The Story of the Diamond Necklace by Henry Vizetelly

RETRIBUTION. -THE CRIMINAL AND HER ACCOMPLICES.

We must now go back in our narrative to the point of time when Count de la Motte left England to traffic in his wife's "Mémoires" abroad, with what success we have already seen. Judging from the countess's dolorous account of their dealings with them in England, it is evident that trouble as well as profit resulted from these "Mémoires Justificatifs. " Neither she nor her husband were satisfied with disposing of copies of them through the ordinary channels, but sought to force a trade among merchants, and even hatters. It seems that nine hundred copies of the French, and two hundred and fifty copies of the English edition of the "Mémoires," together with two hundred and eighty-three copies of the countess's "Scourge for Calonne"-published at the several prices of one guinea, half a guinea, and five shillings-were intrusted to a French hatter in New Bond Street, named Coup, who advanced the count, at various times, something like three hundred pounds upon them. "Without any previous demand," says Madame de la Motte, "Coup came one day (May 14, 1789), in the absence of my husband, at the head of half a dozen bailiffs, and lodged an execution at my house in Chester Place, where he for the first time told me he had sufficient authority, my husband never having even mentioned the circumstance to me.