“I consider it necessary for the Queen’s good name,” he adds.
Rohan implores the King not to shame him before such a large number of people, and bring such disgrace on his family.
The King appears to be swayed by these words, but at this moment the Queen erupts. Her voice is loud and agitated, and as she is speaking she bursts into tears. She rounds on Rohan:
“How could you possibly imagine that I would write you a letter, when for nine years I haven’t been on speaking terms with you?”
Her words decide the matter.
Meanwhile, packed into the rooms outside, the magnificent courtiers are growing restless. The Mass should have begun long ago. People sense that something is in the air: there is an anxious murmuring — the crowd is breaking up into little groups — a sense of gathering storm. Finally Rohan emerges through the glass door, deathly pale. He is followed by Breteuil, whose face is flushed with pleasure at his great and unexpected revenge. In loud tones he calls out to the Captain of the Guard, the Duc de Villeroi:
“Arrest the Cardinal!”
Rohan now has to make his way along the endless succession of halls — to left and right, behind him and in front of him, the astonished French aristocracy, their individual features dissolving into one enormous face before his blurred eyes, the endless rows of mirrors seeming to spin as the sunlight crashes and roars down on him through the huge windows. And underfoot, grinding and crackling like shattered glass, the Ancien Régime itself.
The formal reception is due to be held further on, in the Hall of Mirrors, where a hundred years later the names of Teutonic Caesars will be loudly proclaimed and the sacred gloire of France humbled in the dust; there too, another fifty years on, will be signed the Treaty of Versailles, bringing peace with the Germans. Anyone can enter the Hall of Mirrors, and now it is crammed with people who have come at dawn for the celebrations. They look on in shocked amazement as the Duc de Villeroi hands the Cardinal — the illustrious prince of the Church, in his radiant ceremonial finery — over to Second Lieutenant of the Guard Jouffroy. In the long peaceful years of the previous two Louis such sights were seldom seen in Paris, Now even these superficial, garrulous and generally irreligious people are silenced by the nameless horror of it.
By some miracle Rohan has so far remained calm. In fact he is the only calm and controlled person in the whole vast multitude. In these moments of crisis and disaster, the resounding footsteps of his countless noble forebears are entering his soul, while those with no thousand-year legacy to speak of have lost their heads. Now, very calmly, he asks Jouffroy for permission to scribble a few words on a bit of paper which he rests on the scarlet rectangle of his Cardinal’s hat. He gives it to his attendant, says something to him in German, and the man rushes off. Then he is led away to a suite of apartments.
The following day he is taken to the Hôtel de Strasbourg where his papers are confiscated in his presence and the building closed off. But the red portfolio in which the “Queen’s letters” once lay amongst his private papers has vanished. The day before, the same attendant had galloped at breakneck speed back to Paris, to announce: “All is lost; they have arrested the Cardinal!”—before handing the slip of paper to the Abbé Georgel, and promptly collapsing. Georgel, however, did not collapse. He carried out the instruction he had received in the note and destroyed the correspondence.
On 17th August, chaperoned by Beugnot, Jeanne was a guest at Clairvaux, the famous convent named in memory of St Bernát. She was given a most gracious welcome by the Abbot, who knew that she was on particularly good terms with the Grand Almoner. They were just sitting down to dinner, having waited patiently for the Abbé Maury to arrive. (Maury was a famous pulpit orator who became Mirabeau’s great rival. It was after one of his sermon’s that Louis XVI remarked: “What a pity he didn’t say something about religion; then he really would have covered everything.”) Maury was due to give the special sermon in honour of St Bernát, but as he had not appeared, they sat down to eat without him.
At that moment he burst in, in great excitement.
“What? Haven’t you heard? Where have you been living? Prince Rohan, the Cardinal, has been arrested. Something to do with diamonds, apparently …”
Suddenly Jeanne felt unwell.
She went out, ordered her carriage to be made ready, and she and Beugnot left the abbey. By the time they were sitting in the coach she had regained her composure.
“This whole business is Cagliostro’s doing,” she told her astonished companion.
Then she lapsed into a deep silence. His advice that she fly to England before it was too late was met with scorn. She had already worked out her battle plan: how to shift the blame for the whole affair onto Cagliostro.
She was arrested at four the next morning. The amiable police made no objection when the Comte de la Motte, who had otherwise conducted himself very calmly, tore the glittering jewels off his wife and thoughtfully put them aside against better times.
Rivarol, that witty and whimsical commentator, wrote: “M de Breteuil plucked the Cardinal out of Mme de la Motte’s clutches and dashed him against the Queen’s brow, where he certainly left his mark.” It is a grotesque image, but an expressive one.
Chapter Ten. The Bastille, the Parlement and the King
To M de Launay,
I write to request that you receive my cousin the Cardinal Rohan into my fortress known as the Bastille, and hold him there pending my further instructions, for which I beg thanks for your assistance.
Louis, Baron Breteuil
Versailles, 16th August 1785
Such was the tenor of the royal arrest warrant, the lettre de cachet on whose authority, on the evening of 16th August, the Commander of the Bastille (the same de Launay who died when the building was stormed in 1789), and the Comte d’Agoult, Captain of the Guard, escorted Rohan by coach into the prison. He had spent the day at home, and had been seen in the great window of his salon playing with his pet ape: perhaps they were taking their leave of one another.
At dawn on 18th August, on the authority of a second lettre de cachet, Jeanne de la Motte was also detained. The summons served on her husband failed to reach him. He had in fact set out for Paris with the idea of defending his wife, but had second thoughts along the way, and took himself off to London instead.
The modern visitor to the Bastille finds only the spot where the old building stood, the circular Place with the lofty memorial column at its centre. The historic building was destroyed on that memorable quatorze juillet which has since become the National Day, since it marks the beginning of freedom not just for the French but for people all over the world.
The Bastille was originally a circular fortress. Later, when no longer used to defend the city, it became a prison, playing much the same role as the Tower in London. It was so hated that it came to be seen as the physical symbol of tyranny, thanks above all to the lettres de cachet, whose victims were for the most part imprisoned there — but not only there: every region had its own equivalent, where people were locked away in hospitals, madhouses and solitary cells.