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Updated: June 20, 2025
On the Lit de Parade the body of the King himself lay outstretched; that was too sad for a little boy. But Castrum doloris was sheer delight, and it really was splendid. First you picked your way for a long time along narrow corridors, then high up in the black-draped hall appeared the coffin covered with black velvet, strewn with shining, twinkling stars. And a crowd of candles all round.
Henri was as a man who is mad with grief; he was inconsolable.. None dared even to approach him with words of pity and comfort. For eight days he shut himself in a black-draped room, himself clothed in black; and he wrote to his sister, "The root of my love is dead; there will be no Spring for me any more." Three months later he was making love to Gabrielle's successor, Henriette d'Entragues!
With little cheer or elevation of soul, he looked up and rang the bell. Two chamberlains and Master Adrian appeared, and while Baron Malfalconnet, who did not venture to jest in this spot, offered him his arm and the valet the crutch, his confessor, Pedro de Soto, also entered the black-draped room.
It was a cruel fate that snatched Gabrielle d'Estrées from the arms of Henri IV., King of France and Navarre, at the moment when her long devotion to her hero-lover was on the eve of being crowned by the bridal veil; and for many a week there was no more stricken man in Europe than the disconsolate King as he wailed in his black-draped chamber, "The root of my love is dead, and will never blossom again."
The people, their faces gleaming with a whiteness of death, their black robes waving and folding, crossed the room. They were a trifle above mortal height, or seemed so to the terrified eyes which saw them. They reached the mantel-shelf where the sign-board hung, then a black-draped long arm was seen to rise and make a motion, as if plying a knocker.
But even as they cheered and welcomed him, Billy's eyes grew strangely odd-looking. The shyness and the smile seemed to sink out of them. His glance had caught sight of a slender, black-draped figure standing far back from the welcoming crowd the figure of a young woman whose fingers clasped the chubby hand of a boy about three years old.
The lace curtains of the windows which opened like doors on the front veranda were gently blown in by the cooling breeze, and into the white surroundings came the grim, black-draped figure of his wife. She advanced toward him, her hand stiffly extended. He took her cold fingers into his and awkwardly pressed them. Her eyes rested only a moment on him, for she was looking critically at the carpet.
In spite of some attempt on the part of the police to keep the hour secret, half Venice followed the black-draped barca, which bore that flawed poet and dubious hero to his rest. It was a morning of exceeding beauty.
But when she reached the top, and peered around her, she found little comfort, and no desirable company? A small barrel draped in black stood in the center of the mow, and on it a lighted candle gave out a feeble flickering ray which emphasized the darkness around it. On either side of the black-draped barrel stood a motionless figure, clothed in somber black.
When the kind traveler returned to his place in the carriage again, and the train left the station, the black-draped woman was walking slowly down the platform and the child was still clinging to her skirt. My guardian was a man whose custom it was to give large and dignified parties.
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