I awoke at noon, and feeling myself well rested I set to work at the horoscope, and I resolved to tell the fair Mdlle.  Roman that fortune awaited her at Paris, where she would become her master’s mistress, but that the monarch must see her before she had attained her eighteenth year, as at that time her destiny would take a different turn.  To give my prophecy authority, I told her some curious circumstances which had hitherto happened to her, and which I had learnt now and again from herself or Madame Morin without pretending to heed what they said.

With an Ephemeris and another astrological book, I made out and copied in six hours Mdlle.  Roman’s horoscope, and I had so well arranged it that it struck Valenglard and even M. Morin with astonishment, and made the two ladies quite enthusiastic.

My horoscope must only be known to the young lady and her family, who would no doubt keep the secret well.  After I had put the finishing touches to it, read it, and read it again, I felt certain that I had made a masterpiece, and I then dined in bed with my three nymphs.  I was polite and affectionate to them all, and we were all happy together, but I was the happiest.  M. de Valenglard came to see me early the next day, and informed me that nobody suspected me of being in love with Mdlle.  Roman, but that I was thought to be amorous of my landlord’s girls.

“Well, let them think so,” said I; “they are worthy of love, though not to be named in the same breath with one past compare, but who leaves me no hope.”

“Let me tell Madame d’Urfe all about it.”

“Certainly; I shall be delighted.”

M. and Madame Morin and their niece came at noon, and we spent the hour before dinner in reading the horoscope.  It would be impossible to describe the four distinct sorts of surprise which I saw before me.  The interesting Mdlle.  Roman looked very grave, and, not knowing whether she had a will of her own, listened to what was said in silence.  M. Morin looked at me now and again, and seeing that I kept a serious countenance did not dare to laugh.  Valenglard shewed fanatic belief in astrology in every feature.  Madame Morin seemed struck as by a miracle, and, far from thinking the fact prophesied too improbable, remarked that her niece was much more worthy of becoming her sovereign’s wife or mistress than the bigoted Maintenon had been.

“She would never have done anything,” said Madame Morin, “if she had not left America and come to France; and if my niece does not go to Paris nobody can say that the horoscope has prophesied falsely.  We should therefore—­go to Paris, but how is it to be done?  I don’t see my way to it.  The prediction of the birth of a son has something divine and entrancing about it.  I don’t wish to seem prejudiced, but my niece has certainly more qualifications for gaining the king’s affection than the Maintenon had:  my niece is a good girl and young, while the Maintenon was no longer as young as she had been, and had led a strange life before she became a devotee.  But we shall never accomplish this journey to Paris.”