The Diamond Necklace Affair

No single event did more damage to Marie Antoinette's reputation than the Diamond Necklace Affair of 1785. This baroque scandal, involving forged letters, midnight assignations, and a prostitute impersonating the queen, would have been comic if its consequences hadn't been so tragic. The affair revealed how completely Marie Antoinette had lost control of her public image.

The necklace itself was a monstrous creation—647 diamonds weighing 2,800 carats, originally commissioned by Louis XV for Madame du Barry. The jewelers, Boehmer and Bassenge, desperately needed to sell it to recoup their investment. Marie Antoinette had repeatedly refused to purchase it, finding it both too expensive and too vulgar.

Enter Cardinal de Rohan, Grand Almoner of France, who had been persona non grata with the queen since his time as ambassador to Vienna, where he had insulted her mother. Desperate to regain royal favor, Rohan fell victim to an elaborate con orchestrated by Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, who claimed to be an intimate of the queen.

Through forged letters and a midnight meeting in the gardens of Versailles (where a prostitute named Nicole d'Oliva impersonated Marie Antoinette), Jeanne convinced Rohan that the queen wanted him to secretly purchase the necklace on her behalf. Rohan, blinded by ambition and perhaps infatuation, arranged the purchase. The necklace was delivered to Jeanne, who promptly had it broken up and sold.

When the jewelers demanded payment from the queen, the entire scheme unraveled. Marie Antoinette's outrage was genuine and justified—she had been victim of an audacious fraud. But her insistence on a public trial, against Louis XVI's advice, proved disastrous. The trial became a sensation, with every sordid detail published in pamphlets and discussed in cafés.

The verdict acquitted Rohan, essentially declaring him a dupe rather than a criminal. For Marie Antoinette, this was worse than if he had been found guilty. The implication was that believing the queen capable of such behavior was reasonable. The real criminals received relatively light sentences, while Marie Antoinette's reputation lay in ruins.