Then there was a reaction. Nobles and lawyers displayed equal irritation at the Chamber's daring to push its investigations the length of them. Were rank and name no longer a rampart high enough against the inquisitions of a lieutenant of police? There was an end to society. The result was, that ere long the only person in the whole matter who appeared really criminal in the eyes of people of importance was La Reynie himself. 'To-day,' says Madame de Sévigné, 'the cry is, the innocence of the accused and the horrid scandal! You know this sort of parrot cry. Nothing else is talked about in any company. There is scarcely another example of such a scandal in any Christian court.' And some days later, playing sedulous echo to the general gossip, the charming marchioness said it was a shame to haul up people of position for such a pack of nonsense. 'The reputation of Monsieur de la Reynie is abominable,' she wrote to her daughter on May 31, 1680; 'what you say is exactly to the point; his being alive proves that there are no poisoners in France.' La Reynie had just discovered, indeed, a plot to murder him. The reader will remember the demonstration organised against the lieutenant of police at the time of the liberation of Madame de Dreux, who was carried off in triumph between her husband, the _maître des requêtes_, and her lover, Monsieur de Richelieu. The nobility got up a similar demonstration when Marie Anne Mancini, Duchess de Bouillon, appeared before the Chambre Ardente. She had done her best to find means of quickly ridding herself of her husband, so that she might marry the Duke de Vendôme. The Duke de Bouillon was informed of it by Louis himself. Yet the duke accompanied his wife on January 29, 1680, to the Arsenal, giving her his right hand, while the Duke de Vendôme gave her his left: an exact repetition of the scene when Madame de Dreux left the Chambre Ardente between her husband and Monsieur de Richelieu.