XVIII. 1785. Feb. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE IS DELIVERED.

The Cardinal de Rohan obtained possession of the Necklace early on the morning of the 1st of February, 1785, and had not long to wait ere he was honoured with the queen’s commands to deliver it into her royal custody. We shall give two accounts of how this delivery was effected—namely, the story told by the countess, and the statement made by the cardinal in his memorial.

The cardinal of course expected, from having rendered the queen a service for which she could not feel otherwise than grateful, that he would have been permitted to deliver the rich jewel to Marie-Antoinette in person, and when he received from Madame de la Motte the following note, purporting to be written by the queen, he imagined his expectations were on the point of being realized:—

“This evening (Feb. 1), at nine o’clock, you must be at the countess’s house (at Versailles) with the casket and in the usual costume. Do not leave until you hear from me.”

The countess lodged, as the reader will remember, at “La Belle Image,” in the Place Dauphine, and thither, on this sharp winter’s night—it was a hard frost, and the ground was almost like glass—the cardinal proceeded, wrapped up in a long great-coat, and wearing a slouched hat that concealed his features. One can imagine the countess’s nervous state on this eventful evening—can see her posted at the window on the watch, peering through the frost on the panes into the dark and almost silent Place, eager for a glimpse of the grand almoner with the coveted treasure. At last two figures are seen crossing the broad square from the Rue de la Pompe, at the end of which is the Hôtel de Rohan—one is the cardinal, the other a man-servant he has brought with him, who carries the casket, and whom he dismisses a few doors off “La Belle Image.”

“At half-past eight o’clock,” says Madame de la Motte, “the cardinal called upon me in his disguise, carrying under his arm the casket containing the Necklace, which he set down on a chest of drawers. At half-past nine Lesclos,⁠[134] that faithful messenger of her majesty, whom she so often employed in delicate missions—Lesclos, a man perfectly well known to the cardinal, and the necessary confidant of all the little irregularities mentioned in the correspondence between him and the queen—called upon me with a letter from her majesty which ran thus:—

“‘The minister (the king) is at present with me, and I cannot tell how long he will stay. You know the person I send. Deliver the casket to him, and stay where you are. I do not despair of seeing thee to-day.’”

“The cardinal,” continues the countess, “having read this note, delivered to the faithful Lesclos, with his own hands, the casket containing the Necklace which he had himself deposited on the chest of drawers. Lesclos went out.”⁠[135]⁠

Such is Madame de la Motte’s statement. Let us compare it with the cardinal’s, which we extract from one of the memorials produced in his defence at the trial:—

“On his (the cardinal’s) arrival at Versailles he called upon Madame de la Motte, who was living in the Place Dauphine; he took with him Schreibert, his valet de chambre, who had charge of the casket. The cardinal, when they had reached the house, took it from him and went up-stairs by himself. He found Madame de la Motte alone, and presented to her the rich burden he was carrying.

“Some time after a man, who announced himself as a messenger from the queen, entered the apartment. The cardinal withdrew cautiously into an alcove which was half open. The man delivered a note. Madame de la Motte sent him for a moment outside the room, then came towards the cardinal and read to him the letter containing the order for delivering up the casket to the bearer. The man was then called in again, the casket was given into his hands, and he took his departure.... Who was that man? To the cardinal he seemed to be the same that he had descried in the park of Versailles on the night of the 11th of August, 1784, close to Mademoiselle d’Oliva.”⁠[136]⁠

We will undertake to answer the cardinal’s interrogatory. The messenger was an accomplice of the countess’s: none other than the forger Rétaux de Villette, made up for the occasion “with large black eyebrows, and pale face,” and the letter of which he was the bearer was one of his own numerous forgeries. At any rate the countess’s femme de chambre, Rosalie Briffaut, deposed to having opened the door to him at the precise hour on that particular night, when he immediately entered the countess’s apartment.

Success is attained at last! The great fraud is consummated! The woman who when a child we have seen running along the streets with naked feet, the tatters of poverty her only covering, and begging of lords and ladies to “bestow a few sous on a descendant of Henry II. of Valois, King of France,” has at length obtained possession of the famed Diamond Necklace, valued at 1,600,000, livres, or £64,000, sterling! The jewellers, delighted at having got the troublesome piece of bijouterie off their hands, invite the countess to a grand dinner, and madame being pleased to accept the invitation, the affair came off on the 12th of February, when doubtless both the countess and her absent friend the cardinal were toasted in bumpers of the choicest Burgundy, and more than one fine speech was made which, had it been accurately reported, would have read rather curiously a few months afterwards.

It had been arranged, it seems, between the jewellers and Laporte, Achette, some baron—name unknown, but said to be a relative of the cardinal’s—and a money-lending goldsmith named Grenier,⁠[137] the same who had purchased the De la Motte pension, and who, we expect, had got mixed up in the Necklace affair through his connection with the countess, that a commission of 200,000 livres was to be paid to the negotiators, of which amount madame says it was proposed she should receive one-half in articles of jewellery, such as diamond rings and earrings, a couple of solitaires, a locket set with diamonds, and a watch and chain for herself, with a couple of diamond rings and a watch and chain set with diamonds for her husband. When Laporte sent her a written memorandum of these conditions, and begged her acceptance of them, she declined, and desired him to say no more on the subject, as she had done so little towards effecting the sale of the Necklace, and as, moreover, it was not her habit to receive presents for services rendered!⁠[138]⁠

When the count, who had not yet been let into the secret of his wife’s intention with regard to the Necklace, came to hear of this refusal, he blamed her very much, and it was arranged with Grenier that he should inform the other negotiators of the countess’s willingness to accept the proposed presents. It does not appear, however, that she ever received them. The commission was probably dependent on the payment of the purchase-money for the Necklace, and as this was never paid, the arrangement with regard to the commission most likely fell to the ground.

Baudard de Saint-James, treasurer-general of the navy, and principal creditor of the crown jewellers, is equally delighted with the latter at the Necklace being at last sold. He has now before him the pleasant prospect of receiving twenty-four livres in the louis on his large debt, and from a feeling of gratitude presses, through Böhmer and Bassenge, the offer of his services upon the cardinal, to whom, he said, he should be proud to be of use. The cardinal, who, with all his large resources, is continually in want of money, knew, we suppose, what this meant, for he forthwith borrowed 50,000 livres from the treasurer-general of the navy on his simple note of hand.⁠[139]⁠

This celebrated financier’s real name was Baudard; but when he had grown rich he made an addition to it, and called himself Saint-James, after the village from whence he came. This name he in his turn bestowed on a celebrated château and park still existing at the end of the Avenue de Neuilly, the same in which the Duke of Wellington and his staff took up their quarters when the Allies entered Paris after the battle of Waterloo. It had formerly been the residence of the famous Cardinal de Retz, afterwards of Le Normand (uncle of Madame de Maintenon, and the richest fermier-général of his time), by whom the château was rebuilt, and subsequently of our treasurer-general of the navy, who dissipated his immense fortune upon it in fancies of the wildest kind. He first enlarged the château, then redecorated and furnished it in the most magnificent style; next extended and relaid out the park, planted miniature woods, constructed artificial grottos and waterfalls, erected Chinese temples and Turkish kiosques, and formed a superb winter-garden, in which he accumulated all the rare flora of Asia and America. The feature of the park, however, was its grand rock, the quarrying and transit of which is said to have cost Saint-James the incredible sum of 1,600,000 livres, or £64,000⁠[140]⁠—exactly the price of the Diamond Necklace—and which is known even at the present day by the name of “Saint-James’s Folly.” What with his reckless expenditure upon this château and park, his expensive mistresses, his jobbing in the funds, his allowing himself to be drawn into all manner of wild undertakings, the promoters of which, knowing alike his stupidity and his greed, invariably had recourse to him, and his subsequent losses by Böhmer and Bassenge and others, it is not to be wondered at that Baudard de Saint-James came to grief at last—failed, in fact, for a million sterling, got sent to the Bastille, and only left it to die of poverty and grief a short time afterwards.