Six months after the death of her husband, the marquise received letters
from her grandfather, M. Joannis de Nocheres, begging her to come and
finish her time of mourning at Avignon. Having been fatherless almost
from childhood, Mademoiselle de Chateaublanc had been brought up by this
good old man, whom she loved dearly; she hastened accordingly to accede
to his invitation, and prepared everything for her departure.

This was at the moment when la Voisin, still a young woman, and far from
having the reputation which she subsequently acquired, was yet beginning
to be talked of. Several friends of the Marquise de Castellane had been
to consult her, and had received strange predictions from her, some of
which, either through the art of her who framed them, or through some odd
concurrence of circumstances, had come true. The marquise could not
resist the curiosity with which various tales that she had heard of this
woman's powers had inspired her, and some days before setting out for
Avignon she made the visit which we have narrated. What answer she
received to her questions we have seen.

The marquise was not superstitious, yet this fatal prophecy impressed
itself upon her mind and left behind a deep trace, which neither the
pleasure of revisiting her native place, nor the affection of her
grandfather, nor the fresh admiration which she did not fail to receive,
could succeed in removing; indeed, this fresh admiration was a weariness
to the marquise, and before long she begged leave of her grandfather to
retire into a convent and to spend there the last three months of her
mourning.

It was in that place, and it was with the warmth of these poor cloistered
maidens, that she heard a man spoken of for the first time, whose
reputation for beauty, as a man, was equal to her own, as a woman. This