A year after Brusson's departure there appeared a public proclamation, signed by Harloy de Chauvalon, Archbishop of Paris, and by the parliamentary advocate, Pierre Arnaud d'Andilly, which ran to the effect that a penitent sinner had, under the seal of confession, handed over to the Church a large and valuable store of jewels and gold ornaments which he had stolen. Everybody who up to the end of the year 1680 had lost ornaments by theft, particularly by a murderous attack in the public street, was to apply to D'Andilly, and then, if his description of the ornament which had been stolen from him tallied exactly with any of the pieces awaiting identification, and if further there existed no doubt as to the legitimacy of his claim, he should receive his property again. Many of those whose names stood on Cardillac's list as having been, not murdered, but merely stunned by a blow, gradually came one after the other to the parliamentary advocate, and received, to their no little amazement, their stolen property back again. The rest fell to the coffers of the Church of St. Eustace.
FOOTNOTES TO "MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDÉRI":
Footnote [1] Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701), a native of Normandy, went to Paris and became connected with the Hotel Rambouillet. Afterwards, on its being broken up by the troubles of the Fronde, she formed a literary circle of her own, their "Saturday gatherings" becoming celebrated. Mademoiselle de Scudéry wrote some vapid and tedious novels, amongst which were the Clélie (1656), an historical romance, to be mentioned presently in the text.]
Footnote [2] The well-known wife of Scarron, then the successor of Madame de Montespan in the favour of Louis XIV., and afterwards his wife.]
Footnote [3] A kind of mounted gensdarmes or police.]
Footnote [4] Supposed to have been arsenic.]
Footnote [5] These facts are all for the most part historically true.]
Footnote [6] Marie M. d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers, a notorious poisoner, executed July 16, 1676. Madame de Sévigné's Lettres contain interesting information on the events of this period. A special history of De Brinvillier's trial was also published in the same year, 1676.]
Footnote [7] An old servant of Sainte Croix's, whose real name was Jean Amelin.]
Footnote [8] Nicholas G. de la Reynie was born at Limoges in 1625; he acquired a sort of Judge Jeffreys' reputation by his cruelties and bloodthirstiness as president of the Chambre Ardente.]