As the royal party halted at the barrier, the Civil Lieutenant, M.de Miron, provost of the merchants, delivered a congratulatory address to the King in the name of the city; but this loyal effusion was rendered inaudible by the booming of the cannon from the Bastille, and the crashing and whizzing of the rockets and other fireworks, which, by order of the Due de Sully, were let off immediately that the monarch had passed the gates.[325] So soon as the address was terminated, the gorgeous procession resumed its march, Sully riding on the left hand of the King, by whom this enthusiastic reception had been deeply felt; nor did his gratification suffer any decrease on observing as he passed on that every window upon his way was crowded with fair and animated faces.

As he glanced towards the Bastille, the minister attracted his attention to the Comtesse d'Auvergne, who had latterly been permitted to visit her husband, and who was gazing wistfully from one of the narrow casements.

As Henry recognized her, he withdrew his plumed cap, and bent his head with a courtesy and kindness which was remarked and commented upon by those around him; but his most gracious recognition was vouchsafed to the Comtesse de Moret, who was seated at a window in the Rue St.Antoine, surrounded by a bevy of beauties, who only served to render her own loveliness the more conspicuous.[326] Thus, amid the deafening report of the artillery and the enthusiastic plaudits of the people, Henry and his Queen at length reached the Louvre, and terminated their bloodless campaign.
On the 30th of May the law courts, after three long and patient sittings, declared the ex-Queen Marguerite to be the lawful heir to the counties of Auvergne and Clermont, the barony of La Tour, and other estates which had appertained to the late Queen Catherine de Medicis; asserting that they had hitherto been unjustly possessed by Charles de Valois, who had also wrongfully derived his title of Comte d'Auvergne from one of them; and directed that the said territories should forthwith be transferred to the ex-Queen Marguerite, to whom they rightfully belonged.

When this decision was pronounced, the Princess was assisting at the celebration of mass in the church of St.Saviour, whither M.Drieux, her chancellor, at once proceeded with the glad tidings, which he had no sooner imparted, than, overjoyed by the intelligence, she rose from her knees before the service was concluded, and leaving the church, hastened to the monastery of the Cordeliers, where she caused a "Te Deum" to be chanted in gratitude for her success.
A few days subsequently, while at the Louvre, the ex-Queen, in the presence of Marie de Medicis, made a donation of the recovered estates to the Dauphin, on condition that they should be annexed to the Crown, and never under any consideration, or upon any pretext, alienated.
Marguerite, however, reserved to herself the income derivable from these possessions during her life; and she no sooner found her means adequate to the undertaking than she commenced the enlargement of the hotel which she had previously purchased in the Faubourg St.Germain, near the Pre aux Clercs, and the embellishment of the spacious gardens which swept down to the bank of the river opposite the Louvre.
Here it was, under the very shadow of the palace which should have been her home, that Marguerite held her little court; passing from her oratory to scenes of vice and voluptuousness which, happily, are unparalleled in these times; one day doing penance with bare feet and a robe of serge, and the next reposing upon velvet cushions and pillowed on down--now fasting like an anchorite, and now feasting like a bacchante; one hour dispensing charity so lavishly as to call down the blessings of hundreds on her head, and the next causing her lacqueys to chase with ignominious words and blows from beneath her roof the honest creditors who claimed their hard-earned gains.

Extreme in everything, she gave a tithe of all that she possessed to the monks, although she did not shrink from confessing that her favourites cost her a still larger annual sum; and while she encouraged and appreciated the society of men of letters, and profited largely by their companionship, she condescended to the most frivolous follies, and abandoned herself to the most licentious pleasures.[327] The insipidity of Madame de Moret soon counteracted the spell of her beauty; and although on his return from Sedan the King had appeared to be more fascinated by her extraordinary loveliness than even at the first period of their acquaintance, it was not long ere he listened with a patience very unusual to him to the indignant remonstrances of the Queen on this new infidelity, and even assured her that her reproaches were misplaced.