The Story of the Diamond Necklace

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. From a beggar child claiming royal blood to a court scandal that shook a kingdom, this vivid history reconstructs the Diamond Necklace Affair with the force of a political thriller. Centered on Countess de la Motte, Cardinal de Rohan, Marie-Antoinette, and the shadowy Cagliostro, it traces how forgery, vanity, ambition, and resentment turned a fraud into a national crisis on the eve of revolution. Drawing on letters, memoirs, judicial records, parliamentary debates, royal correspondence, and firsthand testimony, the author promises the most complete and accurate account yet assembled. Every date, witness statement, and location is checked with painstaking care, and Marie-Antoinette is firmly cleared of involvement. The story begins with the ruined Saint-Remi family, once touched by royal lineage but driven into poverty, scavenging, and begging, until a compassionate noblewoman offers rescue to the starving children. From there the narrative follows the rise of the future Countess de la Motte, the arrest and trial of the cardinal, and the struggle over whether power, law, or rumor would decide the case.