CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES

THE MARQUISE DE GANGES--1657

Toward the close of the year 1657, a very plain carriage, with no arms
painted on it, stopped, about eight o'clock one evening, before the
door of a house in the rue Hautefeuille, at which two other coaches were
already standing. A lackey at once got down to open the carriage door;
but a sweet, though rather tremulous voice stopped him, saying, "Wait,
while I see whether this is the place."

Then a head, muffled so closely in a black satin mantle that no feature
could be distinguished, was thrust from one of the carriage windows,
and looking around, seemed to seek for some decisive sign on the house
front. The unknown lady appeared to be satisfied by her inspection, for
she turned back to her companion.

"It is here," said she. "There is the sign."

As a result of this certainty, the carriage door was opened, the two
women alighted, and after having once more raised their eyes to a strip
of wood, some six or eight feet long by two broad, which was nailed
above the windows of the second storey, and bore the inscription,
"Madame Voison, midwife," stole quickly into a passage, the door of
which was unfastened, and in which there was just so much light as
enabled persons passing in or out to find their way along the narrow
winding stair that led from the ground floor to the fifth story.

The two strangers, one of whom appeared to be of far higher rank than
the other, did not stop, as might have been expected, at the door
corresponding with the inscription that had guided them, but, on the
contrary, went on to the next floor.

Here, upon the landing, was a kind of dwarf, oddly dressed after the
fashion of sixteenth-century Venetian buffoons, who, when he saw the two
women coming, stretched out a wand, as though to prevent them from going
farther, and asked what they wanted.

"To consult the spirit," replied the woman of the sweet and tremulous
voice.

"Come in and wait," returned the dwarf, lifting a panel of tapestry and
ushering the two women into a waiting-room.

The women obeyed, and remained for about half an hour, seeing and
hearing nothing. At last a door, concealed by the tapestry, was suddenly
opened; a voice uttered the word "Enter," and the two women were
introduced into a second room, hung with black, and lighted solely by a
three-branched lamp that hung from the ceiling. The d