e law to the
whole world. Nothing was left to do save, as the Ambassador said, to
"uncouple the dogs of war and let them run."

What preparations had Spain and the Empire, the Pope and the League, set
on foot to beat back even for a moment the overwhelming onset? None
whatever. Spinola in the Netherlands, Fuentes in Milan, Bucquoy and
Lobkowitz and Lichtenstein in Prague, had hardly the forces of a moderate
peace establishment at their disposal, and all the powers save France and
the States were on the verge of bankruptcy.

Even James of Great Britain--shuddering at the vast thundercloud which
had stretched itself over Christendom growing blacker and blacker,
precisely at this moment, in which he had proved to his own satisfaction
that the peace just made would perpetually endure--even James did not
dare to traverse the designs of the king whom he feared, and the republic
which he hated, in favour of his dearly loved Spain. Sweden, Denmark, the
Hanse Towns, were in harmony with France, Holland, Savoy, and the whole
Protestant force of Germany--a majority both in population and resources
of the whole empire. What army, what combination, what device, what
talisman, could save the House of Austria, the cause of Papacy, from the
impending ruin?

A sudden, rapid, conclusive victory for the allies seemed as predestined
a result as anything could be in the future of human affairs.

On the 14th or 15th day of May, as he had just been informing the States'
ambassadors, Henry meant to place himself at the head of his army. That
was the moment fixed by himself for "taking his departure."

And now the ides of May had come--but not gone.

In the midst of all the military preparations with which Paris had been
resounding, the arrangements for the Queen's coronation had been
simultaneously going forward. Partly to give check in advance to the
intrigues which would probably at a later date be made by Conde,
supported by the power of Spain, to invalidate the legitimacy of the
Dauphin, but more especially perhaps to further and to conceal what the
faithful Sully called the "damnable artifices" of the Queen's intimate
councillors--sinister designs too dark to be even whispered at that
epoch, and of which history, during the lapse of more than two centuries
and a half, has scarcely dared to speak above its breath--it was deemed
all important that the coronation should take place.

A certain astrologer, Thomassin by name, was said to