, given by the Cardinal de Bouillon, pacified the
family of the unfortunate pastry-cook, who at first had given notice
of the affair to the police, but who soon afterwards withdrew their
complaint, and gave out that they had taken action too hastily on the
strength of a story told in joke, and that further inquiries showed
their relative to have died of an apoplectic stroke.

Thanks--to this declaration, which exculpated the Chevalier de Bouillon
in the eyes of the king, he was allowed, after travelling for two years
in Italy and in Germany, to return undisturbed to France.

Thus ends, not the family of Ganges, but the commotion which the family
made in the world. From time to time, indeed, the playwright or the
novelist calls up the pale and bloodstained figure of the marquise to
appear either on the stage or in a book; but the evocation almost always
ceases at her, and many persons who have written about the mother do not
even know what became of the children. Our intention has been to fill
this gap; that is why we have tried to tell what our predecessors left
out, and try offer to our readers what the stage--and often the actual
world--offers; comedy after melodrama.