re
the commissaries, to ascertain to what extent she had been implicated by
the revelations of her step-brother. She no sooner learnt, however, that
the Count had thrown all the odium of the conspiracy upon herself than
she hastened to obey a second summons, and presented herself with her
arm in a sling to undergo in her turn the necessary interrogatories. Her
manner was firm, and her delivery at once haughty and energetic. She
insisted upon the innocence of her father, declared that the whole cabal
had been organized by D'Auvergne, and admitted that feeling herself
wronged she had willingly entered into his views; but at the same time
she coupled with this admission the assurance that having nothing with
which to reproach herself she asked for no indulgence, and was quite
prepared to abide by the consequences of her attempt to do justice alike
to herself and to her children.

When the Comte d'Entragues was in his turn examined, he did not seek to
deny his participation in the plot, but placed in the hands of his
judges a written document, setting forth the services which he had
rendered to the King since his accession, and which had merely been
recompensed by the government of Orleans, a dignity of which he was
moreover shortly afterwards deprived in order that it might be conferred
upon another, although in his zeal for the monarch he had not only
exhausted his own resources but had even raised considerable loans which
still remained unliquidated. Yet, as he stated, he had uttered no
complaint, although he was reduced to poverty and deprived of the means
of suitably establishing his children, for he still had faith in the
justice and generosity of his sovereign; and with this assurance he had
retired to his paternal home, old, sick, and poor, to await as best he
might the happy moment in which his claims should be remembered. And
then it was, as he emphatically declared, that the last and crowning
misfortune of a long life had overtaken him. Then it was that the King
conceived that unfortunate attachment for his younger daughter, which
deprived him of the greatest solace of his old age and exposed him to
the raillery and contempt of his fellow-nobles, coupled with sarcastic
congratulations upon the advantages which he was supposed to have
derived from the dishonour of his child; an event which had clouded his
remnant of existence with shame and despair. He had, as he asserted,
several times requested of his Majesty th