"Then explain to me," resumed the King, "the whole of this enigma. I do
not wish to find you guilty; I had rather you would justify yourself.
Account for all the manoeuvres with Baehmer, these assurances and these
letters."

The Cardinal then, turning pale, and leaning against the table, said,
"Sire, I am too much confused to answer your Majesty in a way--"

"Compose yourself, Cardinal, and go into my cabinet; you will there find
paper, pens, and ink,--write what you have to say to me."

The Cardinal went into the King's cabinet, and returned a quarter of an
hour afterwards with a document as confused as his verbal answers had
been. The King then said, "Withdraw, monsieur." The Cardinal left the
King's chamber, with the Baron de Breteuil, who gave him in custody to a
lieutenant of the Body Guard, with orders to take him to his apartment. M.
d'Agoult, aide-major of the Body Guard, afterwards took him into custody,
and conducted him to his hotel, and thence to the Bastille. But while the
Cardinal had with him only the young lieutenant of the Body Guard, who was
much embarrassed at having such an order to execute, his Eminence met his
heyduc at the door of the Salon of Hercules; he spoke to him in German and
then asked the lieutenant if he could lend him a pencil; the officer gave
him that which he carried about him, and the Cardinal wrote to the Abbe
Georgel, his grand vicar and friend, instantly to burn all Madame de
Lamotte's correspondence, and all his other letters.

[The Abbe Georgel thus relates the circumstance: The Cardinal, at that
trying moment, gave an astonishing proof of his presence of mind;
notwithstanding the escort which surrounded him, favoured by the attendant
crowd, he stopped, and stooping down with his face towards the wall, as if