not is too honest a man to hear our secrets.' | his guest for the last news from Versailles. The conversation thus interrupted, Beugnot was sent home in Madame de Lamotte's carriage, accompanied by the tall young lady, whom he dropped on his way at the Rue de Ciéry. That young lady was Mademoiselle Oliva, who had personated the Queen in the scene when she gave a rose to the Cardinal in the bosquet de Versailles. The trick had been played that very evening, and by this strange accident Beugnot had supped with the actors. From that moment the mystification of the Cardinal was complete, and the Diamond Necklace was in the grasp of the gang.

What news?' replied Maury, where do you live then? There is news which astounds all Paris. The Cardinal de Rohan, High Almoner of France, was arrested last Tuesday, on Assumption Day, in his pontifical robes, at the door of the King's closet.' 'Is the cause of so violent a measure known?' 'Not exactly; but they say it is about a Diamond Necklace he was to have bought for the Queen, and did not buy. It is strange for such a trifle that they should have arrested the High Almoner of France.'

We continue the story in M. Beugnot's words:

Strangely enough, after the extraordinary success of the plot, the Lamottes not only did not leave the country with their 'No sooner had this news reached my ears, plunder, but they had the folly and audaci- than I looked at Madame de Lamotte, who had ty to return to Bar-sur-Aube, where they tionless face hung over her plate. After the droped her napkin, whilst her pale and mowere well known, to exhibit it. They first effort, she sprang up and rushed out of openly displayed enormous wealth. Wag- the room. One of the Abbot's attendants folgons loaded with splendid furniture came lowed her, and I shortly rejoined her. She had down from Paris. Two complete services already ordered her carriage and we started toof plate glittered on the sideboard. They gether. 'Perhaps I was wrong to come away even exhibited a casket of diamonds of so abruptly," said she, "especially in presence "Not the least. Your great value, and a multitude of costly arti- of the Abbè Maury." les of jewelry. All this was set down to the relations with the Cardinal are known, and almost avowed. His life may be in danger; infatuation of the Cardinal, but it created distrust, and in the better houses of the your part is to anticipate the letters, the couriers, the news. But what is the cause of province Madame de Lamotte was in very

indifferent repute.

tro."

66

his arrest?" "I can't conceive, unless it be some trick of Cagliostro's. The Cardinal is She still succeeded, however, in pushing infatuated with that man, though I have never herself into society, and on the 17th of ceased to warn him." Very well but what August 1785 she was even received by the is this affair of the necklace? All CagliosDuc de Penthièvre at his seat at Châtauvilain, "But you received the fellow at your with honours only paid to persons of high house,, Are you sure he has not compromised " you? Not at all. I am sorry I left the raak. Beugnot was staying at that moment at the Abbey de Clairvaux, with Dom supper, But there is nothing that fellow will not say." "Madame de Lamotte," rejoined I, ·Rocourt the Abbot, a very strange succesyou have already said more than I care to sor of St. Bernard; the Abbè Maury was hear; but I still offer to render you a last serto preach next day the annual commemo- vice. It is now ten o'clock. Your husband can ration of that great saint at the monastery. join you in an hour with your valuables. You Dom Rocourt was so good-looking that can reach Châlons to-night, whence you may when he was presented at Versailles, the gain the coast, and get a boat for ten louis to Queen called out, Ah! le beau moine !' carry you to England." "Nonsense," she reand he was in other respects a well-ap- plied, "I have nothing to do with this affair." "At least," I added, after a silence of half an pointed gentleman, having 400,000 francs hour, as soon as you get home, burn every a year, and never travelling without four paper which might compromise the Cardinal. horses and an outrider. With this gay ab- You owe that to his honour and to your own bot, in his abbey, Madame de Lamotte, on safety." To this she assented, and on arriving her way back from Châteauvilain, came to at her apartment we at once opened a great dine, and in her avowed character of the box of sandal-wood filled with papers of every mistress of a Prince of the Church, she size and every colour. I asked her whether seems to have thought she had a claim to they contained any bank notes, and on her anfigure at its ceremonies. This the Abbot swering in the negative, I proposed to throw declined, but he invited her to supper; and the whole into the fire. This she refused to do, and insisted on our going through all the pato this same supper arrived fresh from Paris pers. Then it was that I saw what ravages the the preacher of the morrow's feast. They delirium of love, rendered more intense by the sit down at once to table, and the Abbot, delirium of ambition, had wrought in this unimpatient of news from Court, challenges happy man. It is fortunate for the memory of

the Church would not hesitate to write and to sign letters to a woman, whom he knew so little, which in our days no man with an atom of self respect could even read to the end?

The

the Cardinal that those letters were destroyed, vincial town!' exclaimed the Marchioness though they would have formed a strange pageno, M. de Périgord; paysanne tant in the history of human passions. But what qu'on voudra, bourgeoise jamais!' The must that age have been in which a Prince of whole country took up arms. The fear of brigands put a weapon into every man's hand. The manor-house was to be defended by a few rusty fowling-pieces. game was swept off the country. The fishponds were dragged in front of the château. The tiers-état, in the form of three or four drunken peasants, assumed a sovereign jurisdiction over the roads. M. Beugnot witnessed these scenes with vexation and regret, but he was returned to the Legislative Assembly as the Deputy of Bar-sur-Aube, and played his part in the abortive work of that illustrious body.

I saw, too, in this box letters from Bohemer and Bossange speaking of the necklace, and of terms of payment; and threw all into the fire. The operation was a long one. When I left Madame de Lamotte her chamber was reeking with the smell of burnt paper and sealing-wax. It was then three in the morning. She promised to go to bed. But at four o'clock she was ar

rested, and at half-past four on her way to the Bastille.' (Vol. i. p. 86.)

Lamotte, the husband, effected his escape to England, no orders having been given to arrest him at the same time. The police, indeed, showed an extraordinay want of vigour in the whole affair. The arrest of the Cardinal took place at noon on the 15th of August. He at once denounced Madame de Lamotte as the authoress of the plot. Yet it was not till the 18th that she was taken at Bar-sur-Aube; and, as the warrant for the apprehension of her husband was sent down five days later, he had ample time to fly to England, and to carry off the diamonds which were the fruit of the robbery. *

His participation in the legislative labours of the Revolution did not, however, exempt him from its dangers. He had rendered himself obnoxious to the hatred of the revolutionary party by moving the decree of accusation against Marat; and early in 1793 he learned that a warrant had been issued for his apprehension. The only alternatives were imprisonment or flight. With patriotic confidence he chose the former, and resolved to abide the worst. He placed his money and his papers in the hands of a couple of friends, who robbed him; and putting Epictetus,' Marcus Aurelius,' and Thomas à Kempis' in a bundle Our limits forbid us to dwell on the with a few clean shirts, he prepared for the sketches M. Beugnot has left us of the so- Conciergerie. At the moment of his seizciety of France at the outbreak of the Rev- ure he wished to add a volume of 'Tasso' olution; yet they are extremely character- to his packet, but the title of Jerusalem istic. In spite of all the signs which Delivered' was regarded as suspicious. announced the coming storm, it was impos-Tout ce qui vient de Jérusalem ne sent sible for the country-gentleman to believe pas bon,' said the ruffian who had him in it. Had not the King an army of 150,000 his power, and Tasso' was left behind. As men to maintain order? What could per- he reached the entrance of the prison, the suade Dom Rocourt of Clairvaux that the long steps of the Palais de Justice were Abbey and the Rule of St. Bernard were crowded like an amphitheatre with feroto be swept from the face of France? cious wretches watching for the departure What could induce the great lady to be- of the death-cart and the arrival of fresh lieve that she was of less consequence in victims. As he got down the whole mass the vast medley of life than the daughter rose screaming, clapping, and vociferating of an apothecary? When the danger be- like cannibals. The hapless prisoner was came more apparent, Madame de Brionne, pelted with nameless filth, and he might like many others of her rank, prepared to judge by his entry into the prison of what leave the country. The Bishop of Autun awaited him on leaving it. (Talleyrand) remonstrated with her, and advised her to take refuge in some small provincial town, where, if she lived quietly, no one would remark her. A small pro

*The husband, who was known under the strange name of M. Mustiphragasis in his later years, died in Paris as late as the year 1831; but he had fallen into such extreme indigence that he was in the receipt of the charitable relief bestowed upon the poorest members of the community-in fact, he literally died a pauper.

·

His first three nights were spent in a dungeon with a murderer and a thief. It was by mistake he was placed there, but mistakes were common in the Conciergerie; and perhaps the company of the worst criminals underground was less perilous than that of the political victims up-stairs. Interest had, however, been made for him, and he was shortly transferred to the Infirmary, as the best part of the prison.

Here the sick, the dying, and the dead | the judgment will content them; but the police were thrown pell-mell on some thirty or will keep order." "What," said I, were forty wretched beds - no air, no ventila- you deceiving us by the tranquillity you tion, no cleanliness a brutal doctor gave showed, and the confidence you expressed?" twenty minutes once a day to forty patients, No," replied Bailly, "but I was giving you and every form of outrage and suffering an example of never despairing of the laws of were heaped upon the miserable inmates of took a cup of chocolate, and afterwards two cups The next morning early he your country." that den of horror. Yet here, and in an of pure coffee. I expressed surprise at his taking adjoining room, Beugnot found himself once the coffee upon the chocolate. "I took the more in the presence of friends with whom chocolate," said Bailly," because it is nourishhe had sat in the Legislative Assembly, and ing and soothing, but as I have a difficult pasas his imprisonment was, by a rare excep- sage to make, and I distrust my own temperation, prolonged for four months, he may be ment, I took the coffee in addition, because it said to have undergone the Reign of Terror excites and stimulates me, and I hope with this diet I shall reach the end of my journey." At in the very crucible of human suffering. that moment his name was called, and for the last time I embraced him. He wished me a happier fate, and thanked me for the interest I had shown him.' (P. 199.)

First came the Girondins. Seven of them shared his room. At two in the morning, on the 2nd of November, the gaolers entered the cell with torches, to make an inventory of their scanty possessions and sweep these illustrious victims away to judgment and the scaffold. Amongst these men, remarkable for the difference of their characters and the similarity of their fate, was Fauchet, the ex-Bishop of Calvados, who retained his attachment to the Catholic faith with the zeal of a martyr. Every day he read his breviary, a portion of Scripture, and a chapter of the Imitation of Jesus Christ. But his favourite study was the Apocalypse, for in that he fancied that St. John had predicted the Jacobin Club, the reign of Robespierre, the noyades' of Carrier, and even the 'carmagnoles' of

Barère. Gensonné and Brissot listened with amazement to the fervour of his harangues.

Next came Bailly :

'He entered the prison with a serenity worthy of one of the lights of the age. No complaint, no reproach, passed his lips in the six days on which he stood before that mock tribunal. He gave his answers to the end with the same coolness, precision, and dignity, though one's blood boils at the questions they put to him. No doubt especial orders had been given to make him drink of that bitter cup drop by drop; for, in the prison, where he had formerly brought the consolations of kindness and humanity, when he stood at the height of fortune and of fame, he was now treated with every refinement of barbarity. When the hour came for his attendance before the Court, his name was called out first, and, as he approached, the gaolers pushed him backwards and forwards, shrieking, "Tiens voilà Bailly! à toi Bailly! prends donc Bailly!" he meanwhile moving with gravity through this dance of cannibals.

The day before his death, Bailly anticipated what was to happen, and spoke of it without emotion. "The public has been misled about me," he said; "I hope the simple execution of

One of the next victims in this strange group was Madame Roland, whose character and history we have delineated at some M. Beugnot's impressions of that remarka length in a recent Number of this Journal. ble woman correspond with singular precision with those we had received from the re-perusal of her own Memoirs. There was much of harshness and extravagance in her devotion to the ideal of antique Stoicism, and her revolutionary opinions were odious to Beugnot. But in spite of the unfavourable prepossessions with which he saw her in that hall of Eblis, the grace and dignity with which she bore her misfortunes and prepared to meet her doom were irresistible.

'The day Madame Roland was to take her trial, Clavières sent me to her on some errand. I would have refused, but Clavières insisted, observing that an interview between her and himself on that day might be injurious to both of them. I went therefore, and watching the moment at which she left her room, I joined her as she passed. She waited at the bars till she was called. Her dress was careful; she wore a gown of white muslin, trimmed with blonde, and fastened round the waist by a sash of black velvet. Her hair was dressed; she wore a light and simple bonnet, and her beautiful locks fell waving on her shoulders. Her face secmed rather more animated than usual; her colour was lovely, and she had a smile upon her lips. With one hand she lifted the train of her gown, the other hand she surrendered to the crowd of women who surrounded her to kiss it. Those amongst them who best knew what awaited her sobbed aloud, and commended her to Providence. No words can describe that picture. Madame Roland answered them all with affectionate kindness; she did not promise them to return; she did not tell them she was going to die; but the last words she spoke to