The trial came on, as the closing act in this mysterious drama, in which all Paris had now become intensely interested. The cardinal had renounced all the privileges of his rank and condition, and accepted the jurisdiction of Parliament,--perhaps counting on the open enmity between that body and the court. The trial revealed a disgraceful business, in which a high dignitary of the church had permitted himself to be completely gulled by a shameless woman and the equally shameless Cagliostro, and into which not only the name but even the virtue of the queen had been dragged. Public opinion became intense. The hostility to the queen which had long smouldered now openly declared itself. "It was for her and by her orders that the necklace was bought," said the respectable Parisians. Those who were not respectable said much worse things. The queen was being made a victim of these shameless and criminal adventurers. The trial went on, political feeling being openly displayed in it. The great houses of Conde and Rohan took sides with the cardinal. Their representatives might be seen, dressed in mourning, interviewing the magistrates on their way to the tribunal, pleading with them on behalf of their relative. The magistrates needed little persuasion. The Parliament of Paris had long been at sword's point with the crown; now was its time for revenge; political prejudice blinded the members to the pure questions of law and justice; the cardinal was acquitted. Cagliostro was similarly acquitted. He had conducted his own case, and with a skill that deceived the magistrates and the public alike. Madame de La Motte alone was convicted. She was sentenced to be whipped, branded on each shoulder with the letter V (for _voleuse_, "thief"), and to be imprisoned for life. Her husband, who was in England, was sentenced in his absence to the galleys for life. A minor participant in this business, the girl who had personated the queen, escaped unpunished. So ended this disgraceful affair. The queen was greatly cast down by the result. "Condole with me," she said, in a broken voice, to Madame Campan; "the intriguer who wanted to ruin me, or procure money by using my name and forging my signature, has just been fully acquitted." But it was due, she declared, to bribery on the part of some and to political passion on that of others, with an audacity towards authority which such people loved to display. The king entered as she was speaking. "You find the queen in great affliction," he said to Madame Campan; "she has much reason to be. But what then? They would not see in this business anything save a prince of the Church and the Prince of Rohan, whereas it is only the case of a man in want of money, and a mere trick for raising cash, wherein the cardinal has been swindled in his turn. Nothing is easier to understand, and it needs no Alexander to cut this Gordian knot."