"During the holy days of the solemnization of Easter, a phenomenon
ever fatal, and of gloomy foreboding, appeared in the heavens. As soon
as the Emperor, who paid attention to these phenomena, received the
first announcement of it, he gave himself no rest until he had called
a certain learned man and myself before him. As soon as I arrived, he
anxiously asked me what I thought of such a sign; I asked time of him,
in order to consider the aspects of the stars, and to discover the
truth by their means, promising to acquaint him on the morrow; but the
Emperor, persuaded that I wished to gain time, which was true, in
order not to be obliged to announce anything fatal to him, said to me:
'Go on the terrace of the palace and return at once to tell me what
you have seen, for I did not see this star last evening, and you did
not point it out to me; but I know that it is a comet; tell me what
you think it announces to me.' Then scarcely allowing me time to say
a word, he added: 'There is still another thing you keep back; it is
that a change of reign and the death of a prince are announced by this
sign.' And as I advanced the testimony of the prophet, who said: 'Fear
not the signs of the heavens as the nations fear them,' the prince
with his grand nature, and the wisdom which never forsook him, said,
'We must not only fear Him who has created both us and this star. But
as this phenomenon may refer to us, let us acknowledge it as a warning
from Heaven."

Louis le Debonnaire gave himself and his court to fasting and prayer,
and built churches and monasteries. He died three years later, in 840,
and historians have profited by this slight coincidence to prove that
the appearance of the comet was a harbinger of death. The historian,
Raoul Glader, added later: "These phenomena of the universe are never
presented to man without surely announcing some wonderful and terrible
event."

Halley's comet again appeared in April, 1066, at the moment when
William the Conqueror invaded England. It was pretended that it had
the greatest influence on the fate of the battle of Hastings, which
delivered over the country to the Normans.

A contemporary poet, alluding probably to the English diadem with
which William was crowned, had proclaimed in one place, "that the
comet had been more favorable to William than nature had been to
Caesar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the
comet." A monk of Malmesbury apostrophized the