e asked questions of the doctors but could learn nothing: this malady
was unknown to them, and defied all the resources of their art. A
fortnight later she returned. Some of the sick people were dead, others
still alive, but desperately ill; living skeletons, all that seemed left
of them was sight, speech, and breath. At the end of two months they
were all dead, and the physicians had been as much at a loss over the
post-mortems as over the treatment of the dying.

Experiments of this kind were reassuring; so Lachaussee had orders to
carry out his instructions. One day the civil lieutenant rang his bell,
and Lachaussee, who served the councillor, as we said before, came up for
orders. He found the lieutenant at work with his secretary, Couste what
he wanted was a glass of wine and water. In a moment Lachaussee brought
it in. The lieutenant put the glass to his lips, but at the first sip
pushed it away, crying, "What have you brought, you wretch? I believe
you want to poison me." Then handing the glass to his secretary, he
added, "Look at it, Couste: what is this stuff?" The secretary put a few
drops into a coffee-spoon, lifting it to his nose and then to his mouth:
the drink had the smell and taste of vitriol. Meanwhile Lachaussee went
up to the secretary and told him he knew what it must be: one of the
councillor's valets had taken a dose of medicine that morning, and
without noticing he must have brought the very glass his companion had
used. Saying this, he took the glass from the secretary's hand, put it
to his lips, pretending to taste it himself, and then said he had no
doubt it was so, for he recognised the smell. He then threw the wine
into the fireplace.

As the lieutenant had not drunk enough to be upset by it, he soon forgot
this incident and the suspicions that had been aroused at the moment in
his mind. Sainte-Croix and the marquise perceived that they had made a
false step, and at the risk of involving several people in their plan for
vengeance, they decided on the employment of other means. Three months
passed without any favourable occasion presenting itself; at last, on one
of the early days of April 1670, the lieutenant took his brother to his
country place, Villequoy, in Beauce, to spend the Easter vacation.
Lachaussee was with his master, and received his instructions at the
moment of departure.

The day after they arrived in the country there was a pigeon-pie for
dinner: seven person