A renegade Jew, by the name of Deutz, at length betrayed her. By the most villainous treachery he obtained an interview with the duchess, and then informed the police of the place of her retreat. It was the 6th of November. In the following words Louis Blanc describes the preparations made for her arrest: "The first communication between M. Thiers and Deutz took place under the following circumstances: M. Thiers one day received a letter wherein a stranger begged him to repair in the evening to the Champs Elysees, promising to make him a communication of the very highest importance. At the appointed hour he proceeded to the Champs Elysees, with a brace of pistols ready in his coat-pockets. At the spot indicated in the letter he perceived a man standing, who seemed agitated with fear and doubt. He approached and accosted this man. It was Deutz. A conference was opened, which ended in a base crime. The next night, by an arrangement of the police, Deutz was introduced into the office of the Minister of the Interior. 'You can make a good thing of this,' said M. Thiers. The Jew shook with agitation at the idea; his limbs trembled under him, and his countenance changed. The price of the treachery was settled without difficulty." No sooner had Deutz withdrawn than bayonets glittered in every direction, and commissioners of police rushed into the house, with pistols in their hands. The duchess had barely time to take refuge, with three companions, in a small recess behind the fire-place, which was adroitly concealed by an iron plate back of the chimney. The police commenced a minute search, calling masons in to aid them. The walls were sounded with hammers, articles of furniture moved and broken open. Night came while the search continued. The space in which they were confined was very narrow, with but one small aperture for the admission of air. They barely escaped suffocation by applying their mouths in turn to this hole, but three inches in diameter. The gendarmes, fully satisfied that the duchess must be concealed somewhere in the house, took possession of the room and lighted a fire in the chimney, which converted their hiding-place into a hot oven. The heat soon became insupportable. The iron plate had become red-hot. One of the prisoners kicked it down, and said, "We are coming out; take away the fire." The fire was instantly brushed away, and the duchess and her companions, after having endured sixteen hours of almost insupportable torture, came forth in great exhaustion, and yet the duchess almost gayly said, referring to the ancient martyr roasted upon a gridiron, "Gentlemen, you have made war upon me _a la St. Laurent_. I have nothing to reproach myself with. I have only discharged the duty of a mother to gain the inheritance of her son."[AM] [Footnote AM: Memoires de la Duchesse de Berri, pp. 87-90.]