two years
he continued to remonstrate with him, and was always met by some excuse,
that there was not sufficient powder, or that it had not been long enough
exposed to the rays of the sun. At last his patience was exhausted; and
fearful that he might suffer in the royal estimation by longer delay, he
wrote to the king for a _lettre de cachet_, in virtue of which the
alchymist was seized at the castle of La Palu, in the month of June 1711,
and carried off to be imprisoned in the Bastille.

The gendarmes were aware that their prisoner was supposed to be the lucky
possessor of the philosopher's stone, and on the road they conspired to
rob and murder him. One of them pretended to be touched with pity for the
misfortunes of the philosopher, and offered to give him an opportunity of
escape whenever he could divert the attention of his companions. Delisle
was profuse in his thanks, little dreaming of the snare that was laid for
him. His treacherous friend gave notice of the success of the stratagem so
far; and it was agreed that Delisle should be allowed to struggle with and
overthrow one of them while the rest were at some distance. They were then
to pursue him and shoot him through the heart; and after robbing the
corpse of the philosopher's stone, convey it to Paris on a cart, and tell
M. Desmarets that the prisoner had attempted to escape, and would have
succeeded if they had not fired after him and shot him through the body.
At a convenient place the scheme was executed. On a given signal from the
friendly gendarme, Delisle fled, while another gendarme took aim and shot
him through the thigh. Some peasants arriving at the instant, they were
prevented from killing him as they intended, and he was transported to
Paris, maimed and bleeding. He was thrown into a dungeon in the Bastille,
and obstinately tore away the bandages which the surgeons applied to his
wound. He never afterwards rose from his bed.

The Bishop of Senes visited him in prison, and promised him his liberty if
he would transmute a certain quantity of lead into gold before the king.
The unhappy man had no longer the means of carrying on the deception; he
had no gold, and no double-bottomed crucible or hollow wand to conceal it
in, even if he had. He would not, however, confess that he was an
impostor; but merely said he did not know how to make the powder of
projection, but had received a quantity from an Italian philosopher, and
had used it all in his vario