orphans descended from Henry the Second of
Valois, King of France."

The marchioness stopped the carriage,
questioned the child, made inquiries, and finding that
the children were really of royal descent—through
an illegitimate channel—caused them to be
presented to the king, who conferred on them three
trifling pensions of thirty-two pounds, and gave
the boy a commission in the navy. Jeanne, the
eldest, and her sister, with the approval of the
marchioness, entered a convent near Paris.
Convents in those days were merely boarding-
schools, with little restraint upon the boarders.
Nevertheless, this restraint was too much for the
Mademoiselles de St. Remi, who absconded one
fine morning with some thirty francs in pocket,
and took their passage on board one of the river
barges to Bar-sur-Aube, a small town about one
hundred and forty miles from Paris, near the
village where they were born, and where their
ancestors once possessed considerable estates.

The family of St. Remi had gradually fallen
off from its position as an offshoot of the
blood royal, until it had finally sunk to the level
of the peasant class. Jeanne de St. Remi, the
heroine of this story, entertained high notions
of her lofty descent, and determined to recover
the family estates. Her father, Jacques de St.
Remi, had married the daughter of his
concierge, and had gradually fallen into poverty.

The two girls, on reaching Bar-sur-Aube, took
up their abode at La Tête Rouge, the smallest
inn in the place, their scanty funds being nearly
exhausted. They gave out that they were of
royal blood, and the rightful owners of several
important estates in the neighbourhood, which they
had come to reclaim. Curiosity was excited.
A benevolent old lady took them to her house
to stay with her. Jeanne, though not strikingly
handsome, was far from plain. She had a
complexion of dazzling whiteness, beautiful
blue eyes full of expression, fine teeth, and was
soon flirting with all the young fellows in the
neighbourhood. Two suitors stood out in
advance of the rest—one, the nephew of the
lady with whom the Mademoiselles de St. Remi
de Valois were staying, a tall and somewhat
ungainly gendarme; the other, the son of a
landed proprietor, named Beugnot. The father
of the latter, not liking the prospect of having
Jeanne de St. Remi for a daughter-in-law, packed
his son off to Paris to study law, politics, and
human nature: which he did to such good
purpose as to become, in after years, Minister of
Police and Postmaster-General under Louis the
Eighteenth, by whom he was created count.

It is from the interesting memoirs which he
left behind him in MS. that many of the new
passages in the Necklace romance are derived.

De la Motte—the tall young gendarme—
carries off the prize. To provide herself with a
suitable trousseau, Jeanne de St. Remi pledges
her pension for the next two years, whilst young
De la Motte sells his horse and cabriolet to
defray the wedding expenses. After the
marriage, they assume the title of count and
countess. Without resources, they get into
debt, and remove into Lunéville, where De la
Motte's regiment is quartered. The countess
has numbers of admirers, including the Marquis
d'Autichamp, commandant of the corps. Hearing
that the Marchioness de Boulainvilliers is
at Strasburg, she sets off in search for her, and
at last meets with her at Saverne, at the palace
of Prince Cardinal de Rohan, Grand Almoner of
France, to whom she is introduced by the
marchioness as a deserving object for his eminence's
and the nation's bounty.

Difficulties increase. They return to Bar-
sur-Aube. The countess persuades the elder
Beugnot to lend her one thousand francs, that
she may try her fortune in Paris to endeavour
to procure the restitution of the St. Remi
domains. She divides the one thousand francs
with her husband, who goes over to Foulette,
the ancestral seat of the St. Remis, proclaims
his alliance with a daughter of the house, has a
Te Deum chanted in the church, scatters his
five-franc pieces about as long as they last to
the gaping crowd, and is hailed as their lord
and lord of Foulette. When his five hundred
francs are exhausted, he seeks an asylum in the
house of his married sister.

The countess is not idle in Paris; she
memorialises ministers and petitions the king to
restore her the estates of her ancestors, and to
grant her some immediate pecuniary relief for
her pressing necessities. About this time the
Marchioness de Boulainvilliers falls seriously
ill, and Madame de la Motte tends her until
she dies, when the old marquis makes overtures
to her, which she rejects with disdain. We
next find her with her husband in a miserable
apartment on the fifth floor of a dingy hôtel
meuble in the back-slums of Paris. A squabble
about payment leads to their ejection, and they
secure an apartment in the Rue Neuve St.
Gilles, which they succeed in getting furnished
on the security of a Jew. To save themselves
from starvation, the countess sells her own and
her brother's pension outright to a money-lender
named Grenier for the sum of nine thousand
francs. She sends a memorial to Cardinal
de Rohan, the grand almoner, who consents
to accord her an audience, and she finds out
her old flame, young Beugnot, now a rising
advocate, keeping his carriage and livery
servant. She asks him to escort her to the
Palace of the Cardinal. "I want of you three
things," says she; "your carriage, your
servant to follow me, and, lastly, yourself to
accompany me; all of which are indispensable,
since there are only two good ways of asking
alms—at the church door, and in a carriage."
Beugnot granted her two first requests, but
resolutely refused the third; and, unattended save
by a servant in livery, to the Palace of the Cardinal
she went, decked out in her finest feathers,
redolent with perfumes, and intent upon making
an impression. She succeeded, and became a
regular recipient of De Rohan's bounty.

She wheedles his secrets out of him, and learns
that his life is rendered miserable by a burning
yet hopeless passion for the queen. Here is a