rts had been
toughened and crusted in the dreadful religious wars sobbed like
children; all the populace swarmed abroad bewildered--many swooned--some
went mad. This was the first phase of feeling.

Then came a second phase yet more terrible. For now burst forth that old
whirlwind of anarchy and bigotry and selfishness and terror which Henry
had curbed during twenty years. All earnest men felt bound to protect
themselves, and seized the nearest means of defence. Sully shut himself
up in the Bastille, and sent orders to his son-in-law, the Duke of
Rohan, to bring in six thousand soldiers to protect the Protestants. All
unearnest men, especially the great nobles, rushed to the court,
determined now, that the only guardians of the state were a weak-minded
woman and a weak-bodied child, to dip deep into the treasury which Henry
had filled to develop the nation, and to wrench away the power which he
had built to guard the nation.

In order to make ready for this grasp at the state treasure and power by
the nobles, the Duke of Epernon--from the corpse of the King by whose
side he was sitting when Ravaillac struck him--strides into the
Parliament of Paris and orders it to declare the late Queen, Marie de'
Medici, regent; and when this Parisian court, knowing full well that it
had no right to confer the regency, hesitated, he laid his hand on his
sword, and declared that, unless they did his bidding at once, his sword
should be drawn from its scabbard. This threat did its work. Within
three hours after the King's death the Paris Parliament, which had no
right to give it, bestowed the regency on a woman who had no capacity to
take it.

At first things seemed to brighten a little. The Queen Regent sent such
urgent messages to Sully that he left his stronghold of the Bastille and
went to the palace. She declared to him before the assembled court that
he must govern France still. With tears she gave the young King into his
arms, telling Louis that Sully was his father's best friend, and bidding
him pray the old statesman to serve the state yet longer.

But soon this good scene changed. Mary had a foster-sister, Leonora
Galligai, and Leonora was married to an Italian adventurer, Concini.
These seemed a poor couple, worthless and shiftless, their only stock in
trade Leonora's Italian cunning; but this stock soon came to be of vast
account, for thereby she soon managed to bind and rule the Queen
Regent--managed to drive Sully into