M. de Sartines caused the private papers of the suspected parties to be opened during their owners' absence, without discovering anything which could compromise their character. I am speaking, however, of the fathers Corbin, Berthier, and Cerulti, for all our efforts could not trace father Dumas throughout all Paris. Nor was the innocence of the parliamentarians less evident; they vented their hatred against the ministry, and particularly against M. de Maupeou, in pamphlets, couplets, and epigrams, both in French and Latin, but they had no idea of conspiracies or plots.
And thus terminated an affair, which had caused so much alarm, and which continued for a considerable period to engage the attention of ministers. How was the mystery to be cleared up?
The poisoned orange-flower water, and the sudden deaths of the two prisoners, were facts difficult to reconcile with the no less undeniable innocence of the three accused Jesuits. The whole business was to me an incomprehensible mass of confusion, in which incidents the most horrible were mingled. At last we agreed that the best and only thing to be done was to consign the affair to oblivion; but there were circumstances which did not so easily depart from the recollection of my excellent friend, the marechale de Mirepoix. "My dear soul," said she to me one day, "have you ever inquired what became of the 100,000 livres given to madame Lorimer? she had no time to employ them in any way before her imprisonment in the Bastille. You ought to inquire into what hands they have fallen."I fully comprehended the drift of this question, which I put to M. de Sartines the first time I saw him.
"Bless me," exclaimed he, "you remind me that these 100,000livres have been lying in a drawer in my office. But I have such a terrible memory.""Happily," replied I, "I have a friend whose memory is as good as yours seems defective upon such occasions. It will not be wise to permit such a sum to remain uselessly in your office: at the same time I need not point out that you, by your conduct in the late affair, have by no means earned a right to them."He attempted to justify himself; but, interrupting him, I exclaimed, "My good friend, you have set up a reputation of your own creating and inventing; and well it is you took the office upon yourself for no one else would have done it for you; but you perceive how frail have been its foundations; for the moment you are compelled to stand upon your own resources you faint, and are easily overcome."He endeavoured to make a joke of the affair, but indeed it seemed to accord as ill with his natural inclination as did the restitution of the 100,000 livres. However, he brought them to me the following day, and as I was expecting the arrival of madame de Mirepoix, I placed them in a porcelain vase which stood upon my chimney-piece. Unfortunately for the marechale, comte Jean presented himself before she did. He came to inform me, that my husband (of whose quitting Toulouse I had forgotten to tell you)had again arrived in Paris. I did not disguise the vexation which this piece of intelligence excited in me.
"And wherefore has comte Guillaume returned to Paris?"inquired I, angrily.
"Because he is afraid."
"Afraid of what?" replied I.
"Of being murdered," answered comte Jean: "it is a most horrible and authentic story. Imagine to yourself the dangers of his situation: some brigands, who have a design on his life, have written him an anonymous billet, in which they protest they will certainly murder him, unless he deposits 50,000 livres in a certain place. You may suppose his terror; money he had none, neither was his credit sufficiently good to enable him to borrow any.