The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

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Hey guys, it's me, Mr.

Ballin.

If you listened to last week's episode of A Twist of History, then you probably heard me mention that this show is coming to an end.

This is the final episode of A Twist of History.

I want to thank all of you once again for supporting us and for being such amazing fans of great storytelling.

I also want to let you know again that this show's departure does not say anything about core Mr.

Ballin content.

It's not going anywhere.

In fact, part of the reason we're winding this show down is specifically to double our efforts on core Mr.

Ballin content.

So keep an eye out for even more of the signature storytelling style that you all love coming very soon.

And now, enjoy the final episode of A Twist of History.

Thank you.

There's no queen more notorious than Marie Antoinette.

You've heard of her.

The out-of-touch royal who said, let them eat cake, when her subjects were out of bread.

The last queen of France famously beheaded by the guillotine.

In popular imagination, she was the problem that led to the entire French Revolution.

But the truth is, Marie Antoinette wasn't the real main character in her own downfall.

She was just a high-profile casualty of a bizarre scheme involving a con artist, a look-alike prostitute, and a staggeringly expensive piece of jewelry.

On today's episode, The Affair of the Diamond Necklace.

This is a twist of history.

It's a spring afternoon in France in 1783.

A 27-year-old beauty named Jeanne de Lamotte strolls down the sunny streets of Versailles with her husband Nicolas.

Jeanne has blue eyes and brown hair, a bright smile, and the self-assured posture of a noble woman.

She's dressed like one too, in a nice silk gown.

She lifts the hem to keep it from dragging on the dirty cobblestone.

Jeanne does her best to ignore the stares of the beggars lining the street as they cock their heads in confusion.

What are two nobles doing walking in the Palace of Versailles?

Don't they have a carriage?

But Jeanne doesn't break character.

She continues on, chin held high.

She knows she's an imposter in these clothes, but she also knows it's all about faking it until you make it.

She can't let these beggars suspect she's one of their own.

Jeanne's father was born noble, but after marrying a maidservant and squandering his tiny inheritance, the family wound up on the streets of Paris.

Jeanne's father died young and her mother abandoned her, leaving Jeanne with nothing.

So, in order to survive, she had to learn to be crafty.

Jeanne's only hope for escaping a life of squalor was to marry well, but unfortunately, She got stuck with Nicolas de Lamotte.

His family is minor nobility, but financially, they aren't doing much better than Jeanne's family.

Truthfully, the only reason they got married three years ago was that Jeanne was pregnant, but their twins died in infancy and the newlywed's fortunes sank, and now Jeanne is back to being poor.

Today, she and her husband are headed to the palace in a desperate attempt to win the favor of the royal court.

The court is the only social safety net for nobles who fall on hard times.

So if they fail, Jeanne might wind up back on the streets.

She just has to hope the torrents of sweat soaking through her gown don't give her away as a fry.

After an exhausting five-hour walk from Paris, Jeanne and Nicolas finally reach the golden gates of the Palace of Versailles.

Jeanne flashes the guard a bright smile as Nicholas introduces them by their noble titles, the Comte and Comtesse de la Motte.

When she notices the guard hesitate, she quickly adds that she's a distant relation of Henry II, the former king of France.

She asks for an audience with Queen Marie Antoinette.

Her noble lineage should entitle her to an introduction.

The guard looks Jeanne up and down.

Her confident, comfortable expression never falters, even though behind the mask, her mind is racing.

She prays the light dusting of dirt on her hem won't betray the humiliating truth that she walked there, all 12 miles from Paris.

She hopes the pain from her tight bodice, which has her on the verge of suffocation, won't read across her face.

After what feels like an eternity, the guard nods and shows them into the courtyard, where black and white marble pavement glimmers in the sunlight.

Jeanne feels a sense of relief wash over her.

She squeezes Nicholas's sweaty hand and throws him a satisfied smile.

As she ascends the gilded bronze stairs in the entryway, She gazes in awe at the ceiling fresco illuminated by the warm glow of a skylight.

As a child, she dreamed of moving through rooms like this.

In her heart, she always felt like this was where she belonged.

Leading Nicholas by the hand, Jeanne wanders into the Hall of Mirrors, a grand gallery that connects the king's and queens' chambers.

The dozens of courtiers and servants milling about are multiplied by a wall of massive mirrors.

A man in liturgical robes crosses her path.

He's clearly a high-ranking figure in the church, a cardinal by the look of it.

The man casts a glance in Jean's direction.

His gaze lingers a little too long.

She's a stunner, after all.

Jean smiles coyly, returning the flirtation.

Nicholas notices, but he doesn't seem to mind, not at all.

He whispers in Jean's ear that the man in the robes is the Cardinal de Rohan.

He's extremely powerful, has noble blood, and is filthy rich.

But he's on the outs with the royal family because he opposed the king's marriage to the Austrian-born Marie Antoinette.

And the rumor is, he doesn't take his vow of chastity very seriously.

Jeanne catches the subtext.

She and Nicholas don't take their marriage vows very seriously either.

With her husband's tacit permission and one more squeeze of his hand, she turns back and shoots the cardinal another smile.

They're looking for help any way they can get it.

Just then, she notices a guard approaching.

He says the queen has politely declined Jeanne's request to meet.

She's never even heard of a Comtesse de la Motte.

Jeanne tries not to show her embarrassment, but she can feel her cheeks reddening.

Her eyes land on two noblewomen standing within earshot.

They turn their faces away and whisper, snickering.

The truth is, even though Nicholas really is a comte, Jeanne has no claim to the title of Comtesse.

She figured no one would actually find out, but now that they have, there's only one course of action.

loudly double down on the lie.

Jeanne insists that she is in fact a comtesse.

This uneducated guard must have no idea what he's talking about.

But despite her protests, she and Nicolas are escorted from the palace grounds.

Four hours later, Jean and Nicolas stumble toward their humble apartment.

The streets of Paris are a far cry from the luxury of the Palace of Versailles.

The French economy is in a tailspin, and for everyone except the ultra-rich, times are hard.

As Jean and Nicolas stumble through their neighborhood's dirty alleys and overcrowded tenements, a beggar woman spits on Jean's silk dress.

The commoners hate to see nobles cavorting in their finery while thousands starve in the streets.

Marie Antoinette in particular is blamed for the country's economic woes.

Madame Deficit, as she's nicknamed, is accused of draining France's coffers to pay for her grand balls and jeweled headdresses.

Jean thinks those accusations are ridiculous.

Marie Antoinette has expensive tastes, but she's not spending enough on shoes to drive the the national economy into the ground.

Besides, their hatred of the nobility is only misplaced jealousy.

Who wouldn't want to live lavishly if they had the opportunity?

When they reach their door, Nicholas's childhood friend, Louis Reto du Valeta, is already waiting.

He had plans to join them for dinner before heading off for the night shift.

He makes his living as a gigolo, pimp, forger, and occasional blackmailer in Paris' seedy underbelly.

Jeanne rips off her sweatcake bodice the moment she gets inside.

She sighs with relief as she pries the shoes off her blistered feet.

Then she gets to work preparing a simple French meal, bread.

In an economy like this, only the wealthy can afford meat.

Jeanne serves three meagre portions while fuming about how she was snubbed by the queen.

What a humiliating insult.

When she sits down, Veletta touches her thigh under the table.

He points out that it sounds like there's at least one person at the palace who likes her, whether she's a comtesse or not.

Jeanne understands immediately who he's referring to.

The Cardinal de Roan, the clergyman who'd shot Jeanne a flirtatious look.

It's a good point.

Jeanne may not have a legitimate title, but she has sex appeal, and that can get her pretty far.

Suddenly, her face lights up with an idea.

She intertwines the fingers of her left hand with Villetta's and reaches her her right hand across the table to link fingers with Nicholas.

She has a plan for all three of them to get rich and weasel their way into the royal court.

Jeanne lowers her voice and the men both lean in to hear.

She explains that she has an old friend, a charitable neighbor who briefly took her in as a child, who could introduce her to the Cardinal de Rhon.

From there, she'll win his trust with her feminine wiles and by dangling the one thing he wants more than anything else, which is to get back in the royal family's good graces.

Jeanne has always been a good liar, and she's confident she can convince the Cardinal that she's close friends with Marie Antoinette.

She'll promise to put in a good word for him with the Queen.

Once he's on the hook, she'll have Valette to help her by forging letters supposedly from the Queen, professing her deepest appreciation for the Cardinal, and asking him for cash.

Jeanne looks around the table to see both men gaping in silent awe.

They're both enamored by her criminal mind.

A few weeks later, Jeanne lounges nude on the Cardinal's bed at his luxurious Versailles apartment.

The Cardinal has his back turned, pulling his robes on.

Briefly, she thinks about pocketing a gold ring from the nightstand.

But no, she has her eye on bigger scams.

Everything has gone according to plan.

She's safely planted the idea that she's close with the queen.

It wasn't too hard to fool him.

Apparently the cardinal hasn't actually spoken to Marie Antoinette in 10 years, even though they're both constantly crossing paths at the palace.

Now, he's primed for the next step in the plan.

As Jean grabs her petticoat off the floor, she slips an envelope out of the pocket.

Playing it casual, she tells the cardinal that she has a letter for him.

from her dear friend Marie Antoinette.

She watches him out of the corner of her eye as she gets dressed.

She sees him pry the envelope open carefully and begin to read the letter from the queen.

It says, King Louis XVI isn't giving her enough of an allowance.

Yes, the kingdom is in a dire financial situation, but a woman has needs.

She's wondering if the Cardinal can lend her 60,000 livres.

That's about 800,000 US dollars today.

In the letter, she promises she'll repay the favor, though exactly how is left to the cardinal's lusty imagination.

At the bottom, the letter is signed, Marie Antoinette de France.

Jeanne's heart pounds as the Cardinal lowers the letter.

She isn't sure if it'll work.

Did they ask for too much or not enough?

How much spending money does a queen need anyway?

But then she sees a smile cross the Cardinal's face.

He folds the letter and tucks it into his vest.

He promises to bring the money the next time he sees Jeanne, which he hopes will be soon.

He ushers her out with a kiss.

Days later, Jean returns home from another rendezvous with the Cardinal.

She's beaming as she comes through the door, holding an envelope high in triumph.

Nicholas and Villetta rush to join her at the kitchen table as she slaps it down for them to see.

The envelope lands with a satisfying thud.

It's full of cash.

The Cardinal fell for it.

While Nicholas counts the money, Villetta helps Jean forge a thank-you note.

It expresses the queen's undying appreciation for the cardinal, who's so much nicer than her stingy husband, King Louis XVI, and asks him for a little more spending money.

Jean wonders if they're pushing their luck.

Getting the cardinal on the hook was easy.

The hard part will be keeping him on the hook.

And she's right to be worried, because within a few months, the increasingly steamy letters and continued requests for money make him suspicious.

Finally, the cardinal puts his foot down and asks Jean for the one thing she's been hoping he'd never demand.

He tells her that before he forks over any more money, he wants a face-to-face meeting with the Queen.

August 11th, 1784 is a balmy summer's night.

Cardinal de Roan dabs his moist forehead with a handkerchief as he walks with Jean through the Queen's gardens at Versailles.

The labyrinthine paths are one of Marie Antoinette's favorite places for late-night strolls.

It's beautiful here, but most importantly, it's utterly private.

Jeanne takes the Cardinal to a tulip tree in the center of the garden.

She tells him to wait there.

The Queen will be out to meet him at 11 p.m.

The palace clock chimes.

The queen should be here any minute.

The cardinal adjusts his robes and smooths his hair.

He has to look his best.

If he was reading the subtle hints in those letters correctly, there's a decent chance this meeting could take an amorous turn.

A shadow moves between the shrubbery.

The cardinal straightens his posture and squints up the path.

It's hard to see in the moonlight, but as she approaches, the cardinal can faintly make out the features of Marie Antoinette's face, shrouded by a black gauze headscarf.

In her gloved hands is a single white rose.

She hands the flower to the cardinal and whispers, you know what this means.

He does.

In traditional flower language, white roses symbolize new beginnings and everlasting love.

The queen moves close enough that the cardinal can smell her perfume.

It's cloying.

It seems a little cheap and gaudy for the Queen of France, but what does the Cardinal know?

He's not a connoisseur.

And mixed with her musk, it's so intoxicating.

She leans into his ear and whispers, You can count on the past being forgotten.

They're about to kiss.

The Cardinal is dizzy with joy.

This was something something he was never even bold enough to dream of.

A tryst with the Queen of France.

But just then, the moment is interrupted as a figure rushes out from behind a bush.

It's Jeanne.

In a strained whisper, she warns the Queen that her sisters-in-law are approaching.

If she wants to avoid scandal, she and Cardinal Rowan both need to get out of here.

The Cardinal's heart sinks.

He watches his dream slip away as Marie Antoinette hurries off, casting him one last wistful smile before she she disappears into the labyrinth of shrubs.

Moving quickly through the garden, Jean looks back to make sure they're not being followed.

The queen is at her side, keeping pace as they hurry down the path toward a fence.

With quick glances to the left and right to be sure that there are no guards in their sightlines, Jeanne scales the fence and jumps down onto the street on the other side.

Jean looks back and sees that the queen is following her.

but her dress has caught on the top of the fence.

Jean rushes back to help her down, and soon the queen plops down to the cobblestone with a soft thud, leaving a shred of silk hanging from the gilded metal bars above.

It's brighter out here than it was in the garden, and under the dim glow of a lamppost, there's just enough light for Jean to make out the queen's features.

She doesn't look quite like the oil paintings adorning the walls of Versailles, but the resemblance is pretty close, and that's exactly why Jean hired her.

This woman isn't really Marie Antoinette.

She's a prostitute named Nicole Leguer.

Jean paid her a hefty sum to sneak into the palace tonight, meet with the Cardinal, and pose as Marie Antoinette.

The next time Jean and the Cardinal meet, she passes along another forged letter, which apologizes for how brief that late-night meeting was.

Marie Antoinette wishes she could have lingered a little longer, but the Cardinal knows how it is.

A queen has to be careful to avoid any untoward rumors.

From the way the Cardinal is glowing, Jean can confirm the look-alike scheme work.

He has no doubts that the letters he's receiving are really from the Queen.

Now, when Jean and Nicolas arrive at the palace gate, by carriage, thanks to their newfound riches, they're let in without even having to introduce themselves.

With the cardinal vouching for them, no one questions their legitimacy.

That is, no one except Marie Antoinette.

When the so-called Comtesse turns up at the royal apartments, she's turned away again and again and again.

By now, the Queen has certainly heard of the Comtesse de la Motte, and she knows her as a striver, a tactless upstart who keeps claiming to be her best friend despite all the facts to the contrary.

At least, that's what Jean hears from her husband Nicholas, who heard it from a nobleman who heard it from his wife.

Luckily for Jean, Getting involved in gossip is beneath the queen.

Marie Antoinette doesn't seem to be trying too hard to shut down the rumor that they're close.

Most of the court still believes it.

Nobles as high-ranking as the king's teenage sister, except Jeanne is one of their own.

Jean and Nicolas, now flush with cash and endorsed by the court, rent a gorgeous apartment in Versailles, leaving their impoverished Parisian past behind.

One winter afternoon, Jeanne is moseying through the hall of mirrors with one of her new friends, wearing a brand new dress without a spot of dirt on the hem.

The noblewoman has an interesting piece of palace gossip to share.

The finest jewelers in Paris, Beaumaire and Bonson, have apparently made a necklace so expensive they can't find anyone to sell it to.

It was originally designed for the former King Louis XV's mistress, but he died before he could pay for it.

The jewelers are now trying to pawn it off to the new King Louis XVI, but his wife Marie Antoinette doesn't want it.

She says it looks like a horse harness.

The necklace is worth 1.6 million livres, nearly $21 million in today's money.

Jeanne stops in her tracks.

Her friend giggles.

She agrees it's a staggering price, even for a noble.

Pretty much no one other than the king and queen could afford such a thing.

And the jewelers went into such massive debt making it that if they don't find a buyer, they'll go bankrupt.

They're desperate for someone.

Anyone to take this necklace off their hands.

The gears in Jeanne's head are already turning.

She's climbed the social ladder as far as she can, and she's tired of being shut out by the queen.

If she can't truly join the royal court, she's going to take them for all they're worth.

It's December 1784.

Dressed in her finery, Jeanne strolls into the Parisian shop of renowned jewelers Beaumaire and Bossange.

Her eyes dart across the glittering diamonds and rubies in display cases along the walls.

She's always dreamed of wearing jewels like these, and soon, if all goes according to plan, she will.

The shopkeeper greets Jeanne, and she introduces herself as the Comtesse de la Motte.

As Monsieur Beaumaire and Bassange must have heard by now, She's a close friend of Queen Marie Antoinette.

She wants to take a look at that necklace they're trying to sell to the the queen.

She may have an idea how to take it off their hands.

The shopkeeper sighs with relief.

Jean waits as he retrieves a jewelry box from the back room and sets it on the counter.

Jean can't hold back a gasp as he carefully opens the top.

The 2,840 karat behemoth of a necklace rests against red velvet.

A row of stones make up the neckline, with three glittering garlands adorned with six massive pendants.

Long ribbons of diamonds and pearls drape down, ending in jeweled tassels with blue enamel bows.

In total, it contains 674 diamonds.

It's borderline ridiculous, but Jean is in love.

The truth is, she says, the queen really does want that necklace.

She doesn't think it looks like a horse harness.

She's just afraid of how it will look if she buys it.

The kingdom's finances are in such dire straits, and she's she's already attacked so bitterly by the general public for her spending habits.

That, Jeanne explains, is why she, the Comtesse de la Motte, the queen's close friend, has come here today.

She's going to arrange for the queen to buy the necklace through an intermediary, the Cardinal de Roan.

He'll come to pick it up and arrange the payment.

And, Jeanne reiterates, this has to stay a secret.

There could be quite a scandal if all this got out.

A few weeks later, Jean meets the Cardinal at his apartment.

She tells him she has good news, another letter for him from the queen.

She sees him blush with joy as he rips open the envelope.

Jean and Villette spend hours working the wording on this one, making it just spicy enough to keep the cardinal on the hook.

In a subtly flirtatious tone, Marie Antoinette says there's a necklace she desperately wants, but she can't buy it herself.

Her husband would surely disapprove and the public would have a fit.

She wants the cardinal to go to the jewelers and buy it on her behalf, paying in installments, of course.

Even a man as wealthy as the cardinal surely wouldn't have the full sum lying around.

He'll pay the first installment, pass the necklace to Jean, and the queen will pay him back as soon as the jewels are in her hands.

Jean carefully gauges the cardinal's reaction.

As he scans the letter, his posture stiffens.

He remarks that the necklace is pretty expensive.

Of course, the queen is good for it, but he doesn't want to step on the king's toes.

Jean leads him to the bed and rubs his shoulders, soothing his worries.

This is the opportunity of a lifetime.

If he does what the queen asks, she'll grant him any favor he could want.

Maybe she'll even have him appointed as chief minister.

She feels the cardinal's shoulder muscles relax under her thumbs.

She has him exactly where she wants him.

A few weeks later, the Cardinal knocks on the door to Jeanne's apartment in Versailles.

She opens the door and he shuffles in, casting glances in each direction to make sure no one's watching.

Inside, Valletta sits by the burning hearth, wearing his finest waistcoat and breeches.

He bows.

Jeanne introduces him to the Cardinal as the Queen's valet.

He's here to collect the goods.

The Cardinal doesn't hesitate.

He reaches into his cloak and retrieves a flat box wrapped in plain paper.

He hands it to Valletta and tells him to pass along his deepest affections to the Queen.

Jeanne assures him the queen will be very happy about this little favor.

Then, quickly, she rushes him out the door and bids him adieu with a kiss on the cheek.

As soon as the cardinal is gone, Jeanne shouts that the coast is clear.

Nicholas emerges from the bedroom.

Valletta bursts into laughter.

He rips open the paper and gawks at the jewels inside.

But Jeanne tears the necklace out of his hands.

This is her win.

She grabs a knife from the kitchen and immediately gets to work prying the jewels apart.

She divvies them up into three piles.

Nicholas will take his and Jeanne's shares of the stones to London and pawn them off.

Jeanne will stick around in Paris and play it cool.

Someone would certainly notice if she and the necklace both disappeared at the same time.

Meanwhile, Valletta will take his share of diamonds to Holland and sell them there.

But before Valletta takes off, Jean has him forge just a few more letters to get ahead of the next potential hitch in their plan.

Six months later, in August, the Cardinal gets a letter in the mail from Marie Antoinette.

It's the third letter from her in the past month.

The second payment installment for the necklace is due, and the Cardinal was under the impression the Queen would be making these later payments herself.

But as the deadline approaches, she's been backtracking on that plan.

He opens the envelope.

This letter is similar to the others.

It says the queen is still having some trouble getting the money together.

She asks the cardinal to find some creditors to lend him the cash and pay the next installment for her.

He's still reading when there's a knock at the door.

His stomach drops because he knows exactly who's there.

The jewelers Beaumaire and Bassange.

The Cardinal has been stalling them for weeks already.

They want to know where their money is.

Opening the door, the cardinal knows his only option is to try and stall them further.

He can't admit the queen's having financial problems, that would be unthinkable.

But he can't fork over the whole second installment right now either.

So he tells the jewelers that the queen is having second thoughts.

The amount they agreed on is far too high.

She wants to know if they'll lower the price.

Before the jewelers even verbalize a response, The Cardinal can tell from the way their eyes narrow.

The answer is no.

He'd better come up with that money soon.

At the end of the day, it's his name on the bill of sale, not the Queen's.

As the Cardinal shows them out, Bemer turns and remarks off the cuff that he's never seen Marie Antoinette wearing the necklace in public yet.

Strange, isn't it?

The next morning, Marie Antoinette sits at a gilded mirror in the center of her bedchamber while a hairdresser teases her locks into a sky-high poof.

As always, a dozen of the highest-ranking members of the court sit in the circle of folding chairs to watch the queen dress and get ready.

The bedchamber is one of her favorite places in the palace.

She spent no small fortune redecorating it with ornate wall hangings and gilded furniture.

All she kept the same were the gold partitions on the ceiling, a rare exhibition of taste by her predecessor, Queen Maria Theresa.

Marie Antoinette asks for rouge to redden her cheeks.

A servant places the ceramic jar of rouge on a silver platter and passes it to a lady of honor, who passes it to the lady of the bedchamber, who passes it to the superintendent of the household, who passes it to the queen.

She opens the jar and dabs a little on the apples of her milky white cheeks.

A chambermaid clears her throat from the doorway.

Marie Antoinette can see her in the mirror without turning around.

There's a concerned look on her face.

She says the jewelers Bomer and Bassange are here.

They're asking about payment for some necklace she bought from them.

Marie Antoinette has no idea what she's talking about.

She assumes at first that this is another desperate attempt by the jewelers to trick her into buying that hideous necklace she never asked for.

Well, fine.

She'd rather take care of this quickly.

She tells the chambermaid to have them wait in the antechamber.

After her ladies-in-waiting help her squeeze into her corsets, petticoats, chemise, and gown, Marie Antoinette greets the jewelers.

She tells them they better make it fast.

The jewelers explain that they sold the necklace to the Cardinal de Rohan on her behalf, or at least, what they thought was her behalf.

But now he's dodging payments, and they get the feeling something's up.

Marie Antoinette clenches her teeth.

This is all news to her.

She hasn't spoken to the Cardinal in a decade.

She'd never trusted him, opposing the royal marriage with strike one.

His lifelong pattern of greedy, promiscuous, generally irritating behavior was strike two.

And this is certainly strike 3.

If he doesn't have a good explanation for this, even his royal blood can't protect him anymore.

On the morning of August 15th, the Cardinal drapes a linen cloth over the altar in the palace's royal chapel.

He's about to celebrate the Assumption Mass for the King and Queen.

He has his back turned, but can hear two sets of footsteps echoing down the aisle.

He assumes it's the altar boys, but when he turns around to light the candles, he finds two royal guards standing there.

The king wants to see him, immediately.

The guards escort the cardinal through the hall of mirrors.

His eyes linger on the painted ceiling, which depicts a series of France's greatest military victories.

The cardinal may be powerful, but his cousin the king is heir to a kind of power he can barely comprehend.

Whatever trouble he's gotten into, he needs to play his cards carefully.

The cardinal is whisked into the king's apartments, where both the king and queen are waiting for him.

He's facing them both together for the first time in a decade.

He wonders, embarrassed, if this is about his secret liaisons with the queen.

But instead, Louis XVI tells him his wife just received a strange visit from Bemaire and Bassange.

They'd like to know what's going on.

The cardinal leaps to his own defense, insisting he was only following the queen's instructions.

He's so humiliated that their secret tryst has been uncovered, he can barely look Marie Antoinette in the eye.

But when he does, he sees pure confusion.

She denies having any idea what he's talking about.

The cardinal is stunned.

He doesn't want to play it like this, but if Marie Antoinette is going to play dumb and hang him out to dry, he has no choice but to save his own skin.

He sends a messenger to fetch the letters he received from her.

But when the boy returns and hands the letters to the king, he roars with anger.

They're signed Marie Antoinette de France.

Any courtier with half a brain knows the royals only sign with their first names, not Defrance.

These are obviously forgeries.

By now, the cardinal realizes he's been duped.

He tells them everything he knows, pinning the blame on Jeanne, the Comtesse de Lamont, who clearly orchestrated the whole thing.

At the mention of her name, Marie Antoinette rolls her eyes.

Sitting forward in his chair, the king asks Cardinal de Rhône if he actually even has the necklace.

Feeling the blood draining from his face, the Cardinal admits that he does not.

He begs for mercy, but it's too late.

The king tells him he's about to be arrested.

The cardinal exits through the hall of mirrors.

Right there, amid dozens of passers-by, royal guards grab his arms.

Shackles clasp around his wrists.

Noblewomen stop in their tracks, gasping and gossiping.

As he's led into the courtyard, he overhears their whispers.

The cardinal has been arrested at the palace.

What could this be about?

That evening, Marie Antoinette takes a stroll through her garden, flanked by fewer ladies of honor than usual.

Most of her friends canceled their plans to visit her that night.

The few who did make it know why, and they put it to Marie Antoinette as delicately as they can.

The whole court was stunned to see the cardinal arrested.

It's no secret he and the queen have bad blood.

Everyone assumes she cooked up the whole affair as a sort of cruel prank on him, revenge for his slight all those years ago.

To Marie Antoinette, that story sounds ridiculous, but admittedly her defense that she's an unwitting pawn in an elaborate scheme by the Comtesse de la Motte sounds even more ridiculous.

Some of her close friends believe her, but she'll have a harder time convincing the rest of the court.

Once the public hears about the necklace, it's all over.

She'll have sealed her reputation for driving the country's finances into the ground with her reckless spending.

Marie Antoinette pauses by a tulip tree in the center of the garden.

It's the same spot where the Cardinal claimed he had met her for a secretive midnight encounter.

Humiliation rises in her chest.

How could he believe she'd ever give him a rose?

This was an insult she had to avenge.

Marie Antoinette knows the so-called Comtesse de de Lamotte is behind this scandal.

And when that fraud stands trial, she's going to prove it for the whole world to see.

It's May 22nd, 1786.

Nearly nine months after her arrest, Jeanne de Lamotte is led into the Palais du Justice in Paris.

Jailers sit Jeanne down on a stool in the center of a massive gilded courtroom, surrounded on all sides by her judges, 64 magistrates and the entire parliament.

She looks up at the rows of stern powdered wigged faces surrounding her, but she won't cower under their gaze.

The once-wannabe royal is ready to burn down the Queen of France if that's what it takes to save her own skin.

As the magistrates grill her with questions, she sticks to a tight story, the same one that had been circulating through Paris in pamphlets.

She's a longtime friend of the queen, who genuinely asked her to help buy the diamond necklace.

Once the scheme was discovered, the greedy queen faked ignorance and tried to pin all the blame on Jean and the Cardinal.

But Jean's side of the story isn't the only one they'll hear.

Nicholas managed to flee to London before he could be arrested, but Vallette, the Cardinal, and the prostitute Nicole are also on trial.

And when Vallette is let in for his testimony, he casts an apologetic look at Jean.

He takes his seat in the center of the courtroom and immediately comes clean, admitting the queen had nothing to do with the letters he forged.

The betrayal hits Jean like a dagger to the heart.

She's smart enough to put the pieces together.

Vallette made a deal with the prosecutors.

He'll admit his role and clear the queen's name in exchange for a lighter punishment.

After the testimony, Jean is taken back to the attached prison to await await her sentence.

Her cell is bare and bleak, only a thin mattress and a wooden chair.

The stone walls are thick enough that she can't hear anything happening outside.

There's nothing to do but wait and hope.

Jeanne barely sleeps that night.

In the early afternoon, she awakes to the sound of heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor.

Two guards open the door of her cell.

They inform her that a verdict has been reached.

She's guilty.

She'll be imprisoned for life.

But first, she's going to be whipped and branded with a V for Valouz, thief.

And she is to receive that punishment now.

Jean doesn't even have time to get dressed before the guards drag her from her cell, kicking and screaming.

She's taken into the courtyard in her nightgown.

Hundreds of commoners have gathered to watch her punishment.

The crowd roars as Jean is carried to a whipping post in the center of the courtyard.

But Jeanne is surprised to find they're not shouting insults at her, they're actually cheering for her.

She sees women with tears in their eyes.

They're yelling that Jeanne is innocent, that this is a gross miscarriage of justice.

She realizes the public believes her side of the story, that she's an innocent pawn in a scheme by their shared nemesis, the evil queen Marie Antoinette.

Jeanne struggles as the executioners tie her up, strip off her nightgown, and whip her.

Each time the whip slashes into her skin, she hears the crowd scream in fury.

Invigorated by their support, she musters all her strength to fight back.

When a guard moves in to restrain her, she sinks her teeth into his arm.

Then she sees the V-shaped iron warming in a brazier of burning coals.

As the executioner brings the brand toward her bare shoulder, she squirms so much that he misses her shoulder.

Instead, the red-hot iron sears the tender skin of her breast.

She howls in agony.

In her delirium, she hears the crowd's fury crescendo.

She sees movement, pushing, shoving, trampling.

As the pain overwhelms her, her vision blurs.

The din of the crowd fades, and everything goes black.

A few weeks later, A pile of pamphlets are brought into Marie Antoinette's bedchamber with her afternoon mail.

She flips through them while lounging in bed.

They're scathing.

She shudders upon learning that Jean fainted during her punishment and had to be carried away by the executioners.

Having a public trial was a huge miscalculation.

Her subjects will never forgive her for this.

It doesn't even matter that the court ruled that she had nothing to do with the necklace scandal.

If it wasn't for that, They'd find another pretext for the personal attacks.

People hate the system, so they hate her.

Marie Antoinette sets the pamphlets down on the nightstand.

The public already despised her for throwing grand balls and fashionable gowns while the peasants starved.

Now she looks greedier than ever, as well as deceitful, vengeful, and petty.

She's become a living symbol of the extravagance and corruption of the French monarchy.

Months later, on a quiet night in late 1786, a man reaches a key through the bars of his cell at the Salpetrière, the infamous prison and asylum in Paris.

The key fits into the lock with a gentle click.

By the faint glow of moonlight, he opens the door and treads down the cell block.

He opens a door at the end of the hall and strolls confidently through a series of offices.

He passes the dining room, where a group of nuns are playing cards by the glow of an oil lamp.

They don't give him a second look as he exits into the courtyard and marches out the front gate.

Once he's well outside the walls of the prison, he removes his hat and a cascade of long brown hair falls down.

Because this escaped prisoner is no man, it's Jeanne des Lamouck.

The key and the disguise were given to her by a guard, one of her many loyal admirers.

Jeanne may be a convicted criminal, but she's also a folk hero for the neglected commoners of France.

The monarchy can't keep her down for long.

She takes a deep breath of fresh night air and disappears into the streets of Paris.

After serving less than a year of her life sentence, Jeanne fled prison and found her way to London, where she published her memoirs.

The two-volume work expanded on the story she'd told in the courtroom.

that Marie Antoinette was in on the diamond necklace scheme.

The narrative dwelled on the wretched, miserable poverty of her upbringing and the way she was was manipulated and martyred by the vengeful queen.

Jeanne painted herself as the heroine the struggling lower classes could relate to.

And when the book hit the shelves, it was a smash hit.

The French government tried to ban it, but they were too late.

Everyone was already reading it.

That was the final nail in the coffin for Marie Antoinette.

Her reputation never recovered from the affair of the diamond necklace.

The attacks on her character and spending habits were easy fodder for revolutionary groups agitating for regime change.

Jeanne, meanwhile, lived as a minor celebrity for a few years, but died after falling from a third-story window in London in 1791.

It's unknown what happened.

Some rumors say the fall was a drunken accident.

Others say she was pushed by creditors who'd come to collect on debts.

Nicholas claims she was killed for political reasons by agents of the French crown.

But by then, the French crown had much bigger problems to worry about than Jean de Lamont.

Within a few years, the worsening economy in France, combined with the widespread hatred of the royal family, snowballed into a full-on revolution.

The monarchy was toppled, and in 1793, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the last king and queen of France, were executed by guillotine.

The French Revolution would birth a brand new country and change the course of European history forever.

And it may not have happened if it wasn't for one woman who tried to redistribute the monarchy's wealth right into her own pocketbook.

From Balin Studios, this is a twist of history.

A quick note about our stories.

They're all heavily researched, but some details and scenes are dramatized.

A Twist of History is hosted by me, Joel Blackwell, executive produced by Mr.

Bollin and Zach Levitt.

Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Perry Kroll.

This episode was written by Kate Gallagher.

Story editing by Luke Baratz and Aaron Lamb.

Sound design and audio mixing by Colin Lester Fleming.

Post-production supervision by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacasio.

Research and fact-checking by Abigail Shumway, Camille Callahan, Evan Beamer, Alex Paul, Patricia Nicole Florentino, Calvin Riley-Holgate, Matt Gilligan, Matt Teemstra, production coordination by Delena Corley and Samantha Collins, artwork by Jessica Clogston-Kiner and Robin Vane.

Thanks for listening to A Twist of History.

You can listen to more of me over at the Let's Read podcast and Let's Read YouTube channel.

See you next time.