Duchatel preached the funeral sermon upon Francis, and said, with complimentary intention, that the soul of the king had gone straight to heaven. The doctors of the Sorbonne—swollen with courage under the known bigotry of the new king and the king’s mistress—complained at once of the horrible utterance. Pious as the late king had been, his soul could not have escaped purgatory. They sent deputies to Henri II. charging Duchatel with heresy; there existed an old grudge against him. The deputies were received, and given a conciliatory dinner by the king’s maître d’hôtel, Mendoza, and advised not to proceed further with the charge. “I knew the character of the late king intimately,” said Mendoza, wittily. “He never could endure to be in one place long. If he did go to purgatory, he would only stay there sufficient time to drink a stirrup cup and move on.”
It was Margaret’s time to “move on.” She went, in the autumn of 1549, to drink some mineral waters, but they did her no good. She was consumptive, and in a condition past being cured. During her last illness she is reported to have said, concerning her protection of heretics, “All I have done, I have done from compassion.” She could have given no better reason.
Her death was preceded by less suffering than most people’s; she simply sank into unconsciousness. At the last she struggled back for a second from stupor, and, grasping a cross that lay upon the bed, muttered, “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and fell back dead.