Lecazes, meanwhile, amazed at the swiftness with which the trunk had fallen, approached Louis Pierre, who was a prisoner in one of the lower apartments, and whispered, as he drew him aside:
"Did you do this for money? Have you accomplices"
The Carbonaro cast upon the Minister a look of scorn, saying:
"Do men do these things for money? I am the avenger of my country and of Naundorff and his daughter. The race perishes. There will be no heir."
"Fool," replied the Minister, gloating over that somber soul's discomfiture, "the Princess is promised an heir."
Louis Pierre turned pale as the futility of the crime overwhelmed him.
"No matter," said he. "I did the deed and I would repeat it a thousand times."
Again he assumed the stoical air and supreme command of self which characterized him in such a high degree both during his trial and upon the scaffold.
The whispered dialogue between Lecazes and the assassin was remarked by the other occupants in the apartment and became the basis of the charge of complicity brought against the Baron, and was the cause of his removal and fall. It was said of him that:
"He slipped in the puddle of blood and fell."