for awhile his sovereign dignity that he might perform his duty as a parent, by pledging himself that when the Prince should have attained his sixteenth year, he should take the vows, and in all things conform himself to the rules of the institution. The procession then passed out of the church in the same order as it had entered, and the young Prince was immediately put into possession of the income arising from his commandery, which was estimated at forty thousand annual livres.[229] This ceremony was followed by a series of Court festivals, which were abruptly terminated by the arrival of a courier from Lorraine with the intelligence of the death of the Duchesse de Bar, an event which it was so well known would deeply affect the King, that the principal personages of the Court, and the members of his council, determined to go in a body to communicate it, in order that they might offer him the best consolation in their power. This, however, was a grief beyond their sympathy, the affection which Henry bore towards his sister having been unshaken throughout their lives; and the distressing intelligence was no sooner imparted to him than he burst into a passionate flood of tears, and desired that every one should withdraw, and leave him alone with God. He was no sooner obeyed than he caused the windows of his closet to be closed, and admittance refused to all comers; after which he threw himself upon his bed, and abandoned himself to all the bitterness of a sorrow alike unexpected and irremediable. Several days passed away in this ungovernable grief, and when its violence at length partially subsided, the King issued an order that the whole Court should assume the deepest mourning, and that no one should presume to approach him in any other garb. Not only, therefore, were all the great officers of the Crown, and all the Court functionaries, from M. le Grand to the pages and lacqueys in the ante-chambers, clad in the same sable livery, but even the foreign ambassadors, anxious alike to avoid giving offence to the monarch, and to escape the inconvenience of being excluded from his presence and thus rendered incapable of furthering the interests of their several sovereigns, adopted a similar habit. The mourning of the Queen and her household more than satisfied all the exigencies of the King; for Marie de Medicis not only sympathized deeply with the sufferings of her royal consort, but also felt that in Madame Catherine she had lost a sincere friend--that rarest of all luxuries to a crowned head!--and it was not consequently in her outward apparel alone that she gave testimony of her unfeigned regret, for in abandoning her usual garb, she also abandoned every species of amusement, and forbade all movement in her immediate circle beyond that which was necessitated by the service of her attendants.