ealth and strength, full of honor
more than any mortal man, in the most flourishing kingdom in the world,
loved and adored by your subjects, with fine houses, fine women, fine
children who are growing up." Henry sighed as he said, "My friend, all
that must be left."

These are the last words that are to be found of his in contemporary
accounts; a few hours afterwards he was smitten to death in his carriage,
brought back to the Louvre, laid out on his bed; one of his councillors
of state, M. de Vie, seated on the same bed, had put to his mouth his
cross of the order, and directed his thoughts to God; Milon, his chief
physician, was at the bedside, weeping: his surgeons wanted to dress his
wounds; a sigh died away on his lips, and "It is all over," said the
physician; "he is gone." Guise and Bassompierre went out to look after
what was passing out of doors; they met "M. de Sully with some forty
horse, who, when he came up to us, said to us in tearful wise,
'Gentlemen, if the service ye vowed to the king is impressed upon your
souls as deeply as it ought to be with all good Frenchmen, swear all of
ye this moment to keep towards the king his son and successor the same
allegiance that ye showed him, and to spend your lives and your blood in
avenging his death?' 'Sir,' said Bassompierre, 'it is for us to cause
this oath to be taken by others; we have no need to be exhorted thereto;'
Sully turned his eyes upon him, he adds, and then went and shut himself
up in the Bastille, sending out to 'seize and carry off all the bread
that could be found in the market and at the bakers'. He also despatched
a message in haste to M. de Rohan, his son-in-law, bidding him face about
with six thousand Swiss, whose colonel-general he was, and march on
Paris." Henry IV. being dead, it was for France and for the kingship
that Sully felt alarm and was taking his precautions.

[Illustration: The Louvre----145]

CHAPTER XXXVII.----REGENCY OF MARY DE' MEDICI. (1610-1617.)

On the death of Henry IV. there was extreme disquietude as well as grief
in France. To judge by appearances, however, there was nothing to
justify excessive alarm. The edict of Nantes (April 13, 1598) had put an
end, so far as the French were concerned, to religious wars. The treaty
of Vervins (May 2, 1598) between France and Spain, the twelve years'
truce between Spain and the United Provinces (April 9, 1609), the death
of Philip II. (September 13, 1598), and th