The somber year 1000 had followed the vanished centuries into the past, but through what troubled times the Church had passed! The popes were the puppets of the rival Saxon emperors and the princes of Latium. All Christendom was in arms. The crisis had passed, but the problem of the end of the world remained, and credence in this dread event, though uncertain and vague,—was fostered by that profound belief in the devil and in prodigies which was yet to endure for centuries in the popular mind. The final scene of the last judgment was sculptured over the portals of every cathedral, and on entering the sanctuary of the church one passed under the balance of the archangel, on whose left writhed the bodies of the devils and the damned, delivered over to the eternal flames of hell. [Illustration] But the idea that the world was to end was not confined to the Church. In the twelfth century astrologers terrified Europe by the announcement of a conjunction of all the planets in the constellation of the scales. This conjunction indeed, occurred, for on September 15th all the planets were found between the 180th and 190th degrees of longitude. But the end of the world did not come. The celebrated alchemist, Arnauld de Villeneuve, foretold it again for the year 1335. In 1406, under Charles VI., an eclipse of the sun, occurring on June 16th, produced a general panic, which is chronicled by Juvénal of the Ursuline Order: “It is a pitiable sight,” he says, “to see people taking refuge in the churches as if the world were about to perish.” In 1491 St. Vincent Ferrier wrote a treatise entitled, “De la Fin du Monde et de la Science Spirituelle.” He allows Christendom as many years of life as there are verses in the psalter, namely, 2537. Then a German astrologer, one Stoffler, predicted that on February 20, 1524, a general deluge would result from a conjunction of the planets. He was very generally believed, and the panic was extreme. Property situated in valleys, along river banks, or near the sea, was sold to the less credulous for a mere nothing. A certain doctor, Auriol, of Toulouse, had an ark built for himself, his family and his friends, and Bodin asserts that he was not the only one who took this precaution. [Illustration]