The house which Derues occupied stood opposite the rue des Menoriers, and was pulled down quite lately to make way for the rue Rambuteau.  In 1776 it was one of the finest houses of the rue Beaubourg, and it required a certain income to be able to live there, the rents being tolerably high.  A large arched doorway gave admittance to a passage, lighted at the other end by a small court, on the far side of which was the shop into which Madame de Lamotte had been taken on the occasion of the accident.  The house staircase was to the right of the passage; and the Derues’ dwelling on the entresol.  The first room, lighted by a window looking into the court, was used as a dining room, and led into a simply furnished sitting-room, such as was generally found among the bourgeois and tradespeople of this period.  To the right of the sitting-room was a large closet, which could serve as a small study or could hold a bed; to the left was a door opening into the Derues’ bedroom, which had been prepared for Madame de Lamotte.  Madame Derues would occupy one of the two beds which stood in the alcove.  Derues had a bed made up in the sitting-room, and Edouard was accommodated in the little study.

Nothing particular happened during the first few days which followed the Lamottes’ arrival.  They had not come to Paris only on account of the Buisson-Souef affairs.  Edouard was nearly sixteen, and after much hesitation his parents had decided on placing him in some school where his hitherto neglected education might receive more attention.  Derues undertook to find a capable tutor, in whose house the boy would be brought up in the religious feeling which the cure of Buisson and his own exhortations had already tended to develop.  These proceedings, added to Madame de Lamotte’s endeavours to collect various sums due to her husband, took some time.  Perhaps, when on the point of executing a terrible crime, Derues tried to postpone the fatal moment, although, considering his character, this seems unlikely, for one cannot do him the honour of crediting him with a single moment of remorse, doubt, or pity.  Far from it, it appears from all the information which can be gathered, that Derues, faithful to his own traditions, was simply experimenting on his unfortunate guests, for no sooner were they in his house than both began to complain of constant nausea, which they had never suffered from before.  While he thus ascertained the strength of their constitution, he was able, knowing the cause of the malady, to give them relief, so that Madame de Lamotte, although she grew daily weaker, had so much confidence in him as to think it unnecessary to call in a doctor.  Fearing to alarm her husband, she never mentioned her sufferings, and her letters only spoke of the care and kind attention which she received.