[Rarebooks] FS: The Infamous Diamond Necklace that Killed Marie Antoinette -1789

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

"Memoires Justificatifs de la Comtesse de Valois de la Motte, ecrits par
elle-meme"

By Jeanne de Saint-Remy de Valois (Comtesse de la Motte).

Published [apparently] in 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-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.  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 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 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" [the book we are offering here].  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."

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.

But back to this book. This is a hardcover copy of the French-language
edition, 5"x8", 258 pages. Bound in 19th century marbled boards with a
leather spine, raised bands and gilt title. Light cover wear and rubbing;
a little interior soil, but a very nice copy.  This copy is a printing
variant, featuring a cruder typeface and set-up, and cheaper paper, than
the standard London 1789 edition.  It also lacks the decorative device on
the first page, all of which leads one to speculate that it might be a
piracy, and not have been printed in London at all.   $500~

Some Pictures =>

<http://www.joslinhall.com/images03/th-05619-cover.jpg>
<http://www.joslinhall.com/images03/th-05619-title.jpg>

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