his diminished resources, he resolved to live as he had lived before,
and turn alchymist, that he might make gold out of iron, and be still
the wealthiest and most magnificent among the nobles of Brittany.

In pursuance of this determination he sent to Paris, Italy,
Germany, and Spain, inviting all the adepts in the science to visit
him at Champtoce. The messengers he despatched on this mission were
two of his most needy and unprincipled dependants, Gilles de Sille and
Roger de Bricqueville. The latter, the obsequious panderer to his most
secret and abominable pleasures, he had intrusted with the education
of his motherless daughter, a child but five years of age, with
permission, that he might marry her at the proper time to any person
he chose, or to himself if he liked it better. This man entered into
the new plans of his master with great zeal, and introduced to him one
Prelati, an alchymist of Padua, and a physician of Poitou, who was
addicted to the same pursuits. The Marshal caused a splendid
laboratory to be fitted up for them, and the three commenced the
search for the philosopher's stone. They were soon afterwards joined
by another pretended philosopher, named Anthony of Palermo, who aided
in their operations for upwards of a year. They all fared sumptuously
at the Marshal's expense, draining him of the ready money he
possessed, and leading him on from day to day with the hope that they
would succeed in the object of their search. From time to time new
aspirants from the remotest parts of Europe arrived at his castle, and
for months he had upwards of twenty alchymists at work - trying to
transmute copper into gold, and wasting the gold, which was still his
own, in drugs and elixirs.

But the Lord of Rays was not a man to abide patiently their
lingering processes. Pleased with their comfortable quarters, they