and supper parties to those who consent to visit them, discharge all
their debts with the cardinal’s money, and assume all the airs of genuine
nobility. Most of the inhabitants eat their meat and drink their wine
without instituting any curious inquiries as to the source of their
strange prosperity; but there was one whose piercing intelligence
penetrated every outward vanity, whose keen eye discerned the truth
then more distinctly than others have done since, after the exposure of
a long trial by the Court of Parliament, and the still more searching
investigations of fifty historians. This sagacious man was M. de la
Tour, who had married the count’s sister. When he dined at the De la
Motte table, the countess herself, to whom all others submitted, quailed
beneath his cutting sarcasms.
“I chanced to be alone with M. de la Tour,” says Beugnot, “on the day
of Madame de la Motte’s arrival. ‘Am I not a thousand times right,’
said he to me, ‘when I assert that Paris contains the worst persons in
the world? In what other place, I ask you, would this little vixen and
her big lanky husband have been able to obtain by swindling the things
which they are displaying before our astonished eyes? Your good father
excepted’—Beugnot’s father, it will be remembered, had lent the De la
Mottes a thousand livres a few years previously—‘whom would they have
found here willing to lend them a crown? and yet in half an hour they
have unpacked more silver plate than there is in the whole town besides,
not even excepting the chalices and ornaments of the altar.’... ‘Do you
not know,’ remarked I, ‘that Madame de la Motte is protected by the
queen?’ ‘I’ll say nothing as to the queen’s protection,’ replied La
Tour. ‘Between you and me, the wife of our lord the king is not the most
prudent person in the world; still she is not such a fool as to have
anything to do with people of their stamp, I warrant.’”
The evening after the De la Mottes’ arrival they gave a supper to a few
intimate friends, which, according to Beugnot, would have been considered
magnificent for any kind of guests even in Paris. “Although the town of
Bar-sur-Aube,” observes he, “is one of the most ancient cities of the
Gauls, never perhaps had such luxury been seen in it before, not even
when Cæsar did it the honour of stopping there to hang—as they say—the
mayor and councillors of that epoch. Faithful to an understanding we had
previously come to, La Tour and I ate with good appetites, and without
taking particular notice of anything, as though, in fact, we were both
accustomed to such festivities. We kept the conversation in our own
hands, taking care to confine it to subjects which rendered it difficult
for the most expert talker to interpose a remark in praise of any of the
things spread before us. M. de la Motte did not like this; he wished
to make us admire the dinner-service, which was of a new pattern, and
of very fine workmanship. La Tour contended that services of this kind
had been known for a very long time, but had gone out on account of
their clumsiness. The _nil admirari_ was persevered in with respect to
everything, and to the very end.
“At last Madame de la Motte thought she had found grace in our eyes in
praising a fowl, one of the finest which had just been removed from the
table, informing us at the same time that she had ordered the courier
to bring her a supply of this kind of poultry so long as she remained
at Bar-sur-Aube, because to her taste ordinary country fowls were not
eatable. ‘I ask your pardon, madam,’ interposed La Tour, in a serious
tone, ‘but I am by no means of your opinion. I consider a country capon
such as you have been speaking of, when properly fattened, to be vastly
superior to all your Normandy and Mans cocks and pullets, the flesh of
which is soft, insipid, and dripping with fat. But after the capon has
been fed on a good plan, it must be roasted in a proper manner, and for
this purpose I care little about the jack. I very much prefer to have the
spit turned by a boy of the family, or even by a dog.’
“Madame de la Motte lost patience at the sort of honour paid to her by
her husband’s relation before four tall footmen who had been brought
from Paris clothed in liveries covered with gold lace. ‘Sir,’ said she
to La Tour, in a spiteful manner, ‘I feel edified at your preference; it
is the result of a country taste which we know you carry to its fullest
extent.’ ‘I agree with you there, madam,’ replied La Tour; ‘country taste
or family taste are much the same, and you know, madam, I value one just
as much as I do the other.’
“This conversation shortened supper. ‘How do you think I have paid my
score?’ inquired La Tour of me in a low tone of voice. ‘You have been
almost too liberal,’ replied I. ‘Not at all; only I was resolved to put
down both husband and wife should they have the impertinence to ask me
to admire anything. The masquerade which has commenced this evening is
a sort of triumph for these people, and I reserve for myself the part
of the soldier who on the way tells wholesome truths to the hero of the
festival!’”[106]
Madame de la Motte called Beugnot into her room, and began complaining
to him of the insolence of her husband’s brother-in-law. “She told
me,” says Beugnot, “that her fortune had changed, that she was now in
a good position, both as regarded herself and those belonging to her,
and that we were all interested in adopting a different manner towards
her. She hinted something of the very high connection she was keeping
up at Versailles, and ended by remarking that she did not think she
could remain with us the fortnight she had promised herself. I proffered
her a first example of the new style of behaviour which she desired
by not asking her a single question. I merely undertook to beg her
brother-in-law to be more prudent for the future, without, however,
anticipating much success from my intervention.”
The third day of the countess’s sojourn at Bar-sur-Aube was occupied by
her in paying visits to people in the neighbourhood. She dressed herself
out with all the taste which can result from an excess of magnificence,
her robes being of the finest Lyons embroidery, and she herself sparkling
with diamonds. She had, moreover, a complete set of topazes, which she
also took care to display. “She made herself,” says Beugnot, “almost
ridiculously engaging and familiar with the neighbouring nobility and
gentry. Great and small were alike enchanted with her. They returned her
visits, but when she wished to go further, and give some little fêtes,
the respectable women of the place excused themselves under various
pretexts, and Madame de la Motte found herself reduced to the young men
and the women of her husband’s family, so thorough was the respect for
manners at this time in a little provincial town. ‘Madame de la Motte,’
said these good ladies to me, ‘is a charming woman, and we like her very
much; but why do you wish us to give our girls ideas of which they have
no need, and which will perhaps awaken in them desires they can never
gratify?’
“I was wanting,” resumes Beugnot, “neither in respect nor discretion
towards Madame de la Motte. She seemed to have completely forgotten our
old relations, and on this point I was in unison with her. I had become
to her simply a well-bred man with whom she could speak on any subject.
She told me of the secret vexations she endured through the deplorable
position of her husband’s family. I consoled her as well as I could,
always observing to her that a residence in a little town was in her case
quite a mistake—that she ought to have an hôtel at Paris and a château
in the country. She replied that she did not wish to buy land, because
she was about to obtain the estates belonging to her family, on which
she proposed to build. The hôtel in Paris she allowed to pass without
notice, but she admitted that she wished to possess one at Bar-sur-Aube,
where she could spend the summer months until her projected château
was built. I took the liberty of opposing this idea of purchasing a
house at Bar-sur-Aube, and maintained that it would be in far better
taste to inhabit a cottage while the château was being built by its
side; but Madame de la Motte, who had already received many valuable
lessons on this subject, did not the less persist in her desire to
display her magnificence in those places which had been witnesses of her
former misery. She purchased, in spite of my remonstrances, a house at
Bar-sur-Aube, for which she paid twice as much as it was worth, and then
gave it up to architects, who considered it their duty to commit all the
stupidities which the property admitted of, and a few more.”[107]
“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.
[Illustration: _The Diamond Necklace_
(_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.”