We open history textbooks and see many names. They belonged to kings and diplomats, commanders and heroes, tyrants and usurpers, artists and writers. Those who destroy empires and build them anew from ashes, those who make the world beautiful or plunge it into the fire of war—those who create harmony or chaos forever remain alive in the memory of humanity. But beyond geniuses and despots, beyond those born near the throne or dreaming of taking it by bypassing all rights, beyond figures of art, politics, and war, the history of the Earth is also filled with the deeds of numerous swindlers. Some of them literally overturned the world and laid the foundation for a new order. On the pages of the book “The True Story of Antoanetta’s Necklace,” Olga Baskova tried to shed light on one of the biggest mysteries that preceded the beginning of the French Revolution. Louis XVI was a weak king. Marie Antoinette preferred balls and entertainments. But would the people have overthrown them if not for the loud scandal connected to the legendary necklace of Madame Dubarry—whose disappearance was blamed on a certain Jeanne de la Motte, a granddaughter of Henri of Valois, an intriguer and a writer, who traveled the path from a penniless runaway to a secular lady, from a fugitive to the wife of a count, from an anonymous emigrant to a friend of the lady-in-waiting of the Russian empress?