This stratagem consisted in accusing Marie-Elizabeth of attempting to murder him by means of poison—a crime punishable with death. As he now saw clearly, the main thing needful to the success of such a method was that he should be able to produce some incontrovertible evidence, and that so atrocious, of Marie-Elizabeth’s depravity as to bring her within distance of the scaffold; failing which, it must be at least such as to serve him as an excuse for his attempt to sell her into slavery. With this amiable purpose Defrêne applied all his talents to the composing of a series of no less than twenty-four letters purporting to be written by his wife to her various lovers and couched in the most abandoned of terms. Having done this, he came with them to Marie-Elizabeth, and ordered her to copy out the vile effusions so that he might have them in her own handwriting as an irrefutable proof of her guilt against him. For long she refused to obey his commands; until, at length, Defrêne drew a knife and threatened her with it; but even this made no impression upon her resolve to defend her honour. “Kill me if you will—I would prefer to die rather than to write those horrible letters,” she said. “All I ask is that you will let me have a priest to whom I may first confess myself—let me, at least, die like a Christian!” To this request, it need hardly be said, Defrêne turned a deaf ear. “Write as I tell you—or die as you are, in your sins!” he cried. “Come, be quick about it——” At the prospect of going into eternity in that fashion, so frightful to one of her upbringing, Marie-Elizabeth’s courage broke down. Taking the pen that Defrêne held out to her, she began to copy the abominations set before her, the tears rolling down her cheeks, her heart sick and appalled at the thing she was doing. As she finished copying each letter, Defrêne took his own original draft of it and burned it in the fire—so that all hope seemed gone for Marie-Elizabeth of ever being able to prove her innocence of them. And, all the while, she never ceased from praying Heaven to come to her aid. Suddenly there was a knock on the locked door of the room in which they were sitting; rising hastily, Defrêne went to the door and let himself out into the corridor, taking care to close and lock the door again behind him. Instantly Marie-Elizabeth saw her chance and took it.