dared not propose any scheme then, for fear it should not succeed; but, two days after, I talked to her surgeon about the art, which some beggars practise, of counterfeiting sores, and altering their features.  He said that was easy enough.  I let the thing drop, and, after an interval of some minutes, I said, “If one could change one’s features, one might have great diversion at the opera, or at balls.  What alterations would it be necessary to make in me, now, to render it impossible to recognise me?” “In the first place,” said he, “you must alter the colour of your hair, then you must have a false nose, and put a spot on some part of your face, or a wart, or a few hairs.”  I laughed, and said, “Help me to contrive this for the next ball; I have not been to one for twenty years; but I am dying to puzzle somebody, and to tell him things which no one but I can tell him.  I shall come home, and go to bed, in a quarter of an hour.”  “I must take the measure of your nose,” said he; “or do you take it with wax, and I will have a nose made:  you can get a flaxen or brown wig.”  I repeated to Madame what the surgeon had told me:  she was delighted at it.  I took the measure of her nose, and of my own, and carried them to the surgeon, who, in two days, gave me the two noses, and a wart, which Madame stuck under her left eye, and some paint for the eyebrows.  The noses were most delicately made, of a bladder, I think, and these, with the other disguises, rendered it impossible to recognize the face, and yet did not produce any shocking appearance.  All this being accomplished, nothing remained but to give notice to the fortune-teller; we waited for a little excursion to Paris, which Madame was to take, to look at her house.  I then got a person, with whom I had no connection, to speak to a waiting-woman of the Duchesse de Ruffec, to obtain an interview with the woman.  She made some difficulty, on account of the Police; but we promised secrecy, and appointed the place of meeting.  Nothing could be more contrary to Madame de Pompadour’s character, which was one of extreme timidity, than to engage in such an adventure.  But her curiosity was raised to the highest pitch, and, moreover, everything was so well arranged that there was not the slightest risk.  Madame had let M. de Gontaut, and her valet de chambre, into the secret.  The latter had hired two rooms for his niece, who was then ill, at Versailles, near Madame’s hotel.  We went out in the evening, followed by the valet de chambre, who was a safe man, and by the Duke, all on foot.  We had not, at farthest, above two hundred steps to go.  We were shown into two small rooms, in which were fires.  The two men remained in one, and we in the other.  Madame had thrown herself on a sofa.  She had on a night-cap, which concealed half her face, in an unstudied manner.  I was near the fire, leaning on a table, on which were two candles.  There were lying on the chairs, near us, some clothes, of small value.  The fortune-teller