August, 1784, he was given a brief interview in the groves around Versailles with a woman whom he supposed to be the queen, but who was really a girl resembling her, and taught by La Motte to play this part.

Filled with the idea that the queen loved him, the duped cardinal was ready for any folly. De La Motte played her next card by persuading him that the queen had a secret desire to possess this wonderful necklace, but had not the necessary money at that time. She would, however, sign an agreement to purchase it if the cardinal would become her security. De Rohan eagerly assented. This secret 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 mes

sages 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 ir 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.

The

Burning with indignation, she sent for Abbé 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. 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 interested. The cardinal had renounced

all the privileges of his rank and condition, and accepted the jurisdiction of Parliament,-perhaps counting on the open enmity between that body and the court.

The trial revealed a disgraceful business, in which a high dignitary of the church had permitted himself to be completely gulled by a shameless woman and the equally shameless Cagliostro, and into which not only the name but even the virtue of the queen had been dragged. Public opinion became intense. The hostility to the queen which had long smouldered now openly declared itself. "It was for her and by her orders that the necklace was bought," said the respectable Parisians. Those who were not respectable said much worse things. The queen was being made a victim of these shameless and criminal adventurers.

The trial went on, political feeling being openly displayed in it. The great houses of Condé and Rohan took sides with the cardinal. Their representatives might be seen, dressed in mourning, interviewing the magistrates on their way to the tribunal, pleading with them on behalf of their relative. The magistrates needed little persuasion. The Parliament of Paris had long been at sword's point with the crown; now was its time for revenge; political prejudice blinded the members to the pure questions of law and justice; the cardinal was acquitted.

Cagliostro was similarly acquitted. He had conducted his own case, and with a skill that deceived the magistrates and the public alike. Madame de La Motte alone was convicted. She was sentenced to