In Paris the terror lasted long. Society was for a while broken up
by cruel suspicions. The meat upon the table remained uneaten, the
wine undrank, men and women procured their own provisions in the
market, and cooked and ate them in their own apartments. Yet was
every precaution in vain. The fatal dust scattered upon the pillow,
or a bouquet sprinkled with the aqua tofana, looking bright and
innocent as God's dew upon the flowers, transmitted death without a
warning of danger. Nay, to crown all summit of wickedness, the
bread in the hospitals of the sick, the meagre tables of the
convent, the consecrated host administered by the priest, and the
sacramental wine which he drank himself, all in turn were poisoned,
polluted, damned, by the unseen presence of the manna of St.
Nicholas, as the populace mockingly called the poudre de succession.
The Court took the alarm when a gilded vial of the aqua tofana was
found one day upon the table of the Duchesse de la Valliere, having
been placed there by the hand of some secret rival, in order to cast
suspicion upon the unhappy Louise, and hasten her fall, already
approaching.
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