"Who could remain angry with you?" said Marguerite, pressing Blanche's hand; "but for all that, it's very disagreeable to change rooms—to move at my age."
"I will help you, dear nurse; I will carry everything."
"Oh, it's not that; it's on the same landing; it's not far to carry things. But the room I've lived in for eight years, ever since I came here, was, thanks to my prayers and precautions, protected from the visits of all evil spirits. There I could defy all attempts of sorcerers and magicians; and all that I did there I shall have to do over again in the new room where I am to sleep."
"Do you believe, then, Marguerite, that sorcerers will come to visit you if you don't take all your precautions?"
"And why not, mademoiselle? Don't those people get in wherever they can penetrate? There are a great number of them in Paris. They carry away the corpses off the gibbets of Montfaucon; they commit a thousand horrors to make their sorceries successful. It is now nearly fifty years ago (it was my mother who told me that story) that a lackey, ruined by play, sold himself to the devil for ten crowns. The demon transformed himself into a serpent and took possession of the lackey, introducing himself into the latter's body by the mouth; and from that time on the unlucky man made horrible grimaces, because the devil was in his body. Some years later a watchman was carried off by a sorcerer."
"Ah, dear nurse, you are going to tell me some more of those stories which will make me timorous at night."
"I don't tell you these to make you tremble, but to prove to you that it's necessary to be on one's guard against magicians, and not to be like those incredulous people who doubt everything when we have so many examples of the power of magic. I'll not do more than cite to you the Maréchale d'Ancre and Urbain Grandier, who lodged some devils in the bodies of some pious Ursulines at Loudun; that is too frightful. But I will only tell you what happened to a magician called César Perditor; that dates seventeen years back, or thereabouts. You see, my dear child, that's not very ancient."
"But, dear nurse, aren't you going to begin your moving?" said Blanche, who did not seem very eager to hear Marguerite's story.
"We've plenty of time," answered the old servant as she drew her chair close to Blanche's, delighted to relate a story about sorcerers, although that would make her tremble also. Marguerite commenced immediately:—
"This César was, said they, very well versed in his magic art, and produced at his will both hail and thunder. He had a familiar spirit, and a dog that carried his letters and brought back the answers to him. At a quarter of a league distant from this city, on the Gentilly side, he lived in a cave, in which he caused the devil and all his infernal court to appear. Ah, my poor child; they say that at a great distance from the cave a frightful noise might be heard every night. He made love philters, and wax images, by means of which he caused the persons they represented to languish and die.