Nicholas de la Motte
Nicholas de la Motte (Bar-sur-Aube 29 July 1755 – Paris 6 November 1831), born Marc-Antoine-Nicolas Levieux de la Motte d'Égry, sieur de la Motte, was an 18th-century French adventurer known for his part as a swindler in the affair of the diamond necklace. He was also the husband of Jeanne de Valois-Saint-Rémy, a direct descendant of Count Henri de Saint-Rémy. They married on 6 June 1780 at a chapel in Paris, they had a son Philippe and a daughter Marie recorded at the Saint-Sulpice church.
He claimed to be a nobleman and gave himself the courtesy title of Comte (Count). However, his claim to high-nobility was dubious, since his family belonged to la petite noblesse (the small nobility) of Champagne, originating from an ancient family of Noblesse d'extraction from Île-de-France. Church records and certificates show that, upon marriage, the couple took the honorary and crown-courtesy titles of count and countess de La Motte-Valois, even though he was known only as an Écuyer Officer of the Royal Gendarmery of the King of France.[1] Through his wife's family's influence on her paramour, the Cardinal de Rohan, a Royal Commission as the Royal Private Bodyguard of the Comte d' Artois was later obtained for him.[2]
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