1956-07-21 — Page 5

THE CHINA

MAIL,

Page

SATURDAY, JULY 21, 1956.

Page

LIVING IN A GOLDFISH BOWL

By Albert Stewart

H

AVE you ever WOO- dered what living in a goldfish bowl is like? Arthur Miller, the play - wright, said being married to Marilyn Monroe WILD equal to the sensation. But Mr Miller does not know the half of it! Right here in Hongkong there are people who have lived for months like that.

A 8

are

must

bigger modern buildings are being put up in the Colony, spacious ar ́- cades with Large show- windows of glass tho order. 1 ou have stopped moro than once while passing through Alexandra House arcade to admire the novel and imaginative interior decora-

tons of some oflice....or lo steal a glance at the pretty receptionist in another win- dow, perhapat But have you over wondered how

these

people feel about beng daily on display?

Two Types

MERE are two type of people who stop to gaze through the windows, The window shoppers are mostly genuine pruSPECTIVE buyers, Who verlously study Die Boods splayed. On th other hund there are those whe just look at the pretty re- peptionists, that is,

People working in the arcade all hold one common view. They have to be very careful of their dress and behaviour all through the day. The men did it annoy- lug not to be able to touch their ties or roll up their shirt- Bleeves. The girls say they have to be especially careful about the application of cosmetics and the contrast o[ colours wlti their dresses. They reckon that every minute of the day a pair of eyes is looking

them through the all tou roveuing pluto glass.

A pretty

for

receptionist 114 big willee confhies that

the first two mouths

felt extremely

Bub

she

self-conscious,

alber that She gradually became accustomed to the

Aught

of people stopping to look at the arrung-menl of gadgets is- payee clad it inter The bolt

4

and the brave hek straight at hor, but the shy ones first study the Foods

then start und furtive glance In the direction, linger for a moment then walk

sum

Revealing

MLES

EVENING [VICE CRIME SEX TO GO.

{{DAILY REFLECTOR

VICE

READ THE ONLY VICE FIT

TO PRINT

JEANNE DE LAMOTTE

OFFICIALS

COUNTY SHOW

DAILY LONDON VICE CLEAN-UP

OFFICIAL

130

"I should take that off your windscroon, Harry.”

USED A QUEEN OF FRANCE

AND A CARDINAL AS PAWNS IN A £64,000 SWINDLE

THE CASE BRANDED

N the very day that Jeanne de Lamolte arrived Loudon in

al the end of Judy, 1786. a printer offered a large sum for her memoirs, It was hardly surprising, for this lively, extremely at tractive young woman from France had been the Cen-

of trai figure of one

the

Memoirs of the Countess. de Valois de La Molle:

roataining complent jus- tificution of her conduct and an explanation of the Intrigues and Artifices used against her by her enemies

relative fo THE DIAMOND NECKLACE

OF THE COUNTESS

ONE OF

STORIES }

THE WORLD'S STRANGEST TOLD BY FELIX BARKER

With astonishing skill she bufit... With "this" she-retired. The up a spurious picture of the confidence placod

The Cardinal In tambo was over,

was delighted, Marie Antoinette,

A and soon the Queen (through This Belion was invaluable the intermediary of Jeanne, of with ambitious social climbers course) again showed her on the fringe of the court, but favour.

unit It deceived it was not Curdinol de Rohan that the stage was set for her greatest

RIP.

The Cardinal, Bishop of Strasbourg and Grand Alinoner France, was a man of old

小时

a prelate of the Church. scrutiny. She hardly between them

emerges with honour, and our story of the great neck lace fraud is based on wider

objective

weeks three Less than before she had started a life sentence in a Paris prison,

and more search.

re-

would

not

+

As Jeanne explained it, Marlo Antoinette was anxious to buy necklace which had been Inade by the Court Jewellers. This fabulous work of art con- sisted of $79 diamonds and the price was £64,000.

Trouble

WELS

that

MARIE ANTOINETTE

"What necklace?”

He had itgle time for reflec- was promptly arrested

most audacious frauds ever In the 167 years since family and great influence. Some perpetrated, and her trial those memoirs appeared years before, however, he had

around him, then that be real- two months before had - Jeanne de Lamotte's story fallen out with the Queen and

the ised that for 10 months he had Queen had to buy it without been duped by a scherning ad- volved Marie Antoinette and has been subjected to close Marie Antoinette

htt speak to him. The ley barrier

husband's knowledge and venturesS

was where the this, Jeanne went on, w was $50

the Cardinal was to be supreme- tion. He barrier to his dearest hope

ly honoured. He was to pur- as a suspected accomplice in. a chase becoming Premier of France.

Jearme de Lamotte was quick

it on her behalf.

He plot to defraud the Queen should pay by instalments, and Three days later Jeanne was to seize on this ambition. She had, almost

matter of she, of course, would secretly arrested and put in the Bastille, as a

the in Course, made the Cardinal pay him back.

The trial

following The jewellers were summoned May

sensation The WTS a (whose morals were most *

1.

the her lover. clerical)

Cardinal and let into the Palais de Justice was pucked, by and sho

confidence. They were only too and pamphleteers hawked in- NE of Jeanne's claims, offered to do everything to

to let him have him into

the credible versions of the story in however, can be accepted bring

the Queen pleased

necklace on the undertaking the streets of Paris. The judges without question, She was,

favour. She offered to act as a go-between, and take his letters stalment in seven months time. bewildering

that he would pay the first in- reached their verdiet in this and 11 as she signed herself,

case of lies Jeanne de Lamotte

to the Queen.

The Cardinal then saw il pass- deceit only after 18 hours. To the Cardinal's obsequious the talk of Europe, and she Valois — a

ed into the hands of a man in The Cardinal was absolved of could only venture from her through an illegitimate line letters there

royal livery (who was in fact all auspicion of complicity and of France. plies hinting that

he might feanne's accompliec),

Nicolas de Lamotte, acquitted. logings in the Haymarket of Henry II after dark. "Every coffee

She was of the blood hope for royal grace. He nover

Within a few weeks Jeanne's who had escaped and was tried husband was in London and the in his absence, was to be com- house,"

"was royal, yet as children Jeanne

diamonds from the necidiace mitted to the galleys for life.

offered over being

the and Jeanne, 'arch-planner of the filled with persons eager to and her younger sister were

counter vf jeweller's shops in whole fraud, was semieniced to Bond Street end Piccadilly, be branded with gratify their curiosity by forced to beg. The whining seeing me."

but had escaped and made her way to England. On her back was to be seen the sign of her ordeal the slowly- healing scar of the branding iron.

SHAPELY miss in a cheong- said she always read when business was sluck. Thus Absorbed she was noL CONSERKUS of the world passing by on the outside. But to her amoyance, to time she sat down every read more people scened stop in front of her window

to

She had the uncany feeling that pamething was auniss. One day she found out what it was. She had the

habit of crossing her

legs when she read. She 1150

she wrote,

WAH

descendant

plea-"Spare alms, in God's

name, for two orphans of the blood of Valois"-one day aroused the curiosity

had the habit of facing the BUT Jeanne de Lamotte at of a passing noblewoman.

show window, too, Realising that the cheongsam is revealing, she doesn't sit facing the win- dow now.

But such offices are not with- put advantages. Desks have to be kept neat and tidy at all times. The "eh" have to bo plart, smart in appearated.

The plate

glass works both tways. Whenever work is slow, those inside only have to look up from their desks for a diversion, They can smile ammugly as they watch people rushing through the

arcade on some

other. ness

Most or them

Gorm very. ed. It amuses the "sh" that Bo many are late for appoint- tnonte.

Greetings

busi-

of annoy-

THEY have also learned that THEY

each individual has his or her dwn manner of greeting an a0- quaintance. Oño obecrvant gentleman told me that he has noted no tower than 10 different ways by which man may greet a friend. He has niso noticed that everyone passing through the arcade never fails to look into the offices. "A man may pass through the arcade gov/bral times a day, but onch ự time he got through: he looks La into ano or the other of the

So remember to fresti time

as the memoirs themselves.

fashioned

she pleaded poverty, to offer styling herself Comtesse,

her money to keep silent.

Was

A

60

soon came ro

without

CTC

Breaking up the necklace meant voleuse or thief), to

a

be flogged,

(Lor

a serious drop in value, but and to be imprisoned for life Lamotte was quite happy to The flogging

and

branding £20,000 back to France. bring

were carried out with savage The Lamottes were now able brutality but not the rest of the to live in the grand style of sentence. Her escape from the which Jeanne had always Salpetriere prison waa Coll dreamed.

veniently arranged almost cer-

but there's nothing like a

Carlsberg

first refused the printer's She investigated the claim, offor. She 921 that the and when she found it was threat of her memoirs true arranged for their up-

How long Jeanne imagined tainly by anti-Monarchists, who CARDINAL de ROHAN this fantastic draud would re- calculated that once at liberty might be 168 remunerative bringing at a convent,

Unsuspecting dupe.

main undetected seems uncer- she might spread a story for But it was to be her doubled that they were from tain. Did she not realise that from favourable to the Queen. And she was quite right. natural blood, not the con- the Queen.

the bubble must burst when the vent

which

іп Bul, upbringing,

fact, they were first payment come due and no

forthcoming In the montha to follow a

Jeanne de Lamotte's lost from OF. and it is one of the money was Jeanne's forged,

features

year in London it in hard to number of people closely

almost incredible

of the Queen?

Perhaps she thought that find many details. What little connected with the French subsequent career. At 23 she this story that for a year there

discovered is known is contradictory, escaped from the sisterhood, was an exchange of something when the Cardinal court arrived to beg

the he had been cotened he would After the money from ber married a

named like 200 letters man her to bo discreet, and when

suspecting any pay up to avoid the scandal; If Memoire was finished poverty Carubal Nicolas de Lamotte, and

so, she reckoned without an forced her to a second autobio-

danger the His credulity was to be push- obvious.

thing graphy, and as in her art book, which, in fact, happened. ined further, Gratined as he was

The she accused Marie Antoinette of went to live in Paris

for their being a jewellers,

impatient by the letters, he was mystified Jew

to the necklace a party Jeanne accepted these 1781

to the fraud as well na guilty of in- that when Не met Marie money, applied directly ahe By then bribes and then, the money

and sho demantled to numerable vices. She probably Antoinette face to face she did Queen, spent, quite ruthlessly striking-looking girl with a

know what necklace they were had high hopes that, as before, not show her change of heart talking about

the double-crossed her bribers. lovely figure, blue eyes and

royal family would try to by much as a flicker of an

"What necklaco?" ·· ayelidi Suspicions were bound to

buy her off. In January, 1789, her book chestnut hair. From all ac-

It was while she was waiting in appeared each copy per- counts she had a bewitching grow, and Jeanne was being far

1701 for publication (and the 100

allow HY, stammered the jewel- bribes which never onme) that. richly rewarded sonally autographed smile, and she soon put it to any such risk.

Wers, the necklace who had he died in very curious circum Comtesse de Valois de la full use.

Jeanne informed the Cardinal, agreed to buy by proxy that while the Queen could not the

To her lodgings - Just stances. the Cardinal ono

de over Westminster Bridge, near Motte. The guineas began

shie Rohan give any sign in public,

had acquired for

The School, Asticy's Riding

thero to roll in to the office of Mr CHE considered that a royal for wished to meet him in private With mounting.

unger y J. Ridgway, printer of York time should be hers by right, and had suggested a secret ren Mark Antoinette heard them visitors One account ways they one day some sinister It was to be at night through; then the King was con- were bailiffs trying to collect o Street, St James's. Everyone and in her determination to get dezvous.

to the court and petition the in the gardens of the royal sulted and de Rohan required debt of £30, others that they wanted to read:

Queen the pulled every possible palace at Versailles.

to appear and givo a full' ex- were agents of the Duke of Or string. She thought frequent To help perform this pinto planation.

leane who wanted to citinap her loon of virtue small price to mime a nervous Hittle medisio Pale, but still not sumecting and take her back to France.. pay for advancement And, named Nicole was swept. The

by the want, the Cardinal said ho To escape there men Jeanne Into the role of im- had only done while using poople to her own Lamottes

whats had plimbed from a rinilow. (The sha personating

asked her tear ents, the worked on the mobile pool wide-brimmed hat that fried corough, in de ander, notten wood of the pill collarend

echood think they could uso hor.,

the Queen ground half impaling herself on Her great naine of Valois race to went to the "Friend

prearranged spot Anxi to her She did not even know he a free dump.

Shen. And by what insulin now spoko

'Sib

Sho survived only helped and with borrowed that August night came mbae who give the apporrance Cardinal, who dropped on one able presumption did he imagine on Feldar. August 20, 1791

robidan the hem of her that she would have Celine the woman who had of, afliuiénce?

been the to

through him,...

:of_| the}} monedal, which Valmisdimere i una commerült: The lille modiste then spoke the hnd not spoločný mingle pairabeau described (aff the pro- Compite all her wilowy got two horwil-rchearweck Hino, p

Aude to the Revolutions, like whe of 20 ICK ON THky, hope that the pout bựch mua hiyo bum then that numech An

to

her.

woman.

came

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