possessed, which answered all the questions that were addressed to it and foretold the future by means of a magic mirror and the combination of the rules of perspective, lay an eggshell, the same which had been used by Caret, as d’Aubigne tells us, when making men out of germs, mandrakes, and crimson silk, over a slow fire.  In the presses, which had sliding-doors fastening with secret springs, stood Jars filled with noxious drugs, the power of which was but too efficacious; in prominent positions, facing each other, hung two portraits, one representing Hierophilos, a Greek physician, and the other Agnodice his pupil, the first Athenian midwife.

For several years already La Constantin and Claude Perregaud had carried on their criminal practices without interference.  A number of persons were of course in the secret, but their interests kept them silent, and the two accomplices had at last persuaded themselves that they were perfectly safe.  One evening, however, Perregaud came home, his face distorted by terror and trembling in every limb.  He had been warned while out that the suspicions of the authorities had been aroused in regard to him and La Constantin.  It seemed that some little time ago, the Vicars-General had sent a deputation to the president of the chief court of justice, having heard from their priests that in one year alone six hundred women had avowed in the confessional that they had taken drugs to prevent their having children.  This had been sufficient to arouse the vigilance of the police, who had set a watch on Perregaud’s house, with the result that that very night a raid was to be made on it.  The two criminals took hasty counsel together, but, as usual under such circumstances, arrived at no practical conclusions.  It was only when the danger was upon them that they recovered their presence of mind.  In the dead of night loud knocking at the street door was heard, followed by the command to open in the name of the king.

“We can yet save ourselves!” exclaimed surgeon, with a sudden flash of inspiration.

Rushing into the room where the pretended chevalier was lying, he called out—­

“The police are coming up!  If they discover your sex you are lost, and so am I. Do as I tell you.”

At a sign from him, La Constantin went down and opened the door.  While the rooms on the first floor were being searched, Perregaud made with a lancet a superficial incision in the chevalier’s right arm, which gave very little pain, and bore a close resemblance to a sword-cut.  Surgery and medicine were at that time so inextricably involved, required such apparatus, and bristled with such scientific absurdities, that no astonishment was excited by the extraordinary collection of instruments which loaded the tables and covered the floors below:  even the titles of certain treatises which there had been no time to destroy, awoke no suspicion.