a measure; declaring that their fiat was null and void, as the Chambers
had no authority to organize a government, and still less to appoint a
regency, which could only be effectively done by a royal testament, a
declaration made before death, or by an assembly of the States-General.
He, moreover, insisted that the case was without precedent; that the
power of the Parliament was restricted to the administration of justice;
and that while it was desirable that the mothers of princes, heirs to
the throne, should be entrusted with the care of their education, the
government of the country belonged by right to the Princes of the Blood,
to the exclusion of all other claimants.[40]

Every effort was made to calm his anger; and it is probable that the
representations of his personal friends convinced him of the impolicy of
further opposition; although he so long delayed his arrival in the
capital that he could only explain his tardiness by declaring that the
sudden intelligence of the King's murder had so seriously affected his
health that he was unable to obey the summons of the Queen until the
16th of May, when he was met at the gate of the city by the Duc
d'Epernon, at the head of a large body of the nobility.

The pomp in which he reached Paris, however, sufficed to prove that he
was totally unprepared for the existing posture of affairs, and that he
had taken every precaution to enforce his claims, should he find the
public mind disposed to admit them. His retinue consisted of three
hundred horse, and he travelled with all the pretensions of royalty. A
few words, nevertheless, sufficed to dispel the illusion under which he
laboured, and once convinced that the supreme authority of the Queen had
been both recognized and ratified, he had no other alternative save to
offer his submission; which he did, moreover, with so good a grace that
Marie bestowed upon him, in token of welcome, the government of