It is not, however, my object here to defend long-gone superstitions, or to show that the predictions of the astrologers were ever really verified, except by those extraordinary coincidences for which we cannot account, and some of which every man must have observed in the course of his own life. That they were so verified on several occasions is nevertheless beyond doubt; for it is _not_ the case that, in the most striking instances of this kind, as many writers have asserted, the prediction, if it may be so called, was fabricated after its fulfilment. On the contrary, any one who chooses to investigate may convince himself that the prophecy was, in many instances, enounced, and is still to be found recorded by contemporary writers, before its accomplishment took place. As examples might be cited the prognostication made by an astrologer to Henry the Second of France, that he should be slain in single combat; a thing so unlikely that it became the jest of his whole court, but which was afterwards singularly verified, by his being accidentally killed at a tournament by Montgomery, captain of the Scottish guards. Also the prediction by which the famous, or rather infamous, Catherine de Medicis was warned that St. Germains should be the place of her death. The queen, fully convinced of its truth, never from that moment set foot in town or palace which bore the fatal name; but in her last moments, her confessor being absent, a priest was called to her assistance, by mere accident, whose name was St. Germains, and actually held her in his arms during the dying struggle. These two instances took place about fifty years after the period to which this history refers, and may serve to show how strongly rooted in the minds of the higher classes was this sort of superstition, when even the revival of letters, and the diffusion of mental light, for very long did not seem at all to affect them. The habits and manners of the astrologers, however, underwent great changes; and it is, perhaps, at the particular epoch of which we are now writing, namely, the reigns of Henry the Eighth of England and Francis the First of France, that this singular race of beings was in its highest prosperity. Before that time, they had in general affected strange and retired habits, and, whether as magicians or merely astrologers, were both feared and avoided. Some exceptions, however, must be made to this, as instances are on record where, even in years long before, such studies were pursued by persons of the highest class, and won them both love and admiration; the most brilliant example of which was in the person of Tiphaine Raguenel, wife of the famous Constable du Guesclin, whose counsels so much guided her husband through his splendid career.