It was as his private physician that Dr. Bachot had asked for the autopsy of his patient’s brother.  For the younger brother seemed to have been attacked by the same complaint, and the doctor hoped to find from the death of the one some means for preserving the life of the other.  The councillor was in a violent fever, agitated unceasingly both in body and mind:  he could not bear any position of any kind for more than a few minutes at a time.  Bed was a place of torture; but if he got up, he cried for it again, at least for a change of suffering.  At the end of three months he died.  His stomach, duodenum, and liver were all in the same corrupt state as his brother’s, and more than that, the surface of his body was burnt away.  This, said the doctors; was no dubious sign of poisoning; although, they added, it sometimes happened that a ‘cacochyme’ produced the same effect.  Lachaussee was so far from being suspected, that the councillor, in recognition of the care he had bestowed on him in his last illness, left him in his will a legacy of a hundred crowns; moreover, he received a thousand francs from Sainte-Croix and the marquise.

So great a disaster in one family, however, was not only sad but alarming.  Death knows no hatred:  death is deaf and blind, nothing more, and astonishment was felt at this ruthless destruction of all who bore one name.  Still nobody suspected the true culprits, search was fruitless, inquiries led nowhere:  the marquise put on mourning for her brothers, Sainte-Croix continued in his path of folly, and all things went on as before.  Meanwhile Sainte-Croix had made the acquaintance of the Sieur de Saint Laurent, the same man from whom Penautier had asked for a post without success, and had made friends with him.  Penautier had meanwhile become the heir of his father-in-law, the Sieur Lesecq, whose death had most unexpectedly occurred; he had thereby gained a second post in Languedoc and an immense property:  still, he coveted the place of receiver of the clergy.  Chance now once more helped him:  a few days after taking over from Sainte-Croix a man-servant named George, M. de Saint-Laurent fell sick, and his illness showed symptoms similar to those observed in the case of the d’Aubrays, father and sons; but it was more rapid, lasting only twenty-four hours.  Like them, M. de Saint-Laurent died a prey to frightful tortures.  The same day an officer from the sovereign’s court came to see him, heard every detail connected with his friend’s death, and when told of the symptoms said before the servants to Sainfray the notary that it would be necessary to examine the body.  An hour later George disappeared, saying nothing to anybody, and not even asking for his wages.  Suspicions were excited; but again they remained vague.  The autopsy showed a state of things not precisely to be called peculiar to poisoning cases the intestines, which the fatal poison had not had time to burn as in the case of the d’Aubrays, were marked with reddish spots like flea-bites.  In June Penautier obtained the post that had been held by the Sieur de Saint-Laurent.