The Mastery of Success - Thorstein Veblen

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or how, we do not know, any more than we know Life. The devil himself might have furnished that which now popped into the cunning, wicked mind of this adventuress. This is what she saw all at once:

      Boehmer is crazy to sell his necklace. De Rohan is crazy after the Queen’s favor. I am crazy after money. Now if I can make De Rohan think that the Queen wants the necklace, and will become his friend in return for his helping her to it; if I can make him think I am her agent to him, then I can steal the diamonds in their transit.

      A wonderfully cunning and hardy scheme! And most wonderful was the cool, keen promptitude with which it was executed.

      The countess began to hint to the cardinal that she was fast getting into the Queen’s good graces, by virtue of being a capital gossip and story-teller; and that she had frequent private audiences. Soon she added intimations that the Queen was far from being really so displeased with the cardinal, as he supposed. At this the old fool bit instantly, and showed the keenest emotions of hope and delight. On a further suggestion, he presently drew up a letter or memoir humbly and plaintively stating his case, which the countess undertook to put into the Queen’s hands. It was the first of over two hundred notes from him, notes of abasement, beseeching argument, expostulation, and so on, all entrusted to Jeanne. She burnt them, I suppose.

      In order to make her dupe sure that she told the truth about her access to the Queen, Jeanne more than once made him go and watch her enter a side gate into the grounds of the Trianon palace, to which she had somehow obtained a key; and after waiting he saw her come out again, sometimes under the escort of a man, who was, she said one Desclos, a confidential valet of the Queen. This was Villette de Rétaux, a “pal” of Jeanne’s and of her husband Lamotte, who had, by the way, become a low-class gambler and swindler by occupation.

      Next Jeanne talked about the Queen’s charities; and on one occasion, told how much the amiable Marie Antoinette longed to expend certain sums for benevolent purposes if she only had them—but she was out of funds, and the King was so close about money!

      The poor cardinal bit again—“If the Queen would only allow him the honor to furnish the little amount!”

      The countess evidently hadn’t thought of that. She reflected—hesitated. The cardinal urged. She consented—it was not much—and was so kind as to carry the cash herself. At their next meeting she reported that the Queen was delighted, telling a very nice story about it. The cardinal would only be too happy to do so again. And sure enough he did, and quite a number of times too; contributing in all to the funds of the countess in this manner, about $25,000.

      Well: after a time the cardinal is at Strasburg, when he receives a note from the countess that brings him back again as quick as post-horses can carry him. It says that there is something very important, very secret, very delicate, that the queen wants his help about. He is overflowing with zeal. What is it? Only let him know—his life, his purse, his soul, are at the service of his liege lady.

      His purse is all that is needed. With infinite shyness and circumspection, the countess gradually, half unwillingly, lets him find out that it is the diamond necklace that the Queen wants. By diabolical ingenuities of talk she leads de Rohan to the full conviction that if he secures the Queen that necklace, he will thenceforward bask in all the sunshine of court favor that she can show or control.

      And at proper times sundry notes from the Queen are bestowed upon the enraptured noodle. These are written in imitation of the Queen’s handwriting, by that Villette de Rétaux who personated the Queen’s valet, and who was an expert at counterfeiting.

      A last and sublime summit of impudent pretension is reached by a secret interview which the Queen, says the countess, desires to grant to her beloved servant the cardinal. This suggestion was rendered practicable by one of those mere coincidences which are found though rarely in history, and which are too improbable to put into a novel—the casual discovery of a young woman of loose character who looked much like the Queen. Whether her name was d’Essigny or Gay d’Oliva, is uncertain; she is usually called by the latter. She was hired and taught; and with immense precautions, this ostrich of a cardinal was one night introduced into the gardens of the Trianon, and shown a little nook among the thickets where a stately female in the similitude of the Queen received him with soft spoken words of kindly greeting, allowed him to kneel and kiss a fair and shapely hand, and showed no particular timidity of any kind. Yet the interview had scarcely more than begun before steps were heard. “Some one is coming,” exclaimed the lady, “it is Monsieur and Madame d’Artois—We must part. There”—she gave him a red rose—“You know what that means! Farewell!” And away they went—Mademoiselle d’Oliva to report to her employers, and the cardinal, in a seventh heaven of ineffable tomfoolery, to his hotel.

      But the interview, and the lovely little notes that came sometimes, “fixed” the necklace business! And if further encouragement had been needed, Cagliostro gave it. For the cardinal now consulted him about the future of the affair, having indeed kept him fully informed about it for a long time, as he did of all matters of interest. So the quack set up his tabernacles of mummery in a parlor of the cardinal’s hotel, and conducted an Egyptian Invocation there all night long in solitude and pomp; and in the morning he decreed (in substance) “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 Rétaux in the margin, thus: “Bon, bon—Approuvé, 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 Rétaux, 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 waked up a commotion at once. The baron de Breteuil, a deadly enemy of de Rohan, got hold of it all, and in his overpowering eagerness to ruin his foe, quickly rendered the matter so public that it was out of the question to hush it up. It seems probable that Jeanne de Lamotte expected that the business would be kept quiet for the sake of the Queen, and that thus any very severe or public punishments would be avoided and perhaps no inquiries made. It is clear that this would have been the best plan, but de Breteuil’s officiousness prevented it, and there was nothing for it but legal measures. De Rohan was arrested and put in the Bastile, having barely been able to send a message in German to his hotel to a trusty secretary, who instantly destroyed all the papers relating to the affair. Jeanne was also imprisoned, and Miss Gay d’Oliva and Villette de Rétaux, being caught at Brussels and Amsterdam, were in like manner

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