In August 1785, Paris buzzed with a scandal that entangled an eminent churchman, a female fraudster, a part-time prostitute, and the hated Queen Marie Antoinette herself. Its centerpiece was the most expensive diamond necklace ever assembled, and the humiliation that the affair brought on the royal family contributed to their downfall and deaths in the Revolution just four years later. Best known for such magical realist novels as Journey by Moonlight, Hungary's Antal Szerb (1901-45) was also a canny historian, and he brings creativity and wit to the telling of this true tale.