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.
There was, however, one exception to this general concession, and that one was consequently so conspicuous as to excite instant remark.