The Huguenot Bartholomew Dupuy and his descendants

HUGUENOT STRUGGLES. 67
arms of two friends riding with him and soon introd.
expired. Ravaillac had been watching and
following the king for days and it is said to
have been the eighteenth attempt on his life.
Nothing escaped the lips of the assassin to
criminate accomplices. He was horribly tortured
and then executed. Investigation confirmed
the belief that many were planning and
contriving the event, which was variously attributed
to the Jesuits, to Spain, and to Italy.
Immediately after the assassination, the
Queen Regent assembled the council for advice
and co-operation, and entered the next
morning on the duties of her office. The burial
of her husband having been duly performed,
she prepared for the coronation of her son, as
King Louis XIII., at Rheims. A new coimcil
was formed and the old Huguenot financier.
Sully (appointed 1597), who had laid the
finances of the kingdom on a firm basis, enriched
its treasury, and prepared it for any
emergency, was retained for a few years; and
might have remained in office, had he seen
his way clearly to gratify the Queen's demands
on the resources of the treasury for
her favorites. His honesty forbade his acquiescence.
Wlien she removed him of all power suiiy
and command of the finances, she gave him^f''^®^
charge of the artillery and woods, together Office.
with the government of Poitou. On one occasion
as he returned from an interview with
the Queen and her council, to which she had
invited him. Sully wrote: ''The deceased
King's government, so wise, so gentle, and so
glorious to France, was condemned almost
publicly, and even despised and ridiculed; at
one time they treated his designs as mere
chimeras; at another they represented him as