Nicholas de la Motte (

Bar-sur-Aube Bar-sur-Aube (, literally ''Bar on Aube'') is a commune and a sub-prefecture in the Aube department in the Grand Est region of France. Surrounded by hills and Champagne vineyards, the city is traversed by the river Aube, from which it derives ...

29 July 1755 –

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

6 November 1831), born Marc Antoine-Nicolas de la Motte, was a French adventurer known for his part as a swindler in the

affair of the diamond necklace The Affair of the Diamond Necklace (, "Affair of the Queen's Necklace") was an incident from 1784 to 1785 at the court of King Louis XVI of France that involved his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The Queen's reputation, already tarnished by gossi ...

. He was the husband of Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Remy, whom he married on 6 June 1780. He claimed to be a nobleman and gave himself the title of Comte (Count). However, his claim to nobility was dubious. At the time of his marriage, he was known only as an officer of the

gendarmes Wrong info! --> A gendarmerie () is a military force with law enforcement duties among the civilian population. The term ''gendarme'' () is derived from the medieval French expression ', which translates to " men-at-arms" (literally, ...

. Through his wife's influence on her paramour, the

Cardinal de Rohan Louis René Édouard de Rohan known as Cardinal de Rohan (25 September 1734 – 16 February 1803), ''prince de Rohan-Guéméné'', was a French Bishop of Strasbourg, politician, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, and cadet of the Rohan f ...

, he later obtained a commission as the

Count of Artois The count of Artois (French: Comtes d'Artois, Dutch: Graven van Artesië) was the ruler over the County of Artois from the 9th century until the abolition of the countship by the French revolutionaries in 1790. House of Artois *Odalric (c. 850s) ...

's bodyguard.Vincent Cronin "Louis and Antoinette", page 239

References

1755 births 1831 deaths 18th-century French criminals 19th-century French people House of Valois-Saint-Remy {{Authority control