d to come true, enough, possibly, to make those that have been
realized mere coincidences. However that be, these agreements of
prediction and event are, to say the least, curious. The case of Caesar
is well known. We have now to relate that of Henry IV.

Sully has told the story. Henry had married, as a second wife, Mary de'
Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and a woman whose
headstrong temper and cantankerous disposition were by no means
calculated to make his life with her an agreeable one. In the end she
strongly insisted on being crowned queen, a desire on her part which was
very unpleasant to her royal husband, who seemed to feel that some
disaster impended over the event.

"Hey! my friend," he said to Sully, his intimate, "I know not what is
the meaning of it, but my heart tells me that some misfortune will
happen to me."

He was seated on a low chair, his face disturbed by uneasy thought, his
fingers drumming on his spectacle-case. Of a sudden he sprang up, and
struck his hand sharply on his thigh.

"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!"

"What fancy is this of yours?" asked Sully. "If it continue, I am of
opinion that you should break off this anointment and coronation. If you
please to give me orders, it shall 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 hide 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," answered Sully. "I have often been
astounded to hear 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 time, or in a carriage. If you please, I will send word to Notre
Dame and St. Denys to stop everything and to withdraw the workmen."

"I am very much inclined," said the king; "but wh