the Queen's wishes to
the Bohmers.

Bohmer scarcely troubled to prevent disgust from showing on his
keen, swarthy countenance. Had not his client been a queen and her
intermediary a cardinal, he would, no doubt, have afforded it full
expression.

"The price agreed upon was already greatly below the value of the
necklace," he grumbled. "I should never have accepted it but for the
difficulties under which we have been placed by the purchase of the
stones--the money we owe and the interest we are forced to pay. A
further reduction is impossible."

The handsome Cardinal was suave, courtly, regretful, but firm. Since
that was the case, there would be no alternative but to return the
necklace.

Bohmer took fright. The annulment of the sale would bring him face to
face with ruin. Reluctantly, feeling that he was being imposed upon, he
reduced the price by two hundred thousand livres, and even consented to
write the Queen the following letter, whose epistolary grace suggests
the Cardinal's dictation:

MADAME,--We are happy to hazard the thought that our submission with
zeal and respect to the last arrangement proposed constitutes a proof
of our devotion and obedience to the orders of Your Majesty. And we have
genuine satisfaction in thinking that the most beautiful set of diamonds
in existence will serve to adorn the greatest and best of queens.

Now it happened that Bohmer was about to deliver personally to the Queen
some jewels with which the King was presenting her on the occasion of
the baptism of his nephew. He availed himself of that opportunity, two
days later, personally to hand his letter to Her Majesty. But chance
brought the Comptroller-General into the room before she had opened
it, and as a result the jeweller departed while the letter was, still
unread.

Afterwards, in the presence of Madame de Campan, who relates the matter
in her memoirs, the Queen opened the note, pored over it a while, and
then, perhaps with vivid memories of Bohmer's threat of suicide:

"Listen to what that madman Bohmer writes to me," she said, and read the
lines aloud. "You guessed the riddles in the 'Mercure' this morning. I
wonder could you guess me this one."

And, with a half-contemptuous shrug, she held the sheet in the flame
of one of the tapers that stood alight on the table for the purpose of
sealing letters.

"That man exists for my torment," she continued. "He has always some mad
notion in his head, and must always