out discovering anything which
could compromise their character. I am speaking, however, of the fathers
Corbin, Berthier, and Cerulti, for all our efforts could not trace
father Dumas throughout all Paris. Nor was the innocence of the
parliamentarians less evident; they vented their hatred against
the ministry, and particularly against M. de Maupeou, in pamphlets,
couplets, and epigrams, both in French and Latin, but they had no idea
of conspiracies or plots.

And thus terminated an affair, which had caused so much alarm, and
which continued for a considerable period to engage the attention
of ministers. How was the mystery to be cleared up? The poisoned
orange-flower water, and the sudden deaths of the two prisoners, were
facts difficult to reconcile with the no less undeniable innocence
of the three accused Jesuits. The whole business was to me an
incomprehensible mass of confusion, in which incidents the most horrible
were mingled. At last we agreed that the best and only thing to be done
was to consign the affair to oblivion; but there were circumstances
which did not so easily depart from the recollection of my excellent
friend, the marechale de Mirepoix. "My dear soul," said she to me one
day, "have you ever inquired what became of the 100,000 livres given
to madame Lorimer? she had no time to employ them in any way before her
imprisonment in the Bastille. You ought to inquire into what hands they
have fallen."

I fully comprehended the drift of this question, which I put to M. de
Sartines the first time I saw him.

"Bless me," exclaimed he, "you remind me that these 100,000 livres have
been lying in a drawer in my office. But I have such a terrible memory."

"Happily," replied I, "I have a friend whose memory is as good as yours
seems defective upon such occasions. It will not be wise to permit such
a sum to remain uselessly in your office: at the same time I need not
point out that you, by your conduct in the late affair, have by no means
earned a right to them."

He attempted to justify himself; but, interrupting him, I exclaimed,
"My good friend, you have set up a reputation of your own creating and
inventing; and well it is you took the office upon yourself for no one
else would have done it for you; but you perceive how frail have been
its foundations; for the moment you are compelled to stand upon your own
resources you faint, and are easily overcome."

He endeavoured to make a joke of the affair, bu