judgment which has just been pronounced by the parliament. It has no
respect for royalty; it is a shameful insult, and I am bathed in tears
of despair. What! a man who had the audacity to lend himself to that
indecent and infamous scene in the arbour, who supposed that he had an
assignation with the Queen of France, with the wife of his king, that the
queen had received a rose from him,[355] and had suffered him to throw
himself at her feet, should not, when a throne is concerned, be held
guilty of high treason, but should be simply regarded as one who had been
deceived! It is odious and revolting. Pity me, my good sister; I did not
merit this injury, I who have endeavoured to do good to all who surround
me, and who only remember that I am the daughter of Marie-Thérèse, to
show myself, as she recommended me when embracing me at my departure,
French to the very bottom of my heart. To be so sacrificed to a perjured
priest, to a lewd intriguer, how grievous! But do not think that I shall
allow myself to do anything unworthy of me. I have declared that I will
never seek to revenge myself beyond doubling the good which I have
already done. I need not tell you that the king is indignant like myself;
he exiles the cardinal to La Chaise-Dieu, and Cagliostro is expelled from
France. Adieu! My children are well. We all embrace you, and press you to
our hearts.”[356]
To Madame Campan, who knew more of the particulars of the intrigue than
any one else about the queen, Marie-Antoinette mournfully said: “Make
me your compliments of condolence; the intriguer who wished to ruin me,
or to obtain money by abusing my name, and forging my signature, has
just been acquitted. But as a Frenchwoman, also receive my compliments
of condolence. A people is indeed unhappy to have for supreme tribunal
a set of men who are swayed by their own passions, many of whom are
susceptible of corruption, while the remainder are possessed of an
audacity which they are only too ready to manifest against authority, as
they have just shown in so marked a manner.”[357]
“At this epoch,” says Madame Campan, “the happy days of the queen
terminated. Adieu for ever to the peaceful and simple pleasures of
Trianon, to the fêtes where once shone the magnificence, intellect,
and good taste of the court of France; adieu, above all, to that
consideration and respect, the forms of which surround the throne, but of
which the reality alone is its solid base.”[358]
Spite of the judgment of the Parliament, the cardinal was not allowed to
go entirely scot-free. The king at once wrote to the Baron de Breteuil,
requiring him to demand from the cardinal the resignation of his office
of grand almoner, and the surrender of the various orders the king had
conferred upon him. Accompanying this letter was a _lettre-de-cachet_
banishing the cardinal within three days to his abbey of the Chaise-Dieu,
in the midst of the Auvergne mountains, where the king sarcastically
intimated he would not be likely to receive much company. Until his
departure he was commanded to see no one, except his relatives and
counsel. If nothing else could be done, a stop could, at any rate, be put
to receptions and ovations at the Palais-Cardinal.
On receiving the above instructions, the Baron de Breteuil who was
suffering from gout in the stomach, rose, it is said, from his bed
completely resuscitated at the prospect of being the bearer to the
cardinal of such agreeable news.[359] He presented himself to the Prince
de Rohan, on the morning after the release of the latter from the
Bastille, and just as he had ordered his carriage intending to go round
and thank his judges. The prince without appearing the least disquieted
informed the minister that he would observe two of the orders of the king
with the fidelity, the exactitude, and the submission which the Rohans
had always shown for the sovereign’s commands; but, with regard to his
resignation of the office of grand almoner, he could not confide this
to M. de Breteuil, as he had had the honour of sending it to the king
an hour ago through the Count de Vergennes.[360] The minister pressed
the prince to sign some further paper in reference to this resignation,
observing that he did so with regret, but was obliged to obey the
orders of the king his master. “Monsieur,” replied the cardinal, in a
nettled tone, “the king himself has already done justice on me. I have
no need of an executioner.” This _mot_ speedily circulated all over
Paris, and the minister was henceforth styled “Bourreau (executioner)
Breteuil.”[361] Louis XVI.’s minister of justice experienced a more
severe rebuff when charged, a few years later, with carrying out the
terms of a _lettre-de-cachet_ banishing the Duke d’Orléans to his château
of Villers-Cotterets for his famous protest at the “royal session,” when,
as Carlyle remarks, he “cut his court moorings.” The baron wished to
accompany the duke in his carriage, in order that, in accordance with
the king’s commands, he might not lose sight of him, whereupon the duke
observed, with disdainful pride, “Ah, well! jump up behind.”
On June 2, the day after Cagliostro’s release from the Bastille,
police-inspector Brugnières entered his apartment and addressed him
“in the king’s name,” at which ominous words his heart, he says, sank
within him. The order of which Brugnières was the bearer was dated
on the day preceding, and enjoined the count to leave Paris in three
days, and the kingdom within three weeks. Next day Cagliostro removed
to Passy, and some few days after to St.-Denis, whence he started with
his wife to Boulogne-sur-Mer. On the 16th they embarked for England
under circumstances the most sentimental, if we can credit the count’s
narrative of the affair. “The shores that I quitted,” observes he, “were
lined by a crowd of citizens of all classes, who blessed and thanked
me for the good I had done their brethren, addressing to me the most
touching farewells. The winds carried me far away from them, and I heard
them no more, but I saw them again on their knees, with their hands
raised towards heaven, and it was my turn to bless them, and to cry out
and repeat, as though they could hear me: ‘Adieu, Frenchmen! adieu, my
children! adieu, my country!’”[362]
The Countess de la Motte remained for three weeks in the Conciergerie
ignorant of the true nature of her sentence, and hoping, whatever it
might be, that it would not be carried out. “At length,” she tells us,
“the twenty-first of June arrived, that eventful day which will live in
my remembrance as long as memory itself shall live—that day the most
accursed in the calendar of my misfortunes.
“One of the gaolers came to my chamber, and told me that he had come
from my counsel M. Doillot, ‘who,’ said the deceiver, ‘is now in the
_greffe_, (the record office,) and desires to see you as he is going
immediately into the country, which is the reason why he comes so early
in the morning. It is to read you a letter which he has received from
Versailles. It will be unnecessary for you to regard your dress, because
he is in so great a hurry.’ I threw on hastily a morning gown, and
followed this impostor, who made me descend a small staircase which I
used to pass every morning to go to the lodge of the _concierge_. He went
before me and entered first. I pushed the door from me to get through,
which I had scarce half effected when I found the door forcibly pushed
to by a person on the other side with as much violence as if he wished
to secure an ox, whom he was fearful would escape. Some one immediately
seized me by the right arm, and dragged me into the _greffe_, where
another laid hold of my other arm, and bound me fast. The first thing I
observed was the _huissier_ Breton holding some papers in his hand, which
I conceived, as the _concierge_ had told me, would be read, announcing
my pretended banishment. ‘No, certainly,’ said I to Breton, ‘I will not
endure to hear so unjust a sentence, nor fall upon my knees to receive
the condemnation of an iniquitous cabal, predetermined to sacrifice me!’
A great number of strange persons were present, many of whom seized me
rudely round the waist, and others by the legs to oblige me to kneel
down, but not being able to succeed they held me suspended at a distance
from the ground. While I was in this posture the _huissier_ read my
sentence, but the cries I uttered almost drowned his voice.
“Overpowered by superior strength my resistance became more feeble, and
in this condition I was dragged to the place where the sacrifice was to
be completed. Weary and faint, exhausted by my cries and the ineffectual
struggles I had already made, entreating those around me to avenge the
innocent and _the blood of their good King Henry II.!_ I at length lost
all sense of reason. I could see nothing, could feel nothing which could
serve to show me what they intended to do.”[363]
We will supplement Madame de la Motte’s own account of the infliction of
the sentence passed upon her, by some extracts from contemporary memoirs
which furnish several curious additional particulars.
“Madame de la Motte,” writes the Hon. Mr. Eden to Mr. Pitt, “was called
up at five, and informed that the Court wished to see her. She had no
suspicion of the judgment, which is not communicated here to the accused,
except in the case of a capital sentence. She went in an undress, without
stays, which proved convenient. Upon the registrar reading the sentence,
her surprise, rage, and shrieks were beyond description. The _bourreau_
(executioner) and his assistants instantly seized her, and carried her
into an outer court, where she was fastened to a cart with a halter round
her neck. The _bourreau_ talked to her like a tooth-drawer, and assured
her most politely that it would soon be over. The whipping was slight
and _pro formâ_, but the branding was done with some severity. It is a
good idea that the ‘V’ (_voleuse_—thief) on her shoulders stands also for
Valois.”[364]
The Countess de Sabran, writing on the day of the occurrence to the
Chevalier de Boufflers, says—“Madame de la Motte was punished to-day,
at 6 o’clock in the morning, in order to avoid too great a concourse of
curious people. The unfortunate woman was sleeping profoundly when they
came to tell her, that her lawyer was waiting to talk with her about her
affairs; they had adopted this course the more easily to effect their
object. She got up, not fearing anything, put on a small petticoat and
a cloak, and descended quickly to the room where she beheld eight men
and M. Le Breton, the registrar, who held her sentence in his hand.
At this sight she was much agitated, and tried to fly; whereupon they
threw themselves upon her, and tied her little delicate hands, which
people called charming and which are certainly very dexterous. ‘Why such
precautions?’ she boldly asked. ‘I shall not escape you; if you were
executioners, you could not treat me worse.’ She believed that it was
only a question of removing her to a convent, there to pass a few years.
They told her to go down on her knees, and as she was not inclined to
do so, one of the executioners gave her a blow on the ham-strings which
brought her to the ground. M. Le Breton then read her sentence. At the
moment she heard she was going to be whipped and branded, she went into
convulsions and into a fearful fit of passion, biting everything that
was near her, tearing her clothes, pulling out her hair, &c. In spite
of this the executioners seized her and carried her to the place of
punishment. There, they put the rope round her neck, and tried in vain
to undress her; she defended herself like a lion, with feet, hands, and
teeth, and so obstinately that they were obliged to cut her clothes and
even her chemise in order to make an end of the affair; which was very
indecent, as in spite of the unreasonable hour which had been chosen with
the object of keeping people away, spectators were present in very great
numbers.
“She uttered loud cries, always saying: ‘Spare the blood of the Valois.’
She hurled forth curses against the Parliament, the cardinal, and even
some one more sacred, and struggled so that the executioner could not
perform the operation of branding her as perfectly as he wished, and
scored her all down the back. After the infliction of this sanguinary
punishment, they conveyed her in a hackney coach to the Salpêtrière.”[365]
Nougaret, author of the “Anecdotes of the reign of Louis XVI.,” says,
that “on the countess being conducted before her judges, the registrar
proceeded to read her sentence; on hearing which, astonishment, fury,
rage, and despair seemed all of a sudden to take possession of her.
Determined not to hear her sentence to the end, she flung herself on
the ground and rolled about like a person convulsed, giving vent to the
most horrible yells. The executioner and his assistants had the greatest
difficulty in removing her to the court of the palace, where her sentence
was to be inflicted. Immediately she perceived the instruments of
punishment, she seized one of the executioners by the collar, and in a
moment of frenzy bit a piece out of his hand, then sunk on the ground in
convulsions far more violent than those she had recently recovered from.
It was found necessary to tear her clothes off from her to mark her with
the red-hot iron on her shoulders. During this operation, her cries and
imprecations were redoubled. A few hours afterwards there circulated all
over Paris the following epigram on the countess’s pretensions to the
honours of the house of Valois”—the _fleur-de-lis_, (the arms of the
Valois,) it should be remembered, invariably formed part of any mark with
which culprits were branded:
“À la moderne Valois
Qui contestera ses droits?
La cour des pairs elle-même,
Quoi qu’en termes peu polis,
Lui fait par arrêt suprême,
Endosser les fleurs-de-lis.”[366]
Louis Blanc, in his “History of the French Revolution,” quoting mainly
the Baron de Besenval and the Abbé Georgel, says: “Tied with cords, and
dragged into the court of the Palais, she commenced to utter cries, not
of terror, but of fury. Addressing herself to the people, she exclaimed,
‘If they treat thus the blood of the Valois, what is the lot reserved for
that of the Bourbons?’ And in the midst of the groans which indignation
drew from the crowd, these characteristic words were heard:—‘It is my
own fault that I suffer this ignominy; I had only to say one word, and I
should have been hung.’ [She not only said this word, but launched forth
a succession of impure and calumnious charges against the queen, couched,
too, in the foulest language.] Then like as was done to Lally Tollendal,
they placed a gag in her mouth, and as she was struggling with despair
in the hands of the executioner, the red-hot iron, which ought to have
marked her on the shoulder, glanced off and marked her on the breast.”
Rétaux de Villette asserts that “people were posted in the court of the
palace to make a great noise, so that none of the public who chanced
to be present might hear what Madame de la Motte said. The sentence
executed, she was thrown half dead into a coach, and driven at full
gallop to the Salpêtrière,”[367] the prison where abandoned women were
confined. One of the doors of the vehicle having flown open on the road,
the officers in charge of the countess were only just in time to save
her from springing out and throwing herself under the wheels. When she
arrived at the Salpêtrière, she made a further attempt to destroy herself
by forcing the coverlid of her miserable truckle bed into her mouth.[368]
On the day the Countess de Valois de la Motte underwent the infliction of
the first portion of her sentence, Louis XVI. set out on a royal progress
to Cherbourg, to be present at the submerging of the first cone for the
foundation of the gigantic breakwater there. As this was being slowly
lowered into the sea amidst shouts of _Vive le Roi!_ from thousands of
lusty Norman throats, we may be quite certain that, what might chance to
be “in reserve for the blood of the Bourbons” was one of the very last
things the king was likely to trouble himself about.
XXXV.
AUG. 1785–JUNE 1786.
COUNT DE LA MOTTE’S FLIGHT—COLD STEEL AND POISON.
We must now go back a little in our narrative and see what has become of
Count de la Motte since his flight from Bar-sur-Aube. Beugnot mentions
that he took his place in the diligence, but he seems to have gone in one
of his own carriages, and posted as fast as he could, day and night, to
Boulogne, where he arrived on the night of August 20, having accomplished
the journey of three hundred miles, all stoppages included, in little
more than forty-eight hours, and whence at noon on the 22nd he crossed
over to England.[369] The authorities, who had shown such remissness in
not having him arrested earlier, now that he was beyond their reach began
to bestir themselves, and sent orders to the officers of the marshalsea,
at Boulogne and other ports, to overhaul all vessels leaving the harbour,
and capture the count if they only got the chance. The officer of the
marshalsea at Boulogne was lucky enough to capture the count’s carriage,
which had been left behind at the “Hôtel du Lion d’Argent,” and in his
simplicity set a man to watch it, for we know not how many days and
nights, in the vain hope that the count would return and claim it.[370]
This we need hardly say he had not the remotest intention of doing.
Of the various dangers and mishaps which befel the count on this,
his second visit to England, full particulars are to be found in the
narrative which he himself has written of his adventures.[371] He
started, he tells us, with merely a hundred louis in his purse, and made
with all speed for England, where, on the occasion of his former trip,
he had left some diamonds, “which it was natural,” he observes, “he
should procure.” His first call, therefore, was on Gray the jeweller,
from whom he obtained the diamonds in question, and ere long was living
on the proceeds arising from their sale. While waiting for intelligence
as to the turn affairs were taking in Paris, he tells us that he visited
the Haymarket Theatre one evening, and that while returning home in a
hackney coach a daring attempt was made to assassinate him. His hat
fortunately saved his skull. A sword was then thrust through the little
window behind, and nearly spitted him to his seat. However, he seems to
have escaped without bodily injury.
Under the pretence that his life was not safe in London, the count takes
a journey to the north. Whether his life were really in danger it is
impossible to say, but it is quite certain that his liberty was; for
there were serious thoughts at this time of kidnapping him and carrying
him over to France. The proposal emanated from a spy in the pay of the
French government named Le Mercier. “If,” reports he, “in order to
carry the individual off, cunning should not suffice, we will employ
force to conduct him to some isolated spot on the banks of the Thames,
where we will take care to have stationed for a fortnight previously,
if necessary, one of those vessels which bring coal to London from the
north. Their hulls are so thick, that it would be impossible for any one
confined in the hold to make himself heard, let him cry out as loud as he
will.”[372]
Before this amiable suggestion of the spy Le Mercier could be acted
upon, Count de la Motte had taken up his quarters in Lancaster, whence
he went to Dublin, next to Glasgow, and finally to Edinburgh. Here, he
says, he made the discovery that an attempt had been made to poison him,
as he believed, at some Dublin dinner party. At any rate, he was so ill
that he was obliged to keep his bed for three months. On his recovery
he found that he was watched whenever he went abroad, which was likely
enough to have been the case, as at this time Count d’Adhémar, ambassador
of France in England, wrote, it is said, to a great personage at the
French court, stating that Count de la Motte had withdrawn among the
mountains of Scotland, where the so-called privileges of the Scotch
prevented any legal seizure of his person being made; nevertheless he,
the ambassador, had found ten well-disposed hardy mountaineers who would
undertake to capture the count and carry him over to France, for which
service, as they would probably have to employ as much force as seduction
in the accomplishment of it, and incur the risk of being hanged, they
demanded a thousand louis each. The queen, having heard of this letter,
at once said that even if it were necessary to give double this amount,
there ought not to be a moment’s hesitation, since the presence of
the Count de la Motte was the one thing wanting to thoroughly unveil
a most abominable conspiracy and to punish the authors of it. Orders
were thereupon given to place the requisite sum at the ambassador’s
disposal.[373] By this time, however, the count had left Edinburgh,
and gone south to Newcastle-on-Tyne, where, he pretends, the capuchin,
McDermott, whose acquaintance he made when last in England, bribed by the
handsome offer of ten thousand pounds, attempted to poison him on several
occasions.[374] We do not believe a word of this; the French government
were no doubt anxious to secure the count’s presence at the approaching
trial, and would have been only too glad of a chance of kidnapping him;
but that they, or indeed any one else, wished to put him out of the way,
is extremely improbable, for it was his evidence, and not his silence,
that they desired to ensure.
About this time, namely, early in April, 1786, a woman named Costa,
wife of one of the ambassador’s spies, who had succeeded in scraping
acquaintance with Count de la Motte, crossed over to Paris with a letter
from the count to M. Doillot, Madame de la Motte’s counsel, in which he
stated that he could make the innocence of his wife clear as day if he
only dared come forward. The count insinuated that he had a letter of the
cardinal’s, inquiring of him whether he had succeeded in disposing of the
diamonds.[375] On the woman Costa’s return to England she went, according
to her own account, by direction of the Paris police to Count d’Adhémar,
who bade her tell her husband to take a house at Newcastle-on-Tyne, so
as to facilitate the drugging of the count and conveying him on board a
French ship which was lying ready in the harbour under the command of
one Surbois, an _exempt_ of the French police. Madame Costa asserted
that her husband had already received a bribe of a thousand guineas for
this purpose (less a commission of sixty guineas which the ambassador’s
secretary deducted for his little pickings out of the affair), and had
been promised nine thousand guineas more when the count was safe on
board.[376] Costa, however, seems to have let the count into the secret,
and they came up to London together to work upon the ambassadorial
exchequer as best as they could.