This was much, but it was not all.The marquise, as we know, had taken refuge in a convent, where Desgrais dared not arrest her by force, for two reasons: first, because she might get information beforehand, and hide herself in one of the cloister retreats whose secret is known only to the superior; secondly, because Liege was so religious a town that the event would produce a great sensation: the act might be looked upon as a sacrilege, and might bring about a popular rising, during which the marquise might possibly contrive to escape.So Desgrais paid a visit to his wardrobe, and feeling that an abbe's dress would best free him from suspicion, he appeared at the doors of the convent in the guise of a fellow-countryman just returned from Rome, unwilling to pass through Liege without presenting his compliments to the lovely and unfortunate marquise.
Desgrais had just the manner of the younger son of a great house: he was as flattering as a courtier, as enterprising as a musketeer.In this first visit he made himself attractive by his wit and his audacity, so much so that more easily than he had dared to hope, he got leave to pay a second call.The second visit was not long delayed: Desgrais presented himself the very next day.Such eagerness was flattering to the marquise, so Desgrais was received even better than the night before.She, a woman of rank and fashion, for more than a year had been robbed of all intercourse with people of a certain set, so with Desgrais the marquise resumed her Parisian manner.Unhappily the charming abbe was to leave Liege in a few days; and on that account he became all the more pressing, and a third visit, to take place next day, was formally arranged.Desgrais was punctual: the marquise was impatiently waiting him; but by a conjunction of circumstances that Desgrais had no doubt arranged beforehand, the amorous meeting was disturbed two or three times just as they were getting more intimate and least wanting to be observed.
Desgrais complained of these tiresome checks; besides, the marquise and he too would be compromised: he owed concealment to his cloth: He begged her to grant him a rendezvous outside the town, in some deserted walk, where there would be no fear of their being recognised or followed: the marquise hesitated no longer than would serve to put a price on the favour she was granting, and the rendezvous was fixed for the same evening.
The evening came: both waited with the same impatience, but with very different hopes.The marquise found Desgrais at the appointed spot:
he gave her his arm then holding her hand in his own, he gave a sign, the archers appeared, the lover threw off his mask, Desgrais was confessed, and the marquise was his prisoner.Desgrais left her in the hands of his men, and hastily made his way to the convent.Then, and not before, he produced his order from the Sixty, by means of which he opened the marquise's room.Under her bed he found a box, which he seized and sealed; then he went back to her, and gave the order to start.
When the marquise saw the box in the hands of Desgrais, she at first appeared stunned; quickly recovering, she claimed a paper inside it which contained her confession.Desgrais refused, and as he turned round for the carriage to come forward, she tried to choke herself by swallowing a pin.One of the archers, called Claude, Rolla, perceiving her intention, contrived to get the pin out of her mouth.
After this, Desgrais commanded that she should be doubly watched.
They stopped for supper.An archer called Antoine Barbier was present at the meal, and watched so that no knife or fork should be put on the table, or any instrument with which she could wound or kill herself.The marquise, as she put her glass to her mouth as though to drink, broke a little bit off with her teeth; but the archer saw it in time, and forced her to put it out on her plate.
Then she promised him, if he would save her, that she would make his fortune.He asked what he would have to do for that.She proposed that he should cut Desgrais' throat; but he refused, saying that he was at her service in any other way.So she asked him for pen and paper, and wrote this letter:
"DEAR THERIA,--I am in the hands of Desgrais, who is taking me by road from Liege to Paris.Come quickly and save me."Antoine Barbier took the letter, promising to deliver it at the right address; but he gave it to Desgrais instead.The next day, finding that this letter had not been pressing enough, she wrote him another, saying that the escort was only eight men, who could be easily overcome by four or five determined assailants, and she counted on him to strike this bald stroke.But, uneasy when she got no answer and no result from her letters, she despatched a third missive to Theria.In this she implored him by his own salvation, if he were not strong enough to attack her escort and save her, at least to kill two of the four horses by which she was conveyed, and to profit by the moment of confusion to seize the chest and throw it into the fire; otherwise, she declared, she was lost.Though Theria received none of these letters, which were one by one handed over by Barbier to Desgrais, he all the same did go to Maestricht, where the marquise was to pass, of his own accord.There he tried to bribe the archers, offering much as 10,000 livres, but they were incorruptible.At Rocroy the cortege met M.Palluau, the councillor, whom the Parliament had sent after the prisoner, that he might put questions to her at a time when she least expected them, and so would not have prepared her answers.Desgrais told him all that had passed, and specially called his attention to the famous box, the object of so much anxiety and so many eager instructions.M.de Palluau opened it, and found among other things a paper headed " My Confession."This confession was a proof that the guilty feel great need of discovering their crimes either to mankind or to a merciful God.
