Pod Insights Hot History The Diamond Necklace Affair About this episode Hi guys! Today we're locking in for a chat on the diamond necklace affair, the event which according to Napoleon Bonaparte is the event "the Queen's death must be dated from". It's a tale of blackmarket dealers, forged signatures, parading prostitutes, and it ended with Marie Antoinette being blamed for it all!
We cover how Marie developed her reputation as 'Madame Deficit,' the scheme behind the diamond necklace affair, the fallout, the role of propaganda in verifying myths and the disastrous effects of the affair for Marie and the Bourbon dynasty.
If you're wanting more Hot History content you can follow along on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hothistoryclub/?hl=en, TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@hot.history?lang=en and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@hot.history and of course, right here!
Til next week, Ainslie x
Transcript 0:15 Speaker 00 Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot designed to keep you connected. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month. Or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month. When you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.
0:46 Speaker 01 Hi guys and welcome back to Hot History. The podcast covering all the things in history that you probably should know, but don't. I am so excited as always to have you guys listening along on this glorious Friday. I hope you are all feeling good. It's the end of the week. You've got some history to kickstart the day. The weekend's coming in hot and so am I with a recommendation. Now, I do want to preface, I haven't finished it yet because it's coming out weekly. But I would love it for you guys to go on this journey with me if you're not already watching Love Story by Ryan Murphy. It is his new series about Carolyn Berset Kennedy and JFK Junior.
1:30 Speaker 01 It is set in 90s New York, follows the two on their whirlwind, toxic, crazy, tabloid, you know, featured romance. And the reason I want you guys to listen along is because in a few weeks, as we approach the season finale, I am going to do a full 90-minute deep dive into these two, their relationships, the Kennedys at large, and of course, their tragic deaths. And as part of that, I'm also going to drop my review of the show. So if you guys want to watch along, you know, share your thoughts to me, what you guys think of the show that I would love to hear. It's streaming now week by week on Disney Plus on Fridays in Australia. And I think it comes out on Thursdays in the US and UK.
2:14 Speaker 01 I don't know if Disney Plus is on Hulu for you guys, but anyway, I'm watching it on Disney. I'd love for you guys to watch along so we can do that review episode together. But we are not. There yet, and we are not in known as New York today. We are instead heading back to 18th century France. Specifically, the years 1784 and 1785. Because our subject for this episode is none other than French Queen Marie Antoinette. Now, I have done a really, really short 30 minute episode on Marie on this pod before. Let me know if you guys do want a deeper dive on her specifically.
2:54 Speaker 01 But today, the 1784 to 1785 thing that we are talking about is the scandal which really tipped the boat of the revolution. It was an event that solidified the hatred of the people of France for their queen by essentially verifying that she was everything the tabloids said. It was kind of like 18th century France's answer to the Watergate tapes. Except this is a scandal that Marie Antoinette had no part in, but was given the full blame for, which, if we're being honest, wasn't really that hard because at this point in her reign,
3:34 Speaker 01 she was known as an obscene spender of coin, earning her the nickname Madame Deficit. So where does this scandal begin? Well, it doesn't start at Versailles, or France for that matter. This story actually begins in the magical land of Wiener Schnitzels, Austria, in 1755, where a bouncing blonde baby by the name of Maria Antonia came screaming into the world. Her mother, Maria Theresa, ruled the Habsburg Empire with an iron fist, which included solidifying an alliance between long-term enemies, Austria and France. So how'd she do this, guys? The peace call? Did she establish some new trade routes? Did she express ship Schnitzel to the king?
4:19 Speaker 01 No. She pawned off 12-year-old Maria Antonia to the French king's grandson in marriage.
4:30 Speaker 01 This was the match of the century, guys. After all, who doesn't want their daughter living in Versailles as Queen of France? But the reality was that Marie Antoinette was the worst possible choice for this role. I am so serious. She was so poorly educated and disinterested that by age 12, she could barely speak German, let alone French. Kind of a big deal for someone who's going to become Queen of France. But what she lacked in academic potential, she had in spades when it came to her charm. And she began her life as the Dauphine, or princess, of France in April 1770,
5:13 Speaker 01 where she enters this tent on Austrian soil, crosses the border into France and becomes Marie Antoinette. Sounds like a fun, like, welcome ceremony, but it was fucked, guys. She was stripped down to her underwear, anything Austrian, taken from her, including her dog, Mops, and then introduced to the wettest of wet blankets perhaps in all of French history. Her betrothed Louis, the 15-year-old Dauphine. No, wait. Dauph- Dauphine, Dauphine. Dauphine is the prince, Dauphine is Marie.
5:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, anyway, he was rigid, he was formal, and he refused to fuck his wife for seven years. And while we go, like, that's literally because they're children, right? Back then, if you were over 12, you were marriage-ready. And an unconsummated royal marriage was a very, very dangerous affair. Not only was Marie incapable of fulfilling her role of providing an heir, but without consummation, the marriage could be annulled and Marie shipped back to Austria and humiliated. This left 14-year-old Marie, I'm gonna say it again, 14-year-old Marie as a failure,
6:37 Speaker 01 which really is the most dangerous thing any woman could be just in all of human history, because women actually aren't people. We're just, you know, worms. And Marie is no exception to this. In fact, she is the most extreme example of it. You see, when she actually first arrived to Versailles, the court were pretty excited. Despite the fact she was Austrian, they were pretty thrilled that there was no more war, that there was no more animosity. This was going to be a prosperous reign, and she's this like new, young, bouncy blonde girl. But that soon turned to disdain with each sexless night that passed between the new couple,
7:18 Speaker 01 because all of this just exacerbated the plain old racism the French court had for the Austrians. They'd grown up with them as their enemy, right? And they began calling her "the Austrian" or "that Austrian bitch", with the idea of her as a foreign, unwanted failure, spreading through court like wildfire. This is paired with the fact that she publicly snubbed King Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Barry, which royally pissed him off. So all in all, Marie, a child, again, merely fourteen years old, is pretty strongly disliked and even more miserable. The kind of misery and humiliation which would like,
7:59 Speaker 01 send all of us packing, right? We'd just lock ourselves in a small cupboard and not, not ever wanna see the world again. But not Marie. She never hid away. She never let it slip. She never gave anyone the satisfaction of her defeat. Instead, she sought out the only kind of therapy a miserable girl in Paris could: retail. Which is where Madame Deficit comes into the picture. Now, it is no secret, dramatization, propaganda, nor prejudice, that Marie Antoinette loved stuff. If money could buy it, she would have it.
8:42 Speaker 01 And she spent on nearly everything imaginable. She redecorated Versailles. She had lavish jewels and gowns. She had her own theatre. She gambled excessively. And she even had a purpose-built rural village so she could effectively play poor person. In fact, in seventeen seventy six, Marie Antoinette spent the equivalent of three million US dollars today on over three hundred gowns, which she never wore twice. And this was not in the midst of a prosperous France, guys. After multiple failed harvests, several wars, and the nobility's gargantuan spending, France was in masses of debt.
9:28 Speaker 01 And the group continuously topping up the coffers was, you guessed it, the peasants of their wages, which were already pitiful. They paid ten percent in tithe to the church, twenty-five percent in tax to the state, plus additional made-up fundraising opportunities, including the salt tax, land tax, and a tax for each family member per household. So it's no wonder Marie earned the nickname Madame Deficit for her excesses while her people starved. And it is not an exaggeration, guys. Her spending habits were downright dumb, ludicrous, and selfish.
10:12 Speaker 01 But we do have to remember the context here. Marie spent lavishly, both out of genuine pleasure and as a means of overcompensating for her lack of satisfaction in her life. Which, to be honest, I do get. After all, her position at court was essentially dependent upon her fifteen-year-old socially awkward husband getting it up, with the peak of her spending occurring when she was a very young woman. With historian G. Fremont Barnes saying, "Once Marie Antoinette became a mother, she focused more of her energy on her children." This resulted in a very noticeable decline in the lavishness that had characterized her youth and early reign.
10:56 Speaker 01 She no longer bought jewelry or wore elaborate wigs.
11:00 Speaker 01 And while we can't simply chalk up being sad as an excuse for spending millions while your people suffer, I think we can all feel a little sympathy for a young woman who was completely out of her depth. Again, she's 14 years old. What were you doing when you were 14? Still in school. So imagine you're thrown into this, this court that is already prejudiced really against you by your politically ruthless mother. Plus, most importantly, and perhaps most annoyingly, at least for me anyway, sis was not the only one dropping coin left, right and centre here. Her husband spent approximately 6 million US dollars today
11:40 Speaker 01 on one crown for his coronation and gave nearly 30 million levers at the time to his brothers every single year. There's also the estimated 1.3 billion levers he gave the Americans for the war against the English because, you know, he hated the English. Plus, if we step back 150 years before Marie Antoinette, we have King Louis XIV, who dropped around 2 billion US dollars in today's estimates on the construction of Versailles because the Louvre wasn't grand enough for him. So do you think that may
12:18 Speaker 01 have something to do with France's worsening financial situation? But no, it's, it's Marie Antoinette's dresses, which, you know, sent France's bank accounts below zero. Good to know. Yeah, thank you. It's like stupid, right? It is misogyny plain as day. And if we wanna tease it out even more, guys, Marie wouldn't have had a fucking clue about the financial situation of France during these early years of her life in Versailles, even really in her early reign, because there's no way her husband, or any man for that matter,
12:58 Speaker 01 would have shared it with her. She is, after all, a woman. And more than that, she was the Austrian who no one trusted. So the idea that Marie Antoinette was some financial analyst, you know, poring over the state's accounts and studying the P and L, and then just like in spite of all of that, because she's a monster, she goes and orders 3 million US dollars worth of dresses, is a fucking fantasy. Plus, yet again.
13:26 Speaker 01 No offence to her, but like, she can't fucking read and speak, let alone be the mastermind behind France's national debt crisis. And that's not a shot at Marie. Like, I, I really do doubt any queen, princess, duchess, countess, or man of nobility, for that matter, especially the fucking king, could have told anyone the price of milk, salt, bread, or like a simple petticoat. Because unfortunately, much to the detriment of society, money, like most things, was not considered their business.
14:00 Speaker 01 In fact, there are actually many cases where Marie did spend her money on the poor. If we look at the Spring Festival in seventeen seventy, where countless people died due to improperly covered trenches, the Duchess de Polignac tells us that the grief Marie Antoinette felt was real. She says, "It was genuine and lasted for several days. Nothing could console her for the loss of so many innocent victims. And she didn't just feel poorly. Upon hearing of the disaster, both the Dauphine and Dauphines sent their yearly income to those families who had lost someone."
14:34 Speaker 01 But of course, this was unpublished at the time, and almost all of this is now skimmed over or used by historians to show how far she fell from the kind, young Dauphine to the cold and selfish queen. And that's the thing about Marie Antoinette. She is a mutt of historical creation. Thirty percent of what is written about her is fact, the rest is inflammatory, biased, misogynistic garbage, which turned Marie into the ultimate feminine villain. And the perfect example of this is the Diamond Necklace affair. So what the hell is this grand affair that we keep talking about?
15:17 Speaker 01 Well, in seventeen seventy-two, King Louis XV, so the king before Marie's husband, who like also called Louis, he was the sixteenth, it's highly confusing, it's all unoriginal. But Louis XV, the king before, had a wildly scandalous mistress. Her name was Madame de Barry. And my word, guys, her life was wild. So unlike the women from court and Louis himself, Madame de Barry came from humble beginnings, rising through Parisian high society thanks to her beauty, charm and social intelligence, making her the companion, and likely mistress, of several influential figures, including Jean Baptiste de Barry,
16:03 Speaker 01 who helped introduce her to several men of the court, including the king in seventeen sixty-eight. Now, he quickly became devoted to her and could not have her as an official mistress because she was not noble by birth, which was like one of the rules for the royal mistresses of Versailles. It was actually an official title and they were generally treated with respect. So, she was hastily married to a minor aristocrat arranged by the king. His name was Count Guillaume de Barry, basically just to make her suitable for presentation at court. But when she was there, she was really widely disliked by many of the ladies of the court, especially by Marie Antoinette, who scorned the king's philandering behaviour.
16:47 Speaker 01 But he loved de Barry, so much so that he wanted to give her the gift to end all gifts. Now ladies, if you're listening along and thinking, my god, my partner can be doing more for me, then perhaps best to close your ears right now because King Louis XV decided to show his love for his official mistress by commissioning a two thousand eight hundred carat diamond necklace for her. The monstrosity of a thing was worth over sixteen million US dollars today and really looked more like a corset bra kind of thing.
17:30 Speaker 01 I will put some photos up on socials for you, but trying to describe it now for you. Imagine like a normal choker necklace, right, over, over the neck. It then has three U shaped drops. And then at either end of the necklace, there are these two giant like chains of diamonds which form this big V down to the belly button. So you have the necklace, these three U's, and this giant V, which goes like over pretty much majority of the front of you, over the tits, over the stomach to the belly button. It is the most gargantuan, gaudy, like Versailles thing you can imagine.
18:13 Speaker 01 And it was to be made by the French crown jewellers Charles August Bemere and Paul Bessange. So at this point, pretty straightforward, guys. There is no affair, there's no scandal aside from the fact that, you know, Madame de Barry, the mistress, gets this giant necklace. But King Louis XV goes to them, he says, make this thing for me, you know, invoice me when it's done, love you, bye. They start work straight away. They buy up over six hundred and thirty diamonds from all over India, primarily from the Golconda region, which produced some of the finest diamonds on earth. Now, I want to be clear here, guys, there was no like lap grown, four Cs, make some compromises based on budget.
18:57 Speaker 01 These were all flawless, natural diamonds. Because the king told the jewellers to spare no expense. Now, the process of making this massive necklace took over six years. Again, like these diamonds have to be shipped from rural India, which back in seventeen seventy-two would have taken around six months and there would have been several trips in there. And with Bemere and Bessange fronting the astronomical cost to make this thing, yeah, that's right, there was no deposits or anything from the king. Like, these guys had to pay for all of this upfront. They're really starting to feel the pinch. And it starts to bite on May tenth seventeen seventy-four because King Louis XV dies of smallpox.
19:42 Speaker 01 Before he can, one, settle the account, and two, give it to Madame de Barry. Now, this changes things for a couple of reasons. First, it means Marie Antoinette and her husband Louis XVI become the new king and queen. And second, it leaves the jewellers with a sixteen million US dollar necklace unpaid for on their books.
20:05 Speaker 01 Now, lucky for the jewellers, their new queen had a prolific reputation for loving shiny things and as such, they approached her husband, King Louis XVI, to purchase it for her. He agreed to their request. You know, he knows his wife loves jewels, he's excited to give her a present, and he delivers the exciting news, Tamarae, of this amazing gift that he's gonna buy her. But contrary to Marilyn Monroe's Diamonds are a Girl's Best Friend, Marie's version was Diamonds meant for a former mistress that like you fucking hated are not a girl's best friend. She couldn't stand Dubarry. And the necklace, like I said, it was this like
20:50 Speaker 01 big, gaudy, fucking Trump Tower-esque monstrosity, which was the exact opposite of Marie's style. She of course had the big hair and the big dresses, but she found big obscene designs in jewels just like tacky and she really wouldn't be caught dead wearing anything designed for the likes of Dubarry. Plus, and this may surprise you given her historical persona as an out of touch spender maniac, but Marie became incredibly conservative with her spending when she became queen and later a mother. Becoming more aware of the state's finances and the expanding role of France in the American Revolution, reportedly saying
21:29 Speaker 01 to Louis when he told her of his intended gifts, "We have more need of 74 ships than of necklaces." So all in all, guys, Marie doesn't like the necklace, she doesn't want the necklace, and she sees no value in dishing out so much cash for the necklace. This puts Bemare and Bessange in an impossible situation. And they, they try several more times actually to get the queen to purchase it in the next 10 years, during which time they are almost entirely bankrupted by this thing. Which is when reason goes out the door and desperation walks in, in the form of one Cardinal Rohan.
22:14 Speaker 01 So who's this guy? Another new character, another new bombshell enters the villa. Well, Louis de Rohan was born in seventeen thirty-four into the House of Rohan, one of the most powerful aristocratic families in France. So much so, they boasted about their personal motto of "King I cannot be, prince I do not deign to be, Rohan I am."
22:41 Speaker 01 So really a guy like conditioned to power, prestige and proximity to the throne. Who decided one of the best ways for him to have influence with that proximity is a career in the church. So he goes ahead and enrolls, um, you know, into ecclesiastical school. He rises through the ranks there, thanks in large part to his aristocratic influence. And he soon becomes the Grand Almane of France. This is one of the highest religious offices in the kingdom. And it puts him in direct contact with the monarchy. In this, he's pretty skilled, like he's, he's really well suited to this job because he knows the ways of the aristocracy and the monarchy.
23:26 Speaker 01 But what he doesn't know is the ways of the Austrians, something which becomes increasingly evident when he's sent as French ambassador to Vienna in the early seventeen seventies. Now remember, King Louis the fifteenth is the king at this time. So Rohan, he feels super secure. He's got a good relationship with, you know, the king. He goes up to Vienna and he basically just has a big old peace up. And when he is there, he gets this reputation for mass frivolity. And begins writing to the French court. This guy's so dumb, but anyway, he begins writing to the French court about how Empress Maria Theresa and her court are far less sophisticated than the French. He describes the Empress in a really unflattering light.
24:10 Speaker 01 And he even suggests treason and skepticism about the Austrians' intentions for war. Eventually, as I'm sure you can guess, these reports made their way back to Empress Maria Theresa, who is less than impressed. But more importantly, they make their way to her daughter, Marie Antoinette, who becomes Queen of France four years later.
24:40 Speaker 01 And she's fucking pissed off at this guy. Rightfully so, right? He's like talking shit about her mum. He's stalking superstition of her intentions at court here in Versailles. So she, from the get-go, flat out refuses to receive Rohan. It is a big old, like, five to the face, doesn't want anything to do with him, including his family members. She's super cold towards them. And you have to understand the context here again. He's really proud. He comes from a deeply aristocratic family. So this exclusion? Humiliating. Mortifying. But more than that, it's also really dangerous.
25:21 Speaker 01 You see, the French court, really any of the royal courts at this time, operated on a system of proximity to the sovereign. If you were close, you were in. If you weren't, you were out. And the result could be anything from the stripping of one's lands and titles or just general gossip and othering. So this network of intimacy and favour became really the lifeblood of Versailles, making it super ruthless. And if you're Rohan, who's pissed the queen off, and while sure, like, he was still powerful within ecclesiastical circles, thanks to his role in the church, he lacked anything close to the queen's favour. And it only got worse the more that time went on.
26:06 Speaker 01 He was just excluded further. Which is when the concierge Jeanne Delamotte enters the picture. Now, she is the opposite of Cardinal Rohan. She is born as the daughter of a failed minor nobleman, and her childhood was prone to instability and financial collapse, often living in poverty, which is pretty ironic, because technically, she had royal blood.
26:32 Speaker 01 You see, the current French kings are from the Bourbon dynasty. But the rulers before them were called the Valois dynasty. And it was this line that Jean descended from. And while her branch of the family, shor, they'd fallen into obscurity, the name remained, allowing her to marry and perform nobility pretty convincingly enough to gain access to certain social circles within the sai, none of which were significant enough to like ever be truly close to the queen. But she understood that if she could position herself just close enough, just on the edge, she could use this perception to her advantage.
27:15 Speaker 01 And this is where Rohan and Jean come together, literally. After years on the fringe, Jean recognised vulnerability when she saw it. And a rejected Cardinal Rohan was about as on the fringe as it gets. So she began befriending him, at first with gentle conversation and then between her legs. And day by day, she began positioning herself to him as one of the queen's favourites.
27:44 Speaker 01 She claimed to Rohan that her and Marie Antoinette actually enjoyed a secret close friendship, deliberately concealed because of Jean's Valois blood and like her humble upbringings, basically. After all, right, Marie Antoinette is a Bourbon queen, she can hardly be openly friendly with this Valois gal. So Rohan, loving this, right, he's thinking maybe Jean can whisper some nice things back to the queen about me, which is when Jean comes up with her master plan.
28:14 Speaker 00 Visible puts the ultimate wireless hack in the palm of your hand. With unlimited 5G wireless data and hotspot, designed to keep you connected, powered by Verizon's 5G network. And no contract holding you back. Plans start at $25 a month, or get the premium Visible Plus Pro Plan and save $10 on your first month when you use promo code HACK. Make the switch at visible.com. Terms apply. See visible.com for details.
28:45 Speaker 02 Low energy, unfocused, foggy, you might be dehydrated. Gatorade Zero powders have been scientifically designed to help improve hydration balance in the body. With a clinically proven electrolyte blend and no artificial colours or flavours. Great tasting hydration, no matter where you're going. Shop now online or at retailers nationwide. Gatorade, hydrates better than water. Is it in you? Symptoms noted are signs of mild to moderate dehydration. Consult a healthcare professional if symptoms persist.
29:15 Speaker 01 It was no secret that Bemare and Bessange had the necklace. And that Marie Antoinette had rejected it on the premise of, like I said, the 74 ships. So Jean suggests to Rohan, Marie's actually lying. She really wants the necklace, but she couldn't be seen buying something so expensive and obscene in the middle of France's, you know, economic woes. So she tells Rohan, this is his chance to win back the Queen's favour by secretly going to get this necklace for her.
29:49 Speaker 01 Now Rohan, you know, to his credit, he is initially a little sceptical of this coming. You know, it's not from the Queen directly. But he comes around and he agrees to help by going to at least just inspect the necklace and find out about the price. Now, we are very lucky in this, because we actually have a first-hand account of this whole interaction from Bemare and Bessange themselves, who wrote, saying, "On January 24th, 1785, the Cardinal of Rohan came to our store, Bemare and Bessange's, and asked us to show him various jewels.
30:29 Speaker 01 We took advantage of this opportunity to show him a big diamond necklace, a unique and rare piece of its kind." After having examined it, this prince, it's still Cardinal Rohan that we're talking about, but they often refer to him as this prince. This prince told us he had heard about this jewel, and that he had come because he was given the responsibility for checking the price. We told him that we wanted to sell the necklace because it had become a heavy burden on us. It cost 1.6 million levers, even though it cost us more to make it. Nevertheless, we were determined to sell the necklace and told him that we would be very happy that Her Majesty the Queen wear the jewel.
31:13 Speaker 01 The prince told us that he would mention to the Queen the meeting he had had with us, and also that he would be responsible for buying the necklace. After seeing the necklace and getting this final price from the jewellers, Rohan then went to visit Jean and pass on the findings. The necklace was real, it was huge, and most importantly, the price tag, 1.6 million levers. So he asked Jean to take this information back to the Queen, mention that it was he who acquired it, and that should she choose to purchase the necklace, he would happily manage this transaction for her. Now, at this point, right, it's all seeming to be pretty logical, legit.
31:55 Speaker 01 And a few days later, Jean comes back saying the Queen would like terms negotiated for the purchase and the payment schedule of that before she moves ahead. So Rohan requests a meeting with Bumrah Basanj, who again, record this whole thing from us so we can hear it directly from their lips, they say. Two days later, the prince asked us to come to his house, and he told us that he could negotiate with us if we would promise to keep everything secret. We promised we would, and he informed us of a proposal to acquire the necklace. After having read these proposals, he asked us if they would be suitable for us and we answered yes.
32:37 Speaker 01 Again, it was super important this all remained secret and the terms agreed to was a payment plan to the jewellers with interest, which would be paid upfront with the first scheduled payment and a meeting with the Queen where they could admire her wearing the piece. So Rohan, he gets this all in writing, Bamar and Basanj will agree to it all if the Queen signs it off and Jean is given the papers for the Queen to review. Again, all legit at this point, super logical, all making sense. But at this point, it is January 28th and like I said, everyone's feeling pretty good. The jewellers are finally, you know, gonna get out of financial trouble, Rohan may get back in with the Queen. What about Jean?
33:23 Speaker 01 In case you haven't guessed, she was no simpering countess, nor was she the secret bestie of Marie Antoinette. She was an opportunist who saw a way out of her life of mediocrity through the desperation of the rejected Rohan. You see, the Queen never mentioned to Jean she wanted the necklace, she never came anywhere near her. Instead, Jean planned to steal it, break it up and sell the diamonds in London for a pretty preny and while Rohan had, you know, gone along with her deception so far, she could see he was getting a little antsy as the deal came to a close. So she orchestrated her final grand act of persuasion with theatrical precision designated
34:08 Speaker 01 for Shakespeare and Meryl Streep. That evening, Rohan was strolling through the gardens of Versailles in dim light and shadow, contemplating this act for his Queen, when suddenly a woman dressed in white approached him. She handed him a rose in the mist and shadow of moonlight, and murmured a few words of thanks for his service to his queen. The woman, however, was not the queen, but a prostitute chosen for her resemblance, but it didn't matter. In darkness and deception, Rohan accepted the illusion that he had been forgiven and was close to coming back into the fold directly by his queen, right? And it spurred him on, it gave him the courage to get out there so that when Jean returned the next day
34:51 Speaker 01 with the payment terms signed on the dotted line by Marie Antoinette de France, Rohan is certain of what he has to do. So a few days later, by this point it's Feb 1st, 1785, Rohan, in his victory, sends an unsigned note to Bemare and Bessange saying, "I would like Monsieur Bemare and his partner to come to my house as soon as possible with the object in question." Now, these guys, absolutely buzzing, because they, they, you know, said, "We will not sell without the signed payment terms, so this meeting must mean the sale is going ahead." In their recounting of this, they said, "We immediately went and brought him the famous necklace.
35:34 Speaker 01 During the meeting, he told us that Her Majesty the Queen was going to acquire the jewel, and he showed us that the proposals we had accepted were signed by Marie Antoinette de France. We showed our joy and satisfaction, and the prince assured us that he would deliver the necklace during the day. At the same time, he told us that Her Majesty could not meet with them as mentioned in the proposal, but he hoped that we would receive the interest we claimed, and he would represent them, you know, in, in this endeavour, as he considered our request fair." This is how our third meeting ended. So this is the point the jewellers gave Rohan the necklace. They are a little crappy. They, you know, couldn't give it to her themselves in this meeting, which was a part of the initial terms, but I guess she is the queen, she is busy,
36:18 Speaker 01 and this whole thing is meant to be in secret plus, like, they're just really glad to be rid of this thing. So they hand it over to the queen's agent in all of this, Rohan. And this is where things go properly pear-shaped.
36:33 Speaker 01 So Rohan, with the necklace in his possession, he obviously wants to get it to the Queen as quickly as possible. As such, previously arranged with Jean for a royal courier to take the necklace from him directly to the site. Now, this private representative, uber reserved, right? Pre-arranged, prepaid, appeared to be totally legit, he's in, he's in the outfit, the uniform. And Rohan hands this necklace over, thinking, you know, it's going to the Queen, like I'm getting back in. When in reality, this courier was a black market dealer who delivered the piece to Jean, who broke it down into its individual jewels, hands some to the courier, others to her husband,
37:15 Speaker 01 both of whom go smuggle the jewel out of France and then sells, sell them all off individually or in small groups through various London jewellers and private buyers, which made them almost impossible to trace with like thousands of loose diamonds entering the busy London market in the seventeen eighties at this time. Now, at this point, everyone's still happy. You know, Rohan thinks he's about to be back in the fold, like I said. Jean is on her way to being a millionaire, the jewellers are going to be paid, Marie Antoinette has a big old fat necklace. Except of course she doesn't. And when the first payment date comes around for the necklace, Bamar and Vissenge become very, very agitated.
38:01 Speaker 01 And they tell us of this, saying Rohan told us that as soon as we had the opportunity to meet Her Majesty the Queen, we should thank her for buying the necklace, but we never had the opportunity to meet her. We waited until July, when the prince asked us to come to this house. He told us that the necklace was too expensive for the Queen. Her Majesty had the intention to give it back to us unless we considered lowering its price to two hundred thousand livres. We were filled with sorrow after hearing this and we told the prince of the misfortune these events were leading us into, since on one hand, we had refused to sell the jewel to the Spanish court where it had been asked for several times. And on the other hand, we had committed ourselves to several creditors after the prince had assured us
38:46 Speaker 01 that we would receive the first payment from Her Majesty. The prince promised us that he would mention these facts to the queen. A few days later, he told us that her majesty had accepted our last settlements. And instead of receiving 400,000 livres, which was the newly negotiated rate, we would soon receive 700,000 livres, which would allow us to honour our commitments. At the same time, the prince told us to thank the queen. For fear that we would not be able to tell her verbally, we wrote her a thank you note, which was delivered by a bermare to her majesty. So, guys, there's no first payment. In fact, they're now hearing she can't make the payments at all because she can't actually afford
39:29 Speaker 01 the 1.6 million liver price tag. And they must drop it first, like I said, to 200,000, then it's negotiated up to 400,000. And, you know, in the end, it was, it was the 700,000 that Rohan said the queen would pay. But despite all of this negotiating, despite the necklace being handed over and gone, this is all just talk. There is not a single cent changed hand, which is why they decided to write to the queen themselves. In all of this, Rohan is again getting this information from Jean, who, for god knows what reason, is still in fucking France. If you're gonna steal a necklace, which you're almost, like, certainly gonna be found out over,
40:14 Speaker 01 you'd think you'd flee the country, but, you know, she didn't. If she had, I reckon she probably would have gotten away with it. But again, she doesn't. For when the queen receives this note from a royal jewellers, the whole scheme comes undone. Now, to say that Marie Antoinette is furious about this is a complete understatement. She denied ever hearing of the necklace from Jean, let alone arranging for her to purchase it via Rohan. And her confusion turned to anger when she told her husband, who launched a swift and strenuous investigation, calling the mayor and the centre before them. Now, they attend because they are equally keen to sort this matter out, because they've got no money and no necklace.
40:59 Speaker 01 And when they do, they present the signed payment terms with the signature Marie Antoinette de France.
41:09 Speaker 01 When the king sees this...
41:12 Speaker 01 He loses his fucking mind. For no member of the French monarchy, or or any monarchy for that matter, would be caught dead signing their name de France. After all, one hardly needs to say like, I'm Maria France, when you're the Queen of France and you're buying something in France. So from there, the truth becomes clear. And the scenes that unfolded make me wish that the 18th century had the internet, cameras and Bravo. Because it is pure fucking cinema, right? Imagine this in your brain right now.
41:57 Speaker 01 It's the 15th of August, 1785. The whole French court is awaiting the king and queen to go to the chapel to celebrate the feast of the Assumption of Mary. Super important day in the Catholic calendar. The church officiant presiding over this, Cardinal Rohan. But instead of conducting his role in church, he was taken, dragged in front of the whole court before the king and queen and forced to explain himself. He's confused, of course, but he produces a letter again, signed Marie Antoinette de France. And the king flies off the fucking handle stating, Rohan had breathed royal etiquette since birth
42:39 Speaker 01 and could not understand how a courtier, above all a Rohan, so keen on the details of status and self-importance, could make such a mistake.
42:50 Speaker 01 And he is not wrong. Think about it, this guy is so self-important, he's a he's a Rohan. They have their famous saying, and he's fooled by the Marie Antoinette de France? So he is arrested. He's taken to the Bastille, but not before sending a note ordering the destruction of all of his correspondents. Jeanne does the same at this point, but eventually she too is arrested three days later. Also arrested at this point was the prostitute pretending to be Marie and the man who confessed to forging the Queen's signature in this. So one of Jeanne's, Jeanne's, you know, criminal partners. What followed was a sensational trial the year later, which resulted, shock, in the acquittal of Rohan and both the aforementioned co-conspirators.
43:35 Speaker 01 Jean, however, was condemned to whipping branded with a V for velus, aka thief, on each of her shoulders, and sent off to life imprisonment. But guess what? She dresses up as a boy, she escapes, she goes to England. And she writes all sorts of like fucking nonsense about her and Marie being lesbians, and Marie corrupted her because she's Austrian and evil and sinful. And that's why Jean became a criminal mastermind. Now, while I do love a woman in business, and I appreciate the lengths that Jean went to to get her bag, the real punishment was not for her, or Rohan, or anyone else, but for Marie.
44:17 Speaker 01 When I say the repercussions of the diamond necklace affair of Marie Antoinette were lethal, I do not exaggerate. Napoleon Bonaparte later said, "The Queen's death must be dated from the diamond necklace trial." And he's bang on. Public opinion was much excited by the trial, which became known as the Diamond Necklace Affair. And while the trial found Marie Antoinette blameless in this matter, she'd been taken advantage of, right? Practically identity theft. And the evidence conclusively proved she was not involved in any way, shape or form, many people in France persisted that the Queen was the mastermind behind it all.
44:58 Speaker 01 When Rohan was acquitted, Marie was noticeably disappointed, which many chalked up to her prejudice against him and therefore motive to involve him as the foreman. While others, on the flip side, saw that his acquittal implied that Marie Antoinette had somehow been in the wrong and, you know, needed him to be found not guilty to expunge her own guilt and involvement.
45:21 Speaker 01 All in all though, it just came down to the fact the Queen's prior frivolous spending was all the proof the French people needed for her guilt to be confirmed. And as historian G from Montbarns says, her reputation was already at a low ebb when she was unjustly implicated in the diamond necklace affair. And again, I think you can see the French people's point here, right? It's easy to believe that the Queen who spent three million US dollars today on her wardrobe, despite her people starving, would do the same again with diamonds. So much so, that when the gates of Versailles were thrown open and the palace stormed, revolutionaries reached Marie's bedroom and asked, "Where are the walls filled with diamonds?"
46:05 Speaker 01 This was just one of the stories that were thrown around in pamphlets and caricatures after the diamond necklace affair to betray the Queen as this evil spendthrift. And while the affair occurred four years before the Revolution, it was the essential moment the Bourbon monarchy was discredited in the eyes of the French people. Again, as Napoleon said, "The Queen's death must be dated from the diamond necklace trial." And this is how thirty percent fact Marie Antoinette loved spending money on shiny things has been exaggerated into seventy percent myth. She attempted to defraud the royal jewellers and make a profit on the black market.
46:49 Speaker 01 And this didn't just happen when Marie was alive. It continued well after her death with the thing we remember her for: cake. The story goes that when Marie Antoinette was told her people were starving from bread shortages, she replied "Qu'il mangeons de la brioche", which translates to "let them eat". Brioche, a rich bread which was just as luxurious as cake at the time. Since then, "let them eat cake" has echoed through the centuries to confirm Marie Antoinette as history's biggest bitch.
47:28 Speaker 01 And it's no wonder. It is a pretty effective turn of phrase which seems to perfectly illustrate the way aristocrats are oblivious to their privilege in a way that seems almost too good to be true. And that's because it is. Not only is there absolutely no historical evidence to support Marie Antoinette ever saying "let them eat cake", but its actual origins predate her by nearly 200 years as part of German folklore with the phrase "let them eat cake" first being published in 1767 when Marie Antoinette was 12 years old. During which time, she's in Austria and she can barely speak German, let alone French.
48:11 Speaker 01 So I hardly think like she has the time nor the aptitude to make insensitive comments about cake. In fact, it was not until at least 50 years after Marie Antoinette's death that "let them eat cake" was even attributed to her.
48:27 Speaker 01 So why would someone be dredged up from the depths of history to say something about eating cake?
48:38 Speaker 01 The reason's pretty simple, guys.
48:41 Speaker 01 France needed a villain. And what's better than a bitch? Which is how we wound up with the myth of Marie Antoinette we know today. And how impactful the diamond necklace affair was in setting Marie up for that historical legacy. The truth is, so much of Marie's life is tainted by bias and misrepresentation and so many of her possessions destroyed in the revolution, that we don't really know the truth of the real Marie. Especially because the majority of her history is recorded by men. But there are moments, I believe we see the real Marie Antoinette, the good, the bad, the ugly, the human.
49:25 Speaker 01 One of these is her excessive dress bill. It is fucking abominable and idiotic and senseless, like I said. She was that person at one point in her life. Another is the diamond necklace affair, right? She is matured, she's grown up, she is aware of the state of the world and rejecting this gift which her husband wanted to give her, him. Her judgment here was bang on in rejecting it. She learned from that girl that she once was, but, you know, was taken advantage of because that reputation already existed. Again, she is human, she made mistakes, but she learned. It just so happened she, you know, wound up in the middle of a con.
50:09 Speaker 01 Another of these moments, well, I think anyway, is when everything had been stripped from her. With her clothes torn, her body covered in food scraps and her famous blonde hair now grey and shaven, she approached the guillotine after years of imprisonment and humiliation, accidentally stepping on the executioner's foot, she says, pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose. Again, I want to be really clear. I think Marie Antoinette was a terrible ruler in a terrible time for the French people. But she was not the sole cause of, nor could she have been the sole solution to France's economic woes.
50:52 Speaker 01 And to lay blame solely at her feet is not only factually incorrect, but a clear example of how prejudice and propaganda have passed through our history books, proven perfectly by the diamond necklace affair. In the end, the myth of Marie Antoinette is just that, a myth fabricated by those who sought to use her as a scapegoat to further their own agendas. Whether that agenda be anti Austrian, anti monarchy, anti privilege, or anti women, the scandalous French queen served them all.
51:31 Speaker 01 And if there is one thing I am certain of, it's that the majority of historians throughout time rarely let the truth get in the way of a good story. And that brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History. Thank you so much for following along with me on this episode and make sure to tune in next week. Because we're going to be sticking around with Marie Antoinette for a bit of it alongside the Romanovs, the city of Constantinople, the German Kaiser post-World War One, and even modern times to Jeffrey Epstein in an episode which looks at exactly what happens to fortunes, jewels, possessions, houses, Swiss bank accounts and all after it comes crashing down.
52:15 Speaker 01 As always, guys, if you're looking for some more hot history, then you can follow us on Instagram at Hot History Club and on TikTok at hot dot history. It has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you and I will speak to you all next Friday. Thanks, guys. Love you. Bye.
Previous The knights who guard the crown of thorns! Next Where’d the money go? Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated