Affair of The Diamond Necklace - Significance

Significance

The affair of the diamond necklace was important in discrediting the Bourbon monarchy in the eyes of the French people years before the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette became even more unpopular, and malicious gossip about her made her even more of a liability to her husband. She was never able to shake off the idea in the public imagination that she had perpetrated an extravagant fraud for her own frivolous ends. Nonetheless, the affair prompted Louis XVI to become closer to his wife, and may have inclined him to be more defensive of and more responsive to her leading up to and during the revolution.