thin two hours
every Bearnais felt convinced that his beloved monarch had ceased to
exist.[429]

It is useless to multiply these strange tales; but it is certain that
they did not fail in their effect upon the mind of the monarch, however
he might struggle to conceal the feelings which they excited, for
Bassompierre relates that during the preparations which were making for
the coronation of the Queen, Henry repeatedly alluded to his approaching
death with a sadness which evinced his entire belief in the predictions
that had reached him.

"I know not wherefore, Bassompierre," he said on one occasion, "but I am
persuaded that I shall never again see Germany, nor do I believe that
you will go to Italy. I shall not live much longer."

On the 1st of May, when returning from the Tuileries by the great
gallery to the Louvre, supported in consequence of his gout by the Due
de Guise and the narrator himself, he said on reaching the door of the
Queen's closet to his two attendants, "Wait for me here. I will hasten
the toilet of my wife that she may not keep my dinner waiting." He was
of course obeyed, and the Duke and Bassompierre, in order to while away
the time, walked to the balcony that overhung the court of the Louvre,
against which they leant watching what passed below, when suddenly the
great hawthorn which occupied the centre of the area swayed for an
instant and then fell to the earth with a loud crash in the direction of
the King's private staircase without any apparent agency, as not a
breath of air was stirring, nor was any one near it at the time.

The impressionable imagination of Bassompierre was deeply moved.
"Would," he exclaimed to his companion, "that any sacrifice on my part
could have averted so dire a presage as this. God preserve the King!"

"You are mad," was the reply of the Duke, "to connect the fortunes of
the King with the fall of a tree."

"It may be so," was the melancholy rejoinder; "but neither in Italy nor
in Germany would this circumstance fail to produce alarm. Heaven guard
the monarch, and all who are near and dear to him!"

"You are two fools to amuse yourselves with these absurd prognostics,"
said Henry, who had approached them unheard during their momentary
excitement. "For the last thirty years all the astrologers and
mountebanks in the kingdom, as well as a host of other impostors, have
predicted at given intervals that I was about to die, so that when the
time comes some of these