A passage was with
difficulty opened through the crowd, and he was then led to the high
altar, amid the acclamations of the people. Here he knelt devoutly and
repeated his protestations. His unction and contrition were most
impressive, and the people, of course, wept piteously. The king, during
the progress of the ceremony, with hands clasped together and adoring the
Eucharist with his eyes, or, as the Host was elevated, smiting himself
thrice upon the breast, was a model of passionate devotion.

Afterwards he retired to a pavilion behind the altar, where the
archbishop confessed and absolved him. Then the Te Deum sounded, and high
mass was celebrated by the Bishop of Nantes. Then, amid acclamations and
blessings, and with largess to the crowd, the king returned to the
monastery of Saint Denis, where he dined amid a multitude of spectators,
who thronged so thickly around him that his dinner-table was nearly
overset. These were the very Parisians, who, but three years before, had
been feeding on rats and dogs and dead men's bones, and the bodies of
their own children, rather than open their gates to this same Prince of
Bearne.

Now, although Mayenne had set strong guards at those gates, and had most
strictly prohibited all egress, the city was emptied of its populace,
which pressed in transports of adoration around the man so lately the
object of their hate. Yet few could seriously believe that much change
had been effected in the inner soul of him, whom the legate, and the
Spaniard, and the holy father at Rome still continued to denounce as the
vilest of heretics and the most infamous of impostors.

The comedy was admirably played out and was entirely successful. It may
be supposed that the chief actor was, however, somewhat wearied. In
private, he mocked at all this ecclesiastical mummery, and described
himself as heartily sick of the business. "I arrived here last evening,"
he wrote to the beautiful Gabrielle, "and was importuned with 'God save
you' till bed-time. In regard to the Leaguers I am of the order of St.
Thomas. I am beginning to-morrow morning to talk to the bishops, besides
those I told you about yesterday. At this moment of writing I have a
hundred of these importunates on my shoulders, who will make me hate
Saint Denis as much as you hate Mantes. 'Tis to-morrow that I take the
perilous leap. I kiss a million times the beautiful hands of my angel and
the mouth of my dear mistress."

A truce--renewed