[18] The Cross of Trahoir was a small irregularly shaped space, surrounded by miserable hovels, with high pointed roofs, most of which were in a state of dangerous dilapidation; the broken casements in every instance replaced by rags or straw; the doors ill-hung and swinging upon their rusty hinges, and the whole of the buildings lost in dirt and wretchedness. The inhabitants of this filthy nook were of the lowest and most depraved description, and no other tenants could indeed have been found to make their dwelling there; as in addition to the squalor of the buildings themselves, the deeply-sunk and humid soil, which in fact formed an open sewer that drained the adjacent streets, supported several permanent gibbets arranged in the form of a cross; while the thoroughfares by which it was approached were foul and fetid lanes, breathing nothing save disease and infection. [19] Mézeray, Péréfixe, and Daniel say that it was the Due de Montbazon whose arm warded off the blow. [20] François Ravaillac was a native of Angoulême, the son of a lawyer, and was about thirty-two years of age. He was a descendant through the female line of Poltrot de Méré, the assassin of the Due de Guise. He had been originally destined to follow the profession of his father, but the loss of a lawsuit having reduced his parents to beggary, he took refuge in the monastery of the Feuillants, where he entered upon his novitiate. His weakness of intellect and extreme irritability caused him, however, to be rejected by that community; and he returned to his native province, where he was imprisoned for twelve months as an accomplice in a case of manslaughter. During his confinement he had, as he affirmed, visions connected with the conduct of the King which determined him to take his life; and for three years he had persisted in this horrible design, in furtherance of which he had thrice visited Paris. Upon the last of these occasions he had reached the capital during the Easter festivals, but he determined to delay his purpose until after the coronation of the Queen. [21] Péréfixe, vol. ii. pp. 496-498. Mézeray, vol. x. p. 395. _Mercure Français_, p. 424. L'Etoile, vol. iv. pp. 36-40. [22] _Mercure Français_, pp. 424, 425. L'Etoile, vol. iv. pp. 40, 41. Daniel, vol. vii. p. 507. [23] Mézeray, vol. x. p. 397. [24] _Mercure Français_, pp. 440, 441. [25] Péréfixe, vol. ii. pp. 498, 499. BOOK II MARIE DE MEDICIS AS REGENT CHAPTER I 1610