RAVAILLIAC or Ravaillac, François, the assassin of Henry IV. of France, was a native of Angoulême, and, at the time of his execution, about thirty-two years of age. Ravaillac was the son of parents who lived upon alms. His father was one of those inferior retainers of the law to whom the vulgar give the name of pettifoggers, and his son had been bred up in the same line. The latter had set up a claim to an estate, but the cause went against him; and this disappointment affected his mind deeply. He afterwards taught a school, and, as he himself said, received charitable gifts, though but of very small value, from the parents of those whom he taught. Yet his distress was so great that he had much ado to live. When he was seized for the murder of the king, he was very loosely guarded; and all were permitted to speak with him who pleased. He was removed next day from the house of Espernon to the Conciergerie, the proper prison of the parliament of Paris. When he was first interrogated, he answered with great boldness, that he had done it, and would do it if it were to be done again. When he was told that the king, though dangerously wounded, was living, and might recover, he said that he had struck him home, and that he was sure he was dead. In his subsequent examinations he owned that he had long had an intention to kill the king, because he suffered two religions in his kingdom; and that he endeavoured to obtain an audience of him, in order to admonish him. He also said that he understood the king’s great armament to be against the pope; and that in his opinion, to make war against the pope was to make war against God. We have no distinct account of the last three examinations; but he is said to have persisted in the most solemn asseverations that he had no accomplices, and that nobody had persuaded him to the fact. He appeared surprised at nothing so much as at the universal abhorrence of the people, which, it seems, he did not expect. They were forced to guard him strictly from his fellow-prisoners, who would otherwise have murdered him. The butchers of Paris desired to have him put into their hands, affirming that they would flay him alive, and that he should still live twelve days. When he was put to the torture, he broke out into [7:19:77]horrid execrations, and always insisted that he did the fact from his own motive, and that he could accuse nobody. On the day of his execution, after he had made the amende before the church of Nôtre Dame, he was carried to the Grève; and, being placed upon a scaffold, was tied to a wooden engine in the shape of a St Andrew’s cross. The knife with which he did the murder being fastened in his right hand, it was first burned in a slow fire; then the fleshy parts of his body were torn with red-hot pincers, and melted lead, oil, pitch, and rosin poured into the wounds. The people refused to ray for him; and when, according to the sentence that had cen pronounced upon him, he came to be dragged to pieces by four horses, one of those that were brought appearing to be but weak, a spectator offered his own, with which the criminal was much moved. He was very earnest for absolution, which his confessor refused, unless he would reveal his accomplices. “Give it me,” said he, “upon condition that I have told the truth ;” which the priest eventually did. His body was so robust that it resisted the force of the horses; and the executioner was at length obliged to cut him into quarters, which the people dragged through the streets. Such was the miserable fate of this fanatical assassin, who deprived France of one of her best and greatest kings. He was believed by the populace to have been set on by the Jesuits, although, whilst suffering the most horrible torments, he declared that he had no accomplices, and had done the deed from motives of his own.