This episode is brought to you by libish colored diamond specialists.

Did you know that only one stone in 10,000 discovered is a coloured diamond?

The irony of all that is that we're absolutely 100% sure that Marie Antoinette was not 1% involved in that story.

She had nothing to do. The necklace had been presented to her by the jeweller.

She had said no two or three times saying, well, actually it was not a very nice piece of jewelry. It's quite

massive. I like it because it's massive, but it's more for a man than actually or a horse.

I'm Carol Horton, the voice of jewelry. Welcome to if jewels could talk. I'm an author and

broadcaster and the woman who initiated the role of

jewellery editor at magazines like Tatler and Vogue. This is a podcast for everyone, for people who do

like jewelry, for people who don't realize they like jewelry, and anyone intrigued by fascinating facts,

new ideas and forgotten histories.

So join me as I tell sparkly tales and meet all sorts of people,

delving into four centuries of jewellery culture,

and investigate what's happening now.

We are continuing our discussion about the most fashionable queen in history, Marie Antoinette. And I'm delighted to be here with French historian and author, Vincent Melin, who has written in the catalogue for the new exhibition at the VNA Museum,

Marie Antoinette's style about the Queen of Sparkle, Diamond's Fashion and Politics.

Vansal, thank you so much for talking to us this morning.

Thanks for having me.

Let's start at the beginning.

When she arrived on French soil,

what kind of jewelry did she have with her, Vasson? She had quite a lot because, you know,

I found in the Austrian State Archives in Vienna that there was a letter from the French ambassador

...