Death
The two women reached an agreement. Jeanne took leave of Catherine de' Medici following the signing of the marriage contract between Henry and Marguerite on 11 April. She set up residence in Paris where she went on daily shopping trips to prepare for the upcoming wedding. Anne d'Este described Jeanne during this period in a letter she wrote to a friend: "The Queen of Navarre is here, not in very good health but very courageous. She is wearing more pearls than ever".
On 4 June 1572, two months before the wedding was due to take place, Jeanne returned home from one of her shopping excursions feeling ill. The next morning she woke up with a fever and complained of an ache in the upper right-hand side of her body. Five days later she died. A popular rumour which circulated shortly afterward, maintained that Jeanne had been poisoned by Catherine de' Medici, who allegedly sent her a pair of perfumed gloves, skillfully poisoned by her perfumer, René, a fellow Florentine. This fanciful chain of events also appears in the Romantic writer Alexandre Dumas's 1845 novel La Reine Margot. An autopsy, however, proved that Jeanne died of natural causes.
After her funeral, which was conducted according to the rites of the Protestant Church, a cortege bearing her body travelled through the streets of Vendôme. She was buried beside her husband at Ducal Church of collégiale Saint-Georges. The tombs were destroyed when the church was sacked in 1793 during the French Revolution. Her son Henry succeeded her, becoming King Henry III of Navarre. In 1589, he ascended the French throne as Henry IV; founding the Bourbon line of kings.
Read more about this topic: Jeanne D'Albret
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“Ai! ai! we do worse! We are in a fix! And youre out, Death let
you out, Death had the Mercy, youre done with your century, done with God, done with the path thru it”
—Allen Ginsberg (b. 1926)
“As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling! And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity ... of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.”
—Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (17561791)
“It is better to sit down than to stand, it is better to lie down than to sit, but death is the best of all.”
—Indian proverb, quoted in Sébastien-roch Nicolas de Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations, vol. 1, no. 155 (1796, trans. 1926)