, since she had converted her husband, her salvation was secure, for
the Scriptures solemnly promised a soul for a soul to every one who would
lead a heretic or a heathen within the fold of the church. And as Madame
X. C. V. had converted her husband, she felt no anxiety about the life of
the world to come, as she had done all that was necessary. However, she
ate fish on the days appointed; the reason being that she preferred it to
flesh.

Dinner over, I returned to the lady's bedside, and there stayed till
nearly nine o'clock, keeping my passions well under control all the time.
I was foppish enough to think that her feelings were as lively as mine,
and I did not care to shew myself less self-restrained than she, though I
knew then, as I know now, that this was a false line of argument. It is
the same with opportunity as with fortune; one must seize them when they
come to us, or else they go by, often to return no more.

Not seeing Farsetti at the table, I suspected there had been a quarrel,
and I asked my sweetheart about it; but she told me I was mistaken in
supposing they had quarreled with him, and that the reason of his absence
was that he would never leave his house on a Friday. The deluded man had
had his horoscope drawn, and learning by it that he would be assassinated
on a Friday he resolved always to shut himself up on that day. He was
laughed at, but persisted in the same course till he died four years ago
at the age of seventy. He thought to prove by the success of his
precautions that a man's destiny depends on his discretion, and on the
precautions he takes to avoid the misfortunes of which he has had
warning. The line of argument holds good in all cases except when the
misfortunes are predicted in a horoscope; for either the ills predicted
are avoidable, in which case the horoscope is a useless piece of folly,
or else the horoscope is the interpreter of destiny, in which case all
the precautions in the world are of no avail. The Chevalier Farsetti was
therefore a fool to imagine he had proved anything at all. He would have
proved a good deal for many people if he had gone out on a Friday, and
had chanced to have been assassinated. Picas de la Mirandola, who
believed in astrology, says, "I have no doubt truly, 'Astra influunt, non
cogunt.'" But would it have been a real proof of the truth of astrology,
if Farsetti had been assassinated on a Friday? In my opinion, certainly
not.

The Comte d'Eigreville h