rial of so eminent a churchman by the Parlement, before whom the king
brought the _proces_ in the following month, but the latter maintained
its rights, and on the 31st of May, 1786, pronounced judgment. M. de la
Motte (who had escaped to England) was condemned to the galleys for
life; his wife, to be publicly flogged, branded on both shoulders with
the letter "V," a rope around her neck, and imprisoned for life; Retaux
de Villette banished for life, without branding or flogging; the
demoiselle D'Olivia discharged; Cagliostro and the cardinal discharged
from all accusation. The acquittal of the prelate was hailed with
applause by the people, and viewed with great displeasure by the court
and the nobility; the blow to the royal prestige was felt to be very
serious, the publicity given to the fact that a cardinal, Grand Almoner
to the Court, had mistaken a courtesan for the Queen of France was
recognized as most unfortunate. Louis XVI banished him to his abbey of
the Chaise-Dieu in Auvergne, ordered him to resign his post of Grand
Aumonier de France, and to return his order of the Saint-Esprit.

[Illustration: LAST EVENT OF THE REIGN OF TERROR: THE CLOSING OF THE
JACOBIN CLUB.

After Duplessis-Berteaux.]

Madame de la Motte, who had appeared on her trial coquettishly arrayed,
and bearing herself with the greatest assurance, had become so violent
on hearing her sentence that the _executeur des hautes-oeuvres_ was
summoned to the Palais by the magistrates, and strongly recommended to
avoid any public scandal in carrying out the sentence of branding her.
It was proposed to gag her, but it was feared that this would excite the
people, and it was resolved to perform the operation at six o'clock in
the morning, in the court of the Conciergerie. When it came to reading
the sentence to her, four men were required to transport her before the
Commission Parlementaire charged with this duty, and even then she
escaped from their hands and threw herself upon the floor, rolling "in
such convulsions and uttering such cries of a wild beast" that the
reading had to be abandoned.

"When she was stretched on the platform," as the _Memoires des Sanson_
relate, "the fustigation commenced, and as long as it lasted, her cries
became all the more furious. Her imprecations were especially addressed
to the Cardinal de Rohan; ... she received a dozen blows with the
rods; ... she remained during some moments mute, motionless, and as
though faint