"Who will be——?" asked the King.
"The last of the Valois and the first of the Bourbons," replied Lorenzo. "But Cosmo will come to my way of thinking. In fact, it is impossible to be an alchemist and a Catholic; to believe in the dominion of man over matter, and in the supreme power of mind."
"Cosmo will live to be a hundred?" said the King, knitting his brows in the terrible way that was his wont.
"Yes, Sire," said Lorenzo decisively. "He will die peacefully in his bed."
"If it is in your power to predict the moment of your death, how can you be ignorant of the result of your inquiries?" asked the King. And he smiled triumphantly as he looked at Marie Touchet.
The brothers exchanged a swift look of satisfaction.
"He is interested in alchemy," thought they, "so we are safe."
"Our prognostics are based on the existing relations of man to nature; but the very point we aim at is the complete alteration of those relations," replied Lorenzo.
The King sat thinking.
"But if you are sure that you must die, you are assured of defeat," said Charles IX.