Vulgar History - Marie Antoinette and the Affair of the Necklace (rerelease)

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is 0.73

00:00:15.160 Anne Foster and it is Marie Antoinette month. All month we're looking at the story of Marie

00:00:20.680 Antoinette, the notorious queen of France. And so if you're listening to this now when

00:00:25.520 first coming out. So two days ago, we did Marie Antoinette part two, which ended with the affair

00:00:31.800 of the necklace. Maybe that's not how you found this episode. Maybe you found this in a different

00:00:35.200 way. But where this fits into the chronology of the season is that we did Marie Antoinette part

00:00:39.700 one, Marie Antoinette part two, and now this is kind of a bonus in between episode where I'm just

00:00:45.180 kind of filling in some blanks. So in 2019, one of the very first episodes ever of Vulgar History

00:00:51.260 podcast while I was still figuring out how to use a microphone and how not to say the word basically

00:00:55.680 every other word, I did an episode about a woman called Jeanne de Lamotte, who is the person who

00:01:03.560 caused the affair, what's known as the affair of the necklace. So the Marie Antoinette episode we

00:01:09.800 just did ended with, I gave sort of a short summary of the affair of the necklace. And now I wanted to

00:01:14.980 replay this episode from 2019 vulgar history classic episode because it's such a good story

00:01:21.420 and i think it bears sharing it again especially because we were just talking about the effects of

00:01:27.680 the diamond necklace scandal had on marie antoinette herself so what you're about to hear 0.97

00:01:32.920 is me from 2019 still a little baby podcaster figuring out how to get this shit done but 0.96

00:01:39.340 honestly, it's such a good story. I had to share it. And I do mention in this episode, 0.97

00:01:44.500 we're talking about this necklace. It is, I still stand firm that it is the ugliest necklace ever

00:01:49.900 created. And if you want to see what it looks like, you can find it on my Instagram,

00:01:54.100 vulgar history pod. In my highlights, there's a picture of the necklace and some other supporting

00:01:58.900 images of the necklace itself. I think it's really important when you hear this story

00:02:03.020 to understand just how ugly this necklace is. But some of the information that we have value

00:02:08.260 added from the recent Marie Antoinette episode is that first of all, when this whole scheme was

00:02:12.900 happening, Marie Antoinette was not even into diamonds at the moment. She was in her clean

00:02:18.200 girl era. She'd never even really been a necklace girly. So the fact that these jewelers tried to

00:02:25.160 sell it to her, it's like, it was just all a bad plan. Anyway, I'm going to play this episode and

00:02:30.840 I'm going to pop back again at the end to just talk more about how this connects to our overall

00:02:36.080 series, but honestly, it's just one of the greatest heist sagas of all time. It's such

00:02:41.240 a good story. Jean de Lamont, an icon on this podcast. And enjoy this classic episode of Vulgar

00:02:48.440 History. Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History. My name is Anne Foster, and this is a feminist

00:03:05.480 Women's History Comedy Podcast. For this, the inaugural season of this podcast where 0.97

00:03:11.880 I'm kind of figuring out what I'm doing and you're kind of figuring out what I'm doing

00:03:16.500 and we're all just sort of having a nice time figuring this all out because I'm just a woman

00:03:22.240 in Saskatoon sitting in my apartment with a microphone. Anyway, that's all the more time

00:03:28.240 for me to tell stories to you. And so thus far in this season, we've been looking at women who 0.59

00:03:35.240 quote-unquote misbehaved because inspired by the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich,

00:03:41.660 well-behaved women seldom make history. We're looking at women who made history because they

00:03:47.820 did not quote-unquote behave well in various different ways. And we've looked at women whose

00:03:53.120 personality just sort of like bucked against the societal expectations and what people thought 1.00

00:03:57.980 a princess should be like. We've looked at women who just live tits out and did a body swap to 1.00

00:04:04.820 avoid anyone finding out that she was not a virgin, and then killed a man and then admitted 1.00

00:04:09.440 to it. And both of those women were from noble families. And today we're looking at another

00:04:15.200 woman who was sort of from a noble family, but basically was a regular everyday lady.

00:04:22.420 And that's what I really wanted to get to a story like this early on in the show, just to establish

00:04:27.780 we're not talking about just royals, we're not talking about just rich people. It just so happens

00:04:33.480 that if you're looking at what women in history have been written about, they tend to be rich

00:04:39.340 people and royals because other women just no one thought were interesting enough to write

00:04:45.360 anything about, which is tragic. And that's why one day when I get a time machine, I want to go

00:04:50.520 back and just hang out and see what life was like for the everyday people. Anyway, today we are

00:04:58.020 looking at a woman whose full name is Jeanne de Valois Saint-Remy. Then she got married and she

00:05:05.220 became Jeanne Comtesse de la Motte. We're just going to call her Jeanne with my Canadian French

00:05:12.960 accent. Basically, she was descended from the bastard son of a French royal. So she had like 0.98

00:05:22.800 that slight royal lineage, but the French royals had a lot of illegitimate children, so it didn't

00:05:30.140 really do much for her. So basically, she was descended from the Valois family, who were

00:05:36.280 the rulers of France for a while, and we're going to look at some other members of the Valois family

00:05:41.000 perhaps in another episode. But basically, her great-grandfather was the illegitimate son

00:05:47.920 of the French king, Henry II. Because of these sort of royal roots, they had

00:05:54.460 sort of an allowance that the royal family gave to everybody who was sort of like a descendant

00:06:00.320 of a descendant of a French bastard, which is like great, but also not so great because it was not

00:06:07.480 super a lot of money. So Jean and her sister were both sent off to convent school and the plan for 0.87

00:06:15.680 them was to become a nun but as we shall see that did not suit jeanne's personality whatsoever

00:06:22.300 although she might have she might have found her way to do lots of cool stuff as a nun as well but 0.99

00:06:28.520 basically she liked stuff she liked jewels and she liked wealth and she liked gorgeous outfits

00:06:35.740 and because this was what year was she born she was born in 1756 so this is like edging up on like

00:06:44.580 french revolution era slash marie antoinette slash like she likes the big wigs the hats like she just

00:06:51.860 she was somebody who was living in a material world and she was a material girl but she did

00:06:58.180 not have very much money but what she had was ambition so after she basically left nunnery

00:07:05.160 school decided that wasn't for her she went to stay with a family friend and then became pregnant

00:07:09.820 with twins which is just like oh if you're pregnant with twins and it's like the end of

00:07:14.980 the 18th century you just hope you don't die in childbirth basically she did not and like a couple

00:07:21.120 months before she gave birth or no a month before she gave birth she got married to a man who was

00:07:25.980 the nephew of the family she was staying with so she she was married before she had the baby she

00:07:31.200 had baby twins but they both died very very young because infant mortality was pretty considerable

00:07:38.820 then and that did not stop her so basically her husband was a man named nicholas de lamotte

00:07:44.960 who he called himself the count or the comte de lamotte which was basically i think sort of a

00:07:53.400 made up title that he just sort of called himself because he wanted to sound impressive but actually 0.75

00:07:57.780 he was just pretty boring and useless and john i'm guessing again um she might have married him 0.90

00:08:04.780 because of the whole pregnant with twins situation the world society she was living in she had to 0.99

00:08:09.640 marry the father of the twins or someone anyway so she was not super into him because he was useless

00:08:15.520 and she was just getting started living this amazing life that you're going to learn about

00:08:20.340 so she not only liked glamour and jewels and dresses and giant wigs but she also sort of felt

00:08:27.800 that they were owed to her because her family was descended from this illegitimate royal family

00:08:34.600 member and before that from an actual royal family member so she just kind of saw you know

00:08:39.440 Marie Antoinette hanging out and felt like that should be me I should I should be able to live

00:08:44.840 this fancy amazing life like she is leaving so basically she decided she wanted to get some more 1.00

00:08:51.480 money she wanted to get an increase in the allowance that she got as a descendant of a

00:08:55.980 descendant of a descendant and she's like okay I mean she who can she ask to give her this money

00:09:02.240 that would actually give her this money when the French royal family was like paying this money to

00:09:06.180 all these people and didn't have a lot to spare at the moment. And so she thought what she's going

00:09:12.260 to do is talk directly to Marie Antoinette, like girl to girl, just be like, Hey, we're both like

00:09:18.300 glamorous, amazing women. You get me Marie Antoinette. Like, can you please see about

00:09:24.600 getting me more allowance money? And so the thing is at the time, and I don't know all the details

00:09:31.060 about how this whole situation goes but it seems like anyone who's like dressed nicely enough

00:09:35.840 could just like go to Versailles which was where the French royal family lived just go in there

00:09:41.560 and hang out which is like a pretty nice rule so she figured she would just dress up nicely

00:09:46.900 go to Versailles you know accidentally on purpose run to Marie Antoinette and be like hey can I get 1.00

00:09:52.580 some more allowance money from you but Marie Antoinette had heard about Jeanne knew that she 1.00

00:09:58.960 was sort of this like notorious sort of con artist type person and knew to basically avoid her

00:10:06.280 meanwhile in another part of Versailles there was a man named Cardinal de Rohan

00:10:11.200 who was basically on the outs with Marie Antoinette because he was obsessed with her and

00:10:18.460 gross he tried to stop her from marrying her husband Louis XVI and basically she had kicked

00:10:26.320 him out of court because he was gross and obsessed with her. And he would do anything to win her

00:10:31.520 affection back, basically. So that's Cardinal de Rohan. Remember that name? Basically, Jean was

00:10:38.820 like, okay, I can't get in to see Marie Antoinette, but I need to just figure out what's going on

00:10:42.960 around court, learn where the goss is, and find a way that I can get close to Marie Antoinette

00:10:48.340 and get this money or find another way to get money. In the meantime, Jean took a lover who

00:10:54.720 is a famous gigolo named Reto de Villette. And she also became the lover of Cardinal de Rohan.

00:11:03.140 So she's married, took two lovers. Do it. Yes. Just live your life. And so spending time with

00:11:10.340 Rohan, she quickly learned like he's obsessed with Marie Antoinette and just like really wants

00:11:15.280 to be friends with her again. So Jean was like, hmm, what a crazy coincidence. I happen to be

00:11:23.200 totally great friends with Marie Antoinette you know just a relative etc and if you want I can

00:11:28.940 like put in a good word for you if you Cardinal Rohan pay me Jean just like lots of money and

00:11:36.360 jewels and Rohan basically did I mean he gave her money and jewels and she pretended that she was

00:11:42.080 putting a good word with Marie Antoinette but she wasn't actually doing that and this is just kind

00:11:46.720 of like a way for her to get money and jewels because she was all about that luxury lifestyle 1.00

00:11:50.920 And then the necklace. So I'm going to post a picture of the necklace on the Instagram, which is vulgarhistorypod at Instagram, just so you can understand what I'm talking about. It is the ugliest necklace in the history of, okay, like, I'm just, I'll describe it to you, but like, just go to the Instagram to see this picture.

00:12:19.080 So meanwhile, in another part of France, two jewelry makers had made the most expensive necklace in the history of jewelry and was also, I would say, the ugliest necklace in the history of jewelry.

00:12:35.140 these two men had made it because they had hoped that the previous king's mistress so

00:12:41.500 not Marie Antoinette's husband Marie Antoinette's father-in-law's mistress who is a woman named

00:12:47.480 Madame du Berry who we will talk about on another podcast almost definitely basically these jewelers 0.85

00:12:53.700 had made this disgusting necklace hoping that Madame du Berry would want to buy it then she

00:12:59.640 dyed and they were left with this like extremely expensive necklace that's okay it's sort of like

00:13:06.280 if you made an apron out of diamonds but like really tacky with tassels at the bottom

00:13:17.040 connected to a multi-layer choker also made of diamonds and sort of held together with ribbons

00:13:27.460 it's sort of like a pinny like when you're playing sports in elementary school and you

00:13:34.020 have to like wear a pinny it's like a pinny made of diamonds with jeweled bows on it and

00:13:42.060 four tassels like four giant tassels it's just like so ugly but there's so many diamonds on it

00:13:50.620 it was like super expensive and the thing is so these jewelers have made this disgusting necklace

00:13:56.020 And they're like, okay, so Madame de Bourie is dead, but let's try and get Marie Antoinette to

00:13:59.680 buy it. But obviously Marie Antoinette would not buy it because it was disgusting looking and also 0.98

00:14:05.700 insanely expensive. And she, even she did not want to spend that much money. So they were just like,

00:14:12.680 oh my God, we have this disgusting necklace. It costs so much money, but no one's buying it. So

00:14:18.160 that means that we're actually sort of going bankrupt over just having it. Oh, and also

00:14:21.640 the necklace itself was so heavy like it was uncomfortable to wear so it's like disgusting

00:14:27.240 and impractical and heavy and uncomfortable to wear so basically it was this nightmare they

00:14:34.820 should never have made it and jean was like this is the opportunity i've been waiting my whole life

00:14:40.020 for so she assembled her squad and i have to say having having done just a couple episodes so far 0.76

00:14:47.280 when when one of the women we talk about assembles a squad i'm just like oh shit's getting real like

00:14:52.780 i love a squad i love a team leader so jean put together a team of people for this like

00:14:58.880 for her plan so the squad was herself her husband nicholas who's just kind of like there

00:15:04.720 ballast um her gigolo lover de valet was also involved and the mark was going to be

00:15:11.280 Cardinal de Rohan. So the thing is that her lover, de Villette, was skilled at forgery,

00:15:18.580 which is like, you know, he's a gigolo slash forger. Like, that's good. Diversify your skill

00:15:24.060 set. So he made fake letters that were allegedly between Marie Antoinette to Jean to make it look

00:15:33.900 like the two of them are like super good friends, the two women. So she showed the letters to Rohan

00:15:39.360 And the letters were all saying, the letters were basically de Villette having written as though he was Marie Antoinette saying like,

00:15:46.680 I, Marie Antoinette, I want this disgusting necklace.

00:15:49.560 I want this diamond apron that hurts the neck.

00:15:53.220 But this necklace is too expensive and my husband, the king, won't give me permission to buy it.

00:15:59.120 If only someone like Cardinal de Rohan would like lend me the money so I could buy the necklace.

00:16:05.260 So this is the letter.

00:16:06.460 like de Villette wrote a letter from Marie Antoinette to Jean saying like if only someone

00:16:13.020 would loan me Marie Antoinette the money to buy this disgusting necklace which is like quite a

00:16:18.660 quite a letter basically saying just exactly what Jean needed it to say for the whole plan to work

00:16:24.460 and so Rohan Cardinal de Rohan was like oh my god this is amazing like Marie Antoinette wants money

00:16:30.120 to buy this disgusting necklace like if I loan her the money then maybe she'll let us be friends

00:16:34.700 again, even though I, Rohan, am totally creepy. And Jean was like, great. This is totally, you

00:16:41.260 know what? I'm so happy to bring the two of you together in friendship. And I, Jean, will be,

00:16:46.400 I'll be the middleman. I'll be the intermediary. So I, Jean, will pick up the necklace from

00:16:53.440 the jeweler's shop, and then I'll pick up Rohan's money. And then I'll exchange them,

00:17:00.480 basically but don't worry about it the plan was like weirdly convoluted and even to rohan who is

00:17:07.540 like not who is willing to believe almost anything if it meant that he could be friends with marie

00:17:13.080 antoinette was like this seems a little sketchy so i'd just like to confirm with marie antoinette

00:17:19.180 that she this is all actually what she wants to have happen and jean was like okay you know i'm

00:17:26.520 not going to let this, she's got a plan and she's going to stick to her plan. And so what she did

00:17:30.680 is she went out and she found a woman who looked a lot like Marie Antoinette. This woman, her name

00:17:37.240 was Nicole Leguay-Doliva, who was a sex worker. And basically, Nicole was told to just like go 1.00

00:17:46.740 to Versailles, dress up fancy, anyone could get in, apparently, and just like sit under in this

00:17:52.800 garden in Versailles and then when Rohan comes by just kind of like be non-committal and like

00:17:58.780 pretend like you like him. So Nicole went to the garden dressed like Marie Antoinette and just kind

00:18:04.660 of was like yeah okay smiled a nod to what Rohan said. She agreed to forgive Rohan. She might not

00:18:11.820 have even known she was impersonating the queen. She just knew to dress up fancy and go to Versailles 1.00

00:18:16.000 which is what she did. I can't see how she wouldn't know she was impersonating the queen.

00:18:21.780 like rohan probably must have called her your majesty etc but anyway so nicole was just like 0.84

00:18:27.520 she got paid and she did her job and great job nicole so nicole did did what she needed to do

00:18:33.680 and rohan was back on board so jean was sent out to do her like obviously obvious plan so she went

00:18:42.160 to pick up the necklace from the jewelers and the jewelers were told that rohan was behind the

00:18:47.080 purchase and Jaune was sort of his like messenger person but they were told that they couldn't give

00:18:52.820 the necklace directly to the queen because you know the queen allegedly didn't want her husband

00:18:57.580 to know about it so they were told give the necklace to Jaune and she'll give it to the queen

00:19:03.340 and then the money Rohan will pay you later basically so Jaune didn't pay the jewelers

00:19:09.940 They just gave her this, like, I don't even know, 50 pound diamond penny with tassels on the bottom.

00:19:19.280 Four tassels.

00:19:20.240 It's like, you might think like, you know what?

00:19:22.660 Are you just like exaggerating?

00:19:23.840 It's like, no, it's like actively ugly looking like, like it's just so ugly.

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00:21:23.840 Reality TV is messy.

00:21:25.820 pop culture is louder than ever and the internet completely unhinged welcome to roxanne and chantelle

00:21:32.940 the podcast where cousins roxanne and chantelle break down reality tv celebrity drama and the

00:21:38.120 stories everyone's texting about we recap the shows spill the headlines and sit down with the

00:21:43.920 stars themselves no filter no boring takes just the tea new episodes every week if it's trending

00:21:51.500 we're talking about it this is roxanne and chantelle let's get into it

00:21:56.940 and we're back anyway she got the jewels and then she brought the necklace to her husband 0.98

00:22:04.720 nicholas and then just like in that part in oceans eight where mindy kalen was um she took

00:22:10.940 the necklace apart hiding off in the room um nicholas disassembled the necklace and into just

00:22:16.780 like all separate diamonds side note in oceans eight there is a part where they're in the like

00:22:23.820 the room with all the necklaces and the jewelry and stuff and one of the necklaces there is in

00:22:28.760 fact a replica of this necklace I was like oh my god it's the necklace from this so once you've

00:22:34.580 seen the picture maybe you'll know what I mean or maybe you saw that movie and you know this

00:22:37.740 whole story and you're like I noticed that too and that was amazing anyway so Nicholas took apart

00:22:43.480 the necklace and he started just sort of like low-key selling the diamonds like a few at a time

00:22:47.460 at like different shops so nobody thought like why does this man have literally 50 pounds of diamonds

00:22:52.260 the jewelers meanwhile were like why isn't anyone paying us for the necklace and then they realized

00:22:58.940 like oh shit um we just clearly got conned and then they had rohan cardinal de rohan arrested 0.69

00:23:05.780 for defrauding them because they thought he was one behind everything they thought he had sent 0.97

00:23:09.900 jean there they thought he was going to pay for it rohan of course didn't know that anything

00:23:15.200 untoward was happening and so he uh just and he also has no chill so he just like squealed on

00:23:21.540 everybody so he said basically jean um i think was behind this also devalette the gigolo um

00:23:30.940 nicole the sex worker and also he just i'm i'm not i can't remember exactly why this happened

00:23:37.040 but he also was like and count kegliostro which is just like that he just brought him in as well

00:23:43.360 so that's just happening so all these people were brought in on this con but the thing is this is

00:23:51.120 this is france it's like just just before the french revolution happened so like the people

00:23:57.160 of france just like really hated the king and queen at the moment um they would believe any

00:24:04.320 terrible thing anybody said about them. So even though Marie Antoinette had nothing, nothing,

00:24:09.040 nothing to do with any of this, the letters were forged. She didn't want the necklace. She'd never

00:24:13.780 been friends with Sean. She still hated Rohan, but everybody was just kind of like, ugh, Marie

00:24:18.740 Antoinette, we know all about her. This is, I bet she wanted the necklace. I bet she got Rohan to

00:24:23.520 buy it for her. So like they were, they were ready to believe the worst about her. And so the only

00:24:28.360 way that Marie Antoinette and her husband figured they could prove their innocence was to have like

00:24:32.620 a giant, giant public trial for Jeanne and her co-conspirators. But hot twist, the very act of

00:24:41.420 having a public trial basically backfired because Jeanne went up on the stand and she put on an 1.00

00:24:46.560 amazing show. She just acted like a martyr and she was just like, oh my God, I can't believe

00:24:52.200 I'm in this position. Like I never did anything bad a day in my life. And everybody, like she just

00:24:59.820 want everybody's sympathy and everybody already was predisposed to hate Marie Antoinette and the

00:25:04.700 king so it didn't take a lot for Jean to win their sympathy but still like she she put on a show and

00:25:10.340 she did a good job there and the all the there wasn't like newspaper tabloid press but there was 0.76

00:25:16.280 like pamphlets and so all these pamphlets got published about how like she was the true victim

00:25:21.800 and people like cheered her when she went in and out of court and so eventually Cardinal Rohan

00:25:28.600 Nicole and Count Cagliostro were all acquitted, although the two men were sent into exile.

00:25:35.580 De Valette, the gigolo slash forger, was also exiled from the country.

00:25:40.560 And Jeanne was, despite having all this public sympathy, she was found guilty of basically being

00:25:46.380 a con artist, and she was sentenced to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned. But even though the whole

00:25:53.220 squad were were literally found guilty marie antonette was still super unpopular and everybody

00:25:58.860 still kind of blamed her for the whole thing but so you might think you know that's it jean is 0.99

00:26:04.300 going to be whipped branded sent to prison and that's the last you ever heard of her but that's

00:26:08.500 not what happened what happened is she disguised herself as a boy and escaped from prison it's

00:26:17.260 like went all the way to London like she crossed the waters to get from France all the way over

00:26:24.360 to England she went to London and then she published her autobiography which was called

00:26:30.520 Memoirs of the Comtesse de Valois de la Motte which was her sort of fake title she got from

00:26:35.880 her husband combined with her own actual sort of royal illegitimate name anyway she published her

00:26:41.720 she disguised herself as a boy went to England and published her memoirs which is how we know

00:26:46.940 a lot of what we know about her. And so like any good memoirist, she did her best to make herself

00:26:52.460 come across as the heroine. She just leaning into public sentiment made Marie Antoinette seem like

00:26:59.900 the bad guy in this whole situation. So this all seems like she might have then lived happily ever

00:27:06.240 after in London as a popular memoir writer, just sort of like this famous person, but plot twist,

00:27:13.760 she died at age 35 having fallen out of her hotel room window so this is like what basically she was

00:27:24.620 perhaps jumped out of her hotel window trying to escape from debt collectors not to intentionally

00:27:29.480 kill herself but just to escape but she apparently injured herself very badly you know broken legs

00:27:36.260 just like awful but also like did she jump was she pushed i mean nobody knows but basically that 0.78

00:27:43.740 that is what happened. So she died in 1791, August 23rd, 1791, which was basically two years before

00:27:55.020 Marie Antoinette herself was executed during the French Revolution. And so the two women were

00:28:00.700 connected in this weird way. They both died within two years of each other. And if you want to pay

00:28:06.760 regards to this heroine. Jean is buried in London, where she where she died. She's buried in St.

00:28:15.380 Mary's churchyard in Lambeth in London, England. So first, I just super want to shout out where I

00:28:23.300 first heard about this story. It's from an amazing book, literally one of the best books I think I've

00:28:28.140 ever read in my life. True story is the true crime slash historical nonfiction book How to Ruin a

00:28:34.780 queen by jonathan beckman he just gets in depth into all of this and just like like explaining

00:28:41.820 who jean is who who her co-conspirators are like what the mood was like in france just like all

00:28:47.400 the weird details of like literally this whole saga which is just like i can't it's just like

00:28:54.000 how is this even a true story like every plot twist is just like what and then that really

00:28:58.760 there's a couple movie versions of this in 2001 there's a hillary swank movie that came out called

00:29:04.680 the affair of the necklace and that's what this whole thing became known as to history the whole

00:29:09.900 ugly necklace tricking the jewelers into giving it to her marie antoinette becoming the villain

00:29:15.560 like it's just known as the affair of the necklace and that's also the title of the hillary swank

00:29:19.640 movie which is like for costumes great for like hairstyles great but it really kind of over 1.00

00:29:28.720 compensates and trying to make jean uh sympathetic where she should just really be this like badass 1.00

00:29:35.120 con artist i think but here they try and make it i don't know it's just they're trying to make you

00:29:41.940 feel bad for her to like understand why she did this where it's like i understand why she did

00:29:47.460 this like she wanted a luxurious life and she saw what people are doing in versailles she was super

00:29:51.900 smart and she did it anyway the movie is worth seeing because basically because every version

00:29:57.680 of this story is worth seeing. And also Hilary Swank does a good job. And the costumes and hair 0.91

00:30:02.920 are super amazing. And actually, now I'm just remembering, that is where I heard about the

00:30:07.720 whole thing to begin with before I even read the book. Frock Flicks is a website where costume

00:30:13.200 designers talk about different costumes in different movies, etc. And they sort of explain

00:30:18.400 what's accurate and what's not accurate. And so they did a post about this movie, The Affair of

00:30:23.680 the necklace, where they especially complimented how the wigs were so good in this movie. And I

00:30:28.400 was like, what is this affair of the necklace? Then I looked it up. Then I found the Jonathan

00:30:32.560 Beckman book. And here we all are, and our lives are so much better. There was a 1946 French film,

00:30:39.140 L'Affaire du Collier de Lorraine. So the affair of the necklace, basically in French.

00:30:45.100 1929, there was a German silent film called Cagliostro. And then the 1979 Japanese anime

00:30:51.380 Rosa Versailles involves some of this stuff as well and now it is time to get on to

00:30:58.500 just scoring this basically to see where Jean de Valois Saint-Rémy de la Motte fits on our

00:31:07.300 scandalous scale so I mean if for some reason you haven't listened to the previous episodes

00:31:14.400 of this podcast this is where I score the story just not because I'm not scoring the people I

00:31:20.620 don't want to say that any person is any more valuable than any other person but just like in

00:31:24.420 terms of a story how how do these all rank and then at the end of the season we can see kind of

00:31:31.700 like which was the most scandalicious story we went to so there's four categories the first of

00:31:38.420 wish is the eponymous scandaliciousness score so for jean we've got a lot we've got a lot to work

00:31:47.760 with here we've got the and again like the scandalousness is like in the time and place 0.99

00:31:53.500 where she lived so the fact that she was eight months pregnant with twins when she got married 0.93

00:32:00.700 and she gave birth to the babies a month after the wedding pretty scandalousness like for the time

00:32:08.220 time and place the fact that she in short order took two lovers one of whom was a infamous gigolo

00:32:17.680 slash letter forger. Scandalicious. The fact that she took up with Cardinal de Rohan,

00:32:24.360 pretended to choose friends with Marie Antoinette, and executed the entire affair of the necklace.

00:32:30.380 I mean, we're getting into scheminess next, but in terms of scandaliciousness, just the fact that

00:32:34.720 she, this is, this is going to be a high score. I think there was no murder involved in this story,

00:32:44.340 which is why i'm gonna give her a nine out of ten had there been like she had a squad she had the 1.00

00:32:52.820 like sexy the the affairs with the men she had the the baby a month after she was married like 1.00

00:33:00.960 scandalousness is there but i'm giving her a nine out of ten because she didn't actually there was

00:33:07.600 no actual murder committed here not that murders should be committed but in terms of like a story

00:33:14.280 and how scandalous is the story that's that's how I'm grading her because the last episode 0.89

00:33:19.600 Frances Howard I mean she got a 10 for scandalousness and she deserved it the next 1.00

00:33:27.400 category is scheminess and this is where I think Jean can really step up so the complexity of her

00:33:35.260 plan like she took up with Rohan figured out that he wanted to be friends with Marie Antoinette

00:33:40.320 found out about this ugly necklace realized she could use the ugly necklace and Rohan's feelings 0.98

00:33:45.540 for Marie Antoinette together so that she could get the necklace for herself bringing in Nicole 0.82

00:33:51.420 the Marie Antoinette look-alike sex worker like the levels the levels of this like

00:33:58.200 oh for scheminess I think I don't know I don't want to like score everybody really high because

00:34:05.720 and it's like where can you go from there but at the same time oh I'm gonna give her an eight for 0.99

00:34:10.980 scheminess because wow this was amazing scheminess and then the fact that she disguised herself as a

00:34:17.140 boy to escape prison and went to England like her scheminess super high but I'll say is basically 0.86

00:34:26.260 it was the one scheme and it was an amazing scheme but like to get a 10 in scheminess I

00:34:33.140 think you need to have like numerous schemes so eight in scheminess significance is the next

00:34:40.680 category and this is an interesting one to think about because at the time and I think this is what

00:34:47.040 we're finding a lot of the stories like these stories seemed huge at the time but they became

00:34:51.600 sort of more ephemeral but the affair of the necklace was I think one of the one of numerous

00:34:58.580 factors but it was one of the factors that really led to um the french revolution like it didn't

00:35:04.660 this specific thing wasn't like the straw that broke the camel's back but it was it just made

00:35:12.320 everybody hate marie antoinette a little bit more which just got everybody a bit more worked up the

00:35:19.780 fact that she was this martyr got everybody else more worked up like the significance is not like

00:35:24.540 she didn't throw the match that started the fire but she was like she was like if the fire was a

00:35:31.280 pile of hay this was like a big old clump of hay in that fire if that's a metaphor i don't know

00:35:37.080 but overall like the significance to like world history i'm gonna i'm gonna give her a three

00:35:45.460 i think like it is significant but we're gonna look at other people whose stories are

00:35:51.960 have more significance the final scoring factor is the sexism bonus and i want to i think

00:35:58.760 redefine that because the first two episodes we did were both wealthy noble women jean

00:36:07.540 kind of was noble but she was also an impoverished peasant so there's there's classism and there's

00:36:15.840 sexism and they go together especially in these stories of women like jean so for this we're

00:36:21.960 looking at how much did the fact that she was a woman and that she was a poor woman how much did

00:36:28.080 that hold her back how much did that affect her life like if she had been a man in the society

00:36:33.620 how might things have turned out differently and this is an interesting one again i thought that

00:36:40.800 this bonus would be much more apparent in figuring out these scores but sort of like with Francis 0.56

00:36:46.340 Howard like Jean was she was a woman and it was a shitty time to be a woman it was a shitty time 0.99

00:36:55.600 to be a poor woman but she kind of saw the cards she was dealt and went from there so like she got 1.00

00:37:02.860 married young pregnant which is like probably not her fondest dream but that kind of got her the 0.92

00:37:11.120 marriage so she was able to do that like basically she could have stayed in the nunnery and that

00:37:15.040 would have been an okay life but she got married instead she took the lovers she had all this 0.97

00:37:19.320 ambition and she was able to pull off this plan because she was a woman but I will say if had she

00:37:26.880 been born a man with this much ambition and cleverness and drive she may have she may have

00:37:34.180 not taken the fall quite as much as she did like I think the fact that all the men involved in her

00:37:39.780 scheme were sent in exile whereas she was like whipped and thrown in prison I mean that's that's 0.52

00:37:45.100 the sexism right there so everybody as far as I can imagine is always going to get at least a five 1.00

00:37:52.640 in the sexism area um lower class women would also get the sexism slash classism 1.00

00:37:58.560 i'm gonna give her a seven a seven in this category which adds up to 27 she gets a 27 1.00

00:38:07.660 out of 40 which is i think the highest score of anybody yet and i mean well deserved the whole 1.00

00:38:16.840 like well-behaved women seldom make history thing she's like such an example of a woman who just we

00:38:25.040 know about her well firstly because Jonathan Beckman wrote that amazing book because Frog

00:38:30.040 Flicks did the review of the Hilary Swank film and because I'm doing this podcast now but we know

00:38:36.260 about her like she wrote her own autobiography oh I forgot she wrote her own autobiography

00:38:40.760 I'm not going to reconsider her score like I'm happy with the score but just like she was a

00:38:46.060 legend like she she made sure that we all knew who she was like the actions she did she reframed

00:38:54.060 them herself writing her biography like these pamphlets that came out about her like she got 0.88

00:38:58.240 the free publicity and she just leaned into it like she's like she epitomizes well-behaved women

00:39:04.120 seldom make history because nothing about her was well-behaved except she pretended like she was 0.90

00:39:10.400 when she was it's almost like a scarlet pimpernel scenario speaking of revolutionary France where

00:39:17.740 she's just like seems like this sort of like you know lovely lady hanging out in Versailles just

00:39:24.620 being whatever while secretly in the shadows she's like this criminal mastermind and I wish 0.99

00:39:30.200 she had lived longer I wish she had done more schemes I wish there's more more to know about 0.97

00:39:37.560 Jean. But I mean, considering she only lived to be 35, she really made herself a legend. And for 0.52

00:39:47.540 that, I respect her. And I mean, a score. She's got the high score so far, 27 on our Scandaliciousness

00:39:55.140 scale. So this is Vulgar History. My name is Anne Foster, and I've got all social media things all 1.00

00:40:03.680 set up. The previous episodes that I recorded, I didn't have that stuff ready, but now I can tell

00:40:08.180 you all about it. So on Instagram, we are at vulgarhistorypod. On Twitter, we are at vulgar

00:40:15.400 history. And let me know what you think about Jeanne, about her score of 27, 27 out of 40.

00:40:24.320 Would you have scored her higher? Would you have scored her lower? Who else do you think we could

00:40:29.460 would be a good episode to talk about you can also check out on my um patreon which is patreon.com

00:40:37.120 slash and foster writer and if you become a patron one of the perks you get is you can vote on a poll

00:40:44.560 which is helping to figure out um who should i do more podcasts about or who should i write blog

00:40:50.860 posts about because there's a never-ending supply of amazing interesting women i keep finding out 1.00

00:40:57.180 about you know it's like any internet sort of black hole like you look up a thing and then you 0.93

00:41:02.020 click on that and then you find out something else and then something else and then suddenly

00:41:05.480 you're just like oh my god who is this obscure story I've never heard about and the next thing

00:41:10.220 you know I'm in the university library reading like articles like trying to find out about

00:41:16.760 somebody that not a lot of people have talked about before it's just it's exciting I love

00:41:22.020 finding an exciting story. And again, for this one, which is just like one of my favorite stories

00:41:29.900 ever, I can't recommend enough How to Ruin a Queen by Jonathan Beckman. I'll put a link to that in

00:41:34.980 the show notes. And otherwise, I guess I will talk to you all next time. Have a great, have a great

00:41:43.180 week, everybody.

00:41:52.020 So I love revisiting this episode now that we've been doing the Marie Antoinette season for the

00:41:58.260 last quite a while. First in the context of the necklace was first made by these jewelers who

00:42:03.780 thought that golf king Lou the 15th would want to buy this for his mistress, basic bitch, 0.98

00:42:08.720 Madame DuBerry. We did an episode about Madame DuBerry a bit ago where we talked about how she 1.00

00:42:14.320 was just like she was born you know poor she she raised herself up and she her her aesthetic was

00:42:22.120 just really like maximalist extreme tacky it's an aesthetic that i appreciate that i value that

00:42:29.060 lots of people have and the people who have this aesthetic tend to be new money people people who

00:42:33.660 weren't born rich tend to like to splash um to be wearing you know name brand on name brand on name

00:42:40.500 brand, like, you know, adding so many accessories all the time. That was Madame de Berry's whole 0.93

00:42:45.120 vibe. And again, I respect it and I have nothing but love for this whole aesthetic, but knowing

00:42:50.200 that that's what she was like, yeah, you know what? She, she probably was the only person in

00:42:54.820 human history who would have wanted and would have worn happily this necklace. But then Golf

00:43:00.680 King Louis XV died and the jewelers were just like, oh fuck, like who do we have? Who's, who's 0.99

00:43:05.620 another person who's like rich enough to buy this disgusting necklace we've made maybe the king 0.99

00:43:10.740 maybe he'd want to buy it for marie antoinette who had been even when she was in her most loud 0.99

00:43:15.920 maximalist style it was always like in terms of headgear in terms of interesting dresses 1.00

00:43:21.920 earrings marie antoinette loved wearing long earrings to showcase her long neck which she 0.72

00:43:27.280 was very proud of but she like she wore necklaces but she was never into this extreme of a necklace 0.99

00:43:32.600 So like, of course she didn't want it. And the context we know from the previous episode of

00:43:37.220 Vulgar History, Marie Antoinette part two, is that she was also in a more of a frugal

00:43:43.440 era of her life. So she wouldn't have wanted to spend this money on this necklace she didn't want 0.68

00:43:49.300 anyway. So the fact that this became believable to everybody that she would have wanted this

00:43:55.800 necklace, that's just some more context than how I understand more fully having researched Marie

00:44:00.320 Antoinette as well. Cardinal Rohan, I think is even more odious than when I first recorded this

00:44:06.540 episode. He's just such a gross guy. He was part of Hateration Nation. He was spreading these 0.97

00:44:11.600 rumors about Marie Antoinette that made her look bad. He had been actively working against her.

00:44:17.140 And then he was like, how dare she not want to hang out with me? Like, bitch, why would she? 1.00

00:44:21.740 Come on. So he sucks. The fact that people sided with him in this trial sucks. I appreciate the 1.00

00:44:29.760 Jean de Lamont escaped disguised as a boy on this podcast. We love, we love a disguise. We

00:44:36.620 love an escape. Something that I also learned in the Marie Antoinette research is that when she

00:44:42.080 wrote her memoir, it's not just like she wrote a memoir and got it published. Like it was similar

00:44:46.320 now to indie publishing. Like someone had to pay for this book to be manufactured. She didn't have

00:44:52.380 money to do that. And so she was sponsored by, guess who, Hateration Nation, some political 1.00

00:44:58.780 enemies who hated Marie Antoinette and knew that Jean Delamotte's memoir coming out would help

00:45:03.340 further vilify Marie Antoinette. Part of what she alleged in these memoirs was that she and

00:45:08.740 Marie Antoinette had been lesbians together. And that was a big thing that was being used 0.94

00:45:13.320 against Marie Antoinette as a way to portray her as monstrous because in that era, lesbianism was 1.00

00:45:21.000 sort of like equated with just nymphomania and people just having out of control sexuality

00:45:25.660 because any sex that wasn't procreative

00:45:28.080 was just sort of seen as like

00:45:30.300 the most licentious thing you could do.

00:45:32.920 Anyway, so there's like pamphlets over printed

00:45:34.600 of like Marie Antoinette and Jean de Lamotte

00:45:37.200 like fingering each other or whatever,

00:45:39.680 like scissoring.

00:45:40.840 Anyway, I wanted to drop this episode in

00:45:43.140 to revisit it because it provides context

00:45:45.000 to the previous episode, Marie Antoinette part two.

00:45:47.860 Next week, I can get into Marie Antoinette part three

00:45:49.940 post affair of the diamond necklace era

00:45:53.840 and and what she got up to and I'm making a face you can't see because this isn't a video episode

00:46:00.360 but like it's nothing good things just kind of don't go well for our girl next week but she does

00:46:06.740 find time to have some some joy in her life largely from being a mother of children there's

00:46:13.520 two things I want to shout out as well in this episode firstly is that the necklace is such an

00:46:19.320 iconic piece of jewelry it's ugly as a necklace yes but it's so ugly that it's kind of great

00:46:26.020 and it also looks nice in a t-shirt design rather than as a necklace in my personal opinion

00:46:32.720 and you can get a t-shirt with the necklace on it it's a design in my merch store that's called

00:46:39.340 the affair of the necklace the necklace the t-shirt with a lot of colons in it anyway it's

00:46:44.100 designed by an artist called Hirol Chabert and it's beautiful and thank you so much to Hirol

00:46:48.660 Chibera for designing this so perfectly. So it's like a t-shirt with a black background and then

00:46:53.160 in white, it looks like you're wearing the necklace, but it's a t-shirt. Anyway, you can

00:46:57.280 get a copy or get a t-shirt like this from the Vulgar History store, which you can reach by going

00:47:03.300 to vulgarhistory.com slash store. If you're in the US, that takes you to a good, a shop with like,

00:47:08.660 okay, shipping rates and stuff. If you're anywhere else other than the US, I recommend going to our

00:47:13.920 other store, which is on Redbubble. So go to vulgarhistory.redbubble.com. That t-shirt is

00:47:19.500 there as well as our other beautiful merch. And if you want to buy some actually tasteful,

00:47:23.640 actually nice jewelry that doesn't cost $5 million, I would encourage you to visit our

00:47:28.500 brand partner, Common Era Jewelry, which is, again, I have to emphasize, it's like demure,

00:47:35.540 minimalist jewelry, if that's more your aesthetic. She does have some pieces with diamonds,

00:47:40.260 including there are uncommon ear jewelry they have new engagement ring an engagement ring

00:47:45.540 collection which features lab-grown diamonds and the rings are inspired by classical history

00:47:50.440 including like ancient british history ancient roman history they're all really beautiful pieces

00:47:56.480 and if you use code vulgar at the checkout you will get 15 off your order a common ear jewelry

00:48:02.860 and yeah we'll be back next week with another episode of vulgar history marie antoinette part

00:48:09.200 Three, I don't want you to dread listening to it because the story is like fucked up and interesting, but I think Marie Antoinette's carefree party girl ways are no longer as possible as they were. So she has to power through, um, and to find a way to, to find some joy for herself in this new post diamond necklace scandal era.

00:48:31.580 anyway i'll be in touch with you be in touch with you you can listen to me again on the podcast um 1.00

00:48:38.180 next week when we have marie entranet part three and until then keep your pants on and your tits 0.92

00:48:44.280 out vulgar history is researched scripted and hosted by ann foster that's me editor is christina 0.93

00:48:51.840 lumagi theme music is by the severin duo transcripts of this podcast are available

00:48:56.660 at vulgarhistory.com by Aveline Malek.

00:48:59.480 You can get early ad-free episodes of Vulgar History

00:49:02.100 by becoming a paid member of our Patreon

00:49:04.100 for as low as $1 a month

00:49:05.720 at patreon.com slash annfosterwriter.

00:49:09.140 Vulgar History merchandise is available

00:49:10.820 at vulgarhistory.com slash store for Americans

00:49:13.620 and for everyone else at vulgarhistory.redbubble.com.

00:49:17.760 Follow us on social media at vulgarhistorypod

00:49:20.380 and get in touch with me via email

00:49:22.180 at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com.

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Vulgar History - September 19, 2025

Marie Antoinette and the Affair of the Necklace (rerelease)

Episode Stats

Transcript