It was probably in the autumn that Villiers repaired to the Continent, since it is expressly stated that he was eighteen when he undertook that journey, and he had not attained that age until August, 1610. It seems, therefore, likely that Villiers beheld France under a strange aspect, that of a universal state of despair. Protestants and Catholics were alike overwhelmed by the recent calamity; the former might well dread a fresh massacre, but the grief of their Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen dispelled that apprehension. The excess of lamentation, expressed somewhat theatrically—the cries of widows and orphans in the streets—the sight of women rushing through the mourners at the funeral, screaming—the orations, interrupted by sobs, in which the virtues of the deceased monarch were panegyrized—these must have ceased before Villiers visited Paris; but the Huguenots still sheltered themselves in the Arsenal, where the great Sully mourned his royal master and friend.[34] Footnote 33: Henry IV. was stabbed by Ravaillac on the 14th of May, 1610. Footnote 34: The women, in some instances, refused to take food, by way of shewing their grief for the murder of Henry, and even the men gave way to despondency. “Plusieurs des meilleurs citoyens de la ville,” says Lacretelle; “se sont sentis frappés du coup de la mort, en apprenant cette nouvelle; d’autres, qui expirent plus lentement, se plaignent de survivre trop long temps a ce bon roi.”—Lacretelle “Histoire de France,” pendant les Guerres de Religion, tome iv., p. 385. In Paris, Villiers remained three years, prosecuting his studies, which consisted of French, and the practice of polite and martial exercises. His education tended, indeed, to increase his failings, to heighten his taste for display and love of pleasure, and to weaken his reasoning faculties. He had, according to the acknowledgment of his great partisan, Sir Henry Wotton, “little grammatical foundation;” and French appears to have been the only foreign language that he ever acquired; nevertheless, it is remarkable what application to business he evinced during the last few years of his life; his punctuality in correspondence, and the clear and simple style of his letters, prove how easily his mind might have been trained to higher pursuits than those on which his mother, worldly, but not wise, based her expectations of his future fortunes.