But in the middle of all this felicity a dreadful disaster
befell me, which entirely unhinged all my affairs and threw me back into
the same state of life that I was in before; with this one happy exception,
however, that whereas before I was poor even to misery, now I was not only
provided for, but very rich.
My gentleman had the name in Paris for a very rich man,
and indeed he was so, though not so immensely rich as people imagined; but
that which was fatal to him was that he generally carried a shagreen case
in his pocket, especially when he went to court or to the houses of any of
the princes of the blood, in which he had jewels of very great value.
It happened one day, that being to go to Versailles to
wait upon the Prince of ----, he came up into my chamber in the morning and
laid out his jewel case, because he was not going to show any jewels, but
to get a foreign bill accepted which he had received from Amsterdam. So when
he gave me the case, he said, "My dear, I think I need not carry this with
me, because it may be I may not come back till night, and it is too much
to venture." I returned "Then, my dear, you shan't go." "Why?" says he. "Because
as they are too much for you, so you are too much for me to venture, and
you shall not go unless you will promise me not to stay, so as to come back
in the night."
"I hope there's no danger," said he, "seeing I have nothing
about me of any value; and therefore, lest I should, take that too," says
he, and gives me his gold watch, and a rich diamond which he had in a ring
and always wore on his finger.
"Well, but, my dear," says I, "you make me more uneasy
now than before, for if you apprehend no danger, why do you use this caution?
and if you apprehend there is danger, why do you go at all?"
"There is no danger," says he, "if I do not stay late,
and I do not design to do so."
"Well, but promise me, then, that you won't," says I,
"or else I cannot let you go."
"I won't indeed, my dear," says he, "unless I am obliged
to it. I assure you I do not intend it, but if I should, I am not worth robbing
now, for I have nothing about me but about six pistoles in my little purse,
and that little ring," showing me a small diamond ring, worth about ten or
twelve pistoles, which he put upon his finger in the room of the rich one
he usually wore.
I still pressed him not to stay late, and he said he would
not. "But if I am kept late," says he, "beyond my expectation, I'll stay
all night and come next morning." This seemed a very good caution, but still
my mind was very uneasy about him, and I told him so, and entreated him not
to go. I told him I did not know what might be the reason, but that I had
a strange terror upon my mind about his going, and that, if he did go, I
was persuaded some harm would attend him. He smiled, and returned, "Well,
my dear, if it should be so, you are now richly provided for; all that I
have here I give to you." And with that he takes up the casket or case. "Here,"
says he, "hold your hand, there is a good estate for you in this case; if
anything happens to me, 'tis all your own, I give it you for yourself." And
with that he put the casket, the fine ring, and his gold watch all into my
hands, and the key of his escritoire besides, adding, "And in my escritoire
there is some money; 'tis all your own."
I stared at him as if I was frighted, for I thought all
his face looked like a death's head, and then immediately I thought I perceived
his head all bloody, and then his clothes looked bloody too; and immediately
it all went off and he looked as he really did. Immediately I fell a-crying
and hung about him. "My dear," said I, "I am frighted to death; you shall
not go; depend upon it, some mischief will befall you." I did not tell him
how my vapourish fancy had represented him to me; that, I thought, was not
proper; besides, he would only have laughed at me, and would have gone away
with a jest about it. But I pressed him seriously not to go that day, or,
if he did, to promise me to come home to Paris again by daylight. He looked
a little graver then than he did before, told me he was not apprehensive
of the least danger; but if there was, he would either take care to come
in the day or, as he had said before, would stay all night.
But all these promises came to nothing, for he was set
upon in the open day and robbed by three men on horseback, masked, as he
went; and one of them, who it seems rifled him while the rest stood to stop
the coach, stabbed him into the body with a sword, so that he died immediately.
He had a footman behind the coach whom they knocked down with the stock or
butt end of a carbine. They were supposed to kill him because of the
disappointment they met with in not getting his case or casket of diamonds,
which they knew he carried about him; and this was supposed, because after
they had killed him they made the coachman drive out of the road a long way
over the heath till they came to a convenient place, where they pulled him
out of the coach and searched his clothes more narrowly than they could do
while he was alive.
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