The French author, Leon Gozlau, has given a full account of the extraordinary ceremonies which took place in honor of Francis after his death. In front of the bed on which lay the body of the king, says M. Gozlau, “was erected an altar covered with embroidered cloth; on this stood two gold candlesticks, bearing two lights from candles of the whitest wax. The cardinals, prelates, knights, gentlemen, and officers, whose duty it was to keep watch, were stationed around the _catafalque_, seated on chairs of cloth of gold. During the eleven days that the ceremony lasted, the strictest etiquette of service was observed about the king, as if he had been a living monarch in presence of his court. His table was regularly laid out for dinner, by the side of his bed. A cardinal blessed the food. A gentleman in waiting presented the ewer to the figure of the dead king. A knight offered him the cup mantling with wine: and another wiped his lips and fingers. These functions, with many others, took place by the solemn and subdued light of the funeral torches.” The after ceremonies were quite as curious and extraordinarily magnificent; but it is unnecessary to rest upon them. A king, in not much better circumstances than Francis, just before his death, slept in the castle for one night in the year 1588. It was a night in May, and the knight proprietor Jean d’Angennes, was celebrating the marriage of his daughter. The ceremony was interrupted by a loud knocking at the castle gates. The wary Jean looked first at the clamorous visitors through the wicket, whence he descried Henri III. flurried, yet laughing, seated in an old carriage, around which mustered dusty horsemen, grave cavaliers, and courtiers scantily attired. Some had their points untrussed, and many a knight was without his boots. An illustrious company, in fact; but there were not two nobles in their united purses. Jean threw open his portals to a king and his knights flying from De Guise. The latter had got possession of Paris, and Henri and his friends had escaped in order to establish the regal authority at Chartres. The two great adversaries met at Blois: and after the assassination of Guise, the king, with his knights and courtiers, gallopped gayly past Rambouillet on his return to Paris, to profit by his own wickedness, and the folly of his trusty and well-beloved cousin, the duke.