, as he pretended to be half-witted or an
idiot, he was thrown half naked into a dungeon. His allowance of dry
bread diminished day by day, at which he complained, and it was decided
to make him undergo this grim ordeal.

Under the pressure of hunger and thirst, the prisoner at length made a
confession, and mentioned a bookseller of the Quartier Latin, who, under
the Fronde, had made his shop a meeting-place for rebels.

The bookseller, having been put in the Bastille, and upon the same diet
as his salesman, stated the name of the Dutch printer who had published
the pamphlet. They sought to extract more from him, and reduced his diet
with such severity that he disclosed the entire secret.

This bookseller, used to a good square meal at home, found it impossible
to tolerate the Bastille fare much longer. Bound hand and foot, at his
final cross-examination he confessed that the work had emanated from the
Cardinal de Retz, or certain of his party.

He was condemned to three years' imprisonment, and was obliged to sell
his shop and retire to the provinces.

I once heard M. de Louvois tell this tale, and use it as a means of
silencing those who regretted the absence of the exiled
Cardinal-archbishop.

As to the libellous pamphlet itself, the clumsy nature of it was only too
plain, for the King is no more like Mazarin than he is like the King of
Ethiopia. On the contrary, one can easily distinguish in the general
effect of his features a very close resemblance to King Louis XIII.

The libellous pamphlet stated that, on the occasion of the Infanta's
first confinement, twins were born, and that the prettier of the two had
been adopted, another blunder, this, of the grossest kind. A book of
this sort could deceive only the working class and the Parisian lower
orders, for folk about the Court, and even the bourgeoisie, know that it
is impossible for a queen to be brought to bed in secret. Unfortunately
for her, she has to comply with the most embarrassing rules of etiquette.
She has to bear her final birth-pangs under an open canopy, surrounded at
no great distance by all the princes of the blood; they are summoned
thither, and they have this right so as to prevent all frauds,
subterfuges, or impositions.

When the King found the seditious book in question, the Queen, his
mother, was ill and in pain; every possible precaution was taken to
prevent her from hearing the news, and the lieutenant-general of police,
havi