It was not Madame’s endive-water that D’Effial had poisoned; that report must have been a mere invention, for other persons might have tasted it had Madame alone drank from her own glass.  A valet de chambre who was with Madame, and who afterwards was in my service (he is dead now), told me that in the morning, while Monsieur and Madame were at Mass, D’Effial went to the sideboard and, taking the Queen’s cup, rubbed the inside of it with a paper.  The valet said to him, “Monsieur, what do you do in this room, and why do you touch Madame’s cup?” He answered, “I am dying with thirst; I wanted something to drink, and the cup being dirty, I was wiping it with some paper.”  In the afternoon Madame asked for some endive-water; but no sooner had she swallowed it than she exclaimed she was poisoned.  The persons present drank some of the same water, but not the same that was in the cup, for which reason they were not inconvenienced by it.  It was found necessary to carry Madame to bed.  She grew worse, and at two o’clock in the morning she died in great pain.  When the cup was sought for it had disappeared, and was not found until long after.  It seems it had been necessary to pass it through the fire before it could be cleaned.

A report prevailed at St. Cloud for several years that the ghost of the late Madame appeared near a fountain where she had been accustomed to sit during the great heats, for it was a very cool spot.  One evening a servant of the Marquis de Clerambault, having gone thither to draw water from the fountain, saw something white sitting there without a head.  The phantom immediately arose to double its height.  The poor servant fled in great terror, and said when he entered the house that he had seen Madame.  He fell sick and died.  Then the captain of the Chateau, thinking there was something hidden beneath this affair, went to the fountain some days afterwards, and, seeing the phantom, he threatened it with a sound drubbing if it did not declare what it was.

The phantom immediately said, “Ah, M. de Lastera, do me no harm; I am poor old Philipinette.”

This was an old woman in the village, seventy-seven years old, who had lost her teeth, had blear eyes, a great mouth and large nose; in short, was a very hideous figure.  They were going to take her to prison, but I interceded for her.  When she came to thank me I asked her what fancy it was that had induced her to go about playing the ghost instead of sleeping.

She laughed and said, “I cannot much repent what I have done.  At my time of life one sleeps little; but one wants something to amuse one’s mind.  In all the sports of my youth nothing diverted me so much as to play the ghost.  I was very sure that if I could not frighten folks with my white dress I could do so with my ugly face.  The cowards made so many grimaces when they saw it that I was ready to die with laughing.  This nightly amusement repaid me for the trouble of carrying a pannier by day.”