Affair of the diamond necklace

The Affair of the diamond necklace was a mysterious incident in the 1780s at the court of Louis XVI of France involving the queen Marie Antoinette. It concerned an unsavoury episode in which the wife of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette, whose reputation was already tarnished by gossip and scandal, was implicated in a crime by contemporary public opinion. The Affair was historically significant as one of the events that led to the French populace's disillusionment with the monarchy, which eventually culminated in the French Revolution.

Significance

The affair of the necklace was important in discrediting the French monarchy in the years before the Revolution. Marie Antoinette was an unpopular figure, and salacious gossip about her made her even more of a liability to her husband. She was never able to shake off the idea in the public imagination that she had perpetrated a multi-million pound fraud for her own political ends. The circulation of sexual scandal and arguments about necklaces cannot have made her appear to be more in touch with the ordinary people. The affair also prompted Louis XVI to move closer to his wife, which arguably did not help him deal with later policy dilemmas.

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