Noble Blood - The Neck and the Necklace

Episode Date: December 24, 2019

"The Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace Trial." The nation turned against Queen Marie Antoinette when she became an unwitting pawn in the most ambitious catfish in history. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Vodam. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, The cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Manky. Listener discretion is advised. I've already told a story about Marie Antoinette on this podcast. The show's very first episode, in fact. But considering it's Christmas, I figured I'd give myself the game. of getting to tell one more story about my favorite doomed queen. In the 18th century, a man named Louis René de Roan

had the good luck of being born to one of France's most prominent families. The Roan clan boasted bishops and princes, ambassadors and dukes. In 1771, at age 37, Louis René de Roan was sent as part of a prestigious embassy, to Vienna, Austria. He was just a vicar then, but it was practically a foregone conclusion that, in time, he would become a cardinal

and then a minister of France. But the future Cardinal de Roan didn't quite act like a man of the cloth. As soon as he arrived in Vienna, he flirted extravagantly with almost everyone he met, charming anyone from a duchess to a chambermaid, people young and old, beautiful and ugly.

He hunted more often than he prayed, He threw elaborate dinner parties where he openly flaunted social conventions and seated people wherever he liked. The Cardinal brought with him an entourage to Vienna who abused the palace staff and brought goods in and out of the country in bags with diplomatic seals. And so it was no surprise that the Empress of Austria, Maria Teresa, hated Cardinal de Roan. Less than a month after the French envoy arrived, the Empress was writing to the Austrian ambassador in France

that the future cardinal was, quote, a very wicked subject, without talent, without discretion, without morals. As it so happened, the Austrian Empress Maria Teresa had some power in France. Her daughter, Marie Antoinette, had just married the Dauphine, the country's future king, the grandson of King Louis XIV. But that didn't matter to the last. the future Cardinal de Roan yet.

While he was still in Austria, he sent a letter back to Madame de Barry, the official mistress of King Louis XIV, mocking the dowdy two-faced Austrian empress. Madame de Barry read the letter out loud to abroarious laughter at one of her famous dinner parties. Word got back to the princess Marie Antoinette. When Marie Antoinette eventually became queen, Cardinal de Roan received a blistering chilly reception at court. Although the Rowans were too powerful

to have allowed Marie Antoinette to prevent their son from becoming a cardinal, she could, absolutely, keep his career from advancing any further. He would never become a minister of France, not as long as she was queen, and he would never again get the gleeful, courtly prominence that he had enjoyed

in drawing rooms with Madame de Barry. Marie Antoinette was many things, but she was a queen, and not a mistress. The story should have ended there, just one of a thousand examples of courtly slights and political maneuvers in Versailles,

a place almost entirely fueled by gossip, rumors, and political maneuvers. And the story would have ended there if it hadn't been for a con artist, a diamond necklace, and perhaps the most ambitious catfish in history. One cardinal and one diamond necklace set off a chain of events

that would end with Marie Antoinette's head on a guillotine. Years later, Napoleon would write, the Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace Trial. It's only in retrospect that these things come into clarity. The stakes always seem small until they spiral out of control. I'm Dana Schwartz, and this is Noble Blood. Madame de Barry, the mistress of Louis XIV, was born the illegitimate daughter of a seamstress.

But she was smart, and she knew what she wanted. She wanted to get into Versailles. And so she climbed the social ladder via lovers, seducing men who then introduced her to more prominent men, whom she then, in turn, seduced. Eventually she made it to the bed of the King of France. One convenient marriage to a count later, and Madame de Barry was officially a countess,

and eligible to be crowned official royal mistress. You see, you couldn't get to be the king's official mistress unless you held a title yourself. Madame de Barry's marriage to Comte Guillaume de Berry was sealed with a fake birth certificate that dated her as three years younger than she actually was. Some royal mistresses involve themselves in politics. Madame de Barry preferred to be involved in fashion.

The king gave her exhumed. extravagant gifts, gowns, houses, jewelry. And then, in 1772, the king set out to give the ultimate gift. A necklace, but not just any necklace. The king went to the luxury Parisian jewelers, Boomer and Bessange, and demanded a necklace that would be more extravagant than any other necklace that had ever been made. The necklace they came up with could, politely, be disdiscuitly, be disdiscuous.

described as a monstrosity. It was constructed of 647 diamonds, with a combined weight of 2,800 carrots. The necklace began with a row of massive diamonds in a choker. Three diamond arches dangled down from it, each with their own pennant diamonds hanging down like an inverted tiara. And then another layer of diamonds, a deep V that would descend down lower on Madame de Bery and then from that four more dangling pieces that each ended in a dainty little diamond bow and dainty little diamond tassels. The cost was estimated to be over two million livres, or what today would be $15 million. The problem was before the necklace had been finished, Louis XIV, came down with smallpox and died. His mistress,

was politely dismissed and sent to a nunnery, and the necklace had never been paid for. Boomer and Besange were left with a debt of millions of dollars, a massive diamond necklace, and no one to sell it to. The natural choice, perhaps the only woman wealthy enough to buy the necklace, was the new queen, Marie Antoinette. The young queen was already sending ripple waves through court for her extravagance when it came to her dresses and hair.

As you know, her mother Maria Teresa wrote, I have always been of the opinion that fashions should be followed in moderation, but should never be taken to extremes. A beautiful young woman, a graceful queen, has no need for such madness. Marie Antoinette did not heed her mother's advice. If anyone was going to buy the massive necklace,

it would be Marie Antoinette. So in 1778, the two jewelers came to Versailles, bearing the massive necklace, hoping to entice the queen. The king, Louis XVIth, graciously offered to buy it for his wife, but she turned it down. It's too expensive, the young Marie Antoinette said. The money would be better spent on warships. That's what she said, but whether or not she actually believed it is up for debate. Marie Antoinette never did seem to be the type of person who would have trouble spending money on clothes or jewelry. What's more plausible, at least to your humble narrator, is that Marie Antoinette didn't want to waltz around Versailles in a massive attention-grabbing necklace that had been designed for another woman.

And not just any woman, a mistress, and the despised Madame de Barry at that. But whether it was her love of warships or her hatred for Madame de Bury, the end result was the same. The jewelers were stuck with a multi-million dollar necklace that nobody wanted. They tried other luxury markets all over Europe. No dice. In a desperate move, they came back to Versailles three years later. In 1781, the necklace still unsold and tried to sell it once again to Marie Antoinette. for her husband to gift her for the birth of their son, Louis Joseph.

The king is said to have briefly considered it, but a military defeat distracted him and took an expensive purchase off the table. At that point, the jewelers admitted to themselves that there was no way Marie Antoinette was ever going to buy their necklace. And they were right. She never would. At least, not the real Marie Antoinette. It's about now that I should introduce a woman named Jean-Antoine. Jean-Lamote. In a tiny village in the region of Champagne, Jean-Lamote was born into poverty.

Though her family had no money and no official title, they were descended from an illegitimate son of the Val-Wa king, Henry II. But that had been back in the mid-16th century, and over the generations, whatever money the family once had had long since dissolved. By the time we came to Jean-Lamote's father, the sixth and final child of a second son, himself, the family was heavily in debt, selling off pieces of their land acre by acre. Jean Lamont's mother was the family housekeeper. When Jean was eight years old, the three of them, father, mother, and daughter, fled their village to escape creditors and walked 200 kilometers on foot to Paris.

Jean spent most of her childhood begging on the street, enticing passers-by with her story of being a descendant of royalty. But all the while, she kept her eyes to Versailles, never wavering from the belief that she deserved wealth and title and status, and that one day she would get it. In 1783, the 27-year-old Jean, by then married, made the acquaintance of a certain Cardinal de Roan.

Cardinal de Roan by this point was cursing his foolishness for making an enemy of Marie Antoinette. His career had stalled. Even his well-connected and powerful family couldn't do anything to cancel out the disfavor of the queen. And that's part of the reason why this young Jean Delamotte was so appealing to him. She said that she was a contests

and a frequent guest at Versailles and a close personal friend of Marie Antoinette. If the cardinal wanted to write a letter to Marie Antoinette, Extending an olive branch, Jean de la Mote would make sure that the queen received it. The Cardinal de Roan gleefully took Jean de la Maud's advice. The Cardinal was ecstatic when just a few days later, Jean delivered to him a reply from the queen herself. The letter was far more friendly than the cardinal had anticipated.

Flirtacious almost. He was slightly flummoxed, but quickly comforted. at himself with his extraordinary self-confidence in his natural animal magnetism. Of course, the queen would be interested in him. Why wouldn't she be? He wrote back. The queen wrote back again. Before long, the two of them had become pen pals of increasing intimacy to the point where the cardinal was almost certain that the queen, Marie Antoinette, was in love with him. Perhaps he see where the story is going. because the cardinal had not been receiving letters from the queen at all.

Jean de Lomot had promised to deliver his letters, but instead brought them to her lover, a jigolo named Rout de Vallette, and together they forged notes from the queen and delivered them to the love-struck cardinal. The cardinal all the while gladly sent donations along to the queen's charities whenever she asked, and those donations went directly into the pockets of Jean, her husband,

and her lover. One evening, Jean came to the cardinal and told him that the queen had agreed to a secret rendezvous. Obviously, due to the political complications of the situation, they couldn't meet openly in public, but they could meet in the gardens of Versailles at night where no one would see them. The meeting was arranged on a particularly moonless night. Jean and her lover had hired a young prostitute named Nicole Liguay, de Olivia, famous in certain circles for her resemblance to the queen. The cardinal, not picking up on the ruse, presented the fake queen with a single red rose, and in return, Nicole told the

cardinal that all of their past disagreements were forgiven, exactly what she had been told to say. The cardinal bowed deeply to the fake Marie Antoinette. But before a vent could progress any further, Jean interrupted to say that the meeting needed to end immediately. Someone was coming and they would be caught. So the Cardinal left the gardens of Versailles, more certain than ever, of the solidity of his special relationship with the queen. It was finally time for Jean and her lover

to execute the final stage in their plan. Pretending to be Marie Antoinette, they wrote that there was a certain necklace that she wanted to buy desperately. Unfortunately, though, due to the public perceptions of her overspending, she couldn't be the one to purchase it, at least not openly. Would her darling personal friend, the Cardinal, cement their relationship by procuring the necklace for her

and sending it to Versailles, care of their mutual friend, Jean-Dillamote? The Cardinal brought the fake letter from the Queen to the jewelers and bought the necklace for 4.7 million. million dollars on loan upon the solemn promise that the queen would pay them back in six months. The jewelers were delighted to finally be rid of the necklace. They paid Jean de la Monde a commission, which at first she graciously refused, before ultimately changing her mind. Shortly thereafter, a footman from Versailles arrived to the Cardinal's home to take the necklace.

The Cardinal had never met Jean's lover at Toe de Vallette. Of course he hadn't, but if he had, he probably would have recognized that he was not actually handing off the necklace to a real footman from Versailles. Jean's lover and her husband broke up the diamonds of the necklace together, brought them to London, and sold them on the black market. Everything went according to plan. At least it did for six months. But the jewelers still hadn't been paid. One of them asked, a chambermaid at Versailles whether the queen had worn her new diamond necklace yet. The maid had no idea what he was talking about. Weeks went by. The jeweler's debts had begun to catch up with them,

and that's when they gathered the courage to ask Marie Antoinette at court whether payment for the massive and incredibly expensive diamond necklace they had sold her might be forthcoming in the near future. Marie Antoinette had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. What do you mean, they said? The necklace. The enormous diamond necklace. You mean the necklace that I turned down multiple times?

The queen replied. As I'm sure you recall, I declined to purchase that necklace. Whatever this joke is, it needs to end now. It's now that the jewelers started to panic. Their stomachs turned. Sweat began to cling to their necks and their palms. The necklace, they repeated. the one that we sent you through the Cardinal de Roan.

Here the Queen just laughed, as did everyone in earshot. The Queen hated the Cardinal de Roan. Everyone knew that. The jeweler swallowed hard and presented the letters that the Cardinal had passed along to them as promise of payment. The Queen stopped laughing. On August 15, 1785,

the Cardinal de Rowan was summoned to Versailles under the pretense that he would be presiding over the... the feast of the assumption of Mary. But as he entered the palace, he was ushered not to the chapel, but through the gilded hall of mirrors to the king's private cabinet, where the king and queen were waiting, staring at him. The queen was nearly shaking with frenetic energy. The king spoke for her. I hear you purchase diamonds from the jeweler-bomer, he said calmly. Yes, sire, the cardinal replied. And what did you do with the diamonds once you received them?

The king asked. I had them delivered to her majesty. The queen began to exclaim something but was quickly quieted by the king, who spoke once again. But now even his voice began to shake with anger. Who, he said, or what, compelled you to do anything on behalf of her majesty? The cardinal bowed deeply. I was commissioned by a lady called the Contest de la Mote, a personal friend of her majesty.

He pulled from deep within his robes a signed letter that Jean de Lomote had given him, one signed by the queen, or at least one he thought had been signed by the queen. At this point, Marie Antoinette could hold her tongue no longer. How could you possibly believe, she exclaimed, that I would have selected you, of all people, someone I haven't even spoken to in eight years, to negotiate a necklace that I didn't even want via a woman I have never even heard of.

The cardinal just bowed again and handed the king the letter he had been given. King Louis XVIth barely glanced at the letter before he scoffed. This was not written or signed by the queen, the king said. How could a prince of Rowan one of France's oldest and most noble families, a family so keen on details of etiquette and status, not have noticed this.

The king brandished the letter in the cardinal's face and jabbed with a pointed finger at the forge signature that read Marie Antoinette de France. The king continued, everyone knows that queen's sign with their baptismal names only. The cardinal was arrested and shipped back to Paris, to the Bastille awaiting trial. Two days later, Jean de LaMotte and her lover were captured as well.

Her husband had already managed to escape to London. The powerful De Roan family came out for the trial with the full force of their status and majesty. 19 high-ranking members of the family, all wearing black and sitting stony face in two rows, awaiting the judgment of their golden son who had turned out to be so, So stupid. He was on trial first for thievery, but then also for defamation of the monarchy, for his humiliating error in mistaking a prostitute for the queen

and for believing that the queen would ever have been so intimate in her writing with him. In the end, he was found innocent. He was foolish, gullible, yes, but not guilty of any actual crimes. Of course, Jean de la Mote was actually guilty. She was sentenced to be whipped and branded with a V on her chest for the French word for thief and imprisoned for life.

But once a scammer, always a scammer. Almost as soon as she arrived in prison, Jean de la Mote escaped, dressed like a boy, and she made her way to London. But the most important legacy of the diamond necklace affair

isn't the actual trial itself. Before the verdict had even come in, the public had already made up its mind. To the people of France, there was no doubt that Marie Antoinette, the despised Austrian queen who spent so much money on clothes and hair while her constituents starved, who, according to the broadsheets and caricatures that went around, was constantly involved in lesbian orgies and bacchanals, there was no doubt that she was the one to blame. She had probably just wanted to buy the necklace herself and figured,

out a way to throw the cardinal that she had always hated under the bus. And since in court, her enemy, the cardinal was found innocent, that means by default Marie Antoinette must be guilty. As you know, this story doesn't have a happy ending. I already told you that Napoleon wrote, The Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace trial. The Diamond Necklace Affair cemented in the minds of the French people that the Queen was a decadent and manipulative of royal, more concerned with jewels than with the welfare of her people. In less than a decade, the queen would be on trial herself, found guilty and beheaded. A guillotine blade sent through the neck that had never wanted to wear that elaborate

diamond necklace in the first place. That's the story of the diamond necklace affair, but keep listening after a brief sponsor break to hear more unhappy endings from more of the players. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah.

He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck.

Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about, doing whatever it takes to be thoughts. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and. and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out.

We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the MyCultura podcast network,

available on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Like I said, this story has unhappy endings for almost everyone involved. Although Jeanne de LaMotte had escaped prison, she died only a few years later, falling from a window of her London hotel while attempting to escape her creditors. But tragedy also befell Madame de Berri, remember her? She was the woman the necklace had been originally designed for. After the death of King Louis XVI, his mistress, Madame de Berri, was dismissed from Versailles. She was exiled to a nunnery in the countryside. From there, she took a lover and bought some land and re-established a life for herself

that eventually brought her back to Paris. But eventually, the French Revolution found Madame de Berri. One night, a bloody mass wrapped in a handkerchief was thrown through her apartment window, With shaking hands, she opened the bloody cloth to reveal the head of her decapitated lover. Just a few weeks after, the hated queen went to the guillotine. Marie Antoinette's former palace rival went herself. Madame de Burry was beheaded and her body was thrown into the same mass grave as Marie Antoinette. Petty agreements, resentments, daily dramas that had fueled Versailles was all made invisible,

covered by the dirt of their shallow grave. Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Aaron Manky. The show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz and produced by Aaron Manky, Matt Frederick, Alex Williams, and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the show over at Noble Blood Tales.com. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your phone. favorite shows. What's up, everyone? I'm Ago Wodom. My next guest, it's Will Ferrell. Woo, woo, woo, woo, woo. My dad gave me the best advice ever. He goes, just give it a shot.

But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot in luck.

Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.