THE DUG DE NOAILLES. 209 I

f

was proof against tobacco chewed and smoked, a quantity of

opium, and two bleedings in the arms. Fever showed itself f

more when this pain was a little calmed; the Dauphin said |

she had suffered more than in child-birth. \

Such a violent illness rilled the chamber with rumours con- !

•cerning the snuff-box, given to the Dauphine by the Due de !

Noailles. In going to bed the day she had received it and was J

seized by fever, she spoke of the snuff to her ladies, highly I

praising it and the box, which she told one of them to go and I

look for upon the table in the cabinet, where, as I have said, it I

had been left. The box could not be found, althouo-h looked i1

I
for high and low. This disappearance had seemed very extra- I

ordinary from the first moment it became known. Now, joined I

to the grave illness with which the Dauphine was so cruelly
assailed, it aroused the most sombre suspicions. Nothing,
however, was breathed of these suspicions, beyond a very re-
stricted circle: for the Princess took snuff with the knowledge

' O

of Madame de Maintenon, but without that of the King, who
would have made a fine scene if he had discovered it. This
was what was feared, if the singular loss of the box became
divulged.

Let rne here say, that although one of my friends, the Arch-
bishop of Rheims, believed to his dying day that the Due de
Noailles had poisoned the Dauphine by means of this box of
Spanish snuff, I never could induce myself to believe so too.
The Archbishop declared that in the manner of the Due de
Noailles, after quitting the chamber of the Princess, there was
something which suggested both confusion and contentment.
He brought forward other proofs of guilt, but they made no
impression upon me. I endeavoured, on the contrary, to shake
his belief, but my labour was in vain. I entreated him, how-
ever, at least to maintain the most profound silence upon this
horrible thought, and he did so.

Those who afterwards knew the history of the box—and
they were in good number—were as inaccessible to suspicion
as I; and nobody thought of charging the Due de Noailles
with the offence it was said he had committed. As for me, I

VOL. II. 14