Page:Margaret of Angoulême, Queen of Navarre (Robinson 1886).djvu/228

Rh While Margaret was kneeling on the floor of her convent cell, weeping for her loss and praying for her dead brother, her brother passionately loved and desperately mourned, the Court of France, with the Dauphin at its head, scarcely cared to conceal its rejoicing. The old régime was quickly buried away. Queen Leonor prepared to leave her land of exile and retired to her own familiar home of Brussels. The Duchess d'Étampes was disgraced; the crown-diamond which Francis had given her was taken from her and given to the triumphant Diana, and Anne herself was banished to her husband's castle and her husband's revengeful guardianship. De Tournon and d'Annebaut were dismissed the Court. Montmorency was recalled; favours and honours were heaped upon him. He and the Guises were set at the head of affairs. The four hundred thousand crowns which Francis, despite his magnificence, had saved for the good of the State, were swiftly spent among the sombre favourites of Henry II.

Never recall Montmorency, check the Guises, diminish the taxes, the dying King had said.

Nor was this all. A terrible scene disgraced the royal funeral—a scene noticed by few, heard only by the nearest bystanders, but of which the reflection and the echo have survived until our time. The coffins of the Dauphin and of the young Duke Charles, not yet inhumed, were carried in one convoy with the King's to the royal vault at St. Denis. Francis and the two sons he loved made that last sad journey together. And Henry, the new King, looking on as the solemn funeral wound along the streets before him, watched the procession with a significant smile. Pointing to the coffin of the Duke of Orleans, he leaned to one