[The guilty woman no sooner knew that all was about to be discovered than she sent for the jewellers, and told them the Cardinal had perceived that the agreement, which he believed to have been signed by the Queen, was a false and forged document.  “However,” added she, “the Cardinal possesses a considerable fortune, and he can very well pay you.”  These words reveal the whole secret.  The Countess had taken the necklace to herself, and flattered herself that M. de Rohan, seeing himself deceived and cruelly imposed upon, would determine to pay and make the beat terms he could, rather than suffer a matter of this nature to become public.-"Secret Correspondence of the Court of Louis XVI.”]

The procureur general’s information was severe on the Cardinal.  The Houses of Conde and Rohan and the majority of the nobility saw in this affair only an attack on the Prince’s rank, the clergy only a blow aimed at the privileges of a cardinal.  The clergy demanded that the unfortunate business of the Prince Cardinal de Rohan should be submitted to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, then President of the Convocation, made representations upon the subject to the King; the bishops wrote to his Majesty to remind him that a private ecclesiastic implicated in the affair then pending would have a right to claim his constitutional judges, and that this right was refused to a cardinal, his superior in the hierarchical order.  In short, the clergy and the greater part of the nobility were at that time outrageous against authority, and chiefly against the Queen.

The procureur-general’s conclusions, and those of a part of the heads of the magistracy, were as severe towards the Cardinal as the information had been; yet he was fully acquitted by a majority of three voices; the woman De Lamotte was condemned to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned; and her husband, for contumacy, was condemned to the galleys for life.

[The following extract is from the “Memoirs” of the Abbe Georgel:  “The sittings were long and multiplied; it was necessary to read the whole proceedings; more than fifty judges sat; a master of requests; a friend of the Prince, wrote down all that was said there, and sent it to his advisers, who found means to inform the Cardinal of it, and to add the plan of conduct he ought to pursue.”  D’Epremesnil, and other young counsellors, showed upon that occasion but too much audacity in braving the Court, too much eagerness in seizing an opportunity of attacking it.  They were the first to shake that authority which their functions made it a duty in them to respect.—­Note by the editor.]

M. Pierre de Laurencel, the procureur general’s substitute, sent the Queen a list of the names of the members of the Grand Chamber, with the means made use of by the friends of the Cardinal to gain their votes during the trial.  I had this list to keep among the papers which the Queen deposited in the house of M. Campan, my father-in-law, and which, at his death, she ordered me to preserve.  I burnt this statement, but I remember ladies performed a part not very creditable to their principles; it was by them, in consideration of large sums which they received, that some of the oldest and most respected members were won over.  I did not see a single name amongst the whole Parliament that was gained directly.