Vulgar History - Women Behaving Badly, part 3： She Stole Marie Antoinette's Necklace

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Vulgar History. My name is Anne Foster and this is a feminist women's 1.00

00:00:14.520 history comedy podcast. For this, the inaugural season of this podcast where I'm kind of figuring

00:00:21.740 out what I'm doing and you're kind of figuring out what I'm doing and we're all just sort of

00:00:25.980 having a nice time figuring this all out because I'm just a woman in Saskatoon sitting in my

00:00:33.540 apartment with a microphone. Anyway, that's all the more time for me to tell stories to you.

00:00:39.000 And so thus far in this season, we've been looking at women who quote unquote misbehaved

00:00:45.880 because inspired by the famous quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, well-behaved women seldom make

00:00:51.520 history. We're looking at women who made history because they did not, quote unquote, behave well 0.95

00:00:58.760 in various different ways. And we've looked at women whose personality just sort of like bucked 1.00

00:01:03.280 against the societal expectations and what people thought a princess should be like. We've looked at

00:01:09.100 women who just live tits out and did a body swap to avoid anyone finding out that she was not a 1.00

00:01:15.160 virgin and then killed a man and then admitted to it. And both of those women were from noble 0.99

00:01:21.500 families. And today we're looking at another woman who was sort of from a noble family,

00:01:27.020 but basically was a regular everyday lady. And that's what I really wanted to get to a story

00:01:33.640 like this early on in the show, just to establish we're not talking about just royals. We're not

00:01:39.000 talking about just rich people. It just so happens that if you're looking at what women in history

00:01:44.940 have been written about. They tend to be rich people and royals because other women just no 1.00

00:01:52.300 one thought were interesting enough to write anything about, which is tragic. And that's 1.00

00:01:56.560 why one day when I get a time machine, I want to go back and just hang out and see what life

00:02:01.400 was like for the everyday, everyday people. Anyway, today we are looking at a woman whose

00:02:07.980 full name is Jeanne de Valois Saint-Rémy. Then she got married and she became Jeanne

00:02:14.480 Comtesse de la Motte. We're just going to call her Jeanne with my Canadian French accent.

00:02:22.580 Basically, she was descended from the bastard son of a French royal. So she had like that 0.90

00:02:31.720 slight royal lineage, but the French royals had a lot of illegitimate children, so it didn't really

00:02:38.980 do much for her. So basically, she was descended from the Valois family, who were the rulers of

00:02:46.160 France for a while. And we're going to look at some other members of the Valois family, perhaps

00:02:50.020 in another episode. But basically, her great-grandfather was the illegitimate son

00:02:56.440 of the French king, Henry II. Because of these sort of royal roots, they had

00:03:02.980 sort of an allowance that the royal family gave to everybody who was sort of like a descendant

00:03:08.840 of a descendant of a descendant of a French bastard, which is like great, but also not so

00:03:14.580 great because it was not super a lot of money. So Jeanne and her sister were both sent off to 0.50

00:03:21.520 convent school and the plan for them was to become a nun but as we shall see that did not suit jeanne's

00:03:29.060 personality whatsoever although she might have she might have found her way to do lots of cool 1.00

00:03:35.540 stuff as a nun as well but basically she liked stuff she liked jewels and she liked wealth and

00:03:42.940 she liked gorgeous outfits and because this was what year was she born she was born in 1756 so

00:03:50.800 this is like edging up on like french revolution era slash marie antoinette slash like she likes

00:03:57.260 the big wigs the hats like she just she was somebody who was living in a material world

00:04:03.840 and she was a material girl but she did not have very much money but what she had was

00:04:08.740 ambition so after she basically left nunnery school decided that wasn't for her she went

00:04:15.400 to stay with a family friend, and then became pregnant with twins, which is just like,

00:04:20.920 oh, if you're pregnant with twins, and it's like the end of the 18th century,

00:04:25.000 you just hope you don't die in childbirth. Basically, she did not. And like a couple

00:04:29.620 months before she gave birth, or no, a month before she gave birth, she got married to a man

00:04:34.100 who was the nephew of the family she was staying with. So she was married before she had the baby,

00:04:39.520 She had baby twins, but they both died very, very young because infant mortality was pretty

00:04:46.860 considerable then. And that did not stop her. So basically, her husband was a man named Nicolas

00:04:52.840 de Lamotte, who he called himself the Count or the Comte de Lamotte, which was basically,

00:05:00.300 I think, sort of a made up title that he just sort of called himself because he wanted to 0.97

00:05:05.180 sound impressive, but actually he was just pretty boring and useless. And John, I'm guessing, again, 0.87

00:05:12.060 she might have married him because of the whole pregnant with twins situation. The world society 0.99

00:05:17.020 she was living in, she had to marry the father of the twins or someone. Anyway, so she was not

00:05:22.420 super into him because he was useless and she was just getting started living this amazing life that

00:05:28.180 you're going to learn about. So she not only liked glamour and jewels and dresses and giant wigs,

00:05:35.180 But she also sort of felt that they were owed to her because her family was descended from this illegitimate royal family member and before that from an actual royal family member.

00:05:46.300 So she just kind of saw, you know, Marie Antoinette hanging out and felt like that should be me.

00:05:51.300 I should I should be able to live this fancy, amazing life like she is leaving.

00:05:56.520 So basically, she decided she wanted to get some more money.

00:06:00.240 she wanted to get an increase in the allowance that she got as a descendant of a descendant

00:06:04.880 of a descendant and she's like okay I mean she who can she ask to give her this money that would

00:06:11.000 actually give her this money when the French royal family was like paying this money to all these

00:06:15.260 people and didn't have a lot to spare at the moment and so she thought what she's going to

00:06:20.860 do is talk directly to Marie Antoinette like girl to girl just be like hey we're both like glamorous 0.76

00:06:27.340 amazing women you get me Marie Antoinette like can you please see about getting me

00:06:33.600 more allowance money and so the thing is at the time and I don't know all the details about

00:06:40.020 how this whole situation goes but it seems like anyone who's like dressed nicely enough

00:06:44.340 could just like go to Versailles which was where the French royal family lived just go in there

00:06:50.080 and hang out which is like a pretty nice rule so she figured she would just dress up nicely

00:06:55.420 go to Versailles, you know, accidentally on purpose run to Marie Antoinette and be like, 0.57

00:06:59.860 hey, can I get some more allowance money from you? But Marie Antoinette had heard about Jean,

00:07:06.820 knew that she was sort of this like notorious sort of con artist type person and knew to 0.99

00:07:13.080 basically avoid her. Meanwhile, in another part of Versailles, there was a man named Cardinal de

00:07:19.240 Rohan, who was basically on the outs with Marie Antoinette because he was obsessed with her and 0.84

00:07:26.980 gross. He tried to stop her from marrying her husband, Louis XVI. And basically, she had kicked

00:07:34.820 him out of court because he was gross and obsessed with her. And he would do anything to win her

00:07:40.040 affection back, basically. So that's Cardinal de Rohan. Remember that name? Basically, Jean was

00:07:47.320 like, okay, I can't get in to see Marie Antoinette, but I need to just figure out what's going

00:07:51.340 on around court, learn where the goss is and find a way that I can, I can get close to Marie Antoinette

00:07:56.860 and get this money or find another way to get money. In the meantime, Jean took a lover who

00:08:03.240 is a famous gigolo named Reto de Villette. And she also became the lover of Cardinal de Rohan.

00:08:11.160 so she's married took two lovers do it yes just live your life and so spending time with Rohan

00:08:19.280 she like quickly learned like he's obsessed with Marie Antoinette and just like really wants

00:08:23.780 to be friends with her again so Jean was like hmm what a crazy coincidence I happen to be

00:08:31.700 totally great friends with Marie Antoinette you know distant relative etc um and if you want I

00:08:37.300 can like put in a good word for you if you Cardinal Rohan pay me Jean just like lots of

00:08:44.440 money and jewels and Rohan basically did I mean he gave her money and jewels and she pretended

00:08:50.080 that she was putting a good word with Marie Antoinette but she wasn't actually doing that

00:08:54.500 and this is just kind of like a way for her to get money and jewels because she was all about

00:08:57.820 that luxury lifestyle and then the necklace so I'm going to post a picture of the necklace

00:09:05.780 on the Instagram, which is vulgarhistorypod at Instagram, just so you can understand

00:09:11.720 what I'm talking about. It is the ugliest necklace in the history of, okay,

00:09:20.860 like, I'm just, I'll describe it to you, but like, just go to the Instagram to see this picture.

00:09:27.580 So meanwhile, in another part of France, two jewelry makers had made the most expensive

00:09:34.360 necklace in the history of jewelry, and was also, I would say, the ugliest necklace in the history

00:09:42.480 of jewelry. These two men had made it because they had hoped that the previous king's mistress,

00:09:49.880 so not Marie Antoinette's husband, Marie Antoinette's father-in-law's mistress, who is a

00:09:55.540 woman named Madame du Berry, who we will talk about on another podcast, almost definitely.

00:10:00.260 basically these jewelers had made this disgusting necklace hoping that madame du Barry would want

00:10:06.740 to buy it then she died and they were left with this like extremely expensive necklace that's okay

00:10:13.440 it's sort of like if you made an apron out of diamonds but like really tacky with tassels at

00:10:24.960 the bottom connected to a multi-layer choker also made of diamonds and sort of held together

00:10:35.140 with ribbons it's sort of like a pinny like when you're playing sports in elementary school and

00:10:42.440 you have to like wear a pinny it's like a pinny made of diamonds with jeweled bows on it and

00:10:50.560 four tassels, like four giant tassels. It's just like so ugly, but there's so many diamonds on it.

00:10:59.180 It was like super expensive. And the thing is, so these jewelers have made this disgusting necklace 0.77

00:11:03.800 and they're like, okay, so Madame de Bourie is dead, but let's try and get Marie Antoinette to

00:11:08.200 buy it. But obviously Marie Antoinette would not buy it because it was disgusting looking and also 0.98

00:11:14.220 insanely expensive and she even she did not want to spend that much money so they were just like

00:11:21.120 oh my god we have this disgusting necklace it costs so much money but no one's buying it so

00:11:26.680 that means that we're actually sort of going bankrupt over just having it oh and also the

00:11:30.720 necklace itself is so heavy like it was uncomfortable to wear so it's like disgusting

00:11:35.780 and impractical and heavy and uncomfortable to wear so basically it was this nightmare they

00:11:43.340 should never have made it and jean was like this is the opportunity i've been waiting my whole life

00:11:48.520 for so she assembled her squad and i have to say having having done just a couple episodes so far 0.76

00:11:55.800 when when one of the women we talk about assembles a squad i'm just like oh shit's getting real like

00:12:01.280 i love a squad i love a team leader so jean put together a team of people for this like

00:12:07.400 for her plan so the squad was herself her husband nicholas who's just kind of like there

00:12:13.220 ballast. Her gigolo lover, de Villette, was also involved. And the mark was going to be

00:12:20.500 Cardinal de Rohan. So the thing is that her lover, de Villette, was skilled at forgery,

00:12:27.080 which is like, you know, he's a gigolo slash forger. Like, that's good. Diversify your skill

00:12:32.580 set. So he made fake letters that were allegedly between Marie Antoinette to Jean to make it look

00:12:42.400 like the two of them are like super good friends, the two women. So she showed the letters to Rohan

00:12:47.860 and the letters were all saying, the letters were basically Devlet having written as though he was

00:12:54.020 Marie Antoinette saying like, I Marie Antoinette, I want this disgusting necklace. I want this

00:12:58.500 diamond apron that hurts the neck. But this necklace is too expensive and my husband,

00:13:04.480 the king won't give me permission to buy it. If only someone like Cardinal de Rohan would like

00:13:11.060 lend me the money so I could buy the necklace so this is the letter like de Villette wrote a letter

00:13:17.060 from Marie Antoinette to Jean saying like if only someone would loan me Marie Antoinette the money

00:13:23.500 to buy this disgusting necklace which is like quite a quite a letter basically saying just

00:13:29.540 exactly what Jean needed it to say for the whole plan to work and so Rohan Cardinal de Rohan was

00:13:35.100 like oh my god this is amazing like Marie Antoinette wants money to buy this disgusting

00:13:39.520 necklace. Like if I loan her the money, then maybe she'll let us be friends again, even though I,

00:13:44.140 Rohan, am totally creepy. And Jaune was like, great. This is totally, you know what? I'm so

00:13:50.260 happy to bring the two of you together in friendship. And I, Jaune, will be, I'll be the

00:13:55.420 middleman. I'll be the intermediary. So I, Jaune, will pick up the necklace from the jeweler's shop

00:14:03.700 and then I'll pick up Rohan's money. And then I'll exchange them basically, but don't worry

00:14:10.660 about it. The plan was like, weirdly convoluted. And even to Rohan, who is like, not who is willing

00:14:18.840 to believe almost anything if it meant that he could be friends with Marie Antoinette was like,

00:14:22.620 this seems a little sketchy. So I'd just like to confirm with Marie Antoinette that she this is

00:14:28.760 all actually what she wants to have happen. And Jean was like, okay, you know, I'm not going to

00:14:35.360 let this, she's got a plan and she's going to stick to her plan. And so what she did is she

00:14:39.460 went out and she found a woman who looked a lot like Marie Antoinette. This woman, her name was

00:14:45.940 Nicole Leguay-Doliva, who was a sex worker. And basically, Nicole was told to just like go to 1.00

00:14:55.540 versailles dress up fancy anyone could get in apparently and just like sit under in this garden

00:15:01.640 in versailles and then when rohan comes by just kind of like be non-committal and like pretend

00:15:07.600 like you like him so nicole went to the garden dressed like marie antoinette and just kind of

00:15:13.220 was like yeah okay smiled a nod to what rohan said um she agreed to forgive rohan she might

00:15:20.000 not have even known she was impersonating the queen she just knew to dress up fancy and go to

00:15:24.040 Versailles, which is what she did. I can't see how she wouldn't know she was impersonating the

00:15:30.100 queen. Like, Rohan probably must have called her your majesty, etc. But anyway, so Nicole was just

00:15:35.740 like, she got paid and she did her job and great job, Nicole. So Nicole did what she needed to do

00:15:42.200 and Rohan was back on board. So Jeanne was sent out to do her like, obviously, obvious plan. So

00:15:50.400 she went to pick up the necklace from the jewelers and the jewelers were told that Rohan was behind

00:15:55.400 the purchase and Jaune was sort of his like messenger person but they were told that they

00:16:00.960 couldn't give the necklace directly to the queen because you know the queen allegedly didn't want

00:16:05.680 her husband to know about it so they were told give the necklace to Jaune and she'll give it to

00:16:11.260 the queen and then the money Rohan will pay you later basically so Jaune didn't pay the jewelers

00:16:18.440 They just gave her this, like, I don't even know, 50-pound diamond penny with tassels on the bottom.

00:16:27.780 Four tassels.

00:16:28.760 It's like, you might think, like, you know what?

00:16:31.160 Are you just, like, exaggerating?

00:16:32.340 It's like, no, it's, like, actively ugly looking.

00:16:36.160 Like, like, it's just so ugly.

00:16:38.840 And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

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00:20:22.820 Anyway, she got the jewels and then she brought the necklace to her husband, Nicholas.

00:20:28.020 and then just like in that part in Oceans 8 where Mindy Kaelin was um she took the necklace apart

00:20:34.560 hiding off in the room um Nicholas disassembled the necklace and into just like all separate

00:20:40.420 diamonds side note in Oceans 8 there is a part where they're in the like the room with all the

00:20:48.080 necklaces and the jewelry and stuff and one of the necklaces there is in fact a replica of this

00:20:53.320 necklace I was like oh my god it's the necklace from this so once you've seen the picture of

00:20:58.000 maybe you'll know what I mean. Or maybe you saw that movie and you know this whole story and

00:21:01.100 you're like, I noticed that too. And that was amazing. Anyway, so Nicholas took apart the

00:21:06.460 necklace and he started just sort of like low key selling the diamonds, like a few at a time at like

00:21:10.660 different shops. So nobody thought like, why does this man have literally 50 pounds of diamonds?

00:21:15.800 The jewelers, meanwhile, were like, why isn't anyone paying us for the necklace? And then

00:21:21.360 they realized like oh shit um we just clearly got conned and then they had rohan cardinal de rohan 0.98

00:21:28.220 arrested for defrauding them because they thought he was one behind everything they thought he had 0.95

00:21:32.540 sent jean there they thought he was going to pay for it rohan of course didn't know that anything

00:21:38.020 untoward was happening and so he uh just and he also has no chill so he just like squealed on

00:21:44.360 everybody so he said basically jean um i think was behind this also devalette the gigolo um

00:21:53.760 nicole the sex worker and also he just i'm i'm not i can't remember exactly why this happened

00:21:59.860 but he also was like and count kegliostro which is just like that he just brought him in as well

00:22:06.180 so that's just happening so all these people were brought in on this con but the thing is this is

00:22:14.520 This is France.

00:22:15.440 It's like just, just before the French Revolution happened.

00:22:18.860 So like the people of France just like really hated the king and queen at the moment.

00:22:26.040 They would believe any terrible thing anybody said about them.

00:22:29.540 So even though Marie Antoinette had nothing, nothing, nothing to do with any of this,

00:22:33.700 the letters were forged.

00:22:34.780 She didn't want the necklace.

00:22:36.140 She'd never been friends with Jean.

00:22:38.080 She still hated Rohan.

00:22:39.480 But everybody was just kind of like, Marie Antoinette, we know all about her.

00:22:43.120 this is i bet she wanted the necklace i bet she got rohan to buy it for her so like they were

00:22:47.940 they were ready to believe the worst about her and so the only way that marie internet her husband

00:22:53.100 figured they could prove their innocence was to have like a giant a giant public trial for jeanne

00:22:59.920 and her co-conspirators but plot twist the very act of having a public trial basically backfired 0.98

00:23:07.640 because jean went up on the stand and she put on an amazing show she just acted like a martyr and 0.76

00:23:13.720 she's just like oh my god i can't believe i'm in this position like i never did anything bad a day

00:23:20.640 in my life and everybody like she just want everybody's sympathy and everybody already

00:23:25.400 was predisposed to hate marie antoinette and the king so it didn't take a lot for jean to win their

00:23:31.720 sympathy but still like she she put on a show she did a good job there and the although there wasn't 0.91

00:23:37.540 like newspaper, tabloid press, but there was like pamphlets. And so all these pamphlets got

00:23:43.220 published about how like she was the true victim and people like cheered her when she went in and

00:23:48.440 out of court. And so eventually Cardinal Rohan, Nicole, and Count Cagliostro were all acquitted.

00:23:56.540 Although the two men were sent into exile. De Valette, the gigolo slash forger was also exiled

00:24:03.280 from the country. And Jeanne was, despite having all this public sympathy, she was found guilty

00:24:09.580 of basically being a con artist, and she was sentenced to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned.

00:24:15.580 But even though like the whole squad were literally found guilty, Marie Antoinette was still 0.98

00:24:21.520 super unpopular, and everybody still kind of blamed her for the whole thing. But so you might

00:24:26.960 think, you know, that's it. Jeanne is going to be whipped, branded, sent to prison, and that's 0.99

00:24:31.160 lost you ever heard of her but that's not what happened what happened is she disguised herself

00:24:37.380 as a boy and escaped from prison it's like went all the way to london like she crossed the waters

00:24:45.680 to get from france all the way over to england she went to london and then she published her

00:24:52.000 autobiography which was called memoirs of the comtesse de valois de lamotte which was her sort

00:24:58.740 of fake title she got from her husband combined with her own actual sort of royal illegitimate

00:25:04.480 name. Anyway, she published her, she disguised herself as a boy, went to England and published

00:25:09.420 her memoirs, which is how we know a lot of what we know about her. And so like any good memoirist,

00:25:15.600 she did her best to make herself come across as the heroine. She just leaning into public sentiment

00:25:21.940 made Marie Antoinette seem like the bad guy in this whole situation. So this all seems like she

00:25:28.440 might have then lived happily ever after in london as a popular memoir writer um just sort of like

00:25:35.260 this famous person but plot twist she died at age 35 having fallen out of her hotel room window

00:25:44.220 so this is like what basically she was perhaps jumped out of her hotel window trying to escape

00:25:52.120 from debt collectors not to intentionally kill herself but just to escape but she

00:25:56.100 apparently injured herself very badly you know broken legs just like awful but also like did

00:26:03.820 she jump was she pushed i mean nobody knows but basically that that is what happened so she died

00:26:10.440 in 1791 august 23rd 1791 which was basically two years before marie antoinette herself was

00:26:20.640 executed during the French Revolution. And so the two women were connected in this weird way.

00:26:27.300 They both died within two years of each other. And if you want to pay regards to this heroine,

00:26:34.320 Jeanne is buried in London, where she died. She's buried in St. Mary's Churchyard in

00:26:41.460 Lambeth in London, England. So first, I just super want to shout out where I first heard

00:26:48.160 about this story is from an amazing book literally one of the best books i think i've ever read in my

00:26:53.260 life true story is the true crime slash historical non-fiction book how to ruin a queen by jonathan

00:27:00.540 beckman he just gets in depth into all of this and just like like explaining who jean is who who

00:27:08.380 her co-conspirators are like what the mood was like in france just like all the weird details

00:27:12.880 of like literally this whole saga which is just like i can't it's just like how is this even a

00:27:19.280 true story like every plot twist is just like what and then that really there's a couple movie

00:27:25.440 versions of this in 2001 there's a hillary swank movie that came out called the affair of the

00:27:29.780 necklace and that's what this whole thing became known as to history the whole ugly necklace

00:27:35.160 tricking the jewelers into giving it to her marie antoinette becoming the villain like it's just 0.68

00:27:40.480 known as the affair of the necklace and that's also the title of the hillary swank movie which

00:27:44.620 is like for costumes great for like hairstyles great but it really kind of overcompensates and 1.00

00:27:53.780 trying to make jean uh sympathetic where she should just really be this like badass 1.00

00:27:59.480 con artist i think but here they try and make it i don't know it's just they're trying to make you

00:28:06.300 feel bad for her to like understand why she did this where it's like I understand why she did

00:28:11.840 this like she wanted a luxurious life and she saw what people are doing in Versailles she was super

00:28:16.280 smart and she did it anyway the movie is worth seeing because basically because every version

00:28:22.060 of this story is worth seeing and also Hilary Swank does a good job and the costumes and hair

00:28:27.300 are super amazing and actually now I'm just remembering that is where I heard about the

00:28:32.100 whole thing to begin with, before I even read the book, Frock Flicks is a website where costume

00:28:37.580 designers talk about different costumes in different movies, et cetera. And they sort of

00:28:42.460 explain what's accurate and what's not accurate. And so they did a post about this movie,

00:28:47.660 The Affair of the Necklace, where they especially complimented how the wigs were so good in this

00:28:52.220 movie. And I was like, what is this Affair of the Necklace? Then I looked it up. Then I found

00:28:56.540 the Jonathan Beckman book. And here we all are, and our lives are so much better. There was a

00:29:01.260 1946 French film, L'Affaire du Collier de la Reine, so the affair of the necklace basically

00:29:07.800 in French. 1929, there was a German silent film called Cagliostro, and then the 1979 Japanese

00:29:15.340 anime Rosa Versailles involved some of this stuff as well. And now it is time to get on to

00:29:22.920 to scoring this, basically, to see where Jean de Valois Saint-Rémy de Lamotte fits on our

00:29:31.680 Scandalicious scale. So, I mean, if for some reason you haven't listened to the previous

00:29:38.360 episodes of this podcast, this is where I score the story. Just not because I'm not scoring the

00:29:44.080 people. I don't want to say that any person is any more valuable than any other person,

00:29:48.040 but just like in terms of a story how how do these all rank and then at the end of the season

00:29:55.340 we can see kind of like which was the most scandalous story we went to so there's four

00:30:00.860 categories the first of wish is the eponymous scandalousness score so for jean we've got a lot

00:30:10.960 we've got a lot to work with here we've got the and again like the scandalousness is like

00:30:16.600 in the time and place where she lived so the fact that she was eight months pregnant with twins 1.00

00:30:23.240 when she got married and she gave birth to the babies a month after the wedding

00:30:28.540 pretty scandalousness like for the time time and place the fact that she in short order took two

00:30:37.780 lovers, one of whom was an infamous gigolo slash letter forger. Scandalicious. The fact that she

00:30:46.940 took up with Cardinal de Rohan, pretended she was friends with Marie Antoinette, and executed the

00:30:51.880 entire affair of the necklace. I mean, we're getting into scheminess next, but in terms of

00:30:57.660 scandalousness, just the fact that she, this is, this is going to be a high score. I think

00:31:04.420 there was no murder involved in this story which is why I'm going to give her a nine 1.00

00:31:11.440 out of ten had there been like she had a squad she had the like sexy the the affairs with the 1.00

00:31:21.040 men she had the the baby a month after she was married like scandalousness is there but 1.00

00:31:27.980 I'm giving her a nine out of ten because she didn't actually there was no actual murder

00:31:32.900 committed here not that murders should be committed but in terms of like a story and how

00:31:39.560 scandalous is the story that's that's how i'm grading her because the last episode francis 0.99

00:31:44.440 howard i mean she got a 10 for scandalousness and she deserved it the next category is scheminess 1.00

00:31:52.920 and this is where i think jean can really step up so the complexity of her plan like she took up

00:32:01.360 with Rohan figured out that he wanted to be friends with Marie Antoinette found out about

00:32:05.880 this ugly necklace realized she could use the ugly necklace and Rohan's feelings for Marie Antoinette

00:32:10.640 together so that she could get the necklace for herself bringing in Nicole the Marie Antoinette 0.75

00:32:17.000 look-alike sex worker like the levels the levels of this like oh for scheminess I think I don't

00:32:27.600 know I don't want to like score everybody really high because then it's like where can you go

00:32:31.280 from there but at the same time oh i'm gonna give her an eight for scheminess because while this was 0.97

00:32:37.660 amazing scheminess and then the fact that she disguised herself as a boy to escape prison

00:32:42.820 and went to england like her scheminess super high but i'll say is basically it was the one scheme

00:32:52.460 and it was an amazing scheme but like to get a 10 in scheminess i think you need to have like

00:32:58.440 numerous schemes. So eight in scheminess. Significance is the next category. And this

00:33:05.900 is an interesting one to think about because at the time, and I think this is what we're finding

00:33:11.720 a lot of the stories, like these stories seemed huge at the time, but they became sort of more

00:33:16.480 ephemeral. But the affair of the necklace was, I think, one of numerous factors, but it was one

00:33:24.000 of the factors that really led to um the french revolution like it didn't this specific thing

00:33:30.660 wasn't like the straw that broke the camel's back but it was it just made everybody hate

00:33:39.160 marie antoinette a little bit more which just got everybody a bit more worked up the fact that she

00:33:44.560 was this martyr got everybody else more worked up like the significance is not like she didn't

00:33:50.080 throw the match that started the fire but she was like she was like if the fire was a pile of hay

00:33:56.340 this was like a big old clump of hay in that fire if that's a metaphor i don't know but overall like

00:34:03.160 the significance to like world history i'm gonna i'm gonna give her a three i think like it is

00:34:11.480 significant but we're gonna look at other people whose stories are have more significance the final

00:34:19.480 scoring factor is the sexism bonus. And I want to, I think, redefine that because the first two

00:34:26.320 episodes we did were both wealthy, noble women. Jaune kind of was noble, but she was also an 0.81

00:34:35.060 impoverished peasant. So there's classism and there's sexism and they go together, especially

00:34:42.200 in these stories of women like Jaune. So for this, we're looking at how much did the fact that she

00:34:48.900 was a woman and that she was a poor woman. How much did that hold her back? How much did that

00:34:55.000 affect her life? Like if she had been a man in the society, how might things have turned out

00:35:00.300 differently? And this is an interesting one. Again, I thought that this bonus would be much

00:35:06.260 more apparent in figuring out these scores, but sort of like with Frances Howard, like 0.98

00:35:12.200 jean was she was a woman and it was a shitty time to be a woman it was a shitty time to be 0.97

00:35:20.340 poor women but she kind of saw the cards she was dealt and went from there so like she got married 1.00

00:35:27.700 young pregnant which is like probably not her fondest dream but that kind of got her the 1.00

00:35:35.500 marriage so she was able to do that like basically she could have stayed in the nunnery and that

00:35:39.420 would have been an okay life but she got married instead she took the lovers she had all this 0.96

00:35:43.700 ambition and she's able to pull off this plan because she was a woman but I will say if had

00:35:51.080 she been born a man with this much ambition and cleverness and drive she may have she may have

00:35:58.560 not taken the fall quite as much as she did like I think the fact that all the men involved in her

00:36:04.160 scheme were sent in exile whereas she was like whipped and thrown in prison I mean that's that's 0.97

00:36:09.400 the sexism right there. So everybody, as far as I can imagine, is always going to get at least a five 1.00

00:36:17.020 in the sexism area. Lower class women would also get the sexism slash classism. 1.00

00:36:23.560 I'm going to give her a seven, a seven in this category, which adds up to 27. She gets a 27 1.00

00:36:32.040 out of 40 which is i think the highest score of anybody yet and i mean well deserved the whole

00:36:41.220 like well-behaved women seldom make history thing she is like such an example of a woman who just

00:36:49.200 we know about her well firstly because jonathan beckman wrote that amazing book because frog

00:36:54.420 flicks did the review of the hillary swank film and because i'm doing this podcast now but we

00:37:00.480 know about her like she wrote her own autobiography oh I forgot she wrote her own autobiography

00:37:05.160 I'm not going to reconsider her score like I'm happy with the score but just like she was a

00:37:10.440 legend like she she made sure that we all knew who she was like the actions she did she reframed

00:37:18.420 them herself writing her biography like these pamphlets that came out about her like she got 0.88

00:37:22.620 the free publicity and she just leaned into it like she's like she epitomizes well-behaved women

00:37:28.500 seldom make history because nothing about her was well-behaved except she pretended like she was 0.90

00:37:34.780 when she was it's almost like a scarlet pimpernel scenario speaking of revolutionary France where

00:37:42.120 she's just like seems like this sort of like you know lovely lady hanging out in Versailles just

00:37:49.000 being whatever while secretly in the shadows she's like this criminal mastermind and I wish 1.00

00:37:54.580 she had lived longer. I wish she had done more schemes. I wish there's more, more to know about 1.00

00:38:01.940 Jean. But I mean, considering she only lived to be 35, she really made herself a legend. And for

00:38:11.920 that, I respect her. And I mean, a score. She's got the high score so far, 27 on our Scandaliciousness

00:38:19.520 scale. So this is Vulgar History. My name is Anne Foster, and I've got all social media things all 1.00

00:38:28.060 set up. The previous episodes that I recorded, I didn't have that stuff ready, but now I can tell

00:38:32.560 you all about it. So on Instagram, we are at vulgarhistorypod. On Twitter, we are at vulgar

00:38:39.780 history. And let me know what you think about Jeanne, about her score of 27, 27 out of 40.

00:38:48.680 Would you have scored her higher?

00:38:50.120 Would you have scored her lower?

00:38:51.940 Who else do you think we could, would be a good episode to talk about?

00:38:56.240 You can also check out on my Patreon, which is patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer.

00:39:03.940 And if you become a patron, one of the perks you get is you can vote on a poll, which is

00:39:09.560 helping to figure out who should I do more podcasts about or who should I write blog

00:39:15.240 posts about because there's a never-ending supply of amazing and interesting women I keep finding 1.00

00:39:21.320 out about you know it's like any internet sort of black hole like you look up a thing and then you 0.87

00:39:26.400 click on that and then you find out something else and then something else and then suddenly

00:39:29.860 you're just like oh my god who is this obscure story I've never heard about and the next thing

00:39:34.600 you know I'm in the university library reading like articles like trying to find out about

00:39:41.140 somebody that not a lot of people have talked about before it's just it's exciting I love

00:39:46.400 finding an exciting story and again for this one which is just like one of my favorite stories ever

00:39:54.540 um I can't recommend enough how to ruin a queen by Jonathan Beckman I'll put a link to that

00:39:59.120 in the show notes and otherwise I guess I will talk to you all next time have a great

00:40:06.480 Have a great week, everybody.

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Vulgar History - November 20, 2019

Women Behaving Badly, part 3： She Stole Marie Antoinette's Necklace

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