So thought Sully when, at the king's death, he went, equally alarmed and disconsolate, and shut himself up in the arsenal; and the people had grounds for being of Sully's opinion.

Public confidence was concentrated upon the king's personality.

Spectators pardoned, almost with a smile, those tender foibles of his which, nevertheless, his proximity to old age rendered still more shocking.

They were pleased at the clear-sighted and strict attention he paid to the education of his son Louis, the dauphin, to whose governess, Madame de Montglas, he wrote, "I am vexed with you for not having sent me word that you have whipped my son, for I do wish and command you to whip him every time he shows obstinacy in anything wrong, knowing well by my own case that there is nothing in the world that does more good than that." And to Mary de' Medici herself he added, "Of one thing I do assure you, and that is, that, being of the temper I know you to be of, and foreseeing that of your son, you stubborn, not to say headstrong, madame, and he obstinate, you will verily have many a tussle together." [Illustration: Marie de Medicis----147] Henry IV.

saw as clearly into his wife's as into his son's character.
Persons who were best acquainted with the disposition of Mary de' Medici, and were her most indulgent critics, said of her, in 1610, when she was now thirty-seven years of age, "that she was courageous, haughty, firm, discreet, vain, obstinate, vindictive and mistrustful, inclined to idleness, caring but little about affairs, and fond of royalty for nothing beyond its pomp and its honors." Henry had no liking for her or confidence in her, and in private had frequent quarrels with her.