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.