nd in costs; and seeing that the charges against la
Pigoreau were of a serious nature, and that a personal summons had
been decreed against her, orders her committal, recommending her to the
indulgence of the court."

By a judgment given in a sitting at the Tournelle by M. de Mesmes,
on the 18th of August 1657, the appellant ladies' and the defendants'
opposition was rejected with fine and costs. La Pigoreau was forbidden
to leave the city and suburbs of Paris under penalty of summary
conviction. The judgment in the case followed the rejection of the
appeal.

This reverse at first extinguished the litigation of Mesdames du Lude
and de Ventadour, but it soon revived more briskly than ever. These
ladies, who had taken la Pigoreau in their coach to all the hearings,
prompted her, in order to procrastinate, to file a fresh petition,
in which she demanded the confrontment of all the witnesses to the
pregnancy, and the confinement. On hearing this petition, the court gave
on the 28th of August 1658 a decree ordering the confrontment, but on
condition that for three days previously la Pigoreau should deliver
herself a prisoner in the Conciergerie.

This judgment, the consequences of which greatly alarmed la Pigoreau,
produced such an effect upon her that, after having weighed the interest
she had in the suit, which she would lose by flight, against the danger
to her life if she ventured her person into the hands of justice, she
abandoned her false plea of maternity, and took refuge abroad. This last
circumstance was a heavy blow to Mesdames du Lude and de Ventadour; but
they were not at the end of their resources and their obstinacy.

Contempt of court being decreed against la Pigoreau, and the case being
got up against the other defendants, the Count de Saint-Geran left
for the Bourbonnais, to put in execution the order to confront the
witnesses. Scarcely had he arrived in the province when he was obliged
to interrupt his work to receive the king and the queen mother, who were
returning from Lyons and passing through Moulins. He presented the Count
de la Palice to their Majesties as his son; they received him as such.
But during the visit of the king and queen the Count de Saint-Geran fell
ill, over fatigued, no doubt, by the trouble he had taken to give them a
suitable reception, over and above the worry of his own affairs.

During his illness, which only lasted a week, he made in his will a
new acknowledgment of his so