Chapter VIII: Appendix: Detailed Description of the Diamond Necklace 387 (5)

“As the period of the countess’s sojourn at Bar-sur-Aube drew to a close, people grew angry with those who had held aloof from visiting her. M. de la Tour alone underwent no change. I had begged of him to consider the notable alteration which opulence, though sudden, had wrought in the manners and behaviour of both the count and countess. ‘I half agree with you,’ replied he. ‘The wife is a hussy who has gained in penetration; but the husband has lost in every way—he left us a fool and comes back to us a coxcomb. I persist in thinking badly of them, and even in speaking badly of them, so long as they do not reveal to me by what honest means they have acquired in the short space of six months what we now know them to be possessed of. Whom will they or you persuade that the king, the queen, the Count d’Artois, the _contrôleur-général_—in a word, I know not what powerful persons—have thrown heaps of gold to people who simply asked for bread? The age I know is fertile in extravagance, but not exactly of this kind. Husband and wife have spread a little report around that madame is in favour with the queen. I have noticed them at this for the last fortnight, and if they had mentioned a single word of it in my presence, I had a little story ready for them about the Countess de Gazon[108] and the Queen of Congo with which I should have made all the lookers-on laugh at their expense.

“‘My dear friend,’ continued La Tour, ‘they are altogether far too impertinent, and it is really shameful that people should be duped so cheaply. Believe every word they say if you please, but for my part I adhere to what I know. Now I know, through you, that madame has relations with the Cardinal de Rohan, since she has been conveyed five or six times to his eminence’s hôtel at your expense. Possibly she has since been transported there on her own light foot. Of all the acquaintances of this fine lady, the Cardinal de Rohan is the only one to whom prodigality on a grand scale is not impossible. There are then two conclusions—either he has supplied the money for all that we see, or else it has been stolen from him. I ask your pardon for the second horn of my dilemma, but only on condition that you grant me the first; and yet I confess I can only with great difficulty understand how a little village hussy like her can have succeeded in seducing a prince, a prelate, and a scape-grace of such importance.’”[109]

A few days before her departure from Bar-sur-Aube the countess placed in the hands of young Beugnot a rouleau of fifty louis in discharge of certain small loans which he had at various times accommodated her with. “I explained to her,” remarks Beugnot, “that I could not say exactly what she owed me, but that I was quite certain the amount was below 1200 livres.[110] ‘Nevertheless take it,’ replied she; ‘and if there is anything over, give it to your mother for her poor pensioners.’” Beugnot, on making up the account, found he had been paid twenty louis too many, which in accordance with the countess’s instructions he handed over to his mother. So favourable and lasting an impression did this act of generosity make on Madame Beugnot, that she could never afterwards be brought to believe in the truth of any of the crimes charged against this unhappy woman.

(_The Stones one-third their natural size_)

_From a facsimile of the Original Drawing made for Böhmer and Bassenge, jewellers to the French Crown._]

XVI.

DEC. 1784–JAN. 1785.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE IS SOLD AT LAST.

The countess and her husband, the steward and the four tall footmen, the led horses and the baggage waggon, the outriders and the elegant _berline_, returned to Paris at the close of November, 1784, when the De la Mottes proceeded, after all their desperate struggles towards this end, to enter at last into the coveted gaieties of the rank and fashion of the most brilliant capital in Europe. At the outset they did not share their good fortune with their sister, who was still passing a dull time of it at the Abbey of Jarcy. All they seem to have done was to resign to her the right of petitioning in the name of Valois, for on the 30th of November in this same year we find her making one of those stereotyped appeals for assistance, for which the family had now become notorious, to the Abbé Bourbon, natural son of Louis XV.[111] Irritated no doubt at her having refused to part with her pension, husband and wife determined to leave her to herself to enjoy in retirement its extremely slender benefits.

Suddenly grown rich in the queen’s name, after having successfully established a very general belief in her pretended intimacy with royalty, the countess’s instinctive tact led her to perceive that a new style of living was indispensable on her part to maintain the delusion, and keep alive that credit which she intended employing as the basis of still larger operations. The very extravagance to which she was naturally inclined became consequently one of the chief elements in her system of deceit. It was no longer “alms” that she contemplated asking from a carriage, since she had made the discovery that credulity was a mine which, properly worked, would furnish a far richer yield than charity was ever likely to do.

Beugnot tells us that on his return to Paris he was confirmed in his opinion that the opulence of Madame de la Motte was due to her intimate connection with the Cardinal de Rohan, and that he regulated his conduct towards her accordingly. “I presented myself,” remarks he, “at her door with discretion: I went to dine at her house only when she did me the honour of inviting me; and I took care to put her at her ease by affecting respect towards her. On her part she made me acquainted with her various projects, setting them out before me with that negligence which presupposes the certainty of success. She intended, for instance, to withdraw her brother from the navy—an ungrateful and stupid service in times of peace; a regiment had been promised her for him. As for her husband, she had purchased him a step which would at once give him captain’s rank, and she would by-and-by see if she could not get him named second colonel. With regard to her sister, she would not hear of her doing as she herself had done—in other words, contracting some stupid marriage. If agreeable to her, she should be canoness at Douxières or Poulangy, as all the places at Remiremont were bespoken for ten years to come. ‘If,’ remarked she, ‘I had espoused a man of name, and one who frequented the court, that would have been of some use to me. I should then have got on much quicker; as it is, my husband is to me rather an obstacle than a means. It is necessary that I should do something to make my name rank before his, which is, you know, contrary to all decorum.’

“When I visited Madame de la Motte, she never failed to introduce me to the company as a young magistrate, and always placed me immediately after the titled people. The tone of the house was, at least in those days, that of good company. I met there the Marquis de Saisseval, then a great gambler, rich, and currying favour with the court; the Abbé de Cabres, councillor in the Paris Parliament; Rouillé d’Orfeuil, intendant of the Champagne; the Count d’Estaing, one of the heroes of the American war, and subsequently in command of the National Guards of Versailles, when the château was stormed by the mob; the Baron de Villeroy, an officer of the king’s body-guard; the receiver-general Dorcy; and Lecoulteux de la Noraye, who, while aspiring to the post of director of the countess’s affairs and finances, dreamed of being one day appointed _contrôleur-général_ of the finances of the nation, and who considered himself altogether ‘a most important personage, though he had only just wit enough to be nothing worse than a fool.’” La Noraye was no favourite with Beugnot, who in after years knocked him down on a particular occasion for playing him some shabby trick when they were fellow-prisoners in La Force during the days of the Terror.[112]

All the while that madame and her husband were showing off at Bar-sur-Aube, the cardinal was moping at Saverne, fretfully pacing up and down a favourite walk in the episcopal pleasure-grounds, which he had named the “Promenade de la Rose,” in honour of the gracious gift of counterfeit royalty at the midnight interview in the park of Versailles. This walk, which led from the palace to the neighbouring woods, had gone by the name of the “Route de Bonheur” (road of happiness), until the cardinal, to whom happiness still seemed hovering in the future, gave it its new designation.[113] He had been banished to Saverne in remote Alsace by one of those billets bordered with _vignettes bleues_, penned by the forger Villette, so that he might be out of the way while the De la Mottes were enjoying themselves in their country retreat.

On the countess’s return to Paris, the correspondence between the cardinal and the phantom queen is speedily resumed. The letters that are now interchanged are more familiar and are even tender. The amatory prelate, we may be certain, complained that the last meeting was too brief, implored permission to return to the capital, and begged for another interview. Replies were doubtless sent, exhorting him to be discreet, and promising to comply with his request at some future period. One thing, however, is quite certain: it was at this time that madame applied for and obtained in the queen’s name from the cardinal the 100,000 livres, of which we have already spoken, for of the 50,000 livres received in August last every sou of course was spent.

All this while plans are being perfected for the successful carrying out of that grand scheme of fraud, which not only caused the greatest commotion throughout France, but may be said to have startled the entire civilized world by its audacity. The first incidents of the new intrigue appear to have been congenial. Some hanger-on of the countess’s would seem to have sought out an emissary of the crown jewellers, employed to find a purchaser for the famed Diamond Necklace with the prospect of a commission for himself, and whispered in his ear that the Countess de la Motte was privately received by the queen, with whom she had both credit and influence, but that unusual reasons existed for not speaking publicly of this intimacy. He thought, however, that the countess, if she could only be induced to undertake the negotiation, was a very likely person to prevail upon the queen to buy the Necklace. This suggestion was duly reported to Böhmer and Bassenge, after which it appears the former waited on Madame de la Motte at her own house and exhibited the matchless jewel. Everything else followed in due course.

Though evidently interwoven with those strange fabrications in which the countess delighted to indulge, her own relation of this first stage in the great fraud has a certain air of probability about it, and furnishes us with the ends of some of the threads in this entangled web. After citing the name of a speculator and schemer named Laporte, who was always hatching new projects for making money, and whom she had been the means of introducing to the cardinal with the view of drawing him into some of Laporte’s grand undertakings, she observes: “This Laporte was a very active person, and constantly at my house; I had stood godmother to one of his children. Achette, his father-in-law, was an intimate friend of Böhmer’s. One day, when the two latter were at Versailles, Achette said to Böhmer, ‘Are you still saddled with your Necklace?’ ‘Unfortunately I am,’ answered Böhmer; ‘it is a heavy burden to me—I would gladly give a thousand louis to any one who could find me a purchaser for it.’ It is most probable that from the date of this conversation my name was mentioned, Achette explaining to Böhmer how his son-in-law, Laporte, had access to me, and through me to the cardinal.

“One day Laporte having dined at my house, mentioned to me, for the first time, the fatal Necklace, observing that he rested all his hopes on me; that if I would only say a word to the queen, he was convinced her majesty would make the purchase, and that the jewellers were ready to enter into any arrangements that might be agreeable to her.”

On this occasion, as well as on a subsequent one, the countess informs us that she declined to interfere, and though urgently pressed, would not listen to the suggestion. A third attempt to induce her to undertake the negotiation was afterwards made, she tells us, when Böhmer came to her house with Achette, bringing the Necklace along with him.

“‘Is it not a pity,’ said Achette to me, ‘that so magnificent a jewel should leave the kingdom whilst we have a queen whom it would so well become, and whom, I am sure, must at heart long to possess it?’

“‘I don’t know that,’ answered I; ‘nor can I understand why you have applied to me to transmit your proposals to her majesty. I protest to you I have no opportunity of submitting them to her, not having the honour of approaching her.’

“‘Madame,’ replied Achette, with a look full of meaning, ‘we are not come hither to pry into your secrets, still less to evince any doubt respecting what you do us the honour to tell us; but believe me I am well acquainted with Versailles; I know what is going on there; and when I took the liberty of introducing my friend to you, it was because I felt convinced that if you would honour him with your support, nobody at court is better able to render him the service we make bold to solicit.’

“Böhmer’s mouth was open: I saw he was going to speak to me of his gratitude; so, to get rid of them both, I told them I would see if, by means of my connections, I could contrive indirectly to render them some service.”[114]

These visits took place at the end of December. In January, 1785, the countess contrives to insinuate to the crown jewellers, through some of her high-class connections, that the queen really does desire to have the Necklace. She openly states as much to the cardinal, whom, in the very depth of a bitterly-cold winter, she has summoned to Paris by the aid of a courier armed with one of those well-known and highly-prized billets, gilt-edged, or bordered with _vignettes bleues_, in which the queen is made to say: “The wished-for moment has not yet arrived, but I desire to hasten your return on account of a secret negotiation which interests me personally, and which I am unwilling to confide to any one but yourself. The Countess de la Motte will explain the meaning of this enigma.”

After reading this letter the cardinal longed for wings; still he was obliged to content himself with such fleet coursers as the _maîtres de poste_ along the line of road to the capital could provide him with. So, well wrapped up in furs, and snugly ensconced in the corner of a comfortable close travelling carriage, he is soon rolling rapidly over the two hundred and eighty miles of frost-bound road that intervene between the episcopal palace of Saverne and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles; and, no sooner has he learned the solution of the enigma, and procured from the countess the address of the crown jewellers—at the sign of the “Grand Balcony,” Rue Vendôme—than, puffed up with the importance of the commission intrusted to him, he hies to Böhmer and Bassenge to open negotiations with them for the purchase of the costly gem. The cardinal had not far to go, for the Rue Vendôme (now the Rue Béranger) was only some ten minutes’ walk from his hôtel, being situated but a single street from the junction of the Rue Vieille-du-Temple with the Rue St. Louis (now the Rue Turenne). At the present day many of the houses have been rebuilt, and of those which were in existence at the time of our narrative[115] only a couple in any way answer to the sign “_Au Grand Balcon_,” adopted by the crown jewellers. These are Nos. 11 and 22; the former—for the time being the Mairie of the 3rd Arrondissement—is a handsome building with an ornamental ironwork balcony in front, and having before it an open court, which one has no difficulty in picturing filled with the grand equipages and liveried lacqueys of the customers of our friends Böhmer and Bassenge.

In the excitement of conversation the grand almoner indiscreetly blurted out what he believed to be the fact, although he had been strictly enjoined to keep it secret, namely, that the queen was the actual purchaser of the jewel, but her name was on no account to transpire in the business. The price eventually agreed upon for the Necklace was 1,600,000 livres (£64,000), to be paid in four instalments of equal amount at intervals of six months: the first instalment of 400,000 livres to fall due in August. But the crown jewellers, who had been advised to be cautious in dealing with the cardinal, required that the contract should be authorized by the royal signature. To account for this demand, they explained to the cardinal that they had heavy debts and liabilities which prevented them from parting with an asset of so much value without replacing it with adequate vouchers to satisfy their creditors—notably M. Baudard de Saint-James, treasurer-general of the navy, to whom they were indebted in no less a sum than 800,000 livres,[116] and who had waited so long and so patiently.

Strange to say, the person who had cautioned the jewellers to act so guardedly was the great _intrigante_ herself. Accompanied by her husband she had called upon Böhmer and Bassenge at seven o’clock on a raw January morning, a couple of hours or so before the cardinal, to announce his coming, when, after having reminded them that she had been no party to the transaction, she proceeded to recommend them not to come to terms without binding down the cardinal in such a manner as to make themselves secure.[117] That she took this step, so likely to frustrate her own object, was afterwards proved at the trial. Most persons would have thought that the probability of such a proceeding being fatal to her plans would have prevented her, if she meditated a fraud, acting in the way she did; but does not the reader perceive that this most subtle of impostors had thereby secured, by anticipation, a strong plea in her favour to disprove her guilt?

The obtaining the queen’s signature to the contract necessarily gave rise to some delay. The cardinal sent the deed as he believed to Marie-Antoinette through Madame de la Motte, with the intimation that it was only a form, and would be merely shown to the jewellers, and not delivered up to them. The countess, however, returns with the deed unsigned. Royalty is in dudgeon at its sacred name having been made use of. The grand almoner was greatly distressed at this new obstacle, which he thought her majesty was inclined to aggravate; but what was to be done?

Madame de la Motte returns a second time from Versailles, and pretends to have had a second audience with Marie-Antoinette. The queen, she says, was very angry with the cardinal for having introduced her name into the transaction, but had insinuated:

“If inspiring confidence is all that is requisite, could not the cardinal have devised some other mode? The cardinal is perhaps not aware of it, but I may tell you that I have bound myself by a formal engagement with the king not to sign any deed without his knowledge. So the thing you see is impossible. Contrive between you what you can do, or else renounce the purchase altogether.... It seems to me that, as this document is only a formality, and as these people do not know my handwriting.... But you will reflect upon it; still, once for all, I cannot sign it. At all events, tell the cardinal that the first time I shall see him I will communicate to him the arrangements I intend to make with him.”[118]

The countess then explains that, returning home after this interview, and not reflecting on the serious consequences of using the queen’s name in the manner suggested, she resolves to counterfeit the royal signature, and for that purpose applies to Rétaux de Villette, the forger of the letters which to the last the countess always maintained to be genuine.

“I explained to M. de Villette,” she says, “the new aspect which this affair had assumed, the cardinal’s perplexity, the queen’s dissatisfaction, the interview I had had with her majesty, and the meaning I attached to her expression that the jewellers were unacquainted with her handwriting.

“Villette said, if I was certain that the queen had made use of the express words I had just repeated, it would appear to him, as it had appeared to me, that she wished me to understand it did not much signify whose hand inscribed the attestation, since the jewellers did not know her handwriting. ‘But,’ added he, ‘neither the queen nor yourself suspect the risk a person runs by counterfeiting writings. That is an act which the law has included in the list of crimes under the name of forgery. We can however do this. Taking for granted the statement of the queen, that these people do not know her handwriting, it may be fairly supposed that they are equally ignorant of her form of signature. To sign _Marie-Antoinette_ alone, according to your idea, would be a positive forgery; but the metamorphosis of an Austrian princess into a French one—to say, for instance, _Marie-Antoinette de France_—would really be unmeaning. If our object was to obtain this Necklace by a swindle, when the imposture came to be exposed such a signature would serve as a proof of it; but as we have no reasonable doubt but that the jewellers will be paid, since they will have the cardinal’s guarantee privately supported by that of the queen, I think we may, without much fear of committing ourselves, submit to the necessity; I will therefore do what I now explain to you.

“‘First, I shall not disguise my own writing; and, secondly, I will give the queen the incorrect title of _Marie-Antoinette de France_. The contract being exhibited by the cardinal to Böhmer and Bassenge, they will not examine it too minutely, I’ll be bound; and you must promise me to burn it in my presence when the jewellers have been paid and the matter is at end.’

“I gave him my word of honour that I would do this, and he signed the deed according to our covenant. I left him directly afterwards and drove at once to the cardinal. At first I intended to give him the contract approved and signed, without telling him how I had settled matters; but I reflected that Villette and I were not the safest judges; that the affair might be more serious than we imagined, and that if such were the case the cardinal might be placed in an embarrassing position. So I resolved to tell him all.”

Thereupon, according to Madame de la Motte’s version, the cardinal was informed of the forgery, and of the _incorrectness_ of the signature, after he had seen the contract without detecting either. He acquiesced, we are told by the countess, in the fraud, merely observing that “since he had been deceived by it, it would be the same with the jewellers.”[119]

Such is the specious explanation given by Madame de la Motte of the forgery of the queen’s signature to the contract. But amidst this farrago of falsehood—for there can be no doubt the queen’s signature was appended in the absurd form described, owing to the ignorance of this pair of sharpers[120] the simple truth remains that the deluded cardinal, hoping thereby to please the queen, had bought the Necklace of the jewellers on his own guarantee for one million six hundred thousand francs, backed with this fraudulent signature of Marie-Antoinette’s. The contract had been drawn up with great care by the cardinal himself, and was written with his own hand, since the matter was of course of too secret a nature to be intrusted to a professional engrosser; and, after having been exhibited to Böhmer and Bassenge for their private satisfaction, it was left in the cardinal’s keeping. The unfortunate dupe of course believed he still held possession of the royal guarantee, the grotesque inventions to the contrary of Madame de la Motte, which we have just laid before the reader, being of no further moment than to expose her own duplicity. The confidence and mental satisfaction of the jewellers when they read the contract, ratified by majesty itself, was equal to that felt by the cardinal. “They read it,” says the Rohan memorial, “and appeared full of joy; they then returned it, but the cardinal requested them to take a copy of it, which they had not thought of doing. This copy they made themselves without the slightest doubt being raised in their minds by the strangeness of the signature.”

We may instance as another proof of the countess’s prompt mode of action, that by the end of January, 1785, the whole affair was settled—in fact within six weeks after she had promised “to see if she could not contrive indirectly to render the jewellers some service;” the famous Diamond Necklace which had been to them a source of grave anxiety for years was off their hands.

XVII.

1781–1785.

CHARLATAN COUNT CAGLIOSTRO.

When, in the autumn of the year 1781, the De la Mottes were chasing the Marchioness de Boulainvilliers, who they had heard was at Strasbourg, the notorious Cagliostro was astonishing the good people of that famous town as much by his singular conduct as by the extraordinary cures he was represented to have performed. “Curious to behold so remarkable a personage, the cardinal,” who was then at his episcopal palace of Saverne, “went over to Strasbourg, but found it necessary to use interest to get admitted into the presence of the illustrious charlatan. ‘If monseigneur the cardinal is sick,’ said he, ‘let him come to me and I will cure him. If he is well, he has no business with me nor I with him.’ This reply, far from offending the cardinal’s vanity, only increased the desire he had to become acquainted with this new Esculapius. Having at length gained admission to his sanctuary, the cardinal fancied he saw impressed on the countenance of this mysterious and taciturn individual, a dignity so imposing that he felt himself penetrated with an almost religious awe, and the very first words he uttered were inspired by reverence. The interview, which was but brief, excited more strongly than ever in the mind of the cardinal the desire of a more intimate acquaintance. This gradually came about, the crafty empiric timing his conduct and his advances so skilfully, that without seeming to desire it he gained the grand almoner’s entire confidence, and obtained the greatest ascendency over him.”[121]

During the next two years or so, Cagliostro seems to have made the episcopal palace at Saverne his home whenever he felt so inclined. When the cardinal happened to be there, the count amused him by performing experiments in the laboratory which had been fitted up in a private part of the palace for his especial use—making, so the cardinal maintained, not only gold, but diamonds, under his very eyes.[122] But when the cardinal was away the crucibles were no longer in request, and the count would indulge in carousals, prolonged far into the night, with the Baron de Planta, the cardinal’s equerry and confidant, and a black sheep of the choicest breed, carousals at which his eminence’s matchless Tokay flowed like water.[123]

In the memorial published in his behalf at the time of the Necklace trial, Cagliostro gives a most romantic account of himself. He is ignorant, he says, of the place of his birth, but was brought up while a child in the city of Medina, where he went by the name of Acharat, and lived attended by servants in a style of great splendour in apartments in the palace of the Mufti Salahayn, the chief of the Mussulmans. From Medina, he pretends, he was taken when quite a youth to Mecca, where he remained for three years petted by the scherif. He is next taken to Egypt, visits the chief cities of Africa and Asia, and eventually sails from Rhodes for Malta, where apartments are provided for him in the palace of the grand master. Here, he says, he assumed the name of Cagliostro and the title of count. From Malta he proceeds to Sicily and Naples, thence to Rome, where he makes the acquaintance of several cardinals, and is admitted to frequent audiences of the Pope. He professes to have next visited Spain, Portugal, Holland, Russia, and Poland, and gives a list of the nobles of these countries with whom he had become acquainted. At length, in September, 1780, he goes to Strasbourg, where his fame as a physician had already preceded him. Here, he asserts, with perfect truth, he cured the poor generally, and particularly sick soldiers and prisoners, without fee or reward. Strasbourg was soon crowded with strangers, who came either to see him or to consult him. It is now that he makes the acquaintance of the Cardinal de Rohan, whom he accompanies to Paris to prescribe for the Prince de Soubise, suffering at the time from an accident to his leg. After a short sojourn in the capital he returns to Strasbourg, when being persecuted by a party in the town, it is quite certain that letters are written to the authorities in his behalf by the Count de Vergennes, minister for foreign affairs, the Marquis de Miroménil, keeper of the seals, and the Marquis de Ségur, minister of war, who desire that every protection shall be afforded him.

Cagliostro’s story about his residence in Medina and Mecca, and Egypt, Rhodes and Malta, was a tissue of impudent lies. The truth is, his real name was Joseph Balsamo, and he was the son of a small tradesman of Palermo, in which city he was born in 1743. The family were of Jewish origin, and he derived the name of Cagliostro from a great uncle. In his early youth he belonged to the religious order of Charitable Brethren, and as he grew older became remarkable for his intelligence, cleverness, and cunning. Later on, he appears to have studied medicine with advantage.

Growing tired of the obscurity of his lot, he forged the title-deed to some considerable estate, and on the fraud being discovered precipitately embarked for Catalonia where he married a young and pretty girl. With her he proceeded to Rome, and having conferred on himself the title of Prince Pellegrini, with that audacity which never deserted him, he returned to Palermo under this assumed appellation. There a genuine prince became infatuated with Donna Lorenza and took her husband under his powerful protection. The false Pellegrini, however, was soon recognised as the escaped forger and arrested. But on the day appointed for his examination, his friend the prince forced the doors of the tribunal, assaulted the counsel for the prosecution, and overwhelmed the president with reproaches. The consequence was that the terrified court set the prisoner at liberty, and Cagliostro, leaving his wife in the care of the prince, again started on his travels,[124] in the course of which he visited many of the chief cities of the Continent. He was picked up, it is commonly asserted, while still a young man—being little over thirty years of age—by the sect of Illuminati, who thought, and correctly thought, that they had discovered in him a willing and able instrument for the dissemination of their doctrines. His initiation into the mysteries of Illuminism took place in a cave some little distance from Frankfort-on-the-Main, when he learnt for the first time that the object of the society of which he was now a member, was to overturn the thrones of Europe, and that the first blow was to be struck in France; that after the fall of the French monarchy it was proposed to attack Rome; that the society had extensive resources, and was in the possession of enormous funds, dispersed among the banks of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Basle, Lyons, London, Venice, and Genoa, the proceeds of the annual subscriptions of its members. A considerable sum of money, which he afterwards pretended he had acquired by the practice of alchemy, was at once placed at his disposal, to enable him to propagate the doctrines of the sect in France. This was the origin of his first visit to Strasbourg in the autumn of the year 1780, when he adopted for his device the letters L. P. D. signifying _Lilia pedibus destrue_—Trample the lilies under foot.[125]

Cagliostro was one of those individuals who, for reasons of their own, envelop themselves in a maze of mystery, and are rarely seen through during their lives, because they address themselves to men’s imaginations alone. By exciting wonder they disarm reason. He laid claim to many gifts and acquirements; had studied medicine, was an adept at alchemy, and knew something of natural magic. The acts which he performed were so contrived by his arts and wiles, that all his visitors (and they comprised persons of the highest rank and the utmost intellectual attainments) considered them to be marvellous, whilst the gaping multitude magnified every feat until it went far beyond this ideal. He set no price on his public exhibitions, and darted looks of wounded honour at those who, he pretended, degraded him by offering him gold; whilst his hand was constantly open to the indigent, whom he waited on in their humble homes with advice, medicine, and money. His widespread acts of benevolence, and the luxurious style in which he lived, proved him to be rich, and yet none were able to discover the sources of his wealth. The houses of the most opulent citizens were thrown open to him, and without seeking the great, but seeming rather to avoid them, he constantly found himself in their company. Among this class he had many proselytes, but none who believed in him so implicitly as the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, who, spite of the count’s “perfect quack face,” seems to have worshipped him as a being something more than human. Indeed in one of the _salons_ of the Palais-Cardinal there was a marble bust of Cagliostro, with a Latin inscription on the pedestal signifying “God of the Earth.”[126]

A friend of the grand almoner’s, the Baroness d’Oberkirche, who met Cagliostro at Saverne at this epoch, sketches his portrait for us in her “Memoirs,” and furnishes us with convincing proofs of the singular influence which the count had succeeded in acquiring over his credulous patron. “Cagliostro was anything but handsome,” she observes, “still I have never seen a more remarkable physiognomy; above all, he had a penetrating look which seemed almost supernatural. I know not how to describe the expression of his eyes: it was at once fire and ice; attracted and repelled you at the same time; made you afraid and inspired you with an irrepressible curiosity. One might draw two different portraits of him, both resembling him, and yet totally dissimilar. He wore on his shirt-front, on his watch-chain, and on his fingers, diamonds of large size, and apparently of the purest water. If they were not paste, they were worth a king’s ransom. He pretended that he had made them himself. All this frippery showed the charlatan miles off.

“When Cagliostro perceived me he saluted me very respectfully. I returned his salutation without affecting either hauteur or condescension. There were fifteen of us at dinner; nevertheless, the cardinal occupied himself almost exclusively with me, using a sort of refined coquetry to bring me over to his way of thinking with regard to Cagliostro, with whom he was perfectly infatuated. I was placed on the cardinal’s right hand, and during dinner he tried by every means to enforce his convictions upon me. I resisted, politely but firmly; he grew impatient, and on leaving table volunteered me his confidence. Had I not heard him with my own ears I could never have believed that a prince of the Roman church, a Rohan, an intelligent and honourable man in so many respects, could have allowed himself to be brought to the point of abjuring both his dignity and free will at the bidding of a _chevalier d’industrie_.

“‘In truth, baroness, you are very hard to convince,’ remarked the cardinal; ‘what! has not all that he has told you, all that I have just related, satisfied you? I must then avow everything. Understand, at least, that I am about to confide to you a secret of importance.’ I was greatly embarrassed. I did not wish to be the depositary of any of the cardinal’s secrets, and was about to excuse myself when, divining my intention, the prince exclaimed: ‘Do not say no! but listen to me. You see this?’

“The cardinal showed me a large solitaire which he had on his little finger, engraved with the arms of the house of Rohan; it was a ring worth 20,000 francs at least. ‘It is a fine stone, my lord,’ observed I; ‘I have been already admiring it.’ ‘Well, it was he who made it; created it out of nothing. I saw him myself. I was present, with eyes fixed upon the crucible, and assisted at the operation. Is this science? What do you think of it, baroness? They tell me that he is only luring me on, that he cheats me; the jeweller and engraver have valued this brilliant at 25,000 francs. You will at least admit that he is a strange sort of sharper to make such presents as this.’

“I acknowledge I was stupefied. The Prince de Rohan perceived it, and continued, certain of his victory: ‘But this is not all: he makes gold; he has made in my presence, in the crucibles of the palace, five or six thousand francs’ worth. I shall have more of it—I shall, in fact, have any quantity—he will make me the richest prince in Europe. These are not dreams, madam, these are certainties. Think, too, of his prophecies fulfilled; of the miraculous cures he has performed. I tell you that he is not only a most extraordinary, but a sublime man, and one whose goodness has never been equalled; the charities he bestows, the benefits he confers, pass all imagination.’

“‘Am I to understand your eminence,’ inquired I, ‘that you have given him nothing for all this—have not made him the smallest advance, have made him no promise, given him no written document which compromises you? Pardon my curiosity, but since you wish to make me a confidant of these mysteries, I——’ ‘You are right, madam,’ replied the prince, ‘but I can assure you that he has asked nothing, has received nothing from me.’ ‘Ah! my lord,’ I exclaimed, ‘it must be that this man reckons on obtaining from you many dangerous sacrifices since he buys your unbounded confidence so dearly. Were I in your place I should be extremely cautious; one of these days he will lead you too far.’ The cardinal only answered by an incredulous smile; but I am certain that later, at the time of the Necklace affair, when Cagliostro and the Countess de la Motte had cast him to the bottom of the abyss, he recalled my words.”[127]

Singularly enough, Cagliostro arrived in Paris just at the time the cardinal was making the final arrangements with the crown jewellers for the purchase of the Necklace. Whether or no he was summoned thither by the cardinal himself we are unable to say, but if the Abbé Georgel’s statement is to be relied on, it is quite certain that the grand almoner consulted Cagliostro respecting the business of the Necklace prior to concluding the negotiations. The abbé says: “This Python mounted his tripod; the Egyptian invocations were made at night in the cardinal’s own saloon, which was illuminated by an immense number of wax tapers. The oracle, under the inspiration of its familiar demon, pronounced that the negotiation was worthy of the prince, that it would be crowned with success, that it would raise the goodness of the queen to its height, and bring to light that happy day which would unfold the rare talents of the cardinal for the benefit of France and of the human race.”[128]

The Countess de la Motte, who it will be remembered had formerly met Cagliostro at Strasbourg, renewed her acquaintance with him in the _salons_ of the Palais-Cardinal, where she was now a constant visitor. For a time it was an affair of diamond cut diamond between them. She flattered the arch impostor with the finest art, appeared to be his dupe, and broke out into loud exclamations of surprise when he performed his tricks and practised his delusions in her presence. The crafty cheat was himself cheated. By degrees he became persuaded that she was really a confidant of the French queen, that she had credit at court, and would soon have power. Fully convinced of her influence, and perceiving, as he thought, that his patron the cardinal would by her assistance retrieve his political fortune, he encouraged that sanguine prelate, and worked, as we have seen, upon his imagination, with a view to dispel any lingering doubt he might chance to entertain. So infatuated did Cagliostro become under the influence of his own delusions on the one side, and the spell of this enchantress on the other, that the countess would appear to have controlled the crafty necromancer even in the performance of his own spells.[129]

Cagliostro, after he was regularly settled in Paris, became a frequent visitor at the countess’s house—he and madame, we are told, were like two fingers on one hand—where he was received with an amount of respect verging on to reverence. The De la Mottes and he were close neighbours, for he lived at the Hôtel de Chavigny, in the Rue Saint-Claude, only a couple of streets off. “The house which he occupied, and which was afterwards the residence of Barras, was one of the most elegant of the quarter.[130] In the _salon_, decorated with oriental luxury, and bathed in a kind of semi-daylight when it was not resplendent with the blaze of a hundred lights, the pursuits of the philosopher and conspirator might be divined by the side of the projects of the quack. There one saw the bust of Hippocrates, and, in a black frame, inscribed in letters of gold, a literal translation of Pope’s Universal Prayer.”[131] Here Cagliostro lived in state, giving balls, assemblies, and audiences at which he insolently offered his hand to his fair disciples to kiss, while he treated his male visitors, and at times even the cardinal himself, with marked disdain.[132]

Young Beugnot, who met Cagliostro at one of Madame de la Motte’s _petits soupers_, tells us that the countess previously warned him that she would be obliged to disarm the inquietude of Cagliostro, who, for no reason whatever, invariably refused to sup if he thought that any one had been invited to meet him. Moreover, she begged Beugnot to ask him no questions, not to interrupt him when he was speaking, and to answer with readiness any inquiries he had addressed to him. “I subscribed,” says Beugnot, “to these conditions, and would have accepted even harder ones to gratify my curiosity. At half-past ten the folding doors were thrown open, and the Count de Cagliostro was announced. Madame de la Motte precipitately quitted her arm-chair, rushed up to him and drew him into a corner of the _salon_, where I presume she begged him to pardon my presence. Cagliostro advanced towards me and bowed, without appearing at all embarrassed at perceiving a stranger. He was of medium height, rather stout, had a very short neck, and a round face ornamented with two large eyes sunken in his head, and a broad turn-up nose; his complexion was of an olive tinge; his _coiffure_ was new in France, his hair being divided into several little tresses, which, uniting at the back of the head, were tied up in the form known as the ‘club.’ He wore a French cut coat of iron grey embroidered with gold lace, and carried his sword stuck in the skirts, a scarlet vest trimmed with _point d’Espagne_, red breeches, and a hat edged with a white feather. This last article of dress was still necessary to mountebanks, dentists, and other medical _artistes_ who made speeches and sold their drugs out of doors. Cagliostro’s costume was relieved by lace ruffles, several costly rings, and shoe-buckles of an old pattern but brilliant enough to pass for very fine diamonds.

“There were at supper only the members of the family, among whom I include Father Loth, _minime_ of the Place Royale, who reconciled, I know not how, his sacred functions with the place of second secretary to Madame de la Motte. He used to say mass for her on Sundays, and charged himself during the rest of the week with commissions at the Palais-Cardinal which the first secretary thought beneath his dignity. Neither must I count as a stranger the Chevalier de Montbreul, a veteran of the green rooms, and still a good conversationalist, who was prepared to affirm almost any mortal thing, and was found, as if by chance, wherever Cagliostro appeared, ready to bear witness to the marvels he had performed, and to offer himself as a positive example miraculously cured of I know not how many diseases, of which the names alone were sufficiently startling.

“There were then nine or ten of us at table; Madame de la Motte had on one side of her Cagliostro and Montbreul, and I was on her other side, facing the former, whom I made a point of examining by stealth, and still did not know what to think of him; the face, the style of dressing the hair, the whole of the man, impressed me in spite of myself. I waited for him to open his mouth. He spoke I know not what jargon, half Italian, half French, plentifully interlarded with quotations in an unknown tongue, which passed with the unlearned for Arabic. He had all the talking to himself, and found time to go over at least twenty different subjects in the course of the evening, simply because he gave to them merely that extent of development which seemed good to him. Every moment he was inquiring if he was understood, whereupon everybody bowed in turn to assure him that he was. When starting a subject he seemed like one transported, raised his voice to the highest pitch and indulged in the most extravagant gesticulations. The subjects of his discourse were the heavens, the stars, the grand _arcanum_, Memphis, transcendental chemistry, giants, and the extinct monsters of the animal kingdom. He spoke, moreover, of a city in the interior of Africa ten times as large as Paris, and where he pretended he had correspondents.” Beugnot further mentions, that in between his rhapsodies he would chatter the most frivolous nonsense to the Countess de la Motte, whom he designated his dove, his gazelle, and his white swan. After supper he addressed numerous questions to Beugnot, one following another with extraordinary rapidity. To all the count’s catechising the young advocate invariably replied by a respectful avowal of his ignorance, and subsequently was surprised to learn from Madame de la Motte that Cagliostro had conceived a most favourable opinion, not merely of his deportment, but likewise of his knowledge.[133]

XVIII.

1785. FEB.

THE DIAMOND NECKLACE IS DELIVERED.

The Cardinal de Rohan obtained possession of the Necklace early on the morning of the 1st of February, 1785, and had not long to wait ere he was honoured with the queen’s commands to deliver it into her royal custody. We shall give two accounts of how this delivery was effected—namely, the story told by the countess, and the statement made by the cardinal in his memorial.

The cardinal of course expected, from having rendered the queen a service for which she could not feel otherwise than grateful, that he would have been permitted to deliver the rich jewel to Marie-Antoinette in person, and when he received from Madame de la Motte the following note, purporting to be written by the queen, he imagined his expectations were on the point of being realized:—

“This evening (Feb. 1), at nine o’clock, you must be at the countess’s house (at Versailles) with the casket and in the usual costume. Do not leave until you hear from me.”

The countess lodged, as the reader will remember, at “La Belle Image,” in the Place Dauphine, and thither, on this sharp winter’s night—it was a hard frost, and the ground was almost like glass—the cardinal proceeded, wrapped up in a long great-coat, and wearing a slouched hat that concealed his features. One can imagine the countess’s nervous state on this eventful evening—can see her posted at the window on the watch, peering through the frost on the panes into the dark and almost silent Place, eager for a glimpse of the grand almoner with the coveted treasure. At last two figures are seen crossing the broad square from the Rue de la Pompe, at the end of which is the Hôtel de Rohan—one is the cardinal, the other a man-servant he has brought with him, who carries the casket, and whom he dismisses a few doors off “La Belle Image.”

“At half-past eight o’clock,” says Madame de la Motte, “the cardinal called upon me in his disguise, carrying under his arm the casket containing the Necklace, which he set down on a chest of drawers. At half-past nine Lesclos,[134] that faithful messenger of her majesty, whom she so often employed in delicate missions—Lesclos, a man perfectly well known to the cardinal, and the necessary confidant of all the little irregularities mentioned in the correspondence between him and the queen—called upon me with a letter from her majesty which ran thus:—

“‘The minister (the king) is at present with me, and I cannot tell how long he will stay. You know the person I send. Deliver the casket to him, and stay where you are. I do not despair of seeing _thee_ to-day.’”

“The cardinal,” continues the countess, “having read this note, delivered to the faithful Lesclos, with his own hands, the casket containing the Necklace which he had himself deposited on the chest of drawers. Lesclos went out.”[135]

Such is Madame de la Motte’s statement. Let us compare it with the cardinal’s, which we extract from one of the memorials produced in his defence at the trial:—

“On his (the cardinal’s) arrival at Versailles he called upon Madame de la Motte, who was living in the Place Dauphine; he took with him Schreibert, his _valet de chambre_, who had charge of the casket. The cardinal, when they had reached the house, took it from him and went up-stairs by himself. He found Madame de la Motte alone, and presented to her the rich burden he was carrying.

“Some time after a man, who announced himself as a messenger from the queen, entered the apartment. The cardinal withdrew cautiously into an alcove which was half open. The man delivered a note. Madame de la Motte sent him for a moment outside the room, then came towards the cardinal and read to him the letter containing the order for delivering up the casket to the bearer. The man was then called in again, the casket was given into his hands, and he took his departure.... Who was that man? To the cardinal he seemed to be the same that he had descried in the park of Versailles on the night of the 11th of August, 1784, close to Mademoiselle d’Oliva.”[136]

We will undertake to answer the cardinal’s interrogatory. The messenger was an accomplice of the countess’s: none other than the forger Rétaux de Villette, made up for the occasion “with large black eyebrows, and pale face,” and the letter of which he was the bearer was one of his own numerous forgeries. At any rate the countess’s _femme de chambre_, Rosalie Briffaut, deposed to having opened the door to him at the precise hour on that particular night, when he immediately entered the countess’s apartment.