de Caus, the supposed original inventor of the steam-engine, is so
instructive that we must give a brief account of it.

In 1834 "there appeared in the Musee des Familles a letter from the
celebrated Marion Delorme, supposed to have been written on the 3d
February, 1641, to her lover Cinq-Mars." In this letter it is stated
that De Caus came four years ago [1637] from Normandy, to inform the
King concerning a marvellous invention which he had made, being nothing
less than the application of steam to the propulsion of carriages. "The
Cardinal [Richelieu] dismissed this fool without giving him a hearing."
But De Caus, nowise discouraged, followed close upon the autocrat's
heels wherever he went, and so teased him, that the Cardinal, out of
patience, sent him off to a madhouse, where he passed the remainder
of his days behind a grated window, proclaiming his invention to the
passengers in the street, and calling upon them to release him. Marion
gives a graphic account of her visit, accompanied by the famous Lord
Worcester, to the asylum at Bicetre, where they saw De Caus at his
window; and Worcester, in whose mind the conception of the steam-engine
was already taking shape, informed her that the raving prisoner was
not a madman, but a genius. A great stir was made by this letter. The
anecdote was copied into standard works, and represented in engravings.
Yet it was a complete hoax. De Caus was not only never confined in a
madhouse, but he was architect to Louis XIII. up to the time of his
death, in 1630, just eleven years BEFORE Marion Delorme was said to have
seen him at his grated window!

"On tracing this hoax to its source," says Mr. Delepierre, "we find
that M. Henri Berthoud, a literary man of some repute, and a constant
contributor to the Musee des Familles, confesses that the letter
attributed to Marion was in fact written by himself. The editor of this
journal had requested Gavarni to furnish him with a drawing for a tale
in which a madman was introduced looking through the bars of his cell.
The drawing was executed and engraved, but arrived too late; and the
tale, which could not wait, appeared without the illustration. However,
as the wood-engraving was effective, and, moreover, was paid for, the
editor was unwilling that it should be useless. Berthoud was, therefore,
commissioned to look for a subject and to invent a story to which the
engraving might be applied. Strangely enough, the world refused to
believe