aling diseases, and creating diamonds out of nothing.

Cagliostro doubtless lowered the Cardinal's moral and mental tone, but
it does not appear that he had any connection with the great final
swindle. In his supernormal gifts and graces the Cardinal did
steadfastly believe. Ten years earlier, Rohan had blessed Marie
Antoinette on her entry into France, and had been ambassador at the
Court of Maria Theresa, the Empress. A sportsman who once fired off
1,300 cartridges in a day (can this be true?), a splendid festive
churchman, who bewitched Vienna, and even the Emperor and Count
Kaunitz, by his lavish entertainments, Rohan made himself positively
loathed--for his corrupting luxury and his wicked wit--by the austere
Empress. She procured Rohan's recall, and so worked on her daughter,
Marie Antoinette, the young Queen of France, that the prelate, though
Grand Almoner, was socially boycotted by the Court, his letters of
piteous appeal to the Queen were not even opened, and his ambitions to
sway politics, like a Tencin or a Fleury, were ruined.

So here are Rohan, Cagliostro, and Jeanne all brought acquainted. The
Cardinal (and this is one of the oddest features in the affair) was to
come to believe that Jeanne was the Queen's most intimate friend, and
could and would make his fortune with her; while, at the same time, he
was actually relieving her by little tips of from two to five louis!
This he was doing, even after, confiding in Jeanne, he handed to her
the diamond necklace for the Queen, and, as he believed, had himself
a solitary midnight interview with her Majesty. If Jeanne was so great
with the Queen as Rohan supposed, how could Jeanne also be in need of
small charities? Rohan was a man of the world. His incredible
credulity seems a fact so impossible to accept that it was not
accepted by public opinion. The Queen, people could not but argue,
must have taken his enormous gifts, and then robbed and denounced him.
With the case before our eyes of Madame Humbert, who swindled scores
of hard-headed financiers by the flimsiest fables, we can no longer
deem the credulity of the Cardinal incredible, even though he
displayed on occasion a sharpness almost as miraculous as his
stupidity.

Rohan conferred a few small favours on Jeanne; her audacity was as
great as that of Madame Humbert, and, late in 1781, she established
herself both at Paris and in Versailles. The one card in her hand was
the blood of the Valois, and for