The first payment of six hundred thousand
francs the cardinal was to pay from his own purse, the remaining
million the queen would pay in instalments of one hundred thousand
francs each, at the expiration of every three months. In the next
three months, the six hundred thousand francs advanced by the
cardinal should be refunded.
The cardinal felt himself highly flattered by this token of the
queen's confidence, and desired nothing more than the written
authorization of the queen, empowering him to make the purchase at
once. This document was not waited for long. Two days only passed
before the Countess Lamotte-Valois brought it, dated at Trianon, and
subscribed Marie Antoinette of France. Meanwhile some doubts arose
in the mind of the cardinal. He turned to his friend and adviser,
Count Cagliostro, for counsel. The latter had cured him years before
while very sick, and since that time had always been his
disinterested friend, and the prophet, so to speak, who always
indicated the cardinal's future to him. This man, so clear in his
foresight, so skilful in medicine, was now taken into confidence,
and his advice asked. Count Cagliostro summoned the spirits that
waited upon him, before the cardinal, one solitary night. He asked
these invisible presences what their counsel was, and the oracle
answered, that the affair was one worthy of the station of the
cardinal; that it would have a fortunate issue; that it put the seal
upon the favors of the queen, and would usher in the fortunate day
which would bring the great talents of the cardinal into employment
for the benefit of France and the world.
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