it instantly: it was to make him a similar promise,
and on his part he would do the same. I told him that I would not. For
several months he talked to me of it, often and seriously; I always
resisted his wish. At last, towards the month of August, 1696, as he
was to leave to go and study at Caen, he pressed me so much with tears
in his eyes, that I consented to it. He drew out at that moment two
little papers which he had ready written: one was signed with his
blood, in which he promised me that in case of his death he would come
and bring me news of his condition; in the other I promised him the
same thing. I pricked my finger; a drop of blood came, with which I
signed my name. He was delighted to have my billet, and embracing me,
he thanked me a thousand times.

"Some time after, he set off with his brother. Our separation caused
us much grief, but we wrote to each other now and then, and it was but
six weeks since I had had a letter from him, when what I am going to
relate to you happened to me.

"The 31st of July, 1697, one Thursday--I shall remember it all my
life--the late M. Sortoville, with whom I lodged, and who had been
very kind to me, begged of me to go to a meadow near the Cordeliers,
and help his people, who were making hay, to make haste. I had not
been there a quarter of an hour, when about half-past-two, I all of a
sudden felt giddy and weak. In vain I leant upon my hay-fork; I was
obliged to place myself on a little hay, where I was nearly half an
hour recovering my senses. That passed off; but as nothing of the kind
had ever occurred to me before, I was surprised at it and feared it
might be the commencement of an illness. Nevertheless it did not make
much impression upon me during the remainder of the day. It is true I
did not sleep that night so well as usual.

"The next day, at the same hour, as I was conducting to the meadow M.
de St. Simon, the grandson of M. de Sortoville, who was then ten years
old, I felt myself seized on the way with a similar faintness, and I
sat down on a stone in the shade. That passed off, and we continued
our way; nothing more happened to me that day, and at night I had
hardly any sleep.

"At last, on the morrow, the second day of August, being in the loft
where they laid up the hay they brought from the meadow, I was taken
with a similar giddiness and a similar faintness, but still more
violent than the other. I fainted away completely; one of the men
perceived it.