but brilliant enough to pass for very pure
diamonds."

For some reason unknown to us, at the end
of the month of June the countess causes a
letter to be written to the cardinal in the
queen's name, complaining of the excessive
price of the Necklace, and requiring a reduction
of two hundred thousand francs to be made in
the purchase-money, in which case seven
hundred thousand francs, instead of four hundred
thousand, would be paid on the 1st of August;
"otherwise," the letter went on to say, "the
article will be returned!" The crown jewellers
murmur at this unexpected demand, but rather
than be again burdened with the Necklace, they
submit to it. This move on the countess's part,
which seems without object, can only have been
made to disarm any suspicion which she may
have fancied had entered into the minds of
either the cardinal or the crown jewellers with
regard to the queen's share in the transaction.
The house the countess bought the
previous autumn at Bar-sur-Aube has been by
this time half rebuilt and gorgeously decorated by
Parisian artists, and the De la Mottes now
proceed to furnish it with befitting magnificence.
While they are thus engaged, the first instalment
for the Necklace is on the eve of falling due.
The countess, to gain time, carries thirty thousand
francs to the Cardinal de Rohan, as if
from the queen, and tells him that her majesty
requires an extension of time, which she is
certain there will not be any difficulty in obtaining,
for the payment of the instalment, and has
forwarded the sum in question that he may
hand it over to the jewellers as interest on the
retarded payment. Thirty thousand francs as
interest on seven hundred thousand francs, or
at the rate of nearly twenty-five per cent, and
the client a queen! The cardinal, who has
never obtained his promised second interview
with counterfeit royalty, but has been put
off, month after month, with various frivolous
excuses, and has had fewer billets-doux than
usual, is in dudgeon at the new proposal. He
knows well enough that the jewellers, who are
hard pressed by their creditors, want the money,
and indeed are relying upon receiving it on the
precise day. He dreads facing them. Still,
needs must when such a charioteer as the
countess drives. Accordingly, he goes to the
Grand Balcon, and the jewellers, after a good
deal of grumbling, give a reluctant consent, but
set off the amount handed to them, not as
interest, but as part of the principal sum overdue

Strange to say, at this time both the
cardinal and the jewellers conceived a suspicion,
unknown to each other, that the queen had
never received the necklace at all. She had never
been seen to wear it in public on those grand
occasions when such an object might be
fittingly worn. The jewellers went so far as
to write to the queen, but received no reply.
The stupid cardinal hinted his suspicions to
the countess, who, with her ready tongue and
active brain, soon set his mind at rest.

The countess now launched into the greatest
extravagance. We quote M. Beugnot's
description of her house. The hangings of her
bedroom were of crimson velvet, trimmed with
gold lace and fringe, and embroidered with gold
and spangles; while the counterpane was
worked all over with pearls, brought, it will be
remembered, by the count from England. As
a consummation of impudence, the De la
Mottes exhibited a casket containing more
than two hundred thousand francs' worth of
diamonds. In their stables were twelve splendid
horses, and in their coach-house half a dozen
handsome carriages, all made in England.
Everything was on a similar scale of magnificence.

"We used to think," remarks Beugnot,
"that the Cardinal de Rohan paid for all this
brilliant extravagance, and we admired the good
use his eminence made of the funds of the
Great Almonry."

                   CHAPTER IV.

THAT gorgeous apartment in the Palace of
Versailles which goes by the name of the Œil
de Bœuf, from its two bull's-eye windows level
with the ceiling, never witnessed a more striking
scene than was there enacted at noon on the
15th of August, 1785, when a crowd of
courtiers, including all the great officers of the
state, numerous high church dignitaries, and
many gallant soldiers known to fame, were
waiting for the doors leading to the royal apartment
to be thrown open, and for the king and
queen to issue forth, when suddenly the tall
"Suisse" shouted out a summons for the Cardinal
de Rohan to attend the king in his private
cabinet. Every one stared with amazement.
It is true that the cardinal was there, clad in
his gorgeous pontifical vestments, waiting to
perform high mass before their majesties in the
chapel royal, for it was the festival of the
Assumption; still there was not a courtier in
the crowd who did not know that the cardinal
was in disgrace, and for years had never been
admitted to the royal presence.

Every one stared with increased amazement
when, a quarter of an hour later, the cardinal
came forth a prisoner, escorted on either
side by soldiers of the king's body-guard,
who, keeping the crowd from pressing upon
him, escorted him on foot to his hotel at
Versailles, whence he was speedily whisked off
to Paris and lodged in the Bastille.

The mine had exploded. The crown jewellers
had memorialised the queen with regard
to the Necklace, and she had indignantly
denied all knowledge of it. She lost not a
moment in calling to her counsels the Baron de
Breteuil, minister of the king's household, and
the cardinal's bitterest enemy. The result
was the summoning of the grand almoner into
the king's presence, and the order for his arrest.
Before the cardinal reached his hotel at
Versailles he stooped down under pretence of
fastening his shoe-buckle or his garter, and
hastily scrawled a few lines with a pencil on a
scrap of paper which he concealed in his square
red cap. This paper he contrived to hand
unobserved to a confidential "heyduc," who