The Queen’s Necklace

The Scandal Marie Antoinette Never Ordered

In the glittering halls of Versailles, power was theatre — and belief was everything.

In 1785, a diamond necklace worth a fortune vanished into the shadows of Paris. The crime that stole it was audacious: forged letters, a counterfeit Queen, secret meetings beneath moonlit gardens, and a cardinal desperate to regain royal favour. Yet the greatest twist was this — Marie Antoinette never ordered the necklace at all.

And still, the scandal wrapped itself around her name like a noose.

At the centre of the deception stood Jeanne de la Motte, a woman with noble blood and empty pockets, who understood the court’s deepest weakness: reputation could be destroyed faster than truth could defend it. What began as a private fraud soon became a public obsession, devouring everyone it touched — jewellers, courtiers, prisoners of the Bastille — and leaving the Queen officially innocent but fatally condemned in the streets.

The Queen’s Necklace is a true story of diamonds and deceit, of a society addicted to gossip and spectacle, and of a monarchy whose authority could not survive laughter. In the years before the French Revolution, one con did more than steal jewels. It stole trust.