She would wait in the Galerie at Versailles to see the Queen pass; she would study her well; and all the time she was turning over in her mind how she could make herself rich, respected, and received at Court.


* * *

Jeanne had a lover – a cunning man, Retaux de Villette. They schemed together as they lay in bed at night.

‘You should not neglect your good friend the Cardinal,’ Retaux warned her. ‘He is too rich and influential to be neglected.’

This was true. Often Jeanne called at the Episcopal Palace to see her old benefactor and to remind him of times past.

The Cardinal fascinated her. She knew him well. He was a Prince, a relation of the royal family; he was cultured and of high rank in the church, and yet it seemed to Jeanne that the Cardinal was in some ways a fool.

He was, for one thing, completely under the influence – perhaps control – of a strange man, Joseph Balsamo, who called himself the Comte de Cagliastro but was in reality the son of a converted Sicilian Jew who had died when Joseph was a boy. In their home at Palermo the young Joseph had been apprenticed to an apothecary. He was a strange boy, and had declared from the first his belief in occult powers; he developed certain tricks, and was both a conjurer and a ventriloquist. Of striking appearance, he was undoubtedly possessed of certain hypnotic powers which he developed. With all these gifts he had at an early age set out to make his fortune.

During the first stages of his career he had been in trouble more than once when he had been accused of being a common thief and swindler, but later he became a Freemason and was received with honour in the various countries he visited. It was thus that he came to be regarded as a man of superhuman powers and there were many who were ready to listen to him.

One of these was the Cardinal de Rohan whom he had completely fascinated. Cagliostro now lived in the Cardinal’s palace and was deferred to by all therein. There he worked at his crucible and declared that he could make gold and precious stones.

Cagliostro, some said, had exerted his powerful influence over the Cardinal so that in him de Rohan could see no wrong.

‘Have a care, Monseigneur,’ warned his friends. ‘This man whom you harbour in your house will make great demands upon you.’

‘He asks me nothing … nothing,’ declared the Cardinal. ‘He will make me the richest prince in the world, and he asks nothing for it. He is divine. There are times when I think Cagliostro – who has lived through many centuries – is God himself.’

Truly the Cardinal was bewitched.

And if he could be bewitched by a sorcerer, thought Jeanne, why should he not be bewitched by a clever woman?

Jeanne made the acquaintance of Cagliostro who was so interested in the young woman that he would occasionally walk with her in the gardens of the Episcopal Palace and, on one memorable occasion, he discussed the Cardinal.

‘Monseigneur has two great desires in this life,’ Cagliostro told Jeanne.

‘And they are, Master?’

‘Why should I tell you?’ asked Cagliostro, turning his brilliant gaze upon the woman at his side. ‘But methinks I will. For I shall then have the pleasure of seeing what you make of the knowledge. But indeed I know; for, my child, all things are known to me.’

Even a practical woman such as Jeanne could not but be affected by the man. He walked beside her, his wide nostrils flaring with that passion which seemed to be pent up within him; with his olive complexion and rather prominent and piercing black eyes the man was striking enough; his hands were folded behind him and his taffeta coat, which was trimmed with gold braid, was open to show his scarlet waistcoat, embroidered with gold; his red breeches and his stockings were of many colours which were also touched with gold. He wore many jewels – diamonds flashed on his fingers, rubies as buttons adorned his waistcoat; his watch-chain was composed of diamonds; and all these stones were enormous. It was said he had made them himself. Some said they were paste; yet they seemed to sparkle with a brilliance greater than that of other stones. Some said that Cagliostro put a spell on all those who looked at his jewels, so that they saw them as he wished them to.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘I will tell you of the two wishes which are dear to the Cardinal’s heart. He has brooded much on other Cardinals who have played their part in the history of his country. There are times when he tells me the secrets of his heart and knows not afterwards that he has spoken of them. He talks much of Cardinal Richelieu. He talks of Cardinal Mazarin; and he dreams of the day when men and women will talk of the great part Cardinal de Rohan played in the history of his country.’

Jeanne said: ‘Yes, Master. I know it.’

‘Yes, you know it, my child. You know it even as I know, for I have willed that you should know it. And know you this. He thinks constantly of the Queen. He believes that if he were the lover of the Queen there would be nothing to stand between him and his desires. He longs to be the lover of the Queen; he constantly searches for the means of winning her favour.’ Cagliostro turned his prominent eyes on Jeanne. ‘You, my child, tell us you have found favour with the Queen. You tell us that she receives you and calls you cousin.’

Jeanne shivered. He knows I lie, she thought. He must know. The Master knows everything.

She felt the white fingers touch her shoulder. She did not look down but she was aware of the flashing diamonds, the ruby that was almost the size of an egg.

‘Since you tell us the Queen receives you,’ said the strange man, ‘mayhap you could speak to her on the Cardinal’s behalf. That, my child, would do you much good with the Cardinal.’

Then he left her; and Jeanne pondered. She thought of the flashing diamonds of the sorcerer, and it was then that she conceived the idea.


* * *

So Jeanne talked to the Cardinal of her triumphs with the Queen. Rétaux, who was by profession a clerk, had a gift for adapting his handwriting to various styles, and he produced a flowing feminine one in which he wrote a letter addressed to ‘My dear cousin Valois’, signed as by the Queen.

The Cardinal read the letter, and as he read it Jeanne was aware of the shadow of Cagliostro passing the window. Jeanne was trembling, for she feared the Cardinal must recognise the forgery. It seemed incredible that he – a Prince accustomed to royal documents – should not have recognised a clerk’s clumsy hand in this, but he did not.

‘I have spoken to Her Majesty of your Excellency,’ Jeanne said. ‘She has at times felt hatred towards you for what you said of her mother, but she has whispered to me that it is unchristian to preserve such hatreds for ever.’

The Cardinal, seeming bemused, was enchanted with this news; yet Jeanne was aware of a certain bewilderment which crossed his features, and she said quickly: ‘I think that if I assured Her Majesty of your desolation at the rift between you, and that it is your greatest desire to serve her, she might give some sign of her changed feelings for you.’

‘Bring me this sign,’ said the Cardinal.

In a few days Jeanne returned with a letter which she said the Queen had entrusted to her for delivery to the Cardinal.

It ran:

‘I am delighted that I need no longer regard you as blameworthy. It is not possible to grant you yet an audience such as you desire, but I will let you know when circumstances permit this. Meanwhile be discreet …’

And this extraordinary document was signed ‘Marie Antoinette de France.’

The Cardinal, in his delight, showered gifts on Jeanne – the clever go-between through whose favour he might win the Queen’s.

How to turn this amazing situation to greater advantage occupied Jeanne and her lover day and night. Jeanne was a bold schemer and she believed so fervently in her own astuteness that she never hesitated to put into action her most outrageous plans.

She now told the Cardinal that the Queen was short of money and was asking him to show his esteem by lending her 50,000 livres, which should be handed to her dear friend the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois. The Cardinal showed signs of suspicions, so Jeanne hastily declared that the Queen would meet him for a few moments in the gardens of Versailles. This meeting must be very secret. She could not explain why, but he would know later when Antoinette was able to receive him openly.

The Cardinal, overjoyed, borrowed the 50,000 livres from a moneylender and gave the money to Jeanne; this was riches in the household in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, but both Jeanne and Retaux realised that unless they could procure a ‘Queen’ to meet the Cardinal it would be the last of their pickings.

They were bemused by their success; they had come to believe that they could do exactly what they liked with the gullible Cardinal, so Retaux discovered a modiste who was a prostitute in her spare time, a very pretty, fair young woman in whom many noticed a faint resemblance to the Queen.

They brought her to the house in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles and offered her what seemed to her a fabulous sum if she would do exactly what they wanted. They rehearsed her in what she must say, dressed her in muslin such as the Queen wore for her simple country life at Trianon, and took her one starry night to the grove of Venus in the Versailles gardens where the trees were so thick that it was impossible to see clearly the faces of those who sheltered beneath them. There Mademoiselle d’Oliva waited, nervously clutching a rose and a letter which she was to give to a tall gentleman who would come to her and converse for a few seconds only. With her was Retaux in the livery of a royal servant which he had managed to procure, and also Jeanne who would help her if she needed help.

The tall handsome man came to the rendezvous; he was wrapped in a great cloak and, as soon as he saw the little prostitute, he knelt and kissed the hem of her muslin gown.

Mademoiselle d’Oliva whispered: ‘You may hope that the past will be forgotten.’

The dark man was on his feet. He had taken her hand.

She proffered the rose which he took eagerly.

At that moment Jeanne whispered in a voice of great alarm: ‘Come away … quickly, Madame. Someone comes this way. You must not be discovered.’

Only too glad to have played her part, Mademoiselle d’Oliva turned and hurried away with Jeanne.

After that incident it was easy to draw more sums from the Cardinal.

Then to Jeanne came the great idea of making herself rich for ever.


* * *

She was entertaining lavishly on the money which the Cardinal had provided; her friends were certain that she had some high place at Court. Several times a week they saw her ride out in her carriage for Versailles. There she would alight and wait with the crowds in the courtyards or the Galerie, and whenever possible study the Queen. She could then go home and describe to her friends what the Queen wore, what she looked like that day – in fact, with the aid of her memory and her vivid imagination, she was able to give credibility to this story of her friendship with Antoinette.

And to one of her parties a friend brought Boehmer the Court jeweller. He was very deferential to the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois, and asked if he might speak to her alone.

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I find myself in great financial difficulties. There is a diamond necklace which I made in the hope that the Queen would buy it. I have put myself and my partners deeply in debt in order to procure only the finest stones; and the skilled workmanship which has gone into the making of this necklace is the best in the world. But if the Queen cannot be persuaded to buy this necklace – and no one else in the country could afford to do so – I and my partner are ruined men. Now you are the Queen’s dear friend. If you could persuade her to buy this necklace, believe me, dear Comtesse, I should be ready to offer you a very big commission.’

Jeanne considered this. It would have been a pleasant way of earning money, if she had known the Queen, if she had been in a position to persuade her.

She said she would do what she could, and the jeweller went away somewhat relieved.

She continued to think of the necklace, and eventually asked the jeweller if he would bring it to her house and show it to her.

As soon as she set eyes on it her fertile mind began to work. She dreamed of the necklace. She did not see the beauty of those magnificent stones and their clever setting; she saw 1,600,000 livres – a fortune.