ildren. She replied, in a dignified manner, that she had made it
to divert herself with the crystallization of the silver, spirit of
nitre, and mercury, and that she looked upon it as a piece of metallic
vegetation, representing in little what nature performed on a larger
scale; but she added, very seriously, that she could make a Tree of Diana
which should be a very Tree of the Sun, which would produce golden fruit,
which might be gathered, and which would continue to be produced till no
more remained of a certain ingredient. I said modestly that I could not
believe the thing possible without the powder of projection, but her only
answer was a pleased smile.

She then pointed out a china basin containing nitre, mercury, and
sulphur, and a fixed salt on a plate.

"You know the ingredients, I suppose?" said she.

"Yes; this fixed salt is a salt of urine."

"You are right."

"I admire your sagacity, madam. You have made an analysis of the mixture
with which I traced the pentacle on your nephew's thigh, but in what way
can you discover the words which give the pentacle its efficacy?"

"In the manuscript of an adept, which I will shew you, and where you will
find the very words you used."

I bowed my head in reply, and we left this curious laboratory.

We had scarcely arrived in her room before Madame d'Urfe drew from a
handsome casket a little book, bound in black, which she put on the table
while she searched for a match. While she was looking about, I opened the
book behind her back, and found it to be full of pentacles, and by good
luck found the pentacle I had traced on the count's thigh. It was
surrounded by the names of the spirits of the planets, with the exception
of those of Saturn and Mars. I shut up the book quickly. The spirits
named were the same as those in the works of Agrippa, with which I was
acquainted. With an unmoved countenance I drew near her, and she soon
found the match, and her appearance surprised me a good deal; but I will
speak of that another time.

The marchioness sat down on her sofa, and making me to do the like she
asked me if I was acquainted with the talismans of the Count de Treves?

"I have never heard of them, madam, but I know those of Poliphilus:"

"It is said they are the same."

"I don't believe it."

"We shall see. If you will write the words you uttered, as you drew the
pentacle on my nephew's thigh, and if I find the same talisman with the
same words around it, th