In about half an hour the cardinal returned with a paper, covered with erasures, and alterations, and blottings, as confused and unsatisfactory as his verbal statements had been. An officer was then summoned into the royal presence, and commanded to take the cardinal into custody and conduct him to the Bastile. He was, however, permitted to visit his home. The cardinal contrived, by the way, to scribble a line upon a scrap of paper, and, catching the eye of a trusty servant, he, unobserved, slipped it into his hand. It was a direction to the servant to hasten to the palace, with the utmost possible speed, and commit to the flames all of his private papers. The king had also sent officers to the cardinal's palace to seize his papers and seal them for examination. By almost superhuman exertions, the cardinal's servant first arrived at the palace, which was at the distance of several miles. His horse dropped dead in the court-yard. The important documents, which might, perhaps, have shed light upon this mysterious affair, were all consumed. The Countess Lamotte was also arrested, and held in close confinement to await her trial. She had just commenced living in a style of extraordinary splendor, and had vast sums at her disposal, acquired no one knew how. It is difficult to imagine the excitement which this story produced all over Europe. It was represented that the queen was found engaged in a swindling transaction with a profligate woman to cheat the crown jeweler out of gems of inestimable value, and that, being detected, she was employing all the influence of the crown to shield her own reputation by consigning the innocent cardinal to infamy. The enemies of the queen, sustained by the ecclesiastics generally, rallied around the cardinal. The king and queen, feeling that his acquittal would be the virtual condemnation of Maria Antoinette, and firmly convinced of his guilt, exerted their utmost influence, in self-defense, to bring him to punishment. Rumors and counter rumors floated through Versailles, Paris, and all the courts of the Continent. The tale was rehearsed in saloon and cafe with every conceivable addition and exaggeration, and the queen hardly knew which way to turn from the invectives which were so mercilessly showered upon her. Her lofty spirit, conscious of rectitude, sustained her in public, and there she nerved herself to appear with firmness and equanimity. But in the retirement of her boudoir she was unable to repel the most melancholy imaginings, and often wept with almost the anguish of a bursting heart. The sunshine of her life had now disappeared. Each succeeding day grew darker and darker with enveloping glooms.