to arrest me, in the first place, because I should have had foreknowledge
of the attempt, and in the second place because my power would have been
too strong for all bolts and bars. All this was clear enough, but strong
passion and prejudice cannot reason.

One day, in the course of conversation, she said, with the utmost
seriousness, that her genius had advised her that not even I had power to
give her speech with the spirits, since she was a woman, and the genii
only communicated with men, whose nature is more perfect. Nevertheless,
by a process which was well known to me, I might make her soul pass into
the body of a male child born of the mystic connection between a mortal
and an immortal, or, in other words, between an ordinary man and a woman
of a divine nature.

If I had thought it possible to lead back Madame d'Urfe to the right use
of her senses I would have made the attempt, but I felt sure that her
disease was without remedy, and the only course before me seemed to abet
her in her ravings and to profit by them.

If I had spoken out like an honest man and told her that her theories
were nonsensical, she would not have believed me; she would have thought
me jealous of her knowledge, and I should have lost her favour without
any gain to her or to myself. I thus let things take their course, and to
speak the truth I was flattered to see myself treated as one of the most
profound brothers of the Rosy Cross, as the most powerful of men by so
distinguished a lady, who was in high repute for her learning, who
entertained and was related to the first families of France, and had an
income of eighty thousand francs, a splendid estate, and several
magnificent houses in Paris. I was quite sure that she would refuse me
nothing, and though I had no definite plan of profiting by her wealth I