Antal Szerb - The Queen's Necklace

She made this statement out of conviction. She had very sensibly calculated that that was what must happen. Rohan, as she well knew, had become involved in such a ghastly and complicated intrigue that he would be afraid of the consequences of having presumed that the Queen would enter into an intimate correspondence and arrange a private rendezvous with him in the Versailles Park, and, last but not least, he would dread the general mockery that his appearance in the Venus Bower, and his credulity, would incur. He would surely pay up, and his entire family would pay up, even if it brought the combined Rohans, Guéménées and Soubises crashing down.

But once again fate made a little move of its own. The jewellers did not dare tell the grandee that the signature had been forged. Instead they turned to Marie-Antoinette, and Boehmer scuttled off to Versailles that very day.

Here the story becomes somewhat less clear. Funck-Brentano does not explain why Boehmer should be less afraid of the Queen than he was of the Cardinal. And what business was it of hers at all, if the letter really had been forged? Let us be silent while Mme Campan, who was one of the principal actors, tells us herself:

At Versailles, Boehmer failed to gain access to the Queen, so he rushed off to Mme Campan’s summer lodging, where the lady had retired for a few days. She happened to have guests with her, and could see him privately only that evening, in the garden.

“I believe I can recall the dialogue that passed between us word for word. From the moment he began to lay bare his extraordinarily base and dangerous intrigue he was so agitated that his every word is deeply engraved on my memory. And the more clearly I began to see the danger, the more distressing it was, so that I did not even notice when thunder and lightning erupted in the middle of our conversation.

“As soon as we were alone, I asked him:

“‘What was the meaning of that letter you gave the Queen last Sunday?’

“‘The Queen must know that perfectly well, Madame.’

“‘Pardon me; she has instructed me to ask you.’

“‘She must have been joking.’

“‘I can’t see why the Queen would want to joke with you! Even you must be aware that she very rarely wears formal dress nowadays; you yourself have remarked how much the austerity here at the Court is affecting trade. The Queen rather fears you’ve concocted another of your schemes, and her message is, most decidedly, that she won’t be buying any diamonds from you, not even one for twenty louis.’

“‘I’m sure she has less need of them than she used to, but then why did she make no mention of the money?’

“‘Because you had it some time ago.’

“‘Ah, Madame, you are very much mistaken. I am still owed a very great deal.’

“‘What do you mean?’

“‘I shall have to tell you everything. It seems the Queen has been keeping this a secret from you. She has purchased that large necklace.’

“‘The Queen? But she refused it. When the King wanted to give it to her she refused it!’

“‘And so? Since then she has had second thoughts.’

“‘In that case she would have spoken to the King. Besides, I have never seen that necklace among her jewellery.’

“‘The fact is, she bought it at Whitsun. I was most surprised to see that she wasn’t wearing it.’

“‘When did the Queen tell you she had finally decided to buy it?’

“‘She has never spoken to me about it in person.’

“‘Then who was the go-between?’

“‘Cardinal Rohan.’

“‘The Queen hasn’t spoken a word to him these ten years! I can’t see what lies behind your little plot, but one thing seems very clear, my dear Boehmer. Someone has robbed you.’

“‘The Queen is simply acting as if His Eminence is in her bad books, but they are getting along all the better for it.’

“‘What do you mean? The Queen is only pretending to dislike someone who is such a laughing stock at Court? Royals are more used to treating people as if they approve of them. For four years now she has made it clear she does not want to buy your necklace, or even to have it as a present! And yet she bought it all the same, and is pretending she has forgotten, because she hasn’t worn it! You must have gone mad, my poor little Boehmer, and got yourself tangled up in some little scheme. I really tremble for you, and am most displeased with you, on Her Majesty’s behalf. Six months ago I asked you what had become of the necklace, and you told me that you had sold it to the Sultan’s favourite.’

“‘My reply was made according to the Queen’s wishes; she left a message by way of the Cardinal that that was what I should say.’

“‘So is that how you got your instructions from the Queen?’

“‘By letters, bearing her signature. And for some time now my creditors have been demanding to see them.’

“‘So you’ve not received any payment?’

“‘Excuse me; I received 30,000 livres, in banknotes when I reduced the price of the necklace. That was the amount the Queen sent to My Lord Cardinal, and they must certainly have met in secret, because when His Eminence gave it to me he told me that he was present when she took it from the portfolio in the Sèvres Porcelain secretaire in her little boudoir.’

“‘This is all lies. But you have made a very grave error. When you accepted your appointment you took an oath of loyalty to the King and Queen, and yet you failed to make the King aware of this very serious matter, even though you were acting without the direct instructions of the Queen.’

“This last expression really shocked the dangerous lunatic— ce dangereux imbécile —and he asked me what he should do. I advised him to go to Baron Breteuil in his capacity of Royal Jeweller, to tell him everything quite candidly, and trust to his guidance. He replied that he would rather I undertook to tell the Queen what had happened. This I refused to do. It seemed wiser not to get involved in that sort of intrigue.”

But a truly brave and loyal soul would have done just that.

If this conversation between Mme Campan and Boehmer really did take place, there are two possibilities. One is that for once Funck-Brentano is wrong, and that Jeanne had not told Boehmer that the letter was forged, so he still believed absolutely that he was dealing with the Queen. The other is that Jeanne did indeed tell him, but that Boehmer took this to mean that the Queen had quite deliberately signed it under a wrong name in case she was found out, calculating that she could then disclaim it. This is a very dark suspicion, though at the time Marie-Antoinette was suspected of even darker things. What gave strength to Boehmer’s suspicions was that Marie-Antoinette had not responded to his letter with a single word of acknowledgement or asked to discuss it, so that he had only a tacit understanding that she had received the necklace at all. We have to consider the appalling climate of suspicion that surrounded the Queen. Besides, Boehmer was just another Figaro, and what he assumed about his royal masters was not so very dire.

Meanwhile Jeanne did not remain idle. She gave Réteaux de Villette four thousand livres to make his escape. She did not want him appearing before the police a second time and saying something stupid. Then she urgently summoned the Cardinal. She told him that her enemies were accusing her of committing an indiscretion and bragging about it (which sounds probable enough), so she no longer felt safe in her home, and needed to hide. She begged him to give her refuge in his palace. At eleven that night, accompanied by a chambermaid, she crept through his gates. With this particular chess move she achieved two of her intended aims: first, to reassure the Cardinal once again — would she have gone there if her conscience were not crystal clear? Second, to link her own fate even more closely with his, so that she could hide behind him in case of danger, and to compromise him even more profoundly.