as Cagliostro said, the dead would not
rise for nothing. The countess, as usual, exercised all her ingenuity to
support her husband's credit. She was a great favourite with her own sex,
to many a delighted and wondering auditory of whom she detailed the
marvellous powers of Cagliostro. She said he could render himself
invisible, traverse the world with the rapidity of thought, and be in
several places at the same time.[49]

[48] See the Abbe Fiard, and _Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis
XVI_. p. 400.

[49] _Biographie des Contemporains_, article "Cagliostro." See
also _Histoire de la Magie en France_, par M. Jules Garinet,
p. 284.

He had not been long at Paris before he became involved in the celebrated
affair of the queen's necklace. His friend the Cardinal de Rohan,
enamoured of the charms of Marie Antoinette, was in sore distress at her
coldness, and the displeasure she had so often manifested against him.
There was at that time a lady named La Motte in the service of the queen,
of whom the cardinal was foolish enough to make a confidant. Madame de la
Motte, in return, endeavoured to make a tool of the cardinal, and
succeeded but too well in her projects. In her capacity of chamber-woman,
or lady of honour to the queen, she was present at an interview between
her majesty and M. Boehmer, a wealthy jeweller of Paris, when the latter
offered for sale a magnificent diamond necklace, valued at 1,600,000
francs, or about 64,000l. sterling. The queen admired it greatly, but
dismissed the jeweller, with the expression of her regret that she was too
poor to purchase it. Madame de la Motte formed a plan to get this costly
ornament into her own possession, and determined to make the Cardinal de
Rohan the instrument by which to effect it. She therefore sought an
interview with him, and pretending to sympathise in his grief for the
queen's displeasure, told him she knew a way by which he might be restored
to favour. She then mentioned the necklace, and the sorrow of the queen
that she could not afford to buy it. The cardinal, who was as wealthy as
he was foolish, immediately offered to purchase the necklace, and make a
present of it to the queen. Madame de la Motte told him by no means to do
so, as he would thereby offend her majesty. His plan would be to induce
the jeweller to give her majesty credit, and accept her promissory note
for the amount at a certain date, to be hereafter agreed upon