CHARGE AGAINST M. D'ORLISANS. 223

number who held different views, but this was Marechal, who
declared that to persuade the King of the existence of secret
enemies of his family would be to kill him by degrees.

This medical opinion that the cause of the Dauphin's and
the Dauphine's death was poison, soon spread like wildfire over
the Court and the city. Public indignation fell upon M.
d'Orle'ans, who was at once pointed out as the poisoner. The
rapidity with which this rumour filled the Court, Paris, the
provinces, the least frequented places, the most isolated
monasteries, the most deserted solitudes, all foreign countries
and all the peoples of Europe, recalled to me the efforts of the
cabal, which had previously spread such black reports against
the honour of him whom all the world now wept, and showed
that that cabal, though dispersed, was not dissolved.

In effect M. du Maine, now the head of the cabal, who had
all to gain and nothing to lose by the death of the Dauphin
and Dauphine, from both of whom he had studiously held aloof,
and who thoroughly disliked M. d'Orle'ans, did all in his power
to circulate this odious report. He communicated it to Madame
de Maintenon, by whom it reached the King. In a short time
all the Court, down to the meanest valets, publicly cried
vengeance upon M. d'Orle'ans, with an air of the most unbridled
indignation and of perfect security.

M. d'Orle'ans, with respect to the two losses that afflicted the
public, had an interest the most directly opposite to that of M.
du Maine ; he had everything to gain by the life of the Dauphin
and Dauphine, and unless he had been a monster vomited forth
from hell he could not have been guilty of the crime with which
he was charged. Nevertheless, the odious accusation flew from
mouth to mouth, and took refuge in every breast.

Let us compare the interest M. d'Orleans had in the life of
the Dauphin with the interest M. du Maine had in his death,
and then look about for the poisoner* But this is not all.

* The whole course of Saint-Simon's narrative would seem to point rather
to the Dunhesse de Berry as the guilty person than to any other. An at-
tempt was made to poison' the whole family of the heir to the throne—and
only one child at the breast escaped by accident. If this child, afterwards
Louis XV. had died, the Due de Berry would have succeeded to the crown.