‘What you must do now,’ he said, ‘is write to your friend saying that you have damaged the clasp of the necklace and are having it repaired. This will give us time to think.’

Accordingly and under his dictation, she wrote.

*

By the end of the week, all hope was lost. Loisel, having aged five years in the interim, declared: ‘We shall just have to see how we can replace the jewels.’

The next day, they took the case in which the necklace had lain to the jeweller whose name was inscribed on the inside. He consulted his records.

‘I’m afraid, madame, that the necklace was not sold by ourselves. We must have merely supplied the case.’

And so they proceeded, from jeweller to jeweller, searching for a necklace exactly like the first, racking their brains and going mad, both of them, with anguish and distress.

At the Palais Royal, however, they found one day what seemed to them a necklace of diamonds exactly like the one they were trying to replace. It was priced at 40,000 francs. It might be theirs for 36,000.

They asked the jeweller to reserve it for them for three days. He further agreed to a proviso that if, after they had bought it, the original was found, he would repurchase the article for 34,000 francs.

Loisel had in his possession 18,000 francs left to him by his father. He would have to borrow the remainder.

And so he did: 1,000 francs here, 500 there, five louis from this friend, three from the other. He took out promissory notes, incurred ruinous debts, dealt with shady moneylenders and sharks of every type and description. In effect he was compromising the rest of his entire life by giving his signature to a plethora of highly risky commitments. Terrified by the prospect of future destitution and all the accompanying physical and moral sacrifices necessary, he went to collect the replacement necklace and put on the counter 36,000 francs.

When Madame Loisel returned the necklace to Madame Forestier the latter was a little frosty, remarking: ‘You really should have returned it to me sooner than this, you know. I might well have needed it myself.’

She did not, however, open the case, which was what her friend had most feared. What if she noticed the substitution? What would she have thought? What would she have said? Madame Loisel would most certainly have been taken for a thief.

She now spiralled down into a life of deep penury. She met it head on with great courage, knowing it was the only thing to do. This enormous debt would have to be paid one way or another and pay it they would. The maid was instantly dismissed. They moved to cheaper lodgings in a garret.