“Some time after, he set off with his tutor.  Our separation caused us much grief, but we wrote to each other now and then, and it was but six weeks since I had had a letter from him, when what I am going to relate to you happened to me.

“The 31st of July, 1697, one Thursday,—­I shall remember it all my life,—­the late M. Sorteville, with whom I lodged, and who had been very kind to me, begged of me to go to a meadow near the Cordeliers, and help his people, who were making hay, and to make haste.  I had not been there a quarter of an hour, when, about half-past two, I all of a sudden felt giddy and weak.  In vain I lent upon my hay-fork; I was obliged to place myself on a little hay, where I was nearly half an hour recovering my senses.  That passed off; but as nothing of the kind had ever occurred to me before, I was surprised at it, and I feared it might be the commencement of an illness.  Nevertheless, it did not make much impression upon me during the remainder of the day.  It is true, I did not sleep that night so well as usual.

“The next day, at the same hour, as I was conducting to the meadow M. de St Simon, the grandson of M. de Sorteville, who was then ten years old, I felt myself seized on the way with a similar faintness, and I sat down on a stone in the shade.  That passed off, and we continued our way; nothing more happened to me that day, and at night I had hardly any sleep.

“At last, on the morrow, the second day of August, being in the loft where they laid up the hay they brought from the meadow, I was taken with a similar giddiness and a similar faintness, but still more violent than the other.  I fainted away completely; one of the men perceived it.  I have been told that I was asked what was the matter with me, and that I replied, ‘I have seen what I never should have believed’; but I have no recollection of either the question or the answer.  That, however, accords with what I do remember to have seen just then; as it were someone naked to the middle, but whom, however, I did not recognise.  They helped me down from the ladder.  The faintness seized me again; my head swam as I was between two rounds of the ladder, and again I fainted.  They took me down and placed me on a beam which served for a seat in the large square of the Capuchins.  I sat down on it, and then I no longer saw M. de Sorteville nor his domestics, although present; but perceiving Desfontaines near the foot of the ladder, who made me a sign to come to him, I moved on my seat as if to make room for him; and those who saw me and whom I did not see, although my eyes were open, remarked this movement.

“As he did not come, I rose to go to him.  He advanced towards me, took my left arm with his right arm, and led me about thirty paces from thence into a retired street, holding me still under the arm.  The domestics, supposing that my giddiness had passed off, and that I had purposely retired, went everyone to their work, except a little servant who went and told M. de Sorteville that I was talking all alone.  M. de Sorteville thought I was tipsy; he drew near, and heard me ask some questions, and make some answers, which he has told me since.