The coronation took place on Thursday, 13th May, with the pomp and glitter becoming great court festivals; the more pompous and glittering the more the monarch’s heart was wrapped in gloom.  The representatives of the great powers were conspicuous in the procession; Aerssens, the Dutch ambassador, holding a foremost place.  The ambassadors of Spain and Venice as usual squabbled about precedence and many other things, and actually came to fisticuffs, the fight lasting a long time and ending somewhat to the advantage of the Venetian.  But the sacrament was over, and Mary de’ Medici was crowned Queen of France and Regent of the Kingdom during the absence of the sovereign with his army.

Meantime there had been mysterious warnings darker and more distinct than the babble of the soothsayer Thomassin or the ravings of the lunatic Pasithea.  Count Schomberg, dining at the Arsenal with Sully, had been called out to converse with Mademoiselle de Gournay, who implored that a certain Madame d’Escomans might be admitted to audience of the King.  That person, once in direct relations with the Marchioness of Verneuil, the one of Henry’s mistresses who most hated him, affirmed that a man from the Duke of Epernon’s country was in Paris, agent of a conspiracy seeking the King’s life.

The woman not enjoying a very reputable character found it impossible to obtain a hearing, although almost frantic with her desire to save her sovereign’s life.  The Queen observed that it was a wicked woman, who was accusing all the world, and perhaps would accuse her too.

The fatal Friday came.  Henry drove out, in his carriage to see the preparations making for the triumphal entrance of the Queen into Paris on the following Sunday.  What need to repeat the tragic, familiar tale?  The coach was stopped by apparent accident in the narrow street de la Feronniere, and Francis Ravaillac, standing on the wheel, drove his knife through the monarch’s heart.  The Duke of Epernon, sitting at his side, threw his cloak over the body and ordered the carriage back to the Louvre.

“They have killed him, ‘e ammazato,’” cried Concini (so says tradition), thrusting his head into the Queen’s bedchamber.

[Michelet, 197.  It is not probable that the documents concerning the trial, having been so carefully suppressed from the beginning, especially the confession dictated to Voisin—­who wrote it kneeling on the ground, and was perhaps so appalled at its purport that he was afraid to write it legibly—­will ever see the light.  I add in the Appendix some contemporary letters of persons, as likely as any one to know what could be known, which show how dreadful were the suspicions which men entertained, and which they hardly ventured to whisper to each other].

That blow had accomplished more than a great army could have done, and Spain now reigned in Paris.  The House of Austria, without making any military preparations, had conquered, and the great war of religion and politics was postponed for half a dozen years.