es already preceded by the King, who came and went
throughout the early part of the morning, superintending every
arrangement in person, and apparently overlooking his bodily ailments in
the extraordinary excitement under which he laboured.

The Dauphin, Madame the elder Princess, the ex-Queen Marguerite, the
Princes of the Blood, and great dignitaries who were summoned to assist
at the ceremony, accompanied by the Cardinals de Gondy and de Sourdis,
proceeded at an early hour to the Louvre to conduct the Queen to the
cathedral; and it was no sooner announced that her Majesty was prepared
to set forth than the procession formed.

The ceremonial had not, however, been definitively arranged without
considerable difficulty. Marguerite, who, whatever might be her errors,
could not contemplate her presence at this solemnity as a mere spectator
without considerable heart-burning, considered herself aggrieved by the
fact that instead of following immediately behind the Queen, she was to
be preceded by Madame Elisabeth, still a mere child; and so great was
her indignation at this discovery, that she was very reluctantly induced
to abandon her intention of pretexting illness, and absenting herself
entirely from the pageant. The earnest remonstrances of her friends, who
represented to her the certainty of the King's serious displeasure,
alone determined her to sacrifice her dignity; and although she
ultimately consented to submit to an arrangement which she considered
as an encroachment upon her rights as the daughter of a long line of
sovereigns, rather than draw down upon herself the resentment of the
monarch, she wept bitterly while she prepared to swell the retinue of
her successor.[3] The Comte de Soissons was less compliant; for it was
no sooner announced to him that the Duchesse de Vendome, the wife of the
King's natural son, was to appear in a mantle embroidered with
_fleurs-de-lis_ similar to those worn by the Princesses of the Blood,
than he loudly declared that he would not countenance so disgraceful an
innovation; and having ordered his household to prepare for an instant
departure from Paris, he left the capital with the Princess his wife,
and retired to one of his country seats.[4]

Despite this secession, however, the suite of Marie de Medicis was one
of supreme magnificence. The procession was opened by the Swiss Guards,
habited in velvet vests of her own colours, tawny, blue, crimson, and
white; then followed tw