The Queen and the Jewellers

A con woman named jean de la motte was successfully passing herself off as a descendant of king henry the second. She and her husband an army officer set their sights on fleecing the rich and hapless, and hopefully pronounced correctly, cardinal de rohan. Rohan was one of those wealthy aristocrats who made up the top level of the first estate. And he had, once upon a time, been ambassador to austria. Jean agreed to start delivering flattering notes from the cardinal to the queen and then return with the queen's replies - which were forged. These forged replies were apparently affectionat enough in tone that rohan started thinking maybe he and the queen had liked something