her, and thrust his spear in the sole of her foot.  In spite of her foot half cut through, the poor girl still ran along the church without noticing it, going along with her bones broken and her blood gushing out, so great fear had she of the flames of the stake.  At last she was taken and bound, thrown into a tumbrel and led to the stake, without being afterwards heard to utter a cry.  The account of her flight in the church assisted in making the common people believe that she was the devil, and some of them said that she had flown in the air.  As soon as the executioner of the town threw her into the flames, she made two or three horrible leaps and fell down into the bottom of the pile, which burned day and night.  On the following evening I went to see if anything remained of this gentle girl, so sweet, so loving, but I found nothing but a fragment of the ‘os stomachal,’ in which, is spite of this, there still remained some moisture, and which some say still trembled like a woman does in the same place.  It is impossible to tell, my dear son, the sadnesses, without number and without equal, which for about ten years weighed upon me; always was I thinking of this angel burnt by wicked men, and always I beheld her with her eyes full of love.  In short the supernatural gifts of this artless child were shining day and night before me, and I prayed for her in the church, where she had been martyred.  At length I had neither the strength nor the courage to look without trembling upon the grand penitentiary Jehan de la Haye, who died eaten up by lice.  Leprosy was his punishment.  Fire burned his house and his wife; and all those who had a hand in the burning had their own hands singed.

“This, my well-beloved son, was the cause of a thousand ideas, which I have here put into writing to be forever the rule of conduct in our family.

“I quitted the service of the church, and espoused your mother, from whom I received infinite blessings, and with whom I shared my life, my goods, my soul, and all.  And she agreed with me in following precepts —­Firstly, that to live happily, it is necessary to keep far away from church people, to honour them much without giving them leave to enter your house, any more than to those who by right, just or unjust, are supposed to be superior to us.  Secondly, to take a modest condition, and to keep oneself in it without wishing to appear in any way rich.  To have a care to excite no envy, nor strike any onesoever in any manner, because it is needful to be as strong as an oak, which kills the plants at its feet, to crush envious heads, and even then would one succumb, since human oaks are especially rare and that no Tournebouche should flatter himself that he is one, granting that he be a Tournebouche.  Thirdly, never to spend more than one quarter of one’s income, conceal one’s wealth, hide one’s goods and chattels, to undertake no office, to go to church like other people, and always keep one’s thoughts to oneself,