The Fortune-Tellers and the Coronation

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 33, 14 August 1902, Page 2

The Fortune-Tellers and the Coronation

' Young man,' said Josh Billings, ' never prophesy, for if you are right no one will remember it, and if you are wrong, no one will forget it.' A successful prophecy on the subject of a king's coronation, however, would undoubtedly stand a good chance ol being remembered, and it is not surprising, therefore, to find that superstitious people generally and the race of prophets in particular disregarded the humorist's sage advice and were for some considerable time prior to the consummation of the great ceremony ot Saturday freely scattering predictions as to the fate in store for King Edward in relation to his Coronation. Whatever interest was felt in such utterances naturally centred in O«e vaticinations of the professional prophets, and it is rather remarkable that amongst these there appears to have been something like a unanimous verdict that the King would never be crowned, a gypsy, a London palmist, and a Parisian fortune-teller all being credited with having foretold that Edward VII. would die before the day of his Coronation.

Popular feeling in London appears to have been sufficiently interested in the matter to make the Paris correspondent of The Times think it worth his while to interview the famous fortune-teller, Mme. de Thebes, and inquire whether she had been one of those who had given utterance to these doleful premonitions. The lady was good enough to give him the

following as her version of the matter : ' I saw eight or ten years ago in a salon a man who had scarcely reached maturity, and of pleasing physiognomy, whose name was kept concealed from me in order that my science might be put to the test. I was struck with the peculiar character of nobility and greatness indicated by his hand, which was robust but of perfect beauty, and I remarked, "It is a royally fine hand." This is the expression which struck those present. What I perceived in that hand was that its possessor was threatened with an intestinal malady, and when later on I was informed that it was the Prince of Wales, I s^id, " The greatest enemy of that man is his intestines, and England should tremble whenever it should be told that he suffers from the intestines." ' Madame de Thebes admitted however that she had a presentiment — to which she was doubtless assisted by the favorable bulletins then being issued — that the King would recover and be crowned in due course and it is satisfactory to note that this tolerably safe prediction has been duly fulfilled.