"Where, your Eminence?"
"To what place are we sending our lunatics just now?"
"To Bicêtre, your Eminence."
"Just so! Ask admission for Monsieur at Bicêtre." So, from the meridian of his glory, Salomon de Caus hastened to his setting, and at this point he vanishes from history. Legend, not altogether legendary, shows him once again.
Some eighteen months or two years after he had been carried, "gagged and handcuffed," to Bicêtre, it fell to Marion Delorme (in the absence of her new lover Cinq-Mars) to do the honours of Paris for the Marquis of Worcester. The marquis took a fancy to visit Bicêtre, which had even then an unrighteous celebrity from one end of Europe to the other. As they strolled through the quartier des fous a creature made a spring at the bars of his cell.
"Marion—look, Marion! It is I! It is Salomon! I love you! Listen: I have made a discovery which will bring millions and millions to France! Let me out for God's sake! I will give you the moon and all the stars to set me free, Marion!"
"Do you know this man?" said Lord Worcester.
"I am not at home in bedlam," said Marion, who on principle allowed no corner to her conscience.
"What is the discovery he talks of?" asked Lord Worcester of a warder.
"He calls it steam, milord. They've all discovered something, milord."