A Crash Course in French and the Diamond Necklace Affair

I will be the first to admit that I don’t really know French. I sometimes pretend I do, though. There are plenty of sources in English regarding the ancien-régime France (see what I did there?), the French Revolutionary, Marie-Antoinette, and even the Affair of the Diamond

A young Marie Antoinette as dauphine.

Necklace. You don’t need to learn French to learn about the history. But as you read, you’ll probably pick up more than a few French phrases. I know I did.

French is more than a language; it’s a state of mind. That probably sounds silly, but there’s a reason that there’s an institution (the Académie Française) that is dedicated to preserving French (and similarly, there’s a reason why there’s no equivalent for the English language; but that is neither here nor there, n’est ce-pas? See what I did there?). As a result of the Académie, modern French hasn’t deviated greatly from the version of French that was spoken by the heroes of our 18th-century misadventure. Compare that to English, which has changed markedly since the same time period. Writings from the 1700’s are perfectly understandable but sound strange (and just plain old) to modern ears. Have we lost or gained by allowing our language to morph? After all, the slight changes in language put a distance between us and the Founding Fathers (for instance). They didn’t speak quite like us and, therefore, they weren’t quite like us: they thought differently; they felt differently; they were just plain different. That conclusion isn’t precisely true, of course. But the difference in language does put a wedge between us and our ancestors. (As a side-note to my digression, the same isn’t true of, say, the Civil War era; the English of that era sounds very much more familiar to the modern ear than that of the Revolutionary era.)

The French, at least as far as language goes, don’t have the same kind of distance between themselves and their ancestors. They are, however, distanced from the past by culture. The cultural difference between ancien-régime France and modern France is, I think, greater than that between colonial America and the modern United States.

So, let’s just say you don’t know much French, but you’re studying the Affair of the Diamond Necklace (as you should!). What French phrases might you come across,  what do they mean, and what do they say about 18th-century France?

Let’s start with one that’s already come up in this post:

Ancien régime: Literally, the old/former regime. More specifically, in this context the phrase means France before the Revolution. More loosely, the phrase is used to describe the government (or way of doing things) that is now passed. So, it can be used to describe the previous administration when the new one is in office.

Here is a phrase not familiar to many people, even those who study French. It has a specific place in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace:

18th-Century Stays

I may not be the world’s biggest historical costume buff–in fact, my knowledge would be considered pretty basic by some. I know most of the terms–things like robe a la polonaise and pannier. I know my waistcoat from my stomacher. There is still a lot I don’t know, however.

So, last night I had a grand old time looking through YouTube videos on 18th-century dress. I was particularly interested in leaning more about 18th-century stays. Stays are not quite the same as corsets. As is said in one of the videos, the aim was not to shrink the waist to unnatural proportions like Victorian corsets did. The aim was both support and an upside-down triangle shape. The waist became slightly more round instead of being compressed.

There are a lot of myths about stays/corsets, most of them directly out of Hollywood. In Pirates of the Caribbean, for instance, Elizabeth is laced into her stays so tightly that it’s difficult for her to breath. Firstly, stays shouldn’t be laced that tight; basically, if you can’t breathe, you’re doing it wrong. Secondly, the movie shows her maid tugging at the laces from the back (like in the movie Titanic). This isn’t wrong, per se, as stays were often laced in front and back. But many people don’t realize that many stays laced up the front. Otherwise, it would be impossible for a woman to dress herself, and not every woman had a maid to help her dress every morning, believe it or not.

I’ve read some books on the subject before, but none of them were nearly as helpful as the videos, which are hands-on. It’s much easier to get an idea of what’s being said when you can see it happening. Here are a few videos I particularly liked:

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, London, and the Pleasure Gardens

A prospect of Vauxhall Gardens. By Samuel Wales c. 1751.

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois, the instigator of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace and the heroine of her own story, fled to England following her daring escape from the Salpêtrière prison in Paris. (For more information on how and why she ended up in prison, take a look at The Short Story or my extensive post on Jeanne, which I linked to above.)

It’s no secret that the English had no liking for the French. They were perennial enemies (see, for example, the Hundred Years War). Jeanne had embarrassed the French monarchy through her plot to steal a diamond necklace, so the English welcomed her to London. Once she arrived, Jeanne began writing memoirs that were sensational and damaging to Marie-Antoinette’s reputation. They were also largely fabrications of Jeanne’s imagination. In any case, Jeanne made herself even more of an enemy of the French king and queen than she had already been. Jeanne was also in a bad spot financially, with creditors on her tail. On top of this, Jeanne had a history of suicidal thoughts and tendencies.

So, when Jeanne fell from the third story of her home in London and died as a result of her injuries, it wasn’t clear whether she went over the rail accidentally, was pushed, or jumped. It still isn’t clear whether her death was an accident, a homicide, or a suice. I wrote more extensively on the matter in this post here.

A friend who follows this blog pointed out a passage in this book from 1896 (The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century). The passage talks about the Temple of Flora, one of the pleasure gardens that were common in London at the end of the 1700s. While describing the Temple of Flora, the author points out that a translation of Jeanne’s memoir (her Life) placed Jeanne’s death in a house across the street from the Temple.

This is an interesting tidbit of information, not only because it gives a more precise location for the scene of the accident (or incident). It also gives us some insight into late-18th-century London. Pleasure gardens were more or less exactly what they sound like: they were garden that had flowers, benches, music, galas, dancing halls, food, drink, and fireworks. They were a combination of park, county fair, and assembly hall. Vauxhall and Ranelagh were two of the most popular of these pleasure gardens. It was common for people of all stations to venture out for entertainment to the various gardens that appeared all around London at the time.

The Rotunda at the popular Ranelagh Gardens. 1754 by Thomas Bowles.

The Temple of Flora was not one of the largest of these pleasure gardens. It was located just beside Westminster Bridge, on the left when going towards the obelisk (unfortunately, I’m not sure what is meant by “the obelisk”, since the obelisk doesn’t seem to exist any more; however, the direction is east). It was separated from the Temple of Apollo by Oakley Street (now Bayliss Street). It had a hothouse with a statue of “Pomona”, a gloss of Flora. The gardens offered refreshments in the form of orgeat (a sweet drink), lemonade, confectionaries, strawberries, and cream. For a few years in the early 1790s (the exact time period Jeanne lived nearby), the Temple of Flora was a fashionable spot. By the late 1790’s, it went downhill, and it appears the gardens were closed around 1796 (a few years after Jeanne’s death). Since she lived right across the street, it’s likely that Jeanne visited the Temple of Flora many times.

To read more about the Temple of Flora and other pleasure gardens, click here to read from The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century.

Thanks to Nico Hofstra for the tip!

Marie Jossel: Jeanne de La Motte’s mother

I am currently working through one of Jeanne de la Motte-Valois’s memoirs. It is available online through Google Books (click this link to go there). This version is the original English translation, published in London’s Paternoster row in 1791. At this time, Jeanne was living in London. Shortly after the publication of this memoir, she died after a fall from a London window onto the London streets (some say she was pushed).

Jeanne de la Motte-Valois

Presumably, Jeanne told her story in French. Unless her English was very good, someone translated this work. Whoever did it was not a great prose stylist. The wording is clunky at best. Most of the sentences stretch on for a week or two without any reason for doing so. Combined with the fact that the English of 220 years ago was slightly different from the English of today, the language of the memoir itself can be a bit tedious. But once you get used to it, it’s worth the trouble. The story is extraordinary.

Google Books offers a text version of the book. You can highlight, copy, and paste the words. But because the software isn’t perfect, and because the page images have some flaws, the text version is messy. As I go, I am copying the text and cleaning it up. I’m doing it roughly; there’s simply too much work for me to go through it with a fine-toothed comb. However, I will bring to the readers of this blog some of the results of this clean-up.

The first of these posts will be about Marie Jossel, Jeanne’s mother. Jeanne was not, to say the least, her mother’s biggest fan. According to Jeanne, her father–the son of a minor nobleman, descended from the illegitimate child of Henri II, unprepared to support his family in any way–had been intended to marry a young noblewoman practically since his birth. As a young man, he fell for a maid in his household, the lovely but barbed Marie. Jeanne’s father, named Jacques like Jeanne’s brother, wanted to marry Marie, but his father disapproved. In spite of his father’s disapproval, Jacques married Marie (the English translation refers to her as Maria for no discernible reason).

As Jeanne herself puts it:

Maria [or Marie] Jossel, a girl who had the charge of the house at Fontette [meaning she was a maid], was the person who had attracted his [Jeanne’s father Jacques’s] eye. She was solicitous to please him and in a short time became pregnant. My father, wishing at once to make her an honorable reparation and to legitimate his child, was induced to ask my grandfather’s consent to marry her; [Jacques’s father], thinking such a union degrading to an illustrious line of ancestry, gave a pointed and formal refusal. This opposition did but increase my father’s ardor; who, after many unsuccessful efforts to win my grandfather to compliance, and remaining unmarried till he was thirty-six years of age (four years longer than the law required) [until the age of thirty, men were required to seek their father’s approval to marry in France], at length solemnized the marriage at Langres in Champaign, under the names of James de Luz and Maria Jossel, where my father had purchased an estate upon which he resided some time previous to the nuptials. About a year after, my grandfather, upon his deathbed, forgave the indiscretion of his son; after whose decease my father and mother left Langres to take possession of the estate at Fontette [the family estate, where Jeanne herself was born].

click below to continue reading…..

Acquisitions of the Palace of Versailles

I found this on the official site of the Chateau de Versailles, and was interested in the items recently acquired by the palace.

Click here to get more info on the acquisitions and see pictures.

As the page will probably be updated in the future, I’m going to quote a few of the items I found most interesting.

These elegant folding stools form part of a series of sixty-four ordered for the Games Room of Queen Marie-Antoinette in the royal residence of Compiègne, delivered in two groups to the Queen by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sené (1748 – 1803). Twenty-four of these folding stools were immediately placed in the throne room of the Château de Fontainebleau where they can still be seen. These folding stools will be installed in the bedchamber of Louis XV.

I find this interesting because it’s indicative of what has been lost from the Chateau. During the Revolution, the contents of the Chateau were destroyed or sold off. These stools, for example, are from another palace entirely, but have been used to recreate part of the Chateau de Versailles. The downside of this is that 18th-century design was customized to the room. Furnishings, wall panels, and drapery were all custom designed to fit together in that particular space. When the elements are taken apart and then put together with other pieces, some of the effect will be lost. I’m not criticizing what’s been done at the Chateau in any way, I’m just commenting that over time some things are–sadly–lost and can’t be put back together.

A commode bearing the marks of the Palace of Versailles was acquired during a public sale in Lyon. These items of furniture used on a daily basis, provided in large quantities and regularly replaced, were sold during the French Revolution. This toilet seat presents itself as a rectangular chest sitting on spindle-shaped legs. The solid mahogany was chosen with care and set-off by the decorative moulding-free surfaces. The marks of the palace are found on the back board, made of oak, the W painted simply in black ink and the hot branding of a W with a crown above it. On the other hand, there is no Garde-Meuble registration number on the commode: was it on the toilet rim, which has disappeared, or did someone forget to inscribe it on the commode as it was delivered with other pieces of furniture? Paradoxically, the most basic items of furniture are those which are lacking the most today in the palace’s collections.

I found this item interesting because, well, it’s a toilet and because it’s also mentioned that the most common items are sometimes the most difficult to find centuries later. Think about it. Will they be looking in vain for rolling desk chairs in two hundred fifty years when they try to reconstruct 21st century offices?

Marked Louis Delanois, these were the first medallion back chairs, a style that enjoyed much success in the history of French furniture. Thanks to the sponsorship of companies like Ponthieu Rabelais, Financière de Tournon and Financière du Bac, the historical items which are recognised as “National Treasures”, will be returned to the collections of the Palace of Versailles. The chairs belong to a series of thirteen, including a higher one for the King, delivered at the end of 1769 by joiner Louis Delanois for the living room of Madame Du Barry at Versailles. The living room was also decorated with thirteen armchairs, a large settee and a screen. All covered with white satin, trimmed with green satin and embroidered with silk for the summer and velvet for the winter. Madame Du Barry, who was Louis XV’s mistress after Madame de Pompadour, lived at Versailles from 1769 until the king’s death (1774). An art lover,she supported painters and craftsmen and cultivated the neo-classical style at Versailles.

Madame du Barry was one of the more interesting personages of her time, at least to me. She must have been smart and tenacious to put herself into the position of royal mistress. It’s fairly clear she had some failings, like vanity, greed, pride, and (maybe?) lust. She clearly didn’t mind committing adultery openly, but then again it seems she and Louis XV had a genuine liking for one another. The Du Barry also has a connection to our story of the fateful diamond necklace. The necklace was originally designed with her in mind. Its gaudiness would have fit her tastes. But by the time the jewelers had assembled the diamonds to make the necklace, Louis XV had died and Madame his mistress had been exiled from Court. She had no royal lover to buy the necklace for her, so the jewelers tried to convince their new queen, Marie-Antoinette, to buy it. The rest, as they say, is history.

A Programming Note

It’s been some time since I’ve updated here, which is entirely my fault. I can’t even beg the excuse of being too busy. I can, however, say that I’ve had distractions.

April will prove to turn up a wealth of material for this site, though. I will be in Paris for 3 days and will be making stops at the Rue du Jour (Nicole d’Oliva’s home), the Rue St Gilles (where the La Mottes lived), the Palais-Royal (where Nicole, ahem, worked), the Palais de Justice (where the lot of the them were tried and Jeanne was flogged and branded), and the Grove of Venus at Versailles. I shall return with a million pictures (I almost said bajillion but thought that might sound childish) and lots of information.

On April Fool’s Day, I’ll be going to see Alison Wier talk at the Tower of London. It’s not directly related to the Affair of the Necklace, but as she is a well-known nonfiction writer and has made forays into historical fiction, I’ll write back a report here.

I also went back to the Victoria and Albert Museum and got some more pictures of 18th century textiles. Enjoy a few more photos:

Brocaded silk, 1760's, probably French

Brocaded silk, probably French.

Textile Delight

I have to admit it–your average 22-year-old wouldn’t jump up and down with glee when she found, in a museum, an enormous stock of textiles from all ages of history. Not being exactly “average”, I got a little giddy.

I didn’t realize that the Victoria & Albert Museum had such a lovely collection of textiles on display. Upstairs on the third (ie fourth to Americans) floor, just beside the Europe and American 19th century room, there is a place of splendor. The long, thin room is filled with rows of textile samples. They work a bit like library stacks. There are rows, and slotted into each row is an upright wooden frame with a textile sample. Each one is numbered for reference and has a label for more detail.

The textiles included come from all over the world and are as old as the 14th century (perhaps earlier–that is the earliest date I recall seeing).

My first thought was: Nicole! There are few things are lovely as 18th-century dress and textile. There were some very pretty lace and printed cotton samples. The lace is impressive mostly because of the work put into it. I found the cotton prints interesting because they all seemed to be on a white background. I probably could have spent hours going through that place, admiring the beauty of it all. I went through, tugging things partially at random. I didn’t mind what I pulled out, because it was all impressive.

Near the end of my time, I found exactly what I was looking for: some exquisite cloth of exactly the type I can see the ladies of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace wearing. I thought particularly of Nicole, of course, as she is the main character of my work-in-progress. I took some pictures for reference of my favorite ones. The result was not an unmitigated success since the room was dim. However, I think I managed to get an idea of the beauty and the color of these fantastic textiles. I wish I could share some technical details with you, but the photos I took of the information cards all turned out blurry and unreadable. Next time I stop by the V&A (and let’s face it, I’m going to go back sometime soon), I’ll try to get the little details. Until then, enjoy the beauty:

Richly brocaded silk, French 1750-55. Woven in tabby, brocaded in silk and metal thread. The flush pattern in the field is created by a blue pattern weft.

Brocaded silk, French 1770’s. Tabby weave, brocaded in colored silk. The lacey pattern distracts from the lines of flowers., a common design in the 3rd quarter of the 18th century.

Nicole d’Oliva

The Characters #5: Nicole d’Oliva

I’ve come across some varying versions of Nicole d’Oliva’s name, but from what I can gather, her true name was Marie Nicole Leguay d’Oliva. She was also christened “Baronness [‘Barone’ in French] d’Olisva” by the Comtesse de La Motte. She was also known around the Palais Royal and to the police as Mlle de Designy. Most descriptions give her name as Nicole d’Oliva, however (many people at this time had two or more first names and used the second, in this case Nicole).

Young Nicole was  born in Paris in 1761, “of honest if humble family. She says in her memoirs that her “first misfortune was to be orphaned at too tender an age, deprived of parents’ care and vigilance which would have warded off the dangers inevitable to an unprotected girlhood”.

Nicole did not have any guidance or opportunities in her life. Like many women before and since, she was given very options and turned to prostitution. The oldest profession has many different levels, from the cheap hooker on the corner to the well-kept maitresse en titre, a woman who had a semi-official role and title as the mistress of the king. During Nicole’s childhood, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry were the first ladies in the land, the mistresses of Louis XV. Nicole may have looked to their example of what even an uneducated, unprivileged young woman could accomplish. No doubt she aspired to creating a comfortable life for herself. However, she was still pretty far down on the ladder of life.

Jeanne de La Motte-Valois

Starting with this post, I am going to be writing about the endlessly fascinating Affair of the Diamond Necklace. In this issue: the Comtesse de La Motte, the orchestrator of a diamond theft that rocked the world.

This is all prompted by the historical novel I’m working on. I’m 40k into the story (give or take 401 words; or, rather, take 401 words because it’s at exactly 39,599). Obviously, I’ve gotten a hell of a lot done already, and I’m pretty pleased with what I have. I will have to go back and do a little bit of cleaning up, I think, just to make sure I haven’t inadvertently given the wrong impression about this, that, or the other thing. The story is being set up rather like a thriller or a mystery, though the revelation (which I just wrote) comes around halfway through the story, not at the end. The denouement (or at least the aftermath of poor Nicole’s realization) is going to be much longer. Because, after all, it’s about her, not about the story.

The Characters #1: Jeanne de La Motte-Valois de St Remy (July 1756 – August 1791)

Jeanne de Valois de St Remy was born in the provinces, near the town of Bar-Sur-Aube, France. Her family were impoverished nobility, living in the ramshackle Chateau de Fontette. One of her ancestors, Henri de Saint-Remy, was born in 1557, the illegitimate son of Henri II of France. His descendants were given the surname “Saint-Remy” and this Henri was made Baron of Fontette. Several generations later, the family was in dire financial straits. They had kept themselves alive through a tradition of military service, but Jeanne’s father did not carry on this tradition. He married one of the maids as the family fortunes sank even lower. Jeanne had an older brother, a younger sister who died as a young child, and a sister who was near her age. Her family ended up walking to Paris to try to make their way with only a paper outlining their pedigree. The father died, the mother abandoned her children, and Jeanne and her brother were forced to beg.

According to Jeanne, she carried her little sister on her back and went to the road to Passy, where she met the Marquise de Boulainvilliers, who took her in. She was sent to school (and didn’t like it), worked for increasingly lowly couturiers (and didn’t like it), and was briefly in a convent (and didn’t like it). She returned to Bar-sur-Aube, running away from the convent. There she was supported by the Beugnot family. After what appears to have been what is called a “shotgun wedding” in common parlance, she went to Paris with her husband (Nicolas Marc-Antoine de La Motte), looking to make her fortune by importuning the queen with her sad story. She expected that, as the last (though illegitimate) living Valois, she would be given some support. She was actually given a fairly generous annuity, considering how distant her relation was to the king. She was also to be known as Mademoiselle de Valois, her brother was given the title Baron de Valois, and her sister was to be called Mademoiselle de St Remy.

Her publicity stunts at Versailles grew increasingly desperate. She fainted in front of Madame Elisabeth, King Louis XVI’s sister, and even managed to get into the good graces of Madame Elisabeth and the Comtesse d’Artois, the King’s sister-in-law. Then there was some little scandal involving Jeanne and the Comte d’Artois, her patroness’s husband. She fell out of favor. She went to one minister and refused to leave until she was listened to. This produced a slight increase in her pension. Still, she was in troubled waters.

This is where her story gets interesting. Jeanne, now calling herself a countess, had begun to convince people in about 1783 to 1784 that she was a close friend to the queen. She put around the story that she and the queen were on intimate terms. The pandering of influence was big business in a time and place where all good things flowed from the king and, especially there and then, from queen Marie-Antoinette. Jeanne roped in a Cardinal and Prince of the blood, a man named Prince Louis de Rohan. He had alienated the queen when she was still Dauphine (queen in waiting), and wanted to get back into her favor. Jeanne took advantage of him, bilking him for one hundred twenty thousand francs, a vast sum. She did it by having her “personal secretary” Retaux de Villette forge letters from the queen. The “queen” requested loans because she was more than usually hard up–because, of course, the queen of France typically had such troubles (or not). In any case, Jeanne apparently pocketed the money and showed sudden signs of affluence. She returned briefly to Bar-sur-Aube, lording it over the locals.

Then this all got very interesting.