The Affair of the Necklace
The mansion shown belonging to the Cardinal Louis de Rohan is actually the Chateau de Vaux-Le-Vicomte, built between 1658 and 1661 for Nicolas Fouquet, Marquis de Belle Île, Viscount of Melun and Vaux, the superintendent of finances to Louis XIV. To ensure there was enough room for the Chateau and the planned gardens, three villages were bought and demolished. Fouquet was unfortunetly not able to enjoy the property for very long. In August of 1661, a few days after a ball, to which Lous XIV was invited, to celebrate the completion of the Chateau, the King had Fouquet arrested, charged with misappropriation of public funds, to pay for the lavish estate's construction. Fouquet was imprisoned for life, and his wife exiled. The King bought or confiscated many of the furnishings and works of art on the property, and hired the team responsible for its construction to design and build the Palace of Versailles. The property was returned to Madame Fouquet in the mid 1670s. The Chateau was never the property of the Cardinal, nor did he ever live there. In 1705, shortly after the death of her husband and son, Madame Fouquet sold the Chateau to the Marshall Villars, one of Louis XIV's most trusted Generals. He bought it sight unseen. His son would sell the property to the Duke de Praslin in 1764, and his descendants kept the property for over one hundred years. It was eventually bought, in a sad state of disrepairs, and with the gardens overgrown, and uncared for, by the Sommier family, who restored the gardens and the Chateau. The Sommier still own Vaux-le-Vicomte, and the Chateau is now open to the public. The Chateau has cropped up frequently in movies and television shows, most memorably as the home "rebuilt stone by stone in California" by the villain Drax in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979).,[Nicolas, lying on a table in pain as a doctor tries removes the bullet from his behind]
Count Nicolas De La Motte: Goddamn! Goddamn! Are you digging for potatoes? Go easy!
Dr. Legear: I did not tell how to get this projectile where it is! Do not presume to tell me how to get it out!,Featured in HBO First Look: 'The Affair of the Necklace': The Making of a Scandal (2001),Movement I: Mercy
Written by Alanis Morissette & Jonathan Elias
Performed by Alanis Morissette & Salif Keïta
Courtesy of Sony Classical, A Division of Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.,This storylike true story had already been filmed by Marcel Lherbier in 1946,with Vivianne Romance -famous for her bitchy parts-,a more than adequate comtesse de la Motte.

This is the first mistake of this "remake":Hilary Swank portrays a genuine heroine,whose properties have been stolen by an unfair monarchy,whose father was some kind of Robin Hood who protected the poor against the cruelty of times.She appears most of the time as a victim,a noble adventuress,with a romantic love affair with her sidekick,but it's the ending in London that takes the biscuit,when she reads her memoirs to old posh sobbing ladies "oh poor thing!oh poor dear!" Les "memoires de madame de la Motte" -which were published in France during the revolution are obnoxious,trash stuff..Historian Jean Chalon quotes this line in that notorious book "the voluptuous princess -she's speaking of Marie-Antoinette- was waiting for me in her bed ,and I must say she took advantage of her husband's absence..."Actually Marie-Antoinette never met madame de la Motte and the scene under the snow when the queen accuses la comtesse of ruining the monarchy is pure fiction.

The scenarists are as naive as the cardinal de Rohan,and as the people of Paris in 1786,who thought Madame de la Motte's punishment was unfair.La Motte wouldn't stay long in la Salpetriere anyway,and some say she was helped to escape.As for cardinal de Rohan ,he was far from being a saint,but he was naiveté itself.how could he believe that Marie Antoinette ,who had always despised her and never spoke to him,could use him as an emissary?

The film is entertaining and a lot of scenes are more historically accurate -such as the grove of Venus and the trial:that's was the queen's mistake:the king did not need the parlament to judge somebody-. Walken is ideally cast as comte de Cagliostro ,as Brody as Nicolas de la Motte.But the Queen's execution (1793) comes at the most awkward moment ,and La Motte was dead (in 1791) when it occurred anyway.The scenarists suggest her death might have been a crime :never an earnest French historian made a hint at that.At the time,the royal family had more important problems to solve .

The scenarists say that the affair of the necklace was the direct cause for the French revolution,which is a narrow-minded view.It might have been the straw that broke the camel's back but the reasons were much more complex and the students should take a better look at it.

The movie does not tell that after his exile,Rohan was restored to favor during the revolution ,became part of the Etats-Généraux" in 1789 ,and died in Germany in 1803,the last of the dramatis personae,