Catherine thereupon entered his apartment in much emotion.
"Ah, dear Sire," she exclaimed as soon as she saw him, "in Jesus' name, I implore you not to leave the Louvre until the end of this month of June."
"Why so, Madame, pray?" asked Henri, amazed at this unexpected request.
"Sire, because you are threatened by great peril during these last few days."
"Who has told you that?" demanded the king.
"Your star, Sire, which appeared last night in an observation made by myself and my Italian astrologer, with most threatening indications of danger,—of mortal danger!"
We must know that Catherine de Médicis about this time began to devote herself to those magical and astrological practices which very rarely deceived her in the whole course of her life, if we may trust the memoirs of the time.
But Henri was a confirmed scoffer in this matter of reading the stars, and he smilingly replied to the queen,—
"Well, Madame, if my star portends danger, it may come to me here as well as elsewhere."
"No, Sire," Catherine replied; "it is beneath the vault of heaven and in the open air that peril awaits you."