Antoine Barbier took the letter, promising to deliver it at the right address; but he gave it to Desgrais instead.  The next day, finding that this letter had not been pressing enough, she wrote him another, saying that the escort was only eight men, who could be easily overcome by four or five determined assailants, and she counted on him to strike this bald stroke.  But, uneasy when she got no answer and no result from her letters, she despatched a third missive to Theria.  In this she implored him by his own salvation, if he were not strong enough to attack her escort and save her, at least to kill two of the four horses by which she was conveyed, and to profit by the moment of confusion to seize the chest and throw it into the fire; otherwise, she declared, she was lost.  Though Theria received none of these letters, which were one by one handed over by Barbier to Desgrais, he all the same did go to Maestricht, where the marquise was to pass, of his own accord.  There he tried to bribe the archers, offering much as 10,000 livres, but they were incorruptible.  At Rocroy the cortege met M. Palluau, the councillor, whom the Parliament had sent after the prisoner, that he might put questions to her at a time when she least expected them, and so would not have prepared her answers.  Desgrais told him all that had passed, and specially called his attention to the famous box, the object of so much anxiety and so many eager instructions.  M. de Palluau opened it, and found among other things a paper headed “My Confession.”  This confession was a proof that the guilty feel great need of discovering their crimes either to mankind or to a merciful God.  Sainte-Croix, we know, had made a confession that was burnt, and here was the marquise equally imprudent.  The confession contained seven articles, and began thus, “I confess to God, and to you, my father,” and was a complete avowal, of all the crimes she had committed.

In the first article she accused herself of incendiarism;

In the second, of having ceased to be a virgin at seven years of age;

In the third of having poisoned her father;

In the fourth, of having poisoned her two brothers;

In the fifth, that she had tried to poison her sister, a Carmelite nun.

The two other articles were concerned with the description of strange and unnatural sins.  In this woman there was something of Locusta and something of Messalina as well:  antiquity could go no further.

M. de Palluau, fortified by his knowledge of this important document, began his examination forthwith.  We give it verbatim, rejoicing that we may substitute an official report for our own narrative.

Asked why she fled to Liege, she replied that she left France on account of some business with her sister-in-law.

Asked if she had any knowledge of the papers found in the box, she replied that in the box there were several family papers, and among them a general confession which she desired to make; when she wrote it, however, her mind was disordered; she knew not what she had said or done, being distraught at the time, in a foreign country, deserted by her relatives, forced to borrow every penny.