the ruin that the people achieved), all the friends of Liberal ideas,
who soon, like Fréteau de Saint-Just, had more of Liberalism than they
liked.

These were the results which the King obtained by offering to the
Cardinal his choice between the royal verdict and that of the public
Court of Justice. Rohan said that, if the King would pronounce him
innocent, he would prefer to abide by the royal decision. He _was_
innocent of all but being a presumptuous fool; the King might, even
now, have recognised the fact. Mud would have been thrown, but not all
the poached filth of the streets of Paris. On the other hand, had
Louis withheld the case from public trial, we might still be doubtful
of the Queen's innocence. Napoleon acknowledged it: 'The Queen was
innocent, and to make her innocence the more public, she wished the
Parlement to be the judge. The result was that she was taken to be
guilty.' Napoleon thought that the King should have taken the case
into his own hand. This might have been wisdom for the day, but not
for securing the verdict of posterity. The pyramidal documents of the
process, still in existence, demonstrate the guilt of the La Mottes
and their accomplices at every step, and prove the stainless character
of the Queen.

La Motte could not be caught. He had fled to Edinburgh, where he lived
with an aged Italian teacher of languages. This worthy man offered to
sell him for 10,000_l._, and a pretty plot was arranged by the French
ambassador to drug La Motte, put him on board a collier at South
Shields and carry him to France. But the old Italian lost heart, and,
after getting 1,000_l._ out of the French Government in advance,
deemed it more prudent to share the money with the Count. Perhaps the
Count invented the whole stratagem; it was worthy of the husband and