He returned to her bedside and held out the crucifix. She half raised herself; her pale, lovely hair hung about her blue wrap. She took the crucifix in her hands and clasped it to her bosom. The darkness was lifting–behind Exeter towers; she saw the Thames as she had seen it from the windows of Whitehall; she heard the priest’s voice reciting the prayers for the dying. Her lips were on the crucifix; she gave the responses, but her thoughts were not in the words. The light brightened into a dazzle that blotted everything out. She let the crucifix fall and sank back on her pillow. The clock chimed the half hour. She moved her lips convulsively and died–after nine hours of agony. The King was asleep at Versailles and Monsieur was in her private cabinet, weeping furiously and tearing up the multitude of her love-letters by the light of a trembling candle flame. M. de Condom, preaching her funeral sermon, displayed her as a Christian Princess, entirely virtuous. THE BURNING OF THE VANITIES BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE LAST DAY OF CARNIVAL AND THE VISION OF GIROLAMO SAVONAROLA IN THE CITY OF FLORENCE, 1497 “Behold, the sky shall be darkened! Behold, it shall rain fire and flame, stones and rocks; it shall be wild weather. I have placed ye between four winds,” saith the Lord–namely, prelates, princes, priests and bad citizens. “Fly from their vices; gather ye together in charity. Fly from Rome, O Florence, and come to repentance! The Lord saith: ‘I will debase the princes of Italy and trample on the pride of Rome; then, O Italy, trouble after trouble shall befall thee, trouble from this side and from that–rumours from the east, rumours from the west, from all sides rumour after rumour.’ “Then men shall yearn for the visions of the prophets, and shall have them not, for the Lord saith, ‘Now do I prophesy in my turn.’” So ended the sermon of Frà Girolamo, preached from a temporary pulpit erected in front of the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, the last day of the Carnival of the year fourteen hundred and ninety-seven, the third year since the expulsion of the Medici, the third year of the Friar’s rule in Florence. The monks of St. Mark’s were gathered about the pulpit, and round them the Piangoni, the active supporters of the Friar; beyond them the crowd filled the Piazza from end to end, a crowd reverent, silent, excited. It was a windless spring; the odours of the flowers in the fields without hung in the breezeless air and filled the city streets with perfume. Above the fine straight lines of the houses and the majestic shape of the church the sky hung pure of cloud and deeply blue as an early violet. Frà Girolamo paused, gripping the smooth edge of the pulpit, and looked across the gathered multitude.