It was once the residence of Henry IV. of
France, at the time he signed the celebrated edict, (1598,) in favour
of the reformed religion, afterwards revoked by Louis XIV. in 1685,
and which occasioned such deplorable consequences to the French
nation.
M. de Sainte Foix, in his historical Essays upon Paris, vol. i.
p. 113, speaking of the Rue de Grenelle, in the quarter of Saint
Eustache, gives the following curious account of the birth of this
great King, whose memory is revered in France, beyond that of all the
other monarchs who have swayed the Gallic sceptre.
"Jeanne d'Albret, being desirous of following her husband to the wars
of Picardy, the King her father told her, that in case she proved with
child, he wanted her to come and lie-in at his house; and that he
would bring up the child himself, whether a boy or a girl. This
Princess finding herself pregnant, and in her ninth month, set out
from Compiegne, passed through all France as far as the Pyrenees, and
arrived in fifteen days at Pau in Bearn. She was very desirous to see
her father's will. It was contained in a thick gold box, on which was
a gold chain, that would have gone twenty-five or thirty times round
her neck. She asked it of him:--'It shall be yours,' said he, 'as soon
as you have shown me the child that you now carry; and that you may
not bring into the world a crying or a pouting child, I promise you
the whole, provided that whilst you are in labour, you sing the
Bearnese song _Notre Dame du bout du Pont aidez-moi en cette heure_".
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