XXIV. 1785. Aug. 19–Sept. 13. A DREARY DAY AND NIGHT’S DRIVE.—THE BASTILLE.—A “VALOIS” SERVED OFF PEWTER.

As we have already mentioned, the Cardinal de Rohan immediately after his arrest was conducted, closely guarded, to his hotel at Versailles. In the afternoon of the same day he was removed to Paris, to the Palais-Cardinal, where he remained during the night; the officer commanding the escort of royal body-guards, having been solemnly cautioned to that effect, slept in the same apartment as his prisoner, whom he never trusted out of his sight for a single instant.

The day following the Marquis de Launay, governor of the Bastille, came to receive the grand almoner into his custody, and to transfer him to the iron grip of that mysterious state prison which rarely rendered up its victims until they were snatched away by the icy hand of Death. The cardinal wished to go thither on foot under cover of the night, so as to be free from observation. This favour was granted him, and, what is far more remarkable, he was allowed to take with him a couple of valets de chambre and a secretary, and was informed that he would be permitted to see his friends at stated times in the hall of this gloomy fortress.⁠[211] At a later period of his confinement, he was allowed to drive of an evening along the Boulevards in the Governor’s carriage, strictly guarded of course, and to give grand dinners in his rooms.⁠[212]⁠

The Countess de la Motte was arrested, it will be remembered, at four o’clock on the morning of the 18th of August, and was at once hurried off to Paris, distant about one hundred and forty miles from Bar-sur-Aube, “entirely ignorant,” she remarks, “whither I was intended to be conveyed, and so little anticipating the event that I was dozing in the carriage. In the course of our journey the vehicle was stopped, and questions asked by some person without, to whom the person within said: ‘Don’t you know this carriage?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ replied the other. ‘Don’t stop us then; we have nothing but a state prisoner;’ upon which the vehicle proceeded. Hearing this conversation I awoke; the termination of it roused all my faculties. ‘What do you say?’ exclaimed I in a tone of extreme agitation. ‘A state prisoner! alas! then am I a state prisoner?’ ‘Oh, no, madame, no such thing;’ and these people swore that I was not one. But there is some excuse for them; they belonged to the police, and perjury and bearing false witness is no small part of their employment. Yet they used such kind expressions that, knowing my innocence, I flattered myself I was not deceived. One of them said to me: ‘Madame, it is so very early, I’m afraid we shall not be able to get an interview with the Baron de Breteuil, who has given me orders if we arrived too early to conduct you to my house, and to wait upon him about eleven; therefore be composed and try to sleep a little.’ All this time I remained upon my seat; but soon after, they desired me to conceal myself in the bottom of the vehicle; this was when we arrived at the Porte St.-Antoine, where they endeavoured as much as possible to place themselves in such positions before me that I might neither be seen by any one nor observe the turning of the Bastille. Finding myself rather warm, ‘Let me see,’ said I; and looking out I discovered the Bastille. ‘How!’ exclaimed I, with agitated surprise; ‘is it to the Bastille then that I am going? Oh! you are all impostors!’ They endeavoured to pacify me, and begged me not to make a disturbance; told me that they were not their own masters; that they had received their orders, but that they were absolutely ignorant of the motive for which I was taken to the Bastille, and that they were persuaded in a very few days I should be liberated.

“By this time we arrived at the first bridge leading to the governor’s house. The postillion knocked, and many invalides came out. The post-chaise belonging to the police drove up to the governor’s door, who came out himself in a robe de chambre to the carriage to give me his hand, begging me at the same time to excuse his déshabille. He then conducted me into a large hall. Soon afterwards, the king’s lieutenant arrived with a large book, wherein he entered the date of my arrival, and afterwards presented it to me to sign my name, which request I complied with. During this ceremony, which only occupied a few minutes, the governor was in the court with the exempts, who were giving him an account of every circumstance which occurred in the execution of their orders. This over, the governor returned, and asked me if I would take any refreshment, adding: ‘We shall take great care of you, madame.’ I then asked him into which apartment I should go to receive the Baron de Breteuil, remarking at the same time that I hoped he would come at eleven, as the exempts had informed me. ‘Oh, there is not the least doubt of it, madame,’ replied the governor. He then called Saint-Jean, the turnkey, to whom he gave my papers, to place them, as I have since heard, in the archives; after which the governor desired the king’s lieutenant to conduct me to my apartment. Some little conversation passed relative to the place of my destination, of which the lieutenant seemed uncertain. ‘Oh,’ said the governor, ‘La Comtée is the best; it is very light.’ He then put me in charge of the king’s lieutenant, whose arm I took, persuaded that I should be shown into some other apartment, and for a far different purpose. As I went along I saw some soldiers (invalides) enveloped in blue cloaks, with large hoods over their heads, and long bands hanging down. As I passed them I was not a little surprised to see them turn their backs towards me, it being the rule when any prisoner arrives for them to turn themselves round lest they should take too much notice. I began to laugh with the lieutenant at the novelty of this, and particularly at these grotesque figures in their masquerade....

“We passed on till we arrived at the court, the staircase of which led to the tower of La Comtée. After ascending this we arrived at the apartment destined for my reception, all the gates of which were very large, and moreover open. St. Jean, who was to be my turnkey, attended me thither.

“Struck with such a dismal change of situation, so very different from what I had ever been accustomed to, I could not help expressing my dissatisfaction to the lieutenant. ‘If this is the place,’ said I, ‘which the governor pleases to call my apartment, be sure I am greatly obliged to him.’ I then went to look at the bed, which was indeed a wretched one; told him that it would be impossible for me to sleep in so miserable a bed as that, and demanded if he could not accommodate me with one as good as the cardinal’s? He replied, very politely, that he really did not comprehend my meaning....

“My disapprobation of the bed, however, was attended with favourable results, for the turnkey substituted for the one which I had great reason to complain of an excellent feather bed with fine sheets and curtains. Thus accommodated, and extremely fatigued, I attempted to get some rest; but I was scarce in bed when the lieutenant, with my own and another turnkey, arrived. The two turnkeys examined my clothes and my pockets, out of which they took all the contents, consisting of several little articles, particularly a gold étui set with pearls, another of tortoiseshell, a small ivory box ornamented with gold, having on its lid a miniature with a gold rim, containing a small mirror and some rouge, an English pocket-knife, a knife with a tortoiseshell handle and gold blade, my purse, containing eighteen louis and about nineteen livres, and a gold repeating watch with a diamond chain.

“Indignant at such humiliating treatment, which I could not patiently endure, I remonstrated with some asperity, and threatened to inform the Baron de Breteuil, whom I was simple enough to believe I should see. They were, however, regardless of my threats, and having executed their orders, departed through those dreadful doors which with their horrid bolts were closed upon me, and the sound pierced my very soul....

“About eight o’clock the turnkey came to my door. I spoke to him, but he paid no attention to me, and departed without saying a word. I rose to examine my dismal habitation, and traversed the room in every direction backwards and forwards. I opened the window to see if I could discover anybody, or make myself sufficiently conspicuous for any one to see me. I climbed upon the sill, and held my face close to the bars, but I could discover nothing; as for people, it was impossible to distinguish them.”⁠[213]⁠

At noon the lieutenant of the Bastille came to fetch the countess to an interview, as she asserts she thought, with the Baron de Breteuil, instead of which she was conducted into the presence of the lieutenant of police and the Commissary Chénon, who commenced examining her respecting the Diamond Necklace, and ended by accusing her of having first obtained possession of, and afterwards absconding to a foreign country with the missing jewel. Madame de la Motte, perfectly unabashed, says that she laughed outright in the commissary’s face at what she styles the “ridiculous absurdity” of such an accusation. Her examination was continued day by day, and when completed, the commissary, as the countess artfully states, “gabbled over something which she scarce understood,” but which she nevertheless signed. “It was this cunning dissembler,” she remarks, “who made me sign those odious things which I was supposed to have said myself, and which were so detestable that when they were read by his majesty he spat upon them, saying, ‘Fie upon the filthy creature!’”⁠[214]⁠

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 Saint-Remi family at Fontette, appears not to have entirely approved of the cuisine of the Bastille. What more particularly annoyed her, however, was that she, who had been latterly accustomed to gold and silver plate, should now be expected to dine off vulgar pewter. According to her own account, she preferred enduring the pangs of hunger to submitting to such an indignity, and sent the dishes away untouched. The turnkey, she tells us, somewhat surprised at this proceeding, “said in a rude manner, ‘So then you don’t choose to eat, don’t you?’ ‘No,’ replied I, ‘I don’t choose to eat, and I desire to know if you serve the cardinal off pewter? Inform the governor that the Valois are quite as nice as and entitled to equal respect with the Rohans.’ The turnkey was astounded. He looked at me respectfully, and mildly answered that he was ignorant who I was; then begging my pardon he departed, and returned shortly afterwards with a better dinner served in beautiful dishes with silver covers.”⁠[215]⁠

Poor Madame de la Tour, Count de la Motte’s sister, having applied to the Marquis de Launay for permission to visit the countess in the Bastille, was arrested by two exempts on leaving the governor’s house, and forthwith conducted to a cell in the gloomy old fortress, where she was kept confined for a period of six months, in spite of the efforts of her husband and family to procure her release. This was paying rather a heavy penalty for her feelings of sympathy towards an incriminated sister-in-law.

Before the countess had been immured in the Bastille a fortnight, we find her attempting a rambling exculpation of herself in a document which bears no address, but was no doubt intended to produce an impression on the Baron de Breteuil, and which she describes as “Explanatory reflections on the accusations made by Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan.”

“Does Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan believe me ass enough not to have disappeared immediately if I had desired to retain the Necklace under some pretext, as he accuses me of doing?

“Does Monseigneur le Cardinal believe that I caused the Necklace to be sold here under the eyes both of the vendor and of himself, and that I should have been able, had I been guilty, to have so far deluded them as to remain at Paris so tranquilly as I did, knowing all the while the date of payment? Should I not rather have taken a safe departure before the moment of payment arrived? Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan was at Saverne for six weeks. Could not I have profited by his absence to join my husband in England, with my whole household and have remained there?

“Instead of which my husband was there by his orders, and returned as agreed upon with Monseigneur le Cardinal. Would it have been possible, with me living almost at his door, for him not to have given me something during four years, or at least to have taken care of me and mine, since all I had was my pension of 800 livres? The expenses of my house were always heavy enough to make it requisite for the cardinal to give me large sums to keep it up; and at this time I solicited more than ever both at Versailles and at Paris. Every day I required voitures de remise, which were very dear; I had, too, a house at Versailles to reside in when there. How, moreover, let me ask, should I have done the bidding of a sovereign without anticipating great returns from it, since sooner or later this intimacy would certainly have been discovered? How could I have exercised so little precaution, I say, as to remain in Paris, where, if guilty, I should have taken the utmost care on the contrary to appear more at my ease than under ordinary circumstances, fearful of being suspected by Monseigneur le Cardinal, whose people, and especially M. le Baron de Planta (whom he also brought as a witness against me), came continually to my house?

“Will Monseigneur le Cardinal dare to deny all the facts which I have advanced in my examination, and which will at least convince him that I have been forced to this, and that it has only been in self-defence? But he accuses me wrongfully. I must tell the truth to prove my innocence, and to prove that he was not in a position to use me as a servant, as Monseigneur le Cardinal pretends, in an affair of such importance, since it concerned the person of the queen. Moreover I do not know any one who is attached to her.

“I have the honour to be, with submission,

“Comtesse de Valois de la Motte de la Pénicière.

“At the Bastille this Monday, 29th August, 1785.”⁠[216]⁠

Another letter is extant, bearing date Sept. 13, 1785, evidently written by the countess during her confinement in the Bastille, though it has no signature to it, and which, couched in terms of extreme familiarity, is addressed to the Duke de Guines, a very grand gentleman of the court, and, what is more, one of the queen’s most intimate friends. In this letter, in the midst of the most absurd and nonsensical details, the countess introduces the names of her sister and of Cagliostro and his wife, on the two last of whom she seeks to turn the accusation directed against herself.⁠[217] The duke, who pretended not to understand the drift of the letter, sent it to the Baron de Breteuil.