Then she began to notice how thoughtful had become her husband, l’Ile Adam, whom she watched when he thought she was not looking, and who wept that he had no fruit of his great love.  Soon this pair mingled their tears, for everything was common to the two in this fine household, and as they never left the other, the thought of the one was necessarily the thought of the other.  When Madame beheld a poor person’s child she nearly died of grief, and it took her a whole day to recover.  Seeing this great sorrow, l’Ile Adam ordered all children to be kept out of his wife’s sight, and said soothing things to her, such as that children often turned out badly; to which she replied, that a child made by those who loved so passionately would be the finest child in the world.  He told her that her sons might perish, like those of his poor brother; to which she replied, that she would not let them stir further from her petticoats than a hen allows her chickens.  In fact, she had an answer for everything.

Madame caused a woman to be sent for who dealt in magic, and who was supposed to be learned in these mysteries, who told her that she had often seen women unable to conceive in spite of every effort, but yet they had succeeded by studying the manners and customs of animals.  Madame took the beasts of the fields for her preceptors, but she did not increase in size; her flesh still remained firm and white as marble.  She returned to the physical science of the master doctors of Paris, and sent for a celebrated Arabian physician, who had just arrived in France with a new science.  Then this savant, brought up in the school of one Sieur Averroes, entered into certain medical details, and declared that the loose life she had formerly led had for ever ruined her chance of obtaining offspring.  The physical reasons which he assigned were so contrary to the teaching of the holy books which establish the majesty of man, made in the image of his creator, and so contrary to the system upheld by sound sense and good doctrine, that the doctors of Paris laughed them to scorn.  The Arabian physician left the school where his master, the Sieur Averroes, was unknown.

The doctors told Madame, who had come to Paris, that she was to keep on as usual, since she had had during her gay life the lovely Theodora, by the cardinal of Ragusa, and that the right of having children remained with women as long as their blood circulated, and all that she had to do was to multiply the chances of conception.  This advice appeared to her so good that she multiplied her victories, but it was only multiplying her defeats, since she obtained the flowers of love without its fruits.

The poor afflicted woman wrote then to the pope, who loved her much, and told him of her sorrows.  The good pope replied to her with a gracious homily, written with his own hand, in which he told her that when human science and things terrestrial had failed, we should turn to Heaven and implore the grace of God.  Then she determined to go with naked feet, accompanied by her husband, to Notre Dame de Liesse, celebrated for 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.