Author Description

A tale of greed, lust, deceit, theft on an extraordinary scale, charlatanry, kidnapping, assassination attempts and an escape from the Bastille.On 5 September 1785, a trial began in Paris that would divide the country, captivate Europe and send the French monarchy tumbling down the slope towards the Revolution. Cardinal Louis de Rohan, scion of one of the most ancient and distinguished families in France, stood accused of forging Marie Antoinette’s signature to fraudulently obtain the most expensive piece of jewellery in Europe – a 2,400-carat necklace worth 1.6 million francs. The cardinal argued that he had been deceived by a beguiling adventuress, Jeanne, comtesse de la Motte-Valois, who had persuaded him that she was an intimate friend of the queen. For a long time, he believed he had conducted a clandestine correspondence with his royal mistress; in fact, Jeanne had not only fabricated the letters, but had also arranged a midnight assignation in the gardens of Versailles with a prostitute disguised as Marie Antoinette.Where were the diamonds now? Was Rohan entirely innocent? Was, for that matter, the queen? What was the role of the charismatic magus, the comte de Cagliostro, who claimed to be two-thousand-years old and capable of transforming metal into gold?This is a tale of political machinations and extravagance on an enormous scale; of kidnappings, prison breaks and assassination attempts; of hapless French police disguised as colliers, reams of lesbian pornography and a duel fought with poisoned pigs. It is a detective story, a courtroom drama, a tragicomic farce, and a study of credulity and self-deception in the Age of Enlightenment.