he had missed his aim, ran to warn the abbe and the chevalier that the
victim was escaping.

As for the marquise, she had hardly touched the ground, when with
admirable presence of mind she pushed the end of one of her long plaits
so far down her throat as to provoke a fit of vomiting; this was the more
easily done that she had eaten heartily of the collation, and happily the
presence of the food had prevented the poison from attacking the coats of
the stomach so violently as would otherwise have been the case. Scarcely
had she vomited when a tame boar swallowed what she had rejected, and
falling into a convulsion, died immediately.

As we have said, the room looked upon an enclosed courtyard; and the
marquise at first thought that in leaping from her room into this court
she had only changed her prison; but soon perceiving a light that
flickered from an upper window of ore of the stables, she ran thither,
and found a groom who was just going to bed.

"In the name of Heaven, my good man," said she to him, "save me! I am
poisoned! They want to kill me! Do not desert me, I entreat you! Have
pity on me, open this stable for me; let me get away! Let me escape!"

The groom did not understand much of what the marquise said to him; but
seeing a woman with disordered hair, half naked, asking help of him, he
took her by the arm, led her through the stables, opened a door for her,
and the marquise found herself in the street. Two women were passing;
the groom put her into their hands, without being able to explain to them
what he did not know himself. As for the marquise, she seemed able to
say nothing beyond these words: "Save me! I am poisoned! In the name of
Heaven, save me!"