Overview

Paris, 1785. A diamond necklace worth a king's ransom. A cardinal's obsession. A queen's reputation destroyed by a crime she never committed. Marie Antoinette has never seen the necklace-a spectacular creation of 647 diamonds designed for Louis XV's mistress, now offered to the French crown at an astronomical price. The Queen refuses to purchase it. The matter should end there. But Cardinal de Rohan, desperate to regain favor with Marie Antoinette after years of her contempt, believes he has been offered a chance at reconciliation. Through mysterious midnight meetings in the gardens of Versailles, he has been negotiating with someone he believes is the Queen herself-secret communications arranging for him to purchase the necklace on her behalf, to be repaid discreetly over time. His devotion blinds him to an impossible truth: he has never actually spoken to Marie Antoinette. He has been deceived by an imposter. Behind the deception is Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, a countess by questionable title but a schemer of undeniable genius. With her accomplices-including the enigmatic Count Cagliostro, mystic and charlatan whose influence over European aristocracy borders on hypnotic-she has constructed an elaborate fraud that will acquire the necklace, destroy a queen's reputation, and help ignite the revolution that will consume the French monarchy. When the jewelers demand payment and the truth emerges, scandal explodes across Paris. The Queen, who never wanted the necklace, who never authorized its purchase, who never even met the Cardinal to discuss it, stands accused in the court of public opinion. Her denials are dismissed as lies. The affair confirms every rumor of her extravagance, her manipulation, her contempt for the suffering French people. The damage is irreparable. Alexandre Dumas transforms this historical scandal-the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, one of the events that destroyed the French monarchy's legitimacy-into a masterpiece of intrigue and adventure. He populates the story with unforgettable characters: the vain and gullible Cardinal, the ruthless and brilliant Jeanne de La Motte, the mysterious Cagliostro with his claims to occult powers, and Marie Antoinette herself, portrayed with surprising sympathy as victim of a conspiracy she never understood until too late. Written with Dumas's characteristic energy and historical vividness, The Queen's Necklace is both gripping crime story and tragedy of how fraud and perception can destroy even queens. The necklace itself becomes symbol of the ancien régime's excess, the cardinal represents the aristocracy's vanity and corruption, and Jeanne de La Motte embodies the resentment and cunning of those the old order excluded and humiliated. Four years after the scandal, the Bastille would fall. Marie Antoinette would face the guillotine. And historians would mark the Affair of the Diamond Necklace as the moment when the monarchy lost the people's faith forever. From the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo-the true story of the scandal that helped destroy a queen and ignite a revolution.

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