The Empress of Hearts — E. Barrington

This is the story of the fall of Marie Antoinette â€" France's most alluring Queen - and how it was triggered by a dastardly plot, the affair of the diamond necklace.

Of all the jewels in the world's history, stained with blood and shame, the most terrible is the diamond necklace that wrought a queen's ruin and bought about the end of an era. Through its glitter there ran indeed the fires of hell.

As the Kingdom of France faced social turmoil, and the whispers of revolution could be heard, on the throne sat Antoinette - a lovely creature, proud, airy, the very embodiment of race and high sentiment and a mere romantic girl play-acting with a great queen's dignity.

She arrived in in France, a girl scarcely fifteen, luminous with youth and life and beauty to marry the King.

But she failed to charm her dull husband though the very safety of France demanded an heir.

And then after eight years of marriage suddenly the Dauphin, now king, awoke as from a drugged sleep to the worth of his treasure that all the world envied.

To prove his new-found passion he pledged to her the finest and most expensive necklace in the Kingdom.

But Marie-Antoinette, sensible of the plight of the common people, the debt on the country left by the old King and the sounds of rebellion, refused the gift.

Unbeknownst to her, one of her courtiers Jeanne de Lamotte-Vallois, would use the necklace to create a scandal that would shake the Throne to its foundations…

This is the dramatic story of the events that eventually led to the death of Marie Antoinette â€" the Empress of Hearts â€" and the start of the French Revolution.