steward prevented the destruction of the child under the orders of M.
de Saint-Maixent. The theory is that the marquis, mistrustful of the
promise made him by Madame de Bouille to marry him after the death of
her husband, desired to keep the child to oblige her to keep her word,
under threats of getting him acknowledged, if she proved faithless to
him. No other adequate reason can be conjectured to determine a man of
his character to take such great care of his victim.

Baulieu swaddled the child immediately, put it in a basket, hid it under
his cloak, and went with his prey to find the marquis; they conferred
together for some time, after which the house steward passed by a
postern gate into the moat, thence to a terrace by which he reached a
bridge leading into the park. This park had twelve gates, and he had the
keys of all. He mounted a blood horse which he had left waiting behind a
wall, and started off at full gallop. The same day he passed through
the village of Escherolles, a league distant from Saint-Geran, where
he stopped at the house of a nurse, wife of a glove-maker named Claude.
This peasant woman gave her breast to the child; but the steward, not
daring to stay in a village so near Saint-Geran, crossed the river
Allier at the port de la Chaise, and calling at the house of a man named
Boucaud, the good wife suckled the child for the second time; he then
continued his journey in the direction of Auvergne.

The heat was excessive, his horse was done up, the child seemed uneasy.
A carrier's cart passed him going to Riom; it was owned by a certain
Paul Boithion of the town of Aigueperce, a common carrier on the road.
Baulieu went alongside to put the child in the cart, which he entered
himself, carrying the infant on his knees. The horse followed, fastened
by the bridle to the back of the cart.