Michel showed the King
a sign in fulfilment of a promise he had given. He reminded him of an
extraordinary circumstance which the son of Anne of Austria believed
known to himself alone. Louis XIV himself admitted it, but for the
rest preserved a profound silence touching this interview.

Saint Simon, always eager to collect every court rumour, believed it
was a question of some phantom, which more than twenty years before
had appeared to Louis XIV in the Forest of Saint-Germain.

For the third and last time the King received the farrier of Salon.

The courtiers displayed so much curiosity in this visionary that he
had to be shut up in the monastery of Des Recollets. There the little
Princess of Savoy, who was shortly to marry the Duke of Burgundy, came
to see him with several lords and ladies of the court.

He appeared slow to speak, good, simple, and humble. The King ordered
him to be furnished with a fine horse, clothes, and money; then he
sent him back to Provence.

Public opinion was divided on the subject of the apparition which had
appeared to the farrier and the mission he had received from it. Most
people believed that he had seen the spirit of Marie-Therese; but some
said it was Nostradamus.[2762]

[Footnote 2762: Michel de Nostre-Dame, called Nostradamus (1503-1566),
a Provencal astrologer, whose prophecies were published under the
title of "Centuries." He was invited to the French court by Catherine
de' Medici, and became the doctor of Charles IX.--W.S.]

It was only at Salon, where he slept in the church of the Franciscans,
that this astrologer was absolutely believed in. His "Centuries,"
which appeared at Paris and at Lyon in no less than ten editions in
the course of one century, entertained the credulous throughout the
kingdom. In 1693, there had just been published a book of the
prophecies of Nostradamus showing how they had been fulfilled in
history from the reign of Henry II down to that of Louis the Great.

It came to be believed that in the following mysterious quatrain the
farrier's coming had been prophesied:

"Le penultiesme du surnom du Prophete,
Prendra Diane pour son iour et repos:
Loing vaguera par frenetique teste,
En delivrant un grand peuple d'impos."[2763]

[Footnote 2763: The last syllable but one of the surname of the
Prophet will Diane take for her day and her rest. Far shall wander
that inspired one delivering a great nation from the burden of taxes.]

An