ng anything by it. Her maid, of whom she had
been obliged to make a confidante, had had her bled by a student, her
lover. I told Mdlle. X. C. V. that if she wanted these people to keep her
counsel she must be liberal with them, and she replied that she had no
money. I offered her money and she accepted fifty louis, assuring me that
she would repay me that sum which she needed for her brother Richard. I
had not as much money about me, but I sent her the same day a packet of
twelve hundred francs with a note in which I begged her to have recourse
to me in all her necessities. Her brother got the money, and thought
himself authorized to apply to me for aid in a much more important
matter.

He was a young man and a profligate, and had got into a house of
ill-fame, from which he came out in sorry plight. He complained bitterly
that M. Farsetti had refused to lend him four louis, and he asked me to
speak to his mother that she might pay for his cure. I consented, but
when his mother heard what was the matter with him, she said it would be
much better to leave him as he was, as this was the third time he had
been in this condition, and that to have him cured was a waste of money,
as no sooner was he well than he began his dissipated life afresh. She
was quite right, for I had him cured at my expense by an able surgeon,
and he was in the same way a month after. This young man seemed intended
by nature for shameful excesses, for at the age of fourteen he was an
accomplished profligate.

His sister was now six months with child, and as her figure grew great so
did her despair. She resolved not to leave her bed, and it grieved me to
see her thus cast down. Thinking me perfectly cured of my passion for
her, she treated me purely as a friend, making me touch her all over to
convince me that she dare not shew herself any longer. I played in short
the part of a midwife, but with what a struggle! I had to pretend to be
calm and unconcerned when I was consumed with passion. She spoke of
killing herself in a manner that made me shudder, as I saw that she had
reflected on what she was saying. I was in a difficult position when
fortune came to my assistance in a strange and amusing manner.

One day, as I was dining with Madame d'Urfe, I asked her if she knew of
any way by which a girl, who had allowed her lover to go too far, might
be protected from shame. "I know of an infallible method," she replied,
"the aroph of Paracelsus to wit, an