[Rarebooks] FS: The Diamond Necklace Affair- Marie Antoinette, Cagliostro & Scandal!!

Thu Apr 12 08:19:28 EDT 2007

A Bound Collection of Pamphlets, 5 (of 6) Issued by Individuals Involved
in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace [see below for a brief explanation
on this "affair"], issued in Paris; between 1786 and 1792.

Comprising-

“Memoire pour Le Comte de Cagliostro, Accuse; Contre M. L
Procureur-General, Accusateur; en prefence de M. le Cardinal de Rohan, de
la Comtesse de la Motte, & autres Co-Accuses”. Paris: 1786. In which the
Count Cagliostro defends himself.

“Reponse pour le Comtesse de Valois-la-Motte, au Memoire du Comte de
Cagliostro”. Paris: 1786. In which the Countess wages a counter-attack
against Cagliostro by pointing out what a fraud he is.

“Memoire a Consulter, Pour Jean-Charles-Vincent de Bette d’Etienville,
Bourgeois de Saint-Omer en Artois, detenu es prisons du Chatelet de Paris,
Accuse; Contre le Sieur Vaucher, Marchand Horloger, & le Sieur Loque,
Marchand Bijoutier a Paris, Plaignans”. Paris: (1786). [see next item]

“Supplement et Suite Aux Memoires du Sieur de Bette d’Etienville, Ancien
Chirurgien Sous-Aide-Major, Pour servir de Reponse aux differens Memoires
faits contre lui”. Paris: 1786. Jean Charles Vincent de Bette d'Étienville
became involved when he persuaded the Baron de Fages-Chaulnes to marry one
of Cardinal Rohan’s mistresses, as a result of which the Baron ran up a
steep debt with Vaucher & Loque, a pair of jewelers. As the Baron was
involved in an intrigue with the Cardinal, and had also been used as a
fence for the diamonds, and the prevailing mood was “arrest everyone”,
d’Etienville found himself a defendant... This eventually also involved
the innocent Comte de Precourt (see below).

“Reponse de M. le Comte de Precourt, Colonel d’Infanterie, Chevalier de
l’Ordre Royal & Militaire de Saint Louis; aux Memoires des Sieurs
d’Etienville, Vaucher & Loque”. Paris: 1786. Comte de Précourt, a
widely-traveled and distinguished infantry colonel, was swept into the
Affair when he guaranteed the debt of his fellow soldier, the Baron de
Fages-Chaulnes. Again, the “arrest everyone first and sort them out later”
ethic prevailed, and le Comte became a defendant.

“Memoire de M. de Calonne, Ministre d’Etat, Contre le decret rendu le 14
fevrier 1791 par l’assemblee se disant nationale”. Charles Alexandre de
Calonne was a friend of the de Polignacs, intimates of Marie Antoinette,
and succeeded the popular Jacques Necker as Finance Minister. Necker had
favored borrowing over taxes and brought the country to the edge of
bankruptcy, but Colonne’s plan to correct this by taxing the nobility
caused his sacking. Necker was brought back one last time and his second
firing was the spark that led to the storming of the Bastille. Colonne and
Necker engaged in a furious “pamphlet war” for several years. Here Colonne
defends the du Polignacs against a judgment of 800,000 livres related to
the debt.

Hardcover. 8.5”x10.5”, 51 + 48 + 30 + 69 + 42 + 36 pages; decorative
headpieces; bound in old period flame-grained boards with a new leather
spine; covers rubbed and worn; contents with some soil, browning, and a
few scattered spots. [07837]  $1,200.00

 -

And what, you ask, was the Affair of the Diamond Necklace? It was the
scandal which helped bring about the French Revolution and 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 publicity surrounding it and its main players
are credited by many historians with being the gust of foul wind which
finally fanned the long-smouldering 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.

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 jewellers 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 eventually escaped to
London and wrote an infamous memoir which only fanned the flames back in
France. A year or so later she died after falling out a window.

 - - -

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