The State payments to her husband were now withheld, and on seeking redress from the minister she was decreed an arrest, and sent for imprisonment to Vilvorde, where she was doomed to spend fourteen months in complete solitude, and kept from all means of communication with her friends. But Antoinette’s girlhood had been passed in the days when natural feminine weakness had been fortified by stirring public events, and Madame Deshoulières consoled herself with theological study during the time of her imprisonment, mainly of the Fathers, from Origen to St Augustine. Only after a length of time Monsieur Deshoulières discovered the prison in which his wife was immured. Having ascertained this, he formed the bold project of carrying her off. To this end he engaged forty men, armed them to the teeth, and in the dead of a dark night, he led them to the edge of the moat of the Castle of Vilvorde, at its narrowest and shallowest part, stationing his men in the water, which they had previously filled with branches and mud, so as to form a human bridge. Arrived at the base of the wall, he fixed a ladder to the ramparts, and mounting, followed by his guard with stealthy caution, overpowered the two sentinels and gagged them. Then they hastened on to the governor’s bedroom, and putting a cord round his neck while he was in profound sleep, and a musket to his face, they detained him in durance till he had yielded up the keys of his captive’s apartments, and of the doors of the fortress. The garrison was then forced to lay down arms, and entering a waiting berline, Monsieur Deshoulières and his rescued wife gained in a few hours the ground of France. The tidings of this intrepid act travelled as fast as they did, and Le Tellier, the Secretary of State, presented the pair to the queen and Mazarin. Anne of Austria embraced her goddaughter warmly, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and all was forgotten—so much forgotten, that Mazarin and the queen omitted to award Deshoulières the promised arrears of pay, and the pension which was to reward the two. The debts and liabilities of Deshoulières became formidable, and he had no alternative but to obtain a division of maintenance, pay up from his own small resources all he could, and retire with his wife to live on the slender dowry Anne had bestowed on her goddaughter. It did not nearly suffice for their rank and position. In order to meet their requirements, Madame Deshoulières devoted herself to her pen, and her verses, first published in the _Mercure Galant_, won universal admiration, but no money reward. Left to itself, the nature of the editor ever inclines to the view that _kudos_ is enough for the author, and this particular editor gave his contributor to understand that she ought to consider herself only too fortunate to have made an appearance in his pages.