The crowd outside the Palace of Versailles council chamber rippled with excitement. They knew something extraordinary was going on inside. Cardinal de Rohan, who was about to celebrate Mass for the royal family to mark the Assumption of the Virgin, had been unexpectedly escorted to the king’s apartment by a couple of soldiers. Who else was inside and what were they saying?
Suddenly the door opened and the pale cardinal walked out. With him was the king’s chief minister, who turned to the nearest guard and said loudly, for all to hear: “The king orders you, monsieur, to arrest the cardinal.”
The stunning detention of Rohan in August 1785 was the moment when what’s become known as the Affair of the Diamond Necklace burst into the public domain. The scandal ruined the reputation of Rohan and discredited Marie Antoinette, but both were largely innocent victims of a scammer who burrowed her way into the
