Under the sun of success Clovis opened like a flower. He was radiant with content. His wife yearned to lead him from the room to her secluded boudoir, and there, twining her arms about his neck, point out the facets of the situation of which he seemed so singularly ignorant. She would have fallen at his feet and clasped his knees; have hugged him to her breast and warmed him with a spark of her own fire. But then, that insidious talk of mademoiselle's under which her memory tingled. The clammy affection of a fish! A man who required a master. The venom instilled was inoculating her system. Pride laid a finger on her lips. Oh! What a scene it had been at Montbazon! To perform a successful seance, Aglae explained, many accessories were _de rigueur_, since the vital fluid could not work with effect unless the mind were brought into a condition of fixed and unruffled calm. Now it is no easy matter to bring about this state in one who is a prey to aches and pains. The case is somewhat akin to that in the dentist's room when the patient is informed on the honour of a gentleman that the twinge will be a mere nothing, and that agitation is to be deprecated and calm desirable. Then he suddenly finds an object as large as a coach-house half down his throat, and the top of his head flies off. Unruffled calm, indeed, with a twang of the sciatic nerve and a twitter down the calf, and a great nail being hammered into the big toe! The crusty old Baron de Vaux growled out that as he could not be calm they had better remove their apparatus. Calm being a _sine qua non_, Mesmer had pointed out long since that music was a necessary feature in an operation while the patient was being manipulated. He was in the habit of placing his devotees in a delicious garden carpeted with grass, refreshed by play of fountains, variegated by beds of perfumed flowers and clumps of bushes, from amongst which came dulcet strains. In the intervals of crises a complete orchestra hidden somewhere burst forth into harmonious symphonies, at one time grave at another gay, quieting the patient into beatitude due to gratification of his senses. Sight, smell, hearing, all were considered. So minutely did the prophet delve into the matter that he issued an order against wind instruments. The symphonies were to be in D minor, interpreted by stringed instruments only; and at critical moments their effect was increased by the strains of an harmonica, touched by his own skilled fingers. Lest nerves should be excited by all this instead of quieted, a silent attendant stood behind each patient with a jug, from which, according to his discretion, he dribbled cold water upon the pate below him. This item was particularly soothing.