She would fain have gone to France to try her fortunes when the Colony was lost, but La Pompadour forbade her presence there, under pain of her severest displeasure. Angelique raved at the inhibition, but was too wise to tempt the wrath of the royal mistress by disobeying her mandate. She had to content herself with railing at La Pompadour with the energy of three furies, but she never ceased, to the end of her life, to boast of the terror which her charms had exercised over the great favorite of the King.
Rolling in wealth and scarcely faded in beauty, Angelique kept herself in the public eye. She hated retirement, and boldly claimed her right to a foremost place in the society of Quebec. Her great wealth and unrivalled power of intrigue enabled her to keep that place, down to the last.
The fate of La Corriveau, her confederate in her great wickedness, was peculiar and terrible. Secured at once by her own fears, as well as by a rich yearly allowance paid her by Angelique, La Corriveau discreetly bridled her tongue over the death of Caroline, but she could not bridle her own evil passions in her own household.
One summer day, of the year following the conquest of the Colony, the Goodman Dodier was found dead in his house at St. Valier.
Fanchon, who knew something and suspected more, spoke out; an investigation into the cause of death of the husband resulted in the discovery that he had been murdered by pouring melted lead into his ear while he slept. La Corriveau was arrested as the perpetrator of the atrocious deed.
A special court of justice was convened in the great hall of the Convent of the Ursulines, which, in the ruinous state of the city after the siege and bombardment, had been taken for the headquarters of General Murray. Mere Migeon and Mere Esther, who both survived the conquest, had effected a prudent arrangement with the English general, and saved the Convent from all further encroachment by placing it under his special protection.
La Corriveau was tried with all the fairness, if not with all the forms, of English law. She made a subtle and embarrassing defence, but was at last fairly convicted of the cruel murder of her husband.
She was sentenced to be hung, and gibbetted in an iron cage, upon the hill of Levis, in sight of the whole city of Quebec.
La Corriveau made frantic efforts during her imprisonment to engage Angelique to intercede in her behalf; but Angelique's appeals were fruitless before the stern administrators of English law. Moreover, Angelique, to be true to herself, was false to her wicked confederate. She cared not to intercede too much, or enough to ensure success. In her heart she wished La Corriveau well out of the way, that all memory of the tragedy of Beaumanoir might be swept from the earth, except what of it remained hid in her own bosom.
She juggled with the appeals of La Corriveau, keeping her in hopes of pardon until the fatal hour came, when it was too late for La Corriveau to harm her by a confession of the murder of Caroline.
The hill of Levis, where La Corriveau was gibbetted, was long remembered in the traditions of the Colony. It was regarded with superstitious awe by the habitans. The ghost of La Corriveau long haunted, and, in the belief of many, still haunts, the scene of her execution. Startling tales, raising the hair with terror, were told of her around the firesides in winter, when the snow-drifts covered the fences, and the north wind howled down the chimney and rattled the casement of the cottages of the habitans; how, all night long, in the darkness, she ran after belated travellers, dragging her cage at her heels, and defying all the exorcisms of the Church to lay her evil spirit!
Our tale is now done. There is in it neither poetic nor human justice. But the tablet of the Chien d'Or still overlooks the Rue Buade; the lamp of Repentigny burns in the ancient chapel of the Ursulines; the ruins of Beaumanoir cover the dust of Caroline de St.
Castin; and Amelie sleeps her long sleep by the side of Heloise de Lotbiniere.
