XIII and author of the celebrated book The Morbific Hydra Exterminated by
the Chemical Hercules. Beside a bronze head, such as the monk Roger
Bacon 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