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The king concurred in this prudent decision, and the diamonds were returned to the jeweler from their majesties with this answer: "We have more need of ships than of diamonds." Boehmer was in great trouble, and knew not what to do. He spent a year in visiting the other courts of Europe, hoping to induce some of the sovereigns to purchase his necklace, but in vain.
Then followed the affair of the diamond necklace, in which the worst, most cunning, and most notorious rogues abused the name of the queen. That was the great adventure of the eighteenth century. Boehmer, the court jeweler, had, in a number of years, procured a collection of stones for an incomparable necklace.
Boehmer and Bassange were only too happy to bargain with the great and wealthy church and state dignitary. A memorandum of terms and time of payment was drawn up, and was submitted to the Queen. That is, swindling Jeanne carried it off, and brought it back, with an entry made by Villette de Rétaux in the margin, thus: "Bon, bon Approuvé, Marie Antoinette de France." That is, "Good, good I approve.
The King afterwards presented her with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine water, and subsequently with a pair of bracelets worth two hundred thousand francs. The Queen, after having her diamonds reset in new patterns, told Boehmer that she found her jewel case rich enough, and was not desirous of making any addition to it.
On the contrary, the King himself had spontaneously offered to purchase the necklace from the jewellers, who had urged it on him without limiting any time for payment. It was the intention of His Majesty to have liquidated it out of his private purse. But Marie Antoinette declined the gift. Twice in my presence was the refusal repeated before Messieurs Boehmer and Bassange.
Matters continued in this state for some time, until the baptism of the Duke d'Angoulême, Maria Antoinette's infant son. The king made his idolized boy a baptismal present of a diamond epaulette and buckles, which he purchased of Boehmer, and directed him to deliver to the queen.
"Madame, you are not in the secret. A man who is ruined for want of payment of fifteen hundred thousand francs cannot be said to be satisfied." "Have you lost your senses?" said I. "For what can the Queen owe you so extravagant a sum?" "For my necklace, madame," replied Boehmer, coolly. "What!" I exclaimed, "that necklace again, which you have teased the Queen about so many years!
I shall now give a brief account of this celebrated imposition perhaps the boldest and shrewdest ever known, and almost wholly the work of a woman. On the Quai de la Ferraille, not far from the Pont Neuf, stood the establishment, part shop, part manufactory, of Messrs. Boehmer & Bassange, the most celebrated jewelers of their day.
"Rise, Boehmer," said the Queen, in a tone sufficiently severe to recall him to himself; "I do not like these rhapsodies; honest men have no occasion to fall on their knees to make their requests. If you were to destroy yourself I should regret you as a madman in whom I had taken an interest, but I should not be in any way responsible for that misfortune.
On the following Sunday, the 15th of August, being the Assumption, at twelve o'clock, at the very moment when the Cardinal, dressed in his pontifical garments, was about to proceed to the chapel, he was sent for into the King's closet, where the Queen then was. The King said to him, "You have purchased diamonds of Boehmer?" "Yes, Sire." "What have you done with them?"