It was neither more nor less than this: that she became suspect
to the police in connexion with the assassination of the Emperor
Alexander. The ground of this suspicion was either some unguarded
expressions that escaped her in public, or some talk overheard in her
salon. Overheard, we must believe, by some guest, perhaps a friend, who
hastened to play the informer, I suppose. At any rate, the overheard
matter seemed to imply her foreknowledge of that event, and I think she
was wise in not waiting for the investigation of such a charge. Some of
my readers may remember a little book from her pen, published in Paris,
a mystically bad-tempered, declamatory, and frightfully disconnected
piece of writing, in which she all but admits the foreknowledge, more
than hints at its supernatural origin, and plainly suggests in venomous
innuendoes that the guilt of the act was not with the terrorists, but
with a palace intrigue. When I observed to my friend, the professor's
wife, that the life of Madame de S--, with its unofficial diplomacy,
its intrigues, lawsuits, favours, disgrace, expulsions, its atmosphere
of scandal, occultism, and charlatanism, was more fit for the eighteenth
century than for the conditions of our own time, she assented with
a smile, but a moment after went on in a reflective tone:
"Charlatanism?--yes, in a certain measure.
Pages:
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215