Just as he was leaving his house the police found upon him a little flask containing a mixture of laudanum and arsenical acid, of which he had drunk half. Notwithstanding his enfeebled condition, President Pasquier, assisted by a commission of six members of the Court of Peers, subjected him to an interrogatory. Neither a positive confession nor a formal denial could be obtained from him. His physical condition, meanwhile, became worse and worse. On the second day he was delirious, and on the third he expired. The analysis made by Orfila and Ambroise Tardieu showed the presence in the stomach of a great quantity of arsenic. [Illustration: THE MINERALOGICAL MUSEUM.] A few days afterwards the Court of Peers met in secret conclave, when it received from the chancellor and president a report of the examination through which the accused had passed. The whole tendency of the report was to establish the guilt of the accused. “This presumption,” concluded Duke Pasquier, “was, unhappily, only too well founded. The prisoner has pronounced judgment and condemnation on himself. He succumbed seven days and a half after the moment when, with atrocious barbarity, he immolated the most innocent, the most pure, the most interesting of victims. This interval, however, was sufficient to enable the ordinary judges, pursuing their inquiry on the part of the Chamber of Peers, to bring completely to light the guilt of the accused, and the horrible circumstances which, from day to day, have made it still more clear.” The death of the criminal brought the labours of the court to an end. “But yet,” said the president, as he concluded his communication of the report, “it was to be desired that the reparation should have been as complete as was the crime itself. In such an affair as this the principle of equality before the law should have been proclaimed more forcibly than ever.” The body of the Duc de Praslin was buried secretly at night on the 26th of August, in the southern cemetery, his grave not being marked even by a cross. Mlle. Deluzy was taken before a police magistrate, when, on a proof of alibi, the case was dismissed, and she was set at liberty.