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great many more whom he did not; and as the court had not yet
arrived, his verbal tournaments with such as he chose to joke with,
or at, produced great mirth amongst the bystanders.
‘Maître Picard,’ cried Philippe, ‘take care of your feather; you are
burning it against the lamp.’
The little bourgeois, who was below, turned hurriedly round, and
took off his hat to look at it. Of course nothing was the matter. The
people began to laugh.
‘Pardon, bourgeois,’ continued Philippe; ‘I mistook your red face
for a flame, as it was reflected in your halberd. I forgot you had
been used for a lamp yourself before now. Do you remember the
“Lanterne” in the Rue Mouffetard? I’m afraid the rain almost put you
out.’
‘Polisson!’ cried Maître Picard very angrily, as he recalled the
adventure. ‘I shall trounce you and your graceless fellows yet. You
will all come to the gallows.’
‘Of course we shall—the day you are hung,’ replied Glazer. ‘You
may count upon our attendance.’
There was another burst of laughter from the bystanders, and
Maître Picard waxed wrathful exceedingly. He turned the halberd
upside down, and made a blow at Philippe with the long wooden
handle of it. But the student, as he was perched upon the urn,
caught up his sword in its scabbard, and warded off the blow, so
that it was turned on one side, and the pikestaff descended with all
its weight upon the head of Jean Blacquart, who was directly
underneath, crushing his fine hat, and nearly sending him into the
water.
‘Ohé, messieurs!’ shouted Philippe, without giving the bourgeois
time to recover himself. ‘The King! the King! He is coming to the
pavilion.’
‘The King! the King!’ echoed the people, imagining, from Glazer’s
elevated position, that he could see what was going on. Maître
Picard immediately bustled through the crowd, and the mob pushing
after him effectually prevented him for the time from returning;
which, however, he attempted to do as soon as he found the
announcement was a false alarm.
 ‘That was a spiteful blow, Blacquart, and, of course, done on
purpose,’ continued Philippe to the Gascon, who was, with a rueful
countenance, rearranging his hat. ‘Maître Picard is jealous of you.’
‘The women certainly do come to the shop very often when I am
sitting in the parlour,’ replied Jean, whose temper was smoothed at
once by what he considered a compliment. ‘Madame Beauchesne,
the young widow of the Rue Hautefeuille, is smitten, I am sure; but,
betwixt ourselves, talks to Maître Picard as a cloak to her true
sentiments. Mass! what a neck and shoulders she used to display!’
‘And why does she not now, Jean?’
‘Pardieu! the curé of Saint Etienne-du-Mont attacked her suddenly
during mass for going to church gorge découverte. He told her from
the pulpit that such display was wrong, for priests were mortal after
all. How the congregation shouted again with laughter!’
‘I will swear that you are here to captivate some of the court
ladies,’ continued Theria.
‘Nay, hardly that,’ replied the Gascon conceitedly, as he cocked his
hat and drew himself up as high as he could; ‘although I did fancy
De Montespan eyed me as I stood by the door in the theatre. She
has a goodly presence.’
Glazer was about to make some reply, calculated to draw forth a
fresh outpouring of Jean’s Gascon conceit, when he was interrupted
by a stranger, who advanced hastily towards the spot where
Blacquart was standing, and at once addressed him. His dress was
little suited to the festival. He wore large riding-boots, which were
dusty, as though he had just come from a journey. His dress too was
disordered, his hair carelessly arranged, and his general appearance
sufficiently marked to attract attention amongst the gay crowd about
him, even in the semi-obscurity of the illumination.
‘Are you on guard here, monsieur?’ he said to Blacquart, scarcely
noticing his eccentric accoutrements, which might have prevented
him from asking the question.
Jean was flattered at being evidently taken for a real soldier. He
boldly admitted at once that he was.
‘Can you tell me if the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is at Versailles
this evening?’
 ‘She is,’ returned Jean. ‘I saw her arrive with Madame Scarron—de
Maintenon, as they now call her. And not ten minutes back she
crossed the Tapis Vert on the arm of M. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.’
The stranger uttered a subdued oath, as Blacquart pronounced
the name.
‘Which way were they going?’ he asked quickly.
‘Towards the pavilion,’ answered Jean. ‘I have no doubt you will
find them there by this time.’
The new-comer returned no answer, but turning hastily away,
passed on to the pavilion, which had been erected at the edge of the
basin. It was hung with lamps, and he could discern the features of
all the company who were assembled in it. His eye ran anxiously
along the lines of plumed and jewelled head-dresses, until at last his
glance fell upon Marie and Sainte-Croix, who were seated in a corner
of the building near one of the entrances. He started slightly as he
saw them; and then hurriedly tracing a few lines upon his tablets, he
pointed the Marchioness out to one of the pages, who were in
waiting at the pavilion, and told him to give the message to her. The
boy immediately obeyed his orders. As the Marchioness read the
note her features underwent a rapid change; but the next instant
they recovered their wonted unfathomable calmness; and whispering
a few words to Sainte-Croix, she rose from her seat and left the
pavilion. Gaudin waited until she had quitted the building, and then,
as if moved by a sudden impulse, followed her.
As she reached the outer entrance she found the stranger waiting
to receive her. It was her brother. She held out her hand to greet
him; but he refused to take it, and retreating a step or two, raised
his hat, as he received her with a cold salute.
‘François!’ exclaimed the Marchioness; ‘what brings you here! Has
anything happened to our father? Tell me!’
‘He is dead, Marie!’ replied her brother, with a solemn earnestness,
that would have shivered the feelings of any other human being but
the one he addressed. ‘I have left the body not an hour and a half
ago, to bring you the intelligence in the midst of the heartless glitter
of Versailles.’
 ‘Dead!’ repeated the Marchioness, feigning the same surprise with
which she had received the self-same words from Sainte-Croix such
a short time previously. ‘Dead! and I was not there!’
‘No, Marie!’ returned François d’Aubray; ‘and I come to find you at
Versailles—in this licentious court, not with females in whom you
might have confided your reputation, after what has already
occurred, but with the man by whose wretched acquaintance with
you the last days of your father’s life were poisoned.’
Marie started at the words: could it be possible that the cause of
death was suspected?
‘Ay, poisoned,’ continued her brother, ‘as fatally as though real
venom had been used, instead of this abandoned heartlessness.’
The Marchioness breathed again.
‘To whom do you refer?’ she asked coldly.
‘To Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ replied her brother.
‘Who is here to answer any charge you may have to make against
him, monsieur,’ interrupted Gaudin, who just now joined the party.
‘You shall have the opportunity afforded you, monsieur,’ replied
François d’Aubray; ‘but this is neither the time nor the place. Marie,
you will return with me immediately to Paris.’
‘With you, François?’
‘This instant! I have your father’s dying words yet echoing in my
brain, committing you to our care. Are you ready?’
‘Surely the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is her own mistress?’
observed Gaudin, scarcely knowing how to act.
‘She will obey me, monsieur,’ replied the other. ‘Come, Marie; you
know me.’
As he spoke he seized his sister’s arm, and bowing to Sainte-Croix,
drew her away.
‘You still live in the Place Maubert, I believe,’ he continued: ‘you
will receive a message from me in the morning. Viens!’
He spoke in a tone of authority that Marie felt was only to be
disputed by an instant encounter between François and Sainte-Croix,
where they were then standing. So, throwing an expression full of
intense meaning to Gaudin, she allowed her brother to lead her
along the Tapis Vert, towards the entrance of the palace. Gaudin saw
them depart, and then going to the stables had his horse resaddled,
and rode at a desperate pace back to Paris, passing the calèche in
which the Marchioness had been placed by her brother on the road.
Meanwhile the King and his immediate suite had arrived at the
pavilion, and the fireworks were about to commence. Water-
serpents and floating pieces of fire were already whizzing and
spinning about on the surface of the basin; and one or two men had
crossed the water from the opposite side of the fountain to the well-
known group, where they were arranging the cases for the grand
bouquet. Philippe saw this from his perch upon the urn, and
determined to turn the Gascon’s vanity to some account.
‘Your dress is really very handsome, Jean,’ he observed. ‘It is a
pity that its beauty is lost in the mob.’
‘I think so myself, indeed,’ replied Blacquart; ‘but I have been
allowed no opportunity of showing it off. At court everything goes by
interest; and—hem!—I can excuse a little jealousy on the part of the
Garde Royale.’
‘Now, if they will let you light the feu d’artifice,’ said Philippe, ‘you
will be seen by everybody.’
‘But how can I get to do it?’ asked Blacquart.
‘Come with me,’ said Glazer.
And tumbling from his post, purposely, on the head of Maître
Picard, who had returned to his position, he shot amongst the
crowd, before the bourgeois could contrive to aim another blow at
him, and, followed by Jean, got to the other side of the fountain.
Here he claimed acquaintance with one of the artificers, who, it
appeared, had been under his care at the Hôtel Dieu with an
accident; and by his interest Jean was furnished with a link, and
directed what to do, being inducted into the group along a slight
temporary bridge of boards.
In the interim before the grand piece was lighted, Jean arranged
and rearranged his cloak and hat a hundred times; and when at last
he applied the light to the quickmatch, and the horses began to blow
out fire from their nostrils, apparently in the centre of the water, and
the points of Neptune’s trident also went off in a brilliant discharge
of sparks, Jean was in ecstasies. The people applauded; all of which
he took to himself, and would even have bowed in return to them,
had not the presence of the King restrained him. But he felt satisfied
that, in the glare of the fire, he was plainly visible to all, and this for
the time consoled him.
But his evil genius was about to triumph. A number of changes
had taken place in the bouquet, when suddenly, and simultaneously
from every point of the statues, a column of fire shot up high in the
air, and fell again in a shower of flame upon the group, threatening
to exterminate the Gascon in its descent. His first impulse was to
retreat to the planks and get to the edge of the basin, but a
formidable blazing wheel, forming the back-work of the entire piece,
cut off his flight, so that he was driven back again. Thicker and
thicker fell the flakes, as the tawdry dabs of lace which hung about
his dress caught fire; and his thin, half-starved feather, which gained
in height what it lost in substance, also took light. Philippe Glazer,
who had foreseen all this, set up a loud huzza, in which those near
him joined; the remainder fancied that the figure of the Gascon, as
he danced amidst the glowing shower, was a part of the exhibition,
and intended to represent one of the allegorical personages who
always figured in the masques and tableaux of the period. But at last
he could bear it no longer. His cloak was just bursting into a flame
when, in the agony of his despair, he threw himself into the basin,
amidst the renewed hilarity of the spectators, including Louis
himself, who, with La Montespan, and even the pale pensive La
Vallière, was more amused than if everything had gone on in its
proper way.
The reservoir was not very deep, but the Gascon had lost all self-
possession, and he floundered about like a water-god, to the great
detriment of so much of his finery as yet remained, until he got near
enough to the edge of the basin for Maître Picard to hook him out
with his halberd, and drag him half-drowned and half-roasted to dry
ground.
 CHAPTER XVIII.
THE RUE DE L’HIRONDELLE

On the southern bank of the Seine, touching the water-boundary of

the Quartier Latin, and running parallel with the river from the Place
du Pont St. Michel, which is situated at the foot of the bridge from
which it takes its name, there is a dark and noisome street, bordered
by tall gloomy houses, and so narrow in its thoroughfare that the
inhabitants on either side of the way can all but shake hands with
each other across the footway—for carriages could not pass. It is
called—for it exists in all its pristine squalor and wretchedness at the
present day—the Rue de l’Hirondelle. The pure air can scarcely
penetrate to its reeking precincts, the way is choked up with offal
and things flung from the houses to decay in the streets. The houses
are tenanted by the lowest orders, and the dirt of ages has been
suffered to accumulate on the walls and passages: in fact, it bears
some resemblance to the miserable portion of the ‘Rookery’ still left
in London, with the exception, that this Rue de l’Hirondelle is
narrower and darker. Gloomy at all times, at night the thinly
scattered lamps scarcely illuminate its entrance; and he would be a
bold man indeed who chose to pass along it alone. And in the
seventeenth century, before the introduction of street-lights, when
the poverty of its inhabitants would not allow them to place lanterns
before their doors, it was always in total darkness, even when bright
moonlight fell upon the quays and open places.
It was the evening of the funeral of M. d’Aubray, the father. The
night was stormy, and the wind howled over the city as if bearing on
its wings spirits wailing for the dead and crying for retribution. Few
cared to be abroad: the few lamps had been extinguished after
struggling against the blast and were not relighted: and one window
only in the Rue de l’Hirondelle gave token that the houses were
inhabited.
 In a miserable room of one of the worst-conditioned houses—so
ruinous in its appearance that large black beams crossed the street
from its front to the opposite side of the narrow street, to prop it up
from falling and crushing those who might be below—there were
two persons seated at a small fire. In one of them any person who
had once seen him could have recognised the Italian Exili, although
his imprisonment had left traces of its privations upon his face. His
features were more wan, his hair was grizzled, and his eyes had
sunk yet deeper, glaring from the bottom of the orbits with riveting
intensity. His companion was dressed in a fantastic costume of old
black velvet, with a capuchin cowl which, when worn over his head,
nearly concealed his face, and his head was now buried in it,—less,
however, for privacy than to shield himself from the cold draughts of
air that poured in through the broken, ill-fitted windows. On a rough
table before him were pieces of money, of all degrees of value: and
these he was counting, as he put them away in a box heavily
clasped with iron.
‘Sorcery is still thriving,’ said the latter personage, ‘and we have
had a good day. Here are twelve pistoles from the Demoiselle La
Varenne, who came to-day suspicious of her new patron, M.
Chanralon, the Archbishop of Paris. He has taken up with the
Marchioness of Gourville.’
‘The sister of the maréchal?’ asked Exili.
‘The same. Ho! ho! ours is a brave court!’ continued the other with
a derisive laugh. ‘Better be magician than superintendent at the
Gobelins. Here is a piece of gold from the same clique. Pierre-Pont,
the lieutenant of the Gardes-du-corps, is crazy with jealousy for La
Varenne. He came to-day for a philtre: he will come for poison next.’
‘Hush!’ exclaimed Exili; ‘the very echoes linger about these walls to
repeat themselves to the next comers. I find liberty too sweet to run
the chance of another sojourn in the Bastille, where Sainte-Croix
would too gladly see me—curses wither him!’
‘He will be here to-night,’ replied Lachaussée—for such was Exili’s
companion—‘to have his wound dressed. M. François d’Aubray is an
expert swordsman, and the Captain found his match on the terrain
last night.’
 The ex-superintendent alluded to a duel which had been fought on
the preceding night on a lonely piece of waste-ground behind Notre
Dame, frequently chosen for such engagements from the facility of
escape which the river on all sides afforded. Gaudin had met the
brother of the Marchioness—the result of the rencontre at Versailles
—and had been wounded. He had taken Lachaussée with him as an
attendant; for that person, since the affair in the catacombs of the
Bièvre, had been leading but a sorry life during Gaudin’s
imprisonment, and was now assisting Exili in professing the art and
mystery of a sorcerer. The cause of the Italian’s release from the
Bastille was never publicly stated, though many knew it. Threatened
revelations, which would deeply have affected those high in position
in Paris, procured his discharge within a few days of Sainte-Croix’s
liberation; and once more thrown upon the world of the great city,
he had, under his old cloak of an alchemist, set up for a magician.
He had encountered Lachaussée ready to assist him, or to avail
himself, in fact, of any chance of livelihood that might turn up; and
linked together as they, in a measure, were, by the affair of the
Croce Bianca at Milan, they had become trusty partners; for the
bondages of crime, despite the evil natures of the allies, are firmer
than those of honour and friendship. Exili, with the deeply-vindictive
and unforgiving disposition of his countrymen, desired only to be
revenged upon Gaudin for his arrest and confinement; and
Lachaussée, knowing that he was in the power of Sainte-Croix as
long as the letter announcing the crime at Milan was in his
possession, was equally anxious for his downfall. More than once he
had counselled Exili to instil some poison into the wound as he
dressed it, that might have induced an agonising death. But the
Italian patiently awaited his time to pounce, as an eagle would have
done, upon his prey. He wished to play with his victim, secretly sure
that he would eventually fall miserably, through his agency—and not
alone.
‘Twenty crowns more,’ said Lachaussée, as he swept the remaining
pieces of coin into the chest, ‘and that from the armourer’s wife of
the Place Dauphin to show her the devil! It is lucky her courage did
not fail her until after she had paid her money. We should else have
been terribly put to our wits to exhibit his highness.’
‘Unless our interest with M. de Sainte-Croix could have produced
Madame de Brinvilliers,’ answered Exili, as a ghastly smile flitted over
his sallow countenance—a dull and transient sunbeam playing upon
the face of a corpse.
‘And we shall have more money still,’ said Lachaussée, taking no
notice of Exili’s speech. ‘I know two customers who will come after
curfew this evening. Witchcraft is flourishing.’
‘The infernal powers grant that it may not turn round upon us,’
said Exili. ‘Recollect, within four days of each other, that César and
Ruggieri were both strangled by the devil—at least, so goes the
story.’
‘The solution is easy,’ returned Lachaussée. ‘They boasted of
favours granted by the great ladies of the court: ’tis a dangerous
game to play.’
‘At all events the fall of Urban Grandier was mortal. I have no wish
to be roasted alive like him. Hist! I hear some one coming up to our
room.’
A mastiff who had been reposing silently at Exili’s feet, having a
strange contrivance fastened on to its head, in the manner of a
mask, and representing a demon’s face, in order that the vulgar
might take it for his familiar spirit, uttered a low growl; and the
sound of approaching footsteps, stumbling up the rugged staircase
of the house, was plainly audible. The next moment Gaudin de
Sainte-Croix knocked at the door, and was admitted to the
apartment.
‘Your unguent has marvellous powers of healing,’ he said to Exili,
after the first salutations. ‘I am already cured, although the wound
had an ugly look.’
‘I could have put the hurt beyond any leech’s skill to cure, by
anointing the blade with some pomander of my own make,’ said
Exili. ‘It would send such venom through the veins, as soon as it
pierced them, that human aid would be of little avail. Your wasp
stung you smartly as it was; but you see I cured you.’
 ‘Unlike the wasp,’ said Sainte-Croix, ‘he still retains his sting about
him.’
‘Then render it powerless,’ replied Exili, fixing his eyes steadfastly
on him. ‘You can do it: more obnoxious insects than François
d’Aubray have fallen by our means. The earth has this day enfolded
one in its cold dark shroud—the deed and the victim are hidden
together.’
‘A second would excite suspicion,’ replied Gaudin, perceiving the
drift of his words.
‘A second and a third and a twentieth might pass away with equal
secrecy,’ returned Exili. ‘Look you, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix, when
men have played with life and death as we have done, even to the
perdition, the utter, hopeless ruin of their souls, in whatever state
may follow this short fever of worldly existence,—when the triumph
of the hour that passes is all our passions crave, and the purity of
that which has gone, the misery of the time which is to come, are
alike spurned from consideration and forgotten in the wild and
heedless recklessness of the present,—in this position they should
have no secrets: all should be in common between them.’
‘I have kept nothing from you,’ said Gaudin.
‘I do not say you have,’ continued Exili; ‘it is to the effusion of my
own most hidden knowledge I allude. All that this great city holds of
rank, beauty, and power are my slaves. I give the succession to the
thirsting profligate, or remove the bar that keeps the panting lover
from his idol. These fools and butterflies come to seek me as they
would a mere drug-vendor, and little think of what I may have in
store for them. There is not one particle of the venom in their crystal
drinks which I cannot call back to its tangible state; and when I die I
shall leave the process of the tests behind me, to confound the
latest poisoners. But until then, as chemical art at present stands,
the traces are inscrutable. Your way is open before you.’
As Exili finished speaking, he turned on one side as if to overlook
the contents of a small retort that was bubbling over a spirit-lamp at
his side: but his gaze was still directed towards Sainte-Croix.
‘You would have me send this François d’Aubray to join his father?’
said Gaudin, after a minute’s pause.
 ‘He is coming here this evening,’ observed Lachaussée, ‘and ought
to have been here before this.’
‘You have not given him any of the Aqua Tofana?’ asked Gaudin,
with a look of alarm.
‘Calm yourself, mon capitaine,’ replied Exili with a sneer. ‘He will
not come for poison, but a philtre; and that not for love, but against
it. He does not fear the glance of an evil eye; he wishes to turn
aside the magic of a fond one.’
Those high in position in Paris at this epoch, no less than the
humblest and least instructed inhabitants of the city, were
accustomed to place the blindest confidence in the predictions and
potions of the various fortune-tellers and empirics with whom Paris
swarmed, under the names of alchemists, magicians, and
Bohemians. The court set the example of belief; and the common
people, ever ready to imitate its follies, readily fell into the same
superstition. Links in the chain of the wonderful system of espionage
which ran through the entire population,—the universal corruption of
all classes, especially valets, mistresses, and confessors, which
Richelieu had effected,—the astrologers gleaned important
information respecting the inhabitants, which they were ever ready
to place at the disposal of the best paymaster. The higher orders
sought them eagerly, paying them as long as they served a purpose;
but, when this was over, a lettre de cachet consigned them to the
Bastille, and they were generally found strangled in their cells, the
murder being attributed invariably to the devil.
‘Hark!’ said Lachaussée, whose ear had been on the alert to catch
the slightest sound; ‘I can hear some one approaching.’
‘It should be Monsieur d’Aubray,’ replied Exili. ‘He must not see
you here, however,’ he continued, addressing Sainte-Croix. ‘Step
within this cabinet, and you will doubtless find out the feelings of his
family towards you.’
Gaudin caught up his hat and sword, and had scarcely concealed
himself when the brother of the Marchioness of Brinvilliers entered
the apartment.
 CHAPTER XIX.
THE MISCHIEF STILL THICKENS ON ALL SIDES

Hurriedly as François d’Aubray ascended the staircase, yet the others

found time to receive him with due effect. Gaudin retreated within
the lumbering piece of furniture that took up half one side of the
room; Exili resumed his attitude of attention to the chemical
preparations going on; and Lachaussée, burying his features still
deeper in his capuchin cowl, hastily lighted a rude lamp standing on
a tripod near the table, which, trimmed with some medicated spirit,
burned with a ghastly flame that threw a cadaverous and almost
unearthly light upon the countenances of those who turned their
faces towards it.
‘I am before my time,’ said François, as he entered the room; ‘it
yet wants a good half-hour to curfew.’
‘We are at your service,’ replied Exili; ‘my assistant told me we
might expect you, Monsieur d’Aubray.’
‘You know me, then!’ exclaimed the other with surprise.
‘No more than I am acquainted with every one else who comes to
seek my aid,’ answered the physician calmly. ‘I should lay small claim
to my title of astrologer if I could not divine the position or desires of
my clients.’
‘Then you know my business here this evening?’
‘Part has been told me,’ said Exili—‘part, and the most important, I
can read here.’
From a small china cup he took some noisome black unguent, with
which he smeared his hands, and held them in the light of the
coloured flame. Then tracing (or pretending to do so) certain things
delineated on the compound, he continued—
‘I see Notre Dame by night, and a duel being fought on the
terrain, between yourself and one they call Gaudin de Sainte-Croix.
You wound him—he leaves with his témoin in a boat, and you return
to the Hôtel d’Aubray.’
 ‘Well?’ asked François eagerly, gazing at Exili with breathless
attention.
‘Well,’ echoed the physician, ‘your sister, Madame de Brinvilliers, is
awaiting your return. You have words together, and she is
determined not to give up her lover, your late antagonist.’
‘Is that known also?’ asked François in a tone of mortification.
‘More by common report than by my magic,’ said Exili. ‘Walk on
the quays and carrefours and listen to what the people say if you
doubt me.’
‘Go on—go on,’ exclaimed the other.
‘I see no more,’ replied the physician; ‘all else has been told me by
mortal lips. You wish to stop this liaison, without totally crushing
your sister together with it. Is it not so?’
‘You are correct. I do not wish Madame de Brinvilliers to fall so
utterly; but Sainte-Croix’s influence with her must be put an end to.’
‘The means are simple,’ replied Exili.
‘I know what you would say,’ interrupted D’Aubray; ‘you would
have me exercise the most cursed power you have at your command
—that of poison. No, physician—I am no murderer. If I met Sainte-
Croix again in fair fight, I might deal less gently with him; but if he
fell, it should be in equal combat.’
‘You spoke too hurriedly,’ continued Exili. ‘I would suggest the
glance of an evil eye, or some philtre that might draw his affections
away, and disgust his present mistress. Here is such a one, unless
you would have him blighted by my glance.’
He fixed his eyes upon D’Aubray with such a terrible expression
that François firmly believed the power rested in them which he
vaunted. He returned no answer, but stretched out his hand for the
small phial that Exili held towards him.
‘Now seek the fairest dame galante that you can find, who would
have an officer of the Normandy cavalry for her lover, and bid her
drink it—fearlessly, for it is harmless. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix will be
in her toils from that instant. The whirlpool of passion will drag him
round faster and faster in its eddies, until he is lost; for in perdition
alone can an attachment formed on passion end.’
 ‘Is there any one above another to whom I should give the
draught?’ asked D’Aubray.
‘’Tis immaterial,’ replied Exili; ‘there is no lack of such beauties at
present in our gay city. Seek, if to-morrow be fine, and you will find
a score upon the Pont Neuf to serve your turn. If not, Marotte
Dupré, La Duménil, La Varenne—pshaw! even Montespan herself, in
all the plumage of her last triumph, if you choose to fly at such high
game.’
D’Aubray placed some pieces of gold on the table, and rose to
depart, taking the potion with him. Exili also got up from the seat at
the same time, as he said—
‘Stay—let me light you down. The stairs are old and crumbling,
and the passage obscure.’
He took the lamp from the table, and, preceding his guest, led the
way down the staircase. As they reached the street door he said
hurriedly to D’Aubray—
‘Your hatred of Sainte-Croix cannot be deadlier, fiercer than my
own. Be satisfied with knowing that, should the philtre fail, his days
are numbered.’
He watched the retreating form of François d’Aubray until it was
lost in the obscurity of the Rue de l’Hirondelle, and then returned
back to his apartment.
Sainte-Croix had emerged from his place of concealment, and was
now conversing with Lachaussée. Their talk ceased suddenly as Exili
entered; but there was an air of excitement about both, as though
they had been engaged in a warm, though brief argument. Gaudin’s
face was flushed, his brow knit, and his breathing forcible and
hurried; whilst Lachaussée was compressing his under-lip forcibly
against his teeth, as he caressed the mastiff with his foot—merely,
however, with the pretence of doing something, for his eye was fixed
on Sainte-Croix with no very bland expression.
The quick glance of Exili detected that they had been interrupted
in some earnest conversation. He, however, took no notice of it.
Sainte-Croix took his departure as soon as he imagined François
d’Aubray was out of the way; and Exili extinguished the fire in his
small furnace, and also prepared to leave the room.
 ‘I shall go to rest,’ he said to his assistant. ‘The only other visitor
we expect to-night will be content with your augury. See that he
pays, however; and, after you have got all you can by agreement,
see what else can be wrung from him by fear.’
He gathered a few articles together and left the chamber,
proceeding to the one immediately over it, where his slow and
measured tread could soon be heard pacing the old and ill-secured
floor ere he retired to bed.
Lachaussée remained for a few minutes after he left in deep
reflection, from which he was aroused by the sound of the curfew,
as the adjacent bell of Notre Dame, on the other side the left branch
of the Seine, swung its booming echoes over the dreary precincts of
the Rue de l’Hirondelle. It had not ceased when the restless manner
of the mastiff betokened the arrival of another stranger. A growl was
followed by a deep hoarse bark, and the beast rose from his
crouching position at the feet of Lachaussée, and shambled round
the room with the gait of some huge wild animal; his strange head-
gear giving him the appearance in the obscurity of a superhuman
monster. At a word from Lachaussée the mastiff returned and
resumed his place; and, after a blundering noise up the staircase,
mingled with a few oaths from the new-comer, the door opened, and
no less a personage entered the room than honest Benoit, the
master of the mill-boat at the Pont Notre Dame.
Lachaussée pulled his cowl closer over his head than ever as the
visitor advanced, apparently in great awe, and making numberless
obeisances as he approached.
‘You made an appointment here this evening,’ said Lachaussée in
a feigned voice, ‘touching some theft committed at your mill.’
‘I did, most infernal seigneur,’ replied Benoit, searching for some
term of appropriate respect. ‘That is—my wife, Monsieur—
Monseigneur—Bathilde would have me come, and never let me have
any rest until I did, though she is not often so fidgety.’
‘And what does she want to know?’
‘Mass! she told me to ask more things than I can recollect, when
she found I had made up my mind to come. Woman’s curiosity,
monsieur—nothing more. She would have known who the young
gallant is that spends all his time talking to the pretty wife of Pierre
Huchet when he is on guard as a good bourgeois; and why the
Veuve Boidart always goes to mass at St. Jacques la Boucherie,
living, as she does, in the Rue de la Harpe; and if it was the students
or the Bohemians, or both together, who stole the gilded
weathercock from our mill-boat, which was given to me by Monsieur
le Rouge, and belonged to the tourelle of the Grand Châtelet that
tumbled down the other day.’
‘You had better look for it amongst the scholars of Mazarin and
Cluny than in the Cours des Miracles,’ replied Lachaussée. ‘But this is
not all?’
‘She—in fact, I may say we,’ continued Benoit, ‘were most anxious
to know what has become of a fellow-countrywoman, one Louise
Gauthier, who has, we fear, fallen into bad hands. She was living
with Madame Scarron, but has not been heard of since the fete at
Versailles.’
‘What fee can you pay to learn?’ asked Lachaussée. ‘At this season
the rulers of the planets require to be propitiated, and the sacrifices
are expensive.’
‘There are two good livres,’ said Benoit, laying the pieces down on
the table. ‘You should have more if I had earned them; but times are
bad for us poor workpeople.’
‘You have no more than this?’ inquired Lachaussée.
‘Not a sou; and Bathilde will have to go without her lace cap
against her fete day as it is. If I had more I would give it to you, so
long as you tell me of Louise Gauthier.’
Lachaussée perceived the Languedocian spoke honestly.
Convinced that he saw the extent of his wealth before him, he made
some preparations for his pretended incantation; and taking a bottle
of spirit from Exili’s table, he poured it on the expiring flame in the
tripod, which was leaping up in intermittent flashes, as if about to go
out altogether.
But as he bent over the lamp, in the carelessness of the moment
he used more of the medicated alcohol than was needed. It fired up,
and catching the vapour from the bottle, communicated with the
contents, causing the flask to explode violently. Lachaussée started
back, as a cloud of flame rose almost in his face. As it was, it laid
hold of his cowl, which was immediately on fire. Heedless of being
on his guard, in the fright and danger of the moment he threw it off,
and his well known features met the astonished gaze of Benoit, who
was in no less a state of alarm than the pretended sorcerer. But as
he recognised the ex-superintendent of the Gobelins, his common
sense came back in great strength, to the discomfiture of his belief
in the supernatural. The alarm finished with the explosion; but
Benoit immediately exclaimed—
‘I think we have met before—in the catacombs of the Bièvre!’
Lachaussée had been so taken by surprise that for a few seconds
he made no reply; whilst Benoit’s fingers were working as though he
clutched an imaginary stick, and intended to use it. All his respect
for the magician had vanished in his desire to chastise Lachaussée.
‘Concealment is no longer needful,’ at length he observed.
‘Not at all,’ said Benoit, as he swept the pieces of money from the
table and put them in his pocket again. ‘I know now how it was you
were not drowned in the Bièvre; we shall see you on the gibbet yet.
’Tis a pity your horoscopes did not foretell this bad chance. I wish
you good-bye.’
‘Hold!’ cried Lachaussée, as Benoit advanced to the door: ‘you go
not so easily—we must understand each other first.’
‘It will not take long to do that,’ replied the Languedocian. ‘My
arms can speak pretty plainly when they are needed.’
‘And so can this,’ exclaimed the other, as he took down a
cumbrous old pistol fitted with a snaphaunce and presented it at the
Languedocian. ‘Now—you are unarmed, and the odds are against
you. We must have a compact before you leave.’
Benoit retreated before the fire-arm, as though intimidated until
he reached the window; this he dashed open with his fist, and then
commenced calling for the watch with all his might. In an instant
Lachaussée raised the pistol and discharged its contents. But the
snaphaunce was comparatively a clumsy contrivance; it hung a
second upon being released; and Benoit, perceiving the object of the
other, suddenly stooped, so that the charge, whatever it was, passed
over his head and through the window, shattering the casement on
the other side of the street.
‘A miss again!’ cried Benoit, jumping upright. ‘Bras d’Acier himself
took no better aim in the catacombs. Au secours! aux voleurs! Now,
then, Monsieur Lachaussée, look out for yourself. Here comes the
Guet Royal, or I am mistaken.’
And indeed, as he spoke, the lanterns of the watch were
discernible coming round the street, attracted by the lusty lungs of
Benoit. Lachaussée muttered an imprecation as he advanced to the
window, and observed them coming closer to the door. Not caring to
be given into custody, and perceiving that he could not escape by
the street, he hurriedly left the room, closing the door after him, and
Benoit heard him going upstairs. The mastiff would, in all probability,
have fastened upon the Languedocian, as he kept growling in a
crouching position as though preparing to spring, but the
contrivance fastened about his head so effectually muzzled him that
Benoit was under no apprehensions.
‘Ohé! messieurs!’ he shouted; ‘come on, or the bird will have
flown. Look out for the roof as well as the door. He is an active
fellow, but no sorcerer. You see his familiars will not release him.’
As he spoke, a cry from the guard below called Benoit’s attention
to the direction in which they were gazing. We have stated that the
Rue de l’Hirondelle was crossed by several large black beams, from
the houses on one side of the way to those on the other, that the
ruinous buildings might not fall upon the heads of the passers-by. As
Benoit looked up, he perceived that Lachaussée had emerged from
one of the windows of the floor above, and at his imminent peril was
clinging to the beam, and traversing it as he best might, to reach the
house opposite. But, narrow as the thoroughfare was, before he had
half crossed it, Benoit had crept out of the window from which he
had called the watch, on to another of the supports below the one
chosen by Lachaussée, and telling the guard to withhold their fire,
was in pursuit of his old acquaintance. The soldiers paused to watch
the strange chase, and gave a cry of admiration as Benoit, clutching
the timber above him, by a violent effort swung himself up to the
beam by which the other was endeavouring to escape.
 It was a moment of keen anxiety. They were both afraid of letting
go their hold, which was so treacherous that the least change in
their position would have caused them to overbalance themselves
and tumble down into the street; and so they remained for some
minutes, watching each other like two fencers, to be in readiness for
any attack the other was about to make. At length Lachaussée made
a creeping movement in advance, when Benoit, whose mountebank
engagements had given him a certain kind of gymnastic superiority,
trusting to his knees to keep him from falling, caught hold of
Lachaussée by the legs. But he lost his equilibrium in so doing, and
after wavering for an instant as if in uncertainty, he fell on one side
of the beam—still, however, keeping hold of the other, who was now
driven to support both himself and Benoit by his arms, half-hanging
from, half-leaning over, the timber.
‘Look out, mes braves,’ gasped the Languedocian, ‘and catch us.
Our friend won’t hold long. No, no,’ he continued, as Lachaussée,
struggling, tried to free himself from the grip, ‘you don’t shake me
off. I will stick to you as the hangman will some day. Come under
and hold your scarves.’
The guards were quick in taking the hint. Not a quarter of a
minute had passed before they had pulled off their scarves, and
some ten or a dozen standing in a circle laid hold of the different
ends, pulling them tight, so as to form a sort of network, as they
stood in a ring directly beneath Benoit.
In vain Lachaussée tried to get away. Every struggle expended
what strength he had remaining, until, unable any longer to cling to
the beam, he fell, and Benoit with him. They came heavily down,
pulling one or two of the watch to the ground; but the scarves broke
their fall of some twelve feet, and the next moment Benoit was on
his legs, whilst Lachaussée found himself in the custody of the
guard, at the head of which he perceived Sainte-Croix. Gaudin had
fallen in with the patrol soon after leaving the house of Exili, and
knowing the Chevalier du Guet for the night, had sauntered on in
conversation with him at the head of the watch, until they had been
attracted to the Rue de l’Hirondelle by Benoit’s cries for assistance.
 ‘To the lock-up with such a gallows-bird!’ cried Benoit. ‘I can tell
you as much about him as will last until to-morrow morning. Guard
him well, or the devil will strangle him in the night, as he did the
other sorcerers.’
The officer directed his party to move on, guarding Lachaussée
between them, whilst Benoit brought up the rear. As they started
from the Rue de l’Hirondelle he looked up to the house they had just
quitted, and saw Exili’s vulture face peering from one of the windows
at the tumult; but of this he took no notice.
On the way to the guard-house Gaudin approached Lachaussée,
at a signal from the latter.
‘You can free me if you choose,’ said the superintendent shortly.
‘I shall not interfere in the matter,’ replied Sainte-Croix. ‘Only be
satisfied that you are not a prisoner by my agency.’
‘If you refuse to liberate me,’ returned the other, ‘the earth may
tell some strange secrets that you would not care should be known.’
‘What do you mean, cur?’ said Gaudin contemptuously.
‘Civil words, Monsieur de Sainte-Croix,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘We
have chemical compounds that, in the event of M. Dreux d’Aubray’s
body being exhumed, would bring every atom of his last beverage to
its simple elements. Do you understand? There cannot be so much
difficulty as you imagine in procuring my liberation.’
‘Silence!’ returned Gaudin in a low quick voice; ‘silence—or we
shall be overheard.’
‘But my freedom!’ continued Lachaussée in a loud tone.
‘Wait until we get to the guard-house,’ said Sainte-Croix, as he
passed on, and was once more at the side of the Chevalier du Guet.
They passed on through some of the narrow tortuous streets that
lie towards the water boundary of the Quartier Latin, and at last
arrived at a guard-house in the vicinity of the Hôtel Dieu. Gaudin
spoke a few words to the captain of the watch aside, which the
other appeared to agree with: they were evidently companions as
well as acquaintances.
‘There is some mistake here,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘I see now the
prisoner you have captured is my valet. He has been lunatic enough
to go and consult some predicting varlet, and met this other simple
fellow. They have had a brawl between them; and whoever first
called the guard would have given the other into custody.’
‘Pardieu!’ said Benoit, ‘you great seigneurs have different notions
of a brawl to us artisans. I suppose, if his snaphaunce had put me
beyond Master Glazer’s skill, who can cure anything, you would have
thought lightly of it.’
‘Silence! common person!’ said the captain.
‘I will speak,’ said Benoit, who began to be very angry at this
unexpected turn that things were taking; ‘and I am not a common
person. Ask Monsieur Sainte-Croix if he found me so when we met
one night at the corner of the Rue Neuve St. Paul. I believe that all
the Bohemians and the great folks in Paris are so leagued together
that they are afraid of one another, and the people receive all the
buffets of their disagreeings. The man Lachaussée there is an
inhabitant of all the Cours des Miracles in Paris. I know him, I tell
you.’
‘You are at liberty, fellow; you can depart,’ said the officer.
‘Liberty, forsooth!’ continued Benoit with increased excitement.
‘Why, I have never been arrested. I am the accuser; and M. de
Sainte-Croix knows that Lachaussée is no more——’
At a motion from the captain of the watch, two of the guard
seized Benoit whilst he was thus pouring out his anger, and, without
allowing him to finish his speech, very unceremoniously turned him
out of the guard-house, and half-drove, half-walked him to the end
of the street, where they left him to go home to the boat-mill,
vowing that he would still be even with all of them.
 CHAPTER XX.
TWO GREAT VILLAINS

Meanwhile, things being thus arranged, Sainte-Croix and Lachaussée

left the guard, and proceeded to the Rue des Bernardines, where
Gaudin still resided. On arriving at his chamber, whither they passed
unnoticed, Gaudin complained of cold; and, in effect, the evening
was damp and chilly. At his wish, the other fanned the embers of the
fireplace into a flame with his hat, and his so-called master then
produced a flask of wine, which he placed on the table with some
glasses.
‘There is some of the best hock,’ said he, ‘that the Rhine ever
produced. Drink—you need some wine after your late adventure.
Fear not a long draught—a cask of it would not hurt you.’
‘You will drink with me?’ asked Lachaussée, as Sainte-Croix filled a
glass for his companion, and then replaced the bottle on the table.
‘Not now,’ replied Gaudin. ‘I have to play to-night, and must keep
my head cool. A little water will quench my thirst.’
‘Here’s to our renewed acquaintanceship, then, mon capitaine,’
said Lachaussée, as he raised the glass. But before touching its
contents with his lips, as if struck by some sudden thought, he held
the glass between his eyes and the lamp, and then, replacing it on
the table, took a small set of tablets from his pocket and pulled from
them a leaf of white paper.
‘What are you going to do?’ inquired Sainte-Croix.
‘Nothing,’ replied Lachaussée, ‘beyond using a common precaution
in these treacherous times. I do not mistrust you; but you know not
who is about you.’
As he was speaking, he dipped the slip of paper into the wine. The
effect was instantaneous—the white was changed to a bright scarlet.
Sainte-Croix uttered a feigned exclamation of surprise.
‘Poison!’ he cried, as he saw the change.
 ‘Ay—poison,’ repeated Lachaussée calmly. ‘Did I not well before I
drank? It was doubtless intended for you, Monsieur Gaudin. Your
cups are evidently not of Venice glass, or they would have shivered
at its contact.’
‘This shall be looked into,’ said Gaudin, as he threw the remainder
into the fireplace—‘and closely. But, at present, to business.’
‘Ay, to business,’ answered the other, as a most sinister smile
passed across his ill-favoured countenance—the result of what had
just occurred.
‘I have something to propose to you,’ said Gaudin, ‘if you feel
inclined to join me in the venture. We have worked together before,
and you know me.’
‘I do,’ answered Lachaussée, with meaning emphasis, as he
glanced at the drinking-glass. ‘We can both be trusted to the same
extent, for we are in each other’s hands.’
‘You allude to Milan,’ observed Sainte-Croix.
‘No,’ replied the other coldly; ‘to the château of M. d’Aubray at
Offemont.’
‘A truce to this recrimination,’ said Gaudin. ‘Hear what I have to
say. M. d’Aubray is dead—how, it matters not—and buried. One
hundred and fifty thousand livres were to have been the legacy to
his daughter, Madame de Brinvilliers, and, what was perhaps more,
her absolute freedom to act as she pleased. The money has passed
to her brothers, in trust for her, and she is entirely under their
surveillance. This must be altered.’
‘And you would have me assist you?’
‘On consideration of paying you one-fifth of whatever possessions
might fall to the Marchioness thereupon. Do you agree to this?’
‘Go on,’ was Lachaussée’s reply, ‘and tell me the means.’
‘Ay—the means—there lies the difficulty,’ said Sainte-Croix. ‘What
think you of——?’
There was a minute of silence, as they regarded each other with
fixed intensity, waiting for the suggestion. Plunged as they were in
the dregs of crime, they hesitated to unfold their plan, although they
knew there was but one scheme intended. Lachaussée was the first
who spoke.
 ‘Diseases are hereditary,’ said he. ‘The present lieutenant-civil, and
his brother the councillor, might follow their father to the cemetery,
which keeps the secrets of its occupants even better than the
Bastille.’
‘We are agreed,’ observed Gaudin; ‘but some care and patience
will be necessary. Of course there is a barrier between the brothers
of Madame de Brinvilliers and myself that must for ever prevent our
meeting. I will provide the means, and you their application.’
‘I care not if I do,’ answered Lachaussée. ‘But what assurance
have I that you will fulfil your part of our intent? Our words are
breaths of air—our souls are no longer our own to deal with.’
‘You shall have a fair and written compact on your own part,’ said
Gaudin; ‘on mine, I have still your letter after the affair at Milan.’
He rose to depart as he uttered these words; and, when he had
quitted the room, Gaudin threw himself into a fauteuil and was for a
time wrapt in silence. Then divesting himself of his upper garments,
he put on a dingy working-dress, corroded into holes, and black with
the smoke and dirt of a laboratory, and passing into an adjoining
chamber, fitted up with a chemical apparatus as if for the study of
alchemy—the outward pretext which most of the disciples of Tofana
adopted to veil their proceedings—he applied himself to work with
the most intense application. Certain as the action was of the
poisons he had hitherto used, defying all attempts to trace their
existence, except of those who had created them, yet they appeared
too slow for the projects he was conceiving; and he was now
commencing a series of experiments upon the properties of the
deadly elements in his possession, before the results of which the
achievements of Spara and Tofana fell into insignificance.
 CHAPTER XXI.
THE DEAD-HOUSE OF THE HÔTEL DIEU, AND THE ORGY AT THE HÔTEL
DE CLUNY

The autumn passed away, and winter came on in all its severity. The
trees in the gardens of the Tuileries and the Palais d’Orleans, where
the parterres and avenues of the Luxembourg are now situated, rose
naked and dreary towards the dull sky; and the snow lay deep upon
the Butte St. Roche, uncarted and uncared for, threatening to
inundate the lower streets in the vicinity when the thaw came. The
public places, too, lost their air of life and business. The
mountebanks, showmen, and dentists ceased to pitch their platforms
on the Pont Neuf and Carrefour du Châtelet; for although they were
individuals inured to cold, yet they found the promenaders were
more sensitive, and would not stop to listen to their harangues. The
women were less attractive to the passing glance of the cavaliers in
the streets, or the still mundane fathers in the churches. No more
white shoulders, covered only by the rippling curls of the period,
flashed in the afternoon sunlight—no more dazzling throats captured
the hearts and the purses of the susceptible young gallants of the
patrician quartiers, or whatever qualities supplied the perfect
absence of either in the scholars of Cluny, Mazarin, and the Hôtel
Dieu, attached to the Pays Latin. Sometimes an hour or two of warm
sunlight brought the gossipers out in the middle of the day to their
old haunts; elsewise they preferred assembling in the shops of the
most approved retailers of passing scandal, and there canvassing the
advantages or demerits of the different characters, or the probable
results of the various politics, then mostly talked of in the good city
of Paris.
The shop of Maître Glazer, the apothecary of the Place Maubert,
was the most favoured resort of the idle bourgeois. They loved it in
the summer, when the pure air came through the open front of the
window to dilute the atmosphere of cunning remedies that filled it,
and it appeared to have the same charm in the winter, although
closely shut; perhaps from the idea, with some, that the inhalation
of the air laden with such marvellous odours of chemicals and
galenicals would have all the effect of swallowing the things
themselves, and on a cheaper and less noxious plan.
But, in truth, the shop of Maître Glazer possessed various
advantages over others as a lounge for the gossipers. In his quality
of apothecary he was admitted to the councils, arrangements, and
disputes of all the families in the neighbourhood; and not wishing to
favour one more than another, he very properly retailed them in a
circle from one to the other, which made his society much sought
after; indeed, he was suspected of being sent for sometimes when
the indisposition was a mere pretext for conversing a quarter of an
hour with the apothecary, at such times as the supposed invalid was
dying—not in the common acceptance of the word, but to be
satisfied with regard to any point deeply affecting some neighbour;
and as the cure in these cases was always very rapid, Maître Glazer
got fresh honour thereby.
But just at present matters of deeper moment attracted the idlers
to his shop than the discussion of mere domestic affairs. We have
said that his reputation stood well in Paris as a talented compounder
of antidotes to poisons; and the still increasing number of
mysterious deaths in the city and faubourgs, which so entirely
baffled all medical or surgical art, either to arrest the progress of the
disease or discover its source—although they were all attributed to
the working of poison—provided subjects for conversation in the
mouths of everybody. The terrible episode which formed so fearful a
characteristic of the moral state of the reign of Louis XIV., was now
talked of publicly and generally, until the topic increasing led, but a
very few years after the period of our story, to the establishment of
the Chambre des Poisons, ordained by order of the King to inquire
into the deeds of the poisoners and magicians then practising in
Paris, and punish them if the accusations were brought home.
Maître Glazer was in his shop, and so was his son Philippe,
together with Maître Picard, Jean Blacquart the Gascon, and one or
two of the bourgeois neighbours, talking over the events of the day.
Panurge was compounding medicines at his usual post, and
endeavouring to outlie the Gascon, according to custom; and
sometimes their controversies ran so high that they were only
quieted when Philippe threatened to thrash them both at once, or
beat every atom of flesh from Panurge’s bones, which, looking to his
miserable condition, was certainly not a process of any very great
labour.
‘I do not believe in all these stories,’ said Philippe; ‘they frighten
the city, but not our profession. I admit that there is a grievous
epidemic about, but the same symptoms attack those who die in and
out of our hospital.’
‘Are the symptoms the same?’ asked a neighbour.
‘Precisely,’ replied Philippe: ‘there is the same wasting away of
body and spirits; the same fluttering pulse and fevered system; the
same low, crushing weariness of mind, until all is over. One would
imagine, if all were true, that the poisoners were in the very heart of
the Hôtel Dieu.’
‘I must have taken some myself,’ said Maître Picard. ‘My spirits
sink, and I have a constant thirst; my pulse flutters too, wonderfully,
albeit my body does not waste.’
‘May not Spara’s disciples have got to the hospital?’ asked the
bourgeois who had before spoken.
‘Pshaw!’ said Philippe; ‘the sisters of charity are the only persons
who tend our sick, and we can trust them. The Marchioness of
Brinvilliers is amongst them. Whatever her faults, her kind words
and gentle smile go far to soothe many pain-wearied frames; and
yet she loses more of her patients than all the others.’
‘I have tested all the water used in the city,’ said Glazer, ‘but found
it pure and wholesome. And I have made Panurge drink bucketfuls
of it, but it never affected him.’
‘And yet to any one who cared to drug our fountains,’ said
Philippe, ‘it would not be difficult, at nightfall, to row along the river
and climb up the pillars of the Samaritaine.15 A potion in its reservoir
would carry death tolerably well over the city by the next noontide.’
 ‘It might be done with advantage,’ said a bourgeois. ‘The greater
part of its water goes to the basins and fountains of the Tuileries,
and the people who pay for it die of drought. The King cares more
for his swans and orange trees than for his subjects.’
‘Neighbour Viot,’ said Maître Picard, ‘I am a public officer, and
cannot allow such rebel talk.’
‘Beware of secret hurt rather than open authority,’ said Glazer.
‘Those words, so publicly expressed, may bring the Aqua Tofana into
your goblet this very night.’
The face of bourgeois Viot fell at the mere hint of impending
danger.
‘You surely do not think so?’ he said.
‘I do not say what I do not think,’ replied the apothecary. ‘If you
have fear, after promulgating these rash sentiments, take some of
my antidote with you: it is of rare virtue.’
‘It cured me,’ said Panurge, ‘after I had swallowed, at my master’s
orders, a quantity of the St. Nicholas manna enough to kill a horse.’
‘But an ass is a different animal, Panurge,’ said Philippe, as he took
up his hat and left the shop.
The humble assistant did not dare to retort, but seeing the Gascon
laughing at him, when Philippe had gone, he aimed a blow at him
with a bleeding-staff, which would have hurt Blacquart sorely had he
not dived down and avoided it. As it was, the staff descended on the
counter and broke a bottle, for which he was severely chidden by his
master.
In the meantime Philippe Glazer, leaving his father’s, crossed the
river by the Petit Pont and took his way towards Notre Dame. The
doors of the cathedral were still open, and he entered the southern
aisle, now dimly lighted by a few votive tapers, which were flaring
and guttering upon their rude iron stands in the currents of air that
swept through the interior. A man, who was evidently waiting to
meet him, emerged from the shadow of one of the pillars as he
advanced.
‘M. de Sainte-Croix!’
‘Philippe Glazer!’
 ‘We are truly met,’ said the student. ‘I received your note this
evening, and you can come to the hospital with me.’
‘You are obliging me,’ said Gaudin; ‘I am anxious respecting the
health of an old servant of mine, now an inmate.’
‘Pshaw! Captain Gaudin,’ replied Philippe, ‘between the Gens de la
Courte Epée there should be no secrets. It is a matter of gallantry, or
I am mistaken; we are freemasons, you know, of a certain sort, and
may trust each other.’
Gaudin laughed and made an evasive reply, as he took Philippe’s
arm; and the two, crossing the square before Notre Dame, entered
the Hôtel Dieu. As they passed the lodge, the porter, recognising
Philippe, gave him a note which had been left for the gentleman
who was expected to accompany him. Gaudin knew the writing, and
hastily opened it. Its contents were as follows:—

‘Do not notice me in the hospital, or suspicion will be

aroused, and I shall not come again. In the Morgue we shall
be free from interruption, and only there. Glazer will conduct
you.
‘Marie.’

‘Mass!’ exclaimed Philippe, as Sainte-Croix mentioned the

appointment—‘a strange rendezvous! The lady has a bold mind
within that delicate frame.’
‘Hush!’ said Gaudin, pressing his arm; ‘do not speak so loud. Show
me where the place is and leave me.’
‘Most willingly, if you have courage. One might select a livelier
place, however, than the dead-house of an hospital for a trysting-
place.’
He took his companion by the hand, and they advanced along one
of the arched passages, which the dim lamps barely illuminated, to
the top of a flight of stairs. These they descended, and, passing
along another vaulted way, paused at a door at the extreme end. It
was not fastened. Philippe threw it open, and they entered the
Morgue of the hospital—the receptacle for such as died within the
precincts of the Hôtel Dieu.