After the decease of king Charles VIII. whose soul may God pardon! a very solemn funeral service was performed at Amboise, in the church of St Florent, by the reverend cardinal the lord John Peraule, assisted by many prelates, great lords, and other persons. There were immense numbers of tapers and torches, and great alms were distributed. When this service was over, the king's heart was carried for interment to the church of Nôtre Dame de Clery, near to that of his late father. The body, with the representation of his figure over it, was borne in sorrowful pomp to the church of our Lady in the fields, in the suburbs of Paris, where it was watched all night by some of his most confidential friends.
On the morrow morning, a grand procession came out of Paris, consisting of all the clergy with their crosses, the four orders of mendicant friars, the members of the court of parliament and of the other courts of justice, the provosts, sheriffs, and inhabitants dressed in mourning, to the church of our Lady in the Fields,—where were waiting the great lords, officers, pages of honour, and others, to the number of more than seven thousand persons, clad in mourning, with hoods,—and, according to the usual ceremony, conducted the body to the cathedral-church of our Lady in Paris. There were four hundred torches, ornamented with escutcheons of three flowers de luce, carried by four hundred poor men, dressed in black cloaks and hoods. A solemn funeral service was performed in the church of Nôtre Dame; after which, the body was carried with the same ceremonies through Paris to the abbey of St Denis, where another service was solemnly performed for the deceased, and presents of money given to all the assistants in making the offerings at the mass, and great alms distributed to the poor.
When the accustomed ceremonies had been finished, the body of king Charles was interred in the sepulchre that had been prepared for him; after which there was a grand dinner given to all the assistants in honour of the late king, to whose soul may God graciously grant his pardon! Amen.
OF KING LOUIS THE TWELFTH.
On the 23d of May, in the year 1498, Louis duke of Orleans, son to the late duke Charles, was consecrated king of France, in the same manner as his predecessors had been, in the cathedral of Rheims. He was the twelfth who had borne the name of Louis, and the fifty-fifth king of France.
At this ceremony at Rheims were the twelve peers of France, or their substitutes. For the duke of Burgundy appeared the duke of Alençon; for the duke of Normandy, the duke of Lorraine; for the duke of Guienne, the duke of Bourbon; for the earl of Flanders, the lord de Ravenstein; for the earl of Champagne, the lord Angillebert of Cleves; for the earl of Toulouse, the lord of Foix. Almost the whole of the french nobility were present at the ceremony, which was solemnized in the usual mode to that of former kings, by the cardinal of St Malo, archbishop of Rheims.
Immediately after, the king made knights of his order of St Michael the lord de Taillebourg, the lord des Pierres, lord de la Gruture, the lord de Clerieux. He created also knights to the amount of four score; among whom were the lord de Myolans, sir Claude de Mont-l'Or lord of Château-neuf, de Salazuit, and others, too numerous to name. When these things were done, the king ordered preparations for his entry into Paris.