t by Henry, was succeeded by the execution of M.
de Merargues[310], whose conspiracy to deliver up Marseilles to the
Spaniards was revealed to the monarch by Marguerite; and who, tried and
convicted of _lese-majeste_, was decapitated in the Place de Greve, his
body quartered and exposed at the four gates of the capital, and his
head carried to Marseilles, and stuck upon a pike over the principal
entrance to the city; while, on the very day of his execution, as the
King was returning from a hunt and riding slowly across the Pont Neuf,
at about five in the afternoon, a man suddenly sprang up behind him and
threw him backwards upon his horse, attempting at the same time to
plunge a dagger which he held into the body of his Majesty. Fortunately,
however, Henry was so closely muffled in a thick cloak that before the
assassin could effect his purpose the attendants were enabled to seize
him and liberate their royal master, who was perfectly uninjured. The
consternation was nevertheless universal; nor was it lessened by the
calmness with which, when interrogated, the assassin declared that his
intention had been to take the life of the sovereign. It was soon
discovered, however, by the incoherency of his language that he was a
maniac; and although many of the nobles urged that he should be put to
death as an example to others, the King resolutely resisted their
advice, declaring that the man's family, who had long been aware of his
infirmity, were more to blame than himself; and commanding that he
should be placed in security, and thus rendered unable to repeat any act
of violence. He was accordingly conveyed to prison, where he shortly
afterwards died.

At this period, whether it were that the King hoped, by occupying her
attention with subjects of more moment, to be enabled to pursue his
_liaison_ with Madame de Verneuil with less difficulty, or that his
advancing age rendered him in reality anxious to initiate her into the
mysteries of government, it is certain that he endeavoured to induce the
Queen to take more interest than she had hitherto done in questions of
national importance; and revealed to her many state secrets, not one of
which, as he afterwards declared to Sully, did she ever communicate,
even to her most confidential friends. But Marie de Medicis was far from
evincing the delight which he had anticipated at his avowed wish that
she should share with him in the hopes and disappointments of royalty;
her ambitio