The matter of the Duchy of Cleves was a pretext
ready to his hand. To obtain the woman he desired he would set
Europe in a blaze.
He took that monstrous resolve at the very beginning of the
new year, and in the months that followed France rang with
preparations. It rang, too, with other things which should have
given him pause. It rang with the voice of preachers giving
expression to the popular vied; that Cleves was not worth
fighting for, that the war was unrighteous--a war undertaken by
Catholic France to defend Protestant interests against the very
champions of Catholicism in Europe. And soon it began to ring,
tool with prophecies of the King's approaching end.
These prognostics rained upon him from every quarter. Thomassin,
and the astrologer La Brosse, warned him of a message from the
stars that May would be fraught with danger for him. From Rome--
from the very pope himself Came notice of a conspiracy against
him in which he was told that the very highest in the land
were engaged. From Embrun, Bayonne, and Douai came messages of
like purport, and early in May a note was found one morning on
the altar of the church of Montargis announcing the King's
approaching death.
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