understanding seemed but another
proof of the queen's predilection for him. An agreement was produced,
signed with the queen's name, to which the cardinal added his own, and
on February 1, 1785, the jeweller surrendered the necklace to De Rohan,
receiving this agreement as his security. The cardinal carried the
costly prize to Versailles, where he was told the queen would send for
it. It was given by him to La Motte, who was commissioned to deliver it
to her royal patroness. In a few days afterwards this lady's husband
disappeared from Paris, and the diamond necklace with him.

The whole affair had been a trick. All the messages from the queen had
been false ones, the written documents being prepared by a seeming
valet, who was skilful in the imitation of handwriting. Throughout the
whole business the cardinal had been readily deceived, infatuation
closing his eyes to truth.

Such was the first act in the drama. The second opened when the jeweller
began to press for payment. M. de La Motte sold some of the diamonds in
England, and transmitted the money to his wife, who is said to have
quieted the jeweller for a time by paying him some instalments on the
price. But he quickly grew impatient and suspicious that all was not
right, and went to court, where he earnestly inquired if the necklace
had been delivered to the queen. For a time she could not understand
what he meant. The diamond necklace? What diamond necklace? What did
this mean? The Cardinal de Rohan her security for payment!--it was all
false, all base, some dark intrigue behind it all.

Burning with indignation, she sent for Abbe de Vermond and Baron de
Breteuil, the minister of the king's household, and told them of the
affair. It was a shameful business, they said. They hated the cardinal,
and did not spare him. The queen, growing momentarily more angry, at
length decided to reveal the whole transaction to the king, and roused
in his mind an indignation equal to her own. The result we have already
seen. De Rohan and La Motte were consigned to the Bastille. M. de La
Motte was in England, and thus out of reach of justice. Another
celebrated individual who was concerned in the affair, and had aided in
duping the cardinal, the famous, or infamous, Count Cagliostro, was
also consigned to the Bastille for his share in the dark and deep
intrigue.

The trial came on, as the closing act in this mysterious drama, in which
all Paris had now become intensely interes