if I had not warned her of what she might expect.  Thrice did she clasp her to her breast with a tenderness that was quite maternal, calling her her beloved niece, and explaining the entire pedigrees of the families of Lascaris and d’Urfe to make the countess understand how she came to be her niece.  I was agreeably surprised to see the polite and dignified air with which the Italian wench listened to all this; she did not even smile, though the scene must have struck her as extremely laughable.

As soon as we got into the castle Madame d’Urfe proceeded to cense the new-comer, who received the attention with all the dignity of an opera queen, and then threw herself into the arms of the priestess, who received her with enthusiastic affection.

At dinner the countess was agreeable and talkative, which won her Madame d’Urfe’s entire favour; her broken French being easily accounted for.  Laura, the countess’s mother, only knew her native Italian, and so kept silence.  She was given a comfortable room, where her meals were brought to her, and which she only left to hear mass.

The castle was a fortified building, and had sustained several sieges in the civil wars.  As its name, Pont-Carre, indicated, it was square, and was flanked by four crenelated towers and surrounded by a broad moat.  The rooms were vast, and richly furnished in an old-fashioned way.  The air was full of venomous gnats who devoured us and covered our faces with painful bites; but I had agreed to spend a week there, and I should have been hard put to it to find a pretext for shortening the time.  Madame d’Urfe had a bed next, her own for her niece, but I was not afraid of her attempting to satisfy herself as to the countess’s virginity, as the oracle had expressly forbidden it under pain or failure.  The operation was fixed for the fourteenth day of the April moon.

On that day we had a temperate supper, after which I went to bed.  A quarter of an hour afterwards Madame d’Urfe came, leading the virgin Lascaris.  She undressed her, scented her, cast a lovely veil over her body, and when the countess was laid beside me she remained, wishing to be present at an operation which was to result in her being born again in the course of nine months.

The act was consummated in form, and then Madame d’Urfe left us alone for the rest of the night, which was well employed.  Afterwards, the countess slept with her aunt till the last day of the moon, when I asked the oracle if the Countess Lascaris had conceived.  That well might be, for I had spared nothing to that intent; but I thought it more prudent to make the oracle reply that the operation had failed because the small Count d’Aranda had watched us behind a screen.  Madame d’Urfe was in despair, but I consoled her by a second reply, in which the oracle declared that though the operation could only be performed in France in April, it could take place out of that realm in May; but the inquisitive young count, whose influence had proved so fatal, must be sent for at least a year to some place a hundred leagues from Paris.  The oracle also indicated the manner in which he was to travel; he was to have a tutor, a servant, and all in order.