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. She was confined in the Bastille, but she did not long
remain within its walls; for at the end of a fortnight she died of an
inflammatory disease. Her death was marked by no convulsions, but the
traces of poison were evident.

These two violent deaths occurring so immediately one after another (as
not the slightest doubt existed that Cabert had likewise died of poison)
threw the ministers into a sad state of perplexity. But to whom could
they impute the double crime unless to some accomplice, who dreaded what
the unhappy prisoners might be tempted to reveal. Yet the conduct of
the Jesuitical priests stated by madame Lorimer to be the principal
ring-leaders in the plot, although exposed to the most rigorous
scrutiny, offered not the slightest grounds for suspicion. Neither did
their letters (which were all intercepted at the various post-houses)
give any indication of a treasonable correspondence.

M. de Sartines caused the private papers of the suspected parties to be
opened during their owners' absence, with