apping herself up in a
night-gown, she followed the King to my brother's bedchamber.
The King knocked at the door with great violence, ordering it to
be immediately opened, for that he was there himself. My brother
started up in his bed, awakened by the noise, and, knowing that
he had done nothing that he need fear, ordered Cange, his _valet
de chambre_, to open the door. The King entered in a great rage,
and asked him when he would have done plotting against him. "But
I will show you," said he, "what it is to plot against your
sovereign." Hereupon he ordered the archers to take away all
the trunks, and turn the _valets de chambre_ out of the room. He
searched my brother's bed himself, to see if he could find any
papers concealed in it. My brother had that evening received a
letter from Madame de Sauves, which he kept in his hand, unwilling
that it should be seen. The King endeavoured to force it from him.
He refused to part with it, and earnestly entreated the King
would not insist upon seeing it. This only excited the King's
anxiety the more to have it in his possession, as he now supposed
it to be the key to the whole plot, and the very document which
would at once bring conviction home to him. At length, the King
having got it into his hands, he opened it in the presence of
the Queen my mother, and they were both as much confounded, when
they read the contents, as Cato was when he obtained a letter
from Caesar, in the Senate, which the latter was unwilling to
give up; and which Cato, supposing it to contain a conspiracy
against the Republic, found to be no other than a love-letter
from his own sister.

But the shame of this disappointment served only to increase
the King's anger, who, without condescending to make a reply
to my brother, when repeatedly asked what he had been accused
of, gave him in charge of M. de Cosse and his Scots, commanding
them not to admit a single person to speak with him.

It was one o'clock in the morning when my brother was made a
prisoner in the manner I have now related. He feared some fatal
event might succeed these violent proceedings, and he was under
the greatest concern on my account, supposing me to be under
a like arrest. He observed M. de Cosse to be much affected by
the scene he had been witness to, even to shedding tears. As
the archers were in the room he would not venture to enter into
discourse with him, but only asked what was become of me. M. de
Cosse answered that I