e in it any person whom she might have
seen in the gallery.

[The public, with the exception of the lowest class, were admitted into
the gallery and larger apartments of Versailles, as they were into the
park.--MADAME CAMPAN.]

The woman De Lamotte's father was a peasant at Auteuil, though he called
himself Valois. Madame de Boulainvilliers once saw from her terrace two
pretty little peasant girls, each labouring under a heavy bundle of
sticks. The priest of the village, who was walking with her, told her
that the children possessed some curious papers, and that he had no doubt
they were descendants of a Valois, an illegitimate son of one of the
princes of that name.

The family of Valois had long ceased to appear in the world. Hereditary
vices had gradually plunged them into the deepest misery. I have heard
that the last Valois then known occupied the estate called Gros Bois; that
as he seldom came to Court, Louis XIII. asked him what he was about that
he remained so constantly in the country; and that this M. de Valois
merely answered, "Sire, I only do there what I ought." It was shortly
afterwards discovered that he was coining.

Neither the Queen herself nor any one near her ever had the slightest
connection with the woman De Lamotte; and during her prosecution she could
point out but one of the Queen's servants, named Desclos, a valet of the
Queen's bedchamber, to whom she pre tended she had delivered Boehmer's
necklace. This Desclos was a very honest man; upon being confronted with
the woman De Lamotte, it was proved that she had never seen him but once,
which was at the house of the wife of a surgeon-accoucheur at Versailles,
the only person she visited at Court; and that she had not given him the
necklace. Madame de Lamotte married a private in Monsieur's body-guard;
she lodged at Versailles at the Belle Image, a very inferior furnished
house; and it is inconceivable how so obscure a person could succeed in
making herself believed to be a friend of the Queen, who, though so
extremely affable, seldom granted audiences, and only to titled persons.

The trial of the Cardinal is too generally known to require me to repeat
its details here. The point most embarrassing to him was the interview he
had in February, 1785, with M. de Saint-James, to whom he confided the
particulars of the Queen's pretended commission, and showed the contract
approved and signed Marie Antoinette de France. The memorandum found