The prisoner had put them in possession of several of his schemes, among others the military one, with letters for certain writers and persons of importance, and in addition a "terrible" indictment of Madame de Pompadour for the king, in which "her birth and her shame, all her thefts and cruelties were laid bare." He begged the girls to have several copies made, which they were then to send to the addresses indicated. Soon large black crosses daubed on a neighbouring wall informed the prisoner that his instructions had been carried out. Danry seems no longer to have doubted that his woes were coming to an end, that the gates of the Bastille were about to fly open before him, and that he would triumphantly leave the prison only to enter a palace of fortune: _Parta victoria!_[47] he exclaims in a burst of happiness. And so we come to one of the most extraordinary episodes in this strange life. In December, 1763, the Marquise of Pompadour was taken seriously ill. "An officer of the Bastille came up to my room and said to me: 'Sir, write four words to the Marquise de Pompadour, and you may be sure that in less than a week you will have recovered your freedom.' I replied to the major that prayers and tears only hardened the heart of that cruel woman, and that I would not write to her. However, he came back next day with the same story, and I replied in the same terms as on the previous day. Scarcely had he gone than Daragon, my warder, came into my room and said: 'Believe the major when he tells you that within a week you will be free: if he tells you so, depend upon it he is sure of it.' Next day but one the officer came to me for the third time: 'Why are you so obstinate?' I thanked him--it was Chevalier, major of the Bastille--for the third time, telling him that I would sooner die than write again to that implacable shrew. "Six or eight days after, my two young ladies came and kissed their hands to me, at the same time displaying a roll of paper on which were written in large characters the words: 'Madame de Pompadour is dead!' The Marquise de Pompadour died on April 19, 1764, and two months afterwards, on June 19, M. de Sartine came to the Bastille and gave me an audience; the first thing he said was that we would say no more about the past, but that at the earliest moment he would go to Versailles and demand of the minister the justice which was my due." And we find, in truth, among the papers of the lieutenant of police, the following note, dated June 18, 1764: "M. Duval (one of the lieutenant's secretaries)--to propose at the first inspection that Danry be liberated and exiled to his own part of the country."