D'Effiat did not poison the chicory water, but he poisoned Madame's cup; and that was well imagined, because no one drinks from our cups but ourselves. The cup was not brought out as soon as asked for; they said it was mislaid. A _valet de chambre_ whom I had, and who had been in the service of the late Madame (he is dead now), related to me that in the morning, while Monsieur and Madame were at mass, d'Effiat went to the buffet, found the cup, and rubbed it with some paper. The _valet de chambre_ said to him: "Monsieur, what are you doing in our closet, and why are you touching Madame's cup?" He answered: "I am dying of thirst, and as the cup was dirty I cleaned it with paper." That evening Madame asked for her chicory water, and as soon as she drank it she cried out that she was poisoned. Those who were there had drunk of the same water, but not from her cup, and they were not taken ill. They put her to bed, and she grew worse and worse, and died two hours after midnight in frightful suffering. Monsieur never troubled his wife about her gallantries with the king his brother; he himself related to me the whole of Madame's life, and he never would have passed that matter over in silence had he believed it. I think that as to this circumstance the world has been unjust to Madame. For many years a rumour has spread about Saint-Cloud that the ghost of the late Madame appeared about a fountain where she used to sit in very warm weather, because the place was cool. One evening a lacquey of the Maréchale de Clérembault, going to draw water at the well, saw something white without a face; the phantom, which was sitting down, rose to double its height. The poor lacquey, seized with fright, ran away; on reaching the house he insisted that he had seen Madame, fell ill and died. The officer who was then captain of the château, imagining that there must be something under it all, went to the fountain himself, saw the ghost, and threatened to give it a hundred blows with his stick if it did not own who it was. Whereupon the ghost said: "Oh! Monsieur de Lastéra, don't hurt me, I am only poor Philippinette." She was an old woman in the village, about seventy-seven years old, with only one tooth in her mouth, weak eyes rimmed with red, a huge mouth, a thick nose,--in short, hideous. They wanted to put her in prison, but I interceded for her. When she came to thank me for that I said to her: "What mania possessed you to play the ghost instead of staying in your bed?" She answered, laughing: "I don't regret what I have done; at my age one sleeps little, and one must have something or other to keep one's spirits up. All I ever did in my youth did not give me as much enjoyment as playing the ghost. Those who were not afraid of my white sheet were afraid of my face. The cowards made such faces I nearly died of laughing. That pleasure at night paid me for the pain of carrying faggots by day."