Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/diamondnecl^^/^f^ might become quite trans- lucent between us, transfigured, lifted up into the serene of Universal-History; and might hang there like a smallest Diamond Constellation, visible without telescope, — so long as it could. u jrjtftaio'if \^j,L^:^ [1 Vi CHAPTER II THE NECKLACE IS MADE HERR, or as he is now called Monsieur, Boehmer, to all appearance wanted not that last infirmity of noble and ignoble minds — a love of fame ; he was destined also to be famous more than enough. His outlooks into the world were rather of a smiling character; he has long since ex- changed his guttural speech, as far as pos- sible, for a nasal one ; his rustic Saxon fatherland for a polished city of Paris, and thriven there. United in partnership with worthy Monsieur Bassange, a sound prac- tical man, skilled in the valuation of all precious stones, in the management of workmen, in the judgment of their work, he already sees himself among the highest of his guild : nay, rather the very highest, — for he has secured, by purchase and hard ^ ig ^ money paid, the title of King's Jeweller ; and can enter the Court itself, leaving all other Jewellers, and even innumerable Gentlemen, Gigmen, and small Nobility, to languish in the vestibule. With the cost- liest ornaments in his pocket, or borne after him by assiduous shopboys, the happy Boehmer sees high drawing-rooms and sa- cred ruelles fly open, as with talismanic Sesame; and the brightest eyes of the whole world grow brighter : to him alone of men the Unapproachable reveals herself in mys- terious negligee; taking and giving counsel. Do not, on all gala-days and gala-nights, his works praise him ? On the gorgeous robes of State, on Court-dresses and Lords* stars, on the diadem of Royalty: better still, on the swan-neck of Beauty, and her queenly garniture from plume-bearing ai- grette to shoe-buckle on fairy-slipper, — that blinding play of colours is Boehmer's doing : he is Joaillier-Bijoutier de la Reine, Could the man have been content with it 1 He could not: Icarus-like, he must mount too high; have his wax-wings melted, and descend prostrate, — amid a cloud of vain goose-quills. One day, a fatal day (of some year, probably among the Seventies of last Cehtury),it struck Boehmer: Why should not I, who as Most Christian King's Jewel- ler, am properly first Jeweller of the Uni- verse, — make a Jewel which the Universe has not matched ? Nothing can prevent thee, Boehmer, if thou have the skill to do it. Skill or no skill, answers he, I have the am- bition: my Jewel, if not the beautifullest, shall be the dearest. Thus was the Diamond Necklace determined on. Did worthy Bassange give a willing, or a reluctant consent? In any case he consents; and cooperates. Plans are sketched, con- sultations held, stucco models made; by money or credit the costliest diamonds come in ; cunning craftsmen cut them, set them : proud Boehmer sees the work go prosper- ously on. Proud man! Behold him on a 4f 21 a§- morning after breakfast: he has stepped down to the innermost workshop, before sal- lying out; stands there with his laced three- cornered hat, cane under arm ; drawing-on his gloves: with nod, with nasal-guttural word, he gives judicious confirmation, judi- cious abnegation, censure, and approval. A still joy is dawning over that bland, blond face of his ; he can think, while in many a sacred boudoir he visits the Unapproach- able, that an opus magnum^ of which the world wotteth not, is progressing. At length comes a morning when care has terminated, and joy can not only dawn but shine; the Necklace, which shall be famous and world- famous, is made. Made we call it, in conformity with com- mon speech, but properly it was not made; only, with more or less spirit of method, arranged and agglomerated. What spirit of method lay in it, might be made ; nothing more. But to tell the various Histories of those various Diamonds from the first mak- ^ 12 ^ ing of them ; or even, omitting all the rest, from the first digging of them in the far In- dian mines! How they lay, for uncounted ages and aeons (under the uproar and splash- ing of such Deucalion Deluges, and Hutton Explosions, with steam enough,and Werner Submersions), silently embedded in the rock; did nevertheless, when their hour came, emerge from it, and first behold the glorious Sun smile on them, and with their many-coloured glances smile back on him. How they served next, let us say, as eyes of Heathen Idols, and received worship. How they had then, by fortune of war or theft, been knocked out; and exchanged among camp-sutlers for a little spirituous liquor, and bought by Jews, and worn as signets on the fingers of tawny or white Majesties; and again been lost, with the fingers too, and perhaps life (as by Charles the Rash, among the mud-ditches of Nan- cy), in old-forgotten glorious victories: and so, — through innumerable varieties of for- ^ 23 ^ tune, — had come at last to the cutting- wheel of Boehmer; to be united, in strange fellowship, with comrades also blown to- gether from all ends of the Earth, each with a history of its own ! Could these aged stones, the youngest of them Six Thousand years of age and upwards, but have spoken, there were an Experience of Philosophy to teach by ! — But now, as was said, by little caps of gold, and daintiest rings of the same, they are all being, so to speak, enlisted under Boehmer's flag, — made to take rank and file, in new order, no Jewel asking his neigh- bour whence he came; and parade there for a season. For a season only; and then — to disperse, and enlist anew ad infinitum. In such inexplicable wise are Jewels, and men also, and indeed all earthly things, jumbled together and asunder, and shovelled and wafted to and fro, in our inexplicable chaos of a World. This was what Boehmer called* making his Necklace. So, in fact, do other men speak, and with ^ 24 ^ even less reason. How many men, for example, hast thou heard talk of making money ; of making, say, a million and a half of money : Of which million and a half, how much, if one were to look into it, had they made? The accurate value of their Indus- try ; not a sixpence more. Their making, then, was but, like Boehmer's, a clutching and heaping together ; — by-and-by to be followed also by a dispersion. Made ? Thou too vain individual ! were these towered ashlar edifices ; were these fair bounteous leas, with their bosky umbrages and yel- low harvests ; and the sunshine that lights them from above, and the granite rocks and fire-reservoirs that support them from below, made by thee? I think, by another. The very shilling that thou hast was dug, by man's force, in Carinthia and Paraguay ; smelted sufficiently; and stamped, as would 'seem, not without the advice of our late De- fender of the Faith, his Majesty George the Fourth. Thou hast it, and boldest it ; 4^ 25 ^ but whether, or in what sense, thou hast made any farthing of it, thyself canst not say. If the courteous reader ask, What things, then, are made by man ? I will answer him. Very few, indeed. A Heroism, a Wisdom (a god-given Volition that has realized it- self), is made now and then : for example, some five or six Books, since the Creation, have been made. Strange that there are not more : for surely every encouragement is held out. Could I, or thou, happy reader, but make one, the world would let us keep itunstolen for Fourteen whole years, — and take what we could get for it. But, in a word. Monsieur Boehmer has made his Necklace, what he calls made it : happy man is he. From a Drawing, as large as reality, kindly furnished by "Tau- nay, Printseller, of the Rue d'Enfer " ; and again, in late years, by the Abbe Georgel, in the Second Volume of his " Memoiresr" curious readers can still fancy to themselves what a princely Ornament it was. A row ^ 26 ^ of seventeen glorious diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle, not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser, gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three-wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple pear- shaped, multiple star-shaped, or clustering amorphous) encircle it, enwreath it, a sec- ond time. Loosest of all, softly flowing round from behind in priceless catenary, rush down two broad threefold rows ; seem to knot themselves, round a very Queen of Diamonds, on the bosom ; then rush on, again separated, as if there were length in plenty ; the very tassels of them were a for- tune for some men. And now lastly, two other inexpressible threefold rows, also with their tassels, will, when the Necklace is on and clasped, unite themselves behind into a doubly inexpressible sixfold row ; and so stream down, together or asunder, over the hind-neck, — we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal or Aurora-Borealis fire. All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged 4^ 2J ^ with rose-bloom, and within it royal Life : amidst the blaze oflustres; in sylphish move- ments, espiegleries, coquetteries, and min- uet-mazes; with every movement a flash of star-rainbow colours, bright almost as the movements of the fair young soul it emblems! A glorious ornament; fit only for the Sultana of the World. Indeed, only attainable by such ; for it is valued at 1,800,000 livres; say in round numbers, and sterling money, between eighty and ninety thousand pounds. CHAPTER III THE NECKLACE CANNOT BE SOLD M^i SCALCULATING Boehmer. JL V JL The Sultana of the Earth shall never wear that Necklace of thine ; no neck, either royal or vassal, shall ever be the lovelier for it. In the present distressed state of our finances, with the American War raging round us, where thinkest thou are eighty thousand pounds to be raised for such a thing? In this hungry world, thou fool, these kvQ hundred and odd Diamonds, good only for looking at, are intrinsically worth less to us than a string of as many dry Irish potatoes, on which a famishing Sans- culotte might fill his belly. Little knowest thou, laughing Joaillier-Bijoutier, great in thy pride of place, in thy pride of savoir- fairey what the world has in store for thee. Thou laughest there; by-and-by thou ^ 29 ^ wilt laugh on the wrong side of thy face mainly. While the Necklace lay in stucco effigy, and the stones of it were still "circulating in Commerce," Du Barry's was the neck it was meant for. Unhappily, as all dogs, male and female, have but their day, her day is done; and now (so busy has Death been) she sits retired, on mere half-pay, without prospects, at Saint-Cyr. A generous France will buy no more neck-ornaments for her: — O Heaven! the Guillotine-axe is already forging (North, in Swedish Dale- carlia, by sledge-hammers and fire; South, too, by taxes and tallies) that will shear her neck in twain ! But, indeed, what of Du Barry? Afoul worm ; hatched by royal heat, on foul com- posts, into a flaunting butterfly; now dis- winged, and again a worm ! Are there not Kings' Daughters and Kings' Consorts ; is not Decoration the first wish of a female heart, — often also, if such heart is empty, ^ 30 «§* the last? The Portuguese Ambassador is here, and his rigorous Pombal is no longer Minister: there is an Infanta in Portugal, purposing by Heaven's blessing to wed. — Singular! the Portuguese Ambassador, though without fear of Pombal, praises, but will not purchase. Or why not our own loveliest Marie-An- toinette, once Dauphiness only ; now every inch a Queen : what neck in the whole Earth would it beseem better? It is fit only for her. — Alas, Boehmer! King Louis has an eye for diamonds; but he, too, is without overplus of money : his high Queen herself answers queenlike, "We have more need of Seventy-fours than of Necklaces." Lau- datur et alget I — ^ot without a qualmish feeling, we apply next to the Queen and King of the Two Sicilies. In vain, O Boeh- mer! In crowned heads there is no hope for thee. Not a crowned head of them can spare the eighty thousand pounds. The age of Chivalry is gone, and that of Bankruptcy 4^ 31 ^ is come, A dull, deep, presaging movement rocks all thrones: Bankruptcy is beating down the gate, and no Chancellor can longer barricade her out. She will enter; and the shoreless fire-lava of Democracy is at her back! Well may Kings, a second time, "sit still with awful eye," and think of far other things than Necklaces. Thus for poor Boehmer are the mourn- fullest days and nights appointed ; and this high-promising year (1780, as we labori- ously guess and gather) stands blacker than all others in his calendar. In vain shall he, on his sleepless pillow, more and more des- perately revolve the problem ; it is a prob- lem of the insoluble sort, a true " irreducible case of Cardan": the Diamond Necklace will not sell. \ CHAPTER IV affinities: the two fixed-ideas NEVERTHELESS, a man's little Work lies not isolated, stranded; a whole busy VV^orld,a whole native-element of mysterious never-resting Force, environs it ; will catch it up ; will carry it forward, or else backward : always, infallibly, either as living growth, or at worst as well-rotted manure, the Thing Done will come to use. Often, accordingly, for a man that had fin- ished any little work, this were the most interesting question In such a boundless whirl of a world, what hook will it be, and what hooks, that shall catch up this little work of mine ; and whirl // also, — through such a dance ? A question, we need not say, which, in the simplest of cases, would bring the whole Royal Society to a non-plus. — Good Corsican Letitia ! while thou nursest ^ 33 "^ thy little Napoleon, and he answers thy mother-smile with those deep eyes of his, a world-famous French Revolution, with Federations of the Champ de Mars, and September Massacres, and Bakers* Cus- tomers en queue, is getting ready : many a Danton and Desmoulins ; prim-visaged, TartufFe-looking Robespierre, as yet all schoolboys ; and Marat weeping bitter rheum, as he pounds horse-drugs, — are preparing the fittest arena for him ! Thus, too, while poor Boehmer is busy with those Diamonds of his, picking them "out of Commerce," and his craftsmen are grinding and setting them ; a certain ecclesi- astical Coadjutor and Grand Almoner, and prospective Commendator and Cardinal, is in Austria, hunting and giving suppers ; for whom mainly it is that Boehmer and his craftsmen so employ themselves. Strange enough, once more ! The foolish Jeweller at Paris, making foolish trinkets ; the foolish Ambassador at Vienna, making blunders ^ 34 ^ and debaucheries: these Two, all uncom- municating, wide asunder as the Poles, are hourly forging for each other the won- derfullest hook-and-eye ; which will hook them together, one day, — into artificial Siamese-Twins, for the astonishment of mankind. Prince Louis de Rohan Is one of those se- lect mortals born to honours, as the sparks fly upwards ; and, alas, also (as all men are) to troubles no less. Of his genesis and de- scent much might be said, by the curious in such matters ; yet, perhaps, if we weigh it well, intrinsically little. He can, by dili- gence and faith, be traced back some hand- breadth or two, some century or two ; but after that, merges in the mere "blood-royal of Brittany "; long, long on this side of the Northern Immigrations, he is not so much as to be sought for ; — and leaves the whole space onwards from that, into the bosom of Eternity, a blank, marked only by one point, the Fall of Man ! However, and what alone ^ 35 ^ concerns us, his kindred, in these quite re- cent times, have been much about the Most ChristianMajesty; could there pick up what was going. In particular, they have had a turn of some continuance for Cardinalship and Commendatorship. Safest trades these, of the calm, do-nothing sort: in the do- something line, in Generalship, or such like (witness poor Cousin Soubise,at Rosbach), they might not fare so well. In any case, the actual Prince Louis, Coadjutor at Stras- burg, while his uncle the Cardinal- Arch- bishop has not yet deceased, and left him his dignities, but only fallen sick, already takes his place on one grandest occasion : he, thrice-happyCoadjutor, receives the fair, young, trembling Dauphiness, Marie-An- toinette, on her first entrance into France ; and can there, as Ceremonial Fugleman, with fit bearing and semblance (being a tall man, of six-and-thirty), do the needful. Of his other performances up to this date, a refined History had rather say nothing. ^ 36 ^ In fact, if the tolerating mind will medi- tate it with any sympathy, what could poor Rohan perform? Performing needs light, needs strength, and a firm clear footing ; all of which had been denied him. Nour- ished, from birth, with the choicest physical spoon-meat, indeed ; yet also, with no better spiritual Doctrine and Evangel of Life than a French Court of Louis the Well-beloved could yield ; gifted, moreover, and this too was but a new perplexity for him, with shrewdness enough to see through much, with vigour enough to despise much ; un- happily, not with vigour enough to spurn it from him, and be forever enfranchised of it, — he awakes, at man's stature, with man's wild desires, in a World of the merest incoherent Lies and Delirium; himself a nameless Mass of delirious Incoherences, — covered over at most, and held in little, by conventional Politesse, and a Cloak of prospective Cardinal's Plush. Are not in- trigues, might Rohan say, the industry of 4^ 37 ^ this our Universe ; nay, is not the Universe itself, at bottom, properly an intrigue ? A Most Christian Majesty, in the Parc-aux- cerfs; he, thou seest, is the god of this lower world ; in the fight of Life, our war- banner and celestial En-touto-nika is a Strumpet's Petticoat ; these are thy gods, O France ! — What, in such singular cir- cumstances, could poor Rohan's creed and world-theory be, that he should " perform " thereby ? Atheism ? Alas, no ; not even Atheism : only Machiavellism ; and the in- destructible faith that "ginger is hot in the mouth." Get ever new and better ginger, therefore ; chew it ever the more diligently : *t is all thou hast to look to, and that only for a day. Ginger enough, poor Louis de Rohan : too much of ginger ! Whatsoever of it, for the five senses, money, or money's worth, or backstairs diplomacy, can buy; nay, for the sixth sense, too, the far spicier ginger. Antecedence of thy fellow-creatures, — 4^ 38 ^ merited, at least, by infinitely finer hous- ing than theirs. Coadjutor of Strasburg, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand Almoner of France, Commander of the Order of the Holy Ghost, Cardinal Commendator of St. Wast d' Arras (one of the fattest benefices here below) : all these shall be housings for Monseigneur: to all these shall his Jesuit Nursing-mother, our vulpine Abbe Geor- gel, through fair court-weather and through foul, triumphantly bear him ; and wrap him with them, fat, somnolent Nursling as he is. — By the way, a most assiduous, ever- wakeful Abbe is this Georgel ; and wholly Monseigneur*s. He has scouts dim-flying, far out, in the great deep of the world's business; has spider-threads that overnet the whole world; himself sits in the centre, ready to run. In vain shall King and Queen combine against Monseigneur: "I was at M.deMaurepas' pillow before six," — per- suasively wagging my sleek coif, and the sleek reynard-head under it ; I managed it 4^ 39 ^ all for him. Here, too, on occasion of Rey- nard Georgel, we could not but reflect what a singular species of creature your Jesuit must have been. Outwardly, you would say, a man ; the smooth semblance of a man : inwardly, to the centre, filled with stone ! Yet in all breathing things, even in stone Jesuits, are inscrutable sympathies : how else does a Reynard Abbe so loyally give himself, soul and body, to a somno- lent Monseigneur ; — how else does the poor Tit, to the neglect of its own eggs and interests, nurse up a huge lumbering Cuckoo; and think its pains all paid, if the soot-brown Stupidity will merely grow big- ger and bigger ! — Enough, by Jesuitic or other means. Prince Louis de Rohan shall be passively kneaded and baked into Com- mendator of St. Wast and much else; and truly such a Commendator as hardly, since King Thierri, first of the FaMans, founded that 'Establishment, has played his part there. 4^ 40 ^ Such, however, have Nature and Art combined together to make Prince Louis. A figure thrice-clothed with honours ; with plush, and civic and ecclesiastic garniture of all kinds; but in itself little other than an amorphous congeries of contradictions, somnolence and violence, foul passions and foul habits. It is by his plush cloaks and wrappages mainly, as above hinted, that such a figure sticks together: what we call " coheres," in any measure ; were it not for these, he would flow out boundlessly on all sides. Conceive him farther, with a kind of radical vigour and fire, for he can see clearly at times, and speak fiercely ; yet left in this way to stagnate and ferment, and lie overlaid with such floods of fat material : have we not a true image of the sham,e- fullest Mud-volcano, gurgling and slut- tishly simmering, amid continual steamy indistinctness, — except as was hinted, in wind-gusts ; with occasional terrifico-absurd mud-explosions ! 4^ 41 ^ This, garnish it and fringe it never so handsomely, is, alas, the intrinsic character of Prince Louis. A shameful spectacle: such, however, as the world has beheld many times ; as it were to be wished, but is not yet to be hoped, the world might behold no more. Nay, are not all possible delirious incoherences, outward and inward, summed up, for poor Rohan, in this one incrediblest incoherence, that he^ Prince Louis de Rohan, is named Priest, Cardinal of the Church ? A debauched, merely li- bidinous mortal, lying there quite helpless, ^/Vsolute (as we well say); whom to see Church Cardinal^ symbolical Hinge or main Corner of the Invisible Holy in this World, an Inhabitant of Saturn might split with laughing, — if he did not rather swoon with pity and horror! Prince Louis, as ceremonial fugleman at Strasburg, might have hoped to make some way with the fair young Dauphiness; but seems not to have made any. Perhaps, in 4- 4^ ^ those great days, so trying for a fifteen-years Bride and Dauphiness, the fair Antoinette was too preoccupied : perhaps, in the very face and looks of Prospective-Cardinal Prince Louis, her fair young soul read, all unconsciously, an incoherenti?ursl under it. " The Queen's Majesty was weeping," whisper some. There will be no Assumption-service ; or such a one as was never celebrated since Assumption came in fashion. Europe, then, shall ring with it from side to side ! — But why rides that Heyduc as if all the Devils drove him ? It is Monsei- ^ 143 ^ gneur's Heyduc : Monseigneur spoke three words in German to him, at the door of his Versailles Hotel ; even handed him a slip of writing, which, with borrowed Pencil, "in his red square cap," he had managed to prepare on the way thither. To Paris ! To the Palais-Cardinal ! The horse dies on reaching the stable; the Heyduc swoons on reaching the cabinet : but his slip of writing fell from his hand ; and I (says the Abbe Georgel) was there. The red Portfolio, con- taining all the gilt Autographs, is burnt utterly, with much else, before Breteuil can arrive for apposition of the seals ! — Where- by Europe, in ringing from side to side, must worry itself with guessing : and at this hour, on this paper, sees the matter in such an interesting clear-obscure. Soon Count Cagliostro and his Seraphic Countess go to join Monseigneur, in State Prison. In few days, follows Dame de La- motte, from Bar-sur-Aube ; Demoiselle d'Oliva by-and-by, from Brussels; Villette- ^ 144 ^ de-Retaux, from his Swiss retirement, in the taverns of Geneva. The Bastille opens its iron bosom to them all. CHAPTER LAST MISSA EST THUS, then, the Diamond Necklace having, on the one hand, vanished through the Horn Gate of Dreams, and so, under the pincers of Nisus Lamotte and Euryalus Villette, lost its sublunary individ- uality and being ; and, on the other hand, all that trafficked in it, sitting now safe un- der lock and key, that justice may take cog- nisance of them, — our engagement in regard to the matter is on the point of terminat- ing. That extraordinary ^^ Proces du Colliery Necklace Trial," spinning itself through Nine other ever-memorable Months, to the astonishment of the hundred and eighty- seven assembled ParlementierSy and of all Quidnuncs, Journalists, Anecdotists, Satirists, in both Hemispheres, is, in every sense, a " Celebrated Trial," and belongs 4f 146 ^ to Publishers of such. How, by innumer- able confrontations, and expiscatory ques- tions, through entanglements, doublings and windings that fatigue eye and soul, this most involute of Lies is finally winded off to the scandalous-ridiculous cinder-heart of it, let others relate. Meanwhile, during these Nine ever- memorable Months, till they terminate late at night precisely with the May of 1786, how many fugitive leaves, quizzical, imagi- native, or at least mendacious, were flying about in Newspapers; or stitched together as Pamphlets ; and what heaps of others were left creeping in Manuscript, we shall not say ; — having, indeed, no complete Col- lection of them, and what is more to the purpose, little to do with such Collection. Nevertheless, searching for some fit Capital of the composite order, to adorn adequate- ly the now finished singular Pillar of our Narrative, what can suit us better than the following, so far as we know, yet unedited. 4i^ 147 ^ Occasional Discourse, by Count Alessandro Cagliostro, I'haumaturgist, Prophet and Arcb-^ack; delivered in the Bastille: Year of Lucifer, 57^9 »* of the Mahometan Hegira from Mecca, 1201 ; of the Cagli- ostric Hegira from Palermo, 24 ; of the Vulgar Era, 1785. ^^ Fellow Scoundrels, — An unspeakable Intrigue, spun from the soul of that Circe- Megaera, by our voluntary or involuntary help, has assembled us all, if not under one roof-tree, yet within one grim iron-bound ring-wall. For an appointed number of months, in the ever-rolling flow of Time, we, being gathered from the four winds, did by Destiny work together in body cor- porate; and joint laborers in a Transaction already famed over the Globe, obtain unity of Name, like the Argonauts of old, as Con- querors of the Diamond Necklace, Erelong it is done (for ring-walls hold not captive the free Scoundrel forever); and we disperse 4^ 148 ^ again, over wide terrestrial Space; some of us, it may be, over the very marches of Space. Our Act hangs indissoluble together; floats wondrous in the older and older memory of men: while we the little band of Scoundrels, who saw each other, now hover so far asunder, to see each other no more, if not once more only on the uni- versal Doomsday, the Last of the Days ! " In such interesting moments, while we stand within the verge of parting, and have not yet parted, methinks it were well here, in these sequestered Spaces, to institute a few general reflections. Me, as a public speaker, the Spirit of Masonry, of Philo- sophy, and Philanthropy, and even of pro- phecy, blowing mysterious from the Land of Dreams, impels to do it. Give ear, O Fel- low Scoundrels, to what the Spirit utters ; treasure it in your hearts, practise it in your lives. " Sitting here, penned-up in this which, with a slight metaphor, I call the Central 4t 149 ^ Cloaca of Nature, where a tyrannical De Launay can forbid the bodily eye free vision, you with the mental eye see but the bet- ter. This Central Cloaca, is it not rather a Heart, into which, from all regions, mysteri- ous conduits introduce and forcibly inject whatsoever is choicest in the scoundrelism of the Earth ; there to be absorbed, or again (by the other auricle) ejected into new circulation ? Let the eye of the mind run along this immeasurable venous-arterial system ; and astound itself with the magni- ficent extent of Scoundreldom ; the deep, I may say, unfathomable, significance of Scoundrelism. "Yes, brethren, wide as the sun's range ^ is our Empire, wider than old Rome's in its palmiest era. I have in my time been far; in frozen Muscovy, in hot Calabria, east, west, wheresoever the sky overarches civilized man : and never hitherto saw I my- self an alien; out of Scoundreldom I never was. Is it not even said, from of old, by Ik' 4* ISO ^ the opposite party: 'yf// men are liars'? Do they not (and this nowise * in haste *) whimperingly talk of 'one just person* (as they call him), and of the remaining thou- sand save one that take part with us? So decided is our majority/' — (Applause.) " Of the Scarlet Woman, — yes, Mon- seigneur, without offence, — of the Scarlet % Woman that sits on Seven Hills, and her Black Jesuit Militia, out foraging from Pole to Pole, I speak not; for the story is too trite : nay, the Militia itself, as I see, begins to be disbanded, and invalided, for a sec- ond treachery; treachery to herself! Nor yet of Governments ; for a like reason. Ambassadors, said an English punster, He abroad for their masters. Their masters, we answer, lie at home for themselves. Not of all this, nor of Courtship with its Lovers'- vows, nor Courtiership, nor Attorneyism, nor Public Oratory, and Selling by Auction, do I speak : I simply ask the gainsayer, Which is the particular trade, profession, ^ 151 ^ mystery, calling, or pursuit of the Sons of Adam that they successfully manage in the other way? He cannot answer! — No: Philosophy itself, both practical and even speculative, has at length, after shameful- lest groping, stumbled on the plain conclu- sion that Sham is indispensable to Reality, as Lying to Living; that without Lying the whole business of the world, from swaying of senates to selling of tapes, must explode into anarchic discords, and so a speedy con- clusion ensue. " But the grand problem, Fellow Scoun- drels, as you well know, is the marrying of Truth and Sham ; so that they become one flesh, man and wife, and generate these three : Profit, Pudding, and Respectability that always keeps her Gig. Wondrously, in- deed, do Truth and Delusion play into one another; Reality rests on Dream. Truth is but the skin of the bottomless Untrue : and ever, from time to time, the Untrue sheds it; is clear again; and the superan- m ■ ^ 152 ^ nuated True itself becomes a Fable. Thus do all hostile things crumble back into our Empire ; and of its increase there is no end. " O brothers, to think of the Speech with- out meaning (which is mostly ours), and of the Speech with contrary meaning (which is wholly ours), manufactured by the organs of Mankind in one solar day ! Or call it a day of Jubilee, when public Dinners are given, and Dinner-orations are delivered : or say, a Neighbouring Island in time of General Election! O ye immortal gods! The mind is lost ; can only admire great Nature's plenteousness with a kind of sa- cred wonder. " For tell me, what is the chief end of man ? 'To glorify God,' said the old Chris- tian Sect, now happily extinct. ' To eat and find eatables by the readiest method,' an- swers sound Philosophy, discarding whims. If the method readier th3.n this of persua- sive-attraction is yet discovered, — point it ^ 153 ^ out ! — Brethren, I said the old Christian Sectwas happily extinct: as,indeed,inRome itself, there goes the wonderful lest tradi- tionary Prophecy, of that Nazareth Christ coming back, and being crucified a second time there; which truly I see not in the least how he could fail to be. Nevertheless, that old Christian whim, of an actual living and ruling God, and some sacred covenant bind- ing all men in Him, with much other mystic stuff, does, under new or old shape, linger with a few. From these few keep yourselves forever far I They must even be left to their whim, which is not like to prove in- fectious. " But neither are we, my Fellow Scoun- drels, without our Religion, our Worship ; which, like the oldest, and all true Wor- ships, is one of Fear. The Christians have their Cross, the Moslem their Crescent : but have not we too our — Gallows? YtSy infin- itely terrible is the Gallows ; it bestrides with its patibulary fork the Pit of bottomless ^ 154 ^ Terror. No Manicheans are we ; our God is One. Great, exceeding great, I say, is the Gallows; of old, even from the begin- ning, in this world; knowing neither vari- ableness nor decadence; forever, forever, over the wreck of ages, and all civic and ecclesiastic convulsions, meal-mobs, revo- lutions, the Gallows with front serenely ter- rible towers aloft. Fellow Scoundrels, fear the Gallows and have no other fear! 'This is the Law and the Prophets. Fear every emanation of the Gallows. And what is every buffet, with the fist, or even with the tongue, of one having authority, but some such emanation? And what is Force of Public Opinion but the infinitude of such emanations, — rushing combined on you, like a mighty storm-wind? Fear the Gal- lows, I say ! O when, with its long black arm, // has clutched a man, what avail him all terrestrial things ? These pass away, with horrid nameless dinning in his ears ; and the ill-starred Scoundrel pendulates between ^ 155 ^ Heaven and Earth, a thing rejected of hlL*' — (Profound sensation.) "Such, so wide in compass, high, gal- lows-high in dignity, is the Scoundrel Em- pire; and for depth, it is deeper than the Foundations of the World. For what was Creation itself wholly, according to the best Philosophers, but a Divulsion by the Time-Spirit (or Devil so called); a forceful Interruption, or breaking asunder, of the old Quiescence of Eternity? It was Lucifer that fell, and made this lordly World arise. Deep? It is bottomless-deep; the very Thought, diving, bobs up from it baffled. Is not this that they call Vice of Lying the Adam-Kadmon^ or primeval Rude-Element, old as Chaos mother's-womb of Death and Hell; whereon their thin film of Virtue, Truth and the like, poorly wavers — for a day ? All Virtue, what is it, even by their own showing, but Vice transformed, — that is, manufactured, rendered artificial? 'Man's Vices are the roots from which his Virtues 4* 156 4" grow out and see the light/ says one: 'Yes/ add I, *and thanklessly steal their nourishment!* Were it not for the nine hundred ninety and nine unacknowledged, perhaps martyred and calumniated Scoun- drels, how were their single Just Person (with a murrain on him!) so much as pos- sible? — Oh, it is high, high: these things are too great for me; Intellect, Imagina- tion, flags her tired wings; the soul lost, baffled—" — Here Dame de Lamotte tittered audi- bly, and muttered Coq-d'Inde^ which, being interpreted into the Scottish tongue, signi- fies Bubbly-jock! The Arch-Quack, whose eyes were turned inwards as in rapt contem- plation, started at the titter and mutter: his eyes flashed outwards with dilated pupil; his nostrils opened wide; his very hair seemed to stir in its long twisted pigtails (his fashion of curl); and as Indignation is said to make Poetry, it here made Pro- phecy, or what sounded as such. With ter- 4^ 157 ^ rible, working features, and gesticulation not recommended in any Book of Ges- ture, the Arch-Quack, in voice supernally discordant, like Lions worrying Bulls of Bashan, began: — ^' Sniff not. Dame de Lamotte ; tremble, thou foul Circe- Megaera; thy day of deso- lation is at hand ! Behold ye the Sanhedrim of Judges, with their fanners of written Parchment, loud-rustling, as they winnow all her chaff and down-plumage, and she stands there naked and mean? — Villette, Oliva, do ye blab secrets ? Ye have no pity of her extreme need ; she none of yours. Is thy light-giggling, untamable heart at last heavy ? Hark ye ! Shrieks of one cast out; whom they brand on both shoulders with iron stamp; the red-hot * V,* thou Fo^ kuse, hath it entered thy soul? Weep, Circe de Lamotte; wail there in truckle-bed, and hysterically gnash thy teeth: nay, do, smother thyself in thy door-mat coverlid; thou hast found thy mates ; thou art in the 4* 158 ^ Salpetriere! — Weep, daughter of the high and puissant Sans-inexpressibles ! Buzz of Parisian Gossipry is about thee ; but not to help thee : no, to eat before thy time. What shall a King's Court do with thee, thou un- clean thing, while thou yet livest? Escape! Flee to utmost countries, hide there, if thou canst, thy mark of Cain ! — In the Babylon of Fogland! Ha! is that my London? See I Judas Iscariot Egalite? Print, yea, print abundantly the abominations of your two hearts : breath of rattlesnakes can bedim the steel mirror, but only for a time. — And there! Aye, there at last! Tumblest thou from the lofty leads, poverty-stricken, O thriftless daughter of the high and puissant, escaping bailiffs ? Descendest thou precipi- tate, in dead night, from window in the third story ; hurled forth by Bacchanals, to whom thy shrill tongue had grown unbear- able ? Yea, through the smoke of that new Babylon thou fallest headlong; one long scream of screams makes night hideous; ^ 159 ^ thou liest there, shattered like addle egg, ' nigh to the Temple of Flora ! * O Lamotte, has thy Hypocrisia ended, then ? Thy many characters were all acted. Here at last thou actest not, but art what thou seemest: a mangled squelch of gore, confusion, and abomination; which men huddle under- ground, with no burial-stone. Thou gal- lows-carrion ! — " — Here the prophet turned up his nose (the broadest of the eighteenth century), and opened wide his nostrils with such a greatness of disgust, that all the audience, even Lamotte herself, sympathetically imi- tated him. — "O Dame de Lamotte! Dame de Lamotte! Now, when the circle of thy existence lies complete; and my eye glances over these twoscore and three years that were lent thee, to do evil as thou couldst; and I behold thee a bright-eyed little Tat- terdemalion, begging and gathering sticks in the Bois de Boulogne ; and also at length a squelched Putrefaction, here on London 4«^ i6o ^ pavements; with the head-dressings and hungerings, the gaddings and hysterical gigglings that came between, — what shall I say was the meaning of thee at all? — "Villette-de-Retaux! Have the catch- poles trepanned thee, by sham of battle, in thy Tavern, from the sacred Republican soil? It is thou that wert the hired Forger of Handwritings? Thou wilt confess it? Depart, unwhipt yet accursed. — Ha 1 The dread Symbol of our Faith ? Swings aloft, on the Castle of Saint Angelo, a Pendulous Mass, which I think I discern to be the body of Villette! There let him end; the sweet morsel of our Juggernaut. " Nay, weep not thou, disconsolate Oliva; blear not thy bright blue eyes, daughter of the shady Garden! Thee shall the Sanhe- drim not harm : this Cloaca of Nature emits thee; as notablest of unfortunate-females, thou shalt have choice of husbands not without capital; and accept one. Know this; for the vision of it is true. ^ i6i ^ " But the Anointed Majesty whom ye profaned ? Blow, spirit of Egyptian Ma- sonry, blow aside the thick curtains of Space ! Lo you, her eyes are red with their first tears of pure bitterness; not with their last. Tire-woman Campan is choosing, from the Print-shops of the Quais, the reputed- best among the hundred likenesses of Circe de Lamotte: a Queen shall consider if the basest of women ever, by any accident, dark- ened daylight or candlelight for the highest. The Portrait answers : Never!" — (Sensa- tion in the audience.) " — Ha! What is //^/ J.? Angels, Uriel, Anachiel, and ye other five; Pentagon of Rejuvenescence; Power that destroyedst Original Sin; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo which men name Hell ! Does the Empire of Imposture waver? Burst there, in starry sheen, updarting, Light-rays from out its dark foundations ; as it rocks and heaves, not in travail-throes, but in death-throes ? Yea, Light-rays, piercing. 4^ i62 ^ clear, that salute the Heavens, — lo, they kM/e it; their starry clearness becomes as red Hell-fire! Imposture is in flames. Im- posture is burnt up: one Red-Sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the World ; with its fire-tongue licks at the very stars. Thrones are hurled into it, and Dubois Mitres, and Prebendal Stalls that drop fatness, and — ha! what see I? — all the Gigs of Creation: all, all! Woe is me! Never since Pharaoh's Chariots, in the Red-Sea of water, was there wreck of Wheel-vehicles like this in the sea of Fire. Desolate, as ashes, as gases, shall they wander in the wind. " Higher, higher yet flames the Fire-Sea ; crackling with new dislocated timber; hiss- ing with leather and prunella. The metal Images are molten; the marble Images be- come mortar-lime; the stone Mountains sulkily explode. Respectability, with all her collected Gigs inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the Earth : not to return save under new Avatar. Imposture, how it burns, 4^ 163 4^ through generations: how it is burnt up — for a time. The World is black ashes ; which, ah, when will they grow green ? The I mages all run into amorphous Corinthian brass ; all Dwellings of men destroyed; the very mountains peeled and riven, the valleys black and dead : it is an empty World ! Woe to them that shall be born then! A King, a Queen (ah me!) were hurled in; did rustle once; flew aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. Oliva's Husband was hurled in ; Iscariot Egalite; thou grim De Launay, with thy grim Bastille; whole kindreds and peoples; five millions of mutually destroy- ing Men. For it is the End of the Domin- ion of Imposture (which is Darkness and opaqueFiredamp); and the burning-up, with unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs that are in the Earth ! " — Here the Prophet paused, fetching a deep sigh; and the Cardinal uttered a kind of faint, tremulous Hem ! " Mourn not, O Monseigneur, spite of thy nephritic colic and many infirmities. ^ 164 ^ For thee mercifully it was not unto death. O Monseigneur (for thou hadst a touch of goodness), who would not weep over thee, if he also laughed ? Behold ! The not too judicious Historian, that long years hence, amid remotest wildernesses, writes thy life, and names thee Mud-volcano; even he shall reflect that it was thy Life, this same; thy only chance through whole Eternity; which thou (poor gambler) hast expended so : and, even over his hard heart, a breath of dewy pity for thee, shall blow. — O Monseigneur, thou wert not all ig- noble: thy Mud-volcano was but strength dislocated, fire misapplied. Thou wentest ravening through the world; no Life-elixir or Stone of the Wise could we two (for want of funds) discover: a foulest Circe undertook to fatten thee; and thou hadst to fill thy belly with the east wind. And burst? Bythe Masonry of Enoch, No I Be- hold, has not thy Jesuit Familiar his Scouts dim-flying over the deep of human things? ^ 165 ^ Cleared art thou of crimejSave that of fixed- idea;- weepest, a repentant exile, in the Mountains of Auvergne. Neither shall the Red Fire-Sea itself consume thee; only consume thy Gig, and, instead of Gig (O rich exchange !), restore thy Self. Safe be- yond theRhine-stream, thou livest peaceful days ; savest many from the fire, and anoint- est their smarting burns. Sleep finally, in thy mother's bosom, in a good old age!" — The Cardinal gave a sort of guttural murmur, or gurgle, which ended in a long sigh. " O Horrors, as ye shall be called," again burst forth the Quack, " why have ye missed the Sieur de Lamotte ; why not of him, too, made gallows-carrion ? Will spear, or sword- stick, thrust at him (or supposed to be thrust), through window of hackney-coach, in Piccadilly of the Babylon of Fog, where he jolts disconsolate, not let out the im- prisoned animal existence? Is he poisoned, too ? Poison will not kill the Sieur Lamotte ; ^ 166 ^ nor steel, nor massacres. Let him drag his utterly superfluous life to a second and a third generation ; and even admit the not too judicious Historian to see his face before he die. "But, ha!" cried he, and stood wide- staring, horror-struck, as if some Cribb's fist had knocked the wind out of him : " O hor- ror of horrors ! IsitnotMyselflsee? Roman Inquisition ! Long months of cruel baiting! Life of Giuseppe Bah am ! Cagliostro's Body still lying in St. Leo Castle, his Self^td — whither? Bystanders wag their heads, and say : ' The Brow of Brass, behold how it has got all unlacquered; these Pinchbeck lips can lie no morei'Eheu! Ohoo!" — And he burst into unstanchable blubbering of tears ; and sobbing out the moanfullest broken howl, sank down in swoon ; to be put to bed by De Launay and others. Thus spoke (or thus might have spoken), and prophesied, the Arch-Quack Caglios- tro : and truly much better than he ever else ^ 167 ^ did : for not a jot or tittle of it (save only that of our promised Interview with Nestor de Lamotte, which looks unlikelier than ever, for we have not heard of him, dead or living, since 1826) — but has turned out to be lit- erally Irue, As, indeed, in all this History, one jot or tittle of untruth, that we could render true, is perhaps not discoverable; much as the distrustful reader may have disbelieved. Here, then, our little labour ends. The Necklace was, and is no more: the stones of it again " circulate in commerce,** some of them perhaps in Rundle's at this hour; and may give rise to what other Histories we know not. The Conquerors of it, every one that trafficked in it, have they not all had their due, which was Death? This little Business, like a little cloud, bodied itself forth in skies clear to the un- observant: but with such hues of deep- tinted villainy, dissoluteness and general ^ i68 ^ delirium as, to the observant, betokened it electric; and wise men, a Goethe, for ex- ample, boded Earthquakes. Has not the Earthquake come? THE END Four hundred numbered copies printed at The l(iyerside Tress^ Cambridge in October^ ^9^3 lS(o, 3^^