I really do not know how it was possible to tear myself out of
Catherine's arms. But it is a fact that in jumping out of her
carriage I nearly fell on M. d'Asterac, whose tall figure leant
against a tree on the roadside. Courteously I saluted him and showed
the surprise I felt at this pleasant encounter.

"Chance," he said, "lessens as knowledge grows; for me it is
suppressed. I knew, my son, that I had to meet you at this place. It
is necessary for me to have a conversation with you already too long
delayed. Let's go, if you please, in quest of solitude and quietness
required by what I wish to tell you. Do not become anxious. The
mysteries I desire to unveil before you are sublime, it is true, but
pleasant also."

Having so spoken he conducted me to the bank of the Seine opposite
the Isle of Swans, which rose out of the middle of the river like a
ship built of foliage. There he made a sign to a ferryman, whose
boat brought us quickly to the green isle, frequented only by
invalids, who on fine days play there at bowls and drink their pint
of wine. Night lit her first stars in the sky and lent a humming
voice to the myriads of insects in the grass. The isle was deserted.
M. d'Asterac sat down on a wooden bench at the end of an alley of
walnut-trees, invited me to sit close to him and spoke:

"There are three sorts of people, my son, from whom the philosopher
has to hide his secrets. They are princes, because it would be
imprudent to enlarge their power; the ambitious, whose pitiless
genius must not be armed, and the debauchees, who would find in
hidden sciences the means to satiate their evil passions. But I can
talk freely to you, who are neither debauched--for I quite overlook