Note 491 — Part I (continued 5)
Reading edition
The Duchesse de Gontaut relates in her Mémoires that the Due d'Orléans was one day driving through the forest of Fontainebleau when a man, half clothed and with a demented air, sprang towards the carriage, grimacing horribly. The Duke's suite, taking him for a madman, would have kept him at bay, but the Duke, at that moment awaking from sleep, unbuttoned his shirt and showed his assailant an iron ring suspended round his neck. At this sight the man took to his heels and disappeared into the wood. The mystery of this incident was never elucidated, and the Duke, when questioned on the matter, would offer no explanation. Could this ring have been Falk's talisman?