Hearing rumors of his daughter Diane's extraordinary beauty, the charming but profligate comte de Fautrière removes the thirteen-year-old from her convent school in the provinces and takes her to Paris. Blossoming in the fashion and excitement of life at court, Diane captures the roving eye of the King himself and seems balanced on the brink of a fabulous career that could save her family's fortunes. But it takes more than a beautiful face to negotiate the intrigues of court. Caught between the desire to please her father and friends and her own awakening passions, she plays at love with a handsome Swiss baron and is drawn into a dangerous infatuation with a nobleman whose prospects are no surer than her own. Diane struggles to become something other than a pawn in other people's games but not playing by the rules will have consequences more serious than she can imagine. Drawing on the unpublished memoir of an eighteenth-century countess whose spectacular beauty seemed to promise a charmed life, the haunting story of Diane de Fautrière unfolds among a fabulous cast of characters in the licentious, debauched world of the court of Louis XV.

In this lively retelling of the infamous Diamond Necklace Affair, the daughter of a bastard branch of French royalty, Jeanne de La Motte-Valois descends like a whirlwind on 1780s Paris. Jeanne rises by luck and pluck from the depths of childhood beggary to the pinnacle of court and Paris society, and cannot rest until she amasses the riches needed to support a life style befitting a princess. When she crosses paths with Prince Cardinal Louis de Rohan, the handsome, wealthy scion of the mighty house of Rohan, his own obsessive ambitions play perfectly into her plans. Add to this volatile mix the crown jewelers Bohmer and Bassenge, who in their bid for artistic immortality create a diamond necklace whose purchase would bankrupt a nation. From the glittering intricacies of the royal court to the dreaded cells of the Bastille, the La Motte woman concocts a masterful swindle that will rock the French throne and drag Marie Antoinette''s name into the gutter.

Hearing rumors of his daughter Diane's extraordinary beauty, the charming but profligate comte de Fautrière removes the thirteen-year-old from her convent school in the provinces and takes her to Paris. Blossoming in the fashion and excitement of life at court, Diane captures the roving eye of the King himself and seems balanced on the brink of a fabulous career that could save her family's fortunes. But it takes more than a beautiful face to negotiate the intrigues of court. Caught between the desire to please her father and friends and her own awakening passions, she plays at love with a handsome Swiss baron and is drawn into a dangerous infatuation with a nobleman whose prospects are no surer than her own. Diane struggles to become something other than a pawn in other people's games but not playing by the rules will have consequences more serious than she can imagine. Drawing on the unpublished memoir of an eighteenth-century countess whose spectacular beauty seemed to promise a charmed life, the haunting story of Diane de Fautrière unfolds among a fabulous cast of characters in the licentious, debauched world of the court of Louis XV.

In this lively retelling of the infamous Diamond Necklace Affair, the daughter of a bastard branch of French royalty, Jeanne de La Motte-Valois descends like a whirlwind on 1780s Paris. Jeanne rises by luck and pluck from the depths of childhood beggary to the pinnacle of court and Paris society, and cannot rest until she amasses the riches needed to support a life style befitting a princess. When she crosses paths with Prince Cardinal Louis de Rohan, the handsome, wealthy scion of the mighty house of Rohan, his own obsessive ambitions play perfectly into her plans. Add to this volatile mix the crown jewelers Bohmer and Bassenge, who in their bid for artistic immortality create a diamond necklace whose purchase would bankrupt a nation. From the glittering intricacies of the royal court to the dreaded cells of the Bastille, the La Motte woman concocts a masterful swindle that will rock the French throne and drag Marie Antoinette''s name into the gutter.