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 have bidden the King
to beware the middle of the next month of May. Henry had tweaked the
soothsayer by the beard and made him dance twice or thrice about the
room. To the Duc de Vendome expressing great anxiety in regard to
Thomassin, Henry replied, "The astrologer is an old fool, and you are a
young fool." A certain prophetess called Pasithea had informed the Queen
that the King could not survive his fifty-seventh year. She was much in
the confidence of Mary de' Medici, who had insisted this year on her
returning to Paris. Henry, who was ever chafing and struggling to escape
the invisible and dangerous net which he felt closing about him, and who
connected the sorceress with all whom he most loathed among the intimate
associates of the Queen, swore a mighty oath that she should not show her
face again at court. "My heart presages that some signal disaster will
befall me on this coronation. Concini and his wife are urging the Queen
obstinately to send for this fanatic. If she should come, there is no
doubt that my wife and I shall squabble well about her. If I discover
more about these private plots of hers with Spain, I shall be in a mighty
passion." And the King then assured the faithful minister of his
conviction that all the jealousy affected by the Queen in regard to the
Princess of Conde was but a veil to cover dark designs. It was necessary
in the opinion of those who governed her, the vile Concini and his wife,
that there should be some apparent and flagrant cause of quarrel. The
public were to receive payment in these pretexts for want of better coin.
Henry complained that even Sully and all the world besides attributed to
jealousy that which was really the effect of a most refined malice.

And the minister sometimes pauses in the midst of these revelations made
in his old age, and with self-