The same day, De Pontis was arrested on the plea of having fraudulently appropriated the property before ascertaining the amount of the deceased’s debts, and providing for the same. There had, of course, been no time for the court to grant any decree in Olivera’s suit. The arrest was dated from the _Cour Royale_, a distinct court from that in which Pedro’s suit originated—he being charged by the _procureur-général_—the attorney-general of France—with having made away with effects which of right belonged to the estate. He was thus, at the same time, charged by an officer of the crown in the _Cour Royale_ with a penal offence, and sued in a civil court for restitution by a private creditor. Lodged in the _Conciergerie du Palais_, it was intimated that the only chance of release was by finding surety to the amount of property abstracted. And how could he do that? The bed and hangings alone were estimated at the value of two hundred thousand livres, and had been made for the kinswoman of Louis, now the wife of Charles the First of England, who was obliged to countermand the luxurious article, on account of the troubles which had broken out in that kingdom. And thus our poor veteran was indeed, as the advocate Giraud truly affirmed, in the toils of Richelieu, who held all the strings of government and justice in his own hands, and could guide them as he wished. Deprived of the opportunity of self-exertion, restricted in intercourse with the advocate, his affairs might have fallen into irretrievable ruin but for the courage and energy of the fair Marguerite. In the first paroxysm of despair, she had solicited the boon of sharing the confinement of De Pontis—this was refused. Her next application was made to the king, throwing herself at his feet as he was about proceeding to mass, and asking permission to attend her father daily, as she was not permitted to make the _Conciergerie_ her home. Louis said aloud, that the request ought to be made through the proper channel, at the bureau of the Cardinal Richelieu, and recommended her to make the appeal—and that it would be time enough for the royal clemency to interfere when ordinary means had failed. Such was the sole answer it was supposed she departed with—but under pretence of raising the maiden, for she had thrown herself on her knees, he whispered a few words of comfort—that he would not abandon her father. The terror in which the cardinal was held was so great, his power exercised so arbitrarily, that in this extremity Marguerite was almost friendless. They looked on the father as a doomed man, and condemned his rashness—the daughter they pitied, but shrank from offering her aid. There was one exception.