Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

Chapter IX THE DIAMOND NECKLACE

Artois was in the Queen’s apartment. He was pacing the floor, his eyes ablaze, his impish smile illuminating his rather handsome face. Antoinette smiled at him. She had always been a great deal fonder of him than of his brother Provence.

He was saying: ‘But why not, ’Toinette? Why not indeed? It would be a wonderful show. A perfect play for the Trianon Theatre. I tell you it is better than Le Mariage de Figaro. The barber is more amusing, more witty, more impudent than ever in this play. We must do it. Come, ’Toinette, say you will allow us to play Le Barbier de Seville in your theatre.’

‘As you are so earnest …’ she began.

He was beside her, kissing her hands, putting his arm about her and dancing with her about the apartment.

‘It is well that there are only those whom we trust watching us,’ she said.

‘ ’Toinette, we should never trust any, and there will always be those to watch us whom we do not trust.’ He struck an attitude and declaimed: ‘ “Since men have no choice other than stupidity or madness, if I can’t get any profit I want pleasure at least. So hurrah for happiness. Who knows if the world is going to last three weeks?” That,’ he continued, ‘is Figaro. What a character! My dearest Queen, you must play Rosine. “Imagine the prettiest little woman in the world, gentle, tender, lively, fresh, appetising, nimble of foot, slenderwaisted, with rounded arms, dewy mouth; and such hands; such feet; such eyes!” There! That is Rosine. And you, my Queen, must play Rosine. I swear if you do not I’ll not play the barber, and what will the play be like without me as the barber?’

‘You are growing old, you know, brother. You should show more seriousness.’

‘Ha! Look who commands me.’

‘And you a father!’

‘Fathers must have their fun, ’Toinette.’

‘You have not forgotten, I trust, that it will soon be your eldest son’s birthday. That reminds me – I have such a charming gift for him. I hope it will please young Monsieur le Duc d’Angoulême.’

‘If you chose the gift, it surely will,’ said Artois. He went on: ‘Vaudreuil would wish for a part, I am sure.’

She was determined to tease him, although she was interested in the Beaumarchais play.

‘I have some diamond epaulets and buckles for your son,’ she said. ‘They are certainly charming. I wonder if they are here. I will show them to you.’

‘Let us settle this matter of the play first.’

‘There is time for that.’ She called to one of her women. ‘Henriette, has Boehmer brought the diamonds for the Little Duke?’

‘Yes, Madame. I have them here. The jeweller left a letter for you with them. He was somewhat agitated. He was so anxious that you should have the letter.’

‘Bring them to me. I wish to show the ornaments to the Comte.’

Henriette de Campan brought the jewels and the letter. Antoinette showed the trinkets to Artois and, while he was examining them, she opened the letter from the jeweller.

She read it and frowned.

‘This surprises me,’ she said.

Artois came and looked over her shoulder, and they read the letter together.

‘Why so?’ asked the Comte.

‘Because I have no notion what the man is talking about. Henriette,’ she called.

Madame de Campan came hurrying to her side.

‘How was Boehmer when he left the letter?’

‘Strange, Madame. Agitated.’

‘Do you think he is … sane?’

‘Sane, Madame? How so?’

‘He writes such a strange letter. I have no notion what he means. He says he is very satisfied by the arrangements and that it is a great pleasure to him that the most magnificent diamonds in the world are now in the possession of the most beautiful of Queens.’

‘He’s hoping for business,’ said Artois.

‘A strange letter to write. What does he want to sell me now? Thank heaven it is not that necklace of his!’

‘The famous necklace,’ mused Artois.

‘You’ve heard of it?’

‘Who has not heard of it? Didn’t the man roam the world trying to sell it?’

‘Yes. He declared that if he did not succeed he would be ruined. He came to me one day and implored me to have it. He made quite a scene before Charlotte. I told him to break up the stones and sell them separately. It was a foolish idea to make the necklace in the first place. I was delighted when he sold it. Who was it bought it, Henriette?’

‘The Sultan of Constantinople bought it for his favourite wife, Madame,’ said Madame de Campan.

‘I was quite relieved when I heard it,’ said Antoinette. She looked at the letter again, laughed and held it up to the flame of the candle. Then she threw it from her into the fireplace. Dismissing the matter, she called to Madame de Campan to put the little Duke’s present away and gave herself up to the pleasure of discussing the proposed performance of Le Barbier de Seville.

The Queen was rehearsing her lines. There was no doubt about it; Beaumarchais had surpassed himself with the Barber. She really believed with Artois that it was a better play than Le Mariage de Figaro.

Her role was – apart from that of the barber – the most important, and she was eager to acquit herself with honours. It should be one of those occasions such as she loved. The King and all the most noble people at Court should be in the audience. Meanwhile rehearsal followed rehearsal.

She found it a little difficult to concentrate on rehearsals, for on the previous day the jeweller Boehmer had presented himself at Trianon and begged an audience. She had refused this. She sent her woman to say that she was in no need of new jewels and, if at any time she decided she needed more, she would send for him.

The woman had reported that the man had been very disconsolate and had told her that Madame de Campan had suggested he see the Queen as soon as possible.

‘Madame de Campan!’ Antoinette had cried. ‘Where is Henriette? Is she not visiting her father-in-law?’

‘It is so, Madame,’ Antoinette was told.

‘Then the man is clearly not telling the truth. It is some plot of his to obtain an audience and then show me some magnificent pair of earrings which he has made especially for me. It will be like the affair of the necklace all over again.’

Nevertheless the matter worried her. Could it really be that the man was going out of his mind? That letter he had written about the satisfactory arrangements – what could it mean? It really seemed as though he were, to put it kindly, a little unbalanced.

The rehearsal went on, and afterwards everyone declared that Antoinette would make a charming Rosine – a perfect foil to Artois’ barber. Oh, yes, this was certainly going to be the finest production ever seen at the Trianon Theatre.

When her women were helping to dress her after the rehearsal, one of them mentioned that Henriette de Campan had returned from her visit to her father-in-law, and that she was anxious to speak to the Queen privately as soon as Antoinette would receive her.

‘Leave me now,’ said Antoinette, ‘and tell her to come to me at once.’

When Henriette came, Antoinette immediately saw that something had happened to cause her grave anxiety.

‘Henriette,’ cried the Queen, ‘what is wrong, and why did you send that absurd man Boehmer to Trianon?’

‘It is about the necklace. The diamond necklace.’

‘That trinket … the one which was sold to the Sultan of Constantinople?’

Henriette was looking at her mistress with bewildered eyes. ‘Boehmer says, Madame, that it was not sold to the Sultan, but that it was sold to you.’

‘Then he is mad. I feared it. So that is what he wished to see me about. Speak up, Henriette. What are you thinking? What has he told you? It is a lie if he says I bought the necklace. You know very well that he sold it to the Sultan.’

‘Madame, I must tell you what has happened. He was at my father-in-law’s house. He said he must talk to me about this matter, for he found it difficult to get an audience with Your Majesty. He said he was surprised that I did not know you had bought the necklace. He felt sure that I must have seen you wear it on some occasion.’

‘But he himself said it was sold to the Sultan.’

‘I told him this, Madame. He said that he had had instructions, which came indirectly from you, to say that the Sultan had bought it. I did not believe this, for I remembered you had referred to the matter quite recently – when you had Boehmer’s letters. I asked him when you had told him that you would buy the necklace. He answered that he had not had dealings with you personally about the matter.’

‘Ah!’ cried Antoinette. ‘Indeed he has not. So he spoke the truth there.’

‘He declared that the transaction was made through the Cardinal de Rohan.’

‘The Cardinal de Rohan! That man! I loathe him. Does Boehmer think that I would allow him to transact any business for me?’

‘Your Majesty, he has documents. He says your orders were passed to him by the Cardinal. These orders were signed by you, and he has shown them to various people in order to obtain the credit he needed. He says that you have received the necklace through the Cardinal, and that it is to be paid for in four instalments at four-monthly intervals.’

‘This is preposterous!’ cried the Queen. ‘I have never had the necklace. I have had no dealings with the Cardinal de Rohan. The man must be mad. Send at once for Boehmer.’

Boehmer came to the Queen. He was apprehensive.

‘What is this ridiculous story you have to tell?’ demanded the Queen.

‘Madame,’ said Boehmer. ‘The diamond necklace was handed to the Cardinal de Rohan who was able to show me the order which was signed by Your Majesty.’

‘Where is this order?’

‘I have it here.’

The Queen seized it. It was written in a poor imitation of her handwriting, and it was signed ‘Marie Antoinette de France’.

‘That is not my writing,’ said the Queen. ‘And you know, do you not, that Queens never sign their names in that way. I always sign simply “Marie Antoinette”, never “of France”. Surely that should have shown you that this is a preposterous forgery.’

‘Madame, the Cardinal assured me that his orders came from you. I am distracted. The first payment was due on the 1st August. I cannot ask my creditors to wait any longer.’

‘It’s a lie. You know that you sold the necklace to the Sultan of Constantinople.’

‘That was the story which Your Majesty wished to be put about, because this transaction was to be so secret.’

‘I never heard such a ridiculous story.’

‘Madame, I swear I handed the necklace to the Cardinal, and that he assured me that it was at your command.’

‘I do not see the Cardinal. I will not see the Cardinal. I have not seen him since the baptism of the Duc de Normandie, and then I did not speak to him.’

‘Madame, he assured me that the go-between was a lady – a very dear friend of yours.’

‘What lady?’

‘The Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois.’

‘I have never heard of the woman. The whole thing is a plot by the Cardinal. Pray go now, Monsieur Boehmer. I promise you this matter shall have my immediate attention – and that of His Majesty.’

The jeweller took his leave and, when he had gone, Antoinette went at once to Louis’ apartments.

‘Louis,’ she cried, ‘I must speak to you alone … at once.’

Louis dismissed all his attendants, and she burst out: ‘That man, that wicked man who so maligned my mother, has determined to humiliate me also. He has contrived some absurd plot – some frightful plot – to … to do me some harm. Though I cannot quite clearly see what. He has been to the jeweller and, according to Boehmer, bought on my account that diamond necklace which he was always talking about and urging us to buy.’

‘Bought it … on your account? But the Cardinal …’

‘Exactly! I have not exchanged a word with the man for years. And now it seems he has been to the jeweller and told him that I have begged him to buy the necklace on my behalf. There are forged documents – documents said to have my signature on them. Look at this. This is supposed to be my order. You can see for yourself that it is a forgery. “Marie Antoinette de France”! As if I would sign myself thus. And do you mean to tell me that Rohan did not know this for a forgery?’

Louis was bewildered; he could only stare at the paper in his hand.

‘What does it mean, Louis? What does it mean?’

‘You … have not bought the necklace?’

She looked at him with deep reproach. ‘You … even you … ask that! Indeed I have not bought the necklace. Would it not have been noticed immediately if I had worn it? Why should I keep it a secret? There has been a terrible fraud … a fraud to humiliate and insult me and involve me in – I know not what … ’

Louis said: ‘Be calm. We will sift this matter, and we will discover what it is all about.’

It was Assumption Day and the courtiers thronged the Salle de Glace and the Oeil-de-Boeuf waiting to accompany the King and Queen to Mass.

Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan, who, as Grand Almoner to the King, was to officiate, was also waiting there. He was excited – as he always was on those occasions when he had an opportunity of being near the Queen. She never gave a sign that she noticed him; but recently, since the affair of the necklace, he had convinced himself that she had her reasons for behaving thus. She was by no means indifferent to him: Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois had assured him of this.

He was obsessed by the Queen. He had thought of her constantly since he had first seen her – a young, so innocent girl, a little frightened, leaving her native country to come to a new one where she was to be called upon to play such an important part.

He had been a fool, he often accused himself, to write slightingly of her mother. But who would have thought it would have been allowed to get to the Queen’s ears that he had done so? That was bad luck.

She had been very disdainful towards him since, and never given him so much as a glance. Perhaps that very attitude of hers had inflamed his passion, for he was a man of deep sensuality, and the fact that he wore the robes of the church had never been allowed to interfere with his amorous adventures. But these had begun to pall; there was one woman with whom he wished to share them, and she had been completely out of his reach until Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois had come along and informed him to the contrary.

Then the exciting and incredible adventure had begun. There had been letters from the Queen; there had even been a brief meeting in the gardens of Versailles. The Cardinal had begun to believe that the Queen was far from indifferent to him and that if he were a little patient she would become his mistress.

To show how absolute was her faith in him she had entrusted him with that transaction with the jewellers and he had procured for her the diamond necklace which, he had been told, she wished to buy secretly as the King would not buy it for her; he had even lent her money.

At any moment now the doors would be thrown open and she would appear with Louis. Poor Louis! Who cared for Louis? No wonder the enchanting creature must have a lover.

Now was the moment. The doors were flung open.

But the King and Queen did not appear. Instead a lackey stood where they should have been.

‘Prince Cardinal de Rohan!’ called the lackey.

The Cardinal went forward.

‘The King commands you to go at once to his private apartments.’

The Queen was with the King in his private apartments. Rohan gave her a quick look; but she did not seem to see him. Also present was the Baron de Breteuil, the Minister of State.

The King said: ‘Cousin, have you recently bought diamonds from the jeweller Boehmer?’

‘Yes, Sire. I have.’

‘Where are they?’

Rohan looked anxiously towards Antoinette, who stared beyond him with the utmost haughtiness. He presumed now that the King knew the necklace was in the Queen’s possession, and that no good would come of trying to hide this fact.

‘I think they have been delivered to the Queen,’ said Rohan.

‘By whom?’

‘By the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois who brought me instructions from Her Majesty, whose commands I then carried out.’

Antoinette cried angrily: ‘Do you think, Monsieur le Cardinal, that I, who have not spoken to you for years, would ask you to arrange such a commission, and that it is possible that this should be through a woman I do not know?’

Rohan was bewildered. The King saw this and was sorry for him.

‘There must be some explanation,’ said Louis kindly.

‘I believe, Sire,’ murmured Rohan, ‘that I have been most cruelly deceived.’

‘I am awaiting your explanation,’ said the King. ‘Where is this necklace?’

‘I have handed it to Madame de Lamotte-Valois. She assured me that she had passed it on to the Queen. I have letters, which, I was told, were written by the Queen.’

‘Show me,’ said Louis.

The Cardinal produced one, and the King looked at it. ‘Marie Antoinette de France,’ murmured Louis. ‘You should know, cousin, that no Queen would sign herself thus. Leave us now. This is a matter which it will be necessary to sift, that we may know the truth. The Queen’s good name is involved, and I would have you know, cousin, that makes this a matter of first importance to me.’

The Cardinal retired. In the Salle de Glace and Oeil-de-Boeuf people were asking each other why Mass was being delayed. They saw the Cardinal walk out of the King’s apartment, his face quite white, his eyes glittering.

He had taken but a few paces when Breteuil appeared behind him and shouted an order to one of the guard who was stationed in the King’s ante-room.

‘Arrest Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan.’

There was a breathless silence as the tall and handsome Cardinal was conducted to one of the guard-rooms in the lower part of the Palace.

The performance of Le Barbier de Seville was given at the Trianon Theatre on the 19th August, four days after the arrest of Rohan.

The audience was a little absentminded, because they were thinking of this preposterous affair of the necklace. Already the people in the streets were talking of it, calling it ‘The Queen’s Necklace’, asking each other what fresh extravagance was this. 1,600,000 livres squandered on one necklace to adorn that proud neck, while many in Paris had not the necessary sous to buy their bread. And it was a secret transaction too! The Queen had called in her latest lover to buy the necklace for her. What next?

They waited eagerly to find out.

The truth was that an amazing fraud had been perpetrated, and the victims of that fraud were the Queen and the Cardinal de Rohan. The person who had planned the whole affair was a wily and extremely handsome woman who called herself Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois, claiming that she was of the royal house because an ancestor of hers had been the illegitimate son of Henri Deux.

Jeanne had had a hard childhood and had often been reduced to begging in the streets; but she was clever and, when only seven years old, had presented herself to the Marquis de Boulainvilliers and told her story of possessing royal blood so pitiably that the Marquise had taken the girl and her younger sister into her household and educated them; finally, when Jeanne married a Captain of the Guards, she insisted that he must assume the title of Comte, that he might be worthy to mate with a descendant of the Valois; and she added Valois to their name so that they were known as the Comte and Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois.

Jeanne soon tired of her husband, but with the help of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers she made the acquaintance of the Cardinal de Rohan, that notoriously sensual prelate. Jeanne was a very handsome woman and it was not long before she became his mistress. To be the mistress of an exalted Cardinal was pleasing, but Jeanne was too worldly not to know that her triumph was ephemeral; she was too strong-minded to accept a minor role in any partnership, and immediately began to wonder how she could make herself rich and independent.

Obsessed by the thought of the royal blood of which she boasted, she determined to see if she could make her way at Court; and the only way she could think of in which she could call attention to herself was by fainting in the apartments of Madame Elisabeth. This lady, saintly by nature, was known to be good of heart and to have a very soft spot in it for the poor. Jeanne made sure that there should be friends at hand to explain that she was descended from the Valois – who were as royal as the Bourbons – and that she had fainted from starvation. The result of this was that Madame Elisabeth had her taken to her home and gave her a sum of money. Jeanne repeated the fainting fit, once in the apartments of Madame d’Artois and once in those of Antoinette. On each occasion she was given financial help, but no one seemed interested in her story.

Jeanne however could not resist talking about her experiences at Court, inventing stories of how the Queen had received her and made much of her, calling her ‘dear cousin’.

In the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, where Jeanne had her lodgings she became a person of importance. Each day she went to Versailles – to call on the Queen, she said. Many flocked to her house, bringing her presents, for they felt it would be wise to win the favour of one who was so well received at Court, and they had heard that the Queen chose her friends from all classes. Take for instance Madame Bertin the couturière. She was a friend of the Queen and consequently had become a person of great influence. And what was she but a dressmaker? Yet Madame Bertin could procure all sorts of jobs for her friends, and was queen of her little circle. Jeanne became queen of hers.

She would wait in the Galerie at Versailles to see the Queen pass; she would study her well; and all the time she was turning over in her mind how she could make herself rich, respected, and received at Court.

Jeanne had a lover – a cunning man, Retaux de Villette. They schemed together as they lay in bed at night.

‘You should not neglect your good friend the Cardinal,’ Retaux warned her. ‘He is too rich and influential to be neglected.’

This was true. Often Jeanne called at the Episcopal Palace to see her old benefactor and to remind him of times past.

The Cardinal fascinated her. She knew him well. He was a Prince, a relation of the royal family; he was cultured and of high rank in the church, and yet it seemed to Jeanne that the Cardinal was in some ways a fool.

He was, for one thing, completely under the influence – perhaps control – of a strange man, Joseph Balsamo, who called himself the Comte de Cagliastro but was in reality the son of a converted Sicilian Jew who had died when Joseph was a boy. In their home at Palermo the young Joseph had been apprenticed to an apothecary. He was a strange boy, and had declared from the first his belief in occult powers; he developed certain tricks, and was both a conjurer and a ventriloquist. Of striking appearance, he was undoubtedly possessed of certain hypnotic powers which he developed. With all these gifts he had at an early age set out to make his fortune.

During the first stages of his career he had been in trouble more than once when he had been accused of being a common thief and swindler, but later he became a Freemason and was received with honour in the various countries he visited. It was thus that he came to be regarded as a man of superhuman powers and there were many who were ready to listen to him.

One of these was the Cardinal de Rohan whom he had completely fascinated. Cagliostro now lived in the Cardinal’s palace and was deferred to by all therein. There he worked at his crucible and declared that he could make gold and precious stones.

Cagliostro, some said, had exerted his powerful influence over the Cardinal so that in him de Rohan could see no wrong.

‘Have a care, Monseigneur,’ warned his friends. ‘This man whom you harbour in your house will make great demands upon you.’

‘He asks me nothing … nothing,’ declared the Cardinal. ‘He will make me the richest prince in the world, and he asks nothing for it. He is divine. There are times when I think Cagliostro – who has lived through many centuries – is God himself.’

Truly the Cardinal was bewitched.

And if he could be bewitched by a sorcerer, thought Jeanne, why should he not be bewitched by a clever woman?

Jeanne made the acquaintance of Cagliostro who was so interested in the young woman that he would occasionally walk with her in the gardens of the Episcopal Palace and, on one memorable occasion, he discussed the Cardinal.

‘Monseigneur has two great desires in this life,’ Cagliostro told Jeanne.

‘And they are, Master?’

‘Why should I tell you?’ asked Cagliostro, turning his brilliant gaze upon the woman at his side. ‘But methinks I will. For I shall then have the pleasure of seeing what you make of the knowledge. But indeed I know; for, my child, all things are known to me.’

Even a practical woman such as Jeanne could not but be affected by the man. He walked beside her, his wide nostrils flaring with that passion which seemed to be pent up within him; with his olive complexion and rather prominent and piercing black eyes the man was striking enough; his hands were folded behind him and his taffeta coat, which was trimmed with gold braid, was open to show his scarlet waistcoat, embroidered with gold; his red breeches and his stockings were of many colours which were also touched with gold. He wore many jewels – diamonds flashed on his fingers, rubies as buttons adorned his waistcoat; his watch-chain was composed of diamonds; and all these stones were enormous. It was said he had made them himself. Some said they were paste; yet they seemed to sparkle with a brilliance greater than that of other stones. Some said that Cagliostro put a spell on all those who looked at his jewels, so that they saw them as he wished them to.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘I will tell you of the two wishes which are dear to the Cardinal’s heart. He has brooded much on other Cardinals who have played their part in the history of his country. There are times when he tells me the secrets of his heart and knows not afterwards that he has spoken of them. He talks much of Cardinal Richelieu. He talks of Cardinal Mazarin; and he dreams of the day when men and women will talk of the great part Cardinal de Rohan played in the history of his country.’

Jeanne said: ‘Yes, Master. I know it.’

‘Yes, you know it, my child. You know it even as I know, for I have willed that you should know it. And know you this. He thinks constantly of the Queen. He believes that if he were the lover of the Queen there would be nothing to stand between him and his desires. He longs to be the lover of the Queen; he constantly searches for the means of winning her favour.’ Cagliostro turned his prominent eyes on Jeanne. ‘You, my child, tell us you have found favour with the Queen. You tell us that she receives you and calls you cousin.’

Jeanne shivered. He knows I lie, she thought. He must know. The Master knows everything.

She felt the white fingers touch her shoulder. She did not look down but she was aware of the flashing diamonds, the ruby that was almost the size of an egg.

‘Since you tell us the Queen receives you,’ said the strange man, ‘mayhap you could speak to her on the Cardinal’s behalf. That, my child, would do you much good with the Cardinal.’

Then he left her; and Jeanne pondered. She thought of the flashing diamonds of the sorcerer, and it was then that she conceived the idea.

So Jeanne talked to the Cardinal of her triumphs with the Queen. Rétaux, who was by profession a clerk, had a gift for adapting his handwriting to various styles, and he produced a flowing feminine one in which he wrote a letter addressed to ‘My dear cousin Valois’, signed as by the Queen.

The Cardinal read the letter, and as he read it Jeanne was aware of the shadow of Cagliostro passing the window. Jeanne was trembling, for she feared the Cardinal must recognise the forgery. It seemed incredible that he – a Prince accustomed to royal documents – should not have recognised a clerk’s clumsy hand in this, but he did not.

‘I have spoken to Her Majesty of your Excellency,’ Jeanne said. ‘She has at times felt hatred towards you for what you said of her mother, but she has whispered to me that it is unchristian to preserve such hatreds for ever.’

The Cardinal, seeming bemused, was enchanted with this news; yet Jeanne was aware of a certain bewilderment which crossed his features, and she said quickly: ‘I think that if I assured Her Majesty of your desolation at the rift between you, and that it is your greatest desire to serve her, she might give some sign of her changed feelings for you.’

‘Bring me this sign,’ said the Cardinal.

In a few days Jeanne returned with a letter which she said the Queen had entrusted to her for delivery to the Cardinal.

It ran:

‘I am delighted that I need no longer regard you as blameworthy. It is not possible to grant you yet an audience such as you desire, but I will let you know when circumstances permit this. Meanwhile be discreet …’

And this extraordinary document was signed ‘Marie Antoinette de France.’

The Cardinal, in his delight, showered gifts on Jeanne – the clever go-between through whose favour he might win the Queen’s.

How to turn this amazing situation to greater advantage occupied Jeanne and her lover day and night. Jeanne was a bold schemer and she believed so fervently in her own astuteness that she never hesitated to put into action her most outrageous plans.

She now told the Cardinal that the Queen was short of money and was asking him to show his esteem by lending her 50,000 livres, which should be handed to her dear friend the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois. The Cardinal showed signs of suspicions, so Jeanne hastily declared that the Queen would meet him for a few moments in the gardens of Versailles. This meeting must be very secret. She could not explain why, but he would know later when Antoinette was able to receive him openly.

The Cardinal, overjoyed, borrowed the 50,000 livres from a moneylender and gave the money to Jeanne; this was riches in the household in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, but both Jeanne and Retaux realised that unless they could procure a ‘Queen’ to meet the Cardinal it would be the last of their pickings.

They were bemused by their success; they had come to believe that they could do exactly what they liked with the gullible Cardinal, so Retaux discovered a modiste who was a prostitute in her spare time, a very pretty, fair young woman in whom many noticed a faint resemblance to the Queen.

They brought her to the house in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles and offered her what seemed to her a fabulous sum if she would do exactly what they wanted. They rehearsed her in what she must say, dressed her in muslin such as the Queen wore for her simple country life at Trianon, and took her one starry night to the grove of Venus in the Versailles gardens where the trees were so thick that it was impossible to see clearly the faces of those who sheltered beneath them. There Mademoiselle d’Oliva waited, nervously clutching a rose and a letter which she was to give to a tall gentleman who would come to her and converse for a few seconds only. With her was Retaux in the livery of a royal servant which he had managed to procure, and also Jeanne who would help her if she needed help.

The tall handsome man came to the rendezvous; he was wrapped in a great cloak and, as soon as he saw the little prostitute, he knelt and kissed the hem of her muslin gown.

Mademoiselle d’Oliva whispered: ‘You may hope that the past will be forgotten.’

The dark man was on his feet. He had taken her hand.

She proffered the rose which he took eagerly.

At that moment Jeanne whispered in a voice of great alarm: ‘Come away … quickly, Madame. Someone comes this way. You must not be discovered.’

Only too glad to have played her part, Mademoiselle d’Oliva turned and hurried away with Jeanne.

After that incident it was easy to draw more sums from the Cardinal.

Then to Jeanne came the great idea of making herself rich for ever.

She was entertaining lavishly on the money which the Cardinal had provided; her friends were certain that she had some high place at Court. Several times a week they saw her ride out in her carriage for Versailles. There she would alight and wait with the crowds in the courtyards or the Galerie, and whenever possible study the Queen. She could then go home and describe to her friends what the Queen wore, what she looked like that day – in fact, with the aid of her memory and her vivid imagination, she was able to give credibility to this story of her friendship with Antoinette.

And to one of her parties a friend brought Boehmer the Court jeweller. He was very deferential to the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois, and asked if he might speak to her alone.

‘Madame,’ he said, ‘I find myself in great financial difficulties. There is a diamond necklace which I made in the hope that the Queen would buy it. I have put myself and my partners deeply in debt in order to procure only the finest stones; and the skilled workmanship which has gone into the making of this necklace is the best in the world. But if the Queen cannot be persuaded to buy this necklace – and no one else in the country could afford to do so – I and my partner are ruined men. Now you are the Queen’s dear friend. If you could persuade her to buy this necklace, believe me, dear Comtesse, I should be ready to offer you a very big commission.’

Jeanne considered this. It would have been a pleasant way of earning money, if she had known the Queen, if she had been in a position to persuade her.

She said she would do what she could, and the jeweller went away somewhat relieved.

She continued to think of the necklace, and eventually asked the jeweller if he would bring it to her house and show it to her.

As soon as she set eyes on it her fertile mind began to work. She dreamed of the necklace. She did not see the beauty of those magnificent stones and their clever setting; she saw 1,600,000 livres – a fortune.

She paid a visit to the Cardinal.

‘I have news, Excellency, of Her Majesty.’

The Cardinal’s handsome eyes gleamed with excitement.

‘The Queen needs your help. She says that if you will help her in this matter she will know you are truly her friend. She wishes to buy a diamond necklace. The King will not buy it for her, so she must do it herself; and this means doing it secretly.’

‘I will do all in my power …’ murmured the Cardinal.

‘These are the Queen’s instructions. You are to visit the jeweller and tell him that you have the Queen’s order to purchase the necklace for her. The price is 1,600,000 livres, and the Queen finds it difficult to raise this large sum; so she wants you to arrange that it shall be paid in four parts … the first of these to be payable on August 1st. The necklace should be handed to you on February 1st. Would you agree to make this transaction for the Queen?’

‘There is nothing on earth I would not do for the Queen.’

‘Then if you will write out the agreement I will submit it to Her Majesty for her approval.’

The Cardinal sat down at once and drew up the document. Jeanne took this, and a few days later returned to the Cardinal.

‘Her Majesty is satisfied with this document and agrees to abide by the terms,’ she said. ‘She asks that you take it to the jeweller, who will give you the necklace. Then she wishes you to hand it to me that I may take it to her at once.’

The Cardinal hesitated.

‘You do not wish to undertake this transaction for the Queen?’ asked Jeanne quickly.

‘I wish to please Her Majesty in every way. But this is a very big undertaking. It involves a great deal of money. I feel that the jeweller will wish to see Her Majesty’s signature on the agreement.’

Jeanne could hardly suppress a sigh of relief. Her Majesty’s signature – what could be easier than that? She took the document home and Rétaux signed each clause: ‘Approved, Marie Antoinette de France.’

It was so simple that it was almost unbelievable that it could have worked out so easily.

Rohan took the document to the jeweller, and the next day the necklace was in Jeanne’s hands.

How they gloated over it – she, her husband and Rétaux. Their fortunes were made. The most magnificent diamonds in the world were in their hands. They immediately set about breaking up the necklace. They disposed of some of the diamonds in Paris but, as they were so startlingly magnificent, this caused a little questioning; Rétaux was able to tell the police that he had been charged to sell them by the lady whom he served. She was the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois. The royal name allayed the suspicions of the police; but after that it was decided that it was too dangerous to sell the remainder of the jewels in Paris, so the Comte de Lamotte-Valois took them to London to dispose of them there.

Now the Comtesse began to live up to her royal name. She had a carriage and four English mares to draw it; she had her servants dressed in royal livery. On her berline she had engraved the royal arms of Valois, not forgetting the lilies of France and the inscription ‘From the King, my ancestor, I derive my blood, my name and the lilies.’

Meanwhile the Cardinal was restive.

There was no message from the Queen to say she had received the necklace and that she was delighted with it; she never wore it at any state ceremonies at which, as Grand Almoner, the Cardinal was present. It seemed strange that she who had been so eager to possess the necklace should never wear it. When he questioned her Jeanne’s answer was: ‘The Queen has told me that she will not wear the necklace until it is paid for. She hesitates to let the King know she has bought it, until she can say that she has made the last payment.’

This sounded reasonable, but the Cardinal was still impatient; it seemed to him that the Queen should show some sign of gratitude to a man who had arranged such an unusual transaction for her; yet at all functions she was as haughty as ever.

But even the carefree Jeanne could not hold back time, and the 1st of August was near. The jeweller would demand payment on that date and, since he had been told to put about the rumour that he had sold the necklace to the Sultan of Constantinople (Jeanne had told him the same story as she had told Rohan, of the Queen’s not wishing it to be known that she possessed the necklace until it was paid for) he might begin to grow suspicious if he were not paid, and go to the Queen.

‘We must hold out a little longer,’ said Jeanne to her accomplice. ‘I will tell them that the Queen thinks the price too high and demands a reduction of, say, 400,000 livres. They will not want to agree to that, and I shall then tell them that the Queen will return the necklace if they do not. That will involve a great deal of argument and put off the day of payment.’

Rétaux was worried. ‘But can you put off the day of payment indefinitely, and what if they refuse to make the reduction?’

‘They are bound to argue. Then if necessary I shall explain the whole thing to the Cardinal. He will find some means of paying the jewellers because he will not dare do otherwise.’

‘He will denounce us.’

‘Not he! He is too deeply involved. To denounce us would be to show the world what a fool he is to have been so duped. Don’t be afraid. We are safe enough.’

But Jeanne’s good luck was beginning to desert her. When she visited the Cardinal’s palace she saw Cagliostro in the distance; he did not seek her out; she fancied that he was smiling in a satisfied way, as though something he had desired had fallen straight into his lap.

She thought then: Did he plan the whole thing? Why? Is it because he likes to make us dance to his piping? Is he really a sort of god?

The jewellers, in desperate need of the money, immediately agreed to reduce the price of the necklace, so that there was no delay on account of the argument which Jeanne had hoped for.

She then went to the Cardinal and told him that the Queen could not raise the money, but wished him to arrange with the jewellers that there should be a double payment on the 1st October instead of the first being paid on the 1st August.

The Cardinal was alarmed. Jeanne began to see great cracks in her scheme. She had planned from move to move; and now she saw only one left to her.

She went to the jewellers.

‘Monsieur Boehmer,’ she said, ‘I am worried. I have reason to believe that the Queen’s signature on the contract may have been forged.’

Boehmer was pale with terror; he began to tremble.

‘What shall I do?’ wailed the jeweller. ‘What can I do?’

Jeanne said almost blithely: ‘You must go to the Cardinal. He will look into this matter, and if he finds there has been fraud … well, the Cardinal will never allow it to be said that he has been the victim of such a disgraceful fraud. Have no fear, Monsieur Boehmer. The Cardinal will pay you your money.’

Jeanne thought that she had slipped gracefully out of the difficulty. She had the château she had bought at Bar-sur-Aube; so she retired to the country.

There she would stay for a while; then perhaps she would join her husband in London where he was disposing of the diamonds.

But the jeweller did not go to the Cardinal. Instead he went to Madame de Campan and through her reached the Queen.

Jeanne was dining in state in her country home when a messenger arrived at her château.

‘Madame,’ he cried, ‘Monsieur le Cardinal de Rohan was arrested at Versailles this day.’

Jeanne was alarmed. It seemed to her that for the first time luck had gone against her.

She retired hastily to her bedroom where she burned all the letters which the Cardinal had sent to her regarding the transaction.

She felt better after that.

She went to bed and tried to compose herself; she was already making plans to join her husband in London. It would be safer to be out of the country for a spell.

At five o’clock in the morning there was a disturbance in the courtyard. She rose and threw a robe about herself. Her maid came hurrying to her.

‘They come from Paris,’ she stammered.

‘Who?’ demanded Jeanne.

But they were already on the staircase. They marched straight to her bedroom.

‘Jeanne de Lamotte,’ they cried, ‘you are under arrest.’

‘By whose orders, and on what charge?’

‘On the order of the King, and for being concerned in the theft of a diamond necklace.’

In the Queen’s theatre was played that delightful comedy, Le Barbier de Seville – the Queen playing Rosine enchantingly, looking exquisite, tripping daintily across the stage in a delightful gown made for the occasion by Madame Bertin at great cost. Vaudreuil played Almaviva with great verve; and Artois strutted across the stage, an amusing Figaro: ‘Ah, who knows if the world is going to last three weeks!’

The glittering audience applauded, but between the acts they were saying to one another: ‘What does this mean – this matter of the necklace? Is it true that the Cardinal was the Queen’s lover? There must be a trial, must there not? Then who knows what we shall hear!’

They were certain that what they heard would be of greater interest than the play they had come to Trianon to watch.

In Bellevue where, under Adelaide, those older disgruntled members of the nobility gathered, they talked of the latest scandal. ‘What this matter will reveal I would not like to prophesy,’ declared Adelaide, looking sternly at Victoire. (Sophie had died some years before.) Victoire knew what she was prophesying and that she would be greatly disappointed if it did not come to pass.

In the Luxembourg, Provence’s friends gathered about him. They confessed themselves astonished with this newest scandal, and they asked one another how the children of such a woman could possibly become good Kings of France. For one thing, how could it be certain that they had any right to be Kings of France?

In the cafés of the Palais Royal, men and women were thronging in greater numbers than ever before. A diamond necklace, they murmured. 1,600,000 livres spent on one ornament while many in France starved. Their hero, Duc d’Orléans (Chartres had assumed the title on the recent death of his father) went among them, his eyes gleaming with ambition. ‘This cannot go on,’ murmured the people. ‘It cannot go on,’ echoed Orléans. ‘And when it is stopped … what then?’

And throughout the Rohan family and its connections there were many hurried conferences. A member of their family was in danger. They must all rally to his side. Connected with the Rohans were the houses of Guémenée, Soubise, Condé and Conti, some of whom declared they had already been slighted by the Queen.

They would all stand together; and they determined that all blame should be shifted from the shoulders of their relative. And the best way of doing this was to place it on those of a more eminent person.

So, as the affair of the necklace became the topic of the times, the Queen’s enemies began to mass on all sides.

Antoinette lay on her bed. She was pregnant and in two months’ time was expecting the birth of a child. She had had the curtains drawn about her bed because she wanted to shut out reminders of that tension which she sensed all about her.

Everyone in the Palace, everyone in Versailles and Paris was eagerly awaiting the verdict in the necklace trial.

She had heard that all day the people had been crowding into Paris, that every important member of the Rohan family and its connexions had come to the Capital. They paraded the streets of the city dressed in deep mourning, all their servants similarly clad; they were clad in mourning on account of their innocent relative. It was preposterous, they implied, that a noble Prince, a Rohan, should be made a prisoner merely because he had been selected as a shield behind which the lascivious, acquisitive and wicked Austrian woman might cower.

‘Why must they go on and on about this matter?’ Antoinette had asked Louis wearily. ‘The necklace is stolen, the stones have been broken up and sold. That should be an end to the matter. Why not let it rest?’

‘Your honour is at stake,’ said the King sadly. ‘We must defend it.’

‘Do they think that I stole the necklace?’

‘They will think anything until we convince them to the contrary.’

Then she had thrown back her head and declared: ‘Well, if they want this thing made public, so let it be. Let us have this matter tried by the Parlement. Then my complete innocence will be proved, and all France must acknowledge it.’

So on this May day, nine months after the arrest of the Cardinal, the case of the Diamond Necklace was being tried by the Parlement of Paris.

The judges had entered the great hall of the Palais de Justice. The crowds who had gathered in the square cheered them as they went in. The streets, the river banks, the taverns and cafés were full; all who could had come to Paris on this May day that they might immediately hear the verdict on the most notorious case of the age.

Among the prisoners was the fabulous Comte de Cagliostro, for Jeanne’s quick mind had searched about her for someone on whom she could fix the blame. She remembered an occasion when she had walked in the gardens of the Cardinal’s palace with Cagliostro, and she made herself believe that the Count had put the idea of fraud into her head. She therefore accused him of the theft, and as a result he was arrested.

Now, in alliance with the mighty members of the Rohan family were the Freemasons, one of the most powerful societies in France and throughout the world. Cagliostro was Master of a lodge, one of the leading men of the movement, and it was inconceivable that the mighty Cagliostro should be treated as a criminal.

There were two minor prisoners involved – Rétaux the forger and Oliva the modiste prostitute. Jeanne’s husband had, fortunately for him, been in England when the arrests were made, and there he stayed and the diamonds with him.

This meant that the diamonds could not be produced, and the rumour which found most favour was that the Queen had been behind the whole thing, that the Cardinal had destroyed her letters to him out of gallantry, and that the Queen kept the necklace in a secret jewel box.

Trembling before the judges the little Oliva told of her meeting with the Cardinal in the Grove of Venus. The Cardinal told how he had been duped, and as he spoke he kept his eyes on the commanding figure of Cagliostro, seeming to draw as much strength from him as he did from his assembled relations who, dressed in mourning which they had been wearing ever since the arrest of this member of their family, presented a formidable company.

The sixty-four judges and members of the Parlement knew that they were expected to declare the Cardinal and Cagliostro innocent; they were also aware that they were dealing with more than a case of theft. The verdict they would give would be more than one of guilty or not guilty; it might be an indictment of the monarchy, for Joly de Fleury, in the name of the King, had made it clear that even if the Cardinal were acquitted as a dupe in the affair, he had been guilty of ‘Criminal presumption’ in imagining that the Queen would meet him in the gardens of Versailles. Unless a verdict of Guilty was given, the Queen must surely be exposed as a woman of light reputation, since a Cardinal who was also a Prince could imagine she would meet him thus; and on this incident was based the whole structure of the case.

The Contis, the Condés, the Soubises and the Rohans, the Freemasons, all the friends of the aunts, and the Queen’s sisters-in-law, all those who congregated in the Palais Royal to talk of liberty, were determined on one thing: whatever the sentence passed on those concerned in the Necklace affair, the Queen should not escape unscathed.

And after long arguments the verdict for which all waited was given. The minor actors in the drama were quickly dealt with. Oliva was acquitted as a dupe, a prostitute who was accustomed to do what was asked of her for payment; this she had done in this instance and merely followed her trade. She was guiltless, and freed. Rétaux was banished from France. Cagliostro was quickly admitted to have no hand in the affair whatsoever. His cool and almost indifferent answers to their questions, together with the pressure of the Freemasons, made it necessary for him to be quickly acquitted.

As for the other three – their cases needed greater consideration. The Comte de Lamotte, who was absent in England, was sentenced to the galleys. He could laugh at the sentence because he was not in their hands that they might carry it out.

Jeanne was found guilty of stealing, and her sentence was a violent one. She was to be taken to the prison of Salpêtrière, where she would be whipped and branded on the shoulder with the letter V, thus proclaiming her ‘Voleuse’ to the world; then she was to be imprisoned for life.

But it was the verdict regarding the Cardinal which was so significant. He was declared innocent of every indictment. And as he came out into the streets of Paris, those who had gathered together all during the day went wild with joy.

‘Vive le Cardinal!’ they cried. And there was laughter in Bellevue and the Palais Royal.

The verdict meant that the judges considered the Queen a light woman, since the Cardinal had quite reasonably supposed that she might leave the Palace in the darkness to come out and meet a man in the Grove of Venus.

Crowds went in a body to the prison of Salpêtrière and there saw Jeanne de Lamotte stripped and beaten; they saw her wriggling and screaming as the irons were heated with which to brand her, twisting in the arms of her tormenters so that instead of receiving the V on her shoulder it was implanted on her breast; they saw her carried away fainting to her prison, where she was sentenced to spend the rest of her days dressed only in sackcloth and sabots, and to exist on black bread and lentils.

‘And what of the woman behind all this?’ was being asked. ‘She will be living in one of her many palaces; she will be dressed in her silks and velvets, made by that arrogant Madame Bertin; she will be feasting on the fat of the land and mayhap peeping into her jewel box at a diamond necklace to gain which she has brought suffering and misery to so many.’

The Queen was furious when she heard the news.

She raged up and down her apartment. The Princesse de Lamballe and Madame de Campan in vain tried to soothe her.

‘You should lament with your Queen,’ cried Antoinette, ‘who has been insulted and sacrificed by cabal and injustice.’

The King came in. He was angry and bewildered.

‘You have reason to be sorrowful,’ he said. ‘This is an insult to the crown.’

‘What will you do about it?’ demanded the Queen.

Louis shook his head. The verdict had been given. They had been wrong to have the affair tried by the Parlement. They had given too much publicity to the matter. It would have been better to have quietly paid the jeweller and said nothing.

‘Nay,’ said the Queen. ‘My honour was tarnished. We had to do all in our power to throw light in these dark and secret places. But this verdict is iniquitous.’

‘The Freemasons were against us,’ declared the King, ‘and with them the Rohan family.’

‘You are the King, are you not?’ cried Antoinette.

The King wondered if it would not be wiser to let the matter rest; but he had to placate his infuriated wife, so he ordered the Cardinal to resign from his position as Grand Almoner, and signed a lettre de cachet which exiled him to the Abbéy of Chaise-Dieu in the mountains of Auvergne. As for Cagliostro, he banished him from the country.

These gestures were typical of Louis’ timidity. They did not go far enough.

Had he disbanded the Parlement, he would have shown his strength, and at that time the powerful members of the Rohan family would have had to come to heel.

But his tepid action merely aroused the wrath of the Parlement; and there he had created a dangerous situation. There was now a wide rift between King and Parlement. The people went to the Salpêtrière prison and watched Jeanne de Lamotte taking her exercise in the courtyard.

‘Poor woman,’ they said. ‘She is bearing all the blame in this matter of the necklace. Is this justice?’

The murmuring against the Austrian woman grew. The pamphlets were distributed in increasing numbers and they became more obscene.

Pictures were passed round the cafés and smuggled into the Palace; they still found their way into the apartments of the King and Queen. And in all of them was depicted the woman – her hair looming ridiculously above her haughty face; she was referred to as ‘Madame Déficit’, and about her neck there would always appear a magnificent necklace of diamonds.