My brother retired to his apartment, and, considering his leave as granted, gave orders to his domestics to prepare to set off the next morning for St. Germain, where he should hunt the stag for a few days.  He directed the grand huntsman to be ready with the hounds, and retired to rest, thinking to withdraw awhile from the intrigues of the Court, and amuse himself with the sports of the field.  M. de Villequier, agreeably to the command he had received from the Queen my mother, asked for leave, and obtained it.  The King, however, staying in his closet, like Rehoboam, with his council of five or six young men, they suggested suspicions in his mind respecting my brother’s departure from Court.  In short, they worked upon his fears and apprehensions so greatly, that he took one of the most rash and inconsiderate steps that was ever decided upon in our time; which was to put my brother and all his principal servants under an arrest.  This measure was executed with as much indiscretion as it had been resolved upon.  The King, under this agitation of mind, late as it was, hastened to the Queen my mother, and seemed as if there was a general alarm and the enemy at the gates, for he exclaimed on seeing her:  “How could you, Madame, think of asking me to let my brother go hence?  Do you not perceive how dangerous his going will prove to my kingdom?  Depend upon it that this hunting is merely a pretence to cover some treacherous design.  I am going to put him and his people under an arrest, and have his papers examined.  I am sure we shall make some great discoveries.”

At the time he said this he had with him the Sieur de Cosse, captain of the guard, and a number of Scottish archers.  The Queen my mother, fearing, from the King’s haste and trepidation, that some mischief might happen to my brother, begged to go with him.  Accordingly, undressed as she was, wrapping herself up in a night-gown, she followed the King to my brother’s bedchamber.  The King knocked at the door with great violence, ordering it to be immediately opened, for that he was there himself.  My brother started up in his bed, awakened by the noise, and, knowing that he had done nothing that he need fear, ordered Cange, his valet de chambre, to open the door.  The King entered in a great rage, and asked him when he would have done plotting against him.  “But I will show you,” said he, “what it is to plot against your sovereign.”  Hereupon he ordered the archers to take away all the trunks, and turn the valets de chambre out of the room.  He searched my brother’s bed himself, to see if he could find any papers concealed in it.  My brother had that evening received a letter from Madame de Sauves, which he kept in his hand, unwilling that it should be seen.  The King endeavoured to force it from him.  He refused to part with it, and earnestly entreated the King would not insist upon seeing it.  This only excited the King’s anxiety the more to have it in his possession, as he