At Turin Madame de Prie remained five years. For the first two or three, during which a little daughter was born to her, everything went smoothly. Her husband was kind and attentive, and, if she felt for him no affection and some contempt--for he was a pompous and self-opinionated person, with abilities as slender as his ambitions were lofty--she, at least, tolerated him; while, as the Ambassadress of the greatest King in the world, and one of the most beautiful women in the Piedmontese capital, she was the object of universal homage, and no social gathering was deemed complete which she did not grace with her presence. But towards the end of 1716 an event occurred which was to effect a great change in the fortunes of the Pries. For some time past a very ugly cloud had been slowly gathering over the head of M. de Pléneuf. At this period, and, indeed, until a very much later date, most gentlemen connected with the commissariat department of the Army were but indifferently honest; but long impunity had rendered Pléneuf unusually audacious, and so outrageously did he rob the Army of Italy, of which he had acted as chief commissary, that in 1706 Louis XIV. ordered an inquiry to be instituted. Matters would probably have gone hardly with Pléneuf, if he had not had the good fortune to possess powerful protectors. Thanks to their efforts, not only were the charges against him not pressed, but, a little while afterwards, he was actually appointed chief clerk at the War Office. Nevertheless, his peculations, and those of his colleagues, were not forgotten, and in 1714 the Government decided upon a new revision of the accounts of the Army of Italy. This investigation, temporarily interrupted by the last illness and death of Louis XIV., was resumed some months later, when Philippe d’Orléans, eager to court popularity, determined to make the revenue-farmers and commissaries disgorge their ill-gotten gains; and Pléneuf was the first to be summoned before the Court instituted for that purpose. This time, there was no one to intervene in his favour, and, warned that his arrest was imminent, he fled to Switzerland, and thence made his way to his daughter at Turin. In saving his person, however, he had not succeeded in saving his property; and his hôtel in Paris and his country-estates were sequestrated until such time as he should make restitution of the immense sums of which he had defrauded the State. The disgrace and bankruptcy of Pléneuf was a terrible blow to the de Pries. They might have stomached the loss of the old gentleman’s reputation, for the offence of which he had been guilty was of such common occurrence in those days as to be regarded with a very lenient eye, and, indeed, he appears to have received quite a warm welcome at the Court of Turin; but the loss of his money was another matter altogether.