f M. d'Asterac and Inte

orchards, tottering fences and low houses, the windows of which looked suspiciously on us. And, after having left behind two or three tumbledown huts built of clay and straw, we saw in the middle of a disconsolate heath the Cross of the Sablons. At fifty paces fart

boyhood of the late king, secreted under tree ivy their gloominess and mutilations. At the end of an alley, the sloughs of which were covered with snow, stood

nt valet, M. Coign

e you not observed, my boy, that all along yonder road neither taverns nor hostels are to be met with, and that it would be necessary to cross the bridge and go up the hill to the Bergères to get a drink of fresh wine? There is thereabout a hostel of the Red Horse, where, if I remember well, Madame de St Ernest took me once to dinner in the company of her monkey and her lover. You can't imagine, Tournebroche, how excellent the victuals are there. The Red Horse is as well known for its mor

ind the old servant, the d

your father's cookshop, where we ate such

d'Asterac was occupied with writing near a big fire, in the midst of Egyptian coffins of human form r

rac invited us to

is connected with the work I have undertaken, to discover the lost science by which man will be re-established in his original power over the elements. I have no intention of raising the veil of nature and showing you Isis in her dazzling nudity; but I will entrust you with the object of my studies without fear that you'll

his world. The idea of a God both perfect and creative is but a reverie of a barbarity worthy of a Welshman or a Saxon. As little polished as one's mind may be one cannot admit that a perfect being tags anything to his own perfection, be it a hazelnut. That's common sense; God has no understanding, as he is endless how c

ive, perhaps six, contain like very precious archives the treasures of divine knowledge. You'll discover there the most beautiful secrets if you have cleared them of the interpolations which dishonour them; one scorns the literal and coarse sense, to attach oneself to the most subtle. I have penetrated to the largest part, as it will appear to you also later on. Meanwhile, the truth, kept like virgins in the temples of Egypt, passed to the wizards of Alexandria, who enriched them still more and crowned them with all the pure gold bequeathed to Greece by Pythagoras and his disciples, with whom the forces of the air conve

f Toth. Concerning yourselves, gentlemen, I intend to employ your knowledge, in reading the Alexandrian MSS. which I have collected myself in great numbers. There you'll find, no doubt, some marvellous secrets, and I do not doubt that with the help of these thre

ecognise them. At the point I have reached in my p

'Asterac's discourse my good

smarting anxiety, because I have experienced that it is not easy to earn some and remain an honest man or

e M. Jerome Coignard the wished-for assurance; for myself, curious as I was o

servant who had opened the doo

ould be very much obliged to you for ascending to the rooms I have had prepared for you,

le as shattered on the outside, the front of which showed nothing but cracked walls and dark windows, was as habitable in some of its inner parts. My first care was to know where I was. Our rooms looked on the fields, the view from them embraced the marshy slopes of the Seine, extending up

and spread abundantly on my hair the powder a box full of which I found on a small table. And ver

th hat under the arm, hand on the guard of my sword, thinking all the time on the lookin

hen M. Jerome Coignard came into my room with a

ncellor of England, whose philosophy I esteem but little, entered the great hall to be tried, his lackeys, who were clad with an opulence by which the copiousness of the Chancellor's household could be judged, rose to render him due honour. Lord Verulam said to them: 'Sit down, your rising is my falling.' As a fact, those knaves, by their extravagance, had pushed him to ruin and compelled him to do things for which he was indicted as a peculator. Tournebroche, my boy, always remember this misfortune of Lord Verulam, Chancellor of England and autho

interrupted ou

l, to follow all my movements, to enable you to imitate them. Having dined at the third table of the Bisho