The Baroness de Beausoleil
so as to make her useful in the search after mines, a science hereditary in the family. By this means you may be able to learn what has become of the other children.
"If you know yourself, or by any of your friends, M. Maturel, advocate, or his brother, who favoured these good people, and who know all their affairs, and are aware of all the circumstances of the robbery committed upon them in Brittany, and estimated at a hundred thousand crowns, you will obtain their entire confidence, and be able to learn what has become of the children. This must be done with the utmost circumspection. You must say that your friends, who lived formerly in Paris, want to know particulars of the family. The eldest son, having gone to the Bastille without proper precautions, to make inquiries concerning his father, was arrested. But we desire to learn something about the other children, some five or six, and who has got charge of them. . . . What a strange thing it is, that there is no surer means of falling into trouble than to love the faith and Catholic verity."
Such is the last glimpse we obtain of this unfortunate family. Two noble and devoted servants of science cast into dungeons, and their children scattered or imprisoned—because they served the State too well.
On the 4th of December 1642 Richelieu was called to his account before the throne of a just
165
