[2] His father Jean Ravaillac was a violent man whose many misdeeds caused a public scandal and led to legal difficulties, while his mother Françoise Dubreuil was known for her Catholic piety.

The king was on his way to visit Maximilien de Béthune, who lay ill in the Arsenal; his purpose was to make final preparations for imminent military intervention in the War of the Jülich Succession after the death of Duke John William.

[4] Ravaillac seems to have learned of the plans; in his tortured mind, "he had seen that the king wanted to make war on the Pope, in order to transfer the Holy See to Paris".

Alistair Horne describes the torture Ravaillac suffered: "Before being drawn and quartered... he was scalded with burning sulphur, molten lead and boiling oil and resin, his flesh then being torn by pincers.

In January 1611, Jacqueline d'Escoman, who had known Ravaillac, denounced Jean Louis de Nogaret as the one responsible for the death of Henry IV; she was jailed for the rest of her life.

The contrary view, that Ravaillac had no accomplices but his confessors in the church,[7] is expressed by Roland Mousnier in L'Assassinat d'Henri IV: 14 mai 1610 (Paris, 1964).