I immediately communicated this letter to the duc d’Aiguillon, who convoked a fresh meeting of the persons who had been present on the preceding day. It was at first deliberated whether or not to arrest the whole body of Jesuits then in Paris, but this, although the advice of M. d’Aiguillon, was by no means approved of by the chancellor. M. de Sartines and M. de la Vrillière were for carrying the idea into execution, but the objections of M. de Maupeou were too powerful to be overruled, and the scheme was for the present abandoned. The chancellor maintained that the other conspirators, warned of their own, danger by the seizure of their friends, would either escape the vengeance of the laws by flight or by close confinement in their houses; he greatly dreaded as it was, that his foes, the parliamentarians, would avoid the punishment he longed to inflict on them. Indeed, in his estimation, it seemed as though every measure would be anticipated so long as the female, who seemed so intimately acquainted with their design, was at liberty; and this last opinion was unanimously concurred in.
All the delays greatly irritated me, and rendered my impatience to witness the termination of the affair greater than it had ever been. The stranger had promised to make her appearance on the following day; it passed away, however, without my hearing anything of her. On the day following she came; I immediately sent to apprize M. d’Aiguillon, who, with M. de la Vrillière and the chancellor, entered my apartments ere the lady had had time to commence the subject upon which she was there to speak. This unexpected appearance did not seem to disconcert her in the least, nor did her sang-froid and ordinary assurance in any degree fail her. She reproached me for having intrusted the secret to so many persons, but her reproof was uttered without bitterness, and merely as if she feared lest my indiscretion might compromise our safety. She was overwhelmed with questions, and the chancellor interrogated her with the keenest curiosity; but to all the inquiries put to her she replied with a readiness and candour which surprised the whole party. She was desired to give the names of those engaged in the conspiracy, as well as of him who first informed her of it. She answered that her own name was Lorimer, that she was a widow living upon her own property. As for the man, her informant, he was a Swiss, named Cabert, of about thirty years of age, and had long been her intimate friend: however, the embarrassed tone with which she pronounced these last words left room for the suspicion, that he had been something dearer to her than a friend. She was then urged to give up the names of the four parliamentarians, but she protested that she had not yet been able to prevail on Cabert to confide them to her, that she was compelled to use the utmost circumspection in her attempts at discovering the facts already disclosed, but flattered herself she should yet succeed in gaining a full and unreserved disclosure. M. de Maupeou encouraged her, by every possible argument, to neglect no means of arriving at so important a discovery.
The examination over, and the 100,000 francs she had demanded given to her, she retired, but followed at a distance by a number of spies, who were commissioned to watch her slightest movement.
Cabert, the Swiss, was arrested in a furnished lodging he occupied in rue Saint Roch, and sent without delay to Versailles, where, as before, M. d’Aiguillon with his two colleagues waited in my study to receive and question the prisoner. Cabert was a young and handsome man, whose countenance bore evident marks of a dissolute and profligate life. He confessed, without any difficulty, that his only means of gaining a livelihood were derived from the generosity of a female friend, but when he was pressed upon the subject of the conspiracy, he no longer replied with the same candour, but merely answered in short and impatient negatives the many questions put to him, accompanied with fervent protestations of innocence; adding, that implacable enemies had fabricated the whole story, only that they might have an opportunity of wreaking their vengeance, by implicating him in it.
“Accuse not your enemies,” cried I, for the first time mingling in the conversation, “but rather blame your benefactress; it is madame Lorimer who has denounced you, and far from intending to harm you by so doing, she purposes dividing with you the 100,000 livres which are to reward her disclosures.”
I easily found, by the frowning looks directed towards me by the three gentlemen present, that I had been guilty of great imprudence in saying so much; but Cabert, wringing his hands, uttered, with the most despairing accent,
“I am lost! and most horribly has the unfortunate woman avenged herself.”
“What would you insinuate?”
“That I am the victim of an enraged woman,” replied he.
He afterwards explained, that he had been the lover of madame Lorimer, but had become wearied of her, and left her in consequence; that she had violently resented this conduct; and, after having in vain sought to move him by prayers and supplications, had tried the most horrible threats and menaces. “I ought not indeed,” continued he, “to have despised these threats, for well I knew the fiendlike malice of the wretched creature, and dearly do I pay for my imprudence, by falling into the pit she has dug for me.”