“I have been accused of having opened the prison doors of the culprit Lamotte for her escape; but the charge is false.  I interested myself, as was my duty, to shield the Queen from public reproach by having Lamotte sent to a place of penitence; but I never interfered, except to lessen her punishment, after the judicial proceedings.  The diamonds, in the hands of her vile associates at Paris, procured her ample means to escape.  I should have been the Queen’s greatest enemy had I been the cause of giving liberty to one who acted, and might naturally have been expected to act, as this depraved woman did.

“Through the private correspondence which was carried on between this country and England, after I had left it, I was informed that M. de Calonne, whom the Queen never liked, and who was called to the administration against her will—­which he knew, and consequently became one of her secret enemies in the affair of the necklace—­was discovered to have been actively employed against Her Majesty in the work published in London by Lamotte.

“Mr. Sheridan was the gentleman who first gave me this information.

“I immediately sent a trusty person by the Queen’s orders to London, to buy up the whole work.  It was too late.  It had been already so widely circulated that its consequences could no longer be prevented.  I was lucky enough, however, for a considerable sum, to get a copy from a person intimate with the author, the margin of which, in the handwriting of M. de Calonne, actually contained numerous additional circumstances which were to have been published in a second edition!  This publication my agent, aided by some English gentlemen, arrived in time to suppress.

“The copy I allude to was brought to Paris and shown to the Queen.  She instantly flew with it in her hands to the King’s cabinet.

“‘Now, Sire,’ exclaimed she, ’I hope you will be convinced that my enemies are those whom I have long considered as the most pernicious of Your Majesty’s Councillors—­your own Cabinet Ministers—­your M. de Calonne!—­respecting whom I have often given you my opinion, which, unfortunately, has always been attributed to mere female caprice, or as having been biassed by the intrigues of Court favourites!  This, I hope, Your Majesty will now be able to contradict!’

“The King all this time was looking over the different pages containing M. de Calonne’s additions on their margins.  On recognising the hand-writing, His Majesty was so affected by this discovered treachery of his Minister and the agitation of his calumniated Queen that he could scarcely articulate.

“‘Where,’ said he, I did you procure this?’

“’Through the means, Sire, of some of the worthy members of that nation your treacherous Ministers made our enemy—­from England! where your unfortunate Queen, your injured wife, is compassionated!’

“‘Who got it for you?’

“’My dearest, my real, and my only sincere friend, the Princesse de Lamballe!’