‘Then, Madame, you are mine at last!’
them, they rushed into the room, and the Marchioness found herself surrounded by the archers of the royal guard.
In an instant Marie perceived the trap that had been laid for her.
‘Miscreant!’ she cried, as she rushed at Desgrais in her rage. ‘You have not yet got your prey within your fangs. I am in a country in which your authority goes for nought. You cannot arrest me.’
‘Once more, you must pardon me, Madame la Marquise,’ replied Desgrais, as he drew a paper from his belt. ‘The council of this town has authorised your extradition, upon a letter from the King. You are as much our prisoner as though we had arrested you in your own hôtel in Paris.’
As quick as lightning, upon comprehending the meaning of the words, Marie drew a poniard from its sheath at the side of one of the guards, and endeavoured to plunge it into her breast. But her hand was arrested by another of the party, and the weapon wrested from her. Baffled in this intention, and in an agony of powerless rage, she endeavoured to speak, but her mouth refused utterance to the words, and with a terrible cry she fell senseless upon the ground.
Confiding her to the care of one of his men, and ordering the others to keep guard without, Desgrais now returned to the convent in search of further evidence, furnished with proper authority to bring away whatever he could find. But Marie had little with her. A small case of letters and papers was, however, discovered under her pillow, and of this Desgrais immediately took possession. It contained most important evidence against her—no less than a confession of the past actions of her life.
In the meantime Marie gradually recovered; but it was some time before she came completely to herself, from a succession of fainting-fits supervening one upon another as the least degree of consciousness returned, and the dreadful reality of her position broke in upon her. The rough soldier with whom she had been left, unused to guard such prisoners, and somewhat struck with her beauty and evidently superior position in life, had been in great confusion of ideas as to what he ought to do, and had at last called one of the females attached to the establishment to the aid of the Marchioness. By some of those trifling remedies which women only appear to have at command for their own sex, in the like emergencies, Marie was gradually brought round, and then the female departed, and she was left alone with her guard—pale and trembling, resembling a corpse, but for the still bright eye, and the convulsive quivering of every nerve in her delicate frame. She uttered not a syllable, but remained in a corner of the room, on a rude settle to which she had been carried by the soldiers; and the sentinel’s heavy tread, as he paced backwards and forwards before the door of the apartment, was the only sound that broke the dreary stillness.
In less than an hour Desgrais returned. He came accompanied by a voiture de poste, having directly after the capture of his prisoner ordered it to be in waiting, as well as despatched a courier with commands to have everything in readiness along the road for fresh relays. He now entered the room, and requested Marie to accompany him into the carriage.
‘You have played a sorry part, monsieur, in this drama,’ she said to him, ‘and you have triumphed: do not think I am stooping to you if I make one request: could you see how deeply I feel myself to be degraded in asking this favour, you—even you—might pity me and grant it. You have played with the name of a person this evening, and won your stake off it. Will you allow me to write to him?’