nt was searching at a
distance for things very near him. The truth shone out with great lustre
through these new facts which gushed from all this fresh information.
The child, exhibited in the presence of a legal commissary to the nurses
and witnesses of Torcy, was identified, as much by the scars left by the
midwife's nails on his head, as by his fair hair and blue eyes. This
ineffaceable vestige of the woman's cruelty was the principal proof; the
witnesses testified that la Pigoreau, when she visited this child with a
man who appeared to be of condition, always asserted that he was the son
of a great nobleman who had been entrusted to her care, and that she
hoped he would make her fortune and that of those who had reared him.

The child's godfather, Paul Marmiou, a common labourer; the grocer
Raguenet, who had charge of the two thousand livres; the servant of la
Pigoreau, who had heard her say that the count was obliged to take this
child; the witnesses who proved that la Pigoreau had told them that the
child was too well born to wear a page's livery, all furnished convincing
proofs; but others were forthcoming.

It was at la Pigoreau's that the Marquis de Saint-Maixent, living then at
the hotel de Saint-Geran, went to see the child, kept in her house as if
it were hers; Prudent Berger, the marquis's page, perfectly well
remembered la Pigoreau, and also the child, whom he had seen at her house
and whose history the marquis had related to him. Finally, many other
witnesses heard in the course of the case, both before the three chambers
of nobles, clergy, and the tiers etat, and before the judges of Torcy,
Cusset, and other local magistrates, made the facts so clear and
conclusive in favour of the legitimacy of the young count, that it was
impossible to avoid impeaching the guilty parties. The count ordered the
summons in person of la Pigoreau, who had not been compromised in the
original preliminary proceedings. This drastic measure threw the
intriguing woman on her beam ends, but she strove hard to right herself.

The widowed Duchess de Ventadour, daughter by her mother's second
marriage of the Countess dowager of Saint-Geran, and half-sister of the
count, and the Countess de Lude, daughter of the Marchioness de Bouille,
from whom the young count carried away the Saint-Geran inheritance, were
very warm in the matter, and spoke of disputing the judgment. La
Pigoreau went to see them, and joined in concert with t