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mens Alluvions & relais formés dans une partie des Rivieres de Gironde, Garonne & Dordogne. 1786.
8vo. 32 leaves.
Rebound in half calf. Numbered 5 in ink on the title-page.
[2227]
Histoire de la Comtesse de la Motte.
vi. Histoire véritable de Jeanne de Saint-Rémi, ou les aventures de la Comtesse de la Motte. [1786]
There is no copy of this work in the Library of Congress and it is not known which edition was in the Jefferson collection.
[2228]
The Diamond Necklace
Jefferson was in Paris at the time of the affair of the Diamond Necklace, and collected many of the numerous pamphlets on the subject. Madame de la Motte’s autobiography, containing her own account, is included in Jefferson’s Book of Kings , in chapter 2, see no. 227. See also the Bastille devoilée , no. 218 in the same chapter.
The subject is mentioned in many of Jefferson’s letters at the time. On August 22, 1785, in a letter to Michael Guillaume St. Jean de Crèvecoeur (appointed the French consul at New York), Jefferson wrote: “ . . . the confinement of the Cardinal de Rohan in the Bastile has doubtless reached you. the public is not yet possessed of the truth of his story, but from his character and other circumstances I have little doubt that the final decision must be against him . . . ”
On September 4 of the same year he wrote to Mrs. Abigail Adams: “ . . . you will have seen the affair of the Cardinal de Rohan so well detailed in the Leyden gazette that I need add nothing on that head. the Cardinal is still in the Bastille. it is certain that the Queen has been compromitted without the smallest authority from her: and the probability is that the Cardinal has been duped into it by his mistress Mad me. de la Motte. there results from this two consequences not to his honour, that he is a debauchee, and a booby . . . ”
On May 7, 1786, in a letter to Louis Guillaume Otto, in New York, Jefferson mentioned: “ . . . the Cardinal de Rohan and Cagliostro remain where they did, in the Bastille; nor does their affair seem as yet to draw towards a conclusion. it has been a curious matter, in which the circumstances of intrigue & detail have busied all the tongues, the public liberty none . . . ”
Jefferson’s pamphlets on the subject were collected into one volume quarto and one volume small octavo, as follows:
J. 67
Memoires du Card. de Rohan, la Motte, Cagliostro &c. 4 to.
1815 Catalogue, page 90. no. 50, as above.
Twenty-one tracts on the Collier de la Reine, bound together in 1 volume quarto. The volume is in a half binding, and is now lettered on the back “Vol. 2.” which lettering has no connection with the Jefferson collection; the volume was included by the Library of Congress in a set of three containing tracts on the Collier.
Law 396
i. Mémoire pour Dame Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, epouse du Comte de La Motte. [ Paris:] de l’Imp. de L. Cellot, 1785.
24 leaves only, including the last blank; lacking the title leaf and probably a leaf with half-title; caption title, printer’s imprint at the end. Signed by Doillot.
This edition not in Hayn, and not in the Bibl. Nat. Cat. des Factums.
Jeanne de Saint Remy de Valois, Comtesse de la Motte, 1756-1791, was found guilty for her share in the affair, but eventually escaped from the Salpetrière and fled to London, where she wrote her biography, see no. 227.
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ii. Mémoire pour le Comte de Cagliostro, accusé; contre M. le Procureur-Général, accusateur; en présence de M. le Cardinal de Rohan, de la Comtesse de
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