The Queen's Necklace

by Antal Szerb

  In the last analysis we can never be completely sure what there was between them, but this much is clear: no one could have behaved with greater gallantry or selflessness than Rohan did at the critical moment. If we are to weigh his character in the balance, there is certainly much good to be said of him.

  Now to return to Mme Campan. She was a quiet, modest woman, a little grey sparrow among the peacocks, falcons and brilliantly coloured parrots of the Court. She is famous for her memoirs. Everyone who has written about the period and about Marie-Antoinette, including of course ourselves, has gone to her first and foremost for the more intimate details. She is rather like the ‘I’ in old-fashioned novels who narrates the story but does not directly play a part in it. But now, at this critical juncture, the modest little ‘I’ detonates the bomb. True, there was nothing else she could have done. So perhaps we might briefly introduce her, as she steps onto the stage.

  Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Genet was born in 1752, and went to Versailles at the age of fifteen to become reader to Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV. She was a remarkably cultivated young lady. Louis XV once stopped and asked her:

  “Is it true that you speak four or five languages?”

  “Only two, Your Highness,” the girl replied modestly.

  “Quite enough to annoy any husband.”

  In due course he married her off to the young M Campan, whose extremely learned father was secretary to the Royal Cabinet. She received five thousand livres and was appointed Première Femme de Chambre.

  Marie-Antoinette had invited Mme Campan to her house in the mock village at Le Petit Trianon, to try out her part as Rosina on her. During the proceedings she casually asked what “this Boehmer” wanted: she knew Mme Campan had sent him but she had refused to see him. So Mme Campan related the full story. Marie-Antoinette became extremely agitated, and immediately sent a message to the man summoning him on some pretext connected with his trade. He duly appeared the next day, 9th August. The Queen questioned him in detail and told him to put everything he knew in writing. According to Mme Campan, the “shameless and dangerous jeweller” simply kept repeating, to whatever was said:

  “Madame, this is not the time for play-acting. Would you be so kind as to admit that you have my necklace and to provide me with some assistance, or I shall be utterly bankrupt.”

  According to Mme Campan, Marie-Antoinette discussed the matter with the Abbé Vermond and Baron Breteuil, both of them sworn enemies of the Cardinal. She also wrote to Joseph II suggesting that he and the King should decide between them what should be done. Mme Campan saw yet another little twist of fate in the fact that Vergennes, that superb diplomat who had saved the country from the danger of so many wars, was not then at Court. He, surely, would have been the person to find a compromise.

  In what happened next we see the more passionate side of Marie-Antoinette. She had always hated Rohan, and now the man had made her an object of suspicion and offended her deepest womanly pride by the assumptions he had made. That she might have met him in secret! That she could have asked him for money! No, such things would have been intolerable even to a bourgeoise, and as for this proud daughter of the Habsburgs, the first lady of the age … No, nothing could be allowed to bring Marie-Antoinette into disrepute. Here she could not be calm and considered: of course she insisted on a punishment that would be exemplary, resounding and spectacular. And, for once, even Louis XVI was moved to anger. He too had been wounded in his most sensitive point: in his capacity as a husband, where his feelings of inferiority were at their strongest.

  It is now 15th August, Assumption Day, and Versailles has gathered to celebrate.

  For centuries the day has been used to commemorate the moment when Louis XIII placed his crown and the monarchy under the protection of the Virgin. A huge crowd has come from Paris, some on horseback, some by carriage, some in those communal coaches known because of their rounded shape as pots de chambre.

  In the morning a council of ministers meets in the King’s Cabinet Room. Present are the royal couple, Baron Breteuil and the Keeper of the Seal (that is to say, Minister for Justice) Miromesnil. Breteuil reads out the jewellers’ memorandum. Miromesnil, his voice quavering with echoes of the fairy godmothers, advises restraint and caution—they should think of the Rohan family. But Breteuil insists on the need to make an example. Hot-blooded and violent by nature, he is the sort of man who sees something in everyone that requires to be disciplined and brought to heel. His moral indignation provides a fine cover for his long-standing resentment of Rohan: he too has been insulted by the man, in Vienna. But Louis XVI leans towards Miromesnil’s view. He tells Breteuil to call the Cardinal in.

  Rohan is present in the Palace, along with the rest of the aristocracy. As Grand Almoner he is waiting to take the celebratory mass. Summoned, he enters in full priestly regalia, a scarlet silk cassock with white English-lace sleeves.

  “Mon cousin,” the King begins. “So what is all this about a diamond necklace you bought for the Queen?”

  Rohan turns pale.

  “Sire, I know now that I was duped, but I have deceived no one.”

  “If that is the case, mon cousin, then you have nothing to fear. Nonetheless you must explain what happened.”

  The King’s voice is gentle enough, but what is the King to Rohan? There sits Marie-Antoinette—to him nothing less than the embodiment of pride, anger and loathing. His knees start to shake; he is on the verge of fainting. The King notices this, and tells him to make a full statement in writing. He is left to himself.

  In such a state of mind he finds it difficult to find the right words. Nonetheless he puts a few lines together: there is nothing for it now but to point the finger at the one who really is guilty, Jeanne de la Motte. The royal couple and the Ministers return. They want to know where are the documents signed in the Queen’s name. And they repeat what Cagliostro said: how could a prominent member of the Court possibly think that the Queen would sign herself ‘Marie-Antoinette de France’? Only a flunkey would have believed that. Rohan replies that he will hand the letters over to the King and pay for the necklace. The King declares that, considering the circumstances, he will have to order his arrest and detention.

  “I consider it necessary for the Queen’s good name,” he adds.

  Rohan implores the King not to shame him before such a large number of people, and bring such disgrace on his family.

  The King appears to be swayed by these words, but at this moment the Queen erupts. Her voice is loud and agitated, and as she is speaking she bursts into tears. She rounds on Rohan:

  “How could you possibly imagine that I would write you a letter, when for nine years I haven’t been on speaking terms with you?”

  Her words decide the matter.

  Meanwhile, packed into the rooms outside, the magnificent courtiers are growing restless. The Mass should have begun long ago. People sense that something is in the air: there is an anxious murmuring—the crowd is breaking up into little groups—a sense of gathering storm. Finally Rohan emerges through the glass door, deathly pale. He is followed by Breteuil, whose face is flushed with pleasure at his great and unexpected revenge. In loud tones he calls out to the Captain of the Guard, the Duc de Villeroi:

  “Arrest the Cardinal!”

  Rohan now has to make his way along the endless succession of halls—to left and right, behind him and in front of him, the astonished French aristocracy, their individual features dissolving into one enormous face before his blurred eyes, the endless rows of mirrors seeming to spin as the sunlight crashes and roars down on him through the huge windows. And underfoot, grinding and crackling like shattered glass, the Ancien Régime itself.

  The formal reception is due to be held further on, in the Hall of Mirrors, where a hundred years later the names of Teutonic Caesars will be loudly proclaimed and the sacred gloire of France humbled in the dust; there too, another fifty years on, will be signed the Treaty of Versailles, bringing peace with the Germans. An
yone can enter the Hall of Mirrors, and now it is crammed with people who have come at dawn for the celebrations. They look on in shocked amazement as the Duc de Villeroi hands the Cardinal—the illustrious prince of the Church, in his radiant ceremonial finery—over to Second Lieutenant of the Guard Jouffroy. In the long peaceful years of the previous two Louis such sights were seldom seen in Paris, Now even these superficial, garrulous and generally irreligious people are silenced by the nameless horror of it.

  By some miracle Rohan has so far remained calm. In fact he is the only calm and controlled person in the whole vast multitude. In these moments of crisis and disaster, the resounding footsteps of his countless noble forebears are entering his soul, while those with no thousand-year legacy to speak of have lost their heads. Now, very calmly, he asks Jouffroy for permission to scribble a few words on a bit of paper which he rests on the scarlet rectangle of his Cardinal’s hat. He gives it to his attendant, says something to him in German, and the man rushes off. Then he is led away to a suite of apartments.

  The following day he is taken to the Hôtel de Strasbourg where his papers are confiscated in his presence and the building closed off. But the red portfolio in which the “Queen’s letters” once lay amongst his private papers has vanished. The day before, the same attendant had galloped at breakneck speed back to Paris, to announce: “All is lost; they have arrested the Cardinal!”—before handing the slip of paper to the Abbé Georgel, and promptly collapsing. Georgel, however, did not collapse. He carried out the instruction he had received in the note and destroyed the correspondence.

  On 17th August, chaperoned by Beugnot, Jeanne was a guest at Clairvaux, the famous convent named in memory of St Bernát. She was given a most gracious welcome by the Abbot, who knew that she was on particularly good terms with the Grand Almoner. They were just sitting down to dinner, having waited patiently for the Abbé Maury to arrive. (Maury was a famous pulpit orator who became Mirabeau’s great rival. It was after one of his sermon’s that Louis XVI remarked: “What a pity he didn’t say something about religion; then he really would have covered everything.”) Maury was due to give the special sermon in honour of St Bernát, but as he had not appeared, they sat down to eat without him.

  At that moment he burst in, in great excitement.

  “What? Haven’t you heard? Where have you been living? Prince Rohan, the Cardinal, has been arrested. Something to do with diamonds, apparently …”

  Suddenly Jeanne felt unwell.

  She went out, ordered her carriage to be made ready, and she and Beugnot left the abbey. By the time they were sitting in the coach she had regained her composure.

  “This whole business is Cagliostro’s doing,” she told her astonished companion.

  Then she lapsed into a deep silence. His advice that she fly to England before it was too late was met with scorn. She had already worked out her battle plan: how to shift the blame for the whole affair onto Cagliostro.

  She was arrested at four the next morning. The amiable police made no objection when the Comte de la Motte, who had otherwise conducted himself very calmly, tore the glittering jewels off his wife and thoughtfully put them aside against better times.

  Rivarol, that witty and whimsical commentator, wrote: “M de Breteuil plucked the Cardinal out of Mme de la Motte’s clutches and dashed him against the Queen’s brow, where he certainly left his mark.” It is a grotesque image, but an expressive one.

  Chapter Ten

  The Bastille, the Parlement and the King

  To M de Launay,

  I write to request that you receive my cousin the Cardinal Rohan into my fortress known as the Bastille, and hold him there pending my further instructions, for which I beg thanks for your assistance.

  Louis, Baron Breteuil

  Versailles, 16th August 1785

  Such was the tenor of the royal arrest warrant, the lettre de cachet on whose authority, on the evening of 16th August, the Commander of the Bastille (the same de Launay who died when the building was stormed in 1789), and the Comte d’Agoult, Captain of the Guard, escorted Rohan by coach into the prison. He had spent the day at home, and had been seen in the great window of his salon playing with his pet ape: perhaps they were taking their leave of one another.

  At dawn on 18th August, on the authority of a second lettre de cachet, Jeanne de la Motte was also detained. The summons served on her husband failed to reach him. He had in fact set out for Paris with the idea of defending his wife, but had second thoughts along the way, and took himself off to London instead.

  The modern visitor to the Bastille finds only the spot where the old building stood, the circular Place with the lofty memorial column at its centre. The historic building was destroyed on that memorable quatorze juillet which has since become the National Day, since it marks the beginning of freedom not just for the French but for people all over the world.

  The Bastille was originally a circular fortress. Later, when no longer used to defend the city, it became a prison, playing much the same role as the Tower in London. It was so hated that it came to be seen as the physical symbol of tyranny, thanks above all to the lettres de cachet, whose victims were for the most part imprisoned there—but not only there: every region had its own equivalent, where people were locked away in hospitals, madhouses and solitary cells.

  The lettre de cachet, as we have noted, was a warrant for arrest. Its significance lay in that the King himself issued it, without needing to give any reason. The detained person did not appear before any court. He remained in prison until the King saw fit to set him free. “The Bastille,” wrote a contemporary, “is a place in which anyone, without regard to age, sex or social rank, might find himself, without having any idea why he is there, how long he might remain, or how he will ever get out.”

  Everyone at the time knew that the police had special agents from whom, for large sums of money, one could buy lettres de cachet already prepared—you had only to fill in the name—and furthermore, that both in the Bastille and others of His Majesty’s prisons large numbers of people would languish for the rest of their miserable days simply because they had been arrested on the basis of one of these documents and then forgotten about. In 1784, a M Latude was released after thirtyfive years in prison. He had been locked away for planning an attack (involving a time bomb) on one of the Pompadours. And Malesherbes mentions one unfortunate who had gone blind, had been let out with no one to care for him, and promptly begged to be allowed back into the prison. The Bastille was not a comfortable place. Malesherbes once told Prime Minister Maurepas that he ought to show Louis XVI around it.

  “I never have,” was the reply. “If I did, he’d never send anyone there again.”

  In recent decades the intellectual life of France has been largely dominated by writers and historians of the royalist persuasion, who, partly by astute reasoning and partly through the sheer mass of data they have assembled, have established that the Ancien Régime was for the most part innocent of those crimes that the Revolution, and libertarian writers of the nineteenth century, ascribed to it. Among those prepared to judge on the basis of facts is Frantz Funck-Brentano, and it was he who went through the entire body of documents relating to the Bastille and came to the surprising conclusion that the lettre de cachet was generally not the cruel weapon of a tyrannical monarchy, but on the contrary, an outstandingly useful institution for the rest of society.

  Its great advantage was that it enabled the prosecuting authorities to make rapid progress in situations where the slow and cumbersome nature of criminal proceedings might otherwise drag matters out for years. It could also be used to invoke the power of the monarchy to intervene in situations which did not fall within its normal jurisdiction. These were almost always family cases.

  Lettres de cachet were often used by parents against their own children; for example, if the son were an impulsive and incorrigible gambler, he could be taught discipline by showing him that he might spend the rest of his life being arrested
and charged—thus preserving the family from shame. Funck-Brentano generally saw the device as a way of defending traditional French family life. His idea was that the world order of the Ancien Régime was based on the power of, and respect for, the family, and that the main cause of its collapse was that that respect was undermined by the influence of eighteenth century philosophy. If, for example, a young aristocrat wished to marry a bourgeois girl and thus dishonour his family, there was a simple solution. On the basis of a lettre de cachet the young man or the girl would be locked away and kept a prisoner until there was a change of attitude. Events of that kind naturally did not cause much of a stir, unlike those occasions when a writer such as Voltaire or Beaumarchais was imprisoned for showing too much self-assurance in the eyes of his betters. But such examples, at least according to Funck-Brentano, were very isolated.

  While we have every respect for Funck-Brentano, and the present work has so much to thank him for, and although we would not for a moment dare question the accuracy of his information, from a moral point of view we cannot agree with him. We give greater credence to the worthy Cagliostro, another of those who were unjustly imprisoned in the Bastille, who, following his release, declared in a pamphlet he wrote in England entitled Letter to the French People: