Memoirs of the Countess de Valois de la Motte; containing a compleat justification of her conduct, and an explanation of the intrigues and artifices used against her by her enemies, relative to the diamond necklace [...]
Publisher: Printed for the author, and sold by J. Ridgway
Published: 1789
Place of publication: London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 334
Description: <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Full title:</b> Memoirs of the Countess de Valois de la Motte; containing a compleat justification of her conduct, and an explanation of the intrigues and artifices used against her by her enemies, relative to the diamond necklace; also the correspondence between the Queen and the Cardinal de Rohan and concluding with an address to the king of France, supplicating a re-investigation of that apparently mysterious business. Translated from the French, written by herself.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"> Tall 8vo. pp. viii, 231 (i.e. 261), [3], 48. The fresh, crisp sheets, which preserve the triple stab-holes for their original stitching, have been bound up in recent three-quarter polished calf with marbled board sides, by the St. Michael’s Abbey Bindery at Farnborough (stamp on p. [3] of cover). Signed by author on p. 260 [misnumbered 231], and with her autograph corrections/revisions on six pages, viz., 1, 2, 9, 37, 83, and in the documentary appendix, at p. 20. Plate pasted on first blank, with handwritten text: "P. Dulane Horsham 1792."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">The probable first edition in English, which may precede the French ‘original,’ likewise printed and published in London by Rivington in 1789. ‘Countess’ de la Motte (1756-1791) was a confidence artist who claimed illegitimate kinship with Henry II, appropriated a title, and charmed her way into the court circle of Marie Antoinette, where she helped to perpetuate the infamous ‘affaire du collier,’ in which Cardinal de Rohan was persuaded that he might regain the goodwill of Louis XVI by helping Marie to acquire a fabulously expensive piece of jewellery. La Motte made use of forged encouraging replies, signed by the Queen, to the Cardinal’s credulous letters, procuring promissory notes and taking possession of the necklace in the Queen’s name. Her husband then fled with it to England, where it was dismantled and sold stone by stone. When the original forgeries were exposed La Motte was tried, convicted, and committed to the Bastille, but she escaped and rejoined her husband in London, where she published these Memoirs, which became a wildfire best seller, with the French version alone calling for at least sixteen editions with ‘London’ imprints in 1789-1790. The original forgeries of Marie Antoinette’s self-incriminating letters to Rohan were destroyed by the latter, while his to her were never even delivered, so that in order to publish the former in the documentary appendix to this volume, La Motte herself had to re-forge the original forgeries. She may be the earliest known significant female literary forger.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">See also ESTC, T142432; F. Funck-Brentano, La mort de la reine. Paris, 1902, p. 111 ff.; L. de la Sicotière in J.-M. Quérard, Les supercheries littéraires dévoilées; seconde édition, considérablement augmentée, publiée par MM. Gustave Brunet et Pierre Jannet. Paris, 1870, II, col. 647-649.
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