The King was asleep at Versailles and Monsieur was in her private cabinet, weeping furiously and tearing up the multitude of her love-letters by the light of a trembling candle flame.
M. de Condom, preaching her funeral sermon, displayed her as a Christian Princess, entirely virtuous.
THE BURNING OF THE VANITIES
Being an Account of the Last Day of Carnival and the Vision of Girolamo Savonarola in the City of Florence, 1497
“Behold, the sky shall be darkened! Behold, it shall rain fire and flame, stones and rocks; it shall be wild weather. I have placed ye between four winds,” saith the Lord–namely, prelates, princes, priests and bad citizens.
“Fly from their vices; gather ye together in charity. Fly from Rome, O Florence, and come to repentance! The Lord saith: ‘I will debase the princes of Italy and trample on the pride of Rome; then, O Italy, trouble after trouble shall befall thee, trouble from this side and from that–rumours from the east, rumours from the west, from all sides rumour after rumour.’
“Then men shall yearn for the visions of the prophets, and shall have them not, for the Lord saith, ‘Now do I prophesy in my turn.’”
So ended the sermon of Frà Girolamo, preached from a temporary pulpit erected in front of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, the last day of the Carnival of the year fourteen hundred and ninety-seven, the third year since the expulsion of the Medici, the third year of the Friar’s rule in Florence.