ed
all the councillors, and a resolution was adopted that the Messieurs of
the Parliament and of the Chambre des Comptes and the Bishop of Paris
meet in a general assembly at the Hotel de Ville. But the progress of
political events having rendered this vessel unnecessary, nothing came
of all these deliberations.

Louis XII, on his accession to the throne in 1498, resolved to cross
the Alps in his turn, and on his solemn entry into Paris after his
coronation an elaborate machine was contrived to delicately flatter his
pretensions to Genoa and Milan, and appear in the royal procession. This
consisted of an apparatus mounted on wheels, in the form of a terrace,
on which was seen a porcupine, moving all his quills at once, and a
young virgin, habited in Genoese fashion and throned on a seat of
cloth-of-gold _cramoisi_. But unluckily the machine would not function,
and after remaining immovable in one place, finally disappeared "in
great mortification." The Parisians seem never to have lost their
fondness for processions and displays, and were always ready to welcome
a new king with the firm belief that all their griefs would speedily be
remedied under the new regime. As there was a possibility of the widowed
queen, Anne de Bretagne, carrying her rich dower, now returned to her,
out of the kingdom, Louis XII secured a divorce from his wife Jeanne,
third child of Louis XI, and so very plain in countenance that her royal
father could not endure the sight of her. Thus it happened that _la
Bretonne_ made her second solemn entrance into Paris as a newly-wed
queen of France, in 1504; and at her death, ten years later, the king
"during a whole week did nothing but weep."

Her obsequies, at Saint-Denis and Notre-Dame, gave rise to a scandalous
discussion over the possession of all the objects which had figured in
them. The abbot and the monks of Saint-Denis demanded the restitution of
the dais, of the effigy and of the garments of the queen, of the cloth
of gold, of the velvet which had served to decorate the chapel, and of
all the offerings made by the assistants. The nuns of La
Saussaye-lez-Villejuif wished that there should be given them all the
linen of the late queen, body linen and table linen, the ornaments of
gold and of silver, and all the mules, palfreys, horses of state and
others which had drawn the chariots, with all the harness and the
collars. The grand equerry of the queen, Louis de Hangest, pretended,
for his part