ing her son, who was seven
years old, constantly beside her bed, bade him again and again look well
at her, so that, young as he was, he might remember her all his life and
never forget her in his prayers. The poor child would burst into tears
and promise not only to remember her but also to avenge her when he was
a man. At these words the marquise gently reproved him, telling him that
all vengeance belonged to the king and to God, and that all cares of the
kind must be left to those two great rulers of heaven and of earth.

On the 3rd of June, M. Catalan, a councillor, appointed as a
commissioner by the Parliament of Toulouse, arrived at Ganges, together
with all the officials required by his commission; but he could not
see the marquise that night, for she had dozed for some hours, and this
sleep had left a sort of torpor upon her mind, which might have impaired
the lucidity of her depositions. The next morning, without asking
anybody's opinion, M. Catalan repaired to the house of M. Desprats,
and in spite of some slight resistance on the part of those who were in
charge of her, made his way to the presence of the marquise. The dying
woman received him with an admirable presence of mind, that made M.
Catalan think there had been an intention the night before to prevent
any meeting between him and the person whom he was sent to interrogate.
At first the marquise would relate nothing that had passed, saying
that she could not at the same time accuse and forgive; but M. Catalan
brought her to see that justice required truth from her before all
things, since, in default of exact information, the law might go astray,
and strike the innocent instead of the guilty. This last argument
decided the marquise, and during the hour and a half that he spent alone
with her she told him all the details of this horrible occurrence.
On the morrow M. Catalan was to see her again; but on the morrow the
marquise was, in truth, much worse. He assured himself of this by his
own eyes, and as he knew almost all that he wished to know, did not
insist further, for fear of fatiguing her.

Indeed, from that day forward, such atrocious sufferings laid hold upon
the marquise, that notwithstanding the firmness which she had always
shown, and which she tried to maintain to the end, she could not prevent
herself from uttering screams mingled with prayers. In this manner she
spent the whole day of the 4th and part of the 5th. At last, on that
day, whic