After these justs and tourneys, the king carried the queen to St Germain en Laye, where they spent some time, leading as joyous a life as he was able. He thence returned to his palace of the Tournelles at Paris, and was taken so dangerously ill that he made preparations becoming a good Christian, and rendered his soul to God on the 1st day of January, in the year 1514. His body was aromatically embalmed, and lay in state some days at the Tournelles, where every body went to see it who pleased. The usual ceremonies on such occasions were then performed, but it would be tiresome to detail them. Some days after, the body was carried to the church of Nôtre Dame, and placed in a chapel that had been purposely erected in the choir,--and a solemn service was performed by the bishop of Paris. The next day it was borne to a cross near to St Denis, where the abbot and his monks of St Denis met it, and was, by them, interred with great pomp, amidst the tears of his officers and domestics. He was buried beside his queen, Anne of Brittany. May God receive their souls! The principal mourners were the lord of Alençon, the lord of Bourbon, the lord of Vendôme, and other princes and great lords. It is of some moment when a king or great prince dies, who may, perhaps, have caused the deaths of numbers of human creatures like themselves; for I believe that in the other world they will have enough to do, more especially respecting this circumstance, that a poor man, with six or seven small children, not worth twenty sols in the world, shall be taxed from ten to twenty sols, and when the collector shall come to receive the tax, finding the man worth nothing, and without means of raising the money, he commits him to prison, where he languishes out his days. Now I would like to have shown any written law for this injustice; but no one will attempt so to do, because every one is eager to push himself forward in this world. May God assist the poor people! CHAP. XXXVI. FRANCIS I. KING OF FRANCE, IS CONSECRATED AT RHEIMS.--HE MAKES HIS PUBLIC ENTRY INTO PARIS.--HE LEAVES FRANCE TO ATTACK THE SWISS, IN THE MILANESE, WHO HAVE TAKEN POSSESSION OF THAT DUCHY. After the death of Louis XII. Francis, the first of the name, succeeded him on the throne as the fifty-seventh king of France. He set out from Paris, to be consecrated king in the cathedral of Rheims, according to the custom of his ancestors kings of France, and was there anointed with the holy oil on the 25th day of January, in the year 1514. The twelve peers of France, or their substitutes, were present exercising their functions in the usual manner on such occasions.