M. de Sartines did not sleep on his post, but his researches were fruitless; and, on the following day, three successive messengers came to announce to us that they had as yet made no discovery. The day passed without bringing any fresh intelligence, and our anxiety increased daily. At length arrived the period fixed for the visit of the incognita. I awaited the coming of this female with an impatience impossible to describe. About mid-day a note was brought me; I instantly recognized the writing as that of my mysterious friend, and hastily breaking the seal, read as follows:

“MADAM,—I must entreat your pardon for breaking the appointment for to-day, imperative duties still detain me in Paris.

“Since our last interview I have been unceasingly occupied in endeavouring to discover the names of the eight persons of whom I spoke to you, and, I am sorry to say, I have but partially succeeded. The person who has hitherto furnished me with my information obstinately refuses to state who are the parliamentarians concerned in the conspiracy. I am, however, enabled to forward you the names of the four Jesuits, with some few particulars relating to these worthy fathers.

“The Jesuits in question are Messrs. Corbin, Berthier, Cerulti, and Dumas; the first of whom was employed in the education of the dauphin, the second and the third are sufficiently known; as for the fourth, he is a bold and enterprising Parisian, capable of conceiving and executing the most daring schemes. Whilst the order remained in possession of power he had no opportunity of displaying his extraordinary talents, and consequently he obtained but a trifling reputation; but since its banishment he has become its firmest support and principal hope. All the treasures of the brotherhood are at his disposal, and I learn, that the day before yesterday he received a considerable sum from Lyons.

“This intrepid and daring spirit is the very soul of the conspiracy; he it is who conceived the plan and set the whole machine in action. It would be effectually extinguished could we but once secure him, but this is by no means an easy task; he has no fixed abode; never sleeps two nights following in the same home; one day he may be found in one part of Paris and the next at the very opposite corner; he changes his manner of dress as frequently as he does his abode.

“I shall have the honour of seeing you to-morrow or the day after at furthest. Meanwhile lay aside all uneasiness for his majesty’s safety: I pledge you my word he is for the present in perfect security. The execution of the plot is still deferred for the want of a Damiens sufficiently sanguinary to undertake the task.

“Deign, madam, to accept the assurance of my sincere devotion, and believe that I will neglect no opportunity of affording you proofs of it.

“Yours, madam, etc., etc.”

I immediately communicated this letter to the duc d’Aiguillon, who convoked a fresh meeting of the persons who had been present on the preceding day. It was at first deliberated whether or not to arrest the whole body of Jesuits then in Paris, but this, although the advice of M. d’Aiguillon, was by no means approved of by the chancellor. M. de Sartines and M. de la VrilliÈre were for carrying the idea into execution, but the objections of M. de Maupeou were too powerful to be overruled, and the scheme was for the present abandoned. The chancellor maintained that the other conspirators, warned of their own, danger by the seizure of their friends, would either escape the vengeance of the laws by flight or by close confinement in their houses; he greatly dreaded as it was, that his foes, the parliamentarians, would avoid the punishment he longed to inflict on them. Indeed, in his estimation, it seemed as though every measure would be anticipated so long as the female, who seemed so intimately acquainted with their design, was at liberty; and this last opinion was unanimously concurred in.

All the delays greatly irritated me, and rendered my impatience to witness the termination of the affair greater than it had ever been. The stranger had promised to make her appearance on the following day; it passed away, however, without my hearing anything of her. On the day following she came; I immediately sent to apprize M. d’Aiguillon, who, with M. de la VrilliÈre and the chancellor, entered my apartments ere the lady had had time to commence the subject upon which she was there to speak. This unexpected appearance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, nor did her sang-froid and ordinary assurance in any degree fail her. She reproached me for having intrusted the secret to so many persons, but her reproof was uttered without bitterness, and merely as if she feared lest my indiscretion might compromise our safety. She was overwhelmed with questions, and the chancellor interrogated her with the keenest curiosity; but to all the inquiries put to her she replied with a readiness and candour which surprised the whole party. She was desired to give the names of those engaged in the conspiracy, as well as of him who first informed her of it. She answered that her own name was Lorimer, that she was a widow living upon her own property. As for the man, her informant, he was a Swiss, named Cabert, of about thirty years of age, and had long been her intimate friend: however, the embarrassed tone with which she pronounced these last words left room for the suspicion, that he had been something dearer to her than a friend. She was then urged to give up the names of the four parliamentarians, but she protested that she had not yet been able to prevail on Cabert to confide them to her, that she was compelled to use the utmost circumspection in her attempts at discovering the facts already disclosed, but flattered herself she should yet succeed in gaining a full and unreserved disclosure. M. de Maupeou encouraged her, by every possible argument, to neglect no means of arriving at so important a discovery.

The examination over, and the 100,000 francs she had demanded given to her, she retired, but followed at a distance by a number of spies, who were commissioned to watch her slightest movement.

Cabert, the Swiss, was arrested in a furnished lodging he occupied in rue Saint Roch, and sent without delay to Versailles, where, as before, M. d’Aiguillon with his two colleagues waited in my study to receive and question the prisoner. Cabert was a young and handsome man, whose countenance bore evident marks of a dissolute and profligate life. He confessed, without any difficulty, that his only means of gaining a livelihood were derived from the generosity of a female friend, but when he was pressed upon the subject of the conspiracy, he no longer replied with the same candour, but merely answered in short and impatient negatives the many questions put to him, accompanied with fervent protestations of innocence; adding, that implacable enemies had fabricated the whole story, only that they might have an opportunity of wreaking their vengeance, by implicating him in it.

“Accuse not your enemies,” cried I, for the first time mingling in the conversation, “but rather blame your benefactress; it is madame Lorimer who has denounced you, and far from intending to harm you by so doing, she purposes dividing with you the 100,000 livres which are to reward her disclosures.”

I easily found, by the frowning looks directed towards me by the three gentlemen present, that I had been guilty of great imprudence in saying so much; but Cabert, wringing his hands, uttered, with the most despairing accent,

“I am lost! and most horribly has the unfortunate woman avenged herself.”

“What would you insinuate?”

“That I am the victim of an enraged woman,” replied he.

He afterwards explained, that he had been the lover of madame Lorimer, but had become wearied of her, and left her in consequence; that she had violently resented this conduct; and, after having in vain sought to move him by prayers and supplications, had tried the most horrible threats and menaces. “I ought not indeed,” continued he, “to have despised these threats, for well I knew the fiendlike malice of the wretched creature, and dearly do I pay for my imprudence, by falling into the pit she has dug for me.”

In vain we endeavoured to induce him to hold a different language. He persisted with determined obstinacy in his first statement; continually protesting his own innocence, and loading the author of his woes with bitter imprecations. It was deemed impossible to allow this man to go at large; accordingly M. de la VrilliÈre issued a lettre de cachet, which sent him that night to seek a lodging in the Bastille. It was afterwards deemed advisable to put him to the torture, but the agonies of the rack wrung from him no deviation from, or contradiction of, what he had previously alleged.

The affair had now become mysterious and inexplicable. However, a speedy termination was most imperatively called for; if it were permitted to become generally known, it could not fail of reaching the ears of the king, whose health was daily declining; and M. de Quesnay had assured us, that in his present languid state, the shock produced by news so alarming, might cause his instantaneous death.

Whilst we remained in uncertainty as to our mode of proceeding in the business, Cabert, the Swiss, three days after his admission into the Bastille, expired in the most violent convulsions. His body was opened, but no trace of poison could be discovered: our suspicions were however awakened, and what followed confirmed them.

Madame Lorimer was arrested. She protested that she had been actuated by no feelings of enmity against her unfortunate lover, whom she had certainly reproached for having expended the money she furnished him with in the society of other females, and to the anger which arose between herself and Cabert on the occasion could she alone ascribe his infamous calumnies respecting her; that, for her own part, she had never ceased to love him, and, as far as she knew, that feeling was reciprocal; and, in betraying the conspiracy, her principal desire, next to the anxious hope of preserving the king, was to make the fortune of Cabert. She was confined in the Bastille, but she did not long remain within its walls; for at the end of a fortnight she died of an inflammatory disease. Her death was marked by no convulsions, but the traces of poison were evident.

These two violent deaths occurring so immediately one after another (as not the slightest doubt existed that Cabert had likewise died of poison) threw the ministers into a sad state of perplexity. But to whom could they impute the double crime unless to some accomplice, who dreaded what the unhappy prisoners might be tempted to reveal. Yet the conduct of the Jesuitical priests stated by madame Lorimer to be the principal ring-leaders in the plot, although exposed to the most rigorous scrutiny, offered not the slightest grounds for suspicion. Neither did their letters (which were all intercepted at the various post-houses) give any indication of a treasonable correspondence.

M. de Sartines caused the private papers of the suspected parties to be opened during their owners’ absence, without discovering anything which could compromise their character. I am speaking, however, of the fathers Corbin, Berthier, and Cerulti, for all our efforts could not trace father Dumas throughout all Paris. Nor was the innocence of the parliamentarians less evident; they vented their hatred against the ministry, and particularly against M. de Maupeou, in pamphlets, couplets, and epigrams, both in French and Latin, but they had no idea of conspiracies or plots.

And thus terminated an affair, which had caused so much alarm, and which continued for a considerable period to engage the attention of ministers. How was the mystery to be cleared up? The poisoned orange-flower water, and the sudden deaths of the two prisoners, were facts difficult to reconcile with the no less undeniable innocence of the three accused Jesuits. The whole business was to me an incomprehensible mass of confusion, in which incidents the most horrible were mingled. At last we agreed that the best and only thing to be done was to consign the affair to oblivion; but there were circumstances which did not so easily depart from the recollection of my excellent friend, the marÉchale de Mirepoix. “My dear soul,” said she to me one day, “have you ever inquired what became of the 100,000 livres given to madame Lorimer? she had no time to employ them in any way before her imprisonment in the Bastille. You ought to inquire into what hands they have fallen.”

I fully comprehended the drift of this question, which I put to M. de Sartines the first time I saw him.

“Bless me,” exclaimed he, “you remind me that these 100,000 livres have been lying in a drawer in my office. But I have such a terrible memory.”

“Happily,” replied I, “I have a friend whose memory is as good as yours seems defective upon such occasions. It will not be wise to permit such a sum to remain uselessly in your office: at the same time I need not point out that you, by your conduct in the late affair, have by no means earned a right to them.”

He attempted to justify himself; but, interrupting him, I exclaimed, “My good friend, you have set up a reputation of your own creating and inventing; and well it is you took the office upon yourself for no one else would have done it for you; but you perceive how frail have been its foundations; for the moment you are compelled to stand upon your own resources you faint, and are easily overcome.”

He endeavoured to make a joke of the affair, but indeed it seemed to accord as ill with his natural inclination as did the restitution of the 100,000 livres. However, he brought them to me the following day, and as I was expecting the arrival of madame de Mirepoix, I placed them in a porcelain vase which stood upon my chimney-piece. Unfortunately for the marÉchale, comte Jean presented himself before she did. He came to inform me, that my husband (of whose quitting Toulouse I had forgotten to tell you) had again arrived in Paris. I did not disguise the vexation which this piece of intelligence excited in me.

“And wherefore has comte Guillaume returned to Paris?” inquired I, angrily.

“Because he is afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” replied I.

“Of being murdered,” answered comte Jean: “it is a most horrible and authentic story. Imagine to yourself the dangers of his situation: some brigands, who have a design on his life, have written him an anonymous billet, in which they protest they will certainly murder him, unless he deposits 50,000 livres in a certain place. You may suppose his terror; money he had none, neither was his credit sufficiently good to enable him to borrow any. As a last and only chance, he threw himself into a carriage, and hastened, tremblingly, to implore your assistance.”

“And I am quite certain you will not withhold yours from him,” answered I

“You are perfectly right,” cried he, “but unfortunately just now I have not a single crown I can call my own; so that it rests with you alone, my dearest sister, to save the life of this hapless comte du Barry.”

“I am extremely distressed, my dear brother-in-law,” replied I, “that I am just as poor, and as unable to afford the necessary aid as yourself; my purse is quite empty.”

“Faith, my dear sister-in-law, I am not surprised at that if you convert a china vase into a receptacle for your bank notes.”

Saying this, he drew a bundle of notes from the hiding-place in which I had deposited them. “Do you know,” continued comte Jean, “I really think we shall find money enough here.” He began to count them: and when he had finished he said, “My dear sister, neither your husband nor myself wish to importune you, or put you to any inconvenience, therefore you shall merely oblige him with the loan of these 50,000 livres to extricate him from his present peril; they shall be faithfully and quickly restored to you, and a note of hand given you for that purpose if you desire it.” So saying, he divided the money into two parts, replaced one in the vase, and pocketed the other.

I was very indignant at the cool impudence with which this was done, and my patience had well nigh forsaken me: however, I restrained myself; and I was happy enough that I could so far conquer myself. My reproaches would not have induced comte Jean to give me back my money, and would only have roused his violence; which, when once excited, found vent in language so vehement and energetic, that I did not desire to hear any more of it than I could help. At these moments he selected not the politest expressions, but those which were the strongest: and besides, such was the ungovernable nature of comte Jean’s temper, that once roused, he would have treated the king himself with as little consideration as he did me. Still, he never deliberately insulted me, nor did he compose those insulting verses respecting me, which were printed as his, in “Les Anecdotes sur Madame du Barry.” This would have been an indignity I would quickly have caused him to repent having offered.

“Well,” inquired I, “are you very glad to see your brother in Paris?”

“No, ‘pon my soul!” returned he; “but since he is here, we must do the best we can with him; he was very anxious to see his sister-in-law and niece. He says the former is ugly as sin, and the latter almost as handsome as you.”

“Very gallant,” replied I; “but tell me, comte Jean, does this elegant compliment proceed from my husband or yourself?”

We were just then interrupted by the arrival of the marÉchale, and comte Jean retired.

“Well, my dear,” she began, “have you seen M. de Sartines, and did you speak to him respecting those 100,000 livres?”

“Oh, yes,” replied I, “he gave them back to me; but I have already had half of them stolen from me.”

“By comte Jean, I’ll engage,” cried she. “Upon my word, that man is a perfect spendthrift, a prodigal; who, if you do not take great care, will certainly ruin you. And what will you do with the remaining 50,000 livres, my dear friend; where will you place them?”

“In your hands, my dear marÉchale; ‘tis his majesty’s command.”

“To that command,” answered she, “I must perforce submit”; and, taking the bundle of notes, she continued, “Assure his majesty that it will ever be my greatest pride and pleasure to obey his slightest wish. My respect for his orders can only be equalled by my tender friendship for her who is the bearer of the royal mandate.” Then, deliberately putting the money in her pocket, she exclaimed, “You must own that comte Jean is a great rogue.”