sensitive? I could destroy in an instant the error in question; but how am I to console myself for the intention of this calumny? This is not a chance suspicion; it is a confidence made to a man who has no feeling for me, save friendship, but whose friendship is worth more than all the passions in the world, whose esteem is more precious to me than life, and whose companionship is more necessary for me than all the fortunes in the universe. It is before him that I am made to appear false and contemptible. Whatever he says, they attest my supposed crime. _O mon Dieu!_ What are we to do?" * * * * * Seventeen months after Maurice's return to France Adrienne died, under peculiarly dramatic circumstances; popular rumour ascribing her death to poison administered by the agents of the Duchesse de Bouillon,[82] a pretender to the heart of the Saxon hero, who was already under suspicion of having made an attempt upon her rival's life. To arrive at a satisfactory conclusion in regard to this very mysterious affair, it would be necessary to have before us the _dossier_ containing the report of the autopsy and other important documents of which Sainte-Beuve speaks in his well-known study of the actress. This _dossier_ has, however, disappeared, and it is uncertain if it is still in existence; the probability is that it has been destroyed. Sainte-Beuve's conclusion was that the Duchesse de Bouillon was guiltless, not only of Adrienne's death, which he ascribes to natural causes, but of any attempt on her life. The former opinion was, no doubt, justified by the evidence which the lost _dossier_ contained. But the latter, which seems to have been based on an altogether misplaced belief in the veracity of a certain Abbé Aunillon--who was on terms of the closest intimacy with the accused duchess, and invented a most ingenious defence on behalf of his friend, which we need not enter into here--the great critic would probably have seen cause to alter had he been acquainted with the documents which have been brought to light of recent years by M. Ravaisson, M. Campardon, and M. Monval. Let us, however, borrow the account of the affair given a few days after Adrienne's death, by Mlle. Aïssé in a letter to Madame Calandrini, and which, she declares, had been furnished her by "a friend of the Lecouvreur," probably d'Argental, to whom she was related:-- * * * * *