nd he did not conceal it. "Hey! my
friend," he said to Sully: "I know not what is the meaning of it, but my
heart tells me that some misfortune will happen to me." He was sitting
on a low chair which had been made for him by Sully's orders at the
Arsenal, thinking and beating his fingers on his spectacle-case; then all
on a sudden he jumped up, and slapping his hands upon his thighs, "By
God," he said, "I shall die in this city, and shall never go out of it.
They will kill me; I see quite well that they have no other remedy in
their dangers but my death. Ah! accursed coronation! Thou wilt be the
cause of my death." "Jesus! Sir," cried Sully, "what fancy of yours is
this? If it continue, I am of opinion that you should break off this
anointment and coronation, and expedition and war; if you please to give
me orders, it shall soon be done." "Yes, break off the coronation," said
the king: "let me hear no more about it; I shall have my mind at rest
from divers fancies which certain warnings have put into it. To bide
nothing from you, I have been told that I was to be killed at the first
grand ceremony I should undertake, and that I should die in a carriage."
"You never told me that, sir; and so have I often been astounded to see
you cry out when in a carriage, as if you had dreaded this petty peril,
after having so many times seen you amidst cannon-balls, musketry,
lance-thrusts, pike-thrusts, and sword-thrusts; without being a bit
afraid. Since your mind is so exercised thereby, if I were you, I would
go away to-morrow, let the coronation take place without you, or put it
off to another time, and not enter Paris for a long while, or in a
carriage. If you please, I will send word to Notre-Dame and St. Denis
to stop everything and to withdraw the workmen." "I am very much
inclined," said the king; " but what will my wife say? For she hath
gotten this coronation marvellously into her head." "She may say what
she likes; but I cannot think that, when she knows your opinion about it,
she will persist any longer."

Whatever Sully might say, Mary de' Medici "took infinite offence at the
king for his alarms: the matter was disputed for three days, with high
words on all sides, and at last the laborers were sent back to work
again."

Henry, in spite of his presentiments, made no change in his plans; he did
not go away; he did not defer the queen's coronation; on the contrary, he
had it proclaimed on the 12th of May, 16