at they should be celebrated in the chapel of the
Chateau de Villebousin, where Guibourg had been almoner, to which he had
access, and which was at the time untenanted.

The chateau was a gloomy mediaeval fortress, blackened by age, and
standing, surrounded by a moat, in a lonely spot some two miles to the
south of Paris. Thither on a dark, gusty night of March came Madame de
Montespan, accompanied by her confidential waiting-woman, Mademoiselle
Desceillets. They left the coach to await them on the Orleans road, and
thence, escorted by a single male attendant, they made their way by a
rutted, sodden path towards the grim castle looming faintly through the
enveloping gloom.

The wind howled dismally about the crenellated turrets; and a row of
poplars, standing like black, phantasmal guardians of the evil place,
bent groaning before its fury. From the running waters of the moat,
swollen by recent rains, came a gurgling sound that was indescribably
wicked.

Desocillets was frightened by the dark, the desolate loneliness and
eeriness of the place; but she dared utter no complaint as she stumbled
forward over the uneven ground, through the gloom and the buffeting
wind, compelled by the suasion of her mistress's imperious will. Thus,
by a drawbridge spanning dark, oily waters, they came into a vast
courtyard and an atmosphere as of mildew. A studded door stood ajar, and
through the gap, from a guiding beacon of infamy, fell a rhomb of yellow
light, suddenly obscured by a squat female figure when the steps of the
Marchioness and her companions fell upon the stones of the yard.

It was La Voisin who stood on the threshold to receive her client. In
the stone-flagged hall behind her the light of a lantern revealed her
daughter, Marguerite Monvoisin, and a short, crafty-faced, misshapen
fellow in black homespun and a red wig--a magician named Lesage, one of
La Voisin's coadjutors, a rogue of some talent who exploited the witches
of Paris to his own profit.

Leaving Leroy--the Marchioness's male attendant below in this fellow's
company, La Voisin took up a candle and lighted Madame de Montespan up
the broad stone staircase, draughty and cold, to the ante-room of the
chapel on the floor above. Mademoiselle Desceillets followed closely and
fearfully, and Marguerite Monvoisin came last.

They entered the ante-room, a spacious chamber, bare of furniture save
for an oaken table in the middle, some faded and mildewed tapestries,
a