Chapter XVI: Appendix: Detailed Description of the Diamond Necklace 387 (13)

“All these the guard brought me about ten or twelve days after; he carried the great-coat under his cloak, the waistcoat in his pocket, and the switch in the barrel of his musket; and about two nights after he brought the half-boots and a man’s shirt. Thus furnished with wings for my flight, I was wholly intent on my game, and, what is not a little singular, without the least fear of not being able to effect my escape; not one shadow of doubt presented itself to my imagination, nothing gave me the least uneasiness; I felt myself quite confident of success, and I found myself much happier than I had been for a long time. I reflected that I was under the immediate protection of the queen, and would not suffer myself to entertain a doubt that it was the queen herself, and no one else, who had taken this interest in my behalf.

“After a time, however, a feeling of apprehension came across my mind and led me to suspect the sincerity of my unknown correspondent. Surely, I thought to myself, this cannot be a plot concerted to lull me to security that I may afterwards be more easily got rid of. It cannot be so; they really wish to render me service, there can be no doubt of it, since I have the key and the proper dress; but whither will this post-chaise conduct me?—probably to some convent; and does the queen suppose that I can be happy there? I will never consent to go to a convent, and only to some place where I can be free—where I am at liberty.

“About this time I was not a little surprised by a visit from M. de Crosne, lieutenant of police. About six o’clock one afternoon I was conducted to Sister Martha’s apartment, where I saw M. de Crosne, with M. Martin, secretary, and another person who was a stranger. M. de Crosne at first did not know me; he appeared much surprised and affected to find me so reduced, so altered for the worse, and his sensibility deeply affected me. I read in his face, as in a mirror, how different I then was from what I had been when he formerly knew me. Affliction had worn me down almost to a skeleton; my eyes were languid and inanimate. [The countess used to pride herself on the killing effect of her eyes.] I was, as it were, but the fleeting shadow of what I had once been in the days of my prosperity. I stood for some moments unable to articulate a single syllable. At length, awaking from my reverie, I saluted him, when the amiable man kindly inquired if there was anything I was in want of, as if so, he would give the necessary orders.

“At these words I quite lost myself, and forgetting every consideration that should have restrained me, I drew near him, and repeated, ‘Want anything? Oh, sir, it is too much to bear—that I should be thus confined!’ M. de Crosne, greatly affected, would not suffer me to recite the melancholy catalogue of my woes, which I was entering into with all the energy that grief inspired.

“I could not help thinking that M. de Crosne was sent hither expressly to see me, and the more I reflected upon this visit of his, the more suspicious I became. I began to see that they were fearful I should say too much, and that it was judged expedient rather to endeavour to soothe than drive me to extremities; for if I had really any ill-will, any grudge towards the queen, I thought to myself, neither the Baron de Breteuil nor the lieutenant of police would take the pains to favour me with the slightest attention.”[383]

It should be noted that it was at this period, namely, early in the month of May, that the Duchess de Polignac and her sister-in-law, the Countess Diane, went to England, ostensibly to drink the Bath waters, but really, it is believed, to come to terms with Count de la Motte through the medium of their intimate friend the Duchess of Devonshire.[384] One may here quote a bit of court gossip contained in a letter dated Versailles, June 27, 1787, and written to Stanislaus Poniatowski, king of Poland, to the effect that, on the occasion of this visit, the Duchess de Polignac paid Count de la Motte four thousand louis for certain letters said to have been written by the queen. If there is any truth in the story, these were in all probability copies of the letters purporting to have been written by Marie-Antoinette, together with the cardinal’s replies, and which were afterwards published in the Appendix to the Countess’s Life.[385] Of this visit of the Duchess de Polignac we shall again have occasion to speak.

At length the countess takes her final resolution, and fixes upon some day between the 8th and the 11th of June, either at eleven o’clock in the morning or six o’clock in the evening, for her escape. The arrangement was this: the guard was to disguise himself as a waggoner, and with a whip in his hand, was to walk round the King’s garden (the Jardin des Plantes) at the times specified on each of the above-mentioned four days. The attendant who had succeeded Angelica, and whom the countess was obliged to take into her confidence, begged that she might be permitted to accompany her. After some hesitation, the countess gave her consent.

XXXVIII.

1787. JUNE–JULY.

THE COUNTESS’S ESCAPE.—A LAST VISIT TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF BAR-SUR-AUBE.

On the morning of the 11th of June, the last of the four appointed, days, “Marianne and I, before our departure, took each of us a cup of coffee to revive our spirits and give us courage. I then proceeded to open the doors, three of which I fastened again with my key, and the fourth Marianne pulled towards her. Marianne, who knew the house perfectly well, took the shortest turnings she could find, believing that I was following her. I, however, managed to lose sight of her; nevertheless, I did not lose my courage, but passed on until I found myself in a large hall wherein were a great number of small beds in each of which was a child. After having cast my eyes round me, I inquired of the sisters the way out. I did not well understand the directions they gave me, but, after traversing many courts, found myself at length in a spacious court among a number of people who had come to gratify their curiosity with a sight of this prison. I followed a party who entered the chapel to view it, taking care to mix myself up with the rest of the company. After addressing a fervent prayer to heaven to inspire me with courage, I soon had the gratification of finding myself outside those doors which I had always looked on as impassable. Here I saw no one but the sisters, to whom I gave some money as though I were an ordinary visitor, and at length fortunately reached the high road. Here after some delay I discovered my good Marianne waiting for me near the river.[386]

“The King’s garden was crowded with people, but I fortunately managed to escape observation, and leaped into the boat to Marianne, who was already there with two strange gentlemen. Fearful of a discovery, I made signs to her not to speak to me. The two gentlemen were seated; but lest my awkwardness in my new habiliments should be discovered, I remained standing. At length we gained the opposite bank, and upon our landing near the arsenal, that hideous place, the Bastille, opposed itself to my view. Marianne conducted me through byways and narrow streets until we found a hackney-coach which took us to Charenton. On arriving there we stopped at a bootmaker’s to exchange my half-boots for a pair of shoes, after which we hired a cabriolet, which conveyed us a distance of seven leagues. We then alighted, and walked till half-past eleven o’clock at night.

“We slept at a village called Maison-Rouge, and at six the next morning pursued our journey on foot till ten in the evening, when we stopped a few hours to repose ourselves. Here I inquired whether I could have a cabriolet. I could not, however, be thus accommodated. We were, therefore, obliged to take a cart, which conducted us about two miles from Provins. About five in the evening we stopped at the first cabaret and dined, and after dinner, fearful of being suspected by the marshalsea, I despatched Marianne to purchase women’s apparel. She returned with a jacket of narrow-striped red cotton, an apron of the same stuff, a petticoat striped blue and white, a pair of leather shoes, such as are worn by peasants, and a pair of very small buckles. We departed from this inn at six the same evening.

“The town of Provins was about sixteen leagues from Paris, but I did not judge it prudent to take the coach from here, there being no other conveyance besides the post, which I wished as much as possible to avoid. We proceeded towards the back of the town, where we met a great number of officers walking together, one of whom I overheard say: ‘Oh! there’s a woman in man’s clothes.’ When they drew nearer they pulled off their hats, and begged permission to accompany me. One of these gentlemen’s professions of service were so very profuse that I found it extremely difficult to engage him to desist from following me. ‘You are,’ said he, ‘some young girl but just escaped from a convent, and your lover is certainly near at hand waiting for you in a post-chaise.’ ‘If such is your opinion, sir,’ replied I, ‘it is very impolite of you to think of following me, particularly as you have no right to expect that I should confess to you, if you should be right in your conjecture.’ At this he withdrew. I turned towards the left, under a hill, and not being able to find a place more retired, we concealed ourselves under a verdant recess, where a brook of water ran down towards the meadow. Here Marianne and I assumed our new disguise, which made us appear exactly like peasants, each of us holding in our arms a little basket of eggs, and a pound of butter neatly covered with a piece of linen, which was bought for that purpose. I threw my former apparel into the brook, putting stones into the coat pockets and the hat, that they might sink more easily, and that no trace of my flight might be discovered. We went five leagues on foot the same evening, and stopped, about eleven o’clock, at the first house of entertainment in the suburbs of Nogent,[387] which is about two-and-twenty leagues from Paris. Here again I was so much fatigued that, after our supper, poor Marianne was obliged to put me upon her shoulders, and bring me into the cow-house, and lay me on the straw, for there was neither bed nor chamber.

“The day after, about seven, we hired a cart, which conveyed us directly to Troyes, about nine leagues from Nogent, where we slept till four the next morning, when we again pursued our journey on foot. On our road we met a waggoner, who civilly asked us to get up into his cart, a proposal which we readily accepted. He conveyed us to the town where he lived, about two leagues distant, but this honest rustic would receive no money;[388] he would have no other recompense than a promise of marriage, which I was constrained to give him. I told him that I and my cousin Marianne had lived at Chaumont, in Champagne, and gave him a fictitious name and address. On parting with him we were fortunate enough to procure a farmer’s cart, which took us to Vendeuvre, where we dined, and about two we set forward again in a covered carriage, which conveyed us seven leagues further. We passed through Bar-sur-Aube, and at six we were put down at a village about three leagues from there.

“When I arrived at this place I wrote letters to some of my husband’s relations, with which I sent Marianne, who could not find many of the persons in whom I confided. She went to seek a friend of Madame de la Tour, sister of M. de la Motte, to whom she sent in my note. This lady immediately knew my writing, and ran to her wardrobe, and gave Marianne petticoats, shifts, handkerchiefs, with half a louis, which was all she had in her pocket, and greatly regretted that she had it not in her power to do more. She then accompanied her to M. de Suremont, M. de la Motte’s uncle. This gentleman’s wife, after having coldly received Mdlle. Charton, which was this young lady’s name, and Marianne, refused to come and see me. M. de Suremont sent Marianne to desire me to meet him half way. A place was appointed, and it was about midnight when we met. The night was extremely dark, and we sat down on the bank of a ditch. M. de Suremont appeared very glad to see me, but expressed his extreme regret that he could not accommodate me with more than four louis, telling a very lamentable story that his buildings had cost him so much money, and that he was very much in debt. ‘But pray where are you going?’ said he to me. ‘I am going to London,’ replied I, ‘for the English newspapers have for a long time mentioned my husband’s name; I dare say he is there.’”[389]

The countess makes no mention in her narrative of another of her Bar-sur-Aube friends coming to see her while she lay concealed in the stone quarries outside the town—the mother of young Beugnot, to whom, in her days of affluence, the countess had given the surplus of twenty louis for her poor pensioners. This noble-hearted lady came out at night to comfort the wretched wanderer whom she believed to be innocent, and gave her all the consolation which a pious mind could suggest in a case so deplorable, returned her the twenty louis with some addition of her own, and parted with her like a Christian sister.[390] Such was the singular hold which this extraordinary woman seems to have had on the human heart, which began when she was a barefooted beggar on the public highway, and continued even when she was a branded outcast.

“I did not,” continues the countess, “consider it prudent to return to the same inn which we had quitted at midnight, as I feared our being suspected, or taken for thieves, with which all the environs of Chaumont are greatly infested, I therefore chose to walk the remaining part of the night. The moon, which was at full, made it extremely pleasant. We proceeded nearly a mile and a half, but had not advanced far into the forest before we determined to return again towards the town. We knocked at the first carbaret we came to, but the people not only refused to open the door, but threatened to shoot us, taking us, without question, for thieves. Shivering with cold, we were necessitated to take up our lodging on the steps of their door till the next morning, and at this season the nights were extremely cold, and the country wore almost the appearance of winter. About six in the morning three peasants and a woman passed by, who had two large dogs with them. I related to them our situation, and we traversed the forest together as far as Columbey, where we parted. Having breakfasted, we took the post, which conveyed us seven leagues further. At six the next morning we recommenced our journey on foot. The day was terribly hot, and we suffered severely in climbing the mountain, which is extremely steep, and very high, without any shelter from the intense heat. Marianne, who was very much troubled with shortness of breath, and incapable of proceeding any farther, sat down and wept bitterly till, fortunately, a good old peasant, who was on horseback, offered to take her behind him, to which she would not consent; but, as his house was but a short distance, she agreed to take the good old man’s arm, while I seated myself on the horse. Taking Marianne’s bundle, I gave the reins to the horse, who brought me to the house before his master, where the old man’s daughter, who was lately married, recognized the beast. I briefly related to her the circumstance which procured me the pleasure of seeing her, whereupon she despatched one of her sisters to the curate’s house to fetch some fish, and some of the best wine from another neighbour. Marianne was also well received. We were afterwards presented to the husband; and this good family lodged us with kindness. Not only did they regale us with a good supper of pigeons, and excellent fish, and delicious wine, but they accommodated us with their own bed, where we slept soundly for six hours. After a good breakfast we departed at ten in their cart to reach Joinville, these good people refusing to receive a single son for their entertainment.

“The keeper of a carbaret where we had sought shelter from a violent storm consented to conduct us as far as Nancy; and the rain having subsided, we availed ourselves of this proposal of our host, and continued our journey till we came into the midst of the most dismal forest I ever saw. It seemed a place perfectly adapted for the black business of robbery or murder. Here another terrible storm came on, and we travelled in the midst of a heavy shower for almost two hours and a quarter. It was now near ten o’clock, and we were still in a hollow, one side of which bordered another forest reputed to be most dangerous, and along the skirts of which our road lay for a distance of some miles. I could not but feel alarmed, and what added to my fears was, that I had not the least knowledge of that road. Our conductor was also a very ill-looking fellow, and his conduct was such, that though I cannot say he had really any bad design, yet his behaviour was sufficiently equivocal to make me suspicious. After a dreary ride of a couple of hours I discovered a light: it is impossible to express how welcome that discovery was, as it dispelled those apprehensions which the darkness of the night had made more terrible. Our guide now composed himself a little, and told me he was going to bait his horse, after which we might pursue our journey. ‘Most certainly,’ replied I; but when we arrived at the inn, which was at about midnight, I determined to take some rest.

“We sat down to supper, and I told our guide that we did not choose to expose ourselves any more that night, as his horse seemed to be so much fatigued. This determination did not seem agreeable to him; he stormed and swore, but all to no purpose. ‘I am determined,’ said I resolutely, ‘not to proceed till six o’clock in the morning.’ We did, indeed, set out an hour sooner, but then there was no danger; though, when he put us down upon an eminence on the side of Nancy, I really thought he seemed to quit us with an air of regret at having failed of his prey. After having dined at Nancy, we took a voiture, which conducted us to Lunéville, where we stopped and slept at the Hôtel du Saint-Esprit, from whence the next morning I wrote to M. Aminot, my cousin, an officer in the gendarmes. I took the precaution not to sign my name to this billet, in which I merely mentioned that a lady, one of his father’s acquaintances, wished to communicate some news from his family. Upon the receipt of my billet he did not lose a moment, but followed Marianne, who introduced him to my chamber. He approached me: ‘Really, madame,’ said he, ‘I have not the honour to recollect you.’ ‘Do you not know your unhappy cousin?’ said I. I could utter no more; my sensations checked my tongue. He also appeared greatly astonished. ‘Is it possible, my dear cousin,’ said he, ‘that this can be you?’ He then embraced me affectionately, but his joy at meeting me could only be equalled by his surprise. The evening before my arrival, he had received letters from Paris, one of which he showed me, which mentioned my surprising escape from the Salpêtrière, observing, that there were flying reports that the queen had facilitated my escape. My cousin and I spent two or three days together; and as I communicated to him my desire to pass through Switzerland, though without explaining my motive, he gave me in writing the plan of my route, which was by Luxembourg. After this interval of rest, Marianne and I pursued our journey, at five in the morning, on foot. We went eleven leagues this day; and the next, not being able to procure a coach, we were obliged to walk nine leagues further. After this fatigue I really was fearful that I should lose my companion, who was most violently attacked with asthma; and for five days the physician and surgeon were doubtful of her recovery. As soon as Marianne was in a condition to support herself, we took a voiture for Metz, where we slept, and the next day departed for Thionville, about ten leagues from thence. The diligence put us down at the sign of the ‘Three Kings,’ kept by one Phillips.”

This inn appears to have been a regular place of resort for the officers quartered in the town, and the countess pretended that, owing to certain consequential airs she indiscreetly gave herself, her incognito was more than suspected by these gentlemen, who importuned her with their visits and invitations to prolong her stay in the town, which of course only made her the more anxious to get away.

“We proceeded on our journey,” resumes Madame de la Motte, “and slept at Etauche; and the next day we departed in a tilted carriage. My intention was to go into Switzerland, and to remain a short time at some frontier town, from whence I could write to M. de la Motte, conceiving this was the only chance of being secure, and that Providence, which had so long guided and supported me, now granted me my wish, and directed me to an hospitable mansion inhabited by the most worthy, the most charitable of beings.”

Here they stopped to bait their horses, and were pressed by the hostess to stay. “‘If, madam,’ observed she, ‘you have any fears of being upon French ground, instantly dismiss them; nobody has any power over you here.’ ‘I have no fear,’ replied I; ‘but I am in want of money, and wish to write to my family.’ ‘Very well,’ replied this good creature, ‘for that very reason I insist that you shall remain with me; you can write from hence.’ About two days after I wrote to M. de la Motte, under cover to Mr. McMahon, his friend in London, to which I received an answer in about ten days, to the effect that he would make inquiries for some proper person that he could trust, whom he would send to fetch us as soon as possible. Three weeks, however, passed away without any emissary from my husband. At this time my good hostess had no idea who I was: a report gained ground, and even reached the military society at Luxembourg, that there was a person at the house of Madame Schilss with a tall, stout girl, who perfectly answered the description of Madame de la Motte and the girl Marianne. I was every day visited by a great number of officers, both old and young, then residing in the village, who constantly prefaced their visits with expressions of condolence, observing how very dull it must be for me to be alone in a place so destitute of amusement. The Chevalier de Curel, of a family at Langres, appeared to be one of those most officious in circulating the report that I was the Countess de la Motte, which made me tremble for the consequences, and I conceived that, by associating my hostess in my confidence, she might find some means of silencing these reports. I therefore trusted her, leaving everything to her discretion. This good lady rendered me very essential service; for when persons came to make inquiries of her, she amused them with different stories, and at the same time enjoyed the most profound secrecy on every one of them.

“These reports made me extremely unhappy, particularly as I had not received any further news from London, though the letter which I had received led me to hope that I should shortly have another to apprise me of the day when somebody would come to fetch me. At length, about the 27th of July, in the afternoon, a lady and gentleman came to inquire for me. Madame Schilss, informed that I had been long in expectation of some persons from England, was very well pleased. She introduced them as persons she could trust, and my own confidence was increased when the lady presented me with a letter from M. de la Motte.”

Accompanied by this lady, who proved to be Mrs. McMahon, Madame de la Motte travelled first of all to Brussels and from there to Ostend, whence, after a forty-two hours’ passage, the pair arrived safe at Dover.

“At seven we took the route for London,” continues Madame de la Motte, “where we arrived at seven the next morning, and at nine my eyes were greeted by the sight of M. de la Motte. It is not my intention,” remarks the countess in her most sentimental vein, “to attempt to describe those mutual transports which glowed in either bosom at this interview. The situation, the circumstances of the parties, will raise corresponding emotions in the bosom of sensibility which will convey my idea more strongly than all the pomp of diction that may captivate the ear, but not impress the soul.”[391]

XXXIX.

AUG. 1787–APRIL, 1789.

IN LONDON.—THE COUNTESS GIVES UP FORGERY AND TAKES TO CALUMNY.

“I remained a fortnight,” continues Madame de la Motte, “at the house of Mrs. McMahon, in the Haymarket, without venturing abroad to take the air, fearing lest I should be discovered. Every coffee-house in the neighbourhood of this place was filled with persons, many of whom were foreigners, eager to gratify their curiosity by seeing me. To prevent the inconvenience of being stared and pointed at, my friend, Mrs. McMahon, contrived to take me out about nine or ten o’clock in the evening.”

The countess tells us that she found her husband in great distress, waiting impatiently the moment when his unfeeling uncle and aunt, Monsieur and Madame de Suremont, would send over such property of his as remained in their hands. The count had not long to wait, it appears, for the De Suremonts arrived in London a few days after Madame de la Motte, when they delivered to him a “ring, which had formed the stud of the Necklace; a watch-chain which,” says the count, “I sold for fifty pounds sterling; and a box I had taken in exchange, and which I sold to Gray for sixty pounds. Restoring these three articles, they told me that they were all they had been able to preserve of our jewels. Having had full leisure to invent these falsities, and persuaded that I could not have been informed of their conduct and the depredations they had committed on my property, they spared no pains to convince me of the truth of what they said, which would indeed have appeared reasonable had my intelligence not been so well founded.

“Affecting to be satisfied with what they had delivered to me, I, the same day, procured a writ to be issued, hoping thereby to frighten them into a surrender of the remaining jewels; but they imagining, from the inquiries they had made, and the advice they had received, that I could not by any means molest them, pretended to show the utmost indignation at my conduct, and finally declared that they had nothing left belonging to me; that they had sold every article; and that, could they have foreseen the ingratitude I now evinced towards them, they would have given up all my jewels to the government.

“Judging from their resolute tone that something more than words was requisite to bring them to a sense of justice, I insisted no farther, but, urged by necessity, put the writ into the hands of a sheriff’s officer, who soon after, though much to my regret, arrested my uncle, a man of property, childless, enjoying the first offices in the place of his residence, and possessing the esteem of all its inhabitants, and whom I really respected. The case was otherwise with his beloved consort, a despicable woman, detested by all who knew her, who, I am certain, had prevailed upon her husband to be guilty of such a piece of meanness and injustice. The moment she saw him arrested she came to me, urging my acceptance of bills to the amount of my claims, still assuring me she had nothing of mine, and that she was going to part with some of her own property to purchase her husband’s release. Finding she could not make me accede to the terms she proposed, she ended by acknowledging everything, and departed to fetch what she had asserted upon oath had been surrendered to government.

“On her return she gave up two rings that had belonged to the Necklace, a pair of drop earrings (out of which she had taken four diamonds, which I only perceived after we parted), a hoop ring, a neck-button, a hair-ring, set round with stones, and another ring of small value. The day after this forced restitution my relations returned to their own home, where they have shared the remainder of the spoil; I have not heard of them since, excepting being informed, in a circumstantial manner, of all the havoc they have made in my house at Bar-sur-Aube, and of the contempt they have drawn upon themselves by their behaviour to me.”[392]

The count informs us that he sold the articles which he so fortunately recovered to Gray the jeweller, who, spite of the part he took in the Necklace trial, was still ready enough to buy any more diamonds that the De la Mottes had to sell. The amount which the count received for these trinkets—all that remained to them of the famous Necklace—was two thousand two hundred pounds, a mere per-centage on the sixty thousand pounds at which the matchless jewel was originally valued, but still a nice enough little sum of money for people in a “hard-up” condition. True, it would not go very far in supporting even an approach to that state to which the De la Mottes had accustomed themselves, and which the hard fare and dismal cells of the Salpêtrière had not entirely destroyed madame’s taste for. Unfortunately “some people having learned that the count’s relations had brought him nearly sixty thousand livres’ worth of diamonds, eager to share the spoil, swore false debts against him. I myself,” says madame, “saw him arrested five times for different sums. M. de la Motte’s attorney availed himself of this, and advised him, to use his own expression, to rid himself at once of these troublesome scoundrels by giving a gratuity of two hundred louis to one and one hundred and fifty louis to another, while eighty louis were given to an attorney who had never once appealed to the laws in favour of his unfortunate client, from whom he had frequently received different sums to extricate him from real or fictitious embarrassments.”

Such being the state of affairs means have to be found to replenish the almost empty exchequer. The count has recourse, no doubt, to the gaming-table, for all his life he has been an inveterate gambler. The countess, on whom her sentence has had this wholesome effect, it had cured her of her propensity for forgery and theft, bethinks herself that calumny, if the envenomed shaft be only skilfully aimed, might yield a golden prize. This contemplated slandering of the queen “was an arrow I still preserved,” says Madame de la Motte, “as the best in my quiver, resolving to threaten, but not to shoot till reduced to the very last extremity.”[393] In pursuance of this resolution, rumours are wafted abroad—care being especially taken that they shall cross the Channel and penetrate to the royal apartments at Versailles—to the effect that the Countess de la Motte is engaged in writing her “Mémoires,”—the very titles of the chapters of which she had managed to get published in the English newspapers,—wherein she intends to give “an exact detail of the extraordinary events which contributed to raise her to the dignity of confidant and favourite of the Queen of France, with some further particulars relative to the mysterious transaction of the Diamond Necklace.”[394]

If Count de la Motte is to be believed, the Duchess de Polignac made at this period a second visit to England, again “to drink the Bath waters.” Our opinion, however, is that, either by accident or design, he has put forward the date of the visit (which it is quite certain the duchess made early in May, returning to France at the end of June)[395] for upwards of a month; for Madame de la Motte, according to her own statement, did not arrive in England until the early part of August. Either the case is as we have suggested, or else the countess arrived in England more than a month earlier than she represents herself to have done. Supposing this to be the fact, the visit of the duchess now alluded to would be the same visit of which we have already spoken.[396] The count in his autobiography states that, soon after his wife arrived in London, he received a message from the Duchess of Devonshire (the beautiful Georgiana), begging him to call upon her at Devonshire House. The count goes there, and on being introduced into the drawing-room is presented to the Duchess de Polignac and her sister the Countess Diane, who observe to him that, having come over to drink the Bath waters, and having heard that Madame de la Motte proposed publishing some memoirs, they thought they might perhaps be of service to her—in other words, might save her from fresh persecutions, and insure her the means of an honourable existence for the future.

On the count communicating all this to his wife, she immediately resolved, he says, to leave London with the least possible delay, for she feels certain that the intention is to kidnap her and take her back to the Salpêtrière, and threatens she will throw herself into the Thames if her husband will not leave London with her that very day. The count, knowing that she was quite capable of carrying out her threat, wrote to the Duchess of Devonshire, explaining his wife’s fears, and informing the duchess of her resolution. De la Motte, in answer to the Abbé Georgel’s assertion that Madame de Polignac bought the MS. of the “Mémoires,” affirms that at this time not a line of them was written, and never would have been written, had it not been for M. de Calonne (madame’s old friend and ex-controller-general), who called a few days afterwards and suggested that the “Mémoires” should be at once written, so as to profit by the offer of the queen. With this view he introduced to them a M. de la Tour, a writer in the _Courrier de l’Europe_ to throw their rough notes into shape; and in consequence the countess at once set to work, and produced her celebrated “Mémoires Justificatifs.” Supposing this statement to be true, the chances are, that the Duchess de Polignac, in the settlement she made with the De la Mottes, provided for these memoirs never seeing the light. In one of those letters of court gossip, from which we have made frequent quotations, it is explicitly stated that Madame de Polignac was assured that “these writings would not appear.” The queen, who was no doubt gratified at the success which she believed had attended the Duchess’s negotiations, had all the apartments of the latter newly furnished at her own expense just before the duchess’s return from her mission, and went, accompanied by the king, to sup with her on the evening of her arrival.[397] One can plainly see that the spirit which pervades this book of Madame de la Motte’s was prompted by an axiom of which she is herself the author, and which is to be found in the second volume of her “Life.” “_No calumny_,” says she, “_is so certain to be believed as that which one woman propagates against another_.”[398] In the midst of the long string of infamous slanders in these so-called Justificatory Memoirs, with which the writer has sullied for all time the name of a noble-hearted, if somewhat erring woman, there occurs this passage: “If the Queen of France were not what she is, should I have been to her what a defenceless bird is in the hands of a froward child, who, after being amused with it for a few moments, strips it of its feathers one by one, and then throws it into the destructive talons of a devouring animal?” Most people, after reading these “Mémoires Justificatifs,” will be inclined to reverse the application of the above simile, and will look upon poor Marie-Antoinette as the defenceless bird, and seek for the devouring animal, with its destructive talons, in Jeanne de St. Remi de Valois.

When the MS. of these “Mémoires” was completed, it was sent to M. de Calonne, who, according to the count, altered it to suit his own purposes. Madame says that the ex-minister even added indecent expressions against the queen—his aim being to get recalled to France and to secure the restoration of the blue ribbon of which he had been deprived. With this object in view, armed with the De la Motte libel, the ex-minister writes to Versailles, offering terms. The queen, however, rejects his proposal with disdain. Calonne now desires to have the MS. printed without delay, and for this purpose orders type and presses to be sent to the house where the De la Mottes reside, so that the work may be done in all secrecy.

During its progress, the ex-controller-general seems to have carried on an intrigue of another kind with the countess, and one which was, moreover, so notorious as to be openly referred to in the scandalous publications of the time.[399] He used to twit her about the branding she had received, and on one occasion, when the countess was boasting in a large assembly of the capital hand she held at picquet, he spitefully observed she had better be careful, or she would certainly be _marked_.[400] Some little misunderstanding which occurred between the pair made them thenceforth at daggers-drawn with each other.

Just about this time, a new ambassador from the French court arrives in England—the Marquis de la Luzerne, brother of the Bishop of Langres, the countess’s early patron, and reputed lover. He has heard of Calonne’s proceedings, and loses no time in sending an envoy to the De la Mottes, to point out to them that Calonne will be certain to play them false, and to make arrangements for an interview. Calonne gets scent of what is going on, and tries to carry off the MS., but does not succeed. The interview with the ambassador takes place; Count de la Motte shows M. de Luzerne the MS., with Calonne’s corrections and interlineations, and it is arranged that the ambassador shall make a definitive proposition so soon as he has received instructions from Paris. Calonne hears of this interview, goes to the De la Mottes, and demands the restitution of the MS.; threatening all the terrors of the law if they do not comply. The count remains firm, and madame, by the aid of an English naval officer, who subsequently translated her “Mémoires” into English, shows up the ex-French minister of finance in a pamphlet, which she styles, “A Scourge for Calonne,” and which goes off like wildfire, copies fetching as much as six louis each in Paris on its first appearance.[401] The Marquis de la Luzerne, having received his instructions, communicates them to the count. He is commissioned to make an offer of ten thousand livres a year, with fifty thousand livres down, to enable the De la Mottes to discharge their more pressing debts. The countess, according to her husband’s account, is opposed to accepting this very liberal offer, talks very big about her position before the world, clearing her character, &c.; the count, however, thinking that the solid pudding is to be preferred to all this, over-persuades his wife, and they give their acquiescence. The money is to be speedily forthcoming; but, unfortunately, one of those proverbial slips between the cup and the lip now chances. Cardinal-Archbishop Loménie de Brienne is dismissed from his office of prime minister, and M. Necker is summoned to occupy his place, and M. Necker will have nothing whatever to do with a De la Motte negotiation in any shape or form. Such is the count’s version of this affair of the “Mémoires,” but, like everything else from the De la Motte mint, it must be received with suspicion.[402]

When or how the MS. of these “Mémoires,” of Madame de la Motte’s was sold to the French court, we have no means of ascertaining; but that it was sold, and that after the sale the “Mémoires” were published in breach of good faith, is a moral certainty. In all probability the Duchess de Polignac negotiated the purchase, which was likely enough carried out through the medium of the French ambassador, the statement about M. Necker being a falsehood concocted to conceal the fact of any sale of the MS. taking place. Madame Campan asserts, in the most solemn manner, that she herself had seen, “in the queen’s hands, a manuscript of the infamous memoirs of the woman Lamotte, which had been brought to her from London, and which were corrected by the very hand of M. de Calonne in all those places where a total ignorance of the usages of the court had made this wretch commit the most palpable errors.”[403]

In the doubtful Lamballe Memoirs this Princess is represented as giving a most circumstantial account of her having become the purchaser of a printed copy of Madame de la Motte’s “Mémoires Justificatifs” corrected by the hand of M. de Calonne, and of the existence of which she was first made acquainted by a letter addressed to her by Sheridan. This occurred immediately subsequent to a visit paid by her to England where she went on two occasions—once during July 1787,[404] and a second time in June 1791.[405] On the receipt of the work in question she delivered it, she says, to the queen, who at once brought it beneath the notice of Louis XVI. in proof of Calonne’s villainy. Had the princess’s narrative stopped here we might have felt disposed to put faith in it, but, unfortunately for its claims to be regarded as authentic, it goes on to say that the king forthwith indignantly ordered Calonne to resign his portfolio, and that the minister begged permission to return it to the king with his own hands. On this request being granted, the book was produced, and a scene ensued which ended in the king leaving the room, and Calonne falling upon his knees before Marie-Antoinette and imploring her to pardon him.[406] Now as Calonne was dismissed from office, and exiled from Paris in April 1787, three months before the Princess de Lamballe’s first visit to England, and more than four years before her second, and was never called upon to serve the king afterwards, and as moreover Madame de la Motte’s first libel, her “Mémoires Justificatifs,” was not printed until 1789, it is quite certain that there is not a particle of truth in the above narrative, which induces us to believe that the so-called “Mémoires relatifs à la Famille Royale de France” claiming to be based on a private journal of the Princess de Lamballe’s, are, like many other pretended Memoirs of the time, nothing more than a clumsy forgery.

Madame de la Motte herself indirectly admits that it was the desire of pecuniary gain rather than any particular anxiety to “clear her character before the world,” which induced the publication of her “Justificatory Memoir.” “My husband,” says she, “standing on the very brink of ruin”—they had received since they had been in England two thousand two hundred pounds for their diamonds, and at least as much more we should suppose for the MS. of the “Mémoires,” so that if this statement is true, they must have dissipated between four and five thousand pounds in the course of a couple of years—“was necessitated to have recourse to printing my ‘justification’ as the only means of satisfying the craving demands of his creditors, whom he was obliged to avoid, as they made every effort to arrest him; while I, with misery like a vulture gnawing at my heart, and poverty chasing even at my very heels, detesting that burden of life which it is yet my duty to support, and, God forgive me! cursing the hour of my birth, remained defenceless—unable to protect myself from insult, or to ward off the blows which malice aimed at my reputation.

“M. de la Motte printed five thousand ‘Mémoires’ in French and three thousand in English, confident, from the advice he had received, that the queen would not suffer them to be published, though I constantly represented to him the absurdity of this belief.... How could he hope the government would make terms with us, when they knew that the original MS. of the ‘Mémoires’ was in the possession of M. de Calonne, who could make it public whenever he thought proper?[407] It never accorded with my sentiments,” continues the countess, “to enter into any pecuniary negotiations with the government; the only thing I had at heart was the vindication of my honour; and, had I been left to my own discretion, neither sceptres nor crowns should have purchased my silence.”

This was a safe enough reservation, as neither sceptres nor crowns were likely to be offered even to a descendant of the house of Valois; but we question whether madame could have withstood the temptation of a certain number of _billets_ of the bank of France, had these been tendered to her, for times were hard with the De la Mottes, and it was necessary above all things to “put money in the purse.” At any rate, she would have promised to keep silence, would have taken the money, and then have broken her word.

It must be remembered that all the time this bargaining is going forward for the sale and purchase of these wretched libels, Paris—nay, France itself—is in a state of ferment, what with the meeting of its states-general, the quarrels of its first and third orders, the braving of the royal authority, the dismissal of Necker; with troops constantly under arms, riots out of which bloodshed arises in the streets, the tocsin sounding from all steeples, attacks upon the prisons, the states-general in permanent session, to be followed ere long by the storming and capture of the Bastille—in other words, a Revolution!

XL.

APRIL, 1787–MAY, 1792.

THE COUNT HAWKS THE LIBELS ABROAD.—IS IMPRISONED IN LA FORCE AND THE CONCIERGERIE.—THE LAST OF THE DE LA MOTTE LIBELS.

Count de la Motte, having circulated copies of his wife’s “Mémoires Justificatifs” among the London booksellers and in other directions, and being, as usual, involved in debt, thinks it prudent to make an excursion to Holland, where he believes some business in these libels may be done; for it is, reasons he, just as easy to smuggle copies of them into France over the Flemish frontier as across the British Channel, and we all know that Mynheer has never been particular as to the character of the wares he trades in. To Holland, therefore, the count goes in the month of April, 1789. In tracing his career from this date we have but few materials to guide us beyond his own posthumous “Mémoires,”[408] which abound in evident exaggerations, and no less evident falsehoods. The reader is therefore cautioned to accept the count’s statements with the same reserve which we have already asked of him in respect to many of the assertions of the countess. Truth would seem to have held no place in the De la Motte system of morals.

Before the count had brought his negotiations respecting an edition of his wife’s “Mémoires” to a close, news comes across the Low Countries of a rising of the people of Paris and the fall of the Bastille. The count forthwith borrows fifteen louis from one of his Dutch acquaintances, with whose daughter he has been flirting up to a point that her father speaks seriously to him of matrimony, and hurries off to Paris, where he arrives on the 18th of August. He at once addresses himself to Bailly, the newly-elected mayor, from whom he asks a safe-conduct until the judgment against him in the Necklace affair can be brought before the new tribunals. He next has an interview with Mirabeau, who, he says, had already heard of his arrival, and informed the Duke d’Orléans of it, telling the duke at the same time they might reckon upon the count joining them in the attack which they contemplated making upon the “Austrian she-wolf” (Marie-Antoinette). The count thereupon calls on the duke, who proposes to him that he shall present a petition at the bar of the National Assembly, and subsequently supplies him with funds through Mirabeau.

The count tells a mysterious story of some unknown individual calling upon him at this period, and making an appointment for him to be, between twelve and one o’clock at night, in the Avenue de Paris, at Versailles, near the iron railings of the château, where he would find Mirabeau, disguised in a long blue cloak and round hat. The count keeps the appointment, and meets with Mirabeau as described, and receives from him a form of petition, which he is to copy out by six o’clock in the morning, and then return the original draft. Mirabeau, he says, called at his hôtel at the time named, when he handed him the copy of the petition, and pretended that the draft was destroyed, pointing at the same time to some fragments of burnt paper in the grate, as proof of the fact. Out of this draft petition, in Mirabeau’s handwriting, the count sees his way to make some money. Without loss of time he takes it to M. de Montmorin, minister for foreign affairs, informs him of the nature of the intrigue which is going on, and explains who are the prime movers in it. By this means he gains over the minister, who is, of course, all affability, and speaks to him of the offer made some time back by M. de la Luzerne, which offer, he says, he is quite prepared to carry out. From this moment the count is in clover; for he obtains bribes from both parties, each of whom he of course sells to the other. After a time, matters being considered ripe, Mirabeau urges him to come to the bar of the National Assembly, and present his petition; but this the count is indisposed to do. He pretends, therefore, that he has consulted two advocates, both of whom advise him that the Assembly is not competent to deal with his case, and so manages to shuffle out of the affair, thereby however cutting himself adrift from the Orléans party.

Count de la Motte, it seems, has an old score to clear off with Father Loth for what he professes to regard as his contemptible betrayal of the countess in the Necklace affair. He ascertains that, as a reward for his treachery, the De Rohan family have got Loth appointed one of the brotherhood of the Knights of Malta, with comfortable quarters in the Temple. To the Temple, therefore, the count hies, armed with a stout club, with which he proposes knocking out poor Father Loth’s brains. “I know not,” says the count, “whether he was warned, or whether he recognised me wandering about the Temple, but the fact is he quitted the place abruptly, and I could never find out what became of him;” a lucky result for Father Loth, who thereby preserved his customary modicum of brains in an uncracked skull.