Henry M. Baird · 268 of 379

CHAPTER XI · Funeral obsequies of Francis II.

The altered posture of affairs was equally patent to the princes of late complete masters of the destinies of the country. In the first moments of their excessive terror, they are said to have shut themselves up in their palaces, and to have declined to leave this refuge until assured that no immediate violence was contemplated. Even after the immediate danger had passed, however, they were too shrewd to pay to the remains of their nephew the tokens of respect exacted of the constable in behalf of Henry's corpse, preferring to provide for their own safety and future influence by being present at the meeting of the States. The paltry convoy of Francis from Orleans to the royal vaults of St. Denis presented so unfavorable a contrast to the pompous ceremonial of his father's interment, that it was wittily said, "that the mortal enemy of the Huguenots had not been able to escape being himself buried like a Huguenot." A bitter taunt aimed at the unfaithfulness and ingratitude of the Guises fell under their own eyes. A slip of paper was found pinned to the velvet funereal pall, on which were written—with allusion to that famous chamberlain of Charles the Seventh, who, seeing his master's body abandoned by the courtiers that had flocked to do obeisance to his son and successor, himself buried it with great pomp and at his own expense—the words: "Where is Messire Tanneguy du Chastel? But he was a Frenchman!"