It was in the spring of the year 1609 that at the King's instance I had a suite of apartments fitted up for him at the Arsenal, that he might visit me, whenever it pleased him, without putting my family to inconvenience; in another place will be found an account of the six thousand crowns a year which he was so obliging as to allow me for this purpose. He honoured me by using these rooms, which consisted of a hall, a chamber, a wardrobe, and a closet, two or three times in the course of that year, availing himself of my attendants and cook; and the free opportunities of consulting me on the Great Undertaking, which this plan afforded, led me to hope that notwithstanding the envy of my detractors, he would continue to adopt it. That he did not do so, nor ever visited me after the close of that year, was due not so much to the lamentable event, soon to be related, which within a few months deprived France of her greatest sovereign, as to a strange matter that attended his last stay with me. I have since had cause to think that this did not receive at the time as much attention as it deserved; and have even imagined that had I groped a little deeper into the mystery I might have found a clue to the future as well as the past, and averted one more, and the last, danger from my beloved master. But Providence would not have it so; a slight indisposition under which I was suffering at the time rendered me less able, both in mind and body; the result being that Henry, who was always averse to the publication of these ominous episodes, and held that being known they bred the like in mischievous minds, had his way, the case ending in no more than the punishment of a careless rascal. On the occasion of this last visit--the third, I think, that he paid me--the King, who had been staying at Chantilly, came to me from Lusarche, where he lay the intervening night. My coaches went to meet him at the gates a little before noon, but he did not immediately arrive, and being at leisure and having assured myself that the dinner of twelve covers, which he had directed to be ready, was in course of preparation, I went with my wife to inspect his rooms and satisfy myself that everything was in order. They were in charge of La Trape, a man of address and intelligence, whom I have had cause to mention more than once in the course of these memoirs. He met me at the door and conducted us through the rooms with an air of satisfaction; nor could I find the slightest fault, until my wife, looking about her with a woman's eye for minute things, paused by the bed in the chamber, and directed my attention to something on the floor. She stooped over it. "What is this?" she asked. "Has something been--" "Upset here?" I said, looking also. There was a little pool of white liquid on the floor beside the bed.