In 1785, a jeweler came to Marie Antoinette, waiting for payment for the necklace allegedly sold to the Queen. This is how the famous necklace scandal came to light, the victim of which, apart from the jeweler, was Marie Antoinette. The culprit, Countess de La Motte cleverly persuaded Cardinal de Rohan to cooperate. There was even a movie called "The Necklace Affair" based on the whole case.
Charles Auguste Bóhmer, a famous Parisian jeweler, offered Queen Marie Antoinette to buy a unique necklace. It was to consist of 647 diamonds, the purest of the existing ones, for the purchase of which Bóhmer was to spend all his fortune. It was a necklace that was once commissioned by Louis XV and was to be included in his final médère, Madame du Barry.
The price of the necklace was enormous for those times: 1,600,000 livres! Marie Antoinette refused, considering that the necklace was simply too expensive. She had another reason for that: she hated Madame du Barry from the beginning. It rejected the purchase offer three times.
How then the queen must have been surprised when on June 12, 1785, she received a letter from Bohmer in which she wrote that, as previously agreed, she would soon receive the most beautiful necklace in the world. The queen was to be irritated by the tone of the letter and throw it into the fire. She forgot about the case for the moment, however, on August 9, the jeweler appeared in Versailles, expecting the queen to pay. But what exactly happened?
The letter itself was to be dictated to Bóhmer by Cardinal Louis de Rohan. De Rohan was to convince the jeweler that although the queen wanted to buy the necklace, she currently does not have sufficient financial resources. The purchase itself was to be made on behalf of the Queen by Cardinal de Rohan. About February, the cardinal received the necklace and undertook to pay the agreed amount in two installments, but the jeweler did not see even a single livre of the money.
Who was Louis de Rohan himself? One of the richest and most influential French prelates. For this an aristocrat, and more specifically a prince. Even during the reign of Marie Antoinette's mother, Maria Teresa, he was the French ambassador in Vienna. He was considered a libertine, and Marie Antoinette never concealed her dislike of him. show disrespect to Maria Teresa herself. However, it was not the cardinal who was the original source of the plot against the queen.
De Rohana was hurt by the queen's ostracism, and he wanted to change that. And here we reach the person who was the mastermind of the plot: it was Countess de La Motte, Jeanne de Valois, a supposedly beautiful but impoverished aristocrat. She managed to convince the cardinal that, firstly, she was a friend of the queen herself and, secondly, that she knew a way to improve his relationship with her.
This method was supposed to be the aforementioned necklace, which allegedly Marie Antoinette wanted to buy, but wanted to negotiate the terms of the purchase. As evidence, Jeanne showed de Rohan handwriting, forged, of course, which was signed "Marie Antoinette, Queen of France." This letter suggests that the Queen would be willing to accept de Rohan as the negotiator.
The final proof was to be the personal meeting of the cardinal with the queen, which was to take place at night in the gardens of Versailles. There, De Rohan met a fake woman who, appearing as queen, gave him a rose and left immediately. The cardinal could not help but believe and started talks with the jeweler, declaring on behalf of the queen his willingness to pay in installments. When the necklace was in de Rohan's hands, he was to deliver it to the house of the Countess de La Motte, who told him she would give it to the person sent by the Queen. Of course, nothing of the sort happened. Jeanne and her husband removed the diamonds from the necklace and then sold them one by one, mainly in London.
Charles Auguste Bóhmer did not receive payment, so he appeared in person at Versailles to clarify the matter. Hearing de Rohan's name, the queen was convinced that he must be the author of the plot against her. She informed her husband about everything and Louis XVI ordered the cardinal to be arrested and imprisoned in the Bastille. This led to the anger of the people on the queen, who accused her of imprisoning the cardinal.
Louis XVI brought de Rohan and Countess de La Motte a trial before the Paris Parliament, stating that the whole case had grossly violated the obligation to respect royal majesty. However, the trial did not go according to Marie Antoinette's wishes. The cardinal was defended not only by his extremely strong family but also by the French church hierarchs, treating de Rohan's arrest as an insult. To the royal couple's indignation, the cardinal was completely exonerated and was not even ordered to apologize to the queen. Crowds celebrated the sentence, and reportedly out of 10,000 people celebrated the cardinal's release in front of the Bastille.
Maria Antonina was devastated by the sentence. To her first room, Madame Campan was even to say that if, as queen, she had not found impartial judges, what would she expect as an ordinary woman? Later, the only consequence that met Cardinal de Rohan was that Louis XVI ordered him to leave the court and go to his abbey.
The only person convicted was the Countess de La Motte. The main culprit of the whole plot was sentenced to flogging, she was also publicly branded with red-hot iron with the letter V - for voleuse, meaning a thief. She was to spend the rest of her life in prison. However, she escaped from him, and later even managed to publish a memoir in London in which she made numerous accusations against the queen. In them, she even claimed that she and the queen were lovers, or even that Marie Antoinette was abusing her. Including it was these memories that were later reached by the revolutionary tribunal which judged Marie Antoinette. As a result of the necklace scandal in the eyes of the people, Jeanne de Valois became a martyr and a victim of a greedy and vengeful queen ...
Bibliography:
- L. Carroll, Królewskie romanse, Wydawnictwo Literackie Muza, Warsaw 2014.
- B. Craveri, Mistresses and Queens. Power of women, W.A.B. Publishing House, Warsaw 2005.
- C. Morató, Królowe cursed, Świat Książki, Warsaw 2014.
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