther side of the drawbridge, he turned, and, Christian as he was, unable to forgive Elizabeth, not for his own sufferings, but for his mistress’s, he faced about to those regicide walls, and, with hands outstretched to them, said in a loud and threatening voice, those words of David:  “Let vengeance for the blood of Thy servants, which has been shed, O Lord God, be acceptable in Thy sight”.  The old man’s curse was heard, and inflexible history is burdened with Elizabeth’s punishment.

We said that the executioner’s axe, in striking Mary Stuart’s head, had caused the crucifix and the book of Hours which she was holding to fly from her hands.  We also said that the two relics had been picked up by people in her following.  We are not aware of what became of the crucifix, but the book of Hours is in the royal library, where those curious about these kinds of historical souvenirs can see it:  two certificates inscribed on one of the blank leaves of the volume demonstrate its authenticity.  These are they: 

Firstcertificate

“We the undersigned Vicar Superior of the strict observance of the Order of Cluny, certify that this book has been entrusted to us by order of the defunct Dom Michel Nardin, a professed religious priest of our said observance, deceased in our college of Saint-Martial of Avignon, March 28th, 1723, aged about eighty years, of which he has spent about thirty among us, having lived very religiously:  he was a German by birth, and had served as an officer in the army a long time.

“He entered Cluny, and made his profession there, much detached from all this world’s goods and honours; he only kept, with his superior’s permission, this book, which he knew had been in use with Mary Stuart, Queen of England and Scotland, to the end of her life.

“Before dying and being parted from his brethren, he requested that, to be safely remitted to us, it should be sent us by mail, sealed.  Just as we have received it, we have begged M. L’abbe Bignon, councillor of state and king’s librarian, to accept this precious relic of the piety of a Queen of England, and of a German officer of her religion as well as of ours.

“(Signed)brother Gerard Poncet, “Vicar-General Superior.”

Secondcertificate

“We, Jean-Paul Bignon, king’s librarian, are very happy to have an opportunity of exhibiting our zeal, in placing the said manuscript in His Majesty’s library.

“8th July, 1724.”

“(Signed) Jean-Paul BIGNAN.”

This manuscript, on which was fixed the last gaze of the Queen of Scotland, is a duodecimo, written in the Gothic character and containing Latin prayers; it is adorned with miniatures set off with gold, representing devotional subjects, stories from sacred history, or from the lives of saints and martyrs.  Every page is encircled with arabesques mingled with garlands of fruit and flowers, amid which spring up grotesque figures of men and animals.