“On Friday, the 14th, His Majesty had gone to the Rue Saint-Denis to see the preparations for the Queen’s entry, and, returning, was in the street called de la Ferronnerie, when a wicked man, or rather the most execrable monster on earth, climbed on the hinder part of the coach inside which His Majesty was, and, unrestrained by the respect and fear due to the Lord’s anointed and the greatest prince in the world, attacking him from behind whose face brought terror to his enemies and assurance to all his subjects, gave him two blows with a knife, of which the first was not mortal, although both went through the body. When the report ran through Paris that the King was dead, you cannot imagine, Sir, the grief of all the people, the amazement of the nobles, every one sad and cast down; and yet, in the midst of this general sadness, it was courageously resolved to establish the Queen as regent, so that, three hours after the catastrophe, the King having expired, the Court of Parliament assembled at the Augustins, M. le Prince de Conti, MM. de Guise, d’Épernon, de Montbazon and many others being present, and verified the letters patent of the Regency which the late King had caused to be made out.” The Abbé goes on to describe the sorrowful and loyal reception of the young Louis XIII., on Saturday, at the Palais de Justice, and then adds what he knows will interest his Bishop more than any other Parisian news he can send him at the moment. “I must tell you that M. le Cardinal du Perron shows on all occasions the esteem in which he holds you; for I hear that when there was talk a few months ago, in his presence, of the young prelates of France, and when some one spoke of you in terms of praise, according to the reputation you have gained, M. le Cardinal said that you should not be counted among the young prelates, that the oldest ought to give way to you, and that for his own part he was ready to be an example to the rest. M. de Richelieu, to whom this was said, repeated it to me in so many words.” This penetrating Cardinal du Perron, Archbishop of Sens, was one of the loftiest ecclesiastical figures of the time. Theologian and politician, he had been Richelieu’s chief patron in Paris, and his words, as Sébastien Bouthillier very well knew, were not a mere piece of flattery addressed to Richelieu’s brother.