kept secret--it was to be purchased for her by a
great noble, who was to remain unknown. All necessary papers were
signed, and the necklace turned over to the Prince de Rohan, who, in
turn, intrusted it to Mme. de La Motte to be given to the queen; but
the agent was not long in having it taken apart, and soon her husband
was selling diamonds in great quantities to English jewelers.

In time, as no payments were received and no favors were shown by the
queen, an investigation followed. The result was a trial which lasted
nine months; the cardinal was declared not guilty, the signature
of the queen false, Mme. de La Motte was sentenced to be whipped,
branded, and imprisoned for life, and her husband was condemned to the
galleys. Nevertheless, much censure fell to the share of the queen. It
was the beginning of the end of her reign as a favorite whose faults
could be condoned. She was beginning to reap the fruits of her former
dissipations. In about 1787, when she least deserved it, she became
the butt of calumny, intrigues, and pamphlets.

During these years she was the most devoted of mothers; she personally
looked after her four children, watched by their bedsides when they
were ill, shutting herself up with them in the chateau so that they
would not communicate their disease to the children who played in the
park. In 1785 the king purchased Saint-Cloud and presented it to
the queen, together with six millions in her own right, to enjoy and
dispose of as she pleased. That act added the last straw to the burden
of resentment of the overwrought public; from that time she was known
as "Madame Deficit." Also she was accused of having sent her brother,
Joseph II., one hundred million livres in three years. She was hissed
at the opera. In 1788 there were many who refused to dance with the
queen. In the preceding year a caricature was openly sold, showing
Louis XVI. and his queen seated at a sumptuous table, while a starving
crowd surrounded them; it bore the legend: "The king drinks, the queen
eats, while the people cry!" Calonne, minister of finance, an intimate
friend of the Polignacs, but in disfavor with the queen, also made
common cause with the enemies, in songs and perfidious insinuations.
Upon his fall, in 1787, the queen's position became even worse.

The last period of the life of the queen, La Rocheterie calls the
militant period--it was one in which the joy of living was no more;
trouble, sorrows upon sorrows, a