occupied stood opposite the rue des Menoriers, and
was pulled down quite lately to make way for the rue Rambuteau. In 1776
it was one of the finest houses of the rue Beaubourg, and it required a
certain income to be able to live there, the rents being tolerably high.
A large arched doorway gave admittance to a passage, lighted at the other
end by a small court, on the far side of which was the shop into which
Madame de Lamotte had been taken on the occasion of the accident. The
house staircase was to the right of the passage; and the Derues' dwelling
on the entresol. The first room, lighted by a window looking into the
court, was used as a dining room, and led into a simply furnished
sitting-room, such as was generally found among the bourgeois and
tradespeople of this period. To the right of the sitting-room was a
large closet, which could serve as a small study or could hold a bed; to
the left was a door opening into the Derues' bedroom, which had been
prepared for Madame de Lamotte. Madame Derues would occupy one of the
two beds which stood in the alcove. Derues had a bed made up in the
sitting-room, and Edouard was accommodated in the little study.

Nothing particular happened during the first few days which followed the
Lamottes' arrival. They had not come to Paris only on account of the
Buisson-Souef affairs. Edouard was nearly sixteen, and after much
hesitation his parents had decided on placing him in some school where
his hitherto neglected education might receive more attention. Derues
undertook to find a capable tutor, in whose house the boy would be
brought up in the religious feeling which the cure of Buisson and his own
exhortations had already tended to develop. These proceedings, added to
Madame de Lamotte's endeavours to collect various sums due to her
husband, took some time. Perhaps, when on the point of executing a
terrible crime, Derues tried to postpone the fatal moment, although,
considering his character, this seems unlikely, for one cannot do him the
honour of crediting him with a single moment of remorse, doubt, or pity.
Far from it, it appears from all the information which can be gathered,
that Derues, faithful to his own traditions, was simply experimenting on
his unfortunate guests, for no sooner were they in his house than both
began to complain of constant nausea, which they had never suffered from
before. While he thus ascertained the strength of their constitution, he
was able,