doubtless with her majesty, who has a difficulty
in getting rid of him." Rid of him, it seems,
she cannot get. The cardinal, with his high-
soaring hopes dashed to the ground, has to
return to his hotel at Versailles, there to meditate
on the fickleness of fortune.

Success is achieved at last. The great fraud
is consummated. The crown jewellers,
delighted at having got rid of this matchless
article, which had been a source of anxiety to
them for years, give a grand dinner to the countess,
and offer her a handsome commission on
the sale. She politely declines it. What does
she want with a commission? She has got the
Necklace itself.

               CHAPTER III.

THE Countess de la Motte had succeeded
in obtaining the Necklace, but how was she to
turn it into cash? Every workman in France
knew this famed piece of bijouterie. The only
plan was to remove the diamonds from their
settings and to dispose of them piecemeal.

In this she partly succeeds. Having already
spent the whole of the hundred thousand francs
received from the cardinal a few months
previously, she contrives, by means of some of her
Bar-sur-Aube connexions, to sell a few of the
diamonds to a Paris jeweller, and with the
proceeds packs her husband off to England to
dispose of the remainder.

Arrived in London, the count calls upon two
of the best-known jewellers of the period—
Jeffreys, of Piccadilly, and Gray, of New Bondstreet.
Gray buys one hundred and eighty-
three of the five hundred and forty-one stones of
which the Necklace was composed, or about one-
third of the entire number. For these the
count receives in cash and value, ten thousand
three hundred and seventy-one pounds six shillings.
Six thousand and ninety pounds of this
sum is paid in cash, and the remainder in articles
of jewellery and sundry knick-knacks, including
upwards of two thousand pounds' worth of
pearls, with which to embroider a coverlid for
the countess's bed; a pair of diamond earrings,
valued at six hundred pounds; a diamond star,
valued at four hundred pounds; a medallion set
with diamonds, two hundred and thirty pounds;
a pearl necklace, two hundred pounds; besides
a diamond snuff-box, several diamond rings, and
a diamond aigrette with which to loop up the
count's three-cornered hat; a handsome steel
sword, one hundred pounds; and numerous other
articles of jewellery. He directs Gray to mount
him sixty-one additional stones: some, as drop
earrings, and others as a necklace, for the countess.
While all this bargaining is going on, the
count finds time to run down to Newmarket,
where he backs certain horses, and wins a
thousand pounds. On his return to London he
enters into the most expensive pleasures of the
British capital, keeps fashionable company,
rides in the Park with his groom behind him,
gives expensive dinners at several of the best
hotels, and plays deeply at the West-end hells.

At last he is back in Paris, has cashed his
letter of credit on a French banker, Perregaux
(the same who engaged Jacques Laffitte, from
seeing him pick up and carefully preserve a
common pin), and is engaged in disposing of a
further quantity of diamonds to a goldsmith
and jeweller named Regnier, of whom the
countess had been in the habit of purchasing
both jewellery and plate; so that altogether the
count and countess receive in money and value
something like fourteen thousand pounds for
three hundred out of the five hundred and
forty-one stones of which the Necklace was
composed. There is joy for a time in the Rue
Neuve St. Gilles, where grand dinner-parties
are given, at which people of some condition
are present, such as the Marquis de Saisseval,
very wealthy, and pushing his way at court;
the Count d'Estaing, one of the heroes of the
American war, and who, in subsequent years,
commanded the National Guards of Versailles
when the château was stormed by the mob; the
Baron Lilleroy, an officer of the King's body-
guard; the Abbé de Cabres, a councillor in the
Paris parliament; the receiver-general, Dorey;
and Rouelle d'Orfeuil, intendant of Champagne.
Besides her grand dinner-parties, the countess
gives once or twice a week little suppers to
her more intimate friends, such as Beugnot,
Cagliostro, and others. It was at one of these
that Beugnot and Cagliostro were first
introduced to each other, after the former had been
warned by the countess that she would be
obliged to disarm the inquietude of Cagliostro,
who invariably refused to sit down to table if
he thought any one had been specially invited
to meet him. She begged Beuguot to ask him
no questions, not to interrupt him when he was
speaking, and to answer with readiness any
inquiries he might address to him. "I
subscribed," remarks Beugnot, "to these conditions,
and would have accepted even harder ones to
gratify my curiosity.

"At half past ten o'clock the folding-doors
were thrown open, and the Count de Cagliostro
was announced. Madame de la Motte precipitately
quitted her arm-chair, rushed up to him,
and drew him into a corner of the salon,
where, I presume, she begged of him to pardon
my presence. Cagliostro advanced towards me,
and bowed without appearing at all embarrassed
at perceiving a stranger. He was of medium
height, rather stout, had a very short neck, and
a round face ornamented with two large eyes
sunken in his head, and a broad turn-up nose.
His complexion was of an olive tinge; his
coiffure was new in France, his hair being
divided into several little tresses, which, united
at the back of the head, were tied up in the
form known as the club. He wore a French
coat of iron grey embroidered with gold lace,
and carried his sword stuck in the skirts, a
scarlet vest trimmed with point d'Espagne,
red breeches, and a hat edged with a white
feather. This last article of dress was still
necessary to mountebanks, dentists, and other
medical artistes, who made speeches and
sold their drugs out of doors. Cagliostro's
costume was relieved by lace ruffles, several
costly rings and shoe-buckles of an old pattern,