Compacts to Appear After Death
The story of the Marquis of Rambouillet’s appearing after his death to his cousin, the Marquis de Precy, is well authenticated. These two noblemen, talking one day concerning the affairs of the next world, in a manner which showed they did not believe much about it, entered into an agreement that the first who died should come and give intelligence to the other.
Soon afterwards the Marquis of Rambouillet set out for Flanders, which was then the seat of war, and the Marquis de Precy remained in Paris, being ill of a violent fever. About six weeks after, early one morning, he heard someone draw the curtains of his bed, and turning to see who it was, discovered the Marquis of Rambouillet in a buff coat and boots. He instantly got out of bed, and attempted to shake hands with his friend, but Rambouillet drew back, and told him he had only come to perform the promise he had formerly made; that nothing was more certain than another life; and that he earnestly advised him to alter his mode of life, for in the first battle he would be engaged in, he would certainly fall.
Precy made a fresh attempt to touch his friend, but he immediately withdrew. Precy lay upon his bed wondering upon the strangeness of the circumstances for some time, when he saw the same appearance re-enter the apartment. Rambouillet, finding that Precy still disbelieved what he was told, showed him the wound of which he had died, and from which the blood still seemed to flow.
Soon after this, Precy received a confirmation of Rambouillet’s death, and was killed himself, according to the prediction, in the civil wars, at the battle of Faubourg St. Antoine.