John Constantine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
talentforlying) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomhigh2026-04-08 10:45 am
talentforlying) wrote in fandomhigh2026-04-08 10:45 am
Entry tags:
The Long Con, Wednesday, Period 1 [4/8]
"I'd say I'm sorry for missing class, but I'm the one who got stuck as a cockroach for a few weeks, so I think you'll all deal with a few missing days," Constantine announced dryly once everyone had arrived.
Look, when Fandom was accurate with its animal transformations, it was accurate, and John wasn't going to argue with it. He knew what he was; an unkillable pest.
"So let's talk about someone that the world tried to stomp-out multiple times, but she never let it stop her from aiming high. Jeanne de Valois Saint Rémy, the Comtesse de la Motte, and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace."
"Jeanne started out life being told she was descended from royalty. Her father Jacques de Valois was the illegitimate grandson to king Henri II and his mistress Nicole de Savigny. Never recognized, they constantly lived far beneath where they believed they should be and by the time Jeanne came around, she wanted to do something about it."
"Jeanne was the third of six children, and one of three that lived to adulthood. All of them were neglected, with no shoes and often needing to beg for food, until being taken in by a priest. At which point, their Valois ancestry was ascertained by a genealogist at Versailles, and as a result of legal dispositions set up to help children from impoverished noble families, each of the three was given an annual income. Her older brother, Jacques was granted a yearly stipend of 1000 pounds and a post in a military academy; Jeanne and her younger sister Marie-Anne went to a boarding school in Passy and were given a stipend of 900 pounds. They were supposed to become nuns in the Longchamps monastery, but instead chose to go back to Bar-sur-Aube where they lived with the Surmont family."
"On 6 June 1780, Jeanne married Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de la Motte, Surmont's nephew and an officer of the gendarmes. At the time of her wedding, Jeanne was heavily pregnant and only one month later, her newborn twins were baptized as Jean-Baptiste de la Motte and Nicolas-Marc de la Motte, tho both tots lived only a few days."
"While the de la Motte family's claim to nobility was dubious, both husband and wife assumed the title Comte and Comtesse de La Motte Valois." Constantine shrugged. "It was aspirational at best, but Jeanne did not care. She knew what she wanted, what she was owed, and she was going to have it."
"When it became clear that Nicolas was unable to meet the couple's financial needs to maintain them in the extravagant style that his wife avidly desired, Jeanne resolved to ask for a more generous pension from the royal family due to her royal blood, because it always goes well when royal bastards start asking for more. She decided to approach Queen Marie Antoinette, anticipating a sympathetic reception. Jeanne then started haunting the grounds of Versailles in the hope of catching the Queen's attention."
"Now, at that time, any ordinary citizen dressed in suitable attire could enter the palace and its gardens, and observe the royal family. Nevertheless, Marie-Antoinette had been told of Jeanne's dubious life choices and heritage and refused to meet her, pissing off Jeanne, who took it personally."
"This is about when Jeanne started to take lovers, while still living with her husband, because that's how the French do shite. The first was Rétaux de Villette, an actual gigolo and Nicolas's fellow officer in the gendarmerie. Then around 1783, she met Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan. Jeanne quickly became his mistress and confidante. As a result, she became aware that the Cardinal wanted nothing more than to win Marie Antoinette's approval because he was being shunned for trying to thwart her marriage to Louis XVI."
"So Jeanne saw opportunity."
"Around this time, the jeweler Charles Auguste Boehmer was trying to sell a particularly expensive and luxurious diamond necklace originally designed for Madame du Barry. He had invested a fortune into this piece of jewelry and had to sell it fast to avoid bankruptcy. He soon realized that only the King could possibly buy such an item, but Louis XVI and the Queen refused the necklace.
"So Jeanne, with the active help of her husband and de Villette, concocted a plan to use this situation to their financial advantage. Rétaux de Villette was a master forger and wrote letters from 'the Queen' to Jeanne. In the fake letters, the Queen stated that she wanted the necklace, but was aware of the reluctance of the King to buy it due to the current dismal financial situation of the country. She hoped that the Cardinal could lend her the money as a secret favor. Jeanne de la Motte was named as the Queen's agent. The Cardinal believed these letters to be authentic and agreed to buy the necklace for the Queen. The Cardinal knew very well that the Queen never met Jeanne in public, but believed that she was her trusted agent due to a secret liaison. In fact, in August 1784 in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, a late night rendezvous was arranged, where the Cardinal met with 'the Queen' -- in reality a prostitute who resembled her, called Nicole le Guay d'Oliva -- and received the forgiveness he had been yearning for. Feeling empowered by his meeting with 'the Queen,' the Cardinal sprung into action. The jeweler was contacted and asked to bring the necklace, which was then given to Jeanne de la Motte to pass on to the Queen."
John grinned. "Jeanne wasn't giving anything to the woman who had scorned her. Instead, her husband promptly began selling the diamonds in Paris and London. The whole thing came to light only because after months went by and when Boehmer still hadn’t been paid he went to the court with the order signed by the Queen."
"The actual Queen stated she had never seen it, that was not her signature, and Boehmer immediately pointed fingers at the Cardinal."
"Rohan was arrested and taken to the Bastille. On the way, he sent home a note ordering the destruction of his correspondence. Jeanne was not arrested until three days later, giving her a chance to destroy her papers," John said. "Sadly, that wasn't enough, and of course, Jeanne wasn't going to take all the blame herself -- the arrests started racking up, including Rétaux de Villette, Nicole d'Oliva, and Count Cagliostro, a self-proclaimed holy man of whom the Cardinal was a patron, and who Jeanne accused of being the one who persuaded the Cardinal to purchase the necklace. Her husband, Nicholas de la Motte stayed in London where he had been selling the diamonds, where French authorities couldn't touch him."
"While they were not directly implicated and could have tried the swindlers without publicity, the King and the Queen insisted on a public trial to defend their honor, which was dumb as fucking shite. The trial had the opposite effect and destroyed the reputation of the Queen, because the public saw her as the guilty party. Why? Because people are fucking gullible! The same trait Jeanne had been manipulating all along to get her hands on the diamonds, and ruin Marie's reputation at the same time if rumors of the necklace ever got out!"
"The Cardinal was found not guilty and acquitted, because he was just stupid, not criminal. King Louis XVI promptly had him exiled to one of the Cardinal's own properties in southern France. Rétaux de Villette was found guilty of forgery and exiled. Nicole d'Oliva was acquitted, because acting wasn't a crime, and no one was going to blame a whore for doing a job she was hired to do. Count Cagliostro, Jeanne's attempted patsy, though acquitted, was exiled from France by order of the King. Jeanne de la Motte was found guilty and sentenced to be whipped, branded and imprisoned. She was condemned to life imprisonment in the Salpêtrière, but soon escaped disguised as a boy. Probably with help, because public sentiment was with her and against the royals, she had widespread public support."
"Despite all the evidence, many people in France persisted in the belief that the queen used the la Mottes as an instrument to satisfy her hatred of Rohan. Now, various circumstances fortified that belief: the queen's disappointment at Rohan's acquittal and the fact that he was afterwards deprived by the king of his charges and exiled to the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu. In addition, the people assumed that the Parlement of Paris's acquittal of Rohan implied that Marie Antoinette had somehow been in the wrong. All of those factors led to a huge decline in the queen's popularity and impressed an image of her to the public as a manipulative spendthrift who was more interested in vanity than in the welfare of her people."
"Jeanne made her way to London where, in 1789, she published a book entitled Memoires Justificatifs de La Comtesse de Valois de La Motte, which attempted to justify her actions while casting blame upon Marie Antoinette. From all reports, people fucking ate it up."
"Sadly, even after all that scheming, Jeanne died in London as a result of injuries sustained after falling from her hotel room window, while hiding from debt collectors, because her husband held on to all the diamond money and didn't feel like sharing. A contemporary report in The Times stated that she was found 'terribly mangled, her left eye cut out – one of her arms and both her legs are broken.' She died on 23 August 1791, two years before Marie Antoinette, who went to the guillotine in 1793."
"The only person to come out ahead in the whole matter was Nicolas de la Motte, who returned to Paris after the Revolution. He held various posts and positions, largely due to the help of old friends, who were influential members of successive governments."
"Jeanne schemed and scraped her entire life, determined to be recognized in her own right and not just resigned to the trash pile of Europe's royal bastards. And, in her own way, she succeeded, though not in the way she wanted. But that's the risk of the con, innit?"
Look, when Fandom was accurate with its animal transformations, it was accurate, and John wasn't going to argue with it. He knew what he was; an unkillable pest.
"So let's talk about someone that the world tried to stomp-out multiple times, but she never let it stop her from aiming high. Jeanne de Valois Saint Rémy, the Comtesse de la Motte, and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace."
"Jeanne started out life being told she was descended from royalty. Her father Jacques de Valois was the illegitimate grandson to king Henri II and his mistress Nicole de Savigny. Never recognized, they constantly lived far beneath where they believed they should be and by the time Jeanne came around, she wanted to do something about it."
"Jeanne was the third of six children, and one of three that lived to adulthood. All of them were neglected, with no shoes and often needing to beg for food, until being taken in by a priest. At which point, their Valois ancestry was ascertained by a genealogist at Versailles, and as a result of legal dispositions set up to help children from impoverished noble families, each of the three was given an annual income. Her older brother, Jacques was granted a yearly stipend of 1000 pounds and a post in a military academy; Jeanne and her younger sister Marie-Anne went to a boarding school in Passy and were given a stipend of 900 pounds. They were supposed to become nuns in the Longchamps monastery, but instead chose to go back to Bar-sur-Aube where they lived with the Surmont family."
"On 6 June 1780, Jeanne married Marc-Antoine-Nicolas de la Motte, Surmont's nephew and an officer of the gendarmes. At the time of her wedding, Jeanne was heavily pregnant and only one month later, her newborn twins were baptized as Jean-Baptiste de la Motte and Nicolas-Marc de la Motte, tho both tots lived only a few days."
"While the de la Motte family's claim to nobility was dubious, both husband and wife assumed the title Comte and Comtesse de La Motte Valois." Constantine shrugged. "It was aspirational at best, but Jeanne did not care. She knew what she wanted, what she was owed, and she was going to have it."
"When it became clear that Nicolas was unable to meet the couple's financial needs to maintain them in the extravagant style that his wife avidly desired, Jeanne resolved to ask for a more generous pension from the royal family due to her royal blood, because it always goes well when royal bastards start asking for more. She decided to approach Queen Marie Antoinette, anticipating a sympathetic reception. Jeanne then started haunting the grounds of Versailles in the hope of catching the Queen's attention."
"Now, at that time, any ordinary citizen dressed in suitable attire could enter the palace and its gardens, and observe the royal family. Nevertheless, Marie-Antoinette had been told of Jeanne's dubious life choices and heritage and refused to meet her, pissing off Jeanne, who took it personally."
"This is about when Jeanne started to take lovers, while still living with her husband, because that's how the French do shite. The first was Rétaux de Villette, an actual gigolo and Nicolas's fellow officer in the gendarmerie. Then around 1783, she met Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan. Jeanne quickly became his mistress and confidante. As a result, she became aware that the Cardinal wanted nothing more than to win Marie Antoinette's approval because he was being shunned for trying to thwart her marriage to Louis XVI."
"So Jeanne saw opportunity."
"Around this time, the jeweler Charles Auguste Boehmer was trying to sell a particularly expensive and luxurious diamond necklace originally designed for Madame du Barry. He had invested a fortune into this piece of jewelry and had to sell it fast to avoid bankruptcy. He soon realized that only the King could possibly buy such an item, but Louis XVI and the Queen refused the necklace.
"So Jeanne, with the active help of her husband and de Villette, concocted a plan to use this situation to their financial advantage. Rétaux de Villette was a master forger and wrote letters from 'the Queen' to Jeanne. In the fake letters, the Queen stated that she wanted the necklace, but was aware of the reluctance of the King to buy it due to the current dismal financial situation of the country. She hoped that the Cardinal could lend her the money as a secret favor. Jeanne de la Motte was named as the Queen's agent. The Cardinal believed these letters to be authentic and agreed to buy the necklace for the Queen. The Cardinal knew very well that the Queen never met Jeanne in public, but believed that she was her trusted agent due to a secret liaison. In fact, in August 1784 in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, a late night rendezvous was arranged, where the Cardinal met with 'the Queen' -- in reality a prostitute who resembled her, called Nicole le Guay d'Oliva -- and received the forgiveness he had been yearning for. Feeling empowered by his meeting with 'the Queen,' the Cardinal sprung into action. The jeweler was contacted and asked to bring the necklace, which was then given to Jeanne de la Motte to pass on to the Queen."
John grinned. "Jeanne wasn't giving anything to the woman who had scorned her. Instead, her husband promptly began selling the diamonds in Paris and London. The whole thing came to light only because after months went by and when Boehmer still hadn’t been paid he went to the court with the order signed by the Queen."
"The actual Queen stated she had never seen it, that was not her signature, and Boehmer immediately pointed fingers at the Cardinal."
"Rohan was arrested and taken to the Bastille. On the way, he sent home a note ordering the destruction of his correspondence. Jeanne was not arrested until three days later, giving her a chance to destroy her papers," John said. "Sadly, that wasn't enough, and of course, Jeanne wasn't going to take all the blame herself -- the arrests started racking up, including Rétaux de Villette, Nicole d'Oliva, and Count Cagliostro, a self-proclaimed holy man of whom the Cardinal was a patron, and who Jeanne accused of being the one who persuaded the Cardinal to purchase the necklace. Her husband, Nicholas de la Motte stayed in London where he had been selling the diamonds, where French authorities couldn't touch him."
"While they were not directly implicated and could have tried the swindlers without publicity, the King and the Queen insisted on a public trial to defend their honor, which was dumb as fucking shite. The trial had the opposite effect and destroyed the reputation of the Queen, because the public saw her as the guilty party. Why? Because people are fucking gullible! The same trait Jeanne had been manipulating all along to get her hands on the diamonds, and ruin Marie's reputation at the same time if rumors of the necklace ever got out!"
"The Cardinal was found not guilty and acquitted, because he was just stupid, not criminal. King Louis XVI promptly had him exiled to one of the Cardinal's own properties in southern France. Rétaux de Villette was found guilty of forgery and exiled. Nicole d'Oliva was acquitted, because acting wasn't a crime, and no one was going to blame a whore for doing a job she was hired to do. Count Cagliostro, Jeanne's attempted patsy, though acquitted, was exiled from France by order of the King. Jeanne de la Motte was found guilty and sentenced to be whipped, branded and imprisoned. She was condemned to life imprisonment in the Salpêtrière, but soon escaped disguised as a boy. Probably with help, because public sentiment was with her and against the royals, she had widespread public support."
"Despite all the evidence, many people in France persisted in the belief that the queen used the la Mottes as an instrument to satisfy her hatred of Rohan. Now, various circumstances fortified that belief: the queen's disappointment at Rohan's acquittal and the fact that he was afterwards deprived by the king of his charges and exiled to the Abbey of La Chaise-Dieu. In addition, the people assumed that the Parlement of Paris's acquittal of Rohan implied that Marie Antoinette had somehow been in the wrong. All of those factors led to a huge decline in the queen's popularity and impressed an image of her to the public as a manipulative spendthrift who was more interested in vanity than in the welfare of her people."
"Jeanne made her way to London where, in 1789, she published a book entitled Memoires Justificatifs de La Comtesse de Valois de La Motte, which attempted to justify her actions while casting blame upon Marie Antoinette. From all reports, people fucking ate it up."
"Sadly, even after all that scheming, Jeanne died in London as a result of injuries sustained after falling from her hotel room window, while hiding from debt collectors, because her husband held on to all the diamond money and didn't feel like sharing. A contemporary report in The Times stated that she was found 'terribly mangled, her left eye cut out – one of her arms and both her legs are broken.' She died on 23 August 1791, two years before Marie Antoinette, who went to the guillotine in 1793."
"The only person to come out ahead in the whole matter was Nicolas de la Motte, who returned to Paris after the Revolution. He held various posts and positions, largely due to the help of old friends, who were influential members of successive governments."
"Jeanne schemed and scraped her entire life, determined to be recognized in her own right and not just resigned to the trash pile of Europe's royal bastards. And, in her own way, she succeeded, though not in the way she wanted. But that's the risk of the con, innit?"