The Historical Nights' Entertainment, Rafael Sabatini [freenovel24 .txt] 📗

>protested - but in an arch manner calculated to convince Bohmer of

the contrary - that she had no power to influence Her Majesty. Yet

yielding with apparent reluctance to his importunities, she,

nevertheless, ended by promising to see what could be done.

 

On January 3d the Cardinal came back from Strasbourg. Correspondence

with the Queen, through Madame de Valois, had continued during his

absence, and now, within a few days of his return, an opportunity

was to be afforded him of proving his readiness to serve Her Majesty,

and of placing her under a profound obligation to him.

 

The Countess brought him a letter from Marie Antoinette, in which

the Queen expressed her desire to acquire the necklace, but added

that, being without the requisite funds at the moment, it would be

necessary to settle the terms and arrange the instalments, which

should be paid at intervals of three months. For this she required

an intermediary who in himself would be a sufficient guarantee to

the Bohmers, and she ended by inviting His Eminence to act on her

behalf.

 

That invitation the Cardinal, who had been waiting ever since the

meeting in the Grove of Venus for an opportunity of proving himself,

accepted with alacrity.

 

And so, on January 24th, the Countess drives up to the Grand Balcon,

the jewellers’ shop in the Rue Vendome. Her dark eyes sparkle, the

lovely, piquant face is wreathed in smiles.

 

“Messieurs,” she greets the anxious partners, “I think I can promise

you that the necklace will very shortly be sold.”

 

The jewellers gasp in the immensity of the hope her words arouse.

 

“The purchase,” she goes on to inform them, “will be effected by a

very great nobleman.”

 

Bassenge bursts into voluble gratitude. She cuts it short.

 

“That nobleman is the Cardinal-Prince Louis de Rohan. It is with

him that you will arrange the affair, and I advise you,” she adds

in a confidential tone, “to take every precaution, especially in

the matter of the terms of payment that may be proposed to you.

That is all, I think, messieurs. You will, of course, bear in mind

that it is no concern of mine, and that I do not so much as want my

name mentioned in connection with it.”

 

“Perfectly, madame,” splutters Bohmer, who is perspiring, although

the air is cold - “perfectly! We understand, and we are profoundly

grateful. If - ” His hands fumble nervously at a case. “If you

would deign, madame, to accept this trifle as an earnest of our

indebtedness, we - “

 

There is a tinge of haughtiness in her manner as she interrupts him.

 

“You do not appear to understand, Bohmer, that the matter does not

at all concern me. I have done nothing,” she insists; then, melting

into smiles, “My only desire,” she adds, “was to be of service to

you.”

 

And upon that she departs, leaving them profoundly impressed by her

graciousness and still more by her refusal to accept a valuable jewel.

 

On the morrow the great nobleman she had heralded, the Cardinal

himself, alighted at the Grand Balcon, coming, on the Queen’s behalf,

to see the necklace and settle the terms. By the end of the week

the bargain was concluded. The price was fixed at 1,600,000 livres,

which the Queen was to pay in four instalments extending over two

years, the first falling due on the following August 1st.

 

These terms the Cardinal embodied in a note which he forwarded to

Madame de la Motte, that they might be ratified by the Queen.

 

The Countess returned the note to him next day.

 

“Her Majesty is pleased and grateful,” she announced, “and she

approves of all that you have done. But she does not wish to sign

anything.”

 

On that point, however, the Cardinal was insistent. The magnitude

of the transaction demanded it, and he positively refused to move

further without Her Majesty’s signature.

 

The Countess departed to return again on the last day of the month

with the document completed as the Cardinal required, bearing now

the signature “Marie Antoinette de France,” and the terms marked

“approved” in the Queen’s hand.

 

“The Queen,” Madame de la Motte informed him, “is making this

purchase secretly, without the King’s knowledge, and she particularly

begs that this note shall not leave Your Eminence’s hands. Do not,

therefore, allow any one to see it.”

 

Rohan gave the required promise, but, not conceiving that the

Bohmers were included in it, he showed them the note and the Queen’s

signature when they came to wait upon him with the necklace on the

morrow.

 

In the dusk of evening a closed carriage drew up at the door of

Madame de la Motte Valois’s lodging on the Place Dauphine at

Versailles. Rohan alighted, and went upstairs with a casket under

his arm.

 

Madame awaited him in a white-panelled, indifferently lighted room,

to which there was an alcove with glass doors.

 

“You have brought the necklace?”

 

“It is here,” he replied, tapping the box with his gloved hand.

 

“Her Majesty is expecting it tonight. Her messenger should arrive

at any moment. She will be pleased with Your Eminence.”

 

“That is all that I can desire,” he answered gravely; and sat down

in answer to her invitation, the precious casket on his knees.

 

Waiting thus, they talked desultorily for some moments. At last

came steps upon the stairs.

 

“Quick! The alcove!” she exclaimed. “You must not be seen by Her

Majesty’s messenger.”

 

Rohan, with ready understanding, a miracle of discretion, effaced

himself into the alcove, through the glass doors of which he could

see what passed.

 

The door was opened by madame’s maid with the announcement:

 

“From the Queen.”

 

A tall, slender young man in black, the Queen’s attendant of that

other night of gems - the night of the Grove of Venus - stepped

quickly into the room, bowed like a courtier to Madame de la Motte,

and presented a note.

 

Madame broke the seal, then begged the messenger to withdraw for a

moment. When he had gone, she turned to the Cardinal, who stood

in the doorway of the alcove.

 

“That is Desclaux, Her Majesty’s valet,” she said; and held out to

him the note, which requested the delivery of the necklace to the

bearer.

 

A moment later the messenger was reintroduced to receive the casket

from the hands of Madame de la Motte. Within five minutes the

Cardinal was in his carriage again, driving happily back to Paris

with his dreams of a queen’s gratitude and confidence.

 

Two days later, meeting Bohmer at Versailles, the Cardinal suggested

to him that he should offer his thanks to the Queen for having

purchased the necklace.

 

Bohmer sought an opportunity for this in vain. None offered. It

was also in vain that he waited to hear that the Queen had worn

the necklace. But he does not appear to have been anxious on that

score. Moreover, the Queen’s abstention was credibly explained by

Madame de la Motte to Laporte with the statement that Her Majesty

did not wish to wear the necklace until it was paid for.

 

With the same explanation she answered the Cardinal’s inquiries in

the following July, when he returned from a three months’ sojourn

in Strasbourg.

 

And she took the opportunity to represent to him that one of the

reasons why the Queen could not yet consider the necklace quite

her own was that she found the price too high.

 

“Indeed, she may be constrained to return it, after all, unless

the Bohmers are prepared to be reasonable.”

 

If His Eminence was a little dismayed by this, at least any nascent

uneasiness was quieted. He consented to see the jewellers in the

matter, and on July 10th - three weeks before the first instalment

was due - he presented himself at the Grand Balcon to convey the

Queen’s wishes to the Bohmers.

 

Bohmer scarcely troubled to prevent disgust from showing on his

keen, swarthy countenance. Had not his client been a queen and

her intermediary a cardinal, he would, no doubt, have afforded it

full expression.

 

“The price agreed upon was already greatly below the value of the

necklace,” he grumbled. “I should never have accepted it but for

the difficulties under which we have been placed by the purchase

of the stones - the money we owe and the interest we are forced to

pay. A further reduction is impossible.”

 

The handsome Cardinal was suave, courtly, regretful, but firm. Since

that was the case, there would be no alternative but to return the

necklace.

 

Bohmer took fright. The annulment of the sale would bring him face

to face with ruin. Reluctantly, feeling that he was being imposed

upon, he reduced the price by two hundred thousand livres, and even

consented to write the Queen the following letter, whose epistolary

grace suggests the Cardinal’s dictation:

 

MADAME, - We are happy to hazard the thought that our submission

with zeal and respect to the last arrangement proposed constitutes

a proof of our devotion and obedience to the orders of Your Majesty.

And we have genuine satisfaction in thinking that the most

beautiful set of diamonds in existence will serve to adorn the

greatest and best of queens.

 

Now it happened that Bohmer was about to deliver personally to the

Queen some jewels with which the King was presenting her on the

occasion of the baptism of his nephew. He availed himself of that

opportunity, two days later, personally to hand his letter to Her

Majesty. But chance brought the Comptroller-General into the room

before she had opened it, and as a result the jeweller departed

while the letter was, still unread.

 

Afterwards, in the presence of Madame de Campan, who relates the

matter in her memoirs, the Queen opened the note, pored over it a

while, and then, perhaps with vivid memories of Bohmer’s threat of

suicide:

 

“Listen to what that madman Bohmer writes to me,” she said, and

read the lines aloud. “You guessed the riddles in the ‘Mercure’

this morning. I wonder could you guess me this one.”

 

And, with a half-contemptuous shrug, she held the sheet in the flame

of one of the tapers that stood alight on the table for the purpose

of sealing letters.

 

“That man exists for my torment,” she continued. “He has always

some mad notion in his head, and must always be visiting it upon me.

When next you see him, pray convince him how little I care for

diamonds.”

 

And there the matter was dismissed.

 

Days passed, and then a week before the instalment of 350,000 livres

was due, the Cardinal received a visit from Madame de la Motte on

the Queen’s behalf.

 

“Her Majesty,” madame announced, “seems embarrassed about the

instalment. She does not wish to trouble you by writing about it.

But I have thought of a way by which you could render yourself

agreeable to her and, at the same time, set her mind at rest. Could

you not raise a loan for the amount?”

 

Had not the Cardinal himself dictated to Bohmer a letter which

Bohmer himself had delivered to the Queen, he must inevitably have

suspected by now that all was not as it should be. But, satisfied

as he was by that circumstance, he addressed himself to the matter

which Madame de la Motte proposed. But, although Rohan was

extraordinarily wealthy, he had ever been correspondingly lavish.

 

Moreover, to complicate matters, there had been the bankruptcy of

his nephew, the Prince de Guimenee, whose debts had amounted to

some three million livres. Characteristically, and for the sake

of the family honour, Rohan had taken