Note 536 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
A contemporary writer (apud De Thou, i. 237, note) pretends to cite the monarch's precise words. The current quatrain was the following:
Le feu roy devina ce poinct, Que ceux de la maison de Guyse, Mettroyent ses enfans en pourpoint, Et son pauvre peuple en chemise.
Regnier de la Planche, Hist. de l'estat de France sous François II., éd. Panthéon lit., p. 261. The lines are given, with a few variations, by almost every history of the times; Recueil des choses mémorables, etc., 1565, p. 31; Mémoires de Condé, i. 533. De Thou is a firm believer in the truth of the vulgar report (ubi supra), and even Davila (Eng. trans. of Sir Charles Cottrell, 1678, p. 7) admits that later events have added much credit to the current belief.