XXIX. 1786. Jan. THE TRIAL: EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED.

At length, after the law had exhausted its customary period of delay, the examination of the accused commenced. The Cardinal de Rohan was first questioned, and told his story much the same as the reader has already gathered it from the preceding pages. Mademoiselle d’Oliva was next examined, and simply confirmed all that she had stated in her published memorial, from which we have quoted the chief passages. Pecuniary embarrassment, she said, was the sole reason of her leaving Paris within a few weeks of the time that Madame de la Motte was arrested, for it was then that her creditors began to press her for payment of their claims. She went to Brussels by the recommendation of a person who lived in the same house that she did, and whom she knew to be a native of that place. It was now the countess’s turn, for as yet Rétaux de Villette had proved more than a match for the sleuth-hounds of the Abbé Georgel, and was still skulking in some safe retreat. As for Cagliostro, his examination was to be deferred until after the countess’s had been brought to a close.

Madame de la Motte commenced by detailing the chief incidents in her career, from the time she was taken notice of by the Marchioness de Boulainvilliers until the moment of her first introduction to the Cardinal de Rohan, with something like a regard for truth. When questioned respecting her pretended intimacy with the queen, she said she had not the honour of being known to her, and denied ever having represented that she had access to her; averred that she had never shown any letters purporting to be from her majesty; that she had never been honoured with letters from her, and consequently could not have shown any such letters.

With regard to Mademoiselle d’Oliva, the countess stated that all she knew of her arose from casually meeting her in the Palais Royal, when she learnt from her that her husband, who was a friend of Monsieur de Choiseul, had left her, and gone to America. Compassionating her lonely condition, and finding her to be, to all appearances, a well-conducted young person, she had asked her to her house, “and had taken her on one occasion to Versailles, where she stayed with her for three days.” When asked if she had not told D’Oliva that she was a lady of the court, on terms of close intimacy with the queen, by whom she was charged to find a person who would render her majesty some service, for which a reward of fifteen thousand francs would be given, she ridiculed the entire affair. She maintained it to be an invention on the part of the cardinal and Father Loth, who both knew of the unpleasantness that had arisen between her husband and herself with regard to the woman D’Oliva, whom she afterwards found by her behaviour to be anything but the respectable person she represented herself, being, in fact, a common courtesan who had been receiving the visits of Count de la Motte for some time past. She admitted that D’Oliva walked in the park of Versailles with her husband and Villette, on some evening in July of the year 1784, while she was promenading with the Cardinal de Rohan, but she utterly denied the whole story of dressing her up to personate the queen, and then conducting her to the park and instructing her what she was to say on being addressed by a great personage to whom she was to hand a letter and a rose. The countess protested that she felt highly indignant at the mere suggestion of these “numerous falsehoods,” these “horrible reports;” that “the entire thing was most absurd, and nothing but a foolish and incredible fable, most wretchedly concocted by its author, the Prince de Rohan.” She said, of course it was false that she had ever told D’Oliva that the queen was pleased at the way in which she had acquitted herself, or that she had read a letter to her, purporting to be from the queen, saying the same thing; and as for having given D’Oliva one thousand or three thousand livres, or any money whatever, after this affair, she had certainly done nothing of the kind.

When asked if she had obtained from the Cardinal de Rohan two sums of 50,000 livres and 100,000 livres, in the months of August and November, 1784, in the queen’s name, she simply ridiculed the suggestion, and pertinently asked, was it likely the cardinal would have been so mad as to have handed over to her such considerable amounts as these without receiving orders perfectly well known to have come from the queen, or, at any rate, without taking some kind of acknowledgment from her for them?

On being questioned with respect to the Necklace, the countess denied having had anything whatever to do with its purchase. She said she only saw the jewellers once before it was sold to the cardinal, on which occasion she peremptorily declined meddling in the affair. When asked if she had carried or had shown to the cardinal a letter purporting to be from the queen, wherein the queen expressed a wish to possess the Necklace, she ingeniously observed, that if it were intended to be suggested that she had been the bearer of any such letter as that alluded to, she desired the letter might be produced, for it was the cardinal’s duty to have preserved a document of such importance. She admitted having casually spoken to the cardinal about the Necklace the day after the jewellers had shown it to her, but the cardinal appeared to pay no attention to what she said, although he afterwards sent to her for the jewellers’ address. She certainly showed his note to Böhmer and Bassenge, but never said or hinted to them that he was acting on behalf of the queen, whose name was never once mentioned. With regard to the actual purchase of the Necklace she knew positively nothing until several days afterwards, when the cardinal told her that he had bought it for the queen.

As to the contract, the countess declared it had not been given to her to show to the queen, and consequently she could not have returned it to the cardinal “approved” and signed. When the contract was first shown to her she immediately recognised the body of it as being in the cardinal’s handwriting, but she did not know the writing of the signature: she positively denied having written it herself, or that it had been signed by any person she knew.⁠[251]⁠

In reply to further questions, Madame de la Motte stated that she did not know when the Necklace was handed over, and could not say whether she saw the cardinal at Versailles on the 1st of February, 1785, although she saw him most days when he was there. She had no hesitation in declaring the story about the cardinal bringing the Necklace to her house, and the casket being handed over to a person who came with a note from the queen, to be absolutely false from beginning to end. The countess indignantly denied ever having had the Necklace in her possession, or having had it taken to pieces; but, knowing well enough that there was evidence forthcoming of her and her husband having sold some of the diamonds forming part of it, she endeavoured to make her admission fit, as it were, with the evidence she thought likely to be brought forward. She maintained, however, that she was merely acting as agent for the cardinal, who, she said, sent her first of all twenty-two diamonds in a little box, with a note bidding her sell them as soon as she could. Subsequently he sent her a second box, containing a number of small diamonds which she was likewise to dispose of. The first parcel of diamonds Villette, she said, endeavoured to sell, but was unsuccessful, and they were eventually sold to the jeweller Paris for fifteen thousand livres, by recommendation of Monsieur Filleul,⁠[252] advocate of Bar-sur-Aube, and this amount she duly remitted to the cardinal, who afterwards sent her sixteen other diamonds, which she sold to the same person for sixteen thousand livres, and forwarded the amount to the cardinal in the early part of May. The small diamonds, she said, she sold to Regnier, together with one of larger size which the cardinal had given her, for the sum of five thousand five hundred and forty francs. The two diamond rings which, it will be remembered, were set by Regnier, were set, she said, for the cardinal, and she asserted the same with respect to a bonbonnière which Regnier had encircled with diamonds for the count.

During the same month, while the Cardinal de Rohan was at Saverne, she said, one Carbonnières, a member of the cardinal’s household, came to her in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, at six o’clock in the morning, and inquired if it would be possible for her to undertake a journey to Saverne in four days’ time, some urgent business which he had in hand preventing him from going himself. He had something of great value and importance to transmit to the cardinal, who, he knew, would be very much pleased with her if she but did what he asked. At the expiration of the four days, Carbonnières, she said, brought her a large sealed packet, and lent her his walking-cane, and directed the coachman to proceed by the Porte St. Martin as far as Pantin, the first stage. On reaching Saverne she put up at an inn, and apprised the cardinal of her arrival, whereupon he sent over one of his own carriages to fetch her. Immediately she saw the cardinal she gave him the sealed packet, and he asked her to stay and dine with him, but as she was dressed in man’s clothes she was obliged to decline. The cardinal, after thanking her for the trouble she had been at on his account, then made her a present of the bonbonnière which Regnier had mounted with diamonds for him. “Open it,” he said, “and you will find something.” She did as directed, and saw it was full of unset diamonds. On leaving the cardinal intrusted her with a packet of letters for Carbonnières, which, on her arrival at Paris, she duly forwarded to the Hôtel de Strasbourg, together with the walking-cane which had been lent to her.

At this point of her examination the countess essayed what she thought would prove a grand coup, which, bewildering and astonishing her judges, would make her innocence apparent with due melodramatic effect. She stated that in the month of March of the year before she went, accompanied by her niece, a little girl of ten or twelve years of age, daughter of Madame de la Tour, to the Hôtel de Strasbourg to meet that great, that extraordinary man, as the cardinal invariably called him, the Count de Cagliostro, whom she had seen at Strasbourg four years previously, and who was on the present occasion to exhibit some of his marvellous performances. She and her niece were conducted to the cardinal’s sleeping apartment, which was lighted up with twenty or thirty candles, when Count Cagliostro, calling her niece to him, took her upon his knee, and made her promise never to reveal to any one what she was about to see. He then dressed her out with a blue, green, and black ribbon, and also a white ribbon, to which was attached a cross and a star, and put on her a white apron covered over with different orders, and ornamented with beautiful silver lace. He next placed his naked sword upon her head, and pronounced these words: “I command thee, in the name of the Great Cofte and of the angels Michael and Raphael to show me what I shall presently tell thee;” and, taking her niece by the hand, he led her behind a screen where there was a table and a bottle of very clear water, on which he made her place her hand. The count then passed to the other side of the screen, where Madame de la Motte and the cardinal were seated, and commanded them to keep strict silence. He then pronounced certain words, of the meaning of which she understood nothing—but which the cardinal told her were to drive away the evil spirit—and said to her niece: “Say, ‘I command thee to make me see all that I desire.’ Strike! What dost thou see? Hold thy hand always upon the bottle. What dost thou see?” “Nothing, monsieur.” “Strike again. Strike! strike! What dost thou see? Dost thou not see a woman dressed in white, with a long fair face?” “Yes, monsieur.” “Who is it? Dost thou not see the queen? Dost thou know her?” “Yes, monsieur; it is the queen.” “Say again, ‘In the name of the Great Cofte I command thee to show me all that I shall desire.’ Strike! What dost thou see, little one? Seest thou not an angel on thy right, who turns towards thee as though to embrace thee? Seest thou?” “Yes, monsieur.” “Ah well! embrace him!”

Some days afterwards the Count de Cagliostro, who was not satisfied with this séance, at which all had not been made visible that he desired, directed that her niece should be dressed entirely in white, with her hair hanging loosely down, when he recommenced the same ceremony. The cardinal, on this occasion, forced her to go behind the screen, and Cagliostro made her and her niece go upon their knees, after which he said to the latter: “I ordain thee, &c. What seest thou, little one? Look at the point of my sword. Dost thou not see some one kneeling? Who is it? Name them!” “It is my lord cardinal and my aunt.” “What does my lord do?” “He takes a crown of six livres from a snuff-box which you hold in your hand.” “What further does he do?” “He takes a crown of three livres out of the same box.” “What more dost thou see at the point of my sword? Dost thou not see a magnificent palace and gardens?” “Yes, monsieur.” “Whom dost thou see there?” “No one, monsieur.” “Look again; look well.” “I see nothing, monsieur.” Then Cagliostro, finding that she saw nothing, said to the cardinal: “She is too old, she is not pure. I must have another child.” To which the cardinal remarked: “I understand, one of those you know well.”

Eight days afterwards, Cagliostro went through a similar performance with two young children by turns, and in the following month there was another séance at the cardinal’s hôtel, when Cagliostro directed a table to be taken to one end of the saloon, and a large number of lighted candles to be placed upon it. He then laid his naked sword, crossing it with a poignard, in the centre, and arranged around it a quantity of medals, and the crosses of Jerusalem and St. Andrew, and commanded the countess to lay her hands upon them, and swear that she would never divulge what she was about to see and hear, and what was going to be proposed to her. Then, turning to the cardinal, Cagliostro said to him: “Prince, go now; go now, prince.” They spoke together in a low tone, and the cardinal went to his secretary, which stood by the side of his cabinet, and brought from it a rather large oval-shaped box of white wood, whereupon Cagliostro said to him: “There is still another; bring it forth.” On opening these boxes they were both found to be full of diamonds, and the cardinal then said to her: “Will your husband go to England if I send him? I will give him two thousand crowns, which he can place with some banker here for a draft upon London.” Whereupon she asked the cardinal the name of this banker and his address, to which he replied: “It is Bergaud (Perregaux), Rue du Sentier; he is my ordinary banker. Here, take the diamonds; I will settle the price. Impress upon your husband on no account to sell them without first of all having them set, and tell him he must not bring any unset ones back with him.”

The count went to England as the cardinal had suggested, and shortly afterwards the cardinal said to her, “Write to your husband to send me what money he has received, for I have some pressing payments to make. You remember seeing a lady with me during Holy week. I have promised her five hundred thousand livres. She is a German, and is about to marry a gentleman of Versailles so as to legitimatise a child of which I am the father.” On being written to, her husband hastened home again, bringing with him drafts upon Bergaud (Perregaux) for 121,000 livres, a medallion set with brilliants valued at one thousand crowns, a pair of girandole earrings valued at two thousand crowns, a diamond pin, and two large diamond rings, which, together with the drafts for one hundred and twenty-one thousand livres, were handed to the cardinal, who returned the earrings, the pin, and the medallion, saying, “Here, keep these for your trouble.” She told the cardinal that her husband had left behind him, in England, a quantity of diamonds to be sold or else set, to which the cardinal replied, that he would prefer their being sold, but would see about this on his return from Saverne.⁠[253]⁠

One can very well understand that on the conclusion of this marvellous narrative the sitting of the court was adjourned, and that on the following day Madame de la Motte was asked by her judges what witnesses she could bring forward in support of the extraordinary statements she had made. The countess replied there was only the servant who brought her the first box of diamonds from the cardinal, as the note which accompanied it had been taken possession of by the Prince de Rohan with all his other letters to her, when she was confined under lock and key at the Palais-Cardinal.

On being asked to account for the opulence which she was known to have displayed at the very time that she and her husband were, as she said, selling these diamonds on the cardinal’s behalf, she recapitulated various presents of money which she affirmed the cardinal had made her; in addition to which, she said, she had received considerable gifts from the royal princes and princesses and from ministers of the crown. She stated that the diamonds which had been handed to her by the cardinal, including those remaining unsold in England, were of the value of three hundred and seventy-seven thousand livres; nevertheless these did not comprise all that belonged to the Necklace sold to the queen, as the cardinal had given numbers away; and among them, some of the most beautiful to the lady, whom he wanted to marry to a gentleman attached to the suite of the Count de Provence, and others to the Countess de Cagliostro. After having expressly stated that the diamonds she and her husband disposed of did not comprise all that belonged to the Necklace sold to the queen, Madame de la Motte maintained, in reply to questions asked her, that she neither knew nor suspected that any of the diamonds sold by them formed any portion of the Necklace in question; otherwise she would have had nothing to do with them, but would have felt it her duty to have warned the jewellers. When her husband, on seeing such a large number of unset stones, asked the cardinal where they came from, the prince replied that they belonged to an old set of jewels which he had no longer any occasion for now that he was getting old. When reminded that it was at this very time Laporte had spoken to her of the jewellers’ inquietude at finding the Necklace was not worn by the queen, Madame de la Motte observed, that in this case the jewellers ought to have addressed themselves to the cardinal, particularly as she had warned them to be cautious. She denied that the cardinal had at any time expressed astonishment to her at her majesty not wearing the Necklace; the reverse, indeed, was the fact, it was she who had expressed her astonishment to the cardinal.

The countess, as a matter of course, denied having shown to the cardinal a letter purporting to be from the queen respecting the payment of the sum of seven hundred thousand livres to the jewellers; she also denied having given thirty thousand livres to the cardinal to be handed over to them as interest for the delay in the payment of the instalments. When asked what she borrowed from thirty to forty thousand livres from her notary for at this precise date, she was ready with her answer. It was to oblige the Marchioness de Crussol (the same who went to the guillotine with Madame Elisabeth, the king’s sister, when these two poor ladies embraced each other at the foot of the scaffold), who came to her, and told her of the embarrassing position in which the ambassadress of Portugal was placed through having pledged her diamonds, which she was unable to redeem, and which would have been sold if Madame de la Motte had not furnished the money to take them out of pawn.

She tried to persuade her judges that the cardinal had called upon her one morning, and complained to her that he had been duped in the affair of the Necklace; that he had shown her a letter which he imagined had come from the queen, containing these words, “Send by the little countess⁠[254] a sum of money—the amount of which she could not recollect—for these unfortunates. I should be annoyed if they get into trouble.” He suspected, however, that the letter was not in the queen’s handwriting, and that he had been made a dupe of. He paced up and down the room exclaiming, “Has she deceived me, this little countess? has she deceived me? Oh, no! I know Madame de Cagliostro too well; she is not capable of this.”

On being asked if she knew a certain Dame de Courville, she replied that she had seen her with the cardinal in holy week the year previous, and that she knew her as a neighbour living within a few doors of her own house. She then proceeded to say that this was the same lady the cardinal desired to marry to a gentleman belonging to the suite of the Count de Provence, and to whom he had promised to give five hundred thousand livres. When asked if she knew an individual named Augeard⁠[255] or one Bette d’Étienville, or one Marsilly, a counsellor, she replied that she knew none of those persons. This concluded the countess’s first examination, which lasted from the 20th to the 26th of January, an entire week, and of which we have given all the chief points to enable the reader to see the scope and power of Madame de la Motte’s inventive faculties, and her proficiency in the arts of falsehood and deceit.

It was now Cagliostro’s turn to be examined. In answer to questions put to him, he said that he was a professor of medicine, of noble birth, and had travelled largely in Asia and Africa, as well as Europe, most of the chief cities of which he had visited. He was intimately acquainted with the Prince de Rohan, and since his (the count’s) arrival in Paris, on the 30th of January in the past year, had been in the habit of seeing him generally three or four times a week. During this period the prince and his friends had occasionally dined with him at his house in the Rue Saint-Claude. The Necklace, respecting which so much had been said, was purchased before this time. He remembered the cardinal expressing certain doubts to him with regard to the genuineness of the signature affixed to the contract, when he, sharing in them, advised the grand almoner to throw himself at the king’s feet and confess everything that had transpired; but this he resolutely refused to do.

With regard to the scene at the Hôtel de Strasbourg, described by the Countess de la Motte, Cagliostro asserted this was merely an attempted experiment in animal magnetism, in which he was no great believer. The ribbons which the child was dressed out in were some that were lying about the apartment. He denied having placed his drawn sword on the child’s head, and having made use of the words ascribed to him; but admitted there was a bottle of clear water on which the child placed her hand. The affair was got up entirely at the instigation of Madame de la Motte, who displayed great anxiety respecting the forthcoming accouchement of some great lady, and he performed the experiment in the hope of calming her. The countess’s story about the table with a large number of lighted candles upon it, and the naked sword and poignard, and the crosses of Jerusalem and St. Andrew, had not a particle of truth in it. He never placed Madame de la Motte’s hand upon these things, and nothing of what she had described took place. The cardinal did not fetch any diamonds from his secretary, and, indeed, the whole affair was a pure piece of invention. The cardinal had given him and his wife a few articles of jewellery as presents; all these things, and whatever other diamonds he possessed, had been seized by the police, and were still in their custody, and could be produced. The cardinal had never given the Countess de Cagliostro any diamonds forming part of the Necklace, nor any sum of money arising from the sale of the diamonds. He had never told the cardinal that his wife was intimate with the queen. She had never seen the queen, and was never once at Versailles, and could have had no correspondence with any one for the best of all reasons—she could not write.⁠[256]⁠

Cagliostro, in his examination, having stripped the countess’s highly inventive narrative of its marvellous character, and exposed her falsehoods with respect to the diamonds, and having, moreover, previously stated in his memorial that he had cautioned the Cardinal de Rohan to be on his guard against Madame de la Motte, whom he stigmatized as a wretch, but that the cardinal would not believe him, the countess’s indignation knew no bounds. Knowing the doubtful kind of reputation that attached to Cagliostro, and the peculiar nature of the relations commonly believed to subsist between him and the cardinal, who, it was thought, aided and abetted him in his endeavours to discover the philosopher’s stone—it was commonly reported that Cagliostro had prevailed on the cardinal to obtain possession of the Necklace, that he might experiment upon the diamonds and centriple their value⁠[257]⁠—the countess believed she could readily have diverted not merely suspicion towards the “low empiric,” as she was now in the habit of styling him, but have induced a firm conviction of his guilt. This had been her aim from the outset, as is evident from the insinuations in which she indulged in her memorial with regard to Cagliostro, whom she, or rather her counsel, introduces in the following grandiloquent style:

“His name, his surname, his quality? he and the woman attached to his fortunes?—The Count and so-called Countess de Cagliostro!

“His age?—One of his valets said that he knew not the age of his master, but for himself he had been one hundred and fifty years in his service. As for the master, he sometimes gave three hundred years as his age, at other times he said he had assisted at Galilee at the marriage of Cana.⁠[258]⁠

“His country?—A Portuguese Jew, or Greek, or Egyptian from Alexandria, who had brought with him to Europe the sorceries and allegories of the East.

“His habits and his religion?—Doctor of the cabalistic art; one of those extravagant members of the Rosy Cross who profess to raise the dead, and make them hold converse with the living—masters of all the sciences, skilled in the transmutation of baser metals into gold—beneficent spirits who attend the poor for nothing, and sell immortality to the rich.

“His fortune? in short, his means of supporting that luxurious ostentation which he has displayed before our eyes?—A sumptuous hôtel, elegant furniture, a well-supplied table, servants in all sorts of liveries; and the court of this hôtel always noisy with carriages, announcing in the midst of an intelligent nation visionaries of every rank—in a word, Cagliostro, without inheriting anything, without purchasing anything, without selling anything, without acquiring anything, is possessed of all. Such is this man.

“What are his great deeds?—Many are known in the different courts of Europe, others are known to Madame Böhmer;⁠[259] but let us confine ourselves to the third filtration of the Necklace, when it is needful to dispose the Count de la Motte to carry to a foreign country a considerable quantity of diamonds. This is the grand result furnished by the crucible of the operator.”⁠[260]⁠

Cagliostro, it may be observed, was greatly excited on hearing of the arrest of his wife, and on afterwards learning that she was ill, became perfectly frantic. He pretended to believe that she was dead or at her last extremity, and threatened to kill himself if he were not permitted to see her, or she were not immediately set at liberty.⁠[261]⁠