at I
understood cabalism, but that I could not interpret the meaning of the
answers obtained through it, and that her highness must ask new questions
likely to render the answers easier to be understood. She wrote down all
she could not make out and all she wanted to know.

"Madam, you must be kind enough to divide the questions, for the
cabalistic oracle never answers two questions at the same time."

"Well, then, prepare the questions yourself."

"Your highness will excuse me, but every word must be written with your
own hand. Recollect, madam, that you will address yourself to a superior
intelligence knowing all your secrets."

She began to write, and asked seven or eight questions. She read them
over carefully, and said, with a face beaming with noble confidence,

"Sir, I wish to be certain that no one shall ever know what I have just
written."

"Your highness may rely on my honour."

I read attentively, and I saw that her wish for secrecy was reasonable,
and that if I put the questions in my pocket I should run the risk of
losing them and implicating myself.

"I only require three hours to complete my task," I said to the duchess,
"and I wish your highness to feel no anxiety. If you have any other
engagement you can leave me here alone, provided I am not disturbed by
anybody. When it is completed, I will put it all in a sealed envelope; I
only want your highness to tell me to whom I must deliver the parcel."

"Either to me or to Madame de Polignac, if you know her."

"Yes, madam, I have the honour to know her."

The duchess handed me a small tinder-box to enable me to light a
wax-candle, and she went away with Camille. I remained alone locked up in
the room, and at the end of three hours, just as I had completed my task,
Madame de Polignac came for the parcel and I left the palace.

The Duchess de Chartres, daughter of the Prince of Conti, was twenty-six
years of age. She was endowed with that particular sort of wit which
renders a woman adorable. She was lively, above the prejudices of rank,
cheerful, full of jest, a lover of pleasure, which she preferred to a
long life. "Short and sweet," were the words she had constantly on her
lips. She was pretty but she stood badly, and used to laugh at Marcel,
the teacher of graceful deportment, who wanted to correct her awkward
bearing. She kept her head bent forward and her feet turned inside when
dancing; yet she was a charming dancer. Unfortunately her face