IX, whose royal edict brought forth the bloody night of Saint
Bartholomew in 1572, fell sick two years later in the Chateau de
Vincennes. Calling his surgeon, Ambroise Pare, to his side he exclaimed:
"My body burns with fever; I see the mangled Huguenots all about me;
Holy Virgin, how they mock me; I wish, Pare, I had spared them." And
thus he died, abhorring the mother who had counselled him to commit this
horrible deed.

The donjon of Vincennes was carried to its comparatively great height
that it might serve as a tower of observation as well as a place of last
retreat if in an attack the outer walls of the fortress should give way.
Here at Vincennes a certain massiveness is noted in connection with the
donjon, though the actual ground area which it covers is not very
great; it was not like many donjons of the time, which were virtually
smaller chateaux or fortresses enclosed within a greater.

Vincennes, in comparison with many other contemporary edifices,
possessed a certain regularity of outline which was made possible by its
favourable situation. When others were of fantastic form, they were
usually so built because of the configuration of the land, or the nature
of the soil. But here the land was flat, and, though the edifice and its
dependencies covered no very extended area, they followed rectangular
lines with absolute precision.

As its walls were of a thickness of three metres, it was a work easy of
accomplishment for Louis XI to turn the chateau into a Prison of State,
a use to which the first chateau had actually been put by the shutting
up in it of Enguerrand de Marigny. Henri IV, in 1574, passed some
solitary hours and days within its walls, and Mirabeau did the same in
1777. The Duc d'Enghien, under the First Empire, before his actual death
by shooting, suffered sorely herein, while resting under an unjust
suspicion.

[Illustration: _Chateau de Vincennes_]

In 1814-1815 the chateau became a great arsenal and general storehouse
for the army. It was attacked by the Allies and besieged twice, but in
vain. It was defended against the armies of Blucher by the Baron
Daumesnil. Summoned to surrender his charge, "Jambe de Bois" (so called
because he had lost a leg the year before) replied: "I will surrender
when you surrender to me my leg." A statue to this brave warrior is
within the chateau, and commemorates further the fact that he
capitulated only on terms laid down by himself out of his humane regard