“Will he have, as you have had, the army and Church on his side?”
“He will have something better.”
“What?”
“The people!”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mary Stuart, clasping the stiffened hand of her first husband, now dead, “there is none but me to weep for this poor boy who loved me so!”
“How can we patch up matters with the queen-mother?” said the cardinal.
“Wait till she quarrels with the Huguenots,” replied the duchess.
The conflicting interests of the house of Bourbon, of Catherine, of the Guises, and of the Reformed party produced such confusion in the town of Orleans that, three days after the king’s death, his body, completely forgotten in the Bailliage and put into a coffin by the menials of the house, was taken to Saint-Denis in a covered waggon, accompanied only by the Bishop of Senlis and two gentlemen. When the pitiable procession reached the little town of Etampes, a servant of the Chancelier l’Hopital fastened to the waggon this severe inscription, which history has preserved: “Tanneguy de Chastel, where art thou? and yet thou wert a Frenchman!”—a stern reproach, which fell with equal force on Catherine de’ Medici, Mary Stuart, and the Guises. What Frenchman does not know that Tanneguy de Chastel spent thirty thousand crowns of the coinage of that day (one million of our francs) at the funeral of Charles VII., the benefactor of his house?
No sooner did the tolling of the bells announce to the town of Orleans that Francois II. was dead, and the rumor spread that the Connetable de Montmorency had ordered the flinging open of the gates of the town, than Tourillon, the glover, rushed up into the garret of his house and went to a secret hiding-place.
“Good heavens! can he be dead?” he cried.