they of impatience to see
all the wealth of her house. They proceeded at once to inspect all
the rooms, cabinets, and wardrobes, each of which was richer and more
beautiful than the last; and there was no end to their envy and their
praises of their friend's good fortune."

All the historians who have dealt with this subject have added that
Madame de Montsagoux took no pleasure in the sight of all these
riches, by reason of her impatience to open the little Cabinet. This
is perfectly correct, and as Perrault has said: "So urgent was her
curiosity that, without considering that it was unmannerly to leave her
guests, she went down to it by a little secret staircase, and in such a
hurry that two or three times she thought she would break her neck." The
fact is beyond question. But what no one has told us is that the reason
why she was so anxious to reach this apartment was that the Chevalier de
la Merlus was awaiting her there.

Since she had come to make her home in the castle of Guillettes she had
met this young gentleman in the Cabinet every day, and oftener twice a
day than once, without wearying of an intercourse so unseemly in a young
married woman. It is Impossible to hesitate, as to the nature of the
ties connecting Jeanne with the Chevalier: they were anything but
respectable, anything but chaste, Alas, had Madame de Montragoux merely
betrayed her husband's honour, she would no doubt have incurred the
blame of posterity; but the most austere of moralists might have found
excuses for her. He might allege, in favour of so young a woman, the
laxity of the morals of the period; the examples of the city and the
Court; the too certain effects of a bad training, and the advice of
an immoral mother, for Madame Sidonie de Lespoisse countenanced her
daughter's intrigues. The wise might have forgiven her a fault too
amiable to merit their severity; her errors would have seemed too common
to be crimes, and the world would simply have considered that she was
behaving like other people. But Jeanne de Lespoisse, not content with
betraying her husband's honour, did not hesitate to attempt his life.

It was in the little Cabinet, otherwise known as the Cabinet of the
Unfortunate Princesses, that Jeanne de Lespoisse, Dame de Montragoux, in
concert with the Chevalier de la Merlus, plotted the death of a kind and
faithful husband. She declared later that, on entering the room, she saw
hanging there the bodies of six murdered women,