whither Henri could not follow them. The actual details of the next few months are not very interesting; they simply represent the frantic efforts of a man who was getting senile to gratify an adulterous passion. It is said that he even threatened war with Spain for Charlotte’s bright eyes, but this is probably not true. Henri loved his country enough to prevent him from doing anything so wicked. But if his prostate was not growing too large he showed all the mental symptoms of it so far as we can tell to-day. The incident is one of the most painful in history, and calls for all one’s sympathy with the “sorrows of a poor old man.” Then came Ravaillac and his dagger to end Henri’s misery; and probably, to those who know the inevitable end of a man suffering possibly from enlarged prostate without modern surgery, Providence was kind to Henri in sparing him years of real misery and pain. Assassination is at least a merciful death to a man who at fifty-five has nothing to look forward to but the “labour and sorrow” of the Psalmist. People often wonder what further reforms he might have effected in France; but it is the common experience that a man does not live very long after such an incident as that with Charlotte de Montmorency. We cannot even guess at the cause of this degeneration in Henri and Marguerite. Syphilis would no doubt account for it; but so far as I know there is no reason to suspect it. He had done great work for France. Besides the merciful Edict of Nantes, which gave freedom of worship to the French Protestants for generations, he reformed her finances, organised her army, and introduced the silkworm industry which has done so much to strengthen the people of that amazing country. The French have long ago forgiven his sins against morality and decency, and taken him to their hearts as one of the greatest of Frenchmen. And now, when his wonderful personal charm has long mouldered to dust, the evil that he did is interred with his bones: only the good remains in the memory of mankind. * * * * * The best book about the troubles of old age is _The Medical Aspects of Old Age_, by Sir Humphrey Rolleston, which, though originally written for doctors, should be read by every man and woman in the land; for perhaps it would induce in them a greater sympathy for the old men. “Enlarged prostate” must be taken symbolically. The whole subject of these senile attacks of concupiscence is still under discussion, and, just as you spared me a too close inquiry into Elizabeth’s physical attributes, I ask you to spare me the inquiry into those of an equally great, but far more lovable, sovereign, Henri Quatre. The incident of Henri Quatre and Charlotte de Montmorency seems to represent what is known as a “psychosis of involution” occurring somewhat prematurely owing to Henri’s hard life in the field. Frederick the Great