instantly posted off to Paris, and arrived at the
Palais Cardinal early in the afternoon. His
horse fell dead in the stable, and he himself
swooned in the apartment of the cardinal's vicar-
general, after exclaiming wildly, "All is lost!
The prince is arrested!" The slip of paper,
which fell from his hand, was caught up and
eagerly read by the Abbé Georgel. In
accordance with the instructions contained in it,
the small scarlet portfolio which held all the
cardinal's secret correspondence, and notably
the letters bordered with blue vignettes penned
by the counterfeit queen, and by which the
Prince de Rohan set such store, was forthwith
committed to the flames.

Two days after the cardinal's arrest, Madame
de la Motte is on a visit at the Abbey of Clairvaux,
a few miles distant from Bar-sur-Aube,
where a large company are assembled at supper
to meet the celebrated Abbé Maury. He meets
the inquiry as to whether there is anything
stirring in Paris, with:

"What do you mean? Any news! Why,
where do you all come from? There is a piece
of news which none can understand, which has
astonished and bewildered all Paris. The
Cardinal de Rohan, grand almoner of France, was
arrested last Tuesday—the festival of the
Assumption. . . . They talk of a Diamond
Necklace which he was to have bought for the
queen, but which he did not buy at all. Is it
not inconceivable that for such a bauble as this
a grand almoner of France should have been
arrested in his pontifical vestments—do you
understand, in his pontifical vestments—and on
leaving the king's cabinet?"

"As soon as this intelligence reached my ear,"
observes Beugnot, whose account we are quoting,
"I glanced at Madame de la Motte, whose
napkin had fallen from her hand, and whose pale
and rigid face seemed as it were immovably fixed
above her plate. After the first shock was over,
she made an effort and rushed out of the room,
followed by one of the principal attendants. In
the course of a few minutes I left the table and
joined her. The horses were already put to her
carriage, so we at once set forth."

Beugnot urged her to fly to England, but she
denied all complicity with the cardinal's folly.
He begged her to destroy all letters and papers
in her possession, but she insisted on at least
a cursory examination being made of them.
"It was whilst casting fugitive glances upon
some of the hundreds of letters from the
Cardinal de Rohan that I saw with pity the
ravages which the delirium of love, aided by that
of ambition, had wrought in the mind of this
unhappy man. It is fortunate for the cardinal's
memory that these letters were destroyed, but
it is a loss for the history of human passions.
What must have been the state of society when
a prince of the church did not hesitate to
write, to sign, and to address to a woman
letters which in our days a man who respects
himself the least in the world might commence
reading, but would certainly never finish?

"Some of the letters were from the crown
jewellers with reference to the payments for the
Necklace. I asked Madame de la Motte what
I should do with them. Finding her hesitate,
I took the shortest course, and threw them all
into the fire. The affair occupied a considerable
time. When it was over, I took my leave
of Madame de la Motte, urging her to depart
more strongly than ever. She only answered
me by promising to go to bed immediately. I
then quitted her apartments, the atmosphere of
which was poisoned by the odour arising from
burning papers and wax, impregnated with
twenty different perfumes. It was three o'clock
in the morning; at four o'clock she was arrested,
and at, half-past four was on her way to the
Bastille."

The count was but little affected at the arrest
of his wife; he called on Beugnot at six o'clock
in the evening, and told him of it in a quiet
confidential sort of way; said she would only be
away three or four days at the utmost; that she
was going to give the minister some explanations
which he required of her, and that he
reckoned she would return on Wednesday or
Thursday, when "we will go and meet her,"
said he, "and bring her home in triumph."
Beugnot told him not to deceive himself with
vain illusions, but to start at once for England,
as he had last night advised the countess to do.
The count shrugged his shoulders and left
Beugnot, humming a tune; nevertheless, he
thought it prudent to make for the coast as fast
as post-horses could carry him, the same day,
and cross over to England.

A week after the arrest of the cardinal,
Cagliostro and his wife were sent to join him
and the Countess de la Motte in the Bastille.
At this time no suspicion attached to the forger
Villette or the counterfeit queen, D'Oliva, both
of whom, however, turned their backs upon
Paris the moment they heard of the countess's
arrest. Even when suspected, Villette evaded
all search after him for a time; but not so
D'Oliva, who was speedily tracked to Brussels,
and was arrested at dead of night by the sub-
lieutenant of police, three civic officers, a
greffier and half a dozen of the town guard—
rather a formidable force with which to capture
an unprotected female of four-and-twenty. She
was forthwith taken to Paris, and also lodged
in the Bastille. Villette, who had loitered
unnecessarily on the road to Italy, was by-and-by
run down at Geneva—trepanned, says one
account, in a low tavern while overcome by drink,
into enlisting in some phantom regiment—and
was enticed from off the "sacred republican
soil" and carried to Paris.

The countess, who in early life was glad to
feed upon broken victuals passed through a
trap-hole in the miserable hovel that sheltered
the St. Remi family at Foulette, appears not
to have entirely approved of the cuisine of
the Bastille; but what particularly annoyed
her was, that she, who had been latterly
accustomed to gold and silver plate, should now be
expected to take her meals off vulgar pewter.
According to her own account, she preferred
enduring the pangs of hunger to submitting to
this indignity, and sent the dishes away