Flaunting, Extravagant Queen

by Jean Plaidy

  He was obsessed by the Queen. He had thought of her constantly since he had first seen her – a young, so innocent girl, a little frightened, leaving her native country to come to a new one where she was to be called upon to play such an important part.

  He had been a fool, he often accused himself, to write slightingly of her mother. But who would have thought it would have been allowed to get to the Queen’s ears that he had done so? That was bad luck.

  She had been very disdainful towards him since, and never given him so much as a glance. Perhaps that very attitude of hers had inflamed his passion, for he was a man of deep sensuality, and the fact that he wore the robes of the church had never been allowed to interfere with his amorous adventures. But these had begun to pall; there was one woman with whom he wished to share them, and she had been completely out of his reach until Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois had come along and informed him to the contrary.

  Then the exciting and incredible adventure had begun. There had been letters from the Queen; there had even been a brief meeting in the gardens of Versailles. The Cardinal had begun to believe that the Queen was far from indifferent to him and that if he were a little patient she would become his mistress.

  To show how absolute was her faith in him she had entrusted him with that transaction with the jewellers and he had procured for her the diamond necklace which, he had been told, she wished to buy secretly as the King would not buy it for her; he had even lent her money.

  At any moment now the doors would be thrown open and she would appear with Louis. Poor Louis! Who cared for Louis? No wonder the enchanting creature must have a lover.

  Now was the moment. The doors were flung open.

  But the King and Queen did not appear. Instead a lackey stood where they should have been.

  ‘Prince Cardinal de Rohan!’ called the lackey.

  The Cardinal went forward.

  ‘The King commands you to go at once to his private apartments.’

  The Queen was with the King in his private apartments. Rohan gave her a quick look; but she did not seem to see him. Also present was the Baron de Breteuil, the Minister of State.

  The King said: ‘Cousin, have you recently bought diamonds from the jeweller Boehmer?’

  ‘Yes, Sire. I have.’

  ‘Where are they?’

  Rohan looked anxiously towards Antoinette, who stared beyond him with the utmost haughtiness. He presumed now that the King knew the necklace was in the Queen’s possession, and that no good would come of trying to hide this fact.

  ‘I think they have been delivered to the Queen,’ said Rohan.

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘By the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois who brought me instructions from Her Majesty, whose commands I then carried out.’

  Antoinette cried angrily: ‘Do you think, Monsieur le Cardinal, that I, who have not spoken to you for years, would ask you to arrange such a commission, and that it is possible that this should be through a woman I do not know?’

  Rohan was bewildered. The King saw this and was sorry for him.

  ‘There must be some explanation,’ said Louis kindly.

  ‘I believe, Sire,’ murmured Rohan, ‘that I have been most cruelly deceived.’

  ‘I am awaiting your explanation,’ said the King. ‘Where is this necklace?’

  ‘I have handed it to Madame de Lamotte-Valois. She assured me that she had passed it on to the Queen. I have letters, which, I was told, were written by the Queen.’

  ‘Show me,’ said Louis.

  The Cardinal produced one, and the King looked at it. ‘Marie Antoinette de France,’ murmured Louis. ‘You should know, cousin, that no Queen would sign herself thus. Leave us now. This is a matter which it will be necessary to sift, that we may know the truth. The Queen’s good name is involved, and I would have you know, cousin, that makes this a matter of first importance to me.’

  The Cardinal retired. In the Salle de Glace and Oeil-de-Boeuf people were asking each other why Mass was being delayed. They saw the Cardinal walk out of the King’s apartment, his face quite white, his eyes glittering.

  He had taken but a few paces when Breteuil appeared behind him and shouted an order to one of the guard who was stationed in the King’s ante-room.

  ‘Arrest Louis, Prince and Cardinal de Rohan.’

  There was a breathless silence as the tall and handsome Cardinal was conducted to one of the guard-rooms in the lower part of the Palace.

  The performance of Le Barbier de Seville was given at the Trianon Theatre on the 19th August, four days after the arrest of Rohan.

  The audience was a little absentminded, because they were thinking of this preposterous affair of the necklace. Already the people in the streets were talking of it, calling it ‘The Queen’s Necklace’, asking each other what fresh extravagance was this. 1,600,000 livres squandered on one necklace to adorn that proud neck, while many in Paris had not the necessary sous to buy their bread. And it was a secret transaction too! The Queen had called in her latest lover to buy the necklace for her. What next?

  They waited eagerly to find out.

  The truth was that an amazing fraud had been perpetrated, and the victims of that fraud were the Queen and the Cardinal de Rohan. The person who had planned the whole affair was a wily and extremely handsome woman who called herself Jeanne de Lamotte-Valois, claiming that she was of the royal house because an ancestor of hers had been the illegitimate son of Henri Deux.

  Jeanne had had a hard childhood and had often been reduced to begging in the streets; but she was clever and, when only seven years old, had presented herself to the Marquis de Boulainvilliers and told her story of possessing royal blood so pitiably that the Marquise had taken the girl and her younger sister into her household and educated them; finally, when Jeanne married a Captain of the Guards, she insisted that he must assume the title of Comte, that he might be worthy to mate with a descendant of the Valois; and she added Valois to their name so that they were known as the Comte and Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois.

  Jeanne soon tired of her husband, but with the help of the Marquise de Boulainvilliers she made the acquaintance of the Cardinal de Rohan, that notoriously sensual prelate. Jeanne was a very handsome woman and it was not long before she became his mistress. To be the mistress of an exalted Cardinal was pleasing, but Jeanne was too worldly not to know that her triumph was ephemeral; she was too strong-minded to accept a minor role in any partnership, and immediately began to wonder how she could make herself rich and independent.

  Obsessed by the thought of the royal blood of which she boasted, she determined to see if she could make her way at Court; and the only way she could think of in which she could call attention to herself was by fainting in the apartments of Madame Elisabeth. This lady, saintly by nature, was known to be good of heart and to have a very soft spot in it for the poor. Jeanne made sure that there should be friends at hand to explain that she was descended from the Valois – who were as royal as the Bourbons – and that she had fainted from starvation. The result of this was that Madame Elisabeth had her taken to her home and gave her a sum of money. Jeanne repeated the fainting fit, once in the apartments of Madame d’Artois and once in those of Antoinette. On each occasion she was given financial help, but no one seemed interested in her story.

  Jeanne however could not resist talking about her experiences at Court, inventing stories of how the Queen had received her and made much of her, calling her ‘dear cousin’.

  In the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, where Jeanne had her lodgings she became a person of importance. Each day she went to Versailles – to call on the Queen, she said. Many flocked to her house, bringing her presents, for they felt it would be wise to win the favour of one who was so well received at Court, and they had heard that the Queen chose her friends from all classes. Take for instance Madame Bertin the couturière. She was a friend of the Queen and consequently had become a person of great influence. And what was she but a dressmaker? Yet Madame Bertin could pro
cure all sorts of jobs for her friends, and was queen of her little circle. Jeanne became queen of hers.

  She would wait in the Galerie at Versailles to see the Queen pass; she would study her well; and all the time she was turning over in her mind how she could make herself rich, respected, and received at Court.

  Jeanne had a lover – a cunning man, Retaux de Villette. They schemed together as they lay in bed at night.

  ‘You should not neglect your good friend the Cardinal,’ Retaux warned her. ‘He is too rich and influential to be neglected.’

  This was true. Often Jeanne called at the Episcopal Palace to see her old benefactor and to remind him of times past.

  The Cardinal fascinated her. She knew him well. He was a Prince, a relation of the royal family; he was cultured and of high rank in the church, and yet it seemed to Jeanne that the Cardinal was in some ways a fool.

  He was, for one thing, completely under the influence – perhaps control – of a strange man, Joseph Balsamo, who called himself the Comte de Cagliastro but was in reality the son of a converted Sicilian Jew who had died when Joseph was a boy. In their home at Palermo the young Joseph had been apprenticed to an apothecary. He was a strange boy, and had declared from the first his belief in occult powers; he developed certain tricks, and was both a conjurer and a ventriloquist. Of striking appearance, he was undoubtedly possessed of certain hypnotic powers which he developed. With all these gifts he had at an early age set out to make his fortune.

  During the first stages of his career he had been in trouble more than once when he had been accused of being a common thief and swindler, but later he became a Freemason and was received with honour in the various countries he visited. It was thus that he came to be regarded as a man of superhuman powers and there were many who were ready to listen to him.

  One of these was the Cardinal de Rohan whom he had completely fascinated. Cagliostro now lived in the Cardinal’s palace and was deferred to by all therein. There he worked at his crucible and declared that he could make gold and precious stones.

  Cagliostro, some said, had exerted his powerful influence over the Cardinal so that in him de Rohan could see no wrong.

  ‘Have a care, Monseigneur,’ warned his friends. ‘This man whom you harbour in your house will make great demands upon you.’

  ‘He asks me nothing … nothing,’ declared the Cardinal. ‘He will make me the richest prince in the world, and he asks nothing for it. He is divine. There are times when I think Cagliostro – who has lived through many centuries – is God himself.’

  Truly the Cardinal was bewitched.

  And if he could be bewitched by a sorcerer, thought Jeanne, why should he not be bewitched by a clever woman?

  Jeanne made the acquaintance of Cagliostro who was so interested in the young woman that he would occasionally walk with her in the gardens of the Episcopal Palace and, on one memorable occasion, he discussed the Cardinal.

  ‘Monseigneur has two great desires in this life,’ Cagliostro told Jeanne.

  ‘And they are, Master?’

  ‘Why should I tell you?’ asked Cagliostro, turning his brilliant gaze upon the woman at his side. ‘But methinks I will. For I shall then have the pleasure of seeing what you make of the knowledge. But indeed I know; for, my child, all things are known to me.’

  Even a practical woman such as Jeanne could not but be affected by the man. He walked beside her, his wide nostrils flaring with that passion which seemed to be pent up within him; with his olive complexion and rather prominent and piercing black eyes the man was striking enough; his hands were folded behind him and his taffeta coat, which was trimmed with gold braid, was open to show his scarlet waistcoat, embroidered with gold; his red breeches and his stockings were of many colours which were also touched with gold. He wore many jewels – diamonds flashed on his fingers, rubies as buttons adorned his waistcoat; his watch-chain was composed of diamonds; and all these stones were enormous. It was said he had made them himself. Some said they were paste; yet they seemed to sparkle with a brilliance greater than that of other stones. Some said that Cagliostro put a spell on all those who looked at his jewels, so that they saw them as he wished them to.

  ‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘I will tell you of the two wishes which are dear to the Cardinal’s heart. He has brooded much on other Cardinals who have played their part in the history of his country. There are times when he tells me the secrets of his heart and knows not afterwards that he has spoken of them. He talks much of Cardinal Richelieu. He talks of Cardinal Mazarin; and he dreams of the day when men and women will talk of the great part Cardinal de Rohan played in the history of his country.’

  Jeanne said: ‘Yes, Master. I know it.’

  ‘Yes, you know it, my child. You know it even as I know, for I have willed that you should know it. And know you this. He thinks constantly of the Queen. He believes that if he were the lover of the Queen there would be nothing to stand between him and his desires. He longs to be the lover of the Queen; he constantly searches for the means of winning her favour.’ Cagliostro turned his prominent eyes on Jeanne. ‘You, my child, tell us you have found favour with the Queen. You tell us that she receives you and calls you cousin.’

  Jeanne shivered. He knows I lie, she thought. He must know. The Master knows everything.

  She felt the white fingers touch her shoulder. She did not look down but she was aware of the flashing diamonds, the ruby that was almost the size of an egg.

  ‘Since you tell us the Queen receives you,’ said the strange man, ‘mayhap you could speak to her on the Cardinal’s behalf. That, my child, would do you much good with the Cardinal.’

  Then he left her; and Jeanne pondered. She thought of the flashing diamonds of the sorcerer, and it was then that she conceived the idea.

  So Jeanne talked to the Cardinal of her triumphs with the Queen. Rétaux, who was by profession a clerk, had a gift for adapting his handwriting to various styles, and he produced a flowing feminine one in which he wrote a letter addressed to ‘My dear cousin Valois’, signed as by the Queen.

  The Cardinal read the letter, and as he read it Jeanne was aware of the shadow of Cagliostro passing the window. Jeanne was trembling, for she feared the Cardinal must recognise the forgery. It seemed incredible that he – a Prince accustomed to royal documents – should not have recognised a clerk’s clumsy hand in this, but he did not.

  ‘I have spoken to Her Majesty of your Excellency,’ Jeanne said. ‘She has at times felt hatred towards you for what you said of her mother, but she has whispered to me that it is unchristian to preserve such hatreds for ever.’

  The Cardinal, seeming bemused, was enchanted with this news; yet Jeanne was aware of a certain bewilderment which crossed his features, and she said quickly: ‘I think that if I assured Her Majesty of your desolation at the rift between you, and that it is your greatest desire to serve her, she might give some sign of her changed feelings for you.’

  ‘Bring me this sign,’ said the Cardinal.

  In a few days Jeanne returned with a letter which she said the Queen had entrusted to her for delivery to the Cardinal.

  It ran:

  ‘I am delighted that I need no longer regard you as blameworthy. It is not possible to grant you yet an audience such as you desire, but I will let you know when circumstances permit this. Meanwhile be discreet …’

  And this extraordinary document was signed ‘Marie Antoinette de France.’

  The Cardinal, in his delight, showered gifts on Jeanne – the clever go-between through whose favour he might win the Queen’s.

  How to turn this amazing situation to greater advantage occupied Jeanne and her lover day and night. Jeanne was a bold schemer and she believed so fervently in her own astuteness that she never hesitated to put into action her most outrageous plans.

  She now told the Cardinal that the Queen was short of money and was asking him to show his esteem by lending her 50,000 livres, which should be handed to her dear friend the Co
mtesse de Lamotte-Valois. The Cardinal showed signs of suspicions, so Jeanne hastily declared that the Queen would meet him for a few moments in the gardens of Versailles. This meeting must be very secret. She could not explain why, but he would know later when Antoinette was able to receive him openly.

  The Cardinal, overjoyed, borrowed the 50,000 livres from a moneylender and gave the money to Jeanne; this was riches in the household in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles, but both Jeanne and Retaux realised that unless they could procure a ‘Queen’ to meet the Cardinal it would be the last of their pickings.

  They were bemused by their success; they had come to believe that they could do exactly what they liked with the gullible Cardinal, so Retaux discovered a modiste who was a prostitute in her spare time, a very pretty, fair young woman in whom many noticed a faint resemblance to the Queen.

  They brought her to the house in the rue Neuve-Saint-Gilles and offered her what seemed to her a fabulous sum if she would do exactly what they wanted. They rehearsed her in what she must say, dressed her in muslin such as the Queen wore for her simple country life at Trianon, and took her one starry night to the grove of Venus in the Versailles gardens where the trees were so thick that it was impossible to see clearly the faces of those who sheltered beneath them. There Mademoiselle d’Oliva waited, nervously clutching a rose and a letter which she was to give to a tall gentleman who would come to her and converse for a few seconds only. With her was Retaux in the livery of a royal servant which he had managed to procure, and also Jeanne who would help her if she needed help.

  The tall handsome man came to the rendezvous; he was wrapped in a great cloak and, as soon as he saw the little prostitute, he knelt and kissed the hem of her muslin gown.

  Mademoiselle d’Oliva whispered: ‘You may hope that the past will be forgotten.’