the accused woman
that a young proctor of the Parliament published a pamphlet in her
defence, asking for an immediate inquiry into the charges made against
her, charges that had in no instance been proved.

At last, in March, 1779, the Parliament decided to finish with the
affair. In secret session the judges met, examined once more all the
documents in the case, listened to a report on it from one of their
number, interrogated the now weary, hopeless prisoner, and, by a large
majority, condemned her to a punishment that fell only just short of
the supreme penalty. On the grounds that she had wilfully and knowingly
participated with her husband in the fraudulent attempt to become
possessed of the estate of Buisson-Souef, and was strongly suspected of
having participated with him in his greater crime, she was sentenced
to be publicly flogged, branded on both shoulders with the letter V
(Voleuse) and imprisoned for life in the Salpetriere Prison. On March
13, in front of the Conciergerie Mme. Derues underwent the first part of
her punishment. The same day her hair was cut short, and she was dressed
in the uniform of the prison in which she was to pass the remainder of
her days.

Paris had just begun to forget Mme. Derues when a temporary interest
was-excited in her fortunes by the astonishing intelligence that, two
months after her condemnation, she had been delivered of a child in her
new prison. Its fatherhood was never determined, and, taken from her
mother, the child died in fifteen days. Was its birth the result of some
passing love affair, or some act of drunken violence on the part of her
jailors, or had the wretched woman, fearing a sentence of death, made an
effort to avert once again the supreme penalty? History does not relate.

Ten years passed. A fellow prisoner in the Salpetriere described Mme.
Derues as "scheming, malicious, capable of anything." She was accused
of being violent, and of wishing to revenge herself by setting fire to
Paris. At length the Revolution broke on France, the Bastille fell, and
in that same year an old uncle of Mme. Derues, an ex-soldier of
Louis XV., living in Brittany, petitioned for his niece's release. He
protested her innocence, and begged that he might take her to his home
and restore her to her children. For three years he persisted vainly in
his efforts. At last, in the year 1792, it seemed as if they might be
crowned with success. He was told that the case would be re-exa