But I shuddered when I
considered how narrow had been the King's escape, how trifling
the circumstance which had led to suspicion, how fortuitous the
inspiration by which I had chanced on discovery. The delay of a
single day, the occurrence of the slightest mishap, might have
been fatal not to him only but to the best interests of France;
which his death at a time when he was still childless must have
plunged into the most melancholy of wars.
Of the wretched Spaniard I need say little more. Caught in his
own snare, he was no sooner withdrawn from the court than he fell
into violent convulsions, which held him until midnight when he
died with symptoms and under circumstances so nearly resembling
those which had attended the death of Madame de Beaufort at
Easter, that I have several times dwelt on the strange
coincidence, and striven to find the connecting link. But I
never hit on it; and the King's death, and that unexplained
tendency to imitate great crimes under which the vulgar labour,
prevailed with me to keep the matter secret.
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