er of 300 livres
owed to him by the late M. d'Aubray, councillor; the said transfer
made by him at Laserre, together with three receipts from his master of
apprenticeship, 100 livres each: these moneys and papers he claims."

To Lachaussee the reply was given that he must wait till the day when
the seals were broken, and then if all was as he said, his property
would be returned.

But Lachaussee was not the only person who was agitated about the death
of Sainte-Croix. The marquise, who was familiar with all the secrets of
this fatal closet, had hurried to the commissary as soon as she heard
of the event, and although it was ten o'clock at night had demanded to
speak with him. But he had replied by his head clerk, Pierre Frater,
that he was in bed; the marquise insisted, begging them to rouse him up,
for she wanted a box that she could not allow to have opened. The clerk
then went up to the Sieur Picard's bedroom, but came back saying that
what the marquise demanded was for the time being an impossibility, for
the commissary was asleep. She saw that it was idle to insist, and went
away, saying that she should send a man the next morning to fetch the
box. In the morning the man came, offering fifty Louis to the commissary
on behalf of the marquise, if he would give her the box. But he replied
that the box was in the sealed room, that it would have to be opened,
and that if the objects claimed by the marquise were really hers, they
would be safely handed over to her. This reply struck the marquise like
a thunderbolt. There was no time to be lost: hastily she removed from
the rue Neuve-Saint-Paul, where her town house was, to Picpus, her
country place. Thence she posted the same evening to Liege, arriving the
next morning, and retired to a convent.

The seals had been set on the 31st of July 1672, and they were taken
off on the 8th of August following. Just as they set to work a lawyer
charged with full powers of acting for the marquise, appeared and put
in the following statement: "Alexandre Delamarre, lawyer acting for the
Marquise de Brinvilliers, has come forward, and declares that if in the
box claimed by his client there is found a promise signed by her for
the sum of 30,000 livres, it is a paper taken from her by fraud, against
which, in case of her signature being verified, she intends to lodge an
appeal for nullification." This formality over, they proceeded to open
Sainte-Croix's closet: the key was handed to th