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Historical Mysteries

<h2>XIV</h2> <h2>THE END OF JEANNE DE LA MOTTE</h2>   In the latest and best book on Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace, L'Affaire du Collier, Monsieur Funck-Brentano does not tell the sequel of the story of Jeanne de la Motte, née de Saint-Remy, and calling herself de Valois. He leaves this wicked woman at the moment when (June 21, 1786) she has been publicly flogged and branded, struggling, scratching, and biting like a wild cat. Her husband, at about the same time, was in Edinburgh, and had just escaped from being kidnapped by the French police. In another work Monsieur Funck-Brentano criticises, with his remarkable learning, the conclusion of the history of Jeanne de la Motte. Carlyle, in his well-known essay, The Diamond Necklace, leaves Jeanne's later adventures obscure, and is in doubt as to the particulars of her death. Perhaps absolute certainty (except as to the cause of Jeanne's death) is not to be obtained. How she managed to escape from her prison, the Salpétrière, later so famous for Charcot's hypnotic experiments on hysterical female patients, remains[Pg 298] a mystery. It was certain that if she was once at liberty Jeanne would tell the lies against the Queen which she had told before, and tell some more equally false, popular, and damaging. Yet escape she did in 1787, the year following that of her imprisonment at the Salpétrière; she reached England, compiled the libels which she called her memoirs, and died strangely in 1791. On June 21, 1786, to follow M. Funck-Brentano, Jeanne was taken, after her flogging, to her prison, reserved for dissolute women. The majority of the captives slept as they might, confusedly, in one room. To Jeanne was allotted one of thirty-six little cells of six feet square, given up to her by a prisoner who went to join the promiscuous horde. Probably the woman was paid for this generosity by some partisan of Jeanne. On September 4 the property of the swindler and of her husband, including their valuable furniture, jewels, books, and plate, was sold at Bar-sur-Aube, where they had a house. So far we can go, guided by M. Funck-Brentano, who relies on authentic documents. For what followed we have only the story of Jeanne herself in her memoirs: I quote the English translation, which appears to vary from the French. How did such a dangerous prisoner make her escape? We cannot but wonder that she was not placed in a prison more secure. Her own version, of course, is not to be relied on. She would tell any tale that suited her purpose. A version which con[Pg 299]tradicts hers has reached me through the tradition of an English family, but it presents some difficulties. Jeanne says that about the end of November or early in December, 1786, she was allowed to have a maid named Angelica. This woman was a prisoner of long standing, condemned on suspicion of having killed her child. One evening a soldier on guard in the court of the Salpétrière passed his musket through a hole in the wall (or a broken window) and tried to touch Angelica. He told her that many people of rank were grateful to her for her kindness to Madame La Motte. He would procure writing materials for her that she might represent her case to them. He did bring gilt-edged paper, pens, and ink, and a letter for Angelica, who could not read. The letter contained, in invisible ink, brought out by Jeanne, the phrase, 'It is understood. Be sure to be discreet.' 'People are intent on changing your condition' was another phrase which Jeanne applied to herself. She conceived the probable hypothesis that her victims, the Queen and the Cardinal de Rohan, had repented of their cruelty, had discovered her to be innocent and were plotting for her escape. Of course, nothing could be more remote from the interests of the Queen. Presently the soldier brought another note. Jeanne must procure a model of the key that locked her cell and other doors. By dint of staring at the key in the hands of the nuns who looked after the prisoners, Jeanne, though[Pg 300] unable to draw, made two sketches of it, and sent them out, the useful soldier managing all communications. How Jeanne procured the necessary pencil she does not inform us. Practical locksmiths may decide whether it is likely that, from two amateur drawings, not to scale, any man could make a key which would fit the locks. The task appears impossible. In any case, in a few days the soldier pushed the key through the hole in the wall; Jeanne tried it on the door of her cell and on two doors in the passages, found that it opened them, and knelt in gratitude before her crucifix. In place of running away Jeanne now wrote to ladies of her acquaintance, begging them to procure the release of Angelica. Her nights she spent in writing three statements for the woman, each occupying a hundred and eighty pages, presumably of gilt-edged paper. Soon she heard that the King had signed Angelica's pardon, and on May 1 the woman was released. The next move of Jeanne was to ask her unknown friend outside to send her a complete male costume, a large blue coat, a flannel waistcoat, a pair of half boots, and a tall, round-shaped hat, with a switch. The soldier presently pushed these commodities through the hole in the wall. The chaplain next asked her to write out all her story, but Sister Martha, her custodian, would not give her writing materials, and it did not apparently occur to her to bid the soldier bring fresh supplies. Cut off from the joys of literary composition, Jeanne[Pg 301] arranged with her unknown friend to escape on June 8. First the handy soldier, having ample leisure, was to walk for days about 'the King's garden,' disguised as a waggoner, and carrying a whip. The use of this manœuvre is not apparent, unless Jeanne, with her switch, was to be mistaken for the familiar presence of the carter. Jeanne ended by devising a means of keeping one of the female porters away from her door. She dressed as a man, opened four doors in succession, walked through a group of the nuns, or 'Sisters,' wandered into many other courts, and at last joined herself to a crowd of sight-seeing Parisians and left the prison in their company. She crossed the Seine, and now walking, now hiring coaches, and using various disguises, she reached Luxembourg. Here a Mrs. MacMahon met her, bringing a note from M. de la Motte. This was on July 27. Mrs. MacMahon and Jeanne started next day for Ostend, and arrived at Dover after a passage of forty-two hours. Jeanne then repaired with Mr. MacMahon to that lady's house in the Haymarket. This tale is neither coherent nor credible. On the other hand, the tradition of an English family avers that a Devonshire gentleman was asked by an important personage in France to succour an unnamed lady who was being smuggled over in a sailing boat to our south-west coast. Another gentleman, not unknown to history, actually entertained this French angel unawares, not even knowing her name, and Jeanne, when she departed for[Pg 302] London, left a miniature of herself which is still in the possession of the English family. Which tale is true and who was the unknown friend that suborned the versatile soldier, and sent in not only gilt-edged paper and a suit of male attire, but money for Jeanne's journey? Only the Liberals in France had an interest in Jeanne's escape; she might exude more useful venom against the Queen in books or pamphlets, and she did, while giving the world to understand that the Queen had favoured her flight. The escape is the real mystery of the affair of the Necklace; the rest we now understand. The death of Jeanne was strange. The sequel to her memoirs, in English, avers that in 1791 a bailiff came to arrest her for a debt of 30l. She gave him a bottle of wine, slipped from the room, and locked him in. But he managed to get out, and discovered the wretched woman in a chamber in 'the two-pair back.' She threw up the window, leaped out, struck against a tree, broke one knee, shattered one thigh, knocked one eye out, yet was recovering, when, on August 21, 1791, she partook too freely of mulberries (to which she was very partial), and died on Tuesday, August 23. This is confirmed by two newspaper paragraphs, which I cite in full. First, the London Chronicle writes (from Saturday, August 27, to Tuesday, August 30, 1791): 'The unfortunate Countess de la Motte, who died on Tuesday last in consequence of a hurt[Pg 303] from jumping out of a window, was the wife of Count de la Motte, who killed young Grey, the jeweller, in a duel a few days ago at Brussels.' (This duel is recorded in the London Chronicle, August 20-23.) Next, the Public Advertiser remarks (Friday, August 26, 1791): 'The noted Countess de la Motte, of Necklace memory, and who lately jumped out of a two-pair of stairs window to avoid the bailiffs, died on Tuesday night last, at eleven o'clock, at her lodgings near Astley's Riding School.' But why did La Motte fight the young jeweller? It was to Grey, of New Bond Street, that La Motte sold a number of the diamonds from the necklace; Grey gave evidence to that fact, and La Motte killed him. La Motte himself lived to a bad old age. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> On studying M. Funck-Brentano's work, styled Cagliostro & Company in the English translation, one observes a curious discrepancy. According to the Gazette d'Utrecht, cited by M. Funck-Brentano, the window in Jeanne's cell was 'at a height of ten feet above the floor.' Yet the useful soldier, outside, introduced the end of his musket 'through a broken pane of glass.' This does not seem plausible. Again, the Gazette d'Utrecht (August 1, 1780) says that Jeanne made a hole in the wall of her room, but failed to get her body[Pg 304] through that aperture. Was that the hole through which, in the English translation published after Jeanne's death, the soldier introduced the end of his musket? There are difficulties in both versions, and it is not likely that Jeanne gave a truthful account of her escape. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>SMITH, ELDER, & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.</h2> THACKERAY IN THE UNITED STATES. By General James Grant Wilson, Author of 'The Life of General Grant.' With 2 Photogravure Portraits, 50 Full-page Illustrations, and numerous Illustrations in the Text. Two Volumes. Small demy 8vo. 18s. net. TIMES.—'One cannot lay it down. The countless ugly, vivid images that were always jumping off the end of Thackeray's pen laugh everywhere. 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TIMES.—'The book is, as it were, a reliquary, containing Mrs. Sartoris's qualities; and Mrs. Ritchie has woven a delicate lace covering for it in a pattern of wreathed memories, blossoming, branching, intertwining—and in the midst of them a whole nosegay of impressions which still keep their fragrance.' London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place, S.W. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> <div class="footnote">[1] Puzzles and Paradoxes, pp. 317-336, Blackwoods, 1874. </div> <div class="footnote">[2] Paget, p. 332. </div> <div class="footnote">[3] My italics. Did Fielding abandon his belief in Elizabeth? </div> <div class="footnote">[4] See p. 38, supra. </div> <div class="footnote">[5] Paget, Paradoxes and Puzzles, p. 342. Blackwoods, 1874. </div> <div class="footnote">[6] See his Paradoxes and Puzzles, pp. 337-370, and, for good reading, see the book passim. </div> <div class="footnote">[7] Not only have I failed to trace the records of the Assize at which the Perrys were tried, but the newspapers of 1660 seem to contain no account of the trial (as they do in the case of the Drummer of Tedworth, 1663), and Miss E.M. Thompson, who kindly undertook the search, has not even found a ballad or broadside on 'The Campden Wonder' in the British Museum. The pamphlet of 1676 has frequently been republished, in whole or in part, as in State Trials, vol. xiv., in appendix to the case of Captain Green; which see, infra, p. 193, et seq. </div> <div class="footnote">[8] Really, the prosecution did not make this point: an oversight. </div> <div class="footnote">[9] They are in the possession of Mr. Walter Blaikie, who kindly lent them to me. </div> <div class="footnote">[10] Hachette, Paris, 1903. The author has made valuable additions and corrections. </div> <div class="footnote">[11] The Story of Kaspar Hauser from Authentic Records. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., London, 1892. </div> <div class="footnote">[12] Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, vol. vii. pp. 221-257. </div> <div class="footnote">[13] 'The True Discourse of the Late Treason,' State Papers, Scotland, Elizabeth, vol. lvi. No. 50. </div> <div class="footnote">[14] Burton, History of Scotland, v. 336. </div> <div class="footnote">[15] The story, with many new documents, is discussed at quite full length in the author's King James and the Gowrie Mystery, Longmans, 1902. </div> <div class="footnote">[16] I follow Incidents in My Life, Series i. ii., 1864, 1872. The Gift of Daniel Home, by Madame Douglas Home and other authorities. </div> <div class="footnote">[17] Home mentions this fact in a note, correcting an error of Sir David Brewster's, Incidents, ii. 48, Note 1. The Earl of Home about 1856 asked questions on the subject, and Home 'stated what my connection with the family was.' Dunglas is the second title in the family. </div> <div class="footnote">[18] The curious reader may consult my Cock Lane and Common Sense, and The Making of Religion, for examples of savage, mediæval, ancient Egyptian, and European cases. </div> <div class="footnote">[19] Incidents, ii. 105. </div> <div class="footnote">[20] Journal S.P.R., May 1903, pp. 77, 78. </div> <div class="footnote">[21] Human Personality, ii. 546, 547. By 'Ectoplastic' Mr. Myers appears to have meant small 'materialisations' exterior to the 'medium.' </div> <div class="footnote">[22] Journal S.P.R., July 1889, p. 101. </div> <div class="footnote">[23] Contemporary Review, January 1876. </div> <div class="footnote">[24] Contemporary Review, vol. xxvii. p. 286. </div> <div class="footnote">[25] Cf. Making of Religion, p. 362, 1898. </div> <div class="footnote">[26] Quarterly Review, 1871, pp. 342, 343. </div> <div class="footnote">[27] Proceedings S.P.R. vi. 98. </div> <div class="footnote">[28] Mr. Merrifield has reiterated his opinion that the conditions of light were adequate for his view of the object described on p. 184, supra. Journal S.P.R. October 1904. </div> <div class="footnote">[29] Gibbet. </div> <div class="footnote">[30] Fisher Unwin. </div> <div class="footnote">[31] The trial is in Howell's State Trials, vol. xiv. 1812. Roderick Mackenzie's account of his seizure of the 'Worcester' was discovered by the late Mr. Hill Burton, in an oak chest in the Advocates' Library, and is published in his Scottish Criminal Trials, vol. i., 1852. </div> <div class="footnote">[32] Narrative of Frances Shaftoe. Printed 1707. </div> <div class="footnote">[33] Boyer, Reign of Queen Anne. </div> <div class="footnote">[34] Article, 'Oglethorpe (Sir Theophilus).' </div> <div class="footnote">[35] Carte MSS. </div> <div class="footnote">[36] Macpherson, Hanoverian Papers. </div> <div class="footnote">[37] Carte MSS. In the Bodleian. </div> <div class="footnote">[38] Gualterio MSS. Add. MSS. British Museum. </div> <div class="footnote">[39] Wolff, Odd Bits of History (1844), pp. 1-58. </div> <div class="footnote">[40] The facts are taken from Ailesbury's, de Luynes', Dangeau's, and d'Argenson's Memoirs; from Boyer's History, and other printed books, and from the Newcastle, Hearne, Carte, and Gualterio MSS. in the Bodleian and the British Museum. </div> <div class="footnote">[41] The most recent work on d'Éon, Le Chevalier d'Éon, par Octave Homberg and Fernand Jousselin (Plon-Nourrit, Paris, 1904), is rather disappointing. The authors aver that at a recent sale they picked up many MSS. of d'Éon 'which had lain for more than a century in the back shop of an English bookseller.' No other reference as to authenticity is given, and some letters to d'Éon of supreme importance are casually cited, but are not printed. On the other hand, we have many new letters for the later period of the life of the hero. The best modern accounts are that by the Duc de Broglie, who used the French State archives and his own family papers in Le Secret du Roi (Paris, 1888), and The Strange Career of the Chevalier d'Éon (1885), by Captain J. Buchan Telfer, R.N. (Longmans, 1885), a book now out of print. The author was industrious, but not invariably happy in his translations of French originals. D'Éon himself drew up various accounts of his adventures, some of which he published. They are oddly careless in the essential matter of dates, but contain many astounding genuine documents, which lend a sort of 'doubtsome trust' to others, hardly more incredible, which cannot be verified, and are supposed by the Duc de Broglie to be 'interpolations.' Captain Buchan Telfer is less sceptical. The doubtfulness, to put it mildly, of some papers, and the pretty obvious interpolations in others, deepen the obscurity. </div> <div class="footnote">[42] Le Chevalier d'Éon, p. 18. </div> <div class="footnote">[43] Broglie, Secret du Roi, ii. 51, note. </div> <div class="footnote">[44] Political Register, Sept. 1767; Buchan Telfer, p. 181. </div> <div class="footnote">[45] One of these gives Madame de Vieux-Maison as the author of a roman à clef, Secret Memoirs of the Court of Persia, which contains an early reference to the Man in the Iron Mask (died 1703). The letter-writer avers that D'Argenson, the famous minister of Louis XV., said that the Man in the Iron Mask was really a person fort peu de chose, 'of very little account,' and that the Regent d'Orléans was of the same opinion. This corroborates my theory, that the Mask was merely the valet of a Huguenot conspirator, Roux de Marsilly, captured in England, and imprisoned because he was supposed to know some terrible secret—which he knew nothing about. See The Valet's Tragedy, Longmans, 1903. </div> <div class="footnote">[46] Voyage en Angleterre, 1770. </div> <div class="footnote">[47] The Duc de Broglie, I am privately informed, could find no clue to the mystery of Saint-Germain. </div> <div class="footnote">[48] An Englishman in Paris, vol. i. pp. 130-133. London 1892. </div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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