Note 872 — THE PREFACE (continued 4)

Brantome has given a tolerably full account of Chastelard, and says, he was a gentleman of Dauphinè, and grand-nephew on the mother's side of the celebrated M. de Bayard. On the day of his execution, he says, when brought to the scaffold, he took into his hands the hymns of the French poet Ronsard, "et, pour son éternelle consolation, se mit à lire tout entiérement l'hymne de la mort, qui est tres-bien fait, et propre pour ne point abhorrer la mort; ne s'aydent autrement d'autre livre spirituel, ny de Ministre, ny de Confesseur." He then adds that Chastelard turned to the place where he supposed the Queen to be, and cried aloud,—"Adieu, the most beautiful and the most cruel Princess of the world." (Oeuvres, tome ii. p. 357.) Randolph, however, says, "he died with repentance." (Tytler's Hist. vol. vi. p. 274)