THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.
1786
Remark of Talleyrand.--The Cardinal de Rohan.--Rohan's smuggling
operations.--He is disgraced.--The Countess Lamotte.--The queen's
jewelry.--Boehmer, the crown jeweler.--The diamond ear-rings.--Change
in the queen's life.--The diamond necklace.--The queen inspects the
necklace.--Answer of their majesties.--Boehmer's embarrassment.--His
interview with the queen.--The queen's remarks.--Boehmer's
confusion.--Alleged disposal of the necklace.--Present to the king's
son.--Boehmer's note to the queen.--The queen's perplexity.--Boehmer's
interview with Madame Campan.--The necklace again.--The Cardinal de
Rohan.--Indications of a plot.--Boehmer's perplexity.--The cardinal's
embarrassment.--Boehmer's terror.--The queen's amazement.--The
cardinal before the king and queen.--His agitation.--The queen's
indignation.--The forged letter.--The cardinal's confused
statements.--He is arrested.--Arrest of Madame Lamotte.--Great
excitement.--The queen's anguish.--The cardinal's trial.--The cardinal's
acquittal.--Chagrin of the king and queen.--Trial of the Countess
Lamotte.--Her cool effrontery.--The countess found guilty.--Barbarous
sentence.--Brutal punishment of the countess.--Her unhappy
end.--Innocence of the queen.--Of de Rohan's criminality.--The three
suppositions.--Influence of the first.--The third supposition.--Probably
the true one.
About this time there occurred an event which, though apparently
trivial, involved consequences of the most momentous importance. It was
merely the fraudulent purchase of a necklace, by a profligate woman, in
the name of the queen. The circumstances were such as to throw all
France into agitation, and Europe was full of the story. "Mind that
miserable affair of the necklace," said Talleyrand; "I should be nowise
surprised if it should overturn the French monarchy." To understand this
mysterious occurrence, we must first allude to two very important
characters implicated in the conspiracy.
The Cardinal de Rohan, though one of the highest dignitaries of the
Church, and of the most illustrious rank, was a young man of vain and
shallow mind, of great profligacy of character, and perfectly prodigal
in squandering, in ostentatious pomp, all the revenues within his reach.
He had been sent an embassador to the court of Vienna. Surrounding
himself with a retinue of spendthrift gentlemen, he endeavored to dazzle
the Austrian capital with more than regal magnificence. Expending six or
seven hundred thousand dollars in the course of a few months, he soon
became involved in inextricable embarrassments. In the extremity of his
distress, he took advantage of his official station, and engaged in
smuggling with so much effrontery that he almost inundated the Austrian
capital with French goods. Maria Theresa was extremely displeased, and,
without reserve, expressed her strong disapproval of his conduct, both
as a bishop and as an embassador. The cardinal was consequently
recalled, and, disappointed and mortified, he hovered around the court
of Versailles, where he was treated with the utmost coldness. He was
extremely anxious again to bask in the beams of royal favor. But the
queen indignantly repelled all his advances. His proud spirit was
nettled to the quick by his disgrace, and he was ripe for any desperate
adventure to retrieve his ruined fortunes.
There was, at the same time, at Versailles a very beautiful woman, the
Countess Lamotte. She traced her lineage to the kings of France, and, by
her vices, struggled to sustain a style of ostentatious gentility. She
was consumed by an insatiable thirst for recognized rank and wealth, and
she had no conscience to interfere, in the slightest degree, with any
means which might lead to those results. Though somewhat notorious, as
a woman of pleasure, to the courtiers who flitted around the throne,
the queen had never seen her face, and had seldom heard even her name.
Versailles was too much thronged with such characters for any one to
attract any special attention.
Maria Antoinette, in her earlier days, had been extremely fond of dress,
and particularly of rich jewelry. She brought with her from Vienna a
large number of pearls and diamonds. Upon her accession to the throne,
she received, of course, all the crown jewels. Louis XV. had also
presented her with all the jewels belonging to his daughter, the
dauphiness, who had recently died, and also with a very magnificent
collar of pearls, of a single row, the smallest of which was as large
as a filbert. The king, her husband, had, not long before, presented
her with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine water, and with a pair
of bracelets which cost forty thousand dollars. Boehmer, the crown
jeweler, had collected, at a great expense, six pear-formed diamonds,
of prodigious size. They were perfectly matched, and of the finest
water. They were arranged as ear-rings. He offered them to the queen for
eighty thousand dollars. The young and royal bride could not resist the
desire of adding them, costly as they were, to her casket of gems. She,
however, economically removed two of the diamonds which formed the
tops of the clusters, and replaced them by two of her own. The jeweler
consented to this arrangement, and received the reduced price of
seventy-two thousand dollars, to be paid in equal installments for five
years, from the private purse of the queen. Still the queen felt rather
uneasy in view of her unnecessary purchase. Murmurs of her extravagance
began to reach her ears. Satiated with gayety and weary of jewels, as a
child throws aside its play-things, Maria Antoinette lost all fondness
for her costly treasures, and began to seek novelty in the utmost
simplicity of attire, and in the most artless joys of rural life. Her
gorgeous dresses hung neglected in their wardrobes. Her gems, "of purest
ray serene," slept in the darkness of the unopened casket. The queen had
become a mother, and all those warm and noble affections which had been
diffused and wasted upon frivolities, were now concentrated with
intensest ardor upon her children. A new era had dawned upon Maria
Antoinette. Her soul, by nature exalted, was beginning to find objects
worthy of its energies. Rapidly she was groping her way from the
gloom of the most wretched of all lives--a life of pleasure and of
self-indulgence--to the true and ennobling happiness of benevolence
and self-sacrifice.
Boehmer, the jeweler, unaware of the great change which had taken
place in the character of the queen, resolved to form for her the most
magnificent necklace which was ever seen in Europe. He busied himself
for several years in collecting the most valuable diamonds circulating
in commerce, and thus composed a necklace of several rows, whose
attractions, he hoped, would be irresistible to the queen. In the
purchase of these brilliant gems, the jeweler had expended far more than
his own fortune. For many of them he owed large sums, and his only hope
of paying these debts was in effecting a sale to the queen.
Boehmer requested Madame Campan to inform the queen what a beautiful
necklace he had arranged, hoping that she might express a desire to see
it. This, however, Madame Campan declined doing, as she did not wish to
tempt the queen to incur the expense of three hundred and twenty
thousand dollars, the price of the glittering bawble. Boehmer, after
endeavoring for some time in vain to get the gems exposed to the eye of
the queen, induced a courtier high in rank to show the superb necklace
to his majesty. The king, now loving the queen most tenderly, wished to
see her adorned with this unparalleled ornament, and sent the case to
the queen for her inspection. Maria Antoinette replied, that she had
already as many beautiful diamonds as she desired; that jewels were now
worn but seldom at court; that she could not think it right to encourage
so great an expense for such ornaments; and that the money they would
cost would be much better expended in building a man-of-war. The king
concurred in this prudent decision, and the diamonds were returned to
the jeweler from their majesties with this answer: "We have more need of
ships than of diamonds."
Boehmer was in great trouble, and knew not what to do. He spent a year
in visiting the other courts of Europe, hoping to induce some of the
sovereigns to purchase his necklace, but in vain. Almost in despair, he
returned again to Versailles, and proposed the king should take it, and
pay for it partly in instalments and partly in life annuities. The king
mentioned it again to the queen. She replied, that if his majesty wished
to purchase the necklace, and keep it for their daughter, he might do
so. But she declared that she herself should never be willing to wear
it, for she could not expose herself to those censures for extravagance
which she knew would be lavished upon her.
The jeweler complained loudly and bitterly of his misfortune. The
necklace having been exhibited all over Europe, his troubles were a
matter of general conversation. After several months of great perplexity
and anxiety, Boehmer succeeded in gaining an audience of the queen.
Passionately throwing himself upon his knees before her, clasping his
hands and bursting into tears, he exclaimed,
"Madame, I am disgraced and ruined if you do not purchase my necklace. I
can not outlive my misfortunes. When I go hence I shall throw myself
into the river."
The queen, extremely displeased, said, "Rise, Boehmer! I do not like
these rhapsodies; honest men have no occasion to fall upon their knees
to make known their requests. If you were to destroy yourself, I should
regret you as a madman in whom I had taken an interest, but I should not
be responsible for that misfortune. I not only never ordered the article
which causes your present despair, but, whenever you have talked to me
about fine collections of jewels, I have told you that I should not add
four diamonds to those I already possessed. I told you myself that I
declined taking the necklace. The king wished to give it to me; I
refused him in the same manner. Then never mention it to me again.
Divide it, and endeavor to sell it piecemeal, and do not drown yourself.
I am very angry with you for acting this scene of despair in my
presence, and before this child. Let me never see you behave thus again.
Go!"
Boehmer, overwhelmed with confusion, retired, and the queen, oppressed
with a multitude of gathering cares, for some months thought no more of
him or of his jewels. One day the queen was reposing listlessly upon her
couch, with Madame Campan and other ladies of honor about her, when,
suddenly addressing Madame Campan, she inquired,
"Have you ever heard what poor Boehmer did with his unfortunate
necklace?"
"I have heard nothing of it since he left you," was the reply, "though
I often meet him."
"I should really like to know how the unfortunate man got extricated
from his embarrassments," rejoined the queen; "and, when you next see
him, I wish you would inquire, as if from your own interest in the
affair, without any allusion to me, how he disposed of the article."
In a few days Madame Campan met Boehmer, and, in reply to her
interrogatories, he informed her that the sultan at Constantinople had
purchased it for the favorite sultana. The queen was highly gratified
with the good fortune of the jeweler, and yet thought it very strange
how the grand seignior should have purchased his diamonds at Paris.
Matters continued in this state for some time, until the baptism of the
Duke d'Angouleme, Maria Antoinette's infant son. The king made his
idolized boy a baptismal present of a diamond epaulette and buckles,
which he purchased of Boehmer, and directed him to deliver to the
queen. As the jeweler presented them, he slipped into the queen's hand a
letter, in the form of a petition, containing the following expression:
"I am happy to see your majesty in the possession of the
finest diamonds in Europe; and I entreat your majesty not to
forget me."
The queen read this strange note aloud, again and again exclaiming,
"What does the man mean? He must be insane!" She quietly lighted the
note at a wax taper which was standing near her, and burned it,
remarking that it was not worth keeping. Afterward, as she reflected
more upon the enigmatical nature of the communication, she deeply
regretted that she had not preserved the note. She pondered the matter
deeply and anxiously, and at last said to Madame Campan,
"The next time you see that man, I wish that you would tell him that I
have lost all taste for diamonds; that I never shall buy another as long
as I live; and that, if I had any money to spare, I should expend it in
purchasing lands to enlarge the grounds at St. Cloud."
A few days after this, Boehmer called upon Madame Campan at her
country house, extremely uneasy at not having received any answer from
the queen, and anxiously inquired if Madame Campan had no commission to
him from her majesty. Madame Campan faithfully repeated to him all that
the queen had requested her to say.
"But," rejoined Boehmer, "the answer to the letter I presented to her!
To whom must I apply for that?"
"To no one," was the reply; "her majesty burned your memorial, without
even comprehending its meaning."
"Ah, madame!" exclaimed the man, trembling with agitation, "that is
impossible; the queen knows that she has money to pay me."
"Money, M. Boehmer!" replied the lady, "your last accounts against the
queen were discharged long ago."
"And are you not in the secret?" he rejoined. "The queen owes me three
hundred thousand dollars, and I am ruined by her neglect to pay me."
"Three hundred thousand dollars!" exclaimed Madame Campan, in amazement;
"man, you have lost your senses! For what does she owe you that enormous
sum?"
"For the necklace, madame," replied the jeweler, now pale and trembling
with the apprehension that he had been deceived.
"The necklace again!" said Madame Campan. "How long is the queen to be
teased about that necklace? Did not you yourself tell me that you had
sold it at Constantinople?"
"The queen," added Boehmer, "requested me to make that reply to all
who inquired upon the subject, for she was not willing to have it known
that she had made the purchase. She, however, had determined to have the
necklace, and sent the Cardinal de Rohan to me to take it in her name."
"You are utterly deceived, Boehmer," Madame Campan replied; "the queen
knows nothing about your necklace. She never speaks even to the Cardinal
de Rohan, and there is no man at court more strongly disliked by her."
"You may depend upon it, madame, that you are deceived yourself,"
rejoined the jeweler. "She must hold private interviews with the
cardinal, for she gave to the cardinal six thousand dollars, which he
paid me on account, and which he assured me he saw her take from the
little porcelain secretary next the fire-place in her boudoir."
"Did the cardinal himself assure you of this?" inquired Madame Campan.
"Yes, madame," was the reply.
"What a detestable plot! There is not one word of truth in it; and you
have been miserably deceived."
"I confess," Boehmer rejoined, now trembling in every joint, "that I
have felt very anxious about it for some time; for the cardinal assured
me that the queen would wear the necklace on Whitsunday. I was, however,
alarmed in seeing that she did not wear it, and that induced me to write
the letter to her majesty. But what _shall_ I do?"
"Go immediately to Versailles, and lay the whole matter before the king.
But you have been extremely culpable, as crown jeweler, in acting in a
matter of such great importance without direct orders from the king or
queen, or their accredited minister."
"I have not acted," the unhappy man replied, "without direct orders. I
have now in my possession all the promissory notes, signed by the queen
herself; and I have been obliged to show those notes to several bankers,
my creditors, to induce them to extend the time of my payments."
Instead, however, of following Madame Campan's judicious advice,
Boehmer, half delirious with solicitude, went directly to the
cardinal, and informed him of all that had transpired. The cardinal
appeared very much embarrassed, asked a few questions, and said but
little. He, however, wrote in his diary the following memorandum:
"On this day, August 3, Boehmer went to Madame Campan's
country-house, and she told him that the queen had never had
his necklace, and that he had been cheated."
Boehmer was almost frantic with terror, for the loss of the necklace
was his utter and irremediable ruin. Finding no relief in his interview
with the cardinal, he hastened to Little Trianon, and sent a message
to the queen that Madame Campan wished him to see her immediately.
The queen, who knew nothing of the occurrences we have just related,
exclaimed, "That man is surely mad. I have nothing to say to him, and I
will not see him." Madame Campan, however, immediately called upon the
queen, for she was very much alarmed by what she had heard, and related
to her the whole occurrence. The queen was exceedingly amazed and
perplexed, and feared that it was some deep-laid plot to involve her in
difficulties. She questioned Madame Campan very minutely in reference
to every particular of the interview, and insisted upon her repeating
the conversation over and over again. They then went immediately to
the king, and narrated to him the whole affair. He, aware of the
many efforts which had been made to traduce the character of Maria
Antoinette, and to expose her to public contumely, was at once convinced
that it was a treacherous plot of the cardinal in revenge for his
neglect at court.
The king instantly sent a command for the cardinal to meet him and the
queen in the king's closet. He was, apparently, anticipating the
summons, for he, without delay, appeared before them in all the pomp of
his pontifical robes, but was nevertheless so embarrassed that he could
with difficulty articulate a sentence.
"You have purchased diamonds of Boehmer?" inquired the king.
"Yes, sire," was the trembling reply.
"What have you done with them?" the king added.
"I thought," said the cardinal, "that they had been delivered to the
queen."
"Who commissioned you to make this purchase?"
"The Countess Lamotte," was the reply. "She handed me a letter from the
queen requesting me to obtain the necklace for her. I truly thought that
I was obeying her majesty's wishes, and doing her a favor, by taking
this business upon myself."
"How could you imagine, sir," indignantly interrupted the queen, "that
I should have selected _you_ for such a purpose, when I have not even
spoken to you for eight years? and how could you suppose that I should
have acted through the mediation of such a character as the Countess
Lamotte?"
The cardinal was in the most violent agitation, and, apparently hardly
knowing what he said, replied, "I see plainly that I have been duped. I
will pay for the necklace myself. I suspected no trick in the affair,
and am extremely sorry that I have had any thing to do with it."
He then took a letter from his pocket directed to the Countess Lamotte,
and signed with the queen's name, requesting her to secure the purchase
of the necklace. The king and queen looked at the letter, and instantly
pronounced it a forgery. The king then took from his own pocket a letter
addressed to the jeweler Boehmer, and, handing it to de Rohan, said,
"Are you the author of that letter?"
The cardinal turned pale, and, leaning upon his hand, appeared as though
he would fall to the floor.
"I have no wish, cardinal," the king kindly replied, "to find you
guilty. Explain to me this enigma. Account for all those maneuvers with
Boehmer. Where did you obtain these securities and these promissory
notes, signed in the queen's name, which have been given to Boehmer?"
The cardinal, trembling in every nerve, faintly replied, "Sire, I am too
much agitated now to answer your majesty. Give me a little time to
collect my thoughts."
"Compose yourself, then, cardinal," the king added. "Go into my cabinet.
You will there find papers, pens, and ink. At your leisure, _write_ what
you have to say to me."
In about half an hour the cardinal returned with a paper, covered with
erasures, and alterations, and blottings, as confused and unsatisfactory
as his verbal statements had been. An officer was then summoned into the
royal presence, and commanded to take the cardinal into custody and
conduct him to the Bastile. He was, however, permitted to visit his
home. The cardinal contrived, by the way, to scribble a line upon a
scrap of paper, and, catching the eye of a trusty servant, he,
unobserved, slipped it into his hand. It was a direction to the servant
to hasten to the palace, with the utmost possible speed, and commit to
the flames all of his private papers. The king had also sent officers
to the cardinal's palace to seize his papers and seal them for
examination. By almost superhuman exertions, the cardinal's servant
first arrived at the palace, which was at the distance of several miles.
His horse dropped dead in the court-yard. The important documents, which
might, perhaps, have shed light upon this mysterious affair, were all
consumed.
The Countess Lamotte was also arrested, and held in close confinement to
await her trial. She had just commenced living in a style of
extraordinary splendor, and had vast sums at her disposal, acquired no
one knew how. It is difficult to imagine the excitement which this story
produced all over Europe. It was represented that the queen was found
engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate woman to cheat the
crown jeweler out of gems of inestimable value, and that, being
detected, she was employing all the influence of the crown to shield her
own reputation by consigning the innocent cardinal to infamy. The
enemies of the queen, sustained by the ecclesiastics generally, rallied
around the cardinal. The king and queen, feeling that his acquittal
would be the virtual condemnation of Maria Antoinette, and firmly
convinced of his guilt, exerted their utmost influence, in self-defense,
to bring him to punishment. Rumors and counter rumors floated through
Versailles, Paris, and all the courts of the Continent. The tale was
rehearsed in saloon and cafe with every conceivable addition and
exaggeration, and the queen hardly knew which way to turn from the
invectives which were so mercilessly showered upon her. Her lofty
spirit, conscious of rectitude, sustained her in public, and there she
nerved herself to appear with firmness and equanimity. But in the
retirement of her boudoir she was unable to repel the most melancholy
imaginings, and often wept with almost the anguish of a bursting heart.
The sunshine of her life had now disappeared. Each succeeding day grew
darker and darker with enveloping glooms.
The trial of the cardinal continued, with various interruptions, for
more than a year. Very powerful parties were formed for and against him.
All France was agitated by the protracted contest. The cardinal appeared
before his judges in mourning robes, but with all the pageantry of the
most imposing ecclesiastical costume. He was conducted into court with
much ceremony, and treated with the greatest deference. In the trying
moment in which he first appeared before his judges, his courage seemed
utterly to fail him. Pale and trembling with emotion, his knees bent
under him, and he had to cling to a support to prevent himself from
falling to the floor. Five or six voices immediately addressed him in
tones of sympathy, and the president said, "His eminence the cardinal is
at liberty to sit down, if he wishes it." The distinguished prisoner
immediately took his seat with the members of the court. Having soon
recovered in some degree his composure, he arose, and for half an hour
addressed his judges, with much feeling and dignity, repeating his
protestations of entire innocence in the whole affair.
At the close of this protracted trial, the cardinal was fully acquitted
of all guilt by a majority of three voices. The king and queen were
extremely chagrined at this result. During the trial, many insulting
insinuations were thrown out against the queen which could not easily be
repelled. A friend who called upon her immediately after the decision,
found her in her closet weeping bitterly. "Come," said Maria, "come and
weep for your queen, insulted and sacrificed by cabal and injustice."
The king came in at the same moment, and said, "You find the queen much
afflicted; she has great reason to be so. They were determined through
out this affair to see only an ecclesiastical prince, a Prince de Rohan,
while he is, in fact, a needy fellow, and all this was but a scheme to
put money into his pockets. It is not necessary to be an Alexander to
cut this Gordian knot." The cardinal subsequently emigrated to Germany,
where he lived in comparative obscurity till 1803, when he died.
The Countess Lamotte was brought to trial, but with a painfully
different result. Dressed in the richest and most costly robes, the
dissolute beauty appeared before her judges, and astonished them all by
her imperturbable self-possession, her talents, and her cool effrontery.
It was clearly proved that she had received the necklace; that she had
sold here and there the diamonds of which it was composed, and had thus
come into possession of large sums of money. She told all kinds of
stories, contradicting herself in a thousand ways, accusing now one and
again another as an accomplice, and unblushingly declaring that she had
no intention to tell the truth, for that neither she nor the cardinal
had uttered one single word before the court which had not been false.
She was found guilty, and the following horrible sentence was pronounced
against her: that she should be whipped upon the bare back in the
court-yard of the prison; that the letter V should be burned into the
flesh on each shoulder with a hot iron; and that she should be
imprisoned for life. The king and queen were as much displeased with the
terrible barbarity of the punishment of the countess as they were
chagrined at the acquittal of the cardinal. As the countess was a
descendant of the royal family, they felt that the ignominious character
of the punishment was intended as a stigma upon them.
As the countess was sitting one morning in the spacious room provided
for her in the prison, in a loose robe, conversing gayly with some
friends, and surrounded by all the appliances of wealth, an attendant
appeared to conduct her into the presence of the judges. Totally
unprepared for the awful doom impending over her, she rose with careless
alacrity and entered the court. The terrible sentence was pronounced.
Immediately terror, rage, and despair seized upon her, and a scene of
horror ensued which no pen can describe. Before the sentence was
finished, she threw herself upon the floor, and uttered the most
piercing shrieks and screams. The tumult of agitation into which she was
thrown, dreadful as it was, relaxed not the stern rigor of the law. The
executioner immediately seized her, and dragged her, shrieking and
struggling in a delirium of phrensy, into the court-yard of the prison.
As her eye fell upon the instruments of her ignominious and brutal
punishment, she seized upon one of her executioners with her teeth, and
tore a mouthful of flesh from his arm. She was thrown upon the ground,
her garments, with relentless violence, were stripped from her back, and
the lash mercilessly cut its way into her quivering nerves, while her
awful screams pierced the damp, chill air of the morning. The hot irons
were brought, and simmered upon her recoiling flesh. The unhappy
creature was then carried, mangled and bleeding, and half dead with
torture, and terror, and madness, to the prison hospital. After nine
months of imprisonment she was permitted to escape. She fled to England,
and was found one morning dead upon the pavements of London, having been
thrown from a third story window in a midnight carousal.
Such was the story of the Diamond Necklace. Though no one can now doubt
that Maria Antoinette was perfectly innocent in the whole affair, it, at
the time, furnished her enemies with weapons against her, which they
used with fatal efficiency. It was then represented that the Countess
Lamotte was an accomplice of the queen in the fraudulent acquisition of
the necklace, and that the Cardinal de Rohan was their deluded but
innocent victim. The horrible punishment of Madame Lamotte, who boasted
that royal blood circulated in her veins, was understood to be in
contempt of royalty, and as the expression of venomous feeling toward
the queen. Both Maria Antoinette and Louis felt it as such, and were
equally aggrieved by the acquittal of the cardinal and the barbarous
punishment of the countess.
Whether the cardinal was a victim or an accomplice is a question which
never has been, and now never can be, decided. The mystery in which the
affair is involved must remain a mystery until the secrets of all hearts
are revealed at the great day of judgment. If he was the guilty
instigator, and the poor countess but his tool and victim, how much has
he yet to be accountable for in the just retributions of eternity! There
were three suppositions adopted by the community in the attempt to
solve the mystery of this transaction:
1. The first was, that the queen had really employed the
Countess Lamotte to obtain the necklace by deceiving the
cardinal. That it was a trick by which the queen and the
countess were to obtain the necklace, and, by selling it
piecemeal, to share the spoil, leaving the cardinal
responsible for the payment. This was the view the enemies
of Maria Antoinette, almost without exception, took of the
case; and the sentence of acquittal of the cardinal, and the
horrible condemnation of the countess, were intended to
sustain this view. This opinion, spread through Paris and
France, was very influential in rousing that animosity which
conducted Maria Antoinette to sufferings more poignant and
to a doom more awful than the Countess Lamotte could by any
possibility endure.
2. The second supposition was, that the cardinal and the
countess forged the signature of the queen to defraud the
jeweler; that they thus obtained the rich prize of three
hundred and twenty thousand dollars, intending to divide the
spoil between them, and throw the obloquy of the transaction
upon the queen. The king and queen were both fully
convinced that this was the true explanation of the fraud,
and they retained this belief undoubted until they died.
3. The third supposition, and that which now is almost
universally entertained, was, that the crafty woman Lamotte,
by forgery, and by means of an accomplice, who very much, in
figure, resembled Maria Antoinette, completely duped the
cardinal. His anxiety was such to be restored to the royal
favor, that he eagerly caught at the bait which the wily
countess presented to him. But, whoever may have been the
guilty ones, no one now doubts that Maria Antoinette was
entirely innocent. She, however, experienced all the
ignominy she could have encountered had she been involved in
the deepest guilt.