Met Gala & Emmy Red Carpet Jewelry

Hello everyone- welcome to Tea and Gemstones, the home for your shiny mix of commentary and history of all things sparkly- aka jewelry, gemstones and style. I am your host, Jen.

One of the great apexes of modern-day jewelry displays would have to be the Hollywood red carpet. It’s where the “wow” moments can happen- priceless museum quality pieces on some of the most beautiful bodies in the world. Ultra-luxury avantgarde pieces making a cover of a magazine level statement. The couture gowns must pair perfectly with the jewels- it’s a delicate symbiotic relationship, you don’t want the jewelry outshining the clothes or the dress distracting from the gems. When all the fashion notes hit just right- the red-carpet moment goes down in epic history.

These past few weeks we have witnessed two red-carpets with very different vibes: the Met Gala and the Emmys. The Met Gala has a theme every year, this year it was “In America: A Lexicon of Fashion.” The met gala is the epitome of avant-garde, out-of-the-box fashion thinking- it’s not about wearability, it’s about making a capital S statement. Everyone has turned their creativity up to a 12 out of 10. How do you stand out when everyone is cranking up the wattage of their star power? You get creative. Ciara borrowed her husband Russell Wilson’s Super Bowl ring to accent her lime green sequin dress inspired by his football uniform. Should I make a joke about this look being a touchdown? Probably best to stay in my lane haha

Singer Normani embraced rare blue colored diamonds as her way to find the spotlight. She wore a mustard yellow Valentino dress with a cinched waist, huge poofy Disney-princess-esque sleeves, and it had a plunging front neckline. All that open chest is the better to display her Lorraine Schwartz gems- she had a blue diamond pear necklace on a long white diamond chain and two rings- one with a white and blue diamond flower and one with a blue marquise cut diamond. The pops of blue with the yellow were unexpected. It’s an old-school classic Americana color combo, the blue and white with yellow- think like a blue and white country kitchen with sunflowers… but done in a Valentino gown with diamonds, it’s modern and chic.

Speaking of flowers, Jordan Alexander from the Gossip Girl reboot, she wore a Tiffany & Co. Schlumberger daisy necklace with matching earrings. The daisy flower shape can read more childish, but Tiffany’s eschewed the younger vibe of the shape by doing the daisies in orange, gold and green instead of traditional white and yellow. Some people are averse to “matchy-matchy” earrings to a necklace, but with all the different colors at play and the variations of the daisy flower petals, I think the choice to match earrings to the necklace just amplifies the power of the accessories.

Staying on the topic of necklaces, Gabrielle Union wore a choker that just blew me away- it’s a tight row of white marquise and pear-shaped diamonds all the way around- and those pear diamonds are… sizable. The showstopping piece is from a French high jewelry company called Messika, and they’re relatively new on the jewelry scene, they were founded in Paris in 2005. Fun fact- almost all the 230 employees at Messika are female! That’s pretty unusual for a high jewelry house, it’s a very male dominated field. I can’t wait to see if Messika puts any pieces on the Academy Awards red carpet.

With my four-year-old daughter obsessed with all things rainbow- I definitely know which red carpet jewels she would want: Diane Kruger’s earrings were the stuff of absolute fantasy. Anchored by a golden pearl, the rainbow assortment of gems are arranged in a fan shape- like one half of a classic angel wing. The tips of the wing go almost from the top of her ear to the middle of her neck. Her dress was lime green, featuring a stomach cut-out, a puffy short skirt and a cape with a train. The rainbow sparkles of her earrings played off her hot pink eyeshadow and strappy heels. The look is absolutely a lot for anywhere other than the Met Gala, for the Met Gala is seemed super appropriate and almost low-key. Oh! A new jewel made it’s debut with Diane- her new large square cut white diamond engagement ring from Norman Reedus of The Walking Dead fame. Her ring is estimated to be about 8 carats in size and she just received it at the end of August. You go girl.

So just about everyone at the Met Gala went with super glam gems, so much sparkle and ornate settings- these are complex, master works of high jewelry. But Jennifer Lopez veered away from the sparkle and modern flash and instead used her jewelry accessories to help her outfit tell a story of a moment in American time; the Wild Wild West. The wild west era only lasted about 30 years, from the 1860s to 1890s. But there is no doubt the fashion of cowboys, saloon girls, Native Americans and ranchers lives on eternally. The designer who swathed J.Lo in this aesthetic is the iconic Mr Ralph Lauren, who is American representation in his own right- I mean, the man literally designs the USA Olympic uniforms. The jewelry from the look was all from the Ralph Lauren archives and featured a lot of leather- necklaces, belts, bracelets and a hat. She also wore a Navajo nation silver ring and silver coin necklace. The Navajo nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the US. Now… Jennifer Lopez isn’t Native American, she’s Puerto Rican, born in the Bronx. Is she allowed to wear more “western” style jewelry? The capacity of what she wore to the Met Gala, I say yes. She wasn’t not culturally appropriating a “costume.” The silver Native American pieces were not the focal point, the leather pieces were.

Native American jewelry is very rarely featured on Hollywood red carpets, but I want to tie up the Met Gala accessories review with a spotlight on my very favorite jewelry look of the evening: Quannah Chasinghorse. She’s a 19-year-old rising model breaking through high fashion barriers for Indigenous representation. Quannah comes from a mix of two tribes, Han Gwich’in and Lakota, but she spent a large part of life with the Navajo nation. Her aunt was actually a famous Navajo beauty queen, and she loaned Quannah the epic turquoise and silver jewels she wore down the Met Gala red carpet. The silver and blue stones layered against her skin and coupled with the gold lame gown (complete with billowing cape) by designer Peter Dundas create a unique visual combination hardly ever seen on a red carpet. Her look had this visual freshness to it when your eyes see it, sheerly on the fact that your eyes have not SEEN this kind of look before, it’s new to luxury event. But then isn’t that… sad? Quannah’s look is the most “America” of any of the fashion looks at this America themed event- it’s literally Native American. And the most deeply American look is one that is so infrequently represented. I am hoping that with Quannah featured on so many Top Ten lists from this event, Indigenous jewelry brands will see their exposure levels to the masses soar.

Let’s transition away from the fantasy land of the Met Gala- a red carpet for experimentation and embraced kookiness. The Emmys are called “TV Biggest Night” and this past 73rd awards ceremony grappled with the effect of being one week after the extravagance of the Met Gala. The Emmys fashion looks this year were a reverb from the outlandish Gala- stylists seemed to bounce back from the Met’s technicolor creativity with returning to a “safe space” of classic glamour.

It’s no secret that the fashion of the 1990s and early 2000s is having a major nostalgic heyday right now. On the Emmy red carpet we saw this nostalgia embraced with choker-style necklaces, or the very slightly looser version of a choker, barely off the neck, gracing the upper collarbone. Sometimes it seems like the stylists putting together the red carpet looks all share one Pinterest inspiration board… and the common theme of this year’s Emmy’s jewelry were these white diamond choker necklaces. This year we had MJ Rodriguez, Cynthia Erivo (e ree veau), Yara Shahidi, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Michaela Coel, Jurnee Smollett and Juno Temple all wore very similar necklaces in this style. While each necklace is individually gorgeous, having so many alike pieces parading down the carpet, their power was definitely diminished. It just got repetitive and I wanted to see something different after about the third white necklace.

With so many white accents- it was refreshing to see a burst of color. Emeralds in their signature vivid green popped up adorning a few celebrities. Billy Porter wore an all-black ensemble with statement billowing sleeves, but he brought some serious sparkle to stand out against the black backdrop: multiple diamond rings and bracelets with the true stunner of a diamond and emerald necklace in a bib of layered petals and two amazing, swirled ear cuffs, all by Lorraine Schwartz. Kathryn Hahn also wore all black- her outfit was a jumpsuit with a comically large belt buckle on the front- I mean, this thing was like from belly button to ribs big, I don’t get that- but I did love her emerald and white diamond necklace by designer Briony Raymond, it was a row each of emeralds and diamonds with three pear cut emeralds dangling down.

Yellow sapphires (a personal favorite gemstone of mine- they’re just like little bits of solidified sunshine) were featured on two Tiffany & Co. ambassadors, Anya Taylor-Joy and Tracee Ellis Ross both wore sizable yellow sapphire rings set in yellow gold. Anya Taylor-Joy fully went for the yellow vibe in her canary yellow Dior gown, but I liked Tracee Ellis Ross’ Grecian red draped gown better, it seemed more unexpected and bolder to pair yellow with red than just doing yellow-on-yellow. I do like Anya Taylor-Joy, she’s a great actress and her make-up is always flawless… but I am really bored with seeing her in a solid color, spaghetti strap backless gown. I could probably make a graphic of her wearing every color and making a rainbow. She’s now wore this “uniform” for the Emmys - yellow, the Golden Globes - green, the Critics Choice Awards -purple, after her SNL performance -pink, the movie premiere of “Emma”- white, arriving to the Venice Film Festival -orange, the BAFTA awards, -black… please no more backless, spaghetti-strap dresses on red carpets.

Something fresh that I have never seen before was an unexpected accessory at the Emmys on the head of Moses Ingram, a breakout actress this year from her performance as Beth Harmon’s best friend in The Queen’s Gambit. She wore length after length of sterling silver chain into her long low ponytail. And then her stylist hand applied rhinestones into her baby hairs at the hairline. It really put some edge into her look, which was otherwise pretty classic with her green one shoulder gown. It was just fun… but with all the “fun” being on the back of her outfit, it didn’t read well when she was photographed from the front, which is what happens on the red carpet.

I love the moments of fun and creativity with jewelry playing into a look, and maybe I am not being fair to judge the Emmys harshly for being so traditional and homogenous on the red carpet- perhaps the Emmys would not appear so… dare I say, boring, if they weren’t foiled against the avant-garde Met Gala seven days previous. 2021 is a different red-carpet schedule than normal- the Met Gala is traditionally in May, so there’s customarily more a buffer between the Met and other red carpets.

With how the world has been lately, lockdowns, quarantines, social distancing; the fashion world has had to adjust. Fashion shows went virtual, red carpets were cancelled, movie premieres happened on tvs in our own living rooms. Now with red carpets returning, I guess me personally, I was hoping for the long absence of glamour to result in an explosion of fun once everyone was able to be let loose. That certainly happened at the Met Gala, it was epic and did not disappoint. But then one week later the Emmys come along and seem so boring, so typical, so pre-2020. In post 2020 I want EVERYTHING to be fun and bursting with creativity because honestly- shouldn’t stylists be making the most of every fashion moment? There’s no guarantee of a red carpet next week, next month, next year- don’t play it safe, don’t hold out for “the next time.” Go big, let’s aim to impress and surprise. I think everyone will have more fun.

That’s all for this episode of Tea and Gemstones. It was a little heavier on the Tea than gemstones haha but I think that’s the nature of red carpet commentary. If you disagree about anything I’ve said, or want to tell me what you think about the Met Gala and Emmys’ connect with Tea and Gemstones on Instagram or Twitter. Please see the show notes for a link to our blog for a transcript of this episode and the bibliography. Our show’s theme song is by Joesph McDade. Alright everyone, until next time, stay sparkly.

T&G Episode 004

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fasel, Marion. “The Best Jewelry at the 2021 Emmys | The Adventurine.” The Adventurine, theadventurine.com/culture/celebrity/the-best-jewelry-at-the-2021-emmys. Accessed 22 Sept. 2021.

Garner, Glenn. “Diane Kruger Debuts Her Gorgeous Engagement Ring from Norman Reedus at the 2021 Met Gala.” PEOPLE.Com, 14 Sept. 2021, people.com/style/met-gala-2021-diane-kruger-diamond-ring-norman-reedus-engaged.

Hevrdejs, By Judy. “Fashion and Award Shows Can Be Potent Combination.” Chicagotribune.Com, 30 Jan. 2019, www.chicagotribune.com/sns-grammys-fashion-story.html.

Holevas, Christina, and Amir la Sure. “The Best Jewelry From the Met Gala 2021.” W Magazine, 15 Sept. 2021, www.wmagazine.com/fashion/met-gala-best-jewelry-2021.

Liao, Marina. “Jennifer Lopez’s 2021 Met Gala Look Came Straight Out Of A Western Movie.” The Zoe Report, 14 Sept. 2021, www.thezoereport.com/culture/jennifer-lopez-2021-met-gala-look-ralph-lauren.

“The Best 2021 Emmys Jewelry *Nearly* Outshined The Red Carpet Gowns.” The Zoe Report, 20 Sept. 2021, www.thezoereport.com/culture/best-jewelry-emmys-2021.

Pak, Eudie. “10 Iconic Wild West Figures.” Biography, 30 Apr. 2020, www.biography.com/news/wild-west-figures.

Listen to Episode 3!

The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

Hello everyone, welcome to Tea & Gemstones, your home for a shiny mix of commentary and history of all things sparkly. I am your host, Jen. Today I’m going to tell you the tale of how a diamond necklace helped contribute to the queen of France having her head cut off at the guillotine and an entire country changing its form of government. Sound too crazy to be true? Well, never underestimate the power of a piece of jewelry.

Let’s jump in.

What comes to mind when you hear the name ‘Queen Marie Antoinette of France?’ Probably the phrase, “let them eat cake.” Visions of the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, huge towering powder white hair pieces, extravagant dresses wider than a doorway and just general opulence and over the top ultra-luxury that personified the royal French court of the1700s.

Our visuals of Marie Antoinette come from written descriptions in historical record and also from her numerous painted portraits. She loved to wear whites, creams, light blues; hair piled upon her head as more sculpture than hairstyle (some reports speak of hair reaching 3 feet high) and usually topped with feathers. Because why not.

The Queen had a jewelry collection fit for… well, a queen. Some pieces we know of include a graceful white diamond bow brooch with a large yellow diamond hung from the center. There’s a gold pocket watch encased in vivid blue enamel that’s inlaid with seed pearls. A epic, epic piece was a so-called ‘zig-zag’ necklace of 21 graduated drop-shaped grey natural pearls dangling seductively from a ruby collar around which a rope of old cut diamonds weaves. Look, the woman had swag. Frank Everett of Sotheby’s describes Marie Antoinette, “I think she was probably was one of the original “it girl” in terms of her style and her relationship to fashion and jewelry.”

But for all of Marie’s decadent jewels- the piece she is most infamously associated with is one she never wore, or even owned at all. And woefully, many historians connect THIS unnamed necklace and the dramatic circumstances that swirled around it, to the literal death of the French monarchy.

The cast of characters involved in The Affair of the Diamond Necklace are so over the top they seem like something out of a cheesy movie. Here’s the basic rundown: an aged lothario king and his mistress that nobody likes. A notorious adventuress self-proclaiming herself a ‘countess’, a disgraced Catholic Cardinal, a disguised prostitute, two desperate jewelers over their heads in debt and poor Queen Marie Antoinette. How’s that for a line-up?

Okay, the affair of the diamond necklace begins with another sort of affair; King Louis 15th, Marie’s father-in-law, had a mistress named Madame du Barry. The King was about 30 years older than du Barry, who was in her mid-20s. She’s described in several written accounts as a stunning beauty with brown curls and blue eyes. Du Barry wasn’t very popular among the hoity-toity French court because she didn’t come from an aristocratic rich family- she had accomplished her social climbing feat of becoming the King’s mistress basically by being “really ridiculously good looking” and other men in her family and friends finagled her the “job” so they could use her to get close to the King. It’s a bit sad for du Barry being used- but historical accounts really testify that King Louis 15th loved du Barry. And because he loved her, he wanted to make a dramatic statement to everyone in his court that looked down their noses at his girlfriend.

Even though the French royal treasury (aka the King’s bank account) was seriously low on funds from years of disastrous wars, the king commissioned a massively elaborate custom necklace from two jewelers named Charles Boehmer (beau-murr) and Paul Bassenge. (bas-senge). The King is said to have stated he wanted the necklace to quote, “surpass all known others in grandeur” end quote.

This necklace is…. A lot to visually take in. Every inch is encrusted with diamonds. And it’s really two necklaces in one. There’s a choker style chain with three draped scalloped loops of diamonds hanging down and a center showpiece of a huge pear diamond. The second part is a deep V of double rowed diamond chain in a wide ribbon style. In addition, there’s two extra ribbon strands to drape from the shoulders. Every dip and dangle of the wide diamond chains is festooned with a diamond bow AND diamond tassel. Then as the finishing touch, four actual silk ribbons are attached to the sides of the wearer’s neck, with bows, obviously. The more bows the better, I guess. All together the necklace is 647 flawless diamonds.

Gathering all those diamonds and assembling the necklace took poor Charles and Paul, the jewelers, a looooong time. Like two years. Now, I feel like Charles & Paul are not very good businessmen. Here’s why: When the king commissioned the necklace… he didn’t pay for it. Didn’t even put down a deposit. No down payment. I guess when you are the King of France you could just order a custom 15 million dollar necklace (that’s how much it ended up being by the way- 15 million dollars) with just a verbal request. Charles & Paul dutifully started work on the order. But get this- after a year of work- the necklace is only half finished, and King Louis the 15th up and dies. His mistress Madame du Barry is forced out of court to live in the countryside (I told ya, nobody really likes her). So this entire Affair of the Diamond Necklace could have never happened, it could have ended before it really began if the jewelers Charles & Paul had just… stopped making the necklace. It was only halfway done, and they hadn’t been paid anything yet. Why didn’t they close the project and use the diamonds and precious metals for other, actually paid for, pieces? We don’t know. Their choice to continue had …. *all* the consequences.

The entire cost of raw materials and production for the necklace was all on Charles and Paul, coming out of their own pockets. They kept up work on the necklace for another entire year after the King’s death, until the piece was finished. And Charles and Paul are almost bankrupt from the cost of making it. I have no sympathy for the situation- it’s their own fault. They try and find a buyer, but with the 15 million dollar price tag, the only people who could ever afford it are royals. After Louis the 15th’s death, the royals in charge are the new king, his son, Louis the 16th and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette.

In 1778, we have historical court records of Charles and Paul making an official sales pitch to the new king Louis to ‘pretty please buy this necklace as a gift for Marie Antoinette.’ So, the king was kinda like, “eh, I dunno- if the Queen wants it, I guess sure.” (This King Louis the 16th is well known in history for his.. bland and kind of simpering, wishy-washy personality). But Marie Antoinette heard the price tag for the necklace and is reported to have said, “we have more need of battleships than of necklaces.” And also… miss Marie haaaated Madame du Barry. She didn’t want du Barry’s fashion scraps- even if they were covered in diamonds. No sale.

For the next six years, Charles and Paul keep trying to sell this necklace all over Europe. You sort of have to admire their dogged determination even if it doesn’t make sense. In the middle of those six years, the jewelers had a final official sales pitch to Marie Antoinette in 1781 after she gave birth to her son, like, “hey… how about your dead father-in-law’s hated mistress’ necklace for a push present?” And Marie is like, “no, get outta here, stop asking me!” We don’t actually have record of what she said, but I can imagine how I would feel right after giving birth and ol’ Charles and Paul s how up yet again.

All this to say- in 1784, this unsellable necklace is widely, infamously known. And the 647 flawless diamond extravagance was about to cross paths with another infamous character of history, a French adventuress and con woman named Jeanne (genie) de la Motte. Jeanne was married to a man named Nicholas who had some dubious claims to be noble through some distant relatives, but without any real proof of lineage, Jeanne called herself a “countess” whenever she went to hang around the French court. Back then, any member of the public who was dressed up fancy enough could be allowed to go hang out around the royal family and court. Records state upwards of 500 people a day just all hung out, gossiping, watching French court business go down.

Now, our panicked, in debt jewelers Charles and Paul are frequently at the French court, obviously trying to sell jewelry to the people gathered there every day. And Charles and Paul took notice of Jeanne de la Motte because Jeanne had a habit of telling everyone at Court all about how she was a low-key best friend of Queen Marie Antoinette. French court is so chaotic- the original Gossip Girl vibes of backstabbing, secrets and rumors with hundreds of people everyday. No one ever assumed Jeanne was lying. Charles and Paul wanted more than anything in the world to somehow convince the Queen to buy their 15 million dollar necklace, so in late 1784, early 1785, the jewelers approach Jeanne with a proposition. “Hey ‘Countess’, can you maybe convince your best friend to buy our necklace?” And Jeanne, the savvy con woman replied, “for a commission, of course I can.” And desperate Charles and Paul agreed. And Jeanne set to work on her plan.

Now Jeanne and her husband had a… let’s call it an open marriage. Because that’s what it was, haha. They both had side lovers and didn’t hide it from each other. And in 1784 when she took on her sales assignment from Charles and Paul, Jeanne has positioned herself as the mistress to a Catholic high ranking clergy member, a Cardinal named Louis de Rohan (ro-hun). Unlucky for him, Cardinal de Rohan was out of favor with Queen Marie Antoinette for a couple of reasons. Number one, he has vocally opposed her marrying into the French family in the first place. Not really rolling out the welcome mat to start a friendship with that one. Two, he had acted a fool on a trip to Vienna in front of Marie’s mother, the Empress of Austria. Historical record states the Cardinal “made a great spectacle of himself.” And three, the Cardinal made no secret he had mistresses and taken bribes in the past, and Marie Antoinette did not like that. So she basically blacklisted him.

If you were out of favor with a member of the French royal family, your social and political life took a huge hit. No one wanted to be seen with you. No parties. No insider political deals. And most importantly, you were not welcome at French court. Cardinal de Rohan desperately wanted the Queen to like him so he could stop being a social outcast. Jeanne saw her boyfriend’s desire to be popular as her ticket to the necklace.

Jeanne started telling Cardinal de Rohan all about her close friendship with the Queen. Since the Cardinal was shunned from court and didn’t have any high society friends, he never heard anything to refute Jeanne’s version of the truth. He thought his girlfriend was now besties with the very person HE wanted to be friends with. Jeanne told the Cardinal, “ you know… I bet my girl Marie would read a letter from you.” So he wrote an adoring “please forgive me for smack-talking you and your family and for being a venal clergy man” apology letter and gave it to Jeanne, who promised to hand-deliver it to her gal pal.

And lo and behold, a few days later- Cardinal de Rohan is thrilled when Jeanne brings him Marie Antoinette’s reply letter! The Queen writes she accepts his apology and wants to be friends, but they have to keep their friendship secret so Marie can save face in French court for now, since she blacklisted de Rohan. De Rohan was so overjoyed to be in the Queen’s favor again, he asked Jeanne to arrange he and the Queen to meet in person to confirm their friendship. Jeanne dutifully sets it up, and one dark night, Cardinal de Rohan meets the Queen in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, where he gives her roses and the Queen promises to “forget and forgive past disagreements.”

De Rohan thinks his life just changed drastically and he starts regularly expressing his loyalty and devotion through letters happily couriered to the Queen by his girlfriend Jeanne. And the Cardinal is not wrong in his thinking that the very course of his life had just been altered- it certainly had.

But it was all a lie.

Jeanne and her husband were the ones writing the Queen’s replies to de Rohan. The Cardinal is getting catfished. He is fully fooled, he thinks he has a secret relationship going with Marie Antoinette. And that dark garden meeting? That wasn’t the Queen. It was a prostitute Jeanne hired and dressed up to look like her royal highness. I guess we can assume Cardinal de Rohan wanted to believe it was Marie so badly, he never questioned the validity of the woman in front of him. Maybe he hadn’t seen the Queen up close before or maybe the garden was just really, really dark that night. Whatever the circumstances, Cardinal de Rohan bought was Jeanne was selling, hook line and sinker.

Once the Cardinal is locked into the ruse, Jeanne slyly makes her move. On January 21st, 1785, she tells de Rohan her bestie Marie really wants to buy an expensive necklace, but she can’t do so publicly because the country is not exactly economically thriving. Would her dear friend de Rohan please do her a favor? The Cardinal jumped at the chance to endear himself further in the Queen’s eyes and agreed. His written instructions (forged, of course) arrived from the Queen. De Rohan was to go to Charles and Paul and tell them he was supposed to pick up the necklace secretly for Marie Antoinette and then de Rohan would begin paying for the necklace in installments to the jewelers and the Queen would secretly reimburse de Rohan back later.

Now… this all seems suspicious as heck to me and like it would fall apart under any questioning. So, good thing (for Jeanne at least) no one asked any questions. The Cardinal marched off to Charles and Paul, showed them the written letter… and the jewelers were so thrilled to finally be selling their necklace- they just handed it over!! And sticking to their… obviously super smart way to do business- they don’t collect any money up front, no down payment. They hand the 15 million dollar necklace to de Rohan. De Rohan leaves their meeting and takes the necklace to Jeanne’s house where a valet, a male messenger, is waiting. He says he is from the Queen’s household and de Rohan hands him the necklace and the valet leaves. De Rohan goes home, thinking he has just secured his triumphant return to French high society.

But that male messenger? He’s a secret second boyfriend of Jeanne’s, a man named Retaux (re-toe) de Villette. And he took the necklace apart and sold all its diamonds on the black market, mostly in London, historians believe. The money was funneled back to be spilt with Jeanne and her husband.

So the heist had been pulled off, the 15 million dollar necklace had bloodlessly been parted from it’s creators with nary a coin spent. I would have to commend Jeanne on her cleverness… but for all her sneakiness and cunning… the woman seemed to have no end game for her con. After her big score with the necklace… she stays in Paris. She stays in the French court like nothing has happened. And not surprisingly, the house of cards crashes down. Charles and Paul wait a little while for their first payment for the necklace. They pester Cardinal de Rohan, who in turns asks Jeanne. Jeanne gives him a little bit of money (we don’t know how much, or from where she got it), and de Rohan gives it to Charles and Paul. Not satisfied, or perhaps sensing a swindle… Charles and Paul then go straight to what they consider the source- the Queen herself. They approach Queen Marie Antoinette in court and ask for payment for the necklace.

Understandably, the Queen is super confused. She hasn’t heard anything about this necklace since she declined to buy it in 1781. It’s four years later, what the heck? Charles and Paul show her the written letter of her “instructions” the Cardinal gave them basically as a trade for the necklace. And there’s a big-time red flag. The signature at the end of the letter is wrong. Jeanne and her con men forger team didn’t know that French royals only ever signed personal letters with just their first name. So having “Marie Antoinette de France” on a personal letter would never ever happen, she would have signed with her birth name, “Maria Antonia.”

With this discovery, everything fell apart rapidly. The Cardinal was arrested, and it was a domino effect from there. He pointed the authorities at Jeanne and her obvious trail of lies. Everyone was arrested within days, Jeanne, her husband Nicholas, the prostitute from the garden, and Retaux (re-toe) de Villette. Randomly, the authorities also arr ested this guy named Alessandro Cagliostro, who was an occultist and magician, and had no involvement in the Affair but the authorities wanted an excuse to banish him from France for his beliefs, so they used this as an excuse. Everybody is arrested and sent to the Tower of Bastille.

Okay, so remember when I said there had been a point in time where the Affair of the Diamond Necklace could have just… stopped? When Charles and Paul decided to keep assembling the necklace after the king who commissioned it had died. That was a choice that pushed this narrative forward instead of ending it. Well there is a second moment in time that could have lessened the historical impact of the Affair. It is the choice of the King and Queen of France to host a big public spectacle of a trial for the offenders. After finding out about the Affair, the royals could have paid off Charles and Paul and quietly punished the team of thieves. No one in the public had to know any of this happened. However, the French royals incorrectly thought this whole situation was a golden opportunity for them to improve their bad reputation. They wanted to convey to the public that they were trying not actually lavish spenders of money and look- they had caught some thieves! But that completely backfired on them.

The public heard all the details of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace and they interpreted the entire trial as a huge smoke show, hiding the fact that Marie Antoinette had actually written the letters to Cardinal de Rohan, and had conned the jewelers out of their prized necklace. Basically, the public thought the trial was a government cover-up.

The official verdicts from the trial were mixed. Cardinal de Rohan was acquitted of wrong doing, and he actually experienced a surge in public popularity- his acquittal was seen as a victory over a vindictive Queen who had never openly liked de Rohan. Jeanne de Motte was whipped and sent to prison for life. But ever the clever woman, she dressed up as a boy and escaped less than a year into her sentence, and get this- she went to London and wrote a memoir about the Affair from her point of view, which sold a bunch of copies and did not help Marie Antoinette’s unpopularity. The poor prostitute who had to dress up as the Queen in the garden, her name was Nicole, she told the court she had no idea what was going on, when Jeanne hired her to be the Queen she thought it was an acting role. The court believed her and freed her, and then Nicole fell in love and got together with her defense attorney. The two conmen involved, Nicholas de Motte and Retaux de Villette, skipped town. Even though he had fled the country, Nicholas got condemned to life as a gallery slave. Well, no one knows where he went, but he sure didn’t end up a slave, he just vanished from history. As for Retaux, the court didn’t seem to know exactly what punishment he should get, so they just decided to banish him from the country. Retaux thought that was fine, he was already gone, he went to Italy and also wrote a disparaging book about the Affair, which helped darken Marie Antoinette’s reputation.

That is the true loser in all of this: the Queen’s reputation. She was already very unpopular due to her early history of excessive spending, and the trial heighted public dislike to a level historians mark as “near-hatred.” The aftermath of the trial of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace was a public relations nightmare for the Queen. Thousands of pamphlets and flyers began circulating talking about how terrible she was, with drawings of her with her head on a beast’s body, stating how, quote, “she symbolized, among other things, the lavishness and corruption of a dying regime” end quote. It was game over for Marie Antoinette in terms of having a life among the common French people. She was rarely seen in public after the trial of the Affair. The country’s population had fully turned against her and the monarchy. Indeed, less than three years later, the French Revolution would begin and in 1793, Marie Antoinette was executed at the guillotine.

Can one piece of jewelry bring down a monarchy? No. Can one necklace help provide a spark to light the tinder of a revolution? I submit that yes, this one did.

Now, the diamond necklace was broken apart into pieces and sold on the black market. But you know, a diamond is forever. And there were 647 diamonds in that necklace. Where did those 647 diamonds go? We have no way of tracing those stones, but I like to sit with the thought that there are people out there in the world who own a piece of this infamous diamond necklace. The 647 diamonds live on… somewhere. Sparkly anonymous representatives of their moment in history.

That’s all for this episode of Tea and Gemstones, I hope you enjoyed it. If you have an idea for a future episode or just want to connect, message us on Instagram @ Tea and Gemstones, or on Twitter. Please see the podcast show notes for a link to our blog for a transcript of this episode and the bibliography. Our theme music is by Joseph McDade. Thanks for listening everyone, and until next time, stay sparkly.

T&G Episode 003

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Diamond Necklace, The Affair of The.” Wikisource, the Free Online Library, 18 Jan. 2018, en.wikisource.org/wiki/1911_Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica/Diamond_Necklace,_The_Affair_of_the.

“Cardinal de Rohan.” Wikipedia, 13 Sept. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_de_Rohan.

Daubeney, Frederick Sykes. Marie Antoinette and the Diamond Necklace from Another Point of View. Bibliolife DBA of Bibilio Bazaar II LLC, 2015.

History, Alpha. “The Affair of the Diamond Necklace.” French Revolution, 7 Oct. 2020, alphahistory.com/frenchrevolution/affair-of-the-diamond-necklace.

“Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy.” Wikipedia, 3 Aug. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_de_Valois-Saint-R%C3%A9my.

Barker, Nancy (Summer 1993). "Let Them Eat Cake: The Mythical Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution". The Historian. 55 (4): 709–724.