Some days later he happened to meet the king driving in a coach near St. Innocents’ Church. His desire to speak to him grew more ardent at the prospect of success, and he ran up to the coach, exclaiming, “Sire, I address you in the name of our Lord Jesus and of the Blessed Virgin.” But the king put him back with his stick, and would not hear him. After this repulse, despairing of being able to influence his Majesty by admonition, he determined to kill him. But he could come to no decision as to the mode of executing his design, and after a time returned to Angoulême.
He continued in a state of intense anxiety, sometimes considering his project of assassination as praiseworthy, sometimes as unlawful. Shortly afterwards he attended Mass in the monastery of the Franciscan Friars at Angoulême, and going afterwards to confession, admitted, among other things, an intention to murder, though without saying that Henri was the proposed victim. Nor did the confessor inquire as to the details of the crime. Still restless and disturbed, Ravaillac went back to Paris, and on entering the city, found his desire to kill the king intensified. He took lodgings close to the Louvre: but not liking his rooms, went to an inn in the neighbourhood to see if accommodation could be had there. The inn was full; but whilst Ravaillac conversed with the landlord, his eye happened to be attracted by a knife, sharp-pointed and double-edged, that lay on the table; and it occurred to him that here was a fit instrument for his purpose. He accordingly took occasion to convey it away under his doublet, and having had a new handle made for it, carried it about in his pocket.
But he faltered in his resolution, and abandoning it once more, set out on his way home. As he went along he somehow broke the point of his knife. At an inn where he stopped for refreshment he heard some soldiers talking about a design on the part of the king to make war against the Pope, and to transfer the Holy See to Paris. On this, his determination returned strong upon him and going out of the inn, he gave his knife a fresh point by rubbing it against a stone, and then turned his face towards Paris.
Arrived at the capital a third time, he felt an inclination to make a full confession of his design to a priest; and would have done so had he not been aware that the Church is obliged to divulge any secrets which concern the State.
Henceforth he never once relinquished his purpose. But he still felt such doubts as to whether it were not sinful that he would no longer receive the Sacrament, lest, harbouring his project all the while, he should unworthily eat.{34}
Without hope of gaining admission to the king in his palace, he now waited for him with unwearied assiduity at the gates. At last, on the 17th of May, 1610, he saw him come out in a coach, and followed him for some distance, until the vehicle was stopped by two carts, which happened to get in the way. Here, as the king was leaning his head to speak to M. d’Epernon, who sat beside him, Ravaillac, in a frenzy, fancied he heard a voice say to him, “Now is the time; hasten, or it will be too late!” Instantly he rushed up to the coach, and standing on a spoke of the wheel, drew his knife and struck the king in the side. Finding, however, the knife impeded by one of the king’s ribs, he gave him another—and this time a fatal—blow near the same place.
The king cried out that he was slain, and Ravaillac was seized by a retired soldier of the guard. When searched, he was found to have upon him a paper painted with the arms of France, and with a lion on each side, one holding a key, the other a sword. Above he had written these words: “The name of God shall not be profaned in my presence.” There was also discovered a rosary and a piece of a certain root in the shape of a heart, which he had obtained as a charm against fever from the Capuchins, who assured him that it had inside it a piece of the real cross of the Saviour. “This, however,” says an ingenuous chronicler, “when the heart was broken, proved to be false.”
Ravaillac was first examined by the President of the Parliament and several commissioners as to his motives for committing the crime, and as to whether he had accomplices. During the interrogation he often wept, and said that though at the time he believed the assassination to be a meritorious action, he now felt convinced that this was a delusion into which he had been suffered to fall as a punishment for his sins. He expressed the deepest contrition for his offence, and implored the Almighty to give him grace to continue till death in firm faith, lively hope, and perfect charity.