Read How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair Online
Authors: Jonathan Beckman
How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair
How to Ruin a Queen
Copyright © 2014 by Jonathan Beckman
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First Da Capo Press edition 2014
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of my mother,
z”l
, who I hope would have liked it
Contents
4.
Antoinette Against Versailles
9.
The Greatest Man in Europe: An Interlude
12.
‘I Will Pay for Everything’
17.
Nicolas Abroad: A Picaresque
19.
Cheek to Cheek, Toe to Toe
20.
An Extraordinary Rendition
24.
Catch Him if You Can: A Burlesque
26.
Down and Out in Paris and London
27.
Confessions of a Justified Sinner
28.
The Fall of the Houses of Valois and Bourbon
30.
Flashes in the Crystal: A Conclusion
The Main Characters
Jeanne’s Family
Jeanne de Saint-Rémy, comtesse de La Motte-Valois,
an adventuress
Jacques de Saint-Rémy,
her father
Marie Jossell,
her mother
Jacques de Saint-Rémy
fils
,
her brother
Marianne de Saint-Rémy,
her sister
Marguerite de Saint-Rémy,
her sister
Marquise de Boulainvilliers,
Jeanne’s benefactress
Marquis de Boulainvilliers,
her husband
The Rohan
Louis, Cardinal de Rohan,
prince-bishop of Strasbourg and grand almoner of France
Prince de Soubise,
his uncle
Comtesse de Marsan,
his aunt
Abbé Georgel,
Rohan’s vicar-general
Baron de Planta,
Rohan’s major-domo
The Habsburgs
Maria Theresa,
archduchess of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Holy Roman Empress and mother of Marie Antoinette
Joseph II,
her son, Holy Roman Emperor and co-regent
Prince Kaunitz,
the Austrian chancellor
The House of Bourbon
Louis XVI,
king of France
Comte de Provence,
his brother
Comte d’Artois,
his brother
Madame Elisabeth, known simply as Madame,
his sister
Louis XV,
his grandfather and predecessor
Madame du Barry,
Louis XV’s mistress
Servants of the Crown
Duc de Choiseul,
Louis XV’s chief minister
Duc d’Aiguillon,
foreign minister after Choiseul’s dismissal
Comte de Calonne,
minister of finance
Baron de Breteuil,
minister of the king’s household
Comte de Vergennes,
foreign minister
Maréchal de Castries,
minister of the navy
Marquis de Miromesnil,
keeper of the seals
The Queen’s Circle
Marie Antoinette,
queen of France
Princesse de Lamballe,
a favourite
Duchesse de Polignac,
another favourite
Madame Campan,
a femme de chambre
Comte de Mercy-Argenteau,
Austrian ambassador to the French Court
Abbé de Vermond,
reader to the queen and a trusted counsellor
Jeanne’s Circle
Jacques Beugnot,
a lawyer
Nicolas de La Motte,
a soldier, later husband to Jeanne
Rétaux de Villette,
a messmate of Nicolas
Rosalie Brissault,
Jeanne’s chambermaid
Marie de La Tour,
Jeanne’s niece
Père Nicolas Loth,
a Minim friar
The English Connection
Chevalier O’Neil,
a friend of Nicolas
Barthélemy Macdermott,
a Capuchin monk
Nathaniel Jefferys,
a jeweller
William Gray,
another jeweller
Costa, also known as François Benevent,
a language tutor and spy
D’Arragon,
a secretary at the French Embassy
Comte d’Adhémar,
French ambassador to Great Britain
Charles Théveneau de Morande,
a muckraking journalist
The Jewellers
Charles Boehmer,
a Parisian jeweller, also crown jeweller and jeweller to the queen
Paul Bassenge,
his partner
Louis-François Achet,
a lawyer and friend of Bassenge
Jean-Baptiste Laporte,
Achet’s son-in-law, another lawyer
Claude Baudard de Sainte-James,
a financier
The Suspects
Nicole le Guay, later the Baronne d’Oliva,
a prostitute with a resemblance to Marie Antoinette
Toussaint de Beausire,
her lover
Comte de Cagliostro,
an alchemist and savant
Seraphina,
his wife
The Law Officers
Marquis de Launay,
governor of the Bastille
Louis Thiroux de Crosne,
lieutenant-general of the Paris Police
Quidor,
a police inspector
Etienne François d’Aligre,
chief magistrate of the parlement of Paris
François-Louis Joly de Fleury,
procureur-général of the parlement of Paris
Pierre Laurencel,
Fleury’s deputy
Maximilien Titon de Villotran,
one of the investigating magistrates
Dupuis de Marcé,
the other investigating magistrate
Lawyers
Guy-Jean-Baptiste Target,
Rohan’s lawyer
Maître Doillot,
Jeanne’s lawyer
Why, such have revolutionized this land
With diamond-necklace-dealing!
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country
, Robert Browning
Madame, il est charmant votre projet. Je viens d’y réfléchir. Il rapproche tout, termine tout, embrasse tout.
The Marriage of Figaro
,
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
France, 31 May 1786
B
EFORE
P
ARIS
AWOKE
, before carriages troubled the streets, before clerks unbolted their offices and barbers stropped their blades, before hawkers tuned their voices and labourers sloped into town with their kit upon their backs, as the cafes stood shuttered and stray drunks bumped through the city, as the fishmongers and florists and grocers laid out their wares, glossy with dew on the dew-damp stalls, the kinsmen of the house of Rohan rose. In the Hôtel de Soubise in the Marais, in the Pavillon de Marsan in the Tuileries, in the Hôtel de Brionne nearby, they dressed in solemn black and rode in silence to the Ile de la Cité, the larger of the two islands on the Seine, to the Palais de Justice, where the highest court in the land was to sit in judgement. At half past five in the morning, while the light still shone cold, nineteen members of the Rohan family drew themselves up in two lines near the entrance of the palace to reverence the magistrates as they arrived. We have humbled ourselves before you, spoke the bowed heads silently. We, the Rohan, who stand above all the nobility of France, have humbled ourselves before you. Let not your verdict be
the wrong one.
