Towards four o’clock, as we were talking over my travels and our designs, she took a fancy to walk in the Bois du Boulogne.  She begged me to accompany her, and I acceded to her request.  We walked into the deepest recesses of the wood and sat down under a tree.  “It is eighteen years ago,” said she, “since I fell asleep on the same spot that we now occupy.  During my sleep the divine Horosmadis came down from the sun and stayed with me till I awoke.  As I opened my eyes I saw him leave me and ascend to heaven.  He left me with child, and I bore a girl which he took away from me years ago, no doubt to punish me for, having so far forgotten myself as to love a mortal after him.  My lovely Iriasis was like him.”

“You are quite sure that M. d’Urfe was not the child’s father?”

“M. d’Urfe did not know me after he saw me lying beside the divine Anael.”

“That’s the genius of Venus.  Did he squint?”

“To excess.  You are aware, then, that he squints?”

“Yes, and I know that at the amorous crisis he ceases to squint.”

“I did not notice that.  He too, left me on account of my sinning with an Arab.”

“The Arab was sent to you by an enemy of Anael’s, the genius of Mercury.”

“It must have been so; it was a great misfortune.”

“On the contrary, it rendered you more fit for transformation.”

We were walking towards the carriage when all at once we saw St. Germain, but as soon as he noticed us he turned back and we lost sight of him.

“Did you see him?” said I.  “He is working against us, but our genie makes him tremble.”

“I am quite thunderstruck.  I will go and impart this piece of news to the Duc de Choiseul to-morrow morning.  I am curious to hear what he will say when I tell him.”

As we were going back to Paris I left Madame d’Urfe, and walked to the Porte St. Denis to see my brother.  He and his wife received me with cries of joy.  I thought the wife very pretty but very wretched, for Providence had not allowed my brother to prove his manhood, and she was unhappily in love with him.  I say unhappily, because her love kept her faithful to him, and if she had not been in love she might easily have found a cure for her misfortune as her husband allowed her perfect liberty.  She grieved bitterly, for she did not know that my brother was impotent, and fancied that the reason of his abstention was that he did not return her love; and the mistake was an excusable one, for he was like a Hercules, and indeed he was one, except where it was most to be desired.  Her grief threw her into a consumption of which she died five or six years later.  She did not mean her death to be a punishment to her husband, but we shall see that it was so.

The next day I called on Madame Varnier to give her Madame Morin’s letter.  I was cordially welcomed, and Madame Varnier was kind enough to say that she had rather see me than anybody else in the world; her niece had told her such strange things about me that she had got quite curious.  This, as is well known, is a prevailing complaint with women.