her hands, her throat; she avowed her love, she accepted the devotion
and life of her lover; she permitted him to die for her; she yielded to
an intoxication which the sternness of her semi-chastity increased; but
farther than that she would not go; and she made her deliverance the
price of the highest rewards of his love. In those days, in order to
dissolve a marriage it was necessary to go to Rome; to obtain the help
of certain cardinals, and to appear before the sovereign pontiff in
person armed with the approval of the king. Marie was firm in
maintaining her liberty to love, that she might sacrifice it to him
later. Nearly every woman in those days had sufficient power to
establish her empire over the heart of a man in a way to make that
passion the history of his whole life, the spring and principle of his
highest resolutions. Women were a power in France; they were so many
sovereigns; they had forms of noble pride; their lovers belonged to
them far more than they gave themselves to their lovers; often their
love cost blood, and to be their lover it was necessary to incur great
dangers. But the Marie of his dream made small defence against the
young seigneur's ardent entreaties. Which of the two was the reality?
Did the false apprentice in his dream see the true woman? Had he seen
in the hotel de Poitiers a lady masked in virtue? The question is
difficult to decide; and the honor of women demands that it be left,
as it were, in litigation.

At the moment when the Marie of the dream may have been about to
forget her high dignity as mistress, the lover felt himself seized by
an iron hand, and the sour voice of the grand provost said to him:--

"Come, midnight Christian, who seeks God on the roofs, wake up!"

The young man saw the black face of Tristan l'Hermite above him, and