The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All AgesBarnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
General
The Humbugs of the World: An Account of Humbugs, Delusions, Impositions, Quackeries, Deceits and Deceivers Generally, in All Ages
Barnum, P. T. (Phineas Taylor)
Impostors and imposture
"Highly satisfactory," replied Boehmer, whose serenity of countenance
Madame Campan had already remarked. "I have sold it to the Sultan at
Constantinople, for his favorite Sultana."
This the lady thought rather curious, but she was glad the thing was
disposed of, and said no more.
Time passed on again. In the beginning of August 1785, Boehmer took the
trouble to call on Madame Campan at her country-house, somewhat to her
surprise.
"Has the Queen given you no message for me?" he inquired.
"No!" said the lady; "What message should she give?"
"An answer to my note," said the jeweler.
Madame remembered a note which the Queen had received from Boehmer a
little while before, along with some ornaments sent by his hands to her
as a present from the King. It congratulated her on having the finest
diamonds in Europe, and hoped she would remember him. The Queen could
make nothing of it, and destroyed it. Madame Campan therefore replied,
"There is no answer, the Queen burned the note. She does not even
understand what you meant by writing that note."
This statement very quickly elicited from the now startled German a
story which astounded the lady. He said the Queen owed him the first
instalment of the money for the diamond necklace; that she had bought it
after all; that the story about the Sultana was a lie told by her
directions to hide the fact; since the Queen meant to pay by
instalments, and did not wish the purchase known. And Boehmer said, she
had employed the Cardinal de Rohan to buy the necklace for her, and it
had been delivered to him for her, and by him to her.
Now the Queen, as Madame Campan knew very well, had always strongly
disliked this Cardinal; he had even been kept from attending at Court in
consequence, and she had not so much as spoken to him for years. And so
Madame Campan told Boehmer, and further she told him he had been imposed
upon.
"No," said the man of sparklers decisively, "It is you who are deceived.
She is decidedly friendly to the cardinal. I have myself the documents
with her own signature authorizing the transaction, for I have had to
let the bankers see them in order to get a little time on my own
payments."
Here was a monstrous mystification for the lady of honor, who told
Boehmer to instantly go and see his official superior, the chief of the
king's household. She herself being very soon afterwards summoned to the
Queen's presence, the affair came up, and she told the Queen all she
knew about it. Marie Antoinette was profoundly distressed by the evident
existence of a great scandal and swindle, with which she was plainly to
be mixed up through the forged signatures to the documents which Boehmer
had been relying on.
Now for the Cardinal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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