The answer to this letter did not have to be waited for:  it was such as Derues expected; the lad accepted joyfully.  The answer was, for the murderer, an arranged plea of defence, a proof which, in a given case, might link the present with the past.

On the morning of February 11th, Shrove Tuesday, he went to fetch the young de Lamotte from his school, telling the master that he was desired by the youth’s mother to conduct him to Versailles.  But, instead, he took him to his own house, saying that he had a letter from Madame de Lamotte asking them not to come till the next day; so they started on Ash Wednesday, Edouard having breakfasted on chocolate.  Arrived at Versailles, they stopped at the Fleur-de-lys inn, but there the sickness which the boy had complained of during the journey became very serious, and the innkeeper, having young children, and believing that he recognised symptoms of smallpox, which just then was ravaging Versailles, refused to receive them, saying he had no vacant room.  This might have disconcerted anyone but Derues, but his audacity, activity, and resource seemed to increase with each fresh obstacle.  Leaving Edouard in a room on the ground floor which had no communication with the rest of the inn, he went at once to look for lodgings, and hastily explored the town.  After a fruitless search, he found at last, at the junction of the rue Saint-Honore with that of the Orangerie, a cooper named Martin, who had a furnished room to spare.  This he hired at thirty sous per day for himself and his nephew, who had been taken suddenly ill, under the name of Beaupre.  To avoid being questioned later, he informed the cooper in a few words that he was a doctor; that he had come to Versailles in order to place his nephew in one of the offices of the town; that in a few days the latter’s mother would arrive to join him in seeing and making application to influential persons about the court, to whom he had letters of introduction.  As soon as he had delivered this fable with all the appearance of truth with which he knew so well how to disguise his falsehoods, he went back to the young de Lamotte, who was already so exhausted that he was hardly able to drag himself as far as the cooper’s house.  He fainted on arrival, and was carried into the hired room, where Derues begged to be left alone with him, and only asked for certain beverages which he told the people how to prepare.

Whether it was that the strength of youth fought against the poison, or that Derues took pleasure in watching the sufferings of his victim, the agony of the poor lad was prolonged until the fourth day.  The sickness continuing incessantly, he sent the cooper’s wife for a medicine which he prepared and administered himself.  It produced terrible pain, and Edouard’s cries brought the cooper and his wife upstairs.  They represented to Derues that he ought to call in a doctor and consult with him, but he refused decidedly, saying that a doctor hastily fetched might prove to be an ignorant person with whom he could not agree, and that he could not allow one so dear to him to be prescribed for and nursed by anyone but himself.