thousand in English, confident, from the advice he had received, that
the queen would not suffer them to be published, though I constantly
represented to him the absurdity of this belief.... How could he hope the
government would make terms with us, when they knew that the original
MS. of the ‘Mémoires’ was in the possession of M. de Calonne, who could
make it public whenever he thought proper?[407] It never accorded with
my sentiments,” continues the countess, “to enter into any pecuniary
negotiations with the government; the only thing I had at heart was the
vindication of my honour; and, had I been left to my own discretion,
neither sceptres nor crowns should have purchased my silence.”
This was a safe enough reservation, as neither sceptres nor crowns were
likely to be offered even to a descendant of the house of Valois; but we
question whether madame could have withstood the temptation of a certain
number of _billets_ of the bank of France, had these been tendered to
her, for times were hard with the De la Mottes, and it was necessary
above all things to “put money in the purse.” At any rate, she would
have promised to keep silence, would have taken the money, and then have
broken her word.
It must be remembered that all the time this bargaining is going
forward for the sale and purchase of these wretched libels, Paris—nay,
France itself—is in a state of ferment, what with the meeting of its
states-general, the quarrels of its first and third orders, the braving
of the royal authority, the dismissal of Necker; with troops constantly
under arms, riots out of which bloodshed arises in the streets, the
tocsin sounding from all steeples, attacks upon the prisons, the
states-general in permanent session, to be followed ere long by the
storming and capture of the Bastille—in other words, a Revolution!
XL.
APRIL, 1787–MAY, 1792.
THE COUNT HAWKS THE LIBELS ABROAD.—IS IMPRISONED IN LA FORCE AND THE
CONCIERGERIE.—THE LAST OF THE DE LA MOTTE LIBELS.
Count de la Motte, having circulated copies of his wife’s “Mémoires
Justificatifs” among the London booksellers and in other directions, and
being, as usual, involved in debt, thinks it prudent to make an excursion
to Holland, where he believes some business in these libels may be done;
for it is, reasons he, just as easy to smuggle copies of them into France
over the Flemish frontier as across the British Channel, and we all
know that Mynheer has never been particular as to the character of the
wares he trades in. To Holland, therefore, the count goes in the month
of April, 1789. In tracing his career from this date we have but few
materials to guide us beyond his own posthumous “Mémoires,”[408] which
abound in evident exaggerations, and no less evident falsehoods. The
reader is therefore cautioned to accept the count’s statements with the
same reserve which we have already asked of him in respect to many of the
assertions of the countess. Truth would seem to have held no place in the
De la Motte system of morals.
Before the count had brought his negotiations respecting an edition of
his wife’s “Mémoires” to a close, news comes across the Low Countries of
a rising of the people of Paris and the fall of the Bastille. The count
forthwith borrows fifteen louis from one of his Dutch acquaintances,
with whose daughter he has been flirting up to a point that her father
speaks seriously to him of matrimony, and hurries off to Paris, where he
arrives on the 18th of August. He at once addresses himself to Bailly,
the newly-elected mayor, from whom he asks a safe-conduct until the
judgment against him in the Necklace affair can be brought before the
new tribunals. He next has an interview with Mirabeau, who, he says,
had already heard of his arrival, and informed the Duke d’Orléans of
it, telling the duke at the same time they might reckon upon the count
joining them in the attack which they contemplated making upon the
“Austrian she-wolf” (Marie-Antoinette). The count thereupon calls on the
duke, who proposes to him that he shall present a petition at the bar of
the National Assembly, and subsequently supplies him with funds through
Mirabeau.
The count tells a mysterious story of some unknown individual calling
upon him at this period, and making an appointment for him to be,
between twelve and one o’clock at night, in the Avenue de Paris, at
Versailles, near the iron railings of the château, where he would find
Mirabeau, disguised in a long blue cloak and round hat. The count keeps
the appointment, and meets with Mirabeau as described, and receives from
him a form of petition, which he is to copy out by six o’clock in the
morning, and then return the original draft. Mirabeau, he says, called at
his hôtel at the time named, when he handed him the copy of the petition,
and pretended that the draft was destroyed, pointing at the same time to
some fragments of burnt paper in the grate, as proof of the fact. Out of
this draft petition, in Mirabeau’s handwriting, the count sees his way
to make some money. Without loss of time he takes it to M. de Montmorin,
minister for foreign affairs, informs him of the nature of the intrigue
which is going on, and explains who are the prime movers in it. By this
means he gains over the minister, who is, of course, all affability, and
speaks to him of the offer made some time back by M. de la Luzerne, which
offer, he says, he is quite prepared to carry out. From this moment the
count is in clover; for he obtains bribes from both parties, each of whom
he of course sells to the other. After a time, matters being considered
ripe, Mirabeau urges him to come to the bar of the National Assembly,
and present his petition; but this the count is indisposed to do. He
pretends, therefore, that he has consulted two advocates, both of whom
advise him that the Assembly is not competent to deal with his case, and
so manages to shuffle out of the affair, thereby however cutting himself
adrift from the Orléans party.
Count de la Motte, it seems, has an old score to clear off with Father
Loth for what he professes to regard as his contemptible betrayal of the
countess in the Necklace affair. He ascertains that, as a reward for
his treachery, the De Rohan family have got Loth appointed one of the
brotherhood of the Knights of Malta, with comfortable quarters in the
Temple. To the Temple, therefore, the count hies, armed with a stout
club, with which he proposes knocking out poor Father Loth’s brains.
“I know not,” says the count, “whether he was warned, or whether he
recognised me wandering about the Temple, but the fact is he quitted the
place abruptly, and I could never find out what became of him;” a lucky
result for Father Loth, who thereby preserved his customary modicum of
brains in an uncracked skull.
The famous march of women to Versailles took place at this period,
and the Paris papers announced that Madame de la Motte led the column
of Mœnades, who went to storm the château. This was a piece of pure
invention, for the countess was still residing in England, where,
according to the count, overtures were from time to time made to her
by the agents of the Duke d’Orléans. M. de Montmorin, hearing of this,
proposes furnishing an apartment for the countess, and providing her with
funds to come to Paris, so that she may be beyond the duke’s influence;
but the countess, having a wholesome dread of the branding-iron,
and fearing that a “C” (_calomniatrice_) might be added to the “V”
(_voleuse_) which already graced her shoulders, and having, too, the
terrors of the Salpêtrière before her eyes, prefers remaining where she
is, spite of Orléanist agents and other ills by which she is beset, a
resolution which, as we shall presently see, proved most unfortunate for
her.
Some short time after the receipt of the countess’s letter wherein she
expresses the above determination, news reaches the count of a most
frightful accident having befallen his wife, and almost immediately
afterwards comes a long letter from herself, written on her bed of
suffering, corroborative of the dismal intelligence. The count—who is
openly living with a notorious courtesan of the period, _la belle impure
Seymour_, as she was styled[409]—takes the matter very coolly; writes,
no doubt, a short sympathizing note in reply, but as for hastening to
the bedside of his dying wife, to watch beside it even for a few hours,
and speak to her those few kind words of comfort which might have
helped to assuage her sufferings and lighten the gloom of her departing
moments, this never enters into the man’s thoughts. The summer days pass
pleasantly enough with him; he can lounge in the Palais Royal gardens in
the morning, and in the Palais Royal gambling saloons at night, and it is
only from the hawkers in the streets that he gains intelligence of his
wretched wife’s death. Hearing the news shouted out on the boulevards,
he buys one of the broadsides and turns into a neighbouring café to read
it, takes it all for granted, and, so far as we can discover, troubles
himself no further on the subject.
Deprived of his helpmate, the miserable woman on whose mendicancy, vices
and crimes he had lived from the very day that he married her, the count
has now to labour single-handed against the government, and after a time
against society itself, for the means of subsistence. He obtains an
audience of M. Duport du Tertre, minister of justice, whom he presses
with reference to a rehearing of the process against him in the Necklace
affair, and from whom he asks, and eventually obtains, a letter _d’ester
à droit_, which confers the right of appearing before a court of law
spite of the judgment of the Parliament of Paris, still hanging over
him. Of course if the count can get the case reheard, and the judgment
set aside, all the De la Motte property seized at Bar-sur-Aube would be
restored to him. Duport du Tertre was by no means opposed to this course,
for though a minister of the crown, he sympathised with that party who
wished to bring Marie-Antoinette before the new tribunals with reference
to her share—for they persisted in believing her to have had a share—in
the Necklace transaction.[410] Meanwhile, by some skilful manœuvring of
his own, the count is brought into communication with M. de Laporte,
intendant of the civil list, keeper, in fact, of the king’s privy purse,
who, he says, tells him that the king, having heard so good an account
of his opinions, and conduct, and devotion to his person, has accorded
him a certain credit on the civil list, and has commanded Laporte to say
that justice shall certainly be done him in the Necklace affair. And as a
sort of earnest of what the count is to expect in future, M. de Laporte
at parting places in his hand a sealed packet, containing two thousand
four hundred francs in assignats.
Time wears on, the troubles of the court increase, and the flight of the
royal family from Paris is decided on. The count asserts that it was
arranged for him to accompany an old friend of his, ex-mayor of Lyons,
in a carriage, in which a large amount of specie was to have been stowed
away, and that they were to have kept a short distance ahead of the royal
party. For some reason not given, this arrangement, which we do not
believe was ever made, is not carried out.
The count, with whom the revision of the Necklace process has become
a fixed idea, persistently bores the minister of justice to order a
rehearing before one of the new courts, and in November, 1791, by the
king’s direction, according to the count, a sort of council is held, at
which M. Duport du Tertre presides, when it is decided that the count
shall appeal to the third tribunal. The president of this is a certain
M. de Plane—believed to be amenable to court influence,—who, the count
tells us, fought by the side of his father at the battle of Minden, and
promises to do all he can to assist the son of his old comrade.
No sooner is this decision arrived at than the count obtains one thousand
crowns from Laporte, who asks him to call upon him at the Tuileries
that evening. The count goes, and to his astonishment finds himself in
the presence of the king. His first movement, he tells us, is to throw
himself at his sovereign’s feet. On his rising, the king informs him
that, from what he has heard, and the good opinion which he has himself
formed of him, he has decided to grant him all that he asks. He then
inquires of the count whether he happens to have with him the original
draft of the petition drawn up by Mirabeau. Of course, the count has
brought his portfolio, and instantly produces the document in question.
“_Le misérable!_” exclaims the king, “he deserved his fate;” which
observation of his majesty satisfies the count Louis XVI. was not
ignorant that Mirabeau had been poisoned. The son of the Chevalier of St.
Louis, and former gendarme at Lunéville, having declared to his sovereign
that he was ready to shed his last drop of blood for him, now makes his
obeisance, and retires from the royal cabinet.
On January 4, 1792, Count de la Motte, having taken the precaution to
go the day beforehand to La Force, and choose his cell just as a man
might engage the most convenient vacant room at an hotel, proceeds to
constitute himself a prisoner. His apartment being somewhat damp, he
orders a large fire to be made, and retires to rest for the night,
but is, by-and-by, aroused from his sleep by a sense of suffocation.
Springing out of bed, he finds his cell on fire, and shouts loudly for
assistance. After a time he is rescued, but not until his hair is singed
half off his head, and his great-coat burnt, more or less, to tinder.
Hébert’s “Père Duchesne” came out the next day with an accusation against
the “Austrian she-wolf,” of having caused the prison to be set on fire
to consume both M. de la Motte and the documents he was on the eve of
producing implicating her in the Necklace affair. From La Force the
count is transferred to the Conciergerie, and on the second day of his
arrival there his old friend and former barber, Burlandeux—he to whom
the De la Motte furniture was wont to be consigned to save it from being
taken in execution[411]—pays him a visit in company with some seven or
eight others, whom Burlandeux introduces as Manuel (afterwards procureur
of the commune), Sergent (one of the “killers” at the ensuing September
massacres), Panis (a friend of Danton’s), Robespierre, Marat, Hébert,
etc., all of them having come to compliment the count upon his courage
and to offer their aid, while vilifying poor Marie-Antoinette in most
offensive language. De la Motte then has his say, tells his visitors that
he is a _voluntary_ prisoner, and exclaims vehemently against the old
Paris parliament for having “sacrificed an innocent woman, deprived of
the means of defence, that they might save a debauched prelate.” At the
conclusion of the count’s harangue, his new friends, seemingly very well
satisfied with what he has said to them, take their leave.
The hearing of the appeal for the revision of the Necklace process at
length comes on. De la Motte pretends that the public excitement is
intense, the hall being packed from floor to ceiling with Jacobins—ragged
men and slatternly women for the most part—in the midst of whom he
recognizes Burlandeux. According to the count, the judgment which the
third tribunal eventually pronounces, at the suggestion of the president,
would have had the effect of restoring to him all his property seized
by the crown, if at this moment the minister of justice had not given
orders for all the documents relating to the process to be remitted to
the _procureur du roi_, who afterwards brings the whole affair before the
first tribunal. The following letter, written by the count to the king,
puts the matter, however, in a somewhat different light:—
“Sire,—When I voluntarily constituted myself a prisoner I
should, in accordance with the promise made to me by M. Duport
(du Tertre), and after the precautions which he had taken,
have obtained my liberty and the entire restitution of my
property within the week. For four months have I been detained
and persecuted by a cabal which, disregarding all prudential
considerations, seeks to give an annoying _éclat_ to this
affair. M. de Plane, president and judge of the third tribunal,
was appointed to examine me, which he did in the most indecent
manner, his questions having no other object than to try and
compromise the queen, and principally to find the means of
confronting her with me in open court, as a necessary witness
and deponent of facts set forth in this horrid process.
“M. A. DE LA MOTTE.
“From the Conciergerie of the Palace of Justice, May 5th,
1792.”[412]
At the time the foregoing letter was written, unless there is a mistake
in the month—May instead of April—judgment had actually been pronounced
by the third tribunal exactly one month previously, namely on the 5th
of April, a circumstance, one would imagine, of which the person most
concerned could hardly have been ignorant.[413]
The count’s old friend Burlandeux pays him another visit at this
particular juncture. “Dog of an aristocrat!” exclaims the enraged barber,
thrusting his fist in the count’s face, “Capet and the Austrian she-wolf
will never help you to get out of this prison.” After thus abruptly
delivering himself, Burlandeux, to the count’s great relief, quietly
retires.
While the De la Motte appeal was going forward, one day a stranger asks
to speak to the count. He proves to be a bookseller named Gueffier, who
has received, he says, from his correspondent in London the whole of the
French edition of the last “Mémoires” of Madame de la Motte,[414] which
“Mémoires,” the count avails himself of this opportunity of stating
(believe him, who pleases), were written against his advice. The count
says that he communicated the above information to M. de Laporte, who
obtained the king’s authority for him to treat with Gueffier for the
purchase of the work. The fact, however, is that De la Motte wrote direct
to the king upon the subject, as may be seen by the extract which we are
enabled to give from his letter, which, curiously enough, bears the same
date as his other letter to the king—namely, May 5th, 1792:
... “There has just been bought up by a bookseller of Paris, named
Gueffier, ‘the Life of Madame de la Motte, written by herself,’ and
printed in London. Before constituting myself a prisoner, I informed M.
Duport (du Tertre) of the existence of this work, which is really by
Madame de la Motte, and which she sold on certain conditions, in order
to maintain herself, to a printer in London, who ought, after having
received what he has advanced and his own charges, to deliver up the
complete editions of the work in French and English. Your majesty has,
without doubt, been informed of these facts by M. Duport, who some time
since endeavoured to buy up the work, and prevent its being made public.
It appears that these endeavours were without result, as the French
copies have arrived at Rouen, and are to be published in a few days at
the shop of this Gueffier. This is what the London printer, whom I saw
two days ago, assured me.
“I have informed my counsel of these details, and they seem much alarmed
for the public tranquillity, and that of your majesty and the queen,
on account of the dangers of the publication of this work. They have
imperatively counselled me to have it seized before it arrives in Paris,
as the property of Madame de la Motte, and now belonging to me by the
right of succession. But as the booksellers who have purchased it, and
who advanced Madame de la Motte the money, claim what is due to them,
I shall either be forced to abandon the seizure or to pay them their
demand. I cannot myself make a sacrifice of twenty thousand francs. I
therefore beg your majesty to put yourself to the necessary expense in
order to frustrate the projects of these evil-disposed persons. My plan,
if it meets with your majesty’s approval, is to seize and seal up this
work at Rouen, and to offer the holders of it the amount due to them
from Madame de la Motte. The whole will then be sealed up and delivered
by my counsel to M. de Laporte, who will dispose of it according to your
majesty’s orders.”[415]
Negotiations are opened with Gueffier, who offers to surrender the
whole of the copies on receiving a sum of twenty-five thousand francs.
The count suggests eighteen thousand, which Gueffier eventually agrees
to accept, whereupon M. de Laporte forwards the count twenty thousand
francs, with an intimation that he need not trouble himself to return the
balance.[416]
An attempt, of which the king and M. de Laporte evidently knew nothing,
had, it seems, been previously made to sell the manuscript of this
edition of the countess’s life to Marie-Antoinette. But the queen,
guided by past experience, saw clearly enough that, whether she bought
the manuscript or not, the libel was equally certain to be published,
and indeed it must have been printed off at the time the manuscript
was offered to her. She therefore peremptorily refused to enter into
any negotiation. “At the commencement of 1792,” writes Madame Campan,
“an estimable priest asked of me a private interview. He had heard of
a new libel of Madame de la Motte’s, and told me he had remarked that
the people who came from London to get it printed in Paris[417] were
actuated only by the desire of gain, and that they were ready to deliver
up the manuscript for one thousand louis, if some friend of the queen
could be found disposed to make this sacrifice to ensure her tranquillity.
“I communicated this proposition to the queen, who declined it, and
commanded me to reply that, at the time when it was possible to punish
the circulators of those libels she had considered them so atrocious and
so improbable that she had disdained to take any steps for arresting
their course, that if she now were imprudent enough to buy up one only,
the active espionage of the Jacobins would not fail to discover it, and
the libel so bought would not the less be printed, and would become much
more dangerous when the public learnt the means she had adopted to keep
it from their knowledge.”[418]
M. de Laporte had the edition of the countess’s life, which had been
purchased from Gueffier, conveyed to his hôtel; but after a time, growing
alarmed at the daily increasing excesses of the population of Paris, and
fearful that at some moment when he least expected it, an irruption might
be made into his house, and these “Mémoires” carried off and distributed
among the people, he gave an order for them to be burnt with all
necessary precaution and secrecy. Unfortunately, the person who received
this order confided the execution of it to one Riston, a dangerous
intriguer, and former advocate of Nancy, escaped, a year previously, from
the gallows, by favour of the new tribunals, although he had been proved
guilty of fabricating impressions of the great seal, and forging decrees
of the council in proceedings undertaken at the request of the king’s
household. “I had,” says Bertrand de Moleville, minister of marine, “to
read over to the witnesses their depositions, and to confront them with
the accused, at the peril of being assassinated, not only by Riston, who,
at one of the sittings, threw himself upon me with a knife, but also by
the brigands in his pay, with whom the hall of audience was filled, and
who were enraged at finding their threatening outcries did not prevent me
from repressing the insults which the accused offered unceasingly to the
witnesses who came to depose against him.