tended she had delivered Boehmer's
necklace. This Desclos was a very honest man; upon being confronted with
the woman De Lamotte, it was proved that she had never seen him but once,
which was at the house of the wife of a surgeon-accoucheur at Versailles,
the only person she visited at Court; and that she had not given him the
necklace. Madame de Lamotte married a private in Monsieur's body-guard;
she lodged at Versailles at the Belle Image, a very inferior furnished
house; and it is inconceivable how so obscure a person could succeed in
making herself believed to be a friend of the Queen, who, though so
extremely affable, seldom granted audiences, and only to titled persons.

The trial of the Cardinal is too generally known to require me to repeat
its details here. The point most embarrassing to him was the interview he
had in February, 1785, with M. de Saint-James, to whom he confided the
particulars of the Queen's pretended commission, and showed the contract
approved and signed Marie Antoinette de France. The memorandum found in a
drawer of the Cardinal's bureau, in which he had himself written what
Baehmer told him after having seen me at my country house, was likewise an
unfortunate document for his Eminence.

I offered to the King to go and declare that Baehmer had told me that the
Cardinal assured him he had received from the Queen's own hand the thirty
thousand francs given on account upon the bargain being concluded, and
that his Eminence had seen her Majesty take that sum in bills from the
porcelain secretaire in her boudoir. The King declined my offer, and said
to me, "Were you alone when Boehmer told you this?" I answered that I was
alone with him in my garden. "Well," resumed he, "the man would deny the
fact; he is now sure of being paid his sixteen hundred thousand francs,
which the Cardinal's family will find it necessary to make good to him; we
can no longer rely upon his sincerity; it would look as if you were sent
by the Queen, and that would not be proper."

[The guilty woman no sooner knew that all was about to be discovered than
she sent for the jewellers, and told them the Cardinal had perceived that
the agreement, which he believed to have been signed by the Queen, was a
false and forged document. "However," added she, "the Cardinal possesses
a considerable fortune, and he can very well pay you." These words reveal
the whole secret. The Countess had taken the necklace to herself, and
f