This extended historical essay is Carlyle’s attempt to exemplify his idea that history is the truest form of epic narrative – more than just a series of factually true events, to see history as epic was to transform the genre into a narrative form that epitomised the beliefs of the time in which the history was written down. In an attempt to overcome what he saw as the shortcomings of the speculative Sartor Resartus, Carlyle now turned to narrative history as a means of expressing the beliefs of an entire age, rather than of one individual consciousness – just as the classical epic poets, Homer and Virgil, wrote works that reflected the history of their own age as it was perceived by an entire people. Chroniclers of their own time, such as epic poets, were, in Carlyle’s view, like editors compiling prevailing cultural ideas into a coherent narrative of how the age saw itself – thus, the myths and legends of the Greek gods, which underpin Homer’s history of the Trojan wars and give it meaning, simply reflect the worldview of the age. To the ancient Greeks, these were not beliefs or myths, but facts.
This enabled Carlyle to couple the speculative nature of his metaphysical novel Sartor Resartus with the factual and historical basis of historical research, to produce a kind of history that would resemble a modern epic – the work of a Victorian sage, embodying the spirit of the age, whilst also grounding it in a narrative of actual historical events. In this sense, history was a kind of revelation, which might fulfil the same enlightening functions as a religious text.
This attitude would eventually lead to Carlyle’s masterpiece, The French Revolution – but “The Diamond Necklace” was Carlyle’s first attempt at the kind of “poetic history” he had in mind. It concerns a plot by Jeanne de Lamotte to steal a priceless necklace created by the Royal French jewellers for Marie Antoinette, whose reputation was ruined by the rumour that she assisted in the scheme to defraud the jewellers of the necklace’s cost. The essay unfolds the events like a drama, with the Countess Lamotte portrayed as a villain, while an epilogue presents Count Cagliostro memorably prophesising the horrors of the coming Revolution – a self-consciously dramatic approach that exemplified Carlyle’s growing belief that history and poetry were the same thing.