On the 14th a shameful discovery will be made of a French Jesuit, giving
poison to a great foreign general; and when he is put to the torture,
will make wonderful discoveries.
In short this will prove a month of great action, if I might have
liberty to relate the particulars.
At home, the death of an old famous senator will happen on the 15th at
his country-house, worn with age and diseases.
But that which will make this month memorable to all posterity, is the
death of the French King, Lewis the fourteenth, after a week's sickness
at Marli, which will happen on the 29th, about six o'clock in the
evening. It seems to be an effect of the gout in his stomach, followed
by a flux. And in three days after Monsieur Chamillard will follow his
master, dying suddenly of an appoplexy.
In this month likewise an ambassador will die in London; but I cannot
assign the day.
August. The affairs of France will seem to suffer no change for a
while under the Duke of Burgundy's administration; but the genius that
animated the whole machine being gone, will be the cause of mighty turns
and revolutions in the following year. The new King makes yet little
change either in the army or the ministry; but the libels against his
grandfather, that fly about his very court, give him uneasiness.
I see an express in mighty haste, with joy and wonder in his looks,
arriving by break of day on the 26th of this month, having travell'd in
three days a prodigious journey by land and sea. In the evening I hear
bells and guns, and see the blazing of a thousand bonfires.
A young admiral of noble birth, does likewise this month gain immortal
honour by a great achievement.
The affairs of Poland are this month entirely settled: Augustus resigns
his pretensions which he had again taken up for some time: Stanislaus is
peaceably possess'd of the throne; and the King of Sweden declares for
the Emperor.
I cannot omit one particular accident here at home; that near the end of
this month much mischief will be done at Bartholomew Fair, by the fall
of a booth.
September. This month begins with a very surprizing fit of frosty
weather, which will last near twelve days.
The Pope having long languish'd last month, the swellings in his legs
breaking, and the flesh mortifying, will die on the 11th instant; and in
three weeks time, after a mighty contest, be succeeded by a cardinal of
the imperial faction, but native of Tuscany, who is now about sixty-one
years old.
The French army acts now wholly on the defensive, strongly fortify'd in
their trenches; and the young French King sends overtures for a treaty
of peace by the Duke of Mantua; which, because it is a matter of state
that concerns us here at home, I shall speak no farther of it.
I shall add but one prediction more, and that in mystical terms, which
shall be included in a verse out of Virgil,
Alter erit jam Tethys, & altera quae vehat Argo. Delectos heroas.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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