Madame de Verneuil, who had been summoned to appear at the same time, excused herself upon the plea of indisposition; and it was asserted that she had caused herself to be bled in order that the temporary delay in her examination thus secured might enable her, ere she appeared before the commissaries, to ascertain to what extent she had been implicated by the revelations of her step-brother. She no sooner learnt, however, that the Count had thrown all the odium of the conspiracy upon herself than she hastened to obey a second summons, and presented herself with her arm in a sling to undergo in her turn the necessary interrogatories. Her manner was firm, and her delivery at once haughty and energetic. She insisted upon the innocence of her father, declared that the whole cabal had been organized by D'Auvergne, and admitted that feeling herself wronged she had willingly entered into his views; but at the same time she coupled with this admission the assurance that having nothing with which to reproach herself she asked for no indulgence, and was quite prepared to abide by the consequences of her attempt to do justice alike to herself and to her children. When the Comte d'Entragues was in his turn examined, he did not seek to deny his participation in the plot, but placed in the hands of his judges a written document, setting forth the services which he had rendered to the King since his accession, and which had merely been recompensed by the government of Orleans, a dignity of which he was moreover shortly afterwards deprived in order that it might be conferred upon another, although in his zeal for the monarch he had not only exhausted his own resources but had even raised considerable loans which still remained unliquidated. Yet, as he stated, he had uttered no complaint, although he was reduced to poverty and deprived of the means of suitably establishing his children, for he still had faith in the justice and generosity of his sovereign; and with this assurance he had retired to his paternal home, old, sick, and poor, to await as best he might the happy moment in which his claims should be remembered. And then it was, as he emphatically declared, that the last and crowning misfortune of a long life had overtaken him. Then it was that the King conceived that unfortunate attachment for his younger daughter, which deprived him of the greatest solace of his old age and exposed him to the raillery and contempt of his fellow-nobles, coupled with sarcastic congratulations upon the advantages which he was supposed to have derived from the dishonour of his child; an event which had clouded his remnant of existence with shame and despair. He had, as he asserted, several times requested of his Majesty that he might be permitted to withdraw entirely from the Court and finish his days in retirement and in the bosom of his family, but this favour had constantly been denied. As a last effort he had then represented the deplorable state of his