Sully admits[263] that not only the two captors, but even Murat himself, who had an ancient grudge against D'Auvergne, spared no pains or deceit to insinuate themselves into his confidence, while it is equally certain that it was to his perfect faith in their professions that he owed his capture.
Having secured their prisoner, M.Murat and his coadjutors caused him to deliver up his sword, and to exchange the powerful charger upon which he was mounted for a road-hack that had been prepared for him, upon which he proceeded under a strong guard to Briare, whence he was conducted in a carriage to Montargis, and, finally, conveyed in a boat to Paris.
During this enforced journey his gaiety never deserted him, nor did he appear to entertain the slightest apprehension as to the result of his imprisonment; throughout the whole of the way he jested, drank, and laughed, as though his return to the capital had been voluntary; and when he was finally met at the gates of the city by M.de la Chevalerie, the lieutenant-governor of the Bastille, he was in such exuberant spirits that the astounded official deemed it expedient to remind him that they had not come together to dance a ballet, but for a totally different purpose.[264] It was only when he found himself conducted to the very chamber which had been occupied by the Marechal de Biron previous to his execution, that a shade of anguish passed over the features of the Count.

He could not but remember that the traitor-Duke, who had rendered great and good service to his sovereign, had suffered for the same crime of which he was in his turn accused without any such plea for mercy, and it is therefore scarcely surprising that he should have been startled upon finding himself installed as the successor of the condemned marshal.
M.d'Auvergne was not, however, of a temperament long to yield to gloomy ideas, and consequently, while his unhappy wife[265] was lost in tears, and endeavouring by every exertion in her power to save him from a fate which appeared inevitable, he availed himself to the utmost of the leniency of his jailors, and indulged in every luxury and amusement which he was enabled to command.

Agonised by her apprehensions, the unhappy Countess at length resolved to throw herself at the feet of the King, where, with a humility which contrasted strangely with the unbending arrogance of her sister-in-law, Madame de Verneuil, she besought in the most touching terms that Henry would spare the life of her husband, and once more pardon his crime.

Her earnest supplications evidently affected the King, while Marie de Medicis, who was present, wept with the heart-broken wife, and warmly seconded her petition, but the monarch, who probably feared the result of such an act of mercy, having raised her from her knees with a gentle kindness which made her tears flow afresh, led her to the side of the Queen, upon whose arm he placed his hand as he said firmly: "Deeply, Madame, do I pity you, and sympathize in your suffering, but were I to grant what you ask, I must necessarily admit my wife to be impure, my son a bastard, and my kingdom the prey of my enemies." All, therefore, that the Countess could obtain was the royal permission to communicate with her husband, a concession of which she hastened to take advantage; when, in reply to her anxious inquiry as to what he desired of her, she received by her messenger the heartless reply that she might send him a good stock of cheese and mustard, and that she need not trouble herself about anything else.[266] The intercepted letters of the Comte d'Auvergne having also implicated his stepfather M.d'Entragues, and his sister Madame de Verneuil, both were subsequently arrested; the former by the Provost Defunctis[267] in his castle of Marcoussis, and the latter at her residence in the Faubourg St.Germain; while her children were taken from her, and sent, under a proper escort, to the palace of St.Germain-en-Laye.

So important did it, moreover, appear to the French ministers to ascertain the exact extent of the conspiracy, that the Provost was accompanied to Marcoussis by M.de Lomenie, in order that a search might be instituted upon the premises; the result of which tended to prove, beyond all possibility of doubt, that the original engagement delivered by the father of the Marquise to the sovereign had, in fact, not been restored, but had been skilfully copied by some able pen; while the importance which was still attached to the real document by the family of Madame de Verneuil may be gathered from the fact that it was discovered by the Secretary of State in a glass bottle, carefully sealed and enclosed within a second, which was laid upon a heap of cotton and built up in a wall of one of the apartments.