"I do not know, madam, what your bag contains, but if it have aught to do
with magic, I have no confidence in its efficacy, as you have neglected
to observe the planetary hour."

"It is an electrum, and magic and the observance of the hour have nothing
to do with it."

"I beg your pardon."

She then said that she thought my desire for privacy praiseworthy, but
she was sure I should not be ill pleased with her small circle, if I
would but enter it.

"I will introduce you to all my friends," said she, "by asking them one
at a time, and you will then be able to enjoy the company of them all."

I accepted her proposition.

In consequence of this arrangement I dined the next day with M. Grin and
his niece, but neither of them took my fancy. The day after, I dined with
an Irishman named Macartney, a physician of the old school, who bored me
terribly. The next day the guest was a monk who talked literature, and
spoke a thousand follies against Voltaire, whom I then much admired, and
against the "Esprit des Lois," a favourite work of mine, which the cowled
idiot refused to attribute to Montesquieu, maintaining it had been
written by a monk. He might as well have said that a Capuchin created the
heavens and the earth.

On the day following Madame d'Urfe asked me to dine with the Chevalier
d'Arzigny, a man upwards of eighty, vain, foppish, and consequently