They affright people with the very mention of death, and many cross themselves, as it were the name of the devil.

And because the making a man's will is in reference to dying, not a man will be persuaded to take a pen in hand to that purpose, till the physician has passed sentence upon and totally given him over, and then betwixt and terror, God knows in how fit a condition of understanding he is to do it.
The Romans, by reason that this poor syllable death sounded so harshly to their ears and seemed so ominous, found out a way to soften and spin it out by a periphrasis, and instead of pronouncing such a one is dead, said, "Such a one has lived," or "Such a one has ceased to live" -- [Plutarch, Life of Cicero, c.

22:]--for, provided there was any mention of life in the case, though past, it carried yet some sound of consolation.

And from them it is that we have borrowed our expression, "The late Monsieur such and such a one."-- ["feu Monsieur un tel."] Peradventure, as the saying is, the term we have lived is worth our money.

I was born betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock in the forenoon the last day of February 1533, according to our computation, beginning the year the 1st of January,--[This was in virtue of an ordinance of Charles IX.