he Count de la Tour d'Auvergne had left him, the latter, knowing his
aunt's taste for the occult sciences, was not surprised to find me become
her confident and most intimate friend.

I was glad so see him and all the relations of the marchioness at dinner,
as I was delighted with the courtesy with which they treated me. I am
referring more especially to her brothers MM. de Pont-Carre and de Viarme
who had lately been chosen head of the trade companies, and his son. I
have already spoken of Madame du Chatelet, the marchioness's daughter,
but an unlucky lawsuit separated them, and she no longer formed one of
the family circle.

De la Tour d'Auvergne having been obliged to rejoin his regiment which
was in garrison in Brittany, the marchioness and I dined together almost
every day and people looked upon me as her husband, and despite the
improbability of the supposition this was the only way in which they
could account for the long hours we spent together. Madame d'Urfe thought
that I was rich and looked upon my position at the lottery as a mere
device for preserving my incognito.

I was the possessor in her estimation, not only of the philosopher's
stone, but also of the power of speaking with the whole host of
elementary spirits; from which premises she drew the very logical
deduction that I could turn the world upside down if I liked, and be the
blessing or the plague of France; and she thought my object in remaining
incognito was to guard myself from arrest and imprisonment; which
according to her would be the inevitable result of the minister's
discovering my real character. These wild notions were the fruit of the
nocturnal revelations of her genius, that is, of the dreams of her
disordered spirit, which seemed to her realities. She did not seem to
think that if I was endowed as she supposed no one would have been able
to arrest me, in the first place, because I should have had foreknowledge
of the attempt, and in the second place because my power would have been
too strong for all bolts and bars. All this was clear enough, but strong
passion and prejudice cannot reason.

One day, in the course of conversation, she said, with the utmost
seriousness, that her genius had advised her that not even I had power to
give her speech with the spirits, since she was a woman, and the genii
only communicated with men, whose nature is more perfect. Nevertheless,
by a process which was well known to me, I might make her soul pa