[Rarebooks] fs: The Necklace Which Killed a Queen...

[Forrest Proper]

Valois, Jeanne de Saint-Remy de, (Comtesse de la Motte).  MEMOIRES 
JUSTIFICATIFS DE LA COMTESSE DE VALOIS DE LA MOTTE, ECRITS PAR ELLE-MEME

London: 1789.

The explosive first memoirs of the instigator and architect of the "Affair 
of the Diamond Necklace", the scandal which raised French hatred of Marie 
Antoinette to a fever pitch; as Napoleon once commented-

"The Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace Trial".

The trial, and the subsequent Memoirs of its chief feminine player, are 
also credited by many historians with being the gust of foul wind which 
finally fanned the long-smoldering fire of popular discontent into the 
uncontrollable conflagration of the French Revolution.  The tale is long, 
complex and not just a little sordid; it has several different versions 
(depending on whose memoirs you read), and has been told many times, most 
recently in a beautifully costumed Hollywood version starring Hilary Swank.

The movie, which includes a stirring performance by Miss Swank as the 
Countess, takes some (but not all) of the Countess's claims at face value, 
which is another way of saying that it takes extreme liberties with what 
most historians regard as the actual truth.

Although she claimed to be descended from royalty, it is now generally 
agreed that Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois, Comtesse de la Motte, came of 
what might be termed "humble origins" and basically talked, schemed and 
slept herself almost all the way to the Royal Chambers at Versailles.

Jeanne carried on an affair with the Cardinal Louis Rene Edouard, Prince de 
Rohan, a man more attuned to matters earthly than spiritual, who had fallen 
out of favor with Marie Antoinette.  Jeanne also borrowed money from the 
Cardinal, and was soon deep in his debt.  For his part the Cardinal was 
anxious to get into the Queen's good graces, if not her bed, and Jeanne 
persuaded him that she had the Queen's ear and could arrange reconciliation.

The gullible and perhaps somewhat oversexed Cardinal agreed and the 
Countess arranged a correspondence between him and the Queen.  His letters 
to Marie Antoinette were real enough, but never delivered; the Queen's 
return letters were forgeries produced by Jeanne herself, or possibly her 
husband, or perhaps her "secretary" and lover, the gallant former-cavalier 
Retaux de Vilette.

The diabolical farce seemed to reach its climax with a midnight rendezvous 
in the Grove of Venus at the Palais-Royal Gardens, between the Cardinal and 
"Marie Antoinette" -actually an actress (or prostitute, or perhaps both, 
who could keep track at this point?) who bore a remarkable resemblance to 
the Queen... but then the extravagant and fabulously costly diamond 
necklace entered the scene.

Ah, the necklace.

The Diamond Necklace came into being courtesy of a firm of Parisian 
jewelers who had, several years earlier, made it (so they had unwisely 
speculated) to sell to Madame du Barry.  They had tried to interest Marie 
Antoinette in the necklace several times, and although she had been 
tempted, she considered it too extravagant and had refused to purchase it.

Now the jewelers, teetering on the edge of bankruptcy because of the 
interest payments on the money they had borrowed to buy the stones, 
approached the Countess, who openly boasted about how close she was to the 
Queen, and asked her to persuade Antoinette to buy the overwrought bauble 
which was worth as much as a full-rigged warship.  Jeanne shrewdly took the 
matter to the Cardinal, who was only too eager to negotiate a purchase he 
thought would endear him further to Marie.

More outrageous lies, forgeries and deception ensued, and at some point the 
famous and scandalous Count Cagliostro became involved...  and in the end 
the Queen agreed to purchase the necklace, or so the lovesick Cardinal and 
desperate jewelers thought.  The jewelers delivered the necklace to the 
Cardinal, and the Cardinal delivered it to a trusted servant of the Queen 
(or so it appeared) and then the necklace simply vanished!

Go figure.

The first Marie Antoinette knew of all this was when the jewelers (most 
humbly and very, very anxiously) sent her a dunning letter for the gigantic 
unpaid bill.  Then, as they say, all Hell broke loose.

The scandal became public; the Cardinal was denounced, and Jeanne was 
arrested along with just about everybody else who had ever as much as 
shaken hands with the Cardinal.  Acting against some very good advice, 
Marie Antoinette insisted on a trial for the Cardinal on the charge that he 
was guilty simply because he had believed that she was capable of having 
the sort of "relationship" with him he had thought she had.  This, of 
course, played right into the hands of the Queen's numerous enemies who 
were only too happy to have publicly broadcast the exact nature of what the 
Cardinal had thought were the Queen's morals, or lack thereof.

There followed a sensational trial, which was ostensibly about the 
Cardinal's actions but was really about the Queen's reputation; after much 
scandal mongering in both the courtroom and the streets the Queen's enemies 
won and the Cardinal was acquitted.  Others were not so lucky- the Count 
Cagliostro was exiled from France, and eventually returned to Italy where 
he was arrested and convicted on charges of practicing Freemasonry; he died 
in prison in 1795.

Jeanne was convicted and whipped, branded, and thrown into the Bastille at 
which point she may (or may not) have had a fling with its Governor, the 
poor Launay, who would lose his head at the hands of the mob when they 
stormed the ancient fortress a few months later.  Jeanne was now a favorite 
of the anti-Antoinette faction, which was growing quickly in France, and 
she was able to intrigue to escape the country and made her way, with her 
husband, to London.

Once there she immediately set out on a plan of revenge against the Queen 
which took the form of her famous "Memoires Justificatifs de la Comtesse de 
Valois de la Motte".  These contained her own highly slanted version of her 
life and the Diamond Necklace Affair, as well as some thirty pieces of 
correspondence she claimed had passed between the Cardinal and the Queen.

"From the moment of my arrival in London," she wrote, "my first and only 
thought had been publication of my justification for the eyes of all the 
world...  I too would have preferred to spare the honour of the Queen, and 
I tried to warn her Majesty that I was in Possession of certain 
letters...incriminating her and exculpating me... All I asked in return was 
restitution of property rightfully mine which had been seized, after an 
iniquitous verdict, to enrich the coffers of the King.  But I really never 
considered it likely that the French court would capitulate to those terms, 
and besides, my main goal was public vindication.  To this purpose, then, I 
eagerly took up my pen, denying my feeble, tortured body even the minimal 
physical requirements of nourishment and sleep until my memoirs should be 
ready for publication.  Although we were obliged to borrow money to defray 
the costs of printing, five thousand copies in French have now come off the 
press, and three thousand more in English; the latter went on sale at a 
guinea each in New Bond Street shops."

The readers of England and France could not get enough of the Countess's 
memoirs, although what you thought of them depended on which side of the 
Royal table you sat on- "a cesspool of calumny" was the verdict of the Abbe 
Georgel, friend and secretary of Cardinal Rohan.

In October of 1789 a "Second Memoirs justicatif", much more barbed and 
venomous than the first, was rushed to the printers, another direct attack 
on the Queen by Jeanne, published in French and English and distributed in 
Paris where it stirred the mobs to a new frenzy.  Mirabeau said of the 
Countess- "Madame de La Motte's voice alone brought on the horrors of July 
14 and of October 5" (the storming of Versailles and the slaughter of the 
troops there by the 'Women's Army').

Her works spawned a storm of other pamphlets, each one trying to outdo the 
other in decrying the licentiousness and debauchery of the Queen.  Frances 
Mossiker, in "The Queen's Necklace", notes, however, that's Jeanne's works 
were the most influential-

"There were other attacks perhaps more obscene, but they were published 
under noms de plume and therefore were never as pungent and convincing as 
those signed by a real-life name, a name famous, moreover, throughout 
Europe ever since the Necklace Trial".

In 1791 the Countess's two volume "Story of My Life" came off the presses, 
but Jeanne would not live to enjoy its fruits.  In early June the London 
newspapers reported that a London bailiff had appeared at her lodgings to 
serve an order for her mounting debts.  Others said that the men were 
actually secret agents sent by the Duke of Orleans; that was what Jeanne 
believed, and to get away from them she barricaded herself in and then 
climbed out a third floor window, falling to the street below.

Badly injured, she lingered in extreme pain through the hot weeks of July 
and into August, when, on August 23rd, 1791, she died.  She was buried a 
few days later in the churchyard of St. Mary's, in Lambeth.  The Queen 
against whom Jeanne had intrigued for so long survived her by just two 
years, one month, and 23 days, before mounting the steps to the guillotine 
in Paris to the howling delight of the mob.

Hardcover. 5"x8", 160 + 36 pages. Bound in 19th century marbled boards with 
a gilt decorated leather spine, newer endpapers. Light cover wear and 
rubbing; a little interior soil, discoloration on the endpapers; modern 
bookplate.  A nice copy. $500.00

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