The funeral rites.
The forty days' funeral rites were performed in honor of the deceased king with all the detail of pomp customary on such occasions. For forty days, on a bed of cloth of gold, lay in state the life-like effigy of Charles of Valois, dressed in crimson and blue satin, and in ermine, with a jewelled crown upon its head, and with sceptre and other emblems of royalty at its side. For forty days the service of the king's table remained unchanged, and the pleasing fiction was maintained that the monarch was yet alive. The gentlemen in waiting, the cupbearer, the pantler, the carver, and all the retinue of servants who, as in feudal times, appeared at the royal meals, discharged each his appointed office with punctilious precision. Courses of viands were brought on in regular succession, and as regularly removed from the board. A cardinal or prelate blessed the table before the empty show of a meal, and rendered thanks at its conclusion. Only at the close, by the sad repetition of the De profundis, and other psalms appropriate to funeral occasions, did the pageant differ materially from many a scene of convivial entertainment in which Charles had taken part. When the prescribed term of waiting was at length over, the miserable show ended, the effigy was replaced by the bier, funeral decorations took the place of festive emblems, and the body of the late king was laid in its last resting-place.[1402]
Had persecution, war, and treachery succeeded?
The courtiers had already turned their eyes from the dead monarch to the successor whose speedy return from Poland all eagerly awaited. Henry the Third had already precipitately fled from Cracow, and was on his way to assume his ancestral throne. He was to find the kingdom plunged in disquiet, a prey to internal discord fostered by foreign princes. Neither Huguenot nor Roman Catholic was satisfied. A full half-century from the first promulgation of the reformed doctrines by Lefèvre d'Étaples found the friends of the purer faith more resolute than ever in its assertion, despite fire, massacre, and open warfare. No candid beholder could deny that the system of persecution had thus far proved an utter failure. It remained to be seen whether the new king would choose to repeat a dangerous experiment.
FOOTNOTES:
[1253] Jean de Serres, Commentaria de statu rel. et reipublicæ, iv., fol. 60 verso. I have made use, up to 1570, of the first edition of this work, published in three volumes in 1571, my copy being one formerly belonging to the library of Ludovico Manini, the last doge of Venice. From 1570 on I refer to the edition of 1575, which comprises a fourth and rarer volume, bringing down the history to the close of the reign of Charles. A comparison between this edition and the later edition of 1577 brings out the interesting circumstance that many Huguenots of little courage, who at first apostatized, afterward returned to their old faith. Thus, the edition of 1575 reads (iv. 51 v.): "Vix enim dici possit, quam multi ad primum illum impetum a Religione resiluerint, mortis amittendarumque facultatum metu, quorum plerique etiamnum hærent in luto." The words I have italicized are omitted in the edition of 1577, as quoted by Soldan, ii. 473.
[1254] Jean de Serres, iv., fol. 61.
[1255] Ib., ubi supra.
[1256] Borrel, Histoire de l'église réformée de Nîmes (Toulouse, 1856), pp. 77, 78, from Archives of the Hôtel-de-ville.
[1257] J. de Serres, iv., fols. 68-70; Borrel, Hist. de l'égl. réf. de Nîmes, 78, 79; De Thou, iv. 663.