For some time past I had noticed that d’Alquier-Caze’s communications were neither so frequent nor so hopeful as they had been. Having mentioned this to him, he answered me by a lengthy enumeration of his supposed services. Another time he wrote that he was going to Nancy to question an old person he had been told of from whose evidence he expected the happiest results.
On another occasion he gave me an account of a conversation he professed to have had with a Minister of his most Christian Majesty.
“The first attempt was to frighten me,” he said; “but my determined aspect speedily destroyed all hope of succeeding in that. Then discouragement was tried; I made a suitable reply. Every possible way of trying to make me speak was used; but I steadily kept myself within the limits of a wise discretion. ‘What do you want?’ I was asked. My answer was yours: ‘All or nothing.’ ‘You’ll ruin yourself.’ ‘I shall do my duty.’ ‘You had better give up such a chimerical business.’ ‘I possess the confidence of milady, and I cannot betray it.’ ‘You will never succeed.’ ‘We shall.’ ‘Every one regards your claims with supreme contempt.’ ‘That’s impossible!’ ‘They can’t conceive on what you found them.’ ‘Do you allow that the exchange took place?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Then all that I have to do now is to prove the identity of its perpetrator with the too notorious Orleans.’ ‘Prove even its likelihood, if you can.’ ‘I shall prove its reality.’ ‘How?’ ‘We shall have writings and witnesses.’ ‘Well, we shall always be pleased to see you.’ ‘I shall come again.’ etc.”
Far from satisfied with all this talk, I constantly complained that, since the verdict given at Faenza, I had spent a great deal of money and was still about where I was then. To combat my reproaches he conceived the idea of writing me the extraordinary letter here given—
“You are angry with me, dear milady, are you not? You are both right and wrong. You are right, because in your situation nothing could be more natural than impatience; and wrong, because I am to be excused on account of all the trouble I am taking.
“There is a question I am about to submit to you, and to which you must give a definite answer.
“Certain proposals, in the form of advice, have been made to me in your interest. Would you be disposed—yes or no—to come to an arrangement if its terms were considerable pecuniary advantages to yourself? Please let me know at once. I won’t say more to-day, but that everything is going on well. Believe me, etc.”
What more was wanted to open my eyes and let me clearly see the crafty duplicity of my ill-advised rascal, who up to now had so piqued himself on the nobility of his sentiments?
Knowing in Paris a certain M. Sparifico, I begged him to tell me of some lawyer famous for his ability and still more for his integrity.
First he mentioned several, who, he said, dared not undertake my defence; and then he named others whom I knew to be devoted to my mortal enemy.