the princess received a shock from which she never recovered; all Paris was sunk in grief; the preparations they had made, the money they had spent, the splendid embassy, all went for nothing. Thus the whole affair ended in sorrow and wailing. Who would have thought that? Not one in the whole world, and least of all Ladislaus himself, who, as he was on the point of getting married, was surprised by a sudden death. Drexelius writes of a certain man who dreamed one night that a lion had killed him. He arose in the morning and went with his companion to church, not thinking of his dream. Before the door there was a statue of a lion with open jaws. Seeing it he remembered his dream, and related it laughingly to his friend. “There,” he said, “is the lion that killed me last night.” With these words he put his hand in the lion’s jaws, saying: “Come now, you have your enemy in your power; bite me if you can; eat my hand off!” But hardly had he finished speaking than he fell to the ground mortally wounded. How was that? In the mouth of the lion there was a scorpion hidden, which, as soon as it felt the hand disturbing it, bit it, and by the virulence of its poison caused the man’s death at once. Now, who would have thought that death was concealed in a lifeless statue? And yet that poor man found his death there where he least expected it. Again, it is unfortunately a common thing for people to die in the state of sin without doing penance; otherwise those words of Our Lord, “few are chosen,”[1] would not be warranted. Now, who is there who has any faith in God, in hell, or in heaven, who if he thought he was about to die would not at once be reconciled with God? Why, then, do the majority die impenitent? It is not their intention to do so; they do not think the end is so near: therefore they defer repentance from one day to another, die and go into eternity in the state of sin. It is clear, then, that all those people, and they are the majority, die when they least expect it.
All others, no matter what their age, die when they least expect. In the third place, one can die in childhood or youth, or in the prime of life, or in old age. I will say nothing of children; for who could think that they should end their lives when they have hardly begun to live? Are they not often destined to different callings and states, while still in their cradles, by their parents? And yet they often die when neither they themselves nor any one else expects. If a man dies in the prime of life, at
- ↑ Pauci electi.—Matt. xx. 16.
