“‘Another mystery, which completely baffles all speculation, is the total disappearance of the necklace itself, the object of all this turmoil. It was a jewel so well known among the trade in Paris that every single stone would have been recognised. There was scarcely a person of any note in the capital who had not seen it, as it had lain at Boehmer’s, the jeweller’s, for more than a year, open to the inspection of any one who chose to ask for the sight of it. I recollect having seen it not a long while before it created so much disturbance. Boehmer had been employed to furnish the wedding jewels for one of my relations, and the morning that he came to deliver them, he brought the necklace for us to view, as a curiosity. Neither in the workmanship nor the size of the stones did it give any notion of the immense value which was set upon it. I believe, however, that this consisted in the stones being all brilliants of the first water, and, as a collection, the most perfect and free from blemish (so Boehmer told my aunt) in the whole world. “‘There is one more story connected with the jewel, which greatly complicates the mystery of the whole transaction, and which is known but to few persons. During the time that I held the Portefeuille of Foreign Affairs, I received a letter from our ambassador at one of the northern courts, wherein he announced to me, with great excitement, the arrival at his court of the Count de M——y and his wife. They had been presented by himself to the sovereign; for, although they might, strictly speaking, have been considered _emigrés_, not having returned to France during the reign of Napoleon, yet, as the count was not at that time the head of his family, and had never meddled in politics, he had a right to claim the protection of the ambassador of his country. The lady had chosen for her _début_ at court the occasion of a royal birthday, and she had made her appearance laden with all her jewels, and, “upon her neck,” wrote the baron, “she wore a necklace of the exact pattern of that, concerning which all Europe had been roused before the revolution—that is to say, the only difference being, that the three scroll ornaments which are so remarkable, and to which I could swear as being the same, are held by a chain of small rose diamonds instead of the _rivière_, by which they were joined before.”