HENRY III.--THE LEAGUE--SIEGE OF PARIS BY HENRY IV.--HIS CONVERSION,
REIGN AND ASSASSINATION
When the third of Catherine's sons, having resigned the sovereignty of
Poland, was being consecrated at Rheims, the crown is said to have twice
slipped from his head, the insentient diadem itself shrinking in horror
from the brow of a prince destined to pollute it with deeper shame.
Treacherous and bloody, Henry mingled grovelling piety with debauchery,
and made of the court a veritable Alsatia, where paid assassins who
stabbed from behind and _mignons_ who struck to the face, were part of
the train of every prince. The king's _mignons_, with their insolent
bearing, their extravagant and effeminate dress, their hair powdered and
curled, their neck ruffles so broad that their heads resembled the head
of John the Baptist on a charger,--gambling, blaspheming
swashbucklers--were hateful alike to Huguenot and Catholic.
Less than four years after St. Bartholomew the Peace of 1576 gave the
Huguenots all they had ever demanded or hoped for. In 1582 died the Duke
of Alençon, Catherine's last surviving son and heir to the throne; Henry
gave no hope of posterity and the Catholic party were confronted by the
possibility of the sceptre of St. Louis descending to a relapsed
heretic. A tremendous wave of feeling ran through France, and a Holy
League was formed to meet the danger, with the Duke of Guise as leader.
The king tried in vain to win some of the Huguenot and League partisans
by the solemn institution of the Order of the Holy Ghost,[116] in the
church of the Augustinians, to commemorate his elevation to the thrones
of Poland and France on the day of Pentecost. The people were equally
recalcitrant. When Henry entered Paris after the campaign of 1587, they
shouted for their idol, the Balafré,[117] crying, "Saul has slain his
thousands but David his tens of thousands." The king in his jealousy and
disgust forbade Guise to enter Paris; Guise coolly ignored the command,
and a few months later arrived at the head of a formidable train of
nobles, amid the joyous acclamation of the people, who greeted him with
chants of "_Hosannah, Filio David!_" Angry scenes followed. The duke
sternly called his master to duty, and warned him to take vigorous
measures against the Huguenots or lose his crown; the king, pale with
anger, dismissed him and prepared to strike.
[Illustration: CATHERINE DE' MEDICI.
FRENCH SCHOOL, 16TH CENTURY.]
On the night of the 11th May a force of Royal Guards and 4000 Swiss
mercenaries entered Paris, but the Parisians, with that genius for
insurrection which has always characterised them, were equal to the
occasion. The sixteen sections of the city met; in the morning the
people were under arms; and barricades and chains blocked the streets.
The St. Antoine section, ever to the front, stood up to the king's
Guards and to the Swiss advancing to occupy their quarter, defeated
them, and with exultant cries rushed to threaten the Louvre itself.
Henry was forced to send his mother to treat with the duke; she returned
with terms that meant a virtual abdication. Henry took horse and fled,
vowing he would come back only through a breach in the walls. But Guise
was supreme in Paris, and the pitiful monarch was soon forced to yield;
he signed the terms of his own humiliation, and went to Blois to meet
Guise and the States-General with bitterness in his heart, brooding over
his revenge. Visitors to Blois will recall the scene of the tragic end
of Guise, the incidents of which the official guardians of the château
are wont to recite with dramatic gesture. Fearless and impatient of
warnings, the great captain fell into the trap prepared for him; he was
done to death in the king's chamber, like a lion caught in the toils.
Henry, who had heard mass and prayed that God would be gracious to him
and permit the success of his enterprise, hastened to his mother, now
aged and dying. "Madame," said he, "I have killed the king of Paris and
am become once more king of France."[118] The Cardinal of Lorraine,
separated from the king's chamber only by a partition, paled as he heard
his nephew's struggles. "Yes," said his warder, "the king has some
accounts to settle with you." Next morning the old cardinal was led out
and hacked to pieces. The two bodies were burnt and the ashes scattered
to the winds to prevent their being worshipped as relics. It was
Christmas Eve of 1588.
The stupid crime brought its inevitable consequences--
"Revenge and hate bring forth their kind,
Like the foul cubs their parents are."
Paris and the Leaguers were stung to fury; the Sorbonne declared the
king deposed; the pope banned him and a popular preacher called for
another bloodletting. Henry, in a final act of shame and despair, flung
himself into the king of Navarre's arms, and on the 30th July 1589, the
two Henrys encamped at St. Cloud and threatened Paris with an army of
40,000 men. On the morrow Jacques Clement, a young Dominican friar,
after preparing himself by fasting, prayer and holy communion, left
Paris with a forged letter for the king, reached the camp and asked for
a private interview. While Henry was reading the letter the friar
snatched a dagger from his sleeve and mortally stabbed him. He lingered
until 2nd August, and after pronouncing Henry of Navarre his lawful
successor and bidding his Council swear allegiance to the new dynasty,
the last of the thirteen Valois kings passed to his doom. Catherine de'
Medici had already preceded him, burdened with the anathemas of the
Cardinal of Bourbon. The people of Paris swore that if her body were
brought to St. Denis they would fling it to the shambles or into the
Seine, and a famous theologian, preaching at St. Bartholomew's church,
declared to the faithful that he knew not if it were right to pray God
for her soul, but that if they cared to give her in charity a Pater or
an Ave they might do so for what it was worth. This was the reward of
her thirty years of devoted toil, of vigils and of plots to further the
Catholic cause. Not until a quarter of a century had passed were her
ashes laid beside those of her husband in the rich Renaissance tomb,
which still exists, in the royal church of St. Denis. When the news of
the king's death reached Paris, the Duchess of Montpensier, whom he had
threatened to burn alive when he entered, leapt into her carriage and
drove through the streets crying, "Good news, friends! Good news! The
tyrant is dead!" Jacques Clement, who had been cut to pieces by the
king's Guards, was worshipped as a martyr, and his mother rewarded for
having given birth to the saviour of France.
[Illustration: ST. GERVAIS.]
Henry of Navarre, unable to carry on the siege with a divided army,
directed his course for Normandy. The exultant Parisians proclaimed the
Cardinal of Bourbon king, under the title of Charles X., and the Duke of
Mayenne, with a large army, marched forth to give battle to Henry. So
confident were the Leaguers of victory, that their leaders hired windows
along the Rue St. Antoine, to witness the return of the duke bringing
the "Bearnais"[119] dead or a prisoner. Henry did indeed return, but it
was after a victorious campaign. He captured the Faubourg St. Jacques,
and fell upon the abbey of St. Germain des Prés while the astonished
monks were preparing to sing mass. Henry seized the monastery, climbed
the steeple of the church and gazed on Paris. He refreshed his
troops, suffered them to pillage the city south of the Seine, and
turned to the west to fix his capital at Tours. In 1590 he won at Ivry
on the Eure, about fifty miles south of Rouen, the brilliant victory
over the armies of the League and of Spain which Macaulay has
popularised in a stirring poem. The village ever since has been known as
Ivry-la-Bataille.
The road to Paris was now open, and the city endured another and most
terrible siege. The Leaguers fought and suffered with the utmost
constancy. Reliquaries were melted down for money, church bells for
cannon. The clergy and religious orders were caught by the military
enthusiasm. The bishop of Senlis and the prior of the Carthusians, two
valiant Maccabees, were seen, crucifix in one hand, and a pike in the
other, leading a procession of armed priests, monks and scholars through
the streets. Friars from the mendicant orders were among them, their
habits tucked up, hoods thrown back, casques on their heads and
cuirasses on their breasts. All marched sword by side, dagger in girdle,
musket on shoulder, the strangest army of the church militant ever seen.
As they passed the Pont Notre Dame the papal legate was crossing in his
carriage, and was asked to stop and give his blessing. After this
benediction a salvo of musketry was called for, and some of the host of
the Lord, forgetting that their muskets were loaded with ball, killed a
papal officer and wounded a servant of the ambassador of Spain.
[Illustration: LUXEMBOURG PALACE.]
Four months the Parisians endured starvation and all the attendant
horrors of a siege, the incidents of which, as described by
contemporaries, are so ghastly that the pen recoils from transcribing
them. At length, when they were at the last extremity, the Duke of Parma
arrived with a Spanish army, forced Henry to raise the siege, and
revictualled the city. After war, anarchy. In November 1591 it was
discovered that secret letters were passing between Brizard, an officer
in the service of the Duke of Mayenne in Paris, and a royalist at St.
Denis. The sections demanded Brizard's instant execution, and on his
discharge by the Parlement the _curé_ of St. Jacques fulminated against
that body and declared that cold steel must be tried (_faut jouer des
couteaux_). A secret revolutionary committee of ten was appointed, and a
_papier rouge_ or list of suspects in all the districts of Paris was
drawn up under three categories: P. (_pendus_), those to be hung; D.
(_dagués_), those to be poignarded; C. (_chassés_), those to be
expelled. On the night of the 15th November a meeting was held at the
house of the _curé_ of St. Jacques, and in the morning the president of
the Parlement, Brisson, was seized and dragged to the Petit Châtelet,
where a revolutionary tribunal, in black cloaks, on which were sewn
large red crosses, condemned him to death. Meanwhile two councillors of
the Parlement, Larcher and Tardif, had been seized, the latter by the
_curé_ of St. Cosme, and haled to the Châtelet. All three were dragged
to a room, and the executioner was forced to hang them from a beam. The
bodies were then stripped, an inscription was hung about their necks,
and they were suspended from the gallows in the Place de Grève. The
sections believed that Paris would rise: they only shocked the more
orderly citizens. The Duke of Mayenne, who was at Lyons, on the receipt
of the news hastened to Paris, temporised a while and, when sure of
support, seized four of the most dangerous leaders of the sections and
hanged them without trial in the Salle basse of the Louvre. All save the
more violent partisans were now weary of the strife. The Leaguers
themselves were divided. The sections aimed at a theocratic democracy;
another party favoured the Duke of Mayenne; a third, the Duke of Guise;
a fourth, the Infanta of Spain. It was decided to convoke the
States-General at Paris. They met at the Louvre in 1593, and a
conference was arranged with Henry's supporters at Suresnes. Crowds
flocked there, crying, "Peace, peace; blessed be they who bring it;
cursed they who prevent it." Henry knew the supreme moment was come.
France was still profoundly Catholic; he must choose between his
religion and France. He chose to heal his country's wounds and perhaps
to save her very existence. Learned theologians were deputed to confer
with him at Paris, whom he astonished and confounded by his knowledge of
Scripture; they declared that they had never met a heretic better able
to defend his cause. But on 23rd July 1573, he professed himself
convinced, and the same evening wrote to his mistress, Gabrielle
d'Estrées, that he had spoken with the bishops, and that a hundred
anxieties were making St. Denis hateful to him. "On Sunday," he adds, "I
am to take the perilous leap. _Bonjour_, my heart; come to me early
to-morrow. It seems a year since I saw you. A million times I kiss the
fair hands of my angel and the mouth of my dear mistress."
On Sunday, under the great portal of St. Denis, the archbishop of
Bourges sat enthroned in a chair covered with white damask and
embroidered with the arms of France and of Navarre. He was attended by
many prelates and the prior and monks of St. Denis, and the cross and
the book of the Gospels were held before him. Henry drew nigh. "Who are
you?" demanded the archbishop. "I am the king." "What do you ask?" "I
wish to be received in the bosom of the Catholic, Apostolic and Roman
Church." "Is it your will?" "Yes, I will and desire it." Henry then
knelt and made profession of his faith, kissed the prelate's ring,
received his blessing and was led to the choir, where he knelt before
the high altar and repeated his profession of faith on the holy Gospels
amid cries of "_Vive le roi!_"
The clerical extremists in Paris anathematised all concerned. Violent
_curés_ again donned their armour, children were baptised and mass was
sung by cuirassed priests. The _curé_ of St. Cosme seized a partisan,
and with other fanatics of the League hastened to the Latin Quarter to
raise the university. But the people were heartsick of the whole
business; and when Henry entered Paris after his coronation at Chartres,
resplendent in velvet robes embroidered with gold and seated on his
dapple grey charger, his famous helmet with its white plumes ever in his
hand saluting the ladies at the windows, he was hailed with shouts of
joy. Shops were reopened, the artisan took up his tools and the merchant
went to his counter with a sigh of relief. A general amnesty was
proclaimed, and the Spanish garrison were allowed to depart with their
arms. As they filed out of the Porte St. Denis in heavy rain, three
thousand strong, the king was sitting at a window above the gates.
"Remember me to your master," he cried, "but do not return." On the
morrow the provost and sheriffs and chief citizens came to the Louvre
bearing presents of sweetmeats, sugar-plums and malmsey wine. "Yesterday
I received your hearts, to-day I receive your sweets," the king
remarked; all were charmed by his wit, his forbearance and generosity.
The stubborn university was last to give way, but when the doctors of
theology learnt that Henry had touched for the king's evil and that many
had been cured, they too were convinced. Paris, "well worth a mass," was
wooed and won. The memorable Edict of Nantes established liberty of
worship and political equality for the Protestants. The war with Spain
was brought to a successful issue, and Henry, with his minister the Duke
of Sully, probably the greatest financial genius France has ever known,
by wise and firm statesmanship lifted the country from bankruptcy to
prosperity and contentment.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DE SULLY.]
Henry, like one of his predecessors, had of _bastards et bastardes une
moult belle compagnie_, but as yet no legitimate heir. A divorce from
Marguerite of Valois and a politic marriage with the pope's niece, Marie
de' Medici,[120] gave him a magnificent dowry, an additional bond to
the papacy, and several children.
Henri Quatre, hero of Voltaire's famous epic, is the most popular and
romantic figure in the gallery of French kings. His statue on the Pont
Neuf was spared for a while by the revolutionists, who made every
passer-by in a carriage alight and bow to it. Born among the mountains,
Henry was patient of fatigue and hardships. In good or evil fortune his
gaiety of heart never failed him. Brave and generous, courteous and
witty, he endeared himself to all his subjects, save a few fanatics, and
won a desperate cause by sheer personal magic and capacity. Like all his
race, Henry was susceptible to the charms of the daughters of Eve, but,
unlike his descendants, he never sacrificed France to their tears and
wiles. When the question of the succession was urgent he thought of
marrying Gabrielle d'Estrées, whom he had created Duchess of Beaufort.
But Sully opposed the union, and the impatient Gabrielle sought her
royal lover, and used all her powers of fascination to compass the
dismissal of the great minister. Henry, however, stood firm, and
Gabrielle burst into passionate reproaches. It was of no avail. "Let me
tell you," answered Henry, calmly, "if I must choose between you and the
duke, I would sooner part with ten mistresses such as you than one
faithful servant such as he."
In 1610 the king was making great preparations for a war with Austria,
and, on the 14th May, desiring to consult Sully, who was unwell in his
rooms at the Arsenal, he determined to spare him the fatigue of
travelling to the Louvre, and to drive to the Arsenal.
With much foreboding the king had agreed to the coronation of Marie de'
Medici, which had been celebrated at St. Denis with great pomp. The
ceremony was attended by two sinister incidents. The Gospel for the day,
taken from Mark x., included the answer of Jesus to the Pharisees who
tempted Him by asking--"Is it lawful for a man to put away his
wife?"--the Gospel was hurriedly changed. And when the usual largesse
of gold and silver pieces was thrown to the crowd not a voice cried,
"_Vive le roi_," or "_Vive la reine_." That night the king tossed
restless on his bed, pursued by evil dreams. On the morrow his
counsellors begged him to defer his journey, but nineteen plots to
assassinate him had already failed: he gently put aside their warnings,
and repeated his favourite maxim that fear had no place in a generous
heart. It was a warm day, and the king entered his open carriage,
attended by the Dukes of Epernon and Montbazon and five other courtiers;
a number of _valets de pied_ followed him. In the narrow Rue de la
Ferronnerie the carriage was stopped by a block in the traffic, and the
servants were sent round by the cemetery of the Innocents. While the
king was listening to the reading of a letter by the Duke of Epernon,
one Francis Ravaillac, who had been watching his opportunity for twelve
months, placed his foot on a wheel of the coach, leaned forward, and
plunged a knife into the king's breast. Before he could be seized he
pulled out the fatal steel and doubled his thrust, piercing him to the
heart. "_Je suis blessé_," cried Henry, and never spoke again. The
widened Rue de la Ferronnerie still exists; the tragedy took place
opposite the present no. 3. The regicide was seized, and all the
tortures that the most refined cruelty could invent were inflicted upon
him. He was dragged to the Place de Grève, his right hand cut off and,
with the fatal knife, flung into the flames; the flesh was torn from his
arms, breast and legs; melted lead and boiling oil were poured into the
wounds. Horses were then tied to each of his four limbs, and were lashed
for an hour, when at length the body was torn to pieces and burnt to
ashes. Some writers have inculpated the Jesuits for the murder, but it
may more reasonably be attributed to the fury of a crazy fanatic.
Certain it is that Henry's heart was given to the Jesuits for the church
of their college of la Flèche, which was founded by him.
The first Bourbon king has left his impress on the architecture of
Paris. Small progress had been made during the reign of Henry II.'s
three sons with their father's plans for the rebuilding of the Louvre.
The work had been continued along the river front after Lescot's death
in 1578 by Baptiste du Cercan, and Catherine de' Medici had erected the
gallery on the south, known as the Petite Galerie--a ground-floor
building with a terrace on top, intended for a meeting-place and
promenade and not for residence; she had also begun the palace of the
Tuileries in 1564, but abandoned it on being warned by her astrologer,
Ruggieri, that she should die under the ruins of a house near St.
Germain.[121] Henry, soon after he had entered Paris, elaborated a vast
scheme for finishing the Tuileries, demolishing the churches of St.
Thomas and St. Nicholas, quadrupling the size of the old Louvre and
joining the two palaces by continuing the Grande Galerie, already begun
by Catherine, to the west. Towards the east the hôtels d'Alençon, de
Bourbon and the church of St. Germain l'Auxerrois were to be demolished,
and a great open space was to be levelled between the new east front of
the Louvre and the Pont Neuf. At Henry's accession Catherine's
architects, Philibert de l'Orme and Jean Bullant, had completed the
superb domed central pavilion of the Tuileries, with its two contiguous
galleries, and begun the end pavilions. The gardens, with the famous
maze or _dedalus_ and Palissy's beautiful grotto, had been completed in
1476, and for some years were a favourite promenade for Catherine and
her court. Henry's plans were so far carried out that on New Year's day,
1608, he could walk along the Grande Galerie to the Pavilion de Flore at
the extreme west of the river front, and enter the south wing of the
Tuileries which had been extended to meet it. The Pavilion de Flore thus
became the angle of junction between the two palaces. An upper floor
was imposed on the Petite Galerie, and adorned with paintings
representing the kings of France. Henry intended the ground floor of the
Grande Galerie for the accommodation of painters, sculptors, goldsmiths,
tapestry weavers, smiths, and other craftsmen. The quadrangle, however,
remained as the last Valois had left it--half Renaissance, half
Gothic--and the north-east and south-east towers of the original château
were still standing to be drawn by Sylvestre towards the middle of the
seventeenth century.
Domenico da Cortona's unfinished Hôtel de Ville was taken in hand after
more than half-a-century and practically completed.[122] The larger,
north portion of the Pont Neuf was built, the two islets west of the
Cité were incorporated with the island to form the Place Dauphine and
the ground that now divides the two sections of the bridge--a new
street, the Rue Dauphine, being cut through the garden of the Augustins
and the ruins of the college of St. Denis. The Place Royale (now des
Vosges) was built, that charming relic of seventeenth and eighteenth
century fashionable Paris, where Molière's _Précieuses_ lived.
[Illustration: PLACE DES VOSGES.]
[Illustration: PLACE DES VOSGES.]
How different is the present aspect of this once courtly square! Here
noble gentlemen in dazzling armour jousted, while, from the windows of
each of the thirty-five pavilions, gentle dames and demoiselles smiled
gracious guerdon to their cavaliers. Around the bronze statue of Louis
XIII., proudly erect on the noble horse cast by Daniello da Volterra, in
the middle of the gardens, fine ladies were carried in their
sedan-chairs and angry gallants fought out their quarrels. And now on
the scene of these brilliant revels, peaceful inhabitants of the east of
Paris sun themselves and children play. Bronze horse and royal rider
went to the melting pot of the Revolution to be forged into the cannon
that defeated and humbled the allied kings of Europe, and a feeble
marble equestrian statue, erected under the Restoration, occupies its
place. Henry also partly rebuilt the Hôtel Dieu, created new streets,
and widened others.[123] New fountains and quays were built; the Porte
du Temple was reopened, and the Porte des Tournelles constructed.
Unhappily, some of the old wooden bridges remained, and on Sunday, 22nd
December 1596, the Pont aux Meuniers (Miller's Bridge), just below the
Pont au Change, suddenly collapsed, with all its shops and houses, and
sixty persons perished. They were not much regretted, for most of them
had enriched themselves by the plunder of Huguenots, and during the
troubles of the League. The bridge was rebuilt of wood, at the cost of
the captain of the corps of archers, and as the houses were painted each
with the figure of a bird, the new bridge was known as the Pont aux
Oiseaux (Bridge of Birds). It spanned the river from the end of the Rue
St. Denis and the arch of the Grand Châtelet to the Tour de l'Horloge of
the Palais de Justice. In 1621, however, it and the Pont au Change
were consumed by fire in a few hours and, in 1639, the two wooden
bridges were replaced by a bridge of stone, the Pont au Change, which
stood until rebuilt in 1858.
It was in Henry's reign that the Penitents, a regularised order of
reformed Franciscan Tertiaries, were established at Picpus, a small
village south-east of the Porte St. Antoine, and the friars became known
to the Parisians as the Picpuses. The buildings are now occupied by the
nuns of the Sacré Coeur, whose church contains a much venerated
statuette of the Virgin, which, in Henry's reign, stood over the portal
of the Capucin convent in the Rue St. Honoré. Readers of _Les
Misérables_ will remember that it was over the high walls of this
convent that Jean Valjean escaped with Cosette from his pursuers. At the
end of the garden lie buried in the cemetery of Picpus the victims of
the Revolution who were guillotined on the Place du Trône Renversé (now
du Trône).
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES NEAR PONT ST. MICHEL, SHOWING SPIRE OF THE
STE. CHAPELLE.]
[Illustration: PONT ST. MICHEL.]
We are able to give the impression which the Paris of Henri Quatre made
on an English traveller, a friend of Ben Johnson and author of _Coryat's
Crudities, hastily gobbled up in five months' Travell_. The first
objects that met Coryat's eye are characteristic. As he travelled along
the St. Denis road he passed "seven[124] faire pillars of freestone at
equal distances, each with an image of St. Denis and his two companions,
and a little this side of Paris was the fairest gallows I ever saw,
built on Montfaucon, which consisted of fourteene fair pillars of
freestone." He notes "the fourteene gates of Paris, the goodly
buildings, mostly of fair, white stone and"--a detail always
unpleasantly impressed on travellers--"the evil-smelling streets, which
are the dirtiest and the most stinking I ever saw in any city in my
life. Lutetia! well dothe it brooke being so called from the Latin word
_lutum_, which signifieth dirt." Coryat was impressed by the
bridges--"the goodly bridge of white freestone nearly finished (the Pont
Neuf); a famous bridge that far exceedeth this, having one of the
fairest streets in Paris called our Ladies street; the bridge of
Exchange where the goldsmiths live; St. Michael's bridge, and the bridge
of Birds." He admires the "Via Jacobea, full of bookesellers' faire
shoppes, most plentifully furnished with bookes, and the fair building,
very spacious and broad, where the Judges sit in the Palais de Justice,
the roofs sumptuously gilt and embossed, with an exceeding multitude of
great, long bosses hanging downward." Coryat next visited the fine
quadrangle of the Louvre, whose outside was exquisitely wrought with
festoons, and decked with many stately pillars and images. From Queen
Mary's bedroom he went to a room[125] "which excelleth not only all that
are now in the world but also all that were since the creation thereof,
even a gallery, a perfect description whereof would require a large
volume, with a roofe of most glittering and admirable beauty. Yea, so
unspeakably fair is it that a man can hardly comprehend it in his mind
that hath not seen it with his bodily eyes." The Tuileries gardens were
the finest he ever beheld for length of delectable walks.
Next day Coryat saw the one thing above all he desired to see, "that
most rare ornament of learning Isaac Casaubon," who told him to observe
"a certain profane, superstitious ceremony of the papists--a bedde
carried after a very ethnicall manner, or rather a canopy in the form of
a bedde, under which the Bishop of the city, with certain priests, carry
the Sacrament. The procession of Corpus Christi," he adds, "though the
papists esteemed it very holy, was methinks very pitiful. The streets
were sumptuously adorned with paintings and rich cloth of arras, the
costliest they could provide, the shews of Our Lady street being so
hyperbolical in pomp that it exceedeth all the rest by many degrees.
Upon public tables in the streets they exposed rich plate as ever I saw
in my life, exceeding costly goblets and what not tending to pomp; and
on the middest of the tables stood a golden crucifix and divers other
gorgeous images. Following the clergy, in capes exceeding rich, came
many couples of little singing choristers, which, pretty innocent
punies, were so egregiously deformed that moved great pity in any
relenting spectator, being so clean shaved round about their heads that
a man could perceive no more than the very rootes of their hair."
At the royal suburb Coryat saw "St. Denis, his head enclosed in a
wonderful, rich helmet, beset with exceeding abundant pretious stones,"
but the skull itself he "beheld not plainly, only the forepart through a
pretty, crystall glass, and by light of a wax candle."