the sieur de la Foresterie, her steward, to the
lieutenant-general, her counsel, a mortal enemy of the count, that he
might advise her in this conjuncture, and suggest a means for helping
the matron without appearing openly in the matter. The lieutenant's
advice was to quash the proceedings and obtain an injunction against the
continuance of the preliminaries to the action. The marchioness spent a
large sum of money, and obtained this injunction; but it was immediately
reversed, and the bar to the suit removed.

La Foresterie was then ordered to pass to Riom, where the sisters Quinet
lived, and to bribe them heavily to secrecy. The elder one, on leaving
the marchioness's service, had shaken her fist in her face, feeling
secure with the secrets in her knowledge, and told her that she would
repent having dismissed her and her sister, and that she would make a
clean breast of the whole affair, even were she to be hung first. These
girls then sent word that they wished to enter her service again; that
the countess had promised them handsome terms if they would speak; and
that they had even been questioned in her name by a Capuchin superior,
but that they said nothing, in order to give time to prepare an answer
for them. The marchioness found herself obliged to take back the girls;
she kept the younger, and married the elder to Delisle, her house
steward. But la Foresterie, finding himself in this network of intrigue,
grew disgusted at serving such a mistress, and left her house. The
marchioness told him on his departure that if he were so indiscreet as
to repeat a word of what he had learned from the Quinet girls, she would
punish him with a hundred poniard stabs from her major-domo Delisle.
Having thus fortified her position, she thought herself secure against
any hostile steps; but it happened that a certain prudent Berger,
gentleman and page to the Marquis de Saint-Maixent, who enjoyed his
master's confidence and went to see him in the Conciergerie, where he
was imprisoned, threw some strange light on this affair. His master had
narrated to him all the particulars of the accouchement of the countess
and of the abduction of the child.

"I am astonished, my lord," replied the page, "that having so many
dangerous affairs on hand; you did not relieve your conscience of this
one."

"I intend," replied the marquis, "to restore this child to his father:
I have been ordered to do so by a Capuchin to whom I confessed having
c