when the abbe and the chevalier sent to know how she was. She replied
that she was quite well, and invited them to a collation which she was
giving about four o'clock to the ladies who made up her little circle.
An hour afterwards the abbe and the chevalier sent a second time to
inquire after her; the marquise, without paying particular attention to
this excessive civility, which she remembered afterwards, sent word as
before that she was perfectly well. The marquise had remained in bed to
do the honours of her little feast, and never had she felt more
cheerful. At the hour named all her guests arrived; the abbe and the
chevalier were ushered in, and the meal was served. Neither one nor the
other would share it; the abbe indeed sat down to table, but the
chevalier remained leaning on the foot of the bed. The abbe appeared
anxious, and only roused himself with a start from his absorption; then
he seemed to drive away some dominant idea, but soon the idea, stronger
than his will, plunged him again into a reverie, a state which struck
everyone the more particularly because it was far from his usual temper.
As to the chevalier, his eyes were fixed constantly upon his
sister-in-law, but in this there was not, as in his brother's behaviour,
anything surprising, since the marquise had never looked so beautiful.
The meal over, the company took leave. The abbe escorted the ladies
downstairs; the chevalier remained with the marquise; but hardly had the
abbe left the room when Madame de Ganges saw the chevalier turn pale and
drop in a sitting position--he had been standing on the foot of the bed.
The marquise, uneasy, asked what was the matter; but before he could
reply, her attention was called to another quarter. The abbe, as pale
and as disturbed as the chevalier, came back into the room, carrying in
his hands a glass and a pistol, and double-locked the door behind him.
Terrified at this spectacle, the marquise half raised herself in her
bed, gazing voiceless and wordless. Then the abbe approached her, his
lips trembling; his hair bristling and his eyes blazing, and, presenting
to her the glass and the pistol, "Madame," said he, after a moment of
terrible silence, "choose, whether poison, fire, or"--he made a sign to
the chevalier, who drew his sword--"or steel."
The marquise had one moment's hope: at the motion which she saw the
chevalier make she thought he was coming to her assistance; but being
soon undeceived, and finding herself between two men, both threatening
her, she slipped from her bed and fell on her knees.
"What have I done," she cried, "oh, my God? that you should thus decree
my death, and after having made yourselves judges should make yourselves
executioners? I am guilty of no fault towards you except of having been
too faithful in my duty to my husband, who is your brother."
Then seeing that it was vain to continue imploring the abbe, whose looks
and gestures spoke a mind made up, she turned towards the chevalier.
"And you too, brother," said she, "oh, God, God! you, too! Oh, have pity
on me, in the name of Heaven!"
But he, stamping his foot and pressing the point of his sword to her
bosom, answered--
"Enough, madam, enough; take your choice without delay; for if you do
not take it, we will take it for you."
The marquise turned once again to the abbe, and her forehead struck the
muzzle of the pistol. Then she saw that she must die indeed, and
choosing of the three forms of death that which seemed to her the least
terrible, "Give me the poison, then," said she, "and may God forgive you
my death!"
With these words she took the glass, but the thick black liquid of which
it was full aroused such repulsion that she would have attempted a last
appeal; but a horrible imprecation from the abbe and a threatening
movement from his brother took from her the very last gleam of hope. She
put the glass to her lips, and murmuring once more, "God! Saviour! have
pity on me!" she swallowed the contents.
As she did so a few drops of the liquid fell upon her breast, and
instantly burned her skin like live coals; indeed, this infernal draught
was composed of arsenic and sublimate infused in aqua-fortis; then,
thinking that no more would be required of her, she dropped the glass.
The marquise was mistaken: the abbe picked it up, and observing that all
the sediment had remained at the bottom, he gathered together on a
silver bodkin all that had coagulated on the sides of the glass and all
that had sunk to the bottom, and presenting this ball, which was about
the size of a nut, to the marquise, on the end of the bodkin, he said,
"Come, madame, you must swallow the holy-water sprinkler."
The marquise opened her lips, with resignation; but instead of doing as
the abbe commanded, she kept this remainder of the poison in her mouth,
threw herself on the bed with a scream, and clasping the pillows, in her
pain, she put out the poison between the sheets, unperceived by her
assassins; and then turning back to them, folded her hands in entreaty
and said, "In the name of God, since you have killed my body, at least
do not destroy my soul, but send me a confessor."
Cruel though the abbe and the chevalier were, they were no doubt
beginning to weary of such a scene; moreover, the mortal deed was
accomplished--after what she had drunk, the marquise could live but a
few minutes; at her petition they went out, locking the door behind
them. But no sooner did the marquise find herself alone than the
possibility of flight presented itself to her. She ran to the window:
this was but twenty-two feet above the ground, but the earth below was
covered with stones and rubbish. The marquise, being only in her
nightdress, hastened to slip on a silk petticoat; but at the moment when
she finished tying it round her waist she heard a step approaching her
room, and believing that her murderers were returning to make an end of
her, she flew like a madwoman to the window. At the moment of her
setting foot on the window ledge, the door opened: the marquise, ceasing
to consider anything, flung herself down, head first.
Fortunately, the new-comer, who was the castle chaplain, had time to
reach out and seize her skirt. The skirt, not strong enough to bear the
weight of the marquise, tore; but its resistance, slight though it was,
sufficed nevertheless to change the direction of her body: the marquise,
whose head would have been shattered on the stones, fell on her feet
instead, and beyond their being bruised by the stones, received no
injury. Half stunned though she was by her fall, the marquise saw
something coming after her, and sprang aside. It was an enormous pitcher
of water, beneath which the priest, when he saw her escaping him, had
tried to crush her; but either because he had ill carried out his
attempt or because the marquise had really had time to move away, the
vessel was shattered at her feet without touching her, and the priest,
seeing that he had missed his aim, ran to warn the abbe and the
chevalier that the victim was escaping.
As for the marquise, she had hardly touched the ground, when with
admirable presence of mind she pushed the end of one of her long plaits
so far down her throat as to provoke a fit of vomiting; this was the
more easily done that she had eaten heartily of the collation, and
happily the presence of the food had prevented the poison from attacking
the coats of the stomach so violently as would otherwise have been the
case. Scarcely had she vomited when a tame boar swallowed what she had
rejected, and falling into a convulsion, died immediately.
As we have said, the room looked upon an enclosed courtyard; and the
marquise at first thought that in leaping from her room into this court
she had only changed her prison; but soon perceiving a light that
flickered from an upper window of ore of the stables, she ran thither,
and found a groom who was just going to bed.
"In the name of Heaven, my good man," said she to him, "save me! I am
poisoned! They want to kill me! Do not desert me, I entreat you! Have
pity on me, open this stable for me; let me get away! Let me escape!"
The groom did not understand much of what the marquise said to him; but
seeing a woman with disordered hair, half naked, asking help of him, he
took her by the arm, led her through the stables, opened a door for her,
and the marquise found herself in the street. Two women were passing;
the groom put her into their hands, without being able to explain to
them what he did not know himself. As for the marquise, she seemed able
to say nothing beyond these words: "Save me! I am poisoned! In the name
of Heaven, save me!"
All at once she escaped from their hands and began to run like a mad
woman; she had seen, twenty steps away, on the threshold of the door by
which she had come, her two murderers in pursuit of her.
Then they rushed after her; she shrieking that she was poisoned, they
shrieking that she was mad; and all this happening amid a crowd which,
not knowing what part to take, divided and made way for the victim and
the murderers. Terror gave the marquise superhuman strength: the woman
who was accustomed to walk in silken shoes upon velvet carpets, ran with
bare and bleeding feet over stocks and stones, vainly asking help, which
none gave her; for, indeed, seeing her thus, in mad flight, in a
nightdress, with flying hair, her only garment a tattered silk
petticoat, it was difficult not to--think that this woman was, as her
brothers-in-law said, mad.
At last the chevalier came up with her, stopped her, dragged her, in
spite of her screams, into the nearest house, and closed the door behind
them, while the abbe, standing at the threshold with a pistol in his
hand, threatened to blow out the brains of any person who should
approach.
The house into which the chevalier and the marquise had gone belonged to
one M. Desprats, who at the moment was from home, and whose wife was
entertaining several of her friends. The marquise and the chevalier,
still struggling together, entered the room where the company was
assembled: as among the ladies present were several who also visited the
marquise, they immediately arose, in the greatest amazement, to give her
the assistance that she implored; but the chevalier hastily pushed them
aside, repeating that the marquise was mad. To this reiterated
accusation--to which, indeed, appearances lent only too great a
probability--the marquise replied by showing her burnt neck and her
blackened lips, and wringing her hands in pain, cried out that she was
poisoned, that she was going to die, and begged urgently for milk, or at
least for water. Then the wife of a Protestant minister, whose name was
Madame Brunel, slipped into her hand a box of orvietan, some pieces of
which she hastened to swallow, while another lady gave her a glass of
water; but at the instant when she was lifting it to her mouth, the
chevalier broke it between her teeth, and one of the pieces of glass cut
her lips. At this, all the women would have flung themselves upon the
chevalier; but the marquise, fearing that he would only become more
enraged, and hoping to disarm him, asked, on the contrary, that she
might be left alone with him: all the company, yielding to her desire,
passed into the next room; this was what the chevalier, on his part,
too, asked.
Scarcely were they alone, when the marquise, joining her hands, knelt to
him and said in the gentlest and most appealing voice that it was
possible to use, "Chevalier, my dear brother, will you not have pity
upon me, who have always had so much affection for you, and who, even
now, would give my blood for your service? You know that the things I am
saying are not merely empty words; and yet how is it you are treating
me, though I have not deserved it? And what will everyone say to such
dealings? Ah, brother, what a great unhappiness is mine, to have been so
cruelly treated by you! And yet--yes, brother--if you will deign to have
pity on me and to save my life, I swear, by my hope of heaven, to keep
no remembrance of what has happened; and to consider you always as my
protector and my friend."
All at once the marquise rose with a great cry and clasped her hand to
her right side. While she was speaking, and before she perceived what he
was doing, the chevalier had drawn his sword, which was very short, and
using it as a dagger, had struck her in the breast; this first blow was
followed by a second, which came in contact with the shoulder blade, and
so was prevented from going farther. At these two blows the marquise
rushed towards the door, of the room into which the ladies had retired,
crying, "Help! He is killing me!"
But during the time that she took to cross the room the chevalier
stabbed her five times in the back with his sword, and would no doubt
have done more, if at the last blow his sword had not broken; indeed, he
had struck with such force that the fragment remained embedded in her
shoulder, and the marquise fell forward on the floor, in a pool of her
blood, which was flowing all round her and spreading through the room.
The chevalier thought he had killed her, and hearing the women running
to her assistance, he rushed from the room. The abbe was still at the
door, pistol in hand; the chevalier took him by the arm to drag him
away, and as the abbe hesitated to follow, he said:--
"Let us go, abbe; the business is done."
The chevalier and the abbe had taken a few steps in the street when a
window opened and the women who had found the marquise expiring called
out for help: at these cries the abbe stopped short, and holding back
the chevalier by the arm, demanded--
"What was it you said, chevalier? If they are calling help, is she not
dead, after all?"
"'Ma foi', go and see for yourself," returned the chevalier. "I have
done enough for my share; it is your turn now."
"'Pardieu', that is quite my opinion," cried the abbe; and rushing back
to the house, he flung himself into the room at the moment when the
women, lifting the marquise with great difficulty, for she was so weak
that she could no longer help herself, were attempting to carry her to
bed. The abbe pushed them away, and arriving at the marquise, put his
pistol to her heart; but Madame Brunel, the same who had previously
given the marquise a box of orvietan, lifted up the barrel with her
hand, so that the shot went off into the air, and the bullet instead of
striking the marquise lodged in the cornice of the ceiling. The abbe
then took the pistol by the barrel and gave Madame Brunet so violent a
blow upon the head with the butt that she staggered and almost fell; he
was about to strike her again, but all the women uniting against him,
pushed him, with thousands of maledictions, out of the room, and locked
the door behind him. The two assassins, taking advantage of the
darkness, fled from Ganges, and reached Aubenas, which is a full league
away, about ten in the evening.
Meanwhile the women were doing all they could for the marquise. Their
first intention, as we have already said, was to put her to bed, but the
broken sword blade made her unable to lie down, and they tried in vain
to pull it out, so deeply had it entered the bone. Then the marquise
herself showed Madame Brunei what method to take: the operating lady was
to sit on the bed, and while the others helped to hold up the marquise,
was to seize the blade with both hands, and pressing her--knees against
the patient's back, to pull violently and with a great jerk. This plan
at last succeeded, and the marquise was able to get to bed; it was nine
in the evening, and this horrible tragedy had been going on for nearly
three hours.
The magistrates of Ganges, being informed of what had happened, and
beginning to believe that it was really a case of murder, came in
person, with a guard, to the marquise. As soon as she saw them come in
she recovered strength, and raising herself in bed, so great was her
fear, clasped her hands and besought their protection; for she always
expected to see one or the other of her murderers return. The
magistrates told her to reassure herself, set armed men to guard all the
approaches to the house, and while physicians and surgeons were,
summoned in hot haste from Montpellier, they on their part sent word to
the Baron de Trissan, provost of Languedoc, of the crime that had just
been committed, and gave him the names and the description of the
murderers. That official at once sent people after them, but it was
already too late: he learned that the abbe and the chevalier had slept
at Aubenas on the night of the murder, that there they had reproached
each other for their unskilfulness, and had come near cutting each
other's throats, that finally they had departed before daylight, and had
taken a boat, near Agde, from a beach called the "Gras de Palaval."
The Marquis de Ganges was at Avignon, where he was prosecuting a servant
of his who had robbed him of two hundred crowns; when he heard news of
the event. He turned horribly pale as he listened to the messenger's
story, then falling into a violent fury against his brothers, he swore
that they should have no executioners other than himself. Nevertheless,
though he was so uneasy about the marquise's condition, he waited until
the next day in the afternoon before setting forth, and during the
interval he saw some of his friends at Avignon without saying anything
to them of the matter. He did not reach Ganges until four days after the
murder, then he went to the house of M. Desprats and asked to see his
wife, whom some kind priests had already prepared for the meeting; and
the marquise, as soon as she heard of his arrival, consented to receive
him. The marquis immediately entered the room, with his eyes full of
tears, tearing his hair, and giving every token of the deepest despair.
The marquise receivers her husband like a forgiving wife and a dying
Christian. She scarcely even uttered some slight reproaches about the
manner in which he had deserted her; moreover, the marquis having
complained to a monk of these reproaches, and the monk having reported
his complaints to the marquise, she called her husband to her bedside,
at a moment when she was surrounded by people, and made him a public
apology, begging him to attribute the words that seemed to have wounded
him to the effect of her sufferings, and not to any failure in her
regard for him. The marquis, left alone with his wife, tried to take
advantage of this reconciliation to induce her to annul the declaration
that she had made before the magistrates of Avignon; for the vice-legate
and his officers, faithful to the promises made to the marquise, had
refused to register the fresh donation which she had made at Ganges,
according to the suggestions of the abbe, and which the latter had sent
off, the very moment it was signed, to his brother. But on this point
the marquise was immovably resolute, declaring that this fortune was
reserved for her children and therefore sacred to her, and that she
could make no alteration in what had been done at Avignon, since it
represented her genuine and final wishes. Notwithstanding this
declaration, the marquis did not cease to--remain beside his wife and to
bestow upon her every care possible to a devoted and attentive husband.
Two days later than the Marquis de Ganges arrived Madame de Rossan great
was her amazement, after all the rumours that were already in
circulation about the marquis, at finding her daughter in the hands of
him whom she regarded as one of her murderers. But the marquise, far
from sharing that opinion, did all she could, not only to make her
mother feel differently, but even to induce her to embrace the marquis
as a son. This blindness on the part of the marquise caused Madame de
Rossan so much grief that notwithstanding her profound affection for her
daughter she would only stay two days, and in spite of the entreaties
that the dying woman made to her, she returned home, not allowing
anything to stop her. This departure was a great grief to the marquise,
and was the reason why she begged with renewed entreaties to be taken to
Montpellier. The very sight of the place where she had been so cruelly
tortured continually brought before her, not only the remembrance of the
murder, but the image of the murderers, who in her brief moments of
sleep so haunted her that she sometimes awoke suddenly, uttering shrieks
and calling for help. Unfortunately, the physician considered her too
weak to bear removal, and declared that no change of place could be made
without extreme danger.
Then, when she heard this verdict, which had to be repeated to her, and
which her bright and lively complexion and brilliant eyes seemed to
contradict, the marquise turned all her thoughts towards holy things,
and thought only of dying like a saint after having already suffered
like a martyr. She consequently asked to receive the last sacrament, and
while it was being sent for, she repeated her apologies to her husband
and her forgiveness of his brothers, and this with a gentleness that,
joined to her beauty, made her whole personality appear angelic. When,
however, the priest bearing the viaticum entered, this expression
suddenly changed, and her face presented every token of the greatest
terror. She had just recognised in the priest who was bringing her the
last consolations of Heaven the infamous Perette, whom she could not but
regard as an accomplice of the abbe and the chevalier, since, after
having tried to hold her back, he had attempted to crush her beneath the
pitcher of water which he had thrown at her from the window, and since,
when he saw her escaping, he had run to warn her assassins and to set
them on her track. She recovered herself quickly, however, and seeing
that the priest, without any sign of remorse, was drawing near to her
bedside, she would not cause so great a scandal as would have been
caused by denouncing him at such a moment. Nevertheless, bending towards
him, she said, "Father, I hope that, remembering what has passed, and in
order to dispel fears that--I may justifiably entertain, you will make
no difficulty of partaking with me of the consecrated wafer; for I have
sometimes heard it said that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ, while
remaining a token of salvation, has been known to be made a principle of
death."
The priest inclined his head as a sign of assent.
So the marquise communicated thus, taking a sacrament that she shared
with one of her murderers, as an evidence that she forgave this one like
the others and that she prayed God to forgive them as she herself did.
The following days passed without any apparent increase in her illness,
the fever by which she was consumed rather enhancing her beauties, and
imparting to her voice and gestures a vivacity which they had never had
before. Thus everybody had begun to recover hope, except herself, who,
feeling better than anyone else what was her true condition, never for a
moment allowed herself any illusion, and keeping her son, who was seven
years old, constantly beside her bed, bade him again and again look well
at her, so that, young as he was, he might remember her all his life and
never forget her in his prayers. The poor child would burst into tears
and promise not only to remember her but also to avenge her when he was
a man. At these words the marquise gently reproved him, telling him that
all vengeance belonged to the king and to God, and that all cares of the
kind must be left to those two great rulers of heaven and of earth.