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CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 The Diamond Necklace : being the true story of Marie 
 Antoinette and the Cardinal de Rohan. Authorised 
 translation by H. Sutherland Edwards. With 
 Twelve Illustrations. 1901. Crown 8vo, 6^. 
 London : John Macqueen. 
 
 Princes and Poisoners : studies of the Court of Louis 
 XIV. Translated by George Maidment. With 
 Two Illustrations. Second edition. 1901. Pott 
 4to, 6s. London : Duckworth and Co, 
 
 Legends of the Bastille : the true story of the Man in 
 the Iron Mask. Translated by George Maidment. 
 With Eight Illustrations. 1899. Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 London : Downey and Co. 
 
Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
MARIE ANTOINETTE. 
 
 Frontispiece. 
 
CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 A .SEQUEL TO THE 
 STORY OF THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANTZ FUNCK-BRENTANO 
 
 TRANSLATED BY 
 
 GEORGE MAIDMENT 
 
 fVITH TEN ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 JBC 
 
 Of THC 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 JAMES POTT AND CO. 
 
 1902 
 

 SFUHO 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Meditating at St. Helena on the events of 
 the Revolution, Napoleon let his thoughts 
 dwell on the Diamond Necklace affair. 
 * Perhaps/ he said, *the death of the queen 
 dates from that/ Mirabeau and Goethe 
 thought the same, and it is also the con- 
 clusion of the best informed of modern 
 historians like M. Pierre de Nolhac. Their j 
 opinion has been quoted in a former book, 
 Tke Diamond Necklace, devoted to the 
 origin and the development of the famous 
 case. In the following pages the reader 
 will find an account of the ulterior destinies 
 of the chief persons involved in the mys- 
 tery; and he will see by what a chain of 
 
 214870 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 circumstances Marie Antoinette was drawn 
 to the scaffold. 
 
 The unpublished documents of which 
 use has been made are very numerous. 
 On the majority of points facts hitherto 
 unknown will be met with. We venture to 
 mention this only that we may express our 
 indebtedness for a great part of this new 
 information to the erudition of M. Alfred 
 Begis, Treasurer and Keeper of the 
 Records of the Society of Contemporary 
 History, and Secretary of the Society of 
 Booklovers. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 INTRODUCTORY, I 
 
 I. CAGLIOSTRO TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE, . . 5 
 II. CAGLIOSTRO AGAINST THE GOVERNOR OF THE 
 
 BASTILLE, 14 
 
 ril. THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY, 22 
 
 IV. GIUSEPPE BALSAMO, 3I 
 
 V. A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO, ... 53 
 
 VI. TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE, 68 
 
 VII. THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE AT THE SALPiiTRIERE, 93 
 
 VIII. THE ESCAPE, I06 
 
 IX. MADAME DE LA MOTTE WRITES THE STORY OF 
 
 HER LIFE, IIS' 
 
 X. THE PAMPHLETS, I44 
 
 XI. REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS, . . . . 151 
 
 XII. THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS, . . . 165 
 
 XIII. THE HALL OF VENUS I74 
 
 XIV. THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN, .... 184 
 
 XV. THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN IN HIS DIOCESE, . 23O 
 
 XVI. LAMOTTE-COLLIER, 24O 
 
 XVII. LEGENDS, 279 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 PORTRAIT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, BY KUCHARSKI, Frontispiece 
 
 PORTRAIT OF MADAME DE CAGLIOSTRO, . . facing 34 
 
 PORTRAIT OF NICOLE LEGUAY, OTHERWISE THE 
 
 BARONNE D'OLIVA, BY PUJOS, ....,, 76 
 THE KEY OF THE SALPETRIERE PRISON, . . . I08 
 
 THE FLIGHT FROM THE SALPETRIERE, . . . facing I08 
 
 MADAME DE LA MOTTE IN PEASANT COSTUME, . ,, 112 
 THE * GRANDE VISITE DE MME DE LA MOTTE AU 
 
 PERE DUCHESNE MALADE,' . .,,146 
 
 PORTRAIT OF THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE, . ,, I96 
 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE IN MOURNING GARB, . . ,, 202 
 
 THE QUEEN GOING TO EXECUTION, BY LOUIS DAVID, ,, 226 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNJVERSITY 
 
 Of 
 
 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 The curtain had fallen on the great Neck- 
 lace act, which had been agitating all Paris 
 for months. The famous Diamond Neck- 
 lace had been obtained from the court 
 jewellers by the Cardinal de Rohan through 
 the agency of the woman calling herself 
 the Countess de La Motte, on the representa- 
 tion that the Queen of France, Marie 
 Antoinette, had ordered it, and would pay 
 for it in instalments. The instalments 
 when due were not paid, and the jewellers, 
 after showing themselves curiously lax men 
 of business, had made inquiries which had 
 resulted in the pricking of the gigantic 
 bubble. The queen had never had the 
 
 A 
 
2 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Necklace, which the countess and her 
 husband had broken up and sold piecemeal. 
 The question was, how far the Cardinal de 
 Rohan was a dupe, how far he was an 
 accomplice. He declared that the countess 
 had shown him letters bearing the queen's 
 signature, authorising every step he had 
 taken, and that he believed the Necklace 
 had been ordered by the queen. He de- 
 clared also that the countess had contrived 
 a meeting between himself and the queen 
 one night in the grove of Venus at Ver- 
 sailles. As a result of the exposure the 
 cardinal was arrested, along with the Count 
 and Countess de La Motte, the girl who 
 called herself the Baroness d'Oliva, and 
 who was said to have personated the queen, 
 and the so-called Count Cagliostro, who 
 had been a sort of familiar spirit to the 
 cardinal. After the complicated process of 
 law, in which interrogatory and confronta- 
 tion succeeded confrontation and interro- 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 gatory, and the various accused persons 
 told their several stories, the Parlement 
 had at last delivered its verdict. The 
 signature of the queen was declared a 
 forgery. Cagliostro and the cardinal were 
 acquitted of all complicity in the crime ; the 
 Baroness d'Oliva was acquitted, with a mild 
 censure for having allowed herself to be the 
 tool of designing villains ; and the Count de 
 La Motte was sentenced to the galleys for life. 
 The protagonist, the petite, vivacious, extra- 
 ordinarily clever Madame de La Motte, was 
 condemned to be whipped, naked, by the 
 public executioner, branded on the shoulders 
 with the letter V [voleuse, robber), confined 
 at the Salpetriere gaol for the rest of 
 her life, and deprived of all her pro- 
 perty. The sentences on the La Mottes 
 were severe enough ; the absolute acquittal 
 of the cardinal was a great blow to the 
 royal house. The king, Louis xvi., who 
 had acted throughout with astonishing want 
 
4 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 of foresight and lack of judgment, sent the 
 cardinal to his Benedictine Abbey of La 
 Chaise- Dieu, and exiled Cagliostro, who 
 departed with his wife for England. La 
 Motte escaped ; his wife suffered her igno- 
 minious branding and was incarcerated in 
 the Conciergerie. 
 
 It is with the further fortunes of these 
 actors, and some of their associates, and 
 with the circumstances leading up to the 
 death of the queen, that the following pages 
 have to do. 
 
 G. M. 
 
CAGLIOSTRO TO FRENCH PEOPLE 5 
 
 CAGLIOSTRO TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE 
 
 Cagliostro had no sooner left the Bastille 
 than, seeing the unanimous movement 
 of sympathy evoked by Nicole d'Oliva, 
 and always keenly alive to the trend of 
 public opinion, he hastened to send the 
 young woman seven hundred crowns. This 
 soon found its way into the Gazettes, with 
 commentaries : * This is how the extra- 
 ordinary man avenges himself for calumni- 
 ous reports. He is accused of charlatanism, 
 and he passes his life in relieving the un- 
 fortunate ! ' In the little lodging he occu- 
 pied for a short time at Passy, he received 
 * all Paris ' before he left — writers, parlia- 
 mentarians, Duval d'Epremesnil ; and when 
 
6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 people thought they ought to make a 
 reference to his misfortunes, he displayed 
 immense wealth, saying : * I don't need 
 anybody's assistance; don't pity me.' 
 
 On June 13, he made his preparations 
 for departure, in obedience to the lettre 
 de cachet exiling him from France. After 
 having gone to find his wife, who had re- 
 tired to Saint- Denis, he arrived at Boulogne 
 on the 1 6th, and embarked for England. 
 'The shores I left,' he said, *were lined 
 with a crowd of citizens of all conditions, 
 who blessed me, and thanked me for the 
 good I had done their brethren. They plied 
 me with the most touching farewells. The 
 winds were already wafting me far from 
 them ; I no longer heard them, but I saw 
 them still, their hands raised towards heaven, 
 and I blessed them in my turn, and cried 
 out again and again as though they could 
 hear me: ''Farewell, Frenchmen! farewell, 
 my children ; my country, farewell ! " ' 
 
CAGLIOSTRO TO FRENCH PEOPLE 7 
 
 On arriving in London, Cagliostro issued 
 his celebrated ' Letter to the French People/ 
 It is dated June 26, 1786. 
 
 ' I have been hunted from France,' ex- 
 claims the prophet ; * the king has been 
 deceived. Kings are to be pitied for having 
 such ministers. I mean to speak of the 
 Baron de Breteuil. What have I done to 
 this man ? Of what does he accuse me ? 
 Of being loved by the cardinal, and of 
 not deserting him ; of seeking the truth, 
 telling the truth, defending the truth ; of 
 assisting suffering humanity, by my alms, 
 my remedies, my counsels. Those are my 
 crimes ! He cannot bear that a man in 
 irons, a stranger under the bolts of the 
 Bastille, in his power — his, the worthy 
 minister of his horrible prison — should 
 have raised his voice as I have done, to 
 make him known, — him, and his principles, 
 his agents, his creatures ! 
 
 *Well then, resolve me of a doubt. 
 
8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 The king has banished me from his king- 
 dom, but he has not heard me. Is it thus 
 ythat all lettres de cachet are put in force in 
 France? If so it is, I pity you, and the 
 more because this Baron de Breteuil will 
 ^ have this dangerous department. What ! 
 your persons and property are at the mercy 
 of this man ? By himself alone he can 
 deceive the king with impunity ; acting on 
 slanderous and never contradicted informa- 
 tion he can issue and have put into execu- 
 tion, by men like himself, rigorous orders 
 which plunge the innocent man' into a cell, 
 and deliver his house over to plunder ! 
 
 * Are all state prisons like the Bastille ? 
 No one can have any idea of the horrors 
 of that place; cynical impudence, odious 
 falsehood, sham pity, bitter irony, relent- 
 less cruelty, injustice and death are seated 
 there. A barbarous silence is the least of 
 the crimes there committed. For six months 
 I was within fifteen feet of my wife with- 
 
CAGLIOSTRO TO FRENCH PEOPLE 9 
 
 out knowing it. Others have been buried 
 there for thirty years, are reputed dead, are 
 unhappy in not being dead, having, like 
 Mihon s damned souls, only so much light in 
 their abyss as to perceive the impenetrable 
 darkness that enwraps them. I said it in 
 captivity, and I repeat it a free man : there 
 is no crime but is amply expiated by six 
 months in the Bastille. Some one asked 
 me whether I should return to France 
 supposing the prohibitions laid on me were 
 removed.^ Assuredly, I replied, provided 
 the Bastille became a public promenade ! 
 
 ' You have all that is needed for happi- 
 ness, Frenchmen : a fertile soil, a mild 
 climate, kindly hearts, charming gaiety, 
 genius, graces all your own ; unequalled in 
 the art of pleasing, unsurpassed in the other 
 arts — all you want, my good friends, is one 
 little thing : to be sure of lying in your own 
 beds when you are irreproachable. 
 
 *To labour for this happy revolution is a 
 
10 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 task worthy of your parlements. It is 
 
 only difficult to feeble souls. 
 
 ^ *Yes, I declare to you, there will reign 
 
 over you a prince who will achieve glory in 
 
 the abolition of lettres de cachet, and the 
 
 convocation of your States-General. He 
 
 V will feel that the abuse of power is in the 
 
 long-run destructive of power itself. He 
 
 will not be satisfied with being the first of 
 
 his ministers ; he will aim at being the first 
 
 of Frenchmen.' 
 L 
 
 These lines, dated 1786, are really aston- 
 ishing. People speak sometimes of the 
 predictions of Voltaire and Rousseau. ' We 
 are approaching a condition of crisis and the 
 age of revolutions,' wrote Rousseau. ' All 
 that I see is sowing the seeds of a revolution 
 which will inevitably come,' wrote Voltaire. 
 Stray utterances culled from a mass of 
 writings filling fifty and sixty volumes. All 
 those who, setting up to teach mankind. 
 
CAGLIOSTRO TO FRENCH PEOPLE ii 
 
 find that mankind will not be led by their 
 wishes, speak thus. Voltaire and Rousseau 
 were men of letters who wrote admirably 
 and expounded very interesting theories ; 
 but what a vivid, concrete, precise intellect 
 Cagliostro must have had, along with an 
 intuitive perception of realities, to say to 
 the French in 1786: 'Within a little, your 
 States-General will be convoked, your 
 Bastille will become a public promenade, 
 and your lettres de cachet will be abolished/ 
 
 And we may imagine the hubbub made in 
 the streets of Paris by hawkers selling * the 
 Letter to the French People,' running along 
 with perspiring faces, repeating their cry, 
 * Here s something new ! ' in the gardens 
 and the caf^s. The public rushed to meet 
 them. Their ' papers ' were snatched from 
 their hands. 
 
 Breteuil at once suffered in reputation. 
 In vain he showed himself, in his ministerial 
 office, to be one of the most generous 
 
12 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 spirits France has ever known, a noble 
 and liberal-minded reformer ; in vain had 
 » he, by his memorable circular of 1784, 
 which had marvellous results all through 
 France, virtually put an end to the regime 
 of lettres de cachet ; in vain had he decided 
 on the demolition of the Bastille, and from 
 that time transformed it into a prison for 
 ordinary criminals, closed the castle of 
 Vincennes and the horrible tower of Caen, 
 opened the gates of Bicetre to Latude, 
 liberated at one stroke three-fourths of 
 the prisoners incarcerated in the houses of 
 correction ; in vain had he, by a general 
 order of October 31, 1785, set free all 
 those who were detained in virtue of a 
 family lettre de cachet — and it is well 
 known that imprisonments of this kind 
 were very numerous ; in vain had he for- 
 bidden the local magistrates to authorise 
 any incarceration whatever save after a 
 regular trial ; in vain did he draw up on 
 
CAGLIOSTRO TO FRENCH PEOPLE 13 
 
 October 6, 1787, his instructions on the 
 treatment of madmen in the hospitals, and 
 attempted to reaHse, with unequalled activity 
 and energy, the new ideas of progress and 
 liberty : Cagliostro dealt him a blow in 
 public opinion from which he never re- 
 covered. And thus later, when the hour 
 of revolution struck, the pamphleteers and 
 orators of the public gardens had no 
 difficulty in persuading the people that 
 Breteuil wanted to cut their throats. And 
 the spread of the news that he had re- 
 turned to power was the signal for the . 
 insurrection. 
 
14 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 II 
 
 CAGLIOSTRO AGAINST THE GOVERNOR 
 OF THE BASTILLE 
 
 Meanwhile Cagliostro had begun his 
 famous action against the Marquis de 
 Launey, Governor of the Bastille, and 
 against the younger Chesnon, the Com- 
 missary of the , f hatelet who had been 
 ordered to search his house when he had 
 been taken prisoner. On May 29, when 
 Cagliostro had not yet been tried and was 
 still in duress, Maitre Thilorier had issued a 
 petition, *as well written,' observes Hardy 
 the bookseller, *as the memorial previously 
 so much acclaimed by the people,' and con- 
 taining the ' striking demonstration ' of the 
 following facts : (i) * By the fault of Com- 
 
LITIGATION 15 
 
 missary Chesnon when making a search in 
 the house of CagHostro, then forcing open 
 the desks, opening all the cupboards and 
 wardrobes, tearing and upsetting the goods 
 of the count and his wife — hats, feathers, 
 dresses, linen — throwing them about in 
 promiscuous heaps, then neglecting to put 
 everything under seal before leaving, more 
 than 100,000 livres worth of goods had 
 been ruined or left to be plundered : 
 (2) the Marquis de Launey, Governor of 
 the Bastille, had kept in his own possession, 
 refusing to deliver them up to the plaintiff 
 or his wife, diamonds and jewels of very 
 considerable value.' 
 
 CagHostro gives details. The underlings 
 of the commissary seized on whatever took 
 their fancy. * The police-officer had the 
 audacity to take possession, in the presence 
 of the plaintiff, of balms, drjugs, elixirs, to 
 Mhe value of two hundred louis, without 
 any opposition from the commissary. From 
 
i6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 my desk disappeared : ( i ) fifteen rolls of fifty 
 pistoles each, sealed with my seal ; (2) 1233 
 Venetian and Roman sequins ; (3) a roll 
 of twenty - four Spanish double pistoles 
 sealed with my seal ; (4) forty-seven bank- 
 notes of 1000 livres each. In addition, 
 there were papers of the greatest im- 
 portance in my green portfolio. They are 
 lost, and the resulting damage to me is 
 more than 50,000 livres.' 
 
 Not satisfied with these depredations, the 
 commissary had executed his orders in the 
 most vexatious manner, jostling and roughly 
 handling the Count de Cagliostro and his 
 wife in the street, to the scandal of the 
 passers-by. On this ground an indemnity of 
 50,000 livres was claimed. The total amount 
 due by the government of the king or his 
 agents was 200,000 livres, half of which 
 Cagliostro waived, with characteristic great- 
 ness of soul, for the purchase of bread for 
 the poor prisoners at the Chatelet. 
 
LITIGATION 17 
 
 His claim was presented on May 29, 
 before the Diamond Necklace case was con- 
 cluded. On June 21, Cagliostro, through 
 his lawyers in Paris, sent from London to 
 the Marquis de Launey and Chesnon a 
 writ to appear at the Chatelet. 
 
 Cagliostro's statement of claim ends with 
 the following words : ' Doubtless I shall 
 not be required to establish these facts by 
 corroborative evidence. A citizen does not 
 call two citizens every day to testify to the 
 state of his cash-box. I should regard 
 this precaution as not only useless, but 
 insulting to the nation whose hospitality 
 I am enjoying. Will it be said that the 
 facts I assert are improbable? All those 
 who know me can say whether, since I 
 have been in France, I have openly spent 
 less than 100,000 livres a year. Is it 
 surprising, then, that a man who is not 
 accustomed to count his money should 
 have a years income in his possession? 
 
 B 
 
i8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 And I undertake to affirm on oath the 
 accuracy of the statement I have already 
 certified. This, without doubt, is all that 
 justice has a right to demand. No one 
 will imagine that for the sum of 100,000 
 livres the Count de Cagliostro will con- 
 sent to perjure himself in the eyes of all 
 Europe.' 
 
 * Everybody was struck,' says Hardy, 
 'with the clearness, precision, and energy 
 of the count's plea. The document in 
 which the suppliant's rights seemed as well 
 established as ingeniously argued, met with 
 the same reception from the public as former 
 documents.' 
 
 A second statement followed. * It pre- 
 sents the facts,' says Hardy, *in a manner 
 exactly calculated to stir men's minds and 
 to interest citizens of all conditions.' Let 
 us quote the peroration : — 
 
 * Frenchmen, a nation truly generous, 
 truly hospitable, I shall never forget either 
 
LITIGATION 19 
 
 the touching interest you have taken in 
 my fate, or the gentle tears your trans- 
 ports have made me shed. Calumny and 
 persecution have dogged my steps. All 
 the torture that human heart could suffer, 
 mine had already experienced. A single 
 day of glory and happiness has recompensed 
 me for all my long sufferings.' (Cagliostro 
 is alluding to his triumph after being 
 acquitted by the Parlement.) * Invited, 
 desired, regretted everywhere, I had 
 chosen for my habitation the land wherein 
 you dwell ; I had done there all the 
 good that my fortune and talents per- 
 mitted me to do. Strasburg, Lyons, 
 Paris, you all bear witness of me to the 
 universe ! You will say if ever I offended 
 the least of your inhabitants ! You will 
 say if religion, good government, and law 
 were not always sacred to me ; and yet 
 the voice of my enemies has prevailed. 
 They have deceived a king ; a letter of 
 
20 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 exile, and indefinite exile, is my reward. 
 I am driven from France ! Dwellers in 
 that happy country, people of amiable 
 manners and tender hearts, receive the 
 adieux of an unfortunate man worthy per- 
 haps of your esteem and your regrets. 
 
 * He has gone, but his heart remains 
 with you. Whatever region he inhabits, 
 believe that he will constantly show him- 
 self the friend of the French name ; happy, 
 if the woes he experienced in your country 
 fall on himself alone ! ' 
 
 * The public,' says Hardy, * devoured 
 the Count de Cagliostro's memorial, which 
 had been printed in sufficient quantities to 
 satisfy their avidity.' 
 
 Now it happened that at this time 
 
 Latude, released from prison, was filling 
 
 France with tales of his long martyrdom ; 
 
 , and Linguet's pamphlet against the Bastille, 
 
 ' with that of Mirabeau against arbitrary 
 
LITIGATION 21 
 
 orders, were creating a formidable stir. 
 Nowadays we know what exaggerations 
 and lies these writings contained ; but the 
 populace in their unhappy state of dread 
 eagerly swallowed them. The Marquis de 
 Launey was governor of the Bastille, and 
 the Commissary Chesnon was the officer 
 responsible for carrying into effect the 
 lettres de cachet. ' We remember,' said 
 Chesnon in his answer to Cagliostro's 
 accusations, * the terrible effect his memorial 
 made among the public. It had the same 
 effect throughout Europe. The retailing of 
 it brought sedition nearer.' Cagliostro for 
 his part, in a letter to the English people 
 issued shortly afterwards, remarked with 
 pride : * My indictment against Chesnon 
 and de Launey appeared. It made on all 
 minds an impression that still endures, and 
 will always endure whatever may happen, 
 because the truth is ineffaceable.' 
 
22 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 III 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 
 
 The king relegated the matter to the 
 Council of Despatches, and appointed a 
 commission consisting of La Michodiere, 
 Abbe of Radonvilliers, Vidaud de Latour 
 and Lambert, Councillors of State. The 
 public raised new protests. Why not the 
 Chatelet, to which Cagliostro had appealed ? 
 Why not the regular tribunals? They 
 were afraid of the light of day, and wanted 
 closed doors ! Hardy explains this attitude : 
 ' The fact is that de Launey and Chesnon 
 were absolutely identified with what was 
 called the administration, an expression so 
 important that woe betide any one who 
 had to combat it ! ' 
 
THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 23 
 
 A thousand rumours ran through the 
 city. Some said that Cagliostro was re- 
 turning to France to defend his cause, at 
 the invitation of the king, who had offered 
 him a safe-conduct. * No,' repUed others : 
 'the Sieur de Cagliostro has taken the 
 fixed determination not to trust to the fine 
 declarations of the French ministry, of 
 which he has once been the dupe in a 
 way that he will remember all his life, 
 however long that may be — and never- 
 more to return to the bosom of a nation 
 which he loves, but whose despotic govern- 
 ment he abhors.' This party affirmed that 
 the government, to hush the matter up, 
 had restored the greater part of his goods 
 and money ; and the former party that 
 Cagliostro had just withdrawn his petition, 
 * refusing to continue his case before the 
 Council of Despatches, which he did not ' 
 regard as a legal tribunal, but merely as a 
 royal commission.' 
 
24 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Launey and Chesnon filed dignified 
 answers, showing the regularity of their pro- 
 ceedings. The ofificial reports were duly 
 drawn up, proving that all the customary 
 formalities had been observed. Madame 
 de Cagliostro had signed a receipt for all 
 the effects she had deposited in the Bastille. 
 Launey added : ' The Sieur de Cagliostro 
 demands the restoration of a sum of 100,000 
 livres found in his desk. Justice will pay 
 the less credence to his statement, when 
 it sees from the documents deposited in 
 the Bastille, and written in his own hand- 
 writing, that he was constantly occupied 
 in imploring charity and generosity from 
 his friends ; that he was continually levying 
 contributions upon them, and that when he 
 spoke of his desk, nothing was further from 
 his thoughts than considerable sums and 
 precious objects.' 
 
 Chesnon spoke more strongly. * It is a 
 sad thing for decency — I will say more, for 
 
THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 25 
 
 the public security, that calumny is so easily 
 diffused ; it is a sad thing that a mere 
 signature, most often borrowed by a writer 
 who would not dare acknowledge what he 
 has written, should without difficulty be- 
 come the passport of a false libel : copies 
 of it are multiplied in proportion as these 
 bold pens have spread malice, spite, and 
 gall ; curiosity snatches at them, cupidity 
 puts them up for sale, and the documents 
 which the law only allows to be printed for 
 the information of the judges have become 
 for some time past a shameful object of 
 trade and speculation. The blow falls 
 unforeseen, and though the wound made 
 by calumny will be healed, the scar will 
 remain.' 
 
 On July 14, 1787, the Committee of 
 Councillors of State reported to the Council 
 of Despatches in favour of the rejection of J 
 Cagliostro's plea. Thus the governor of the 
 Bastille and the Chdtelet commissary were 
 
26 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 completely exonerated. The scandal of the 
 sale of documents during the course of the 
 Necklace case had, however, been so great, 
 and the torrent of calumnies and slanders 
 spread by Madame de La Motte and Cagli- 
 ostro so atrocious, that Vidaud de Latour, 
 Director-General of Bookselling, along 
 with the Keeper of the Seals, Hue de 
 Miromesnil, determined to put vigorously 
 in force by a decree of September 17, 
 ^1787, the prohibitions against selling 'any 
 memoir, pleading, consultation, abstract, 
 reply, or other documents drawn up in 
 cases pending before the courts.' This 
 decision was at once notified to the book- 
 sellers and printers of Paris, by a circular 
 from the syndics and aldermen in charge 
 of the community. 
 
 Those who in our time vilify with such 
 ready eloquence the coercive measures 
 adopted towards the press under the ancien 
 
THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 27 
 
 rdgime do not know, or perhaps forget, in 
 what conditions calumny and slander were 
 then spread. 
 
 In our time the press is its own con- 
 servator and physician. Suppose some one 
 were nowadays to put forth against the 
 Government one of those innumerable 
 calumnies which in the last year of the 
 ancien rdgime were daily displayed in news- 
 letters, gazettes, handbills, and various 
 brochures and pamphlets ; an official agency 
 would instantly circulate a correction among 
 the journals, and next day all France would 
 know what the Ministry declared to be the 
 truth. But at the period with which we 
 are dealing, the press agencies did not 
 exist. Calumny displayed itself in all 
 security, without fear of a contradiction, 
 and certain of finding credence. On the 
 Bastille and the prisoners, the lettres de 
 cachet, the control of the finances, the king 
 and queen, the morals of the court, the 
 
28 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 clergy, the nobility, and soon on the Parle- 
 ment itself, on the heads of Parisian 
 industry, on all that represented a tradi- 
 tion or an authority, a respect or a belief, 
 the most unlikely and absurd stories were 
 disseminated ; they found attentive and 
 hospitable ears, and mouths clever enough 
 to carry them into the minds of the most 
 intelligent, and these repeated them in 
 their turn, strengthening them with their 
 authority. This was the prelude to the 
 Revolution. 
 
 'Calumny,' Don Bazile-^ was saying at 
 this very moment, — 'there is no piece of 
 dull malice, no horror, no absurd tale, but 
 people get adopted if they take the trouble. 
 First a gentle rumour, skimming the soil 
 like a swallow before the storm. Pianissimo 
 — the poisoned arrow murmurs and whizzes 
 along, dropping its venom as it flies. 
 Some mouth or other receives it, and then 
 
 ^ In Beaumarchais' Marriage of Figaro. 
 
THE ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 29 
 
 piano, piano, cleverly drops it into your ear. 
 The mischief is done; the seed springs up, 
 the plant grows and spreads insidiously, 
 and, rinforzando, it plays the very devil 
 from mouth to mouth ; then, all at once, 
 goodness knows how, you see calumny 
 rearing its head, hissing, swelling itself 
 out, getting bigger as you watch. It darts 
 on, extends its flight, whirls round, envelops 
 everything, drags men aft-er it, bursts out 
 like thunder, and becomes a general outcry, 
 a public crescendo^ a universal chorus of 
 hate and proscription. Who in the world 
 could resist it ? ' 
 
 A Cagliostro attacked a minister or his 
 agents : the sale of his precious productions 
 almost provoked riots. Yet the king had, 
 in the drawers of the lieutenant-general of 
 police, all the facts necessary to undeceive 
 the public. But how could he communicate 
 them to the people } To-day we have in-__ 
 numerable agencies besides the active pens 
 
30 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 of journalists ; in those days there was 
 nothing, nothing but the confidence of the 
 people in the king, their good sense, their 
 attachment to the crown. A fine thing 
 to be king ! 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 31 
 
 IV 
 
 GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 
 
 If only Breteuil had been able to bring to 
 the knowledge of the public the collection 
 of documents made by commissary Fontaine, 
 Cagliostro would doubtless not have found 
 such ardent admirers. Fontaine had dis- 
 covered — and the documents collected later 
 on by the Inquisition at Rome confirmed 
 his researches in all particulars — that the 
 illustrious prophet, who had once con- 
 versed with Christ beneath the shade of 
 the olives, was born at Palermo on June 8, 
 1 743. H is real name was Giuseppe Balsamo, ^ 
 and he was the son of Pietro Balsamo and 
 of Felice Braconieri his wife. His father, 
 of Jewish extraction, was a bankrupt trades-^ 
 
32 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 man of Palermo, and died at the age of 
 forty-five. His widowed mother had lived 
 with her son Giuseppe and a daughter named 
 Joanna Maria. In 1758, when fifteen 
 years old, Giuseppe Balsamo had donned the 
 costume of the Brothers of the Misericordia, 
 whose mission it was to attend the sick; 
 but he had remained only a short time in 
 their order, picking up with them, however, 
 the elements of pharmacy. 
 
 In Sicily, no less than in France, the 
 quest of treasure had been all the rage a 
 century before. Young Balsamo became 
 a treasure-seeker. He was a clever youth, 
 and got a rich goldsmith of Palermo, one 
 Marano, to believe that there lay in a 
 grotto in the heart of the country an 
 immense treasure, of which he would make 
 him the owner. Marano gave him two 
 hundred ounces of gold. A meeting at 
 the spot was arranged. It was a fine 
 moonlight night. Balsamo began his in- 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 33 
 
 cantations. All at once a band of demons, 
 clothed in deep black, appeared, fell on 
 Marano, and gave him a sound thrashing. 
 The good man was cudgelled and robbed. 
 As ill-luck would have it, Balsamo could not 
 keep this remarkable stroke of business to 
 himself; the result was that the goldsmith 
 learned how he had been tricked, and hired 
 ruffians to assassinate the young magician, 
 who in all haste fled to Calabria with two 
 of his associates, a priest and a servant. 
 But these two had so well learnt their part 
 of spirit-rappers that, once in Calabria, they 
 belaboured Balsamo and took Marano's 
 money from him. And Balsamo, thus in 
 his turn robbed and beaten, reached Rome 
 in 1760 utterly destitute. ® \^> 
 
 The wonders of the Eternal City acted "^ 
 as an inspiration. He learnt drawing, and 
 very soon acquired a surprising facility. 
 His was a copyist's talent, for he had none 
 of the gifts of the creative artist. He 
 
 c 
 
34 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 copied on old paper, with special inks, the 
 etchings of Rembrandt, so cleverly that it 
 was impossible to distinguish the original 
 from the reproduction. He imitated hand- 
 writings with amazing success, and attained 
 a real perfection in the art of forging wills, 
 which compelled him more than once to 
 decamp hurriedly from the place he had 
 . settled in. He made pen-drawings for great 
 Roman lords, and for Cardinal Orsini, who 
 honoured him with his protection; but his 
 fortune remained only moderate. Love 
 consoled him for his poverty. In Pellegrini 
 Street, in the workshop of a batadore — that 
 is, a smelter of copper for carriage orna- 
 ments — he was touched by the sweet and 
 tender grace of a girl named Lorenza 
 Feliciani. Lorenza's eyes seemed like the 
 transparent shadows of deep water, her 
 waving tresses had the colour of ripe corn, 
 and her lips were gleaming red, like cherries 
 in June. 
 
MADAME DE CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 35 
 
 She was just entering her fifteenth year. 
 
 And there were meetings at the house 
 of an old NeapoHtan woman hard by the 
 smelter's workshop. Balsamo was wonder- 
 fully eloquent, and the child drank in his 
 words, gazing at him with her big limpid 
 eyes. The father thought the girl too 
 young ; but the child declared that she 
 would marry Balsamo or die. Her father 
 gave way, and the marriage was celebrated 
 in April 1769, at the parish church of San 
 Salvador in Campo. 
 
 Balsamo's drawings did not provide a 
 sufficient income for the young couple. A 
 Sicilian marquis persuaded him to go to 
 Germany, promising to obtain for him a 
 captain s commission in the service of the 
 King of Prussia, and to employ him in 
 the meantime as his Italian secretary. 
 Donna Lorenza, as we know from contem- 
 porary evidence, was 'one of the beauties 
 of Europe.' Her complexion was of un- 
 
36 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 surpassable purity, her expression was full 
 of grace and sweetness. Balsamo and his 
 wife went, then, to Loretto, thence to Berg 
 in the state of Venice, where they got into 
 hot water with the police in regard to some 
 letters that the Sicilian marquis had forged 
 in conjunction with Balsamo. 
 
 Goethe tells the story of the incident. 
 The forged documents were intended to 
 be used in an important lawsuit concerning 
 the succession to an estate in which the 
 Sicilian was interested. Balsamo was flung 
 into prison. Boiling with rage, the marquis 
 hastened to the president of the court, in 
 whose anteroom he found the advocate 
 of the opposite party. He began a dis- 
 cussion with him, seized him by the throat, 
 knocked him down, and stamped on him. 
 The noise brought the president from his 
 study. He was a weak man, says Goethe, 
 easily influenced by stronger minds. The 
 advocate was reduced to a state of terror 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 37 
 
 by the ill-treatment he had received. The 
 upshot was that Balsamo was set at liberty, 
 without any formalities, says Goethe, with- 
 out even any mention being made of his 
 liberation in the register of the jail. But 
 it was necessary that he should seek other 
 climes. After selling their effects, Balsamo 
 and his wife arrived at Milan almost 
 destitute, and proceeded to Genoa, whence 
 they resolved to go and seek their fortune 
 in Spain. 
 
 Casanova met the young couple in 1770, 
 as they passed through Aix in Provence. 
 They were dressed as pilgrims. ' They 
 could not but be people of high birth,' he 
 says, 'since on arriving at the town they 
 distributed alms widely. The female pil- 
 grim was, it was said, charming, and quite 
 young ; but she was tired out, and went to 
 bed at once.' ^ 
 
 Next day, Casanova solicited the honour 
 of an audience. He was lodging in the 
 
38 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 same inn. *We found the female pilgrim 
 seated in a chair, looking like a person 
 exhausted with fatigue, and interesting by 
 reason of her youth and beauty, singularly 
 heightened by a touch of melancholy, and 
 by a crucifix of yellow metal, six inches 
 long, which she held in her hands. Her 
 companion, who was arranging shells on his 
 cloak of black baize, made no movement ; 
 he appeared to tell us, by the looks he 
 cast on his wife, that we were to attend to 
 her alone.' 
 
 *We are going on foot,' said Lorenza, 
 Miving on charity, the better to obtain the 
 mercy of God, whom I have so often 
 offended. Though I ask only a sou in 
 charity, people always give me pieces of 
 silver and even gold, so that on arriving 
 at a town we have to distribute to the poor 
 all that remains to us, in order not to 
 commit the sin of losing confidence in 
 Eternal Providence.' 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 39 
 
 * This young woman,' adds Casanova, ' far 
 from flaunting the airs of libertinage, had all 
 the outward bearing of virtue. Invited to 
 write her name on a lottery ticket, she 
 excused herself, saying that at Rome girls 
 were not taught to write if they were to 
 be bred up to virtue and honour. Every 
 one laughed at this excuse but myself, and 
 I felt certain then that she belonged to the 
 lowest classes of the people.' 
 
 They came at length to Barcelona, where 
 Balsamo worked for the viceroy. But after 
 four months they were obliged to leave the 
 town * because the viceroy,' says Lorenza, 
 * had taken a fancy for me, wanted to amuse 
 himself with me, and when I repulsed him, 
 conceived much ill-humour against us and 
 wanted to vex us and to have me arrested, 
 under the pretext that I was not married.' 
 They went on to Madrid, where they spent 
 the year 1771, Balsamo working for the 
 Duke of Alva. They there made the 
 
40 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 acquaintance of another Sicilian who also 
 played them tricks, which compelled them 
 to depart for Lisbon ; but the young woman 
 being unable to endure the climate of that 
 city, they betook themselves to London 
 in 1772. 
 
 In London, Balsamo set up as a painter. 
 He joined a certain Pergolesi, a designer 
 of Compton Street, but was not long in 
 falling out with him. He lodged in the 
 same street as a turner. * He hadn't a 
 crown of his own,' wrote a French officer 
 who knew him in those days, 'got drunk 
 constantly, beat his wife, and had the style 
 and the manners of a clown.' 
 
 At this period Balsamo made the acquaint- 
 ance of a third Sicilian who went by the 
 name of the 'Marquis of Vivona.' They 
 were both received into the austere fellow- 
 ship of a congregation of quakers. At the 
 fine eyes of Lorenza, the austerity of one 
 of these quakers melted away like the 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 41 
 
 morning haze in the sunbeam. It was 
 agreed between Balsamo and Vivona that 
 Lorenza should arrange a meeting with 
 the quaker. He appeared at the appointed 
 hour, and the conversation grew so warm 
 that the quaker had stripped off his hat 
 and wig and coat — when Lorenza gave a 
 scream, the door flew open, and the out- 
 raged husband burst in, with Vivona as a 
 witness : and the quaker had permission to 
 retire, after signing a note for a hundred 
 pounds sterling. 
 
 With all his hundred pounds, Balsamo 
 was not long after thrown into prison for 
 debt. An English lord, whom Lorenza 
 calls by the extraordinary name of Sir 
 Dehels, procured his liberation, and took 
 him and his wife to a country house of his 
 near Canterbury, where Balsamo was to 
 decorate the walls with frescoes. The 
 frescoes were so original, and so amazing, 
 that Balsamo thought it prudent to decamp, 
 
42 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 and went with his wife to Paris to seek a 
 fortune. But before taking the road, he 
 ennobled himself, becoming the Marquis 
 of Balsamo. 
 
 We are now at the close of the year 
 1772. The journey to Paris has been 
 related by the fair Lorenza herself. * On 
 the passage to France,' she says, ' we made 
 acquaintance with M. Duplessis, the steward 
 of the Marquis de Prie, who showed us both 
 all kinds of civilities. And when M. Bal- 
 samo showed him some of his works, he 
 appeared surprised. "You will make your 
 fortune in Paris," he said. ** I am an advo- 
 cate at the Parlement, and know many 
 lords ; don't distress yourself, I '11 present 
 you to the king. You won't have to go 
 on your travels again. Your wife is very 
 pleasant, very pretty, very charming. I '11 
 do all I can to set you up in Paris." ' 
 
 Arrived at Calais, Lorenza confessed to 
 M. Duplessis, who was showing her more 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 43 
 
 and more attention, that she would have 
 to remain at the port, having no money to 
 continue her journey. 
 
 * Whereupon M. Duplessis made me all 
 sorts of friendly promises, offering to drive 
 me in his chaise to Paris. 
 
 * "And my husband? " I said. 
 
 '''Can't he wait a little at Calais? He 
 will come on later.'" 
 
 Lorenza, who knew the ropes, indignantly 
 rejected this amazing proposition. At last 
 it was agreed that she should join M. 
 Duplessis in a postchaise he had hired, 
 while her husband followed on horseback : 
 fresh air and exercise could not fail to do 
 him good. 
 
 Delightful journey ! The Marquis of 
 Balsamo admired nature in her autumn 
 glory. The woods had put on their dress 
 of russet brown. The birches and aspens 
 had foliage of citron yellow, standing out 
 vividly against the reddish brown of the 
 
44 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 sturdier oaks. On the horizon, where fine 
 white transparent vapours rose thinly into 
 the sky, the woods were lost in the autumn 
 mist. But, snug in the rolling postchaise, 
 the windows closed — for the air was already 
 cold, and the young woman had a delicate 
 throat — the donna Lorenza sat by M. 
 Duplessis' side ; while Balsamo, now riding 
 ahead, now behind or level with the 
 carriage, galloped on in superb joyousness. 
 He would sing snatches of Italian songs 
 in his powerful voice, the sonorous notes 
 swelling far into the echoless distance : and 
 meanwhile, inside the closed carriage, M. 
 Duplessis was whispering to Lorenza: 'You 
 have stolen my heart away. I love you. 
 You are young and beautiful ; your skin is 
 sweet and exhales a penetrating fragrance. 
 My happiness is in your keeping. I make 
 myself responsible for your fortune. I 
 will never abandon you. When we are 
 in Paris, I will get a place for Balsamo. 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 45 
 
 I will assure his happiness also. I will 
 give him a hundred louis to take a trip 
 to Rome.' 
 
 * Thus tormented against my will,' con- 
 tinues Lorenza, * I was several times tempted 
 to stop and leave M. Duplessis, in order to 
 escape the solicitations and even the actual 
 violence he showed me in the carriage, as 
 evidence of his love ; but knowing the 
 irritable and fiery nature of my husband, 
 I feared to inform him of what was going 
 on by refusing to continue the journey, and 
 we reached Paris in the morning.' 
 
 The same day, Duplessis lodged his 
 travelling companions in the mansion of 
 the Marquise de Prie, and in the evening, 
 with the consent of Balsamo, who went to 
 bed tired out with his journey, he took his 
 wife to the opera. 
 
 * These attentions,' says Lorenza, * lasted 
 for six weeks or two months, and I cannot 
 refrain from declaring that the generous 
 
46 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 treatment of M. Duplessis, the tenderness 
 he showed for me, his amorous expressions, 
 his promises, made me conceive some kind- 
 ness for him, all the more because my 
 husband sometimes vexed me with his ill- 
 temper and jealousy.' 
 
 Duplessis frequently invited the Balsamos 
 to dinner. One Sunday evening, after des- 
 sert, Balsamo went off to pay a visit to one 
 Mercuroz, an apothecary, leaving his wife 
 and his host tete-a-tete \ 'because,' notes 
 Lorenza, 'my husband, though jealous, had 
 confidence in me.' 
 
 Balsamo returned on the stroke of mid- 
 night. He had spent a delightful evening 
 with his friend the apothecary. The wine 
 had been wine of Samos, which had put the 
 apothecary into an excellent temper ; on 
 this evening, no doubt, Balsamo had been 
 the happiest of the three. 
 
 * From that time,' continues Lorenza, 
 ' M. Duplessis showed me, every time he 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 47 
 
 met me alone, that he was jealous of my 
 husband. He gave me to understand that 
 I must separate from him, which wives in 
 France were at liberty to do.' 
 
 The result was that apartments were 
 taken for Lorenza by M. Duplessis with 
 a woman named Theron, in the Rue Saint 
 Honore. But this did not at all suit 
 Balsamo's book. His confidence in his 
 wife did not reconcile him to being deprived 
 of the advantages which his authority as 
 husband, going at the right moment on a 
 visit to the apothecary, was capable of 
 obtaining for him. In January 1773 ^^ 
 laid an information before the lieutenant-"' 
 general of police, and on February 2 the 
 pretty Lorenza was ignominiously locked 
 up at Sainte-Pelagie, along with many 
 other women, all learning there in what way 
 ladies in France were free to separate from 
 their husbands. 
 
 In 1775, Balsamo turns up at Naples, 
 
48 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 living in lordly style. His name is now 
 the Marquis Pellegrino. It was in Pelle- 
 grini Street, it will be remembered, that 
 he had met Lorenza six years before. 
 He had a valet named Laroca, ' who had 
 made himself famous by his adventures, 
 and though really a perruquier, had himself 
 played the marquis at Turin.' The Marquis 
 Pellegrino taught how to make gold, how 
 to change hemp into silk, and how to 
 solidify mercury. From Naples he went 
 with his wife to Malta, whence he returned 
 to Naples with the chevalier of Acquino. 
 ^ The year 1776 is the date of his second 
 journey to London, where Balsamo took 
 for the first time the name, since become 
 ^ so famous, of the Count de Cagliostro. 
 This name was not absolutely imaginary. 
 It was the name of one of his maternal 
 great-uncles, originally of the little town of 
 La Noava, eight leagues from Messina, 
 who had been the factor of the prince of 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 49 
 
 Villafranca. Cagliostro then set up as an 
 astrologer, and claimed to have succeeded, 
 with the assistance of the stars, in reducing 
 to a certainty the chances of winning in 
 lotteries. He had a lawsuit with a lady of 
 Chelsea named Fry, who accused him of 
 purloining a necklace, and got him shut up in 
 the King's Bench prison. Necklaces were 
 evidently fated to bring him misfortune. 
 Cagliostro said that the lady had given 
 him the jewellery in reward for the accuracy 
 of his forecasts in lotteries, but the lady 
 declared that she had intrusted it to him 
 because he had said that he could turn 
 the small diamonds into large ones. The 
 astrologer was ordered to give back the 
 necklace. After a stay of six months in 
 London, he took his departure. He left 
 in his rooms a large portmanteau, filled, 
 according to his own statement, with costly 
 possessions. It was empty. 
 
 In 1779, Cagliostro made his fantastic 
 
 D 
 
50 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 journey to Russia and Poland. The 
 details of his marvellous performances and 
 swindling tricks assume such proportions 
 that it is impossible to credit them. 
 
 Early in 1 780 the prophet arrived at Stras- 
 burg, clothed, as it were, in his mysterious 
 reputation. He distributed drugs to the 
 people who crowded into his house. At 
 Strasburg, where he became acquainted 
 with the Cardinal de Rohan, he remained 
 three years and a half In the middle 
 of 1783, he travelled to Rome, Naples, 
 Florence, Antibes. On December i, 1783, 
 he set up as a physician at Bordeaux. His 
 cures were regarded as miraculous. The 
 police were obliged to undertake the pro- 
 tection of his house, to avoid disturbances 
 among the crowds who thronged to it. On 
 his consulting days, eight or ten soldiers 
 v/ mounted guard at the door and on the 
 staircase. On November i, 1784, he is at 
 Lyons, busied there more especially with 
 
GIUSEPPE BALSAMO 51 
 
 the organisation of masonic lodges. The 
 mother lodge was founded at Lyons, and 
 in a few months daughter lodges were 
 swarming throughout France. On January 
 30, 1785, Cagliostro arrived in Paris: the 
 negotiations for the Necklace had com- 
 menced. 
 
 Whence did he draw his resources at 
 this period ? On the one hand, from his 
 Egyptian lodges, organised almost every- 
 where, each of which paid subscriptions 
 contributing to his subsistence ; on the 
 other hand, from the Cardinal de Rohan. . 
 
 * I remember,' says a manuscript note 
 signed Rheinbold, written on a copy of 
 Cagliostro s Letter to the English People, 
 once in the possession of Xavier Marmier — 
 
 * I remember that before the Necklace case, 
 when the Cardinal de Rohan made his last 
 journey to Strasburg, he sent him by one 
 of his people a bag of 1200 to 1800 livres, 
 and that Cagliostro, to give a gratuity to 
 
52 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the messenger, borrowed twelve livres from 
 his host's cook, so destitute was he of 
 money.' His wealth was thus more ap- 
 parent than real. He cut a dash by a 
 prodigious display of diamonds and jewels, 
 — which were false. 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 53 
 
 V 
 
 A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 
 
 As we have seen, Cagliostro, exiled from 
 France after his acquittal by the Parlement, 
 embarked for England on June 16. 
 
 While our hero was basking for the third 
 time on the banks of Thames, Goethe, then 
 travelling in Italy, came upon his family at 
 Palermo. * A little before the end of my 
 journey,' notes the great writer under date 
 April 13, 1787, *an interesting adventure 
 happened to me. During my stay at 
 Palermo, I had often heard Cagliostro 
 talked about at table, and stories told of 
 him. The Palermites were all agreed on 
 one point, to wit, that the mysterious 
 personage was no other than a certain 
 
54 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Giuseppe Balsamo, who, after more than 
 one piece of scoundrelism, had been driven 
 from the town. He was recognised in the 
 published portraits. I learnt thus that a 
 jurist of Palermo, at the request of the 
 French Ministry, had made inquiries into 
 the origin of this man, who had had the 
 audacity, in the course of a grave and 
 momentous trial, to retail the most absurd 
 fables in the tace of all France — one may 
 say, of the whole world. 
 
 ' I asked to be introduced to the man of 
 law, and was presented to him. He showed 
 me the genealogical tree, drawn out by him, 
 of the family to which Cagliostro belonged, 
 and the notes and documents which had 
 assisted him to compile a memoir, which he 
 had just sent to France.' After perusing 
 these, Goethe expressed the desire to be 
 presented to Balsamo's mother and sister, 
 who were living in the town. ' That will 
 be difficult,' replied the lawyer, 'for they 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 55 
 
 are poor people and live a very retired 
 life ; a visitor would scare them.' But 
 Goethe insisted, and at last the lawyer 
 offered the assistance of his secretary, who 
 knew the family personally. Goethe saw 
 the secretary, and it was arranged that the 
 visitor should pass as an Englishman 
 bringing from London, where Cagliostro 
 had taken refuge, news of him to his family. 
 The house inhabited by the Balsamos was 
 hidden away in the corner of an alley, not 
 far from the principal street, il Casaro, 
 Goethe, accompanied by the secretary, 
 climbed a wretched staircase, which led 
 straight into the kitchen. A woman of 
 middle height, apparently very robust, 
 broad-chested without being stout, was 
 washing dishes. She was neatly dressed, 
 and, when she perceived her visitors, raised 
 the corner of her apron so as to conceal 
 its dirty side. Her eyes beamed a glad 
 welcome, and addressing the secretary, she 
 
56 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 said, * Signer Giovanni, do you bring good 
 news ? Have you succeeded ? ' She 
 alluded to some trifling business in which 
 she was interested, and which the secretary 
 had undertaken to manage for her. 
 
 * I haven't yet succeeded,' was the reply, 
 * but here is a friend of your brother's, who 
 can tell you how he is just now.' 
 
 ' You know my brother ? ' she asked, 
 turning to Goethe. 
 
 'All Europe knows him,' replied the 
 visitor, 'and no doubt you will be pleased 
 to hear that he is for the present in perfect 
 safety, and his health is excellent.' 
 
 'Come in,' she said, 'I will be with you 
 immediately.' 
 
 The visitors went into a large and lofty 
 room, which seemed to serve as lodging for 
 the entire family. There was one window. 
 The walls, still bearing traces of the paint 
 that formerly covered them, were adorned 
 with a number of religious pictures, portraits 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 57 
 
 of saints, all black in their gilt frames. 
 Two large curtainless beds stood on one side; 
 opposite them, a small brown cupboard 
 like a writing-desk. The straw-chairs 
 had had their backs gilded, and the gilt 
 still shone here and there. The flooring 
 had given way in several places. But 
 everything was spotlessly clean. The 
 visitors approached the family grouped 
 around the window on the further side of 
 the room. 
 
 While the secretary was bawling into the 
 ear of Cagliostro's old mother, who was very 
 deaf, an explanation of the stranger's visit, 
 Goethe was taking stock of the persons and 
 things around him. A girl of sixteen, 
 comely, but marked with smallpox, was 
 leaning at the window ; near her a lad was 
 stooping, his face not less pitted. On the 
 other side of the window, extended on a 
 long chair, was a person who seemed over- 
 come with languor. 
 
58 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 *We sat down,' says Goethe. 'The old 
 woman addressed a few questions to me 
 which I got my companion to translate, for 
 she expressed herself in the pure Sicilian 
 dialect. While she was speaking, I watched 
 the old woman with pleasure. She was of 
 middle height, but well formed. Her 
 features were regular, and age had respected 
 their pure and firm outlines. Her expression 
 had that serenity which is usually found in 
 deaf people. The tone of her voice was 
 low and pleasant.' Goethe told her that her 
 son had just been acquitted by the French 
 courts, and was then in England, where he 
 had been well received. ' Her replies were 
 exclamations of joy, mingled with pious 
 words that were very touching. And as 
 she then spoke more slowly, I could almost 
 understand her.' Meanwhile her daughter, 
 Cagliostro's sister, the woman they had 
 found washing the dishes, had re-entered. 
 She sat down beside the secretary, getting 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 59 
 
 him to repeat what the stranger said. She 
 had put on a clean apron, and carefully 
 arranged her hair in a net. She seemed of 
 a happy disposition, lively, and in robust 
 health. I should take her age to be forty. 
 Her blue and cheerful eyes gave a quick 
 wide-awake glance around, without the 
 least perceptible shade of mistrust. Seated, 
 she appeared taller than when she was 
 standing. She sat on her chair, her body 
 bent slightly forward, and her hands on her 
 knees. ' She closely resembled Cagliostro,' 
 adds Goethe, 'as he is represented in the 
 engravings that are so common. She 
 questioned me on my plans for making 
 excursions in Sicily, and told me that I 
 must certainly return to Palermo to join 
 them in the festival of St. Rosalia.' 
 
 Goethe resumed his conversation with 
 the mother, while the daughter talked to the 
 secretary. The latter said that her brother 
 still owed her for purchases she had made 
 
6o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 for him before he left Palermo. As he was 
 now in possession of such great treasure, he 
 must be able to return the money ; and she 
 asked the stranger to take charge of a letter 
 for him. For her situation was precarious. 
 She was a widow with three children ; one 
 daughter was being brought up in a con- 
 vent, another daughter was at home, and a 
 son was at present at school. She had her 
 mother also with her, and was also saddled 
 with the poor sick woman lying on the long 
 chair. And in spite of all her industry, she 
 found it very difficult to meet such obliga- 
 tions. * To be sure,' she said in conclusion, 
 ' God will not let my efforts go unrewarded, 
 but the burden is too heavy, and I have 
 borne it too long.' 
 
 The young people took part in the con- 
 versation, which had become animated. 
 Goethe heard the old woman ask her 
 daughter : ' Does he follow our holy 
 religion ? ' And the younger woman 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 6i 
 
 tactfully replied : ' The stranger seems well 
 disposed to us, and it would hardly be polite 
 to ask him that question so soon.' 
 
 And when the good people learnt that 
 Goethe was soon to leave Palermo, they 
 became pressing in their entreaties that he 
 would return and spend with them the feast 
 of St. Rosalia, the patron saint of the town. 
 He would see in Palermo on that day 
 unequalled splendours. The visitor took 
 leave, with the promise to come back next 
 day for the letter which Cagliostro's sister 
 was to write to her brother. * And I came 
 away,' says Goethe, 'profoundly impressed 
 with this pious and quiet family.' 
 
 Next day, after dinner, he returned alone. 
 His appearance provoked surprise. The 
 letter was not yet finished. * Besides,' 
 added the kindly folk, * several of our 
 relatives wish to make your acquaintance.' 
 But Goethe assured them that he could not 
 defer his departure for more than one day. 
 
62 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 At this moment entered the son, whom the 
 visitors had not seen on the former occasion. 
 He held in his hand the letter for Cagliostro, 
 which he had just fetched from the public 
 scribe, whom it was the custom of the 
 country to employ in such matters. The 
 lad had a quiet manner, marked with 
 reserve and melancholy. He spoke of his 
 uncle, his wealth, his large expenditure, 
 adding sadly : * Why does he desert his 
 family thus ? It would be our greatest joy 
 to see him back for a little at Palermo, 
 showing some interest in us. And people 
 say that he everywhere disowns us, posing 
 as a lord of illustrious birth.' 
 
 The girl came in. She had lost the 
 timidity of the previous evening, spoke of 
 her uncle, gave the visitor many messages 
 for him, and pressed Goethe to return to 
 Palermo for the festival of St. Rosalia. 
 The mother was as pressing as her children. 
 * Though it is not the proper thing for me 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 63 
 
 to entertain strange men,' she said, 'since 
 I have a daughter growing up and we 
 have good reasons for guarding against 
 scandal as well as actual peril, I must 
 say that you will always be very wel- 
 come among us when you return to the 
 town.' 
 
 * Yes, indeed ! ' cried the young people : 
 * we will take Signor everywhere during the 
 festival, and show him everything. We '11 
 sit in the best places for seeing and admir- 
 ing the procession. How delighted Signor 
 will be when he sees the great car, and 
 especially the illuminations ! ' 
 
 Meanwhile the old woman had finished 
 reading the letter for Cagliostro. She 
 handed it to Goethe, saying : ' Tell my son 
 how glad I was to have news of him ; tell 
 him that I press him to my heart ' — and the 
 good creature extended her arms and folded 
 them across her bosom. * Every day I 
 pray God and the Blessed Virgin for him. 
 
64 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 I send my blessing to him and his wife, and 
 have only one desire — to see him once more 
 before my death, with these eyes which 
 have shed so many tears for him.' 
 
 In reporting these words Goethe remarks 
 that they were rendered doubly impressive 
 by the peculiar grace of the Italian tongue 
 and the vivacity of the Sicilian dialect. 
 * And I left these good folk,' he adds, 'with 
 a full heart. All hands were stretched 
 towards me, and as I went down the stairs, 
 the children rushed to the balcony running 
 along in front of the window on the street. 
 Thence they still called out to me, with 
 joyous salutations, not to forget to come 
 back. I reached the corner of the street, 
 and for the last time saw them waving their 
 hands to me.' 
 
 Goethe, who never saw the Balsamo 
 family again, had an idea of sending them, 
 before he left Palermo, the money owed by 
 Cagliostro, justifying the gift by alleging 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 65 
 
 that the debtor would doubtless reimburse 
 him on his return to London. But on ex- 
 amining his purse, he found that his funds 
 were running low; and remembering that he 
 had arranged to penetrate into the interior 
 of Sicily, where the communications were 
 very difficult, he was afraid of leaving him- 
 self penniless. 
 
 One wonders whether the poor good 
 people, who put so much faith in the fortune 
 of their absent relative, ever learnt the 
 sequel of his adventures. Cagliostro fled 
 from London in April 1787, driven away by 
 his scandalous squabbles with the Courrier 
 de l' Europe, which was published there. 
 We can trace him to Basle, to Bienne in 
 Switzerland, where he lived on a pension 
 given him by one Sarrazin ; thence to 
 Aix in Savoy, Turin, Genoa, Verona, and 
 finally to Rome, where he was arrested on 
 December 27, 1789, by the sbirri of the J 
 Holy Office. He had just addressed a 
 
 E 
 
66 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 petition to the National Assembly asking to 
 be allowed to return to France. Thrown 
 Hnto the fortress of St. Angelo, he was tried 
 as a freemason and condemned to death. 
 His penalty was commuted by the Pope to 
 perpetual imprisonment. While his wife, 
 the pretty Donna Lorenza, was shut up in 
 the convent of St. Apollinia, he himself was 
 incarcerated in the castle of Leone in the 
 duchy of Urbino, where he died on October 
 
 U^' ^795- 
 
 Such an end makes us indulgent towards 
 his extravagances and even his impostures. 
 It is melancholy to think of these priests 
 throwing a man into a lifelong dungeon 
 simply because his beliefs differed from 
 theirs. 
 
 At the same period in France, women, 
 children, and old people were guillotined, 
 though no crime could be charged against 
 
 \ them except the most beautiful of virtues, 
 loyalty to their sentiments. Priests in Rome, 
 
A VISIT OF GOETHE TO PALERMO 67 
 
 \ Jacobins in Paris, were men of the same 
 stamp. History unites them in one common 
 anathema. 
 
 And CagHostro's end may be regretted, 
 not merely in the name of tolerance and 
 freedom, our supreme faith, but even for 
 the sake of the Revolution. The role of 
 revolutionary alchemist would have been 
 wonderfully interesting. At that period, 
 when a man was only valued in France 
 according to his eloquence or his antics, 
 Cagliostro would have stood forth in the 
 front rank, and his buffooneries would have 
 formed pleasant interludes in the sombre 
 and bloody monotony of crimes and horrors. 
 
68 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 VI 
 
 TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 
 
 He belonged to an old burgher family of 
 Paris, of some mark in their day, one of the 
 streets being named after them in 1538 and 
 retaining the name to the present time. 
 His great-grandfather had been one of 
 the capable architects of the seventeenth 
 century, and academician in 1718. His 
 grandfather, Jean Baptiste Augustin, who 
 constructed the sewers from Menilmontant 
 to the Seine, organised the fetes in honour 
 of Louis XV. in 1744, and was elected a 
 member of the Academy of Architecture. 
 This man's son, another Jean Baptiste, 
 had no inclination for the arts, and it 
 was he who was the father of the Jean 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 69 
 
 Baptiste Toussaint who espoused Nicole 
 Leguay. 
 
 Toussaint was born on November 6, 
 1 76 1, in the parish of St. Cosmo, to Jean 
 Baptiste de Beausire, royal lieutenant at the 
 Salthouse, and Jeanne F61icit6 Lamoureux 
 de La Genetiere. In 1762 he unhappily lost 
 his father, who was then residing in the 
 Rue des Francs- Bourgeois ; and he lost his 
 mother in 1771. Bereft of both parents by 
 the age of ten, he was placed by his uncle 
 and guardian, M. Bordenave, professor at 
 the Royal Academy of Surgery and member 
 of the Academy of Sciences, at the College 
 de Justice, whence he passed to the College 
 de la Marche on July 11, 1772. Beausire 
 had very little taste for study, and turned 
 his classrooms into a bear-garden. On 
 March 3, 1775, he was locked up at Saint- 
 Lazare for stealing sixty livres from his 
 teacher's drawer. After a confinement of 
 nearly two years he was sent back to the 
 
70 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 College de la Marche. There he was 
 supposed to study physics and law, to fit 
 him for a procurator s place at the Chatelet ; 
 but on June 27, 1777, the Abbe Desfeux, 
 director of the college, announced that on 
 the preceding Sunday, between ten and 
 eleven in the morning, young Beausire had 
 absconded, in company with his cousin La 
 Genetiere, and taken refuge within the 
 precincts of the Temple. He had carried 
 off the greater part of his effects, not to 
 mention the watch of one of his companions. 
 When he had come to his last sou, the 
 young fellow returned like the prodigal son 
 to his guardian, who took him back to the 
 College de la Marche ; but the authorities 
 refused to receive him again. 
 
 Bordenave, tired of the misconduct of his 
 ward and hopeless of any improvement, 
 asked to be relieved of his office. He 
 became 'honorary guardian,' the active 
 guardianship being intrusted to one Michel 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 71 
 
 Francois Bluteau, a citizen of Paris, whose 
 specialty was to undertake such duties for 
 a consideration. 
 
 We are now at the year 1780. Beausire 
 was then placed with a certain Genevois, 
 for a course of training for the military pro- 
 fession. A family meeting fixed his allow- 
 ance at 4800 livres. The fortune left by 
 his father was considerable for that time, 
 and Beausire himself had at this date an 
 income of nearly 30,000 livres. But in 
 May 1 78 1, the debts he had contracted 
 amounted to as much as 95,000 francs. He 
 assumed the title of count or chevalier, posed 
 as a gentleman of the Prince of Conde's 
 household, and swindled the tradesmen who 
 supplied him with goods and jewels. But 
 as Beausire was a very odd, amusing, 
 pleasant fellow, a relative named Madame 
 Destouches gave him a home, and began 
 to take steps to secure his entrance as a 
 volunteer into the navy. But the future 
 
72 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 sailor soon had enough of the good lady, 
 and returned to his quarters in the Temple. 
 He had a furnished lodging at the 'Two 
 Crowns.' To obtain money for his neces- 
 sities, he had put most of his clothes in 
 pawn, and ordered new ones for which he 
 omitted to pay. He incurred debts of honour 
 also, which obtained for him the honour of 
 being arrested by order of the Marshals 
 of France and incarcerated in the prisons 
 of the Abbaye Saint-Germain. We shall 
 see what an incredible number of houses 
 of detention Beausire went through in the 
 course of his career. In comparison with 
 him, Latude was a mere amateur. He was 
 released after four months in jail, his family 
 having paid 668 livres for him. Ten days 
 had barely elapsed when he again took his 
 watch to the pawnshop, engaged a servant, 
 borrowed his watch under the pretext that 
 his own was mending, and carried that 
 also to the pawnbroker's. 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 73 
 
 On the Quai Pelletier there was a jeweller 
 named Bourdillat, who had some gold rings 
 and earrings that took Beausire's fancy. 
 
 ' Ah, Master Bourdillat, if you only knew 
 how charming Manon is ! ' 
 
 * I quite believe you, Monsieur le Cheva- 
 lier.' 
 
 But as the chevalier had no money, he 
 gave a bill payable on February i. On 
 January 24 he came back, with one of the 
 earrings broken, and as Manon was not 
 only charming but ' deucedly impatient ' — 
 
 ' Oh, they are all like that. Monsieur le 
 Chevalier ! ' 
 
 So Beausire selected another pair of ear- 
 rings, worth about fifty-eight livres, not 
 paying for them, however, and came back 
 in a few days for the one that had been 
 repaired. Still he did not pay, and the 
 bill being dishonoured on February i, 
 Bourdillat prosecuted him for swindling. 
 
 In March 1782, Beausire went to live 
 
74 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 at Senlls with his brother-in-law, Maitre 
 Leclerc-Duport, who had succeeded Bor- 
 denave as honorary guardian. ' At the 
 end of three months/ wrote Duport to the 
 Provost of Paris, 'after having borrowed 
 right and left and got jewellery from trades- 
 men on credit, Beausire absconded on July 
 1 5, taking with him everything he could lay 
 hands on that could be turned into money 
 in the capital.' 
 
 Fresh debts of honour brought Beausire 
 again before the marshals, who sent him 
 back to the Abbaye. At this period, 1783, 
 the amount of his debts, speaking only of 
 those which came to the knowledge of his 
 family, had risen to 250,000 francs. Set 
 at liberty after a detention of six months, 
 he conceived the idea of procuring money 
 by enlisting with three different recruiting 
 officers, and drawing his bounty in advance. 
 Then the Prince de Poix claimed him for his 
 regiment of dragoons. Things began to look 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 75 
 
 serious. Maitre de Senneville, a Parlement 
 advocate, into whose hands his case was 
 placed by his family, succeeded in obtaining 
 an annulment, but before long, disgusted in 
 his turn, he threw up the case. To free 
 Beausire from his responsibilities to the 
 other two recruiting officers, his family had 
 him interned by lettre de cachet in the famous 
 madhouse at Picpus, where he was joined 
 a little later by Saint-Just. 
 
 In order to save what was left of his patri- 
 mony, half of which had been squandered in 
 a few years, his relatives had him declared 
 non compos mentis by the Chatelet on May 
 12, 1786, and an allowance of 4000 livres 
 was settled on him. Beausire vehemently 
 opposed this decree, and pursued with 
 special hatred the architect Louis Moreau, 
 the relative who had shown most severity 
 towards him in the family councils. 
 
 Meanwhile Toussaint had met the charm- 
 ing little Nicole Leguay. The young people 
 
'je CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 were equally impecunious, but their debts 
 added together gave an imposing figure. 
 The Necklace affair came to light. From the 
 Bastille, Madame de La Motte succeeded in 
 warning her young friend, whom she called 
 the Baronne d'Oliva. The lovers betook 
 themselves arm-in-arm to Brussels, where 
 they hoped to live cheaper than in Paris. 
 
 On October 17, 1785, Nicole and her 
 lover were arrested in Brussels, and sent to 
 the Bastille on November 2. On March 11, 
 1786, Beausire was liberated, but only to be 
 consigned to the madhouse in accordance 
 with the decree of the court. He was finally 
 released in the month of August following. 
 
 And now he was married, and the father of 
 a fine baby in whom all France was inter- 
 ested. Alas ! marriage spelt good-bye to 
 love. Is that the rule? On January 19, 
 1789, Louis Joron, king's counsellor, com- 
 missary of the Chatelet, heard a sad story. 
 Marie Nicole Leguay, wife of Jean Baptiste 
 
THE BARONNE DOLIVA. 
 
Of TMf 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE y^ 
 
 Toussaint de Beausire, esquire, related to 
 him how, 'having come to know the said 
 Beausire, he had become absolute master 
 of her actions and will, as well as of her 
 fortune and goods, so that there resulted a 
 male child who was still living/ Nicole 
 wept copiously. * I was barely married 
 before I experienced shocking treatment 
 at the hands of my husband. He ill-used 
 me, and beat me several times. He is 
 leading the most scandalous life, passing 
 his nights in gambling hells, and going 
 with other women. And all this time I 
 am confined to the house, where I am in 
 absolute want. We live in the same house, 
 but lodge separately — he in a fine front room, 
 I in a poky little box behind. He rarely 
 has his meals at home, and when he does, 
 eats in another room. So far from giving 
 me money to buy things, he has pawned 
 all my linen and goods and jewellery. And 
 now he wants me to go away, to retire into 
 
78 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 a convent, but will not give me the means 
 of subsistence. So, beside myself, I ran 
 away last Monday, taking the few things 
 for my personal use that were left, and 
 went to the Hotel Montpensier at the Palais 
 Royal, where I had already stayed with him 
 before our marriage, when he loved me. 
 I 've come to sue my husband, so that the 
 lieutenant-general of police, after appoint- 
 ing a convent to which I may retire, may 
 compel him to give me an allowance that 
 will enable me to live with my child.' 
 
 Nicole Leguay accordingly entered a 
 convent. But there she fell into a decline. 
 Country air was prescribed. She was taken 
 to Fontenay-sous-Bois ; but her constitu- 
 tion was ruined. She died on June 24, 
 1789, and was buried in the cemetery of 
 Vincennes. 
 
 ' She was very beautiful,' said Madame 
 de La Motte, 'and very good, and very 
 stupid.' And thus her fate is explained. 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 79 
 
 But we are waxing sentimental while 
 already the revolutionary cannon are 
 thundering. 
 
 Beausire was among the conquerors of V 
 the Bastille. We know how those honour- 
 able citizens who, for the most part, 
 had had the modesty after the victory to 
 run away and hide, became astonishingly 
 numerous a few days later, when it was 
 recognised that their deeds were brilliant 
 achievements. This heroism was rewarded, 
 in Beausire's case, by his selection to 
 command the battalion of the district of 
 the fathers of Nazareth. He gave his men 
 a flag embroidered with a two-headed 
 hydra crushed by an athlete, with the 
 motto, proceeding from the gaping beak 
 of a cock : ^ He is scotched at last ! ' He 
 also gave uniforms to three needy citizens. 
 On October 5 he marched on Versailles. 
 On June 21, 1791, 'the day of the tyrant's 
 return,' he exclaims, he was constantly ~ 
 
8o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 under arms. The ardour he displayed on 
 that memorable day was such that he caught 
 a cold in his chest, which, checking the course 
 of his exploits, compelled him to retire to the 
 country. He settled at Choisy-on- Seine, 
 where he married, on October 6, 1791, one 
 Adelaide Duport, daughter of a hat-maker. 
 Unable to display his military valour, 
 Beausire nevertheless cherished an un- 
 diminished ardour in the cause of liberty. 
 At the time of the elections for the National 
 Convention, he drew up a circular in favour 
 of the right candidates. 
 
 Citizens ! 
 
 The country is in danger 1 Her safety depends 
 on us. Let us unite, and may our union be 
 an impenetrable rampart against faction and 
 intrigue ! Despotism was about to enslave us 
 anew. The good citizens have shown them- 
 selves, and the machinations of our tyrants are 
 about to be unveiled. We were within an inch 
 of ruin; court cabals and fanaticism had hollowed 
 out the abyss. But for the energy and patriotism 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 8i 
 
 of our brethren we should have been dashed over. 
 The choice is between freedom and slavery, and 
 on the choice you will make in your primary 
 assemblies depends the fate of the empire. Let 
 us rally as one man. Let personal interest be 
 silent; let selfishness, that scourge of humanity, 
 be annihilated ! 
 
 This eloquence continues for a good 
 space yet. Beausire had it stuck on a 
 huge placard, and posted at his expense, 
 not merely in his own commune, but in all 
 the communes adjacent. 
 
 Will it surprise us to find that his fellow- 
 citizens, filled with admiration, elected him 
 procurator of the commune of Choisy-on- 
 Seine? He did great things in his office : 
 saw to the storing of grain ; forced the 
 farmers of the district, in the name of 
 liberty, to thrash their corn, then bring 
 it to market at Choisy ; and brought to 
 their senses the charcoal-burners who w^ere 
 awaiting a more favourable opportunity for 
 selling their merchandise. He started public 
 
 F 
 
82 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 assemblies, and inaugurated their sittings 
 with a speech which has been preserved. 
 
 Citizens ! 
 
 This is henceforth to be the place of your 
 meetings. It was one of the appanages of 
 the despots. It is destined to the reunion of 
 several neighbouring communes, and you will 
 all make one whole. Here men will come to 
 drink in the maxims of liberty, which alone can 
 assure the happiness of ourselves and our children. 
 They will find in us friends and brothers ; always 
 watchful, incessantly attentive to the public good ! 
 If some one strayed from the inestimable principles 
 of our holy revolution, your wise and paternal 
 counsels would bring him back to the right path. 
 Continue your labours, citizens, propagate the 
 irrevocable and fundamental principles of our 
 republic. Have an eye to the malevolent of 
 every class, strengthen public spirit. The esteem 
 of all good citizens will be the sweet recompense 
 due to your zeal and devotion in the cause of 
 liberty ! 
 
 These brave words did not fall on deaf 
 ears. On the third day of the second de- 
 cade of Brumaire, in the Year ii. of the 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 83 
 
 French Republic one and indivisible, the 
 day of the festival of the Jerusalem Arti- 
 choke (November 3, 1793), some of the 
 * friends and brothers, always watchful, 
 incessantly attentive to the public good,' as 
 Beausire said, * moved by the solicitude for 
 the public good which made them direct 
 an attentive eye on all that might con- 
 tribute to foster and awaken republican 
 ardour in the youth of France,' as they 
 said themselves, denounced the Sieur 
 Beausire to the Committee of Public Safety 
 ' as a quondam noble, formerly attached 
 to the quondam Comte d'Artois.' 
 
 No time was wasted. On the margin of 
 the information are the words * To be 
 arrested.' On November 5, 1793, the pro- 
 curator of the Commune of Choisy-on-Seine 
 lay in the prison of the Luxembourg. 
 Next day the Commune of Choisy, sum- 
 moned by the sound of the bell, sent a 
 deputation to the committee to demand the 
 
84 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 release of their procurator, *an honourable 
 man and a strong republican.' But what 
 did that matter ? The deputation of twelve 
 members, on arriving, could not have 
 an audience of the committee at their 
 morning sitting. Nine of them, retiring 
 to the terrace of the Feuillants to dine and 
 wait for the resumption of the sitting, 
 were surrounded by an armed force and 
 taken to the guard-house of the Conven- 
 tion. At eleven o'clock, five of them were 
 set at liberty, but the other four were kept 
 under lock and key. Their names were 
 Barier, Nourrit, Joanis, and Chevillard. 
 They were put through an interrogation. 
 
 ' We have come to Paris to ask for the 
 liberty of Citizen Beausire.' 
 
 Before the administrators of the police 
 department. Citizen Deschamps, aide-de- 
 camp to the Paris Militia, and Citizen 
 Didier, juror on the revolutionary tribunal, 
 declared : ' Barier, a notary of Choisy, is a 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 85 
 
 member of the quondam club of the Sainte- 
 Chapelle ; Nourrit, a painter of Choisy, 
 highly approved the massacre of the 
 Champ de Mars, and there exists against 
 him an information to the People's Society ; 
 Joanis, commandant of the National Guards, 
 has deliberately slandered the great patriots 
 Marat and Robespierre ; Chevillard, a 
 coffee-house keeper, has withdrawn from the 
 People's Society because that had ap- 
 proved the condemnation of the tyrant, 
 telling several of the members that they 
 were villains.' Poor Beausire's case was 
 worse than before. 
 
 The four delegates were kept locked up 
 until January 1794, and the inhabitants of 
 Choisy-on- Seine were careful to send no 
 more deputations. 
 
 To win his release Beausire thought that 
 the best course was to denounce those of 
 his companions in captivity who were im- 
 prudent enough to let fall compromising 
 
S6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 words. This he did proudly, writing on 
 July 30, 1794: *I do not pine for liberty, 
 since I have been able, even in my prison, 
 to be useful to the commonwealth by re- 
 vealing the plots that were in weaving 
 there.' And as the Committee of Public 
 Safety might consider it advisable to leave 
 him in a position where he could do them 
 such good service, he hastened to add : 
 * But I believe that I should be still more 
 useful to my fellow-citizens elsewhere than 
 here, and that it is which makes me desire 
 the more ardently to be restored to my 
 country.' 
 
 As this appeal met with no response, the 
 prisoner returned to the charge on August 
 18 : * In the course of Ventose, I was lucky 
 enough to discover the plots being hatched 
 in prison by the Grammonts, the Dillons, 
 and others. I denounced them ; the traitors 
 were punished, and I still remain in irons.' 
 
 Beausire found means in these circum- 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 87 
 
 stances to pay off an old score against that 
 Louis Moreau who, as we have seen, did 
 his best to curb his youthful follies. He 
 included him in his denunciations, and 
 brought him to the guillotine. * I call the 
 Supreme Being to witness,' wrote Moreau 
 to the revolutionary tribunal on July 9, 1 794, 
 * that no scheme whatever has come to my 
 knowledge for laying sacrilegious hands on 
 the representatives of the people. The 
 witnesses can bring no evidence, nor even 
 probabilities, against me. Citizen Beau- 
 sire, my near relative, who spent a repre- 
 hensible youth, found me against him in 
 our family councils. He owes the pre- 
 servation of a part of his fortune to a 
 decree of the courts we obtained against 
 him. On that account he has conceived 
 against me a hatred which would render 
 him culpable, and the effect of which would 
 to-day be fatal, if the equity of the jurors 
 and of the tribunal, on whose judgment my 
 
88 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 life depends, did not rectify it.' The poet 
 Ducis, ' of the quondam French Academy,' 
 intervened in his favour. * Citizen Moreau.' 
 he said, ' has always been submissive to 
 the laws. He gave 30,000 livres towards 
 the war against the brigands of La 
 Vendee. He is married, and the father 
 of a family. His wife and children are 
 in tears.' It was labour lost. Moreau 
 was condemned and executed, on the 
 very day when he wrote the defence we 
 have just read. He was an architect of 
 great merit, who had early in his career 
 obtained the diploma of the Ecole de 
 Rome, was admitted to the Academy in 
 1762, became director of the city fabrics 
 in 1763, and architect to the king in 
 1783. It was he who designed the facade 
 of the Palais Royal on the Rue Saint- 
 Honore. 
 
 We are reminded of a very similar 
 case. While he was detained at Picpus, 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 89 
 
 Beausire had perhaps met there the 
 great Saint-Just. Having attained power 
 at this very time, Saint- Just had the 
 pleasure of satisfying his rancour in the 
 same way. One of his victims, Armand 
 Brunet, wrote boldly on August 9, 1794, 
 to the president of the National Con- 
 vention — 
 
 Citizen President, 
 
 A prisoner of six months' duration, I venture 
 to bring the following fact to your notice : — 
 
 Saint-Just, as bad a son as he is a citizen, had 
 robbed his mother of her most valuable posses- 
 sions. He had reviled and ill-treated her. I 
 was asked by this hapless mother to obtain the 
 imprisonment of her unnatural son, and he was 
 confined at Picpus by order of de Crosne, then 
 lieutenant-general of police. The hatred Saint- 
 Just swore to me makes me regard him as the 
 author of my arrest, my conscience being ab- 
 solutely void of reproach. 
 
 Brunet was not mistaken. Saint-Just, 
 to complete his work, had also brought the 
 
90 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 excellent Thiroux de Crosne to the guillo- 
 tine, who during his term of office as chief 
 of police had perhaps had reason to reproach 
 himself with being somewhat foolish, but 
 certainly with being too kind. 
 
 Meanwhile Beausire, in spite of his zeal 
 — and perhaps because his services in 
 prison were so well appreciated — far from 
 obtaining his liberty, was transferred to 
 Sainte-Pdagie on August 12, to Plessis on 
 November 8, to the Hospice of the Arch- 
 bishopric on December 6, 1794, whence 
 he was brought before the revolutionary 
 tribunal on April 3, 1795. He was ac- 
 quitted. 
 
 Beausire died many years later, on 
 February 3, 18 18, being then controller of 
 taxes of Pas-de-Calais. He had become 
 a devoted servant of the Empire, and re- 
 tained his office at the Restoration. By his 
 second wife, Adelaide Duport, he left six 
 children. 
 
TOUSSAINT DE BEAUSIRE 91 
 
 In his excellent book, Le Marquis de La 
 Rouerie, M. G. Lenotre says : * Secondary 
 characters like Lalligand and Chevetel hold 
 a more important place in the story of the 
 Terror than most people think. The Re- 
 volution may be compared to a picture that 
 needs new canvas. It has been so often 
 painted, and painted again. To find what 
 lies beneath, it must be turned over, the 
 canvas must be picked off thread by thread, 
 to show the original coat of colour. One 
 might hold forth for a thousand years on 
 the political ideas of Robespierre — who had 
 none — on the legality of the trial of the 
 king, on the official causes of the fall of the 
 Girondins, without knowing the Revolu- 
 tion one whit better. You have to plunge 
 into the depths. What is to be found there 
 is worth bringing to the light.' 
 
 A slight place will perhaps be conceded 
 to Beausire among the Lalligands and 
 Chdvetels, whose personalities M. Lenotre 
 
92 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 has brought to life again. Toussaint 
 de Beausire appears to have been the 
 average type of revolutionary. Others 
 had a more brilliant fate : Mirabeau, be- 
 cause he spoke better ; Carnot, because he 
 was more intelligent ; Saint-Just, because 
 he was a still greater hypocrite ; Robes- 
 pierre, because he was clever at striking 
 attitudes which at a distance produced a 
 certain effect ; but on examining them more 
 closely you will find in each of them a 
 Toussaint de Beausire. The value of the 
 coin is greater, to be sure ; the stamp is 
 identical. 
 
 And with this observation, which will not 
 perhaps meet with unquestioning approval, 
 let us turn to Madame de La Motte. 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 93 
 
 VII 
 
 THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE AT 
 THE SALPETRIERE 
 
 After the sentence on Jeanne de Valois 
 had been executed, pubHc opinion veered 
 round in her favour ; and the movement is 
 duly noted in the journal of the bookseller 
 Hardy. Such a revulsion is in fact almost 
 a general law. Here is a woman guilty of a 
 crime : at the first moment she is the object 
 of bitter indignation ; people clamour for 
 her death ; abandoned to the mob she would 
 be lynched. Months pass by ; the un- 
 happy woman is incarcerated, and is now 
 alone, feeble, deserted. It begins to be 
 thought that the prosecution was merciless 
 and the condemnation brutal, while re- 
 
94 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 membrance of the crime is dulled, or it loses 
 its horror as men's minds are familiarised 
 with it. Ere long the public hear nothing 
 but the pleadings of their own emotions and 
 chivalrous sentiments. Is it certain that 
 the woman was guilty ? She had enemies. 
 Some say she is a martyr. 
 
 The circumstances of Madame de La 
 Motte's punishment had been horrible. 
 They spread through Paris, and made a 
 deep impression on the populace. People 
 retailed her imprecations on the queen 
 and the Cardinal de Rohan, her charges 
 against them, her accusations against the 
 Parlement, all honey and indulgence to 
 people of importance, always ready to 
 grovel to the court, the nobility, and the 
 clergy. ' Hardly had the sentence on the 
 Dame de La Motte been carried into execu- 
 tion,' writes Hardy, 'when a certain section 
 of the public, touched with compassion, 
 perhaps because they regarded her as the 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 95 
 
 victim of a court intrigue, ventured to 
 blame the Parlement, believing that that 
 court had shown undue severity in the 
 matter. They endeavoured to bring its 
 judgment into bad odour, and clamoured 
 against the violence it had been compelled 
 to employ.' 
 
 'It is not surprising,' we read in the 
 Memoirs of the Princess de Lamballe, * that 
 Paris, which till this moment had delighted 
 in the queen as in a beneficent divinity 
 whose mere look carried consolation to the 
 souls of the wretched, could not understand 
 how she had abandoned Madame de La 
 Motte to the horror of her fate ; and as 
 the Frenchman must go to extremes, he 
 passed from idolatry to indignation. Public _j 
 opinion began to vacillate, and the private 
 enemies of this princess stimulated the dis- 
 content. The queen no longer saw the 
 crowd pressing about her to catch a glimpse 
 of her, no longer heard their flattering 
 
g6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 murmurs of delight. No one told the 
 queen that the coldness the crowd mani- 
 fested towards her might have fatal results, 
 and far from seeking to destroy it, she 
 took offence. Her features, hitherto so 
 sweet and caressing, expressed in public 
 nothing but haughtiness and disdain for 
 the opinion of those whom she never 
 dreamt of regarding as able to dispose of 
 her destiny and that of her family.' 
 
 Engravings in the picture-shops repre- 
 sented the countess in the costume of the 
 Salpetriere : a dress of coarse grey drugget, 
 with stockings of the same colour, a brown 
 woollen petticoat, a round cap, a coarse 
 linen chemise and a pair of sabots. The 
 journals related the most trivial details of 
 her life in prison. Only the most unfeeling 
 could fail to be touched by them. 
 
 'The situation of the countess,' said the 
 
 Gazette d' Utrecht, ' is beginning to interest 
 
 ^ even people who were most unmoved at 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 97 
 
 her punishment. It is quite a mistake to 
 beheve that the unfortunate woman enjoys 
 any marks of preference over her com- 
 panions in imprisonment. She is stretched 
 on a bed of pain, which she steeps in her 
 tears. It is true that beneficent hands 
 have flown to her succour ; but the custom 
 prevaiHng in this house of distributing 
 among all the inmates the marks of kind- 
 ness intended by charitable souls for one 
 of them results in her scarcely feeling any 
 effects from the beneficence of those who 
 wish to assist her. Her complexion is 
 yellow. She has become extremely thin. 
 She is mixed up with a crowd of women, 
 the scum of nature and society, branded 
 like herself, who yet have some considera- 
 tion for the unhappy woman whom they 
 call *' the countess," and whom they en- 
 deavour to console. The Dame de La 
 Motte weeps only for her lost honour, and 
 not for her dreadful plight. She has to 
 
 G 
 
98 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 sleep with three others, on a mattress 
 terribly hard. She is obliged for the most 
 part to pass the night on a bench ; or, 
 when awake, she does nothing but groan 
 in a room where the windows are ten feet 
 from the ground. There no light is ever 
 seen, except the half-intercepted daylight. 
 She wears the uniform of the establishment. 
 She has only a few wretched dressing- 
 jackets and round caps ; but when they 
 are worn out, she will have to be satisfied 
 with fustian rags. Her food is black bread; 
 on Sundays an ounce of meat, on Fridays 
 a piece of cheese, on the other days some 
 beans or lentils soaked in plenty of water.' 
 
 Anecdotes were told about her to bring 
 tears to the eyes, and people did weep. 
 She had written to the Archbishop of 
 Paris a letter 'sublime in the picture of 
 suffering she there draws, and in the piety 
 and resignation she gives expression to. 
 M. du Tillet, director of the General 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 99 
 
 Hospital, consoled her, exhorting her to 
 dry her tears — 
 
 ' I will dry my tears, sir, since you will 
 have it so ; but you will at least allow those 
 of gratitude to flow.' 
 
 *The Dame de La Motte,' notes the 
 Gazette de Leyde, ' is becoming more and 
 more stoical and resigned to her fate. She 
 employs herself the greater part of the 
 day in reading and meditating on the 
 ascetic book on the Imitation of Jesus 
 Christ, ' 
 
 In reading and meditating the Imitation 
 of Christ ! — and the queen dared to say 
 that she was a criminal ! She was a saint ! 
 
 One of these anecdotes daily purveyed 
 to the public set all Europe thrilling. It 
 became known — and the gazettes were on 
 the point of issuing special editions, though 
 the use of big-type posters was not yet 
 invented — it became known that the poor 
 women at the Salp6triere, young and old, 
 
100 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 thieves and light women, the scum of the 
 human race, touched by so much virtue 
 and resignation, by such kindHness and 
 grace, had clubbed together, one going 
 without her snuff, another not sending her 
 fancy-man the usual three sous a week, in 
 order to provide the countess with a varia- 
 tion from the usual menu — rye bread, boiled 
 lentils and cheese — namely, a dish of peas 
 and bacon. 
 
 Dear, simple, primitive souls! Christ, 
 as the Gazette de Hollande eloquently 
 observed, knew the human soul when, at 
 Golgotha, scorning the rich, He bent His 
 head towards the repentant thief. 
 
 And thus the rich and noble were piqued 
 into emulation. The Salpetriere had not 
 received so many and such brilliant visitors 
 for many a long day : the Mar^chale de 
 Mouchy, the Duchess de Duras, Madame 
 du Bourg, and a hundred others. An 
 anonymous letter written from the house of 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE loi 
 
 detention to the Baronne de Saint- Remy, 
 sister of Jeanne de Valois, said: 'AH the 
 grandees have been to see your sister ; 
 they all take her part. Who would not ? 
 God alone knows the truth and purity of 
 her heart ! ' The Duke of Orleans, who 
 was at the head of the Freemasons and 
 preparing for his revolutionary part, saw 
 what profit he might make of the business, 
 and the duchess took the lead in this 
 charming movement of compassion. * Draw 
 up a memorial to the Duchess of Orleans,' 
 said the letter to Marie Anne de Saint- 
 R6my. 
 
 Naturally, there was some talk of plans 
 of escape. One of them was especially 
 picturesque. 'The countess,' said the 
 Gazette d' Utrecht of August i, 'has at- 
 tempted to escape. She had already made 
 a hole through which her head would go. 
 She stuck in this opening, so that she 
 could go neither forward nor backward. 
 
102 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Fright seized her : she struggled in vain, 
 and her cries brought up the warders, who 
 found her in that position. Her attempt 
 has only increased the rigour of her deten- 
 tion.' 
 
 Among the compassionate souls so much 
 touched by the fate of Jeanne de Valois, 
 there was one who holds a peculiar place 
 by reason of her delicious grace and kindli- 
 ness. 
 
 Louise de Carignan was left at eighteen 
 years the widow of a husband who had 
 died of dissipation — Stanislas de Bourbon, 
 Prince de Lamballe. * The greatest beauty 
 of Madame de Lamballe,' say the Gon- 
 courts, ' was the serenity of her features. 
 The very brilliance of her eyes was restful. 
 In spite of the shocks and the fever of a 
 nervous ailment, there was not a wrinkle, 
 not a cloud on her beautiful forehead, 
 caressed by the long fair tresses which later 
 on still curled about the pike. An Italian 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 103 
 
 by race, Madame de Lamballe had all the 
 graces of the northern peoples. Her soul 
 was as serene as her face. She was 
 tender and caressing, always ready to make 
 sacrifices, devoted in little things, dis- 
 interested above all. Her mind had the 
 virtues of her temperament — tolerance, 
 simplicity, amiability, quiet cheerfulness. 
 Seeing no evil, and unwilling to believe in 
 it, Madame de Lamballe fashioned things 
 and the world to her own image, and 
 banishing every evil thought by the charity 
 of her illusions, her talk breathed unruffled 
 peace and sweetness.' 
 
 The horrible fate of Madame de La Motte 
 made a deep impression on the sensitive 
 and excitable nature of the young princess. 
 Her imagination took fire at the thought of 
 a judicial error. She remembered having 
 seen her respected father-in-law, the gentle 
 and charitable Duke de Penthievre, receiving 
 Madame de La Motte at Chateauvilain with 
 
104 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the honours reserved for princesses of the 
 blood. She was on intimate terms with 
 her sister-in-law the Duchess of Orleans. 
 She presided over masonic lodges. At 
 this very time, feeling that the queen was 
 a little neglected among the enmities spring- 
 ing up and growing dangerous around her, 
 the Princess de Lamballe, who had quietly- 
 withdrawn before Madame de Polignac, 
 returned to the side of the queen ; and yet 
 she could not refrain from bearing to the 
 Salpdtriere the consolations of her great 
 heart. But natures like hers are not 
 easily understood. The superior of the 
 Salpetriere at this time was Madame 
 Robin, known as Sister Victoire. One day 
 Madame de Lamballe insisted on seeing 
 the prisoner, relying on her rank as a 
 princess of the blood to open all doors be- 
 fore her. Sister Victoire declined to allow 
 her, believing that she was actuated merely 
 by a vain curiosity which would only 
 
THE COUNTESS DE LA MOTTE 105 
 
 have inflicted additional humiliation on 
 the condemned woman. 
 
 ' But why cannot I see Madame de La 
 Motte ? ' 
 
 * Because, madame, that is not part of 
 her sentence.' 
 
io6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE ESCAPE 
 
 Madame de La Motte was attended at 
 the Salpetriere by one of the prisoners, a 
 girl named Angelique, who had been 
 condemned to perpetual imprisonment for 
 having in the despair of desertion killed 
 her child. About the end of November 
 1786, a sentry on duty in one of the court- 
 yards of the hospital, passing the stock 
 of his musket through a broken pane 
 of glass, wakened Angelique sleeping 
 within. The soldier told her that some one 
 was scheming to set her and her mistress 
 free. Next day he handed her a note 
 written in sympathetic ink, the writing of 
 which she made visible by holding it to 
 
THE ESCAPE 107 
 
 the fire. This was the beginning of a 
 correspondence. * The important thing is,' 
 said the unknown benefactor, who had 
 taken the fate of Jeanne de Valois to heart, 
 'to obtain a model of the key opening 
 the gate by which the prisoner will have 
 to go out' But how was this model to 
 be procured.'* Jeanne had the idea to 
 examine carefully every day the key hang- 
 ing from the bunch of the nun who came 
 to visit her. Then, when the good sister 
 had left her, she tried to draw an exact 
 reproduction of it on a blank sheet of paper. 
 Next day she would examine it again, and 
 correct her drawing in one point or another. 
 The hole in the lock gave the dimensions 
 of the key. Jeanne considered at last 
 that her drawing, after being touched up 
 more than twenty times, ought to be pretty 
 exact. She had it passed to the sentry, 
 and he, a few days afterwards, brought 
 back a key which opened the lock. 
 
io8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 One after another, the sentinel had 
 conveyed to her the various parts of a 
 disguise — coat, breeches, and hat. Mean- 
 while Angelique, who was to have been 
 a lifelong prisoner, had been set at liberty, 
 and another prisoner, named Marianne, 
 wife of Desrues the poisoner, was given 
 as a servant to Madame de La Motte. 
 But some time elapsed without a reappear- 
 ance on the part of the sentry, and Madame 
 de La Motte was becoming alarmed, when 
 she received by the same channel a note 
 which said : ' Your dear Angelique is free ; 
 name the day when you want to be free too.' 
 
 *The 5th of June' was her reply. She 
 knew that on that day Sister Fanchon, 
 whose duty it was to shut the doors along 
 

 
 
 <^^^^Pi^H 
 
 
 1 
 
THE ESCAPE 109 
 
 the corridor, was going to the Bois de 
 Vincennes. 
 
 She put on her disguise : a frock coat 
 of royal blue, black vest, and breeches, a 
 tall round hat ; she took a light walking- 
 stick and put on a pair of skin gloves. 
 The key opened the doors. The two 
 fugitives reached the courtyard, where they 
 mingled with the crowd. They knew that 
 they were to make for the Seine, where a 
 boat with two men on board was awaiting 
 them. They found the boat, and took 
 their places. The men rowed rapidly to 
 Charenton ; on the bank was a fiacre to 
 drive them to Maison- Rouge, where they 
 passed the first night. 
 
 Provins was the second stage. In the 
 streets of the little town, a group of officers, 
 staring at the young women, saw through 
 the disguise. One of them left the rest. 
 
 * My fine cavalier, were you to lead me 
 to the pit of hell I 'd follow you/ he said. 
 
no CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Madame de La Motte was speechless with 
 anxiety. 
 
 ' I see what it is,' continued the soldier. 
 * You 're a young lady running away from 
 the convent, and going to join the happy 
 man who has your heart.' 
 
 * Sir, if you are so sure of it, please 
 don't follow me. Isn't your persistence 
 indiscreet ? ' 
 
 Clearly an indiscretion. The gallant 
 strode away. 
 
 Taking warning by the incident, Madame 
 de La Motte judged it prudent to throw off 
 her disguise. Marianne bought at a shop 
 in the town some things suitable to a 
 countrywoman — a basket, some butter and 
 eggs. 
 
 A league from Provins, rows of greyish 
 willows edge the banks of the Voulzie, 
 which flows on, a clear and merry stream, 
 between green meadows. Clumps of rushes 
 and long grasses form curtains in which 
 
THE ESCAPE iii 
 
 the wind rustles. There the two fugitives 
 found a hiding-place. Their male attire 
 was tied up In a bundle, a stone was 
 fastened to it, and It was thrown Into deep 
 water. And here is Jeanne walking on 
 the highroad, a country peasant woman, 
 with short petticoats, looking very dainty 
 in her many-laced linen bodice, her cloth 
 apron, her petticoat of calamanco with 
 stripes of blue, pink, and white, her little 
 feet in a clumsy pair of shoes with shining 
 buckles. She has in her basket some fresh 
 butter and white eggs she Is going to sell 
 at the next market. Passing peasants hail 
 the fresh, pretty, laughing girl, and give 
 her a lift in their waggons. And thus 
 she comes to Troyes, whence she reaches 
 the environs of Bar-sur-Aube. 
 
 She arrived at the Crottieres, open 
 quarries whence is extracted the ragstone 
 of which many of the houses in the town 
 are constructed. The Crottieres served as 
 
112 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 an asylum to vagabonds and tramps. A 
 little fir copse divides them from the road 
 that leads from Bar-sur-Aube to Clairvaux. 
 From this height you get a view of the 
 town encircled by the shining arms of the 
 Aube, behind the village of Fontaine, so 
 picturesque with its old bridge and its 
 whirling, clicking mills. There the Bresse 
 flows up to join it, like a ribbon gleaming 
 in the luxuriant grass, and plaiting itself 
 capriciously with the quivering ranks of 
 reeds. And in the distance the hills of 
 Sainte-Germaine arch themselves into a 
 sombre cupola, St. Peter's showing the 
 graceful outlines of its pointed spire. In 
 the darkness of the Crottieres the fugitive 
 lay hidden. She sent Marianne with notes 
 to relatives and old friends whom she knew 
 in Bar-sur-Aube. M. de Surmont, who 
 had taken her into his house many years 
 before when she fled from the convent of 
 Longchamp, came to her at night. They 
 
MADAME DE LA MOTTE IN PEASANT COSTUME. 
 
THE ESCAPE 113 
 
 sat talking by the roadside. He left her 
 some money. *When the hapless woman,' 
 says Beugnot, ' fleeing from the Salpetriere, 
 hid herself in the quarries during the night, 
 my mother, who had never ceased to main- 
 tain her innocence, even after the judgment, 
 had the courage to go and seek her there. 
 She restored to her a gift of twenty louis 
 which the countess had intrusted to her 
 for the relief of distress in the time of her 
 prosperity. She did more. She raised the 
 poor disgraced woman in her own eyes, 
 by bringing her own purity and virtue in 
 contact with her.' 
 
 From Bar-sur-Aube, Jeanne and her 
 faithful companion reached Lorraine, 
 Nancy, then Luneville, then Metz, Thion- 
 ville, Ettingen and Hollerich, in the grand- 
 duchy of Luxembourg, where they were 
 received by a lady named Schilz. Through 
 Belgium, by Bruges and Ostend, they at last 
 gained the shores of England, and from 
 
 H 
 
114 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Dover posted to London, where Madame 
 de La Motte was able to throw herself into 
 the arms of her husband, on August 4, 
 1787, at four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 What mysterious hand had favoured her 
 flight? She never knew. The opinion of 
 the time was that the queen herself had 
 opened a way of escape. Madame Campan 
 had no suspicion of it. ' Through a series 
 of misapprehensions which guided the pro- 
 ceedings of the court, it was found that the 
 cardinal and the woman La Motte were 
 equally guilty but unequally punished, and 
 they wished to redress the balance. This 
 new crime confirmed the Parisians in the 
 idea that this creature, who had never 
 succeeded in penetrating even so far as 
 the antechamber of the queen's women, 
 had really awakened the interest of that 
 unfortunate princess.' 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 115 
 
 IX 
 
 MADAME DE LA MOTTE WRITES THE 
 STORY OF HER LIFE 
 
 The Countess de La Motte rejoined her 
 husband in London on August 4, 1787. 
 ' Several times, during the period I spent with 
 her,' writes the count, *she tried to destroy 
 herself, and for mere trifles, the most in- 
 significant vexations. Twice I held her 
 back by her clothes when she attempted 
 to fling herself out of window. When 
 she rejoined me in London, I avoided all 
 occasions of causing her the least annoy- 
 ance. I quickly perceived that the great 
 misfortunes she had suffered had much 
 embittered her temper, and that tact and 
 caution were needed to keep her in good 
 
\ 
 
 ii6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 humour. In spite of all my patience I 
 could not help saying one day that her 
 woes were all caused by her own wayward- 
 ness and extravagances. I had no sooner 
 uttered the words than she flung herself 
 on a dagger she happened to be holding 
 in her hand, and, despite my promptitude 
 in running to her, along with the people 
 who were in the house, we could not 
 prevent her from striking herself below 
 the breast, and we saw her fall helpless 
 to the floor.' 
 
 Husband and wife were in extreme 
 poverty. La Motte, spendthrift as he was, 
 had not been long in getting rid of all the 
 money and jewels he had taken from the 
 jeweller Gray after his flight from Bar- 
 sur-Aube in 1785. An English lord, 
 touched with compassion for the pitiable 
 victim of a judicial error, gave a pension 
 to the countess, and she found a second 
 protector in Charles Alexandre de Calonne, 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 117 
 
 the former controller-general of the finances, 
 who had worked actively to secure the 
 acquittal of the cardinal from a desire to 
 wound the queen, and who, as we shall 
 see, exerted himself by and by to deal 
 Marie Antoinette the final blow. Jeanne 
 was at this time thirty-one years old, and 
 as pretty, lively, and piquant as ever. Old 
 Calonne became quite sparkish again. 
 And his hatred for the queen was thus 
 blent with his attachment to the little 
 countess, a conjunction destined to pro- 
 duce the most monstrous of collaborations. 
 
 The Necklace case had made a tre- 
 mendous sensation throughout Europe, and 
 especially in England. A book by Madame 
 de La Motte relating the story in full detail 
 was sure to be a success which would pro- 
 vide her with the means of subsistence. 
 As her style was hopelessly defective, 
 Calonne introduced to her Serre de Latour, 
 a French journalist who had taken refuge 
 
ii8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 in London after running away with the 
 wife of the intendant of Auvergne, and was 
 there editing the Courrier de V Europe, a 
 news-sheet financed by a speculator named 
 Swinton. And Calonne put his own services 
 at her disposal. 
 
 The tide of slander was rising around 
 Marie Antoinette. ' Listen,' write the 
 Goncourts, 'listen to a nation's whispers 
 and murmurs, rising, falling, falling, rising, 
 between the Markets and Versailles, 
 between Versailles and the Markets. 
 Listen to the populace, listen to the chair- 
 bearers, listen to the courtiers bringing 
 calumny from Marly and then post-haste 
 to Paris ! Listen to the marquises in the 
 actresses' dressing-rooms, in the drawing- 
 rooms of the Sophie Arnoulds and the 
 Contats, of harlots and opera-girls. Inter- 
 rogate the street, the ante-room, the salons, 
 the court, the royal family itself. Calumny 
 is everywhere, even at the very skirts of 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 119 
 
 the queen/ And what fuel the pen of the 
 countess was about to furnish to the fire ! 
 It was dreaded at Versailles. Madame de 
 La Motte and Calonne were being watched. 
 The Duchess of Polignac set out for London, 
 and condescended to negotiate with the La 
 Mottes, offering them money. But Jeanne 
 worked herself up to a fine pitch of indig- 
 nation, and made preposterous demands. 
 She claimed her rehabilitation, in addition 
 to the money and all that had been taken 
 from her. Her Memoirs appeared. 
 
 * I can attest,' wrote Madame Campan, 
 * that I saw in the queen's hands a manu- 
 script of the Memoirs of the woman La 
 Motte, brought her from London : it was 
 corrected by the hand of Calonne himself 
 at every place where total ignorance of the 
 customs of the court had made her commit 
 gross blunders.' * M. de Latour,' writes the 
 Count de La Motte on the other hand, 
 ' handed the manuscript to M. de Calonne, 
 
120 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 who made changes and corrections and 
 additions without number, almost on every 
 page : all these corrections were written 
 with his own hand, and for the most part in 
 pencil.' 
 
 In the course of her examinations at the 
 Bastille, Jeanne de Valois had declared that 
 the Necklace had been stolen by Cagliostro. 
 Afterwards, before the Parlement, she 
 asserted that the robber was the Cardinal 
 de Rohan. ' In the matter of the Necklace,' 
 she had written when on the point of 
 appearing before her judges, 'it is an un- 
 doubted fact that the king and queen had 
 several years ago refused to purchase it. 
 If it was true that the queen had taken a 
 new fancy for the jewel, she could have got 
 it without any mystery with the funds at her 
 disposal.' 
 
 But she once more changed her tune. In 
 her Mdmoire justificatif ^^ declared that the 
 Necklace had been taken by the queen. 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 121 
 
 An extract will enable the reader to 
 appreciate the Mdmoire justijicatif, ' I need 
 no longer put any restraint on myself,' wrote 
 Madame de La Motte. * I suppose myself at 
 this moment in regions of independence and 
 peace, where my sufferings will, I hope, win 
 me a place, relating, without prejudice as 
 without passion, to the celestial throng the 
 sad dreams I have had on earth.' 
 
 The Cardinal de Rohan, as we know, had 
 only arrived in Vienna as ambassador a 
 year after the departure of Marie Antoinette 
 to become the wife of the dauphin, after- 
 wards Louis XVI. Obviously, then, he could 
 not have seen the young archduchess there. 
 This was no obstacle to the following para- 
 graph, in Jeanne de La Motte's dispassionate 
 story to the * celestial throng ' : — 
 
 The Cardinal de Rohan told me, and repeated 
 to me several times, that the grievances of 
 Her Majesty rested on a poor foundation. He 
 confided to me that, at the time when he was 
 
122 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 ambassador at Venice, the queen was still an 
 archduchess. Emboldened by the lightness of 
 N her conduct, he had ventured to offer his homage, 
 which was not rejected. His happiness had 
 passed as a dream. The marked favours 
 obtained by a German officer had turned his 
 head till he allowed himself to drop most in- 
 discreet remarks. 
 
 This extract will give an idea of the tone 
 and the veracity of the work, which was 
 presented to the public under the guise of 
 the finest sentiments — 'my sensitiveness 
 and delicate notions of honour,' said Jeanne. 
 The book also derived something from the 
 persuasive faculty which she undoubtedly 
 possessed. Eight thousand copies were 
 printed, and in a short time more than seven 
 thousand had been disposed of. It was at 
 once translated into English and German. 
 In Germany it appeared in two different 
 editions, one published by the booksellers 
 of Brunswick, the other by those of 
 Nuremberg. 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 123 
 
 — \ 
 
 * In London,' writes M. Pierre de Nolhac, 
 
 * Madame de La Motte published her odious 
 Memoirs, a medley of passion and falsehood, 
 which dragged the crown into the mud of 
 the gutter. Between the queen's word 3 
 and the word of the adventuress France 
 hesitated. Ere long she ventured to make 
 her choice, and the pamphlets of this*^ 
 woman caused the definitive acceptance of ^ 
 the legend of Marie Antoinette's vices. It 
 was in them that Fouquier-Tinville after- 
 wards found his arguments, on them that he ^ 
 based the justice of his cause.' ' At the 
 court, as well as in the city,' said Maitre 
 Labori in a speech at the advocates' con- 
 ference in 1888, 'every one showed himself 
 ready to credit the queen with every form 
 of wickedness and vice, and the legend of 
 her debaucheries has not even yet dis- 
 appeared from history.' 
 
 And yet Maitre Labori himself, devoted 
 as he is to the memory of Marie Antoinette, 
 
124 y CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 admits that the countess must have had 
 relations with her. We affirm, on the con- 
 trary, that she never had with the queen 
 any connection whatever, of any sort, at 
 any time. The queen never even saw her. 
 Marie Antoinette wrote on August 22, 
 1785, to her brother Joseph 11.: * This 
 adventuress of the lowest class has no place 
 here, and has never had access to my 
 presence.' *At the time of the trial,' says 
 Madame Campan, ' the queen sent for some 
 of the engravings representing Madame de 
 La Motte. She never even remembered 
 seeing her pass through the gallery at 
 Versailles, which was open to the public, 
 and where Madame de La Motte often 
 showed herself.' 
 
 What did Rosalie, the countess's maid, 
 say at the preliminary inquiry ? 
 
 ' I never heard anybody in the house 
 speak of any relations between Madame de 
 La Motte and the queen.' 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 125 
 
 What did Mademoiselle Colson, her 
 companion, say? 
 
 ' I spent two years with Madame de La 
 Motte' (at the very time of the Necklace 
 intrigue) * and never saw or heard anything 
 to lead me to infer that there were relations 
 between the queen and the countess.' 
 
 What did Marie Anne de Saint-Remy, 
 Jeanne's sister, declare to the Abbe Bew, 
 who sent her to his cousin Bew the book- 
 seller in London, the publisher of Madame 
 de La Motte's Memoirs ? 
 
 * Yes, sir, my sister herself told me that 
 the letters in her Memoirs were forged, and 
 that the greater part of the book was false. 
 And for myself, sir, I confidently affirm that 
 my sister never had an interview with the 
 queen, and that the whole story is absurd.' 
 
 And what did Madame de La Motte 
 herself declare, in her letters and cross- 
 examination, and in the memorials she got 
 her advocate to draw up .-^ * I never had 
 
126 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the honour of seeing the queen.' ' I never 
 flattered myself on having any credit with 
 the queen/ ' I know nobody who was in 
 the queen's suite.' * The Dame de La 
 Motte,' said her advocate Maitre Doillot, 
 * in spite of a name everywhere recognised, 
 was not known at court, and had no 
 relations, public or private, with the 
 sovereign.' And further: * Is there any 
 need to speak of another fable, that inter- 
 course with the queen of which Madame 
 de La Motte is said to have boasted as of 
 a secret correspondence ? The countess 
 would be highly culpable if the allegation 
 were true, since it is an honour she never 
 had. She humbly beseeches her judges 
 attentively to listen to the reading of the 
 depositions in regard to this fable, and to 
 mark with special attention the firm tone in 
 which she has denied it' 
 
 After such a mass of corroborative testi- 
 mony, can the least doubt still remain ? 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 127 
 
 The appearance of the Memoirs had for 
 its first result the loss of the protection and 
 the subsidies of the English lord, who had 
 poured out his heart and his purse at the 
 knees of this poor martyr of the French 
 courts. He was, it appears, a man of good 
 sense, and the victim of the judicial error 
 appeared to him thenceforth less inter- 
 esting. 
 
 After breaking with the lord, she quar- 
 relled with Calonne. There was an exciting 
 scene. The two lovers were playing at 
 piquet. After a decisive stroke the 
 ex-minister cried, * Madame, you are 
 marked ! ' The unintentional allusion cut 
 like a knife. The countess had a hasty 
 temper. Quick as lightning, she over- 
 turned the table, dashed at her partner, 
 and then, * with the fair hands which hither- 
 to had only stroked the face of the old 
 beau,' she left some deep marks of her fury. 
 
 The Count de La Motte had had enough 
 
128 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 of it. He took advantage of the disorders 
 following on the events of the 14th of July 
 to desert his wife and return to Paris. He 
 arrived there on August 18, 1789. From 
 that day, the correspondence of Madame 
 de La Motte with her husband and sister, 
 the latter in retirement at the Abbey of 
 Jarcy, furnishes most valuable information. 
 
 Marie Anne de Remy, described as a 
 buxom creature, fair, dull, sweet-tempered 
 and indolent, was in every respect the 
 opposite of her sister. When, on June 2, 
 
 1786, she heard of her sister's condemnation, 
 in her grief she swallowed a phial of poison. 
 The Abbess of Jarcy administered remedies 
 for twelve hours in succession, while the 
 young woman was contorted with frightful 
 pain. She recovered, and on September 20, 
 
 1787, the Abbe Pfaff wrote to the Countess 
 de La Motte in London about her : — 
 
 *When you ask your sister for help, I 
 see that you are ignorant of her sad con- 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 129 
 
 dition. Her state of health is worse than 
 death. The different poisons she has 
 swallowed on as many as four occasions 
 since June 2 last year, and especially on 
 that day, owing to her despair about you, 
 have led to such a state of continual suffer- 
 ing and depression of spirits that it is 
 impossible to imagine a condition more 
 grievous and pitiable. And in addition she 
 continues to be in great want.' All she 
 had to live on was her pension of 800 livres. 
 After the condemnation of Madame de La 
 Motte, Louis xvi. increased it by 2700 livres 
 from the privy purse. 
 
 The letters addressed by Marie Anne to 
 her sister Jeanne from the moment when 
 the latter, deserted by her husband, re- 
 mained alone in London, in abject poverty, 
 are quite touching. 
 
 'Your husband,' she wrote early in 
 December 1789, 'has left you in distress. 
 He is in Paris, where he is said to be 
 
 I 
 
130 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 telling the most shameful tales about you. 
 Poor thing! These are the people, with 
 their bad company and their evil counsels, 
 who have ruined you ! The Memoirs they 
 are ascribing to you, which your husband 
 has put your name to without putting his 
 own, so that he can disown them and let 
 you bear the odium, have done you much 
 harm. Many people who, like myself, be- 
 lieved you to be innocent, as you assured 
 me you were in the Bastille, have been 
 astonished at these Memoirs, I can't 
 believe my sister capable of the horrors 
 they contain, for they contain horrible 
 things against my father, and are full of 
 lies.' She adds that she intends to leave 
 France, and pleads with Jeanne to come with 
 her. Madame de La Motte had informed 
 her that she was working at some fresh 
 writings, at a long narrative in which she 
 would unfold the whole story of her life, 
 and which would make a sensation. 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 131 
 
 * You say in your letter that you are 
 writing your life. Alas! what good will 
 that be ? It is said you are only doing all 
 this to gain money. Is that how a Valois 
 should try to regain public esteem ? ' 
 
 Marie Anne ended with an entreaty : 
 * Listen to the voice of honour and truth. 
 Don't reject what I say. It is the heart 
 that speaks to you, the only heart still left 
 to you, which tells you that silence is 
 better than all these memoirs in which you 
 are ruining yourself. If you will return to 
 your better mind and follow my advice, 
 you will find in your sister a true friend, 
 who only wishes your good, and will gladly 
 share with you all that she has. And I 
 would suggest that we should finish our 
 days together, and retire to Switzerland or 
 Italy, or to some German principality, where 
 we should be happy and free and, above 
 all, unknown. With my little fortune, we 
 shall be able to live very decently in the 
 
132 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 countries where life is cheap. Alas ! my 
 poor dear, how I wish this plan might please 
 you ! I would give everything in the world 
 for that to be, and I should be happy to 
 have my sister with me, recovered from 
 her errors, and to live together till death.' 
 
 Madame de La Motte replied with a 
 reference to the Almighty, and Marie 
 Anne, from her bed, where she was kept 
 by her weakness and anxiety, wrote again 
 on December 15, 1789 : — 
 
 * I have just received your beautiful and 
 godly letter, which did not surprise me, 
 because I have never doubted your good 
 feelings so long as you are away from bad 
 company : but I am surprised by your con- 
 fession that you really have published the 
 Memoirs, whereby you show yourself so very 
 culpable and forgetful of the God you have 
 to-day so often at the point of your pen.' 
 She goes on to speak of the evil reports 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 133 
 
 La Motte is spreading about his wife in 
 Paris. He is leading a gay life at the 
 Palais Royal, in a very expensive suite on 
 the second floor. 
 
 * I hope your distress may not be worse 
 than his,' says Marie Anne. 'Poor thing! 
 In spite of your approval of him, I can't 
 bring myself to pardon the principal author 
 of my poor sister's troubles. I might also 
 invoke the name of God, like you, and, 
 without probing deeper into this dreadful 
 business, tell you constantly that God is 
 good and merciful, that you must- hope in 
 His loving-kindness, and that He will not 
 refuse His favour to the submissive and 
 repentant child, as you say so well. Well, 
 my sister, why, with such beautiful religious 
 sentiments, why want always to set people 
 talking about you, by all these writings, 
 which will end in ruining you before God 
 and men ? With true repentance you may 
 yet hope, as you say, to be pitied and 
 
134 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 respected ; but, I tell you, you will not do 
 it by these Memoirs. I am your sister and 
 friend, don't spurn my advice; and since 
 you tell me I am your consolation, and 
 I ask nothing better than to help to make 
 you happy, it all depends on yourself. I 
 would give my life to succeed in this, my 
 dear sister. Renounce, I beseech you, 
 these dreadful memoirs of yours. 
 
 * I am much disappointed to see that you 
 do not approve my suggestion that we 
 should spend the remainder of our days 
 together — since you do not answer on that 
 point. Alone, in a free country, where we 
 were unknown, we could live respectably. 
 I confess that, though I repeat the sug- 
 gestion, I fear you will still oppose it. How- 
 ever, I don't want to force your inclinations. 
 What I say to you is said at the dictation 
 of love and honour, and unhappily you do 
 not always understand what those words 
 mean. But I shall never reproach you. 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 135 
 
 Let us bury the past ! But the present 
 should guide our future course. I blame 
 nobody but the wretches who have led you 
 so deep into wrong-doing. I should be 
 overwhelmed with joy if my sister at last 
 recognised my affection and had some 
 confidence in her only friend. 
 
 * Poor sister ! Remember once for all 
 that your greatest enemy now is yourself, 
 and that your one friend is myself, offering 
 you everything I have ! 
 
 * It is said that the city will soon resume 
 its payments, and I shall get my eighteen 
 months' arrears. Then I will send you some- 
 thing, and you will rejoin me, or I will 
 come to you if you like, and we will retire 
 to some spot where we can still live and be 
 happy, if you will but try. 
 
 'Good-bye, good-bye. I send my best 
 love.' 
 
 And what did Madame de La Motte 
 reply to these words, sprung from so real 
 
136 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 a feeling, so sincere an affection ? We 
 have none of her letters to Marie Anne, 
 but we have those she wrote to her hus- 
 band. In these she shows herself as she 
 was ; we see her at last in her true 
 colours. 
 
 * I was in such haste to catch the post,' 
 she wrote on January ii, 1790, 'that I had 
 no time to give you any details concerning 
 the moissonneuse^ (thus she calls her sister). 
 * I have received only two letters from her ' 
 (the two we have just read). ' In the first 
 she suggests that we should spend our last 
 days together, in Switzerland or Italy where 
 living is cheap ; says she would be happy 
 if I approved her scheme ; but advises me 
 to stop publishing memoirs, and says she 
 wants to know how I am placed, so that 
 she can help me. She tells me that people 
 in Paris are saying you have deserted me, 
 and a hundred other horrors. As I know 
 
 1 Properly a reaper, harvester. 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 137 
 
 these precious humbugs, I don't care a rap 
 for them. And so I have made a very 
 brief reply, and asked nothing for myself, 
 but only ten guineas for that monster 
 Angelique.' 
 
 The ' monster Angelique ' was the girl 
 who while a prisoner in the Salp^triere had 
 devoted herself to the countess's service. 
 Like Marianne, the companion of Madame 
 de La Motte's flight, she had joined the 
 countess in England. Both had taken 
 service with her. But as the lady did not 
 pay them their wages, and they were 
 scandalised at what went on in the house, 
 they had left her. And Angelique was 
 demanding her wages so that she might 
 return to France. 
 
 * A second letter,' continues Madame de 
 La Motte, 'arrived on December 15 : dzs- 
 graceful. ' 
 
 This is the letter we have just transcribed; 
 the word disgraceful is underlined. 
 
138 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 ' A hundred more offers, to be fulfilled 
 only on one condition : that there are no 
 more memoirs. In short, she treats me 
 horribly badly. And you are the hero of 
 the business ; fancy, you are the sole author 
 of it all ; and so she runs on with expres- 
 sions worthy of such a pair of knaves ' (her 
 sister, and the abbe Pfaff, who pitied her 
 condition and was trying to do something 
 for her). * Accustomed to deceive every- 
 body, they are really working for my 
 enemies, as I have told them.' 
 
 She goes on to say that the abbe had 
 come to see her in London. 
 
 ' He came on Sunday, December 27, at 
 five in the afternoon. He embraced me 
 — his breath stank like the plague — and 
 shook hands in English fashion. He re- 
 mained till ten o'clock, and came again next 
 day. 
 
 ' The same impudent rogue, seeing that I 
 abused my sister so roundly in regard to all 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 139 
 
 the money she enjoys since my misfortunes, 
 and that it Httle becomes her, in making 
 offers, to add conditions to them, when 
 everything she has is mine ; he answered 
 that that was not true, that it was the king 
 who had given it to her. But the king has 
 only given what belongs to us. She has an 
 income of 3200 livres, which are certainly 
 the 35,000 livres from the Bastille.' 
 
 (Louis XVI. had indeed thought at first 
 of giving the 30,000 — not 35,000 — livres, 
 which the stolen Necklace had produced, to 
 Marie Anne; but the Cardinal de Rohan 
 having opposed the plan, he had given her 
 a pension of 2700 livres from his privy 
 purse.) 
 
 'And this monster,' continues Madame 
 de La Motte, speaking of Marie Anne, 'has 
 had the heart not to come to her sister's 
 help, but is supporting a rogue. Ah ! he ' 
 (the abbe Pfaff) * is costing her dear ! He 
 told me they had three children ; and that 
 
140 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 they were paying 800 livres for their rooms. 
 He occupies the back and she the front. 
 He goes to her as soon as the servants 
 are in bed, through a passage under the 
 staircase, which leads to a Httle room 
 belonging to the moissonneuse near her 
 bedroom.' 
 
 It is unnecessary to remark that all these 
 details are the product of Madame de La 
 Motte's imagination. She went out of her 
 way to spread these stories and to write 
 them for every one to read. 
 
 And she had found a means to pro- 
 cure the money she so badly needed. ' I 
 shall send to my sister's,' she wrote to her 
 husband, 'to get her desk opened and to 
 steal 9500 livres.' 
 
 This curious letter, so useful in fixing 
 Madame de La Motte's character, is valu- 
 able too for the lines with which it closes. 
 No further proof, to be sure, is required 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 141 
 
 that Jeanne stole and broke up the Neck- 
 lace. The accumulation of facts is over- 
 whelming. But it is interesting to have a 
 formal confession from her own hand. In 
 the Memoirs compiled and published by 
 herself we read : — 
 
 The cardinal's line of defence bore only on the 
 alleged eagerness of M. de La Motte to carry off, 
 not only his diamonds, but also mine, with our 
 silver plate, lace, and all the valuable things we 
 had ; ought not Madame de Surmont to have de- 
 clared (Madame de Surmontwas M. de La Motte's 
 aunt, who had years ago taken Jeanne de Valois 
 into her house at Bar-sur-Aube) that it was false 
 that M. de La Motte had carried off those things 
 with the idea of taking flight, since he had in- 
 trusted them to her safe keeping ? 
 
 And further, in her letter of January 11, 
 1790, to her husband, Madame de La Motte 
 writes : — 
 
 And don't forget that jade Madame de Sur- 
 mont. For she, my love, she is the cause of our 
 misfortunes. Don't spare her, for God's sake ! 
 
142 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 If I only could, I don't know what I wouldn't do 
 to her. Remember that if she had only given up 
 our diamonds at the proper time, what would 
 there have been to condemn us ? 
 
 The diamonds handed over by Madame 
 de Surmont w^ere shown to Jeanne de 
 Valois in the Bastille. In his still un- 
 published Memoirs, the Count de La Motte 
 writes : — 
 
 These earrings (jewels taken in exchange in 
 London by La Motte for the diamonds of the 
 Necklace) had remained at Bar-sur-Aube, with 
 various other things, as well as all the jewels 
 and diamonds belonging to Madame de La Motte 
 and me. All these things were shown to Madame 
 de La Motte when she was examined and cross- 
 examined. 
 
 The correspondence of Jeanne and her 
 husband went on. She remarks on her 
 sadness and her constantly increasing 
 poverty. ' Sorrow is incessantly crushing 
 me, reducing me to a skeleton.' Again : 
 
LIFE OF MADAME DE LA MOTTE 143 
 
 * I am very ill, my love, the bile is torturing 
 me and sorrow eating my heart out; but 
 courage still keeps me alive, the hope of 
 conquering my enemies still sustains me.' 
 The count appears in no better plight, but 
 Jeanne roughly stirs him up : * O my love, 
 drop all that weak talk about blowing 
 out your brains. Really, you are a dis- 
 grace to your sex.' He must live, and she 
 gives him the reason : * Live, I tell you. 
 For myself, I 'd rather become a servant 
 than give my enemies pleasure by dying.' 
 
144 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 X 
 
 THE PAMPHLETS 
 
 It was about this time, towards the end of 
 1789, that two violent booklets appeared, 
 written by Jeanne de Valois, or at any rate 
 issued in her name. They made a great sensa- 
 tion. These were her Letter to the Queen 
 of France and her Petition to the Nation 
 and the National Assembly for the Revision 
 of her Trial. 'Odious, traitorous woman,' 
 she wrote to Marie Antoinette, 'listen, 
 and read me, if you can, without trembling. 
 Ah, how you must blush, you who have 
 been so long familiar with crime and shame. 
 . . . 'Tis from the depths of the dark abyss, 
 whither I have fled for shelter from your 
 rage, that I address to you the utterance of 
 
THE PAMPHLETS 145 
 
 a heart weighed down by grief.' There 
 is no need to quote further. To the nation 
 and the Assembly Jeanne said : ' It is come, 
 that moment so much desired, that moment 
 for which I would have given a thousand 
 lives ! . . . Yes, Frenchmen, whatever 
 your love of liberty may be, my soul can 
 still challenge yours. You have not, like 
 me, suffered the tortures of Despotism after 
 having felt its perfidious caresses. . . . 
 Tremble, ye villains ; I am about to appear 
 in the arena. And I will cause to appear 
 with me her (the queen) who has so in- 
 famously sacrificed me.' 
 
 Jeanne was in fact getting ready to serve 
 up for Marie Antoinette, and all her enemies, 
 real or imaginary, a new dish of her own 
 invention. This was the Story of My 
 Life, the great work in which all who had 
 not behaved as she would have wished 
 were about to be vilified in her most ac- 
 complished style. Bew the bookseller 
 
 K 
 
146 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 hoped to create a great scandal. He ad- 
 vanced two hundred and fifty pounds on 
 receiving the manuscript. Two editions, 
 one in French, the other in English, both 
 illustrated, were to appear simultaneously. 
 
 Meanwhile the Revolution was progress- 
 ing. * I know,' wrote Madame de La Motte 
 to her husband on December 14, 1790, 
 'that there are many journals in Paris 
 speaking in my favour.' And she adds, 
 in her curious style, so incorrect, but 
 singularly expressive : * After a certain fine 
 character that we got put a month ago into 
 the papers for the queen, I don't doubt 
 there 'd be some one who, for a fortune, 
 would desire that I should disavow that she 
 is the dark original, so as to win back for 
 her the affection of the people ; but on my 
 life, for all the crowns in the world, I shall 
 not disavow what I have said of her, and 
 if she is only white through me, she will 
 be all her life as black as the chimney.' 
 
♦ 
 
 J- iujsle veritable pke Ducheine, fouu 
 
 GRANDE VISITE 
 
 D E 
 
 MADAME LAMOTTE 
 
 A U 
 
 PERE DUCHESNE. 
 
 M A L A D E, 
 
 SON tTONNEMENT D£ TROUVSR AUPRts 
 DE SON LIT UN BROC DE VIN POUI. 
 
 pri.sANNE. Grand malheur. qui leur. 
 ARRIVE. Description de sa chambre. 
 
 M 
 
 ADAME Lamdtte douee de ce caraftere 
 renfible, qui eft ordinairemcnt }e partage des 
 fenimes galanfes , fut tr^s-fachee de I'accideut 
 
 THE GRANDE VISITE DE MME. DE LA MOTTE 
 AU PERE DUCHESNE MALADE 
 
Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
THE PAMPHLETS 147 
 
 And meanwhile Madame is compiling her 
 book in a manner to command success. * I 
 am highly flattering the French people,' 
 she tells the Count de La Motte. And 
 as a spice of anticlericalism is already an 
 assured success, she does not fail to write 
 that 'that ass the abbe Pfaff says of the 
 French that they love blood.' 
 
 In Paris, Jeanne found numerous assis- 
 tants. Libels poured out one after another, 
 insulting, infamous, filthy. The Letter of 
 Madame de La Motte to the French, the 
 Conversation between M, de Calonne and 
 Madame de La Motte, the Conference between 
 Madame de Polignac and Madame de La 
 Motte, the Address of the Countess de La 
 Motte- Valois to the National Assembly ; the 
 Pere Duchesne series : Great Visit of Pere 
 Duchesne to Madame Lamotte and Great 
 Visit of Madame Lamotte to Pere Duchesne 
 while ill, Declaration of Love by Pere 
 Duchesne to Madame Lamotte- Valois, The 
 
148 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 book-hawkers read them aloud at the 
 street- corners, becoming centres of gaping 
 crowds. 
 
 There was a lower descent still. There 
 appeared the French Messalina, or the 
 Nights of the Duchesse de Polignac, the 
 Private, Libertine, and Scandalous Life of 
 Marie Antoinette, the Nymphomania of 
 Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XV L, 
 Marie Antoinette in trouble, the Last Sighs 
 of the Tearful Wench, the National B . . . 
 under the Auspices of the Queen, the Royal 
 B . , . followed by a Secret Lnterview be- 
 tween the Queen and the Cardinal de 
 Rohan, the Presents of the Goddess 
 Hebe to the Royal Messalina, the Grand 
 Fite given by the Mongrels of Paris to all 
 the p ... on the day of the King and Queens 
 arrival, in joy at the rettcrn of their 
 Father and Mother, the Rustic Scenes at 
 Trianon. These filthy pamphlets were in 
 high vogue ; and copies were sold in con- 
 
THE PAMPHLETS 149 
 
 siderable numbers. ' It is amazing,' says 
 a writer, * to see this impure heap of libels 
 pursuing the people in the streets, and 
 spreading our shame over all Europe.' 
 
 But the queen found defenders also : the 
 Reply to the Petition of Jeanne de Valois, 
 the Resurrection of the Necklace by M, 
 Lameth and Company, the Captain Tempest 
 to Jeanne de Valois. Addressing himself to 
 the countess, the captain said : * I admit 
 that in a moment of effervescence, when all 
 the heads of the mob are excited, when all 
 imaginations are on fire, it is easy for adroit 
 and powerful villains to capture the minds 
 of the people by flattering their passions, to 
 delude them as to their true interests by 
 covering with flowers the gulf into which 
 they wish to drag them. I know even 
 that sometimes their crimes may be bought. 
 Consult your constituents and you will learn 
 something of this ; or rather look at this 
 moment into the depths of your own heart ; 
 
ISO CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 you will find there the great truth I affirm ; 
 you will see that you are to-day only the 
 passive instrument of the hate and venge- 
 ance of a few ambitious men, who need 
 the resources of your genius to fill up the 
 measure of their conspiracies.' 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 151 
 
 XI 
 
 REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 
 
 Around the La Mottes, in fact, an inter- 
 esting party was disporting itself. The 
 great revolutionists, Robespierre, Marat, 
 Hebert, Sergent, Panis, Manuel, were 
 quick to perceive the capital they might 
 make of the Necklace affair. They hovered 
 about the Count de La Motte, ' got him to 
 reveal all the conduct of the queen, that 
 audacious woman, who had drawn on her- 
 self the scorn and hatred of all good 
 Frenchmen.' In London, the agents of 
 the Duke of Orleans were trying, on their 
 part, to win Jeanne de Valois to their side. 
 The Court was warned of it, and en- 
 deavoured to ward off the danger. It was 
 
152 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 a curious game. On the king's side it was 
 led by Mirabeau, whom Louis xvi. had just 
 won over by means of his privy purse, 
 though it is fair to say that Mirabeau ap- 
 pears to have been sincerely indignant at 
 the intrigue revealed to him. * I know no 
 infamy, in these times so fertile in villainy,' 
 writes the Comte de La Marck, ' which 
 would have disgusted Mirabeau like this 
 odious machination. It made him boil with 
 rage, and redoubled his energy. *' I will 
 snatch this hapless queen from her tor- 
 mentors," he cried, '* or perish." At this 
 time Mirabeau threw over all the calcula- 
 tions that might have preserved his popu- 
 larity ; and boldly and frankly mounted 
 into the breach to attack the enemies of the 
 monarchy.' 
 
 His notes for the Court show how deeply 
 the great orator was then preoccupied with 
 the intrigues abrewing. * In the days pre- 
 ceding and following July 14,' he wrote on 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 153 
 
 November 11, 1790, 'and in the days pre- 
 ceding and following October 5 and 6, the 
 voice of Madame de La Motte was able by 
 itself alone to bring about a horrible crime.* 
 He goes on : 'Is the Duke of Orleans the 
 sole author of this plot? Is he only the 
 agent of La Fayette ? Whatever the truth 
 may be, the Duke of Orleans is not alone, 
 though he may be in the forefront. La 
 Fayette has probably not appeared, but the 
 Sdmonvilles and the Talons have appeared : 
 it is their doing, the finger-mark of the 
 worker is plain. Likewise the Lameths 
 have not appeared ; but they have let fall 
 hints, perhaps egged on a d'Aiguillon, a 
 Muguet de Nantes, a Danton ; and they 
 winked at things rather than actually 
 brought them about, wishing, whatever 
 happens, to be in a position to profit. All 
 these people can be foiled if we only adopt 
 a firm, rapid, and persistent course. This 
 horrible plot is only really dangerous as 
 
 \^v-= 
 
154 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 long as we are afraid to probe it.' In a 
 note dated November 12, he continues : ' It 
 is no longer merely to gratify the public 
 malignity that the revision of Madame de 
 La Motte s case is being agitated for ; a 
 direct attack on the queen is intended, not 
 to appease a mere feeling of resentment, but 
 to obtain other successes afterwards when 
 the first obstacle is surmounted. It would 
 not be a difficult nor an unlikely thing to 
 systematise schemes as culpable. Perhaps, 
 after having disorganised the realm and de- 
 stroyed all the sources of authority, the heads 
 of the popular party recognise that they 
 have much more material for a republic than 
 for a monarchy ; perhaps they are struck by 
 the impossibility of re-establishing order 
 without giving way and retracing their 
 steps : and, either because shame holds 
 them back, or because a greater ambition 
 presents itself to their hopes, they prefer to 
 change the ancient form of government, 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 155 
 
 which it is almost out of their power now 
 to consolidate. In this scheme the queen, 
 whose character, firmness, and clearness 
 of mind they know, would be the first 
 object of their attack, both as the first and 
 the strongest defence of the throne, and as 
 the sentinel who is most assiduously watch- 
 ing over the security of the monarch. But 
 the great art of such ambitious men would 
 be to conceal their aim. They would wish 
 to appear to be forced on by events, and 
 not to direct them. After having made the 
 La Motte case a destructive poison to the 
 queen ; after having changed the absurdest 
 calumnies into legal proofs capable of de- 
 ceiving the king ; they would raise, one after 
 another, questions of divorce, regency, the 
 marriage of kings, the education of the 
 heir to the throne. In the midst of all 
 these discussions and all these contests it 
 would be easy to surround the king with 
 terrors, to make the burden of the crown 
 
156 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 more and more unendurable, and finally to 
 reduce his authority to such an empty form 
 that he would himself abdicate, or agree to 
 leave, for the rest of his reign, his power in 
 other hands. The horrible designs I am only 
 with great regret describing here, certainly 
 do not exceed the bounds of human wicked- 
 ness ; in this respect alone the La Motte 
 affair would be formidable, because it would 
 form part of a veritable conspiracy.'^ 
 
 This remarkable page was well worth 
 quoting in its entirety. Mirabeau con- 
 cludes : ' If the woman La Motte is not 
 arrested within a couple of days, you will 
 
 ^ It is very curious to compare this note of Mirabeau 
 with the following passage from the J^ep/j/ to the Petition of 
 Jeanne de La Motte, an anonymous pamphlet published at 
 this time : ' The party making use of you will betray them- 
 selves by their madness. This is what they will do : they 
 will demand from the National Assembly a divorce, and 
 couple this demand with the insults dictated to you against 
 the queen. They want to induce the people and the 
 capital, which they hope to cajole with talk of justice and 
 vengeance, to ask the king to separate for ever from the 
 mother of his children, and to abandon her to their rage.' 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 157 
 
 have to change your procedure, confine 
 yourselves to keeping an eye on her, find- 
 ing out her plans, her connections, her 
 resources, her hopes, without having her 
 arrested, so as to avoid scandal. It would 
 be possible, with some ingenuity, to deceive 
 this woman, crafty as she may be, by offer- 
 ing her protection and defenders whom she 
 would not think of mistrusting.' 
 
 Mirabeau's plan was adopted and put 
 into execution by Louis xvi.'s expiring 
 government with surprising ability and 
 success. Montmorin, the only minister left 
 who remained favourable to the king, had 
 succeeded in circumventing the Count de 
 La Motte to such an extent that the Count 
 had accepted as his consulting barrister the 
 head of the royal secret police, the advocate 
 Jacques Claude Martin Marivaux, who was 
 afterwards condemned to death by the 
 revolutionary tribunal for performing the 
 functions assigned to him at this time. 
 
158 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 ' M. de La Motte has returned to Paris,' 
 we read in Duquesnoy's Journal, under 
 1790. ' He has come to renew his attacks 
 on the queen. Happily he has addressed 
 himself to very prudent folk, who are labour- 
 ing to hinder his proceedings. There is 
 reason to believe they will succeed.' La 
 Motte swore by Marivaux. 
 
 Another revolutionary group — Lameth, 
 Barnave, d'Aiguillon, Menou — circled round 
 the Jew Bassenge, to whom the Cardinal 
 de Rohan was debtor for the Necklace. 
 They invited him to dinner, and commiser- 
 ated an honest merchant on being the un- 
 fortunate victim of a cruel court intrigue. 
 They hinted that the day of justice was at 
 length about to dawn, and that the scale 
 would not incline in favour of kings. They 
 marked out his course, exhorting him to 
 present a petition to the Jacobins to per- 
 suade the National Assembly to clear him 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 159 
 
 in the eyes of the nation. But how was 
 the nation concerned in a purely private 
 matter? In this way. The abbey of Saint- 
 Vaast, once belonging to the Cardinal de 
 Rohan, and now part of the national pro- 
 perty, could no longer be subject to the 
 temporary mortgage assigned by the royal 
 order to Bassenge. His claim was sacred, 
 and became one of the king's obligations, an 
 obligation which, like the rest, ought to be 
 placed under the guardianship of the nation. 
 A memorial was drawn up by Tavernier. 
 Menou persuaded his companions to intro- 
 duce additional phrases against the queen. 
 * It was proposed,' writes the Count de La 
 Marck to Mercy- Argenteau, * to present 
 this petition to the National Assembly, not 
 to make the nation pay Bassenge — every 
 one knows that is impossible — but to lead 
 to a discussion in which it will be main- 
 tained that the Necklace ought to be paid 
 for out of the civil list, which is only an- 
 
i6o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 other way of having the case retried. ' The 
 jewellers Bohmer and Bassenge considered 
 the proposition ; but this important way of 
 going to work scared them ; they would 
 have preferred a more discreet method, and 
 they sent to the royal court the following 
 note, the terms of which should be noticed : 
 ' People who are at the present time enjoy- 
 ing a certain credit are apparently interest- 
 ing themselves in Bohmer and Bassenge. 
 They flatter them that they are about to be 
 rescued from the extraordinary situation in 
 which they find themselves, and paid in full. 
 But Bohmer and Bassenge fear that their 
 patrons are only wanting to serve them at 
 the expense of a name for which they have 
 the greatest veneration, and they will only 
 put themselves in the hands of those now 
 courting them after having exhausted all 
 other means.' 
 
 The court learnt through its agents that 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS i6i 
 
 Jeanne was working in London at a fresh 
 pamphlet, more spiteful and scandalous than 
 the first. ' You may tell your advocate/ 
 she wrote to her husband, * that my Lt/e 
 will before long be given to the public. If 
 I read it to him, he would himself see what 
 a thunderbolt this work will launch at the 
 heads of the monsters, the authors of my 
 disgrace.' Jeanne de Valois, however, would 
 be only too glad to avoid this scandal if the 
 court would find the right means of per- 
 suasion. ' Since the time when, by a sort 
 of miracle,' she wrote herself, 'I set foot 
 on this foreign land, where freedom smiles 
 upon misfortune, I have done all I could to 
 induce Her Majesty to believe that I was in 
 possession of a correspondence the publica- 
 tion of which would have the double effect 
 of compromising her and minimising my 
 faults. In each of my letters I repeated 
 that *' since it had pleased Providence that 
 I should survive that multitude of horrors ; 
 
 L 
 
i62 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 since it had saved me from my own rages ; 
 its intention was clearly that I should not 
 perish for lack of the means of subsistence ; 
 that, in the plight to which I am reduced, I 
 might at least hope that the queen would 
 have restored to me what the confiscation 
 of my goods and effects had poured into the 
 coffers of the king." ' 
 
 Meanwhile, to her husband, who under 
 Marivaux' influence was insisting that she 
 should defer the printing of her new pam- 
 phlet, she wrote at once : * You desire, my 
 dear, that I shall not write my Life, or 
 publish it, for fear of offending the govern- 
 ment : learn to follow the advice of your 
 defender, but try to understand also that 
 I don't know why you are so much afraid. 
 I am not speaking against anybody, and 
 besides, this point, I am tired of telling you, 
 doesn't concern you. I have much affection 
 for you, but in this matter I shall follow 
 my own inclination/ 
 
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS 163 
 
 Marivaux considered that the surest 
 means of stopping the pubHcation was to 
 have Jeanne de Valois at Paris within 
 reach. La Motte wrote asking her to 
 come, insisting on it. The negotiations 
 for the purchase by the court of the new 
 pamphlet would be much easier there. 
 Madame de La Motte hesitated. What 
 about the Salpetriere ? ' What strikes me 
 very forcibly,' she answered, ' is that if it 
 is true that some person of rank is bent on 
 my silence, for the tranquillity of Toinette, 
 why don't they come where I am and make 
 the proper arrangements with me ? Why 
 is my presence in Paris so much desired.'^ 
 The Salpetriere has not been destroyed ; 
 consequently they might throw me again 
 into their loathsome holes.' 
 
 Since she refused to go to France, 
 Marivaux decided that some one should go 
 to her, and keep watch upon her in London, 
 as her husband was being watched in 
 
i64 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Paris. He sought the aid of Dubu de 
 Longchamp, general administrator of the 
 post-office, whom she had once met at the 
 house of one Mortsange, and who wrote 
 to her on June 2, 1791, pretending to share 
 and to approve her fears and mistrust : — 
 
 * You have been urged to come to Paris 
 at this time. I am not at all in favour 
 of your coming. You must wait till M. 
 de La Motte's affairs are settled, till your 
 husband's hopes are changed into certainties. 
 He is opposed to a scandal which would be 
 dangerous without being useful. Follow 
 his example, madam. Give up all hope 
 of vengeance for the firm resolve to rest 
 your weary head on a peaceful and stable 
 soil. The time of illusions must be past. 
 The time of sorrow is sure to spend itself. 
 Devoted as I am to the relief of the un- 
 fortunate, I shall regard it as delightful, 
 madam, to be useful to M. de La Motte 
 and yourself.' 
 
THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 165 
 
 XII 
 
 THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 
 
 On June 10, 1791, an agent of Dubu de 
 Longchamp named Bertrand left Calais, 
 to assume the office of watchdog over 
 Madame de La Motte, and to take care that 
 the agents of the revolutionist factions, of 
 Marat, Robespierre and Lameth, and of the 
 Duke of Orleans, did not approach her. 
 He arrived on the 13th. A horrible drama 
 had just been enacted. As the result of 
 proceedings taken against her by a creditor, 
 an upholsterer named Mackenzie, Madame 
 de La Motte was suddenly visited by a 
 number of constables. In her half-frantic 
 state, the vision of her past crimes and 
 punishments rose suddenly before her mind : 
 
i66 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the horrible punishment before the steps of 
 the Palais de Justice, the shameful letters 
 burnt into her smoking flesh, the cells of 
 the Salpetriere ; and, with a movement of 
 terror, as though impelled by the force 
 of Fate, she had opened the window, and 
 flung herself down from the second story 
 on to the pavement. Unconscious, with 
 mangled limbs, she had been picked up 
 by a perfumer named Warren, who lived 
 opposite Lambeth Street, near Westminster 
 Bridge. 
 
 *When I entered her room,' wrote 
 Bertrand to Dubu on June 13, 1791, 
 * she began to work on my feelings. She 
 lifted the bedclothes so that I might see 
 her injuries. There was never seen any- 
 thing so horrible. Her thigh is broken 
 about the middle, one leg is broken at the 
 knee, and both are in splints. Deposits 
 of purulent matter are forming, and the 
 surgeon was obliged to make incisions in 
 
THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 167 
 
 order to allow suppuration. Her whole 
 body is dark yellow in colour, from head 
 to foot.' She was in the deepest want, 
 having absolutely nothing to live on. 
 Eighteen months before she had received 
 one hundred and seventy guineas in advance 
 for her new Memoirs, on which she had 
 supported life since. She was now wholly 
 dependent on the charity of Mr. Warren, 
 and that was beginning to wear out. 
 
 Her condition grew worse and worse. 
 *A whitish spot,' wrote Bertrand on June 
 21, 'has appeared on the thigh. After a 
 poultice, a considerable swelling formed, 
 which burst and flooded her thigh with 
 pus of a disgusting odour, and the matter 
 was so abundant that five saucerfuls of it 
 were thrown away. When I went in, the 
 smell was unendurable, though a lot of 
 brown paper had been burnt and all the 
 windows were open.' 
 
 Warren the perfumer was a decent man, 
 
i68 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 but a little hardhearted. He reckoned 
 that the sick woman was costing him a 
 good deal of money, and began to be afraid 
 that it would never be reimbursed. ' When 
 all is said and done,' he wrote to Dubu de 
 Longchamp, ' I haven't the means to con- 
 tinue supporting her. To me, the duties of 
 a husband and father come before those 
 of friendship.' He asked Jeanne roughly 
 on her bed of suffering what had become 
 of her husband and the fine friends of 
 whom she was always talking, but none 
 of whom appeared. 'This Bertrand,' he 
 said, * who never leaves your bedside, is 
 one of your old lovers.' He reproached 
 her with the linen she was soiling, and 
 refused to pay the nurse attending her. 
 
 In Paris, events were hurrying on. The 
 general restlessness was extreme. Bertrand 
 received no news from Dubu de Long- 
 champ. * The sick woman,' he wrote, 
 * would like to have some assistance, being 
 
THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 169 
 
 absolutely destitute. I do all that I can 
 to persuade her that her affairs are in the 
 best possible condition ; but she is as much 
 astonished as I am at getting no news/ 
 
 Bertrand's mission was not merely to 
 keep an eye on Madame de La Motte, but 
 to prevent the appearance of her book, 
 The Life of Jeanne de Saint-Rdmy de 
 Valois, Countess de La Motte. Six thousand 
 copies had been printed, of which four 
 thousand were for the booksellers of Paris, 
 and a thousand for those of London and 
 Holland ; while a thousand copies of an 
 English translation had also been printed. 
 Bertrand opened negotiations. The publica- 
 tion, though announced in the London 
 journals, was delayed. Madame de La 
 Motte, who was to have signed every 
 copy, put it off from day to day under 
 pressure from Bertrand, who announced 
 that money was being sent to her. But 
 the money did not come. 
 
170 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Meanwhile Warren was worrying the 
 patient. There were unpleasant scenes, 
 and she wept bitterly. ' It is easily seen,' 
 observes Bertrand, ' that it is only the fear 
 of losing what she owes him that keeps him 
 at all civil.' 
 
 ' I had yesterday with the patient,' wrote 
 the correspondent of Dubu de Longchamp 
 on July 29, ' a scene for which my courage 
 was not prepared. I will tone down its 
 deplorable colours for you. She told me 
 that she was quite convinced I had only 
 come to London to make her perish in the 
 most outrageous manner; that it was to 
 take from her her hard-earned bread that 
 we had thought of delaying the publication 
 of her work, which was her only means of 
 subsistence ; that she would have gladly 
 pardoned me if I had plunged a knife into 
 her heart ; that all that was left to her, 
 after revenging herself on you and me, was 
 to end her unhappy existence as promptly 
 
THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 171 
 
 as possible. I believe that if her strength 
 had permitted, she would have accomplished 
 so cruel a design. ''Judge yourself," she 
 said to me, "how much faith I should 
 repose in your lies. I will sign to-morrow 
 the copies of my book, and don't be 
 offended if I take all necessary measures 
 to secure compensation for your perfidy, 
 and for the lamentable plight in which 
 the delay in the appearance of my work, 
 due to you, has thrown me." 
 
 * I let her have her say out,' adds 
 Bertrand. * I let her cries and tears pass 
 in silence. The fever came upon her at 
 that moment, with a dreadful shivering. 
 This is only a slight sketch of this over- 
 powering scene.' 
 
 From that moment the poor woman's 
 state grew rapidly worse. On August 5 
 Bertrand wrote, * The patient is nearing the 
 end.' 
 
 Jeanne de Saint -R6my de Valois, 
 
172 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Countess de La Motte, died on Tuesday, 
 August 23, 1 79 1, at eleven o'clock in the 
 evening, in frightful anguish. The night 
 before, she had been seized with vomitings 
 and convulsions, which never left her till 
 the end. She was buried on August 26, 
 in the churchyard of St Mary's, Lambeth. ^ 
 
 Warren wrote at once to the Count de 
 La Motte announcing the sad event. A 
 few friends accompanied the coffin. ' I 
 had her buried in Lambeth church, and 
 reserved the right for her friends, if they 
 are disposed to take advantage of it, to 
 erect a monument over the remains of the 
 most affectionate wife, sister, and friend that 
 ever lived.' 
 
 ^ On page 2009 of the parish register the name is given 
 as ' Jean Saint-Rymer de Valois, Countesse de La Motte.' 
 ' Madame de La Motte died on Tuesday after suffering a 
 martyrdom. She is buried to-day.' (Note of August 
 26, 1 791, signed W. Harris, to Dubu de Longchamp. 
 Archives nationales^ F. 7/4445.) The Courrier de P Europe, 
 published in London, announced her death on the same 
 day, August 26, as also did the London Chronicle. 
 
THE END OF JEANNE DE VALOIS 173 
 
 The Count de La Motte made no reply. 
 Warren wrote a second time, detailing the 
 expenses he had incurred. The count was 
 less likely to reply than ever. Warren re- 
 presented to him that he was not behaving 
 like a gentleman. And still La Motte 
 answered nothing. 
 
 The unfortunate Bertrand had left London 
 before the death of the countess. To Dubu 
 de Longchamp, who had intrusted him with 
 the mission he had carried out in London, 
 he wrote : * I leave this evening, August 1 9. 
 I have the honour to ask you to send me 
 some money to the poste restante at Calais. 
 You will prolong my wretched existence. 
 God knows, if you don't send me the means 
 of returning, I shall have to beg my bread 
 on the highway. My soul is grievously 
 disturbed, as my wife can do nothing for 
 me. I am leaving, trusting to Providence.' 
 
174 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 XIII 
 
 THE HALL OF VENUS 
 
 The Life of Jeanne de Saint-Rdmy de Valois, 
 the publication of which had occupied and 
 tormented the poor woman to the hour of 
 death, and to which she had owed her last 
 resources, was sent from London to the 
 bookseller Gueffiier, on the Quai des 
 Augustins in Paris. After having read the 
 story of her lamentable end, he was still 
 more saddened to set eyes on this dreadful 
 pamphlet. The theme of it was as follows : 
 Marie Antoinette had conceived an affec- 
 tion for her cousin, Jeanne de Valois, from 
 the day when she saw her faint under her 
 windows. She had made her the con- 
 fidante of her most secret thoughts. That 
 
THE HALL OF VENUS 175 
 
 was how it was that Jeanne had become 
 the intermediary between her and the 
 Cardinal de Rohan, the Iris messenger of 
 their amours. The meetings took place 
 at night, between eleven and midnight, at 
 Trianon, in the hall of Venus, which 
 Madame de La Motte thus describes : ' An 
 elegant apartment, round in form, sur- 
 mounted by a dome, is situated in the 
 gardens of Petit-Trianon, on an eminence 
 which you reach by a gentle slope. The 
 building is surrounded by a moat, which 
 the cardinal and myself used to cross by 
 means of a plank thrown over it for that 
 purpose. In the middle of the room stood 
 a pedestal of white marble, a superb statue 
 representing Apollo or Venus. In the 
 corners are other statues — these are Cupids 
 and Graces. The doors are of glass. You 
 descend from the hall to the gardens by 
 four marble steps. At the windows are 
 curtains of the finest damask, spotted with 
 
176 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 embroidered flowers. There are tapestries, 
 arm-chairs, sofas.' 
 
 To that spot, when the king happened 
 to be hunting at Rambouillet, Jeanne used 
 to lead the cardinal to the queen, who 
 awaited him on a couch. 
 
 Criticism, studying the Life of Jeanne de 
 Saint-Rdmy, has remarked that no hall 
 existed at Trianon called the hall of 
 Venus, no apartment resembling even dis- 
 tantly the description given by Madame 
 de La Motte. During the winter of 1784, 
 when these meetings were said to have 
 taken place, Marie Antoinette never went 
 to Trianon. On the days mentioned, the 
 king was not hunting at Rambouillet. We 
 have a journal in Louis xvi.'s own hand, 
 in which all his movements are precisely 
 recorded. Is there any need to dwell on 
 the point? The book ends with a series 
 of letters in which the queen and the 
 cardinal tell each other of their love. Will 
 
THE HALL OF VENUS 177 
 
 any one venture to maintain that these 
 letters are authentic ? 
 
 The court succeeded in having the books 
 seized. The Count de La Motte himself 
 revealed where they were warehoused. 
 * Without compromising anything,' he wrote 
 to the king on May 5, 1792, ' I could claim 
 and get from the hands of the malevolent 
 the weapon they wish to make- use of 
 to-day in furtherance of their projects.' 
 Laporte, controller of the civil list, bought 
 the complete edition for 14,000 livres 
 from the king's own funds. On May 26, 
 1792, he had them thrown into the furnace 
 at the Sevres porcelain manufactory, tied 
 up in thirty bundles. They were burning 
 for five hours. Everything was consumed. 
 The municipal officers at once informed 
 the National Assembly, and the Pere 
 Duchesne began to fulminate against the 
 intrigues of the court. Laporte was sum- 
 moned to the bar of the Assembly. It j 
 
 M 
 
1/8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 was declared that he had destroyed in 
 the Sevres furnace the correspondence of 
 Marie Antoinette with enemies of the state, 
 and packets of false notes she had had 
 made in London. Soon afterwards, a copy 
 of the book, found at Laporte's house, was 
 taken to the offices of the Committee of 
 Surveillance, which, composed of strong 
 'patriots,' at once got the work reprinted 
 and put on sale at Garnery's. In these 
 days no respectable man could read its 
 pages without a feeling of nausea; but 
 at that time, men's passions seasoned it 
 with the spice necessary to permit its 
 digestion. In the Hall of Venus, adorned 
 with Cupids and Graces, behind the flower- 
 embroidered curtains, on a sofa of figured 
 silk inwoven with fine gold, the skirts of a 
 Queen of France trailed the floor with the 
 scarlet folds of a cardinal's robe : what a 
 treat for the men of that day ! 
 
 *At that moment,' write the Goncourts, 
 
THE HALL OF VENUS 179 
 
 * Madame de La Motte's libel made its 
 reappearance in France. Montmorin, the 
 only royalist minister left to Louis, defend- 
 ing the queen one day in the council ; and 
 complaining, timidly at first, to Duport 
 du Tertre of the threats levelled at her, 
 and of the plot to assassinate her openly 
 avowed by a considerable party, and ending 
 by asking his colleague if he would allow 
 such a crime to be consummated, Duport 
 coldly replied that he would not counten- 
 ance an assassination, but that he would 
 not look with the same disfavour on a trial, 
 if that were suggested. **What!" cried 
 Montmorin, ''you, a minister of the king, 
 would consent to such an infamy ? " ** But 
 what if there is no other means ? " returned 
 the keeper of the seals.' 
 
 The opportunity sought by Duport was 
 about to be provided by the Count de La 
 Motte, who was urging the revision of his 
 trial. The turn taken by events robbed 
 
i8o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the king of his means of action, and the 
 count escaped the influence of his advisers. 
 'The course for me to pursue,' he wrote 
 to Montmorin, ' reduces itself to two very- 
 simple points: — (i) to place myself in a 
 position to get a decision on my contumacy ; 
 (2) to plead for the quashing of the decree 
 that branded my wife, and to sue the 
 judges and the minister who used the 
 secrecy of the Bastille to lead her to her 
 ruin.' 
 
 He wrote to the keeper of the seals : 
 * A party once powerful, in order to ruin 
 my wife, more weak than criminal, united 
 the greatest instruments of despotism — the 
 Bastille, and the judges in the pay of the 
 court. The Bastille no longer exists, and 
 the French people is about to choose judges 
 who would blush to allow themselves to 
 be led step by step into the labyrinth of 
 Themis by an insolent and ferocious vizier.' 
 
 Besides, was not special consideration 
 
THE HALL OF VENUS i8i 
 
 due to the La Mottes ? ' The sentence by 
 which we were condemned,' said the count, 
 'was the signal for the astonishing revolu- 
 tion which was brought about with so much 
 facility by the corruption of the court, the 
 disorder of the finances, and the tyranny 
 of those who shared the public power. 
 There is a Providence which delights to 
 direct the destiny of mortals, and which 
 causes germs destructive to the power of 
 tyranny to spring from the blood of the 
 innocent ! ' 
 
 The Count de La Motte, however, pru- 
 dently waited till 1792, when the Revolution 
 was in full swing, to present himself at 
 the Conciergerie as a prisoner, in order 
 to purge himself of his contumacy. He 
 was incarcerated on January 4. On the 
 following night, between two and three 
 o'clock, the prison caught fire. The Pere 
 Duchesne hastened to inform France that 
 this was an incendiary feat instigated by 
 
i82 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the court for the purpose of burning La 
 Motte and his papers ; and Robespierre, 
 Hubert, and Manuel hastened up and 
 rushed into the prison. 
 
 * Rest easy for the present/ said Manuel 
 to the count, ' we are looking after you.' 
 
 Jeanne de Valois' husband published in 
 his turn a memorial in his own defence, 
 when his case came before the third 
 tribunal. Meanwhile a revulsion seems 
 to have taken place in his soul, in which 
 feelings of this sort found little lodging 
 as a rule — unless perhaps this too was a 
 means in his eyes of extorting money. 
 However that may be, he wrote to the 
 king on May 5, 1792 : * A cabal, which is 
 offended at my prudence, would like to 
 make a dangerous scandal out of this affair. 
 The Sieur Deplane, president and judge, 
 was appointed to examine me. His 
 questions had no other aim than to seek 
 to compromise the queen, and principally 
 
THE HALL OF VENUS 183 
 
 to find some means of bringing her before 
 the court as a necessary witness to the 
 facts; and the curious pubHc fell into the 
 trap.' The case was remitted to the first 
 court, which, on July 20, 1792, quashed 
 the sentence of June i, 1786, by which 
 the Count and Countess de La Motte had 
 been condemned by the Parlement, * seeing 
 that,' said the new judgment, ' the indictment^ 
 submitted by the procurator-general to the 
 quondam Parlement of Paris, on Septem- 
 ber 7, 1785, is only signed at the end 
 and not on each leaf, which is contrary to 
 the law.' Thus the sentence was quashed 
 for a technical irregularity. La Motte was 
 again brought before a jury. 
 
 Other judges were lying hungrily in wait 
 for the queen. 
 
i84 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 XIV 
 
 THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 
 
 The capture of the Bastille on the four- 
 teenth of July had opened the door to 
 popular passion. Taine's idea is profoundly 
 true : it was the Jacobin conquest. As 
 scholarship becomes better informed, and its 
 impartiality increases, the great historian's 
 conception will be confirmed by fresh proofs. 
 On October 6, yelling mobs streamed 
 out of Paris towards Versailles and poured 
 into the palace ; women, their hair matted 
 with dust and sweat, screamed for the 
 'entrails of the queen.' 'Madam, save 
 the queen ! ' cried one of the guards, 
 running to one of her waiting-women, his 
 face stained with blood. Next day the 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 185 
 
 mob dragged the royal family to Paris, 
 surrounding their slow-going carriages with 
 ribald jests and obscene insults. On the 
 driver's seat of the coach In which the 
 queen sat with her boy, the actor Beaulieu 
 amused the crowd and scared the occupants 
 with his mountebank s antics. The queen 
 sat dry-eyed, silent, immoveable, seemingly 
 lost in a dream. ' I am hungry, mamma,' 
 said the little dauphin, and then the tears 
 came. 
 
 The 20th of June 1792 was a repetition 
 of the October day. The royal family were 
 at the Tuileries. At half-past four in the 
 afternoon the cries of the mob enveloped 
 the palace like rolling thunder. The 
 National Guards had barely time to hurry 
 the queen into the council-chamber before 
 the human flood burst upon them. They 
 dragged the long table in front of the queen 
 and her children, whom only three feet of 
 deal separated from faces crimson with rage 
 
i86 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 and wine, clenched fists, and brandished 
 pikes. ' The queen stood erect,' write the 
 brothers De Goncourt, ' with Madame on 
 her right, pressing close against her. The 
 dauphin, his eyes wide open in a childish 
 stare, was on her left. Men, women, pikes, 
 knives, yells, insults, all poured in one 
 torrent towards the queen. One of these 
 cannibals displayed a bundle of switches, 
 with the legend '' For Marie Antoinette"; 
 another flourished a miniature gibbet with 
 a doll swinging upon it ; another thrust 
 forward under the very eyes of the queen, 
 who did not blench, a dish bearing a mass 
 of bleeding flesh shaped like a heart. 
 Some one else flung red caps upon the heads 
 of the queen and her son. Women all 
 dishevelled spat their filthy jests in her 
 face, to be answered in her gentle voice : 
 "Have you ever seen me? Have I ever 
 done you any harm ? You are mistaken : 
 I am a Frenchwoman. I was so happy 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 187 
 
 when you loved me ! " And at this sweet, 
 sad voice, at this fair, sorrowful face, the 
 storm was calmed, the fury sank abashed. 
 Pity softened these hard hearts ; humanity 
 became itself again. The squalling viragoes 
 held their peace, and even felt their tears 
 flow. '*They have had their fill," cried 
 Santerre, shrugging. And he drew near, 
 leant upon the table and jeered ; but even 
 his lips closed, involuntarily, before the 
 quiet, searching gaze of the queen. To 
 cover his confusion the man growled : 
 ''Take that child's cap off," pointing to 
 the dauphin : ''see how hot he is ! " This 
 was the poor child who, next day, when 
 the guards were called to arms, asked : 
 " Mamma, is it yesterday again ? " " They 
 will murder me," said the queen a little 
 later : " what will become of my children ? " ' 
 Under the palace windows disgusting 
 prints were being hawked about, and 
 pamphlets written against her in mud from 
 
i88 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the gutters. The terrace of the Feuillants 
 had been thrown open to the people by the 
 Assembly, and you may be sure they made 
 good use of it ! From morning to night 
 the talk there was so horrible that the 
 queen was twice obliged to withdraw. 
 Sometimes — such was her spirit — she 
 wished to descend to the garden and speak 
 to the people : * I will tell them that I love 
 them, and that I am a Frenchwoman. Not 
 love the French! — I, the mother of a 
 dauphin ! * But her illusions were soon 
 dispelled : calumny had struck its roots too 
 deep. What availed the voice of one lonely 
 woman against the tempest ? 
 
 On August lo Louis xvi. and his family, 
 terrified at the popular rising, took refuge 
 in the bosom of the Assembly. ' I have 
 come here,' said the king, 'to prevent a 
 great crime.' He placed himself at the 
 president's left, and Marie Antoinette had 
 made the dauphin sit by her side. * Some 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 189 
 
 one take him up to the president,' cried a 
 voice : * he belongs to the nation. The 
 Austrian woman is unworthy of his con- 
 fidence ! ' And an usher seized the child, 
 weeping with terror and clinging to his 
 mother's skirts. In the night the king and 
 queen proceeded to the Feuillants. By the 
 light of candles stuck on the muzzles of 
 muskets, their feeble rays glinting on the 
 blood-stained steel of pikes, the queen 
 walked slowly between the close ranks of 
 the crowd, whence rose the refrain — 
 
 ' Madame Veto avait promis 
 De'faire ^gorger tout Paris.' 
 
 The sentinels had much ado to hold the 
 throng back. When one of the queen's 
 women appeared at the door of the cells 
 of the ancient convent, which had been 
 hastily furnished, she was driven back by 
 yells. Beneath the windows arose cries of 
 ' Death to the queen ! ' * Every time that I 
 
190 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 glanced at this grating,' said a certain 
 Dufour, * I thought I was at the menagerie 
 watching the rage of the wild beasts when 
 some one comes before their bars ! ' Even 
 when the queen had retired to rest, cries of 
 * Fling us her head ! ' reached her. 
 
 On August 12 the Legislative Assembly, 
 under the influence of the Jacobins, decided 
 to leave the Commune of Paris to settle 
 on the place where the king was to live, 
 and to arrange the details of his existence. 
 Marie Antoinette was now in good hands, 
 forsooth, which were going to take special 
 care of her. 
 
 On August 13, 1792, the queen, with her 
 husband, her children, Madame Elizabeth, 
 and the Princess de Lamballe, was trans- 
 ferred to the smaller tower of the Temple. 
 But on the 19th two commissioners 
 from the municipality were ordered to 
 proceed to the removal of all persons not 
 belonging to the * Capet family.' Manuel 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 191 
 
 waxed facetious on the embarrassing state 
 inseparable from royalty. ' I will give you,' 
 he said, ' some women of my acquaintance 
 to serve you.' The queen replied that she 
 needed no one, as she and her sister-in-law 
 would assist each other. 
 
 'Very well, madam,' said the man; 'you 
 have only to serve yourself : that will save 
 you the trouble of choosing.' 
 
 Attendants were placed over Marie 
 Antoinette to spy upon her from night 
 till morning and from morning till night. 
 * Not a movement, not a word, not a glance,' 
 say the Goncourts, *but had its witnesses 
 and informers! Not a moment had she 
 alone or with her family. There were 
 always these men playing the spy upon her 
 eyes, her lips, her silence ! Always these 
 men, pursuing her even into her bed- 
 chamber when she slipped away to change 
 her dress ! Even at night, in the anteroom 
 where Madame de Lamballe had lately 
 
192 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 slept, the municipal guards kept watch, 
 and the queen was spied on in her very 
 slumbers.' 
 
 Marseillais had been placed at all the 
 landings. When the queen ascended from 
 the garden, they sang gaily — 
 
 ' Madame a sa tour monte, 
 Ne salt quand descendra.' 
 
 This walk in the garden, which she imposed 
 on herself for the sake of her children's 
 health, was a martyrdom. At the foot of 
 the tower the two gaolers, Risbey and 
 Rocher, blew the smoke of their pipes in 
 her face, while the municipal guards, riding 
 cock-horse on chairs set in a circle, laughed 
 at the grimaces she made at the smell of 
 the smoke. They watched the curling 
 wreaths as they played about her abundant 
 fair locks. In the garden the soldiers had 
 orders to wear their hats ostentatiously 
 before her. The gunners started to dance 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 193 
 
 in a ring, singing the * (^a ira ! ' and the 
 labourers working at the walls of the 
 enclosure said openly that they would prefer 
 to use their tools in breaking her head. 
 
 The Commune had given very explicit 
 instructions. Persons entering the queen's 
 presence were to keep their hats on. * I 
 saw in the queen's apartment,' writes 
 Lepitre, *a stonecutter named Mercereau, 
 in the filthiest apparel, lying at full length 
 on a damask sofa where the queen usually 
 sat, and he justified himself by invoking 
 the principle of equality. The municipal 
 guards used systematically to loll in arm- 
 chairs before the fireplace, resting their feet 
 on the andirons so as terrender it impossible 
 for the princesses to warm themselves.' 
 
 Lampoons of the most disgusting kind, 
 slanders, the pamphlets of Boussenard, 
 the Mdnage royale en d^route, the Tentation 
 cTAntoine et son cochon, were cried at the foot 
 of the walls. ' Worst of all these outrages 
 
 N 
 
194 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 on the queen was the shameful outrage 
 which no people nor age had yet ventured 
 against the modesty of a woman : there was 
 no lavatory for the princesses except that 
 of the town guards and the soldiers.' 
 
 And yet, while she was with her children 
 life seemed endurable. She used to be 
 present at the supper of her son. When it 
 happened that the guards had gone away 
 for a moment she hastily, and in a whisper, 
 made the boy repeat a prayer. Then she put 
 him to bed, and sat watching him until nine 
 o'clock. Then the king's supper was served, 
 and after that she returned to the bedside 
 of the child till a late hour of the night. 
 
 The queen had always been fond of 
 embroidery, and it formed a distraction for 
 these long hours. Some one no doubt 
 noticed that it gave her too much pleasure, 
 for an order from the municipality put an 
 end to the needlework. Her embroidery, 
 said the Commune, concealed a correspond- 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 195 
 
 ence in hieroglyphics. Deprived of her 
 embroidery, Marie Antoinette devoted 
 herself to darning, the need of which was 
 very manifest. The dauphin slept in 
 tattered sheets ; and she mended the 
 king's coat while he was in bed. 
 
 The queen, like her sister-in-law and her 
 daughter, was dressed in the morning in 
 white pique, and their heads were covered 
 with white lawn. At noon they put on 
 their only finery : a garment of tulle, with 
 little flowers on a brown ground. 
 
 On September 22 the Republic was 
 proclaimed. A few days afterwards the 
 prisoner received some linen that had been 
 previously ordered for her. The dress- 
 makers had worked her monogram upon it, 
 surmounted by the royal crown ; and the 
 republican government gave themselves the 
 pleasure of compelling the queen to unpick 
 with her own hands the crowns embroidered 
 upon her linen. 
 
196 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 * The queen having been sick and taken 
 no food,' says Turgy, ' sent to ask me to 
 have a broth prepared for supper. Just as 
 I handed it to her, she learned that the 
 woman Tison— placed in her prison as 
 wardress — was likewise indisposed. She 
 ordered the broth to be taken to her. I 
 then asked one of the guard to take me 
 to the kitchen to procure another portion. 
 Not one of them would accompany me.' 
 The queen, ill as she was, went supperless 
 to bed. 
 
 This woman Tison was a decoy, who 
 insinuated herself into the queen's confid- 
 ence only to betray her. Her accusations 
 brought ruin upon those whose sympathies 
 were moved by the prisoners' unhappy 
 plight. But nature had its revenge. One 
 day the woman fell at the queen's feet, 
 imploring her pardon. She was frantic 
 with remorse. She was carried away 
 screaming to a madhouse. And Marie 
 
THE PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 197 
 
 Antoinette, who had learned of her tale- 
 bearing and its terrible consequences, com- 
 passionately inquired after her welfare. 
 
 The family were at dinner on September 
 3, when they were interrupted by the noise 
 to which they were becoming accustomed — 
 the clamour of the mob. People cried out 
 for the queen to come to the window. The 
 unhappy woman was going there when one 
 of the guard named Menessier suddenly 
 threw himself in front of her, pushed her 
 back, and drew the curtains. But Louis 
 XVI., since his people asked for him, was 
 ready to appear before them. The curtains 
 were thrown back. The queen uttered no 
 cry, she did not faint ; but her eyes were 
 fixed in a dreadful stare — the wild stare of 
 a madwoman. At the end of a pike they 
 were presenting to her the ghastly head 
 of the Princess de Lamballe. The people 
 wanted her to embrace her friend for the 
 last time. *Two individuals,' writes the 
 
198 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 painter Daujon, who chanced to be then at 
 the foot of the tower, 'were dragging by 
 the legs a headless body, nude, its back to 
 the ground, its stomach opened as high as 
 the breast. At the foot of the tower the 
 corpse was ostentatiously displayed, and 
 the limbs were arranged with a sort of art, 
 and a callousness that opens a wide field 
 for the meditation of the philosopher.' 
 
 The gentle, beautiful Princess de Lam- 
 balle, who, as we have seen, had in her 
 tender, thoughtless pity visited Madame 
 de La Motte at the Salpetriere, had been 
 massacred with hammers at the moment 
 when her gaolers liberated her from the 
 prison of La Force. Her beautiful body 
 suffered infamous mutilations. The head 
 was severed from the trunk and borne by 
 the rabble to a wine-merchant's. It was 
 placed there upon his counter, with little 
 glasses ranged all round. The fair ringlets, 
 matted with blood, fell into the poor glazed 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 199 
 
 staring eyes ; the features were drawn ; the 
 flesh was wan and flaccid, the skin marked 
 with green spots of decomposing blood, — 
 and the light sparkled in the little glasses, 
 forming a gay aureole with the scintillation 
 of the golden liquor. 
 
 One man had taken the head, another 
 from the shattered breast had ripped the 
 heart. This he ate while it was still raw 
 and throbbing. It was, he said, a dainty, ifu 
 and delicious morsel. This relish for a 
 fresh and palpitating heart was so much to 
 the taste of the day that in the evening 
 several gallant fellows, in diflerent parts of 
 the capital, each boasted of having been the 
 hero of the adventure, and one of them, 
 to illustrate his story, called admiring at- 
 tention to his moustaches still red with 
 blood. 
 
 Louis was transferred on September 30 
 from the small tower to the large tower 
 of the Temple, and was there joined on 
 
200 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 October 26 by his wife and sister, Madame 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 On the night of January 20, 1793, Madame 
 heard her mother, who had not undressed, 
 shaking in her bed all night long from cold 
 and grief. Louis had just been condemned 
 to death. Throughout the whole course 
 of the trial the Convention had refused 
 to the king the consolation and support 
 of seeing his wife and children ; but it 
 shrank from forbidding a last embrace 
 before the execution. The closing inter- 
 view was to take place in the dining-room. 
 The queen entered holding her son by 
 the hand. She wished to draw the king 
 towards her own room. 'No,' said the 
 king, ' I may only see you here.' The 
 municipal guards stood pressing their faces 
 against the glass door, filling their eyes 
 with the sight of ' perhaps the greatest 
 sorrow,' say the Goncourts, ' with which 
 God has ever afflicted the gaze of men.' 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 201 
 
 All bent forward : the king was blessing 
 his wife and sister and children. The 
 dauphin was lifting up his tiny hand, and 
 swearing, at his father's bidding, to pardon 
 those who were putting that father to 
 death.' Then silence. Nothing was pos- 
 sible now but sobs. 
 
 Before he died the king laid aside his 
 wedding ring, a seal, and a packet of hair 
 for his wife. The Convention feared that 
 objects of this nature in the hands of an 
 imprisoned woman might compromise the 
 destiny of the Revolution, and the memorials 
 of the dead husband were not handed to 
 his wife. But Toulan, one of the guards, 
 touched by her anguish, purloined the 
 articles, and Marie Antoinette was able to 
 press them to her heart. Toulan was 
 guillotined. 
 
 On the day of the king's execution the 
 queen asked for mourning of the simplest 
 kind, the costume of the people — 'a mantle 
 
202 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 of black taffety, a black neckerchief and 
 skirt, a pair of black gloves, and two caps 
 of black taffety.' She asked at the same 
 time for a pair of sheets and a quilted 
 coverlet. But the Convention thought 
 that sheets and a quilt were too luxurious 
 for a lady in the month of January. They 
 granted the mourning, but refused the 
 coverlet. 
 
 *The widow wore mourning which she 
 owed to the generosity of the republic. 
 She had on her head a washerwoman's cap, 
 with weepers falling upon her shoulders. 
 A black veil was between the weepers and 
 her hair. A large white fichu was crossed 
 over her neck and fastened with a blunt 
 pin. A little black shawl edged with white 
 was knotted at the bodice of her black 
 dress. On her brow and down her temples 
 strayed wisps of hair that escaped from 
 her cap, and the hair was blanching fast. 
 Her mien was proud still, and her eyebrows 
 
MARIE ANTOINETTE IN MOURNING GARB. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 203 
 
 had not lowered their imperial arch. Tears 
 had reddened her eyelids, tears had swollen 
 her eyes. Her look had lost its radiance 
 for a hard, fixed stcire. The blue of her 
 eyes no longer had its flashing brilliance, 
 its caressing softness ; it was glassy, cold, 
 almost fierce. The beautiful, aquiline con- 
 tour of her nose was become a bony ridge, 
 and agony seemed to have pinched the 
 nostrils once quivering with youth.' 
 
 This woman, who but lately had seen the 
 world At her feet in one emulation of flattery 
 and deference, who had known every form 
 of splendour, now in her cold and narrow 
 prison possessed but one comfort and stay 
 — we cannot say a joy — her children. The 
 revolutionary government thought that this 
 was too much. The queen, Madame, and 
 Madame Elizabeth were awakened by the 
 sound of opening gratings : it was the 
 guards coming to inform Marie Antoinette 
 of the new decree of the Committee of 
 
204 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 Public Safety, sanctioned by the Conven- 
 tion : ' The Committee decrees that the 
 son Capet shall be separated from his 
 mother.' At first the queen did not under- 
 stand. Then suddenly she flung herself 
 upon her son with the cry of a wild creature. 
 * Kill me first! ' she cried. The men replied 
 that if she did not loose the child it was not 
 she they would kill, but the little one : and 
 the boy was in their hands. 
 
 At last she was utterly broken : was she 
 still alive? Robespierre thought that she 
 was as yet only too much alive. * The 
 punishment of a tyrant,' he cried, on April 
 lo, 1793, in the Convention, * obtained after 
 so much hateful discussion ' (the great citizen 
 thought that the forms of trial had been 
 too closely observed)— ' shall this be the 
 only homage we have rendered to liberty 
 and equality ? ' The death of Marie An- 
 toinette was destined to be a not less 
 appreciable homage to them. * This death,' 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 205 
 
 said Robespierre in conclusion, ' shall revive 
 in all hearts a holy antipathy for royalty, 
 and give a new force to public spirit.' 
 
 On August I the Committee of Public 
 Safety submitted to the Convention the 
 following decree : * Marie Antoinette is re- 
 mitted to the extraordinary tribunal : she 
 will be transferred immediately to the Con- 
 ciergerie/ 
 
 At one o'clock next morning the queen 
 was awakened. As she left the tower in 
 all haste without stooping, she struck her 
 head against the grating. 
 * Have you hurt yourself? ' 
 ' Oh no ! nothing can hurt me now ! ' 
 Twenty gendarmes escorted the prisoner 
 through the heavy, stifling night air. She 
 arrived at the Conciergerie at two o'clock 
 in the morning. The Pere Duchesne was 
 beside itself with joy. * I bent my ear 
 to the grating,' it wrote, *to hear her 
 groans. ''And so I shall never see," she 
 
206 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 said, ''the ruin of Paris which I had been 
 so long preparing ; I shall never swim in 
 her blood."' 
 
 At the Conciergerie the queen was in 
 want of everything. She had no change of 
 linen, and the wardress, Madame Richard, 
 dared not supply her with any, in spite of 
 the pity which had touched her heart. The 
 gendarmes were now installed in her room 
 from morning till night, and there they in- 
 dulged freely in their coarse soldier's talk 
 and smoked their huge pipes. At night 
 the queen's eyes were red and swollen 
 with the smoke, her head was heavy with 
 pain. Sometimes one of the gendarmes 
 would notice it and drop his pipe. 
 
 At the Temple she had been deprived 
 of her embroidery : here even her needles 
 and thread were taken from her. How 
 was she to pass the long, doleful hours ? 
 Struck with a presentiment of her approach- 
 ing end, she thought of employing her 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 207 
 
 fingers to leave a little memento to her 
 children. And she began to pick coarse 
 threads from a piece of tapestry over which 
 wall-paper, now rotted by the damp, had 
 been hung. These threads she plaited with 
 her patient hands, and succeeded in making 
 a sort of lace. She had no light. * I used 
 to prolong my duties as much as I could in 
 the evening,' said Rosalie Lamorliere, her 
 maidservant, 'so that my mistress might 
 remain a little longer in solitude and ob- 
 scurity.' The dampness of the room was 
 frightful. Bault, the warder, had a piece of 
 old tapestry nailed to the wall in order that 
 the queen's bed might thus be protected to 
 some extent from the oozings. The members 
 of the Committee of Public Safety were in- 
 dignant at this mark of sympathy, and Bault 
 had to invent a falsehood, and say that his 
 object was to prevent the queen from hear- 
 ing scraps of conversation from the other 
 room. On August 19 Michonis, admini- 
 
2o8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 strator of police, asked the municipal officers 
 composing the guard at the Temple to send 
 in four chemises and a pair of shoes of which 
 the queen had urgent need. * These four 
 miserable garments,' write the Goncourts, 
 * soon reduced to three, were only delivered 
 to the queen at intervals of ten days. She 
 had only two dresses, which she put on alter- 
 nately. H er poor black dress, her poor white 
 dress, both rotted by the moisture of her room 
 
 We must pause here : words fail us.' 
 
 The queen had become extremely thin. 
 She was altered beyond recognition. The 
 common folk who saw her were struck with 
 respect and pity. The warders placed in 
 charge of her, the servants called to wait 
 upon her, were touched to the bottom of 
 their hearts by the sight of grief so nobly 
 borne. Market-women brought her fruits : 
 one a melon ' for her dear queen,' another 
 a basket of peaches — heroines all, know- 
 ing that for melon and peaches they were 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 209 
 
 risking death. With the complicity of the 
 warders the fruits arrived at their destina- 
 tion. Attempts were made to effect the 
 queen's escape, at first from the Temple, 
 afterwards from the Conciergerie. The 
 first, directed by Toulan, almost succeeded ; 
 but at the last moment it became evident 
 that the children would not be able to 
 follow their mother. 'We have cherished 
 a fine dream,' wrote the queen to Jarjayes, 
 'that is all. The interests of my son are 
 all that I look to ; and, whatever happiness 
 I myself might have experienced in being 
 out of this, I cannot consent to be separated 
 from him. Be sure that I am conscious of 
 the goodness of your reasons so far as my 
 own interests are concerned, and know that 
 this opportunity will never offer itself again, 
 but I should never have a moment's joy if 
 I left my children, and the thought leaves 
 not a shadow of regret.' At the Concier- 
 gerie the plan of escape seemed easy of 
 
 o 
 
210 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 execution, but the two gendarmes who 
 formed the guard would have had to be 
 killed. The queen was enduring a mar- 
 tyrdom, but the death of two men seemed 
 to her too high a price to pay for liberty. 
 
 By this time the queen's fate had been 
 decided. In vain was Madame de Stael, in 
 London, publishing her eloquent appeals to 
 justice and pity. ' To excite the multitude,' 
 she wrote, ' it was incessantly repeated that 
 the queen was an enemy of the French, 
 and to this accusation the most ferocious 
 forms were given. Say, you that accuse 
 her, what blood, what tears she has ever 
 caused to flow? In those ancient prisons 
 that you have opened, have you found one 
 single victim who charged Marie Antoinette 
 with his fate ? No queen, during the time 
 of her greatest power, has ever known such 
 open calumny, and the more certain men 
 were that she would not punish, the more 
 they multiplied their insults. We know 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 211 
 
 that she has been the butt of innumerable 
 shafts of ingratitude, of thousands of lam- 
 poons, of revolting lawsuits, and we look 
 in vain for the least sign of a vengeful 
 action. It is true, then, that she has done 
 no ill to a single soul, she who is suffering 
 torments unheard-of.' 
 
 Of what avail were words so true and 
 simple.'* The Pere Duchesne had greater 
 authority than Madame de Stael. 
 
 It was Carrier, the hero of Nantes, who 
 at the height of the struggles between the 
 Montagne and the Gironde had created the 
 tribunal to which Marie Antoinette had 
 been remitted. The work was worthy of 
 its author. The juries, nominated by the 
 Convention, were salaried officials who were 
 bound to express their opinion severally 
 in open court. They knew that if their 
 verdict were not approved they would be 
 guillotined. That was what the men of 
 the Revolution called the independence of 
 
212 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the magistrature. 'It was only with the 
 proviso that the jurors should give their 
 verdict openly that the Friends of Liberty 
 agreed to the presence of jurors in this 
 tribunal,' writes Lamarque. Danton clearly 
 indicated the purpose of the tribunal in a 
 speech to the Assembly : * This tribunal 
 is to serve as a supreme court for the 
 vengeance of the people.' When through 
 a long course of months heads fell by 
 thousands, Danton regarded the tribunal 
 as serving its intention perfectly. But one 
 day the same court decided that Danton 
 himself should be guillotined, and he forth- 
 with declared : * It was I that established 
 this tribunal ; but not that it should be the 
 scourge of humanity.' Anecdotes of this 
 sort are numerous, and would give to the 
 Revolution a charming air of drollery if 
 among them one did not wade in pools of 
 blood. 
 
 The law relating to suspects was voted 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 213 
 
 on September 16, 1793. The number of 
 judges was then increased to sixteen, that 
 of the jurymen to sixty. The list of can- 
 didates presented by Vouland was adopted 
 by the Convention without discussion. 
 
 * Almost all,' said Gauthier to the Jacobins, 
 
 * have been chosen among the Jacobins, and 
 of them we are sure.' An admirable court 
 for the trial of the queen ! The former 
 president, Montane, had been thrown into 
 prison because he had sought, it was said, to 
 get Charlotte Corday acknowledged as mad. 
 
 The hero of the tribunal was the public 
 prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville. When the 
 royal power was at its height, he was dis- 
 tinguished by an ardent zeal for the glory 
 of the king, composing in his honour a 
 number of ballads and occasional verses. 
 He had a pretty wit. Madame de Saint- 
 Servan happened to be paralysed in con- 
 sequence of a fall, and could not speak. 
 
 * It is not her tongue that we want,' cried 
 
214 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the prosecutor by a happy inspiration ; ' it 
 is her head that we want.' She was 
 guillotined. * Robespierre,' says Mercier, 
 'wanted to meet a man at once fiendish 
 and docile, one of those men who are 
 proud to become the lackeys of tyranny, 
 and to whom crimes cost nothing ; he met 
 Fouquier-Tinville. ' 
 
 He was worthily seconded by the dele- 
 gates of the Commune, Pache, mayor of 
 Paris; Chaumette, a procurator; Hebert, 
 the procurator's deputy : names to which, sad 
 to relate, the name of the illustrious Louis 
 David has to be added. The crime com- 
 mitted by these men and their agents is 
 too horrible for words. To corrupt a child 
 to the destruction of his health, and then 
 to use his corruption as a means of abomin- 
 able outrage upon his mother ; not satisfied 
 with causing her to be insulted by her son, 
 a child of eight, brutalised by beatings and 
 brandy, but to repeat the atrocious calumny 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 215 
 
 in open court and make use of it, after her 
 head had fallen, in the attempt to blacken 
 the victim's reputation : such things, that 
 seem humanly impossible, were actually 
 committed. The official reports of the 
 horrible cross-examination at the Temple 
 are preserved in the National Archives. 
 *The young prince,' writes Daujon, who 
 acted as clerk, ' was seated in a large chair, 
 swinging his little legs, which did not touch 
 the floor.' Did he understand the words 
 put into his mouth? 'Chaumette,' said 
 the dauphin's sister, a girl of fifteen, 
 ' questioned me on dreadful things of which 
 my mother and aunt were accused. I was 
 overcome by such horror, and so indignant, 
 that, in spite of all the fear I felt, I could 
 not help saying it was infamous. In spite 
 of my tears, they persisted in their questions. 
 There were things I did not understand, 
 but what I did understand was so horrible 
 that I wept with indignation.' 
 
2i6 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 The trial was fixed for the 15th of 
 October. Two official counsel for the 
 defence had been appointed by Hermann, 
 the president, but only on the evening 
 before ; and one of them, Chauveau- 
 Lagarde, was in the country. There was 
 an enormous mass of material to digest, 
 and by the advice of her counsel the queen 
 requested a delay of three days for that 
 purpose. Her letter was flung into the 
 waste-paper basket. The trial commenced 
 
 ' in fact on October 15, at eight o'clock in 
 the morning, and continued without inter- 
 ruption until four o'clock next morning. 
 Except for one brief interval it lasted thus 
 
 ' for nearly twenty hours. And the queen 
 had arrived exhausted, physically by months 
 of privation, mentally by her woes : who 
 would not have been overwhelmed by such 
 tortures ? To-day we see writers, com- 
 fortably settled in their armchairs, their 
 feet on the fender, well-salaried professors. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 217 
 
 in all the dignity of office, holding forth 
 on the attitude of Marie Antoinette before 
 her judges ; to their way of thinking, she 
 showed too little pride, too unsovereign- 
 like a demeanour. ' One had to be present 
 and watch every detail of this famous trial,' 
 said Chauveau-Lagarde, ' to have a just 
 idea of the splendid character the queen 
 there displayed.' 
 
 She came in her mourning dress. She 
 had done her best with the few rags left 
 to her, and had piled up her hair — her poor 
 blanched hair — with studied care : not 
 through pride, but disdaining to move the 
 populace by the sight of her misery. 
 
 Hermann and Fouquier-Tinville accused 
 Marie Antoinette of desiring to remount 
 to the throne upon the corpses of the 
 patriots. She replied : ' I have never 
 desired aught but the welfare of France ; 
 nothing but that she be happy ; and if she 
 is so, I shall be content.' An ordeal lasting 
 
2i8 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 twenty hours ! Sick, without food or rest, 
 the queen had to put a constraint upon 
 herself, master herself, never for an instant 
 lose her self-control — to steel her failing 
 nerves, to command her countenance and 
 vanquish nature. As the spectators were 
 continually asking her to rise from her 
 seat so that they might see her better : 
 *Will the people soon be tired of my 
 fatigue ? ' she murmured, in exhaustion. 
 
 The witnesses were heard. Hebert 
 brought forward the filthy stories he had 
 concocted in collaboration with Pache, 
 Chaumette, and David. Short, slight, and 
 well-trimmed, with fair hair and a mild 
 countenance, he was editor of the Pere 
 Duchesne, and at this moment the most 
 influential member of the Commune. He 
 had married a nun of the Assomption- 
 Saint-Honore, a charming woman. Her 
 drawing-room was a brilliant centre of wit. 
 While insulting the aristocrats, Hebert 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 219 
 
 envied their refinement and distinction, 
 and tried to copy them. 
 
 The queen let this flood of filth pass in 
 silence. Hebert reeled off his tale in his 
 suavest tones, with delicate inflections and 
 carefully chosen language. The queen 
 stood erect, her eyes fixed, her head stiff, 
 not a muscle of her face contracting. 
 
 It was a memorable moment. Born in 
 calumny, nourished on calumny, glorified 
 even to this day by calumny, the Re- 
 volution could not but give to calumny 
 dimensions which had never thitherto 
 been attained, which have never been 
 attained since, and which seemed unimagin- 
 able. 
 
 ' I was going,' says Moelle, a member of 
 the Commune, ' to try to prove the falseness 
 of Hebert's accusation, by mentioning a 
 circumstance of the rules of the Temple 
 and the means of surveillance practised 
 there, when Fouquier-Tinville, who divined 
 
220 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 my intention, sharply interrupted me with 
 the request to say plain "yes " or **no." ' 
 
 Fouquier delivered his address for the 
 prosecution. * Not content, in concert with 
 the brothers of Louis Capet and the in- 
 famous and execrable Calonne, then finance 
 minister, with having squandered in a 
 frightful manner the finances of France, 
 the fruit of the people's sweat, in order to 
 satisfy her ill-regulated pleasures and pay 
 the agents of her criminal intrigues ' . . . 
 *at the same time that she was encourag- 
 ing the Swiss to make their cartridges, in 
 order to excite them still further she took 
 some cartridges and bit them ' . . . * finally, 
 immoral in every conceivable way, a second 
 Agrippina, she is so wicked and so familiar 
 with every crime that, forgetting her voca- 
 tion as mother and the limits prescribed by 
 the laws of nature, the widow Capet has 
 not shrunk from indulging with Louis Capet, 
 her son, by the confession of the latter him- 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 221 
 
 self, in abominations the mere idea and 
 name of which make us shudder with 
 horror.' Such were some of his sentences. 
 
 The queen still ignoring the foul charges, 
 one of the jury, exasperated by such dignity, 
 directly questioned her : * If I have not 
 replied,' she said, * it is because nature 
 refuses to answer such an accusation made 
 against a mother ; I appeal to all the 
 mothers here present ! ' 
 
 Her voice rang out, and for the first time 
 in the sight of the audience tears flowed 
 down her cheeks. * Before this sublime 
 cry,' say the brothers Humbert, who were 
 among the audience, ' a magnetic current 
 ran through the hall. The tricoteuses 
 (knitters) were touched in spite of them- 
 selves, and were all but applauding.' 
 Piercing cries were heard ; women fainted 
 and had to be carried out. The harsh, 
 nasal voice of Hermann threatened to have 
 the hall cleared. 
 
222 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 At midnight the president said to the 
 advocates : * In a quarter of an hour the 
 prt)ceedings will terminate : prepare your 
 defence.' What could the defence be in 
 these conditions? The two advocates sur- 
 passed themselves. They spoke with 
 emotion and courage. Scarcely had they 
 finished when by order of the members 
 of the Committee of Public Safety present 
 \^ they were both arrested. De Shze, one of 
 the king's defenders, had been at La Force 
 since October 20 ; the other, Malesherbes, 
 was guillotined. Fouquier demanded the 
 head of Chauveau-Lagarde. The pleadings 
 were not allowed to be published, and a 
 garbled account of them appeared in Le 
 Moniteur. 
 
 As she left the court the queen gave to 
 Tron9on-Ducoudray, the second of her 
 advocates, a lock of hair and some earrings, 
 begging him to give them to M. de Jarjayes 
 as a memento. The Committee confiscated 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 223 
 
 these articles and put M. de Jarjayes under 
 arrest. 
 
 Marie Antoinette was unanimously con- 
 demned to death. The jurors gave their 
 verdict publicly, and each knew that if he 
 was so misguided as to declare for her 
 innocence he would himself be guillotined. 
 
 The queen heard the sentence unmoved. 
 She came down from her bench with daunt- 
 less brow, and lifted the rail herself. She 
 returned to the Conciergerie at half-past 
 four in the morning. For the first time 
 in sixty days she obtained a torch, and 
 some ink and paper. What must her 
 feelings have been ! ' During this halt at 
 the foot of the scaffold,' as she said, 
 she wrote to her sister-in-law, Madame 
 Elizabeth, the beautiful letter, so calm and 
 elevated in style, which after more than 
 a century draws tears of admiration and 
 respect. She gave it to Bault the warder. 
 Poor woman ! she thought that these few 
 
224 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 words of a dying sister to a sister her- 
 self destined to death would reach her. 
 Fouquier-Tinville seized the letter, and it 
 was discovered in the false bottom of a 
 drawer under a mattress of Robespierre's, 
 along with costly books and pictures which 
 this amateur of enlightened tastes had appro- 
 priated from those he had done to death. 
 
 The sun was shining at eight o'clock when 
 Marie Antoinette prepared to dress for her 
 journey to the scaffold. She went into the 
 narrow passage between her bed of sacking 
 and the wall, herself laid out her chemise, 
 bent down, and loosened her dress, to 
 change her linen for the last time. 
 Suddenly she paused. The gendarme in 
 attendance had approached and, with his 
 elbows on the pillow and his head in his 
 hands, was watching her with the greatest 
 interest. * Her Majesty,' says Rosalie 
 Lamorliere, her servant, ' replaced her wrap 
 upon her shoulders, and with great gentle- 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 225 
 
 ness said to the young man : *' In the name 
 of decency, sir, allow me to change my linen 
 without witnesses." ** I cannot consent to 
 it,'* answered the gendarme brusquely; '*my 
 orders are to keep my eye on all your move- 
 ments." ' 
 
 What a scene ! A gendarme lying flat 
 on the bed, following with curious and 
 prurient gaze the dressing of a queen for 
 her execution ! 
 
 * The distress the brutality of this gen- 
 darme caused me,' says Rosalie Lamorliere, 
 'prevented my noticing whether the queen 
 still had the medallion of M. the Dauphin, 
 but I could very well see that she carefully 
 rolled up her poor soiled chemise. She 
 fastened it in one of her sleeves as in a 
 sheath, and then pressed it into a space 
 she caught sight of between the old wall- 
 hanging and the wall.' 
 
 In vain she asked that her hands might 
 not be bound on the tumbril : they were 
 
 p 
 
226 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 tied together with such force that the cure 
 Girard, to ease her, had to press his hand 
 on her left arm during the ride. The 
 tumbril advanced slowly. Marie Antoinette 
 wore a white skirt falling over a black 
 petticoat, a sort of white night-vest, a 
 ribbon tied round the wrist, a cap of 
 white linen, like that of the women of the 
 people, with a black ribbon. She had 
 vainly besought that she might go to 
 execution bareheaded. Her white hair 
 was cut close under her cap. She was 
 pale, but had two hectic spots upon her 
 cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot, her 
 eyelashes stiff and motionless. In the 
 Rue Saint- Honore the cart stopped for 
 a moment, and a child, lifted up in his 
 mother's arms, blew her a kiss, and then 
 clapped his little hands gleefully. The 
 queen responded with a smile, and wept. 
 These were the only tears she shed during 
 her passage to the scaffold. 
 
^ 
 
 J..t.r.;-f ^. .^^./. .,^/^,.,e//. .y?^- 
 
 ^^- j^-;:,.. 
 
 /.^,.. 
 
 
 
 THE QUEEN GOING TO EXECUTION. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 227 
 
 'She mounted it with bravado,' said the 
 journals next day, with an * insolent ' air of 
 tranquillity. She set her dress in order for 
 the execution herself. 
 
 Citizen Lapierre, a good patriot, saw the 
 execution, and describes it in bad spelling 
 and picturesque terms : * Marie Antoinette, 
 the hussy, made as fine an end as the hog 
 of Godille our pork-butcher. She showed 
 wonderful firmness on the scaffold and all 
 along the Rue Saint-Honore ; in fact, she 
 went right across Paris staring at the 
 people with scorn and disdain ; but where- 
 ever she passed the true sansculottes never 
 ceased to cry : ** Long live the Republic 
 and down with tyranny ! " The hussy had 
 the strength of mind to go to the scaffold 
 without blenching ; but when she saw the 
 medicine actually before her eyes she fell 
 down, done for. But all the same, they 
 gave her valets-de-chambre and perruquiers 
 to make her toilette, and though she had 
 
228 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 no beard they nevertheless gave her a 
 trimming, and though women don't have 
 them, that doesn't prevent us from shaving 
 them well' 
 
 Hubert, in the Pere Duchesne, celebrated 
 in lyric style the event of which he was so 
 proud to have been the principal author : 
 * The greatest of all the joys of the Pere 
 Duchesne was to see with its own eyes the 
 head of the Veto female separated from its 
 goose neck.' 
 
 And the same day, in execution of the 
 decree passed by the Convention, on the 
 motion of Barere, the mortal remains of 
 the eldest son of Marie Antoinette, the 
 first dauphin, were removed from their 
 tomb at Saint-Denis and shockingly pro- 
 faned. 
 
 Nothing had been neglected, as we have 
 seen. The t^te of October was complete : 
 *in every way successful,' as our chroniclers 
 would say. 
 
THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN 229 
 
 Robespierre proclaimed that the death 
 of Marie Antoinette would be a token of 
 homage to liberty and equality ; and those 
 two great principles thus received, on 
 October 16, 1793, a striking tribute. 
 
230 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 XV 
 
 THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN IN HIS DIOCESE 
 
 Exiled to his abbey of the Chaise- Dieu 
 after his acquittal by the Parlement, Prince 
 Louis de Rohan had there won the affection 
 of the monks and edified the people 
 round. The work of an incendiary having 
 threatened the town with a general con- 
 flagration in July 1786, the cardinal was 
 one of the first to assist in extinguishing 
 the flames, along with his brother, the 
 Admiral de Guemen6e, who was then living 
 with him. When the flames had been 
 conquered, the monks of the abbey carried 
 the head of St. Robert in procession to 
 the scene of the disaster, and the cardinal 
 did not hesitate to kneel before the relic, 
 
THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 231 
 
 in the mud and water. The worthy in- 
 habitants, says a contemporary writer, were 
 moved to enthusiasm and admiration. 
 
 In September 1786, Louis de Rohan got 
 permission to leave the Abbey of the 
 Chaise- Dieu for that of Marmoutiers near 
 Tours. On August 8, 1787, he went to 
 live in the Abbey of St. Benoit-sur- Loire. 
 He had kept up a correspondence with 
 Maitre Target, who had so devotedly de- 
 fended him, and on December 1 5 he wrote 
 to him the following letter, apropos of 
 a bereavement the famous advocate had 
 recently suffered — a letter in which his 
 kindliness and generosity are well revealed : 
 
 * It seems to me, sir, that sorrows make 
 still more sensitive the souls that injustice 
 has not succeeded in hardening. I con- 
 fess that mine has retained that delicious 
 source of happiness. And if I had lost this 
 sensibility, I should recover it all when 
 your heart expresses its anguish. All your 
 
232 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 causes of sorrow are intensified by the 
 sight of the difficulties of the children of 
 the lady you mourn. I can assist for a 
 time in the education of the boy, whose 
 sight you tell me is very weak, who is pre- 
 paring for the Church, and whom you pro- 
 bably intend to continue his studies. I will 
 send him, for each of the years '88, '89, 
 and '90, three hundred livres a year, and 
 then we shall see. It is very pleasant to 
 me to think that I can do something that 
 will be agreeable to you. I only wish I 
 could do more for the child who is so 
 dear to you. 
 
 ' You know my feelings of friendship and 
 attachment for you. I will end now there- 
 fore with the words vale ! vale I 
 
 ' P,S. You ask after my health. It is 
 improving, but slowly. May yours with- 
 stand all the sorrows of your heart.' 
 
 On December 24, 1788, the royal order 
 by which Rohan had been exiled was re- 
 
THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 233 
 
 yoked. He was at liberty to return to 
 Saverne, and stopped at Mlitzig in Alsace, 
 a place adjacent to his residence, where 
 the people had organised fetes in his 
 honour. At three o'clock in the afternoon, 
 the town-clerk, at the head of a detach- 
 ment of dragoons in uniform, superbly 
 equipped, and composed of the dlite of the 
 citizens, led his troops, sabre in hand, along 
 the Dorlisheim Road, lining both sides 
 of the way. At four o'clock the cardinal 
 appeared. The clerk delivered an address ; 
 children with curled hair presented Rohan 
 with nosegays. The crowd had assembled 
 from all parts of the district. Near the great 
 bridge, the Jews, two hundred in number, 
 clothed all in black, were ranged in line, 
 their rabbi at their head. The rabbi made 
 a speech, to which the cardinal replied that 
 he was delighted to see them again ; where- 
 upon the Jews indulged in demonstrations 
 of 'the most lively and unfeigned joy.' At . 
 
234 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the gates of the town all the clergy were 
 assembled, with crosses and banners — 
 parish priests and higher ecclesiastics. 
 The town was hung with bunting. Reach- 
 ing the chateau * amid the sound of cymbals 
 and trumpets, and the combined roar of can- 
 non and musketry,' Rohan was harangued 
 by the chief magistrate of Schirmeck. In 
 the evening there was a general illumination. 
 A number of the citizens drank too freely of 
 Rhenish wine. The cardinal would not end 
 this magnificent day without entering the 
 synagogue, which was blazing with lights. 
 He stayed there for half an hour, while they 
 sang with appropriate gestures a Hebrew 
 canticle, of which he understood nothing ; 
 but he told the rabbi he thought it 
 charming, and thanked the Israelites once 
 more for their kindness, their speeches, and 
 all the candles they had lit for him. To 
 wind up the fete, the more important 
 burghers and inhabitants of the town, and 
 
THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 235 
 
 the dragoon corps in uniform, supped 
 copiously in the town hall. In the square 
 there was dancing by torchlight all night 
 long. The Jews assembled in the house 
 of one Daniel Levy, and drank wine and 
 beer till dawn. 'In a word, everybody, 
 rich, poor, young, old, gave rein to their 
 feelings of respect and affection and joy. 
 Each and all welcomed the happy return, 
 so long desired, of their august prince- 
 bishop.' 
 
 Sent as deputy to the States-General by 
 the clergy of Haguenau, Rohan fulfilled a 
 modest part there, notwithstanding the 
 efforts made to play him off as a victim of 
 despotism. The revolutionary movement 
 was growing apace. Reinstated in his title 
 of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis 
 de Rohan retired to Ettenheim-Mlinster, in 
 the part of his estates situated on the right 
 bank of the Rhine. Though his fortune 
 was considerably reduced, he continued to 
 
236 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 support, to the utmost of his power, the 
 priests and poor nobles who had been 
 driven from their homes. 
 
 The civil constitution of the clergy was 
 decreed on July 1 2, 1 790, and their canonical 
 institution taken from the Pope. The 
 religious orders had been suppressed in 
 February. 
 
 Rohan on this occasion addressed to his 
 clergy and the faithful in his diocese a 
 pastoral charge in which he spoke in warm 
 terms against the * novelties which the 
 Apostle condemns and which are carrying 
 desolation into the sanctuary.' He set 
 himself to explain — but on this point his 
 argument is historically very feeble — that in 
 the early days of the Church the pastors were 
 not elected by the people. For the Revolu- 
 tion was claiming to do nothing else than 
 restore the Church to its primitive purity. 
 The cardinal was more successful when he 
 showed the absurdity of leaving the election 
 
THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 237 
 
 of bishops in the hands of those who did 
 not profess the CathoHc faith. Moreover, 
 he undertook the defence of the GalHc 
 church, *that ancient edifice, founded on 
 the first successors of the Apostles, watered 
 by the blood of the martyrs, rendered 
 illustrious by the lights of the greatest 
 doctors,' and which, he said, was crumbling 
 to pieces under their eyes. And further, in 
 a bold and thoroughly literary metaphor — 
 a reflection from the Academy of which he 
 was a member — he added : ' The purple in 
 which we are clothed warns us that we 
 ought always to be ready, not merely to 
 speak, but to shed our blood for the cause 
 of God and His Church.' 
 
 These episcopal proceedings were the 
 cause of the issue of a decree by the 
 National High Court, on July 13, 1791, for. 
 the arrest of the cardinal as *the author of 
 letters, episcopal charges, canonical ex- 
 hortations, pastoral instructions, containing 
 
238 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 formal protests against the constitutional 
 laws of the state, and tending to excite the 
 people to insurrection.' He was further 
 accused of having * charged the Sieur Zipp, 
 priest of Schierich, to distribute the libels 
 and writings ' incriminated. 
 
 Meanwhile Euloge Schneider, a Fran- 
 ciscan, a native of Wlirtzburg, professor of 
 philosophy at the University of Bonn, 
 appointed by the constitutional bishop of 
 Strasburg professor of rhetoric at the 
 Grand Seminary, and afterwards his vicar- 
 general, was all-powerful in Alsace, and 
 was there bringing to the guillotine whole- 
 sale all who attempted to teach Frenchmen 
 the love of country and liberty. 
 
 Rohan died at Ettenheim on February 
 17, 1803, after appointing as his universal 
 legatee Charlotte Dorothea de Rohan- 
 Rochefort, daughter of Prince Armand de 
 Rohan- Rochefort, his cousin-german. She 
 had been betrothed to the handsome Duke 
 
THE CARDINAL DE ROHAN 239 
 
 of Enghien, slain by Napoleon s orders in 
 the moats of Vincennes, and under the in- 
 structions of General Hulin, who had 
 been in the front rank of the conquerors 
 of the Bastille. 
 
240 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 XVI 
 
 LAMOTTE-COLLIER 
 
 We have seen that on July 20, 1792, the 
 court of the first arrondissement had 
 quashed, for a technical flaw, the sentence 
 passed on the Count de La Motte, husband 
 of Jeanne de Valois, by the Parlement. 
 The prisoner was transferred to the Con- 
 ciergerie, there to await the definitive 
 judgment which would proclaim, he was 
 assured, his complete rehabilitation. He 
 was still in prison during September ; then, 
 being liberated, and escaping the massacre, 
 he returned to Bar-sur-Aube. 
 
 On December 6, 1793, he was incar- 
 cerated on an information accusing him of 
 being in correspondence with Pitt and 
 
*^ Of THE 
 
 LAMOTTE-COLLIER 241 
 
 Coburg, and confined with suspects in the 
 Grand Seminary of Troyes, where he re- 
 mained until July 22, 1794. But he was no 
 sooner liberated than he was again put 
 under lock and key, and detained until 
 October 16. Liberated once more, he 
 married for the second time at Bar-sur- 
 Aube, his wife being a young girl named 
 Marie Clotilde Boudon, who had some 
 means of her own. She in course of time 
 presented him with a son. This son de- 
 parted about 1 8 1 7 for Guadeloupe with the 
 battalion despatched to that colony ; but 
 his father never heard of him again : the 
 young man died there of yellow fever. 
 
 Count Beugnot having been appointed 
 director-general of the police, La Motte 
 applied to him for assistance. Beugnot 
 gave him that and more ; he gave him 
 the control of the theatre of the Porte- 
 Saint- Martin, at a salary of 3000 francs. 
 As we know, Beugnot had peculiar reasons 
 Q 
 
242 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 for showing benevolence towards the 
 husband of Jeanne de Valois, whom he had 
 so often taken to dinner at the Cadran bleu. 
 La Motte afterwards fulfilled the same 
 functions at the same remuneration in the 
 gaming-houses. But he could never retain a 
 situation ; he was an incorrigible Bohemian. 
 
 * In 1816,' wrote the commissary Marlot, 
 who, like himself, came from Bar-sur-Aube, 
 
 * M. Delamotte was recommended to us, 
 and the persons who sent him to us inspired 
 us with so much respect that their recom- 
 mendation could be regarded only as a 
 sovereign command. We solicited for him 
 a place as inspector of police, and had him 
 under our orders for about three years, 
 under the name of Delmotte.' The Count 
 
 ( de La Motte a police agent under the 
 Restoration! — the irony of it is almost 
 
 \^ overwhelming. 
 
 During this period of his life, La Motte 
 thus had means of supporting himself in 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 243 
 
 a regular manner. He frequented the 
 houses of people of good standing, and was 
 received in several drawing-rooms described 
 by Victor Hugo as * very good and very 
 notable.' As is well known, Hugo incor- 
 porated in Les Mis^rables fragments of 
 personal recollections, and he speaks of the 
 Count de La Motte in a vivid and striking 
 manner/ He shows him to us in the 
 Legitimist drawing-room in the Rue F^rou, 
 which he describes in precise terms, except 
 that he mentions the habituds only by 
 initials — all but La Motte, whom he names 
 in full. 
 
 'Madame de T.,' writes Victor Hugo, 
 * lived far from the court — '*a very mixed 
 society," as she used to say — in an honour- 
 able, proud, penurious isolation. A few 
 friends met twice a week around her 
 widowed hearth, constituting a purely 
 Royalist salon. They took tea together, 
 
 1 Les Misdrables^ Part ill. Marius : Book ni. chap. i. 
 
244 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 and gave vent, according as the tide was 
 set towards elegy or dithyrambs, to groan- 
 ings or cries of horror on the age, the 
 charter, the Bonapartists, the prostitution 
 of the **blue ribbon" to the middle 
 classes, the Jacobinism of Louis xviii. ; and 
 they talked under their breath of the 
 hopes awakened by Monsieur, afterwards 
 Charles x. 
 
 * They used to receive with shrieks of 
 mirth vulgar songs in which Napoleon 
 was called Nicolas, Duchesses, the most 
 refined and charming women of good 
 society, went into raptures over rhymes 
 like this, addressed to the ''federals" — 
 
 " Renfoncez dans vos culottes 
 Le bout d'chemis' qui vous pend ; 
 Qu'on n' dis pas qu' les patriotes 
 Ont arbore I'drapeau blanc ! " ' 
 
 Such was the society frequented in the 
 early years of the Restoration by the 
 husband of the late Jeanne de Valois, who 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 245 
 
 no doubt did not obtrude the functions in 
 which he was then employed by the police. 
 He was indeed one of the shining lights of 
 the company. 
 
 * Like some church spires,' writes Victor 
 Hugo, *the salon of the Baronne de T. 
 had two cocks.^ One was Dr. Gillenor- 
 mand, the other the Count de Lamotte- 
 Valois, about whom they used to whisper 
 to each other with a sort of consideration, 
 "You know? He's the Lamotte of the 
 Necklace business." ' 
 
 La Motte appeared to the baronne's 
 guests an old man 'with nothing remark- 
 able about him but his silent and sententious 
 air, his sharp and expressionless features, 
 his perfectly polished manners, his coat 
 buttoned up to his cravat, and his long 
 legs, always crossed, in loose pantaloons, 
 the colour of burnt sienna. His face was 
 
 [^ Coq is used in French as equivalent to our ' cock of the 
 walk.'] 
 
246 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the same colour as his pantaloons ! ' La 
 Motte was a valued member of the society 
 that met in the Rue Ferou. He owed his 
 position to his 'celebrity,' and strangely 
 enough, as Hugo justly observes, to the name 
 of Valois which he tacked on to his own. 
 
 The count appears, however, to have 
 rendered some service as a police officer, 
 especially in the conspiracy against the 
 Duke Decaze in which Generals Donnadieu 
 and Canuel were implicated. He was 
 skilful in unearthing the authors of books 
 and pamphlets which were to be proceeded 
 against. Now it happened that Louis xviii. 
 had the whim to set on foot inquiries about 
 the famous Count de La Motte. The in- 
 vestigations intrusted to the police were 
 not long, as may be imagined, in bearing 
 fruit, and the king was not a little surprised 
 to learn that the husband and accomplice 
 of the terrible Jeanne de Valois was one 
 of the agents attached to his own intelli- 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 247 
 
 gence service. Louis suggested that he 
 should compile his memoirs, desiring to 
 read them as written by his own hand. 
 * We were instructed,' writes the commis- 
 sary Marlot, * to inform M. Delamotte, and 
 we succeeded in inducing him to do what 
 the sovereign desired. But at the end of 
 some months this original character came 
 and told us that he should finish nothing 
 unless he were assured of a pension on 
 the civil list. This demand offended the 
 king, and M. Delamotte was given up : 
 since then, he has vegetated in the capital.' 
 
 Meanwhile he had lost his second wife, 
 whom he appears to have sincerely loved. 
 From that time he sank deeper and deeper 
 into want and wretchedness. 
 
 In 1824 we hear of him again. He was 
 lodging at No. 8 Rue de la Clef, and was 
 in continuous relation with a retired metal- 
 turner named Pannisset, an advocate named 
 Maitre Caille, and a commission agent 
 
248 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 named Vinet-Barmont. ' Profiting by the 
 neglect in which the government left him,' 
 notes a report to the Minister of the 
 Interior, ' the said Lamotte-Collier recently 
 devised a swindling scheme which is by 
 no means new to him, and very closely 
 resembles the first swindles he so fruitfully 
 exploited forty years ago against the un- 
 fortunate queen. Lamotte has been for 
 some time occupied, along with confeder- 
 ates, in the fabrication of an alleged 
 correspondence of the royal family, especi- 
 ally of the late king Louis xviii. with 
 Marat and Robespierre.' A very wealthy 
 Englishman had offered a large sum for 
 these documents. La Motte tried to entice 
 him by reading a few extracts ; but the 
 Englishman wanted the originals. ' Im- 
 possible,' said La Motte; 'they are at 
 Brussels.' The would-be purchaser, rightly 
 distrusting the count, broke off the negotia- 
 tions. 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 249 
 
 Then the count threatened a second time 
 to publish his memoirs, giving the true 
 story of the Necklace, he said, adding in 
 a tone of deep sadness that the late queen 
 and a number of personages of the old 
 court would be inevitably compromised in 
 them, in spite of his desire to avoid such 
 a misfortune. The anxiety of the restored 
 monarchy to steer clear of fresh scandals 
 may be imagined. Delavau, the prefect 
 of police, got his friend Pannisset to speak 
 to La Motte. He was offered an assured 
 income, provided he drew up a true account 
 of the events in which he had been con- 
 cerned, and placed it in the hands of the 
 government. The bargain was struck, 
 and the prefect provided La Motte with a 
 lodging in Rue Copeau. He there received 
 a monthly pension of one hundred and fifty 
 francs, and in addition, the clothes and other 
 articles he needed. Pannisset made the pur- 
 chases, and his outlay was refunded by the 
 
250 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 prefect of police. This lasted through the 
 years 1824 and 1825. La Motte compiled 
 his memoirs, and handed them to Pannisset 
 when completed, getting a receipt stating 
 that he remained the owner. Pannisset 
 transmitted them to his friend the prefect. 
 
 They were a tissue of gross and absurd 
 lies. The prefect and the Minister of the 
 Interior saw that they had been fooled, and 
 sent the author about his business. He 
 went to lodge with an English doctor 
 named Harkell in Rue de la Michodiere, 
 afterwards going to live in the village of 
 Orsel. 
 
 Early in 1827 a lawsuit, which made 
 some stir because ' Lamotte-Collier,' as 
 he had been called for some years, was 
 concerned in it, recalled him to public 
 notice. In 1793, as we have said, he had 
 been arrested at Troyes as a suspect. 
 Ingenious in turning the most trivial cir- 
 cumstances to his advantage, La Motte 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 251 
 
 had claimed 50,000 francs damages against 
 the two officers commanding the detach- 
 ment by which he had been apprehended, 
 alleging that they had robbed him of horses, 
 expensive weapons, and other articles of 
 value. The two officers, campaigning with 
 the army of the Rhine, had even been 
 condemned by default. La Motte now 
 revived the affair after thirty years. There 
 was a sensation among the audience when 
 the advocate of the defendants explained 
 in open court exactly who the plaintiff was. / 
 * The murderer of the queen ! ' some one 
 cried out. ' La Motte's advocate,' we read 
 in the Gazette des Tribunaux, * hinting that 
 he still had the protection of people in high 
 places, and received support from their 
 beneficence — he even murmured the word 
 ** government " — there was a no less lively 
 sensation in the audience than in the royal 
 court' A report to the Minister of the 
 Interior notes down some of the sayings 
 
252 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 of the crowd. ' How can there be any- 
 possible connection between such a man 
 and any one of the ministers, I don't care 
 who it is?' 
 
 * The police will make use of anybody.' 
 *If the police do their duty, now that 
 
 another scandal has been caused by the 
 appearance of the queen's murderer, they 
 can't fail to lock him up in Bicetre.' 
 
 * Maitre Lavaux,' continues the Gazette 
 des Tribunaux, ' addressed the court for the 
 defendants. In regard to the losses alleged 
 by the Count de La Motte, he lost in reality 
 only a powder-horn, a pair of pistols, a 
 pair of scissors, and a razor (laughter). 
 It was true that a judgment was obtained 
 by surprise against the defendants in their 
 absence. The case he is trying to resus- 
 citate is simply an attempt to raise the 
 wind. He has printed slanderous memoirs, 
 and threatened the defendants that he will 
 publish them ; but they refused to have 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 253 
 
 anything to do with him/ La Motte was 
 fined and condemned in costs. 
 
 This case, which had directed public at- 
 tention afresh to the Count de La Motte, 
 had unpleasant consequences for him. He 
 had formed the habit of taking a daily- 
 walk in the galleries of the Palais Royal. 
 Noticed, he was hissed and hooted away 
 by the people walking there. He then fell 
 back on the Luxembourg, a quieter and less 
 frequented spot. 
 
 He was lodging at this time at the house 
 of a lady named Legrand. Aged seventy- 
 five, infirm, crippled with gout and rheu- 
 matism, unable to drag himself along without 
 crutches, we find him trading to the last 
 moment of his life on the scandal of his 
 name, and on the injury he would do to the 
 royal power by the revelations he was con- 
 stantly announcing as a thunderbolt. And 
 in truth it almost seems as though the very 
 spirit of his first wife were at this time 
 
254 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 animating his shattered frame. In a letter 
 of March 24, 1827, Delavau, the prefect of 
 poHce, writes to the Minister of the Interioi:: 
 ' He has just collected in a fresh memoir all 
 the slanders and inventions he had already- 
 written elsewhere, and he is looking for 
 some one who will be good enough to buy 
 his disgraceful manuscript.' 
 
 La Motte had known intimately the 
 costumier Babin, who had died recently, 
 and he continued to visit his house. Babin's 
 widow gave him his meals on the days — and 
 they were numerous — when his purse did 
 not contain enough to buy food. 
 
 At Madame Babin's he met the bookseller 
 Correard, and made an agreement with him 
 for the publication of new memoirs on the 
 everlasting Necklace affair — memoirs so 
 compiled as to tickle the palate of the 
 public. But as La Motte, old, infirm, in- 
 capable of writing, could not hold a pen, 
 Correard gave him as collaborator (as 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 255 
 
 * toucher-up,' said La Motte) a young 
 schoolmaster living at Saint-Denis, a native 
 of Bar-sur-Aube like himself. His name 
 was Charles Fellens. La Motte undertook 
 to furnish within a specified time sufficient 
 material for three octavo volumes on the 
 Necklace case, the whole to be revised and 
 corrected by Fellens. While the work was 
 in progress the count had arranged to live 
 with Fellens, who would provide him with 
 food and all other necessaries. After the 
 first volume was issued he was to receive 
 an annuity of 1200 francs, the amount for 
 the first year to be paid in advance. 
 
 Here then we have our friend at Saint- 
 Denis, in Fellens' house, literally under 
 lock and key — *in arbitrary confinement/ 
 as said a certain Madame Perrot, none 
 other than Jeanne de La Tour, La Motte's 
 niece, who had so prettily played the inno- 
 cent young thing in Cagliostro's magic 
 stances. From morning till night La Motte 
 
256 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 scribbled away. Correard put at his dis- 
 position all the pamphlets and documents 
 he could procure on the Necklace affair, and 
 he worked zealously at his compilation, so 
 that the bookseller was at first highly pleased 
 with the progress made. But gradually his 
 ardour cooled. His temporary supervision 
 of the gaming-houses had bred in him a 
 passion, which grew stronger with age, for 
 calculating chances at roulette and trente- 
 et-un. One day Fellens saw on his table a 
 quantity of cards, and leaves of paper com- 
 pletely covered with figures. Asking an 
 explanation, he was instructed by La Motte 
 in the science of gambling. He conceived 
 a passion for it, and then both of them, 
 author and * toucher-up,* throwing aside the 
 manufacture of memoirs, might have been 
 seen playing at cards from night till morn- 
 ing, and from morning till night calculating 
 the probabilities. Fellens was so blindly 
 infatuated with his tutor's method that he 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 257 
 
 decided to sell his school, and with the 
 proceeds to break all the banks in the 
 capital at trente-et-un. 
 
 The new prefect of police, De Belleyme, 
 hearing about the scheme for publishing 
 memoirs on the Necklace, intervened as his 
 predecessor had done. Once more applica- 
 tion was made to M. Pannisset, the quondam 
 metal-turner, now tenant of the Henri iv. 
 baths. On September i, 1828, the count 
 signed the following receipt, which he placed 
 in Pannisset's hands : — 
 
 * I, the undersigned, acknowledge the re-*^ 
 ceipt from M. Pannisset of the sum of 500 
 francs, in return for which I agree not to 
 demand from him, or from any one whatso- 
 ever, the return of the notes relative to the 
 Necklace affair which I have given him at 
 different times, and also bind myself to 
 write no more on that subject, nor to furnish 
 any material whatsoever relating to it* "^ 
 
 It may be imagined that his project of 
 
 R 
 
258 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 publishing memoirs was now definitively 
 given up. ' Under a simple exterior,' says a 
 note from the prefecture of police addressed 
 about this time to the Minister of the 
 Interior, * La Motte is really very crafty.' 
 
 On January 5, 1829, four months after 
 signing the above undertaking, he wrote to 
 Belleyme, the prefect of police : ' The 
 moment I learnt of your appointment to 
 succeed M. Delavau, hope sprang up anew 
 in my heart, and I thought I should succeed 
 in making known the wrong-doing and in- 
 justice of your predecessor. Then I got 
 Dr. Harkell to present to you the true 
 story of the conduct of M. Delavau and 
 his agents in trying to persuade me to 
 write my memoirs and deliver the manu- 
 script to them. I had been recommended 
 not to compromise the queen. I have as 
 much as possible avoided the suspicions 
 hovering about her, and only too well 
 founded.' Note the last phrase. 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 259 
 
 La Motte adds that he has made up his 
 mind to sue Pannisset before the courts for 
 the restitution of the manuscript of his 
 memoirs, which he had been prudent 
 enough to hand over only in exchange for 
 a receipt acknowledging that Pannisset held 
 them merely in trust. Then M. Gauthier, 
 head of the third police bureau, intervened, 
 says La Motte, and urged Pannisset to 
 make an amicable arrangement in order 
 to avoid the scandal of publicity. ' At this 
 time I was in a very unfortunate plight. 
 M. Gauthier knew this, and thought that 
 in my distress I should be glad enough to 
 accept any trifle. On the verge of being 
 homeless and without food, I was forced to 
 accept the 500 francs which Gauthier offered 
 me, out of which Pannisset kept 55 francs 
 for his expenses. So I received 445 francs, 
 and of this sum I owed 300 to my landlord 
 for board and lodging. M. Gauthier took 
 care to make me give him a receipt, in 
 
26o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 which it was said that I agreed to return 
 to Pannisset the receipt I got from him, 
 never to write again on this subject, and 
 never to supply anybody with notes that 
 could serve the same object.' And he goes 
 on : * There 's an old proverb which says 
 ''necessity has no law." I should have 
 signed anything that was put before me at 
 that critical moment.' 
 
 La Motte could not believe that the 
 prefect of police had had any hand in 
 this transaction. 'About a fortnight ago/ 
 he continues, 'finding myself in the same 
 situation as that in which I was forced to 
 accept the 500 francs from M. Gauthier, a 
 person of my acquaintance, to whom I had 
 revealed my distress, proposed to present 
 me to a person who might be useful to 
 me and perhaps secure me a livelihood. 
 I did not hesitate, and allowed myself to 
 be taken to him. I found two persons 
 instead of one. They proposed to make 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 261 
 
 arrangements with me to take up my 
 memoirs afresh, without concealing any- 
 thing about the numerous persons who 
 had figured in the Necklace affair. To 
 come to a complete understanding on all 
 these points, they had a second meeting 
 with me in the country on December 28 
 last. I met the two gentlemen, and they 
 showed me three sheets of stamped paper 
 on a table, telling me that we should have 
 time to draw up three deeds before dinner. 
 I stopped them for a moment to inform 
 them of the agreement M. Gauthier had 
 made me sign, but told them that I regarded 
 the agreement as null and void after the 
 conduct that had been shown towards me, 
 comparing him, in the position in which 
 I then found myself, to a man demanding 
 my money or my life in the depths of a 
 wood, and presenting a pistol at my head.' 
 
 The two gentlemen were charmed with 
 the comparison, but thought the agreement 
 
262 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 constituted an obstacle to the publication of 
 new memoirs. 
 
 ' Is that all ? Why, that 's the best of it ! 
 They will attack you ; all the better for our 
 interests and yours if they make a scandal. 
 We will defend ourselves, and the editions 
 will go off all the quicker.' 
 
 La Motte then enumerates the excellent 
 terms made with him: a salary of 1200 
 francs, and 200 francs extra for every new 
 edition. There was also talk of reprinting 
 the memoirs of Madame de La Motte burnt 
 in the furnace at Sevres ; by so doing his 
 annual income would be raised by 100 
 livres. 
 
 He concludes : * In this state of things, 
 wishing to avoid scandal, my age, my in- 
 firmities, and my repugnance to making 
 myself talked about, and especially to 
 offending the royal family by the confessions 
 and the details I should have been forced 
 to give in the course of the work, decided 
 
' LAMOTTE-COLLIER 263 
 
 me before writing a single line to consult 
 you as to what I ought to do, for it will be 
 an easy matter to treat with these gentle- 
 men. 
 
 * I will merely mention to you, Monsieur 
 the Prefect, that the death of the unfortunate 
 Louis XVI. left me without means of sub- 
 sistence, and that if Louis xviii., who had 
 desired to know all the details of this affair 
 [we have seen above what had induced 
 the king to give up his desire], had lived 
 a few months longer, I should not have 
 been reduced to-day to begging your pro- 
 tection in order to obtain an equivalent for 
 the agreement made with these gentlemen. 
 If I obtain this favour from you, I shall 
 pass the remainder of my days in peace and 
 happiness. I am seventy-five years old. I 
 am crushed by infirmities, and have scarcely 
 strength enough left to drag myself along 
 with crutches. In this unhappy state I am 
 expecting every day to succumb, owing to 
 
264 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 the awful pain I suffer and the falls I am 
 constantly having. The government or the 
 persons with whom I have been in treaty 
 will not have me long as an annuitant.' 
 
 The concluding passage is presented with 
 all the formality and the flattery he thinks 
 necessary. ' The eulogy which is passed 
 on your administration, added to the 
 eminent qualities which distinguish you, 
 persuade me that you will use your credit to 
 prevent a scandal. I am assured that in 
 your wisdom and intelligence you will well 
 weigh the course that should be adopted 
 in these circumstances. I am at ease 
 regarding the future.' 
 
 A perfect letter in its kind : ingeniously 
 woven subtleties, insinuations, unctuous in 
 their impudence, a honeyed and unblushing 
 attempt at extortion. 
 
 The prefect of police remitted the matter 
 to the commissary Marlot, who replied on 
 July i6, 1829: *I have known the Count 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 265 
 
 de La Motte since his childhood. He is a 
 fellow-countryman of mine, and I knew him 
 in his days of splendour and renown, as 
 well as in the poverty into which he is ever 
 sinking deeper. He has been writing for 
 five months as often as his feeble health 
 permits, and submitting pages for Fellens' 
 correction as he writes them. He has 
 already completed twenty-eight manuscript 
 books, which they calculate will make two 
 volumes. They are padding them out to 
 make three if they can. On Monday the 1 3th 
 M. Fellens came to Paris, accompanied by 
 M. de La Motte, whom he keeps a tight hold 
 on. They left a part of the manuscript with 
 Corr^ard, enough for the first volume. The 
 printer is going to begin at once, and the 
 other two volumes will follow as rapidly as 
 possible, so that they may be issued to the 
 public within two months at the latest. 
 M. de La Motte is very anxious to have an 
 interview with me, and wants to be freed 
 
266 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 from the clutches of Fellens, of whom he 
 has a good deal to complain. He asks for 
 a pension, in return for which he would un- 
 dertake to publish nothing. Would he keep 
 his word ? I doubt it, and I should be very- 
 sorry to go bail for him in that respect.' 
 
 The commissary concludes : * This La 
 Motte is an old man as hardened in vice 
 as he is to reverses. We doubt whether he 
 has enough inclination towards good to be 
 honest and remain faithful to an engage- 
 ment. Nevertheless, as he is infirm, in- 
 dolent, and incapable of doing anything by 
 himself, it will be a great thing if Fellens 
 can be detached from him and strictly 
 forbidden to ply the trade of pamphleteer 
 (does he not, in his capacity as schoolmaster, 
 depend on the minister of public instruc- 
 tion ?). Madame Perrot, the niece (formerly 
 Jeanne de La Tour), assures me that the 
 memoirs will be virulent and scandalous, 
 and that no august name will be spared.' 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 267 
 
 Further, Marlot was to have an interview 
 at the first opportunity with La Motte 
 himself. He met him on July 17. The 
 count repeated that he was anxious not to 
 have his memoirs printed. * He would give 
 up the idea,' says Marlot, * if the govern- 
 ment would guarantee him a pension.' It 
 would not be for long, he adds, since La 
 Motte was in such a state of decrepitude 
 that it was impossible to think he could last 
 much longer. 
 
 These projects of publishing the memoirs 
 of Count de La Motte and reprinting those 
 of his wife formed part of a larger plan of 
 campaign against the late queen Marie 
 Antoinette, whom the * patriots ' continued 
 to regard as insufficiently guillotined. Atj^ 
 this very time, Baudouin, the bookseller, 
 was occupied in publishing certain letters 
 alleged to have been written by her and to 
 her before and during the Revolution, in 
 
268 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 which details of high relish were expected. 
 ' M. Baudouin,' says a report to the Minister 
 of the Interior, dated August 2, 1829, 'has 
 already given so many marks of hatred 
 against religion and the monarchy, by print- 
 ing seditious writings, that several members 
 of the Bourbon family, as he says himself, 
 could not but be justly alarmed at the 
 announcement mentioned above.' The 
 report gives other details : * It is no doubt 
 on account of his devotion to the anti- 
 religious and anti-monarchical cause, and 
 by way of encouragement and a mark of 
 affection, that the Society of the Temple, 
 of which he is a member, has intrusted to 
 him the high functions of general steward 
 of the estates of the order; an honorary 
 office, it is true, since the order of the said 
 Templars possesses no known estates.' 
 
 On Saturday, August i, a Templar had 
 visited Baudouin, and found him walking 
 up and down in the gardens of the mad- 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 269 
 
 house in Rue de I'Oursine, where he was 
 then living. Baudouin knew that the 
 government had written to Vienna. 
 
 * For all that, I am in possession of some 
 original and authentic copies of the letters 
 I have announced for publication.' 
 
 * But aren't you afraid of a surprise raid ? ' 
 asked the Templar. 
 
 * That was thought of, but they haven't 
 dared to do it. Besides, I have taken 
 measures to protect my papers from forcible 
 seizure. They sent detectives to me to 
 try to pick up a few stray bits of paper. 
 They 've made me offers, or hinted at doing 
 so, but I have paid them no attention.' 
 
 * I must tell you,' said the Templar, * that 
 some people are afraid you will give way.' 
 
 * No fear of that. It's too good a thing 
 for the patriots. I am a child of the 
 Revolution.' 
 
 A note affixed to the report gives the 
 information that these letters of the queen 
 
2/0 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 extended from the year 1788 to her in- 
 carceration at the Temple. They were 
 addressed to the Emperor of Austria, 
 Madame de Polignac, the Duke of Luxem- 
 bourg, and several persons at court. The 
 greater part were copies of letters in cipher. 
 All were apocryphal. 
 
 About the middle of August 1829, 
 Marlot had a second interview with La 
 Motte, who came to see him of his own 
 accord. * He came to sound us,' writes the 
 police officer, 'on our ideas as to the 
 intentions of the new Ministry (the Polignac 
 Ministry), desiring to learn if the present 
 authorities entered into the views of MM. 
 de Martignac and Belleyme, which appeared 
 to be to purchase the silence of this wretch, 
 in guaranteeing him a pension, and in- 
 demnifying his collaborators, Fellens and 
 Correard. We stood on the greatest re- 
 serve in this matter with M. de La Motte, 
 contenting ourselves with persuading him 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 271 
 
 to temporise, to act with circumspection, 
 and not to run risks that would be fatal, 
 not to his reputation, which is a mere 
 illusion for a man of his stamp, but to his 
 personal security. He appeared to pay- 
 heed to our remarks, or rather, they 
 seemed to scare him, by suggesting to his 
 mind a future of worry as the inevitable 
 consequence of his unpleasant publications. 
 
 * M. de La Motte,' continues Marlot, 'con- 
 fided to us that his work contained some 
 very virulent passages, and in particular 
 some curious revelations on the intimacy 
 between the late queen and Madame de 
 Polignac, mother of the present minister.' 
 
 Then follows a passage which it is im- 
 possible to reproduce : its purport may be 
 conjectured. 
 
 *At this,' adds Marlot, 'we could not 
 contain our indignation, and we told M. 
 de La Motte pretty plainly that if such 
 disgusting things came out, the only 
 
272 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 possible result for him would be disgrace 
 and a severe sentence. He left us, promis- 
 ing with his tongue in his cheek that he 
 would think it over/ 
 
 The prefect of police sent to the Minister 
 of the Interior a report in which the details 
 given by Marlot were summarised. The 
 report added : * It will soon be a year since 
 La Motte-Valois proposed to sell his silence 
 to the Administration. He asked for a 
 pension of three or four hundred francs, 
 and a shelter at the Hospice of Chaillot. 
 This offer was not accepted ; perhaps it 
 might be renewed.' A marginal note tells 
 us that the minister thought there was no 
 occasion to reopen the matter. The 
 promises of La Motte struck him as 
 unreliable. 
 
 There were two separate compilations of 
 the Memoirs of Nicolas de La Motte : the 
 first handed to Pannisset in 1824, trans- 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 273 
 
 mitted by him to the prefecture of police, 
 and deposited in the archives of the 
 prefecture, whence it shortly afterwards 
 disappeared. But in the sequel the 
 manuscript was discovered, as is shown 
 by the following letter, dated August 8, 
 1829, addressed by Belleyme to the 
 Minister of the Interior : — 
 
 * I have the honour to transmit to your 
 excellency the manuscript of the Memoirs of 
 M. Delamotte-Valois, which M. Duplessis, 
 late chief of division at the prefecture, has 
 just handed to me, to make what use of it 
 your excellency thinks fit.' 
 
 This first compilation, still unpublished, is 
 preserved to-day in the National Archives. 
 A second version, which La Motte tried to 
 get bought up, as we have seen, was 
 compiled in collaboration with Fellens. It 
 was published long after its author's death 
 by Louis Lacour, numerous passages 
 being suppressed. 
 
274 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 The compilation and publication of these 
 Memoirs, for the sake of the profit he hoped 
 to derive through the scandal they would 
 create, was La Motte s constant preoccupa- 
 tion during the last part of his life, just as 
 the publication of her memoirs had filled the 
 last days of his wife Jeanne de Valois. Both 
 regarded them simply as a means of bringing 
 pressure to bear on the royal government, 
 alarmed at the sensation they were bound 
 to make. 
 
 The Memoirs of the Count de La Motte, 
 often quoted from the edition issued by 
 Louis Lacour in 1858, are, to put it shortly, 
 of no historical value whatever : they are a 
 tissue of lies and clumsy fables. Doubtless 
 they contain authentic details which it 
 would be very interesting to sift out and 
 collect : but how is it possible to distinguish 
 them among the heaps of falsehoods ? La 
 Motte composed his account of the Necklace 
 affair forty years after the events, at an 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 275 
 
 advanced age, and in deplorable weakness 
 and decrepitude. And finally, he made . 
 great use of other works relating to those 
 events, works supplied him by his associates ; 
 so that his Memoirs are not even personal 
 recollections, nor was it he who held the pen. 
 
 The prefecture of police resolved to 
 ignore the opinion expressed by the minister 
 in his marginal note to its report. Possibly, 
 indeed, the minister himself changed his 
 mind. Whether or no, La Motte was again y 
 pensioned, from dread of a scandal. As 
 we have just seen, his Memoirs did not 
 appear until after his death. 
 
 *0n September 14, 1829,' writes Lafont 
 d'Aussonne, * as I was crossing the Luxem- 
 bourg wood on my way to the gate nearest the 
 Rue Cassette, I caught sight of the Count de 
 La Motte entering the great chestnut avenue. 
 I followed his stumbling footsteps as he 
 shuffled along heavily on his two crutches. 
 
276 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 His elegant and careful get-up, his perfectly 
 polished manners, his courtly mode of saluta- 
 tion, spoke in his favour. The ladies sitting 
 on the seat moved up so that he might be 
 more comfortable. I placed myself very 
 near the count, and called him aloud by his 
 name.' They entered into conversation. 
 *M. de Belleyme,' said the count, * continued 
 to give me a little pension of loo louis out of 
 the police funds. He sent for me as I 
 was finishing the revision of my Memoirs. 
 He condescended to announce his change 
 of plans for the following week. "• Drop 
 all these stories," he said to me as we 
 separated.' 
 
 La Motte was at this time living with 
 his niece, Madame Perrot, at 17 Rue des 
 Cannettes. 
 
 We meet him for the last time in the 
 eventful days of July 1830, at the age of 
 seventy-seven. He was caught in a crowd, 
 and fell wounded. The officer of gen- 
 
LAMOTTE-COLLIER 277 
 
 darmerie who was on duty had him carried 
 to a neighbouring house. On October 11, 
 1 83 1, he entered the hospital of St. Louis, 
 and died there on November 6. In the 
 last years of his life he had made several 
 attempts at suicide. * I followed the river- 
 bank as far as Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. 
 With the help of my two hands, I slid 
 down to the edge of the embankment. I 
 looked at the spot where I was going to 
 fall, and was on the point of letting go the 
 grass I was firmly holding, when, plunging 
 my eyes into the depths about to swallow 
 me up, I fancied I saw billows of blood 
 rolling down the stream.' These billows of 
 blood, he declares, recalled to his mind the 
 events of September, and he lost all desire 
 to commit suicide. 
 
 His death is announced in t\i^ Journal de 
 Paris in the following terms : ' M. Musto- 
 phragasis. Count de Valois, Knight of St. 
 Louis and of the Crown, noble of Angou- 
 
278 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 leme, has just died in Paris, at an advanced 
 age, and in poverty. He was the husband 
 of the famous Madame de La Motte-Valois. 
 He was generally known by the name of 
 Valois-Collier.' 
 
LEGENDS 279 
 
 
 V 
 
 XVII 
 
 LEGENDS 
 
 So great was the impression produced by 
 the Necklace affair that, as often happens 
 in similar circumstances, the principal actors 
 in the drama came to life again after their 
 deaths. 
 
 In 1793, the Count de Semalld met at 
 Liege the Baronne d'Oliva, who had been 
 buried at Vincennes on June 25, 1789. 
 This reincarnation of the pretty Nicole 
 Leguay was married to a certain M. de La 
 Tour, and in concert with him was passing 
 forged notes in various parts of France. Her 
 resemblance to the queen, says Semalle, 
 was striking. * She assured me more than 
 once that she had no suspicion of the odious 
 
28o CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 part she had been made to play in the 
 intrigue, and that she had been the dupe 
 of Madame de La Motte.' But one morning 
 Semalle learnt that the soi-disant Baronne 
 d'Oliva had quietly absconded, along with 
 her husband. 
 
 The last of the biographers of Madame 
 de La Motte, M. Louis de Soudak, found 
 the heroine (who, as we have seen, died 
 in London on August 23, 1791) in the 
 Crimea in 1825. Staroi-Krim bears little 
 trace to-day of the incomparable Solkata of 
 the Armenian poets, the rival of Stamboul, 
 which the finest cavaliers of the Golden 
 Band could barely ride round at a gallop 
 in half a day. Where once rose the ancient 
 ramparts are now ditches, almost filled with 
 sand by the winds of the Steppes. Beyond 
 them is an old mosque propped up by rude 
 beams, and traces of the ancient palaces, 
 pulled to pieces by hands eager to construct 
 new dwellings, which in their turn are 
 
LEGENDS 281 
 
 crumbling away. In that spot there exists 
 the garden of an Armenian potter, and in 
 the garden may be found an old man seated 
 on a large stone. In slow tones and with 
 measured gesture the greybeard relates as 
 follows : — 
 
 * There used to be in these parts a 
 Countess Gachet, a former Queen of France, 
 who had stolen a Necklace. I was a little 
 fellow when she called me to her side, to 
 amuse me with a large diamond, which 
 she turned round in the sunlight at the 
 end of a golden chain, till it made me 
 blink. When she died, and was undressed 
 to wash her body, two letters were found 
 branded on her shoulders.' 
 
 * It is strange,' says Louis de Soudak, 
 'that the name and the story of the 
 heroine of the Necklace case should have 
 reached the Crimea at a time when that 
 peninsula had few inhabitants but Tartars 
 and absolutely ignorant Greek fishermen.' 
 
282 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 * In 1894,' continues the traveller, *I 
 stopped one beautiful sunny morning at 
 Gourzouf, near Yalto, under a superb plane- 
 tree, at the spot where it appears that 
 Poushkin wrote some of his finest verses. 
 Seeing a Tartar passing by, I asked him 
 what interesting things were to be seen in 
 the district. Indicating the north by a 
 gesture, he answered: **At Artek, a few 
 versts in that direction, there is a house 
 where Madame Gachet lived, a woman 
 who had stolen a very fine necklace from 
 the queen of your country. When she 
 died, two big letters were seen on her 
 back.'" The legend, it will be seen, is 
 very precise, and it is diffused throughout 
 the country. 
 
 On the other hand, the Baronne Bod6 in 
 her Memoirs gives some curious details 
 about the Countess Gachet, n^e Valois, 
 Countess de La Motte, who was settled in 
 the Crimea from 1820 to 1830. * I see her 
 
LEGENDS 283 
 
 still,' she says, 'oldish, slight in figure, but 
 well made, dressed in a grey cloth overall. 
 Her white hair was covered with a black 
 velvet cap. She spoke a choice French, 
 with animation and grace. . . . She had 
 known Cagliostro, had an inexhaustible 
 fund of stories of the court of Louis xvi., 
 and gave me to understand that there was 
 a great mystery in her life. ' 
 
 In her will the Countess Cachet appointed 
 the father of Baronne Bode her executor. 
 Her Armenian servant related that the 
 countess, feeling ill, had spent the whole 
 night in sorting and burning papers. She 
 had forbidden her body to be touched, and 
 ordered that she should be buried just as 
 she was. In laying out the corpse, the 
 old servant noticed on her back two marks, 
 evidently made by red-hot iron. 
 
 Louis de Soudak paused in emotion before 
 the stone placed over the lady's tomb. 
 'Accompanied by an Armenian deacon,' 
 
284 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 he writes, * I spent several hours in wander- 
 ing about the cemetery, covered with oats 
 and nettles. I found many very old tomb- 
 stones buried under dead bodies interred 
 above them. The inscriptions had dis- 
 appeared. The frequent rains and the 
 sea-winds blowing from Theodosia had 
 effaced everything. Thence I repaired to 
 the spot where the cottage of the countess 
 stood. On the face of a charming ravine, the 
 little peasant's dwelling nestled coquettishly, 
 smiling in its bed of verdure. Near by, 
 behind the trees, a windmill spread its great 
 vertebrated sails towards the blue sky. 
 Flocks of geese screeched a hostile recep- 
 tion, while the owner, a sturdy Bulgarian, 
 seemed hardly to relish the inquisitive 
 glance I threw over his little domain. 
 Returning by the silent ravine, at the 
 bottom of which a brook flows, watering 
 the flourishing kitchen garden, I reflected 
 that the hapless exile must often have 
 
LEGENDS 285 
 
 wandered in that spot, and that, far from 
 France, her poor heart must then have 
 suffered bitter rancour and poignant re- 
 gret.' 
 
 Who could the mysterious stranger have 
 been ? The field of conjecture is bound- 
 less. Doubtless she was some unfortunate 
 creature who had escaped from a house 
 of detention during the troubles of the 
 Revolution, and had found the opportunity 
 to set off the depths of her degradation by 
 means of a legend. 
 
 After dying in London in 1791, and then 
 in the Crimea in 1825, Madame de La Motte 
 died once more in Paris in 1844. Nearly 
 all the journals made themselves echoes of 
 this sensational end. On returning from 
 the emigration, a bishop had introduced to 
 society, at the house of one of the wealthiest 
 nobles of the district, a mysterious lady. 
 The marquis gave her a wing of his 
 
286 CAGLIOSTRO AND COMPANY 
 
 mansion, and devoted two domestics to her 
 service. He granted her a pension. Before 
 his death, he recommended his heir to con- 
 tinue these favours. The unknown lady 
 never went out except to go to church and 
 to visit the poor. She was infinitely kind- 
 hearted, and the poor used to kiss her 
 hands. But she was brought, by the very 
 people she succoured, into relations with 
 the noblest ladies of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain. She was compelled to throw 
 open her drawing-room. She was a won- 
 derful talker, relating anecdotes with all 
 the grace of the olden time ; and she 
 played at whist and reversi. It was a 
 favour much sought after to be admitted to 
 her circle — to be received by the Countess 
 Jeanne, the only name she bore. For 
 thirty years she went on giving alms, talk- 
 ing, and playing reversi. Then death rent 
 the veil. In the dead lady's room they 
 found a heap of half-burnt papers. Death 
 
LEGENDS 287 
 
 had surprised her throwing the secret of 
 her Hfe to the flames. Amazing discovery ! 
 the Countess Jeanne, the holy and revered 
 saint, was Madame de La Motte ! At any 
 rate, so declared all the newspapers of Paris 
 in the month of May 1844. 
 
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