Free How to Ruin a Queen: Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace Affair by Jonathan Beckman Page A

The rickety state of the exchequer compelled officials to arrange the mirrors so the state finances, flabby with accrued debt and tax receipts mortgaged in advance, appeared more attractive to lenders. The American War of Independence, in which France had supported the rebels, had drastically unbalanced the country’s spending; nearly a third of all borrowing during this period had been spent on the navy. Necker deployed a combination of money raised through annuities, the pruning of venal offices, administrative reform and increased oversight of departmental spending to keep the state solvent. In February 1781 he published the Compte Rendu du Roi , which purported to show a budgetary surplus of 10 million livres, but was immediately attacked for prestidigitation (when Joly took office he discovered that thestate was actually 50 million livres in the red). Necker, Joly and d’Ormesson were all forced out because of the hostility to their attempts to centralise spending and revenue collection. Jeanne extracted nothing from successive ministers bar the money to redeem some pawned possessions – but she became soon a frequent guest at Rohan’s table.
    Jeanne appealed to Rohan by reconciling contrary impulses: the cardinal, who regarded himself as enlightened, felt the imperative to embrace ecumenically men and women of intelligence and wit; but, like the rest of his family, he was a stickler for the claims of heredity. Jeanne’s verve and pluckiness – her will to establish herself – seemed animated by her Valois pulse. She was imperially confident, shared Rohan’s reverence for genealogy, yet was déclassée enough to rouse his magnanimity. Jeanne was more than a mere charity case.
    And then there is sex. The exact parameters of the affair between Rohan and Jeanne will never be known, but it would be surprising if one did not occur. The cardinal was a confirmed womaniser; Jeanne had shown herself willing to fall into the beds of potential benefactors. Much of the positive evidence for their liaison, however, is of doubtful value. Jeanne told her friend the comte Dolomieu that she and Rohan were lovers, but Jeanne’s modus operandi relied on her claiming more intimate relations with persons of influence than actually existed. Rétaux de Villette, who will shortly enter this story, alleged in his memoir of the affair that, in the very first meeting, the cardinal ‘laid his hands on her, his eyes gleaming with lust; and Madame de la Motte, gazing at him tenderly, made him know that he coulddare all’. Villette, though, had an intermittent acquaintance with the truth. The most reliable testimony comes from the man unseated by Rohan – Jacques Beugnot. *
    With Rohan on her case, Jeanne no longer required Beugnot. ‘One cannot deal with a cardinal asone does with a lawyer,’ shetold him, deprecating all his exertions on her behalf. But she could not resist showing him the letters she exchanged with the cardinal in which, remembered Beugnot, ‘an ardent ambition became mixed up with tender affection . . . they were all fire; the clash, or rather the movement of the twopassions was frightening’.
    Beugnot does not say how long the conflagration lasted. Most likely it rapidly burnt itself out. During the trial it emerged that the baron de Planta, Rohan’s aide-de-camp, had spent eleven months trying to seduce Jeanne – he would surely not have risked his master’s displeasure had the cardinal himselfstill taken an interest. Rohan, unlike the comte d’Artois, did not discard Jeanne once his sexual attraction had waned; he took pleasure in her company and provided financial support, though to what extent would later become a matter of fierce public controversy. *
    Whatever charity Rohan provided could not fund a sustainable mode of living. For the next six months, the La Mottes lived in a room on the rue de la Verrerie, prioritising the purchase of a cabriolet over settling their bills or even buying food. They left in