"
Louis read the prediction and passed the paper to the Countess:
"After us the end of the world," said she gaily. The King laughed,
but the abbe de Beauvais celebrated high mass at Versailles after
the carnival of 1774, and dared to say, in righteous anger: "This
carnival is the last; yet forty days and Nineveh shall perish."
Louis turned pale. "Is it God who speaks thus?" murmured he,
raising his eyes to the altar. The next day he went to the hunt
in grand style, but from that evening he was afraid of solitude
and silence: "It is like the tomb; I do not wish to put myself in
such a place," said he to Madame du Barry. The duc de Richelieu
tried to divert him. "No," said he suddenly, as if the Trappist's
denunciation had again recurred to him, "I shall be at ease only
when these forty days have passed." He died on the fortieth day.
Du Barry believed neither in God nor in the devil, but she believed
in the almanac of Liege. She scarcely read any book but this--
faithful to her earliest habits. And the almanac of Liege, in its
prediction for April, 1774, said: "A woman, the greatest of
favorites, will play her last role." So Madame the Countess du
Barry said without ceasing: "I shall not be tranquil until these
forty days have passed." The thirty-seventh day the King went to
the hunt attended with all the respect due to his rank.
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