The Interrogation of Count Cagliostro Part 3

Previously in the interrogation of Count Cagliostro:

[Part 1] and [Part 2]

A Masonic mystic and “healer” named Count Cagliostro has been arrested as part of the investigation into the disappearance of a very–very–expensive diamond necklace. The royal jewelers say that Cardinal Rohan (Cagliostro’s patron) acted as the Queen’s agent in purchasing the necklace. Marie-Antoinette, however, is denying ever having wanted to purchase the necklace. The key to the enigma is an adventuress named Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, who convinced the Cardinal to act as go-between and guarantor for the purchase of the necklace. The Cardinal never saw the Queen (though he thought he did), never got anything in writing from the Queen (though he thought he did), and ended up stuck with the bill. Meanwhile, the necklace disappeared, and Madame de La Motte was the last one to see it . . .

Up to this point, the interrogators have been asking mostly about the goings-on in Cardinal Rohan’s household. Though my French isn’t very good, it’s pretty clear there are some sexual overtones. Cardinal Rohan had a reputation as a lady’s man in spite of being a “prince of the church”. In the latest installment below, Cagliostro employs some of his skills as a mystic for the benefit of the Cardinal’s friends.

This appears to be what is happening: Madame de La Motte is friends with a “great lady” of the court. The great lady is pregnant, and it has been prophesied that she will die in childbirth. The great lady is worried, so Mme. de La Motte brings her to Cagliostro to get his prognostications. His method of telling the future: he puts innocent girls into a trance, then asks them questions about what they see. Apparently, this is meant to foretell the future. In this case, it seems, the auspices are good. It’s possible that “great lady” is meant to be the queen, but the language barrier keeps me from being certain. In any case, the Cardinal’s actions here come across as sketchy: he brings young girls into his home and puts them in trances. He gives them colorful ribbons and crosses and tells them to be good. It’s a little creepy! The interrogators, at least, seem to think that the Cardinal and Count Cagliostro teamed up to take advantage of young girls, and that Mme de La Motte was part of it, too.

Here is my best attempt at translating another chunk of the interrogation of Count Cagliostro:

Interrogation of Count Cagliostro Part 3

We asked whether the Cardinal did not make her [the young lady] go behind a screen, where there was a table and a bottle of plain water [“eau claire”] and whether he did not make her put her hand on the bottle.

He responded that that was very true and that he would explain to us the events as they truly occurred. Madame de la Motte had told him [Cagliostro] that she was on good terms [“était fort bien”] with the Cardinal and with a great lady of the court [“une grande dame de la cour”–almost certainly referring to the Queen, since Jeanne was pretending to be the Queen’s close friend]. This “great lady” was with child, and it had been foretold that she and another lady of the court would die in childbirth. The second lady had died, which greatly anguished the great lady, who feared she would come to the same end. Madame de La Motte would have been very glad to be able to reassure the “great lady”. Because of this, she sought out the respondent, knowing that he was very knowledgeable.

To which he replied: “Madame, my knowledge is in physical medicine, and although I do not believe much in magnetism [which was all the rage at the time—such as Mesmer], I imagine that it might have more effect on young people. Perhaps through magnetism we can discover something by inducing catalepsy [a trance].” He said this because the Cardinal had agreed with him to say these things to restore the spirits of the “great lady”. He said, therefore, to Madame de La Motte, “If you want, bring a child tomorrow, someone pure, and we will observe her.”

Madame de La Motte returned the next evening with her niece. He asked her [Madame de La Motte] whether she was well-convinced of the girl’s innocence, to which she responded “yes”. He asked the niece whether she had always behaved herself, whether she loved God well, whether she had ever failed her mother and father, and other such things. He did this to determine whether, if she could not see what they were going to show her, it would be a sign that she was not innocent. Then, he made her go behind a screen and made her lay her hands on a bottle, telling her: “If you are innocent, you will see beautiful things; and if not, you won’t see anything.”

And he said to her, “Stamp your innocent little foot. What do you see?” “Nothing.” The respondent stamped his foot and said, “This proof that you are not innocent.” She started to say, “Wait, monsieur, I see, I see!” “What do you see?” “The Queen!” The respondent was surprised and asked, “How is she dressed?” “In white. She is pregnant; I see her great belly.” She gave at that moment an exact portrait of the queen. He was even more astonished and said to her, “See if she lowers her head, she will have a smooth delivery [“accouchera heureusement”]. It will be a sign that you are innocent.” She said, “Yes, monsieur, I see her lower her head.” He responded, “You are indeed innocent. The queen will have a safe delivery.”

After this experiment, Madame de La Motte, her niece, and the Cardinal had a collation [a light snack allowed on holy days]. The respondent observed that there were no oaths demanded, nor any ceremony, and there was nothing unusual in the room.

He could attest to the fact that M. de Carbonnières [an underling of Cardinal Rohan’s] had entered the room a quarter of an hour earlier, as had others who came after him whom only the Cardinal could name. He [Cagliostro] added that the same experiment was repeated a second time the next day on another child at the behest of the Cardinal to satisfy Madame de La Motte and to put at ease the mind of the “great lady”.

We asked whether, after this scene finished and the child was released, they did not bring out a table; whether he did not put on the table many candles, a naked sword laid out with a dagger like a cross, various medals, the crosses of Jerusalem and Saint André; and whether he did not ask Madame de La Motte to swear not to tell about what she had seen, about what she had heard, or about what he was about to offer to her.

He replied that these were lies. He said he had compelling evidence, as he just told us, from those people who came into the room at various times, and from all the people of the Prince’s [Cardinal Rohan’s] household.

We asked whether or not he told the Cardinal, “Here’s to you, Prince, go ahead then!” and whether or not the Cardinal went to his secrétaire [desk] and brought back an eggshell white [probably enameled] box. We asked whether or not he [Cagliostro] said to the Cardinal, “There is still another box; bring it here.” We asked whether the Cardinal brought it to him, and whether these two boxes were filled with diamonds. We asked whether or not the Cardinal, in the presence of Madame de La Motte, asked if her husband was going to England; and we asked whether the Cardinal said, “Here are some diamonds; I know their price. I recommend to your husband that if he sells them without mountings, no one will be able to trace them back to here.”

He responded that this was very false [“très-faux”].

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, London, and the Pleasure Gardens

A prospect of Vauxhall Gardens. By Samuel Wales c. 1751.

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, the instigator of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace and the heroine of her own story, fled to England following her daring escape from the Salpêtrière prison in Paris. (For more information on how and why she ended up in prison, take a look at The Short Story or my extensive post on Jeanne, which I linked to above.)

It’s no secret that the English had no liking for the French. They were perennial enemies (see, for example, the Hundred Years War). Jeanne had embarrassed the French monarchy through her plot to steal a diamond necklace, so the English welcomed her to London. Once she arrived, Jeanne began writing memoirs that were sensational and damaging to Marie-Antoinette’s reputation. They were also largely fabrications of Jeanne’s imagination. In any case, Jeanne made herself even more of an enemy of the French king and queen than she had already been. Jeanne was also in a bad spot financially, with creditors on her tail. On top of this, Jeanne had a history of suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

So, when Jeanne fell from the third story of her home in London and died as a result of her injuries, it wasn’t clear whether she went over the rail accidentally, was pushed, or jumped. It still isn’t clear whether her death was an accident, a homicide, or a suice. I wrote more extensively on the matter in this post here.

A friend who follows this blog pointed out a passage in this book from 1896 (The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century). The passage talks about the Temple of Flora, one of the pleasure gardens that were common in London at the end of the 1700s. While describing the Temple of Flora, the author points out that a translation of Jeanne’s memoir (her Life) placed Jeanne’s death in a house across the street from the Temple.

This is an interesting tidbit of information, not only because it gives a more precise location for the scene of the accident (or incident). It also gives us some insight into late-18th-century London. Pleasure gardens were more or less exactly what they sound like: they were garden that had flowers, benches, music, galas, dancing halls, food, drink, and fireworks. They were a combination of park, county fair, and assembly hall. Vauxhall and Ranelagh were two of the most popular of these pleasure gardens. It was common for people of all stations to venture out for entertainment to the various gardens that appeared all around London at the time.

The Rotunda at the popular Ranelagh Gardens. 1754 by Thomas Bowles.

The Temple of Flora was not one of the largest of these pleasure gardens. It was located just beside Westminster Bridge, on the left when going towards the obelisk (unfortunately, I’m not sure what is meant by “the obelisk”, since the obelisk doesn’t seem to exist any more; however, the direction is east). It was separated from the Temple of Apollo by Oakley Street (now Bayliss Street). It had a hothouse with a statue of “Pomona”, a gloss of Flora. The gardens offered refreshments in the form of orgeat (a sweet drink), lemonade, confectionaries, strawberries, and cream. For a few years in the early 1790s (the exact time period Jeanne lived nearby), the Temple of Flora was a fashionable spot. By the late 1790’s, it went downhill, and it appears the gardens were closed around 1796 (a few years after Jeanne’s death). Since she lived right across the street, it’s likely that Jeanne visited the Temple of Flora many times.

To read more about the Temple of Flora and other pleasure gardens, click here to read from The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century.

Thanks to Nico Hofstra for the tip!

The Interrogation of Nicole d’Oliva Part 2

 Previously on the Affair of the Diamond Necklace . . .

My last post (here) was part 1 of my translation of Nicole d’Oliva’s testimony to the court during the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. The examiner told us how she told him that she had met Nicolas de La Motte one day while walking at the Palais-Royal. He took her to meet his wife, Jeanne de La Motte. The pair called themselves Comte and Comtesse, and

Portrait of Marie Antoinette, 1783 by Elisabeth Vigee-Le Brun. The gown and headdress were changed because the queen’s white muslin dress in the original portrait was considered inappropriate. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

made Nicole part of their circle. Jeanne claimed to be a friend of the Queen’s, and on a summer night, she took Nicole out to do a little favor for the Queen. Nicole was to hand a man a rose and a letter and said, “You know what this means.” She was playing the part of the Queen in the gardens of Versailles–in particular the Grove of Venus.

Here’s the short story.

Suffice it to say that Nicole’s bit of playacting fooled a credulous Cardinal into thinking Marie-Antoinette favored him. He later acted as guarantor for what he thought was a purchase of a necklace on the Queen’s behalf. Jeanne was the go-between. The necklace disappeared (presumably, Jeanne stole it), and eventually all parties were arrested. As a result, Nicole was interrogated.

As mentioned in part 1, this is my attempt at a translation of a transcription from a book in French. I do not know French, so it was difficult. Some of the phrasing might be stilted, and some phrases were downright impossible for me to decipher confidently. But, without further ado, here is PART TWO:

We asked whether, when this person came, she lifted her hat “avec son éventail” [with her fan] and he said to her that he hoped she would forget what had happened in the past [the interrogator is asking about the Grove of Venus scene, and the person in question is Cardinal Rohan] . She answered that she did not raise the white Thérèse [a kind of hat] she had on her head, that she had no fan that night, and that she did not say she forgot the past because she was not able to say anything of the sort.

A little background is helpful here; the Cardinal had mortally offended Marie-Antoinette when she was still Dauphine by insulting her mother. He’d been trying to win back the Queen’s favor ever since (unsuccessfully). This is “the past” that Rohan wished her to forget–keep in mind that he thought he was talking to the Queen herself. Nicole’s comment implies that she was confused by the Cardinal’s words and wasn’t sure how to answer him without breaking character as it were.

Naming Names: The Trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace

I’ve been humming along on several random projects, a few of them related in some tangential way to the topic of this blog. I’m working on a historical novel set in the mid-1850’s in the South. I’ve struggled with it immensely, but I’m invested in the story and will see it trough to the end if it kills me. I’ve also been working on a much shorter-term project, one a little more related to the Affair of the Diamond Necklace: I love Gainsborough, so I am working on a recreation of “Mr. and Mrs. William Hallett” in colored graphite. It’s one of my favorite paintings of his. I will at some point regale you all with my artistic endeavors. But not today.

I recently found “Marie-Antoinette et le procès du collier d’après la procédure instreite devant le parlement de Paris” through Google Books. It’s (obviously) in French, published in 1863. I haven’t been able to decipher some parts of it (and some parts don’t interest me, to be honest), but it includes the transcripts of several of the interrogations that took place during the Affair of the Diamond Necklace trial. This is thrilling for me, because thus far I’ve only had bits and pieces of those interrogations. Unfortunately, it’s all in French, and my French is woefully lacking. Google Translate, my knowledge of Spanish (similar root words and syntax), and my mad skillz allowed me to get a decent translation of Nicole d’Oliva‘s interrogation. There was nothing surprising in it; most of it was discussed by Frances Mossiker in The Queen’s Necklace.

My translation still needs to be cleaned up to be presentable, but I thought I would bring up this amusing little piece, which I highlighted because it made me laugh out loud:

The respondent was asked whether she ever saw at Madame de La Motte’s home a certain Monsieur Ogeard or Augeard, or another individual sometimes called Marsilly, a sometimes-counselor [lawyer?]. She responded that she did not intend to name names here.

I can almost hear the derisive sniff in Nicole’s voice.

The humor is in the irony, not because Nicole d’Oliva ever named any names, but because others did so. When she was arrested, Jeanne de La Motte was selective in whom she named and didn’t name. It appears she didn’t want to give the names of the attractive young men she liked (for instance, her old friend Jacques-Claude Beugnot, later Comte Beugnot, who was never implicated in the Affair even though he clearly had some knowledge of it).

One of those who “sang like a canary” was Retaux de Villette, Jeanne’s “personal secretary” (a bit of a euphemism). In my own novel about the Affair, Nicole (who is the narrator) says the following:

In April, the news was brought to me that Retaux de Villette had been captured in Switzerland and had signed the Bastille registry. Almost as soon as he was given leave to open his mouth, he spilled out the contents of his black heart. If the Comtesse had hoped to count upon him, then she had misjudged her lover.

I will work along diligently at making my translation of Nicole’s interrogation readable, and will move on at some point to Retaux de Veillette’s testimony. That, I think, will be juicy.

The Comtesse’s Song

Having recently (and briefly) dug back into Jeanne de La Motte-Valois‘s memoirs (The Story of My Life, or Vie de Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois), I came again across a charming passage which, I think, illustrates Jeanne’s brazenness not so much while she was in jail as after she escaped to England.

To set the scene: Jeanne was arrested in 1785 for her alleged part in the theft of a necklace consisting of 2700 carats of diamonds–and worth a literal fortune. The jewelers were under the impression they had sold the necklace to the Queen discreetly in order to avoid the political backlash that was sure to follow if the Queen squandered her money so frivolously. The Queen claimed she hadn’t bought the necklace, had never intended to buy the necklace, and had no knowledge of where the necklace had gone. Jeanne, a woman who claimed to be the Queen’s friend and a countess, was in the middle of the mystery; the evidence shows that she duped the jewelers and a Cardinal into believing that she was working on the Queen’s behalf, when really she was just trying to spirit away the necklace. Though it’s shrouded in mystery, it appears she succeeded in stealing the necklace. But the web of lies began to fall apart, and Jeanne was clapped in the Bastille. (For a more thorough description of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, see The Short Story tab above.)

Jeanne is writing about her time in the Bastille, after her arrest but before her trial. The Governor of the Bastille, Launay, was later brutally murdered by the men who stormed the fortress only four years later. Shortly following the events of 1785 that she describes, Jeanne was transferred to the Conciergerie, which is adjacent to the Palais de Justice where the trial took place. She was convicted, publicly beaten and branded, and sent to

The Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bastille, is arrested during the storming of the Bastille; he was brutally murdered by the revolutionaries. Storming of the Bastille and arrest of the Governor M. de Launay, July 14, 1789 by Jean-Baptiste Lallemand. Source: WikiMedia Commons

the Salpêtrière.

Jeanne writes this, however, from a safe distance. She escaped prison and went to England, where she was welcomed. The English were quite happy to take her in, because her presence was an embarrassment to their perennial enemy, France. In any case, it’s important to remember that Jeanne not only had an agenda, she was creating her own myth. Jeanne made herself heroine of her own tale, the victim of a cruel monarchy,  particularly of Marie-Antoinette. The description of a brave, defiant, downtrodden young woman is part of her own myth. She claims to have charmed pretty much everyone. Can it all be taken seriously? There might be a kernel of truth in it. To me, however, it seems to be mostly fabricated. I think that, while safe in London, she was  brave and defiant, and pretended that she had been the same while locked in the Bastille. This little story about her defiant song is more an indication of how she felt and thought while writing her memoirs than it is an accurate account of her mindset while in prison.

In any case, here is Jeanne’s account of her song:

At some moments, I had such a flow of spirits that I frequently amused myself with singing a number of songs as they succeeded in my mind, blending them all together, without any attention to regularity. Many of the invalids, who heard me, reported to the Governor that a lady in the third Comptée sang at least sixty different songs and airs every day, and that she got up to the window, where they saw her very plainly.

The Governor, upon this intelligence, ordered them to come and listen to what I sang; he also stationed another person to listen attentively to the words of my songs. I was aware of my spy, though he spoke very low. I redoubled my efforts, and sung this passage from Richard, Couer de Lion: “Oh, Richard! oh, mon roi!” (Instead of the name Richard, substituting Valois.) “–by all the world forsook!” I took occasion, in the course of my song, to introduce the name of the Governor, and finished with a loud laugh. The poor Marquis de Pelport, who saw our spy, dared not utter a word, but I, not at all alarmed at the spy, nor having the least fear of the Governor, continued my song.

At eight the same evening, the Governor came to see me. “Oh, oh!” said I to him gaily, “you are very obliging to make me a visit. You wish, then, to gain the goodwill of the prisoners, by coming to see them?” He smiled. “But you are a singer,” said he. “I am very sorry to have interrupted you!”

And this Governor, so very rigid and austere, who had prohibited singing in the Bastille, entreated me to do him the favor to sing a song. I at first hesitated, but after some little consideration, began to sing. And, that I might be heard throughout the Bastille, I sang a brisk tune. As soon as I had finished, “Very well, Governor!” said I rallyingly, “you have not behaved with the greatest consistency in sending my turnkey, St Jean, to desire me not to sing, for that is contrary to the rules of the Bastille, when I can absolutely say that I have authority to sing even from the Governor himself!”

—Jeanne de La Motte, “The Story of My Life”

For further reading:

The Story of My Life (or “The Life of Jane de St. Remy de Valois, heretofore Comtesse de La Motte“) as published in English in 1791, and source of the above quote)

Vie de Jeanne de St. Remy de Valois, etc., as published in French in 1792

Governor de Launay’s Wikipedia page

The Memoirs of Jeanne de La Motte

There’s nothing like reading the first-hand accounts of the main players in a thrilling historical drama. Or a dramatic historical thriller–you could use either to describe the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Jeanne wrote several memoirs. They came out in French and English and sometimes in more than one volume, making for a confusing array of texts.

Here are the original versions of two memoirs by Jeanne de La Motte:

Mémoires justificatifs de la Comtesse de Valois de La Motte–In French, dense, and probably not accessible for people who don’t know French very well.

The life of Jane de St. Remy de Valois, heretofore Countess de La Motte–An English translation published while Jeanne was in London. Much more accessible to English-speakers if you don’t mind extraneous commas.

My take on the Memoirs:

Jeanne de La Motte’s story is fascinating from beginning to end, and no one would agree more than Jeanne herself. From a very young age, Jeanne learned to tell her own story to the best of her abilities, with the aim of capturing the attention and sympathy of those around her. She told her story while begging on the streets and she told her story while trying to get noticed at the court of Versailles. When the Affair of the Diamond Necklace broke, her audience became much wider and the list of antagonists in her story increased by (at least) one: now Queen Marie-Antoinette was on the list of people out to victimize her.

You can’t take Jeanne at her word. The outline of her life is almost certainly true, as well as those details that she had no reason to lie about (for instance, the date of her arrival in Paris) or that were easily verifiable fact (for instance, the date of her birth or marriage). But, otherwise, in her memoirs Jeanne makes herself into the tragic heroine, constantly wronged by fate and, more to the point, by those around her. The first villain of Jeanne’s story is her own mother. Jeanne’s mother is presented as a gold-digger who ruined her husband (Jeanne’s good-hearted father) and never loved him in return. Jeanne’s mother constantly beat her, forced them all to go to Paris where the children had to beg on the streets, barely mourned her husband’s death, and asked her children to claim that her new lover was their father. How much of this is true, it’s hard to tell. No doubt, Jeanne’s mother would tell a very different version of the story.

After her mother abandons Jeanne, other villains continue to plague her life: the nemesis is her foster father, or the officials at court, or Madame Elisabeth, or Marie-Antoinette herself, or the police, or the monarchy at large. Throughout her memoirs, Jeanne casts herself as the victim of wicked people. And yet, all the evidence points to her as the culprit in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, no matter how poorly she was treated by how many people. It’s incredibly telling that the thief is the victim here, over and over again.

Even if Jeanne only partially believed her own tales, this was the way she chose to defend her actions: she placed herself as the victim. In her own mind, she was merely responding to a cruel world as best she could–and maybe her response wasn’t perfect, but it was no worse than could be expected in the circumstances. Underlying this is Jeanne’s assumption that she deserved much, much better. Jeanne denies ever having stolen the Diamond Necklace, but if you take it for granted that she did steal it, then you can see her memoirs as a lengthy justification for why she deserved that necklace that didn’t belong to her. Her entire unfair life led up to a point where she saw for herself the chance to get some justice. Everyone from her mother to the queen had denied her what was her right. The necklace became a chance to reclaim what she felt she deserved. When that fell through, the memoirs became her form of revenge–because her story was much more damaging to the Queen than the loss of the necklace.

The morality is suspect; just because a person was constantly abused (and there’s little doubt Jeanne was abused) doesn’t justify theft, cheating, and adultery (all of which Jeanne was almost certainly guilty of). When you take into account her motives and point of view, Jeanne’s memoirs make a fascinating study of morals and how flexible they can be.

If you are patient with language, whether its French or mind-numbingly archaic English, then I suggest you take a look at these memoirs and judge for yourself.

The Bastille and the Diamond Necklace

Since Bastille Day was just a few days ago, I am taking the chance to write about the role of the infamous, famous, and perhaps misunderstood Bastille, in particular as it concerns the Affair of the Diamond Necklace.

The Bastille was famous in its day. In the public imagination, the Bastille was a dark hulk of a prison full of terror. Unlike other prisons, the inmates of the Bastille were largely important, or well-to-do, or liable to rouse the rabble. The fortress, built in the 14th century,

The Bastille

was deep, dark, mysterious, and secretive. Jeanne de La Motte referred to it as “that dread prison, the very name of which brings a shudder.” “There, countless victims of arbitrary power languished amidst groans, tears, and curses for the day that gave them birth,” according again to Jeanne (who had a tendency for melodrama when it came to her own suffering and who liked to play victim to the monarchy, justifiably or not).

Like the Tower of London, it was a place of legend, where people had a tendency to simply disappear. Like the Tower, its reputation probably wasn’t entirely earned: Less than a dozen people were executed inside the Tower, and a grand total of seven prisoners were being held in the Bastille when it fell.

But three years before the Bastille was stormed on July 14, 1789, it was the holding pen for Cardinal Rohan, Jeanne de La Motte, Count Cagliostro, and Nicole d’Olva.

The Mysterious Death of the Comtesse

Jeanne de La Motte was almost certainly the mastermind behind the theft of the diamond necklace that caused the downfall of the ancien regime in France. If you want her full story click here. If you want the short version of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, look above for “The Short Story”.

In May, 1786, Jeanne de La Motte was sentenced to be publicly flogged, branded on both shoulders, and imprisoned for life with all of her goods forfeit to the crown. There is almost no mistake that Jeanne’s gains were ill-gotten. She had duped a Cardinal out of a large amount of money, then used the Cardinal to orchestrate the heist of a diamond necklace worth a fortune. Still, the sentence was harsh. This was because the main offense was criminal disrespect for the person of the queen, Marie-Antoinette. It seems that during her efforts to swindle the Cardinal, Jeanne had made him believe the Queen wanted to buy the diamond necklace with him as her secret go-between. In order to convince him, Jeanne hired a whore to play the part of the Queen in the gardens of the Chateau de Versailles. This was very bad for the Queen’s reputation, because many people believed she was capable of meeting a Cardinal with a bad reputation at midnight in the gardens.

In any case, once she had been beaten and branded, she was put into the Salpetriere prison for women. It was from here that she made a daring and heroic escape. She fled across France and made her way to London.

The English naturally welcomed her with open arms. After all, England was always willing to embarrass France, their

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois de Saint-Remy

perennial rival. Jeanne was certainly not quiet, either. She had said some rather nasty things during the trial, and she kept up the flow of vitriol while in London. Many of her accusations against the Queen stuck; as the Revolution began to get off the ground, Jeanne was in London, happily writing tell-all memoirs that put Marie-Antoinette in a very bad light–if you believed what Jeanne said (for the record, I believe very little of it).

On August 23, 1791, the Courier and the Chronicle of London carried the death notice of Jeanne de La Motte-Vaois, self-style Comtesse de La Motte. Her death was the result of injuries from falling out of a third-story window.

The question now as then is, how came she to fall out of the window?

It might have been an accident. The Abbé Georgel, a friend of the Cardinal’s, claims that after a night of drunken debauchery, a tipsy Jeanne accidentally went out the window. He also adds that it was God’s judgment on her for being wicked, but then again he never really liked her.

Jeanne might have been pushed. British newspapers reported that bailiffs had come to collect debts owed by Jeanne. Nicolas de La Motte, Jeanne’s husband, claimed that it was agents of the Duc d’Orleans, who wanted Jeanne to return to Paris for political reasons. Nicolas paints a story of the poor woman’s terror as she’s pursued by these men. He says the Duc d’Orleans men tried to arrest her on trumped up charges of debt. Jeanne sent out the maid, trying to get help, but the maid returned with no one. When it appeared there was no help to be had, she dashed for the door. Instead of getting into one of the passing cabs or carriages, she went to her neighbor’s house. The neighbor tried to protect her by saying that he had no fugitive in his house when the men came after her.  The men battered down the door anyway and started searching the house. Jeanne was on the third floor, waiting as they moved up the floors searching for her. They started to break through the door to the room where she hid. She ran to the window, went over the railing, and held on with every intention of letting go and falling to the ground below if her pursuers made it through the door. The door cracked; Jeanne let go. This, at least, is how Nicolas de La Motte tells the story. How much of it is true is really anyone’s guess. But it’s possible that she was “helped” out the window by these alleged men.

Or, Jeanne might have committed suicide. This sounds like what Nicolas is implying happened, albeit suicide under duress. Jeanne actually had a history of suicidal behavior, which she talked about herself (after the death of twin sons, she says that she took a pair of pistols and was about to shoot herself but decided not to at the last second). Her memoirs from the time of her death make it sounds as though she was not suicidal–she talks about never giving up in her fight against her enemies–but in a moment of panic or distress, it’s entirely possible.

Exactly what happened is unclear. But what is clear is that Jeanne did not die immediately. She was badly injured, and suffered for several days before passing on.

As Jeanne lay dying, the situation in France was quickly heating up. The royal family made an ill-advised attempt to escape France, but were caught at Varennes. The attempt was a disaster for the royal family, who was now looked at with suspicion by all of France. They were brought back to Paris to be put under harsher arrest. The news reached Jeanne on her sickbed as she lay dying from the injuries sustained in the fall out the window. Jeanne considered the Queen her personal enemy, and she must have relished the humiliation and failure of the royal family. In many ways, it was Jeanne’s venomous words and accusations that led to the hatred that Marie-Antoinette received. It’s ironic, then, that Jeanne died in 1791, just about two years before the Queen would have her head cut off by guillotine.

The Palais de Justice and the Conciergerie

The Palais de Justice is aptly named. It is a former palace where, to this day, justice is meted out.

Sitting on the Île de la Cité, the center of old Paris, the Palais de Justice has its roots in the Roman period, when the governor’s palace was there on the island. Clovis (king of the Francs) also resided there in the old fortified Roman palace. The Carolingians (ie Charlemagne and his successors) moved out of Paris, but Paris again became the center of France when the Capetian kings set up shop on the Île de la Cité, enlarging the old Roman fort/palace. By the fourteenth century, the Palais de la Cité had become one of the grandest in Europe to reflect the growing power and

The Conciergerie in the 15th century

territorial reach of the French kings. It was here that Louis IX, a saint in his own right, put his most prized holy relics, in the chapel (the Sainte-Chapelle, one of the most fantastic chapels in Europe). In the fourteenth century, the monarchs moved out of the palace, leaving it for lits de justice (a meeting of Parlement, or law courts) and official receptions. From that point until the fall of the monarchy, it was the seat of justice and became the Palais de Justice. The care of the palace was left to the king’s concierge. “Conciergerie” refers to the prison attached to the official duties on aconcierge, which were extensive. Thus, the prison attached to the Palais de Justice became known as the Conciergerie. The Palais de Justice and Conciergerie became a law court and prison stuck together in what used to be a royal palace.

Today, not a lot of the oldest building survives. Approaching it from the Metro stop that is conveniently close, you first see the big black-and-gold gates closing off the Cour du Mai and the Palais de Justice. To the left is Saint-Chapelle, and to the right is the Conciergerie. Remember, these are all interconnected–church, law court, and prison.

The Cour du Mai was, perhaps, the most interesting part of the Saint-Chapelle/Palais de Justice/Conciergerie complex. It isn’t particularly exciting when you just look at it. It’s closed off from the street and there are police there to make sure the Palais de Justice is safe. It sits between the three buildings, which more or less form three sides of the courtyard. However, what interested me was what happened here two hundred twenty-five years ago.

It’s a startling vision: in the early morning, a young(ish) woman is dragged into the courtyard from the prison. She isn’t fully dressed because she didn’t know she was being brought to be punished for her crimes–specifically, crimes of thievery and lese-majeste. The executioners (who carry out all sentences, not just death sentences) tie her up even though she fights. She’s whipped. Though she would later add a bit of melodrama to it, the beating was probably done by the books, just as it should have been. Next, she began to really fight because she saw the hot poker in the small brazier. There was a tussle, but she was stripped bare when her clothes were slashed by the executioners. The hot brand, with a v for voleuse or thief, was brought forward. She twitched at the last moment, and though it was supposed to brand her shoulder, the V was burned into her breast. Then she bit into one of the executioners, fainted, and had to be carried away.

This was, of course, the feisty heroine of our tale, Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, who wouldn’t go down without a fight. Jeanne had been arrested in Bar-Sur-Aube after it came to light that she’d orchestrated the jewel heist of the century, convincing a Cardinal that he was buying a necklace on behalf of the Queen, Marie-Antoinette. As it turns out, the Cardinal was just acting as guarantor for a transaction between the royal jewelers and a thief (namely, Jeanne).

At first, Jeanne was kept in the Bastille, along with her accomplices. Later, they were moved to the Conciergerie prison for the convenience. For the trial, she and the others were brought over to the Palais de Justice, where they were sat upon stools–sellettes–and interrogated. Jeanne continued to claim that she was a friend of the Queen’s, that the Queen truly had authorized the sale of the diamond necklace, and that she (Jeanne) was the victim of the Queen’s plot to discredit the Cardinal. Despite her version of the story, she was convicted and sent back into the Conciergerie to await her sentence. In this place at this time, prisoners weren’t told anything, so Jeanne almost certainly had no idea when her sentence would be carried out or what it would be. Of course, her sentence was: to be flogged and branded then imprisoned for life. For the last bit, Jeanne was later transferred to the Salpêtrière, a women’s prison from which she escaped and fled to England.

Jeanne (and her friends, such as Nicole d’Oliva) was hardly the most famous prisoner to pass through the Conciergerie. In latter years, it was known as the waiting room of the Revolution. It held many, many victims of the Terror. Perhaps ironically, one of those prisoners was the Widow Capet–Marie Antoinette. During the September Massacres, victims in the Conciergerie were put to death in the Cour des Femmes/Women’s Courtyard (if I had realized that when I was standing in that courtyard, I would have been duly creeped out). Victims were eventually sentenced in batches. The condemned were taken away immediately in a tumbrel to be executed in the Place de Greve.

Today, when you visit the Conciergerie, you enter into the Salle de Gendarmes. Above this in bygone days was the Grand’Salle of the King’s Chambers. Today it is an impressive,open medieval hall. This and the adjoining, smaller Salle des Gardes were part of the service areas of the medieval palace. The Salle de Gendarmes was the hall where the many servants attendant on the king would dine. Above the Salle des Gardes (not to be confused with the larger Salle de Gendarmes) was the Grand’Chambre. In the Grand’Chambre, the king entertained lavishly in medieval times. During the Revolution, this was where the Revolutionary Court–the one that sentenced all those people to the guillotine–sat and passed judgment. Fire destroyed these upper chambers in the 19th century, and today they belong to the Palais de Justice.

Aside from seeing these remnants of the medieval palace, by going left at the end of the Salle de Gendarmes, you come to the area that has been reconstructed as the Revolutionary prison. Here there are lists of all those beheaded by the Revolution, including Marie-Antoinette, Louis XVI, Madame Elisabeth, Robespierre, Danton, and Desmoulins. There are also some “cells” to show how a prisoner might have been kept. The conditions were generally very poor. There is a cell set up to simulate the one where Marie-Antoinette was kept. There are mannequins. A black-clad Marie-Antoinette sits at her desk, while at her back her two guards are standing behind a screen and watching her (she was perpetually watched by guards). Just beyond this, you can go out into the women’s courtyard, where the lady prisoners could take some air. Presumably, Jeanne de La Motte came here on many occasions. It was here, as I mentioned, that so many were murdered during the September Massacre, after Jeanne had escaped to England. Today, it’s quite peaceful. There is a fountain in the corner where women could wash their clothes.

With that, the tour of the Conciergerie comes to an end.

Inside the Conciergerie.

The Conciergerie in the 15th century

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Grove of Venus

THE GREAT DECEPTION

Imagine, if you will, that you are a young woman raised in poverty but fed on stories of your royal lineage–your great-great-great grandfather was the illegitimate son of Henri II. You have tried everything to get the attention of the King, your distant relative, and the Queen, his wife who is spoiled but generally supposed to guide her husband. You’ve attempted fainting in front of the King’s sister; you’ve attempted to sit in the office of the King’s minster, refusing to leave until you get some more money; you’ve been given the honor of carrying the royal name “Valois” but this hasn’t helped finances. You have been forced to sell the modest pension given to you by the crown–instead of steady installments, you get one lump sum.

Now it’s time to get creative.

A ceiling at Versailles--mostly I add it here because it's pretty.

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois (self-styled “Comtesse”) was nothing if not creative and bold. If she couldn’t get anywhere using the official channels, she would turn to deception. The deception was simple enough: she pretended to be Marie Antoinette’s newest BFF. Being the Queen’s friend didn’t just sound nice. When you had the ear of the Queen, people came flocking to you, asking you to talk to the Queen on their behalf. All she would ask in return was a little (monetary) reward. This was not a new con. It had been done before.

However, Jeanne took it to a startling new level. Her biggest victim was Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan, one of the most important people in France, but on bad terms with the Queen. Jeanne sent him forged letters from “the Queen” and did all kinds of clever things to make him believe that the Queen was willing to reconcile with him. She even convinced him that the Queen needed small loans. The money, of course, went straight into Jeanne’s coffers.

But what is a self-styled Comtesse to do when the Cardinal she is conning begins to doubt her? Set up a face-to-face meeting between the Cardinal and the Queen. [click below to continue reading]