He was a young man and a profligate, and had got into a house of ill-fame, from which he came out in sorry plight.  He complained bitterly that M. Farsetti had refused to lend him four louis, and he asked me to speak to his mother that she might pay for his cure.  I consented, but when his mother heard what was the matter with him, she said it would be much better to leave him as he was, as this was the third time he had been in this condition, and that to have him cured was a waste of money, as no sooner was he well than he began his dissipated life afresh.  She was quite right, for I had him cured at my expense by an able surgeon, and he was in the same way a month after.  This young man seemed intended by nature for shameful excesses, for at the age of fourteen he was an accomplished profligate.

His sister was now six months with child, and as her figure grew great so did her despair.  She resolved not to leave her bed, and it grieved me to see her thus cast down.  Thinking me perfectly cured of my passion for her, she treated me purely as a friend, making me touch her all over to convince me that she dare not shew herself any longer.  I played in short the part of a midwife, but with what a struggle!  I had to pretend to be calm and unconcerned when I was consumed with passion.  She spoke of killing herself in a manner that made me shudder, as I saw that she had reflected on what she was saying.  I was in a difficult position when fortune came to my assistance in a strange and amusing manner.

One day, as I was dining with Madame d’Urfe, I asked her if she knew of any way by which a girl, who had allowed her lover to go too far, might be protected from shame.  “I know of an infallible method,” she replied, “the aroph of Paracelsus to wit, and it is easy of application.  Do you wish to know more about it?” she added; and without waiting for me to answer she brought a manuscript, and put it in my hands.  This powerful emmenagogue was a kind of unguent composed of several drugs, such as saffron, myrrh, etc., compounded with virgin honey.  To obtain the necessary result one had to employ a cylindrical machine covered with extremely soft skin, thick enough to fill the opening of the vagina, and long enough to reach the opening of the reservoir or case containing the foetus.  The end of this apparatus was to be well anointed with aroph, and as it only acted at a moment of uterine excitement it was necessary to apply it with the same movement as that of coition.  The dose had to be repeated five or six times a day for a whole week.

This nostrum, and the manner of administering it, struck me in so laughable a light that I could not keep my countenance.  I laughed with all my heart, but for all that I spent the next two hours in reading the dreams of Paracelsus, in which Madame d’Urfe put more trust than in the truths of the Gospel; I afterwards referred to Boerhaave, who speaks of the aroph in more reasonable terms.