discipline,' is
a vanishing minimum; and, but for this recent 'garboil' (as our old
writers put it) we might have said that, under differences of
nomenclature, all the Kirks are united at last, in the only union
worth having, that of peace and goodwill. That union may be restored,
let us hope, by good temper and common sense, qualities that have not
hitherto been conspicuous in the ecclesiastical history of Scotland,
or of England.

XIV

_THE END OF JEANNE DE LA MOTTE_

In the latest and best book on Marie Antoinette and the Diamond
Necklace, _L'Affaire du Collier_, Monsieur Funck-Brentano does not
tell the sequel of the story of Jeanne de la Motte, _nee_ de
Saint-Remy, and calling herself de Valois. He leaves this wicked woman
at the moment when (June 21, 1786) she has been publicly flogged and
branded, struggling, scratching, and biting like a wild cat. Her
husband, at about the same time, was in Edinburgh, and had just
escaped from being kidnapped by the French police. In another work
Monsieur Funck-Brentano criticises, with his remarkable learning, the
conclusion of the history of Jeanne de la Motte. Carlyle, in his
well-known essay, _The Diamond Necklace_, leaves Jeanne's later
adventures obscure, and is in doubt as to the particulars of her
death.

Perhaps absolute certainty (except as to the cause of Jeanne's death)
is not to be obtained. How she managed to escape from her prison, the
Salpetriere, later so famous for Charcot's hypnotic experiments on
hysterical female patients, remains a mystery. It was certain that if
she was once at liberty Jeanne would tell the lies against the Queen
which she had told before, and tell some more equally false, popular,
and damaging. Yet escape she did in 1787, the year following that of
her imprisonment at the Salpetriere; she reached England, compiled the
libels which she called her memoirs, and died strangely in 1791.

On June 21, 1786, to follow M. Funck-Brentano, Jeanne was taken, after
her flogging, to her prison, reserved for dissolute women. The
majority of the captives slept as they might, confusedly, in one room.
To Jeanne was allotted one of thirty-six little cells of six feet
square, given up to her by a prisoner who went to join the promiscuous
horde. Probably the woman was paid for this generosity by some
partisan of Jeanne. On September 4 the property of the swindler and of
her husband, including their valuable furniture, jewels, books, and
plate,