THE QUEEN’S NECKLACE, THE FRENCH REVOLUTION & HOUDINI

Marie-Antoinette, the last Queen of France

In earlier posts we've introduced the cast of characters in the Affair of the Queen's Necklace, the major news event of the mid-1780s and a prime obsession of Houdini's. Outrage over the Queen's Necklace led Marie-Antoinette to the guillotine, followed by the burning of the Bastille and the French Revolution. As Napoleon put it, "The Queen's death must be dated from the Diamond Necklace trial." 

The spectacular illusion at the crux of the Necklace affair marks a major turning point in world history: the end of feudalism and the beginning of the modern age.

This grand deception was brilliantly conceived and expertly executed by Countess de la Motte-Valois, who has to be ranked as the greatest female illusionist of all time. 

Countess de la Motte-Valois wearing the 2800-carat necklace. (Portrait by George Stuart)

Depending on who you believe, she either did or did not have as a co-conspirator the infamous Count de Cagliostro. Cagliostro, as we've shown in earlier posts, was one of Houdini's gods despite his reputation as a blackguard and swindler.

Cagliostro (bust by Houdon)

The props of the deception were a set of forged letters purporting to come from Marie Antoinette. They were written to Cardinal Rohan, whom we've profiled in an earlier post. Countess de la Motte-Valois was the courier who delivered these letters and the adoring replies of the gullible Cardinal. 

Catalog page from Houdini's collection (acquired by Messmore Kendall). Click to enlarge. 

The Cardinal, horny and holier-than-thou, gloried in his belief that the Countess, in addition to having become his own mistress, was also the Queen’s lesbian lover. 

Marie-Antoinette engaging in the "German Vice" (from a pamphlet c. 1785).

De la Motte created this illusion by clever stagecraft, repeatedly appearing to exit the Queen’s hideaway at Le Petit Trianon just as the Cardinal was walking nearby. 

Cagliostro & Marie-Antoinette at Le Petit Trianon.

She buttressed the notion by sending the Cardinal the forged love letters on pieces of exquisite stationery. They were purportedly penned by the Queen. In truth, the Countess did not know Marie-Antoinette at all. In Casanova's memoirs, he marvels at Cagliostro's skill as a forger. Did Houdini's hero Cagliostro forge the letters that destroyed the French monarchy?

The Cardinal, convinced he was acting on behalf of the Queen, gave Countess de la Motte 60-thousand livres as a down payment for the necklace, made from 687 diamonds. (If you recall from earlier posts, it had originally been made for Madame duBarry, the late king's mistress - Marie Antoinette's hated rival.) Procuring it from the jewelers, Countess de la Motte broke it up, selling the diamonds in London and improving her wardrobe immensely. 

When payments for the necklace came due, the jewelers dunned the Cardinal and he dunned the Queen. She went ballistic. Rohan was publicly disgraced, accused of theft and exiled.

How could the Cardinal have been so gullible? Whenever he showed skepticism, de la Motte played her master stroke. She used another tried-and-true magician’s trick - a double. A dead ringer for Marie Antoinette - some say it was Cagliostro's wife -  posed as the queen, pledging her love to the Cardinal in midnight assignations at the Palais Royal. Cagliostro and his wife were both accused of this outrageous swindle - but both were acquitted.

Countess de la Motte went to the women’s prison known as the Salpétrière, to await her sentence of being publicly stripped, then whipped while naked and branded with a hot iron. When questioned she blamed everything on Cagliostro, who was thrown into the Bastille to await trial.

With all his wiles and skills, Cagliostro spent months in prison before he finally managed to escape, using not lock picks but his sharp pen. He wrote a missive that his lawyer made public - it told the story of his mysterious life and made an impassioned plea for his and his wife's freedom. 

The people of France adored him, and despised the Queen because of her alleged extravagance. Cagliostro was freed by an act of Parliament. The streets of Paris were thronged with thousands of his cheering admirers.

It was the Countess de la Motte who "pulled the Houdini." While in prison she used invisible ink to send and receive messages to and from allies outside. She arranged a disguise and a boat. Making an invisible ink sketch of the key that dangled from her jailer’s belt, she was able to have her friends fabricate and smuggle in a duplicate. She told the story in detail in her memoirs, which had a prized place in Houdini's library.

We can only guess what crossed Houdini’s mind as he contemplated all this, perhaps standing in front of the Bastille, or while escaping from French jails himself.

Houdini prepares to escape from a French prison.

We know from inspecting his collection that Houdini spared no expense in obtaining primary source material to uncover the truth about the affair.

Click to enlarge.

The above collection note is significant (we believe it was made by Houdini’s librarian, Alfred Becks) because the source mentioned, Félix-Sébastien Feuillet de Conches, was a former French diplomat whose library was considered unequalled. Owing to his position in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Feuillet de Conches was able to obtain Diamond Necklace documents both from the French archives and the Imperial Archives of Vienna (Marie-Antoinette was Austrian). Houdini bought it, probably at auction, and cultivated it with the assistance of Becks. 

After Houdini died, half his book collection went to the Library of Congress. But the other half - including the Diamond Necklace material - was bought by Messmore Kendall, a publishing executive and antiquarian. The Kendall collection was later acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas.

As we go through Houdini's collection page by page under the watchful eyes of the Ransom Center, we’ll let you know what further nuggets we find on the Queen’s Necklace.

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RELATED:

THE QUEEN'S NECKLACE: HOUDINI, CAGLIOSTRO & ORSON WELLES IN PARIS

HOUDINI'S SEARCH FOR CAGLIOSTRO

HOUDINI IN PARIS: CAGLIOSTRO & ORSON WELLES

HOUDINI'S ADVENTURES IN PARIS

HOUDINI, LITTERATEUR & CONSPIRACY THEORIST

HOUDINI & ORSON WELLES

HARRY'S HEROES: CAGLIOSTRO






[Images via Google & Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin. Film clips from Cagliostro (a/k/a Black Magic) starring Orson Welles.]