Henri caused the announcement to be made that on that and the two following days there would be lists open at the Tournelles for tilting and other knightly sports. And upon the pretext of paying a higher compliment to the bride and groom, but really to gratify his own intense passion for sport of that nature, the king declared that he would himself be among the challengers. But on the morning of the 28th the queen, Catherine de Médicis, who at that time scarcely ever showed herself in public, sent an urgent request to the king for an interview with him. Henri, we need not say, acquiesced at once in his wife's desire. Catherine thereupon entered his apartment in much emotion. "Ah, dear Sire," she exclaimed as soon as she saw him, "in Jesus' name, I implore you not to leave the Louvre until the end of this month of June." "Why so, Madame, pray?" asked Henri, amazed at this unexpected request. "Sire, because you are threatened by great peril during these last few days." "Who has told you that?" demanded the king. "Your star, Sire, which appeared last night in an observation made by myself and my Italian astrologer, with most threatening indications of danger,--of mortal danger!" We must know that Catherine de Médicis about this time began to devote herself to those magical and astrological practices which very rarely deceived her in the whole course of her life, if we may trust the memoirs of the time. But Henri was a confirmed scoffer in this matter of reading the stars, and he smilingly replied to the queen,-- "Well, Madame, if my star portends danger, it may come to me here as well as elsewhere." "No, Sire," Catherine replied; "it is beneath the vault of heaven and in the open air that peril awaits you." "Really!--a tempest perhaps?" said Henri. "Sire, do not joke about such things!" retorted the queen. "The stars are the written word of God." "Well, then, we must agree," said Henri, "that the divine handwriting is generally very obscure and confused." "How so, Sire?" "The erasures seem to me to make the text unintelligible, so that each one may decipher it almost to suit himself. You have read, Madame, in the celestial conjuring book, as you say, that my life is threatened if I quit the Louvre?" "Yes, Sire." "Very well. Now, Forcatel only last month saw something very different there. You think highly of Forcatel, Madame, I believe?" "Yes," said the queen; "he is a learned man, who has already learned to read in the book where we are just beginning to spell." "Know, then, Madame," rejoined the king, "that Forcatel read for me in these stars of yours this beautiful verse, which has no other fault except that it is utterly unintelligible:--" "'If this is not Mars, dread his image.'" "In what does that prediction weaken the one I have told you of?" asked Catherine. "Just wait, Madame!" said Henri: "I have somewhere the nativity which was cast for me last year. Do you remember what destiny it foretold for me?"