again, assuring him that he must have dreamed what he told them.

"The Marquis in despair, on seeing that they took him for a visionary,
related all the circumstances I have just recounted; but it was in
vain for him to protest that he had seen and heard his friend, being
wide awake; they persisted in the same idea until the arrival of the
post from Flanders, which brought the news of the death of the Marquis
de Rambouillet.

"This first circumstance being found true, and in the same manner as de
Precy had said, those to whom he had related the adventure began to
think that there might be something in it, because Rambouillet having
been killed precisely the eve of the day he had said it, it was
impossible de Precy should have known of it in a natural way. This
event having spread in Paris, they thought it was the effect of a
disturbed imagination, or a made up story; and whatever might be said
by the persons who examined the thing seriously, there remained in
people's minds a suspicion, which time alone could disperse: this
depended on what might happen to the Marquis de Precy, who was
threatened that he should be slain in the first engagement; thus every
one regarded his fate as the denouement of the piece; but he soon
confirmed everything they had doubted the truth of, for as soon as he
recovered from his illness he would go to the combat of St. Antoine,
although his father and mother, who were afraid of the prophecy, said
all they could to prevent him; he was killed there, to the great
regret of all his family.

"Supposing all these circumstances to be true, this is what I should
say to counteract the deductions that some wish to derive from them.

"It is not difficult to understand that the imagination of the Marquis
de Precy, heated by fever, and troubled by the recollection of the
promise that the Marquis de Rambouillet and himself had exchanged, may
have represented to itself the phantom of his friend, whom he knew to
be fighting, and in danger every moment of being killed. The
circumstances of the wound of the Marquis de Rambouillet, and the
prediction of the death of de Precy, which was fulfilled, appears more
serious: nevertheless, those who have experienced the power of
presentiments, the effects of which are so common every day, will
easily conceive that the Marquis de Precy, whose mind, agitated by a
burning fever, followed his friend in all the chances of war, and
expected continually to see announce