CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

IN EIGHT VOLUMES

THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS

Towards the end of the year 1665, on a fine autumn evening, there was a
considerable crowd assembled on the Pont-Neuf where it makes a turn
down to the rue Dauphine. The object of this crowd and the centre of
attraction was a closely shut, carriage. A police official was trying to
force open the door, and two out of the four sergeants who were with him
were holding the horses back and the other two stopping the driver, who
paid no attention to their commands, but only endeavoured to urge his
horses to a gallop. The struggle had been going on same time, when
suddenly one of the doors violently pushed open, and a young officer in
the uniform of a cavalry captain jumped down, shutting the door as he
did so though not too quickly for the nearest spectators to perceive a
woman sitting at the back of the carriage. She was wrapped in cloak and
veil, and judging by the precautions she, had taken to hide her face
from every eye, she must have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.

"Sir," said the young man, addressing the officer with a haughty air,
"I presume, till I find myself mistaken, that your business is with me
alone; so I will ask you to inform me what powers you may have for thus
stopping my coach; also, since I have alighted, I desire you to give
your men orders to let the vehicle go on."

"First of all," replied the man, by no means intimidated by these lordly
airs, but signing to his men that they must not release the coach or the
horses, "be so good as to answer my questions."

"I am attending," said the young man, controlling his agitation by a
visible effort.

"Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?"

"I am he."

"Captain of the Tracy, regiment?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then I arrest you in the king's name."

"What powers have you?"

"This warrant."

Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly recognised
the signature of the minister of police: he then apparently confined his
attention to the woman who was still in the carriage; then he returned
to his first question.

"This is all very well, sir," he said to the officer, "but this warrant
contains no other name than mine, and so you have no right to expose
thus to the public gaze the lady with whom I was travelling when you
arrested me. I must beg of you to order your assistants to allow this
carriage to driv