at Sainte-Croix, who had made a rendezvous
with her one day at the cross Saint-Honore, there showed her four little
bottles, saying, "See what Glazer has sent me." She asked him for one,
but Sainte-Croix said he would rather die than give it up. He added that
the archer Antoine Barbier had given him three letters written by the
marquise to Theria; that in the first she had told him to come at once
and snatch her from the hands of the soldiers; that in the second she
said that the escort was only composed of eight persons, who could he
worsted by five men; that in the third she said that if he could not
save her from the men who were taking her away, he should at least
approach the commissary, and killing his valet's horse and two other
horses in his carriage, then take the box, and burn it; otherwise she
was lost.

Laviolette, an archer, deposed that on the evening of the arrest,
the marquise had a long pin and tried to put it in her mouth; that he
stopped her, and told her that she was very wicked; that he perceived
that people said the truth and that she had poisoned all her family; to
which she replied, that if she had, it was only through following bad
advice, and that one could not always be good.

Antoine Barbier, an archer, said that the marquise at table took up a
glass as though to drink, and tried to swallow a piece of it; that he
prevented this, and she promised to make his fortune if only he would
save her; that she wrote several letters to Theria; that during the
whole journey she tried all she could to swallow pins, bits of glass,
and earth; that she had proposed that he should cut Desgrais' throat,
and kill the commissary's valet; that she had bidden him get the box
and burn it, and bring a lighted torch to burn everything; that she
had written to Penautier from the Conciergerie; that she gave him, the
letter, and he pretended to deliver it.

Finally, Francoise Roussel deposed that she had been in the service
of the marquise, and the lady had one day given her some preserved
gooseberries; that she had eaten some on the point of her knife, and at
once felt ill. She also gave her a slice of mutton, rather wet, which
she ate, afterwards suffering great pain in the stomach, feeling as
though she had been pricked in the heart, and for three years had felt
the same, believing herself poisoned.

It was difficult to continue a system of absolute denial in face of
proofs like these. The marquise persisted, all