When king Charles had made some stay in Lyon, and had witnessed the tilts and tournaments that had been performed at Moulins, in the Bourbonnois, he proceeded to the abbey of St Denis, to accomplish the vow of pilgrimage he had made, and to offer up his thanksgivings to God for the brilliant victories he had obtained over his enemies, and for the successful issue of his expedition to Naples. He went likewise to St Denis, to replace the blessed bodies of the holy martyrs, who repose there, that had been taken down from their niches when the king set out on his italian expedition.
It is an ancient and praiseworthy custom, that when the most Christian kings of France undertake any foreign expedition in person, they supplicate the aid and intercession of the glorious martyr St Denis, and his companions Saint Rusticus and Saint Eleutherus. The shrines of these saints are, in consequence, taken down from their niches on the king's quitting his kingdom, and deposited in a private part of the church. These holy bodies, thus deposited, cannot be replaced in their former situations until the king shall return to St Denis from his foreign expedition, whether it had been for conquest or pleasure.
King Charles, therefore, having been victorious throughout Italy, followed the pious custom of his ancestors the kings of France. He made a devout pilgrimage, to St Denis,—and the shrines of the martyrs were, by him, replaced in their several niches, in the presence of the great barons of France. The king would neither pass nor repass through Paris on this pilgrimage, for reasons that moved him so to do, but which I omit, to avoid prolixity. For this cause, when he left St Denis, he took his road through St Antoine des Champs, thence over Le Pont-de-Chalenton[11], and through Beauce, strait to the castle of Amboise, where he found the queen and many lords and ladies of his noble blood. He was received there by the inhabitants with the utmost joy and honour.
He had not been long at Amboise before he heard of the treachery of the Neapolitans, and the death of the noble Gilbert lord of Montpensier. The remaining captains, unable to support themselves in Naples after his loss, returned home as well as they could; for those traitors of Lombardy and Naples had suddenly risen in rebellion,—and they could not possibly receive succours in time from France, had they attempted to hold out against them, from the great distance.
King Charles made preparations to avenge himself on them for their treachery and infidelity,—but he had over-exerted himself in his late expedition. His constitution, which was naturally feeble, became daily worse: whence it happened, that as he was walking one day in a gallery of the castle of Amboise with the queen, and amusing himself by looking at some tennis-players, he was suddenly seized with a fit, and died shortly after, in the twenty-eighth year of his age, and in the month of April in the year 1497. May God have mercy on his soul!
FOOTNOTES:
[11] Pont de Chalenton. Q. Charenton?
OF THE FUNERAL SERVICES PERFORMED FOR KING CHARLES VIII. OF FRANCE, AT AMBOISE, PARIS, AND ST DENIS.