These remarks were noticed by others than those principally concerned.  One day a wine merchant came to propose to Baulieu the purchase of a pipe of Spanish wine, of which he gave him a sample bottle; in the evening he was taken violently ill.  They carried him to bed, where he writhed, uttering horrible cries.  One sole thought possessed him when his sufferings left him a lucid interval, and in his agony he repeated over and over again that he wished to implore pardon from the count and countess for a great injury which he had done them.  The people round about him told him that was a trifle, and that he ought not to let it embitter his last moments, but he begged so piteously that he got them to promise that they should be sent for.

The count thought it was some trifling irregularity, some misappropriation in the house accounts; and fearing to hasten the death of the sufferer by the shame of the confession of a fault, he sent word that he heartily forgave him, that he might die tranquil, and refused to see him.  Baulieu expired, taking his secret with him.  This happened in 1648.

The child was then seven years old.  His charming manners grew with his age, and the count and countess felt their love for him increase.  They caused him to be taught dancing and fencing, put him into breeches and hose, and a page’s suit of their livery, in which capacity he served them.  The marquis turned his attack to this quarter.  He was doubtless preparing some plot as criminal as the preceding, when justice overtook him for some other great crimes of which he had been guilty.  He was arrested one day in the street when conversing with one of the Saint-Geran footmen, and taken to the Conciergerie of the Palace of Justice.

Whether owing to these occurrences, or to grounds for suspicion before mentioned, certain reports spread in the Bourbonnais embodying some of the real facts; portions of them reached the ears of the count and countess, but they had only the effect of renewing their grief without furnishing a clue to the truth.

Meanwhile, the count went to take the waters at Vichy.  The countess and Madame de Bouille followed him, and there they chanced to encounter Louise Goillard, the midwife.  This woman renewed her acquaintance with the house, and in particular often visited the Marchioness de Bouille.  One day the countess, unexpectedly entering the marchioness’s room, found them both conversing in an undertone.  They stopped talking immediately, and appeared disconcerted.

The countess noticed this without attaching any importance to it, and asked the subject of their conversation.

“Oh, nothing,” said the marchioness.

“But what is it?” insisted the countess, seeing that she blushed.

The marchioness, no longer able to evade the question, and feeling her difficulties increase, replied—­

“Dame Louise is praising my brother for bearing no ill-will to her.”