estions." How long this lasted I cannot say, but when the husband returned, he found the poor grandmother dead, and his family in great want. Meantime the Duke of Guise had miserably perished in the royal ante-chamber; the retributive dagger of a friar had robbed France of her king; Henry of Navarre was fighting for the crown; and anarchy prevailed at Paris. Finding it impossible to earn a livelihood, M. Boursier set out early in May, 1594, for Tours, his native city. Travelling with one's family was in those days slow work, and during the journey great events took place. Shortly after his arrival he learned that Paris had opened its gates to the royal troops; that Henry of Navarre was now Henry IV. of France; and that order had been restored. Poor as he was, like a true Parisian, he returned to the capital, and took a small house near the convent of the Cordelliers.

M. Boursier seems to have been a man of good parts and an affectionate husband, for his wife speaks very kindly of him, and expresses her great indebtedness to him for her knowledge of midwifery; but he was without snap. His family increased more rapidly than his practice, and the outlook was not good. He no doubt fretted; but not hers was it to brood. Like Mercy, she wore much of that shrub called heart's-ease in her bosom; and, like her, she had good backing in Great-heart. Happily, at this juncture, a kind old crone, while attending Louyse in her last confinement, suggested to her the calling of a midwife. She wisely argued that such a woman as our heroine enjoyed rare opportunities for gaining an eminence in this calling. For, said she, in words to this effect, "you can read and write, and you could have an able teacher in your husband, who is himself a skilful surgeon, and was for twenty years an assistant of the late Ambrose Paré."

Madame Boursier, who never let a thought go to sleep, accordingly conned over the ponderous volumes of Paré, under

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the guidance of her husband, and shortly afterwards made shift to deliver the wife of their porter. "I had read somewhere," she writes, "that it is not well to let a woman sleep just after her travail, and I had much ado to keep her awake. Rapidly my practice grew among the poor, and little by little among those better to do. The first time I ever carried a child to St. Cosme for baptism (as was the custom of midwives in those days), I felt as if the very walls of the Cordelliers were staring at me."

No midwife could legally practise her profession without first becoming a "Sworn Matron" (matrone jurée), as she was termed. But, by practising among the poor, Louyse had for five years managed to evade this law. Wishing now to gain a wealthier class of patients, she sought admission into the guild of midwives. For this it was needful to get the sanction of one physician, two surgeons, and two midwives. The three former were complaisant enough; but not so Mesdames Dupuis and Peronne, two ancient virgins, I will engage, and of much verjuice. Human nature was three centuries ago what it now is, and history is but a poem whose words are men, whose refrain is the iteration of human passions. "They (the midwives) set a day for me to meet them," she writes, "and asked the nature of my husband's business. Learning it, they refused to enroll me, leastwise Madame Dupuis, who said to the other: Good lack, my companion! my heart prophesies no good for us. Since her husband is a surgeon, she will have underhanded dealings with these doctors, and become a cut-purse in the market (coupeur de bource en foire). must enroll the wives of tradesmen only, who will not injure our business.' With that, she told me that my husband ought to support me, and that, if I still held to my purpose, she would have me burnt so that my ashes might be a warning to others. They so worried me by their long tirades, and churlish

We

speeches, that my milk turned, and I lost a fine suckling babe. The Dupuis was the worst of the two, and I mention this to show how God doth avenge those who have been wronged, when they least expect it. But that will be told in its proper place. After all the others had voted for me, she was constrained to do the same, but with very bad grace."

Being now legally enrolled, her practice rapidly extended to the gentry and the nobility. With this she was content, but good luck was storing up something yet better for her. A papal bull had divorced Henry from the licentious Margaret of Valois-"My Margot," as he playfully called her until she became everybody's Margot. The beautiful Marchioness of Beaufort, his very dear Gabrielle d'Estrées, was dead, and the monarch sought consolation in the society of the fair Henrietta d'Entragues. Her he promised to marry, but his Huguenot prime-minister looked so glum, and the blue blood of France made such an ado about it, that he salved her wounded honor with the title of Marchioness of Verneuil, and made haste to marry a daughter of Tuscany. The royal couple led no happy life. Henry kept spies over her lovers, and Marie De' Medici was jealous of his mistresses. She turned out withal a great shrew, and her temper was not a whit bettered by soon finding herself in the condition which the king and the Parliament earnestly desired. One fine morning, as they lay in bed together, she flew at him, and so scratched his face as to make him wary of her longings, and more anxious than ever for an heir. But this smacks too much of scandal, besides Capefigue,' the narrator, was something of a bigot, and no admirer of a king who tolerated the Calvinists. At any rate it is neither here nor there, and I hasten back to my story.

All France was rejoicing at the prospect of a direct heir to

1 La Ligue et Henri IV., Paris, 1843, p. 451.

the throne. But all Paris was gossiping about certain matters of the royal household pertaining thereto, of which the king was studiously kept in ignorance. It appears that Henry, who was not over-delicate in his notions of propriety, had chosen to wait on his consort the same midwife, who had attended his much beloved Gabrielle. And who of all the world should she be, but that ancient virgin of much verjuice, Madame Dupuis, with whom our midwife had a bout. At this arrangement the young queen first pouted, then wept, and finally raved. Leonore Galligay, who wielded an influence over her royal mistress greater than She of Marlborough over Queen Anne, vowed that come what would "this beldame"-c'est bien le mot-should never cross the threshold of her majesty's lying-in chamber.

Proud Leonore Galligay, we shall often repeat thy name in this sketch; yet hold not thy head so high, for little dost thou reck what fortune has in store for thee. Oh Seer! reverse thy plaid and tell us of the future:-A royal coach stands blocked in a narrow street; stealthily one mounts a wheel; quick steel-strokes flash, and France mourns a king. I see a king. dom misruled by a queen, and she in turn by a low-born favorite, whose husband, once a peasant, is now a marshal. With a high hand they lord it over France, over rich and poor, noble and plebeian. Seven years of blood and crime crawl by, and Hark! about the Louvre the yells of an angry mob, and the shrieks of some poor buffeted wretch; quivering limbs are strewn about-the limbs of a marshal of France. Behold a dungeon and in it one who has fared sumptuously in purple and fine linen. Now she humbly craves a crust from the jailer, and a shift from his wife. I see a tribunal before which is dragged a woman. Once she ruled a queen; for that she is now accused of sorcery. The prisoner proudly answers, that her only sorcery was the influence of a strong mind over a

weak one. Once more the scene changes, and lo! a public square, and planted in it a wooden stake. Steel fetters sway from it; dry fagots lie around. A prison gate swings open, bare-headed priests and men-at-arms file out, and in their midst―ah me! ah me! the hapless Leonore.

But to return to the palace: M. Du Laurens, first physician to the queen, was in despair. So also, but even more so, was M. De La Riviere, first physician to the king. There was much tapping of each other's snuff-boxes, and much interchange of the contents, but to no purpose. The courtiers sided with the king; the ladies with the queen, and of course the latter won the day, but we are anticipating, and meantime the whole palace was in an uproar.

At this juncture Madame President De Thou happened to fall very ill, and Drs. Du Laurens, Malescot, Hautin, De La Violette, and Ponçon met over her case. There is, gentlemen, as you know to your cost, a popular impression, that, when two or more of the faculty gravely retire together from the sick-bed to the next room, their talk is of everything but the patient. This is of course a slander; but the memorable consultation adverted to above did indeed give some color to the imputation. For having disposed of Madame De Thoushe died shortly afterwards-these grave gentlemen gossiped about court matters in general, and the queen's approaching confinement in particular. On this occasion M. Du Laurens unbosomed himself to his confrères, and laid bare his despair as only a Frenchman can. This caused a clustering of goldheaded canes, and a laying of powdered perruques together. Dr. Hautin, another physician to the king, for royalty dies hard and needs many of the faculty, now most opportunely suggested the name of Louyse Bourgeois as a substitute, in case at the last pinch the queen still refused to have the Dupuis. Now, as I have wasted some time in looking up the history of this