“You are right.”
“I admire your sagacity, madam. You have made an analysis of the mixture with which I traced the pentacle on your nephew’s thigh, but in what way can you discover the words which give the pentacle its efficacy?”
“In the manuscript of an adept, which I will shew you, and where you will find the very words you used.”
I bowed my head in reply, and we left this curious laboratory.
We had scarcely arrived in her room before Madame d’Urfe drew from a handsome casket a little book, bound in black, which she put on the table while she searched for a match. While she was looking about, I opened the book behind her back, and found it to be full of pentacles, and by good luck found the pentacle I had traced on the count’s thigh. It was surrounded by the names of the spirits of the planets, with the exception of those of Saturn and Mars. I shut up the book quickly. The spirits named were the same as those in the works of Agrippa, with which I was acquainted. With an unmoved countenance I drew near her, and she soon found the match, and her appearance surprised me a good deal; but I will speak of that another time.
The marchioness sat down on her sofa, and making me to do the like she asked me if I was acquainted with the talismans of the Count de Treves?
“I have never heard of them, madam, but I know those of Poliphilus.”
“It is said they are the same.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“We shall see. If you will write the words you uttered, as you drew the pentacle on my nephew’s thigh, and if I find the same talisman with the same words around it, the identity will be proved.”