her intervention in similar cases, and made a vow to
build a magnificent cathedral in gratitude for the child. But she
bruised and injured her pretty feet, and conceived nothing but a
violent grief, which was so great that some of her lovely tresses fell
off and some turned white.

At last the faculty of making children was taken from her, which
brought on the vapours consequent upon hypochondria, and caused her
skin to turn yellow. She was then forty-nine years of age, and lived
in her castle of l'Ile Adam, where she grew as thin as a leper in a
lazar-house. The poor creature was all the more wretched because l'Ile
Adam was still amorous, and as good as gold to her, who failed in her
duty, because she had formerly been too free with the men, and was
now, according to her own disdainful remark, only a cauldron to cook
chitterlings.

"Ha!" said she, one evening when these thoughts were tormenting her.
"In spite of the Church, in spite of the king, in spite of everything,
Madame de l'Ile Adam is still the wicked Imperia!"

She fell into a violent passion when she saw this handsome gentleman
have everything a man can desire, great wealth, royal favour,
unequalled love, matchless wife, pleasure such as none other could
produce, and yet fail in that which is dearest to the head of the
house--namely, lineage. With this idea in her head, she wished to die,
thinking how good and noble he had been to her, and how much she
failed in her duty in not giving him children, and in being
henceforward unable to do so. She hid her sorrow in the secret
recesses of her heart, and conceived a devotion worthy her great love.
To put into practice this heroic design she became still more amorous,
took extreme care of her charms, and made use of learned precepts to
maintain her bodily perfection, which threw out an incredible lustre.

About this time the Sieur de Montmorency conquered the repulsion his
daughter entertained for marriage, and her alliance with one Sieur de
Chatillon was much talked about. Madame Imperia, who lived only three
leagues distant from Montmorency, one day sent her husband out hunting
in the forests, and set out towards the castle where the young lady
lived. Arrived in the grounds she walked about there, telling a
servant to inform her mistress that a lady had a most important
communication to make to her, and that she had come to request an
audience. Much interested by the account which she received by the
beauty