I had hardly finished dressing myself in the morning, before the other thirty-nine ladies came into my apartment, differently adorned from the preceding day. They paid their compliments to me, and made inquiries after my health. They then conducted me to a bath, where they employed themselves in washing me, and rendering me every service I wanted, although contrary to my inclination; and when I came out, they brought me another dress still more magnificent than the first. We passed the greatest part of the day at table, and when the hour of retiring came, they again entreated me to make choice of another amongst them, to remain as my companion. In short, madam, not to tire you by repeating the same thing over again, I may tell you at once, that I passed a whole year with these forty ladies, taking each of them in their turn for my mistress, and that during the whole of this time the voluptuous life I led was not interrupted by the least uneasiness. I was never more surprised than at the end of the year, when the forty ladies, instead of presenting themselves to me with their accustomed good spirits, and making inquiries after my health, one morning entered my apartment with their countenances bathed in tears. They each came and embraced me, and said, “Adieu, dear prince, adieu, we are now compelled to leave you.” Their tears affected me very much. I entreated them to inform me of the cause of their grief, and why they were obliged, as they said, to leave me. “In the name of God, my beautiful ladies,” I exclaimed, “tell me, I beseech you, is it in my power to console you, or will my aid and assistance prove useless?” Instead of answering me in a direct manner, they said, “Would to God we had never seen or known you. Many men have done us the honour of visiting us previous to yourself, but no one possessed the elegance, the softness, the power of pleasing, the merit of yourself; nor do we know how we shall be able to live without you.” Upon this they renewed their tears. “Amiable ladies,” I cried, “do not, I beg of you, keep me any longer in suspense, but tell me the cause of your sorrow?”--“Alas!” answered they, “what else could afflict us but the necessity of separating ourselves from you. Perhaps we shall never meet again. Yet still, if you really wished it, and had sufficient command over yourself for the purpose, it is not absolutely impossible to us to rejoin you.”--“In truth, ladies,” I replied, “I do not at all understand what you mean; speak, I conjure you, more openly.”--“Well then,” said one of them, “to satisfy you, we must inform you we are all princesses and the daughters of kings. You have seen in what manner, and under what conditions, we live here; but at the end of each year we are compelled to absent ourselves forty days, to fulfil some duties which cannot be dispensed with; but which we are not at liberty to reveal; after this, we again return to this castle. Yesterday the year finished, and today we must leave you.