His acquittal cost the families of De Rohan and De Conde more than a
million of livres, distributed among all ranks of the clergy; besides
immense sums sent to the Court of Rome to make it invalidate the judgment
of the civil authority of France upon so high a member of the Church, and
to induce it to order the Cardinal's being sent to Rome by way of
screening him from the prosecution, under the plausible pretext of more
rigid justice.

"Considerable sums in money and jewels were also lavished on all the
female relatives of the peers of France, who were destined to sit on the
trial. The Abbe Georgel bribed the press, and extravagantly paid all the
literary pens in France to produce the most Jesuitical and sophisticated
arguments in his patron's justification. Though these writers dared not
accuse or in any way criminate the Queen, yet the respectful doubts, with
which their defence of her were seasoned, did indefinitely more mischief
than any direct attack, which could have been directly answered.

"The long cherished, but till now smothered, resentment of the Comtesse
de Noailles, the scrupulous Madame Etiquette, burst forth on this
occasion. Openly joining the Cardinal's party against her former
mistress and Sovereign, she recruited and armed all in favour of her
protege; for it was by her intrigues De Rohan had been nominated
Ambassador to Vienna. Mesdames de Guemenee and Marsan, rival pretenders
to favours of His Eminence, were equally earnest to support him against
the Queen. In short, there was scarcely a family of distinction in
France that, from the libels which then inundated the kingdom, did not
consider the King as having infringed on their prerogatives and
privileges in accusing the Cardinal.

"Shortly after the acquittal of this most artful, and, in the present