d so that no knife or fork should be put on the
table, or any instrument with which she could wound or kill herself. The
marquise, as she put her glass to her mouth as though to drink, broke a
little bit off with her teeth; but the archer saw it in time, and forced
her to put it out on her plate. Then she promised him, if he would save
her, that she would make his fortune. He asked what he would have to do
for that. She proposed that he should cut Desgrais' throat; but he
refused, saying that he was at her service in any other way. So she
asked him for pen and paper, and wrote this letter:

"DEAR THERIA,--I am in the hands of Desgrais, who is taking me by road
from Liege to Paris. Come quickly and save me."

Antoine Barbier took the letter, promising to deliver it at the right
address; but he gave it to Desgrais instead. The next day, finding that
this letter had not been pressing enough, she wrote him another, saying
that the escort was only eight men, who could be easily overcome by four
or five determined assailants, and she counted on him to strike this bald
stroke. But, uneasy when she got no answer and no result from her
letters, she despatched a third missive to Theria. In this she implored
him by his own salvation, if he were not strong enough to attack her
escort and save her, at least to kill two of the four horses by which she
was conveyed, and to profit by the moment of confusion to seize the chest
and throw it into the fire; otherwise, she declared, she was lost.
Though Theria received none of these letters, which were one by one
handed over by Barbier to Desgrais, he all the same did go to Maestricht,
where the marquise was to pass, of his own accord. There he tried to
bribe the archers, offering much as 10,000 livres, but they were
incorruptible. At Rocroy the cortege met M. Palluau, the councillor,
whom the Parliament had sent after the prisoner, that he might put
questions to her at a time when she least expected them, and so would not
have prepared her answers. Desgrais told him all that had passed, and
specially called his attention to the famous box, the object of so much
anxiety and so many eager instructions. M. de Palluau opened it, and
found among other things a paper headed "My Confession." This confession
was a proof that the guilty feel great need of discovering their crimes
either to mankind or to a merciful God. Sainte-Croix, we know, had made a
confession that was burnt, and her