The Affair of the Diamond Necklace

The "great affair" - nothing great about it - surely brings out the sheer, incredible awfulness of the pre-revolutionary France. So much worse than the society that followed though I have never had much warmth towards the Revolution or Napoleon's regime. But those decadent painted dolls feasting while the society starves - those petty intrigues, small, ignorant personalities, nowhere near measuring up to their ludicriously august positions. Marie Antoinette surely among the least bad of them but still a living symbol of injustice and waste with no personal foresight or wisdom (until it was too late).