mstances, leaving her a widow with two children. This woman
Pigoreau did not enjoy the best of characters, and no one knew how she
made a living, when all at once, after some short absences from home and
visit from a man who came in the evening, his face muffled in his cloak,
she launched out into a more expensive style of living; the neighbours
saw in her house costly clothes, fine swaddling-clothes, and at last it
became known that she was nursing a strange child.

About the same time it also transpired that she had a deposit of two
thousand livres in the hands of a grocer in the quarter, named Raguenet;
some days later, as the child's baptism had doubtless been put off for
fear of betraying his origin, Pigoreau had him christened at St. Jean en
Greve. She did not invite any of the neighbours to the function, and
gave parents' names of her own choosing at the church. For godfather she
selected the parish sexton, named Paul Marmiou, who gave the child the
name of Bernard. La Pigoreau remained in a confessional during the
ceremony, and gave the man ten sou. The godmother was Jeanne Chevalier,
a poor woman of the parish.

The entry in the register was as follows:-

"On the seventh day of March one thousand six hundred and
forty-two was baptized Bernard, son of . . . and . . . his
godfather being Paul Marmiou, day labourer and servant of this
parish, and his godmother Jeanne Chevalier, widow of Pierre
Thibou."

A few days afterwards la Pigoreau put out the child to nurse in the
village of Torcy en Brie, with a woman who had been her godmother, whose
husband was called Paillard. She gave out that it was a child of quality
which had been entrusted to her, and that she should not hesitate, if
such a thing were necessary, to save its life by the loss of one of her
own children. The nurse did not keep it long, because she fell ill; la
Pigoreau went to fetch the child away, lamenting this accident, and
further saying that she regretted it all the more, as the nurse would
have earned enough to make her comfortable for the rest of her life. She
put the infant out again in the same village, with the widow of a peasant
named Marc Peguin. The monthly wage was regularly paid, and the child
brought up as one of rank. La Pigoreau further told the woman that it
was the son of a great nobleman, and would later make the fortunes of
those who served him. An elderly man, whom the people supposed to