Under the stars of a tepid, scented night of August of 1784, Prince
Louis de Rohan, Cardinal of Strasbourg, Grand Almoner of France, made
his way with quickened pulses through the Park of Versailles to a
momentous assignation in the Grove of Venus.
This illustrious member of an illustrious House, that derived from both
the royal lines of Valois and Bourbon, was a man in the prime of life,
of a fine height, still retaining something of the willowy slenderness
that had been his in youth, and of a gentle, almost womanly beauty of
countenance.
In a grey cloak and a round, grey hat with gold cords, followed closely
by two shadowy attendant figures, he stepped briskly amain, eager to
open those gates across the path of his ambition, locked against him
hitherto by the very hands from which he now went to receive the key.
He deserves your sympathy, this elegant Cardinal-Prince, who had been
the victim of the malice and schemings of the relentless Austrian
Empress since the days when he represented the King of France at the
Court of Vienna.
The state he had kept there had been more than royal and royal in
the dazzling French manner, which was perturbing to a woman of Marie
Therese's solid German notions. His hunting-parties, his supper-parties,
the fetes he gave upon every occasion, the worldly inventiveness, the
sumptuousness and reckless extravagance that made each of these affairs
seem like a supplement to “The Arabian Nights' Entertainments,” the
sybaritic luxury of his surroundings, the incredible prodigality of
his expenditure, all served profoundly to scandalize and embitter the
Empress.
That a priest in gay, secular clothes should hunt the stag on horseback
filled her with horror at his levity; that he should flirt discreetly
with the noble ladies of Vienna made her despair of his morals; whilst
his personal elegance and irresistible charm were proofs to her of a
profligacy that perverted the Court over which she ruled.
She laboured for the extinction of his pernicious brilliance, and
intrigued for his recall. She made no attempt to conceal her hostility,
nor did she love him any the better because he met her frigid
haughtiness with an ironical urbanity that seemed ever to put her in the
wrong. And then one day he permitted his wit to be bitingly imprudent.
“Marie Therese,” he wrote to D'Aiguillon, “holds in one hand a
handkerchief to receive her tears for the misfortunes of oppressed
Poland, and in the other a sword to continue its partition.”
To say that in this witticism lay one of the causes of the French
Revolution may seem at first glance an outrageous overstatement. Yet
it is certain that, but for that imprudent phrase, the need would never
have arisen that sent Rohan across the Park of Versailles on that August
night to an assignation that in the sequel was to place a terrible
weapon in the hands of the Revolutionary party.
D'Aiguillon had published the gibe. It had reached the ears of Marie
Antoinette, and from her it had travelled back to her mother in Vienna.
It aroused in the Empress a resentment and a bitterness that did not
rest until the splendid Cardinal-Prince was recalled from his embassy.
It did not rest even then. By the ridicule to which the gibe exposed
her--and if you know Marie Therese at all, you can imagine what that
meant--it provoked a hostility that was indefatigably to labour against
him.
The Cardinal was ambitious, he had confidence in his talents and in
the driving force of his mighty family, and he looked to become another
Richelieu or Mazarin, the first Minister of the Crown, the empurpled
ruler of France, the guiding power behind the throne. All this he looked
confidently to achieve; all this he might have achieved but for the
obstacle that Marie Therese's resentment flung across his path. The
Empress saw to it that, through the person of her daughter, her hatred
should pursue him even into France.
Obedient ever to the iron will of her mother, sharing her mother's
resentment, Marie Antoinette exerted all her influence to thwart this
Cardinal whom her mother had taught her to regard as a dangerous,
unprincipled man.
On his return from Vienna bearing letters from Marie Therese to Louis
XVI and Marie Antoinette, the Cardinal found himself coldly received by
the dull King, and discouraged from remaining at Court, whilst the Queen
refused to grant him so much as the audience necessary for the delivery
of these letters, desiring him to forward them instead.
The chagrined Cardinal had no illusions. He beheld here the hand
of Marie Therese controlling Marie Antoinette, and, through Marie
Antoinette, the King himself. Worse followed. He who had dreamt himself
another Richelieu could only with difficulty obtain the promised
position of Grand Almoner of France, and this solely as a result of the
powerful and insistent influence exerted by his family.
He perceived that if he was to succeed at all he must begin by softening
the rigorous attitude which the Queen maintained towards him. To that
end he addressed himself. But three successive letters he wrote to the
Queen remained unanswered. Through other channels persistently he begged
for an audience that he might come in person to express his regrets for
the offending indiscretion. But the Queen remained unmoved, ruled ever
by the Austrian Empress, who through her daughter sought to guide the
affairs of France.
Rohan was reduced to despair, and then in an evil hour his path was
crossed by Jeanne de la Motte de Valois, who enjoyed the reputation
of secretly possessing the friendship of the Queen, exerting a sort of
back-stair influence, and who lived on that reputation.
As a drowning man clutches at a straw, so the Cardinal-Prince Louis de
Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, Landgrave of Alsace, Commander of the
Order of the Holy Ghost, clutched at this faiseuse d'affaires to help
him in his desperate need.
Jeanne de la Motte de Valois--perhaps the most astounding adventuress
that ever lived by her wits and her beauty--had begun life by begging
her bread in the streets. She laid claim to left-handed descent from
the royal line of Valois, and, her claim supported by the Marchioness
Boulainvilliers, who had befriended her, she had obtained from the Crown
a small pension, and had married the unscrupulous Marc Antoine de la
Motte, a young soldier in the Burgundy regiment of the Gendarmerie.
Later, in the autumn of 1786, her protectress presented her to Cardinal
de Rohan. His Eminence, interested in the lady's extraordinary history,
in her remarkable beauty, vivacity, and wit, received the De la Mottes
at his sumptuous chateau at Saverne, near Strasbourg, heard her story in
greater detail, promised his protection, and as an earnest of his
kindly intentions obtained for her husband a captain's commission in the
Dragoons.
Thereafter you see the De la Mottes in Paris and at Versailles, hustled
from lodging to lodging for failure to pay what they owe; and finally
installed in a house in the Rue Neuve Saint-Gilles. There they kept
a sort of state, spending lavishly, now the money borrowed from the
Cardinal, or upon the Cardinal's security; now the proceeds of pawned
goods that had been bought on credit, and of other swindles practised
upon those who were impressed by the lady's name and lineage and the
patronage of the great Cardinal which she enjoyed.
To live on your wits is no easy matter. It demands infinite address,
coolness, daring, and resource qualities which Madame de la Motte
possessed in the highest degree, so that, harassed and pressed by
creditors, she yet contrived to evade their attacks and to present a
calm and, therefore, confidence-inspiring front to the world.
The truth of Madame de la Motte de Valois's reputation for influence
at Court was never doubted. There was nothing in the character of Marie
Antoinette to occasion such doubts. Indiscreet in many things, Her
Majesty was most notoriously so in her attachments, as witness her
intimacy with Madame de Polignac and the Princesse de Lambelle. And the
public voice had magnified--as it will--those indiscretions until it had
torn her character into shreds.
The fame of the Countess Jeanne de Valois--as Madame de la Motte now
styled herself--increasing, she was employed as an intermediary by
place-seekers and people with suits to prefer, who gratefully purchased
her promises to interest herself on their behalf at Court.
And then into her web of intrigue blundered the Cardinal de Rohan, who,
as he confessed, “was completely blinded by his immense desire to regain
the good graces of the Queen.” She aroused fresh hope in his despairing
heart by protesting that, as some return for all the favours she had
received from him, she would not rest until she had disposed the Queen
more favourably towards him.
Later came assurances that the Queen's hostility was melting under her
persuasions, and at last she announced that she was authorized by Her
Majesty to invite him to submit the justification which so long and so
vainly he had sought permission to present.
Rohan, in a vertigo of satisfaction, indited his justification,
forwarded it to the Queen by the hand of the Countess, and some days
later received a note in the Queen's hand upon blue-edged paper adorned
by the lilies of France.
“I rejoice,” wrote Marie Antoinette, “to find at last that you were not
in fault. I cannot yet grant you the audience you desire, but as soon as
the circumstances allow of it I shall let you know. Be discreet.”
Upon the advice of the Countess of Valois, His Eminence sent a reply
expressive of his deep gratitude and joy.
Thus began a correspondence between Queen and Cardinal which continued
regularly for a space of three months, growing gradually more
confidential and intimate. As time passed his solicitations of an
audience became more pressing, until at last the Queen wrote announcing
that, actuated by esteem and affection for him who had so long been kept
in banishment, she herself desired the meeting. But it must be secret.
An open audience would still be premature; he had numerous enemies at
Court, who, thus forewarned, might so exert themselves against him as
yet to ruin all.
To receive such a letter from a beautiful woman, and that woman a queen
whose glories her inaccessibility had magnified a thousandfold in his
imagination, must have all but turned the Cardinal's head. The secrecy
of the correspondence, culminating in a clandestine meeting, seemed to
establish between them an intimacy impossible under other circumstances.
Into the warp of his ambition was now woven another, tenderly romantic,
though infinitely respectful, feeling.
You realize, I hope, the frame of mind in which the Cardinal-Prince took
his way through that luminous, fragrant summer night towards the Grove
of Venus. He went to lay the cornerstone of the proud edifice of
his ambitions. To him it was a night of nights--a night of gems, he
pronounced it, looking up into the jewelled vault of heaven. And in that
phrase he was singularly prophetic.
By an avenue of boxwood and yoke-elm he entered into an open glade,
in the middle of which there was a circle where the intended statue of
Venus was never placed. But if the cold marble effigy of a goddess were
absent, the warm, living figure of a queen stood, all in shimmering
white amid the gloom, awaiting him.
Rohan checked a moment, his breath arrested, his pulses quickened. Then
he sped forward, and, flinging off his wide-brimmed hat, he prostrated
himself to kiss the hem of her white cambric gown. Something--a rose
that she let fall--brushed lightly past his cheek. Reverently he
recovered it, accounting it a tangible symbol of her favour, and
he looked up into the proud, lovely face--which, although but dimly
discernible, was yet unmistakable to him protesting his gratitude and
devotion. He perceived that she was trembling, and caught the quiver in
the voice that answered him.
“You may hope that the past will be forgiven.”
And then, before he could drink more deeply of this cup of delight,
came rapid steps to interrupt them. A slender man, in whom the Cardinal
seemed to recognize the Queen's valet Desclaux, thrust through the
curtains of foliage into the grove.
“Quick, madame!” he exclaimed in agitation. “Madame la Comtesse and
Mademoiselle d'Artois are approaching!”
The Queen was whirled away, and the Cardinal discreetly effaced himself,
his happiness tempered by chagrin at the interruption.
When, on the morrow, the Countess of Valois brought him a blue-bordered
note with Her Majesty's wishes that he should patiently await a
propitious season for his public restoration to royal favour, he
resigned himself with the most complete and satisfied submission. Had
he not the memory of her voice and the rose she had given him? Soon
afterwards came a blue-bordered note in which Marie Antoinette advised
him to withdraw to his Bishopric of Strasbourg until she should judge
that the desired season of his reinstatement had arrived.
Obediently Rohan withdrew.
It was in the following December that the Countess of Valois's good
offices at Court were solicited by a new client, and that she first
beheld the famous diamond necklace.
It had been made by the Court jewellers of the Rue Vendome--Bohmer and
Bassenge--and intended for the Countess du Barry. On the assembling of
its component gems Bohmer had laboured for five years and travelled all
over Europe, with the result that he had achieved not so much a necklace
as a blazing scarf of diamonds of a splendour outrivalling any jewel
that the world had ever seen.
Unfortunately, Bohmer was too long over the task. Louis XV died
inopportunely, and the firm found itself with a necklace worth two
million livres on its hands.
Hopes were founded upon Marie Antoinette's reputed extravagance. But
the price appalled her, while Louis XVI met the importunities of the
jeweller with the reply that the country needed a ship of war more
urgently than a necklace.
Thereafter Bohmer offered it in various Courts of Europe, but always
without success. Things were becoming awkward. The firm had borrowed
heavily to pay for the stones, and anxiety seems to have driven Bohmer
to the verge of desperation. Again he offered the necklace to the
King, announcing himself ready to make terms, and to accept payment in
instalments; but again it was refused.
Bohmer now became that pest to society, the man with a grievance that he
must be venting everywhere. On one occasion he so far forgot himself
as to intrude upon the Queen as she was walking in the gardens of the
Trianon. Flinging himself upon his knees before her, he protested with
sobs that he was in despair, and that unless she purchased the necklace
he would go and drown himself. His tears left her unmoved to anything
but scorn.
“Get up, Bohmer!” she bade him. “I don't like such scenes. I have
refused the necklace, and I don't want to hear of it again. Instead of
drowning yourself, break it up and sell the diamonds separately.”
He did neither one nor the other, but continued to air his grievance;
and among those who heard him was one Laporte, an impecunious visitor at
the house of the Countess of Valois.
Bohmer had said that he would pay a thousand louis to any one who found
him a purchaser for the necklace. That was enough to stir the needy
Laporte. He mentioned the matter to the Countess, and enlisted her
interest. Then he told Bohmer of her great influence with the Queen, and
brought the jeweller to visit her with the necklace.
Dazzled by the fire of those gems, the Countess nevertheless
protested--but in an arch manner calculated to convince Bohmer of the
contrary--that she had no power to influence Her Majesty. Yet yielding
with apparent reluctance to his importunities, she, nevertheless, ended
by promising to see what could be done.
On January 3d the Cardinal came back from Strasbourg. Correspondence
with the Queen, through Madame de Valois, had continued during his
absence, and now, within a few days of his return, an opportunity was
to be afforded him of proving his readiness to serve Her Majesty, and of
placing her under a profound obligation to him.
The Countess brought him a letter from Marie Antoinette, in which the
Queen expressed her desire to acquire the necklace, but added that,
being without the requisite funds at the moment, it would be necessary
to settle the terms and arrange the instalments, which should be paid at
intervals of three months. For this she required an intermediary who in
himself would be a sufficient guarantee to the Bohmers, and she ended by
inviting His Eminence to act on her behalf.
That invitation the Cardinal, who had been waiting ever since the
meeting in the Grove of Venus for an opportunity of proving himself,
accepted with alacrity.
And so, on January 24th, the Countess drives up to the Grand Balcon, the
jewellers' shop in the Rue Vendome. Her dark eyes sparkle, the lovely,
piquant face is wreathed in smiles.
“Messieurs,” she greets the anxious partners, “I think I can promise you
that the necklace will very shortly be sold.”
The jewellers gasp in the immensity of the hope her words arouse.
“The purchase,” she goes on to inform them, “will be effected by a very
great nobleman.”
Bassenge bursts into voluble gratitude. She cuts it short.
“That nobleman is the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan. It is with him
that you will arrange the affair, and I advise you,” she adds in a
confidential tone, “to take every precaution, especially in the matter
of the terms of payment that may be proposed to you. That is all,
I think, messieurs. You will, of course, bear in mind that it is no
concern of mine, and that I do not so much as want my name mentioned in
connection with it.”
“Perfectly, madame,” splutters Bohmer, who is perspiring, although the
air is cold--“perfectly! We understand, and we are profoundly grateful.
If--” His hands fumble nervously at a case. “If you would deign, madame,
to accept this trifle as an earnest of our indebtedness, we--”
There is a tinge of haughtiness in her manner as she interrupts him.
“You do not appear to understand, Bohmer, that the matter does not at
all concern me. I have done nothing,” she insists; then, melting into
smiles, “My only desire,” she adds, “was to be of service to you.”
And upon that she departs, leaving them profoundly impressed by her
graciousness and still more by her refusal to accept a valuable jewel.
On the morrow the great nobleman she had heralded, the Cardinal himself,
alighted at the Grand Balcon, coming, on the Queen's behalf, to see the
necklace and settle the terms. By the end of the week the bargain was
concluded. The price was fixed at 1,600,000 livres, which the Queen was
to pay in four instalments extending over two years, the first falling
due on the following August 1st.
These terms the Cardinal embodied in a note which he forwarded to Madame
de la Motte, that they might be ratified by the Queen.
The Countess returned the note to him next day.
“Her Majesty is pleased and grateful,” she announced, “and she approves
of all that you have done. But she does not wish to sign anything.”
On that point, however, the Cardinal was insistent. The magnitude of
the transaction demanded it, and he positively refused to move further
without Her Majesty's signature.
The Countess departed to return again on the last day of the month
with the document completed as the Cardinal required, bearing now the
signature “Marie Antoinette de France,” and the terms marked “approved”
in the Queen's hand.
“The Queen,” Madame de la Motte informed him, “is making this purchase
secretly, without the King's knowledge, and she particularly begs that
this note shall not leave Your Eminence's hands. Do not, therefore,
allow any one to see it.”
Rohan gave the required promise, but, not conceiving that the Bohmers
were included in it, he showed them the note and the Queen's signature
when they came to wait upon him with the necklace on the morrow.
In the dusk of evening a closed carriage drew up at the door of Madame
de la Motte Valois's lodging on the Place Dauphine at Versailles. Rohan
alighted, and went upstairs with a casket under his arm.
Madame awaited him in a white-panelled, indifferently lighted room, to
which there was an alcove with glass doors.
“You have brought the necklace?”
“It is here,” he replied, tapping the box with his gloved hand.
“Her Majesty is expecting it to-night. Her messenger should arrive at
any moment. She will be pleased with Your Eminence.”
“That is all that I can desire,” he answered gravely; and sat down in
answer to her invitation, the precious casket on his knees.
Waiting thus, they talked desultorily for some moments. At last came
steps upon the stairs.
“Quick! The alcove!” she exclaimed. “You must not be seen by Her
Majesty's messenger.”
Rohan, with ready understanding, a miracle of discretion, effaced
himself into the alcove, through the glass doors of which he could see
what passed.
The door was opened by madame's maid with the announcement:
“From the Queen.”
A tall, slender young man in black, the Queen's attendant of that other
night of gems--the night of the Grove of Venus--stepped quickly into the
room, bowed like a courtier to Madame de la Motte, and presented a note.
Madame broke the seal, then begged the messenger to withdraw for a
moment. When he had gone, she turned to the Cardinal, who stood in the
doorway of the alcove.
“That is Desclaux, Her Majesty's valet,” she said; and held out to him
the note, which requested the delivery of the necklace to the bearer.
A moment later the messenger was reintroduced to receive the casket from
the hands of Madame de la Motte. Within five minutes the Cardinal was in
his carriage again, driving happily back to Paris with his dreams of a
queen's gratitude and confidence.
Two days later, meeting Bohmer at Versailles, the Cardinal suggested to
him that he should offer his thanks to the Queen for having purchased
the necklace.
Bohmer sought an opportunity for this in vain. None offered. It was also
in vain that he waited to hear that the Queen had worn the necklace.
But he does not appear to have been anxious on that score. Moreover,
the Queen's abstention was credibly explained by Madame de la Motte to
Laporte with the statement that Her Majesty did not wish to wear the
necklace until it was paid for.
With the same explanation she answered the Cardinal's inquiries in
the following July, when he returned from a three months' sojourn in
Strasbourg.
And she took the opportunity to represent to him that one of the reasons
why the Queen could not yet consider the necklace quite her own was that
she found the price too high.
“Indeed, she may be constrained to return it, after all, unless the
Bohmers are prepared to be reasonable.”
If His Eminence was a little dismayed by this, at least any nascent
uneasiness was quieted. He consented to see the jewellers in the matter,
and on July 10th--three weeks before the first instalment was due--he
presented himself at the Grand Balcon to convey the Queen's wishes to
the Bohmers.
Bohmer scarcely troubled to prevent disgust from showing on his
keen, swarthy countenance. Had not his client been a queen and her
intermediary a cardinal, he would, no doubt, have afforded it full
expression.
“The price agreed upon was already greatly below the value of the
necklace,” he grumbled. “I should never have accepted it but for the
difficulties under which we have been placed by the purchase of the
stones--the money we owe and the interest we are forced to pay. A
further reduction is impossible.”
The handsome Cardinal was suave, courtly, regretful, but firm. Since
that was the case, there would be no alternative but to return the
necklace.
Bohmer took fright. The annulment of the sale would bring him face to
face with ruin. Reluctantly, feeling that he was being imposed upon, he
reduced the price by two hundred thousand livres, and even consented to
write the Queen the following letter, whose epistolary grace suggests
the Cardinal's dictation:
MADAME,--We are happy to hazard the thought that our submission with
zeal and respect to the last arrangement proposed constitutes a proof
of our devotion and obedience to the orders of Your Majesty. And we have
genuine satisfaction in thinking that the most beautiful set of diamonds
in existence will serve to adorn the greatest and best of queens.
Now it happened that Bohmer was about to deliver personally to the Queen
some jewels with which the King was presenting her on the occasion of
the baptism of his nephew. He availed himself of that opportunity, two
days later, personally to hand his letter to Her Majesty. But chance
brought the Comptroller-General into the room before she had opened it,
and as a result the jeweller departed while the letter was still unread.
Afterwards, in the presence of Madame de Campan, who relates the matter
in her memoirs, the Queen opened the note, pored over it a while, and
then, perhaps with vivid memories of Bohmer's threat of suicide:
“Listen to what that madman Bohmer writes to me,” she said, and read the
lines aloud. “You guessed the riddles in the 'Mercure' this morning. I
wonder could you guess me this one.”
And, with a half-contemptuous shrug, she held the sheet in the flame
of one of the tapers that stood alight on the table for the purpose of
sealing letters.
“That man exists for my torment,” she continued. “He has always some mad
notion in his head, and must always be visiting it upon me. When next
you see him, pray convince him how little I care for diamonds.”
And there the matter was dismissed.
Days passed, and then a week before the instalment of 350,000 livres
was due, the Cardinal received a visit from Madame de la Motte on the
Queen's behalf.
“Her Majesty,” madame announced, “seems embarrassed about the
instalment. She does not wish to trouble you by writing about it. But
I have thought of a way by which you could render yourself agreeable to
her and, at the same time, set her mind at rest. Could you not raise a
loan for the amount?”
Had not the Cardinal himself dictated to Bohmer a letter which Bohmer
himself had delivered to the Queen, he must inevitably have suspected by
now that all was not as it should be. But, satisfied as he was by that
circumstance, he addressed himself to the matter which Madame de la
Motte proposed. But, although Rohan was extraordinarily wealthy, he had
ever been correspondingly lavish.
Moreover, to complicate matters, there had been the bankruptcy of his
nephew, the Prince de Guimenee, whose debts had amounted to some three
million livres. Characteristically, and for the sake of the family
honour, Rohan had taken the whole of this burden upon his own shoulders.
Hence his resources were in a crippled condition, and it was beyond his
power to advance so considerable a sum at such short notice. Nor did he
succeed in obtaining a loan within the little time at his disposal.
His anxieties on this score were increased by a letter from the Queen
which Madame de la Motte brought him on July 30th, in which Her Majesty
wrote that the first instalment could not be paid until October 1st; but
that on that date a payment of seven hundred thousand livres--half of
the revised price--would unfailingly be made. Together with this letter,
Madame de la Motte handed him thirty thousand livres, interest on the
instalment due, with which to pacify the jewellers.
But the jewellers were not so easily to be pacified. Bohmer, at the
end of his patience, definitely refused to grant the postponement or
to receive the thirty thousand livres other than as on account of the
instalment due.
The Cardinal departed in vexation. Something must be done at once,
or his secret relations with the Queen would be disclosed, thus
precipitating a catastrophe and a scandal. He summoned Madame de la
Motte, flung her into a panic with his news and sent her away to see
what she could do. What she actually did would have surprised him.
Realizing that a crisis had been reached calling for bold measures, she
sent for Bassenge, the milder of the two partners. He came to the Rue
Neuve Saint-Gilles, protesting that he was being abused.
“Abused?” quoth she, taking him up on the word. “Abused, do you say?”
She laughed sharply. “Say duped, my friend; for that is what has
happened to you. You are the victim of a swindle.”
Bassenge turned white; his prominent eyes bulged in his rather pasty
face.
“What are you saying, madame?” His voice was husky.
“The Queen's signature on the note in the Cardinal's possession is a
forgery.”
“A forgery! The Queen's signature? Oh, mon Dieu!” He stared at her, and
his knees began to tremble. “How do you know, madame?”
“I have seen it,” she answered.
“But--but--”
His nerveless limbs succumbing under him, he sank without ceremony to
a chair that was opportunely near him. With the same lack of ceremony,
mechanically, in a dazed manner, he mopped the sweat that stood in beads
on his brow, then raised his wig and mopped his head.
“There is no need to waste emotion,” said she composedly. “The Cardinal
de Rohan is very rich. You must look to him. He will pay you.”
“Will he?”
Hope and doubt were blended in the question.
“What else?” she asked. “Can you conceive that he will permit such a
scandal to burst about his name and the name of the Queen?”
Bassenge saw light. The rights and wrongs of the case, and who might
be the guilty parties, were matters of very secondary importance. What
mattered was that the firm should recover the 1,600,000 livres for which
the necklace had been sold; and Bassenge was quick to attach full value
to the words of Madame de la Motte.
Unfortunately for everybody concerned, including the jewellers
themselves, Bohmer's mind was less supple. Panic-stricken by Bassenge's
report, he was all for the direct method. There was no persuading him to
proceed cautiously, and to begin by visiting the Cardinal. He tore away
to Versailles at once, intent upon seeing the Queen. But the Queen,
as we know, had had enough of Bohmer. He had to content himself with
pouring his mixture of intercessions and demands into the ears of Madame
de Campan.
“You have been swindled, Bohmer,” said the Queen's lady promptly. “Her
Majesty never received the necklace.”
Bohmer would not be convinced. Disbelieving, and goaded to fury, he
returned to Bassenge.
Bassenge, however, though perturbed, retained his calm. The Cardinal,
he insisted, was their security, and it was impossible to doubt that
the Cardinal would fulfil his obligations at all costs, rather than be
overwhelmed by a scandal.
And this, no doubt, is what would have happened but for that hasty visit
of Bohmer's to Versailles. It ruined everything. As a result of it,
Bohmer was summoned to wait instantly upon the Queen in the mater of
some paste buckles.
The Queen received the jeweller in private, and her greeting proved that
the paste buckles were a mere pretext. She demanded to know the meaning
of his words to Madame de Campan.
Bohmer could not rid himself of the notion that he was being trifled
with. Had he not written and himself delivered to the Queen a letter
in which he thanked her for purchasing the necklace, and had not that
letter remained unanswered--a silent admission that the necklace was in
her hands? In his exasperation he became insolent.
“The meaning, madame? The meaning is that I require payment for my
necklace, that the patience of my creditors is exhausted, and that
unless you order the money to be paid, I am a ruined man!”
Marie Antoinette considered him in cold, imperious anger.
“Are you daring to suggest that your necklace is in my possession?”
Bohmer was white to the lips, his hands worked nervously.
“Does Your Majesty deny it?”
“You are insolent!” she exclaimed. “You will be good enough to answer
questions, not to ask them. Answer me, then. Do you suggest that I have
your necklace?”
But a desperate man is not easily intimidated.
“No, madame; I affirm it! It was the Countess of Valois who--”
“Who is the Countess of Valois?”
That sudden question, sharply uttered, was a sword of doubt through
the heart of Bohmer's confidence. He stared wide-eyed a moment at the
indignant lady before him, then collected himself, and made as plain a
tale as he could of the circumstances under which he had parted with
the necklace Madame de la Motte's intervention, the mediation of the
Cardinal de Rohan with Her Majesty's signed approval of the terms, and
the delivery of the necklace to His Eminence for transmission to the
Queen.
Marie Antoinette listened in increasing horror and anger. A flush crept
into her pale cheeks.
“You will prepare and send me a written statement of what you have just
told me,” she said. “You have leave to go.”
That interview took place on August 9th. The 15th was the Feast of the
Assumption, and also the name-day of the Queen, therefore a gala day at
Court, bringing a concourse of nobility to Versailles. Mass was to be
celebrated in the royal chapel at ten o'clock, and the celebrant, as by
custom established for the occasion, was the Grand Almoner of France,
the Cardinal de Rohan.
But at ten o'clock a meeting was being held in the King's cabinet,
composed of the King and Queen, the Baron de Breteuil, and the Keeper of
the Seals, Miromesnil. They were met, as they believed, to decide upon a
course of action in the matter of a diamond necklace. In reality, these
puppets in the hands of destiny were helping to decide the fate of the
French monarchy.
The King, fat, heavy, and phlegmatic, sat in a gilded chair by an
ormolu-encrusted writing-table. His bovine eyes were troubled. Two
wrinkles of vexation puckered the flesh above his great nose. Beside,
and slightly behind him, stood the Queen, white and imperious, whilst
facing them stood Monsieur de Breteuil, reading aloud the statement
which Bohmer had drawn up.
When he had done, there was a moment's utter silence. Then the King
spoke, his voice almost plaintive.
“What is to be done, then? But what is to be done?”
It was the Queen who answered him, harshly and angrily.
“When the Roman purple and a princely title are but masks to cover a
swindler, there is only one thing to be done. This swindler must be
exposed and punished.”
“But,” the King faltered, “we have not heard the Cardinal.”
“Can you think that Bohmer, that any man, would dare to lie upon such a
matter?”
“But consider, madame, the Cardinal's rank and family,” calmly
interposed the prudent Miromesnil; “consider the stir, the scandal that
must ensue if this matter is made public.”
But the obedient daughter of Marie Therese, hating Rohan at her mother's
bidding and for her mother's sake, was impatient of any such wise
considerations.
“What shall the scandal signify to us?” she demanded. The King looked at
Breteuil.
“And you, Baron? What is your view?”
Breteuil, Rohan's mortal enemy, raised his shoulders and flipped the
document.
“In the face of this, Sire, it seems to me that the only course is to
arrest the Cardinal.”
“You believe, then--” began the King, and checked, leaving the sentence
unfinished.
But Breteuil had understood.
“I know that the Cardinal must be pressed for money,” he said. “Ever
prodigal in his expenditure, he is further saddled with the debts of the
Prince de Guimenee.”
“And you can believe,” the King cried, “that a Prince of the House of
Rohan, however pressed for money, could--Oh, it is unimaginable!”
“Yet has he not stolen my name?” the Queen cut in. “Is he not proven a
common, stupid forger?”
“We have not heard him,” the King reminded her gently.
“And His Eminence might be able to explain,” ventured Miromesnil. “It
were certainly prudent to give him the opportunity.”
Slowly the King nodded his great, powdered head. “Go and find him. Bring
him at once!” he bade Breteuil; and Breteuil bowed and departed.
Very soon he returned, and he held the door whilst the handsome
Cardinal, little dreaming what lay before him, serene and calm, a
commanding figure in his cassock of scarlet watered silk, rustled
forward into the royal presence, and so came face to face with the Queen
for the first time since that romantic night a year ago in the Grove of
Venus.
Abruptly the King launched his thunderbolt.
“Cousin,” he asked, “what purchase is this of a diamond necklace that
you are said to have made in the Queen's name?”
King and Cardinal looked into each other's eyes, the King's narrowing,
the Cardinal's dilating, the King leaning forward in his chair, elbows
on the table, the Cardinal standing tense and suddenly rigid.
Slowly the colour ebbed from Rohan's face, leaving it deathly pale. His
eyes sought the Queen, and found her contemptuous glance, her curling
lip. Then at last his handsome head sank a little forward.
“Sire,” he said unsteadily, “I see that I have been duped. But I have
duped nobody.”
“You have no reason to be troubled, then. You need but to explain.”
Explain! That was precisely what he could not do. Besides, what was
the nature of the explanation demanded of him? Whilst he stood stricken
there, it was the Queen who solved this question.
“If, indeed, you have been duped,” she said scornfully, her colour high,
her eyes like points of steel, “you have been self-duped. But even then
it is beyond belief that self-deception could have urged you to the
lengths of passing yourself off as my intermediary--you, who should know
yourself to be the last man in France I should employ, you to whom I
have not spoken once in eight years.” Tears of anger glistened in her
eyes; her voice shrilled up. “And yet, since you have not denied it,
since you put forward this pitiful plea that you have been duped, we
must believe the unbelievable.”
Thus at a blow she shattered the fond hopes he had been cherishing ever
since the night of gems--of gems, forsooth!--in the Grove of Venus; thus
she laid his ambition in ruins about him, and left the man himself half
stunned.
Observing his disorder, the ponderous but kindly monarch rose.
“Come, my cousin,” he said more gently, “collect yourself. Sit down here
and write what you may have to say in answer.”
And with that he passed into the library beyond, accompanied by the
Queen and the two Ministers.
Alone, Rohan staggered forward and sank nervelessly into the chair. He
took up a pen, pondered a moment, and began to write. But he did not
yet see clear. He could not yet grasp the extent to which he had been
deceived, could not yet believe that those treasured notes from Marie
Antoinette were forgeries, that it was not the Queen who had met him in
the Grove of Venus and given him the rose whose faded petals kept those
letters company in a portfolio of red morocco. But at least it was clear
to him that, for the sake of honour--the Queen's honour--he must assume
it so; and in that assumption he now penned his statement.
When it was completed, himself he bore it to the King in the library.
Louis read it with frowning brows; then passed it to the Queen.
“Have you the necklace now?” he asked Rohan.
“Sir, I left it in the hands of this woman Valois.”
“Where is this woman?”
“I do not know, Sire.”
“And the letter of authority bearing the Queen's signature, which the
jewellers say you presented to them--where is that?”
“I have it, Sire. I will place it before you. It is only now that I
realize that it is a forgery.”
“Only now!” exclaimed the Queen in scorn.
“Her Majesty's name has been compromised,” said the King sternly. “It
must be cleared. As King and as husband my duty is clear. Your Eminence
must submit to arrest.”
Rohan fell back a step in stupefaction. For disgrace and dismissal he
was prepared, but not for this.
“Arrest?” he whispered. “Ah, wait, Sire. The publicity! The scandal!
Think of that! As for the necklace, I will pay for it myself, and so pay
for my credulous folly. I beseech you, Sire, to let the matter end here.
I implore it for my own sake, for the sake of the Prince de Soubise
and the name of Rohan, which would be smirched unjustly and to no good
purpose.”
He spoke with warmth and force; and, without adding more, yet conveyed
an impression that much more could be said for the course he urged.
The King hesitated, considering. Noting this, the prudent, far-seeing
Miromesnil ventured to develop the arguments at which Rohan had hinted,
laying stress upon the desirability of avoiding scandal.
Louis was nodding, convinced, when Marie Antoinette, unable longer to
contain her rancour, broke into opposition of those prudent measures.
“This hideous affair must be disclosed,” she insisted. “It is due to me
that it should publicly be set right. The Cardinal shall tell the world
how he came to suppose that, not having spoken to him for eight years,
I could have wished to make use of his services in the purchase of this
necklace.”
She was in tears, and her weak, easily swayed husband accounted her
justified in her demand. And so, to the great consternation of all the
world, Prince Louis de Rohan was arrested like a common thief.
A foolish, indiscreet, short-sighted woman had allowed her rancour to
override all other considerations--careless of consequences, careless of
injustice so that her resentment, glutted by her hatred of the Cardinal,
should be gratified. The ungenerous act was terribly to recoil upon her.
In tears and blood was she to expiate her lack of charity; very soon she
was to reap its bitter fruits.
Saint-Just, a very prominent counsellor of the Parliament, one of the
most advanced apostles of the new ideas that were to find full fruition
in the Revolution, expressed the popular feeling in the matter.
“Great and joyful affair! A cardinal and a queen implicated in a forgery
and a swindle! Filth on the crosier and the sceptre! What a triumph for
the ideas of liberty!”
At the trial that followed before Parliament, Madame de la Motte, a
man named Reteaux de Villette--who had forged the Queen's hand and
impersonated Desclaux and a Mademoiselle d'Oliva--who had used her
striking resemblance to Marie Antoinette to impersonate the Queen in the
Grove of Venus were found guilty and sentenced. But the necklace was not
recovered. It had been broken up, and some of the diamonds were already
sold; others were being sold in London by Captain de la Motte, who had
gone thither for the purpose, and who prudently remained there.
The Cardinal was acquitted, amid intense public joy and acclamation,
which must have been gall and wormwood to the Queen. His powerful
family, the clergy of France, and the very people, with whom he had ever
been popular, had all laboured strenuously to vindicate him. And thus
it befell that the one man the Queen had aimed at crushing was the only
person connected with the affair who came out of it unhurt. The Queen's
animus against the Cardinal aroused against her the animus of his
friends of all classes. Appalling libels of her were circulated
throughout Europe. It was thought and argued that she was more deeply
implicated in the swindle than had transpired, that Madame de la Motte
was a scapegoat, that the Queen should have stood her trial with the
others, and that she was saved only by the royalty that hedged her.
Conceive what a weapon this placed in the hands of the men of the new
ideas of liberty--men who were bent on proving the corruption of a
system they sought to destroy!
Marie Antoinette should have foreseen something of this. She might have
done so had not her hatred blinded her, had she been less intent upon
seizing the opportunity at all costs to make Rohan pay for his barbed
witticism upon her mother. She might have been spared much had she but
spared Rohan when the chance was hers. As it was, the malevolent echoes
of the affair and of Saint-Just's exultation were never out of her
ears. They followed her to her trial eight years later before the
revolutionary tribunal. They followed her to the very scaffold, of which
they had undoubtedly supplied a plank.