the hands of Madame de la Motte, the grand almoner received a note,
bordered with “_vignettes bleues_” and purporting to be written by
Marie-Antoinette. This stated that she had read with indignation of the
manner in which he had been deceived by his niece, assured him that she
had forgotten all that had passed, and desired him never again to make
the slightest allusion to a matter so unpleasant—a convenient way of
tabooing a subject, the discussion of which might have proved extremely
embarrassing to the countess, and have sooner or later exposed the fraud
then being practised upon the cardinal. The note wound up with the
following passage, the motive of which the reader will be at no loss to
divine: “The account which the countess has given me of your behaviour
towards her has made a stronger impression on me than all that you have
written to me. I hope that you will never forget that it is to her you
are indebted for your pardon.”[83]
The plot thickens: all at once we find ourselves in deeper water. Before
we had false rumours and reports; now we have forged letters. The
cardinal having received the first one as genuine, what is to prevent
the success of others? Nothing, it would seem, so long as the countess
exercises her customary discretion. Letters and replies thereupon follow
each other in quick succession, amounting in course of time to something
like a couple of hundred in number. Of these the countess pretended
she preserved copies of thirty-one, which she subsequently printed
by way of appendix to her autobiography. Judging from these samples,
the communications which, according to her assertions, passed between
the queen and the cardinal, were not merely tender and familiar, but
occasionally touched upon subjects that were positively indelicate.[84]
It is needless to inform the reader that, so far as the letters
attributed to Marie-Antoinette are concerned, they were one and all of
them vile fabrications. They were penned, in fact, by the prospective
sub-lieutenant of the marshalsea, of whom we have already spoken, Rétaux
de Villette, who was attached to the countess in the double capacity of
“_cavalier servente_” and secretary, and whose chief occupation seems to
have consisted in forging letters on gilt-edged paper, or paper bordered
with blue flowers (_vignettes bleues_). His _cabinet de travail_ was
madame’s bedchamber, and he worked at a little table by the bedside, on
which was a writing-case with a stock of note-paper, such as the queen
was known to be in the habit of using.[85] Monsieur de Villette resided
regularly under the De la Motte roof, for Jeanne de Saint-Remi, Countess
de Valois de la Motte, having considerable traffic in forgery, found it
necessary to keep a forger on the premises, just as other people find it
requisite to keep a secretary or a clerk.
If we glance behind the scenes, we cannot help being impressed by this
daring woman’s strength of mind, which enables her to work so calmly
and leisurely while all the time the wolf is at the door. Not only has
she her idle husband and herself to support, but there is at times her
brother, whose pension she has sold, and her “secretary,” and she not
possessed of a single sou of regular income! To add to all this, she is
in debt to the landlord, the tax-gatherer, and the tradespeople; duns
are calling upon her every hour—duns are even waiting in the ante-room
while she is dictating forged letters to Villette. Her own pension and
that of her brother being utterly gone, the family have literally no
bread to eat but that of charity, and the bread of charity is so scanty
and bitter that the descendant of the house of Valois has become a liar
and a forger, and is preparing to become a thief, in order to add to
and sweeten it. And all this while, with her thread of life drawn, so
to speak, to a single hair, she is the emblem of composure, advancing
“stealthily, steadfastly, with Argus eye and ever-ready brain—with nerve
of iron, on shoes of felt!” whilst Cardinal Prince de Rohan, her father
in years, who lives in palaces surrounded by every luxury, holds one
of the highest offices in the state, is superior of numerous important
religious establishments and seigneur of countless manors, and has a
revenue of upwards of a million livres, is feverish with impatience.
According to his usual practice, the Cardinal, with Versailles and the
Little Trianon closed against him, is spending the sultry summer-time
in retirement at his stately palace of Saverne, a huge building of red
sandstone in the Italian style of architecture, for the most part newly
erected by himself in place of a former edifice consumed by fire a few
years previously. At Saverne the Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan exercises
all the authority of a petty sovereign, and keeps up a well-nigh regal
state. Gentlemen of high birth do not disdain his service; and such is
the prodigality that rules in his establishment, that he has no less
than fourteen _maîtres d’hôtel_ and twenty-five _valets de chambre_![86]
Situated at the foot of the eastern slope of the Vosges, and almost
within sight of the valley of the Rhine, Saverne has its upper and
lower towns, in the former of which are situated the cathedral, the
_chancellerie_, the _hôtel de la régence_, the ancient château, and,
adjoining this last, the palatial residence of the once all-powerful De
Rohans. The principal front of this vast building looked over charming
gardens, laid out in the French style, with handsome terraces and
arcades, geometrically-shaped beds of brilliant flowers, trees trimmed
to pattern, green shady alleys, trellises covered with vines, arbours,
statues, fountains, rivulets, broad sheets of water, islands, grottos,
and kiosques, while beyond all this extended a beautiful park, at the
outskirts of which was a pheasantry, bounded by a dense forest, whose
glades in the pleasant autumn months were alive with _piqueurs_ and packs
of dogs and sportsmen in the great gold uniform of the cardinal, while
the huntsman’s horn might be heard incessantly resounding.
The palace, on the garden side, presented one long façade ornamented with
fluted Corinthian pilasters and richly-carved cornices and mouldings, and
having countless windows of a uniform character. Its somewhat unpleasing
regularity was broken by a projecting centre part with a row of open
columns and balustrades, which formed a kind of gallery, handsomely
decorated in its different stages with ornamental friezes, statues and
bas-reliefs, and having the elaborately-sculptured armorial bearings of
the family of De Rohan and its many alliances prominently displayed at
either end.[87]
The principal entrance to the episcopal palace conducted to a handsome
vestibule, from whence the grand staircase led to the magnificent suite
of reception rooms where the Prince de Rohan, banished from Versailles,
assembled around him a little court of his own, composed of some few
members of the old nobility related to his house, discontented courtiers
who disliked the young queen, certain too complaisant beauties, and
_petits-maîtres_ from the Paris _salons_, philosophers, prelates, and
provincial magnates, military officers from the neighbouring garrison
at Strasbourg, and the usual complement of fools and flatterers that
invariably dance attendance on the powerful and the wealthy.
The once stately palace of Saverne is now-a-days divested of all its
former splendour. It serves alike for the _mairie_, the court of the
justice of the peace, and the corn-market; and as barracks, guard-house,
forage-stores, farriery, and stables for the troops composing the
garrison of the town.[88]
In the summer of the year 1784 couriers bound for Paris would every now
and then sally forth from the palace gates with bags of letters, among
which there was invariably one elaborately-sealed packet addressed
to the Countess de la Motte. Enclosed in this would be a letter for
the queen, begging, entreating, praying for an interview at which the
writer might plead his cause and regain complete possession of his royal
mistress’s favour. Days and weeks go by while he is waiting and watching
for a response. Judge however, of the cardinal’s agitation when one day
the countess herself arrives unexpectedly at Saverne—having travelled
post all the way from Paris—and announces to him that the long and
eagerly-sought interview is at length accorded to him; that the queen has
consented to a midnight meeting with him in the Park of Versailles. The
countess thought, and thought rightly, that a journey of nearly three
hundred miles, undertaken on purpose to be the bearer of this welcome
intelligence, would give it all the greater weight, and would effectually
dispel any unpleasant doubts that might perchance by this time have taken
possession of the cardinal’s mind.[89]
XII.
1784. JUNE–JULY.
THE COUNTERFEIT QUEEN.
Counterfeit _billets-doux_ having been palmed off on the infatuated
cardinal as genuine with such complete success, the countess now ventures
on a singularly bold step, nothing less than the personation of majesty
itself, and actually succeeds in foisting upon the purblind prelate
_une belle courtisane_ of the Palais Royal as the beautiful, high-born
Marie-Antoinette.
This incident of the nocturnal interview—the most daring of the many
daring schemes of which the long intrigue was composed—is so fully
and clearly, and, moreover, so artlessly, described by the “_fille du
monde_,” who was bribed to perform the character of Marie-Antoinette
on the occasion, in her memorial published at the time of the Necklace
trial, as to completely exonerate the queen from having been in any way a
party to it. Prior, however, to laying this statement before the reader,
we have something to say respecting the new character whom we are about
to introduce upon the scene.
This young person, commonly known as Mademoiselle d’Oliva, but whose real
name was Leguay Designy, was born in Paris in 1761, and was consequently
younger than the queen by seven years. Although her reputation was
anything but spotless, she was by no means the common creature she is
ordinarily represented to have been. M. Leguay Designy, her father, had
been a respectable citizen, who at his death was found to have saved
money, and when her mother died, a few years before the event which
rendered the daughter an object of so much notoriety, Mademoiselle Leguay
Designy was left with a competent provision deposited for her in the
hands of trustees. These guardians however abused their trust, and after
dissipating the bulk of the young woman’s property, compromised the
matter by the payment of four thousand livres, which money she received
in the early part of 1784, only a few months before the day rendered
memorable by the midnight meeting in the park of Versailles.
Mademoiselle Leguay Designy, in her memorial, drawn up by her advocate,
M. Blondel—who, perceiving that the very simplicity of his client was
her best defence, had the sagacity to let her tell her story in her own
way—thus describes how it was that she first became acquainted with the
De la Mottes, husband and wife.
“In the month of June, 1784, I lodged,” she says, “in a small apartment
in the Rue du Jour, in the Quartier St. Eustache.[90] I was not very far
from the Palais Royal, where I used frequently to go of an afternoon for
two or three hours with a neighbour’s child, about four years old, of
whom I was very fond.
“One afternoon, in the month of July, when I was sitting in the Palais
Royal, this child being along with me, I observed a stranger pass by
several times; he was a tall young man, and quite alone. He looked at me
fixedly, and I noticed as he came near to me that he slackened his pace
as if to survey me more attentively. There was a vacant chair two or
three feet from mine, in which he seated himself.
“I could not avoid bestowing my attention upon him, for his eyes kept
repeatedly wandering over my person. The expression of his countenance
becomes grave and earnest, and he appears agitated by a painful and
anxious curiosity as he scans my entire figure very narrowly, whilst not
a feature of my face escapes him.
“We met in this way in the gardens of the Palais Royal for several
successive days, until at last he addressed me, and I committed the error
of replying to him.
“One evening on leaving him I returned home, when I found that he had
followed me without my perceiving it. Suddenly he stood before me in
my apartment. He introduced himself with every sign of respectful
politeness, and requested me to allow him occasionally to visit me. I
could not take upon myself to deny his request, and after obtaining
my consent, he was most assiduous in his calls. But I had no reason to
complain of these visits, for the young man never passed the limits of
propriety. He questioned me, however, with the kindest concern respecting
my income and future prospects, taking a lively interest in my fate. He
also spoke of powerful protectors of his own, to whom he could recommend
me, and who might be able to serve me.
“Doubtless you are eager to know who this stranger was. It is time
to name him; it was M. de la Motte, who represented himself to be an
officer of distinguished rank, with great expectations, and supported by
illustrious patrons.[91]
“It was, I think, on the occasion of his ninth visit, one morning at the
beginning of August, 1784,[92] that I observed his countenance overspread
with joy and satisfaction, such as he had never exhibited before. He had,
he said, the most agreeable, the most interesting things to tell me.
“‘I have just left,’ continued he, ‘a person of very great distinction,
who spoke a great deal about you. I shall bring the lady to see you this
evening.’
“I awaited that evening with eagerness, counting every hour and every
moment, for I longed to see this lady of very great distinction.
“M. de la Motte returned at night, telling me that in a few moments I
should see the person about whom he had spoken in the morning. Whereupon,
and without any further explanation, he withdrew.
“Scarcely had he left me, before I saw a lady enter my chamber; she
was all alone—no servant was attending her. She approached me with
politeness, and with looks full of affability.
“‘Madame,’ said she, smiling, ‘you must be rather surprised at my visit,
unknown to you as I am.’
“I replied that the surprise could not be otherwise than agreeable to me.
“This person was the wife of my pretended patron; she was Madame de la
Motte, but she took good care not to say so then. I offered the lady a
chair, she drew it herself close to my own, and sat down. Then leaning
over towards me, with a look at once cautious and confiding, whilst her
eye appeared to gleam with an expression of benevolent regard, she said
to me, in a low voice, what I am about to relate.
“‘Confide, my dear pet, in what I am going to say, I am a gentlewoman
belonging to the court.’
“At the same time she drew out a pocket-book, and having opened it,
showed me several letters, which she declared to me were written to her
by the queen.
“‘But, madame,’ answered I, ‘all this is a mystery to me; I cannot
understand it.’
“‘You will soon understand it, my pet. I possess the queen’s full
confidence; we are like hand and glove together. She has just given me
another proof of this trust, by commissioning me to find her a person
to do something which will be explained at the proper time. I have made
choice of you, and, if you like to undertake it, I will make you a
present of 15,000 livres (francs); but the present that you will receive
from the queen will be much more considerable. I cannot tell you my name
just yet, but you shall soon be informed who I am. If, however, you do
not think my word sufficient, and desire to have security for the 15,000
livres, we will go directly to a notary’s.’”
[In the following paragraph the pen of the advocate has evidently been at
work.]
“Ye simple and trustful hearts, pause for a moment after reading this
artful speech from the boldest and most audacious intriguer that ever
lived. Fancy yourselves in my place, deign to consider what my feelings
must have been, what I must have thought and imagined, I, a poor girl of
twenty-three, unacquainted with either intrigue or business. What would
you have said? What would you have done under similar circumstances?
“From that moment I was no longer myself. I answered Madame de la Motte
that I should be proud to be able to do anything that would be agreeable
to the queen, without any motive of personal interest to prompt me.
“She replied immediately, ‘The Count de la Motte will call for you
to-morrow evening in a carriage, and will carry you to Versailles.’”[93]
The reader will not fail to observe the precision with which the countess
enters on her course of action; the quickness with which she manages
to come to the point. Her husband takes a fortnight to bring about the
introduction of his wife, while she settles everything at a single
interview.
The next day the count, who is accompanied by Rétaux de Villette, takes
Mademoiselle Leguay to Versailles at the appointed time, and leaves her
with his wife in their apartments at the Hôtel de la Belle Image, kept
by the Sieur Gobert, and situated in the Place Dauphine, at that time
one of the most aristocratic quarters of the royal town. This place is
octagonal in shape, and the houses, which range from four to five storeys
high, all have some sort of pretension about them; they have either open
balustrades running along the parapets, or carved cornices with enriched
mouldings surmounting the windows, or ornamental iron balconies. Most of
them too have large _portes cochères_. The Place, which in Madame de la
Motte’s days was a large open space, where the public sedan-chairs—the
_chaises bleues_ and the _brouettes_—used to ply for hire, is to-day laid
out as a flower garden, and has in the centre a bronze statue of General
Hoche, after whom the Place is now named. The house where the countess
lodged was formerly known as “La Belle Image,” but it no longer preserves
its sign. It is, however, easily recognisable, being the first house (No.
8)[94] in the angle on the right hand, on entering the Place from the Rue
Hoche. All the apartments, with the exception of the attics, must have
been of a superior class. Now-a-days the ground floor is appropriated
to a “Magasin Anglais,” where English cutlery, and needles and pins,
and reels and balls of cotton, and patent medicines and pickles, and
old brown Windsor soap, and biscuits are exposed for sale. To return,
however, to Mademoiselle Leguay, whose memorial thus proceeds:
“It was only then I learnt the name and condition of Madame de la Motte,
that she was the wife of Count de la Motte, that she went by the title of
Countess de Valois at Versailles, and that the queen used to write to her
in that name.”
The _belle courtisane_ of the Palais Royal, whose resemblance to
Marie-Antoinette is said to have been singularly striking,—she
was remarkable for the elegance of her figure, had blue eyes and
chestnut-coloured hair[95]—is now dressed and tricked out in coquettish
_négligé_—a white robe _en chemise_, bordered and lined with rose colour,
and a white lace hood—for the famous interview which the Cardinal de
Rohan had so earnestly solicited of the queen, with whom the miserable
dupe flattered himself he had been all this while corresponding. The
memorial continues:
“Madame de la Motte delivered to me a small note, folded in the usual
way, but without telling me either what it contained or to whom it was
addressed, or even by whom it was written. Neither she nor her husband
spoke to me on the subject. Madame de la Motte merely said, ‘I will take
you this evening into the park, and you will deliver this letter to a
great nobleman whom you will meet there.’”[96]
XIII.
1784. JULY.
THE MIDNIGHT INTERVIEW.—“YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS.”
The memorial of the Demoiselle Leguay Designy thus proceeds:—
“Between eleven and twelve o’clock I went out with Monsieur and Madame
de la Motte. I had on a white mantle and a white lace hood. I do not
remember whether I carried a fan in my hand or not; I cannot say for
certain. The small note was in my pocket.
“They took me into the park; there a rose was put into my hand by Madame
de la Motte, who said to me: ‘You will give this rose, along with the
letter, to the person who shall present himself to you, and say to him
these words:—You know what this means? The queen will be there to see how
your meeting passes off; she will speak to you. She is there yonder, and
will be close behind you. You shall presently speak to her yourself.’
“These last words made such an impression on me, that I trembled from
head to foot. I could not help telling them so: I observed to them that I
did not know I was to speak to the queen. I asked them, in a stammering
voice, what was the proper mode of form of speech.... M. de la Motte
answered me: ‘You must always say, Your majesty.’
“I need hardly, I think, break off here to declare that, far from having
had the honour of speaking to the queen, or her having done me the honour
to speak to me, I did not even see her at all....
“We were still walking along when M. de la Motte met a man, to whom he
said: ‘Ah! is that you?’... Afterwards, when I dined with the La Mottes,
I recognised in Villette, their friend, the same person who was thus
addressed by M. de la Motte....
“Madame de la Motte then accompanied me to a hedge of yoke elms, leaving
me there whilst she went to fetch the great nobleman to whom I was to
speak.
“I remained waiting.... The noble unknown came up, bowing as he
approached me, whilst Madame de la Motte stood aside a few paces off, and
appeared to watch the scene. I knew not who the great nobleman was, and
although the Cardinal de Rohan now acknowledges that he was the person, I
am still ignorant upon the point.
“It was a dull night, not a speck of moonlight; nor could I distinguish
anything but those persons and objects which were familiar to me. It
would be quite impossible for me to describe the state I was in. I was so
agitated, so excited, so disconcerted, and so tremulous, that I cannot
conceive how I was able to accomplish even half of what I had been
instructed to do.
“I offered the rose to the great nobleman, and said to him, ‘You know
what this means,’ or something very similar. I cannot affirm whether he
took it or let it fall. As for the letter it remained in my pocket; I had
entirely forgotten it.
“As soon as I had spoken, Madame de la Motte came running up to us,
saying in a low hurried voice: ‘Quick, quick, come away!’
“I left the stranger, and after proceeding a few steps found myself with
M. de la Motte, whilst his wife and the unknown went off together and
were lost to our view. Count de la Motte conducted me back to the hotel,
where we sat talking together until the return of his lady.
“She came home about two in the morning, when I explained to her that I
had forgotten to give the note. I was afraid she would have scolded me
for this negligence, but instead of doing so she evinced the greatest
satisfaction, assuring me she had just left the queen, and that her
majesty was in the highest degree delighted with my performance.”[97]
Such appears to have been the famous scene in the park of Versailles at
midnight, when the Prince de Rohan, deluded by an artful woman, was fain
to believe that he had been honoured with an interview with the Queen
of France, and might soon expect to be openly received at court. The
countess knew perfectly well that the cheat would run the risk of being
detected if the dialogue were suffered to proceed too far, she therefore
frightened away her dupes almost as soon as she had brought them together.
The Countess de la Motte’s own account of this interview in the park of
Versailles, though at variance with that given by Mademoiselle d’Oliva,
nevertheless agrees sufficiently with it to prove that the statement
of the latter was perfectly sincere. The countess alleges that the
idea of practising this deception upon the cardinal originated with
Marie-Antoinette herself—that the choice of the actress who was to
personate her, the place appointed for the interview, the young girl’s
embarrassment before the meeting, were all known at the time to the
queen, who was present in an adjoining arbour.
Nay, more. According to the same account, the Cardinal de Rohan was
also privy to the trick played upon himself, and connived at the deceit
in order to humour her majesty. Madame de la Motte’s narrative of the
transaction is too long to be transcribed throughout, but it concludes in
this manner:—