were anxious to
have the honour of calling me a fellow-citizen. M. Farsetti asked me if
my post at the lottery paid well. I replied, coolly,

"Oh, yes, well enough for me to pay my clerks' salaries."

He understood the drift of my reply, and Mdlle. X. C. V. smiled.

I found my supposed son with Madame d'Urfe, or rather in that amiable
visionary's arms. She hastened to apologize for carrying him off, and I
turned it off with a jest, having no other course to take.

"I made him sleep with me," she said, "but I shall be obliged to deprive
myself of this privilege for the future, unless he promises to be more
discreet."

I thought the idea a grand one, and the little fellow, in spite of his
blushes, begged her to say how he had offended.

"We shall have the Comte de St. Germain," said Madame d'Urfe, "to dinner.
I know he amuses you, and I like you to enjoy yourself in my house."

"For that, madam, your presence is all I need; nevertheless, I thank you
for considering me."

In due course St. Germain arrived, and in his usual manner sat himself
down, not to eat but to talk. With a face of imperturbable gravity he
told the most incredible stories, which one had to pretend to believe, as
he was always either the hero of the tale or an eye witness of the event.
All the same, I could not help bursting into laughter when he told us of
something that happened as he was dining with the Fathers of the Council
of Trent.

Madame d'Urfe wore on her neck a large magnet. She said that it would one
day happen that this magnet would attract the lightning, and that she
would consequently soar into the sun. I longed to tell her that when, she
got there she could be no higher up than on the earth, but I restrained
myself; and the great charlatan hastened to say that there could be no
doubt about it, and that he, and he only, could increase the force of the
magnet a thousand times. I said, dryly, that I would wager twenty
thousand crowns he would not so much as double its force, but Madame
d'Urfe would not let us bet, and after dinner she told me in private that
I should have lost, as St. Germain was a magician. Of course I agreed
with her.

A few days later, the magician set out for Chambord, where the king had
given him a suite of rooms and a hundred thousand francs, that he might
be at liberty to work on the dyes which were to assure the superiority of
French materials over those of any other country. St. Germain had got
over the