FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE MEMOIRS (DIAMOND NECKLACE AFFAIR.)

Countess de Valois de la Motte. Memoirs... Containing a Complete Justification of her Conduct... and Concluding with an Address to the King of France Supplicating a Re-Investigation of that Apparently Mysterious Business. viii, 259, [230, 231], 48 pages. 8vo, contemporary marbled calf gilt, rubbed; front endpaper (loss to upper outer corner) through title-page loose, scattered light soiling near end, owner's inked signature on title. Pages 260 and 261 misnumbered as 230 and 231. London: 1789 first english translationof the Countess's memoirs in which she recounts and justifies her role in the celebrated "affair" at the court of Marie Antoinette. The "Affair" as it was known, was a sensational confidence game involving the Comtesse de la Motte, a woman whose family was spurned by the French government for their revolutionary tendencies. Seeking claim to the Valois estate and restored respect, she concocted a plan to deceive the Cardinal de Rohan into thinking that he was specially chosen as intermediary by the Queen to purchase and deliver a large and beautiful diamond necklace created by famous Parisian jeweler B”hmer and Bassenge. The published memoirs, depositions, and pleadings of the case were devoured by an extremely curious and incensed public (see lots below). The trial did not help the case of the increasingly unpopular Marie Antoinette and indeed contributed to her eventual beheading. A signature of "Comtese de Valois de la Motte" appears on page 261, but Sinkankas notes that signatures vary from copy to copy. Sinkankas 3753.