a domestic servant like Mme.
Fontaine, or again, perhaps it is some half-idiotic negress, some
herdsman living among his cattle, who receives the gift of vision; some
Hindoo fakir, seated by a pagoda, mortifying the flesh till the spirit
gains the mysterious power of the somnambulist.

Asia, indeed, through all time, has been the home of the heroes of
occult science. Persons of this kind, recovering their normal state,
are usually just as they were before. They fulfil, in some sort, the
chemical and physical functions of bodies which conduct electricity;
at times inert metal, at other times a channel filled with a mysterious
current. In their normal condition they are given to practices which
bring them before the magistrate, yea, verily, like the notorious
Balthazar, even unto the criminal court, and so to the hulks. You could
hardly find a better proof of the immense influence of fortune-telling
upon the working classes than the fact that poor Pons' life and death
hung upon the prediction that Mme. Fontaine was to make from the cards.

Although a certain amount of repetition is inevitable in a canvas so
considerable and so full of detail as a complete picture of French
society in the nineteenth century, it is needless to repeat the
description of Mme. Fontaine's den, already given in _Les Comediens
sans le savoir_; suffice it to say that Mme. Cibot used to go to
Mme. Fontaine's house in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple as regularly as
frequenters of the Cafe Anglais drop in at that restaurant for lunch.
Mme. Cibot, being a very old customer, often introduced young persons
and old gossips consumed with curiosity to the wise woman.

The old servant who acted as provost marshal flung open the door of
the sanctuary with no further ceremony than the remark, "It's Mme.
Cibot.--Come in, there's nobody here."

"Well, child, what can bring you here so early of a morning?" asked
the sorceress, as Mme. Fontaine might well be called, for she was
seventy-eight years old, and looked like one of the Parcae.

"Something has given me a turn," said La Cibot; "I want the _grand jeu_;
it is a question of my fortune." Therewith she explained her position,
and wished to know if her sordid hopes were likely to be realized.

"Do you know what the _grand jeu_ means?" asked Mme. Fontaine, with much
solemnity.

"No, I haven't never seen the trick, I am not rich enough.--A hundred
francs! It's not as if it cost so much! Where was the money to co