During the troubled reign of Louis XVI. the crown jewels including the Regent were lodged in the Garde Meuble where upon stated days they were exposed to public view. On the famous tenth of August, 1792, when Louis was deprived of his crown he was also relieved from the burden of looking after the Regent. It had at once become the National Diamond and as such belonged to everybody, hence everybody had a right to see it. In compliance with this popular notion the Regent was deposed from its regal niche in the crown of France and was securely fastened in a steel clasp. A stout chain was attached to the clasp and padlocked inside an iron window. Thus secured from the too affectionate grip of its million owners the Regent used to be passed out through the window and submitted to the admiration of all who asked to see it. As a further security policemen and detectives were liberally scattered about the place in the interest of national probity. After the bloody days of the second and third of September when the ferocious mob of Paris broke into the prisons and massacred the unfortunate inmates, the Government imagined that the people should no longer be trusted with the custody of the Regent. Accordingly they locked up all the crown jewels as securely as they could in the cupboards of the Garde Meuble and affixed the seals of the Commune most visibly thereto. Notwithstanding their precautions, however, the result does not seem to have justified their conclusions. On the seventeenth of the same month it fell to M. Roland, then Minister of the Interior, to make a grievous statement to the Assembly. He informed the deputies that in the course of the preceding night some desperate ruffians had broken into the Garde Meuble Nationale between two and three o'clock in the morning and had stolen thence jewels to an enormous value. Two of these ruffians had been arrested, but unfortunately not those who had the large diamond and other national property secreted upon their persons. A patrol of ten men who were posted at the Convent des Feuillants had pursued the miscreants, but being less effectively armed than the robbers they were unable to capture them. The two thieves then in custody upon being questioned gave, of course, answers which aroused the suspicions of these easily inflamed patriots. It seemed certain--so at least argued Roland--that the robbery had been planned by persons belonging to the late dominant aristocratic party in order to supply themselves with money to be used in paying the foreign troops who were to subdue France and again reduce her to slavery. He then proceeded to deliver an impassioned address upon this fertile theme. Patriot deputies freely accused each other of being the authors of this crime. Danton was pointed at by one party, while he retorted by naming Roland, minister as he was, as one who knew too much about it.