MARIE ANTODTEITE'S NECKLACE.
CAMILLE DESMOULINS being in the year 1792 reminded of an event which took place before the States-General were convoked in 1789, pointedly remarked, " Oh, that was before the deluge !" And truly enough, the French people invariably date their new state of existence from the great revolution which swept a whole world away, as it were, and gave birth to a renovated society. In spite of Thierry's researches and Tocqueville's argu- ments, to that powerful political convulsion they attribute whatever is grand in their country, whatever is weak in their organization. It may be well to read in school-books and novels of ancient kings and time-honoured feuds ; but, as far as the France of the nineteenth century is concerned, all these stories refer to the epoch . " before the deluge." It was, therefore, with some degree of curiosity, not unmixed with bewildering amazement, that the civil 'tribunal of Paris had, a few days ago, to listen to the pleadings in a law-suit which turned entirely on one of these antediluvian events. It sounded like a voice from the nether world, like an echo from the grave and the scaffold, this case in which some of the most far-famed names in history, be it for good to for evil, were handled by unfeeling barristers and shrewd attorneys. Queen Marie Antoinette, Cardinal de Rohan, the Duke d'Enghien, even Louis XVI., and the Congress of Vienna, not to speak of minor luminaries like Cagliostro, the Countess de Lamotte, and Mademoiselle d'Oliva, were mentioned in quite an off-hand manner by the glib tongues which are bent on making the law alternately clear or dim, according as it suits their purpose.
And all that on account of a claim of two millions of francs set up by the heirs of Nicolas Gabriel Deville, Secretary of Louis XVI., against the heirs of Louis Rene Edouard de Rohan, Cardinal, Grand Almoner of France, Prince-Bishop of Strasbourg, Land- grave of Alsace, Prince of the German Empire, Abbot of St. Vaast, and, above all, the possessor of a princely fortune.
The whole trial revolved on the famous necklace affair, for which scandal did by no means spare poor Marie Antoinette, then the flighty and flirting queen of France. Among many other sins laid to her charge, and of which she may have been more or less guilty, she appears at all events to have been innocent of that one, which, nevertheless, weighed heavily against her in the scale of popular prepossession. The story has been widely spread-; Goethe has made it the subject of a drama (Der Gross-Cophta), and Alexandre Dumas has told it in his own anti-historical fashion. According to the French lawyers who were engaged in the case, and among whom we have to mention Cremieux, Emile Leroux, and Dufaure, the affair happened in the following manner :— Cardinal de Rohan, who seems to have been deeply in love with his Queen, had fallen into disgrace and was banished from the Court. This happened in the year 1784, and he was then fifty- two years old. It was notorious that he could not bear quietly to submit to his fate, and a bold, intriguing woman, the Countess de Valois-Lamotte, the last descendant of an old line of kings, as she pretended, resolved to work on his weakness. Helped by Cagliostro, she convinced the worldly son of.the Church that she was highly favoured by the Queen, and undertook to bring about a reconciliation. In the twilight a young Parisian prosti- tute, Mademoiselle d'Oliva, who had a slight resemblance to an Austrian archduchess, played the part of the French Sovereign in the groves of Trianon. The Cardinal received his pardon, was admitted to kiss the hand of her whom he took for his lovely Queen, and rose from his knees intoxicated with pride and happi- ness. Madame de Lamotte understood to perfection how to take advantage of the silly vanity of Cardinal de Rohan ; she asked hini, in the name of Marie Antoinette, at first for a loan of 60,000 livres, and then for a second one of 100,000. But, not satisfied with that telling success, she resolved on striking a great blow. The Court jewellers, Btihmer and Bassange, were in possession of a unique necklace, set in pearls and diamonds, and valued at 1,200,000 livres.
That splendid ornament had been originally destined by the lavish Louis XV. for Madame Dubarry. But the crowned pro- fligate died in the interval, and the jewellers finished the set in the hope that the young Queen who now ruled at Versailles might be induced to buy it. Marie Antoinette was willing enough to adorn her pretty person with the glittering collar, but still she shrank before the enormous expense, and said to BOhmer, " We want a ship more than a jewel." The goldsmiths began to de- spair of a bargain, when lo the 24th of January, 1785, four months after the Trianon comedy, Cardinal de Rohan came in person to inspect the priceless trinket. The foolish swain had been persuaded by Madame de Lamotte that the Queen requested him to buy the necklace for her, and he took for genuine a badly forged signature, by which he was authorized to complete the purchase. In fine, he obtained the costly jewel for 1,600,000 livres, agreed on terms of payment, and delivered it to the clever trickster, who, of course, promised him to hand it to the enraptured spouse of Louis XVI.
It is matter of history that the necklace was broken into pieces, which were sold in Paris, in England, and in Holland. When the jewellers addressed a memorial to the King, the fraud which had been practised on them was immediately discovered, and poor Cardinal de Rohan was conveyed to the Bastille, together with the two plot- ting women Lamotte and D'Oliva, and with Cagliostro and some other accomplices. The Grande Chambre took up the affair, and put all the parties on their trial on the 81st of May, 1786. The Cardinal, Cagliostro, and Mademoiselle d'Oliva were acquitted. Count de Lamotte, the husband, was sentenced to be whipped, branded, and sent to the galleys for the remainder of his life, whilst his wife, the daughter of the Valois, received for punish- ment, "to be beaten and scourged with rods, having a rope around her neck, and whilst naked, then marked on the two shoulders with a hot iron in the form of the letter V., and finally to be con- ducted to the House of Correction attached to the Hospital de is Salpbtriere, and detained there for ever."
The sentence was rigorously executed, and Madame de Lamotte terrified the public, and even the executioners, by her wild and almost unearthly shrieks. Among the curious documents which were read at the late civil law-suit of which we are speaking, is the memoir referring to Cagliostro's' share in the affair, and evidently written by himself. He not only exculpates himself with remarkable ability, but dwells also on the romantic incidents in his life, which he relates in the tone of a man who affects to believe in himself, and with an extraordinary knowledge of the . art of " getting up" an intricate melodrama.
So far, almost every one may be assumed to be more or less acquainted with this strange affair ; the late trial revealed likewise what followed. The Cardinal, when he was arrested in the King's Cabinet, sorrowfully exclaimed, "1 have been deceived, Sire ; I ask pardon of your Majesties, and am willing to pay for the necklace."
And, indeed, he consented to give the jewellers an assignment of 1,919,892 livres on the revenue of his Abbey of Saint-Vaast, which produced 225,000 livres a year. The jewellers, who were . indebted for more than a million to M. Devine, the King's Secretary, transferred the assignment to him. But, before the first instalment fell due, the deluge came over the world, Cardinal Rohan lost his ecclesiastical dignities and revenues, the Court goldsmiths became bankrupts, and M. Devine never received a farthing. To-day, his heirs maintain that they have a claim on the heirs of Louis Rene Edouard de Rohan. The poor prince of the Church, " Cardinal by the grace of God and the authority of the Apostolic Holy See," as he styled himself, had fled before the flood as far as Ettenheim, a small town in Baden which belonged to him. He acknowledged in an authenticated document, that the trial , before the Grande Charnbre, and " the general confusion and spoliation of all property, sad effects of the French Revolu- tion, which deprived him of all his revenues derived from the bishopric of Strasbourg, his abbeys and all his church lands in . France, have taken from him the means of paying." He died in 1803, instituting by a formal will as universal legatee the daughter of his cousin, the fair Princess Charlotte Louise Dorothee de Rohan-Rochefort, known for the deep love with which she in- spired the unfortunate Duke d'Enghien, who dwelt with her at Ettenheim, where he was illegally kidnapped in 1804 by Bonaparte's gendarmes.
Before the unhappy Prince was shot on the glacis of Vincennes he begged of one of his executioners to give the princess a ring, some of his hair, and a letter written in his last moments. On her side, she proved faithful to his memory, and remained unmarried to the day of her death, which took place in 1841. On account of her relation's insolvent state she had only acceptedthe Cardinal's inherit- ance sous benefice d'inventaire, that is, on condition to pay no more debts than the estate would yield profits, and she bequeathed her festu.ne to Prince Armand Meriadec Montbazon de Rohan-Roche- fort, the father of the princes who were defendants in the case.
Among the landed property appertaining to the Cardinal de Bohan was a small house built on the spot where Turenne fell, near Salzbach, and used as a dwelling-place by the keeper who had to watch over the monument erected to the memory of the great captain. In 1796 the house and the monument were destroyed, but they have been rebuilt since that time.
Leaving these startling historical souvenirs for the actual facts of the legal action, we may shortly record that the heirs and assignees of Secretary Devine contended that Princess Charlotte had been very negligent in business matters, and had omitted to pursue the pay- ment of several debts, and that, therefore, her heirs were not entitled to the privilege of the benefice d'inventaire, but ought to be bound to pay two millions, forming the capital and interest of the original debt. But the tribunal decided against them, declaring that the Princes de Rohan-Rochefort have a right to repudiate the bond given by the Cardinal, because he did not leave sufficient money to redeem it. The judgment adds, it is true, that the debt was legiti- mately due by Madame Lamotte's dupe ; but that appears a poor compensation for two millions of francs.
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