ctor. The duke retired to his dressing-room.
One of the gentlemen who first arrived was so sickened by the sight
of the bloody room that he begged for a glass of water. The valet
ran for the nearest water at hand, and abruptly entered the duke's
dressing-room. He had a glass with him, and was going to fill it
from a pail standing near, when the duke cried out: "Don't touch it;
it is dirty;" and at once emptied the contents out of the window,
but not before the valet had seen that the water was red with blood.
This roused his suspicions, and when all the servants in the house
were put under arrest, he said quietly to the police: "You had
better search the duke's dressing-room."

When this was done there could be no more doubt. Three fancy daggers
were found, one of which had always hung in the chamber of the
duchess. All of them were stained with blood. The duke had changed
his clothes, and had tried to wash those he took off in the pail
whose bloody water he had thrown away. Subsequently it was conjectured
that his purpose had been to stab his wife in her sleep, and then
by a strong pull to bring down upon her the heavy canopy. The bolt
he had unscrewed permitted him at dead of night quietly to enter
her chamber.

The police were puzzled as to how they ought to treat the murderer.
As he was a peer of France, they could not legally arrest him without
authority from the Chamber of peers, or from the king. The royal
family was at Dreux. The king was appealed to at once, and immediately
gave orders to arrest the duke and to summon the peers for his
trial. But meantime the duke, who had been guarded by the police
in his own chamber, had contrived to take poison. He took such
a quantity of arsenic that his stomach rejected it. He did not
die at once, but lingered several days, and was carried to prison
at the Luxembourg, where the poison killed him by inches. He died
untried, having made no confession.

His son, who was very young at the time of his parents' death,
married an American lady when he grew to manhood. It was a long
courtship, for the young duke's income went largely to keep in
repair his famous Chateau de Vaux, where Fouquet had entertained
Louis XIV. with regal magnificence. Finally a purchaser was found
for the ancestral seat; and relieved of the obligations it involved,
the duke married, and retired to his estates in Corsica.

As to Mademoiselle de Luzy, she was tried for complicity in the
murder of the