ed, it is believed by the aid of
some of the Rohan family, to escape from prison. She fled to London, where
for some time she and her husband lived on the proceeds of the necklace,
which they had broken up and sold piecemeal to jewelers in London and
other cities; but they were soon reduced to great distress. After the
Revolution had broken out in Paris, they tried to make money by publishing
libels on the queen, in which they are believed to have obtained the aid
of some who in former times had been under great personal obligations to
Marie Antoinette. But the scheme failed: they were overwhelmed with debt;
writs were issued against them, and in trying to escape from the sheriff's
officers, the countess fell from a window at the top of a house, and
received injuries which proved fatal.

A most accomplished writer of the present day, who has devoted much care
and ability to the examination of the case, has pronounced an opinion that
the cardinal was innocent of dishonesty,[10] and limits his offense to
that of insulting the queen by the mere suspicion that she could place her
confidence in such an unworthy agent as Madame La Mothe, or that he
himself could be allowed to recover her favor by such means as he had
employed. But his absolute ignorance of the countess's schemes is not
entirely consistent with the admitted fact that, when he was arrested, his
first act was to send orders to his secretary to burn all the letters
which he had received from her on the subject; and unquestionably neither
Louis nor Marie Antoinette doubted his full complicity in the conspiracy.
Louis at once deprived him of his office of grand almoner, and banished
him from the court, declaring that "he knew too well the usages of the
court to have believed that Madame La Mothe had really been admitted to
the queen's presence and intrusted with such a commission.[11]" And Marie
Antoinette gave open expression to her indignation at the acquittal "of an
intriguer who had sought to ruin her, or to procure money for himself, by
abusing her name and forging her signature," adding, with undeniable
truth, that still more to be pitied than herself was a "nation which had
for its supreme tribunal a body of men who consulted nothing but their
passions; and of whom some were full of corruption, and others were
inspired with a boldness which always vented itself in opposition to those
who were clothed with lawful authority.[12]"

But her magnanimity and her s