JACQUES

CLEMENT (1567-1589)  , murderer of the French king Henry III., was born at Sorbon in the Ardennes, and became a Dominican friar . Civil war was raging in France, and Clement became an ardent partisan of the League; his mind appears to have become unhinged by religious fanaticism, and he talked of exterminating the heretics, and formed a plan to kill Henry III . His project was encouraged by some of the heads of the League; he was assured of temporal rewards if he succeeded, and of eternal bliss if he failed . Having obtained letters for the king, he left Paris on the 31st of July 1589, and reached St Cloud, the headquarters of Henry, who was besieging Paris . On the following day he was admitted to the royal presence, and presenting his letters he told the king that he had an important and confidential message to deliver . The attend-ants then withdrew, and while Henry was reading the letters Clement mortally wounded him with a dagger which had been concealed beneath his cloak . The assassin was at once killed by the attendants who rushed in, and Henry died early on thefollowing day . Clement's body was afterwards quartered and burned . This deed, however, was viewed with far different feelings in Paris and by the partisans of the League, the murderer being regarded as a martyr and extolled by Pope Sixtus V., while even his canonization was discussed . See E . Lavisse, Histoire de France, tome vi . (Paris, 1904) .