Chapter IV: Appendix: Detailed Description of the Diamond Necklace 387 (1)

SELECTION FROM THE LETTERS PRETENDED TO HAVE PASSED
BETWEEN THE QUEEN AND THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 390

EPITOME OF THE FIRST PROCÈS-VERBAL DESCRIPTIVE OF THE
DOCUMENTS TENDING TO ESTABLISH CRIMINALITY 395

SOME SATIRICAL VERSES TO WHICH THE NECKLACE AFFAIR
GAVE RISE 402

MEMORIAL CONCERNING THE HOUSE OF SAINT-REMI DE VALOIS 405

ABSTRACT OF THE DECLARATION MADE BY BETTE D’ÉTIENVILLE
IN THE NECKLACE AFFAIR 409

“Though the descendant of a king, I have been a beggar, a
servant, a mantua-maker’s apprentice, and the favourite of
royalty.... The names of a great queen and of a prince-cardinal
unhappily united with mine have spread a blaze around it to
attract general notice; and as if I was doomed to be the victim
of painful splendour, the ingenuity of my enemies have found
means to forge the chains of my dishonour out of a Diamond
Necklace.”—“Life of the Countess de la Motte, by herself,” vol.
i. p. 267, and p. 6 of Preface.

“Faites attention à ce misérable Collier, je ne serais
nullement surpris qu’il renversât le trône.”—_Talleyrand to
Chamfort._ “Histoire Monarchique et Constitutionnelle de la
Révolution Française,” par E. Labaume, vol. ii. p. 139.

“I would caution them to despise those who, hacknied in
systematic scandal, feast upon the bleeding reputations of
their sisters mangled and torn by calumny; let them demand
of those who convey such vile insinuations some proof of
the circumstances which they relate; let them sift them
thoroughly to the bottom; _let them inquire the character
of the tale-bearer; let them ask how, where, and when, and
whether she knows the woman whom she has so eagerly attempted
to disgrace_.”—“Life of the Countess de la Motte, by herself,”
vol. ii. p. 410.

“Do not the critics teach us: ‘In whatsoever thing thou hast
thyself felt interest, in that or in nothing hope to inspire
others with interest.’ In partial obedience to all which and
to many other principles shall the following small Romance
of the Diamond Necklace begin to come together. A small
Romance let the reader again and again assure himself, which
is no brain-web of mine, or of any other foolish man’s, but
a fraction of the mystic ‘spirit-woven web’ from the ‘Loom
of Time.’ It is an actual Transaction that happened in this
Earth of ours. Wherewith our whole business is to paint it
truly.”—“Carlyle’s Critical and Miscellaneous Essays,” vol. iv.
p. 5.

THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

I.

1764.

A SCION OF ROYALTY IN TATTERS.—“TAKE PITY ON THE ORPHAN DESCENDANTS OF HENRY II., KING OF FRANCE.”

Rather more than a century ago, in the year 1764, just as death had closed the career of the once all-powerful Madame de Pompadour, who had long since exhausted all her arts in vain endeavours to revive the jaded passions of her royal lover, and when the star of the notorious Dubarry was gaining the ascendant, the Marquis and Marchioness de Boulainvilliers, attended by servants and outriders in the gayest of liveries, were driving one day in a carriage and four from their hôtel at Paris to the château of Passy, of which pleasant river-side village the marquis was _seigneur_. All at once their attention was attracted to a little girl about eight years of age, clad in the beggar’s accustomed livery—rags and tatters, who, carrying a younger sister on her back, ran beside the carriage, at that moment proceeding up the hill at a slow pace, and appealed for charity after the following strange fashion:—“Kind lady and gentleman, pray take pity on two poor orphans descended from Henry the Second of Valois, King of France.”

The marchioness, struck by the singularity of this appeal, stopped the carriage and commenced questioning the child, much to the annoyance of her parsimonious husband, who petulantly remarked she ought to know well enough that it was a common trick of poverty to forge lies to excite compassion. The marchioness, however, persisted in her inquiries, and ascertained from the child whereabouts she lived, then, after promising to see into the truth of her statement and telling a servant to give her a few pieces of silver, the lady, greatly to the satisfaction of her impatient husband, gave directions for the carriage to proceed.

The next day, in accordance with her promise, the marchioness despatched a trusty servant to the place where the children lodged, at the adjacent village of Chaillot, facing the river between Passy and the then fashionable Cours la Reine, where the commonality—in other words, those who wore “frieze, woollen stockings and cloth hoods”—were forbidden to show themselves. At Chaillot the people of the house, and the neighbours generally, confirmed, so far as they were able, the truth of the little beggar girl’s story, which, as this partakes largely of the romantic, and exercised moreover an important influence on our heroine’s subsequent remarkable career, we propose recounting here in all the necessary detail.

II.

1717–1764.

THE SAINT-REMIS OF VALOIS.—A TRAMP UP TO THE CAPITAL.

For a couple of centuries there had resided at Bar-sur-Aube, in the Champagne, certain Barons de Saint-Remi, the first of whom was Henri de Saint-Remi, an illegitimate son of Henri II. of Valois, King of France, lover of the beautiful Diana of Poitiers; the same who had the ill luck to be accidentally killed at a tilting-match by a lance thrust in his right eye from the captain of his Scottish guards, the Count de Montgomerie, ancestor of our Earls of Eglinton. This son of his, Henri de Saint-Remi, was, in heralds’ language, “High and Puissant Lord and Knight, Baron and Seigneur of the Manors of the Chatellier, Fontette, Noez and Beauvoir, Knight of the King’s Order, Gentleman of the Bedchamber in ordinary, Colonel of a regiment of horse and a regiment of foot, and Governor of Château-Villain.” In the course of a few generations, however, the Saint-Remis appear to have fallen from their high estate, and their broad manors to have become entirely alienated from them, inasmuch as we find that Nicolas de Saint-Remi, the great-grandson of the Henri before mentioned, instead of being styled “High and Puissant Lord and Knight,” and Seigneur of various extensive domains, and the holder of numerous offices about the person of the sovereign, was merely one of the king’s body-guard in the Duke de Charost’s company. He married the daughter of Nicolas-François de Vienne, a great man in the royal bailiwick of Bar-sur-Aube, who seems at this period to have been the possessor of two of the Saint-Remi manors, namely, Noez and Fontette. The children that sprung from this marriage were two sons, the elder of whom was slain in battle, while the younger, Jacques de Saint-Remi, was father of the little beggar girl whom we found running beside the Boulainvilliers’ carriage asking alms.

Jacques de Saint-Remi de Valois, in spite of his illustrious descent, seems to have gradually sunk to the level of the peasant class, and the indigence to which he found himself reduced was aggravated by his imprudently marrying a young girl with a pretty face, but of vulgar manners and somewhat loose morals, the daughter of his _concierge_ at the time he had a house to shelter him. The offspring of this union was a son and two daughters, born respectively in the years 1755, 6, and 7, but small as his family was, Jacques de Saint-Remi seems to have been unable to support it. One who knew him well describes the last of the barons of Saint-Remi as a man of athletic build, who lived partly by poaching and by depredations in the adjoining forest, partly by plundering his neighbours’ fields, and partly on the charity of the benevolent.[1] The vast estates which formerly belonged to the now impoverished family had gradually dwindled away, some having been sold to meet the demands arising from the extravagance of successive owners, while others had passed into the hands of lawyers and money-lenders. At this period there nevertheless remained three domains of considerable extent, deeply encumbered, it is true, with debts, but still open to some real or fancied claim, which, although the beggared heir of the house of Valois had no means of enforcing it, was nevertheless the reverie and abstraction of his life. A few sheets of musty parchment, the surviving title-deeds of his house, the last wreck, so to speak, of the vast landed property of the Saint-Remis of Valois, were kept by him carefully stowed away under the straw thatch of his miserable hut. To pore at times over these old parchments was the one act of worldly vanity in which Jacques de Saint-Remi permitted himself to indulge, but the woman he had married was not so easily satisfied. The continual display of these mysterious documents kindled her ambition, until at length it was raised to such a pitch, that she prevailed on her husband to set out for Paris, there to endeavour to make interest among the great for the restoration of those rights to which as heir of the house of Valois she conceived him to be entitled.

After disposing of such few movables as they possessed, the wretched family set forth and literally tramped up to the capital, a distance of nearly a hundred and fifty miles. That they might not be burthened on the way by their youngest child, then about three years old, the unnatural parents left it behind them, exposed on a window-sill of the house of one Durand, “a wealthy and avaricious farmer,” to quote the eldest sister’s own words, “who, being in possession of a great part of my father’s estate, and having stood sponsor to this unfortunate infant, was therefore deemed the most proper person to be her future protector.”[2]

On their arrival in Paris, in a state of extreme destitution, the Saint-Remi family shifted their place of residence from one suburb to another until they eventually settled down at Boulogne, then merely a small village on the banks of the Seine, opposite to St. Cloud. Here they lived upon such charity as the gentry of the neighbourhood, attracted by the singularity of their story, from time to time bestowed upon them. The father at this period had fallen into a stage of dotage, and the mother’s pet idea of an appeal in high quarters for the restoration of the family estates had to be sacrificed to the powerful struggle which they were forced to make for their daily bread. Months thus passed away, until one day Jacques de Saint-Remi, for some cause or other—most likely an unpaid baker’s bill—was arrested by an officer of the marshalsea (mounted police) of Boulogne, and locked up in a loathsome cell, where he remained for six weeks. Here the poor man contracted a serious illness, and on his release, which was brought about by the intervention of the _curé_ of the parish, the only retreat which the efforts of his neighbours, for friends he had none, were enabled to provide for him—a descendant of the blood-royal of France—was a pallet in one of the wards of the Hôtel Dieu. Here he died, a couple of days afterwards, on the 16th February, 1762.

Within a few days of the death of Jacques de Saint-Remi his wife gave birth to another daughter, and as soon as she was recovered from her confinement, the family removed to Versailles, where the mother made a practice of sending the children into the streets to beg. Jeanne, the eldest daughter, and the heroine of our story, appears to have been treated with great harshness by her mother; for unless the child brought home ten _sous_ on ordinary days, and double that amount on Sundays and fête days, as the fruits of her mendicity, she was subjected, she tells us, to the cruellest punishment. The mother had at this time formed a disreputable connection with a disbanded common soldier—one Jean-Baptiste Raymond, a native of Sardinia—with whom mendicancy was a positive passion; for, in disregard of the authorities, he made it his daily practice to beg in the most public places of Paris, having with him the young Jacques de Saint-Remi, and the family documents, which he boldly exhibited to the passers-by in support of a pretended claim which he himself set up to the honours of the house of Valois. Jean-Baptiste was arrested by the police time after time, for plying his nefarious trade with such marked audacity, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. He was, however, incorrigible, and the authorities at last determined upon getting rid of him. After sending him to prison for a further term of fifteen days, they ordered him to be exposed for four-and-twenty hours in the Place de Louis Quinze—subsequently the Place de la Révolution, where for two years the guillotine did its bloody work, and now the handsome Place de la Concorde—with an inscription setting forth the nature of his imposture, and copies of the titles he had falsely assumed hung round his neck. This public exhibition at an end, Jean-Baptiste Raymond was banished for five years from the capital.

When the day arrived for his departure, the unnatural mother of the young Saint-Remis set out with her paramour, leaving behind her three children, whom she promised to rejoin in eight days at the very outside, to shift for themselves. Five weeks, however, elapsed without any tidings of her, and it was at this particular moment that the poor children, deserted by their only remaining protector, and reduced almost to a state of starvation, had the good fortune to attract the notice of the kind-hearted Marchioness de Boulainvilliers.

III.

1764–1779.

MANTUA-MAKER’S APPRENTICE.—PENSIONER UNDER THE CROWN.—BOARDER IN A CONVENT.

The Boulainvilliers’ lacquey, satisfied with the inquiries he had made, directed the children to take leave of those kind neighbours who had so constantly befriended them, and afterwards to come on to Passy, where they were to inquire for the château, which stood, by-the-way, on the precise spot where the pleasant “Hameau de Boulainvilliers” now stands. But few preparations being necessary for their departure, they were soon on their road, and reached the château in the course of the afternoon. Their arrival being announced, they were conducted “into a grand hall, in the centre of which rose a magnificent staircase richly ornamented with gold, where a large company of ladies and gentlemen were waiting to view them.”[3] The marchioness descending to the middle of the staircase, asked young Jeanne whether she remembered her again, an inquiry which it is almost needless to say the child promptly answered in the affirmative.

The company having gratified their curiosity at a distance, for no one dared venture into too close proximity with these wretched outcasts, covered as they were with rags and dirt, the marchioness gave orders for them to be cleansed, and for other clothes to be supplied them. A good scrubbing having brought to light indications of various diseases, the usual concomitants of poverty, steps were taken for their speedy eradication; and in the course of a few weeks, thanks to the attention the children received, and to the generous food provided them, all traces of their former wretched condition were effaced.

The marchioness’s next care was the education of the young orphans, and Jeanne and her sister were sent to a boarding-school in the neighbourhood, where they made rapid progress. In less than two years, however, the youngest girl died of the small-pox, at that time a disease not only very prevalent, but commonly fatal. Jeanne remained at school for several years longer; but during the latter period of her stay, her governess, she tells us, unknown to the marchioness (whom the young Saint-Remi saw but rarely), compelled her to perform the common offices of a domestic servant. “This employment,” she observes, “against which it was useless to remonstrate, was but ill adapted to those elevated notions which reflections on my birth had inspired me with. Was it not,” she asks, “painful to feel that, descended as I was from the first family in France, I was yet reduced to be a servant to people of the very lowest rank, nay, even to servants themselves?”[4]

At length, at her own request, Jeanne was removed from school, but the marquis, who was half a Jew—his mother being a daughter of Samuel Bernard, the rich Hebrew banker, whom even the “Grand Monarque” would condescend to take by the arm when he was hard up and wanted to coax a loan out of him, and whom the court ladies used to cheat at the queen’s card-table—objected to her continuing a pensioner on the Boulainvilliers’ establishment. With the view therefore of placing her in a position to provide for herself, Jeanne was articled to a Parisian mantua-maker for a term of three years. Ill-health, however, compelled her to leave before completing the engagement, and she filled one situation after another, subject to constant attacks of illness, until at length a change in the fortunes of the family made it no longer necessary for her to labour for her daily bread.

The young Jacques de Saint-Remi had received his education under the care of M. Leclerc, the husband of his sister Jeanne’s governess, and on its completion had been sent to sea. About this time he returned home from his first voyage, and the marchioness, having got together various documents in support of the claim of the family to the honours of the house of Valois, consulted with the Marquis de Chabert (the admiral under whom the young Saint-Remi had recently served, and who had interested himself a good deal in the young sailor’s history) as to the best course to be adopted to get this claim recognised at court. The marquis at once caused a genealogical tree of the family to be drawn up, which he transmitted with the necessary confirmatory documents to his cousin, M. d’Hozier de Sérigny, grand genealogist and judge-at-arms of the nobility of France, that the same might receive the sanction of his authority.[5]

When this was returned to M. de Chabert, accompanied by a certificate of M. d’Hozier’s attesting its accuracy, the marquis forwarded the various documents to the proper quarter, and in due course obtained the appointment of a day for the reception of young Saint-Remi by Louis XVI., who had only recently ascended the throne. The youth was introduced to the king as the Baron de Valois by the Marquis de Boulainvilliers, the Marquis de Chabert, the Count de Maurepas, and M. Necker. The king was pleased to recognise the title which the friends of the young Jacques de Saint-Remi had persuaded him to assume, but desirous, it was believed, that this should become extinct in the person of its present possessor, recommended the newly-acknowledged Baron de Valois to devote himself to the service of the church.[6] Jacques respectfully ventured to suggest that his predilections were in favour of the army or the navy. The king thanked the young Saint-Remi for his inclination to serve him, but recommended him again, still more strongly, to dedicate his days to the service of his Maker. “Sire,” replied the young man, with a sprinkling of blasphemy which only a Frenchman would have ventured on, “I am serving God when I am serving my king.”[7]

The members of the Saint-Remi family had now their several titles awarded them. Jacques, as we have already seen, was henceforth to be styled Baron de Valois; his sister Jeanne was to be known as Mademoiselle de Valois; and Marianne, the poor child who had been left exposed outside Farmer Durand’s window-sill, and who was now sent for to Paris, was for the future to be called Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi. But as “fine words butter no parsneps,” so empty honours will not suffice to keep the pot boiling. It was therefore imperative that the necessary steps should be taken to procure some sort of provision for these destitute off-shoots of the blood-royal of France. It is true the national finances were in a most lamentable condition, still everybody agreed that something must be done, which something finally resolved itself into a pension to each member of the family of Valois of eight hundred livres (francs) equivalent to thirty-two pounds sterling per annum, commencing from December, 1775. In addition to this, through the intervention of M. Necker, the young Baron de Valois had a commission in the navy given him, with a grant of four thousand livres for his outfit, and shortly afterwards received orders to join his ship at Brest.

We have already mentioned that Jeanne, or, as we must now style her, Mademoiselle de Valois, during the period she was toiling as a mantua-maker’s apprentice, was subject to frequent attacks of illness. On these occasions it seems an apartment was set apart for her at the Hôtel de Boulainvilliers[8] where every care was bestowed upon her until she was completely restored to health. During the period of her convalescence she was constantly persecuted by the marquis with attentions the object of which it was impossible to mistake. These advances, moreover, were subsequently renewed on every occasion that presented itself; in fact, whenever mademoiselle found herself under the Boulainvilliers’ roof; and if we can credit her own statement, more than one daring assault was made by the old reprobate upon her virtue. To rid herself of the marquis’s importunities she was forced, she tells us, to complain to his wife, who decided upon taking the necessary steps to remove mademoiselle beyond the sphere of her husband’s dangerous influence. She and her sister Marianne were accordingly sent as boarders to the Abbey of Yères, in the neighbourhood of Montgeron, some dozen miles or so from Paris, on the road to Lyons. Here she asserts that for a time she contemplated taking the veil, a resolution, however, which, if ever seriously entertained, was very soon abandoned.

About this time the Marquis de Boulainvilliers was detected defrauding the excise by means of an extensive secret distillery which he carried on in some vaults beneath his Paris hôtel. The discovery of this fraud caused, as might be supposed, considerable sensation among the _haute noblesse_, and neither the marquis nor the marchioness dared show themselves at court, and hardly even in the vicinity of the capital. They decided, therefore, to retire for a time to their château at Montgeron, no great distance from the Abbey of Yères, and, as a matter of course, the sisters Valois were invited to spend the holidays with them. At the château they would probably have continued to remain had not the marquis renewed his system of persecution. It is, however, tolerably certain that something very like encouragement was given to him by Mademoiselle de Valois, for the pair were surprised one day in a somewhat equivocal situation by the Marquis de Brancas and the Abbé Tacher, and although the lady in her “Memoirs” has the effrontery to speak of “the blush of conscious innocence which coloured her cheek” on this occasion, the result was that she was packed off by the marchioness to the well-known Abbey of Longchamp near Paris—of course, as she says, at her own earnest entreaty. Of this once handsome pile of conventual buildings, all that has survived the fury of the revolutionists of 1793, is a round ivy-mantled tower and an adjacent windmill, both familiar objects at the present time in this favourite locality. In the days of St. Vincent de Paul, the disorders which reigned in the Abbey of Longchamp were such as to call forth severe animadversions from this earnest and conscientious priest,[9] and even when the sisters Valois entered it as boarders, the discipline was inclined to be lax; nevertheless the marquis made so many morning calls that the other boarders were scandalised at his constant visits, and the abbess was constrained to give orders that no gentleman should be allowed to visit Mademoiselle de Valois on any pretence whatever. At this abbey the sisters remained for about a year, only quitting it, say they, on the death of the abbess. Other accounts state that they left the convent surreptitiously early one morning, carrying with them a very light bundle, and with thirty-six francs jingling in their pockets, their departure being due to the pertinacity of the abbess in pressing them to embrace a religious life, a course to which the young ladies, who were by this time sufficiently partial to worldly vanities, were by no means inclined.[10] The abbess is supposed to have received her instructions from high quarters, and it is further suggested that the object of them was the gradual extinction of the race of the Valois, together with all their troublesome claims.

IV.

1773–1778.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE: ORDERED, BUT NOT SOLD.

While our heroine was being initiated into the mysteries of mantua-making by the most distinguished of Parisian _modistes_, the “chains of her dishonour,”[11] as she styles them, were unknown to her being forged in the form of a Diamond Necklace, such as the world never saw before, and the like of which it can hardly hope to look upon again. Here is a description, penned by a master-hand, of this regal jewel, this unique gem, long an object of desire with queens and women, which caused a nine months’ convulsion of the world of Paris, and the remarkable story connected with which was for a time the talk of every city in Europe, while the mystery enveloping it is thought by many to be hardly cleared up even now. “A row of seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle, not too tightly, the neck a first time. Looser, gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three-wreathed festoon and pendants enough (simple pear-shaped, multiple star-shaped or clustering amorphous) encircle it, enwreath it a second time. Loosest of all, softly flowing round from behind in priceless catenary, rush down two broad threefold rows; seem to knot themselves, round a very queen of diamonds, on the bosom; then rush on, again separated, as if there were length in plenty: the very tassels of them were a fortune for some men. And now, lastly, two other inexpressible threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, when the Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves behind into a doubly inexpressible sixfold row; and so stream down, together or asunder, over the hind neck,—we may fancy like lambent zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis fire.”[12]

This matchless jewel had its origin in a freak of Louis XV., the “Well-Beloved,” as he was endearingly called at the early part of his reign, whose infatuation in later years for the notorious Countess Dubarry led him into all kinds of extravagance, and caused him to dissipate with more than his accustomed recklessness the already seriously impaired revenues of the State. We learn from the Abbé Soulavie that, during the last sixteen months of the “Well-Beloved’s” reign, the sum of two million four hundred and fifty thousand francs, or nearly one hundred thousand pounds sterling—a far larger sum in those days, be it remembered, than at the present time—was paid out of the royal exchequer in hard cash to this one favourite alone. And to satisfy us that his statement is accurate, the abbé furnishes us with his authority, and gives the details of the eight several instalments of which the grand total is composed.[13] This, it should be borne in mind, was entirely independent of all manner of royal grants and gifts of places and houses and lands, which had been flung, whenever asked for, into the lap of this frail beauty. Startling as this example of royal prodigality in the days of the decadence of the French monarchy may appear, it is nevertheless indisputable that the infatuated libertine who then controlled the destinies of France, by no means wanted the will to indulge in still wilder schemes of extravagance. For instance, on one occasion, whilst visiting with his architect the costly pavilion of Louveciennes, lately erected for Madame Dubarry, he expressed his regret that he could not present her with a palace constructed entirely of gold and precious stones. Unable to realize this extravagant whim, he resolved to bestow upon his mistress the most costly set of diamonds which could be collected throughout Europe. The result was the world-renowned Diamond Necklace.[14]

Louis XV. gave the commission to the crown jewellers, Böhmer and Bassenge[15] who entered heart and soul into the undertaking. The execution of so rare an order was of course an affair of time. Not only had the jewellers to raise funds to enable them to secure the largest and finest diamonds that were in the market, but they had to hunt out and employ the most skilful lapidaries to fashion them to their several shapes. Every important city in Europe, and others far more remote, were ransacked to collect these matchless gems. Some of the finest were met with in Germany, others in Spain, others again in Russia, a few in Brazil, and a very fine one indeed was picked up in the city of Hamburg. “But,” says Carlyle, “to tell the various histories of these various diamonds, from the first making of them, or even omitting all the rest, from the first digging of them in far Indian mines.... How they served as eyes of heathen idols, and received worship; how they had then by fortune of war, or theft, been knocked out, and exchanged among camp-sutlers for a little spirituous liquor, and bought by Jews; and worn as signets on the fingers of tawny or white majesties; and again been lost, with the fingers too, and perhaps life (as by Charles the Rash among the mud ditches of Nancy), in old forgotten glorious victories; and so through innumerable varieties of fortune had come at last to the cutting-wheel of Böhmer, to be united in strange fellowship with comrades also blown together from all ends of the earth, each with a history of its own. Could these aged stones—the youngest of them six thousand years of age and upwards—but have spoken, there were an experience for philosophy to teach by. But now, as was said, by little caps of gold and daintiest rings of the same, they are all being, so to speak, enlisted under Böhmer’s flag,—made to take rank and file in new order, no jewel asking his neighbour whence he came; and parade there for a season. For a season only, and then to disperse and enlist anew _ad infinitum_.”[16]

For many of their purchases credit was obtained by the crown jewellers for a limited period; for others, when they had exhausted their own capital, they were obliged to have recourse to their friends. But they were full of confidence, for two millions of livres (francs)—eighty thousand pounds sterling—was the sum fixed to be paid by the king for this jewel beyond price. The work went bravely on at the Böhmer and Bassenge establishment, “_Au Grand Balcon_,” Rue Vendôme. The jewellers, their friends, their working lapidaries, their trustful creditors, were all in the highest spirits, when suddenly evil tidings cast dismay into the Böhmer and Bassenge camp. One day comes the intelligence that the king is ill; three days afterwards the news arrives that he is in danger; another week brings the report that he is dead, and the late favourite for whom the rich ornament was destined banished for ever beyond the precincts of the court.

Alas! what was to be done now with the magnificent bauble commissioned by one who, at the time, spite of all his low grovelling debauchery, was nevertheless a king, but is now only so much corruption? Böhmer and Bassenge, crown jewellers, find themselves deeply involved; their creditors become clamorous, for their bills as they fall due are returned protested. They have nothing to fall back upon but the Diamond Necklace, which is worth, or at any rate valued at, two million livres. But where is a purchaser to be found for it? Böhmer and Bassenge, crown jewellers though they be, must still pay their debts. Kings, according to a certain fiction of state, never die—“_Le Roi est Mort! Vive le Roi!_” Böhmer and Bassenge, however, learn by sad experience not only that kings do die, but that creditors, alas, do not.

What is to be done? Only one course suggests itself. A young and lovely queen has just ascended the throne. Will it not be possible to induce her to become the purchaser of this unrivalled specimen of _bijouterie_? The office of crown jeweller carries with it the privilege of _entrée_ to the presence of royalty at all times and seasons; while “other jewellers, and even innumerable gentlemen and small nobility, languish in the vestibule. With the costliest ornaments in his pockets, or borne after him by assiduous shop-boys, the happy Böhmer sees high drawing-rooms and sacred _ruelles_ fly open as with talismanic _sesame_, and the brightest eyes of the whole world grow brighter: to him alone of all men the Unapproachable reveals herself in mysterious _négligée_, taking and giving counsel.”[17]

It was to Versailles that Böhmer betook himself, carrying with him the Diamond Necklace in its case of richest velvet, and ere many hours have elapsed he is displaying its matchless variegated brilliancy—its “flashes of star-rainbow colours” to the admiring gaze of the beauteous Marie-Antoinette, then just twenty years of age, of a gay and lively disposition, verging, some say, on to giddiness, yet perfectly innocent; fond of pleasure, and, like other fair young creatures in this world, not indifferent to those personal ornaments which help to enhance the charms which Nature has bestowed upon them with so liberal a hand. Still, pleased as she was with the gem, she nevertheless felt that the times were unpropitious; or else she scorned, may be, to wear an ornament, however beautiful, the original destination of which was, to say the least of it, unfortunate. But be this as it may, one thing is quite certain, the purchase of the Necklace was declined.

Thus in a moment, as it were, all those fond hopes with which the crown jewellers had buoyed themselves up for many months past were dissipated, and they were again constrained to ask each other, “what is now to be done?” Poor men, they were not to blame, for how could they have foreseen that their royal customer, full of health in November, 1773, when he gave the order, should be dead of small-pox on the 10th of May following? After several days spent in deliberation the partners decided that a drawing of the Necklace should be made and an engraving executed, and that printed copies of this should be sent to all the courts of Europe, to see whether a customer could not be obtained for a jewel which, ransack the entire world through, would be found without its equal.

This scheme, however, clever as it was, proved abortive; for what kind of idea could the cunningest graver and the most liquescent of printing inks possibly give of brilliants of the very finest water? The jewellers next resolved that one of the firm—Bassenge being the younger and more active was eventually fixed upon—should devote himself to travelling over Europe, and to visiting the various courts, where he might personally solicit the different empresses, queens, princesses, landgravines, margravines, electresses, infantas, and grand and arch-duchesses, to purchase this costly jewel, which only a neck flushing with the blood of royalty was worthy to wear. During this time Böhmer was to remain in Paris, to avail himself of any opportunity that might offer for reopening negotiations with Marie-Antoinette. One circumstance, however, rendered the prospect of success doubtful. The queen had become indebted to the crown jewellers in the sum of 348,000 livres (francs), for a pair of diamond earrings, of which amount she had herself only been able to pay some 48,000 livres,[18] leaving 300,000 livres still due.

In this way several years went by. Shortly after the birth of Madame Royale, the Necklace was again offered to the queen, but although the reduced price of one million eight hundred thousand livres was named for it, there was a more serious obstacle than ever in the way of its purchase. France was at this period engaged in a war with England on behalf of the American Colonists, and her navy was in a most crippled condition. No sooner did the crown jeweller name the subject of the Necklace, than Marie-Antoinette interrupted him with this queen-like remark, “Monsieur, we have more need of men-of-war now than of diamonds.”[19] What reply could a crown jeweller make to so pertinent an observation as this? All he could do was to feel affronted, and hastily making his obeisances, he flung himself into the corner of his carriage, and set off down the long Avenue de Paris on his return to the Rue Vendôme in no very amiable mood.

V.

1779–1780.

AT BAR-SUR-AUBE.—COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.

While Monsieur Bassenge Calaphibus-like is wandering up and down Europe trying to dispose of the ill-fated Diamond Necklace, let us see what our heroine is doing now that she has freed herself from the restraints of a conventual life in order to launch forth into the great world with no one to direct, no one to control her. On leaving the abbey of Longchamp the two sisters decided upon making their way to Bar-sur-Aube, and embarked on board one of the Seine barges plying between Paris and Nogent, from which latter place they proceeded up the river Aube to their destination.[20] The youngest sister, it seems, was possessed with a certain longing to return to the place of her birth. Whether this arose from a feeling of vanity, a desire to show off before the simple rustics of Fontette, or whether love was the actuating principle—for she had left a sweetheart behind her when she was summoned to Paris—is more than we can tell. Arrived at Bar-sur-Aube, our heroine informs us that she and her sister at once entered a convent, where many visitors called upon them, and invited them to a round of entertainments at which every one present vied with his neighbour as to who should pay them the greatest amount of attention. She even asserts that they received invitations from the different noble families in the neighbourhood, and, in pursuance of these, entered upon a series of visits varying from a few days to a week in extent. When these visits were over, we are told that a Madame de Suremont enticed them to board at her house, where they were “very elegantly entertained” for four hundred livres (sixteen pounds) per annum.[21]

Other accounts, which we believe to be more trustworthy, assert that the sisters arrived at Bar-sur-Aube with merely a few livres in their pockets, and a single change of linen beyond the clothes they had on, and that, instead of entering a convent, they put up at a miserable little inn called “_La Tête Rouge_,” where they made good their footing by their high titles and the claims they set up to the manors of Essoyes, Fontette, and Verpilière, in the neighbourhood. The great expectations they announced soon became generally known in a small country town, and the consequence was that the good people round about flocked to see them out of curiosity, and it was then that Madame de Suremont, touched by their distress, offered the fugitives the use of her house for a few days until they could manage to provide some other lodging for themselves.

On retiring for the night their hostess, a very stout lady, kindly lent them two of her own dresses to wear, observing, however, that she was afraid they would be too large to fit them. What was Madame de Suremont’s astonishment to see her young guests enter the sitting-room the following morning with the dresses, which they had spent the night in cutting and adapting to their own slim figures, fitting them to perfection! Instead, too, of stopping merely a week at this hospitable house, according to the terms of their invitation, the Demoiselles de Valois managed to remain in it for twelve months, flirting with all the young fellows who visited there, and exhibiting more levity and freedom than was becoming to their sex.[22] The ladies, naturally enough, all shrank aghast from this bold behaviour, but the gentlemen were more or less amused at it.

In due course several of these young fellows became smitten with our heroine, and amongst those who contested for the honour of her smiles were two who stood out in advance of the rest. One was M. Beugnot, the writer of the Memoirs we have been quoting, and son of a well-to-do citizen of Bar-sur-Aube. The latter, however, was so alarmed at the mere idea of having Mademoiselle de Valois for a daughter-in-law that he packed off his son to Paris to study law, politics, and human nature, which he did to such good purpose as to escape the guillotine, and get created a councillor of state and a count by Napoleon, by whom he was appointed administrator of one of the Rhine provinces. At the Restoration he was named _ad interim_ minister of the interior, then minister of police, next minister of marine, afterwards postmaster-general, and finally director-general of the administration of finances; and was altogether so eager a place-hunter, that a pamphleteer of the time said of him that he would have hired himself out to the plague if the plague only gave pensions. The other was M. de la Motte, a nephew of Madame de Suremont’s, and son of a chevalier of St.-Louis killed at the battle of Minden. This young gentleman, an officer, or as Madame Campan and the Abbé Georgel say, a private in the _gendarmerie_, and destitute of any fortune whatever, had already managed to involve himself deeply in debt. Previous to the Revolution the _gendarmerie_, very different from the force now known by that name, was the first cavalry regiment in France, and the usual refuge for young men of good family but poor estate.

Let us hear what the lady herself has to say respecting this young man (who had only his sword with which to cut his way to fortune), and his pretensions to be considered the accepted suitor of a descendant of the royal house of Valois.

“Amongst many other species of amusement, we frequently performed comedies, in one of which I engaged to take a part. M. de la Motte, an officer in the gendarmes, and nephew of Madame de Suremont, being on a visit to Bar-sur-Aube, acquired great reputation for his performance, and became remarked for his assiduity and attention to please. The part of a valet was assigned to him, and that of a waiting-maid to me. We divided the applause of the company, for having, as they pleased to express, sustained our characters with so much propriety.

“From the moment of our first interview M. de la Motte paid me very pointed attention. He eagerly seized every opportunity of showing me how solicitous he was to please. His compliments were not glaring, but of that delicate nature which could only proceed from the genuine dictates of an honest heart. Elegant in person and manners, and insinuating in address, the honourable intention which he manifested could not prove disagreeable to me. I listened, and, as I believe, is generally the consequence where any of our sex listen to the persuasions of youth, elegance, and accomplishments in the other, I was soon not far from loving him.

“Madame de Suremont perceived the growing attachment of her nephew, and afforded him every opportunity of urging his suit. She frequently left us together when the company were gone, engaging M. de la Motte to remain and write out my parts, and give me instructions in acting them.

“I will ingenuously confess that I loved M. de la Motte. He possessed a sincerity of heart, seldom to be found excepting in the country, blended with those polished manners which mark the _habitué_ of the metropolis. He seized every opportunity of rendering himself agreeable, and I had every reason to suppose he entertained favourable sentiments towards me, at least I wished so, and the gradation is so natural that it will not appear strange if I believed it.

“M. de la Motte, I had remarked for some days, appeared thoughtful and melancholy; but as he had never communicated to me the cause, though I was uneasy at the effect of it, I forebore to make inquiry. He advised me to go to Paris to see my brother, and to make known his pretensions to Madame de Boulainvilliers, my worthy mother, and endeavour to obtain her consent to our union. Fearful that breaking this matter suddenly to the marchioness, after having carried it on so far without her knowledge, might give her offence, I hesitated some time ere I could form a resolution to acquaint her; but, trusting to her goodness, I at length yielded to M. de la Motte’s arguments in favour of a determination which was also consonant to the dictates of my own heart.

“When I had resolved on a journey to Paris, which highly gratified M. de la Motte, I at once wrote a letter to Madame de Boulainvilliers, informing her that having heard of my brother’s arrival, and being anxious to see him, I should be at Paris the Saturday following by eight o’clock. The interval was occupied by M. de la Motte in giving me directions for my behaviour, and earnestly pressing me to return as soon as possible, and complete his happiness by the celebration of our nuptials. Not a single person in the house, not even my sister, was acquainted with what was in agitation. The attentions of M. de la Motte had long been observed, but our marriage was whispered of only as a conjecture.

“On the Wednesday following, about three in the morning, I set off in the diligence, and after a very tedious and disagreeable journey, over roads which at once prove the neglect of the government and the patience of the people, I arrived near Paris, and found Julia, the marchioness’s first woman, waiting with a coach at the Porte Saint-Antoine. I was not a little pleased at being so near the end of my journey, and felt no regret at quitting my disagreeable vehicle for the one which conveyed me to the Hôtel de Boulainvilliers.

“I was impatient to see my brother, but I was disappointed; he had received orders to join his squadron at Brest. Madame de Boulainvilliers received me with that cordiality and affection with which the tenderest of mothers would receive her daughter after a long absence. She told me that my brother would not have written to inform me of his arrival if it could have been foreseen how soon he was to depart. This information gave me much uneasiness, which Madame de Boulainvilliers used the utmost assiduity to dissipate.

“The evening was occupied by many questions which the marchioness asked me relative to Bar-sur-Aube, concerning our reception and the diversions and entertainments of the place. I took advantage of this opportunity to mention the comedy. I perceived, from a sign she made to Madame de Tonneres, her daughter, that she had some private correspondent in that place, who had informed her of more than I knew, and that the information I had to give was by no means novel. This surprised me not a little.

“A day or two after they resumed the topic, and Madame de Tonneres asked me what character I played. I told her that of a waiting-maid. She seemed surprised that I should choose a part like that, when there were many others for which I was much better adapted. ‘But who,’ said Madame de Boulainvilliers, ‘was the young man who played the part of Jasmin? Is he a young man? Pray how old is he?’ I could not well comprehend the drift of these questions, which, nevertheless, I found myself constrained to answer. ‘He is a young gentleman,’ I replied, ‘who has a commission in the gendarmes,’ and I then proceeded to give them information respecting his family. ‘And what do you think of him?’ ‘That he has a pleasing address, is much of a gentleman, and has received a very good education; understands music, and dances to perfection: everybody gives him the credit of being a very accomplished young man, and all admit that he played his character like an experienced actor.’ Perceiving me growing warm in my encomiums, the marchioness smiled. Her daughter observed it, and they exchanged some very significant glances with each other, and then, to avoid giving me any suspicions, changed the subject of the conversation.

“On another occasion Madame de Tonneres, with whom I was frequently left alone, examined me yet more closely respecting M. de la Motte. ‘What!’ inquired she, in a tone of raillery, ‘did this presumptuous wretch ever aspire to be your husband?’ ‘Oh, yes! he proposed demanding me in marriage through his mother, at the same time informing me of his fortune and expectations.’ ‘And what answer did you make, my dear?’ ‘That I would beg Madame de Boulainvilliers to give her consent,’ replied I. ‘But did you give no promise of your own accord, and are you really partial to him?’ I answered these questions in the affirmative. ‘Well, then, my dear,’ replied she, ‘from your approbation, I will believe him worthy of your love.’ ‘Then do me the favour,’ replied I, ‘to represent my affections to my dear mother, at some convenient opportunity when I am not present; and you may, if you please, inform her, at the same time, that M. de la Luzerne, bishop of Langres, can give her every information concerning the family with which he is well acquainted: indeed, he has been requested by the mother of M. de la Motte to demand me in marriage.’ The result was that Madame de Tonneres kindly undertook my cause with the marchioness, who, having my happiness at heart, wished me, in a matter which could but once be resolved on, to take time for deliberation.

“Though Madame de Boulainvilliers seemed rather to dissuade me from my purpose than consent to its accomplishment, she nevertheless consented to write to the Bishop of Langres, who the very next evening paid her a visit. As soon as he arrived I made my obedience and retired, leaving him and the marchioness to their private conference.

“I was in no small state of anxiety to learn the result of a negotiation to me of such importance, yet was at a loss of whom to inquire. The next morning I was relieved from suspense, for I received a letter from the reverend prelate, informing me of their conversation the evening before. He gave me some hopes of obtaining the consent of the marchioness, and this was all; as for the marquis, I learnt that he positively refused his consent to the match.

“In a few days I departed for Bar-sur-Aube: my regret at parting with the marchioness was increased by my having to return home without obtaining her consent to our marriage, which, though this had been the express object of my journey, I could not consistently with delicacy or duty press any further, lest I should appear too precipitately to reject the prudent advice which she had given me.

“My return to Bar-sur-Aube was much more agreeable than my journey to Paris. I had written to my sister and M. de la Motte to apprise them of it, and was met by them about two leagues from Bar-sur-Aube, at a beautiful seat, the residence of M. de la Motte’s mother.

“The news of my departure, and the object of my journey, had transpired and spread through the village; every one spoke of my marriage with M. de la Motte. It was whispered that Mademoiselle de Valois had returned with the consent of her brother and Madame de Boulainvilliers to solemnize this marriage; all welcomed me with as much pleasure as if, instead of a week, I had been absent a year.

“M. de la Motte received me with heartfelt satisfaction, but his countenance seemed to speak a degree of anxiety; he feared that it was the intention of Madame de Boulainvilliers to have married me to some other husband, and trembled for the success of my embassy: he read in my looks that all was not as it should be, while the words which dropped from Madame de Boulainvilliers made me doubtful whether I should be able to obtain her consent. The uneasiness which on this account overspread my countenance was intelligible only to M. de la Motte, by whose advice I was prevailed upon to take the only steps prudence dictated in so delicate and embarrassing a position.

“My pen was the instrument by which I disclosed a secret my timidity could never suffer my tongue to discover; I immediately wrote to Madame de Boulainvilliers three successive letters, entreating her to compassionate my distress, and to let her consent grace our union. I also wrote to the Bishop of Langres, asking that worthy prelate, who before had done me signal service, to intercede with the marchioness in my behalf. The intercession of the bishop I was confident would have its due weight, and indeed it at length produced that consent so essential to my future happiness.

“The approbation of Madame de Boulainvilliers having now given a sanction to our proceedings, an early day was appointed, by the advice of the friends of M. de la Motte, for the celebration of our nuptials, which took place, according to the custom of the province, at midnight on the 6th of June, 1780.