ed up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of
de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin
his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the
question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte
expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the
Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be
avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have
been the best plan, but de Breteuil's officiousness prevented it, and
there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and
put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German
to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the
papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay
d'Oliva and Villette de Retaux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam,
were in like manner secured. As for Cagliostro, he was also imprisoned,
some accounts saying that he ostentatiously gave himself up for trial.

This was a public trial before the Parliament of Paris, with much form.

The result was that the cardinal, appearing to be only fool, not knave,
was acquitted. Gay d'Oliva appeared to have known nothing except that
she was to play a part, and she had been told that the Queen wanted her
to do so, so she was let go. Villette was banished for life. Lamotte,
the countess' husband, had escaped to England, and was condemned to the
galleys in his absence, which didn't hurt him much. Cagliostro was
acquitted. But Jeanne was sentenced to be whipped, branded on the
shoulder with the letter V for _Voleuse_ (thief), and banished.

This sentence was executed in full, but with great difficulty; for the
woman turned perfectly furious on the public scaffold, flew at the
hangman like a tiger, bit pieces out of his hands, shrieked, cursed,
rolled on the floor, kicked, squirmed and jumped, until they held her by
brute force, tore down her dress, and the red hot iron going aside as
she struggled, plunged full into her snowy white breast, planting there
indelibly the horrible black V, while she yelled like a fiend under the
torment of the smoking brand. She fled away to England, lived there some
time in dissolute courses, and is said to have died in consequence of
falling out of a window when drunk, or as another account states, of
being flung out by the companions of her orgy, whom she had stung to
fury by h