During the course of the day guards had been sent to the residence of
the several foreign ambassadors, in order to protect them from the
violence of the populace, and especially to that of the Spanish
minister, who was peculiarly obnoxious to the Parisians. The governors
of provinces and fortresses who chanced to be at that moment sojourning
in the capital were ordered to repair without delay to their several
commands, to maintain tranquillity within their separate jurisdictions;
and, save the audible lamentations which throughout the night broke the
silence of the mourning city, all was calm and quiet, except in the
immediate neighbourhood of the Augustine monastery, where the
Attorney-General had authorized the workmen to prepare the great hall
for the reception of the young King, and where the necessary
preparations for his presence on the following day were continued
until dawn.[30]

The parliamentary envoy having quitted the palace, and the crowd of
nobles, by whom its spacious halls and galleries had been filled, having
retired, Marie was at length left at liberty to indulge her grief,
rendered only the more poignant from the constraint to which she had
been so long subjected. Her first impulse was to command that the bed of
the young sovereign should be removed to her own chamber, and this done,
she abandoned herself to all the bitterness of her sorrow.

She had, indeed, legitimate cause for tears. With a son still almost a
child, ambitious nobles jealous of her power, and a great nation looking
towards herself for support and consolation, she might well shrink as
she contemplated the arduous task which had so suddenly devolved upon
her. Moreover, death is the moral crucible which cleanses from all dross
the memories of those who are submitted to its unerring test; and in