Volume IV Part 59 (2/2)

”It may be so,” said I, ”but I can't believe it all the sa the carnival, and the husband obtained a rich doith his wife The poor girl died of 'grief in the course of a year, but did not say a word till she was on her death-bed

Her foolish parents, asha, and got the feood care, however, to lay a firood folk of Augsburg acity in piercing the disguise

I continued to enjoy the society of my two servants and of the fair Alsation, who cost ree hiive perfor the free gallery He did very fair business

I left Augsburg towards the middle of December

I was vexed on account of Gertrude, who believed herself with child, but could not make up her mind to accompany me to France Her father would have been pleased forher a husband, and would have been glad enough to get rid of her byher my mistress

We shall hear more of her in the course of five or six years, as also of ave a present of four hundred florins She ain I found her unhappy

I could not ive Le Duc, who rode on the coach the Rue St

Antoine, I et down; and I left him there without a character, in spite of his entreaties I never heard of hireat failings, he was an excellent servant Perhaps I should have called to art, Soleure, Naples, Florence, and Turin; but I could not pass over his iistrate If I had not succeeded in bringing a certain theft home to him, it would have been laid to my door, and I should have been dishonoured

I had done a good deal in saving him from justice, and, besides, I had rewarded him liberally for all the special services he had doneI went to Bale by way of Constance, where I stayed at the dearest inn in Switzerland The landlord, Ihters were a, and after a three days' stay I continued ot to Paris on the last day of the year 1761, and I left the coach at the house in the Rue du Bacq, where ed ance

I spent three weeks in these roo anywhere, in order to convince the worthy lady that I had only returned to Paris to keep ain apreparations for this divine operation, and our preparations consisted of devotions to each of the seven planets on the days consecrated to each of the intelligences

After this I had to seek, in a place which the spirits would point out to hter of an adept, whonate with a male child in a manner only known to the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross Madame d'Urfe was to receive the child into her arms the moment it was born; and to keep it beside her in bed for seven days At the end of the seven days she would die with her lips on the lips of the child, ould thus receive her reasonable soul, whereas before it had only possessed a vegetal soul

This being done, it was to be isterium which was known to me, and as soon as it had attained to its third year Madain to recover her self-consciousness, and then I was to begin to initiate her in the perfect knowledge of the Great Work

The operationthe months of April, May, or June Above all, Madauardian I was to be till its thirteenth year

This sublime madwoman had no doubts whatever as to the truth of all this, and burned with iin as destined to be the vessel of election She beggedmy answers from the oracle, that she would be deterred by the prospect of death, and I reckoned on the natural love of lifeher defer the operation for an indefinite period But such was not the case, and I found ed to keep o on in

What I wanted was soht of the Corticelli She had been at Prague for the last nine na I had promised to come and see her before the end of the year But as I was leaving Germany--by no means a land of pleasantout of my way for such a trifle in the depth of winter I resolved to send her enough money for the journey, and to let her meet me in some French town

M de Fouquet, a friend of Madame d'Urfe's, was Governor of Metz, and I felt sure that, with a letter of introduction frouished reception Besides, his nephew, the Coi-place with the virgin Corticelli, to whoave me the necessary introductions, and I left Paris on January 25th, 1762, loaded with presents I had a letter of credit to a large amount, but I did not make use of it as my purse was abundantly replenished

I took no servant, for after Costa's robbingot to Metz in two days, and put up at the ”Roi Dagobert,” an excellent inn, where I found the Comte de Louvenhaupt, a Swede, whom I had met at the house of the Princess of Anhalt-Zerbst, mother of the Empress of Russia He asked me to sup with hinito to Paris to visit Louis XV, whose constant friend he was

The day after overnor, who told me I must dine with hiret, as he would have contributed in no sree to the pleasure ofher fifty louis, and telling her to coet someone who knew the way to acco of Lent, and toI promised that I would make her fortune

In four or five days I kneay about the town, but I did not frequent polite asseo to the theatre, where a coer had captivated me Her name was Raton, and she was only fifteen, after the fashi+on of actresses who always subtract at least two or three years fro is common to woreatest of all advantages to them Raton was not so much handsome as attractive, but what chiefly made her an object of desire was the fact that she had put the price of twenty-five louis on her ht with her, and make the trial for a Louis; the twenty-five were only to be paid on the accoreat work