Alderahman. the conqueror of northern
Spain, according to the Moorish chronicle
of the Caliphs, once engaged a “master
wizard” who introduced himself by "mat
ing the shadow of a dial retreat by twelve
degrtes,” an exploit which, indeed, even
Russian facilities of collusion would fail
to explain. The same court-wizard is
said to have predicted the issue of the
battle of Tours (the Charles Martel af
fair) a full year before the royal patron
crossed the Pyrenees; but in that branch
i of his art, at least, his prestige can be
i challenged by the record of a modern
I specialist. The clairvoyante Lenormand,
I whose sanctum in the Rue Madeleine
seems to have rivaled the popularity, and
, almost the emoluments, of the Delphic
oracle, foretold Colonel Murat that his
career would end on the throne of a king
(certainly an augarium of quite classic
ambiguity), and that hie fortune would
carry him far beyond the borders of his
native land. She also assured ex Jacobin
Bassere that the ghosts of the past would
not rise against him; and when Talley
rand visited her in the garb of a country
rurate she outlined his political vicissi
tudes in a way that her keen eyes must
have penetrated either his disguise or the
veil of the future. In 1803 Napoleon
himself could no longer resist the witch
ery of her growing fame, end one even
ing gave her a rendezvous in the library
of the Tuileries.
“The rising cloud? will pass, sire,” said
she, ‘ and the star of your fortune will
continue ‘o mount higher and higher, for
years to come, till ”
“Go on.”
“Till the ninth year shaU witness its
decline.”
‘Et apres ?”
AU beyond is dark, sire.
