ubstance) "go ahead." And the
cardinal did so. Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain
with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of
terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen.
That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an
entry made by Villette de Retaux in the margin, thus: "_Bon,
bon--Approuve, Marie Antoinette de France_." That is, "Good, good--I
approve. Marie Antoinette de France." The payment was to be by
instalments, at six months, and quarterly afterwards; the Queen to
furnish the money to the cardinal, while he remained ostensibly holden
to the jewellers, she thus keeping out of sight.

So the jewels were handed over to the cardinal de Rohan; he took them
one evening in great state to the lodgings of the countess, where with
all imaginable formality there came a knock at the door, and when it was
open a tall valet entered who said solemnly "On the part of the Queen!"
De Rohan _knew_ it was the Queen's confidential valet, for he saw with
his own eyes that it was the same man who had escorted the countess from
the side gate at the Trianon! And so it was; to wit, Villette de Retaux,
who, calmly receiving the fifteen hundred thousand franc treasure,
marched but as solemnly as he had come in.

As that counterfeiting rascal goes out of the door, the diamond necklace
itself disappears from our knowledge. The swindle was consummated, but
there is no whisper of the disposition of the spoils. Villette, and
Jeanne's husband Lamotte, went to London and Amsterdam, and had some
money there; but seemingly no more than the previous pillages upon the
cardinal might have supplied; nor did the countess' subsequent
expenditures show that she had any of the proceeds.

But that is not the last of the rest of the parties to the affair, by
any means. Between this scene and the time when the anxious Boehmer,
having a little bill to meet, beset Madame Campan about his letter and
the money the Queen was to pay him, there intervened six months. During
that time countess Jeanne was smoothing as well as she could, with
endless lies and contrivances, the troubles of the perplexed cardinal,
who "couldn't seem to see" that he was much better off in spite of his
loyal performance of his part of the bargain.

But this application by Boehmer, and the enormous swindle which it was
instantly evident had been perpetrated on somebody or other, of course
wak