“‘I know that you will suspect my judgment of being influenced by the conclusion of her story; but I do assure you that even then I could not help wondering that his Eminence should have admitted to his intimacy a person like Madame de la Motte. It has since become matter of surprise to all the world, that the cardinal, credulous and simple as it had pleased Heaven to make him, could ever have been so beguiled as to give the slightest degree of credit to her representations; but as for me, after having passed that single evening in her company, I almost feel inclined to believe in witchcraft. There _must_ have been some evil power at work, when the Cardinal de Rohan was delivered up to the possession (no other word can express this infatuation) of the Comtesse de Valois de la Motte!’ “‘How I should have liked to be present!’ said I, ‘and to hear from her own lips the recital of her adventures!’ “‘Bah!’ said the prince, laughing, ‘I can tell you the tale, and if it prove as interesting to you as it did to me, you will not forget it more than I have done. I believe it to be strictly true in all its main points. It is a singular story, and but little known. She told it well, too, and I leave you to judge of the effect which it must have produced at the time. “‘She said that her father, who, there can be no doubt was, in reality, the Count de Saint Remy de Valois, descended from Henry II., had sold the whole of his estates to a rich _fermier-général_, in order to satisfy the debts incurred by the inordinate love of splendour and expense in which his wife had indulged since their marriage. The family was, in consequence, reduced to the very lowest ebb of destitution and poverty. The mother, who was the daughter of one of the Count de Saint Remy’s vassals, had not strength of mind to bear the poverty which her own extravagance had brought upon her family, and fled, leaving her husband and three children to endure the privations which she was so ill-disposed to share. There was an old Gothic ruin in the park, belonging to what had once been the château of the Counts de Saint Remy, and this the _fermier-général_ consented to give up to the count and his young family. Hither, then, did the hapless little band retire, with no hope but in Heaven. The count became a confirmed misanthrope, and never stirred from the old ruin from the moment that he had fixed his abode within it. He suffered his hair and beard to grow, and refused to hold communication with any living being, save with his young children. But he took little heed of their welfare, notwithstanding his affection for them, nor seemed to care whether they were provided with bread or left to starve; and, had it not been for the kindness of the peasants of the neighbourhood, who, with native delicacy and good feeling, fearing to wound his pride, would come in secret and at night to deposit provisions upon the threshold of the mouldering edifice wherein they had taken refuge, the whole family