Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ...the other who became a Roman Catholic that he might be king of France are brought close together in this castle. The cradle of Henry of Navarre is in the chateau of Pau. It is a tortoise shell, and it was one of the great treasures of all the southern kingdom when Henry became king of France. There is a story about how it was saved at the time of the Revolution. A certain M. de Beauregard was afraid that this precious relic would be destroyed by the soldiers and the mob, and he resolved to save it if he could, even at the peril of life itself. He took it from the castle to his own home, and substituted another tortoise shell for it in the castle. This one was destroyed by the revolutionists. When the fever of their wrath had subsided and there was again a monarchy in France, he put the king's cradle back in its place. The story may be true. At all events, the Duchesse d'AngoulSme believed it, for she embroidered the banners that are now about it. This work of the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette was supplemented by a gift from Louis XVIII. of a gold helmet surmounted by white plumes, meant to be as nearly as possible like the helmet of Navarre and the plumes that were to be the oriflamme of France on the day of Ivry. The chapter of history that was begun in the chateau where Henry IV. came into the world was a very strange one. The strong, proud mother exulting over the birth of her son, the grandfather, hardly less proud, christening him with the wine of his native land and declaring that he was to be a right noble king, and a true Be'arnais, the babyhood days in the tortoise-shell cradle, the years of boyhood among the peasants at Coarraze, the early battles when this youth showed himself a better soldier than some of the...
