Great preparations were made at Notre-Dame for the ceremony, which was to take place on the 14th of September, and meanwhile nothing was thought of save pleasure and preparation.

Bassompierre gives an amusing account of the distress of the tailors and embroiderers of the capital, who were unable to comply with the demands of their employers, and many of whom were kidnapped and carried off by persons of the highest rank in order to secure themselves against disappointment.

All Paris was in turmoil; the great were busy in devising costumes which were to transcend all that had previously been seen at the French Court, and the operatives were equally occupied in executing the orders which they received.
In the midst of this excitement, however, the plague, which had long existed in the capital, declared itself more fatally; several officers of Queen Marguerite's household died under her roof, and the alarm became so great that the King removed his Court to Fontainebleau, where the baptismal ceremonies were performed with great magnificence on the day previously appointed.
These ceremonies were so curious and characteristic that we shall offer no apology to our readers for giving them in detail.
Each of the royal children had been privately baptized a few days after its birth, but the public christening had been hitherto deferred in order that it might be celebrated with becoming splendour.

The desire of the King had always been that the Sovereign-Pontiff should act as sponsor to the Dauphin, the eldest son of France being, as he declared, the eldest son of the Church, and the successive deaths of Clement VIII[340] and Leo XI[341] had accordingly delayed the celebration of the ceremony.

Paul V was, however, no sooner apprised of the wishes of the French monarch than he despatched a brief to the Cardinal de Joyeuse for registration in the Court of Parliament, by which that prelate was constituted Papal Legate and representative, and instructed in all things to support the holiness and dignity of the Apostolical See.
The turret-court at Fontainebleau was selected as the most appropriate spot for the construction of the temporary chapel, the great hall of the palace being totally inadequate to contain the thousands who had collected from every part of the country to witness the ceremony.
This immense area was completely enclosed by the costly gold-woven tapestry of which the manufacture had been, as we have stated, introduced and encouraged by the King, and had in its centre a square space, thirty feet in extent, surrounded by barriers, and similarly hung and carpeted with tapestry.