It was deemed impossible
to allow this man to go at large; accordingly M. de la Vrilliere
issued a
, which sent him that night to seek a
lodging in the Bastille. It was afterwards deemed advisable to
put him to the torture, but the agonies of the rack wrung from him
no deviation from, or contradiction of, what he had previously alleged.
The affair had now become mysterious and inexplicable. However,
a speedy termination was most imperatively called for; if it
were permitted to become generally known, it could not fail of
reaching the ears of the king, whose health was daily declining;
and M. de Quesnay had assured us, that in his present languid
state, the shock produced by news so alarming, might cause his
instantaneous death.
Whilst we remained in uncertainty as to our mode of proceeding
in the business, Cabert, the Swiss, three days after his admission
into the Bastille, expired in the most violent convulsions. His
body was opened, but no trace of poison could be discovered: our
suspicions were however awakened, and what followed confirmed them.
Madame Lorimer was arrested. She protested that she had been
actuated by no feelings of enmity against her unfortunate lover,
whom she had certainly reproached for having expended the money
she furnished him with in the society of other females, and to the
anger which arose between herself and Cabert on the occasion
could she alone ascribe his infamous calumnies respecting her;
that, for her own part, she had never ceased to love him, and, as
far as she knew, that feeling was reciprocal; and, in betraying
the conspiracy, her principal desire, next to the anxious hope of
preserving the king, was to make the fortune of Cabert.
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