THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS

Towards the end of the year 1665, on a fine autumn evening, there was a considerable crowd assembled on the Pont-Neuf where it makes a turn down to the rue Dauphine.  The object of this crowd and the centre of attraction was a closely shut, carriage.  A police official was trying to force open the door, and two out of the four sergeants who were with him were holding the horses back and the other two stopping the driver, who paid no attention to their commands, but only endeavoured to urge his horses to a gallop.  The struggle had been going on same time, when suddenly one of the doors violently pushed open, and a young officer in the uniform of a cavalry captain jumped down, shutting the door as he did so though not too quickly for the nearest spectators to perceive a woman sitting at the back of the carriage.  She was wrapped in cloak and veil, and judging by the precautions she, had taken to hide her face from every eye, she must have had her reasons for avoiding recognition.

“Sir,” said the young man, addressing the officer with a haughty air, “I presume, till I find myself mistaken, that your business is with me alone; so I will ask you to inform me what powers you may have for thus stopping my coach; also, since I have alighted, I desire you to give your men orders to let the vehicle go on.”

“First of all,” replied the man, by no means intimidated by these lordly airs, but signing to his men that they must not release the coach or the horses, “be so good as to answer my questions.”

“I am attending,” said the young man, controlling his agitation by a visible effort.

“Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix?”

“I am he.”

“Captain of the Tracy, regiment?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then I arrest you in the king’s name.”

“What powers have you?”

“This warrant.”

Sainte-Croix cast a rapid glance at the paper, and instantly recognised the signature of the minister of police:  he then apparently confined his attention to the woman who was still in the carriage; then he returned to his first question.

“This is all very well, sir,” he said to the officer, “but this warrant contains no other name than mine, and so you have no right to expose thus to the public gaze the lady with whom I was travelling when you arrested me.  I must beg of you to order your assistants to allow this carriage to drive on; then take me where you please, for I am ready to go with you.”

To the officer this request seemed a just one:  he signed to his men to let the driver and the horses go on; and, they, who had waited only for this, lost no time in breaking through the crowd, which melted away before them; thus the woman escaped for whose safety the prisoner seemed so much concerned.