ve acquired, could she have curbed her violent temper.
But not only did she rave and rage, and assail him with angry words, it
was even necessary to restrain her from the too free use of her hands.
And her blows were far from being light ones, for, as Henri once
jestingly said, she was 'terribly robust.'" His conjugal inconstancy
was, indeed, flagrant. _La belle Gabrielle_, Madame de Liancourt,
afterward made Marquise de Mousseaux, the most celebrated of his
mistresses, was declared by him to be the only woman he ever really
loved, and, say the chronicles, "he used to caress her greatly and kiss
her before everybody," but she had plenty of successors. One of them,
the Marquise de Verneuil, was obliged to be present in the queen's train
on the day of her coronation, as was, also, the divorced Marguerite de
France; and on the very morning of his assassination, the king, now
grizzled and bent, went to pay a visit to a newer beauty to whom he was
paying court, Mlle. Angelique Paulet, daughter of the secretary of State
who originated the celebrated financial measure named, after him, _la
paulette_.

Nevertheless, it is related that on the day of her coronation, in 1610,
when Marie de Medicis passed up the nave of the cathedral of
Saint-Denis, flushed with pride and triumph, and wearing regally the
royal mantle and jewels, Henri, who was present only as a spectator,
turned to Sully, his minister and friend, and said, with animation:
"_Ventre-saint-gris! Qu'elle est belle!_" It may be remarked that the
king's favorite oath was said to have been invented for him by the
churchmen, that he might not be guilty of blasphemy,--neither Saint-Gris
nor his stomach being known to the calendar.

After having paid his visit to Mademoiselle Paulet, the king ordered his
carriage, to go and see how the preparations for the 16th of May--the
day of the public entrance into the capital of the newly-crowned Queen
of France--were progressing. It is said that he had a superstitious
presentiment concerning carriages, and but very seldom used them; there
were not wanting other warnings, one from the astrologers, and his heart
was unusually heavy. He had already escaped nineteen attempts at
assassination. The coaches of those days had no glass windows, and were
clumsy boxes, mounted on four immense wheels, and either set without
springs or suspended on broad leathern bands. The king, who was
accompanied by the ducs d'Epernon and de Montbazon and fiv