the Chevalier O’Neil was gone I went to that jeweller, who immediately
sent into the City to let Eliason know I waited for him at his house. He
came, but we made no bargain; eight or ten days passed away in fruitless
meetings and considerations. They often told me they wondered how a
gentleman should have such a knowledge of diamonds as to ascertain the
exact value of them; but that I certainly must be sensible that such
articles were difficult to dispose of; that they should perhaps be
obliged to keep them two or three years upon their hands, during which
time the interest of the money was lost, and other things to the same
purport. At length, after much trouble and delay, we came to a settlement
for the thirteen stones, for the sum of two thousand pounds sterling,
ready money; a ring, convertible into a neck button, valued at two
hundred pounds sterling, and for which I lately got but one hundred;
a parcel of very fine pearls for the mounting of a pair of bracelets,
valued at a hundred and fifty pounds; another parcel of pearls for sixty
pounds, and a pair of girandole earrings, valued at five hundred pounds.
Such were the two bargains I made with Eliason in presence of Gray.
Six diamonds, which formed the trefoil of two oval ones, I exchanged
at Gray’s for a medallion set round with brilliants, two steel swords,
a shirt-pin, a pair of asparagus tongs, and a wine syphon. Four more
diamonds which were between the rose and the four tassels were likewise
exchanged at Gray’s for a ring, still in my possession, a small hoop of
diamond-seeds, a lady’s pocket-case, in satin and gold, with all its
fittings, a pair of steel buckles, and a miniature.
“I had sixty diamonds left, arising from the tassels, twenty-two from
the festoons, and the stone which formed the button. Out of the sixty I
selected twenty-eight, which I gave to Gray to set in drop earrings; and
the two-and-twenty of the festoons to make into a necklace of one single
row. I then had left only thirty-two stones arising from the tassels,
and stone forming the button. I chose the sixteen finest, which I kept
unmounted, and the remaining sixteen I parted with to Gray, at the rate
of eighty livres the carat, out of which I bought in his shop sundry
small matters not worth mentioning. Thus terminated all my negotiations
for diamonds in London.
“I had still remaining the button stone, which I showed to Mr. Morland,
asking him whether he could not find an opportunity of selling it to my
advantage. He said he would let an acquaintance inspect it, and let me
know his answer in two or three days. He did so by telling me he had the
stone in his bank, and that one thousand guineas had been offered for
it, which he believed might be increased to twelve hundred. He proposed
my calling in Pall Mall to take the diamond, and from thence go into the
city to Mr. Duval’s, the person who made the offer; but that he believed
it was not for himself. We met with Mr. Duval, who showed me several
articles in jewellery. I told him my design was not to purchase any,
since I was, on the contrary, come to treat with him about a diamond
which Mr. Morland had given him to inspect. After surveying it a second
time, he told me that the person to whom he had shown it offered but one
thousand pounds, which he (Duval) looked upon to be its full value. I
took back the diamond, and resolved to keep it till I found a means to
dispose of it more advantageously. The same day I gave it to Gray to set
in a ring.
“Let us now proceed to the enumeration of those stones that were sold and
exchanged in Paris. Before my departure for England, the countess had
delivered to M. Filleul some diamonds, which she had kept privately, that
had formed part of the festoons and knots of the tassels; she desired
him to sell them for her, and pay her the money, charging him not to
make me acquainted with it. He sold the whole parcel to one Paris, a
jeweller, for the sum of twenty-eight thousand French livres (francs).
Two stones, part of the festoons, were exchanged by me for two pendulum
clocks at one Furet’s, in the Rue St. Honoré, with twenty-five louis-d’or
in addition. One diamond, in like manner from the festoons, was set in
a ring by Regnier, my jeweller. I had a chain in small brilliants which
Franks the Jew had sold me; that I gave to Regnier, adding a few small
diamonds which belonged to the knots of the tassels, the whole of which
he made into a chain, which the cardinal’s counsel valued at forty
thousand livres. I with much difficulty parted with it for _sixty pounds
sterling_ in London. It was nearly the same with every particular; they
were, in order to obtain their ends, obliged to multiply the price for
which every article sold in a like proportion; and thus, from this false
estimation, endeavour to prove that the _whole_ of the Necklace had been
in my possession.
“I had now left in all sixteen diamonds which I had brought back from
London, four-and-twenty very small ones, which were on the sides of
each oval stone at the bottom of the tassels, twenty-eight encircling
the two large oval stones, two small ones on each side of the button,
eighteen of the small size, six of which held the two oval stones between
the festoon, and the twelve others which were immediately adjoining
to the ribbon at top. The rose and what held the tassels were not yet
taken to pieces. I delivered the whole to Regnier, out of all which he
selected the best diamonds, and nearly of an equality, to encircle the
top of a bonbonnière and mount a small pair of drop earrings which the
countess wanted to make a present of. The remainder I directed him to
sell, for which he got thirteen or fourteen thousand livres. These made
up the number of what I sold, as well at Paris as at London. Let us now
recapitulate.
“I received in ready money in London _five thousand pounds_ sterling from
Mr. Eliason, and fifty or sixty pounds from Mr. Gray.
“In exchange I received a medallion, a pair of girandole earrings, a
ring, a shirt-pin, a hoop, two steel swords, a pair of steel buckles,
one pound of pearl-seed, two rows of pearls forming a necklace, a mount
for bracelets, a small parcel of pearls, a neck-button convertible into
a ring, a snuff-box, a pair of asparagus tongs, a wine syphon, a lady’s
pocket-case in satin and gold with its fittings, a miniature, and a
pen-case of roses valued at sixty pounds sterling.[166] Some few other
small articles I had from Gray’s shop, as needles, knives, steel forks,
spring-pincers, scissors, a pair of silver buckles, an opera glass, a
small steel watch-chain.
“I sold at Paris to M. Paris several diamonds to the amount of
twenty-eight thousand livres, and I received nearly fifty louis-d’or for
a part of the pearl-seed carried from London by the Chevalier O’Neil. The
remainder of the pearl-seed was sold to Mordecai, a Jew residing in the
Rue aux Ours.
“I have already said I had delivered to Gray twenty-two stones to set
in a necklace, and twenty-six[167] for drop earrings. I had acquainted
him with the day of my departure, and he had promised the work should
be completed; yet the day previous thereto he showed me all the pieces,
only sketched, assuring me there was a great deal more work than he had
at first imagined, and that if I would leave them with him he had an
opportunity of conveying them to Paris within a fortnight. I left him
the diamonds with my address, and set out upon my journey on a Sunday
morning with the Capuchin McDermott, who attended me as far as Dover. At
parting with him I made him a present of a snuff-box with a very handsome
painting on the lid, and defrayed his journey back to London.
“When I left Paris I had taken credit for two thousand crowns; I won
at Newmarket near a thousand pounds sterling: out of both which sums
I expended a hundred guineas in saddlery, harness, and race-horse
body-cloths, a hundred guineas more for a phaeton, a hundred and fifty
guineas in English stuffs and clothes for myself and servants; the
rest was spent in travelling, and during my six weeks’ stay in London,
which will not appear extraordinary when it is known I had taken up
my residence at one of the principal hotels in that town, that I kept
two servants, a hired coach, and two saddle horses, that I often gave
entertainments, and that keeping the most fashionable company, I was
obliged to play and enter into expensive pleasures.
“All I now had left of the famous Necklace were two rings—one for
myself, the other belonging to the countess—a small diamond mounted on
a plum-coloured stone, a pair of drop earrings, and a circle on a black
tortoiseshell-box, and what I had left with Gray—namely, the necklace of
twenty-two stones and the earrings.
“Thus I have given a minute detail of the diamonds I possessed and of the
manner in which I had disposed of them.
“From the account I have kept and have just set forth of all the diamonds
I had in my possession or that of the countess belonging to the Necklace,
and by comparing it with an exact representation thereof engraved
on a scale of the size of the diamonds, it appears that the queen
had kept _two hundred and fifty-six diamonds_ of the same magnitude,
_ninety-eight_ smaller ones of the same form, and the _two finest
diamonds_ of the first size. The two hundred and fifty-six diamonds were
what composed the most beautiful part of the Necklace, on account of the
assemblage and the regularity of so great a number of stones.”[168]
Unfortunately for the count’s reputation for accuracy, a sworn affidavit
of Gray’s, setting forth a true extract from his ledger, and produced
at the time of the trial, gives the following version of his dealings
with the count. This not only shows a considerable variation of price in
respect to several articles received in exchange, but yields in round
numbers a total of nearly three thousand pounds in excess of the amount
admitted by the count to have been received:—
_Monsieur le Comte de Valois, of London_,
DR. to ROBERT GRAY.
_May 20th, 1785._
£ _s._ _d._ Prices quoted
| by Count de
| la Motte.
A medallion set with diamonds 230 0 0 |
A diamond ring 94 10 0 |
A pearl knot for a lady 52 10 0 |
A hand fire-screen 1 4 0 |
A funnel and glass 0 6 0 |
A purse 4 14 6 |
A handsome steel sword 100 0 0 |
Ditto ditto 45 0 0 |
Two toothpick-cases 12 12 0 |
A carving-knife and fork 1 4 0 |
A pair of blue steel buckles 0 18 0 |
2000 needles 1 10 0 |
A strong casket 5 5 0 |
A diamond hoop ring 13 13 0 |
Four razors 1 0 0 |
Setting a diamond ring 1 8 0 |
A ring-case 0 8 0 |
A silk pocket-case, with fittings complete 12 12 0 |
A corkscrew 0 12 0 |
A handsome star-shaped diamond brooch 400 0 0 | 300 0 0
A pair of asparagus tongs 2 12 6 |
A gold watch 38 0 0 |
A purse 4 14 6 |
A cord for a cane 1 1 0 |
A pair of scales for diamonds 1 1 0 |
A wine syphon 5 5 0 |
A pair of spring pincers 0 10 6 |
A pearl necklace 170 0 0 | 200 0 0
1800 pearls 270 0 0 | 120 0 0
A diamond aigrette in the form of a rose 60 0 0 | 60 0 0
A pair of steel buckles 18 18 0 |
A watch-chain 6 16 6 |
A handsome pair of diamond girandole |
earrings 600 0 0 | 500 0 0
A brilliant ring 100 0 0 | 200 0 0
A diamond snuff-box 120 0 0 | 140 0 0
A diamond shirt-button 28 0 0 |
A pair of buckles 7 7 0 |
Ditto ditto 3 13 6 |
A parcel of pearl-seed and other pearls, 1890 0 0 | 210 0 0
for embroidery |
Paid in cash 6090 0 0 | 5060 0 0
----------------+
Total £10,371 6 0 |
=================+
Credit by value received in various |
diamonds £10,371 6 0 | [169]
=================+
While the count was away leading a life of ease and pleasure—bargaining,
it is true, about diamonds to-day, but “betting at Newmarket” on the
morrow, riding about town in his “hired coach” or on his “saddle horse,”
with his groom behind, giving “occasional entertainments at the principal
hotels,” “keeping the most fashionable company,” “playing deeply,” and
“entering into the most expensive pleasures,”—while all this was going
on, madame the countess was putting off troublesome inquiries respecting
her husband’s whereabouts as best she could, saying one day that he
was in Berry looking after a legacy, at another time that he was in
Poictou, and finally that he was in England, where he had won £1000 on
a horse-race.[170] Still she managed to enjoy herself after her own
fashion. Cardinal Prince de Rohan reluctantly admitted that she visited
him at the episcopal palace at Saverne at the end of May, dressed in
man’s clothes, and moreover, that he had sent one of the episcopal
carriages to fetch her.[171] One can fancy the high jinks between the
countess and Cagliostro, and black-sheep Baron de Planta, and the Prince
de Rohan, and “_la petite comtesse_,” as Cagliostro’s wife was called,
over the cardinal’s matchless Tokay on this notable occasion.
XXI.
1785. JUNE 22–AUG. 6.
THE GATHERING OF THE STORM.
On the 22nd of June, Count de la Motte finds himself in Paris again,
with a letter of credit for the sum of 122,896 livres in his pocket-book
on Perregaux the banker—the same shrewd Perregaux who, according to the
popular story, after refusing the services of young Jacques Lafitte,
engaged him the instant afterwards from observing him pick up and
carefully preserve a common pin as in dejected mood he crossed the
courtyard of the banker’s hôtel, and who subsequently took him into
partnership and gave him his daughter in marriage, and so enabled him to
found the great house of Lafitte and Co., of which he was so many years
the distinguished head.
The count turns his letter of credit into hard cash on the following
day,[172] and then calls upon Regnier with some of the stones he had
failed to get rid of in England, commissions him to mount the best of
them round the lid of a circular box (a _bonbonnière_), to set others for
a small pair of drop earrings which the countess intends making a present
of,[173] and sells him the remainder—namely, twenty brilliants, weighing
in the aggregate forty-two carats, one weighing four and a quarter
carats, and thirty-nine weighing fifty-nine and a half carats—for 27,000
livres, discharging at the same time Regnier’s claim for setting the two
diamond rings for himself and madame, and also an old debt due for either
jewellery or plate.[174]
The De la Mottes now make no secret of the affluence which, after years
of watching and waiting, is theirs at last. Madame, they confidentially
admit, is in high favour with the queen, who, they insinuate, showers
gifts upon her confidant with no niggard hand. The countess’s ambition
was to be lady of the manor of Fontette. She has the means of gratifying
it now; nevertheless, it is not to Fontette that she goes, but to
Bar-sur-Aube, which, with its somewhat free and pleasant society, has
greater charms for her. On retirement for a time to Bar-sur-Aube, her
heart is fixed. She and the count had been long looking forward to
spending the present autumn in their new abode, which by the aid of the
Parisian decorator, who for months past had been exercising his talents
upon the principal apartments, was rapidly becoming a model of elegance
and taste.
One little thing, however, was somewhat troubling the De la Mottes
at this moment and casting its shadow across their anticipated
enjoyment—namely, the affair of the Necklace, the first instalment in
respect of which would soon be falling due. Still the countess, having
accomplished what she had, would surely find it no very difficult task
to arrange a postponement which would leave her husband and herself at
liberty to enjoy their autumn holiday in peace and quietude. It is with
this view that the countess calls upon the cardinal, as we have already
stated, while the count, looking upon the affair as good as settled,
hies down to Bar-sur-Aube to await the arrival of several waggon-loads
of furniture which were on their way from Paris. Among these we may be
certain there were some handsome suites of the very latest fashion,
supplied, we know, by Héricourt, Fournier, and Gervais, the crack
upholsterers of the period, at the cost of 50,000 livres. There was no
lack of clocks too from Furet, of marble groups from Adams and Chevalier,
nor of mirrors, and chandeliers, and table-glass, and Wedgwood ware, then
getting into fashion in Paris, from Sikes.[175] A little automaton bird
too, that flew about the room all alone, and for which madame had given
1500 livres,[176] would certainly not be forgotten.
It must have been at this particular juncture that the cardinal chanced
to see some two or three letters actually written by Marie-Antoinette,
and that, struck by the dissimilarity of the handwriting of these letters
and those received from Madame de la Motte, he communicated his doubts
upon the subject to the countess.[177] She, with her active brain and
ever ready tongue, had of course a hundred reasons to prove to the
credulous cardinal that he was mistaken, and so set his mind at rest. Not
so as regarded her own; she felt none of that confidence with which she
could so readily inspire her dupe. She feared the mine was on the point
of being sprung, and that the explosion would take place before she could
make good her retreat. To reassure alike the cardinal and the jewellers
she goes with her casket of jewels,—which Regnier tells her are worth
100,000 livres to her notary, one Mainguet, with whom she pawns them for
a loan of 35,000 livres, 30,000 of which she takes to the Prince de Rohan
to give to Böhmer and Bassenge. Then she packs off Rétaux de Villette
post-haste to Bar-sur-Aube, and so much is she taken up with these urgent
matters that she neither dines nor sups nor sleeps at home on that
day.[178]
One can imagine the consternation of the Count de la Motte as, while
superintending the arrangement of the new furniture and chatting with
the decorator respecting the extremely satisfactory effect of the _tout
ensemble_ of madame’s boudoir, he catches sight of Villette driving up to
the house in hot haste, and looking far more grave than is the fellow’s
wont. The count rushes down the steps to meet him—they turn aside for
a few minutes’ conversation, and after a hurried lunch, and some hasty
instructions to the workpeople, the order is given to put fresh horses
to the carriage, and the pair are soon rattling over the road to Paris.
By dint of handsome “_pourboires_” to postillions, and considerable
wear and tear of horseflesh, the hundred and forty miles that intervene
between them and the Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles are got over in less than the
four-and-twenty hours. At noon on the following day (August 3) a council
is held, at which it is decided that madame shall send a message to
Bassenge, requesting him to favour her with a call. The jeweller, in the
belief that the summons can only refer to the Necklace, takes the Hôtel
de Strasbourg in his way, sees the cardinal, speaks to him of his own and
his partner’s inquietude at the queen having taken no notice whatever
of the firm’s letter of July 12, and informs him of the message he has
received from Madame de la Motte, to whom he now hastens. Bassenge finds
the countess alone, with no other furniture in the apartment beyond a
bedstead and a couch, and everything about the house betokening a sudden
“flitting.” The jeweller simply thought he was dreaming when, after the
ordinary compliments had passed between them, madame, with the calmest of
countenances and the firmest of voices, said to him: “I have sent for you
to let you know that you have been deceived—the word ‘_approuvé_’ and the
signature attached to the paper containing the conditions of sale of the
Necklace are forgeries—the queen’s handwriting has been counterfeited. As
for the rest, the cardinal, you know, is very rich; you had better look
to him, and insist upon his rendering himself personally liable.”[179]
Bassenge, as soon as he recovered his self-possession, hurried home
to communicate to his partner the astounding intelligence he had just
received, but Böhmer, it will be remembered, was at Crespy with Madame
Campan on this very day.[180] The jeweller therefore resolved to look in
again on the cardinal, and ask an explanation from him. The Prince de
Rohan, on being apprised of what the countess had said, shared in the
fears of the jeweller, though he dared not avow as much. He hesitated
for some time ere he made a reply; then he strove to reassure Bassenge
by affirming that he had in his own possession a written agreement of
the queen’s, and he bade the jeweller go home and make himself perfectly
easy; and home, and somewhat easier in his mind, Bassenge went. Great
stress was laid at the trial on this mis-statement of the cardinal’s,
still we can very well understand it to have been nothing more than an
exaggeration of the fact that he was in possession of letters which he
believed to be written by the queen, authorising the purchase of the
Necklace on her behalf.
When Böhmer returns home from Crespy on the following day, the two
partners compare notes, and decide that the queen ought to be seen
without a moment’s delay. To Versailles, therefore, Böhmer hastens, but,
as we have already stated, is refused an audience by Marie-Antoinette.
A day or two afterwards, however, he finds himself summoned by courier
to wait upon the queen, who has by this time learnt from Madame Campan
the result of her conversation at Crespy with the crown jeweller, and
is anxious to hear the astounding recital from his own lips. Böhmer,
disregarding all that Madame Campan has told him, and in the full belief
that the cardinal holds the queen’s written agreement for the purchase
of the Necklace, proceeds to Versailles in all confidence, determined
to be no longer trifled with, even by royalty itself. On his arrival he
is ushered into the queen’s private cabinet, when Marie-Antoinette at
once inquires of him: “By what fatality it is that she is still doomed
to hear of his foolish pretensions about selling her an article which
she had steadily refused for several years?” Böhmer, reassured by what
the cardinal had told Bassenge, no longer felt any doubt as to the queen
being really a party to the purchase of the Necklace, and replied, “that
he was compelled, being unable to pacify his creditors any longer.” “What
are your creditors to me?” inquired the queen. Böhmer then related to
her seriatim all that, according to his deluded imagination, had passed
between them through the intervention of the Cardinal de Rohan. She was
equally thunderstruck, incensed, and surprised at everything she heard.
In vain did she speak; the jeweller, alike importunate and dangerous,
repeated incessantly: “Madame, this is no time for feigning; deign to
confess that you have my Necklace, and order me some assistance, or else
a bankruptcy will soon bring the whole affair to light.”[181]
Marie-Antoinette, driven almost frantic by this flagrant imposture and
by the wanton manner in which her name had been abused and trifled with,
immediately sent for the Abbé de Vermond, “her private secretary, her
confidant, and her counsellor;”[182] and subsequently for the Baron de
Breteuil—the cardinal’s two bitterest enemies. Delighted at the prospect
they saw of crushing the grand almoner, not merely by effecting his utter
ruin at court, but by disgracing him in the eyes of all Europe, they
never for a moment thought of the consequences of permitting the name
of the second personage in the kingdom to be mixed up in a swindling
transaction and associated with those of a profligate ecclesiastic, a
wholesale forger, a Palais Royal courtesan, a sharper, and an abandoned
woman and thief.
Hardly had Böhmer made his partner acquainted with what transpired at his
interview with the queen, ere another courier in the royal livery dashes
up to the door of the jewellers’ establishment—“Au Grand Balcon,” in the
Rue Vendôme—this time with a letter from the Baron de Breteuil, minister
of justice and of the king’s household, and the Prince de Rohan’s
declared enemy, again requiring Böhmer’s attendance at Versailles. On
the receipt of this new summons, Böhmer hurries off to the cardinal for
instructions and finds his eminence by this time pretty well crazed with
this same Necklace business. Nevertheless he enjoins the jeweller not to
breathe a word about the queen, for should the minister discover that her
majesty had purchased the detested jewel, he would certainly inform the
king, and they would all be involved in one common disgrace. Should the
Baron de Breteuil question him as to the meaning of the letter which the
firm had sent to the queen, he had better reply that it referred to some
new set of diamonds which they desired to sell to her majesty.