readful result and Prelati narrowly
escaped with his life.

One afternoon Eustache Blanchet, in a gallery of the chateau, perceives
the Marshal weeping bitterly. Plaints of supplication are heard through
the door of a chamber in which Prelati has been evoking the Devil.

"The Demon is in there beating my poor Francis. I implore you, go in!"
cries Gilles, but Blanchet, frightened, refuses. Then Gilles makes up
his mind, in spite of his fear. He is advancing to force the door, when
it opens and Prelati staggers out and falls, bleeding, into his arms.
Prelati is able, with the support of his friends, to gain the chamber of
the Marshal, where he is put to bed, but he has sustained so merciless a
thrashing that he goes into delirium and his fever keeps mounting.
Gilles, in despair, stays beside him, cares for him, has him confessed,
and weeps for joy when Prelati is out of danger.

"The fate of the unknown sorcerer and of Prelati, both getting
dangerously wounded in an empty room, under identical circumstances--I
tell you, it's a remarkable coincidence," said Durtal to himself.

"And the documents which relate these facts are authentic. They are,
indeed, excerpts from the procedure in Gilles's trial. The confessions
of the accused and the depositions of the witnesses agree, and it is
impossible to think that Gilles and Prelati lied, for in confessing
these Satanic evocations they condemned themselves, by their own words,
to be burned alive.

"If in addition they had declared that the Evil One had appeared to
them, that they had been visited by succubi; if they had affirmed that
they had heard voices, smelled odours, even touched a body; we might
conclude that they had had hallucinations similar to those of certain
Bicetre subjects, but as it was there could have been no misfunctioning
of the senses, no morbid visions, because the wounds, the marks of the
blows, the material fact, visible and tangible, are present for
testimony.

"Imagine how thoroughly convinced of the reality of the Devil a mystic
like Gilles de Rais must have been after witnessing such scenes!

"In spite of his discomfitures, he could not doubt--and Prelati,
half-killed, must have doubted even less--that if Satan pleased, they
should finally find this powder which would load them with riches and
even render them almost immortal--for at that epoch the philosopher's
stone passed not only for an agent in the transmutation of base metals,
such as tin,