For the next ten days or so the Prince was engaged in contriving his flight from the gentle Sophie, a second plan which again was spoiled by Sophie's spies.There was something of a fete at Saint-Leu on the 26th, the Prince's saint's day.There was a quarrel between Sophie and the Prince on the morning of the 26th in the latter's bedroom.Sophie had then been back in Saint-Leu for three days.At midnight on the 26th the old man retired after playing a game or two at whist.He was to go on the 30th to Chantilly.He was accompanied to his bedroom by his surgeon and a valet, one Lecomte, and expressed a desire to be called at eight o'clock.Lecomte found a paper in the Prince's trousers and gave it to the old man, who placed it on the mantelshelf.Then the valet, as he said later, locked the door of the Prince's dressing-room, thus --except for the entrance from the secret staircase--locking the old man in his room.
The Prince's apartments were on the first floor of the chateau.Hisbedroom was approached through the dressing-room from the main corridor.Beyond the dressing-room was a passage, turning left from which was the bedroom, and to the right in which was an entrance to an anteroom.Facing the dressing-room door in this same passage was the entrance to the secret staircase already mentioned.The staircase gave access to the Baronne de Feucheres' apartments on the entrance floor.These, however, were not immediately under the Prince's rooms.An entresol intervened, and here the rooms were occupied by the Abbe Briant, a creature of Sophie's and her secretary, the Widow Lachassine, Sophie's lady's-maid, and a couple named Dupre.These last, also spies of Sophie's, had their room direcdy below the Prince's bedroom, and it is recorded that the floor was so thin that they could hear not only the old man's every movement, but anything he said.
Adjacent to the Prince's room, and on the same floor, were the rooms occupied by Lambot, the Prince's aide, and the valet Lecomte.Lambot was a lover of Sophie's, and had been the great go-between in her intrigues with the Orleans family over the will.Lecomte was in Sophie's pay.Close to Sophie's apartments on the entrance floor were the rooms occupied by her nephew and his wife, the de Flassans.It will be seen, therefore, that the wing containing the Prince's rooms was otherwise occupied almost completely by Sophie's creatures.
You have, then, the stage set for the tragedy which was about to ensue: midnight; the last of the Condes peaceably in his bedroom for the night, and locked in it (according to Lecomte).About him, on all sides, are the creatures of his not too scrupulous mistress.All these people, with the exception of the Baronne de Flassans, who sat up writing letters until two, retire about the same time.
And at eight o'clock next morning, there being no answer to Lecomte's knocking to arouse the Prince, the door is broken open at the orders of the Baronne de Feucheres.The Prince is discovered dead in his bedroom, suspended by the neck, by means of two of his own handkerchiefs knotted together, from the fastening of one of the French windows.
The fastening was only about two and a half feet off the floor.The handkerchief about the dead man's neck was loose enough to havepermitted insertion of all the fingers of a hand between it and the neck.The second handkerchief was tied to the first, and its other end was knotted to the window-fastening, and the dead man's right cheek was pressed against the closed shutter.The knees were bent a little, the feet were on the floor.None of the usual indications of death by strangulation were present.The eyes were half closed.The face was pale but not livid.The mouth was almost closed.There was no protrusion of the tongue.
On the arrival of the civil functionaries, the Mayor of Saint-Leu and a Justice of the Peace from Enghien, the body was taken down and put on the bed.It was then found that the dead man's ankles were greatly bruised and his legs scratched.On the left side of the throat, at a point too low for it to have been done by the handkerchief, there was some stripping of the skin.A large red bruise was found between the Prince's shoulders.
The King, Louis-Philippe, heard about the death of the Prince de Conde at half-past eleven that same day.He immediately sent his High Chancellor, M.Pasquier, and his own aide-de-camp, M.de Rumigny, to inquire into the matter.It is not stretching things too far to say that the King's instructions to these gentlemen are revealed in phrases occurring in the letters they sent his Majesty that same evening.Both recommend that Drs Marc and Marjolin should be sent to investigate the Prince's tragic death.But M.Pasquier mentions that not a single document has been found, so a search has already been made.''And M.de Rumigny thinksit is important that nobody should be accused who is likely to benefit by the will.'' What document was expected to be discovered in the search? Why, a second will that would invalidate the first.Who was to benefit by the first will? Why, the little Duc d'Aumale and Dame Sophie Dawes, Baronne de Feucheres!
The post-mortem examination was made by the King's own physicians.During the examination the Prince's doctors, MM.Dubois and Gendrin, his personal secretary, and the faithful one among his body-servants, Manoury, were sent out of the room.The verdict was suicide.The Prince's own doctors maintained that suicide by the handkerchiefs fromthe window-fastening was impossible.Dr Dubois wrote his idea of how the death had occurred:
