he scandal, would shield her, would sacrifice
himself and pay the 60,000_l._

But the jewellers dared not carry the news to the Cardinal. They went
to Madame Campan, who said that they had been gulled: the Queen had
never received the jewels. Still, they did not tell the Cardinal.
Jeanne now sent Villette out of the way, to Geneva, and on August 4
Bassenge asked the Cardinal whether he was sure that the man who was
to carry the jewels to the Queen had been honest? A pleasant question!
The Cardinal kept up his courage; all was well, he could not be
mistaken. Jeanne, with cunning audacity, did not fly: she went to her
splendid home at Bar-sur-Aube.

Villette was already out of reach; d'Oliva, with her latest lover, was
packed off to Brussels; there was no proof against Jeanne; her own
flight would have been proof. The Cardinal could not denounce her; he
had insulted the Queen by supposing that she gave him a lonely
midnight tryst, a matter of high treason; the Cardinal could not
speak. He consulted Cagliostro. 'The guarantee is forged,' said the
sage; 'the Queen could not sign "Marie Antoinette de France." Throw
yourself at the King's feet, and confess all.' The wretched Rohan now
compared the Queen's forged notes to him with authentic letters of
hers in the possession of his family. The forgery was conspicuous, but
he did not follow the advice of Cagliostro. On August 12, the Queen
extracted the whole facts, as far as known to them, from the
jewellers. On August 15, the day of the Assumption, when the Cardinal
was to celebrate, the King asked him: 'My cousin, what is this tale of
a diamond necklace bought by you in the name of the Queen?'

The unhappy man, unable to speak coherently, was allowed to write the
story, in fifteen lines.

'How could you believe,' asked the Queen with angry eyes, 'that I, who
have not spoken to you for eight years, entrusted you with this
commission?'

How indeed could he believe it?

He offered to pay for the jewels. The thing might still have been
hushed up. The King is blamed, first for publicly arresting Rohan as
he did, an enormous scandal; next for handing over the case, for
public trial, to the Parlement, the hereditary foes of the Court.
Freteau de Saint-Just, one of the Bar, cried: 'What a triumph for
Liberal ideas! A Cardinal a thief! The Queen implicated! Mud on the
crosier and the sceptre!'

He had his fill of Liberal ideas, for he was guillotined on June 14,
1794!

Kin