imposed and shuddering silence intimates
that there are things he could tell which are too odious and dreadful to
be breathed.

Henry had an invincible repugnance to that coronation on which the Queen
had set her heart. Nothing could be more pathetic than the isolated
position in which he found himself, standing thus as he did on the
threshold of a mighty undertaking in which he was the central figure, an
object for the world to gaze upon with palpitating interest. At his
hearth in the Louvre were no household gods. Danger lurked behind every
tapestry in that magnificent old palace. A nameless dread dogged his
footsteps through those resounding corridors.

And by an exquisite refinement in torture the possible father of several
of his children not only dictated to the Queen perpetual outbreaks of
frantic jealousy against her husband, but moved her to refuse with
suspicion any food and drink offered her by his hands. The Concini's
would even with unparalleled and ingenious effrontery induce her to make
use of the kitchen arrangements in their apartments for the preparation
of her daily meals?

Driven from house and home, Henry almost lived at the Arsenal. There he
would walk for hours in the long alleys of the garden, discussing with
the great financier and soldier his vast, dreamy, impracticable plans.
Strange combination of the hero, the warrior, the voluptuary, the sage,
and the schoolboy--it would be difficult to find in the whole range of
history a more human, a more attractive, a more provoking, a less
venerable character.

Haunted by omens, dire presentiments, dark suspicions with and without
cause, he was especially averse from the coronation to which in a moment
of weakness he had given his consent.

Sitting in Sully's cabinet, in a low chair which the Duke had expressly
provided for his use, tapping and drumming on his spectacle case, or
starting up and smiting himself on the thigh, he would pour out his soul
hours long to his one confidential minister. "Ah, my friend, how this
sacrament displeases me," he said; "I know not why it is, but my heart
tells me that some misfortune is to befall me. By God I shall die in this
city, I shall never go out of it; I see very well that they are finding
their last resource in my death. Ah, accursed coronation! thou wilt be
the, cause of my death."

So many times did he give utterance to these sinister forebodings that
Sully implored him at last for leave to counterma