The wheels of Versailles rarely turned quickly, but when Louis XVI gave his approval, Breteuil ensured they turned with deadly precision. There was no grand proclamation, no thunderous arrests in the public eye—only whispers, shadows, and a few quiet knocks upon gilded doors.
The King had spoken. The Queen must remain unsullied. The culprits must vanish.
The first to fall was the Comte de La Motte.
It was nearly midnight when Lieutenant General of Police Lenoir's men closed in upon his Parisian townhouse. They moved with the silence of wolves, boots muffled by the cobbles, lanterns hooded to hide their approach. La Motte, drunk on wine and self-importance, had been entertaining two dubious companions, crowing of his wife's successes and his own brilliance in courtly schemes. He had barely risen to pour another glass when the door crashed inward.
"In the name of the King!" a voice thundered.
Startled, the Comte tried to bluster, but steel caught him before words did. Shackled and dragged through his own salon, he shouted curses—at Breteuil, at the Queen, at the world. But when Jeanne's voice was mentioned, his protests took a sharper edge.
"My wife! It is she! She is the spider weaving all this! Look to her, not me!"
The guards did not answer. His words were swallowed by the night.
When his study was searched, the damning proofs lay neatly waiting—letters half-drafted in his hand, documents bearing forged signatures of the Queen, and notes that linked him to a fictitious negotiation for the necklace. They were too perfect, too convenient. But in the dark chambers of justice, perfection was not questioned. Jeanne had laid the trap well.
By dawn, the Comte was in the Bastille. He would never again walk the salons of Paris, nor haunt the gambling dens where he squandered fortunes. Whether by exile to some remote province or by life-long imprisonment, his fate was sealed. His name was now a stain, his cries of betrayal an echo lost in stone.
Next came Madame de Boulainvilliers.
Unlike La Motte, she possessed rank and a name threaded with ancient bloodlines. Her salons had long been filled with whispered intrigues, her lips sharp as daggers against rivals. She had tolerated Jeanne, never respecting her, always reminding her of the gulf between noble birth and upstart ambition. Jeanne had borne the disdain, smiling sweetly while sharpening her revenge.
The order for arrest was executed with less brutality, but no less finality. A carriage arrived at dawn at her hôtel particulier. A royal officer presented her with the King's seal.
"Madame," he said with icy courtesy, "you are ordered to leave Paris immediately. You will retire to your estates in the provinces. By His Majesty's command, your presence shall not be tolerated within twenty leagues of the capital."(1 league was equal to 3 miles)
Boulainvilliers raged, demanding audience, threatening to reveal secrets she scarcely possessed. But her servants already knew the truth—her name was finished. To be cast out of Paris was worse than chains. In exile, she would wither, a noblewoman stripped of her stage, condemned to fade in provincial obscurity.
Jeanne, hearing the news, allowed herself a rare, private smile. The woman who had once sneered at her as a "parasitic adventuress" now tasted humiliation far worse than words. By Jeanne's subtle hand and the Dauphin's whispered guidance, her rival was broken.
But Jeanne's work did not end with vengeance. Boulainvilliers's departure left spaces—social, financial, political. Jeanne, ever the opportunist, slipped into those gaps like water through cracks in stone. She courted abandoned allies, reclaimed promises once denied her, and began quietly consolidating fortune and influence under the protection of powerful unseen patrons.
The Cardinal's fate was handled with still more delicacy.
Summoned to Versailles, Rohan entered with his usual pomp, though a tremor betrayed him. He expected chains, perhaps disgrace before the Parlement. Instead, he found only the King, Breteuil, and silence.
Louis XVI regarded him with cold detachment, the kind reserved for a man already condemned in the King's heart.
"Cardinal," the King began, his voice even, "you have been deceived. It was La Motte and Boulainvilliers who spun this web. You were vain enough to be caught in it. For that vanity, France has nearly been shamed."
Rohan bowed low, murmuring pleas of ignorance, of loyalty. But the King cut him short with a sharp gesture.
"You will make restitution to the jewelers. Quietly. The crown will not be sullied by scandal over their losses. When that is done, you will retire to your diocese at Strasbourg. Permanently."
The words landed with the weight of a guillotine. The court was Rohan's stage, his lifeblood. To be expelled was not death, but it was a slow suffocation. He opened his mouth to argue, but one glance at Breteuil's watchful eyes ended his courage.
"I… obey, Sire," he whispered.
And so the Cardinal left Versailles for the last time, his silks rustling like funeral shrouds. He carried with him his title, his wealth, even his life—but his ambition was buried. In Strasbourg, far from the glittering heart of France, he would rot in irrelevance.
Thus, in swift strokes, the troublemakers were erased.
La Motte rotted in the Bastille, railing at walls that did not answer.
Boulainvilliers wept in provincial exile, her name whispered in Paris as a cautionary tale.
Rohan drifted into ecclesiastical obscurity, his vanity shackled by distance.