“I draw this conclusion, my friends, that it be a good thing to advertise this story as much as possible, so that people may know, through all the papers, that we are looking for a book entitled The Treatise of the Needle. It may be fished out from the back shelves of some provincial library.”
The paragraph was drawn up forthwith; and Beautrelet set to work at once, without even waiting for it to produce a result. A first scent suggested itself: the murder was committed near Gaillon. He went there that same day. Certainly, he did not hope to reconstruct a crime perpetrated two hundred years ago. But, all the same, there are crimes that leave traces in the memories, in the traditions of a countryside. They are recorded in the local chronicles. One day, some provincial archaeologist, some lover of old legends, some student of the minor incidents of the life of the past makes them the subject of an article in a newspaper or of a communication to the academy of his departmental town.
Beautrelet saw three or four of these archaeologists. With one of them in particular, an old notary, he examined the prison records, the ledgers of the old bailiwicks and the parish registers. There was no entry referring to the murder of a captain of the guards in the seventeenth century.
He refused to be discouraged and continued his search in Paris, where the magistrate’s examination might have taken place. His efforts came to nothing.
But the thought of another track sent him off in a fresh direction. Was there no chance of finding out the name of that captain whose descendant served in the armies of the Republic and was quartered in the Temple during the imprisonment of the Royal family? By dint of patient working, he ended by making out a list in which two names at least presented an almost complete resemblance: M. de Larbeyrie, under Louis XIV., and Citizen Larbrie, under the Terror.
This already was an important point. He stated it with precision in a note which he sent to the papers, asking for any information concerning this Larbeyrie or his descendants.
It was M. Massiban, the Massiban of the pamphlet, the member of the Institute, who replied to him:
SIR:
Allow me to call your attention to the following passage of Voltaire, which I came upon in his manuscript of Le Siècle de Louis XIV. (Chapter XXV: Particularités et anecdotes du régne). The passage has been suppressed in all the printed editions:
“I have heard it said by the late M. de Caumartin, intendant of finance, who was a friend of Chamillard the minister, that the King one day left hurriedly in his carriage at the news that M. de Larbeyrie had been murdered and robbed of some magnificent jewels. He seemed greatly excited and repeated:
“‘All is lost—all is lost—’