Why did "Diamond Necklace Affair" Hurt Marie Antoinette?

Factual Questions
1

I’ll admit that I have been fairly absorbed by this Queen of France’s life and times due to the volume of books of all genres that are out about her right now (3 of which I have recently read), but I must be missing some subtlety or understanding about the mindset of the French population over the “Notorious Diamond Necklace Affair”.

How could anyone have faulted Marie Antoinette for her non-role in this debacle?

As I understand it, a woman from a once-noble family which had fallen on hard times over a few generations, named Jeanne De Valois De La Motte, schemed with her military husband to defraud a jeweler of a very intricate diamond necklace that the jeweler had originally made (possibly for the Countess Du Barry, the mistress of King Louis XV, grandfather-in-law to Marie Antoinette). The scheme involved a character by the name of the Prince De Rohan, by all accounts a mouthy and annoyingly arrogant petty nobleman who was looking for a religious or political promotion and had hoped to win back the favor of Marie Antoinette in order to enlist her aid in getting said promotion.

A prostitute named Nicole D’Olivia was hired to “play” Marie to the unsuspecting Rohan, suggesting that she’d be willing to negotiate for the promotion he desired, if he’d give La Motte the cash to make a downpayment on the necklace—Rohan was tricked into believing that La Motte and the Queen were close pals (La Motte later suggested they were lesbian partners). He pays the cash, the necklace is delivered to La Motte and promptly cut up and sold in part, and when the time came to make the final installments to the jeweler, it became apparent that all had been duped. Arrests and trials followed, the gist of which is that Jeanne and her accomplices were found guilty and punished, and Rohan was declared innocent.

Marie Antoinette had had nothing to do with the scheme, was in fact USED by La Motte and her accomplices, and did nothing more than express her horror at the whole situation when the truth came to light about this event, and also expressed her dissatisfaction that Rohan was set free, probably stemming from her initial dislike of him.

Why did this piss off the French populace so much? If Marie had AGREED that Rohan should have been let off, wouldn’t they have been outraged that she was supporting yet another “noble family” who was clearly (by their own definition) against the poor and middle class? Could the poor woman have done ANYTHING in this case to resuscitate her image?

The trial was public, the whole sordid tale was exposed, the prostitute admitted to presenting herself falsely as Marie to the addled Rohan, the evidence in no way implicated the Queen—I just don’t know how Marie managed so much bad press from this event!

What’s the dope, historical dopers??

–Beck

2

I think that by this point, the popluation was so angry that they didn’t even stop to consider that Marie might have been innocent. They believed her to be not only morally depraved but incredibly greedy for gems and completely indifferent to the plight of the poor.

It was suggested by some at the time that Marie really had been involved, but lied to avoid her husband’s wrath. It was also rumored that she was having an affair with Rohan (and dozens of others, for that matter, both male and female.)

I think that Marie was in the same boat as Anne Boleyn. By the time of her fall, nothing was believed to be beyond her vile nature, including molesting her own son. (Just as Anne Boleyn was accused of incest.)

Marie was the whipping-boy of the anger of the French populace who may have had some innate reservations at flinging all of their venom at the king himself; his consort was a more comfortable target. She was foreign, after all. While her husband was of a more subdued nature, preferring to pick locks and hunt, Marie was a more visible presence, romping with her friends, attending the opera and appearing to spend lavishly while her people suffered.

3

It’s like the stories about Vice President Quayle saying “I was recently on a tour of Latin America, and the only regret I have was that I didn’t study Latin harder in school so I could converse with those people” - it wasn’t true but it seemed so in character that people believed it anyway.