then went to the Countess de Lamotte, who had the effrontery to say she believed he was being victimised, and advised him to go to the Cardinal, thinking, doubtless, that De Rohan would take the entire responsibility when the alternative was his ruin. The jeweller, however, instead of taking her advice, went straight to the King. The King immediately communicated with the Queen, who was furious, and insisted on having the Cardinal arrested forthwith. The fat was now in the fire with a vengeance. The arrest of the Cardinal was followed by that of the Countess de Lamotte, of Cagliostro and his wife (whom the Countess in utter recklessness accused of the theft of the necklace), of the Baroness d’Oliva, who had “played” the Queen, of de Vilette, the forger of the letters, and various minor actors in this astounding drama. In the celebrated trial that followed Cagliostro was acquitted, but not until he had spent nine months in the Bastille. There was, in fact, not a shadow of evidence against him. His wife was released before the trial took place. Cagliostro received an ovation from the people of Paris on the occasion of his release, as well as De Rohan, who was also acquitted, the popularity of the verdict being due to the hatred with which the Royal Family were now everywhere regarded. But on the day after, by a Royal edict, De Rohan was stripped of all his dignities and exiled to Auvergne, while Cagliostro was ordered to leave France within three weeks. The Count retired to England, fearful lest worse might befall him; but even here the relentless malignity of the discredited Queen, who regarded his acquittal as equivalent to her own condemnation, followed his footsteps. The unscrupulous De Morande, as we have already seen, was paid by the Court to ruin his reputation and to identify him with the thief and gaolbird Joseph Balsamo. London was soon made so hot for him that he returned once more to the Continent, and made his home for a short time in Switzerland. Later on he went to Trent, where the Prince-Bishop, who had a passion for alchemy, made him a welcome guest. But the Count’s day was over, and misfortune continued to dog his footsteps. The Emperor Joseph II. would not permit his vassal to harbour the man who had been mixed up in the Diamond Necklace affair, and the Bishop was reluctantly obliged to bid him begone. Cagliostro now found himself driven from pillar to post, his resources were at an end, and his friends were dead or had deserted him. He turned his steps towards Italy, and eventually arrived at Rome. Here his presence becoming known to the papal authorities, he and his wife were arrested as members of the Masonic Fraternity. In those days, within the Papal States Freemasonry was a crime punishable by death. After a mock trial the death-sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life, while his wife was confined in a penitentiary.