a basket, hid it under
his cloak, and went with his prey to find the marquis; they conferred
together for some time, after which the house steward passed by a postern
gate into the moat, thence to a terrace by which he reached a bridge
leading into the park. This park had twelve gates, and he had the keys
of all. He mounted a blood horse which he had left waiting behind a
wall, and started off at full gallop. The same day he passed through the
village of Escherolles, a league distant from Saint-Geran, where he
stopped at the house of a nurse, wife of a glove-maker named Claude.
This peasant woman gave her breast to the child; but the steward, not
daring to stay in a village so near Saint-Geran, crossed the river Allier
at the port de la Chaise, and calling at the house of a man named
Boucaud, the good wife suckled the child for the second time; he then
continued his journey in the direction of Auvergne.

The heat was excessive, his horse was done up, the child seemed uneasy.
A carrier's cart passed him going to Riom; it was owned by a certain Paul
Boithion of the town of Aigueperce, a common carrier on the road.
Baulieu went alongside to put the child in the cart, which he entered
himself, carrying the infant on his knees. The horse followed, fastened
by the bridle to the back of the cart.

In the conversation which he held with this man, Baulieu said that he
should not take so much care of the child did it not belong to the most
noble house in the Bourbonnais. They reached the village of Che at
midday. The mistress of the house where he put up, who was nursing an
infant, consented to give some of her milk to the child. The poor
creature was covered with blood; she warmed some water, stripped off its
swaddling linen, washed it from head to foot, and swathed it up again
more neatly.

The carrier then took them to Riom. When they got there, Baulieu got rid
of him by giving a false meeting-place for their departure; left in the
direction of the abbey of Lavoine, and reached the village of Descoutoux,
in the mountains, between Lavoine and Thiers. The Marchioness de Bouille
had a chateau there where she occasionally spent some time.

The child was nursed at Descoutoux by Gabrielle Moini, who was paid a
month in advance; but she only kept it a week or so, because they refused
to tell her the father and mother and to refer her to a place where she
might send reports of her charge. This woman having made these reaso