oce. From among these he selected two men to assist
him in his plan--Prelati, an alchemist of Padua, and a certain
physician of Poitou, whose name is not recorded. At their instigation
he built a magnificent laboratory, and when it was completed commenced
to experiment. A year passed, during which the necessities of the
'science' gradually emptied many bags of gold, but none returned to
the Marshal's coffers. The alchemists slept soft and fed sumptuously,
and were quite content to pursue their labours so long as the Seigneur
of Retz had occasion for their services. But as the time passed that
august person became greatly impatient, and so irritable did he grow
because of the lack of results that at length his assistants, in
imminent fear of dismissal, communicated to him a dark and dreadful
secret of their art, which, they assured him, would assist them at
arriving speedily at the desired end.

The nature of the experiment they proposed was so grotesque that its
acceptance by Gilles proves that he was either insane or a victim of
the superstition of his time. His wretched accomplices told him that
the Evil One alone was capable of revealing the secret of the
transmutation of the baser metals into gold, and they offered to
summon him to their master's aid. They assured Gilles that Satan would
require a recompense for his services, and the Marshal retorted that
so long as he saved his soul intact he was quite willing to conclude
any bargain that the Father of Evil might propose.

It was arranged that the ceremony should take place within a gloomy
wood in the neighbourhood. The nameless physician conducted the Lord
of Retz to a small clearing in this plantation, where the magic circle
was drawn and the usual conjurations made. For half an hour they
waited in silence, and then a great trembling fell upon the physician.
A deadly pallor overspread his countenance. His knees shook, he
muttered wildly, and at last he sank to the ground. Gilles stood by
unmoved. The insanity of egotism is of course productive of great if
not lofty courage, and he feared neither man nor fiend. Suddenly the
alchemist regained consciousness and told his master that the Devil
had appeared to him in the shape of a leopard and had growled at him
horribly. He ascribed Gilles' lack of supernatural vision to want of
faith. He then declared that the Evil One had told him where certain
herbs grew in Spain and Africa, the juices of which possessed the
pow