and told the mad woman that we must trust entirely in Paralis
for the method of consecration, which must be begun by our placing each
packet in a small casket made on purpose. One packet, and one only, could
be consecrated in a day, and it was necessary to begin with the sun. It
was now Friday, and we should have to wait till Sunday, the day of the
sun. On Saturday I had a box with seven niches made for the purpose.

For the purposes of consecration I spent three hours every day with
Madame d'Urfe, and we had not finished till the ensuing Saturday.
Throughout this week I made Possano and my brother take their meals with
us, and as the latter did not understand a word the good lady said, he
did not speak a word himself, and might have passed for a mute of the
seraglio. Madame d'Urfe pronounced him devoid of sense, and imagined we
were going to put the soul of a sylph into his body that he might
engender some being half human, half divine.

It was amusing to see my brother's despair and rage at being taken for an
idiot, and when he endeavoured to say something to spew that he was not
one, she only thought him more idiotic than ever. I laughed to myself,
and thought how ill he would have played the part if I had asked him to
do it. All the same the rascal did not lose anything by his reputation,
for Madame d'Urfe clothed him with a decent splendour that would have led
one to suppose that the abbe belonged to one of the first families in
France. The most uneasy guest at Madame d'Urfe's table was Possano, who
had to reply to questions, of the most occult nature, and, not knowing
anything about the subject, made the most ridiculous mistakes.

I brought Madame d'Urfe the box, and having made all the necessary
arrangements for the consecrations, I received an order from the oracle
to go into the country and sleep there for seven nights in succession, to
abstain from intercourse with all mortal women, and to perform ceremonial
worship to the moon every night, at the hour of that planet, in the open
fields. This would make me fit to regenerate Madame d'Urfe myself in case
Querilinthos, for some mystic reasons, might not be able to do so.

Through this order Madame d'Urfe was not only not vexed with me for
sleeping away from the hotel, but was grateful for the pains I was taking
to ensure the success of the operation.

The day after my arrival I called on Madame Audibert, and had the
pleasure of finding my niece wail pleased w