THE DIAMOND NECKLACE.

PARIS, that city of sensations, was shaken to its centre by tidings of a new and startling event. The Cardinal de Rohan, grand almoner of France, at mass-time, and when dressed in his pontifical robes, had been suddenly arrested in the palace of Versailles and taken to the Bastille. Why? No one knew; though many had their opinions and beliefs. Rumors of some mysterious and disgraceful secret beneath this arrest, a mystery in which the honor of Marie Antoinette, the queen of France, was involved, had got afloat, and were whispered from end to end of the city, in which "the Austrian," as the queen was contemptuously designated, was by nc means a favorite.

The truth gradually came out,-the story of a disgraceful and extraordinary intrigue, of which the prince cardinal was a victim rather than an accessory, and of which the queen was utterly ignorant, though the odium of the transaction clung to her until her death. When, nearly twenty years afterwards, she was borne through a raging mob to the guillotine, insulting references to this affair of the diamond. necklace were among the terms of opprobium heaped upon her by the dregs of the Parisian populace.

What was this disgraceful business? It is partly revealed in the graphic account of an interview with the king which preceded the arrest of the prince cardinal. On the 15th of August, 1785, Louis XVI. sent for M. de Rohan to his cabinet. He entered smilingly, not dreaming of the thunderbolt that was about to burst upon his head. He found there the king and queen, the former with indignant countenance, the latter grave and severe in expression.

Cardinal," broke out the king, in an abrupt tone, "you bought some diamonds of Boehmer?"

Yes, sir," rejoined the cardinal, disturbed by the stern severity of the king's looks and tone.

"What have you done with them?"

"I thought they had been sent to the queen.” "Who gave you the commission to buy them?” "A lady, the Countess de La Motte Valois," answered the cardinal, growing more uneasy. "She gave me a letter from the queen; I thought I was obliging her Majesty."

The queen sharply interrupted him. She was no friend of the cardinal; he had maligned her years before, when her husband was but dauphin of France. Now was the opportunity to repay him for those malevolent letters.

"How, sir," she broke out severely; "how could you think-you to whom I have never spoken for eight years-that I should choose you for conducting such a negotiation, and by the medium of such a woman?"

"I was mistaken, I perceive," said the cardinal, humbly. "The desire I felt to please your Majesty

misled me.

from you."

Here is the letter which I was told was

He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to the king. Louis took it, and cast his eyes over the signature. He looked up indignantly.

"How could a prince of your house and my grand almoner suppose that the queen would sign, 'Marie Antoinette of France?" he sternly demanded. "Queens do not sign their names at such length. It is not even the queen's writing. And what is the meaning of all these doings with jewellers, and these notes shown to bankers?"

By this time the cardinal was so agitated that he was obliged to rest himself against the table for support.

"Sir," he said, in a broken voice, "I am too much overcome to be able to reply. What you say overwhelms me with surprise."

"Walk into the room, cardinal," said the king, with more kindness of tone. "You may write your explanation of these occurrences."

The cardinal attempted to do so, but his written statement failed to make clear the mystery. In the end an officer of the king's body-guard was called in, and an order given him to convey Cardinal de Rohan to the Bastille. He had barely time to give secret directions to his grand vicar to burn all his papers, before he was carried off to that frightful fortress, the scene of so much injustice, haunted by so many

woes.

The papers of De Rohan certainly needed purging by fire, for they were full of evidence of doings

unworthy a dignitary of the church. The prince cardinal was a vain and profligate man, full of vicious inclinations, and credulous to a degree that had made him the victim of the unscrupulous schemer, Madame de La Motte Valois, a woman as adroit and unscrupulous as she was daring. Of low birth, brought up by charity, married to a ruined nobleman, she had ended her career by duping and ruining Cardinal de Rohan, a man whose profligate inclinations, great wealth, and senseless prodigality opened him to the machinations of an adventuress so skilful, bold, and alluring as La Motte Valois.

So much for preliminary. Let us take up the story at its beginning. The diamond necklace was an exceedingly handsome and highly valuable piece of jewelry, containing about five hundred diamonds, and held at a price equal to about four hundred thousand dollars of modern money. It had been made by Boehmer, a jeweller of Paris, about the year 1774, and was intended for Madame Dubarry, the favorite of Louis XV. But before the necklace was finished Louis had died, and a new king had come to the throne. With Louis XVI. virtue entered that profligate court, and Madame Dubarry was excluded from its precincts. As for the necklace, it remained without a purchaser. It was too costly for a subject, and was not craved by the queen. The jeweller had not failed to offer it to Marie Antoinette, but found her disinclined to buy. The American Revolution was going on, France was involved in the war, and money was needed for other purposes than diamond necklaces.

"That is the price of two frigates," said the king, on hearing of the estimated value of the famous trinket.

"We want ships, and not diamonds," said the queen, and ended the audience with the jeweller.

A few months afterwards, M. Boehmer openly de. clared that he had found a purchaser for the necklace. It had gone to Constantinople, he said, for the adornment of the favorite sultana.

"This was a real pleasure to the queen," says Madame Campan. "She, however, expressed some astonishment that a necklace made for the adornment of French women should be worn in the seraglio, and, thereupon, she talked to me a long time about the total change which took place in the tastes and desires of women in the period between twenty and thirty years of ago. She told me that when she was ten years younger she loved diamonds madly, but that she had no longer any taste for anything but private society, the country, the work and the attentions required by the education of her children. From that moment until the fatal crisis there was nothing more said about the necklace."

The necklace had not been sold. It remained in the jeweller's hands until nearly ten years had passed. Then the vicious De La Motte laid an adroit plan for getting it into her possession, through the aid of the Cardinal de Rohan, who had come to admire her. She was a hanger-on of the court, and began her work by persuading the cardinal that the queen regarded him with favor. The credulous dupe was completely infatuated with the idea. One night, in