The 1st of January, 1892, he had promised to spend with his mother at Villa de Ravenelles, at Nice. But he went, instead, against his mother's wishes, to Ste.-Marguerite in company with two sisters, society women, one of them said to have been the heroine of Notre Coeur. The next day he arrived, his features discomposed, and in a state of great mental excitement.

Behind the chapel extended, surrounded by two high hedges of hazel, elder and white thorn, and a deep ditch, the little inclosure uncultivated, though gay in its sterility; because the mosses there grew thick, wild heliotrope and ravenelles there mingled perfumes, while from beneath an ancient chestnut issued a crystal spring, a prisoner in its marble cistern, and on the thyme all around alighted thousands of bees from the neighboring plants, whilst chaffinches and redthroats sang cheerfully among the flower-spangled hedges.