"Just over Meudon is a star which shines very brightly," continued the astrologer, "it is that of Henri de Navarre. But look, your Majesty, another star burns brilliantly for a moment and then disappears, mayhap it is your own."
"If ever a man had a voice hoarse with blood it is that astrologer," said the king. "Away with him."
"If the Valois Henri doesn't die before the setting of another sun, I'll never cast horoscope more," said the astrologer as he was hustled across the courtyard and out into the highroad.
As he left, a man in a monk's garb begged to be admitted to the king's presence. It was Jacques Clément, the murderous monk, a wily Dominican, bent on a mission which had for its object the extinction of the Valois race.
While the king was reading a letter which the monk had presented the latter stabbed him deep in the stomach.
Swooning, the king had just time to cry out: "Ha! le mechant moine: Il m'a tué, qu'on le tue."
The murderer in turn was struck down forthwith and his body, thrown from the windows of the palace, was écartelé by four white horses, which is the neat French way of saying "drawn and quartered."
It was an imposing cortège which wound down from the heights of Saint Cloud and followed the river bank to Saint Germain, Poissy and thence to Compiègne, conveying all that was mortal of Henri III, the least popular of all the race of Valois. Following close behind the bier were Henri IV and his suite, the favourites d'Epernon, Laschant, Dugastz and an impressive soldiery.
After the death of Henri III, Henri de Navarre, who played a not unpicturesque part in the funeral ceremonies, installed himself in a neighbouring property known as the Maison du Tillet. Thus it is seen that the royal stamp of the little bourg of Saint Cloud was never wanting—not until the later palace and most of the town were drenched with kerosene and set on fire by the Prussians in 1871.
The "Maison de Gondi" came, by a process of acquisition, and development, in time, to be the royal palace of Saint Cloud. Its overloaded details of Italian architecture were brightened up a bit by the surroundings planned and executed by the landscapist Le Notre and the life of the court in its suburban retreat took on a real and genuine brilliance which under the restraint of the gloomy walls of the Louvre and Paris streets could hardly have been.