The Story of the Diamond Necklace

This volume notes the famous Affair of the Diamond Necklace whereby Queen Marie Antoinette was thought to have participated in a crime to defraud the crown jewelers. Before King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette's reign, King Louis XV commissioned jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge to make an elaborately expensive necklace for Madame du Barry, a woman with whom he was infatuated. Before the necklace could be finished, King Louis XV died of smallpox. Upon the coronation of Queen Marie Antoinette, the jewelers offered the piece to Marie; the Queen refused. Again, upon the birth of the Dauphin of France, Louis-Joseph in 1781, the necklace was offered and the Queen refused once more. In 1784, a con artist known as Jeanne de Saint-Rémy de Valois started a fake correspondence from the Queen to jewelers Boehmer and Bassenge, informing them that she would like the necklace after all. The jewelers delivered the necklace to the con artists and later complained to Queen Antoinette about never receiving payment. Scandal ensued even after the con artists had been arrested and it was proven the Queen was not involved in the scam. Possibly because of the Queen's already sullied reputation with the French people, she came under much criticism. Today, scholars believe this scandal was one of the last events that led to the French Revolution and Marie Antoinette's execution.