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

In earlier posts, we’ve demonstrated that Houdini’s hero Cagliostro was a fine magician and a world-class illusionist. As portrayed by Orson Welles, who learned magic from Houdini, he’s an expert close-up artist. His big illusions and unparalleled showmanship are designed to deceive kings and queens. 

The full story of Cagliostro and the Queen’s Necklace, the illusion credited with sparking the French Revolution, is rich, complex and fascinating; it really demands a book-length treatment. Several have been written, by Dumas, by Thomas Carlyle, by Johannes von Guenther, by Houdini’s friend W. R. H. Trowbridge and more recently by Frances Mossiker.

Houdini devoured and collected all available writings about Cagliostro, including Vielles Maisons, Vieux Papiers by G. Lenotre. 

Lenotre was a great historian of the lead-up to the French Revolution. His book devotes an entire chapter to an obsession of Houdini’s - Cagliostro’s house in Paris. 



We can easily picture Houdini, in search of Cagliostro and the other characters in the drama, standing in the courtyard, book in hand, and thrilling as he read:

Elle existe encore, et l'on s'imagine, sans grand effort, car elle n'a guère changé… 

[Cagliostro’s house] still exists, and we imagine - without much effort, as it has hardly changed - the effect it had at night on whomever passed its deserted rampart with angled pavilions hidden by ancient trees, deep courtyards and large terraces, when lights - bright lights of the alchemist’s crucibles - filtered through tall blinds. 

The mansion retains in its noble lines … a baroque and disturbing quality.... The building is indeed strange and its layout abnormal. A staircase, now walled up, rose to the second floor…. A third staircase, narrow and winding, at the other end of the building on the boulevard side, lies completely inside the walls wrapped in thick darkness… 

Cardinal de Rohan himself had chosen the building and provided the furniture. He joined Cagliostro three or four times a week at lunch, and did not come out until far into the night. …People were talking about this mysterious laboratory where molten gold flowed, where diamonds sparkled in white-hot crucibles… 

The carriageway gate opens on the Rue Saint Claude, at the corner of Boulevard Beaumarchais. The courtyard … is morose and solemn; in the rear, under a flagstone porch, runs an ancient stone staircase which has retained its old iron railing. How many beautiful women attracted to the curiosity of the sorcerer 's lair, anxious at what they were about  to see, put their trembling fingers onto that iron rail: it evokes the silhouette of Madame de La Motte, quickly mounting these steps, head covered with a mantilla....

The Countess de la Motte-Valois, descended from King Henri II, was the key figure in the Diamond Necklace affair. Of royal descent, but become impoverished, she was desperate for money and position. A stunning beauty and a brilliant intriguer, she was an illusionist perhaps the equal of Cagliostro himself and, as we shall see next week, an escape artist on a par with Houdini. 

The Countess chose Cagliostro’s disciple and benefactor, Cardinal Rohan, as her target - her audience of one. 

Cardinal Louis de Rohan

Playing on his weaknesses - lust and pride - she engineered the greatest deception the world has ever seen: she managed to convince the Cardinal that the Queen, Marie-Antoinette, was in love with him. Moreover, she convinced him that the Queen needed him to put up the money for a necklace she craved - a 2800-carat necklace of 687 diamonds, worth 1.6 million livres (estimated at $100-million today).

In reality, the Queen despised Rohan and hated the necklace. 

Rohan had inadvertently insulted her mother, the Empress of Austria; Marie-Antoinette had not spoken to him since and had banned him from the Palace at Versailles save for his once a year official state appearance as Grand Almoner of France. The necklace had originally been made for her enemy and rival Madame duBarry, the late king’s mistress. After duBarry was exiled, the royal jewelers offered the necklace to the Queen, but she rejected it publicly, saying she thought it was grotesque.

Marie-Antoinette

And yet the clever Countess de la Motte-Valois convinced Rohan that the Queen had reversed both these strong positions! She flashed him the Queen of Hearts and miscalled it as the Queen of Diamonds!

We know Houdini was thoroughly captivated by this immense deception because he collected every scrap of authentic and original evidence concerning it. He considered this material the crown jewel of his library, even more noteworthy than his complete collection of the autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

We’ll pick up the story in our next post.

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[Images via Google]