XLI. May, 1789–Aug. 1791. RETRIBUTION.—THE CRIMINAL AND HER ACCOMPLICES.

We must now go back in our narrative to the point of time when Count de la Motte left England to traffic in his wife’s “Mémoires” abroad, with what success we have already seen. Judging from the countess’s dolorous account of their dealings with them in England, it is evident that trouble as well as profit resulted from these “Mémoires Justificatifs.” Neither she nor her husband were satisfied with disposing of copies of them through the ordinary channels, but sought to force a trade among merchants, and even hatters. It seems that nine hundred copies of the French, and two hundred and fifty copies of the English edition of the “Mémoires,” together with two hundred and eighty-three copies of the countess’s “Scourge for Calonne”—published at the several prices of one guinea, half a guinea, and five shillings—were intrusted to a French hatter in New Bond Street, named Coup, who advanced the count, at various times, something like three hundred pounds upon them. “Without any previous demand,” says Madame de la Motte, “Coup came one day (May 14, 1789), in the absence of my husband, at the head of half a dozen bailiffs, and lodged an execution at my house in Chester Place, where he for the first time told me he had sufficient authority, my husband never having even mentioned the circumstance to me.

“This was another disagreeable attack, and I saw my house and furniture sold on the 21st of May, without being able to procure any account from this man of the books he had sold, which would have been more than double his demand, as at that particular juncture the sale of these books must have been at once rapid and extensive. He even had the meanness to put an execution upon four or five hundred ‘Mémoires’ which remained with him, and which were sold for only six guineas, and were resold by the purchasers at half a crown and three shillings each.

“Of the five thousand ‘Mémoires’ which had been printed, Coup had received only nine hundred. I proceed to mention what became of the remaining ones. My credulous husband, profuse of confidence, notwithstanding he had been formerly deceived by a man pretending to be a capital merchant, trusted this man with a certain number of ‘Mémoires,’ French as well as English, which he was to dispose of as merchandise to his correspondents in different countries, from whom, in a short time, he would receive remittances.

“M. de la Motte, though formerly deceived, yet gave him his confidence, and delivered to him nine hundred and nine French ‘Mémoires,’ valued at a guinea each, three hundred and eighty-six English ditto, valued at half that sum, and a number of the ‘Scourge for Calonne,’ for all of which we never received one farthing. This man’s wife, upon whom I took pity, remained in my house during the time of the execution, under the specious pretext of rendering me service. Alas! what service did she render me? Small miniature paintings of great value, and other valuable articles to the amount of forty or fifty guineas, she put into her pocket, and when I reclaimed these effects, she made me a most audacious and impertinent reply, to the effect that when M. de la Motte should pay them, they would then give an account. Against their injustice I have no remedy. They have no property, and I am heartily sick of having any business with attorneys, who have already had too much to do with my unfortunate husband.

“Mr. Ridgway, who was the publisher of all these ‘Mémoires,’ had, upon supposition, about four hundred. These he sold for about one hundred and eighty pounds, out of which there was eighty pounds for expenses. I have scarce received one hundred pounds, and I have remaining, out of eight thousand copies, eight hundred French, and three hundred English ‘Mémoires,’ for which I have received no money.

“Very soon after this execution was levied against me, my servant, Angelica (the same who was with the countess in the Salpêtrière, we suppose) got into bad company, and was advised to sue for her wages, to the amount of twenty guineas. She applied to an attorney, who threatened me with arrest. Alas! I that am nobly descended, that have been the favourite of a queen, that have basked in the sunshine of affluence and felt the smiles of distinction, am now nothing; and were it not for the benevolence of some respectable characters, I might probably be reduced to the dire necessity of returning to my former mean situation, and of imploring charity of every passing stranger.”

And this is what ten years of struggling, scheming, intriguing, and petitioning; of lying, swindling, forgery, theft, slander, and depravity—and all to be lady of the manor of Fontette—have brought this wretched woman to at last! “Misery, like a vulture, gnawing her heart,” she says, “and poverty chasing at her very heels;” her household goods sold for debt incurred with respect to her malicious libels; herself threatened with arrest by the very servant whose release she procured from the Salpêtrière, while her husband is flirting in Holland with some flaxen-haired young frau. Either to console herself in the midst of these accumulated troubles, or else—and which is by far the most likely reason—with the view of pecuniary gain, she now writes her “Life,” in two volumes, octavo, taking care to reiterate therein all her previous malignant slanders against the French queen.

“Nothing,” says she, almost prophetically, “could have induced me to undertake a task like this—to retrace a life which has already been too long, and which, if my ideas of it are as just as I could wish, is drawing fast to a close; nothing,” she continues, in her most high-flown style, “could have roused me from this lethargy of grief but the desire of rescuing my memory, when this fluttering pulse shall cease to beat, and the hand that now guides my pen be mouldered into dust, from the detractions of malice. Abused, insulted, and disgraced, the wounds of bleeding honour are too deep to be closed. Do they call for vengeance? No; there is a just and righteous Judge, before whose tribunal I shall again meet my enemies, where neither the strong arm of oppression nor the ‘gilded’ hand of offence will be sufficiently powerful to vanquish innocence.”⁠[422]⁠

Such were the motives which inspired the countess to write her “Life.” Curiously enough, the Duke d’Orléans chances to be in England at this precise period—he arrived in London during October, 1789, and did not return to France until the following July—and it is believed that he encourages madame, by liberal bribes, to prosecute her task, even if he does not have a hand himself in its production.⁠[423] The count, too, is by this time in Paris, and in communication with the government, and there are the best of reasons for believing that the countess’s main object in writing this work was to extort more money from a well-nigh bankrupt royal exchequer. Be this as it may, the work is completed towards the close of the year 1790, when the Count de la Motte is receiving bribes both from the French ministry and the Orléans party; but “its publication is delayed,” we are informed, “from overtures being made for its suppression by a person pretending to be charged with a commission for that purpose from the then highest powers in France. Some months were wasted in fruitless negotiation, till the unexpected flight and consequent embarrassments of the royal fugitives destroyed that flattering prospect and pleasing hope of the countess’s being relieved from the difficulties in which the most vindictive persecutions had involved her. The speedy flight of the negotiator, who had impressed her with an idea that she would soon be placed beyond the reach of fortune by the immediate settlement of an annuity upon herself, and the liquidation of her husband’s debts, on condition of giving up the manuscript and printed copies of her ‘Life,’ left her to struggle with these new-created difficulties which his flattering assurances had tended so greatly to increase.”⁠[424]⁠

The struggle was but a brief one, for a very few days afterwards a catastrophe occurred which speedily placed this wretched woman beyond the reach of worldly trouble. According to the count, certain agents of the Duke d’Orléans, finding themselves frustrated in their efforts to induce Madame de la Motte to quit England, conceived the idea of having her arrested, in the belief that, when they had her in their power, they could by promises, and the prospect of a brilliant revenge, prevail upon her to allow herself to be conducted to Paris. “Among these infamous agents,” says the count, “there was one who went before a justice of the peace and swore on the Scriptures that Madame de la Motte owed him a hundred guineas, when he was immediately furnished with the necessary order for her arrest. Armed with this document, the officers presented themselves at her house, and requested her to accompany them—she being ignorant all the while of even the name of the villain who had sworn to the debt. Even had the debt been real, no one had the right to arrest a married woman, and Madame de la Motte was sufficiently acquainted with the laws of the country to be aware of this circumstance. Still, it was necessary that she should furnish proofs of her marriage, which she could not do, as, when she quitted Paris, all her papers remained at the Bastille. These scoundrels, therefore, insisted upon carrying her off; whereupon she declared to them that, if they used violence, she would put herself under the protection of the passers-by, who would come to her rescue. She told them, however, that she was going to send for her lawyer, who would, if requisite, find the necessary bail, and she despatched her servant for that purpose, cautioning her beforehand, that if the lawyer was not at home, she was, on her return, to make her a certain sign, and to say that he was coming, so that she might settle within her own mind what course to pursue in this emergency. Angelica had no sooner left, than the countess, with the view of keeping her vile persecutors in a good humour, served them with some luncheon and a bottle of port wine. While they were seated at table she walked about the room, conversing with them, and looking out of the window to watch for the return of Angelica, who, seeing her mistress at the window, and not having found the lawyer at home, made her the sign agreed upon.

“Madame de la Motte, seizing a favourable moment, abruptly opened the door and double-locked the scoundrels inside the room. The window being open, one of them looked out to see whether she left the house. Her extreme anxiety, and the state of confusion she was in owing to this unjust aggression, were, no doubt, the reason of her not remarking the hackney-coaches stationed before the house, into one of which she might have got, and been driven in a few minutes into another county, when, in the event of her persecutors discovering her retreat, it would have been necessary for them to have procured a new writ before they could have again arrested her. But instead of adopting this very obvious course, and not, perhaps, imagining the fellows would be on the watch to see what became of her, she took refuge in a neighbouring house, the people belonging to which were known to her.

“In the meanwhile these infamous tyrants, by dint of kicking at the door of the room, succeeded in getting themselves released. They immediately made for the house which they had seen the countess enter, and demanded of the owner that she should be surrendered up to them. The owner replied that he knew no such lady, and refused to allow them to make a search. They, however, insisted, declaring that if Madame de la Motte were not there, they would take upon themselves all the consequences of the trespass. Thereupon they proceeded to search the house. Not finding the object of their search on the ground or first floors, they ascended to the second story, the proprietor following them and renewing his protestations. At last they arrived at a room, the door of which being locked they demanded to have it opened. In vain they were told that it was let to a lodger who always took his key with him when he went out; not doubting but that Madame de la Motte was concealed here, they threatened to burst the door open if the key were not immediately forthcoming.

“The countess, who was really in this room, had persuaded herself that a plot had been got up to carry her back to France, and there imprison her again. She was consequently in a most bewildered state. Opening the window, which looked into a yard, she got out and suspended herself by her hands to an iron bar which served as a guard, determined to precipitate herself to the ground if these fellows should succeed in breaking in the door. Unfortunately it was of common deal, and a few kicks sufficed to start the panels. The instant the countess caught sight of the head of one of her pursuers she let go her hold and fell with violence upon the pavement It was her misfortune not to have been killed on the spot: her thigh was broken in two places, her left arm was fractured, and one of her eyes was knocked out; in addition to which, her body was a mass of bruises. In this state she lived for several weeks, during which time I received from her a long letter giving me a detailed account of this tragical event.

“Thus died, at the age of thirty-four, a woman whose whole life was one long career of misery, but which might have ended happily had not the privilege of her birth, by over-exalting her imagination, developed beyond measure those sentiments of pride and ambition which conducted her to her fall.”⁠[425]⁠

The editor of “The Life of Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois, heretofore Countess de la Motte, written by herself,” furnished, in a supplement to that work, a few additional particulars of the melancholy termination of her career. He says, that “she received most of her injuries through falling against the trunk of a tree, and that, while the feelings of the surrounding spectators were agonized at the sight of the dreadful spectacle which her bleeding and mangled form presented, the sheriff’s officer, with a disgraceful apathy, was only intent to maintain the legality of his caption, and refused to surrender the almost lifeless body until he had good bail for its security.”⁠[426]⁠

Spite of the prominent place which the countess and her doings had recently occupied in the public mind of Europe, the English journals of the day notified the fact of her decease in such brief terms as the following:

“August 26, 1791.—Died at her lodgings, near Astley’s Riding School, Lambeth, the noted Countess de la Motte, of ‘Necklace’ memory, who lately jumped out of a two pair of stairs window, to avoid the bailiffs.”⁠[427]⁠

Of the last surviving representative of the royal house of Valois, Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi, the Countess’s youngest sister, a few meagre particulars have been preserved. In Madame de la Motte’s days of grandeur she was engaged to be married to a certain Paul François de Barras, nephew of the Count de Barras, and a particular friend of her brother’s, the young Baron de Valois, and who was subsequently better known as commandant of the Convention forces against the Robespierre faction on the 9th Thermidor, as the friend and patron of young Bonaparte, and chief of the Directory. “My disaster,” (her sentence in regard to the Necklace affair) naïvely observes the countess, “prevented the nuptials.”⁠[428] In July, 1786, we find the Abbess of Jarcy, to which convent Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi had again retired, writing to the Baron de Breteuil on her behalf, and thanking him for the assistance which he had accorded to “virtue in distress.” A couple of months afterwards, when this assistance is required to be renewed, the baron is favoured with a second letter in the following terms:

“I consider my requests on behalf of Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi,” writes the abbess, “founded as much on justice as on charity. The innumerable examples of the goodness of our monarchs in such cases authorizes my prayers. And although the example of a foreign sovereign ought not to influence the will of our august master, I do not see that it is wrong of me to dwell upon what the Emperor, brother of the best of queens, has just granted to the wife and children of Count de Székély, condemned to the pillory, the galleys, and other punishments. His goods were confiscated, and the sovereign gave them back to his wife and children. He did more: he preserved to them, even to the last survivor, the perquisites which the culprit enjoyed as first lieutenant of the Hungarian gardes nobles.

“Is the position of Mademoiselle de Valois less deserving of pity? Alas! she deserves it much more. There remained some fortune to the Countess Székély, whereas our unfortunate is alone in the world. Lastly, she is of the blood of our kings—very respectable blood, M. le Baron, in the estimation of both you and I.

“Shall I tell you, M. le Baron—and why should I hide it any longer? Poison has twice failed to conduct the unhappy one to the tomb she longs for. Without the most prompt help—without the assistance of antidotes administered for twelve hours in succession, the unfortunate wretch would have expired in the most frightful torments: less frightful, however, than those which she is menaced with suffering without the alms which I claim for her, and which you cannot refuse—I do not hesitate to say it—to her extreme misfortunes.”⁠[429]⁠

Exactly one year subsequently, namely, in September, 1787, we find a certain Abbé Phaph interesting himself very warmly in the young lady’s affairs, and writing to the countess, who has only recently arrived in England, urging her to sign some document which he has prepared, the effect of which would be to give the sister a charge upon the De la Motte property at Bar-sur-Aube. This the countess very decidedly declines to do, and writes back requesting her sister to send her over “three gowns which she fetched away from the mantua-maker’s”⁠[430] just after her arrest, and which she has ever since detained!

The next we hear of Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi is that she is living openly with the aforesaid abbé as his mistress.⁠[431] In April, 1787, we find her engaged in a process against the domain for the restitution of the family papers and deeds of succession, which she stated were under the seals affixed to the effects of her sister; but orders having come from Versailles for all proceedings in the matter to be suspended, the suit had to be abandoned.⁠[432] From this time we lose sight of Mademoiselle de Saint-Remi until January, 1794, the height of the Terror, when, caught up in the revolutionary vortex, she is sent to the Port Libre prison as a suspect. Here she is at first mistaken for her sister, until people call to mind that the countess has been dead some years.⁠[433] Six months afterwards she is transferred to the Carmes, and in less than another month—namely, on the 22nd of August, three days before the arrest and execution of Robespierre—she has the good fortune to regain her liberty.⁠[434] What subsequently became of her, and the precise date at which she died, are involved in obscurity. Beugnot speaks of her as having retired to some convent in Germany,⁠[435] and a paragraph in Count de la Motte’s “Mémoires” would lead us to suppose that her death took place about the year 1817.⁠[436]⁠

But little is known of the future careers of the countess’s two Accomplices, the forger Villette, and the counterfeit queen D’Oliva. Villette, on being banished from France, proceeded to gratify that longing which he pretended he had to visit Italy where he seems to have lived for some years, apparently not caring to profit by the opportunity which the Revolution afforded him to return once more to the land of his birth. He published at Venice, in the year 1790, as his contribution to the lying literature of the Diamond Necklace affair, a small octavo volume, of less than one hundred pages, under the title of “Mémoire Historique des Intrigues de la Cour, et de se qui s’est passé entre la Reine, le Comte d’Artois, le Cardinal de Rohan, Madame de Polignac, Madame de la Motte, Cagliostro, etc.”⁠[437] In this work he informs us that he forged the queen’s signature under the eyes of the cardinal—a prince who overawed him, and who had so many opportunities of benefiting him—and of Madame de la Motte, a woman whom he adored; a pension of six thousand livres a year being promised him for his compliance, one thousand crowns of which he received, the following day, on account. The words “of France,” were added, he says, by the cardinal’s express directions. Villette pretends that Cagliostro, the cardinal, and Madame de la Motte, were equally concerned in the plot; Cagliostro, whom at the trial he emphatically declared to be innocent of all share in the fraud, being the most guilty of all. The Necklace was obtained, he said, with the sole view of selling it, so that the trio might replenish their bankrupt exchequers, the cardinal having exhausted his resources in supplying Cagliostro with funds to carry on his experiments for the discovery of the philosopher’s stone, which experiments they hoped might turn out successful by the time the Necklace had to be paid for. Villette pronounces all the “Mémoires” put forth at the time of the trial to be merely so many romances, fabricated for the sole purpose of concealing the truth. Of the countess’s liaisons he speaks in the most open terms. “Abandoned,” he says, “by her husband, a depraved libertine and gambler, she sought to captivate other men, and to render them slaves to her charms.” What these charms were, Villette himself shall tell. “Strong natural wit, a graceful figure, a white and transparent skin, and eyes bright and piercing.” He says that he possessed the countess’s entire confidence, and knew of all her intrigues, and particularly her liaisons with the cardinal; he then proceeds to say that she was seduced in the first instance by the Marquis de Boulainvilliers, and that she afterwards admitted the Bishop of Langres to her embraces, that the Marquis d’Autichamp was her next lover, that she had a liaison with the Count d’Artois even, and reckoned the Count de Dolomieu and M. de Coigny on the list of those she had ensnared. “I have described her,” concludes Villette, “as she was—amiable, pretty, and over-complaisant; too good not to have been a trifle weak, too passionate not to have been somewhat of a libertine. This woman, whom I loved to adoration, and who had loaded me with benefits, I dared to betray.”

The termination of the career of Rétaux de Villette would appear to have been even a more sorry one than that of the woman he so adored, if the statement is true that he died by the hands of the hangman, swung off on the leads of the Castle of Saint Angelo, at Rome.⁠[438]⁠

The Demoiselle d’Oliva married her old lover Beausire, the same who accompanied her to Brussels at the time of her flight. He was an offshoot of nobility, and, as we have already stated, was formerly attached to the household of the Count d’Artois. D’Oliva’s married life was but brief, and anything but happy, for she died, it is reported, in 1789, in the greatest misery.⁠[439] Next year her husband became commandant of the National guard of the Temple section, but finding his influence rapidly declining, he retired to Choisy, near Paris, and managed to get appointed procureur of the commune; finally he pursued the despicable calling of mouton, or informer, and drew up the lists of proscription in the Luxembourg prison, when it was choke-full of persons suspects. Against the majority of these there was not a shadow of evidence, but as evidence must be forthcoming in some form or other, the poor wretches were accused of having plotted in prison. It was remarked that Beausire’s old acquaintances who had had the ill-luck to win money of him at play were certain to be on his list of victims, and it was said that he spoke privately to the public accuser to have them guillotined.⁠[440] “This Plot in the Prison,” remarks Carlyle, “is now the stereotype formula of Tinville; against whomsoever he knows no crime, this is a ready-made crime. His judgment-bar has become unspeakable, a recognized mockery, known only as the wicket one passes through towards death. His indictments are drawn out in blank; you insert the names after. He has his moutons, detestable traitor jackals, who report and bear witness, that they themselves may be allowed to live—for a time.”⁠[441]⁠

Beausire was at the head of these moutons, was, in fact, the chief spy of the detestable Boyenval, who gloated over the number of victims he was instrumental in bringing to the guillotine. He said of Beausire, that he made use of him, but that Fouquier Tinville did not like him, and that he could have him guillotined whenever he pleased.⁠[442] And it pleased Boyenval at last to put this covert threat of his into execution, and “D’Oliva’s husband was hurled in.”⁠[443]⁠