"You do not know me now, none of you, and when you have lost me, you will then know what I was worth and the difference between me and other men."
"My God, Sire," answered Bassompierre, "will you never have done troubling us by telling us that you will soon die?"
And then the marshal recounts to Henry his glory, his prosperity, his good health which was prolonging his youth.
"My friend," said the King, "I must leave all that."
Ravaillac was at the gate of the Louvre.
Bassompierre withdrew and did not see the King again except in his closet:
"He was stretched out," he says, "on his bed; and M. de Vic[617], sitting on the same bed as he, had laid his cross of the Order on his mouth and reminded him of God. M. le Grand on arriving knelt down between the bed and the wall and held one of his hands which he kissed, and I had flung myself at his feet which I held clasped, weeping bitterly."
*
That is Bassompierre's story.
Pursued by these sad memories, it seemed to me that, in the long halls of Hradschin, I had seen the last Bourbons pass "sad and melancholy," like the first Bourbon in the gallery of the Louvre; I had come to kiss the feet of the Royalty after its death. Whether it die for ever or be resuscitated, it will have my last oaths: the day after its final disappearance, the Republic will commence for me. In the case that the Fates, who are to edit my Memoirs, do not publish them forthwith, you will know, when they appear, when you have read all, weighed all, how far I was mistaken in my regrets and in my conjectures. Respecting misfortune, respecting that which I have served and will continue to serve at the cost of the repose of my last days, I am writing my words, true or deluded, on my falling hours, dry and light leaves which the breath of Eternity will soon have blown away.