Huguenots; that is to say, there were no priests, no cross, nor any holy water.  We kept ourselves at some distance from the bed, but Madame de Nevers, whom you know the Queen hated more than any woman besides, and which she had shown both in speech and by actions,—­Madame de Nevers, I say, approached the bedside, and, to the great astonishment of all present, who well knew the enmity subsisting betwixt them, took the Queen’s hand, with many low curtseys, and kissed it; after which, making another curtsey to the very ground, she retired and rejoined us.

A few months after the Queen’s death, the Prince of Navarre, or rather, as he was then styled, the King, came to Paris in deep mourning, attended by eight hundred gentlemen, all in mourning habits.  He was received with every honour by King Charles and the whole Court, and, in a few days after his arrival, our marriage was solemnised with all possible magnificence; the King of Navarre and his retinue putting off their mourning and dressing themselves in the most costly manner.  The whole Court, too, was richly attired; all which you can better conceive than I am able to express.  For my own part, I was set out in a most royal manner; I wore a crown on my head with the ‘coet’, or regal close gown of ermine, and I blazed in diamonds.  My blue-coloured robe had a train to it of four ells in length, which was supported by three princesses.  A platform had been raised, some height from the ground, which led from the Bishop’s palace to the Church of Notre-Dame.  It was hung with cloth of gold; and below it stood the people in throngs to view the procession, stifling with heat.  We were received at the church door by the Cardinal de Bourbon, who officiated for that day, and pronounced the nuptial benediction.  After this we proceeded on the same platform to the tribune which separates the nave from the choir, where was a double staircase, one leading into the choir, the other through the nave to the church door.  The King of Navarre passed by the latter and went out of church.

But fortune, which is ever changing, did not fail soon to disturb the felicity of this union.  This was occasioned by the wound received by the Admiral, which had wrought the Huguenots up to a degree of desperation.  The Queen my mother was reproached on that account in such terms by the elder Pardaillan and some other principal Huguenots, that she began to apprehend some evil design.  M. de Guise and my brother the King of Poland, since Henri III. of France, gave it as their advice to be beforehand with the Huguenots.  King Charles was of a contrary opinion.  He had a great esteem for M. de La Rochefoucauld, Teligny, La Noue, and some other leading men of the same religion; and, as I have since heard him say, it was with the greatest difficulty he could be prevailed upon to give his consent, and not before he had been made to understand that his own life aid the safety of his kingdom depended upon it.