[Illustration: _The Countess de la Motte._
_From the Portrait after Robinet prefixed to the Life of the Countess de
la Motte by herself._
E. Chavanne sc.]
THE STORY OF
THE DIAMOND NECKLACE
TOLD IN DETAIL FOR THE FIRST TIME
BY THE AID OF CONTEMPORARY MEMOIRS, ORIGINAL
LETTERS, AND OFFICIAL AND OTHER DOCUMENTS;
AND COMPRISING
A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE, PRETENDED
CONFIDANT OF MARIE-ANTOINETTE, WITH PARTICULARS OF THE CAREERS
OF THE OTHER ACTORS IN THIS REMARKABLE DRAMA.
BY HENRY VIZETELLY,
AUTHOR OF “BERLIN UNDER THE NEW EMPIRE,” ETC.
Illustrated with an exact representation of the Diamond
Necklace, from a contemporary drawing, and a portrait of the
Countess de la Motte, engraved on steel.
Third Edition, Revised.
LONDON:
_VIZETELLY & CO., 10 SOUTHAMPTON STREET, STRAND_.
1881.
[_All rights reserved._]
_S. Cowan & Co., Strathmore Press, Perth._
TO A. E. V.
THE LIGHT OF MY HOME, THE HAPPINESS OF MY LIFE,
I DEDICATE,
WITH MUCH AFFECTION,
THIS RECORD OF AN ERRING WOMAN’S CAREER.
H. V.
PARIS, 1867.
ADVERTISEMENT.
“THE STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE,” which met with marked success at
the time of its first appearance—two editions in an expensive form
having speedily become exhausted—has been out of print for some years.
The author was unwilling that it should be re-issued until it had been
subjected to a complete revision, and this more pressing occupations have
obliged him continually to postpone. Having at length found the necessary
leisure, he has thoroughly revised the work, availing himself of a new
study of the documents preserved in the French National Archives for
this purpose, and incorporating in the present volume such additional
facts relative to his subject as the investigations of recent years have
brought to light. If the work in its new form meets with anything like
the favour which was accorded to the early editions, the author will feel
himself amply rewarded for the extra labour he has expended in rendering
it more complete.
LONDON, _October, 1880_.
Several critics of the first edition of this work took the author to
task for regarding as genuine the autograph letters of Marie-Antoinette
and others, comprised in the collection of M. Feuillet de Conches, and
expressed their surprise at his ignorance of the controversy which had
taken place on the subject of their authenticity, and had resulted, they
said, in the almost universal condemnation of these documents by both
French and German critics. The author was not only fully acquainted with
all the details of the controversy in question, but he had carefully
examined the letters themselves—not their contents merely, but the
character of the handwriting, and had studied its variations at different
periods of Marie-Antoinette’s career; and he had come to the conclusion,
in common with the majority of French writers who are regarded as
authorities on matters pertaining to the history of France during the
latter half of the eighteenth century, that the impugned documents are,
with certain exceptions, perfectly genuine. The above remarks, it should
be noted, apply exclusively to the autograph letters in M. Feuillet de
Conches’ collection, and not to the exceedingly dubious letters published
by Comte d’Hunolstein.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The great scandal of the Diamond Necklace, which to the clear vision of
Goethe presaged the coming Revolution, and in which the quick-witted
Talleyrand saw the overthrow of the French throne, possesses an interest
akin to that of the French Revolution itself. The story is one of which
the world does not seem to tire, for it has been told scores upon
scores of times, and more or less recently, by historians, biographers,
essayists, memoir-writers, anecdotists, novelists, and dramatists, and in
well-nigh every European language. In the form in which it appears in the
Memorials and Judicial Examinations of the parties accused of complicity
in the fraud, it has been pronounced “the greatest lie of the eighteenth
century,” and numerous active brains have essayed to unravel its tangled
web of truth and falsehood; nevertheless, there are many persons who
still think that a certain mystery envelops the transaction which all the
research hitherto bestowed upon it has failed to satisfactorily clear up.
The writer of the present work has diligently studied all the
contemporary evidence, bearing in the smallest degree on the subject,
which an active search enabled him to discover, and the bulk of which he
has availed himself of in the course of the subjoined narrative. This
includes, for example, unpublished autograph letters and documents,
written either by actual actors in the drama, or else by persons
intimately associated with it, and derived chiefly from the valuable
collection of M. Feuillet de Conches; the official records of the
judicial proceedings to which the affair give rise; the various memorials
put forth on behalf of the accused, and the memoirs subsequently
issued by them, including the exceedingly scarce Mémoire by Rétaux de
Villette, which the present writer is the first to quote from, and the
curious Autobiography written in his old age by Count de la Motte; the
discussions in the Paris Parliament; and the numerous memoirs penned
by persons living at the time, some of which, and these of the highest
importance—such as the interesting Memoirs of Count Beugnot—having been
only recently made public, were not at the command of previous writers.
In addition to the foregoing sources of information may be mentioned
the different biographies, and the various critical disquisitions of
historians and essayists in which the subject has been so exceedingly
fruitful, and of which considerable use will be found to have been made.
With such materials at his command, the writer has been able to tell
the story for the first time in all its fulness, and as he believes
more in accordance with the truth, in small matters as well as great,
than any previous narrative of the transaction. He conceives that he
has completely exonerated the French queen from the slightest suspicion
of complicity in the miserable fraud. He has made a point of supplying
missing dates to the more trivial as well as to all the more important
incidents, of vouching every statement of the smallest consequence, and
of giving the very language of the witnesses to the various facts which
they are called upon to prove. He has, moreover, visited most of the
scenes with which the chief incidents of the story are mixed up, and
has described them with more or less minuteness in the course of his
narrative.
It is proper to mention, with regard to some few of the authorities
referred to in the following pages, such as Madame Campan’s and
Weber’s “Memoirs of Marie-Antoinette,” Madame de la Motte’s “Mémoires
Justificatifs,” and the “Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro,” that the
French and English versions of these works have been indiscriminately
used, and that the references given, if they do not apply to the one,
will be found to belong to the other edition of the works in question.
AUTHORITIES REFERRED TO IN THIS WORK.
Mémoire des joailliers Böhmer et Bassenge, du 12 Août, 1785.
Paris, 1786.
* * * * *
Mémoire pour Louis-René-Édouard de Rohan, cardinal, contre
M. le Procureur-Général, en présence de la dame de la Motte.
Paris, 1786.
Pièces justificatives pour M. le Cardinal de Rohan,
déclarations authentiques selon la forme Anglaise. Paris, 1786.
Requête au Parlement, les chambres assemblées, par M. le
Cardinal de Rohan. Paris, 1786.
Réflexions rapides pour M. le Cardinal de Rohan, sur le
sommaire de la dame de la Motte. Paris, 1786.
* * * * *
Mémoire pour la dame Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, épouse du
Comte de la Motte. Paris, 1786.
Réponse pour la Comtesse de Valois-Lamotte au Mémoire du Comte
Cagliostro. Paris, 1786.
Sommaire pour la Comtesse de Valois-Lamotte accusée, contre M.
le Procureur-Général, accusateur, en présence de M. le Cardinal
de Rohan et autres co-accusés. Paris, 1786.
Mémoires justificatifs de la Comtesse de la Motte, écrits par
elle-même. London, 1789.
Ditto, English translation.
* * * * *
Mémoire pour la demoiselle le Guay d’Oliva, fille mineure,
émancipée d’âge, accusée, contre M. le Procureur-Général.
Paris, 1786.
Seconde mémoire et pièces justificatives, pour Mademoiselle le
Guay d’Oliva. Paris, 1786.
* * * * *
Requête pour le sieur Marc-Antoine Rétaux de Villette, ancien
gendarme, accusé, contre M. le Procureur-Général. Paris, 1786.
* * * * *
Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro, accusé, contre M. le
Procureur-Général, accusateur, en présence de M. le Cardinal de
Rohan, de la Comtesse de la Motte et autres, co-accusés, Paris,
1786.
Requête au Parlement, les chambres assemblées, pour le Comte de
Cagliostro, signifiée à M. le Procureur-Général, le 24 Février,
1786. Paris, 1786.
Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro contre Maître Chesnon fils
et le Sieur de Launay. Paris, 1786.
Memorial for the Count de Cagliostro. London, 1786.
* * * * *
Mémoire pour Jean-Charles-Vincent de Bette d’Étienville,
bourgeois de Saint-Omer en Artois. Paris, 1786.
Deuxième Mémoire pour le sieur Jean-Charles-Vincent de Bette
d’Étienville. Paris, 1786.
Collection complète de tous les Mémoires qui ont paru dans la
fameuse affaire du Collier, avec toutes les pièces secrètes qui
y ont rapport et qui n’ont pas paru. Paris, 1786.
Compte-rendu de ce qui s’est passé au Parlement relativement à
l’affaire de M. le Cardinal de Rohan. Paris, 1786.
Jugement rendu par le Parlement de Paris sur l’affaire du
Collier de diamants, avec le détail de ce qui s’est passé aux
séances du Parlement les 30 et 31 Mai, 1786, et les ordres du
Roi après le jugement. Paris, 1786.
Archives de la République. Series X², Nos. 2576, 18576. Series
Y, Nos. 11514, 12076, 13125. Procès du Collier.
Unpublished autograph letters and documents relative to the
Diamond Necklace affair, in the collection of M. Feuillet de
Conches.
* * * * *
The Life of Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, heretofore Countess
de la Motte, written by herself. 2 vols. London, 1791.
Authentic adventures of the Countess de la Motte. London, 1787.
Mémoires Inédits du Comte de la Motte-Valois, publiés d’après
le manuscrit autographe, par L. Lacour. Paris, 1858.
Mémoire historique des intrigues de la Cour et de ce qui s’est
passé entre la Reine, le Comte d’Artois, le Cardinal de Rohan,
Madame de Polignac, Madame de la Motte, Cagliostro, et MM. de
Breteuil et de Vergennes, par Rétaux de Villette. Venise, 1790.
Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des événements de la fin du
XVIIIᵉ siècle, par l’Abbé Georgel, vol. ii. Paris.
Marie-Antoinette et le procès du Collier d’après la procédure
instruite devant le Parlement de Paris, par E. Campardon,
archiviste des archives de l’Empire. Paris, 1863.
Mémoires sur la vie privée de Marie-Antoinette, par Madame
Campan. 2 vols. London, 1823.
Ditto, English translation.
Mémoires concernant Marie-Antoinette, Reine de France, par J.
Weber. 2 vols. London, 1805.
Ditto, English translation.
Histoire de Marie-Antoinette, par E. et J. de Goncourt. Paris,
1863.
La Vraie Marie-Antoinette, par M. de Lescure. Paris, 1863.
Maria-Theresia und Marie-Antoinette, von A. Ritter von Arneth.
Paris und Wien, 1865.
Lettres et documents inédits de Louis XVI., Marie-Antoinette,
et Madame Elisabeth, par M. Feuillet de Conches, 3 vols. Paris,
1864.
Correspondance inédite de Marie-Antoinette, par le Comte P.
Vogt d’Hunolstein. Paris, 1864.
Procès de Marie-Antoinette, ci-devant Reine des Français.
Paris, 1865.
Correspondance secrète inédite sur Louis XVI.,
Marie-Antoinette, la cour et la ville, de 1777 à 1792, publiée
d’après les manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Impériale de
Saint-Pétersbourg, par M. de Lescure, 2 vols. Paris, 1866.
Les derniers jours de Trianon, par M. Capefigue. Paris, 1866.
Mémoires du Comte Beugnot, ancien ministre, vol. i. Paris, 1866.
Mémoires de Mademoiselle Bertin. Paris.
Mémoires de M. le Baron de Besenval, écrits par lui-même, vol.
iii. Paris, 1805.
Mémoires de la Baronne d’Oberkirche, vol. i. Paris, 1853.
Mémoires posthumes du Feld-Maréchal Comte de Stedingk, par le
Comte de Bjornsjerna, vol. iii. Paris, 1844.
Souvenirs de la Marquise de Créqui, par le Comte de Courchamps.
Paris, 1834-5.
Mémoires relatifs à la Famille Royale de France, pendant la
Révolution accompagnés d’anecdotes inconnues et authentiques
sur les princes contemporains et autres personnages célèbres de
cette époque. Publiés pour la première fois d’après le journal,
les lettres, et les entretiens de la Princesse de Lamballe, par
une dame de qualité attaché au service confidentiel de cette
infortunée princesse, vol. i. Paris et Strasbourg, 1826.
La Princesse de Lamballe, Marie-Thérèse-Louise de
Savoie-Carignan: Sa Vie—Sa Mort; d’après des documents inédits
ou peu connus, par M. de Lescure. Paris, 1864.
Mémoires secrets pour servir à l’histoire de la dernière année
du règne de Louis XVI., par A. F. Bertrand de Molleville,
ministre d’état à cette époque, vol. ii. Londres et Paris, 1797.
Mémoires historiques et politiques du règne de Louis XVI., par
l’Abbé Soulavie, vol. vi. Paris, 1801.
Histoire de la décadence de la monarchie Française, par l’Abbé
Soulavie, vol. iii. Paris, 1803.
Anecdotes du règne de Louis XVI., contenant tout ce qui
concerne ce monarque, sa famille, et la Reine, etc., par M.
Nougaret, vol. i. Paris, 1791.
Correspondance secrète de la cour de Louis XVI. Paris.
L’Histoire de France pendant le XVIIIᵉ siècle, par C.
Lacretelle, vol. vi. Paris, 1819.
Louis XVI., par M. Alexandre Dumas, vol. iii. Paris, 1851.
Louis XVI., son administration et ses relations diplomatiques
avec l’Europe, par M. Capefigue, vol. iii. Paris, 1844.
Correspondance inédite de la Comtesse de Sabran et du Chevalier
de Boufflers, de 1778 à 1788. Paris, 1875.
The Journals and Correspondence of William, Lord Auckland, vol.
i. London, 1860-2.
Souvenirs de M. Berryer, doyen des avocats de Paris, de 1774 à
1833, vol. ii. Paris, 1839.
Cagliostro’s Stammbaum, von Wolfgang von Goethe.
Mémoires sur les prisons de Paris sous Robespierre, vol. ii.
Paris.
Les Crimes de Marat et des autres égorgeurs, ou Ma
Résurrection, par P. A. L. Maton de la Varenne. Paris, 1795.
Histoire de la Révolution Française, par M. Louis Blanc, vol.
ii. Bruxelles.
The French Revolution, a history; by Thomas Carlyle. 3 vols.
(Leipzig edition), 1851.
Histoire monarchique et constitutionnelle de la Révolution
Française, par Eugène Labaume, vol. ii. Paris, 1834.
Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, by Thomas Carlyle, vol. iv.
(Art.—Diamond Necklace). London, 1857.
Biographie Universelle (Articles—De Rohan and Cagliostro).
Le Moniteur, No. 220. Paris, 1792.
Morning Chronicle, Dec. 29, 1786.
Journal de Paris, Nov. 12, 1831.
Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. lxi. London, 1791.
Julie philosophe, ou le bon patriote, vol. ii. London.
Histoire de Bar-sur-Aube, par L. Chevalier. Bar-sur-Aube, 1851.
Essais historiques sur la ville de Bar-sur-Aube, publiés
d’après un manuscrit inédit portant la date de 1785, par J. F.
G. Troyes, 1838.
Letter from the Curé of Bar-sur-Aube, July 17, 1866.
Saverne et ses environs, par C. G. Klein. Strasbourg, 1849.
Histoire anecdotique des Rues de Versailles, par J. A. Le Roi.
Versailles, 1854.
Histoire du Bois de Boulogne, par J. Lobet. Paris, 1856.
Paris Herself Again, by G. A. Sala. London, 1879.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. A SCION OF ROYALTY IN TATTERS—“TAKE PITY ON THE ORPHAN
DESCENDANTS OF HENRY II. KING OF FRANCE” 1
II. THE SAINT-REMIS OF VALOIS—A TRAMP UP TO THE CAPITAL 3
III. MANTUA-MAKER’S APPRENTICE—PENSIONER UNDER THE CROWN—BOARDER
IN A CONVENT 7
IV. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE ORDERED, BUT NOT SOLD 13
V. AT BAR-SUR-AUBE—COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE 19
VI. COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE—IN BARRACKS AT LUNÉVILLE—ON A FIFTH
FLOOR IN PARIS—ENSNARES THE GRAND ALMONER 30
VII. OSCILLATES BETWEEN PARIS AND VERSAILLES—SENDS OUT
BEGGING LETTERS AND PETITIONS—FAINTS IN MADAME’S
SALLE D’ATTENTE—DESPAIR 40
VIII. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE AGAIN—STILL NOT SOLD 52
IX. SOI-DISANT CONFIDANT OF THE QUEEN—AT VERSAILLES AND
LITTLE TRIANON 56
X. HIS EMINENCE CARDINAL, COMMENDATOR, GRAND ALMONER,
PRINCE-BISHOP LOUIS-RENÉ-ÉDOUARD DE ROHAN 65
XI. PRETENDED MEDIATOR BETWEEN THE CARDINAL AND THE QUEEN—A
FORGER ON THE PREMISES—BILLETS-DOUX BORDERED WITH
“VIGNETTES BLEUES” 72
XII. THE COUNTERFEIT QUEEN 79
XIII. THE MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW—“YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS” 85
XIV. A GOLDEN HARVEST—HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF—BARONESS D’OLIVA
IS GIVEN THE COLD SHOULDER 89
XV. GRAND DOINGS AT BAR-SUR-AUBE 96
XVI. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE IS SOLD AT LAST 105
XVII. CHARLATAN COUNT CAGLIOSTRO 115
XVIII. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE IS DELIVERED 126
XIX. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE VANISHES! 131
XX. THE DIAMONDS ARE DISPERSED—COUNT DE LA MOTTE GOES TO
ENGLAND ON BUSINESS 138
XXI. THE GATHERING OF THE STORM 153
XXII. TWELVE DAYS’ STATE AT BAR-SUR-AUBE 162
XXIII. LETTRES-DE-CACHET IN THE ŒIL-DE-BŒUF—IN THE RUE
SAINT-CLAUDE—AND AT BAR-SUR-AUBE 170
XXIV. A DREARY DAY AND NIGHT’S DRIVE—THE BASTILLE—A “VALOIS”
SERVED OFF PEWTER 182
XXV. EFFECT PRODUCED ON THE PUBLIC MIND BY THESE ARRESTS—THE
ENEMIES OF THE QUEEN 189
XXVI. LITTLE TRIANON, AND THE QUEEN’S SOCIETY THERE 195
XXVII. CALUMNIES AGAINST THE QUEEN—HER ANIMOSITY AGAINST THE
CARDINAL DE ROHAN 208
XXVIII. PREPARATIONS FOR THE TRIAL—CAPTURE OF THE COUNTERFEIT
QUEEN 213
XXIX. THE TRIAL: EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED 220
XXX. THE TRIAL: THE CONFRONTATIONS OF THE ACCUSED WITH EACH
OTHER AND WITH THE WITNESSES 233
XXXI. ARREST OF THE FORGER VILLETTE—HIS EXAMINATIONS AND
CONFRONTATIONS 241
XXXII. THE CONCIERGERIE—BEFORE THE COURT OF PARLIAMENT, GRAND
CHAMBER, AND “TOURNELLE” 253
XXXIII. DEBATE IN THE COURT OF PARLIAMENT—THE SENTENCES 265
XXXIV. THE SENTENCES CARRIED OUT—“WHAT IS RESERVED FOR THE
BLOOD OF THE BOURBONS?” 274
XXXV. COUNT DE LA MOTTE’S FLIGHT—COLD STEEL AND POISON 284
XXXVI. THE SALPÊTRIÈRE—TRUCKLE BED AND PRISON FARE—THE COUNT
THREATENS THE FRENCH COURT 290
XXXVII. MYSTERIOUS HINTS GIVEN TO THE COUNTESS TO EFFECT HER
ESCAPE—SHE RESOLVES ON ATTEMPTING IT 298
XXXVIII. THE COUNTESS’S ESCAPE—A LAST VISIT TO THE NEIGHBOURHOOD
OF BAR-SUR-AUBE 305
XXXIX. IN LONDON—THE COUNTESS GIVES UP FORGERY AND TAKES TO
CALUMNY 314
XL. THE COUNT HAWKS THE LIBELS ABROAD—IS IMPRISONED IN LA
FORCE AND THE CONCIERGERIE—THE LAST OF THE DE LA
MOTTE LIBELS 324
XLI. RETRIBUTION—THE CRIMINAL AND HER ACCOMPLICES 336
XLII. DUPE AND VICTIM 348
XLIII. “NESTOR DE LA MOTTE”—ILL GOTTEN GAIN NEVER PROSPERS—GREEN
OLD AGE 356
XLIV. THE CROWN-JEWELLERS—THE END OF THE NECKLACE CASE—HISTORY
AGAIN REPEATS ITSELF 368
XLV. SUMMING UP OF THE EVIDENCE AGAINST MARIE-ANTOINETTE 372
APPENDIX. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 387
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]