The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of
France, by Charles Duke Yonge
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France
Author: Charles Duke Yonge
Release Date: January 1, 2004 [EBook #10555]
[Date last updated: October 8, 2005]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARIE ANTOINETTE ***
Produced by Anne Soulard, Michigan University, Joshua Hutchinson and
the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
[Illustration: Marie Antoinette]
THE LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.
BY CHARLES DUKE YONGE
1876
PREFACE.
The principal authorities for the following work are the four volumes of
Correspondence published by M. Arneth, and the six volumes published by M.
Feuillet de Conches. M. Arneth's two collections[1] contain not only a
number of letters which passed between the queen, her mother the Empress-
queen (Maria Teresa), and her brothers Joseph and Leopold, who
successively became emperors after the death of their father; but also a
regular series of letters from the imperial embassador at Paris, the Count
Mercy d'Argenteau, which may almost be said to form a complete history of
the court of France, especially in all the transactions in which Marie
Antoinette, whether as dauphiness or queen, was concerned, till the death
of Maria Teresa, at Christmas, 1780. The correspondence with her two
brothers, the emperors Joseph and Leopold, only ceases with the death of
the latter in March, 1792.
The collection published by M. Feuillet de Conches[2] has been vehemently
attacked, as containing a series of clever forgeries rather than of
genuine letters. And there does seem reason to believe that in a few
instances, chiefly in the earlier portion of the correspondence, the
critical acuteness of the editor was imposed upon, and that some of the
letters inserted were not written by the persons alleged to be the
authors. But of the majority of the letters there seems no solid ground
for questioning the authenticity. Indeed, in the later and more important
portion of the correspondence, that which belongs to the period after the
death of the Empress-queen, the genuineness of the Queen's letters is
continually supported by the collection of M. Arneth, who has himself
published many of them, having found them in the archives at Vienna, where
M.F. de Conches had previously copied them,[3] and who refers to others,
the publication of which did not come within his own plan. M. Feuillet de
Conches' work also contains narratives of some of the most important
transactions after the commencement of the Revolution, which are of great
value, as having been compiled from authentic sources.
Besides these collections, the author has consulted the lives of Marie
Antoinette by Montjoye, Lafont d'Aussonne, Chambrier, and the MM.
Goncourt; "La Vraie Marie Antoinette" of M. Lescure; the Memoirs of Mme.
Campan, Clery, Hue, the Duchesse d'Angouleme, Bertrand de Moleville
("Memoires Particuliers"), the Comte de Tilly, the Baron de Besenval, the
Marquis de la Fayette, the Marquise de Crequy, the Princess Lamballe; the
"Souvenirs de Quarante Ans," by Mlle. de Tourzel; the "Diary" of M. de
Viel Castel; the correspondence of Mme. du Deffand; the account of the
affair of the necklace by M. de Campardon; the very valuable
correspondence between the Count de la Marck and Mirabeau, which also
contains a narrative by the Count de la Marck of many very important
incidents; Dumont's "Souvenirs sur Mirabeau;" "Beaumarchais et son Temps,"
by M. de Lomenie; "Gustavus III. et la Cour de Paris," by M. Geoffroy;
the first seven volumes of the Histoire de la Terreur, by M. Mortimer
Ternaux; Dr. Moore's journal of his visit to France, and view of the
French Revolution; and a great number of other works in which there is
cursory mention of different incidents, especially in the earlier part of
the Revolution; such as the journals of Arthur Young, Madame de Stael's
elaborate treatise on the Revolution; several articles in the last series
of the "Causeries de Lundi," by Sainte-Beuve, and others in the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_, etc., etc., and to those may of course be added the regular
histories of Lacretelle, Sismondi, Martin, and Lamartine's "History of the
Girondins."
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
Importance of Marie Antoinette in the Revolution.--Value of her
Correspondence as a Means of estimating her Character.--Her Birth,
November 2d, 1755.--Epigram of Metastasio.--Habits of the Imperial
Family.--Schoenbrunn.--Death of the Emperor.--Projects for the Marriage of
the Archduchess.--Her Education.--The Abbe de Vermond.--Metastasio.--
Gluck.
CHAPTER II.
Proposal for the Marriage of Marie Antoinette to the Dauphin.--Early
Education of the Dauphin.--The Archduchess leaves Vienna in April, 1770.--
Her Reception at Strasburg.--She meets the King at Compiegne.--The
Marriage takes place May 16th, 1770.
CHAPTER III.
Feelings in Germany and France on the Subject of the Marriage.--Letter of
Maria Teresa to the Dauphin.--Characters of the Different Members of the
Royal Family.--Difficulties which beset Marie Antoinette.--Maria Teresa's
Letter of Advice.--The Comte de Mercy is sent as Embassador to France
to act as the Adviser of the Dauphiness.--The Princesse de Lorraine at
the State Ball.--A Great Disaster takes place at the Fire-works in Paris.
--The Peasant at Fontainebleau.--Marie Antoinette pleases the King.--
Description of her Personal Appearance.--Mercy's Report of the Impression
she made on her First Arrival.
CHAPTER IV.
Marie Antoinette gives her Mother her First Impressions of the Court and
of her own Position and Prospects.--Court Life at Versailles.--Marie
Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette.--Character of the Duc
d'Aiguillon.--Cabals against the Dauphiness.--Jealousy of Mme. du Barri.--
The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her.--She becomes more and more Popular.--
Parties for Donkey-riding.--Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income.--Her
Influence over the King.--The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed.--She begins
to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.
CHAPTER V.
Mercy's Correspondence with the Empress.--Distress and Discontent pervade
France.--Goldsmith predicts a Revolution.--Apathy of the King.--The
Aunts mislead Marie Antoinette.--Maria Teresa hears that the Dauphiness
neglects her German Visitors.--Marriage of the Count de Provence.--Growing
Preference of Louis XV. for the Dauphiness.--The Dauphiness applies
herself to Study.--Marie Antoinette becomes a Horsewoman.--Her Kindness
to all beneath her.--Cabals of the Adherents of the Mistress.--The
Royal Family become united.--Concerts in the Apartments of the Dauphiness.
CHAPTER VI.
Marie Antoinette wishes to see Paris.--Intrigues of Madame Adelaide.--
Characters of the Dauphin and the Count de Provence.--Grand Review at
Fontainebleau.--Marie Antoinette in the Hunting Field.--Letter from her to
the Empress. Mischievous Influence of the Dauphin's Aunts on her
Character.--Letter of Marie Antoinette to the Empress.--Her Affection for
her Old Home.--The Princes are recalled from Exile.--Lord Stormont.--Great
Fire at the Hotel-Dieu.--Liberality of Charity of Marie Antoinette.--She
goes to the Bal d'Opera.--Her Feelings about the Partition of Poland.--The
King discusses Politics with her, and thinks highly of her Ability.
CHAPTER VII.
Marie Antoinette is anxious for the Maintenance of the Alliance between
France and Austria.--She, with the Dauphin, makes a State Entry into
Paris.--The "Dames de la Halle."--She praises the Courtesy of the
Dauphin.--Her Delight at the Enthusiasm of the Citizens.--She, with the
Dauphin, goes to the Theatre, and to the Fair of St. Ovide, and to St.
Cloud.--Is enthusiastically received everywhere.--She learns to drive.
--She makes some Relaxations in Etiquette.--Marriage of the Comte
d'Artois.--The King's Health grows Bad.--Visit of Marshal Lacy to
Versailles.--The King catches the Small-pox.--Madame du Barri quits
Versailles.--The King dies.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Court leaves Versailles for La Muette.--Feelings of the New
Sovereigns.--Madame du Barri is sent to a Convent.--Marie Antoinette
writes to Maria Teresa.--The Good Intentions of the New Sovereigns.--
Madame Adelaide has the Small-pox.--Anxieties of Maria Teresa.--
Mischievous Influence of the Aunts.--Position and Influence of the Count
de Mercy.--Louis consults the Queen on Matters of Policy.--Her Prudence.--
She begins to Purify the Court, and to relax the Rules of Etiquette.--Her
Care of her Pages.--The King and she renounce the Gifts of Le Joyeux
Avenement, and La Ceinture de la Reine.--She procures the Pardon of the
Duc de Choiseul.
CHAPTER IX.
The Comte de Provence intrigues against the Queen.--The King gives her the
Little Trianon.--She lays out an English Garden.--Maria Teresa cautions
her against Expense.--The King and Queen abolish some of the Old Forms.--
The Queen endeavors to establish Friendships with some of her Younger
Ladies.--They abuse her Favor.--Her Eagerness for Amusement.--Louis
enters into her Views.--Etiquette is abridged.--Private Parties at
Choisy.--Supper Parties.--Opposition of the Princesses.--Some of the
Courtiers are dissatisfied at the Relaxation of Etiquette.--Marie
Antoinette is accused of Austrian Preferences.
CHAPTER X.
Settlement of the Queen's Allowance.--Character and Views of Turgot.--She
induces Gluck to visit Paris.--Performance of his Opera of "Iphigenie
en Aulide."--The First Encore.--Marie Antoinette advocates the
Re-establishment of the Parliaments, and receives an Address from them.--
English Visitors at the Court.--The King is compared to Louis XII. and
Henri IV.--The Archduke Maximilian visits his Sister.--Factious Conduct of
the Princes of the Blood.--Anti-Austrian Feeling in Paris.--The War of
Grains.--The King is crowned at Rheims.--Feelings of Marie Antoinette.--
Her Improvements at the Trianon.--Her Garden Parties there.--Description
of her Beauty by Burke, and by Horace Walpole.
CHAPTER XI.
Tea is introduced.--Horse-racing of Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette goes
to see it.--The Queen's Submissiveness to the Reproofs of the Empress.--
Birth of the Duc d'Angouleme.--She at times speaks lightly of the King.--
The Emperor remonstrates with her.--Character of some of the Queen's
Friends.--The Princess de Lamballe.--The Countess Jules de Polignac.--They
set the Queen against Turgot.--She procures his Dismissal.--She
gratifies Madame Polignac's Friends.--Her Regard for the French People.--
Water Parties on the Seine.--Her Health is Delicate.--Gambling at
the Palace.
CHAPTER XII.
Marie Antoinette finds herself in Debt.--Forgeries of her Name are
committed.--The Queen devotes herself too much to Madame de Polignac and
others.--Versailles is less frequented.--Remonstrances of the Empress.--
Volatile Character of the Queen.--She goes to the Bals d'Opera at Paris.--
She receives the Duke of Dorset and other English Nobles with Favor.--
Grand Entertainment given her by the Count de Provence.--Character of
the Emperor Joseph.--He visits Paris and Versailles.--His Feelings toward
and Conversations with the King and Queen.--He goes to the Opera.--His
Opinion of the Queen's Friends.--Marie Antoinette's Letter to the
Empress on his Departure.--The Emperor leaves her a Letter of Advice.
CHAPTER XIII.
Impressions made on the Queen by the Emperor's Visit.--Mutual Jealousies
of her Favorites.--The Story of the Chevalier d'Assas.--The Terrace
Concerts at Versailles.--More Inroads on Etiquette.--Insolence and
Unpopularity of the Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette takes Interest in
Politics.--France concludes an Alliance with the United States.--Affairs
of Bavaria.--Character of the Queen's Letters on Politics.--The Queen
expects to become a Mother.--Voltaire returns to Paris.--The Queen
declines to receive him.--Misconduct of the Duke of Orleans in the Action
off Ushant.--The Queen uses her Influence in his Favor.
CHAPTER XIV.
Birth of Madame Royale.--Festivities of Thanksgiving.--The Dames de la
Halle at the Theatre.--Thanksgiving at Notre Dame.--The King goes to a Bal
d'Opera.--The Queen's Carriage breaks down.--Marie Antoinette has the
Measles.--Her Anxiety about the War.--Retrenchments of Expense.
CHAPTER XV.
Anglomania in Paris.--The Winter at Versailles.--Hunting.--Private
Theatricals.--Death of Prince Charles of Lorraine.--Successes of the
English in America.--Education of the Duc d'Angouleme.--Libelous Attacks
on the Queen.--Death of the Empress.--Favor shown some of the Swedish
Nobles.--The Count de Fersen.--Necker retires from Office.--His Character.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Queen expects to be confined again.--Increasing Unpopularity of the
King's Brothers.--Birth of the Dauphin.--Festivities.--Deputations from
the Different Trades.--Songs of the Dames de la Halle.--Ball given by the
Body-guard,--Unwavering Fidelity of the Regiment.--The Queen offers up
her Thanksgiving at Notre Dame.--Banquet at the Hotel de Ville.--
Rejoicings in Paris.
CHAPTER XVII.
Madame de Guimenee resigns the Office of Governess of the Royal
Children.--Madame de Polignac succeeds her.--Marie Antoinette's Views of
Education.--Character of Madame Royale.--The Grand Duke Paul and his Grand
Duchess visit the French Court.--Their Characters.--Entertainments given
in their Honor.--Insolence of the Cardinal de Rohan.--His Character and
previous Life.--Grand Festivities at Chantilly.--Events of the War.--
Rodney defeats De Grasse.--The Siege of Gibraltar fails.--M. de Suffrein
fights five Drawn Battles with Sir E. Hughes in the Indian Seas.--The
Queen receives him with Great Honor on his Return.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Peace is re-established.--Embarrassments of the Ministry.--Distress of the
Kingdom.--M. de Calonne becomes Finance Minister.--The Winter of
1783-'84 is very Severe.--The Queen devotes Large Sums to Charity.--Her
Political Influence increases.--Correspondence between the Emperor and
her on European Politics.--The State of France.--The Baron de Breteuil.--
Her Description of the Character of the King.
CHAPTER XIX.
"The Marriage of Figaro."--Previous History and Character of
Beaumarchais.--The Performance of the Play is forbidden.--It is said to be
a little altered.--It is licensed.--Displeasure of the Queen.--Visit of
Gustavus III. of Sweden.--Fete at the Trianon.--Balloon Ascent.
CHAPTER XX.
St. Cloud is purchased for the Queen.--Libelous Attacks on her.--Birth of
the Duc de Normandie.--Joseph presses her to make France support his
Views in the Low Countries.--The Affair of the Necklace.--Share which the
Cardinal de Rohan had in it.--The Queen's Indignation at his Acquittal.--
Subsequent Career of the Cardinal.
CHAPTER XXI.
The King visits Cherbourg.--Rarity of Royal Journeys.--The Princess
Christine visits the Queen.--Hostility of the Duc d'Orleans to the Queen.
--Libels on her.--She is called Madame Deficit.--She has a Second
Daughter, who dies.--Ill Health of the Dauphin.--Unskillfulness and
Extravagance of Calonne's System of Finance.--Distress of the Kingdom.--He
assembles the Notables.--They oppose his Plans.--Letters of Marie
Antoinette on the Subject.--Her Ideas of the English Parliament.--
Dismissal of Calonne.--Character of Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne.--
Obstinacy of Necker.--The Archbishop is appointed Minister.--The Distress
increases.--The Notables are dissolved.--Violent Opposition of the
Parliament.--Resemblance of the French Revolution to the English Rebellion
of 1642.--Arrest of D'Espremesnil and Montsabert.
CHAPTER XXII.
Formidable Riots take place in some Provinces.--The Archbishop invites
Necker to join his Ministry.--Letter of Marie Antoinette describing her
Interview with the Archbishop, and her Views.--Necker refuses.--The
Queen sends Messages to Necker.--The Archbishop resigns, and Necker
becomes Minister.--The Queen's View of his Character.--General Rejoicing.
--Defects in Necker's Character.--He recalls the Parliament.--Riots in
Paris.--Severe Winter.--General Distress.--Charities of the King and
Queen.--Gratitude of the Citizens.--The Princes are concerned in the
Libels published against the Queen.--Preparations for the Meeting of the
States-general.--Long Disuse of that Assembly.--Need of Reform.--Vices
of the Old Feudal System.--Necker's Blunders in the Arrangements for the
Meeting of the States.--An Edict of the King concedes the Chief Demands
of the Commons.--Views of the Queen.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Reveillon Riot.--Opening of the States-general.--The Queen is insulted
by the Partisans of the Duc d'Orleans.--Discussions as to the Number of
Chambers.--Career and Character of Mirabeau.--Necker rejects his Support.
--He determines to revenge himself.--Death of the Dauphin.
CHAPTER XXIV.
Troops are brought up from the Frontier.--The Assembly petitions the King
to withdraw them.--He refuses.--Ho dismisses Necker.--The Baron de
Breteuil is appointed Prime Minister.--Terrible Riots in Paris.--The
Tricolor Flag is adopted.--Storming of the Bastile and Murder of the
Governor.--The Count d'Artois and other Princes fly from the Kingdom.--The
King recalls Necker.--Withdraws the Soldiers and visits Paris.--Formation
of the National Guard.--Insolence of La Fayette and Bailly.--Madame
de Tourzel becomes Governess of the Royal Children.--Letters of Marie
Antoinette on their Character, and on her own Views of Education.
CHAPTER XXV.
Necker resumes Office.--Outrages in the Provinces.--Pusillanimity of the
Body of the Nation.--Parties in the Assembly.--Views of the
Constitutionalists or "Plain."--Barnave makes Overtures to the Court.--The
Queen rejects them.--The Assembly abolishes all Privileges, August
4th.--Debates on the Veto.--An Attack on Versailles is threatened.--Great
Scarcity in Paris.--The King sends his Plate to be melted down.--The
Regiment of Flanders is brought up to Versailles.--A Military Banquet
is held in the Opera-house.--October 5th, a Mob from Paris marches
on Versailles.--Blunders of La Fayette.--Ferocity of the Mob on the 5th.
--Attack on the Palace on the 6th.--Danger and Heroism of the Queen.--The
Royal Family remove to Paris.--Their Reception at the Barrier and
at the Hotel de Ville.--Shabbiness of the Tuileries.--The King fixes his
Residence there.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Feelings of Marie Antoinette on coming to the Tuileries.--Her Tact in
winning the Hearts of the Common People.--Mirabeau changes his Views.--
Quarrel between La Fayette and the Duc d'Orleans.--Mirabeau desires to
offer his Services to the Queen.--Riots in Paris.--Murder of Francois.--
The Assembly pass a Vote prohibiting any Member from taking Office.--The
Emigration.--Death of the Emperor Joseph II.--Investigation into
the Riots of October.--The Queen refuses to give Evidence.--Violent
Proceedings in the Assembly.--Execution of the Marquis de Favras.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The King accepts the Constitution so far as it has been settled.--The
Queen makes a Speech to the Deputies.--She is well received at the
Theatre.--Negotiations with Mirabeau.--The Queen's Views of the Position
of Affairs.--The Jacobin Club denounces Mirabeau.--Deputation of
Anacharsis Clootz.--Demolition of the Statue of Louis XIV.--Abolition of
Titles of Honor.--The Queen admits Mirabeau to an Audience.--His
Admiration of her Courage and Talents.--Anniversary of the Capture of the
Bastile.--Fete of the Champ de Mars.--Presence of Mind of the Queen.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Great Tumults in the Provinces.--Mutiny in the Marquis de Bouille's Army.
--Disorder of the Assembly.--Difficulty of managing Mirabeau.--Mercy is
removed to The Hague.--Marie Antoinette sees constant Changes in the
Aspect of Affairs.--Marat denounces Her.--Attempts are made to assassinate
Her.--Resignation of Mirabeau.--Misconduct of the Emigrant Princes.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Louis and Marie Antoinette contemplate Foreign Intervention.--The Assembly
passes Laws to subordinate the Church to the Civil Power.--Insolence
of La Fayette.--Marie Antoinette refuses to quit France by Herself.--The
Jacobins and La Fayette try to revive the Story of the Necklace.--Marie
Antoinette with her Family.--Flight from Paris is decided on.--The Queen's
Preparations and Views.--An Oath to observe the new Ecclesiastical
Constitution is imposed on the Clergy.--The King's Aunts leave France.
CHAPTER XXX.
The Mob attacks the Castle at Vincennes.--La Fayette saves it.--He insults
the Nobles who come to protect the King.--Perverseness of the Count
d'Artois and the Emigrants.--Mirabeau dies.--General Sorrow for his
Death.--He would probably not have been able to arrest the Revolution.--
The Mob prevent the King from visiting St. Cloud.--The Assembly passes a
Vote to forbid him to go more than twenty Leagues from Paris.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Plans for the Escape of the Royal Family.--Dangers of Discovery.--
Resolution of the Queen.--The Royal Family leave the Palace.--They are
recognized at Ste. Menehould.--Are arrested at Varennes.--Tumult in the
City, and in the Assembly.--The King and Queen are brought back to Paris.
CHAPTER XXXII.
Marie Antoinette's Feelings on her Return.--She sees Hopes of
Improvement.--The 17th of July.--The Assembly inquire into the King's
Conduct on leaving Paris.--They resolve that there is no Reason for taking
Proceedings.--Excitement in Foreign Countries.--The Assembly proceeds to
complete the Constitution.--It declares all the Members Incapable of
Election to the New Assembly.--Letters of Marie Antoinette to the Emperor
and to Mercy.--The Declaration of Pilnitz.--The King accepts the
Constitution.--Insults offered to him at the Festival of the Champ de
Mars.--And to the Queen at the Theatre.--The First or Constituent Assembly
is dissolved.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Composition of the New Assembly.--Rise of the Girondins.--Their Corruption
and Eventual Fate.--Vergniaud's Motions against the King.--Favorable
Reception of the King at the Assembly, and at the Opera.--Changes
in the Ministry.--The King's and Queen's Language to M. Bertrand de
Moleville.--The Count de Narbonne.--Petion is elected Mayor of Paris.--
Scarcity of Money, and Great Hardships of the Royal Family.--Presents
arrive from Tippoo Sahib.--The Dauphin.--The Assembly passes Decrees
against the Priests and the Emigrants.--Misconduct of the Emigrants.--
Louis refuses his Assent to the Decrees.--He issues a Circular condemning
Emigration.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Death of Leopold.--Murder of Gustavus of Sweden--Violence of Vergniaud.--
The Ministers resign.--A Girondin Ministry is appointed.--Character of
Dumouriez.--Origin of the Name Sans-culottes.--Union of Different Parties
against the Queen.--War is declared against the Empire.--Operations in
the Netherlands.--Unskillfulness of La Fayette.--The King falls into a
State of Torpor.--Fresh Libels on the Queen.--Barnave's Advice.--Dumouriez
has an Audience of the Queen.--Dissolution of the Constitutional
Guard.--Formation of a Camp near Paris.--Louis adheres to his Refusal
to assent to the Decree against the Priests.--Dumouriez resigns his
Office, and takes command of the Army.
CHAPTER XXXV.
The Insurrection of June 20th.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
Feelings of Marie Antoinette.--Different Plans are formed for her Escape.
--She hopes for Aid from Austria and Prussia.--La Fayette comes to Paris.
--His Mismanagement--An Attempt is made to assassinate the Queen.--The
Motion of Bishop Lamourette.--The Feast of the Federation.--La Fayette
proposes a Plan for the King's Escape.--Bertrand proposes Another.--Both
are rejected by the Queen.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Preparation for a New Insurrection.--Barbaroux brings up a Gang from
Marseilles.--The King's last Levee.--The Assembly rejects a Motion for the
Impeachment of La Fayette.--It removes some Regiments from Paris.--
Preparations of the Court for Defense.--The 10th of August.--The City
is in Insurrection.--Murder of Mandat.--Louis reviews the Guards.--He
takes Refuge with the Assembly.--Massacre of the Swiss Guards.--Sack
of the Tuileries.--Discussions in the Assembly.--The Royal Authority is
suspended.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Indignities to which the Royal Family are subjected.--They are removed to
the Temple.--Divisions in the Assembly.--Flight of La Fayette.--Advance
of the Prussians.--Lady Sutherland supplies the Dauphin with Clothes.--
Mode of Life in the Temple.--The Massacres of September.--The Death of
the Princess de Lamballe.--Insults are heaped on the King and Queen.--The
Trial of the King.--His Last Interview with his Family.--His Death.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Queen is refused Leave to see Clery.--Madame Royale is taken Ill.--
Plans are formed for the Queen's Escape by MM. Jarjayes, Toulan, and by
the Baron de Batz.--Marie Antoinette refuses to leave her Son.--Illness
of the young King.--Overthrow of the Girondins.--Insanity of the Woman
Tison.--Kindness of the Queen to her.--Her Son is taken from her, and
intrusted to Simon.--His Ill-treatment.--The Queen is removed to the
Conciergerie.--She is tried before the Revolutionary Tribunal.--She is
condemned.--Her last Letter to the Princess Elizabeth.--Her Death and
Character.
INDEX
LIFE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.
CHAPTER I.
Importance of Marie Antoinette in the Revolution.--Value of her
Correspondence as a Means of estimating her Character.--Her Birth,
November 2d, 1755.--Epigram of Metastasio.--Habits of the Imperial
Family.--Schoenbrunn.--Death of the Emperor.--Projects for the Marriage of
the Archduchess.--Her Education.--The Abbe de Vermond.--Metastasio.--
Gluck.
The most striking event in the annals of modern Europe is unquestionably
the French Revolution of 1789--a Revolution which, in one sense, may be
said to be still in progress, but which, is a more limited view, may be
regarded as having been, consummated by the deposition and murder of the
sovereign of the country. It is equally undeniable that, during its first
period, the person who most attracts and rivets attention is the queen.
One of the moat brilliant of modern French writers[1] has recently
remarked that, in spite of the number of years which have elapsed since
the grave closed over the sorrows of Marie Antoinette, and of the almost
unbroken series of exciting events which have marked the annals of France
in the interval, the interest excited by her story is as fresh and
engrossing as ever; that such as Hecuba and Andromache were to the
ancients, objects never named to inattentive ears, never contemplated
without lively sympathy, such still is their hapless queen to all honest
and intelligent Frenchmen. It may even be said that that interest has
increased of late years. The respectful and remorseful pity which her fate
could not fail to awaken has been quickened by the publication of her
correspondence with her family and intimate friends, which has laid bare,
without disguise, all her inmost thoughts and feelings, her errors as well
as her good deeds, her weaknesses equally with her virtues. Few, indeed,
even of those whom the world regards with its highest favor and esteem,
could endure such an ordeal without some diminution of their fame. Yet it
is but recording the general verdict of all whose judgment is of value, to
affirm that Marie Antoinette has triumphantly surmounted it; and that the
result of a scrutiny as minute and severe as any to which a human being
has ever been subjected, has been greatly to raise her reputation.
Not that she was one of those paragons whom painters of model heroines
have delighted to imagine to themselves; one who from childhood gave
manifest indications of excellence and greatness, and whose whole life was
but a steady progressive development of its early promise. She was rather
one in whom adversity brought forth great qualities, her possession of
which, had her life been one of that unbroken sunshine which is regarded
by many as the natural and inseparable attendant of royalty, might never
have been even suspected. We meet with her first, at an age scarcely
advanced beyond childhood, transported from her school-room to a foreign
court, as wife to the heir of one of the noblest kingdoms of Europe. And
in that situation we see her for a while a light-hearted, merry girl,
annoyed rather than elated by her new magnificence; thoughtless, if not
frivolous, in her pursuits; fond of dress; eager in her appetite for
amusement, tempered only by an innate purity of feeling which never
deserted her; the brightest features of her character being apparently a
frank affability, and a genuine and active kindness and humanity which
were displayed to all classes and on all occasions. We see her presently
as queen, hardly yet arrived at womanhood, little changed in disposition
or in outward demeanor, though profiting to the utmost by the
opportunities which her increased power afforded her of proving the
genuine tenderness of her heart, by munificent and judicious works of
charity and benevolence; and exerting her authority, if possible, still
more beneficially by protecting virtue, discountenancing vice, and
purifying a court whose shameless profligacy had for many generations been
the scandal of Christendom. It is probable, indeed, that much of her early
levity was prompted by a desire to drive from her mind disappointments and
mortifications of which few suspected the existence, but which were only
the more keenly felt because she was compelled to keep them to herself;
but it is certain that during the first eight or ten years of her
residence in France there was little in her habits and conduct, however
amiable and attractive, which could have led her warmest friends to
discern in her the high qualities which she was destined to exhibit before
its close.
Presently, however, she becomes a mother; and in this new relation we
begin to perceive glimpses of a loftier nature. From the moment of the
birth of her first child, she performed those new duties which, perhaps
more than any others, call forth all the best and most peculiar virtues of
the female heart in such a manner as to add esteem and respect to the
good-will which her affability and courtesy had already inspired;
recognizing to the full the claims which the nation had upon her, that
she should, in person, superintend the education of her children, and
especially of her son as its future ruler; and discharging that sacred
duty, not only with the most affectionate solicitude, but also with the
most admirable judgment.
But years so spent were years of happiness; and, though such may suffice
to display the amiable virtues, it is by adversity that the grander
qualities of the head and heart are more strikingly drawn forth. To the
trials of that stern inquisitress, Marie Antoinette was fully exposed in
her later years; and not only did she rise above them, but the more
terrible and unexampled they were, the more conspicuous was the
superiority of her mind to fortune. It is no exaggeration to say that the
history of the whole world has preserved no record of greater heroism, in
either sex, than was shown by Marie Antoinette during the closing years of
her life. No courage was ever put to the proof by such a variety and such
an accumulation of dangers and miseries; and no one ever came out of an
encounter with even far inferior calamities with greater glory. Her moral
courage and her physical courage were equally tried. It was not only that
her own life, and lives far dearer to her than her own, were exposed to
daily and hourly peril, or that to this danger were added repeated
vexations of hopes baffled and trusts betrayed; but these griefs were
largely aggravated by the character and conduct of those nearest to her.
Instead of meeting with counsel and support from her husband and his
brothers, she had to guide and support Louis himself, and even to find him
so incurably weak as to be incapable of being kept in the path of wisdom
by her sagacity, or of deriving vigor from her fortitude; while the
princes were acting in selfish and disloyal opposition to him, and so, in
a great degree, sacrificing him and her to their perverse conceit, if we
may not say to their faithless ambition. She had to think for all, to act
for all, to struggle for all; and to beat up against the conviction that
her thoughts, and actions, and struggles were being balked of their effect
by the very persona for whom she was exerting herself; that she was but
laboring to save those who would not be saved. Yet, throughout that
protracted agony of more than four years she bore herself with an
unswerving righteousness of purpose and an unfaltering fearlessness of
resolution which could not have been exceeded had she been encouraged by
the most constant success. And in the last terrible hours, when the
monsters who had already murdered her husband were preparing the same fate
for herself, she met their hatred and ferocity with a loftiness of spirit
which even hopelessness could not subdue. Long before, she had declared
that she had learned, from the example of her mother, not to fear death;
and she showed that this was no empty boast when she rose in the last
scenes of her life as much even above her earlier displays of courage and
magnanimity as she also rose above the utmost malice of her vile enemies.
* * * * *
Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne was the youngest daughter of Francis,
originally Duke of Lorraine, afterward Grand Duke of Tuscany, and
eventually Emperor of Germany, and of Maria Teresa, Archduchess of
Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, more generally known, after the
attainment of the imperial dignity by her husband in 1745, as the Empress-
queen. Of her brothers, two, Joseph and Leopold, succeeded in turn to the
imperial dignity; and one of her sisters, Caroline, became the wife of the
King of Naples. She was born on the 2d of November, 1755, a day which,
when her later years were darkened by misfortune, was often referred to as
having foreshadowed it by its evil omens, since it was that on which the
terrible earthquake which laid Lisbon in ruins reached its height. But, at
the time, the Viennese rejoiced too sincerely at every event which could
contribute to their sovereign's happiness to pay any regard to the
calamities of another capital, and the courtly poet was but giving
utterance to the unanimous feeling of her subjects when he spoke of the
princess's birth as calculated to diffuse universal joy. Daughters had
been by far the larger part of Maria Teresa's family, so that she was,
consequently, anxious for another son; and, knowing her wishes, the Duke
of Tarouka, one of the nobles whom she admitted to her intimacy, laid her
a small wager that they would be realized by the sex of the expected
infant. He lost his bet, but felt some embarrassment, in devising a
graceful mode of paying it. In his perplexity, he sought the advice of the
celebrated Metastasio, who had been for some time established at Vienna as
the favorite poet of the court, and the Italian, with the ready wit of his
country, at once supplied him with a quatrain, which, in her
disappointment itself, could mid ground for compliment:
"Io perdei; l' augusta figlia
A pagar m' ha condannato;
Ma s'e ver che a voi somiglia,
Tutto il mondo ha guadagnato."
The customs of the imperial court had undergone a great change since the
death of Charles VI. It had been pre-eminent for pompous ceremony, which
was thought to become the dignity of the sovereign who boasted of being
the representative of the Roman Caesars. But the Lorraine princes had been
bred up in a simpler fashion; and Francis had an innate dislike to all
ostentation, while Maria Teresa had her attention too constantly fixed on
matters of solid importance to have much leisure to spare for the
consideration of trifles. Both husband and wife greatly preferred to their
gorgeous palace at Vienna a smaller house which they possessed in the
neighborhood, called Schoenbrunn, where they could lay aside their state,
and enjoy the unpretending pleasures of domestic and rural life,
cultivating their garden, and, as far as the imperious calls of public
affairs would allow them time, watching over the education of their
children, to whom the example of their own tastes and habits was
imperceptibly affording the best of all lessons, a preference for simple
and innocent pleasures.
In this tranquil retreat, the childhood of Marie Antoinette was happily
passed; her bright looks, which already gave promise of future loveliness,
her quick intelligence, and her affectionate disposition combining to make
her the special favorite of her parents. It was she whom Francis, when
quitting his family in the summer of 1764 for that journey to Innspruck
which proved his last, specially ordered to be brought to him, saying, as
if he felt some foreboding of his approaching illness, that he must
embrace her once more before he departed; and his death, which took place
before she was nine years old, was the first sorrow which ever brought a
tear into her eyes.
The superintendence of her vast empire occupied a greater share of Maria
Teresa's attention than the management of her family. But as Marie
Antoinette grew up, the Empress-queen's ambition, ever on the watch to
maintain and augment the prosperity of her country, perceived in her
child's increasing attractions a prospect of cementing more closely an
alliance which she had contracted some years before, and on which she
prided herself the more because it had terminated an enmity of two
centuries and a half. From the day on which Charles V, prevailed over
Francis I. in the competition for the imperial crown, the attitude of the
Emperor of Germany and of the King of France to each other had been one of
mutual hostility, which, with but rare exceptions, had been greatly in
favor of the latter country. The very first years of Maria Teresa's own
reign had been imbittered by the union of France with Prussia in a war
which had deprived her of an extensive province; and she regarded it as
one of the great triumphs of Austrian diplomacy to have subsequently won
over the French ministry to exchange the friendship of Frederick of
Prussia for her own, and to engage as her ally in a war which had for its
object the recovery of the lost Silesia. Silesia was not recovered. But
she still clung to the French alliance as fondly as if the objects which
she had originally hoped to gain by it had been fully accomplished; and,
as the heir to the French monarchy was very nearly of the same age as the
young archduchess, she began to entertain hopes of uniting the two royal
families by a marriage which should render the union between the two
nations indissoluble. She mentioned the project to some of the French
visitors at her court, whom she thought likely to repeat her conversation
on their return to their own country. She took care that reports of her
daughter's beauty should from time to time reach the ears of Louis XV. She
had her picture painted by French artists. She made a proficiency in the
French language the principal object of her education; bringing over some
French actors to Vienna to instruct her in the graces of elocution, and
subsequently establishing as her chief tutor a French ecclesiastic, the
Abbe de Vermond, a man of extensive learning, of excellent judgment, and
of most conscientious integrity. The appointment would have been in every
respect a most fortunate one, had it not been suggested by Lomenie de
Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, who thus laid the abbe under an
obligation which was requited, to the great injury of France, nearly
twenty years afterward, when M. de Vermond, who still remained about the
person of his royal mistress, had an opportunity of exerting his influence
to make the archbishop prime minister.
Not that her studies were confined to French. Metastasio taught her
Italian; Gluck, whose recently published opera of "Orfeo" had, established
for him a reputation as one of the greatest musicians of the age, gave her
lessons on the harpsichord. But we fear it can not be said that she
obtained any high degree of excellence in these or in any other
accomplishments. She was not inclined to study; and, with the exception of
the abbe, her masters and mistresses were too courtly to be peremptory
with an archduchess. Their favorable reports to the Empress-queen were
indeed neutralized by the frankness with which their pupil herself
confessed her idleness and failure to improve. But Maria Teresa was too
much absorbed in politics to give much heed to the confession, or to
insist on greater diligence; though at a later day Marie Antoinette
herself repented of her neglect, and did her best to repair it, taking
lessons in more than one accomplishment with great perseverance during the
first years of her residence at Versailles, because, as she expressed
herself, the dauphiness was bound to take care of the character of the
archduchess.
There are, however, lessons of greater importance to a child than any
which are given by even the most accomplished masters--those which flow
from the example of a virtuous and sensible mother; and those the young
archduchess showed a greater aptitude for learning. Maria Teresa had set
an example not only to her own family, but to all sovereigns, among whom
principles and practices such as hers had hitherto been little recognized,
of regarding an attention to the personal welfare of all her subjects,
even of those of the lowest class, as among the most imperative of her
duties. She had been accessible to all. She had accustomed the peasantry
to accost her in her walks; she had visited their cottages to inquire into
and relieve their wants. And the little Antoinette, who, more than any
other of her children, seems to have taken her for an especial model, had
thus, from her very earliest childhood, learned to feel a friendly
interest in the well-doing of the people in general; to think no one too
lowly for her notice, to sympathize with sorrow, to be indignant at
injustice and ingratitude, to succor misfortune and distress. And these
were habits which, as being implanted in her heart, she was not likely to
forget; but which might be expected rather to gain strength by indulgence,
and to make her both welcome and useful to any people among whom her lot
might be cast.
CHAPTER II.
Proposal for the Marriage of Marie Antoinette to the Dauphin.--Early
Education of the Dauphin.--The Archduchess leaves Vienna in April, 1770.--
Her Reception at Strasburg.--She meets the King at Compiegne.--The
Marriage takes place May 16th, 1770.
Royal marriages had been so constantly regarded as affairs of state, to be
arranged for political reasons, that it had become usual on the Continent
to betroth princes and princesses to each other at a very early age; and
it was therefore not considered as denoting any premature impatience on
the part of either the Empress-queen or the King of France, Louis XV.,
when, at the beginning of 1769, when Marie Antoinette had but just
completed her thirteenth year, the Duc de Choiseul, the French Minister
for Foreign Affairs, who was himself a native of Lorraine, instructed the
Marquis de Durfort, the French embassador at Vienna, to negotiate with the
celebrated Austrian prime minister, the Prince de Kaunitz, for her
marriage to the heir of the French throne, who was not quite fifteen
months older. Louis XV. had had several daughters, but only one son. That
son, born in 1729, had been married at the age of fifteen to a Spanish
infanta, who, within a year of her marriage, died in her confinement, and
whom he replaced in a few months by a daughter of Augustus III., King of
Saxony. His second wife bore him four sons and two daughters. The eldest
son, the Duc de Bourgogne, who was born in 1750, and was generally
regarded as a child of great promise, died in his eleventh year; and when
he himself died in 1765, his second son, previously known as the Duc de
Berri, succeeded him in his title of dauphin. This prince, now the suitor
of the archduchess, had been born on the 23d of August, 1754, and was
therefore not quite fifteen. As yet but little was known of him. Very
little pains had been taken with his education; his governor, the Duc de
la Vauguyon, was a man who had been appointed to that most important post
by the cabals of the infamous mistress and parasites who formed the court
of Louis XV., without one qualification for the discharge of its duties. A
servile, intriguing spirit had alone recommended him to his patrons, while
his frivolous indolence was in harmony with the inclinations of the king
himself, who, worn out with a long course of profligacy, had no longer
sufficient energy even for vice. Under such a governor, the young prince
had but little chance of receiving a wholesome education, even if there
was not a settled design to enfeeble his mind by neglect.
His father had been a man of a character very different from that of the
king. By a sort of natural reaction or silent protest against the infamies
which he saw around him, he had cherished a serious and devout
disposition, and had observed a conduct of the most rigorous virtue. He
was even suspected of regarding the Jesuits with especial favor, and was
believed to have formed plans for the reformation of morals, and perhaps
of the State. It was not strange that, on the first news of the illness
which proved fatal to him, the people flocked to the churches with prayers
for his recovery, and that his death was regarded by all the right-
thinking portion of the community as a national calamity. But the
courtiers, who had regarded his approaching reign with not unnatural
alarm, hailed his removal with joy, and were, above all things, anxious to
prevent his son, who had now become the heir to the crown, from following
such a path as the father had marked out for himself. The negligence of
some, thus combining with the deliberate malice of others, and aided by
peculiarities in the constitution and disposition of the young prince
himself, which became more and more marked as he grew up, exercised a
pernicious influence on his boyhood. Not only was his education in the
ordinary branches of youthful knowledge neglected, but no care was even
taken to cultivate his taste or to polish his manners, though a certain
delicacy of taste and refinement of manners were regarded by the
courtiers, and by Louis XV. himself, as the pre-eminent distinction of his
reign. He was kept studiously in the background, discountenanced and
depressed, till he contracted an awkward timidity and reserve which
throughout his life he could never shake off; while a still more
unfortunate defect, which was another result of this system, was an
inability to think or decide for himself, or even to act steadily on the
advice of others after he had professed to adopt it.
But these deficiencies in his character had as yet hardly had time to
display themselves; and, had they been ever so notorious, they were not of
a nature to divert Maria Teresa from her purpose. For her political
objects, it would not, perhaps, have seemed to her altogether undesirable
that the future sovereign of France should be likely to rely on the
judgment and to submit to the influence of another, so long as the person
who should have the best opportunity of influencing him was her own
daughter. A negotiation for the success of which both parties were equally
anxious did not require a long time for its conclusion; and by the
beginning of July, 1769, all the preliminaries were arranged; the French
newspapers were authorized to allude to the marriage, and to speak of the
diligence with which preparations for it were being made in both
countries; those in which the French king took the greatest interest being
the building of some carriages of extraordinary magnificence, to receive
the archduchess as soon as she should have arrived on French ground; while
those which were being made in Germany indicated a more elementary state
of civilization, as the first requisite appeared to be to put the roads
between Vienna and the frontier in a state of repair, to prevent the
journey from being too fatiguing.
By the spring of the next year all the necessary preparations had been
completed; and on the evening of the 10th of April, 1770, a grand court
was held in the Palace of Vienna. Through a double row of guards of the
palace, of body-guards, and of a still more select guard, composed wholly
of nobles, M. de Durfort was conducted into the presence of the Emperor
Joseph II., and of his widowed mother, the Empress-queen, still, though
only dowager-empress, the independent sovereign of her own hereditary
dominions; and to both he proffered, on the part of the King of France, a
formal request for the hand of the Archduchess Marie Antoinette for the
dauphin. When the Emperor and Empress had given their gracious consent to
the demand, the archduchess herself was summoned to the hall and informed
of the proposal which had been made, and of the approval which her mother
and her brother had announced; while, to incline her also to regard it
with equal favor, the embassador presented her with a letter from her
intended husband, and with his miniature, which she at once hung round her
neck. After which, the whole party adjourned to the private theatre of the
palace to witness the performance of a French play, "The Confident Mother"
of Marivaux, the title of which, so emblematic of the feelings of Maria
Teresa, may probably have procured it the honor of selection.
The next day the young princess executed a formal renunciation of all
right of succession to any part of her mother's dominions which might at
any time devolve on her; though the number of her brothers and elder
sisters rendered any such occurrence in the highest degree improbable, and
though one conspicuous precedent in the history of both countries had,
within the memory of persons still living, proved the worthlessness of
such renunciations.[1] A few days were then devoted to appropriate
festivities. That which is most especially mentioned by the chroniclers of
the court being, in accordance with the prevailing taste of the time, a
grand masked ball,[2] for which a saloon four hundred feet long had been
expressly constructed. And on the 26th of April the young bride quit her
home, the mother from whom she had never been separated, and the friends
and playmates among whom her whole life had been hitherto passed, for a
country which was wholly strange to her, and in which she had not as yet a
single acquaintance. Her very husband, to whom she was to be confided, she
had never seen.
Though both mother and daughter felt the most entire confidence that the
new position, on which she was about to enter, would be full of nothing
but glory and happiness, it was inevitable that they should be, as they
were, deeply agitated at so complete a separation. And, if we may believe
the testimony of witnesses who were at Vienna at the time,[3] the grief of
the mother, who was never to see her child again, was shared not only by
the members of the imperial household, whom constant intercourse had
enabled to know and appreciate her amiable qualities, but by the
population of the capital and the surrounding districts, all of whom had
heard of her numerous acts of kindness and benevolence, which, young as
she was, many of them had also experienced, and who thronged the streets
along which she passed on her departure, mingling tears of genuine sorrow
with their acclamations, and following her carriage to the outermost gate
of the city that they might gaze their last on the darling of many hearts.
Kehl was the last German town through which she was to pass, Strasburg was
the first French city which was to receive her, and, as the islands which
dot the Rhine at that portion of the noble boundary river were regarded as
a kind of neutral ground, the French monarch had selected the principal
one to be occupied by a pavilion built for the purpose and decorated with
great magnificence, that it might serve for another stage of the wedding
ceremony. In this pavilion she was to cease to be German, and was to
become French; she was to bid farewell to her Austrian attendants, and to
receive into her service the French officers of her household, male and
female, who were to replace them. She was even to divest herself of every
article of her German attire, and to apparel herself anew in garments of
French manufacture sent from Paris. The pavilion was divided into two
compartments. In the chief apartment of the German division, the Austrian
officials who had escorted her so far formally resigned their charge, and
surrendered her to the Comte de Noailles, who had been appointed
embassador extraordinary to receive her; and, when all the deeds necessary
to release from their responsibly the German nobles whose duties were now
terminated had been duly signed, the doors were thrown open, and Marie
Antoinette passed into the French division, as a French princess, to
receive the homage of a splendid train of French courtiers, who were
waiting in loyal eagerness to offer their first salutations to their new
mistress. Yet, as if at every period of her life she was to be beset with
omens, the celebrated German writer, Goethe, who was at that time pursuing
his studies at Strasburg, perceived one which he regarded as of most
inauspicious significance in the tapestry which decorated the walls of the
chief saloon. It represented the history of Jason and Medea. On one side
was portrayed the king's bride in the agonies of death; on the other, the
royal father was bewailing his murdered children. Above them both, Medea
was fleeing away in a car drawn by fire-breathing dragons, and driven by
the Furies; and the youthful poet could not avoid reflecting that a record
of the most miserable union that even the ancient mythology had recorded
was a singularly inappropriate and ill-omened ornament for nuptial
festivities.[4]
A bridge reached from the island to the left bank of the river; and, on
quitting the pavilion, the archduchess found the carriages, which had been
built for her in Paris, ready to receive her, that she might make her
state entry into Strasburg. They were marvels of the coach-maker's art.
The prime minister himself had furnished the designs, and they had
attracted the curiosity of the fashionable world in Paris throughout the
winter. One was covered with crimson velvet, having pictures, emblematical
of the four seasons, embroidered in gold on the principal panels; on the
other the velvet was blue, and the elements took the place of the seasons;
while the roof of each was surmounted by nosegays of flowers, carved in
gold, enameled in appropriate colors, and wrought with such exquisite
delicacy that every movement of the carriage, or even the lightest breeze,
caused them to wave as if they were the natural produce of the garden.[5]
In this superb conveyance Marie Antoinette passed on under a succession of
triumphal arches to the gates of Strasburg, which, on this auspicious
occasion, seemed as if it desired to put itself forward as the
representative of the joy of the whole nation by the splendid cordiality
of its welcome. Whole regiments of cavalry, drawn up in line of battle,
received her with a grand salute as she advanced. Battery after battery
pealed forth along the whole extent of the vast ramparts; the bells of
every church rang out a festive peal; fountains ran with wine in the Grand
Square. She proceeded to the episcopal palace, where the archbishop, the
Cardinal de Rohan, with his coadjutor, the Prince Louis de Rohan (a man
afterward rendered unhappily notorious by his complicity in a vile
conspiracy against her) received her at the head of the most august
chapter that the whole land could produce, the counts of the cathedral, as
they were styled; the Prince of Lorraine being the grand dean, the
Archbishop of Bordeaux the grand provost, and not one post in the chapter
being filled by any one below the rank of count. She held a court for the
reception of all the female nobility of the province. She dined publicly
in state; a procession of the municipal magistrates presented her a sample
of the wines of the district; and, as she tasted the luscious offering,
the coopers celebrated what they called a feast of Bacchus, waving their
hoops as they danced round the room in grotesque figures.
It was a busy day for her, that first day of her arrival on French soil.
From the dinner-table she went to the theatre; on quitting the theatre,
she was driven through the streets to see the illuminations, which made
every part of the city as bright as at midday, the great square in front
of the episcopal palace being converted into a complete garden of
fire-works; and at midnight she attended a ball which the governor of the
province, the Marechal de Contades, gave in her honor to all the principal
inhabitants of the city and district. Quitting Strasburg the next day,
after a grand reception of the clergy, the nobles, and the magistrates of
the province, she proceeded by easy stages through Nancy, Chalons, Rheims,
and Soissons, the whole population of every town through which she passed
collecting on the road to gaze on her beauty, the renown of which had
readied the least curious ears; and to receive marks of her affability,
reports of which were at least as widely spread, in the cheerful eagerness
with which she threw down the windows of her carriage, and the frank,
smiling recognition and genuine pleasure with which she replied to their
enthusiastic acclamations. It was long remembered that, when the students
of the college at Soissons presented her with a Latin address, she replied
to them in a sentence or two in the same language.
Soissons was her last resting-place before she was introduced to her new
family. On the afternoon of Monday, the 14th of May, she quit it for
Compiegne, which the king and all the court had reached in the course of
the morning. As she approached the town she was met by the minister, the
Duc de Choiseul, and he was the precursor of Louis himself, who,
accompanied by the dauphin and his daughters, and escorted by his gorgeous
company of the guards of the household,[6] had driven out to receive her.
She and all her train dismounted from their carriages. Her master of the
horse and her "knight of honor[7]" took her by the hand and conducted her
to the royal coach. She sunk on her knee in the performance of her
respectful homage; but Louis promptly raised her up, and, having embraced
her with a tenderness which gracefully combined royal dignity with
paternal affection, and having addressed her in a brief speech,[8] which
was specially acceptable to her, as containing a well-timed compliment to
her mother, introduced her to the dauphin; and, when they reached the
palace, he also presented to her his more distant relatives, the princes
and princesses of the blood,[9] the Duc d'Orleans and his son, the Duc de
Chartres, destined hereafter to prove one of the foulest and most
mischievous of her enemies; the Duc de Bourbon, the Princes of Conde and
Conti, and one lady whose connection with royalty was Italian rather than
French, but to whom the acquaintance, commenced on this day, proved the
cause of a miserable and horrible death, the beautiful Princesse de
Lamballe.
Compiegne, however, was not to be honored by the marriage ceremony. The
next morning the whole party started for Versailles, turning out of the
road, at the express request of the archduchess herself, to pay a brief
visit to the king's youngest daughter, the Princess Louise, who had taken
on herself the Carmelite vows, and resided in the Convent of St. Denis.
The request had been suggested by Choiseul, who was well aware that the
princess shared the dislike entertained by her more worldly sisters to the
house of Austria; but it was accepted as a personal compliment by the king
himself, who was already fascinated by her charms, which, as he affirmed,
surpassed those of her portrait, and was predisposed to view all her words
and actions in the most favorable light. Avoiding Paris, which Louis, ever
since the riots of 1750, had constantly refused to enter, they reached the
hunting-lodge of La Muette, in the Bois de Boulogne, for supper. Here she
made the acquaintance of the brothers and sisters of her future husband,
the Counts of Provence and Artois, both destined, in their turn, to
succeed him on the throne; of the Princess Clotilde, who may be regarded
as the most fortunate of her race, in being saved by a foreign marriage
and an early death from witnessing the worst calamities of her family and
her native land; of the Princess Elizabeth, who was fated to share them in
all their bitterness and horror; and (a strangely incongruous sequel to
the morning visit to the Carmelite convent), the Countess du Barri also
came into her presence, and was admitted to sup at the royal table; as if,
even at the very moment when he might have been expected to conduct
himself with some degree of respectful decency to the pure-minded young
girl whom he was receiving into his family, Louis XV. was bent on
exhibiting to the whole world his incurable shamelessness in its most
offensive form.
At midnight he, with the dauphin, proceeded to Versailles, whither, the
next morning, the archduchess followed them. And at one o'clock on the
16th, in the chapel of the palace, the Primate of France, the Archbishop
of Rheims, performed the marriage ceremony. A canopy of cloth of silver
was held over the heads of the youthful pair by the bishops of Senlis and
Chartres. The dauphin, after he had placed the wedding-ring on his bride's
finger, added, as a token that he endowed her with his worldly wealth, a
gift of thirteen pieces of gold, which, as well as the ring, had received
the episcopal benediction, and Marie Antoinette was dauphiness of France.
CHAPTER III.
Feelings in Germany and France on the Subject of the Marriage.--Letter of
Maria Teresa to the Dauphin--Characters of the Different Members of the
Royal Family.--Difficulties which beset Marie Antoinette.--Maria Teresa's
Letter of Advice.--The Comte de Mercy is sent as Embassador to France
to act as the Adviser of the Dauphiness.--The Princesse de Lorraine at
the State Ball.--A Great Disaster takes place at the Fire-works in Paris.
--The Peasant at Fontainebleau.--Marie Antoinette pleases the King.--
Description of her Personal Appearance.--Mercy's Report of the Impression
she made on her First Arrival.
The marriage which was thus accomplished was regarded with unmodified
pleasure by the family of the bride, and with almost equal satisfaction by
the French king. In spite of the public rejoicings in both countries with
which it was accompanied, it can not be said to have been equally
acceptable to the majority of the people of either nation. There was still
a strong anti-French party at Vienna,[1] and (a circumstance of far
greater influence on the fortunes of the young couple) there was a strong
anti-Austrian party in France, which was not without its supporters even
in the king's palace. That the marriage should have been so earnestly
desired at the imperial court is a strange instance of the extent to which
political motives overpowered every other consideration in the mind of the
great Empress-queen, for she was not ignorant of the real character of the
French court, of the degree in which it was divided by factions, of the
base and unworthy intrigues which were its sole business, and of the
sagacity and address which were requisite for any one who would steer his
way with safety and honor through its complicated mazes.
Judgment and prudence were not the qualities most naturally to be expected
in a young princess not yet fifteen years old. The best prospect which
Marie Antoinette had of surmounting the numerous and varied difficulties
which beset her lay in the affection which she speedily conceived for her
husband, and in the sincerity, we can hardly say warmth, with which he
returned her love. Maria Teresa had bespoken his tenderness for her in a
letter which she wrote to him on the day on which her daughter left
Vienna, and which has often been quoted as a composition worthy of her
alike as a mother and as a Christian sovereign; and as admirably
calculated to impress the heart of her new son-in-law by claiming his
attachment for his bride, on the ground of the pains which she had taken
to make her worthy of her fortune.
"Your bride, my dear dauphin, has just left me. I do hope that she will
cause your happiness. I have brought her up with the design that she
should do so, because I have for some time forseen that she would share
your destiny.
"I have inspired her with an eager desire to do her duty to you, with a
tender attachment to your person, with a resolution to be attentive to
think and do every thing which may please you. I have also been most
careful to enjoin her a tender devotion toward the Master of all
Sovereigns, being thoroughly persuaded that we are but badly providing for
the welfare of the nations which are intrusted to us when we fail in our
duty to Him who breaks sceptres and overthrows thrones according to his
pleasure.
"I say, then, to you, my dear dauphin, as I say to my daughter: 'Cultivate
your duties toward God. Seek to cause the happiness of the people over
whom you will reign (it will be too soon, come when it may). Love the
king, your grandfather; be humane like him; be always accessible to the
unfortunate. If you behave in this manner, it is impossible that happiness
can fail to be your lot.' My daughter will love you, I am certain, because
I know her. But the more that I answer to you for her affection, and for
her anxiety to please you, the more earnestly do I entreat you to vow to
her the most sincere attachment.
"Farewell, my dear dauphin. May you be happy. I am bathed in tears.[2]"
The dauphin did not falsify the hopes thus expressed by the Empress-queen.
But his was not the character to afford his wife either the advice or
support which she needed, while, strange to say, he was the only member of
the royal family to whom she could look for either. The king was not only
utterly worthless and shameless, but weak and irresolute in the most
ordinary matters. Even when in the flower and vigor of his age, he had
never been able to summon courage to give verbal orders or reproofs to his
own children,[3] but had intimated his pleasure or displeasure by letters.
He had been gradually falling lower and lower, both in his own vices and
in the estimation of the world; and was now, still more than when Lord
Chesterfield first drew his picture,[4] both hated and despised. The
dauphin's brothers, for such mere boys, were singularly selfish and
unamiable; and the only female relations of her husband, his aunts, to
whom, as such, it would have been natural that a young foreigner should
look for friendship and advice, were not only narrow-minded, intriguing,
and malicious, but were predisposed to regard her with jealousy as likely
to interfere with the influence which they had hoped to exert over their
nephew when he should become their sovereign.
Marie Antoinette had, therefore, difficulties and enemies to contend with
from the very first commencement of her residence in France. And many even
of her own virtues were unfavorable to her chances of happiness,
calculated as they were to lay her at the mercy of her ill-wishers, and to
deprive her of some of the defenses which might have been found in a
different temperament. Full of health and spirits, she was naturally eager
in the pursuit of enjoyment, and anxious to please every one, from feeling
nothing but kindness toward every one; she was frank, open, and sincere;
and, being perfectly guileless herself, she was, as through her whole life
she continued to be, entirely unsuspicious of unfriendliness, much more of
treachery in others. Her affability and condescension combined with this
trustful disposition to make her too often the tool of designing and
grasping courtiers, who sought to gain their own ends at her expense, and
who presumed on her good-nature and inexperience to make requests which,
as they well knew, should never have been made, but which they also
reckoned that she would be unwilling to refuse.
But lest this general amiability and desire to give pleasure to those
around her might seem to impart a prevailing tinge of weakness to her
character, it is fair to add that she united to these softer feelings,
robuster virtues calculated to deserve and to win universal admiration;
though some of them, never having yet been called forth by circumstances,
were for a long time unsuspected by the world at large. She had pride--
pride of birth, pride of rank--though never did that feeling show itself
more nobly or more beneficially. It never led her to think herself above
the very meanest of her subjects. It never made her indifferent to the
interests, to the joys or sorrows, of a single individual. The idea with
which it inspired her was, that a princess of her race was never to commit
an unworthy act, was never to fail in purity of virtue, in truth, in
courage; that she was to be careful to set an example of these virtues to
those who would naturally look up to her; and that she herself was to keep
constantly in her mind the example of her illustrious mother, and never,
by act, or word, or thought, to discredit her mother's name. And as she
thus regarded courage as her birthright, so she possessed it in abundance
and in variety. She had courage to plan, and courage to act; courage to
resolve, and courage to adhere to the resolution once deliberately formed;
and, above all, courage to endure and to suffer, and, in the very
extremity of misery, to animate and support others less royally endowed.
Such, then, as she was, with both her manifest and her latent
excellencies, as well as with those more mixed qualities which had some
defects mingled with their sweetness, Marie Antoinette, at the age of
fourteen years and a half, was thrown into a world wholly new to her, to
guide herself so far by her own discretion that there was no one who had
both judgment and authority to control her in her line of conduct or in
any single action. She had, indeed, an adviser whom her mother had
provided for her, though without allowing her to suspect the nature or
full extent of the duties which she had imposed upon him. Maria Teresa had
been in some respects a strict mother, one whom her children in general
feared almost as much as they loved her; and the rigorous superintendence
on some points of conduct which she had exercised over Marie Antoinette
while at home, she was not inclined wholly to resign, even after she had
made her apparently independent. At the moment of her departure from
Vienna, she gave her a letter of advice which she entreated her to read
over every month, and in which the most affectionate and judicious counsel
is more than once couched in a tone of very authoritative command; the
whole letter showing not only the most experienced wisdom and the most
affectionate interest in her daughter's happiness, but likewise a thorough
insight into her character, so precisely are some of the errors against
which the letter most emphatically warns her those into which she most
frequently fell. And she appointed a statesman in whom she deservedly
placed great confidence, the Count de Mercy-Argenteau, her embassador to
the court at Versailles, with the express design that he should always be
at hand to afford the dauphiness his advice in all the difficulties which
she could not avoid foreseeing for her; and who should also keep the
Empress-queen herself fully informed of every particular of her conduct,
and of every transaction by which she was in any way affected. This part
of his commission was wholly unsuspected by the young princess; but the
count discharged such portions of the delicate duty thus imposed upon him
with rare discretion, contriving in its performance to combine the
strictest fidelity to his imperial mistress with the most entire devotion
to the interests of his pupil, and to preserve the unqualified regard and
esteem of both mother and daughter to the end of their lives. Toward the
latter, as dauphiness, and even as queen, he stood for some years in a
position very similar to that which Baron Stockmar fills in the history of
the late Prince Consort of England, being, however, more frequent in his
admonitions, and occasionally more severe in his reproofs, as the youth
and inexperience of Marie Antoinette not unnaturally led her into greater
mistakes than the scrupulous conscientiousness and almost premature
prudence of the prince consort ever suffered him to commit; and his
diligent reports to the Empress-queen, amounting at times to a diary of
the proceedings of the French court, have a lasting and inestimable value,
since they furnish us with so trustworthy a record of the whole life of
Marie Antoinette for the first ten years of her residence in France,[5] of
her actions, her language, and her very thoughts (for she ever scorned to
give a reason or to make an excuse which was not absolutely and strictly
true), that there is perhaps no person of historical importance whose
conduct in every transaction of gravity or interest is more minutely
known, or whose character there are fuller materials for appreciating.
The very day of her marriage did not pass without her receiving a strange
specimen of the factious spirit which prevailed at the court, and of the
hollowness of the welcome with which the chief nobles had greeted her
arrival. A state ball was given at the palace to celebrate the wedding,
and as the Princess of Lorraine, a cousin of the Emperor Francis, was the
only blood-relation of Marie Antoinette who was at Versailles at the time,
the king assigned her a place in the first quadrille, giving her
precedence for that occasion, next to the princes of the blood. It did not
seem a great stretch of courtesy to show to a foreigner, even had she not
been related to the princess in whose honor the ball was given; but the
dukes and peers fired up at the arrangement, as if an insult had been
offered them. They held a meeting at which they resolved that no member of
their families should attend, and carried out their resolution so
obstinately that at five o'clock, when the dancing was to commence, except
the royal princesses there were only three ladies in the room. The king,
who, following the example of Louis XIV., acted on these occasions as his
own master of ceremonies, was forced to send special and personal orders
to some of those who had absented themselves to attend without delay. And
so by seven o'clock twelve or fourteen couples were collected[6] (the
number of persons admitted to such entertainments was always extremely
small), and the rude disloyalty of the protest was to outward appearance
effaced by the submission of the recusants.
But all the troubles which arose out of the wedding festivities were not
so easily terminated. Little as was the good-will which subsisted between
Louis XV. and the Parisians, the civic authorities thought their own
credit at stake in doing appropriate honor to an occasion so important as
the marriage of the heir of the monarchy, and on the 30th of May they
closed a succession of balls and banquets by a display of fire-works, in
which the ingenuity of the most celebrated artists had been exhausted to
outshine all previous displays of the sort. Three sides of the Place Louis
XV. were filled up with pyramids and colonnades. Here dolphins darted out
many-colored flames from their ever-open mouths. There, rivers of fire
poured forth cascades spangled with all the variegated brilliancy with
which the chemist's art can embellish the work of the pyrotechnist. The
centre was occupied with a gorgeous Temple of Hymen, which seemed to lean
for support on the well-known statue of the king, in front of which it was
constructed; and which was, as it were, to be carried up to the skies by
above three thousand rockets and fire-balls into which it was intended to
dissolve. The whole square was packed with spectators, the pedestrians in
front, the carriages in the rear, when one of the explosions set fire to a
portion of the platforms on which the different figures had been
constructed. At first the increase of the blaze was regarded only as an
ingenious surprise on the part of the artist. But soon it became clear
that the conflagration was undesigned and real; panic-succeeded to
delight, and the terror-stricken crowd, seeing themselves surrounded with
flames, began to make frantic efforts to escape from the danger; but there
was only one side of the square uninclosed, and that was blocked up by
carriages. The uproar and the glare made the horses unmanageable, and in a
few moments the whole mass, human beings and animals, was mingled in
helpless confusion, making flight impossible by their very eagerness to
fly, and trampling one another underfoot in bewildered misery. Of those
who did succeed in extricating themselves from the square, half made their
way to the road which runs along the bank of the river, and found that
they had only exchanged one danger for another, which, though of an
opposite character, was equally destructive. Still overwhelmed with
terror, though the first peril was over, the fugitives pushed one another
into the stream, in which great numbers were drowned. The number of the
killed could never be accurately ascertained: but no calculation estimated
the number of those who perished at less than six hundred, while those who
were grievously injured were at least as many more.
The dauphin and dauphiness were deeply shocked by a disaster so painfully
at variance with their own happiness, which, in one sense, had caused it.
Their first thought was, as far as they might be able, to mitigate it.
Most of the victims were of the poorer class, the grief of whose surviving
relatives was, in many instances, aggravated by the loss of the means of
livelihood which the labors of those who had been cut off had hitherto
supplied; and, to give temporary succor to this distress, the dauphin and
dauphiness at once drew out from the royal treasury the sums allowed to
them for their private expenses for the month, and sent the money to the
municipal authorities to be applied to the relief of the sufferers. But
Marie Antoinette did more. She felt that to give money only was but cold
benevolence; and she made personal visits to many of those families which
had been most grievously afflicted, showing the sincerity of her sympathy
by the touching kindness of her language, and by the tears which she
mingled with those of the widow and the orphan.[7] Such unmerited kindness
made a deep impression on the citizens. Since the time of Henry IV. no
prince had ever shown the slightest interest in the happiness or misery of
the lower classes; and the feeling of affectionate gratitude which this
unprecedented recognition of their claims to be sympathized with as
fellow-creatures awakened was fixed still more deeply in their hearts a
short time afterward, when, at one of the hunting-parties which took place
at Fontainebleau, the stag charged a crowd of the spectators and severely
wounded a peasant with his horns. Marie Antoinette sprung to the ground at
the sight, helped to bind up the wound, and had the man driven in her own
carriage to his cabin, whither she followed him herself to see that every
proper attention was paid to him.[8] And the affection which she thus
inspired among the poor was fully shared by the chief personage in the
kingdom, the sovereign himself. A life of profligacy had not rendered
Louis wholly insensible to the superior attractions of innocence and
virtue. Perhaps a secret sense of shame at the slavery in which his vices
held him, and which, as he well knew, excited the contempt of even his
most dissolute courtiers, though he had not sufficient energy to shake it
off, may have for a moment quickened his better feelings; and the fresh
beauty of the young princess, who, from the first moment of her arrival at
the court, treated him with the most affectionate and caressing respect,
awakened in him a genuine admiration and good-will. He praised her beauty
and her grace to all his nobles with a warmth that excited the jealousy of
his infamous mistress, the Countess du Barri. He made allowance for some
childishness of manner as natural at her age,[9] showed an anxiety for
every thing which could amuse or gratify her, which afforded a marked
contrast to his ordinary apathy. And, though in so young a girl it was
rather the promise of future beauty than its developed perfection that her
feat-* as yet presented, they already exhibited sufficient charms to
exempt those who extolled them from the suspicion of flattery. A clear and
open forehead, a delicately cut nose, a complexion of dazzling brilliancy,
with bright blue eyes, whose ever-varying lustre seemed equally calculated
to show every feeling which could move her heart; which could, at times
seem almost fierce with anger, indignation, or contempt, but whose
prevailing expression was that of kindly benevolence or light-hearted
mirth were united with a figure of exquisite proportions, sufficiently
tall for dignity, though as yet, of course, slight and unformed, and every
movement of which was directed by a grace that could neither be taught nor
imitated. If any defect could be discovered in her face, it consisted in a
somewhat undue thickness of the lips, especially of the lower lip, which
had for some generations been the prevailing characteristic of her family.
Accordingly, a month after her marriage, Mercy could report to Maria
Teresa that she had had complete success, and was a universal favorite;
that, besides the king, who openly expressed his satisfaction, she had won
the heart of the dauphin, who had been very unqualified in the language in
which he had praised both her beauty and her agreeable qualities to his
aunts; and that even those princesses were "enchanted" with her. The whole
court, and the people in general, extolled her affability, and the
graciousness with which she said kind things to all who approached her.
Though the well-informed embassador had already discovered signs of the
cabals which the mistress and her partisans were forming against her, and
had been rendered a little uneasy by the handle which she had more than
once afforded to her secret enemies, when, "in gayety of heart and without
the slightest ill-will," she had allowed herself to jest on some persons
and circumstances which struck her as ridiculous, her jests being seasoned
with a wit and piquancy which rendered them keener to those who were their
objects, and more so mischievous to herself. He especially praised the
unaffected dignity with which she had received the mistress who had
attended in her apartments to pay her court, though in no respect deceived
as to the lady's disposition, her penetration into the characters of all
with whom she had been brought into contact, denoting, as it struck him,
"a sagacity" which, at her age, was "truly astonishing.[10]"
CHAPTER IV.
Marie Antoinette gives her Mother her First Impressions of the Court and
of her own Position and Prospects.--Court Life at Versailles.--Marie
Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette.--Character of the Duc
d'Aiguillon.--Cabals against the Dauphiness.--Jealousy of Mme. du Barri.--
The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her.--She becomes more and more Popular.--
Parties for Donkey-riding.--Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income.--Her
Influence over the King.--The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed.--She begins
to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.
Marie Antoinette herself was inclined to be delighted with all that befell
her, and to make light of what she could hardly regard as pleasant or
becoming; and two of her first letters to her mother, written in the early
part of July,[1] give us an insight into the feelings with which she
regarded her new family and her own position, as well as a picture of her
daily occupations and of the singular customs of the French court,
strangely inconsistent in what it permitted and in what it disallowed,
and, in the publicity in which its princes lived, curiously incompatible
with ordinary ideas of comfort and even delicacy.
"The king," she says, "is full of kindnesses toward me, and I love him
tenderly. But it is pitiable to see his weakness for Madame du Barri, who
is the silliest and most impertinent creature that it is possible to
conceive. She has played with us every evening at Marly,[2] and she has
twice been seated next to me; but she has not spoken to me, and I have not
attempted to engage in conversation with her; but, when it was necessary,
I have said a word or two to her.
"As for my dear husband, he is greatly changed, and in a most advantageous
manner. He shows a great deal of affection for me, and is even beginning
to treat me with great confidence. He certainly does not like M. de la,
Vauguyon; but he is afraid of him. A curious thing happened about the duke
the other day. I was alone with my husband, when M. de la Vauguyon stole
hurriedly up to the doors to listen. A servant, who was either a fool or a
very honest man, opened the door, and there stood his grace the duke
planted like a sentinel, without being able to retreat. I pointed out to
my husband the inconvenience that there was in having people listening at
the doors, and he took my remark very well."
She did not tell the empress the whole of this occurrence; she had been
too indignant at the duke's meanness to suppress her feelings, and she
reproved the duke himself with a severity which can hardly be said to have
been misplaced.
"Duke de la Vauguyon," she said, "my lord the dauphin is now of an age to
dispense with a governor; and I have no need of a spy. I beg you not to
appear again in my presence.[3]"
Between the writing of her first and second letters she had heard from
Maria Teresa; and she "can not describe how the affection her mother
expresses for her has gone to her heart. Every letter which she has
received has filled her eyes with tears of regret at being separated from
so tender and loving a mother, and, happy as she is in France, she would
give the world to see her family again, if it were but for a moment. As
her mother wishes to know how the days are passed; she gets up between
nine and ten, and, having dressed herself and said her morning prayers,
she breakfasts, and then she goes to the apartments of her aunts, whose
she usually finds the king. That lasts till half-past ten; then at eleven
she has her hair dressed.
"At twelve," she proceeds to say, "what is called the Chamber is held, and
there every one who does not belong to the common people may enter. I put
on my rouge and wash my hands before all the world; the men go out, and
the women remain; and then I dress myself in their presence. Then comes
mass. If the king is at Versailles, I go to mass with him, my husband, and
my aunts; if he is not there, I go alone with the dauphin, but always at
the same hour. After mass we two dine by ourselves in the presence of all
the world; but dinner is over by half-past one, as we both eat very fast.
From the dinner-table I go to the dauphin's apartments, and if he has
business, I return to my own rooms, where I read, write, or work; for I am
making a waistcoat for the king, which gets on but slowly, though, I
trust, with God's grace, it will be finished before many years are over.
At three o'clock I go again to visit my aunts, and the king comes to them
at the same hour. At four the abbe[4] comes to me, and at five I have
every day either my harpsichord-master or my singing-master till six. At
half-past six I go almost every day to my aunts, except when I go out
walking. And you must understand that when I go to visit my aunts, my
husband almost always goes with me. At seven we play cards till nine
o'clock; but when the weather is fine I go out walking, and then there is
no play in my apartments, but it is held at my aunts'. At nine we sup; and
when the king is not there, my aunts come to sup with us; but when the
king is there, we go after supper to their rooms, waiting there for the
king, who usually comes about a quarter to eleven; and I lie down on a
grand sofa and go to sleep till he comes. But when he is not there, we go
to bed at eleven o'clock."
The play-table which is alluded to in these letters was one of the most
curious and mischievous institutions of the court. Gambling had been one
of its established vices ever since the time of Henry IV., whose enormous
losses at play had formed the subject of Sully's most incessant
remonstrances. And from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., a
gaming-table had formed a regular part of the evening's amusement. It was
the one thing which was allowed to break down the barrier of etiquette. On
all other occasions, the rules which regulated who might and who might not
be admitted to the royal presence were as precise and strict as in many
cases they were unreasonable and unintelligible. But at the gaming-table
every one who could make the slightest pretensions to gentle birth was
allowed to present himself and stake his money; [5] and the leveling
influence of play was almost as fully exemplified in the king's palace as
in the ordinary gaming-houses, since, though the presence of royalty so
far acted as a restraint on the gamblers as to prevent any open explosion,
accusations of foul play and dishonest tricks were as rife as in the most
vulgar company.
Marie Antoinette was winning many hearts by her loveliness and affability;
but she could not scatter her kind speeches and friendly smiles among all
with whom she came into contact without running counter to the prejudices
of some of the old courtiers who had been formed on a different system; to
whom the maintenance of a rigid etiquette was as the very breath of their
nostrils, and in whose eyes its very first rule and principle was that
princes should keep all the world at a distance. Foremost among these
sticklers for old ideas was the Countess de Noailles, her principal "lady
of honor," whose uneasiness on the subject speedily became so notorious as
to give rise to numerous court squibs and satirical odes, the authors of
which seemed glad to compliment the dauphin and to vex her ladyship at the
same time, but who could not be deterred by these effusions from lecturing
Marie Antoinette on her disregard of her rank, and on the danger of making
herself too familiar, till she provoked the young princess into giving her
the nickname of Madame Etiquette; and, no doubt, in her childish
playfulness, to utter many a speech and do many an act whose principle
object was to excite the astonishment or provoke the frowns of the too
prim lady of honor.
There can be no doubt that, though she often pushed her strictness too
far, Madame de Noailles to some extent had reason on her side; and that a
certain degree of ceremony and stately reserve is indispensable in court
life. It is a penalty which those born in the purple must pay for their
dignity, that they can have no friend on a perfect equality with
themselves; and those who in different ages and countries have tried to
emancipate themselves from this law of their rank have not generally won
even the respect of those to whom they have condescended, and still less
the approbation of the outer world, whose members have perhaps a secret
dislike to see those whom they regard as their own equals lifted above
them by the familiarity of princes.
This, however, was a matter of comparatively slight importance. An excess
of condescension is at the worst a venial and an amiable error; but even
at the early period plots were being contrived against the young princess,
which, if successful, would have been wholly destructive of her happiness,
and which, though she was fully aware of them, she had not means by
herself to disconcert or defeat. They were the more formidable because
they were partly political, embracing a scheme for the removal of a
minister, and consequently conciliated more supporters and insured greater
perseverance than if they had merely aimed at securing a preponderance of
court favor for the plotters. Like all the other mistresses who had
successfully reigned in the French courts, Madame du Barri had a party of
adherents who hoped to rise by her patronage. The Duc de Choiseul himself
had owed his promotion to her predecessor, Madame de Pompadour, and those
who hoped to supplant him saw in a similar influence the best prospect of
attaining their end. One of the least respectable of the French nobles was
the Duc d'Aiguillon. As Governor of Brittany, he had behaved with
notorious cowardice in the Seven Years' War. He had since been, if
possible, still more dishonored by charges of oppression, peculation, and
subornation, on which the authorities of the province had prosecuted him,
and which the Parisian Parliament had pronounced to be established. But no
kind of infamy was a barrier to the favor of Louis XV. He cancelled the
resolution of the Parliament, and showed such countenance to the culprit
that d'Aiguillon, who was both ambitious and covetous, conceived the idea
of supplanting Choiseul in the Government. As one of Choiseul's principal
measures had been the negotiation of the dauphin's marriage, Marie
Antoinette was known to regard him with a good-will which was founded on
gratitude. But, unfortunately, her feelings on this point were not shared
by her husband; for Choiseul had had notorious differences with his
father, the late dauphin, and, though it was perfectly certain that that
prince had died of natural disease, people had been found to whisper in
his son's ear suspicions that he had been poisoned, and that the minister
to whom he was unfriendly had been concerned in his death.
The two plots, therefore, to overthrow the minister and to weaken the
influence of the dauphiness, went hand-in-hand, and, as might have been
expected from the character of the patroness of both, no means were too
vile or wicked for the intriguers who had set them on foot. Madame du
Barri was, indeed, seriously alarmed for the maintenance of her own
ascendency. The king took such undisguised pleasure in his new
granddaughter's company, that some of the most experienced courtiers began
to anticipate that she would soon gain entire influence over him[6]. The
mistress began, therefore, to disparage her personal charms, never
speaking of her to Louis ("France," as she generally called him), except
as "the little blowsy,[7]" while her ally, De la Vauguyon, endeavored to
further her views by exerting the influence which he mistakenly flattered
himself that he still retained over the dauphin, to surround her with his
own creatures. He tried to procure the dismissal of the Abbe de Vermond,
who, having been, as we have seen, the tutor of Marie Antoinette at
Vienna, still remained attached to her person as her reader; and whose
complete knowledge of all the ways of the court, joined to a thorough
honesty and devoted fidelity to her best interests, rendered his services
most valuable to his mistress in her new sphere. He sought to recommend a
creature of his own as her confessor; to obtain for his own daughter the
appointment of one of her chief ladies; and, with a wickedness peculiar to
the French court, he even endeavored to imitate the vile arts by which the
Duc de Richelieu had deprived Marie Leczinska of the affections of the
king, to alienate the dauphin from his young wife, and to induce him to
commit himself to the guidance of Madame du Barri. But this part of the
scheme failed. The dauphin was strangely insensible to the personal charms
of Marie Antoinette herself, and was wholly inaccessible to any inferior
temptations; and, as far as the arrangements of the court were concerned,
the success of the mistress's cabal was limited to procuring the dismissal
of the mistress of the robes, the Countess de Grammont, for refusing to
cede to Madame du Barri and some of her friends the place which belonged
to her office at some private theatricals which were held in the palace.
Louis XIV. had taught his nobles the pernicious notion that an order to
withdraw from the court was a penal banishment, and his successor now
banished Madame de Grammont fourteen leagues from Versailles, and for some
time refused to recall his sentence, though Marie Antoinette herself wrote
to him to complain of one of her servants being so treated for such a
cause. She had not, as she reported to her mother, been very willing to
write, knowing that Madame du Barri read all the king's letters; but Mercy
had urged her to take the step, thinking it very important that she should
establish the practice of communicating directly with Louis on all matters
relating to her own household, and that she should avoid the blunder of
his daughters, her aunts, whose conduct toward their father had, in his
opinion, been mischievously timid, and to follow whose example would be
prejudicial both to her dignity and to her comfort.
The aunts too, and especially the eldest, Madame Adelaide, had schemes of
their own, which, they also sought to carry out by underhand methods. The
more conscious they were that they themselves had no influence over their
father, the less could they endure the chance of their niece acquiring
any, though it could not have been said to have been established at their
expense. On the other hand, they had before his marriage had considerable
power with the dauphin, which they had now but little hope of retaining.
They saw also that Marie Antoinette had in a few weeks gained a general
popularity such as they had never won in their whole lives, and on all
these accounts they were painfully jealous of her. They put ideas and
plans into her head which they expected to grate upon their father's taste
or indolence, and then contrived to have them represented or
misrepresented to him, though he disappointed their malice by regarding
such things as childish ebullitions natural to a girl of her age, and was
far more inclined to humor than to reprove her. With the same object, they
tried to induce her to interfere in appointments in which she had no
concern; but she remembered her mother's advice, and on this point kept
steadily in the path which that affectionate adviser had marked out for
her. They even ventured to make disparaging observations on her manners,
as inexperienced and unformed, to the dauphin himself, till he silenced
them by the warmth of his praises alike of her beauty and of her
disposition; and they were so afraid of any addition to her popularity
with the nation at large, that, when the city of Paris and the states of
Languedoc presented her with an address, they recommended her to make no
reply, assuring her that on similar occasions they themselves had never
given any answers. Luckily, she had a better adviser, who on this occasion
was the Abbe de Vermond. He told her truly that in this matter the conduct
which the older princesses had pursued was a warning, not a pattern: that
they had made all France discontented; and at his suggestion Marie
Antoinette gave to each address "an answer full of graciousness, with
which the public was enchanted."
Thus in the first year of her marriage, by her kindness of heart, guided
by the advice of Mercy and the abbe, to which she listened with the
greatest docility, she had won general affection, and had made no enemies
but those whose enmity was an honor. She was, as she wrote to her mother,
perfectly happy, though, had she not wished to make the best of matters,
she was not, in fact, wholly free from disappointments and vexations, some
of which continued for years to cause her uneasiness and anxiety, though
others were comparatively trivial or temporary, while one was of an almost
comical nature.
She had conceived a great desire to learn to ride. Her mother had been a
great horsewoman; and, as the dauphin, like the king, was passionately
addicted to hunting, which hitherto she had only witnessed from a
carriage, Marie Antoinette not unnaturally desired to be mistress of an
accomplishment which would enable her to give him more of her
companionship. Unluckily Mercy disapproved of the idea. It is impossible
to read his correspondence with the empress, and in subsequent years with
Marie Antoinette herself, without being forcibly impressed with respect
for his consummate prudence, his sound judgment in matters of public
policy, and his unswerving fidelity to the interests of both mother and
daughter. But at the same time it is difficult to avoid seeing that he was
too little inclined to make allowance for the youthful eagerness for
amusements which was natural to her age, and that at times he carried his
supervision into matters on which his statesman-like experience and
sagacity had hardly qualified him to form an opinion. He was proud of his
princess's beauty; and, considering himself in charge of her figure as
well as of her conduct, he had made himself very uneasy by the fancied
discovery that she was becoming crooked. He was sure that one shoulder was
growing higher than the other; he earnestly recommended stays, and was
very much displeased with her aunts for setting her against them, because
they were not fashionable in Paris. And when the horse exercise was
proposed, he set his face against it; he wrote to Maria Teresa, who agreed
with him in thinking it ruinous to the complexion, injurious to the shape,
and not to be safely indulged in under thirty years of age[8]; and, lest
distance should weaken the authority of the empress, he enlisted Madame de
Noailles and Choiseul on his side, and Choiseul persuaded the king that it
was a very objectionable pastime for a young bride.
There was not as yet the slightest prospect of the dauphiness becoming a
mother (a circumstance which was, in fact, the most serious of her
vexations, and that which lasted longest): but the king on this point
agreed with his minister, and after some discussion a compromise was hit
upon, and it was decided that she might ride a donkey. The whole country
was immediately ransacked for a stud of quiet donkeys.[9] In September the
court moved to Compiegne, and day after day, while the king and the
dauphin were shooting in one part of the woods, on the other side a
cavalcade of donkey-riders, the aunts and the king's brothers all swelling
Marie Antoinette's train, trotted up and down the glades, and sought out
shady spots for rural luncheons out-of-doors; and, though even this
pastime was occasionally found liable to as much danger as an expedition
on nobler steeds, the merry dauphiness contrived to extract amusement for
herself and her followers from her very disasters. It was long a standing
joke that on one occasion, when her donkey and herself came down in a soft
place, her royal highness, before she would allow her attendants to
extricate her from the mud, bid them go to Madame de Noailles, and ask her
what the rules of etiquette prescribed when a dauphiness of France failed
to keep her seat upon a donkey.
She had also another annoyance which was even of a less royal character
than being doomed to ride on a donkey. She had absolutely no pocket-money.
For many generations the princes of the country had been accustomed to dip
their hands so unrestrainedly into the national treasury, that their
legitimate appointments had been fixed on a very moderate, if not scanty,
scale; so that any one who, like the dauphin and dauphiness, might be
scrupulous not to exceed their income (though that scruple had probably
affected no one before) could not fail to be greatly straitened. The
allowance of Marie Antoinette was fixed at no higher amount than six
thousand francs a month; and of this small sum, according to a report
which, in the course of the autumn, Mercy made to the empress, not a
single crown really reached the princess for her private use.[10] Nearly
half of the money was stopped to pay some pensions granted Marie
Leczinska, with which the dauphiness could by no possibility have the
slightest concern. Almost as much more was intrusted to the gentlemen of
her chamber for the expenses of the play table, at which she was expected
to preside, since there was no queen to discharge that duty; and whether
her royal highness's cards won or lost, the money equally disappeared,[11]
and the remainder was distributed in presents to her ladies, at the
discretion of Madame de Noailles. Had not Maria Teresa, when she first
quit Vienna, intrusted Mercy with a thousand pounds for her use, and had
she not herself been singularly economical in her ideas, she would have
been in the humiliating position of being unable to provide for her own
most ordinary wants, and, a matter about which she was even more anxious,
for her constant charities. Yet so inveterate was the mismanagement in
both the court and the government, that it was some time before Mercy
could succeed, by the strongest remonstrances supported by clear proofs of
the real situation of her royal highness, in getting her affairs and her
resources placed upon a proper footing.
In spite of all the efforts of the cabal, the king's regard for her
increased daily. He had not for many years been used to being treated with
respect, and she, not from any artfulness, but from her native propriety
of feeling, which forbade her ever to forget that he was her husband's
grandfather and her king, united a tone of the most loyal respect with her
filial caresses. She called him papa, and even paid him the tacit
compliment of grounding occasional requests on considerations of humanity
and justice, little as such motives had ever influenced Louis, and rarely
as their names had of late been heard in the precincts of the palace. She
even induced him to pardon Madame de Grammont; insisting on such a
concession as due to herself, when she demanded it for one of her own
retinue, till he laughed, and replied, "Madame, your orders shall be
executed." And the steadiness she thus showed in protecting her own
servants won her many hearts among the courtiers, at the same time that it
filled her aunts with astonishment, who, while commending her firmness,
could not avoid adding that "it was easy to see that she did not belong to
their race.[12]" And how strong as well as how general was of respect and
good-will which she had thus diffused was seen in a remarkable manner at
some of the private theatricals, which were a frequent diversion of the
king, when the actor, at the end of one of his songs, introduced some
verses which he had composed in her honor, and the whole body of courtiers
who were present showed their approbation by a vehement clapping of their
hands, in defiance of a standing order of the court, which prohibited any
such demonstrations being made in the sovereign's presence.[13]
It, however, more than counterbalanced these triumphs that, before the end
of the year, the cabal of the mistress succeeded in procuring the
dismissal of the Choiseul, and the appointment of the Duc d'Aiguillon as
minister. For Choiseul had been not only a faithful, but a most judicious,
friend to her. If others showed too often that they regarded her as a
foreigner, he only remembered it as a reason for giving her hints as to
the feelings of the nation or of individuals which a native would not have
required. And she thankfully acknowledged that his suggestions had always
been both kind and useful, and expressed her sense of her obligations to
him, and her concern at his dismissal to her mother, who fully shared her
feelings on the subject.
And, encouraged by this victory over her most powerful adherent, the cabal
began to venture to attack Marie Antoinette herself. They surrounded her
with spies; they even spread a report that Louis had begun to see through
and to distrust her, in the hope that, when it should reach the king's own
ears, it might perhaps lay the foundation of the alienation which it
pretended to assert; and they grew the bolder because the king's next
brother was about to be married to a Savoyard princess, of whose favor De
la Vauguyon flattered himself that he was already assured. Under these
circumstances Marie Antoinette behaved with consummate prudence, as far at
least as her enemies were concerned. She despised the efforts made to
lower her in the general estimation so completely that she seemed wholly
unconscious of them. She did not even allow herself to be provoked into
treating the authors of the calumnies with additional coldness; but gave
no handle to any of them to complain of her, so that the critical and
anxious eyes of Mercy himself found nothing to wish altered in her conduct
toward them.[14] And throughout the winter she pursued the even tenor of
her way, making herself chiefly remarkable by almost countless acts of
charity, which she dispensed with such judgment as showed that they
proceeded, not from a heedless disregard of money, but from a thoughtful
and vigilant kindness, which did not think the feelings any more than the
necessities of the poor beneath her notice.
Circumstances to which she contributed only indirectly enhanced her
popularity and weakened the effects of the mistress's hostility.
Versailles had not been so gay for many winters, and the votaries of mere
amusement, always a strong party at every court, rejoiced at the addition
to the royal family to whom the gayety was owing. Louis roused himself to
gratify the young princess, who enlivened his place with the first
respectable pleasures which it or he had known for years. When he saw that
she liked dramatic performances, he opened the private theatre of the
palace twice a week. Because she was fond of dancing, he encouraged her to
have a weekly ball in her own apartments, at which she herself was the
principal attraction, not solely by the elegance of her every movement,
but still more by the graciousness with which she received and treated her
guests, having a kind smile and an affable word for all, apparently
forgetting her rank in the frankness of her condescension, yet at the same
time bearing herself with an innate dignity which prevented the most
forward from presuming on her kindness or venturing on any undue
familiarity.[15]
The winter of 1770 was one of unusual severity; and she found resources
for a further enlivenment of the court in the frost itself. Sledging on
the snow was an habitual pastime at Vienna, where the cold is more severe
than at Paris; nor in former years had sledges been wholly unknown in the
Bois de Boulogne. And now Marie Antoinette, whose hardy habits made
exercise in the fresh air almost a necessity for her, had sledges built
for herself and her attendants; and the inhabitants of Versailles and the
neighborhood, as fond of novelty as all their countrymen, were delighted
at the merry sledging-parties which, as long as the snow lasted, explored
the surrounding country, while the woods rang with the horses' bells, and,
almost as loudly and still more cheerfully, with the laughter of the
company.
Her liveliness had, as it were, given a new tone to the whole court; and
though the dauphin held out longer against the genial influence of his
wife's disposition than most people, it at last in some degree thawed even
his frigidity. She ascribed his apathy and apparent dislike to female
society rather to the neglect or malice of his early tutors than to any
natural defect of capacity or perversity of disposition; and often
lectured him on his deficiencies, and even on some of his favorite
pursuits, which she looked upon as contributing to strengthen his shyness
with ladies. She was not unacquainted with English literature, in which
the rusticity and coarseness of the fox-hunting squires formed a piquant
subject for the mirth of dramatists and novelists; and if Squire Western
had been the type of sportsmen in all countries, she could not have
inveighed more vigorously than she did against her husband's addiction to
hunting. One evening, when he did not return from the field till the play
in the theatre was half over, she not only frowned upon him all the rest
of the entertainment, but when, after the company had retired, he began to
enter into an explanation of the cause of his delay, a scene ensued which
it will be best to give in the very words of Mercy's report to the
empress.
"The dauphiness made him a short but very energetic sermon, in which she
represented to him with vivacity all the evils of the uncivilized kind of
life he was leading. She showed him that no one of his attendants could
stand that kind of life, and that they would like it the less that his own
air and rude manners made no amends to those who were attached to his
train; and that, by following this plan of life, he would end by ruining
his health and making himself detested. The dauphin received this lecture
with gentleness and submission, confessed that he was wrong, promised to
amend, and formally begged her pardon. This circumstance is certainly very
remarkable, and the more so because the next day people observed that he
paid the dauphiness much more attention, and behaved toward her with a
much more lively affection than usual.[16]"
We do not, however, find in reality that the severity of her admonitions
produced any permanent diminution of his fondness for hunting and
shooting; but the gentleness of her general manners, and the delight which
he saw that all around her took in her graciousness, so far excited his
admiration that he began to follow her example. He said that "she had such
native grace that every thing which she did succeeded to perfection; that
it must be admitted that she was charming." And before the end of the
winter he had come to take an active part both in her Monday balls, and in
those which her ladies occasionally gave in her honor; "dancing himself
the whole of the evening, and conversing with all the company with an air
of cheerfulness and good-nature of which no one before had ever thought
him capable.[17]" The happy change in his demeanor was universally
attributed to the dauphiness; and, as the character of their future king
was naturally watched with anxiety as a matter of the highest importance,
it greatly increased the attachment of all who had the welfare of the
nation at heart to the princess, whose general example had produced so
beneficial an effect.
CHAPTER V.
Mercy's Correspondence with Empress.--Distress and Discontent pervade
France.--Goldsmith predicts a Revolution.--Apathy of the King.--The
Aunts mislead Marie Antoinette.--Maria Teresa hears that the Dauphiness
neglects her German Visitors.--Marriage of the Count de Provence.--Growing
Preference of Louis XV. for the Dauphiness.--The Dauphiness applies
herself to Study.--Marie Antoinette becomes a Horsewoman.--Her Kindness
to all beneath her.--Cabals of the Adherents of the Mistress.--The
Royal Family become united.--Concerts in the Apartments of the Dauphiness.
Marie Antoinette was not a very zealous or copious letter-writer. Her only
correspondent In her earlier years was her mother, and even to her her
letters are less effusive and less full of details than might have been
expected, one reason for their brevity arising out of the intrigues of the
court, since she had cause to believe herself so watched and spied upon
that her very desk was not safe; and, consequently, she never ventured to
begin a letter to the empress before the morning on which it was to be
sent, lest it should be read by those for whose eyes it was not intended.
For our knowledge, therefore, of her acts and feelings at this period of
her life, we still have to rely principally on Mercy's correspondence,
which is, however, a sufficiently trustworthy guide, so accurate was his
information, and so entire the frankness with which she opened herself to
him on all occasions and on all subjects.
The spring of 1771 opened very unfavorably for the new administration;
omens of impending dangers were to be seen on all sides. Ten or twelve
years before, Goldsmith, whose occasional silliness of manner prevented
him from always obtaining the attention to which his sagacity entitled
him, had named the growing audacity of the French parliaments as not only
an indication of the approach of great changes in that country, but as
likely also to be their moving cause.[1] And they had recently shown such
determined resistance to the royal authority, that, though in the most
conspicuous instance of it, their assertion of their right to pronounce an
independent judgment on the charges brought against the Duc d'Aiguillon,
they were unquestionably in the right; and though their pretensions were
supported by almost the whole body of the princes of the blood, some of
whom were immediately banished for their contumacy, Louis had been
persuaded to abolish them altogether. And Marie Antoinette, though she
carefully avoided mixing herself up with politics, was, as she reported to
her mother,[2] astonished beyond measure at their conduct, which she
looked upon as arising out of the grossest disloyalty, and which certainly
indicated the existence of a feeling very dangerous to the maintenance of
the royal authority on the part of those very men who were most bound to
uphold it. There was also great and general distress. For a moment in the
autumn it had been relieved by a fall in the price of bread, which the
unreasoning gratitude of the populace had attributed to the benevolence of
the dauphiness; but the severity of the winter had brought it back with
aggravated intensity till it reached even to the palace, and compelled a
curtailment of some of the festivities with which it had been intended to
celebrate the marriage of the Count de Provence, which was fixed for the
approaching May.
Distress is the sure parent of discontent, unless the people have a very
complete confidence in their government. And this was so far from being
the case in France at this time, that the distrust of and contempt for
those in the highest places increased daily more and more. The influence
which Madame du Barri exerted over the king became more rooted as he
became more used to submit to it, and more notorious as he grew more
shameless in his avowal of it. She felt her power, and her intrigues
became in the same proportion more busy and more diversified in their
objects. In the vigorous description of Mercy, Versailles was wholly
occupied by treachery, hatred, and vengeance; not one feeling of honesty
or decency remained; while the people, ever quick-witted to perceive the
vices of their rulers, especially when they are indulged at their expense,
revenged themselves by bitter and seditious language, and by satires and
pasquinades in which neither respect nor mercy was shown even to the
sacred person of the sovereign himself. He was callous to all marks of
contempt displayed for himself; but was, or was induced to profess
himself, deeply annoyed at the conduct of the dauphin, who showed a fixed
aversion for the mistress, which, however, his grandfather did not regard
as dictated by his own feelings. Louis rather believed that it was
fostered by Marie Antoinette, and that she, in encouraging her husband,
was but following the advice of her aunts; and he threatened to
remonstrate with the dauphiness on the subject, though, as Mercy correctly
divined, he could not nerve himself to the necessary resolution.
It was true that Marie Antoinette did often allow herself to be far too
much influenced by those princesses. She confessed to Mercy that she was
afraid to displease or thwart them; a feeling which he regarded as the
more unfortunate because, when she was not actuated by that consideration,
her own judgment and her own impulses would always guide her aright; and
because, too, the elder princesses were the most unsafe of all advisers.
They were notoriously jealous of one another, and each at times tried to
inspire her niece with her feelings toward the other two; and they often,
without meaning it, played into the hands of the mistress's cabal,
intriguing for selfish objects of their own with as much malice and
meanness as could be practiced by Madame du Barri herself.
Still, in spite of these drawbacks, it was almost inevitable that they
should have great influence over their niece. Their experience might well
be presumed by her to have given them a correct insight into the ways of
the court, and the best mode of behaving to their own father; and she, a
foreigner and almost a child, was not only in need of counsel and
guidance, but had no one else of her own sex to whom she could so
naturally look for information or advice. They were, as she explained to
Mercy, her only society; and, though she was too clear-sighted not to see
their faults, and not at times to be aware that she was suffering from
their perverseness, she, like other people, was often compelled to
tolerate what she could not mend, and to shut her eyes to disagreeable
qualities when forced to live on terms of intimacy with the possessors.
On this point Maria Teresa was, perhaps, hardly inclined to make
sufficient allowance for her difficulties, and insisted over and over
again on the mischief which would arise to her from the habit of
surrendering her judgment to these princesses. She told her that, though
far from being devoid of virtues and real merit, "they had never succeeded
in making themselves loved or esteemed by either their father or the
public;[3]" and she added other admonitions which, as they were avowedly
suggested by reports that had reached her, may be taken as indicating some
errors into which her daughter's lightness of heart had occasionally
betrayed her. She entreated her not to show an exclusive preference for
the more youthful portion of her society, to the neglect of those who were
older, and commonly of higher consideration; never to laugh at people or
turn them into ridicule--no habit could be more injurious to herself, and
indulgence in it would give reason to doubt her good-nature; it might gain
her the applause of a few young people, but it would alienate a much
greater number, and those the people of the most real weight and
respectability. "This is not," said the experienced and wise empress, "a
trivial matter in a princess. We live on the stage of the great world, and
it is above all things essential that people should entertain a high idea
of us. If you will only not allow others to lead you astray, you are sure
of success; a kind Providence has endowed you so liberally with beauty,
and with so many charms, that all hearts are yours if you are but
prudent.[4]"
The empress would have had her exhibit this prudence in her conduct also
to Madame du Barri. She pressed upon her that she was justified in
appearing ignorant of that lady's real position and character; that she
need only be aware that she was received at court, and that respect for
the king should prevent her from suspecting him of countenancing
undeserving people.
One other detail in the accounts of Marie Antoinette's conduct, which from
time to time reached Vienna, had also vexed the empress, and it should be
kept in mind by any one who would fairly estimate the truth of the charge
brought against her, and urged with such rancor after she had become
queen--of postponing the interests of France to those of her native land,
of being Austrian at heart. Maria Teresa had heard, on the contrary, that
she had given those Austrians who had presented themselves at Versailles
but a cold reception, and she did not attempt to conceal her discontent.
With a natural and becoming pride in and jealousy for her own loyal and
devoted subjects, she entreated her daughter never to feel ashamed of
them, or ashamed of being German herself, even if, comparatively speaking,
the name should imply some deficiency in polish. "The French themselves
would esteem her more if they saw in her something of German solidity and
frankness.[5]"
The daughter answered the mother with some adroitness. She took no notice
of the advice about her behavior to Madame du Barri. It was the one topic
on which her own feelings of propriety, as well as those of the dauphin,
coincided with the suggestions of the aunts, and she did not desire to vex
or provoke the empress by a prolonged discussion of the question; but the
charge of coldness to her own countrymen she denied earnestly. "She should
always glory in being a German. Some of those nobles whom the empress had
expressly named she had treated with careful distinction, and had even
danced with them, though they were not men of the very highest character.
She well knew that the Germans had many good qualities which she could
wish that the French shared with them;" and she promised that, whenever
any of her mother's subjects of such standing and merit as to be worthy of
her attention came to the court, they should have no cause to complain of
her reception of them. Her language on the subject is so measured and
careful as to lead us almost inevitably to the inference that the reports
which had excited such dissatisfaction at Vienna were not without
foundation, but that the French gayety, even if often descending to
frivolity, was more to her taste than the German solidity which her mother
so highly esteemed, and that she had been at no great pains to hide a
preference which must naturally he acceptable to those among whom her
future life was to be spent.
In the middle of May, the Count de Provence was married to the Princess
Josephine Louise of Savoy, and the court went to Fontainebleau to receive
the bride. The necessity for leaving Madame du Barri behind threw the king
more into the company of the dauphiness than he had been on any previous
occasion, and her unaffected graces seemed for the moment to have made a
complete conquest of him. He came in his dressing-gown to her apartments
for breakfast, and spent a great portion of the day there. The courtiers
again began to speculate on her breaking down the ascendency of the
favorite, remarking that, though Louis was careful to pay his new relative
the honors which, were her due as a stranger and a bride, he returned as
speedily as he could with decency to the dauphiness as if for relief; and
that, though she herself took care to put her new sister-in-law forward on
all occasions, and treated her with the most marked cordiality and
affection, every one else made the dauphiness the principal object of
homage even in the festivities which were celebrated in honor of the
countess. Indeed, it was evident from the very first that any attempt of
the mistress's cabal to establish a rivalry between the two princesses
must be out of the question. The Countess de Provence had no beauty, nor
accomplishments, nor graciousness. Horace Walpole, who was meditating a
visit to Paris, where he had some diligent correspondents, was told that
he would lose his senses when he saw the dauphiness, but would be
disenchanted by her sister; and the saying, though that of a blind old
lady, expressed the opinion of all Frenchmen who could see.[6]
Indeed, so obvious was the king's partiality for her that even Madame du
Barri more than once sought to propitiate her by speaking in praise of her
to Mercy, and professing an eager desire to aid in procuring the
gratification of any of her wishes. But he was too shrewd and too
well-informed to place the least confidence in her sincerity, though he
did not fear half as much harm to his pupil from her enmity as from the
pretended affection of the aunts, who, from a mixture of folly and
treachery, were unwearied in their attempts to keep her at a distance
from the king, by inspiring her with a fear of him, for which his
disposition, which had as much good-nature in it as was compatible with
weakness, gave no ground whatever. Indeed, the mischief they did was not
confined to their influence over her, if Mercy was correct in his belief
that it was their disagreeable tempers and manners which at this time,
and for the remainder of the reign, prevented Louis from associating
more with his family, which, had all been like the dauphiness, he would
have preferred to do.
It would probably have been in vain that Mercy remonstrated against her
submitting as she did to the aunts, had he not been at all times able to
secure the co-operation of the empress, who placed the most implicit
confidence in his judgment in all matters relating to the French court,
and remonstrated with her daughter energetically on the want of proper
self-respect which was implied in her surrendering her own judgment to
that of the aunts, as if she were a slave or a child. And Marie
Antoinette replied to her mother in a tone of such mingled submissiveness
and affection as showed how sincere was her desire to remove every shade
of annoyance from the empress's mind; and which may, perhaps, lead to a
suspicion that even her subservience to the aunts proceeded in a great
degree from her anxiety to win the good-will of every one, and from the
kindness which could not endure to thwart those with whom she was much
associated; though at the same time she complained to the ambassador that
her mother wrote without sufficient knowledge of the difficulties with
which she was surrounded. But she had too deep an affection and reverence
for her mother to allow her words to fall to the ground; and gradually
Mercy began to see a difference in her conduct, and a greater inclination
to assert her own independence, which was the feeling that above all
others he thought most desirable to foster in her.
Another topic which we find constantly urged in the empress's letters
would seem strangely inconsistent with Marie Antoinette's position, if we
did not remember how very young she still was. For her mother writes to
her in many respects as if she were still at school, and continually
inculcates on her the necessity of profiting by De Vermond's instructions,
and applying herself to a course of solid reading in theology and history.
And here, though her natural appetite for amusement interfered with her
studies somewhat more than the empress, prompted by Mercy, was willing to
make allowance for, she profited much more willingly by her mother's
advice, having indeed a natural inclination for the works of history and
biography, and a decided distaste for novels and romances. She could not
have had a better guide in such matters than De Vermond, who was a man of
extensive information and of a very correct taste; and under his guidance
and with his assistance she studied Sully's memoirs, Madame de Sevigne's
letters, and any other books which he recommended to her, and which gave
her an idea of the past history of the country as well as the masterpieces
of the great French dramatists.[7]
The latter part of the year 1771 was marked by no very striking
occurrences. Marie Antoinette had carried her point, and had begun to ride
on horseback without either her figure or her complexion suffering from
the exercise. On the contrary, she was admitted to have improved in
beauty. She sent her measure to Vienna, to show Maria Teresa how much she
had grown, adding that her husband had grown as much, and had become
stronger and more healthy-looking, and that she had made use of her
saddle-horses to accompany him in his hunting and shooting excursions.
Like a true wife, she boasted to her mother of his skill as a shot: the
very day that she wrote he had killed forty head of game. (She did not
mention that a French sportsman's bag was not confined to the larger game,
but that thrushes, blackbirds, and even, red-breasts, were admitted to
swell the list.) And the increased facilities for companionship with him
that her riding afforded increased his tenderness for her, so that she was
happier than ever. Except that as yet she saw no prospect of presenting
the empress with a grandchild, she had hardly a wish ungratified.
Her taste for open-air exercise of this kind added also to the attachment
felt for her by the lower classes, from the opportunities which arose out
of it for showing her unvarying and considerate kindness. The contrast
which her conduct afforded to that of previous princes, and indeed to that
of all the present race except her husband, caused her actions of this
sort to be estimated rather above their real importance. But how great was
the impression which they did make on those who witnessed them may be seen
in the unanimity with which the chroniclers of the time record her
forbidding her postilions to drive over a field of corn which lay between
her and the stag, because she would rather miss the sight of the chase
than injure the farmer; and relate how, on one occasion, she gave up
riding for a week or two, and sent her horses back from Compiegne to
Versailles, because the wife of her head-groom was on the point of her
confinement, and she wished her to have her husband near her at such a
moment; and on another, when the horse of one of her attendants kicked
her, and inflicted a severe bruise on her foot, she abstained from
mentioning the hurt, lest it should bring the rider into disgrace by being
attributed to his awkward management.
Not that the intrigues of the mistress and her adherents were at all
diminished. They were even more active than ever since the marriage of the
Count de Provence, who, in an underhanded way, instigated his wife to show
countenance to Madame du Barri, and who allowed, if he did not encourage,
the mistress and her friends to speak slightingly of the dauphiness in his
presence. But, as Marie Antoinette felt firmer in her own position, she
could afford to disregard the malice of these caballers more than she had
felt that she could do at first, and even to defy them. On one occasion
that the Count de Provence was imprudent enough to discuss some of his
schemes with the door open while she was in the next room, she told him
frankly that she had heard all that he said, and reproached him for his
duplicity; and the dauphin coming in at the moment, she flew to him,
throwing her arms round his neck, and telling him how she appreciated his
honesty and candor, and how the more she compared him with the others, the
more she saw his superiority. Indeed, she soon began to find that the
Countess de Provence was as little to be trusted as her husband; and the
only member of the family whom she really liked, or of whom she had at all
a favorable opinion, was the Count d'Artois, who, though not yet out of
the school-room, "showed," as she told her mother, "sentiments of honesty
which he could never have learned of his governor.[8]"
Her indefatigable guardian, Mercy, reported to the empress that she
improved every day. He had learned to conceive a very high idea of her
abilities; and he dilated with especial satisfaction on the powers of
conversation which she was developing; on her wit and readiness in
repartee; on her originality, as well as facility of expression; and on
her perfect possession of the royal art of speaking to a whole company
with such notice of each member of it, that each thought himself the
person to whom her remarks were principally addressed. She possessed
another accomplishment, also, of great value to princes--a tenacious
recollection of faces and names. And she had made herself acquainted with
the history of all the chief nobles, so as to be able to make graceful
allusions to facts in their family annals of which they were proud, and,
what was perhaps even more important, to avoid unpleasant or dangerous
topics. The king himself was not insensible to the increase of attraction
which her charms, both of person and manner, conferred on the royal
palace. He was perfectly satisfied with the civility of her behavior to
Madame du Barri, who admitted that she had nothing to complain of. And
the only point in which even Mercy, the most critical of judges, saw any
room for alteration in her conduct was a certain remissness in bestowing
her notice on men of real eminence, and on foreign visitors if they were
not of the very highest rank; the remark as to the latter class being
perhaps dictated by a somewhat excessive natural susceptibility, and by a
laudable desire that any Germans who returned from France to their own
country should sing her praises in her native land.
Perhaps one of the strongest proofs of the regard in which, at this time,
she was held by all parties in the court is found in the circumstance that
the Count de Provence himself very soon found it impossible to continue
his countenance to the intrigues against her which he had previously
favored. He preferred ingratiating himself and the countess with her.
Marie Antoinette was always placable, and from the first had been eager,
as the head of the family, to place her sister-in-law at her ease; so that
when the count evinced his desire to stand on a friendly footing with her,
she showed every disposition to meet his wishes, and the spring and summer
of 1772 exhibited to the courtiers, who were little accustomed to such
scenes, a happy example of an intimate family union. Marie Antoinette had
always been fond of music, and, as we have seen before, ever since her
arrival in France, had devoted fixed hours to her music-master. And now,
on almost every evening which was not otherwise preoccupied, she gave
little concerts in her apartments to the royal family, their principal
attendants, and a few of the chief nobles of the court; being herself
occasionally one of the performers, and maintaining her character as a
hostess by a combined affability and dignity which made all her guests
pleased with themselves as with her, and set all imitation and all
detraction alike at defiance.
CHAPTER VI.
Marie Antoinette wishes to see Paris.--Intrigues of Madame Adelaide.--
Characters of the Dauphin and the Count de Provence.--Grand Review at
Fontainebleau.--Marie Antoinette ill the Hunting Field.--Letter from her
to the Empress.--Mischievous Influence of the Dauphin's Aunts on her
Character.--Letter of Marie Antoinette to the Empress.--Her Affection for
her Old House.--The Princes are recalled from Exile.--Lord Stormont.--
Great Fire at the Hotel-Dieu.--Liberality and Charity of Marie
Antoinette.--She goes to the Bal d'Opera.---Her Feelings about the
Partition of Poland.--The King discusses Politics with her, and thinks
highly of her Ability.
It was a curious proof of the mischievousness as well as of the extent of
the influence which Madame Adelaide and her sister were able to exert over
the indolence and apathy of their father, that when Marie Antoinette had
for more than two years been married and living within twelve miles of
Paris, she had never yet seen it by daylight, although the universal and
natural expectation of the citizens had been that the royal pair would pay
the city a state visit immediately after their marriage. Her own wishes
had not been consulted in the matter; for she was naturally anxious to see
the beautiful city of which she had heard so much; and the delay which had
taken place was equally at variance with Madame de Noailles' notions of
propriety. But when the countess suggested a plan for visiting the capital
_incognito_, proposing that the dauphiness should drive as far as the
entrance to the suburbs, and then, having sent on her saddle-horses,
should ride along the boulevards, Madame Adelaide, professing a desire to
join the party, raised so many difficulties on the subject of the retinue
which was to follow, and was so successful in creating jealousies between
her own ladies and those in attendance on Marie Antoinette, that Madame de
Noailles was forced to recommend the abandonment of the project. Mercy was
far more annoyed than his young mistress; he saw that the secret object of
Madame Adelaide was to throw as many hindrance as possible in the way of
the dauphiness winning popularity by appearing in public, while he also
correctly judged hat it would be consistent both with propriety and with
her interest, as the future queen of the country, rather to seek and even
make opportunities for enabling the people to become acquainted with her.
But to Marie Antoinette any disappointment of that kind was a very
trifling matter. She had vexations which, as she told the embassador, she
could not explain even to him; and they kept alive in her a feeling of
homesickness which, in all persons of amiable and affectionate
disposition, must require some, time to subdue. Even when her brother, the
Archduke Ferdinand, had quit Vienna in the preceding autumn to enter on
the honorable post of Governor of Lombardy, she had not congratulated, but
condoled with him, "feeling by her own experience how much it costs to be
separated from one's family." And what she had found in her own home did
not as yet make up to her for all she had left behind. Even her husband,
though uniformly kind in language and behavior, was of a singularly cold
and undemonstrative disposition; and it almost seemed as if the gayety
which he exhibited at her balls were an effort so foreign to his nature
that he indemnified himself by unpardonable boorishness on other
occasions. The Count de Provence had but little more polish, and a far
worse temper. Squabbles often took place between the two brothers. Though
both married men, they were still in age only boys; and on more than one
occasion they proceeded to acts of personal violence to each other in her
presence. Luckily no one else was by, and she was able to pacify and
reconcile them; but she could hardly avoid feeling ashamed of having been
called on to exert herself in such a cause, or contrasting the undignified
boisterousness (to give it no worse name) of such scenes with the decorous
self-respect which, with all their simplicity of character, had always
governed the conduct of her own relations.
Not but that, in the opinion of Mercy,[1] the dauphin was endowed by
nature with a more than ordinary share of good qualities. His faults were
only such as proceeded from an excessively bad education. He had many most
essential virtues. He was a young man of perfect integrity and
straightforwardness; he was desirous to hear the truth; and it was never
necessary to beat about the bush, or to have recourse to roundabout ways
of bringing it before him. On the contrary, to speak to him with perfect
frankness was the surest way both to win his esteem and to convince his
reason. On one or two occasions in which he had consulted the embassador,
Mercy had expressed his opinions without the least reserve, and had
perceived that the young prince had liked him better for his candor.
The king still kept up the habit of spending the greater part of the
autumn at Compiegne and Fontainebleau, visits which Marie Antoinette
welcomed as a holiday from the etiquette of Versailles. She wrote word to
her mother that she was growing very fast, and taking asses' milk to keep
up her strength; that that regimen, with constant exercise, was doing her
great good; and that she had gained great praise for the excellence of her
riding. On one occasion, when they were at Fontainebleau, she especially
delighted the officers of her husband's regiment of cuirassiers, when the
king reviewed it in person. The dauphin himself took the command of his
men, and put them through their evolutions while she rode by his side; he
then presented each of the officers to her separately, and she distributed
cockades to the whole body. The first she gave to the dauphin himself,[2]
who placed it in his hat. Each officer, as he received his, did the same.
And after the king had taken his departure, she, with her husband,
remained on the field for an hour, conversing freely with the soldiers,
and showing the greatest interest in all that concerned the regiment.
Throughout the day the young prince had exhibited a knowledge of the
profession, and a readiness as well as an ease of manner, which had
surprised all the spectators, and Mercy had the satisfaction of hearing
every one attribute the admirable appearance which he had made on so
important an occasion (for it was the first time of his appearing in such
a position) to the example and hints of the dauphiness.
It was scarcely less of a public appearance, while it was one in which the
king himself probably took more interest, when, a few days afterward, on
the occasion of a grand stag-hunt in the forest, she joined in the chase
in a hunting uniform of her own devising. The king was so delighted that
he scarcely left her side, and extolled her taste in dress, as well as her
skill in horsemanship, to all whom he honored with his conversation. But
the empress was not quite so well pleased. Her disapproval of horse
exercise for young married women was as strong as ever. She had also
interpreted some of her daughter's submissive replies to her admonitions
on the subject as a promise that she would not ride, and she scolded her
severely (no weaker word can express the asperity of her language) for
neglect of her engagement, as well as for the risk of accidents which are
incurred by those who follow the hounds, and some of which, as she heard,
had befallen the dauphiness herself. Her daughter's explanation was as
frank as it deserved to be accounted sufficient, while her letter is
interesting also, as showing her constant eagerness to exculpate herself
from the charge of indifference to her German countrymen, an eagerness
which proves how firmly she believed the notion to be fixed in the
empress's mind.
"I expect, my dear mamma, that people must have told you more about my
rides than there really was to be told. I will tell you the exact truth.
The king and the dauphin both like to see me on horseback. I only say this
because all the world perceives it, and especially while we were absent
from Versailles they were delighted to see me in my riding-habit. But,
though I own it was no great effort for me to conform myself to their
desires, I can assure you that I never once let myself he carried away by
too much eagerness to keep close to the hounds; and I hope that, in spite
of all my giddiness, I shall always allow myself to be restrained by the
experienced hunters who constantly accompany me, and I shall never thrust
myself into the crowd. I should never have supposed any one could have
reported to you as an accident what happened to me in Fontainebleau. Every
now and then one finds in the forest large stepping stones; and as we were
going on very gently my horse stumbled on one covered with sand, which he
did not see; but I easily held him up, and we went on.... Esterhazy was at
our ball yesterday. Every one was greatly pleased with his dignified
manner and with his style of dancing. I ought to have spoken to him when
he was presented to me, and my silence only proceeded from embarrassment,
as I did not know him. It would be doing me great injustice to think that
I have any feeling of indifference to my country; I have more reason than
any one to feel, every day of my life, the value of the blood which flows
in my veins, and it is only from prudence that at times I abstain from
showing how proud I am of it.... I never neglect any mode of paying
attention to the king, and of anticipating his wishes as far as I can. I
hope that he is pleased with me. It is my duty to please him, my duty and
also my glory, if by such means I can contribute to maintain the alliance
of the two houses....[3]"
The empress was but half pacified about the riding and hunting. She owned
that, if both the king and the dauphin approved of it, she had nothing
more to say, though she still blamed the dauphiness for forgetting a
promise which she understood to have been made to herself. At the same
time, no language could be kinder than that in which she asked "whether
her daughter could believe that she would wish to deprive her of so
innocent a pleasure, she who would give her very life to procure her one,
if she were not apprehensive of mischievous consequences;" her
apprehensions being solely dictated by her anxiety to see her daughter
bear an heir to the throne. But she would by no means admit her excuses
for giving the Hungarian prince a cold reception. "How," she said, "could
she forget that her little Antoinette, when not above twelve or thirteen
years old, knew how to receive people publicly, and say something polite
and gracious to every one, and how could she suppose that the same
daughter, now that she was dauphiness, could feel embarrassment?
Embarrassment was a mere chimera."
But the truth was that it was not a mere chimera. Mercy had more than once
deplored, as one among the mischievous effects of Madame Adelaide's
constant interference and domineering influence, that it had bred in Marie
Antoinette a timidity which was wholly foreign to her nature. And indeed
it was hardly possible for one still so young to be aware that she was
surrounded by unfriendly intriguers and spies, and to preserve that
uniform presence of mind which her rank and position made so desirable for
her, and which was in truth so natural to her that she at once recovered
it the moment that her circumstances changed.
And a probability of an early change was already apparent. During the last
months of 1772 there was a general idea that the king's health and mental
faculties were both giving away; and all the different parties about
Versailles began to show their sense of her approaching authority. It was
remarked that both the ministers and the mistress had become very guarded
in their language, and in their behavior to her and her husband. The Count
de Provence took a curious way of showing his expectation of a change, by
delivering her a long paper of counsels for her guidance, the chief object
of which was to warn her against holding such frequent conversations with
Mercy. She apparently thought that the writer's desire was to remove the
embassador from her confidence that he himself might occupy the vacant
place, and she showed her opinion of the value of the advice by reading it
to Mercy and then putting it into the fire.
Some extracts from the first letter which she wrote to her mother in 1773
will serve to give us a fair idea of her feelings at this time, both from
what it does and from what it does not mention. The intelligence which has
reached her about her sister recalls to her mind her own anxiety to become
a mother, her disappointment in this matter being, indeed, one of the most
constant topics of lamentation in the letters of both daughter and mother,
till it was removed by the birth of the princess royal. But that is her
only vexation. In every other respect she seems perfectly contented with
the course which affairs are taking; while we see how thoroughly unspoiled
she is both in the warmth of the affection with which she speaks of her
family and greets the little memorials of home which have been sent her;
and still more in the continuance of her acts of charity, and in her
design that her benevolence should be unknown.
"I hear that the queen[4] is expecting to be confined. I hope her child
will be a son. When shall I be able to say the same of myself? They tell
me, too, that the grand duke[5] and his wife are going into Spain. I
greatly wish that they would conceive a dread of the sea-voyage, and take
this place in their way. The journey would be a little longer; but they
would be well received here, for my brother is very highly thought of;
and, besides, I am somewhat jealous at being the only one of my family
unacquainted with my sister-in-law.
"The pictures of my little brothers which you have sent me have given me
great pleasure. I have had them set in a ring, and wear it every day.
Those who have seen my brothers at Vienna pronounce the pictures very
like, and every one thinks them very good-looking. New-year's-day here is
a day of a great crowd and grand ceremony. There was nothing either to
blame or to praise in the degree in which I adopted my dear mamma's
advice. The Favorite came to pay her respects to me at a moment when my
apartment was very full It was impossible for me to address myself to
every one separately, so I spoke to the whole company in a body; and I
have reason to believe that both the Favorite and her sister, who is her
principal adviser, were pleased; though I have also reason to believe
that, two days afterward, M. d'Aiguillon tried to persuade them that they
had been ill-treated. As for the minister himself, he has never complained
of me, and, indeed, I have always been careful to treat him equally well
with the rest of his colleagues.
"You will have learned, my dear mamma, that the Duc d'Orleans and the Duc
de Chartres are returned from banishment. I am glad of it for the sake of
peace, and for that of the tranquillity and comfort of the king. But, if
she had been in the king's place, I do not think my dear mamma would have
accepted the letter which they have dared to write, and which they have
got printed in foreign newspapers.[6]
"I was glad to see M. de Stormont.[7] I asked him all the news about my
dear family, and it was a pleasure to him to inform me. He seems to me to
have overcome his prejudices, and every one here thinks him a man of
thorough high-breeding. I have desired M. de Mercy to invite him to one of
my Monday balls. We are going to have one at, Madame de Noailles'. They
will last till Ash-Wednesday. They will begin an hour or two later than
they used to, that we may not be so tired as we were last year when we
came to Lent In spite of the amusements of the carnival, I am always
faithful to my poor harp, and they say that I make great progress with it.
I sing, too, every week at the concert given by my sister of Provence.
Although there are very few people there, they are very well amused; and
my singing gives great pleasure to my two sisters.[8] I also find time to
read a little. I have begun the 'History of England' by Mr. Hume. It seems
to me very interesting, though it is necessary to recollect that it is a
Protestant who has written it.
"All the newspapers have spoken of the terrible fire at the Hotel-Dieu.[9]
They were obliged to remove the patients into the cathedral and the
archbishop's palace. There are generally from five to six thousand
patients in the hospital. In spite of all the exertions that were made, it
was impossible to prevent the destruction of a great part of the building;
and, though it is now a fortnight since the accident happened, the tire is
still smoldering in the cellars. The archbishop has enjoined a collection
to be made for the sufferers, and I have sent him a thousand crowns. I
said nothing of my having done so to any one, and the compliments which
they have paid me on it have been embarrassing to me; but they have said
it was right to let it be known that I had sent this money, for the sake
of the example."
She was on this, as on many other occasions, one of those who
"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame."
One of her sayings, with which she more than once repressed the panegyrics
of those who, as it seemed to her, extolled her benevolence too loudly,
was that it was not worth while to say a great deal about giving a little
assistance; and, on this occasion, so secret had she intended to keep her
benevolence that she had not mentioned it to De Vermond, or even to Mercy.
But she judged rightly that the empress would enter into the feelings
which had prompted both the act and also the silence; and she was amply
rewarded by her mother's praise.
"I have been enchanted," the empress wrote, in instant reply, "with the
thousand crowns that you have sent to the Hotel-Dieu, and you speak very
properly in saying that you have been vexed at people speaking to you
about it. Such actions ought to be known to God alone, and I am certain
that you acted in that spirit. Still, those who published your act had
good reasons for what they did, as you say yourself, thinking of the
influence of your example. My dear little girl, we owe this example to the
world, and to set such is one of the most essential and most delicate
duties of our condition. The more frequently you can perform acts of
benevolence and generosity without crippling your means too much, the
better; and what would be ostentation and prodigality in another is
becoming and necessary for those of our rank. We have no other resources
but those of conferring benefits and showing kindness; and this is even
more the case with a dauphiness or a queen consort, which I myself have
not been."
There could hardly be a better specimen of the principles on which the
empress herself had governed her extensive dominions, or of the value of
her example and instructions to her daughter, than that which is contained
in these few lines; but it is not always that such lessons are so closely
followed as they were by the virtuous and beneficent dauphiness. The
winter passed on cheerfully; the ordinary amusements of the palace being
varied by her going with the dauphin and the Count and Countess of
Provence to one of the public masked balls of the opera-house, a diversion
which, considering the unavoidably mixed character of the company, it is
hard to avoid thinking somewhat unsuited to so august a party, but one
which had been too frequently countenanced by different members of the
royal family for several years for such a visit to cause remarks, though
the masks of the princes and princesses could not long preserve their
secret Another favorite amusement of the court at this time was the
representation of proverbs, in which Marie Antoinette acted with the
little Elizabeth; and we have a special account of one such performance,
which was given in her honor by one of her ladies, having been originally
devised for the Day of Saint Anthony, as her saint's day,[10] though it
was postponed on account of her being confined to her room with a cold.
The proverb was, "Better late than never;" and, as the most acceptable
compliment to the dauphiness, the managers introduced a number of
characters attired in a diversity of costumes, intended to represent the
natives of all the countries ruled over by the Empress-queen, each of whom
made a speech, in which the praises of Maria Teresa and Marie Antoinette
were happily combined.
The king got better, and intrigues of all kinds were revived; but, aided
by Mercy's counsels, and supported by the dauphin's unalterable affection,
Marie Antoinette disconcerted all that were aimed at her by the uniform
prudence of her conduct. Happily for her, with all his defects, her
husband was still one in whom she could feel perfect confidence. As she
told Mercy, under any conceivable circumstances she was sure of his views
and intentions being always right; the only difficulty was to engage him
in a sufficiently decided course of action, which his timid and sluggish
disposition rendered almost painful to him. And just at this moment she
was more anxious than usual to inspire him with her own feelings and
spirit, because she could not avoid fearing that the discontent with which
the few people in France who deserved the name of statesmen regarded the
recent partition of Poland might create a coolness between France and
Austria, calculated to endanger the alliance, the continuance of which was
so indispensable to her happiness, and, as she was firmly convinced, to
the welfare of both countries. She conversed more than once with Mercy on
the subject, and her reflections, both on the partition, and on the degree
in which the mutual interest of the two nations was concerned in their
remaining united, gave him a very good idea of her political capacity. He
also reported to his imperial mistress that he had found out that King
Louis had conceived the same opinion of her, and had begun to discuss
affairs of importance with her. He trusted that his majesty would get a
habit of doing so; since, if his life should be spared, she would thus in
time become able to exert a very useful influence over him; and as, at all
events, "it was absolutely certain that some day or other she would govern
the kingdom, it was of the very greatest consequence to the success of the
great and brilliant career which she had before her that she should
previously accustom herself to regard affairs with such principles and
views as were suitable to the position which she must occupy."
CHAPTER VII.
Marie Antoinette is anxious for the Maintenance of the Alliance between
France and Austria.--She, with the Dauphin, makes a State Entry into
Paris.--The "Dames de la Halle."--She praises the Courtesy of the
Dauphin.--Her Delight at the Enthusiasm of the Citizens.--She, with the
Dauphin, goes to the Theatre, and to the Fair of St. Ovide, and to St.
Cloud.--Is enthusiastically received everywhere.--She learns to drive.--
She makes some Relaxations in Etiquette.--Marriage of the Comte d'Artois.
--The King's Health grows Bad.--Visit of Marshal Lacy to Versailles.--The
King catches the Small-pox.--Madame du Barri quits Versailles.--The King
dies.
Politics were, indeed, taking such a hold over Marie Antoinette that they
begin to furnish some topics for her letters to her mother, one of which
shows that she had already formed that opinion of French fickleness which
she had afterward too abundant cause to maintain. "I do hope," she says,
"that the good intelligence between our two nations will last. One good
thing in this country is, that if ill-natured feelings are quick to arise,
they disappear with equal rapidity. The King of Prussia is innately a bad
neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and
the sea has never prevented them from doing her great mischief." We might,
firstly, demur to any actions of our statesmen being classed with the
treacherous aggressions of Frederick of Prussia, nor did many years of her
husband's reign pass over before the greatest of English ministers
proposed and concluded a treaty between the two countries, which he fondly
and wisely hoped would lay the foundations of a better understanding, if
not of a lasting peace, between the two countries. But even before that
treaty was framed, and before Pitt's voice had become predominant in the
State, Marie Antoinette's complaint that the sea had never disarmed us of
power to injure France had received the strongest exemplification that as
yet the history of the two nations afforded in Rodney's great victory.
However, she soon turns to more agreeable subject, and proceeds to speak
of a pleasure to which she was looking forward, and which, as we have
already seen, had been unaccountably deferred till this time, in defiance
of all propriety and of all precedent. "I hope that the dauphin and I
shall make our entry into Paris next month, which will be a great delight
to me. I do not venture to speak of it yet, though I have the king's
promise: it would not be the first time that they had made him change his
mind."
The most elaborate exposure of the cabals and intrigues which ever since
her marriage had been persistently directed against Marie Antoinette could
not paint them so forcibly as the simple fact that three years had now
elapsed since her marriage; and that, though the state entrance of the
heir of the crown and his bride into the metropolis of the kingdom ought
to have been a prominent part of the marriage festivities, it had never
yet taken place. Nor, though Louis had at last given his formal promise
that it should be no longer delayed, did the young pair even yet feel sure
that an influence superior to theirs might not induce him to recall it.
However, at last the intrigues were baffled, and, on the 8th of June, the
visit, which had been expected by the Parisians with an eagerness
exceeding that of the dauphiness herself, was made. It was in every
respect successful; and it is due to Marie Antoinette to let the outline
of the proceeding be described by herself.
"Versailles, June 14th.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I absolutely blush for your kindness to me. The day
before yesterday Mercy sent me your precious letter, and yesterday I
received a second. That is indeed passing one's fete day happily. On
Tuesday I had a fete which I shall never forget all my life. We made our
entrance into Paris. As for honors, we received all that we could possibly
imagine; but they, though very well in their way, were not what touched me
most. What was really affecting was the tenderness and earnestness of the
poor people, who, in spite of the taxes with which they are overwhelmed,
were transported with joy at seeing us. When we went to walk in the
Tuileries, there was so vast a crowd that we were three-quarters of an
hour without being able to move either forward or backward. The dauphin
and I gave repeated orders to the Guards not to beat any one, which had a
very good effect. Such excellent order was kept the whole day that, in
spite of the enormous crowd which followed us everywhere, not a person was
hurt. When we returned from our walk we went up to an open terrace, and
staid there half an hour. I can not describe to you, my dear mamma, the
transports of joy and affection which every one exhibited toward us.
Before we withdrew we kissed our hands to the people, which gave them
great pleasure. What a happy, thing it is for persons in our rank to gain
the love of a whole nation so cheaply! Yet there is nothing so precious; I
felt it thoroughly, and shall never forget it.
"Another circumstance which gave great pleasure on that glorious day was
the behavior of the dauphin. He made admirable replies to every address,
and remarked every thing that was done in his honor, and especially the
earnestness and delight of the people, to whom he showed great kindness.
Of all the copies of verses which were given me on this occasion, these
are the prettiest which I inclose to you.[1] Tomorrow we are going to
Paris to the opera, There is great anxiety for us to do so; and I believe
that we shall go on two other days also to visit the French and the
Italian comedy. I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my
dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her
daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest; so that my
whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.
"The king has had the kindness to procure the release of three hundred and
twenty prisoners, for debts due to nurses who have brought up their
children. Their release took place two days after our entrance. I wished
to attend Divine service on my fete day; but the evening before, my
sister, the Countess of Provence, had a party for me, a proverb with songs
and fire-works, and this distraction forced me to put off going to church
till the next day.
"I am very glad to hear that you have such good hope of the continuance of
peace. While the intriguers of this country are devouring one another,
they will not harass their neighbors nor their allies."
She does not enter into details; the pomp and ceremony of their reception
by nobles and magistrates had been in her eyes as nothing in comparison
with the cordial welcome given to them by the poorer citizens. While they,
on their part, must have been equally gratified at perceiving the sincere
pleasure with which she and the dauphin accepted their salutations; a
feeling how different from that which had animated any of their princes
for many years, we may judge from the order given to the guards to forbear
beating the crowd which gathered round them, as no doubt, without such an
order, the soldiers would have thought it usual and natural to do.
Not that the proceedings of the day had not been magnificent and imposing
enough to attract the admiration of any who thought less of the hearts of
the citizens than of pomp and splendor. The royal train, conveyed from
Versailles in six state carriages, was received at the city gate by the
governor, the Marshal Duc de Brissac, accompanied by the head of the
police, the provost of the merchants, and all the other municipal
authorities. The marshal himself was the heir of the Comte de Brissac who,
nearly two centuries before, being also Governor of Paris, had tendered to
the victorious Henry IV. the submission of the city. But Henry was as yet
only the chief of a party, not the accepted sovereign of the whole nation;
and the enthusiasm with which half the citizens rained their shouts of
exultation in his honor had its drawback in the sullen silence of the
other half, who regarded the great Bourbon as their conqueror rather than
their king, and his triumphant entrance as their defeat and humiliation.
To-day all the citizens were but one party. As but one voice was heard, so
but one heart gave utterance to it. The joy was as unanimous as it was
loud. From the city gates the royal party passed on to the great national
cathedral of Notre Dame, and from thence to the church dedicated by
Clovis, the first Christian king, to St. Genevieve, whose recent
restoration was the most creditable work of the present reign, and which
subsequently, under the new name of the Pantheon, was destined to become
the resting-place of many of the worthies whose memory the nation
cherishes with enduring pride. At last they reached the Tuileries, their
progress having been arrested at different points by deputations of all
kinds with loyal and congratulatory addresses; at the Hotel-Dieu by the
prioress with a company of nuns; on the Quai Conti by the Provost of the
Mint with his officers; before the college bearing the name of its
founder, Louis le Grand, the Rector of the University, at the head of his
students, greeted them in a Latin speech, at the close of which he secured
the re-doubling of the acclamations of the pupils by promising them a
holiday. Not that the cheers required any increase. The citizens in their
ecstasy did not even think their voices sufficient. As the royal couple
moved slowly through the gardens of the Tuileries arm-in-arm, every hand
was employed in clapping, hats were thrown up, and every token of joy
which enthusiasm ever devised was displayed to the equally delighted
visitors. "Good heavens, what a crowd!" said Marie Antoinette to De
Brissac, who had some difficulty in keeping his place at her side.
"Madame," said the old warrior, as courtly as he was valiant, "if I may
say so without offending my lord the dauphin, they are all so many
lovers." When they had made the circuit of the garden and returned to the
palace, the most curious part of the day's ceremonies awaited them. A
banqueting-table was arranged for six hundred guests, and those guests
were not the nobles of the nation, nor the clergy, nor the must renowned
warriors, nor the municipal officers, but the fish-women of the city
market. A custom so old that its origin can not be traced had established
the right of these dames to bear an especial part in such festivities. In
the course of the morning they had made their future queen free of their
market, with an offering of fruits and flowers. And now, as, according to
a singular usage of the court, no male subject was ever allowed to sit at
table with a queen or dauphiness of France, the dinner party over which
the youthful pair, sitting side by side, presided, consisted wholly of
these dames whose profession is not generally considered as imparting any
great refinement to the manners, and who, before the close of the
entertainment, showed, in more cases than one, that they had imported some
of the notions and fashions of their more ordinary places of resort into
the royal palace.
It was characteristic of Marie Antoinette that, in her description of the
day to her mother, she had dwelt with special emphasis on the gracious
deportment of her husband. It was equally natural for Mercy to assure the
empress[2] that it had been the grace and elegance of the dauphiness
herself which had attracted general admiration, and that it was to her
example and instruction that every one attributed the courteous demeanor
which, as he did not deny, the young prince had unquestionably exhibited.
It was she whom the king, as he affirmed, had complimented on the result
of the day; a success which she had gracefully attributed to himself,
saying that he must be greatly beloved by the Parisians to induce them to
give his children so splendid a reception[3]. To whomsoever it was owing,
the embassador certainly did not exaggerate the opinion of the world
around him when he affirmed that, in the memory of man, no one recollected
any ceremony which had made so great a sensation, and had been attended by
so complete a success.
And it was followed up, as she expected, by several visits to the
different Parisian theatres, which, in compliance with the king's express
direction, were made in all the state which would have been observed had
he himself been present. Salutes were fired from the Bastile and the Hotel
des Invalides; companies of Royal Guards lined the vestibule and the
passage of the theatre; sentinels stood even on the stage; but, fond as
the French are of martial finery and parade, the spectators paid little
attention to the soldiers, or even to the actors. All eyes were fixed on
the dauphiness alone. At Mercy's suggestion, the dauphin and she had
previously obtained the king's permission to allow the violation of the
rule which forbade any clapping of hands in the presence of royalty. This
relaxation of etiquette was hailed as a great condescension by the
play-goers, and throughout the evening of their appearance at the Italian
comedy the spectators had already made abundant use of their new
privilege, when the enthusiasm was brought to a height by a chorus which
ended with the loyal burden of "Vive le roi!" Clerval, the performer of
the principal part, added, "Et ses chers enfants;" and the compliment was
re-echoed from every part of the house with continued clapping and
cheering, till it reminded Marie Antoinette of a somewhat similar scene
which, as a child, she had witnessed in the theatre of Vienna,[4] when the
empress, from her box, had announced to the audience that a son (the heir
to the empire) had just been born to the Archduke Leopold.
The ice being, thus, as it were, once broken, the dauphin and dauphiness
took many opportunities of appearing in public during the following
months, visiting the great Paris fair of St. Ovide, as it was called,
walking up and down the alleys, and making purchases at the stalls the
whole Place Louis XV., to which the fair had recently been removed, being
illuminated, and the crowd greeting them with repeated and enthusiastic
cheers. They also went in state to the exhibition of pictures at the
Louvre, and drove to St. Cloud to walk about the park attached to that
palace, which was one of the most favorite places of resort for the
Parisians on the fine summer evenings; so that, while the court was at
Versailles, scarcely a week elapsed without her giving them an opportunity
of seeing her, in which it was evident that she fully shared their
pleasure. To be loved was with her a necessity of her very nature; and, as
she was constantly referring with pride to the attachment felt by the
Austrians for her mother, she fixed her own chief wishes on inspiring with
a similar feeling those who were to become her and her husband's subjects.
She was, at least for the time, rewarded as she desired. This is, indeed,
said they, the best of innovations, the best of revolutions,[5] to see the
princes mingling with the people, and interesting themselves in their
amusements. This was really to unite all classes; to attach the country to
the palace and the palace to the country; and it was to the dauphiness
that the credit of this new state of things was universally attributed.
She was looking forward to a greater pleasure in a visit from her.
brother, the emperor, which the empress hoped might be attended with
consequences more important than those of passing pleasure; since she
trusted to his influence, and, if opportunity should occur, to his
remonstrances, to induce the dauphin to break through the unaccountable
coldness with which, in some respects, he still treated his beautiful
wife. But Joseph was forced to postpone his visit, and the fulfillment of
the empress's anticipations was also postponed for some years.
However, Marie Antoinette never allowed disappointments to dwell in her
mind longer than she could help. She rather strove to dispel the
recollection of them by such amusements as were within her reach. She
learned to drive, and found great diversion in being her own charioteer
through the glades of the forest. She began to make further inroads in the
court etiquette, giving balls in which she broke through the custom which
prescribed that special places should be marked out for the royal family,
and directed that the princes and princesses should sit with the rest of
the company during the intervals between the dances; an arrangement which
enabled her to talk to every one, and which gained her general good-will
from the graciousness of her manner. She did not greatly trouble herself
at the jealousy of her popularity openly displayed by her aunts and her
sister-in-law, who could not bear to hear her called "La bellissima.[6]"
Nor was her influence weakened when, in November, a fresh princess, the
sister of Madame de Provence, arrived from Italy, to be married to the
Comte d'Artois, for the bride was even less attractive than her sister.
According to Mercy, she was pale and thin, had a long nose and a wide
mouth, danced badly, and was very awkward in manner. So that Louis
himself, though usually very punctilious in his courtesies to those in her
position, could not forbear showing how little he admired her.
An incident occurred on the evening of the marriage which is worth
remarking, from the change which subsequently took place in the taste of
the dauphiness, who a few years afterward provoked unfavorable comments by
the ardor with which she surrendered herself to the excitement of the
gaming-table. As a matter of course, a grand party was invited to the
palace to celebrate the event of the morning; and, as an invariable part
of such entertainments, a table was set out for the then fashionable game
of lansquenet, at which the king himself played, with the royal family and
all the principal persons of the court. In the course of the evening Marie
Antoinette won more than seven hundred pounds; but she was rather
embarrassed than gratified by her good fortune. She had tried to lose the
money back; but, as she had been unable to succeed, the next morning she
sent the greater part of it to the curates of Versailles to be distributed
among the poor, and gave the rest to some of her own attendants who seemed
to her to need it, being determined, as she said, to keep none of it for
herself.
The winter revived the apprehensions concerning the king's health; he was
manifestly sinking into the grave, while
"That which should accompany old age,
As love, obedience, honor, troops of friends,
He might not look to have."
His very mistress began with great zeal than ever, though with no better
taste, to seek to conciliate the dauphiness. She tried to purchase her
good-will by a bribe. She was aware that the princess greatly admired
diamonds, and, learning that a jeweler of Paris had a pair of ear-rings of
a size and brilliancy so extraordinary that the price which he asked for
them was 700,000 francs, she persuaded the Comte de Noailles to carry them
to Marie Antoinette to show them, with a message from herself that if the
dauphiness liked to keep them, she would induce the king to make her a
present of them.[7] Whether Marie Antoinette admired them or not, she had
far too proper a sense of dignity to allow herself to be entrapped into
the acceptance of an obligation by one whom she so deservedly despised.
She replied coldly that she had jewels enough, and did not desire to
increase the number. But the overture thus made by Madame du Barri could
not be kept secret, and more than one of her partisans followed the hint
afforded by her example, and showed a desire to make their peace with
their future queen. The Duc d'Aiguillon himself was among the foremost of
her courtiers, and entreated the mediation of Mercy in his favor, making
the ambassador his messenger to assure her that "he should impose it upon
himself as a law to comply with her wishes in every thing;" and only
desired that he might be allowed to know which of the requests that she
might make were dictated by her own judgment, and which merely proceeded
from her indulgent favor to the importunities of others. For Marie
Antoinette had of late often broken through the rule which, in compliance
with her mother's advice, she had at first laid down for herself, to
abstain from recommending persons for preferment; and had pressed many a
petition on the minister's notice as to which it was self-evident that she
could know nothing of their merits, nor feel any personal interest in
their success.
In the spring of 1774 she had an opportunity of convincing her mother that
any imputation of neglect of her countrymen when visiting the court was
unfounded, by the marked honors which she paid to Marshal Lacy, one of the
most honored veterans of the Seven Years' War. Knowing how highly he was
esteemed by her mother, she took care to be informed beforehand of the day
of his arrival. She gave orders that he should find invitations to her
parties awaiting him. She made arrangements to give him a private audience
even before he saw the king, where her reception of him showed how deep
and ineffaceable was her love for her family and her old home, even while
fairly recognizing the fact that her first duties and her first affections
now belonged to France. The old warrior avowed that he had been greatly
moved by the touching affection with which she spoke to him of her love
and veneration for her mother; and by the tears which he saw in her eyes
when she said that the one thing wanting to her happiness was the hope of
being allowed one day to see that dear mother once more. She showed him
some of the last presents which the empress had sent her, and dwelt with
fond minuteness of observation on some views of Schoenbrunn and other spots
in the neighborhood of Vienna which were endeared to her by her early
recollections.
The return of mild weather seemed to be bringing with it same return of
strength to the king, when, on the 28th of April, he was suddenly seized
with illness, which was presently pronounced by the physicians to be the
small-pox. All was consternation at Versailles, for it was soon perceived
to be a severe if not a malignant attack; and at the same time all was
perplexity. Thirty years before, when Louis had been supposed to be on his
deathbed at Metz, bishops, peers, and ministers had found in the loss of
royal favor reason to repent the precipitation with which they had
insisted on the withdrawal of Madame de Chateauroux; and now, should he
again recover, it was likely that Madame du Barri would he equally
resentful, and that the confessor who should make her removal a necessary
condition of his administering the sacraments of the Church to the king,
and the courtiers who should support or act upon their requisition, would
surely find reason to repent it. Accordingly, for the first few days of
Louis's illness, she remained at Versailles; but he grew visibly worse.
His daughters, who, though they had not had the disease themselves, tended
his sick-bed with the most devoted and fearless affection, consulted the
physicians, who declared it dangerous to admit of any further delay in the
ministration of the rites of the Church. He himself gave his sanction to
the ladies' departure, and then the royal confessor administered the
sacraments, and drew up a declaration to be published in the royal name,
that, "though he owed no account of his conduct to any but God alone, he
nevertheless declared that he repented having given rise to scandal among
his subjects, and only desired to live for the support of religion and the
welfare of his people."
Even this avowal the Cardinal de Roche-Aymer promised Madame du Barri to
suppress; but the royal confessor, the Abbe Mandoux, overruled him, and
compelled its publication, in spite of the Duc de Richelieu, the chief
confidant of the mistress, and long the chief minister and promoter of the
king's debaucheries, who insulted the cardinal with the grossest abuse for
his breach of promise.[8] It may be doubted whether such a compromise with
profligacy, and such a profanation of the most solemn rites of the Church
by its ministers, were not the greatest scandal of all; but it was in too
complete harmony with their conduct throughout the whole of the reign.
And, as it was impossible but that religion itself should suffer in the
estimation of worldly men from such an open disregard of all but its mere
outward forms, it can hardly be denied that the French cardinals and
prelates about the court had almost as great a share in bringing about
that general feeling of contempt for all religion which led to that formal
disavowal of God himself which was witnessed twenty years later, as the
scoffers who were now uniting against it, or the professed infidels who
then, renounced it. Such as it was, the king's act of penitence was not
performed too soon. At the end of the first week of May all prospect of
his recovery vanished. Mortification set in, and on the 10th of May he
died.
CHAPTER VIII.
The Court leaves Versailles for La Muette.--Feelings of the New
Sovereigns.--Madame du Barri is sent to a Convent.--Marie Antoinette
writes to Maria Teresa.--The Good Intentions of the New Sovereigns.--
Madame Adelaide has the Small-pox.--Anxieties of Maria Teresa.--
Mischievous Influence of the Aunts.--Position and Influence of the Count
de Mercy.--Louis consults the Queen on Matters of Policy.--Her Prudence.--
She begins to Purify the Court, and to relax the Rules of Etiquette.--Her
Care of her Pages.--The King and the renounce the Gifts of Le Joyeux
Avenement and La Ceinture de la Reine.---She procures the Pardon of the
Due de Choiseul.
Throughout the morning of the 10th of May there was great confusion and
agitation at Versailles. The physicians declared that the king could not
live out the day; and the dauphin had decided on removing his household to
the smaller palace of La Muette at Choisy, to spend in that comparative
retirement the first week or two after his grandfather's death, during
which it would hardly be decorous for the royal family to be seen in
public. But, as it was not thought seemly to appear to anticipate the
event by quitting Versailles while Louis was still alive, a lighted candle
was placed in the window of the sick-room, which, the moment that the king
had expired, was to be extinguished, as a signal to the equerries to
prepare the carriages. The dauphin and dauphiness were in an adjoining
room awaiting the intelligence, when, at about three o'clock in the
afternoon, a sudden trampling of feet was heard, and Madame de Noailles
entered the apartment to entreat them to advance into the saloon to
receive the homage of the princes and principal officers of the court, who
were waiting to pay their respects to their new sovereigns. They came
forward arm-in-arm; and in tears, in which sincere sorrow was mingled with
not unnatural nervousness, received the salutations of the courtiers, and
immediately afterward left Versailles with all the family.
Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had now reached the pinnacle of human
greatness, as sovereigns of one of the noblest empires in the world. Yet
the first feelings which their elevation had excited in both, and
especially in the queen, were rather those of dismay and perplexity than
of exultation. In the preceding autumn, Mercy[1] had remarked to the
empress, with surprise and vexation, that, though the dauphiness exhibited
singular readiness and acuteness in comprehending political questions, she
was very unwilling, and, as it seemed to him, afraid of dealing with them,
and that she shrunk from the thought that the day would come when she must
possess power and authority. And the continuance of this feeling is
visible in her first letter to her mother, some passages of which show a
sobriety of mind under such a change of circumstances, which, almost as
much as the benevolence which the letter also displays, augured well for
the happiness of the people over whom she was to reign, so far at least as
that happiness depended on the virtues of the sovereign.
"Choisy, May 14th.
"My Dearest Mother,--Mercy will have informed you of the circumstances of
our misfortune. Happily his cruel disease left the king in possession of
his senses till the last moment, and his end was very edifying. The new
king seems to have the affection of his people. Two days before the death
of his grandfather, he sent two hundred thousand[2] francs to the poor,
which has produced a great effect. Since he has been here, he has been
working unceasingly, answering with his own hand the letters of the
ministers, whom as yet he can not see, and many others likewise. One thing
is certain, and that is that he has a taste for economy, and the greatest
desire possible to make his people happy. In every thing he has as great a
desire to be rightly instructed as he has need to be. I trust that God
will bless his good intentions.
"The public expected great changes in a moment. The king has limited
himself to sending away the creature[3] to a convent, and to driving from
the court every thing which is connected with that scandal. The king even
owed this example to the people of Versailles, who, at the very moment of
his grandfather's death, insulted Madame do Mazarin,[4] one of the
humblest servants of the favorite. I am earnestly entreated to exhort the
king to mercy toward a number of corrupt souls who had done much mischief
for many years; and I am strongly inclined to comply with the request.
* * * * *
"A messenger has just arrived to forbid my going to see my Aunt Adelaide,
who has a great deal of fever. They are afraid of the small-pox for her. I
am horrified, and can not bring myself to think of the consequences. It is
a terrible thing for her to pay so immediately for the sacrifice which she
made.
"I am very glad that Marshal Lacy was pleased with me. I confess, my dear
mamma, that I was greatly affected when he took leave of me, at thinking
how rarely it happens to me to see any of my countrymen, and especially of
those who have the happiness to approach you. A little time back I saw
Madame de Marmier, which was a great pleasure to me, since I know how
highly you value her.
"The king has allowed me myself to name the ladies who are to have places
in my household, now that I am queen; and I have had the satisfaction of
giving the Lorrainers[5] a proof of my regard, in taking for my chief
almoner the Abbe de Sabran, a man of excellent character, of noble birth,
and already named for the bishopric about to be established at Nancy.
"Although it pleased God that I should be born in the rank which I this
day occupy, still I can not forbear admiring the bounty of Providence in
choosing me, the youngest of your daughters, for the noblest kingdom in
Europe. I feel more than ever what I owe to the tenderness of my august
mother, who expended such pains and labor in procuring for me this
splendid establishment. I have never so greatly longed to throw myself at
her feet, to embrace her, to lay open my whole soul to her, and to show
her how entirely it is filled with respect and tenderness and gratitude."
It is impossible to read these glowing words, so full of the joy and hope
of youth, and breathing a confidence of happiness apparently so
well-founded, since it was built on a resolution to use the power placed
in the writer's hands for the welfare of the people over whom it was to
be exerted, without reflecting how painful a contrast to the hopes now
expressed is presented by the reality of the destiny in store for her
and her husband. At the moment he was as little disturbed by forebodings
of evil as his queen, and willingly yielded to her request to add a few
lines with his own hand to the empress, that, on so momentous an
occasion as his accession she might not be left to gather his feelings
solely from her report of them. The postscript of the letter is
accordingly their joint performance, he evidently desiring to gratify
Maria Teresa by praise of her daughter; and she, while pleased at his
acquiescence, not concealing her amusement at the clumsiness, or, to say
the least, the rusticity, of some of his expressions.
P.S. in the king's hand: "I am very glad, my dear mamma, to find an
occasion to prove to you my tenderness and my attachment. I should be very
glad to have your advice at this time, which is so embarrassing. I should
be enchanted to be able to please you, and to show by my conduct all my
attachment and the gratitude which I feel for your kindness in giving me
your daughter, with whom I am as well satisfied as possible."
P.S. by the queen: "The king would not let my letter go without adding a
word from himself. I am quite aware that it would not have been too much
for him to do to write an entire letter. But I must beg my dear mamma to
excuse him, in consideration of the mass of business with which he is
occupied, and also a little on account of his timidity and the embarrassed
manner which is natural to him. You see, my dear mamma, by his compliment
at the end, that, though he has great affection for me, he does not spoil
me by insipid flatteries."
It is almost equally remarkable that the empress herself, though thus to
see her favorite daughter on the throne of France had been her most ardent
wish, was far from regarding the consummation of her desires with
unalloyed pleasure. She was so completely a politician above all things,
that, though she was well aware that Louis XV. had been one of the most
infamous kings that ever dishonored a throne, she looked upon him solely
as an ally; described him to her daughter as "that good and tender
prince;" declared that she should never cease to regret him, and that she
would wear mourning for him all the rest of her life. At the same time,
she did not conceal from herself that he had left his kingdom in a most
deplorable condition. She had, as she declared, herself experienced how
heavy is the burden of an empire; she reflected how young her daughter
was; and expressed a sad fear that "her days of happiness were over." "She
was now in a position in which there was no half-way between complete
greatness and great misery.[6]" The best hopes for her future the empress
saw in the character for purity and kindness which Marie Antoinette had
already established and in the esteem and affection of the people which
those qualities had won for her; and she entreated her, taking it for
granted that in advising her she was advising the king also, to be prudent
and cautious, to avoid making any sudden changes, and above all things to
maintain the alliance between the two countries, and to listen to the
experienced and faithful advice of her embassador.
Maria Teresa was mistaken when she thought that her daughter would at all
times be able to lead her husband. Though slow in action, Louis was not
deficient in perception. On many subjects he had views of his own, which,
in some cases, were clear and sound enough, and to which, even when they
were not so, he adhered with considerable tenacity. At the same time,
though he had but little affection for his aunts, and still less respect
for their judgment, he had been so long accustomed to listen to their
advice while he had no authority, that he could not as yet wholly shake
off all feeling of deference for it, and their influence was exerted with
most mischievous effect in the first week of his reign. Indeed, it had
been exhibited even before the reign began, though the form which it took
greatly interfered with the personal comfort of the young sovereigns. It
had been settled that the king and queen should go by themselves to La
Muette, and that the rest of the royal family should remove to the
Trianon. But Madame Adelaide had no inclination for a plan which would
separate her from her nephew at a moment when so many matters of
importance would come before her for decision. At the last moment she
prevailed upon him to consent that the whole family should go to Choisy
together; and the very next day she induced him to dismiss his ministers,
and to place the Comte de Maurepas at the head of the Government, though
Louis himself had selected another-statesman for the office, M. Machault,
who, as finance minister twenty-five years before, had shown both ability
and integrity, and who had enjoyed the confidence of the king's father,
and though Maurepas had never been supposed to be either able or honest,
and might well have been regarded as superannuated, since he had begun his
official life under Louis XIV.
With the change in the position of Marie Antoinette, Mercy's position had
also been changed, and likewise his view of the line of conduct which it
was desirable for her to adopt. Hitherto he had been the counselor of a
princess who, without wary walking, was liable every moment to be
overwhelmed by the intrigues with which she was surrounded; and his chief
object had been to enable his royal pupil to escape the snares and dangers
which encompassed her. Now, as far as his duties could be determined by
the wish of the empress, in which her daughter fully acquiesced, he was
elevated to the post of confidential adviser to a great queen, who, in his
opinion, was inevitably destined to be the real ruler of the kingdom. It
was a strange position for so experienced a politician as the empress to
desire for him, and for so prudent a statesman to accept. Yet, anomalous
as it was, and dangerous as it would usually be for a foreign embassador
to interfere in the internal politics of the kingdom to which he is sent,
his correspondence bears ample testimony to both his sagacity and his
disinterestedness. And it would have been well for both his royal pupil
and her adopted country had his advice more frequently and more steadily
guided the course of both.
On one point of primary importance his advice to the queen differed from
that which he had been wont to give to the dauphiness. While dauphiness,
he had urged her to abstain from any interference in public affairs. He
now, on the contrary, desired to see her take an active part in them,
explaining to the empress that the reason which actuated him was the
character of the new king, who, as he regarded him, was never likely to
exert the authority which belonged to him with independence or steadiness,
but was certain to be led by some one or other, while it would in the
highest degree endanger the maintenance of the alliance between France and
Austria (which, coinciding with the judgment of his imperial mistress, he
regarded as the most important of all political objects), and be most
injurious to the welfare of France and to her own personal comfort, if
that leader should be any one but the queen.[7]
But, as we have seen, he could not prevent Louis from yielding at times to
other influences. Taking the same view of the situation as the empress, if
indeed Maria Teresa had not adopted it from him, he had urged Marie
Antoinette to prevent any change in the ministry being made at first, in
which it is highly probable that she did not coincide with him, though
equally likely that Maurepas was not the minister whom she would have
preferred. Another piece of advice which he gave was, however, taken, and
with the happiest effect The poorer classes in Paris and its neighborhood
were suffering from a scarcity which almost amounted to a famine; and,
before the death of Louis XV., Mercy had recommended that the first
measure of the new reign should be one which should lower the price of
bread. That counsel was too entirely in harmony with the active
benevolence of the new monarch to be neglected. The necessary edicts were
issued. In twenty-four hours the price of the loaf was reduced by
two-fifths, and Mercy had the satisfaction of hearing the relief
generally attributed to the influence of the new queen.
It can not he supposed that the king knew either the opinion which the
empress and the embassador had formed of his capacity and disposition, or
the advice which they had consequently given to the queen. But he very
early began to show that he himself also appreciated his wife's quickness
of intelligence and correctness of judgment. Maria Teresa, in pressing on
her daughter her opinion of the general character of the policy which the
interest of France required, explained her view of her daughter's position
to be that she was "the friend and confidante of the king.[8]" And June
had hardly arrived before he began to discuss all his plans and
difficulties with her; while she spared his pride and won his further
confidence by avoiding all appearances of pressing for it, as if her
advice were necessary to him, but at the same time showing with what
satisfaction she received it. To those who solicited her intervention, her
language was most carefully guarded. "She did not," she said, "interfere
in any affair of state; she only coincided in all the wishes and
intentions of the king."
There were, however, matters which were strictly and exclusively within
her own province; and in them she at once began to exert her authority
most beneficially. Her first desire was to purify the court where
licentiousness in either sex had long been the surest road to royal favor.
She began by making a regulation, that she would receive no lady who was
separated from her husband; and she abolished a senseless and inexplicable
rule of etiquette which had hitherto prohibited the queen and princesses
from dining or supping in company with their husbands.[9] Such an
exclusion from the king's table of those who were its most natural and
becoming ornaments had notoriously facilitated and augmented the disorders
of the last reign; and it was obvious that its maintenance must at least
have a tendency to lead to a repetition of the old irregularities.
Fortunately, the king was as little inclined to approve of it as the
queen. All his tastes were domestic, and he gladly assented to her
proposal to abolish the custom. Throughout the reign, at all ordinary
meals, at his suppers when he came in late from hunting, when he had
perhaps invited some of his fellow-sportsmen to share his repast, and at
State banquets, Marie Antoinette took her seat at his side, not only
adding grace and liveliness to the entertainment, but effectually
preventing license, and even the suspicion of scandal; and, as she desired
that her household as well as her family should set an example of
regularity and propriety to the nation, she exercised a careful
superintendence over the behavior of those who had hitherto been among the
least-considered members of the royal establishment. Even the king's
confessor had thought the morals of the royal pages either beneath his
notice or beyond his control; but Marie Antoinette took a higher view of
her duties. She considered her pages[10] as placed under her charge, and
herself as bound to extend what one of themselves calls a maternal care
and kindness to them, restraining as far as she could, and when she could
not restrain, reproving their boyish excesses, softening their hearts and
winning their affections by the gentle dignity of her admonitions, and by
the condescending and hopeful indulgence with which she accepted their
expressions of contrition and their promises of amendment. In one matter,
too, which, if not exactly political, was at all events of public
interest, she acted in a manner of which none of her predecessors had set
an example. By a custom of immemorial antiquity, at the accession of a new
sovereign, a tax had been levied on the whole kingdom as an offering to
the king, known as "the gift of the happy accession;[11]" when there was a
queen, a similar tax was imposed upon the Parisians, to provide what was
called "the girdle of the queen.[12]" It has already been mentioned that
the distress which existed in Paris at this time was so severe that, just
before the death of the late king, Louis and Marie Antoinette had relieved
it by a munificent gift from their private purse; and to lay additional
burdens on the people at such a time was not only repugnant to their
feelings, but seemed especially inconsistent with their recent generosity.
Accordingly, the very first edict of the new reign announced that neither
tax would be imposed. The people felt the kindness which dictated such a
relief more than even the relief itself, and repaid it with expressions of
gratitude such as no French sovereign had heard for above a century; but
Marie Antoinette, with the humility natural to her on such subjects, made
light of her own share in the act of benevolence, turning off the
compliments which were paid to her with a playful jest, that it was
impossible for a queen to affix a purse to her girdle, now that girdles
had gone out of fashion.[13]
On another subject, also, not wholly unconnected with politics, Since the
nobleman concerned had once been the chief minister, but in which Marie
Antoinette's interest was personal, she broke through her usual rule of
not beginning the discussion with the king, and requested the recall from
banishment of the Due de Choiseul. An unfounded prejudice based upon
calumnies set on foot by the cabal of Madame du Barri, had envenomed
Louis's mind against the duke. He bad been led to suspect that his own
father, the late dauphin, had been poisoned, and that Choiseul had been
accessory to the crime. There was nothing more certain than that the
dauphin's death had been natural; but a dislike of the accused duke
lingered in the king's mind, and he eluded compliance with his wife's
request till she put it on entirely personal grounds, by declaring it to
be humiliating to herself that one to whom she was under the deepest
obligations as the negotiator of her own happy marriage should be under
the king's displeasure without her being able to procure his pardon. Louis
felt the force of the appeal thus made to him. "If she used that argument,
he could deny her nothing," and the duke's sentence was remitted, though
his royal patroness was unable to procure his re-admission to office. Nor
did Maria Teresa regret that she failed in that object; since she feared
his restless character, and felt the alliance between the two countries
safer in the hands of the new foreign secretary, the Count de Vergennes.
CHAPTER IX.
The Comte de Provence intrigues against the Queen.--The King gives her the
Little Trianon,--She lays out an English Garden.--Maria Teresa cautions
her against Expense.--The King and Queen abolish some of the Old Forms.--
The Queen endeavors to establish Friendships with some of her Younger
Ladies.--They abuse her Favor.--Her Eagerness for Amusement.--Louis enters
into her Views.--Etiquette is abridged.--Private Parties at Choisy.--
Supper Parties.--Opposition of the Princesses.--Some of the Courtiers are
dissatisfied at the Relaxation of Etiquette.--Marie Antoinette is accused
of Austrian Preferences.
Her accession to the throne, however, had not entirely delivered Marie
Antoinette from intrigues. It had only changed their direction and object,
and also the persona of the intriguers. Her chief enemy now was the prince
who ought to have been her best friend, the next brother of her husband,
the Comte de Provence. Among the papers of Louis XV. the king had found
proofs, in letters from both count and countess, that they had both been
actively employed in trying to make mischief, and to poison the mind of
their grandfather against the dauphiness. They became still more busy now,
since each day seemed to diminish the probability of Marie Antoinette
becoming a mother; while, if she should leave no children, the Comte de
Provence would be heir to the throne. He scarcely made any secret that he
was already contemplating the probability of his succession; and, as there
were not wanting courtiers to speculate also on the chance, it soon became
known that there was no such sure road to the favor of monsieur[1] as that
of disparaging and vilifying the queen. There might have been some safety
for her in being put on her guard against her enemy; and the king himself,
who called his brother Tartuffe, did, in consequence of his discovery, use
great caution and circumspection in his behavior toward him; but Marie
Antoinette was of a temper as singularly forgiving as it was open: she
could not bear to regard with suspicion even those of whose unfriendliness
and treachery she had had proofs; and after a few days she resumed her old
familiarity with the pair, as if she had no reason to distrust them,
slighting on this subject the remonstrances of Mercy, who pointed out to
her in vain that she was putting weapons into their hands which they would
be sure to turn against herself.
At this moment she was especially happy with a new pastime. Amidst the
stately halls of Versailles she had often longed for a villa on a smaller
scale, which she might call her own; and the wish was now gratified. On
one side of the park of Versailles, and about a mile from the palace, the
late king had built an exquisite little pavilion for his mistress, which
was known as the Little Trianon. There had been a building of one kind or
another on the same spot for above a century. Louis XIV. had erected there
a cottage of porcelain for his imperious favorite, Madame de Montespan;
and it was the more sumptuous palace with which, after her death, he
replaced it, that gave rise to the strange quarrel between the haughty
monarch and his equally haughty minister, Louvois, of which St. Simon has
left us so curious an account.[2] This had been allowed to fall into a
state of decay; and a few years before his death, Louis XV. had pulled
down what remained of it, and had built a third on its foundations, which
had been the most favorite abode of Madame du Barri during his life, but
which was now rendered vacant by her dismissal. The house was decorated
with an exquisite delicacy of taste, in which Louis XV. had far surpassed
his predecessor; but the chief charm of the place was generally accounted
to be the garden, which had been laid out by Le Notre, an artist, whose
original genius as a landscape gardener was regarded by many of his
contemporaries as greatly superior to his more technical skill as an
architect.[3]
A few hundred yards off was another palace, the Great Trianon; but it was
the Little Trianon which caught the queen's fancy; and, on her expression
of a wish to have it for her own, the king at once made it over to her;
and, pleased with her new toy, Marie Antoinette, still a girl in her
impulsive eagerness for a fresh pleasure (she was not yet nineteen), began
to busy herself with remodeling the pleasure-grounds with which it was
surrounded. Before the time of Le Notre, the finest gardens in the country
had been laid out on what was called the Italian plan. He was too good a
patriot to copy the foreigners: he drove out the Italians, and introduced
a new arrangement, known as the French style, which was, in fact, but an
imitation of the stiff, formal Dutch mode. But of late the English
gardeners had established that supremacy in the art which they have ever
since maintained; and the present aim of every fashionable horticulturist
in France was to copy the effects produced on the banks of the Thames by
Wise and Browne.
Marie Antoinette fell in with the prevailing taste. She imported English
drawings and hired English, gardeners. She visited in person the Count de
Caraman, and one or two other nobles, who had already done something by
their example to inoculate the Parisians with the new fashion. And
presently lawns and shrubberies, widening invariably simple flower-beds,
supplanted the stately uniformity of terraces, alleys converging on
central fountains, or on alcoves as solid and stiff as the palace itself,
and trees cut into all kinds of fantastic shapes, which had previously
been regarded as the masterpieces of the gardeners' invention. Her
happiness was at its height when, at the end of a few months, all was
completed to her liking, and she could invite her husband to an
entertainment in a retreat which was wholly her own, and the chief
beauties of which were her own work.
As yet, therefore, all was happiness, and prospect of happiness. Even
Maria Teresa, whose unceasing anxiety for her daughter often induced her
to see the worst side of things, was rendered for a moment almost playful
by the reports which reached Vienna of the universal popularity of "Louis
XVI. and his little queen!" "She blushed," she said, "to think that in
thirty-three years of her reign she had not done as much as Louis had done
in thirty-three days.[4]" But she still warned her daughter that every
thing depended on keeping up the happy impression already made; that much
still remained to be done. And the queen's answer showed that her new
authority had brought with it some cares. "It is true," she writes, "that
the praises of the king resound everywhere. He deserves it well by the
uprightness of his heart, and the desire which he has to act rightly; but
this French enthusiasm disquiets me for the future. The little that I
understand of business shows me that some matters are full of difficulty
and embarrassment. All agree that the late king has left his affairs in a
very bad state. Men's minds are divided; and it will be impossible to
please all the world in a country where the vivacity of the people wants
every thing to be done in a moment. My dear mamma is quite right when she
says we must lay down principles, and not depart from them. The king will
not have the same weakness as his grandfather. I hope that he will have no
favorites; but I am afraid that he is too mild and too easy. You may
depend upon it that I will not draw the king into any great expenses."
(The empress had expressed a fear lest the Trianon might prove a cause of
extravagance.) "On the contrary, I, of my own accord, have refused to make
demands on him for money which some have recommended me to make."
Some relaxations, too, of the formality which had previously been
maintained between the sovereign and the subordinate members of the royal
family, and especially an order of the king that his brothers and sisters
were not in private intercourse to address him as his majesty, had grated
on the empress's sense of the distance always to be preserved between a
monarch and the very highest of his subjects. And she had complained that
reports had reached her that "there was no distinction between the queen
and the other princesses; and that the familiarity subsisting in the court
was extreme." But Marie Antoinette replied, in defense of the king and
herself, that there was "great exaggeration in these reports, as indeed
there was about every thing that went on at the court; that the
familiarity spoken of was seen but by very few. It is not for me," she
said, "to judge; but it seems to me that what exists among us is only the
air of kindly affection and gayety which is suitable to our age. It is
true that the Count d'Artois" (who had been the special subject of some of
the empress's unfavorable comments) "is very lively and very giddy, but I
can always keep him in order. As for my aunts, no one can any longer say
that they lead me; and as for monsieur and madame, I am very far from
placing entire confidence in them.
"I must confess that I am fond of amusement, and am not very greatly
inclined to grave subjects. I hope, however, to improve by degrees; and,
without ever mixing myself up in intrigues, to qualify myself gradually to
be of service to the king when he makes me his confidante, since he treats
me at all times with the most perfect affection."
Her reflections on the impulsiveness and impatience of the French
character, and of the difficulties which those qualities placed in the
path of their rulers, justify the praises which Mercy had lavished on her
sagacity, for it is evident that to them the chief troubles of her later
years may be clearly traced. And it is difficult to avoid agreeing with
her rather than with her mother, and thinking the most entire freedom of
intercourse between the king and his nearest relations as desirable as it
was natural. Royalty is, as the empress herself described it, a burden
sufficiently heavy, without its weight being augmented by observances and
restrictions which would leave the rulers without a single friend even
among the members of their own family. And probably the empress herself
might have seen less reason for her admonitions on the subject, had it not
been for the circumstance, which was no doubt unfortunate, that the royal
family at this time contained no member of a graver age and a settled
respectability of character who might, by his example, have tempered the
exuberance natural to the extreme youth of the sovereigns and their
brothers.
Not that Marie Antoinette was content to limit the number of those whom
she admitted to familiarity to her husband's kinsmen and kinswomen. Still
fretting in secret over the want of any object on whom to lavish a
mother's tenderness, she sought for friendship as a substitute, shutting
her eyes to the fact that persons in her rank, as having no equals, can
have no friends, in the true sense of the word. Nor, had such a thing been
possible anywhere, was France the country in which to find it. There
disinterestedness and integrity had long been banished from her own sex
almost as completely as from the other; and most of those whom she took
into favor made it their first object to render that favor profitable to
themselves. If she professed in their society to forget for a few hours
that she was queen, they never forgot it; they never lost sight of the
fact that she could confer places and pensions, and they often discarded
moderation and decency in the extravagance of their solicitations; while
she frequently, with an overamiable facility, surrendering her own
judgment to their importunities, not only granted their requests, but at
times even adopted their prejudices, and yielded herself as an instrument
to gratify their antipathies or resentments.
And the same feeling of vacancy in her heart, of which she was ever
painfully conscious, produced in her also a constant restlessness, and a
craving for excitement which exhibited itself in an insatiable appetite
for amusement (as she confessed to her mother), and led her to seek
distraction even in pastimes for which naturally she had but little
inclination. In these respects it can not be said that, during the first
year of her reign, she was as uniformly prudent as she had been while
dauphiness. The restraint in which she had lived for those four years had
not been unwholesome for one so young; but it had no doubt been irksome to
her. And the feeling of complete liberty and independence which had
succeeded it had, by a sort of natural reaction, sharpened the energy with
which she now pursued her various diversions. It is possible, too, that
the zest with which she indulged herself may have derived additional
keenness from the knowledge that her ill-wishers found in it pretext for
misconstruction and calumny; and that, being conscious of entire purity in
thought, word, and deed, she looked on it as due to her own character to
show that she set all such detraction and detractors at defiance. To all
cavilers, as also to her mother, whose uneasiness was frequently aroused
by gossip which reached Vienna from Paris, her invariable reply was that
her way of life had the king her husband's entire approbation. And while
he felt a conjugal satisfaction in the contemplation of his queen's
attractions and graces, the qualities in which, as he was well aware, he
himself was most deficient, Louis might well also cherish the most
absolute reliance on her unswerving rectitude, knowing the pride with
which she was wont to refer to her mother's example, and to boast that the
lesson which, above all others, she had learned from it was that to
princes of her birth and rank wickedness and baseness were unpardonable.
Indeed, many of the amusements Louis not only approved, but shared with
her, while she associated herself with those in which he delighted, as far
as she could, joining his hunting parties twice a week, either on
horseback or in her carriage, and at all times exhibiting a pattern of
domestic union of which the whole previous history of the nation afforded
no similar example. The citizens of Paris could hardly believe their eyes
when they saw their king and queen walk arm-in-arm along the boulevards;
and the courtiers received a lesson, if they had been disposed to profit
by it, when on each Sunday morning they saw the royal pair repair to the
parish church for divine service, the day being closed by their public
supper in the queen's apartment.
And this appearance of domestic felicity was augmented by the introduction
of what may be called private parties, with which, at the queen's
instigation, Louis consented to vary the cold formality of the ordinary
entertainments of the court. In the autumn they followed the example of
Louis XV. by exchanging for a few weeks the grandeur of Versailles for the
comparative quiet of some of their smaller palaces; and, while they were
at Choisy, they issued invitations once or twice a week to several of the
Parisian ladies to come out and spend the day at the palace, when, as the
principal officers of the household were not on duty, they themselves did
the honors to their guests, the queen conversing with every one with her
habitual graciousness, while the king also threw off his ordinary reserve,
and seemed to enter into the pleasures of the day with a gayety and
cordiality which surprised the party, and which, from the contrast that it
presented to his manner when he was by himself, was very generally
attributed to the influence of the queen's example.
And these quiet festivities were so much to his taste that afterward, when
the court moved to Fontainebleau, and when they settled at Versailles for
the winter, he cheerfully agreed to a proposal of Marie Antoinette to have
a weekly supper party; adopting also another suggestion of hers which was
indispensable to render such reunions agreeable, or even, it may be said,
practicable. At her request he abolished the ridiculous rule which, under
the last two kings, had forbidden gentlemen to be admitted to sit at table
with any princess of the royal family. But natural as the idea seemed, it
was not carried out without opposition on the part of Madame Adelaide and
her sisters, who remonstrated against it as an infraction of all the old
observances of the court, till it became a contest for superiority between
the queen and themselves. Marie Antoinette took counsel with Mercy, and,
by his advice, pointed out to her husband that to abandon the plan after
it had been announced, in submission to an opposition which the princesses
had no right to make, would be to humiliate her in the eyes of the whole
court. Louis had not yet shaken off all fear of his aunts; but they were
luckily absent, so he yielded to the influence which was nearest. The
suppers took place. He and the queen themselves made out the lists of the
guests to be invited, the men being named by him, and the ladies being
selected by the queen. They were a great success; and, as the history of
the affair became known, the court and the Parisians generally rejoiced in
the queen's triumph, and were grateful to her for this as for every other
innovation which had a tendency to break down the haughty barrier which,
during the last two reigns, had been established between the sovereign and
his subjects. Nor were these pleasant informal parties the only instances
in which, great inroads were made on the old etiquette. The Comte de
Mirabeau, a man fatally connected in subsequent years with some of the
most terrible of the insults which were offered to the royal family, about
this time described etiquette as a system invented for the express purpose
of blunting the capacity of the French princes, and fixing them in
position of complete dependence. And Marie Antoinette seems to have
regarded it with similar eyes; her dislike of it being quickened by the
expectations which its partisans and champions entertained that her every
movement was to be regulated by it. And its requirements were sufficiently
burdensome to tax a far better-trained patience that was natural to one
who though a queen, was not yet nineteen. Not only was no guest of the
male sex, except the king, allowed to sit at table with her, but no
man-servant, no male officer of her household, might be present when the
king and she dined together, as indeed usually happened; even his
presence could not sanction the introduction of any other man. The lady
of honor, on her knees, though in full dress, presented him the napkin
to wipe his fingers and filled his glass; ladies in waiting in the same
grand attire changed the plates of the royal pair; and after dinner, as
indeed throughout the day, the queen could not quit one room in the
palace for another, unless some of her ladies were at hand in complete
court dress to attend upon her.[5] These usages, which were in reality
so many chains to restrain all freedom, and to render comfort
impossible, were abolished in the first few months of the new reign;
but, little as was the foundation which they had in common sense, and
equally little as was the addition which they made to the royal dignity,
it is certain that many of the courtiers, besides Madame de Noailles,
were greatly disconcerted at their extinction. They regarded the queen's
orders on the subject as a proof of a settled preference for Austrian
over French fashions. They began to speak of her as "the Austrian," a
name which, though Madame Adelaide had more than once chosen it to
describe her during the first year of her marriage, had since that time
been almost forgotten, but which was now revived, and was continually
reproduced by a certain party to cast odium on many of her most simple
tastes and most innocent actions. Her enemies oven affirmed that in
private she was wont to call the Trianon her "little Vienna,[6]" as if
the garden, which she was laying out with a taste that long made it the
admiration of all the visitors to Versailles, were dear to her, not as
affording a healthful and becoming occupation, nor for the sale of the
giver, but only because it recalled to her memory the gardens of
Schoenbrunn, to which, as their malice suggested, she never ceased to
look back with unpatriotic regret.
In one point of view they were unquestionably correct. The queen did
undoubtedly desire to establish in the French court the customs and the
feelings which, during her childhood, had prevailed at Vienna; but they
were wholly wrong in thinking them Austrian usages. They were Lorrainese
in their origin; they had been imported to Vienna for the first time by
her own father, the Emperor Francis; when she referred to them, it was as
"the patriarchal manners of the House of Lorraine[7]" that she spoke of
them; and her preference for them was founded on the conviction that it
was to them that her mother and her mother's family were indebted for the
love and reverence of the people which all the trials and distresses of
the struggle against Frederic had never been able to impair.
Nor was it only the old stiffness and formality, which had been compatible
with the grossest license, that was now discountenanced. A wholly new
spirit was introduced to animate the conversation with which those royal
entertainments were enlivened. Under Louis XV., and indeed before his
reign, intrigue and faction had been the real rulers of the court,
spiteful detraction and scandal had been its sole language. But, to the
dispositions, as benevolent as they were pure, of the young queen and her
husband, malice and calumny were almost as hateful as profligacy itself.
She held, with the great English dramatist, her contemporary, that true
wit was nearly allied to good-nature;[8] and she showed herself more
decided in nothing than in discouraging and checking every tendency to
disparagement of the absent, and diffusing a tone of friendly kindness
over society. On one occasion, when she heard some of her ladies laughing
over a spiteful story, she reproved them plainly for their mirth as "bad
taste." On another she asked some who were thus amusing themselves, "How
they would like any one to speak thus of themselves in their absence, and
before her?" and her precept, fortified by example (for no unkind comment
on any one was ever heard to pass her lips), so effectually extinguished
the habit of detraction that in a very short time it was remarked that no
courtier ventured on an ill-natured word in her presence, and that even
the Comte de Provence, who especially aimed at the reputation of a sayer
of good things, and affected a character for cynical sharpness, learned at
last to restrain his sarcastic tongue, and at least to pretend a
disposition to look at people's characters and actions with as much
indulgence as herself.
CHAPTER X.
Settlement of the Queen's Allowance.--Character and Views of Turgot.--She
induces Gluck to visit Paris.--Performance of his Opera of "Iphigenie
en Aulide."--The First Encore.--Marie Antoinette advocates the
Re-establishment of the Parliaments, and receives an Address from them.--
English Visitors at the Court.--The King is compared to Louis XII. and
Henri IV.--The Archduke Maximilian visits his Sister.--Factious Conduct of
the Princes of the Blood.--Anti-Austrian Feeling in Paris.--The War of
Grains.--The King is crowned at Rheims.--Feelings of Marie Antoinette.--
Her Improvements at the Trianon.--Her Garden Parties there.--Description
of her Beauty by Burke, and by Horace Walpole.
Maria Teresa had warned her daughter against extravagance, a warning which
would have been regarded as wholly misplaced by any other of the French
princes, who were accustomed to treat the national treasury as a fund
intended to supply the means for their utmost profusion, but which
certainly coincided with the views of Marie Antoinette herself, who, as we
have seen, vindicated herself from the charge of prodigality, and declared
that she took great care that her improvements at the Trianon should not
be beyond her means. Yet it would not have been surprising if they had
been found to be so, since, even after she became queen, her income
continued to be far too narrow for her rank. The nominal allowance of all
former kings and queens had been fixed at an unreasonably low rate, from
the pernicious custom of drawing on the treasury for all deficiencies; but
this mode of proceeding was inconsistent with the notions of propriety
entertained by the new sovereigns, and with those of the new finance
minister.
Maurepas himself had never been distinguished for ability, but he was
sufficiently clear-sighted to be aware that the principal difficulties of
the State arose from the disorder into which the profligacy and
prodigality of the late reign, ever since the death of the wise Fleury,
had thrown its finances; and he had made a most happy choice for the
office of comptroller-general of finance, appointing to it a man named
Turgot, who, as Intendant of the Limousin, had brought that province into
a condition of prosperity which had made it a model for the rest of the
kingdom. In his new and more enlarged sphere of action, Turgot's abilities
expanded; or, perhaps it should rather be said, had a fairer field for
their display. He showed himself equally capable in every department of
his duties; as a financial reformer, as an administrator, and as a
legislator. No minister in the history of the nation had ever so united
large-minded genius with disinterested integrity. He had not accepted
office without a full perception of its difficulties. He saw all that had
to be done, and applied himself to putting the finances of the nation on a
healthy footing, as an indispensable preface to other reforms equally
necessary. He easily secured the co-operation of the king and queen, Louis
cheerfully adopting the retrenchments which he recommended, though some of
them, such as the reduction in the hunting establishment, touched his
personal tastes. But at the same time, as there was no illiberality in his
economy, or, rather, as he saw that real economy could only be practiced
if the sovereigns had a fixed income really adequate to the call upon it,
he placed their allowances on a more satisfactory footing than had ever
been fixed for them before, the queen's privy purse being settled at a sum
which Mercy agreed with him would prove sufficient for all her expenses,
though it was but 200,000 francs a year.
And so it was generally found to be; for, with the exception of an
occasional fancy for some splendid jewel, Marie Antoinette had no
expensive tastes. Her economy was even far greater than her attendants
approved, extending to details which they would have wished her to regard
as beneath the dignity of a sovereign;[1] and so judiciously did she
manage her resources that she was able to defray out of her privy purse
the pensions which she occasionally conferred on men eminent in arts or
literature, whom she rightly judged it a royal duty to encourage.
One of her first acts of liberality of this kind was exercised in favor of
a countryman of her own, the celebrated Gluck. Music was one of her most
favorite accomplishments. She still devoted a portion of almost every day
in taking lessons on the harp; but the French music was not to her taste;
while, since the death of Handel, Gluck's superiority to all his other
musical contemporaries had been generally acknowledged in all countries.
She now, by the gift of a pension of 6000 francs, induced him to visit
Paris. It was at the French opera that many of his most celebrated works
were first given to the world; and an incident which took place at the
performance of one of them showed that, if the frequenters of Versailles
were dissatisfied at the inroads lately made on the old etiquette, the
queen had a compensation in the warm attachment with which she had
inspired the Parisians. Instead of conveying the performers to Versailles,
as had been the extravagant practice of the late reign, Louis and Marie
Antoinette went into Paris when they desired to visit the theatre. The
citizens, delighted at the contrast which their frequent visits to the
capital afforded to the marked dislike of it shown by the late king,
crowded the theatre on every night on which they were expected; and on one
of these occasions Gluck's "Iphigenie" was the opera selected for
performance. It contains a chorus in which, according to the design of the
dramatist, Achilles was directed to turn to his followers with the words
"Chantez, celebrez votre reine."
But the French opera-singers were a courtly race. The French opera had
been established a century before as a Royal Academy of Music by Louis
XIV., who had issued letters patent which declared the profession of an
opera-singer one that might be followed even by a nobleman; and it seemed,
therefore, quite consistent with the rank thus conferred on them that they
should take the lead in paying loyal compliments to their princes.
Accordingly, when the performer who represented the invincible son of
Thetis, the popular tenor singer, Le Gros, came to the chorus in question,
he was found to have prepared a slight change in his part. He did not
address himself to the myrmidons behind him, but he came forward, and,
with a bow to the boxes and pit, substituted the following,
"Chantons, celebrons notre reine,
L'hymen, que sous ses lois l'enchaine,
Va nous rendre a jamais heureux."
The audience was taken by surprise, but it was a surprise of delight. The
whole house rose to its feet, cheering and clapping their hands. For the
first time in theatrical history, the repetition of a song was demanded.
The now familiar term of "Encore!" was heard and obeyed. The queen herself
was affected to tears by the enthusiastic affection displayed toward her,
nor at such a moment did she suffer her feeling of the evanescent
character of popularity among so light-minded a people to dwell in her
mind, or to mar the pleasure which such a reception was well calculated to
impart.
Popularity at this moment seemed doubly valuable to her, because she was
not ignorant that the feeling of disappointment at the unproductiveness of
her marriage had recently been increased by the knowledge that the young
Countess d'Artois was about to become a mother. And the attachment which
she inspired was not confined to the play-goers; it was shared by a body
so little inclined to exhibitions of impulsive loyalty as the Parliament.
It has been seen that Louis XV. had abolished that body; but one of the
first proposals made by Maurepas to the new king had had its
re-establishment for its object. The question had been discussed in the
king's council, and also in the royal family, with great eagerness. The
ablest of the ministers protested against the restoration of an assembly
which had invariably shown itself turbulent and usurping, and the king
himself was generally understood to share their views. But Marie
Antoinette, led by the advice of Choiseul, was eager in her support of
Maurepas, and it was believed that her influence decided Louis. If it was
so, it was an exertion of her power that she had ample cause to repent at
a subsequent period; but at the time she thought of nothing but showing
her sense of the general superiority of Choiseul, and so requiting some of
the obligations under which she considered that she lay to him for
arranging her marriage; and she received a deputation from the
re-established Parliament with marked pleasure, and replied to their
address with a graciousness which seemed intended to show that she
sincerely rejoiced at the event which had given cause for it.
It was not till Christmas that the royal family went out of mourning; but,
as soon as it was left off, the court returned to its accustomed gayety--
balls, concerts, and private theatricals occupying the evenings; though
the people remarked with undisguised satisfaction that the expenses of
former years had been greatly retrenched. It was also noticed that many
foreigners of distinction, and especially some English ladies of high
rank, gladly accepted invitations to the balls, which they certainly would
not have done while their presence was likely to bring them into contact
with Madame du Barri. Lady Ailesbury is especially mentioned as having
been received with marked distinction by the queen, and also by the king,
who was careful to show his approval of her entertainments by the share
which he took in them; and, as he paraded the saloons arm-in-arm with her,
to distinguish those whom she noticed, so that, to quote the words of one
of the most lively chroniclers of the day, their example seemed to be fast
bringing conjugal love and fidelity into fashion. She even persuaded him
to depart still further from his usual reserve, so as to appear in costume
at more than one fancy ball; the dress which he chose being that of the
only predecessor of his own house whom he could in any point have desired
to resemble, Henry IV. He had already been indirectly compared to that
monarch, the first Bourbon king, by the ingenious flattery of a print-
*seller. In the long list of sovereigns who had reigned over France in the
five hundred years which had passed by since the warrior-saint of the
Crusades had laid down his life on the sands of Tunis, there had been but
two to whom their countrymen could look back with affection or respect--
Louis XII., to whom his subjects had given the title of The Good, and
Henry, to whom more than one memorial still preserved the surname of The
Great. And the courtly picture-dealer, eager to make his market of the
gratitude with which his fellow-citizens greeted the reforms with which
the reigning sovereign had already inaugurated his reign, contrived to
extract a compliment to him even out of the severe prose of the
multiplication-table; publishing a joint portrait of the three kings,
Louis XII., Henry IV., and Louis XVI., with an inscription beneath to
testify that 12 and 4 made 16.
In the spring of 1775, Marie Antoinette received a great pleasure in a
visit from her younger brother, Maximilian. He was the only member of her
family whom she had seen in the five years that had elapsed since she left
Vienna. But, eagerly as she had looked forward to his visit, it did not
bring her unmixed satisfaction, being marred by the ill-breeding of the
princes of the blood, and still more by the approval of their conduct
displayed by the citizens of Paris, which seemed to afford a convincing
evidence of the small effect which even the queen's virtues and graces had
produced in softening the old national feeling of enmity to the house of
Austria. The archduke, who was still but a youth, did not assert his royal
rank while on his travels, but preserved such an _incognito_ as princes on
such occasions are wont to assume, and took the title of Count de Burgau.
The king's brothers, however, like the king himself, paid no regard to his
disguise, but visited him at the first instant of his arrival; but the
princes of the blood stood on their dignity, refused to acknowledge a rank
which was not publicly avowed, or to recollect that the visitor was a
foreigner and brother to their queen, and insisted on receiving the
attention of the first visit from him. The excitement which the question
caused in the palace, and the queen's indignation at the slight thus
offered, as she conceived, to her brother, were great. High words passed
between her and the Duc d'Orleans, the chief of the recusants, on the
subject; and one part of her remonstrance throws a curious additional
light on the strange distance which, as has been already pointed out, the
etiquette of the French court had established between the sovereigns and
the very highest of their subjects, even the nearest of their relations.
The duke had insisted on the _incognito_ as debarring Maximilian from all
claim to attention from a prince like himself whose rank was not
concealed. She urged that the king and his brothers had not regarded it in
that light. "The duke knew," she said, "that the king had treated
Maximilian as a brother; that he even invited him to sup in private with
himself and her, an honor to which no prince of the blood had ever
pretended." And, finally, warming with her subject, she told him that,
though her brother would be sorry not to make the acquaintance of the
princes of the blood, he had many other things in Paris to see, and would
manage to do without it.[2] Her expostulation was fruitless. The princes
adhered to their resolution, and she to hers. They were not admitted to
any of the festivities of the palace during the archduke's stay, and were
even excluded from all the private entertainments which were given in his
honor, since she made it known that the king and she would refuse to
attend any to which they were invited. But, though their conduct was
surely both discourteous to a foreigner and disrespectful to their
sovereign, the Parisian populace took their part; and some of them who
showed themselves ostentatiously in the streets of the city on days on
which there were parties at Versailles were loudly applauded by a crowd
which was not entirely drawn from the lower classes. It was noticed that
the Duc de Chartres, the son of the Duc d'Orleans, was one of the foremost
in exciting this anti-Austrian feeling, the outbreak of which was
especially remarkable as the first instance in which the enthusiasm of the
citizens for Marie Antoinette seemed to have cooled, or at least to have
been interrupted. And this change in their feelings produced so painful an
impression on her mind, that, after her brother's departure, she abandoned
her intention of going to the opera, though Gluck's "Orfeo" was to be
performed, lest she should meet with a reception less cordial than that to
which she had hitherto been accustomed.
This ebullition against the house of Austria, however, was at the moment
dictated rather by discontent with the Home Government than by any settled
feeling on the subject of foreign politics. Corn had been at a rather high
price in Paris and its neighborhood throughout the winter; and the
dearness was taken advantage of by the enemies of Turgot, and employed by
them as an argument to prove the impolicy of his measures to introduce
freedom of trade. They even organized[3] formidable riots at Paris and
Versailles, which, however, Turgot, whose resolution was equal to his
capacity, prevailed on the king to repress by acts of vigor very unusual
to him, and very foreign to his disposition. The troops were called out;
the Parliament was summoned to a Bed of Justice, and enjoined to put the
law in force against the guilty; two of the most violent revolters were
executed; order was restored, and the wholly factitious character of the
outbreak was proved by the tranquillity which ensued, though the price of
bread remained unaltered till the commencement of the harvest, the
citizens themselves presently making a jest of their sedition, and
nicknaming it The War of the Grains.[4]
In France, one excitement soon drives out another, and the whole attention
of the nation was now fixed on the coronation, which had been appointed to
take place in June. After some discussion, it had been settled that Louis
should be crowned alone. There had not been many precedents for the
coronation of a queen in France; and the last instance, that of Marie de
Medicis, as having been followed by the assassination of her husband, was
regarded by many as a bad omen. If Marie Antoinette had herself expressed
any wish to be her husband's partner in the solemnity, it would certainly
have been complied with, and their subsequent fate would have been
regarded as a confirmation of the evil augury. But she was indifferent on
the subject, and quite contented to behold it as a spectator. It took
place on Sunday, the 11th of June, in the grand Cathedral at Rheims. The
progress of the royal family, which had quit Versailles for that city on
the preceding Monday, had resembled a triumphant procession, so
enthusiastic had been the acclamations which had greeted the king and
queen at each town through which they had passed; and all the previous
displays of joy were outdone by the demonstrations afforded by the
citizens of Rheims itself. It was midnight, on the 8th of June, when the
queen reached the gates; but the road outside and the streets inside were
thronged with a crowd as dense as midday could have produced, which
followed her to the archbishop's palace, making the whole city resound
with their loyal cheers; and which, the next morning, awaited her
coming-forth after holding a grand reception of all the nobles of the
province, to meet the king when he made his solemn entry in the
afternoon. The ceremony in the cathedral was one of great magnificence;
but, in the account of the day which, after her return to Versailles,
she wrote to her mother, she does not enter into details, as being
necessarily known to the empress in their general character; confining
herself rather to a description of the impression which the manifest
cordiality with which the whole people had entered into the spirit of
the solemnity had made upon her own mind and heart.[5]
"The coronation was perfect in every respect. It was made plain that every
one was highly delighted with the king, and so he deserves that all his
subjects should be. Great and small, all displayed the greatest interest
in him; and at the moment of placing the crown on his head the ceremonies
of the church were interrupted by the most touching acclamations. I could
not restrain myself; my tears flowed in spite of all my efforts, and the
people were pleased to see them. During the whole time of our journey I
did my best to correspond to the earnestness of the people; and although
the heat was great, and the crowd immense, I do not regret my fatigue,
which, moreover, has not injured my health. It is a very astonishing
circumstance, but at the same time a very pleasant one, to be so well
received only two months after the revolt, and in spite of the high price
of bread, which unhappily still continues. It is a strange peculiarity in
the French character to allow themselves to be so easily led away by
mischievous suggestions, and then immediately to return to good behavior.
It is very certain that when we see people, even in times of distress,
treating us so well, we are the more bound to labor for their happiness.
The king seems to me penetrated with this truth. As for me, I feel that
all my life, even if I were to live a hundred years, I shall never forget
the coronation day."
But all the tumultuous pomp and exultation only made her return with
renewed pleasure to her quiet retreat of the Trianon, which, with the
assistance of the illustrious Buffon, then superintendent of the king's
gardens, and of Bernard de Jussieu, Director of the Jardin des Plantes,
and celebrated as one of the first botanists of Europe, she was laying out
with a delicate taste that long rendered it one of the chief attractions
to all the inhabitants of the district. For the sentiment which she
expressed in the letter to the empress, which has just been quoted, was
not the mere formal utterance of a barren philanthropy, but was dictated
and carried out by an active benevolence. She felt in her inmost heart the
duty which she there professed, of exerting herself to promote the
happiness of the people, and was far too unselfish to desire to keep to
herself the whole of the delight her gardens were calculated to afford.
The Trianon was a possession exactly calculated to gratify her taste for
innocent rural pleasure. As she said herself, at Versailles she was a
queen; here she was a plain country lady, superintending not only her
flowers, but her farm-yard and her dairy, taking pride in her stock and
her produce. She would invite the king and the rest of the royal family to
garden parties, where, at a table set out under a bower of honeysuckle,
she would pour out their coffee with her own hands, boasting of the
thickness of her cream, the freshness of her eggs, the ruddiness and
flavor of her strawberries, as so many proofs of her skill in managing her
establishment; and would not fear to shock her aunts by tempting one of
her sisters-in-law to a game at ball, or battledoor and shuttlecock. But
she probably enjoyed still more the power of gratifying the inhabitants of
Versailles and the neighborhood. The moment that her improvements were
completed, she opened the gardens to the public to walk in, and gave
out-of-door parties and children's dances, to which all the inhabitants of
Versailles who presented themselves in decent apparel were admitted. She
would even open the dance herself with some well-conducted boy, and
afterward stroll among the crowd, talking affably to all the company, even
to the governesses and nurses, and delighting the parents with the
interest which she exhibited in the characters, the growth, and even the
names of the children.
There were some who, startled at the unwonted sight of a sovereign so
treating her subjects as fellow-creatures, confessed a fear that such
familiarity was not without its dangers;[6] but the objects of her
condescension worshiped her for it; and for a time at least the great
majority of the nation forgot that she was Austrian. She was now nearly
twenty years of age. Her form had developed into a rare perfection of
elegance. Her features had added to the original brilliancy of her girlish
loveliness something of that higher beauty which judgment and sagacity
inspire, and which dignity renders only the more imposing; while the same
benevolence and purity beamed in every look which were remarked as her
most sterling characteristics on her first arrival in the country. And it
is not to her French or German admirers alone that we are reduced to trust
for the impression which at this time she made on all beholders. We have
seen that English gentlemen and ladies of rank were frequent visitors to
the French court; and from two of these, men of widely different
characters, talents, and turns of mind, we have a striking concurrence of
testimony as to the power of the fascination which she exerted on all who
came within the sphere of her influence. Burke was the earlier visitor.
Indeed, it was in the last months of the preceding reign, while she was
still dauphiness, that she had excited in his enthusiastic imagination
those emotions which he afterward described in words which will live as
long as the English language. It was in the spring of 1774 that it seemed
to him that "surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon,
decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in--
glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy." No
one could be less like Burke than Horace Walpole, a cynical observer, who
piqued himself on indifference, and especially on a superiority to the
vulgar belief in the merits and attractions of kings and princes. Yet his
report of the charms of Marie Antoinette, as he saw them in the autumn of
this year, 1775, reveals an admiration of them as vivid as that of the
warm-hearted and more poetical Irishman. He saw her, as he reports to Lady
Ossory, first at a state court hall,[7] given on the occasion of the
marriage of the Princess Clotilde, in the theatre of the palace; and he
would have desired to give his correspondent some description of the
beauty of the building; "the bravest in the universe, and yet one in which
taste predominates over expense;" but he was absorbed by the still more
powerful attractions of the princess whom he had seen in it: "What I have
to say I can tell your ladyship in a word, for it was impossible to see
any thing but the queen. Hebes, and Floras, and Helens, and Graces are
street-walkers to her. She is a statue and beauty when standing or
sitting; grace itself when she moves." As he is writing to a lady, he
proceeds to describe her dress, which to ladies of the present day may
still have its interest: "She was dressed in silver, scattered over with
_laurier_ roses; few diamonds; and feathers, much lower than the
monument." He proceeds to describe the ball itself, and some of the
company, which was, however, very select; but at every sentence or two he
comes back to the queen, so deep and so real was the impression which she
had made on him. "Monsieur is very handsome. The Comte d'Artois is a
better figure and a better dancer. Their characters approach to those of
two other royal dukes.[8] There were but eight minuets, and, except the
queen and princesses, only eight lady dancers; I was not so much struck
with the dancing as I expected. For beauty I saw none, or the queen
effaced all the rest. After the minuets were French country-dances, much
incumbered by the long trains, longer tresses, and hoops. In the intervals
of dancing, baskets of peaches, china oranges (a little out of season),
biscuits, ices, and wine-and-water were presented to the royal family and
dancers. The ball lasted just two hours. The monarch did not dance, but
for the first two rounds of the minuet even the queen does not turn her
back to him. Yet her behavior is as easy as divine."
Such was a French court ball on days of most special ceremony, a somewhat
solemn affair, which required graciousness such as that of Marie
Antoinette to make admission to every one a very enviable privilege; even
though its stiffness had been in some degree relieved by a new regulation
of the queen, that the invitations, which had hitherto been confined to
matrons, should be extended to unmarried girls. Scarcely any change
produced greater consternation among the admirers of old customs. The
dowagers searched all the registers of those who had been admitted to the
court balls since the beginning of the century to fortify their
objections. But, to their dismay, some of the early festivities in the
time of Marie Leczinska proved to have been shared by one or two noble
maidens. The discovery was of little importance, since Marie Antoinette
had shown that she was not afraid of making precedents. But still it in
some degree silenced the grumblers, and for the rest of the reign no one
contested the queen's right to decide who should, and who should not, be
admitted to her society.
CHAPTER XI.
Tea is introduced.--Horse-racing of Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette goes
to see it--The Queen's Submissiveness to the Reproofs of the Empress.--
Birth of the Duc d'Angouleme.--She at times speaks lightly of the King.--
The Emperor remonstrates with her.--Character of some of the Queen's
Friends.--The Princess de Lamballe.--The Countess Jules de Polignac.--
They set the Queen against Turgot.--She procures his Dismissal.--She
gratifies Madame Polignac's Friends.--Her Regard for the French People.--
Water Parties on the Seine.--Her Health is Delicate.--Gambling at the
Palace.
Nor were these the only innovations which marked the age. A rage for
adopting English fashions--_Anglomanie_, as it was called--began to
prevail; and, among the different modes in which it exhibited itself, it
is especially noticed that tea[1] was now introduced, and began to share
with coffee the privileges of affording sober refreshment to those who
aspired in their different ways to give the tone to French society.
A less innocent novelty was a passion for horse-racing, in which the Comte
d'Artois and the Duc de Chartres set the example of indulging,
establishing a race-course in the Bois de Boulogne. The count had but
little difficulty in persuading the queen to attend it, and she soon
showed so decided a fancy for the sport, and became so regular a visitor
of it, that a small stand was built for her, which in subsequent years
provoked some unfavorable comments, when the princess obtained her leave
to give luncheon in it to some of their racing friends, who were not in
all instances of a character deserving to be brought into a royal
presence.
She pursued this, as she pursued every other amusement which she took up,
with great keenness for a while, so much so as to provoke earnest
remonstrances from her mother, whose letters were commonly dictated by
Mercy's reports and suggestions. Nor, if she felt uneasiness, did Maria
Teresa spare her daughter, or take any great care to moderate her language
of reproof. At times her tone is so severe as to excite a feeling of
wonder at the submissiveness with which her letters were received. No
express eulogy of her admirers could give so great an idea of Marie
Antoinette's amiability, good-nature, genuine modesty, and sincere
affection for her mother, as the ingenuousness with which she admits
errors, or the temper with which she urges excuses. To that venerated
parent she is just as patient of admonition, now that she is seated on a
throne, as she could have been in her schoolroom at Schoenbrunn; and, in
reply to the scoldings (no milder word can do justice to the earnest
vehemence of the letters which at this time she received from Vienna), she
pleads not only that an appetite for amusement is natural to her age, but
that she enters into none of which the king does not fully approve, and
none which are ever allowed to interfere with her giving him full
enjoyment of her society whenever he has leisure or inclination for it.
But her replies to her mother hint also at the continuance of the old
causes for her restlessness, and for her eager pursuit of new diversions
to distract her thoughts. Her natural desire for children of her own was
greatly increased when, on the 12th of August, her sister-in-law, the
Countess d'Artois, presented her husband with a son.[2] She treated the
young mother with a sisterly kindness suited to the occasion, which
extorted the unqualified praise of Mercy himself; but she could not
restrain her feelings on the subject to her mother, and she expressed to
her frankly the extreme pain "which she suffered at thus seeing an heir to
the throne who was not her own child." Nor is it strange that at such
moments she should feel hurt at the coldness with which her husband
continued to behave toward her, or that she should ran eagerly after any
excitement which might aid in diverting her mind from a comparison of her
own position with that of her happier sister-in-law.[3]
It would have been well if she had confined her expressions of
disappointment to her mother. But since we may not disguise her occasional
acts of imprudence, it must be confessed that at times her mortification
led her to speak of her husband to strangers in a tone of disparagement
which was highly unbecoming. Maximilian had been accompanied by the Count
de Rosenburg, who had in consequence been admitted to the intimate society
of the court during the archduke's visit, and who had inspired Marie
Antoinette with so favorable an opinion of his character and judgment that
after his return to Vienna she more than once sent him an account of the
proceedings at the palace since her brother's departure. She describes to
him a series of concerts, at which she had sung herself with some of her
ladies. She gives him a list of the guests, remarking, with a
particularity which seems to show that she expects her words to be
reported to the empress, that the gentlemen, though amiable and well bred,
were not young. But she also complains that the king's tastes do not
resemble hers, that he cares for nothing but hunting and mechanical
employments; and, indulging in an unwonted bit of sarcasm, she proceeds:
"You will allow that I should not look well beside a forge. I could never
become a Vulcan; and the part of Venus would displease him more than my
real tastes, which he does not disapprove." In another letter she mentions
him in a tone of contemptuous pity, almost equally unbecoming, speaking of
him as "the poor man" whom she had made a tool of to further some views of
her own, though Mercy assured the empress that her assertion of having so
treated him was a mere fiction of her imagination, to impart a sort of
lively tone to her letter; that, in spite of occasional outbursts of
levity, she had in reality the firmest affection and esteem for Louis; and
that nothing could be more irreproachable than her conduct toward him in
every respect. He added that the people in general did her full justice on
this head; that if her popularity with the Parisians had for a moment
suffered any diminution through the artifices of faction, the cloud had
been blown away; and that she had been recently received at the different
theatres with as fervent a loyalty as had greeted even her first
appearance.
The empress, however, was so uneasy that she induced her son, the Emperor
Joseph, to add his expostulations to hers; and he, who was a prince of
considerable shrewdness, as well as of a high idea of the proprieties of
his rank, wrote her a long letter of remonstrance; imputing with great
truth the failings, which he pointed out with sufficient plainness, to a
facility of disposition which made her indulgent to the manoeuvres of
those whom she admitted to her friendship, but who did not deserve such an
honor. He even spoke of the society which she had gathered round her, as
calculated to prevent him from performing his promise of paying her a
visit; "for what should he do in a court of frivolous intriguers?" And he
concluded by urging her to prevent these false friends from making a tool
of her for the gratification of their own selfishness and rapacity; and to
be solicitous for no friendship or confidence but that of her husband; the
study of whose wishes was to her not only a state duty, but the only one
which would make her permanently happy, and secure to her the lasting
affection of the people.
There was, however, no subject on which Marie Antoinette was so little
amenable to advice as the choice of her friends, and none on which she
more required it. Above all the frequenters of the court, two ladies were
distinguished by her especial favor--the Princess de Lamballe and the
Countess de Polignac. The princess, a daughter of the Prince de Carignan
in Savoy, having been married to the son of the Duc de Penthievre, was
left a widow before she was twenty years of age. She had been originally
recommended to Mario Antoinette in the first year of her residence in
France, partly by her royal birth, and partly by her misfortunes; and the
attachment which the dauphiness at once conceived for her was cemented by
the ardor with which it was returned. In many respects the princess well
deserved the favor with which she was regarded. Her temper was sweet and
amiable; her character singularly truthful and sincere; and, that she
might never be separated from her friend, the place of superintendent of
the queen's household was revived for her. Some cavilers were disposed to
grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as
useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused
the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified
the queen's choice by the proof it afforded of the princess's unalterable
fidelity and devotion.
But the countess was a very different character. She had, indeed, a
well-bred air of good humor, but that, with her youth (she was but
twenty years of age), was her only qualification; for her capacity was
narrow, her disposition selfish and grasping, and she was so inveterate
a manoeuvrer, that, when she had no intrigues of her own on foot, she
was always ready to lend herself to the plots of others. What was worse,
she did not enjoy an untainted character. The name of the Comte de
Vaudreuil was often coupled with hers in the scandals of the court. And
the queen, since she could hardly be ignorant of the reports which were
circulated, incurred, by the marked favor which she showed to the
countess, the imputation of shutting her eyes to the frailties of her
friends, and thus showing that dissoluteness was not an insuperable
barrier to her partiality. It was only the earnest remonstrance of Mercy
which prevented her from conferring the place of lady of honor on the
countess; but she allowed her to exert a pernicious influence over her
in many ways, for the countess was unwearied in soliciting appointments
and pensions for her relatives; at times making demands in such numbers,
and of so exorbitant a character, that the queen herself was forced to
admit the impossibility of granting them all, though she still sought to
gratify her to far too great an extent, and would not allow the proved
insatiability of her and her family to open her eyes to her real
character.
It was, however, a far more mischievous submission to the influence of the
countess and her coterie, when she permitted them to prejudice her against
Turgot, whom she had more than once described to her mother as an upright
statesman, and who had constantly shown, so far as he could make
compliance consistent with his duty to the State, a sincere desire to
consult her wishes. But as the Polignac party saw in his prudence,
integrity, and firmness the most formidable obstacle to their project of
using the queen's favor to enrich themselves, she now yielded up her
judgment to their calumnies. Forgetting her former praises of the
minister's integrity, she began to disparage him as one whose measures
caused general dissatisfaction, and at last she pushed her hostility to
him so far that she actually tried to induce Louis not to be content with
dismissing him from office, but to send him as a prisoner to the
Bastille.[4] That she could not avoid feeling some shame at the part which
she had acted may be inferred from the pains which she took to conceal it
from her mother, whom she assured that, though she was not sorry for his
dismissal, she had in no degree interfered in the matter; but "her conduct
and even her intentions were well known, and known to be far removed from
all manoeuvres and intrigues.[5]"
Unfortunately the ambassador's letters tell a different story. As a
sincere friend as well as a loyal servant of Marie Antoinette, he
expresses to the empress his deep feeling that, "as the comptroller-
general enjoyed a great reputation for integrity, and was beloved by the
people, it was a melancholy thing that his dismissal should be in part the
queen's work,[6]" and his fear that her conduct in the affair may
"hereafter bring upon her the reproaches of the king her husband, and even
of the entire nation." The foreboding thus uttered was but too sadly
realized. She had driven from her husband's councils the only man who
combined with the penetration to perceive the absolute necessity of a
large reform and the character of the changes required, the genius to
devise them and the firmness to carry them out.
Thirteen years later, a variety of causes, some of which will be unfolded
in the course of this narrative, had contributed to irritate the
impatience of the nation, while the unskillfulness of the existing
minister had disarmed the royal authority. And the very same reforms which
would now have been accepted with general thankfulness were then only used
by demagogues as a pretext for further inflaming the minds of the
multitude against every thing which bore the slightest appearance of
authority, even against the very sovereign who had granted them. France
and all Europe to this day feel the sad effects of Marie Antoinette's
interference.
She had given fatal proof of the truth of the words wrung from her by
nervous excitement at the moment of the late king's death, when she
declared that Louis and she were too young to reign; and the best excuse
that can be found for her is that she was not yet one-and-twenty. It was
not, however, wholly from submission to the interested malevolence of
others that she had shown herself the enemy of the great financier and
statesman. She had a spontaneous dislike to the retrenchments which
necessarily formed a great portion of his economical measures; not as
interfering with the indulgence of any extravagant tastes of her own, but
as restraining her power of gratifying her friends. For she was entirely
impressed with the idea that no person or body could have any right to
call in question the king's disposal of the national revenue; and that
there was no prerogative of the crown of which the exercise was more
becoming to the royal dignity than that of granting pensions or creating
sinecures with no limitations but such as might be imposed by his own will
or discretion. And on this point her husband fully shared her feelings.
"What," said he, on one occasion to Turgot, who was urging him to refuse
an utterly unwarrantable application for a pension. "What are a thousand
crowns a year?" "Sire," replied the minister, "they are the taxation of a
village." The king acquiesced for the moment, but probably not without
some secret wincing at the control to which he seemed to be subjected; and
we may, perhaps, suppose that even the queen's disapproval of the minister
would have been less effectual had it not been re-enforced by the king's
own feelings.
In fact, that the part which she took against the great minister was the
fruit of mere inconsiderateness and ignorance of the feelings and
necessities of the nation, and that, if she had known the depth of the
people's distress, and the degree in which it was caused by the
viciousness of the whole existing system of government, she would gladly
have promoted every measure which could tend to their relief, we may find
abundant proof in a letter which she had written to her mother, a few
weeks earlier. Maria Teresa had spoken with some harshness of the French
fickleness. Marie Antoinette replies:[7]
"You are quite right in all you say about French levity, but I am truly
grieved that on that account you should conceive an aversion for the
nation. The disposition of the people is very inconsistent, but it is not
bad. Pens and tongues utter a great many things which are not in their
heart. The proof that they do not cherish hatred is that on the very
slightest occasion they speak well of one, and even praise one much more
than one deserves. I have just this moment myself had experience of this.
There had been a terrible fire in Paris in the Palace of Justice, and the
same day I was to have gone to the opera, so I did not go, but sent two
hundred louis to relieve the most pressing cases of distress;[8] and ever
since the fire, the very same people who had been circulating libels and
songs against me[9] have been extolling me to the skies."
These revelations of her inmost thoughts to her mother show how real and
warm was her affection for the French as a nation, as well as how little
she claimed any merit for her endeavors to benefit them; though a
subsequent passage in the same letter also shows that she had been so much
annoyed by some pasquinades and libels, of which she had been the subject,
that she had become careful not to furnish fresh opportunities to her
enemies: "We have had here such a quantity of snow as has not been seen
for many years, so that people are going about in sledges, as they do at
Vienna. We were out in them yesterday about this place; and to-day there
is to be a grand procession of them through Paris. I should greatly have
liked to be able to go; but, as a queen has never been seen at such
things, people might have made up stories if I had gone, and I preferred
giving up the pleasure to being worried by fresh libels."
She was still as eager as ever in the pursuit of amusement, and especially
of novelties in that way, when not restrained by considerations such as
those which she here mentions. When at Choisy, she gave water parties on
the river in boats with awnings, which she called gondolas, rowing down as
far as the very entrance to the city. It was not quite a prudent diversion
for her, for at this time her health was not very strong. She easily
caught cold, and the reports of such attacks often caused great uneasiness
at Vienna; but the watermen were highly delighted, looking on her act in
putting herself under their care as a compliment to their craft; and some
of them, to increase her pleasure, jumped overboard and swam about. Their
well-meant gallantry, however, was nearly having an unfavorable effect;
unaware that it was not an accident, she thought that their lives were in
danger, and the fear for them turned her sick, while Madame de Lamballe
fainted away. But when she perceived the truth, the qualm passed away, and
she rewarded them handsomely for their ducking; begging, however, that it
might not be repeated, and assuring them that she needed no such proof to
convince her of their dutiful and faithful loyalty.
But the craving for excitement which was bred and nourished by the
continuance of her unnatural position with respect to her husband in some
parts of his treatment of her, was threatening to produce a very
pernicious effect by leading her to become a gambler. Some of those ladies
whom she admitted to her intimacy were deeply infected with this fatal
passion; and one of the most mischievous and intriguing of the whole
company, the Princess de Guimenee, introduced a play-table at some of her
balls, which she induced Marie Antoinette to attend. At first the queen
took no share in the play; as she had hitherto borne none, or only a
formal part, in the gaming which, as we have seen, had long been a
recognized feature in court entertainments; but gradually the hope of
banishing vexation, if only by the substitution of a heavier care, got
dominion over her, and in the autumn of 1776 we find Mercy commenting on
her losses at lansquenet and faro, at that time the two most fashionable
round games, the stakes at which often rose to a very considerable amount.
Though she continued to indulge in this unhealthy pastime for some time,
in Mercy's opinion she never took any real interest in it. She practiced
it only because she wished to pass the time, and to drive away thought;
and because the one accomplishment she wanted was the art of refusing. She
even carried her complaisance so far as to allow professed gaming-table
keepers to be brought from Paris to manage a faro-bank in her apartments,
where the play was often continued long after midnight. It was not the
least evil of this habit that it unavoidably left the king, who never quit
his own apartments in the evening, to pass a great deal of time by
himself; but, as if to make up for his coldness in one way, he was most
indulgent in every other, and seemed to have made it a rule never to
discountenance any thing which could amuse her. His behavior to her, in
Mercy's eyes, seemed to resemble servility; "it was that of the most
attentive courtier," and was carried so far as to treat with marked
distinction persons whose character he was known to disapprove, solely
because she regarded them with favor.[10]
In cases such as these the defects in the king's character contributed
very injuriously to aggravate those in hers. She required control, and he
was too young to exercise it. He had too little liveliness to enter into
her amusements; too little penetration to see that, though many of them--
it may be said all, except the gaming-table--were innocent if he partook
of them, indulgence in them, when he did not share them, could hardly fail
to lead to unfriendly comments and misconstruction; though even his
presence could hardly have saved his queen's dignity from some humiliation
when wrangles took place, and accusations of cheating were made in her
presence. The gaming-table is a notorious leveler of distinctions, and the
worst-behaved of the guests were too frequently the king's own brothers;
they were rude, overbearing, and ill-tempered. The Count de Provence on
one occasion so wholly forgot the respect due to her, that he assaulted a
gentleman in her presence; and the Count d'Artois, who played for very
high stakes, invariably lost his temper when he lost his money. Indeed,
the queen seems to have felt the discredit of such scenes; and it is
probable that it was their frequent occurrence which led to a temporary
suspension of the faro-bank; as a violent quarrel on the race-course
between d'Artois and his cousin, the Duke de Chartres, whom he openly
accused of cheating him, for a while disgusted her with horse-races, and
led her to propose a substitution of some of the old exercises of
chivalry, such as running at the ring; a proposal which had a great
element of popularity in it, as being calculated to lead to a renewal of
the old French pastimes, which seemed greatly preferable to the existing
rage for copying, and copying badly, the fashions and pursuits of England.
CHAPTER XII.
Marie Antoinette finds herself in Debt.--Forgeries of her Name are
committed.--The Queen devotes herself too much to Madame de Polignac and
others.--Versailles is less frequented.--Remonstrances of the Empress.--
Volatile Character of the Queen.--She goes to the Bals d'Opera at Paris.--
She receives the Duke of Dorset and other English Nobles with Favor.--
Grand Entertainment given her by the Count de Provence.--Character of the
Emperor Joseph.--He visits Paris and Versailles.--His Feelings toward and
Conversations with the King and Queen.--He goes to the Opera.--His Opinion
of the Queen's Friends.--Marie Antoinette's Letter to the Empress on his
Departure.--The Emperor leaves her a Letter of Advice.
But this addiction to play, though it was that consequence of the
influence of the society to which Marie Antoinette was at this time so
devoted, which would have seemed the most objectionable in the eyes of
rigid moralists, was not that which excited the greatest dissatisfaction
in the neighborhood of the court. Excessive gambling had so long been a
notorious vice of the French princes, that her letting herself down to
join the gaming-table was not regarded as indicating any peculiar laxity
of principle; while the stakes which she permitted herself, and the losses
she incurred, though they seemed heavy to her anxious German friends, were
as nothing when compared with those of the king's brothers. Even when it
became known that she was involved in debt, that again was regarded as an
ordinary occurrence, apparently even by the king himself, who paid the
amount (about L20,000) without a word of remonstrance, merely remarking
that he did not wonder at her funds being exhausted since she had such a
passion for diamonds. For a great portion of the debts had been incurred
for some diamond ear-rings which the queen herself did not wish for, and
had only bought to gratify Madame de Polignac, who had promised her custom
to the jeweler who had them for sale. Marie Antoinette had evidently
become less careful in regulating her expenses, till she was awakened by
the discovery of a crime which she herself imputed to her own carelessness
in such matters. The wife of the king's treasurer had borrowed money in
her name, and had forged her handwriting to letters of acknowledgment of
the loans. The fraud was only discovered through Mercy's vigilance, and
the criminal was at seized and punished, but it proved a wholesome lesson
to the queen, who never forgot it, though, as we shall see hereafter, if
others remembered it, the recollection only served to induce them to try
and enrich themselves by similar knaveries.
And this devotion of the queen to the society of the Polignacs and
Guimenees, "her society," as she sometimes called it,[1] had also a
mischievous effect in diminishing her popularity with the great body of
the nobles. The custom of former sovereigns had been to hold receptions
several evenings in each week, to which the men and women of the highest
rank were proud to repair to pay their court. But now the royal apartments
were generally empty, the king being alone in his private cabinet, while
the queen was passing her time at some small private party of young
people, by her presence often seeming to countenance intrigues of which
she did not in her heart approve, and giddy conversation which was hardly
consistent with her royal position; though Mercy, in reporting these
habits to the empress, adds that the queen's own demeanor, even in the
moments of apparently unrestrained familiarity, was marked by such uniform
self-possession and dignity, that no one ever ventured to take liberties
with her, or to approach her without the most entire respect.[2]
It was hardly strange, then, that those who were not members of this
society should feel offended at finding the court, as it were, closed
against them, and should cease to frequent the palace when they had no
certainty of meeting any thing but empty rooms. They even absented
themselves from the queen's balls, which in consequence were so thinly
attended that sometimes there were scarcely a dozen dancers of each sex,
so that it was universally remarked that never within the memory of the
oldest courtiers had Versailles been so deserted as it was this winter;
the difference between the scene which the palace presented now from what
had been witnessed in previous seasons striking the queen herself, and
inclining her to listen more readily to the remonstrances which, at
Mercy's instigation, the empress addressed to her. Her mother pointed out
to her, with all the weight of her own long experience, the
incompatibility of a private mode of life, such as is suitable for
subjects, with the state befitting a great sovereign; and urged her to
recollect that all the king's subjects, so long as their rank and
characters were such as to entitle them to admission at court, had an
equal right to her attention; and that the system of exclusiveness which
she had adopted was a dereliction of her duty, not only to those who were
thus deprived of the honors of the reception to which they were entitled,
but also to the king, her husband, who was injured by any line of conduct
which tended to discourage the nobles of the land from paying their
respects to him.
In the midst of all her giddiness, Marie Antoinette always listened with
good humor, it may even be said with docility, to honest advice. No one
ever in her rank was so unspoiled by authority; and more than one
conversation which she held with the ambassador on the subject showed that
these remonstrances, re-enforced as they were by the undeniable fact of
the thinness of the company at the palace, had made an impression on her
mind; though such impressions were as yet too apt to be fleeting, and too
liable to be overborne by fresh temptations; for in volatile impulsiveness
she resembled the French themselves, and the good resolutions she made one
day were always liable to be forgotten the next. Nothing as yet was steady
and unalterable in her character but her kindness of heart and
graciousness of manner; they never changed; and it was on her genuine
goodness of disposition and righteousness of intention that her German
friends relied for producing an amendment as she grew older, far more than
on any regrets for the past, or intentions of improvement for the future,
which might be wrung from her by any momentary reflection or vexation.
If Versailles was less lively than usual, Paris, on the other hand, had
never been so gay as during the carnival of 1777. The queen went to
several of the masked balls at the opera with one or other of her
brothers-in-law and their wives; the king expressing his perfect
willingness that she should so amuse herself, but never being able to
overcome his own indolence and shyness so far as to accompany her. It
could not have been a very lively amusement. She did not dance, but sat in
an arm-chair surveying the dancers, or walked down the saloon attended by
an officer of the bodyguard and one lady in waiting, both masked like
herself. Occasionally she would grant to some noble of high rank the honor
of walking at her side; but it was remarked that those whom she thus
distinguished were often foreigners; some English noblemen, such as the
Duke of Dorset and Lord Strathavon being especially favored, for a reason
which, as given by Mercy, shows that that insular stiffness which, with
national self-complacency, Britons sometimes confess as a not unbecoming
characteristic, was not at that time attributed to them by others; since
the ambassador explains the queen's preference by the self-evident fact
that the English gentlemen were the best dancers, and made the best figure
in the ball-room.
But all the other festivities of this winter were thrown into the shade by
an entertainment of extraordinary magnificence, which was given in the
queen's honor by the Count de Provence at his villa at Brunoy.[3] The
count was an admirer of Spenser, and appeared to desire to embody the
spirit of that poet of the ancient chivalry in the scene which he
presented to the view of his illustrious guest when she entered his
grounds. Every one seemed asleep. Groups of cavaliers, armed _cap-a-pie_,
and surrounded by a splendid retinue of squires and pages, were seen
slumbering on the ground; their lances lying by their sides, their shields
hanging on the trees which overshadowed them; their very horses reposing
idly on the grass on which they cared not to browse. All seemed under the
influence of a spell as powerful as that under which Merlin had bound the
pitiless daughter of Arthur; but the moment that Marie Antoinette passed
within the gates the enchantment was dissolved; the pages sprung to their
feet, and brought the easily roused steeds to their awakened masters.
Twenty-five challengers, with scarfs of green, the queen's favorite color,
on snow-white chargers, overthrew an equal number of antagonists; but no
deadly wounds were given. The victory of her champions having been
decided, both parties of combatants mingled as spectators at a play, and
afterward as dancers at a grand ball which was wound up by a display of
fire-works and a superb illumination, of which the principal ornament was
a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, in many-colored fire, lighting up the
inscription "Vive Louis! Vive Marie Antoinette!"
At last, however, the carnival came to an end. Not too soon for the
queen's good, since hunts and long rides by day, and balls kept up till a
late hour by night, had been too much for her strength,[4] so that even
indifferent observers remarked that she looked ill and had grown thin. But
even had Lent not interrupted her amusements, she would have ceased for a
while to regard them, her whole mind being now devoted to preparing for
the reception of her brother, the Emperor Joseph, whose visit, which had
been promised in the previous year, was at last fixed for the month of
April. It was anticipated with anxiety by the Empress and Mercy, as well
as by Marie Antoinette. He was a prince of a peculiar disposition and
habits. Before his accession to the imperial throne, he had been kept,
apparently not greatly against his will, in the background. Nor, while his
father lived, did he give any indications of a desire for power, or of any
capacity for exercising it; but since he had been placed on the throne he
had displayed great activity and energy, though he was still, in the
opinion of many, more of a philosopher--a detractor might said more of a
pedant--than of a statesman. He studied theories of government, and was
extremely fond of giving advice; and as both Louis and Marie Antoinette
were persons who in many respects stood in need of friendly counsel, Mercy
and Maria Teresa had both looked forward to his visit to the French court
as an event likely to be of material service to both, while his sister
regarded it with a mixed feeling of hope and fear, in which, however, the
pleasurable emotions predominated.
She was not insensible to the probability that he would disapprove of some
of her habits; indeed, we have already seen that he had expressed his
disapproval of them, and of some of her friends, in the preceding year;
and she dreaded his lectures; but, on the other hand, she felt confident
that a personal acquaintance with the court would prove to him that many
of the tales to her prejudice which had readied him had been mischievous
exaggerations, and that thus he would be able to disabuse their mother,
and to tranquilize her mind on many points. She hoped, too, that a
personal knowledge of each other by him and her own husband would tend to
cement a real friendship between them; and that his stronger mind would
obtain an influence over Louis, which might induce him to rouse himself
from his ordinary apathy and reserve, and make him more of a man of the
world and more of a companion for her. Lastly, but probably above all, she
thirsted with sisterly affection for the sight of her brother, and
anticipated with pride the opportunity of presenting to her new countrymen
a relation of whom she was proud on account of his personal endowments and
character, and whose imperial rank made his visit wear the appearance of a
marked compliment to the whole French nation.
High-strung expectations often insure their own disappointment, but it was
not so in this instance; though the august visitor's first act displayed
an eccentricity of disposition which must have led more people than one to
entertain secret misgivings as to the consequences which might flow from a
visit which had such a commencement. Like his brother Maximilian, he too
traveled incognito, under the title of the Count Falkenstein; and he
persisted in maintaining his disguise so absolutely that he refused to
occupy the apartments which the queen had prepared for him in the palace,
and insisted on taking up his quarters with Mercy in Paris, and at a
hotel, for the few days which he passed at Versailles.
However, though by his conduct in this matter he to some extent
disappointed the hope which his sister had conceived of an uninterrupted
intercourse with him during his stay in France, in every other respect the
visit passed off to the satisfaction of all the parties principally
concerned. Fortunately, at their first interview Marie Antoinette herself
made a most favorable impression on him. She had been but a child when he
had last seen her. She was now a woman, and he was wholly unprepared for
the matured and queenly beauty at which she had arrived. He was not a man
to flatter any one, but almost his first words to her were that, had she
not been his sister, he could not have refrained from seeking her hand
that he might secure to himself so lovely a partner; and each succeeding
meeting strengthened his admiration of her personal graces. She, always
eager to please, was gratified at the feeling she had inspired; and thus
an affectionate tone was from the first established between them, and all
reserve was banished from their conversation. It was not diminished by the
admonitions which, as he conceived, his age and greater experience
entitled him to address to her, though sometimes they took the form of
banter and ridicule, sometimes that of serious reproof;[5] but she bore
all his lectures with unvarying good humor, promising him that the time
should come when she would make the amendment which he desired; never
attempting to conceal from him, and scarcely to excuse, the faults of
which she was not unconscious, nor the vexations which in some particulars
continually disquieted her.
It was, at least, equally fortunate that the king also conceived a great
liking for his brother-in-law at first sight. His character disposed him
to receive with eagerness advice from one who had himself occupied a
throne for several years, and whose relationship seemed a sufficient
warrant that his counsels would be honest and disinterested. Accordingly
those about him soon remarked that Louis treated the emperor with a
cordiality that he had never shown to any one else. They had many long and
interesting conversations, sometimes with Marie Antoinette as a third
party, sometimes by themselves. Louis discussed with the emperor his
anxiety to have a family, and his hopes of such a result; and Joseph
expressed his opinion freely on all subjects, even volunteering
suggestions of a change in the king's habits; as when he recommended him,
as a part of his kingly duty, to visit the different provinces, sea-ports,
cities, and manufacturing towns of his kingdom, so as to acquaint himself
generally with the feelings and resources of the people. Louis listened
with attention. If there was any case in which the emperor's advice was
thrown away, it was, if the queen's suspicions were correct, when he
recommended to the king a line of conduct adverse to her influence.
Mercy had told the emperor that Louis was devotedly attached to the queen,
but that he feared her at least as much as he loved her; and Joseph would
have desired to see some of this fear transferred to and felt by her; and
showed his wish that the king should exert his legitimate authority as a
husband to check those habits of his wife of which they both disapproved,
and which she herself did not defend. But, even if Louis did for a moment
make up his mind to adopt a tone of authority, his resolution faded away
in his wife's presence before her superior resolution; and to the end of
their days she continued to be the leader, and he to follow her guidance.
It need hardly be told that so august a visitor had entertainments given
in his honor. The king gave banquets at Versailles, the queen less formal
parties at her Little Trianon, though gayeties were not much to Joseph's
taste; and, at a visit which his sister compelled him to pay to the opera,
he remained ensconced at the back of her box till she dragged him forward,
and, as if by main force, presented him to the audience. The whole theatre
resounded with applause, expressed in such a way as to mark that it was to
the queen's brother, fully as much as to the emperor, that the homage was
paid. The opera was "Iphigenie," the chorus in which, "_Chantons,
celebrons notre reine_," had by this time been almost as fully adopted, as
the expression of the national loyalty, as "God save the Queen" is in
England. But even on its first performance it had not been hailed with
more rapturous cheering than shook the whole house on this occasion; and
Joseph had the satisfaction of believing that his sister's hold on the
affection and on the respect of the Parisians was securely established.
He was less pleased at the races in the Bois de Boulogne, which he visited
the next day. No inconsiderable part of Mercy's disapproval of such
gatherings had been founded on the impropriety of gentlemen appearing in
the queen's presence in top-boots and leather breeches, instead of in
court dress; and the emperor's displeasure appears to have been chiefly
excited by the hurry and want of stately order which were inseparable from
the excitement of a race-course, and which, indifferent as he was to many
points of etiquette, seemed even to him derogatory to the majesty of a
queen to witness so closely. But he was far more dissatisfied with the
company at the Princess de Guimenee's, to which the queen, with not quite
her usual judgment, persuaded him one evening to accompany her. He saw not
only gambling for much higher stakes than could be right for any lady to
venture (the queen did not play herself), but he saw those who took part
in the play lose their tempers over their cards and quarrel with one
another; while he heard the hostess herself accused of cheating, the
gamesters forgetting the respect due to their queen in their excitement
and intemperance. He spoke strongly on the subject to Marie Antoinette,
declaring that the apartment was no better than a common gaming-house; but
was greatly mortified to see that his reproofs on this subject were
received with less than the usual attention, and that she allowed her
partiality for those whom she called her friends to outweigh her feeling
of the impropriety of disorders of which she could not deny the existence.
But entertainments and amusements were not permitted to engross much of
his time. If he visited the king and queen as a brother, he was visiting
France and Paris as a sovereign and a statesman, and as such he made a
careful inspection of all that Paris had most worthy of his attention--of
the barracks, the arsenals, the hospitals, the manufactories. And he
acquired a very high idea of the capabilities and resources of the
country, though, at the same time, a very low opinion of the talents and
integrity of the existing ministers. Of the king himself he conceived a
favorable estimate. Of his desire to do his duty to his people he had
always been convinced, but, in a long conversation which he had held with
him on the character of the French people,[6] and of the best mode of
governing them, in which Louis entered into many details, he found his
correctness of judgment and general knowledge of sound principles of
policy far superior to his anticipations, though at the same time he felt
convinced that his want of readiness and decision, and his timidity in
action, would always render and keep him very inferior to the queen,
especially whenever it should be necessary to come to a prompt decision on
matters of moment.
After a visit of six weeks, he quit Paris for his dominions in the
Netherlands at the end of May, and a letter of the queen to her mother is
very expressive of the pleasure which she had received from his visit, and
of the lasting benefits which she hoped to derive from it.
"Versailles, June 14th.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,--It is plain truth that the departure of the emperor
has left a void in my heart from which I can not recover. I was so happy
during the short time of his visit that at this moment it all seems like a
dream. But one thing will never be a dream to me, and that is, the good
advice and counsel which he gave me, and which is forever engraven in my
heart.
"I must tell my dear mamma that he gave me one thing which I earnestly
begged of him, and which causes me the greatest pleasure: it is a packet
of advice, which he has left me in writing. At this moment it constitutes
my chief reading; and, if ever I could forget what he said to me, which I
do not believe I ever could, I should still have this paper always before
me, which would soon recall me to my duty. My dear mamma will have learned
by the courier, who started yesterday, how well the king behaved during
the last moments of my brother's visit. I can assure you that I thoroughly
understand him, and that he was really affected at the emperor's
departure. As he does not always recollect to pay attention to forms, he
does not at all times show his feelings to the outer world, but all that I
see proves to me that he is truly attached to my brother, and that he has
the greatest regard for him; and at the moment of my brother's departure,
when I was in the deepest distress, he showed an attention to, and a
tenderness for, me which all my life I shall never forget, and which would
attach me to him, if I had not been attached to him already.
"It is impossible that my brother should not have been pleased with this
nation. For one who, like him, knows how to estimate men, must have seen
that, in spite of the exceeding levity which is inveterate in the people,
there is a manliness and cleverness in them, and, speaking generally, an
excellent heart, and a desire to do right. The only thing is to manage
them properly.... I have this moment received your dear letter by the
post. What goodness yours is, at a moment when you have so much business
to think of, to recollect my name day! It overwhelms me. You offer up
prayers for my happiness. The greatest happiness that I can have is to
know that you are pleased with me, to deserve your kindness, and to
convince you that no one in the world feels greater affection or greater
respect for you than I."
It is a letter very characteristic of the writer, as showing that neither
time nor distance could chill her affection for her family; and that the
attainment of royal authority had in no degree extinguished her habitual
feeling of duty: that it had even strengthened it by making its
performance of importance not only to herself, but to others. Nor is the
jealousy for the reputation of the French people, and the desire so warmly
professed that they should have won her brother's favorable opinion, less
becoming in a queen of France; while, to descend to minor points, the
neatness and felicity of the language may be admitted to prove, if her
education had been incomplete when she left Austria, with how much pains,
since her progress had depended on herself, she had labored to make up for
its deficiencies. That she should have asked her brother, as she here
mentions, to leave her his advice in writing, is a practical proof that
her expression of an earnest desire to do her duty was not a mere form of
words; while the resolution which she avows never to forget his
admonitions shows a genuine humility and candor, a sincere desire to be
told of and to amend her faults, which one is hardly prepared to meet with
in a queen of one-and-twenty. For Joseph did not spare her, nor forbear to
set before her in the plainest light those parts of her conduct which he
disapproved. He told her plainly that if in France people paid her respect
and observance, it was only as the wife of their king that they honored
her; and that the tone of superiority in which she sometimes allowed
herself to speak of him was as ill-judged as it was unbecoming. He hinted
his dissatisfaction at her conduct toward him as her husband in a series
of questions which, unless she could answer as he wished, must, even in
her own judgment, convict her of some failure in her duties to him. Did
she show him that she was wholly occupied with him, that her study was to
make him shine in the opinion of his subjects without any thought of
herself? Did she stifle every wish to shine at his expense, to be affable
when he was not so, to seem to attend to matters which he neglected? Did
she preserve a discreet silence as to his faults and weaknesses, and make
others keep silence about them also? Did she make excuses for him, and
keep secret the fact of her acting as his adviser? Did, she study his
character, his wishes? Did she take care never to seem cold or weary when
with him, never indifferent to his conversation or his caresses?
The other matters on which the emperor chiefly dwells were those on which
Mercy, and, by Mercy's advice, Maria Teresa also, had repeatedly pressed
her. But those questions of Joseph's set plainly before us some of his
young sister's difficulties and temptations, and, it must be confessed,
some points in which her conduct was not wholly unimpeachable in
discretion, even though her solid affection for her husband never wavered
for a moment. In some respects they were an ill-assorted couple. He was
slow, reserved, and awkward. She was clever, graceful, lively, and looking
for liveliness. Both were thoroughly upright and conscientious; but he was
indifferent to the opinions formed of him, while she was eager to please,
to be applauded, to be loved. The temptation was great, to one so young,
at times to put her graces in contrast to his uncouthness; to be seen to
lead him who had a right to lead her; and, though we may regret, we can
not greatly wonder, that she had not always steadiness to resist it. One
tie was still wanting to bind her to him more closely; and happily the day
was not far distant when that was added to complete and rivet their union.
CHAPTER XIII.
Impressions made on the Queen by the Emperor's Visit.--Mutual Jealousies
of her Favorites.--The Story of the Chevalier d'Assas.--The Terrace
Concerts at Versailles--More Inroads on Etiquette.--Insolence and
Unpopularity of the Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette takes Interest in
Politics.--France concludes an Alliance with the United States.--Affairs
of Bavaria.--Character of the Queen's Letters on Politics.--The Queen
expects to become a Mother.--Voltaire returns to Paris.--The Queen
declines to receive him.--Misconduct of the Duke of Orleans in the Action
off Ushant.--The Queen uses her Influence in his Favor.
The emperor's admonitions and counsels had not been altogether unfruitful.
If they had not at once entirely extinguished his sister's taste for the
practices which he condemned, they had evidently weakened it; even though,
as the first impression wore off, and her fear of being overwhelmed with
_ennui_[1] resumed its empire, she relapsed for a while into her old
habits, it was no longer with the same eagerness as before, and not
without frequent avowals that they had lost their attraction. She visibly
drew off from the entanglements of the coterie with which she had
surrounded herself. The members had grown jealous of one another. Madame
de Polignac feared the influence of the superior disinterestedness of the
Princess de Lamballe; Madame de Guimenee, who was suspected of a want of
even common honesty, grudged every favor that was bestowed on Madame de
Polignac; and their rivalry, which was not always suppressed even in the
queen's presence, was not only felt by her to be degrading to herself, but
was also wearisome.
Throughout the autumn her occupations and amusements were of a simpler
kind. She read more, and agreeably surprised De Vermond by the soundness
of her reflections on many incidents and characters in history. Accounts
of chivalrous deeds had an especial charm for her. Hume was still her
favorite author. And it happened that, while the gallantry of the loyal
champions of Charles I. was fresh in her memory, a casual conversation
threw in her way an opportunity of doing honor to the self-devoted heroism
of a French soldier whom the proudest of the British cavaliers might have
welcomed as a brother, but whose valiant and self-sacrificing fidelity had
been left unnoticed by the worthless sovereign in whose service he had
perished, and by his ministers, who thought only of securing the favor of
the reigning mistress--favor to be won by actions of a very different
complexion.
In the Seven Years' War, when the French army, under the Marshal De
Broglie, and the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were
watching one another in the neighborhood of Wesel, the Chevalier d'Assas,
a captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was in command of an outpost on a
dark night of October. He had strolled a little in advance of his sentries
into the wood which fronted his position, when suddenly he found himself
surrounded and seized by a body of armed enemies. They were the advanced
guard of the prince's army, who was marching to surprise De Broglie by a
night attack, and they threatened him with instant death if he made the
slightest noise. If he were but silent, he was safe as a prisoner of war;
but his safety would have been the ruin of the whole French army, which
had no suspicion of its danger. He did not for even a moment hesitate.
With all the strength of his voice he shouted to his men, who were within
hearing, that the enemy were upon them, and fell, bayoneted to death,
almost before the words had passed his lips. He had saved his comrades and
his commander, and had influenced the issue of the whole campaign. The
enemy, whose well-planned enterprise his self-devotion had baffled, paid a
cordial tribute of praise to his heroism, Ferdinand himself publicly
expressing his regret at the fate of one whose valor had shed honor on
every brother-soldier; but not the slightest notice had been taken of him
by those in authority in France till his exploit was accidentally
mentioned in the queen's apartments. It filled her with admiration. She
asked what had been done to commemorate so noble a deed. She was told
"nothing;" the man and his gallantry had been alike forgotten. "Had he
left descendants or kinsmen?" "He had a brother and two nephews; the
brother a retired veteran of the same regiment, the nephews officers in
different corps of the army." The dead hero was forgotten no longer. Marie
Antoinette never rested till she had procured an adequate pension for the
brother, which was settled in perpetuity on the family; and promotion for
both the nephews; and, as a further compliment, Clostercamp, the name of
the village which was the scene of the brave deed, was added forever to
their family name. The pension is paid to this day. For a time, indeed, it
was suspended while France was under the sway of the rapacious and
insensible murderers of the king who had granted it; but Napoleon restored
it; and, amidst all the changes that have since taken place in the
government of the country, every succeeding ruler has felt it equally
honorable and politic to recognize the eternal claims which patriotic
virtue has on the gratitude of the country.
Marie Antoinette had thus the honor of setting an example to the
Government and the nation. Her heart was getting lighter as the vexations
under which she had so long fretted began to disappear. The late
card-parties were often superseded, throughout the autumn, by concerts on
the terrace at Versailles, where the regimental bands were the performers,
and to which all the well-dressed towns-people were admitted, while the
queen, attended by the princesses and her ladies, and occasionally
escorted by Louis himself, strolled up and down and among the crowd,
diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie
Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting
all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial
as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the
entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he
recorded, not for any unusual sumptuousness of the spectacle, but as
having been the occasion on which she made one more inroad on the
established etiquette of the court in one of its most unaccountable
restrictions: to such royal parties the king's ministers had never been
regarded as admissible, but on this night Marie Antoinette commanded the
company of the Count and Countess de Maurepas. And the innovation was
regarded not only by them as a singular favor, but by all their colleagues
as a marked compliment to the whole body of ministers, and served to
increase their desire to consult her inclinations in every matter in which
she took an interest.
And the esteem which she thus conciliated was at this time not destitute
of real importance, since the conduct of the other members of the royal
family excited very different feelings. The Count de Provence was
generally distrusted as intriguing and insincere. And the Count d'Artois,
whose bad qualities were of a more conspicuous character, was becoming an
object of general dislike, not so much from his dissipated mode of life as
from the overbearing arrogance which he imparted into his pleasures. No
rank was high enough to protect the objects of his displeasure from his
insolence; even ladies were not safe from it;[2] while his extravagance
was beyond all bounds since he considered himself entitled to claim from,
the national treasury whatever he might require in addition to his stated
income. He was at the same time repairing one castle, that of St. Germain,
which the king had given him; rebuilding another large house which he had
purchased in the same neighborhood; and pulling down and rebuilding a
third, named Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, which he had just bought,
and as to which he had laid an enormous wager that it should be completed
and furnished in sixty days. To win his bet nearly a thousand workmen were
employed day and night, and, as the requisite materials could not be
provided at so short a notice, he sent patrols of his regiment to scour
the roads, and seize every cart loaded with stones or timber for other
employers, which he thus appropriated to his own use. He did, indeed, pay
for the goods thus seized, and he won his bet, but when the princes of the
land made so open a parade of their disregard of all law and all decency,
one can hardly wonder that men in secret began, to talk of a revolution,
or that all the graces and gentleness of the queen should be needed to
outweigh such grave causes of discontent and indignation.
As the new year opened, affairs of a very different kind began to occupy
the queen's attention. On political questions, the advice which the
empress gave her differed in some degree from that of her embassador.
Maria Teresa was an earnest politician, but she was also a mother; and, as
being eager above all things for her daughter's happiness, while she
entreated Marie Antoinette to study politics, history, and such other
subjects as might qualify her to be an intelligent companion of the king,
and so far as or whenever he might require it, his chief confidante, she
warned her also against ever wishing to rule him. But Mercy was a
statesman above every thing, and, feeling secure of being able to guide
the queen, he desired to instill into her mind an ambition to govern the
king. On one most important question she proved wholly unable to do so,
since the decision taken was not even in accordance with the judgment or
inclination of Louis himself; but he allowed himself to be persuaded by
two of his ministers to adopt a course against which Joseph had earnestly
warned him in the preceding year, and which, as he had been then
convinced, was inconsistent alike with his position as a king and with his
interests as King of France.
England had been for some years engaged in a civil war with her colonies
in North America, and from the commencement of the contest a strong
sympathy for the colonists had been evinced by a considerable party in
France. Louis, who, for several reasons disliked England and English
ideas, was at first inclined to coincide in this feeling as a development
of anti-English principles: he was far from suspecting that its source was
rather a revolutionary and republican sentiment. But he had conversed with
his brother-in-law on the possibility of advantages which might accrue to
France from the weakening of her old foe, if French aid should enable the
Americans to establish their independence. Joseph's opinion was clear and
unhesitating: "I am a king; it is my business to be royalist." And he
easily convinced Louis that for one sovereign to assist the subjects of
another monarch who were in open revolt, was to set a mischievous example
which might in time be turned against himself. But since his return to
Vienna, unprecedented disasters had befallen England; a whole army had
laid down its arms; the ultimate success of the Americans seemed to every
statesman in Europe to be assured, and the prospect gave such
encouragement to the war party in the French cabinet that Louis could
resist it no longer. In February, 1778, a treaty was concluded with the
United States, as the insurgents called themselves; and France plunged
into a war from which she had nothing to gain, which involved her in
enormous expenses, which brought on her overwhelming defeats, and which,
from its effects upon the troops sent to serve with the American army, who
thus became infected with republican principles, had no slight influence
in bringing about the calamities which, a few years later, overwhelmed
both king and people.
All Marie Antoinette's language on the subject shows that she viewed the
quarrel with England with even greater repugnance than her husband; but it
is curious to see that her chief fear was lest the war should be waged by
land, and that she felt much greater confidence in the French navy than in
the army;[3] though it was just at this time that Voltaire was pointing
out to his countrymen that England had always enjoyed and always would
possess a maritime superiority which different inquirers might attribute
to various causes, but which none could deny.[4]
Even before the conclusion of this treaty, however, the Americans had
found sympathizers in France, to one of whom some of the circumstances of
the war which they were now waging gave a subsequent importance to which
no talents or virtues of his own entitled him. The Marquis de La Fayette
was a young man of ancient family, and of fair but not excessive fortune.
He was awkward in appearance and manner, gawky, red-haired, and singularly
deficient in the accomplishments which were cultivated by other youths of
his age and rank.[5] But he was deeply imbued with the doctrines of the
new philosophy which saw virtue in the mere fact of resistance to
authority; and when the colonists took up arms, he became eager to afford
them such aid as he could give. He made the acquaintance of Silas Deane,
one of the most unscrupulous of the American agents, who promised him,
though he was only twenty years of age, the rank of major-general. As he
was at all times the slave of a most overweening conceit, he was tempted
by that bait; and, though he could not leave France without incurring the
forfeiture of his military rank in the army of his own country, in April,
1777, he crossed over to America to serve as a volunteer under Washington,
who naturally received with special distinction a recruit of such
political importance. He was present at more than one battle, and was
wounded at Brandywine; but the exploit which made him most conspicuous was
a ridiculous act of bravado in sending a challenge to Lord Carlisle, the
chief of the English Commissioners who in 1778 were dispatched to America
to endeavor to re-establish peace. However, the close of the war, which
ended, as is well known, in the humiliation of Great Britain and the
establishment of the independence of the colonies, made him seem a hero to
his countrymen on his return. The queen, always eager to encourage and
reward feats of warlike enterprise, treated him with marked distinction,
and procured him from her husband not only the restoration of his
commission, but promotion to the command of a regiment;[6] kindness which,
as will be seen, he afterward requited with the foulest ingratitude.
Nor was this most imprudent war with England the only question of foreign
politics which at this time interested Marie Antoinette. Her native land,
her mother's hereditary dominions, were also threatened with war. On the
death of the Elector of Bavaria at the end of 1777, Joseph, who had been
married to his sister, claimed a portion of his territories; and Frederick
of Prussia, that "bad neighbor," as Marie Antoinette was wont to call him,
announced his resolution to resist that claim, by force of arms if
necessary. If he should carry out the resolution which he had announced,
and if war should in consequence break out, much would depend on the
attitude which France would assume on her fidelity to or disregard of the
alliance which had now subsisted more than twenty years. So all-important
to Austria was her decision, that Maria Teresa forgot the line which, as a
general rule of conduct, she had recommended to her daughter, and wrote to
her with the most extreme earnestness to entreat her to lose no
opportunity of influencing the King's council. If it depended upon Maria
Teresa, the claim would probably not have been advanced; but Joseph had
made it on the part of the empire, and, when it was once made, the empress
could not withhold her support from her son. She therefore threw herself
into the quarrel with as much earnestness as if it had been her own.
Indeed, since Joseph had as yet no authority over her hereditary
possessions, it was only by her armies that it could be maintained; and in
her letters to her daughter she declared that Marie Antoinette had her
happiness, the welfare of her house, and of the whole Austrian nation in
her hands; that all depended on her activity and affection. She knew that
the French ministers were inclined to favor the views of Frederick, but if
the alliance should be dissolved it would kill her.[7] Marie Antoinette
grew pale at reading so ominous a denunciation. It required no art to
inflame her against Frederick. The Seven Years' War had begun when she was
but a year old; and all her life she had heard of nothing more frequently
than of the rapacity and dishonesty of that unprincipled aggressor. She
now entered with eagerness into her mother's views, and pressed them on
Louis with unremitting diligence and considerable fertility of argument,
though she was greatly dismayed at finding that not only his ministers,
but he himself, regarded Austria as actuated by an aggressive ambition,
and compared her claim to a portion of Bavaria to the partition of Poland,
which, six years before, had drawn forth unwonted expressions of honorable
indignation from even his unworthy grandfather. The idea that the alliance
between France and the empire was itself at stake on the question, made
her so anxious that she sent for the ministers themselves, pressing her
views on both Maurepas and Vergennes with great earnestness. But they,
though still faithful to the maintenance of the alliance, sympathized with
the king rather than with her in his view of the character of the claim
which the emperor had put forward; and they also urged another argument
for abstaining from any active intervention, that the finances of the
country were in so deplorable a state that France could not afford to go
to war. It was plain, as she told them, that this consideration should at
least equally have prevented their quarreling with England. But, in spite
of all her persistence, they were not to be moved from this view of the
true interest of France in the conjuncture that had arisen; and,
accordingly, in the brief war which ensued between the empire and Prussia,
France took no part, though it is more than probable that her mediation
between the belligerents, which had no little share in bringing about the
peace of Teschen,[8] was in a great degree owing to the queen's influence.
For she was not discouraged by her first failure, but renewed her
importunities from time to time; and at last did succeed in wringing a
promise from her husband that if Prussia should invade the Flemish
provinces of Austria, France would arm on the empress's side. So fully did
the affair absorb her attention that it made her indifferent to the
gayeties which the carnival always brought round. She did, indeed, as a
matter of duty, give one or two grand state balls, one of which, in which
the dancers of the quadrilles were masked, and in which their dresses
represented the male and female costumes of India, was long talked of for
both the magnificence and the novelty of the spectacle; and she attended
one or two of the opera-balls, under the escort of her brothers-in-law and
their countesses; but they had begun to pall upon her, and she made
repeated offers to the king to give them up and to spend her evenings in
quiet with him. But he was more inclined to prompt her to seek amusement
than to allow her to sacrifice any,[9] even such as he did not care to
partake of; nevertheless, he was pleased with the offer, and it was
observed by the courtiers that the mutual confidence of the husband and
wife in each other was more marked and more firmly established than ever.
He showed her all the dispatches, consulted her on all points, and
explained his reasons when he could not adopt all her views. As Marie
Antoinette wrote to her brother, "If it were possible to reckon wholly on
any man, the king was the one on whom she could thoroughly rely.[10]"
So greatly, indeed, did the quarrel between Austria and Prussia engross
her, that it even occupied the greater part of letters whose ostensible
object is to announce prospects of personal happiness which might have
been expected to extinguished every other consideration. In one, after
touching briefly on her health and hopes, she proceeds:
"How kind my dear mamma is, to express her approval of the way in which I
have conducted myself in these affairs up to the present time! Alas! there
is no need for you to feel obliged to me; it was my heart that acted in
the whole matter. I am only vexed at not being able to enter myself into
the feelings of all these ministers, so as to be able to make them
comprehend how every thing which has been done and demanded by the
authorities at Vienna is just and reasonable. But unluckily none are more
deaf than those who will not hear; and, besides, they have such a number
of terms and phrases which mean nothing, that they bewilder themselves
before they come to say a single reasonable thing. I will try one plan,
and that is to speak to them both in the king's presence, to induce them,
at least, to hold language suitable to the occasion to the King of
Prussia; and in good truth it is for the interest and glory of the
king[11] himself that I am anxious to see this done; for he can not but
gain by supporting allies who on every account ought to be so dear to him.
"In other respects, and especially in my present conditions, he behaves
most admirably, and is most attentive to me. I protest to you, my dear
mamma, that my heart would be torn by the idea that you could for a moment
suspect his good-will in what has been done. No; it is the terrible
weakness of his ministers, and tis own great want of self-reliance, which
does all the mischief; and I am sure that if he would never act but on his
own judgment, every one would see his honesty, his correctness of feeling,
and his tact, which at present they are far from appreciating.[12]"
And at the end of the month she writes again:
"I saw Mercy a day or two ago: he showed me the articles which the King of
Prussia sent to my brother. I think it is impossible to see any thing more
absurd than his proposals. In fact, they are so ridiculous that they must
strike every one here; I can answer for their appearing so to the king. I
have not been able to see the ministers. M. de Vergennes has not been here
[she is writing from Marly]; he is not well, so that I must wait till we
return to Versailles.
"I had seen before the correspondence of the King of Prussia with my
brother. It is most abominable of the former to have sent it here, and the
more so since, in truth, he has not much to boast of. His imprudence, his
bad faith, and his malignant temper are visible in every line. I have been
enchanted with my brother's answers. It is impossible to put into letters
more grace, more moderation, and at the same time more force. I am going
to say something which is very vain; but I do believe that there is not in
the whole world any one but the emperor, the son of my dearest mother, who
has the happiness of seeing her every day, who could write in such a
manner."
There is no trace in these letters of the levity and giddiness of which
Mercy so often complains, and which she at times did not deny. On the
contrary, they display an earnestness as well as a good sense and an
energy which are gracefully set off by the affection for her mother, and
the pride in her brother's firmness and address which they also express.
With respect to the conduct of Louis at this crisis we may perhaps differ
from her; and may think that he rarely showed so much self-reliance, the
general want of which was in truth his greatest defect, as when he
preferred the arguments of Vergennes to her entreaties. But if her praises
of the emperor are, as she herself terms them, vanity, it is the vanity of
sisterly and patriotic affection, which can not but be regarded with
approval; and we may see in it an additional proof of the correctness of
an assertion, repeated over and over again in Mercy's correspondence,
that, whenever Marie Antoinette gave the rein to her own natural impulses,
she invariably both thought and acted rightly.
In one of the extracts which have just been quoted, the queen alludes to
her own condition; and that, in any one less unselfish, might well have
driven all other thoughts from her head. For the event to which she had so
long looked forward as that which was wanted to crown her happiness, and
which had been so long deferred that at times she had ceased to hope for
it at all, was at last about to take place--she was about to become a
mother. Her own joy at the prospect was shared to its full extent by both
the king and the empress. Louis, roused out of his usual reserve, wrote
with his own hand to both the empress and the emperor, to give the
intelligence; and Maria Teresa declared that she had nothing left to wish
for, and that she could now close her eyes in peace. And the news was
received with almost equal pleasure by the citizens of Paris, who had long
desired to see an heir born to the crown; and by those of Vienna, who had
not yet forgotten the fair young princess, the flower of her mother's
flock, as they had fondly called her, whom they had sent to fill a foreign
throne. Her own happiness exhibited itself, as usual, in acts of
benevolence, in the distribution of liberal gifts to the poor of Paris and
Versailles, and a foundation of a hospital for those in a similar
condition with herself.[13]
In the course of the spring, Paris was for a moment excited even more than
by the declaration of war against England, or than by the expectation of
the queen's confinement, by the return of Voltaire, who had long been in
disgrace with the court, and had been for many years living in a sort of
tacit exile on the borders of the Lake of Geneva. He was now in extreme
old age, and, believing himself to have but a short time to live, he
wished to see Paris once more, putting forward as his principal motive his
desire to superintend the performance of his tragedy of "Irene." His
admirers could easily secure him a brilliant reception at the theatre; but
they were anxious above all things to obtain for him admission to the
court, or at least a private interview with the queen. She felt in a
dilemma. Joseph, a year before, had warned her against giving
encouragement to a man whose principles deserved the reprobation of all
sovereigns. He himself, though on his return to Vienna he had passed
through Geneva, had avoided an interview with him, while the empress had
been far more explicit in her condemnation of his character. On the other
hand, Marie Antoinette had not yet learned the art of refusing, when those
who solicited a favor had personal access to her; and she had also some
curiosity to see a man whose literary fame was accounted one of the chief
glories of the nation and the age. She consulted the king, but found
Louis, on this subject, in entire agreement with her mother and her
brother. He had no literary curiosity, and he disapproved equally the
lessons which Voltaire had throughout his life sought to inculcate upon
others, and the licentious habits with which he had exemplified his own
principles in action. She yielded to his objections, and Voltaire, deeply
mortified at the refusal,[14] was left to console himself as best he could
with the enthusiastic acclamations of the play-goers of the capital, who
crowned his bust on the stage, while he sat exultingly in his box, and
escorted him back in triumph to his house; those who could approach near
enough even kissing his garments as he passed, till he asked them whether
they designed to kill him with delight; as, indeed, in some sense, they
may be said to have done, for the excitement of the homage thus paid to
him day after day, whenever he was seen in public, proved too much for his
feeble frame. He was seized with illness, which, however, was but a
natural decay, and in a few weeks after his arrival in Paris he died.
As the year wore on, Marie Antoinette was fully occupied in making
arrangements for the child whose coming was expected with such impatience.
Her mother is of course her chief confidante. She is to be the child's
godmother; her name shall be the first its tongue is to learn to
pronounce; while for its early management the advice of so experienced a
parent is naturally sought with unhesitating deference. Still, Marie
Antoinette is far from being always joyful. Russia has made an alliance
with Prussia; Frederick has invaded Bohemia, and she is so overwhelmed
with anxiety that she cancels invitations for parties which she was about
to give at the Trianon, and would absent herself from the theatre and from
all public places, did not Mercy persuade her that such a withdrawal would
seem to be the effect, not of a natural anxiety, but of a despondency
which would be both unroyal and unworthy of the reliance which she ought
to feel on the proved valor of the Austrian armies.
The war with England, also, was an additional cause of solicitude and
vexation. The sailors in whom she had expressed such confidence were not
better able than before to contend with British antagonists. In an
undecisive skirmish which took place in July between two fleets of the
first magnitude, the French admiral, D'Orvilliers, had made a practical
acknowledgment of his inferiority by retreating in the night, and eluding
all the exertions of the English admiral, Keppel, to renew the action. The
discontent in Paris was great; the populace was severe on one or two of
the captains, who were thought to have taken undue care of their ships and
of themselves, and especially bitter against the Duke de Chartres, who had
had a rear-admiral's command in the fleet, and who, after having made
himself conspicuous before D'Orvilliers sailed, by his boasts of the
prowess which he intended to exhibit, had made himself equally notorious
in the action itself by the pains he took to keep himself out of danger.
On his return to Paris, shameless as he was, he scarcely dared show his
face, till the Comte d'Artois persuaded the queen to throw her shield over
him. It was impossible for him to remain in the navy; but, to soften his
fall, the count proposed that the king should create a new appointment for
him, as colonel-general of the light cavalry. Louis saw the impropriety of
such a step: truly it was but a questionable compliment to pay to his
hussars, to place in authority over them a man under whom no sailor would
willingly serve. Marie Antoinette in her heart was as indignant as any
one. Constitutionally an admirer of bravery, she had taken especial
interest in the affairs of the fleet and in the details of this action.
She had honored with the most marked eulogy the gallantry of Admiral du
Chaffault, who had been severely wounded; but now she allowed herself to
be persuaded that the duke's public disgrace would reflect on the whole
royal family, and pressed the request so earnestly on the king that at
last he yielded. In outward appearance the duke's honor was saved; but the
public, whose judgment on such matter is generally sound, and who had
revived against him some of the jests with which the comrades of Luxemburg
had shown their scorn of the Duke de Maine, blamed her interference; and
the duke himself, by the vile ingratitude with which he subsequently
repaid her protection, gave but too sad proof that of all offenders
against honor the most unworthy of royal indulgence is a coward.
CHAPTER XIV.
Birth of Madame Royale.--Festivities of Thanksgiving.--The Dames de la
Halle at the Theatre.--Thanksgiving at Notre Dame.--The King goes to a Bal
d'Opera.--The Queen's Carriage breaks down.--Marie Antoinette has the
Measles.--Her Anxiety about the War.--Retrenchments of Expense.
Mercy, while deploring the occasional levity of the queen's conduct, and
her immoderate thirst for amusement, had constantly looked forward to the
birth of a child as the event which, by the fresh and engrossing
occupation it would afford to her mind, would be the surest remedy for her
juvenile heedlessness. And, as we have seen, the absence of any prospect
of becoming a mother had, till recently, been a constant source of anxiety
and vexation to the queen herself--the one drop of bitterness in her cup,
which, but for that, would have been filled with delights. But this
disappointment was now to pass away. From the moment that it was publicly
announced that the queen was in the way to become a mother, one general
desire seemed to prevail to show how deep an interest the whole nation
felt in the event. In cathedrals, monasteries, abbeys, universities, and
parish churches, masses were celebrated and prayers offered for her safe
delivery. In many instances, private individuals even gave extraordinary
alms to bring down the blessing of Heaven on the nation, so interested in
the expected event. And on the 19th of December, 1778, the prayers were
answered, and the hopes of the country in great measure realized by the
birth of a princess, who was instantly christened Maria Therese Charlotte,
in compliment to the empress, her godmother.
The labor was long, and had nearly proved fatal to the mother, from the
strange and senseless custom which made the queen's bed-chamber on such an
occasion a reception-room for every one, of whatever rank or station, who
could force his way in.[1] In most countries, perhaps in all, the
genuineness of a royal infant is assured by the presence of a few great
officers of state; but on this occasion not only all the ministers, with
all the members of the king's or of the queen's household, were present in
the chamber, but a promiscuous rabble filled the adjacent saloon and
gallery, and, the moment that it was announced that the birth was about to
take place, rushed in disorderly tumult into the apartment, some climbing
on the chairs and sofas, and even on the tables and wardrobes, to obtain a
better sight of the patient. The uproar was great. The heat became
intense; the queen fainted. The king himself dashed at the windows, which
were firmly closed, and by an unusual effort of strength tore down the
fastenings and admitted air into the room. The crowd was driven out, but
Marie Antoinette continued insensible; and the moment was so critical that
the physician had recourse to his lancet, and opened a vein in her foot.
As the blood came she revived. The king himself came to her side, and
announced to her that she was the mother of a daughter.
It can hardly be said that the hopes of the nation, or of the king
himself, had been fully realized, since an heir to the throne, a dauphin,
that had been universally hoped for. But in the general joy that was felt
at the queen's safety the disappointment of this hope was disregarded, and
the little princess, Madame Royale, as she was called from her birth, was
received by the still loyal people in the same spirit as that in which
Anne Boleyn's lady in waiting had announced to Henry VIII. the birth of
her "fair young maid:"
"_King Henry_. Now by thy looks
I guess thy message. Is the queen delivered?
Say ay; and of a boy.
"_Lady_. Ay, ay, my liege,
And of a lovely boy. The God of Heaven
Both now and ever bless her. 'Tis a girl,
Promises boys hereafter."
And a month before the empress had expressed a similar sentiment: "I
trust," she wrote to her daughter in November, "that God will grant me the
comfort of knowing that you are safely delivered. Every thing else is a
matter of indifference. Boys will come after girls.[2]" And the same
feeling was shared by the Parisians in general, and embodied by M. Imbert,
a courtly poet, whose odes were greatly in vogue in the fashionable
circles, in an epigram which was set to music and sung in the theatres.
"Pour toi, France, un dauphin doit naitre,
Une Princesse vient pour en etre temoin,
Sitot qu'on voit une grace paraitre,
Croyez que l'amour n'est pas loin.[3]"
Marie Antoinette herself was scarcely disappointed at all. When the
attendants brought her her babe, she pressed it to her bosom. "Poor little
thing," said she, "you are not what was desired, but you shall not be the
less dear to me. A son would have belonged to the State; you will be my
own: you shall have all my care, you shall share my happiness and sweeten
my vexations.[4]"
The Count de Provence made no secret of his joy. He was still heir
presumptive to the throne. And, though no one shared his feelings on the
subject, for the next few weeks the whole kingdom, and especially the
capital, was absorbed in public rejoicings. Her own thankfullness was
displayed by Marie Antoinette in her usual way, by acts of benevolence.
She sent large sums of money to the prisons to release poor debtors; she
gave dowries to a hundred poor maidens; she applied to the chief officers
of both army and navy to recommend her veterans worthy of especial reward;
and to the curates of the metropolitan parishes to point out to her any
deserving objects of charity; and she also settled pensions on a number of
poor children who were born on the same day as the princess; one of whom,
who owed her education to this grateful and royal liberality, became
afterward known to every visitor of Paris as Madame Mars, the most
accomplished of comic actresses.[5]
One portion of the rejoicings was marked by a curious incident, in which
the same body whose right to a special place of honor at ceremonies
connected with the personal happiness of the royal family we have already
seen admitted--the ladies of the fish-market--again asserted their
pretensions with triumphant success. On Christmas-eve the theatres were
opened gratuitously, but these ladies, who, with their friends, the
coal-heavers, selected the most aristocratic theatre, La Comedie
Francaise, for the honor of their visit, arrived with aristocratic
unpunctuality, so late that the guards stopped them at the doors,
declaring that the house was full, and that there was not a seat vacant.
They declared that in any event room must be made for them. "Who were in
the boxes of the king and queen? for on such occasions those places were
theirs of right." Even they, however, were full, and the guards demurred
to the ladies' claim to be considered, though for this night only, as the
representatives of royalty, and to have the existing occupants of the
seats demanded turned out to make room for them. The box-keeper and the
manager were sent for. The registers of the house confirmed the validity
of the claim by former precedents, and a compromise was at last effected.
Rows of benches were placed on each side of the stage itself. Those on the
right were allotted to the coal-heavers as representatives of Louis; the
ladies of the fish-market sat on the left as the deputies of Marie
Antoinette. Before the play was allowed to begin, his majesty the king of
the coal-heavers read the bulletin of the day announcing the rapid
progress of the queen toward recovery; and then, giving his hand to the
queen of the fish-wives, the august pair, followed by their respective
suites, executed a dance expressive of their delight at the good news, and
then resumed their seats, and listened to Voltaire's "Zaire" with the most
edifying gravity.[6] It was evident that in some things there was already
enough, and rather more than enough, of that equality the unreasonable and
unpractical passion for which proved, a few years later, the most pregnant
cause of immeasurable misery to the whole nation.
But the demonstration most in accordance with the queen's own taste was
that which took place a few weeks later, when she went in a state
procession to the great national cathedral of Notre Dame to return thanks;
one most interesting part of the ceremony being the weddings of the
hundred young couples to whom she had given dowries, who also received a
silver medal to commemorate the day. The gayety of the spectacle, since
they, with the formal witnesses of their marriage, filled a great part of
the antechapel; and the blessings invoked on the queen's head as she left
the cathedral by the prisoners whom she had released, and by the poor
whose destitution she had relieved, made so great an impression on the
spectators, that even the highest dignitaries of the court added their
cheers and applause to those of the populace who escorted her coach to the
gates on its return to Versailles.
She was now, for the first time since her arrival in France, really and
entirely happy, without one vexation or one foreboding of evil. The king's
attachment to her was rendered, if not deeper than before, at least far
more lively and demonstrative by the birth of his daughter; his delight
carrying him at times to most unaccustomed ebullitions of gayety. On the
last Sunday of the carnival, he even went alone with the queen to the
masked opera ball, and was highly amused at finding that not one of the
company recognized either him or her. He even proposed to repeat his visit
on Shrove-Tuesday; but when the evening came he changed his mind, and
insisted on the queen's going by herself with one of her ladies, and the
change of plan led to an incident which at the time afforded great
amusement to Marie Antoinette, though it afterward proved a great
annoyance, as furnishing a pretext for malicious stories and scandal. To
preserve her _incognito_, a private carriage was hired for her, which
broke down in the street close by a silk-mercer's shop. As the queen was
already masked, the shop-men did not know her, and, at the request of the
lady who attended her, stopped for her the first hackney-coach which
passed, and in that unroyal vehicle, such as certainly no sovereign of
France had ever set foot in before, she at last reached the theatre. As
before, no one recognized her, and she might have enjoyed the scene and
returned to Versailles in the most absolute secrecy, had not her sense of
the fun of a queen using such a conveyance overpowered her wish for
concealment, so that when, in the course of the evening, she met one or
two persons of distinction whom she knew, she could not forbear telling
them who she was, and that she had come in a hackney-coach.
Her health seemed less delicate than it had been before her confinement.
But in the spring she was attacked by the measles, and her illness, slight
as it was, gave occasion to a curious passage in court history. The fear
of infection was always great at Versailles, and, as the king himself and
some of the ladies had never had the complaint, they were excluded from
her room. But that she might not be left without attendants, four nobles
of the court, the Duke de Coigny, the Duke de Guines, the Count Esterhazy,
and the Baron de Besenval, in something of the old spirit of chivalry,
devoted themselves to her service, and solicited permission to watch by
her bedside till she recovered. As has been already seen, the bed-chamber
and dressing-room of a queen of France had never been guarded from
intrusion with the jealousy which protects the apartments of ladies in
other countries, so that the proposal was less startling than it would
have been considered elsewhere, while the number of nurses removed all
pretext for scandal. Louis willingly gave the required permission, being
apparently flattered by the solicitude exhibited for his queen's health.
And each morning at seven the sick-watchers[7] took their seats in the
queen's chamber, sharing with the Countess of Provence, the Princesse de
Lamballe, and the Count d'Artois the task of keeping order and quiet in
the sick-room till eleven at night. Though there was no scandal, there was
plenty of jesting at so novel an arrangement. Wags proposed that in the
case of the king being taken ill, a list should be prepared of the ladies
who should tend his sick-bed. However, the champions were not long on
duty: at the end of little more than a week their patient was
convalescent. She herself took off the sentence of banishment which she
had pronounced against the king in a brief and affectionate note, which
said "that she had suffered a great deal, but what she had felt most was
to be for so many days deprived of the pleasure of embracing him." And the
temporary separation seemed to have but increased their mutual affection
for each other.
The Trianon was now more than ever delightful to her. The new plantations,
which contained no fewer than eight hundred different kinds of trees, rich
with every variety of foliage, were beginning, by their effectiveness, to
give evidence of the taste with which they had been laid out; while with a
charity which could not bear to keep her blessings wholly to herself, she
had set apart one corner of the grounds for a row of picturesque cottages,
in which she had established a number of pensioners whom age or infirmity
had rendered destitute, and whom she constantly visited with presents from
her dairy or her fruit-trees. Roaming about the lawns and walks, which she
had made herself, in a muslin gown and a plain straw hat, she could forget
that she was a queen. She did not suspect that the intriguers, who from
time to time maligned her most innocent actions, were misrepresenting even
these simple and natural pleasures, and whispering in their secret cabals
that her very dress was a proof that she still clung as resolutely as ever
to her Austrian preferences; that she discarded her silk gowns because
they were the work of French manufacturers, while they were her brother's
Flemish subjects who supplied her with muslins.
But, far beyond her plantations and her flowers, her child was to her a
source of unceasing delight. She could be carried by her side about the
garden a great part of the day. For, as in her anticipations and
preparations she had told her mother long before, French parents kept
their children as much as possible in the open air,[8] a fashion which
fully accorded with her own notions of what was best calculated to give an
infant health and strength. And before the babe was five months old,[9]
she flattered herself that it already distinguished her from its nurses.
That nothing might be wanting to her comfort, peace was re-established
between Austria and Prussia; and if at this time the war with England did
make her in some degree uneasy, she yet felt a sanguine anticipation of
triumph for the French arms, in the event of a battle between the hostile
fleets; a result of which, when the antagonists did come within sight of
each other, it appeared that the French and Spanish admirals felt far less
confident. Her anxieties and hopes are vividly set forth in a letter
which, in the course of the summer, she wrote to her mother, which is also
singularly interesting from its self-examination, and from the substantial
proof it supplies of the correctness of those anticipations which were
based on the salutary effect which her novel position as a mother might be
expected to have upon her character.
"Versailles, August 16th.
"My Dearest Mother,--I can not find language to express to my dear mamma
my thanks for her two letters, and for the kindness with which she
expresses her willingness to exert herself to the utmost to procure us
peace.[10] It is true that that would be a great happiness, and my heart
desires it more than any thing in the world; but, unhappily, I do not see
any appearance of it at present. Every thing depends on the moment. Our
fleets, the French and Spanish, being now united, we have a considerable
superiority.[11]
"They are now in the Channel; and I can not without great agitation
reflect that at any instant the whole fate of the war may be decided. I am
also terrified at the approach of September, when the sea is no longer
practicable. In short, it is only on the bosom of my dearest mamma that I
lay aside all my disquiet God grant that it may be groundless, but her
kindness encourages me to speak to her as I think. The king is touched,
quite as he should be, with all the service you so kindly propose to
render him; and I do not doubt that he will be always eager to profit by
it, rather than to deliver himself up to the intrigues of those who have
so frequently deceived France, and whom we must regard as our natural
enemies.
"My health is completely re-established. I am going to resume my ordinary
way of life, and consequently I hope soon to be able to announce to my
dearest mother fresh news such as that of last year. She may feel quite
re-assured now as to my behavior. I feel too strongly the necessity of
having more children to be careless in that. If I have formerly done
amiss, it was my youth and my levity; but now my head is thoroughly
steadied, and you may reckon confidently on my properly feeling all my
duties. Besides that, I owe such conduct to the king as a reward for his
tenderness, and, I will venture to say it, his confidence in me, for which
I can only praise him more find more.
"... I venture to send my dear mamma the picture of my daughter: it is
very like her. The dear little thing begins to walk very well in her
leading-strings. She has been able to say "papa" for some days. Her teeth
have not yet come through, but we can feel them all. I am very glad that
her first word has been her father's name. It is one more tie for him. He
behaves to me most admirably, and nothing could be wanting to make me love
him more. My dear mamma will forgive my twaddling about the little one;
but she is so kind that sometimes I abuse her kindness."
It was well for Marie Antoinette's happiness that her husband was one in
whom, as we have seen that she told her mother, she could feel entire
confidence, for during her seclusion in the measles the intriguers of the
court had ventured to try and work upon him. Mercy had reason to suspect
that some were even wicked enough to desire to influence him against his
wife by the same means by which the Duke de Richelieu had formerly
alienated his grandfather from Marie Leczinska; and the queen herself
received proof positive that Maurepas, in spite of her civilities to him
and his countess, had become jealous of her political influence, and had
endeavored to prevent his consulting her on public affairs. But all
manoeuvres intended to disturb the conjugal felicity of the royal pair
were harmless against the honest fidelity of the king, the graceful
affection of the queen, and the firm confidence of each in the other. The
people generally felt that the influence which it was now notorious that
the queen did exert on public affairs was a salutary one; and great
satisfaction was expressed when it became known in the autumn that the
usual visit to Fontainebleau was given up, partly as being costly, and
therefore undesirable while the nation had need to concentrate all its
resources on the effective prosecution of the war, and partly that the
king might be always within reach of his ministers in the event of any
intelligence of importance arriving which required prompt decision.
Her letters to her mother at this time show how entirely her whole
attention was engrossed by the war; and, at the same time, with what wise
earnestness she desired the re-establishment of peace. Even some gleams of
success which had attended the French arms in the West Indies, where the
Marquis de Bouille, the most skillful soldier of whom France at that time
could boast, took one or two of the British islands, and the Count
d'Estaing, whose fleet of thirty-six sail was for a short time far
superior to the English force in that quarter, captured one or two more,
did not diminish her eagerness for a cessation of the war. Though it is
curious to see that she had become so deeply imbued with the principles of
statesmanship with which M. Necker, the present financial minister, was
seeking to inspire the nation, that her objections to the continuance of
the war turned chiefly on the degree in which it affected the revenue and
expenditure of the kingdom. She evidently sympathizes in the
disappointment which, as she reports to the empress, is generally felt by
the public at the mismanagement of the admiral, M. d'Orvilliers, who, with
forces so superior to those of the English, has neither been able to fall
in with them so as to give them battle, nor to hinder any of their
merchantmen from reaching their harbors in safety. As it is, he will have
spent a great deal of money in doing nothing.[12] And a month later she
repeats the complaints.[13] The king and she have renounced the journey
to Fontainebleau because of the expenses of the war; and also that they
may be in the way to receive earlier intelligence from the army. But the
fleet has not been able to fall in with the English, and has done nothing
at all. It is a campaign lost, and which has cost a great deal of money.
What is still more afflicting is, that disease has broken out on board the
ships, and has caused great havoc; and the dysentery, which is raging as
an epidemic in Brittany and Normandy, has attacked the land force also,
which was intended to embark for England ... "I greatly fear," she
proceeds, "that these misfortunes of ours will render the English
difficult to treat with, and may prevent proposals of peace, of which I
see no immediate prospect. I am constantly persuaded that if the king
should require a mediation, the intrigues of the King of Prussia will
fail, and will not prevent the king from availing himself of the offers of
my dear mamma. I shall take care never to lose sight of this object, which
is of such interest to the whole happiness of my life." So full is her
mind of the war, that four or five words in each letter to report that
"her daughter is in perfect health," or that "she has cut four teeth," are
all that she can spare for that subject, generally of such engrossing
interest to herself and the empress; while, before the end of the year, we
find her taking even the domestic troubles of England into her
calculations,[14] and speculating on the degree in which the aspect of
affairs in Ireland may affect the great preparations which the English
ministers are making for the next campaign.
The mere habit of devoting so much consideration to affairs of this kind
was beneficial as tending to mature and develop her capacity. She was
rapidly learning to take large views of political questions, even if they
were not always correct. And the acuteness and earnestness of her comments
on them daily increased her influence over both the king and the
ministers, so that in the course of the autumn Mercy could assure the
empress[15] that "the king's complaisance toward her increased every day,"
that "he made it his study to anticipate all her wishes, and that this
attention showed itself in every kind of detail," while Maurepas also was
unable to conceal from himself that her voice always prevailed "in every
case in which she chose to exert a decisive will," and accordingly "bent
himself very prudently" before a power which he had no means of resisting.
So solicitous indeed did the whole council show itself to please her, that
when the king, who was aware that her allowance, in spite of its recent
increase was insufficient to defray the charges to which she was liable,
proposed to double it, Necker himself, with all his zeal for economy and
retrenchment, eagerly embraced the suggestion; and its adoption gave the
queen a fresh opportunity of strengthening the esteem and affection of the
nation, by declaring that while the war lasted she would only accept half
the sum thus placed at her disposal.
The continuance of the war was not without its effect on the gayety of the
court, from the number of officers whom their military duties detained
with their regiments; but the quiet was beneficial to Marie Antoinette,
whose health was again becoming delicate, so much so, that after a grand
drawing-room which she held on New-year's-eve, and which was attended by
nearly two hundred of the chief ladies of the city, she was completely
knocked up, and forced to put herself under the care of her physician.
Meanwhile the war became more formidable. The English admiral, Rodney, the
greatest sailor who, as yet, had ever commanded a British fleet, in the
middle of January utterly destroyed a strong Spanish squadron off Cape St.
Vincent; and as from the coast of Spain he proceeded to the West Indies,
the French ministry had ample reason to be alarmed for the safety of the
force which they had in those regions. It was evident that it would
require every effort that could be made to enable their sailors to
maintain the contest against an antagonist so brave and so skillful And,
as one of the first steps toward such a result, Necker obtained the king's
consent to a great reform in the expenditure of the court and in the civil
service; and to the abolition of a great number of costly sinecures. We
may be able to form some idea of the prodigality which had hitherto wasted
the revenues of the country, from the circumstance that a single edict
suppressed above four hundred offices; and Marie Antoinette was so sincere
in her desire to promote such measures, that she speaks warmly in their
praise to her mother, even though they greatly curtailed her power of
gratifying her own favorites.
"The king," she says, "has just issued an edict which is as yet only the
forerunner of a reform which he designs, to make both in his own household
and in mine. If it be carried out, it will be a great benefit, not only
for the economy which it will introduce, but still more for its agreement
with public opinion, and for the satisfaction it will give the nation." It
is impossible for any language to show more completely how, above all
things, she made the good of the country her first object. And she was the
more inclined to approve of all that was being done in this way from her
conviction that Necker was both honest and able; an opinion which she
shared with, if she had not learned it from, her mother and her brother,
and which was to some extent justified by the comparative order which he
had re-established in the finance of the country, and by the degree in
which he had revived public credit. She was not aware that the real
dangers of the situation had a source deeper than any financial
difficulty, a fact which Necker himself was unable to comprehend. And she
could not foresee, when it became necessary to grapple with those dangers,
how unequal to the struggle the great banker would be found.
It may, perhaps, be inferred that she did suspect Necker of some
deficiency in the higher qualities of statesmanship when, in the spring of
1780, she told her mother that "she would give every thing in the world to
have a Prince Kaunitz in the ministry;[16] but that such men were rare,
and were only to be found by those who, like the empress herself, had the
sagacity to discover and the judgment to appreciate such merit." She was,
however, shutting her eyes to the fact that her husband had had a minister
far superior to Kaunitz; and that she herself had lent her aid to drive
him from his service.
CHAPTER XV.
Anglomania in Paris.--The Winter at Versailles.--Hunting.--Private
Theatricals.--Death of Prince Charles of Lorraine.--Successes of the
English in America.--Education of the Duc d'Angouleme.--Libelous Attacks
on the Queen.--Death of the Empress.--Favor shown to some of the Swedish
Nobles.--The Count de Fersen.--Necker retires from Office.--His Character.
It is curious, while the resources of the kingdom were so severely taxed
to maintain the war against England, of which every succeeding dispatch
from the seat of war showed more and more the imprudence, to read in
Mercy's correspondence accounts of the Anglomania, which still subsisted
in Paris; surpassing that which the letters of the empress describe as
reigning in Vienna, though it did not show itself now in quite the same
manner as a year or two before, in the aping of English vices, gambling at
races, and hard drinking, but rather in a copying of the fashions of men's
dress; in the introduction of top-boots; and, very wholesomely, in the
adoption of a country life by many of the great nobles, in imitation of
the English gentry; so that, for the first time since the coronation of
Louis XIV., the great territorial lords began to spend a considerable part
of the year on their estates, and no longer to think the interests and
requirements of their tenants and dependents beneath their notice.
The winter of 1779 and the spring of 1780 passed very happily. If
Versailles, from the reasons mentioned above, was not as crowded as in
former years, it was very lively. The season was unusually mild; the
hunting was scarcely ever interrupted, and Marie Antoinette, who now made
it a rule to accompany her husband on every possible occasion, sometimes
did not return from the hunt till the night was far advanced, and found
her health much benefited by the habit of spending the greater part of
even a winter's day in the open air. Her garden, too, which daily occupied
more and more of her attention, as it increased in beauty, had the same
tendency; and her anxiety to profit by the experience of others on one
occasion inflicted a whimsical disappointment of the free-thinkers of the
court. The profligate and sentimental infidel Rousseau had died a couple
of years before, and had been buried at Ermenonville, in the park of the
Count de Girardin. In the course of the summer the queen drove over to
Ermenonville, and the admirers of the versatile writer flattered
themselves that her object was to pay a visit of homage to the shrine of
their idol; but they wore greatly mortified to find that, though his tomb
was pointed out to her, she took no further notice of it than such as
consisted of a passing remark that it was very neat, and very prettily
placed; and that what had attracted her curiosity was the English garden
which the count had recently laid out at a great expense, and from which
she had been led to expect that she might derive some hints for the
further improvement of her own Little Trianon.
She had not yet entirely given up her desire for novelty in her
amusements; and she began now to establish private theatricals at
Versailles, choosing light comedies interspersed with song, and with but
few characters, the male parts being filled by the Count d'Artois and some
of the most distinguished officers of the household, while she herself
took one of the female parts; the spectators being confined to the royal
family and those nobles whose posts entitled them to immediate attendance
on the king and queen. She was so anxious to perform her own part well,
though she did not take any of the principal characters, but preferred to
act the waiting-woman rather than the mistress, that she placed herself
under the tuition of Michu, a professional actor of reputation from one of
the Parisian theatres; but, though the audience was far too courtly to
greet her appearance on the stage without vociferous applause, the
preponderance of evidence must lead us to believe that her majesty was not
a good actress.[1] And perhaps we may think that as the parts which she
selected required rather an arch pertness than the grace and majesty which
were more natural to her, so, also, they were not altogether in keeping
with the stately dignity which queens should never wholly lay aside.
It was well, however, that she should have amusements to cheer her, for
the year was destined to bring her heavy troubles before its close: losses
in her own family, which would be felt with terrible heaviness by her
affectionate disposition, were impending over her; while the news from
America, where the English army at this time was achieving triumphs which
seemed likely to have a decisive influence on the result of the war,
caused her great anxiety. How great, a letter which she wrote to her
mother in July affords a striking proof. In June, when she heard of the
dangerous illness of her uncle, Prince Charles of Lorraine, now Governor
of the Low Countries, formerly the gallant antagonist of Frederick of
Prussia, she declared that "the intelligence overwhelmed her with an
agitation and grief such as she had never before experienced," and she
lamented with evidently deep and genuine distress the threatened
extinction of the male line of the house of Lorraine. But before she wrote
again, the news of Sir Henry Clinton's exploits in Carolina had arrived,
and, though almost the same post informed her of the prince's death, the
sorrow which that bereavement awakened in her mind was scarcely allowed,
even in its first freshness, an equal share of her lamentations with the
more absorbing importance of the events of the campaign beyond the
Atlantic.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I wrote to you the moment that I received the sad
intelligence of my uncle's death; though, as the Brussels courier had
already started, I fear my letter may have arrived rather late. I will not
venture to say more on the subject, lest I should be reopening a sorrow
for which you have so much cause to grieve.... The capture of
Charleston[2] is a most disastrous event, both for the facilities it will
afford the English and for the encouragement which it will give to their
pride. It is perhaps still more serious because of the miserable defense
made by the Americans. One can hope nothing from such bad troops."
It is curious to contrast the angry jealousy which she here betrays of our
disposition and policy as a nation, with the partiality which, as we have
seen, she showed for the agreeable qualities of individual Englishmen. But
her uneasiness on this subject led to practical results, by inducing her
to add her influence to that of a party which was discontented with the
ministry; and was especially laboring to persuade the king to make a
change in the War Department, and to dismiss the Prince de Montbarey,
whose sole recommendation for the office of secretary of state seemed to
be that he was a friend of the prime minister, and to give his place to
the Count de Segur. The change was made, as any change was sure to be made
in favor of which she personally exerted herself; even the partisans of M.
de Maurepas himself were forced to allow that the new minister was in
every respect far superior to his predecessor; and Mercy was desirous that
she should procure the dismissal of Maurepas also, thinking it of great
importance to her own comfort that the prime minister should be bound to
her interests.
But she was far more anxious on other subjects. Nearly two years had now
elapsed since the birth of the princess royal; and there was as yet no
prospect of a companion to her, so that the Count d'Artois began to make
arrangements for the education of his infant son, the Duc d'Angouleme,
with a premature solicitude, which was evidently designed to point the
child out to the nation as its future sovereign.[3] The queen was greatly
annoyed; and, to add to her vexation, one of the teething illnesses to
which children are subject at this time threw the little princess into
convulsions, which, to a mother's anxiety, seemed even dangerous to her
life; though in a day or two that apprehension passed away.
But these hopes of D'Artois and his flatterers again filled the court with
intrigues. In the course of the summer she was made highly indignant by
finding that news from the court, with malicious comments, were sent from
Paris across the frontier to be printed at Deux-Ponts or Duesseldorf, and
then circulated in Paris and in Vienna; and it was difficult to avoid
connecting these libels with those who in the palace itself were
manifestly building hopes on the diminution of her influence and the
disparagement of her character.
But this and all other vexations were presently thrown into the shade by a
great grief, the more difficult to bear because it was wholly unexpected
by her--the death of her mother. In reality, Maria Teresa had been unwell
for some time; but the suspicions of the serious character of her
complaint, which she secretly entertained, she had never revealed to Marie
Antoinette; and at last the end followed too quickly on the first
appearance of danger to allow time for any preparatory warnings to be
received at Versailles before the fatal intelligence arrived. On the 24th
of November she was taken ill in a manner which excited the alarm of her
physicians, but her family felt no apprehensions. Even on the 27th, the
emperor felt so sanguine that the cough which seemed her most distressing
symptom was but temporary, that it was with the greatest unwillingness
that he consented to her receiving the communion, as the physicians
recommended; but the next day even he was forced to acquiesce in the
hopeless view which they took of their patient; and on the 29th she died,
after having borne sufferings, which for the last three days had been of
the most painful character, with the same heroism with which, in her
earlier life, she had struggled against griefs of a different kind.
The dispatch announcing her death was brought to the king; and it is
characteristic of his timid disposition that he could not nerve himself to
communicate it to his wife, but suppressed all mention of it during the
evening; and in the morning summoned the Abbe de Vermond, and employed him
to break the news to her, reserving for himself the less painful task of
approaching her with words of affectionate consolation after the first
shock was over. For a time, however, she was almost overwhelmed with
sorrow. She attempted to write to her brother, but after a few lines she
closed the letter, declaring that her tears prevented her from seeing the
paper; and those about her found that for some time she could bear no
other topic of conversation than the courage, the wisdom, the greatness of
her mother, and, above all, her warm affection for herself and for all her
other children.[4]
With the death of the empress we lose the aid of Mercy's correspondence,
which has afforded such invaluable service in the light it has thrown on
the peculiarities of Marie Antoinette's position, and the gradual
development of her character during the earlier years of her residence in
France. We shall again obtain light from the same source of almost greater
importance, when the still more terrible dangers of the Revolution
rendered the queen more dependent than ever on his counsels. But for the
next few years we shall be compelled to content ourselves with scantier
materials than have been furnished by the empress's unceasing interest in
her daughter's welfare, and the embassador's faithful and candid reports.
The death of Maria Teresa naturally closed the court of her daughter
against all gayeties during the spring of 1781. Still, one of the taxes
which princes pay for their grandeur is the force which, at times, they
are compelled to put upon their inclinations, when they dispense with that
retirement which their own feelings would render acceptable; and, after a
few weeks of seclusion, a few guests began to be admitted to the royal
supper-table, among whom, as a very extraordinary favor, were some Swedish
nobles;[5] one of whom, the Count de Stedingk, had established a claim to
the royal favor by serving, with several of his countrymen, as a volunteer
in the Count d'Estaing's fleet in the West Indies. Such service was highly
esteemed by both king and queen, since Louis, though he had been
unwillingly dragged into the war by the ambition of the Count de Vergennes
and the popular enthusiasm, naturally, when once engaged in it, took as
vivid an interest in the prowess of his forces as if he had never been
troubled with any misgivings as to the policy which had set them in
motion; and Marie Antoinette was at all times excited to enthusiasm by any
deed of valor, and, as we have seen, took an especial interest in the
achievements of the navy.
The King of Sweden, the chivalrous Gustavus III., had already made the
acquaintance of Louis and Marie Antoinette in a short visit which he had
paid to France the year after their marriage; and the queen now wrote to
him in warm praise of M. de Stedingk, and all his countrymen who had come
under her notice, while the king rewarded the count's valor and the wounds
which had been incurred in its exhibition by an order of knighthood,[6]
and the more substantial gift of a pension. But the Swede who soon outran
all his compatriots in the race for the royal favor of both king and queen
was the Count Axel de Fersen, a descendant, it was believed, of one of the
Scotch officers of the great Macpherson clan, who, in the stormy times of
the Thirty Years' War, had sought fame and fortune under the banner of
Gustavus Adolphus. The beauty of his countess was celebrated throughout
both Sweden and France, and his own was but little inferior to it. If she
was known as "The Rose of the North," his name was rarely mentioned
without the addition of "The handsome." He was a perfect master of all
noble and knightly accomplishments, and was also distinguished for a
certain high-souled and romantic[7] enthusiasm, which lent a tinge to all
his conversation and demeanor; and this combination won for him the marked
favor of Marie Antoinette. The calumniators, whom the condition and
prospects of the royal family made more busy than ever at this time,
insinuated that he had touched her heart; but those who knew best the
manners of life and characters of both denounced it as the vilest of
libels. The count's was a loyal attachment, doing nothing but honor to him
who felt it, and to the queen who inspired it; and it was marked by a
permanence which distinguishes no devotion but that which is pure and
noble, as he showed ten years later by the well-planned and courageous,
though unsuccessful, efforts which he made for the deliverance of the
queen and all her family.
That Marie Antoinette, who from early youth had shown an intuitive
accuracy of judgment in her estimate of character, should, from the very
first, honorably distinguish a man capable of such devotion to her service
was not unnatural; but there was another circumstance in his favor, which
he shared with the other foreign nobles, English and German, who in these
years were well received by the queen. Their disinterestedness presented a
striking contrast to the rapacity of the French. Every French noble valued
the court only for what he could obtain from it. Even Madame de Polignac,
whom the queen specially honored with the title of her friend, exhibited
an all-grasping covetousness, of which, with all her efforts to shut her
eyes to it, Marie Antoinette could not be unconscious; and her perception
of the difference between her French and her foreign courtiers was marked
by herself in a few words, when the Comte de la Marck, who was himself of
foreign extraction, ventured once to recommend to her greater caution in
her display of liking for the foreign nobles, as what might excite the
jealousy of the French;[8] and she replied that "he might be right, but
the foreigners were the only people who asked her for nothing."
Meanwhile, the war went on in America; the colonists themselves were
making but little, if any, progress, and the French contingent were
certainly reaping no honor, M. de La Fayette, the only officer who came in
contact with a British force, showing no military skill or capacity, and
not even much courage. But in the course of the spring France sustained a
far heavier loss than even the defeat of an army could have inflicted on
her, in the retirement of Necker from the ministry. As a statesman, he was
certainly not entitled to any very high rank. He had neither extensive
knowledge, nor large views, nor firmness; the only project of
constitutional reform which he had brought forward had been but a
mutilated and imperfect copy of the system devised by the original and
statesman-like daring of Turgot. At a subsequent period he proved himself
incapable of discerning the true character of the circumstances which
surrounded him, and wholly ignorant of the feelings of the nation, and of
the principles and objects of those who aspired to take a lead in its
councils. But as yet his financial policy had undoubtedly been successful.
He had greatly relieved the general distress, he had maintained the public
credit, and he had inspired the nation with confidence in itself, and
other countries also with confidence in its resources; but he had made
many and powerful enemies by the retrenchments which had been a necessary
part of his system. As early as the spring of 1780, Mercy had reported to
the empress that both the king's brothers and the Duc d'Orleans complained
that some of his measures infringed upon their established rights; that
the Count d'Artois had had a very stormy discussion with Necker himself,
and, when he could neither convince nor overbear him, had tried, though
unsuccessfully, to enlist the queen against him. The count had since
employed the controller of his own household, M. Boutourlin, to write
pamphlets against him, and, in point of fact, many of the most elaborate
details of a financial statement which Necker had recently published were
very ill-calculated to endure a strict scrutiny; but M. Boutourlin did his
work so badly that Necker had no difficulty in repelling him, and for a
moment seemed the stronger for the attack that had been made upon him.
He had been so far right in his estimate of his position that he could
rely on the support of the queen, who was aware that both her mother and
her brother had a high opinion of his integrity; but though the king also
had from time to time given his cordial sanction to his different
measures, it was not in the nature of Louis to withstand repeated pressure
and solicitation. Necker, too, himself unintentionally played into the
hands of his enemies. He had nominally only a subordinate position in the
ministry. As he was a Protestant, Louis had feared to offend the clergy by
giving him a seat in the council, or the title of comptroller-general; but
had conferred that post on M. Taboureau des Reaux, making Necker director
of the treasury under him. The real management of the exchequer was,
however, placed wholly in his hands; and, as he was one of the vainest of
men, he had gradually assumed a tone of importance as if his were the
paramount influence in the Government; going so far as even to open
negotiations with foreign statesmen to which none of his colleagues were
privy.[9] It was not strange that he was not very well satisfied with a
position which seemed as if it had been contrived in order to keep him out
of sight, and to deprive him of the credit belonging to his financial
successes; but hitherto he had been satisfied to bide his time. Now,
however, his triumph over M. Boutourlin seemed to him so to have
established his supremacy as to entitle him to insist on a promotion which
should be a public recognition of his position as the real minister of
finance, and as entitled to a preponderating voice in all matters of
general policy. He accordingly demanded admission to the council, and, on
its being refused, at once resigned his office.
The consternation was universal; the general public had gradually learned
to place such confidence in him that they looked on his loss as
irreparable. Some even of the princes who had originally striven to
prepossess the king against him either changed their minds or feared to
show their disagreement with the common feeling. And Marie Antoinette, who
fully shared his views as to the primary importance of finance in all
questions of government, condescended to admit him to an interview;
requested him, as a personal favor to herself, to recall his resignation,
urging upon him that patience would surely in time procure him all that he
asked; and, in her honest earnestness for the welfare of the nation, wept
when he withdrew without having yielded to her solicitations. It was late
in the evening and dark when he took his leave, and afterward, when he was
told that he had drawn tears from her eyes by his refusal, he said that,
had he seen them, he should have submitted to a wish so enforced, even at
the sacrifice of his own comfort and reputation.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Queen expects to be confined again.--Increasing Unpopularity of the
King's Brothers.--Birth of the Dauphin.--Festivities.--Deputations from
the Different Trades.--Songs of the Dames de la Halle.--Ball given by the
Body-guard.--Unwavering Fidelity of the Regiment.--The Queen offers up her
Thanksgiving at Notre Dame.--Banquet at the Hotel de Ville.--Rejoicing in
Paris.
How irreparable his loss was, was shown by the rapid succession of finance
ministers who, in the course of the next seven years, successively held
the office of comptroller-general. All were equally incompetent, and under
their administration, sometimes merely incapable, sometimes combining
recklessness and corruption with incapacity, the treasury again became
exhausted, the resources of the nation dwindled away, and the distress of
all but the wealthiest classes became more and more insupportable. But for
a time the attention of Marie Antoinette was drawn off from political
embarrassments by the event which alone seemed wanting to complete her
personal happiness, and to place her position and popularity on an
impregnable foundation.
In the spring she discovered that she was again about to become a mother.
The whole nation expected the result with an intense anxiety. The king's
brothers were daily becoming more and more deservedly unpopular. The Count
d'Artois, who as the father of a son, occupied more of the general
attention than his elder brother, seemed to take pains to parade his
contempt for the commercial class, and still more for the lower orders,
and his disapproval of every proposal which had for its object to
conciliate the traders or to relieve the sufferings of the poor; while the
Count de Provence openly established a mistress, the Countess de Balbi, at
the Luxembourg Palace, his residence in the capital, where she presided
over the receptions which he took upon himself to hold, to the exclusion
of his lawful princess. The Countess de Provence was not well calculated
to excite admiration or sympathy, since she was plain and ungracious. But
Madame de Balbi, whose character had been disgracefully notorious even
before her connection with the count, was not more attractive in
appearance or manner than the Savoy princess; and the citizens of Paris,
who in this instance faithfully represented the feelings of the entire
nation, did not disguise their anxiety that the child about to be born
should be a prince, who might extinguish the hopes and projects of both
his uncles.
Their wishes were gratified. On the morning of the 22d of October the king
was starting from the palace on a hunting expedition with his brothers,
when it was announced to him that the queen was taken ill.[1] He at once
returned to her room, and, mindful of the danger which she had incurred on
the occasion of the birth of Madame Royale from the greatness and disorder
of the crowd, he broke through the ancient custom, and ordered that the
doors should be closed, and that no one should be admitted beyond a very
small number of the great officers, male and female, of the household. His
cares were rewarded by a comparatively easy birth; and his anxiety to
protect his wife from agitation was further shown by a second arrangement,
which was perhaps hardly so easy to carry out, but which was also
perfectly successful. As was most natural, the queen and himself fully
shared the ardent wishes of the nation that the expected child should
prove an heir to the throne; and he consequently feared that, should it
not be so, the disappointment might produce an injurious effect on the
mother's health; or, should their hopes be realized, that the excessive
joy might be equally dangerous. With a desire, therefore, to avoid
exposing her to either shock in the first moments of weakness, he forbade
any announcement of the sex of the child being made to any one but
himself. The instant that the child was born, he hastened to the bedside
to judge for himself whether she could bear the news. Presently she came
to herself; and it seemed to her that the general silence indicated that
she had become the mother of a second daughter. But she desired to be
assured of the fact. "See," said she to Louis, "how reasonable I am. I ask
no questions.[2]" And Louis, who from joy was scarcely able to contain
himself, seeing her freedom from agitation, thought he might safely reveal
to her the whole extent of their happiness. He called out, so as to be
heard by the Princess de Guimenee, who still held the post of governess to
the royal children, and who had already exhibited the child to the
witnesses in the antechamber, and was now awaiting his summons at the open
door, "My lord the dauphin begs to be admitted." The Princess de Guimenee
brought "my lord the dauphin" to his mother's arms, and for a few minutes
the small company in the room gazed in respectful silence while the father
and mother mingled tears of joy with broken words of thanksgiving.
Yet even in this moment of exultation Marie Antoinette could not forget
her first-born, nor the feelings which had made her rejoice at the birth
of a daughter, who still had, as it were, no rival in her eyes, because no
rival claim to her own could be set up with respect to a princess. She
kissed the long-wished-for infant over and over again; pressed him fondly
to her heart; and then, after she had perused each feature with anxious
scrutiny, and pointed out some resemblances, such as mothers see, to his
father, "Take him," said she, to Madame de Guimenee; "he belongs to the
State; but my daughter is still mine.[3]"
Presently the chamber was cleared; and in a few minutes the glad tidings
were carried to every corner of the palace and town of Versailles, and, as
speedily as expresses could gallop, to the anxious city of Paris. By a
somewhat whimsical coincidence, the Count de Stedingk, who, from having
been one of the intended hunting-party, had been admitted into the
antechamber, rushing down-stairs in his haste to spread the intelligence,
met the Countess de Provence on the staircase. "It is a dauphin, madame,"
he cried; "what a happy event!" The countess made him no reply. Nor did
she or her husband pretend to disguise their mortification. The Count
d'Artois was a little less open in the display of his discontent, which
was, however, sufficiently notorious. But, with these exceptions, all
France, or at least all France sufficiently near the court to feel any
personal interest in its concerns, was unanimous in its exultation.
As soon as the new-born child was dressed, his father took him in his
arms, and, carrying him to the window, showed him to the crowd[4] which,
on the first news of the queen's illness, had thronged the court-yard, and
was waiting in breathless expectation the result. A rumor had already
begun to penetrate the throng that the child was a son, and the moment
that the happy tidings were confirmed, and the infant--their future king,
as they undoubtingly hailed him--was presented to their view, their joy
broke forth in such vociferous acclamations that it became necessary to
silence them by an appeal to them to show consideration for the mother's
weakness.
For the next three months all was joy and festivity. When the little Duc
d'Angouleme, now a sprightly boy of six years old, was taken into the
nursery to see, or, in the court language, to pay his homage to, the heir
to the throne, he said to his father, as he left the room, "Papa, how
little my cousin is!" "The day will come, my boy," replied the count,
"when you will find him quite great enough." And it seemed as if the whole
nation, and especially the city of Paris, thought no celebration of the
birth of its future king could be too sumptuous for his greatness. It was
a real heart-felt joy that was awakened in the people. On the day
following the birth, chroniclers of the time remarked that no other
subject was spoken of; that even strangers stopped one another in the
streets to exchange congratulations.[5]
The different trades and guilds led the way in the expression of these
loyal felicitations. When his royal highness was a week old, he held a
grand reception. Deputations from different bodies of artisans, each with
a band of music at its head, and each carrying some emblem of its
occupation, marched in a long procession to Versailles. The chimney-sweeps
bore aloft a chimney entwined with garlands, on the top of which was
perched one of the smallest of their boys; the chairmen carried a chair
superbly gilt, on which sat in state a representative of the royal nurse,
with a child in her arms in royal robes; the butchers drove a fat ox; the
pastry-cooks bore on a splendid tray a variety of pastry and sweetmeats
such as might tempt children of a larger growth than the little prince
they had come to honor; the blacksmiths beat an anvil in time to their
cheers; the shoe-makers brought a pair of miniature boots; the tailors had
devoted elaborate and minute pains to the embroidering of a uniform of the
dauphin's regiment, such as might even now fit its young colonel, if his
parents would permit him to be attired in it. The crowd was too great to
be received in even the largest saloon of the palace; but it filled the
court-yard beneath; and, as the weather was luckily favorable, the dauphin
was brought to the balcony and displayed to the people, while they greeted
him with cheers, which were renewed from time to time, even after he had
been withdrawn, till the shouting seemed as if it would have no end.
One deputation, consisting of members of the fairer sex, received even
higher honors. Fifty ladies of the fish-market vindicated the
long-acknowledged claims of their body by forming a separate procession.
Each dame was dressed in a gown of rich black silk, their established
court-dress, and nearly every one had diamond ornaments. To them, the
celebrated antechamber, from the oval window at the end known as the
Bull's Eye, was opened;[6] and three of their body were admitted even into
the queen's room, and to the side of the bed. The popular poet La Harpe,
whom the partiality of Voltaire had designated as the heir of his genius,
had composed an address, which the spokeswoman of the party had written
out on the back of her fan, and now read with a sweet voice, which had
procured her the honor of being so selected,[7] and with very appropriate
delivery. The queen made a brief but most gracious answer, and then, on
their retirement, the whole company, with a train of fish-women of the
lower class, was entertained at a grand banquet, which they enlivened with
songs composed for the occasion. One of them so hit the fancy of the king
and queen that they quoted it more than once in their letters to their
correspondents, and Marie Antoinette even sung it occasionally to her
harp:
"Ne craignez pas,
Cher papa,
D' voir augmenter vot' famille,
Le Bon Dieu z'y pourvoira:
Fait's en tant qu' Versailles en fourmille
Y eut-il cent Bourbons chez nous,
Y a du pain, du laurier pour tous."
The body-guard celebrated the auspicious event by giving a grand ball in
the concert-room of the palace to the queen on her recovery; it was
attended by the whole court, and Marie Antoinette opened it herself,
dancing a minuet with one of the troop, whom his comrades had selected for
the honor, and whom the king promoted, as a memorial of the occasion and
as a testimony of his approval of the loyalty of that gallant regiment.
Amidst all the troubles of later years, the fidelity of those noble troops
never wavered. They had even in one hour of terrible danger the honor, in
the same palace, of saving the life of their queen. But it is a melancholy
proof of the fleeting character and instability of popular favor which is
supplied by the recollection that these very artisans who were now so
vociferous, and undoubtedly at this moment so sincere in their profession
of loyalty, were afterward her foul and ferocious enemies. And yet between
1781 and 1789 there had been no change in the character or conduct of the
king and queen, or rather, it may be said, the intervening years had been
a period during which a countless series of acts of beneficence had
displayed their unceasing affection for their subjects.
The festivities were crowned in the most appropriate manner by a public
thanksgiving, offered by the queen herself to Heaven for the gift of a
son, and for her own recovery. But that celebration was necessarily
postponed till her strength was entirely re-established; and it was not
till the 21st of January that the physicians would allow her to encounter
the excitement of so interesting but fatiguing a day. The court had quit
Versailles for La Muette the day before, to be nearer the city; and on the
appointed morning, which the watchers for omens delightedly remarked as
one of midsummer brilliancy,[8] the most superb procession that even Paris
had ever witnessed issued from the gates of the old hunting-lodge, whose
earlier occupants had been animated by a very different spirit.[9]
That the honors of the day might be wholly the queen's, Louis himself did
not accompany her, but followed her three hours later, to meet her at the
Hotel de Ville. Nineteen coaches, glittering with burnished gold, and
every panel of which was embellished with crowns, wreaths, or allegorical
pictures, marching on at a stately walk toward the city gate, conveyed the
queen, radiant with beauty and happiness, the sisters and aunts of the
king, the long train of her and their ladies, and all the great officers
of her household. Squadrons of the body-guard furnished the escort, riding
in front of the queen's carriage and behind it, but not on either side,
she herself having forbidden any arrangement which might intercept the
full sight of herself from a single citizen. Companies of other regiments
awaited the procession at different points, and closed up behind it as it
passed, swelling the vast train which thus grew at every step. An
additional escort, almost an army in itself, in double rank, lined the
whole road from the barrier of the Champs Elysees of the great cathedral;
and, as the royal coach passed through the city gate, a herald proclaimed
that "The king wishing to consecrate by fresh acts of kindness the happy
moment when God showered his mercies on him by the birth of a dauphin, and
at the same time to give to the inhabitants of his good city of Paris some
special mark of his beneficence, granted an exemption from the poll-tax to
all the burgesses, traders, and artisans who were not in such
circumstances as made the payment easy."
The proclamation was received with all the thankfulness of surprise; the
cheers, which had never censed from the moment that the procession first
came in sight, were redoubled, and it was amidst shouts of congratulation
both to themselves and to her that the queen proceeded onward to Notre
Dame. Having paid her vows and made her offerings in the cathedral of the
nation, she passed on to the Church of Ste. Genevieve, the especial
patroness of the city, and repeated her thanksgiving before the tomb of
Clovis, the founder of the monarchy. At the Hotel de Ville she was met by
the king, with the princess, his brothers, the great officers of his
household, and the ministers; and there (after having first come forward
on the balcony to afford the multitude, who completely filled the vast
square in front of the building, a sight of their sovereigns), the royal
pair, sitting side by side, presided at a banquet of unsurpassed
magnificence and luxury. In compliance with the strictest laws of the old
etiquette, none but ladies were admitted to the king's table, but other
tables were provided for the male guests. The most renowned musicians
performed the sweetest airs, but the melodies of Gluck and Gretry were
drowned in the cheers of the multitude outside, who thus relieved their
impatience for the re-appearance of their queen.
The banquet was succeeded by a grand reception, with its singular but
invariable accompaniment of a gaming-table,[10] and the whole was
concluded by a grand illumination and display of fireworks, in which the
pyrotechnists had exhausted their allegorical ingenuity. A Temple of Hymen
occupied the centre, and the God of Marriage--never, so far as present
appearances indicated, more auspiciously employed--presented to France the
precious infant who was the most recent fruit of his favor; while the
flame upon his altar, which never had burned with a brighter light, was
fed by the thank-offerings of the whole French people. As each new feature
of the display burst upon their eyes, the acclamations of the populace
redoubled, and their enthusiasm was kindled to the utmost pitch when Louis
and Marie Antoinette descended the stairs, and, arm-in-arm, walked out
among the crowd, ostensibly to see the illuminations from the different
points which presented the most imposing spectacle; but really, as the
citizens perceived, to show their sympathy with the joy of the people by
mingling with the multitude, and thus allowing all to approach and even to
accost them; while they, and especially the queen, replied to every loyal
cheer or homely word of congratulation by a cordial smile or expression of
approval or thanks, which long dwelt in the memory of those to whom they
were addressed.
CHAPTER XVII.
Madame de Guimenee resigns the Office of Governess of the Royal Children.
--Madame de Polignac succeeds her.--Marie Antoinette's Views of
Education.--Character of Madame Royale.--The Grand Duke Paul and his Grand
Duchess visit the French Court.--Their Characters.--Entertainments given
in their Honor.--Insolence of the Cardinal de Rohan.--His Character and
previous Life.--Grand Festivities at Chantilly.--Events of the War.--
Rodney defeats de Grasse.--The Siege of Gilbralter fails.--M. de Suffrein
fights five Drawn Battles with Sir E. Hughes in the Indian Seas.--The
Queen receives him with great Honor on his Return.
The post of governess to the royal children was one which was conferred
for life, and did not even cease on the accession of a new sovereign, and
the birth of a new royal family. Madame de Guimenee, therefore, having
been appointed to that office on the birth of the first child of the late
dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., still retained it, and on the birth of
Madame Royale transferred her services to that princess. The arrangement
had been far from acceptable to Marie Antoinette, who had no great liking
for the lady, though, with her habitual kindness of disposition, she had
accepted her attentions, and had often condescended to appear as a guest
at her evening parties, taking only the precaution of ascertaining
beforehand whom she was likely to meet there.[1] But, in the spring of
1782, the Prince de Guimenee became involved in pecuniary difficulties
that compelled him to retire from the court, and his princess to resign
her appointment, which Marie Antoinette at once bestowed on Madame de
Polignac. Her attachment to that lady affords a striking exemplification
of one feature in her character, a steady adherence to friendships once
formed, which can never be otherwise than amiable, even when, as it may be
thought was the case in this and one or two other instances, she carried
it to excess; for she could hardly fail to be aware that Madame de
Polignac was most unpopular with all classes, and that her unpopularity
was not undeserved. She was covetous for herself, and she had a number of
relations, equally rapacious, who regarded her court favor solely as a
means of enriching the whole family. She had procured a valuable reversion
for her husband; and subsequently the rare favor of an hereditary dukedom;
and it was characteristic of her disposition that she might have attained
the rank of duchess for herself at an earlier date, but that she preferred
to it the chance of other favors of a more practically useful nature; nor
was it till she had received such sums of money that nothing more could
well be asked, that she turned her ambition to titles, and to the
much-coveted dignity of a stool to sit upon in the presence of royalty.[2]
But the more people spoke ill of her, the more the queen protected her;
and if she received the resignation of Madame de Guimenee with pleasure,
much of her joy seemed to be owing to the opportunity which it afforded
her of promoting the new duchess to the vacant place, while Madame de
Polignac had even the address to persuade her that she accepted the post
unwillingly, and, in undertaking it, was making a sacrifice to loyalty and
friendship. But if the queen was duped on that point, she was not deceived
on others. She knew that the duchess had no qualifications for the office;
that she was neither clever nor accomplished. But her absence of any
special qualifications was, in fact, her best recommendation in the eyes
of her patroness; for Marie Antoinette had high ideas of the duty which a
mother owes to her children. She thought herself bound to take upon
herself the real superintendence of their education, and, having this
view, she preferred a governess who would be content that her children's
minds should receive their color from herself. Her own idea of education,
as we shall see it hereafter described by herself,[3] was that example was
more powerful than precept, and that love was a better teacher than fear;
and, acting on this principle, from the moment that her little daughter
was old enough to comprehend her intentions and wishes, she began to make
her her companion; abandoning, or at least relaxing, her pursuit of other
pleasures for that which was now her chief delight, as well as in her eyes
her chief duty--the task of watching over the early promise, the opening
talents and virtues of those who were destined, as she hoped, to have a
predominant influence on the future welfare of the nation. Especially she
made a rule of taking the little princess with her on the different
errands of humanity and benevolence, which, wherever she might be, and
more particularly while she was at Versailles, formed an almost habitual
part of her occupations. She saw that much of the distress which now
seemed to be the normal condition of the humbler classes, and much of the
discontent, which was felt by all classes but the highest, were caused by
the pride of the princes and nobles, who, in France, drew a far more
rigorous and unbending line of demarkation between themselves and their
inferiors than prevailed in other countries; and she desired from their
earliest infancy to imbue her children with a different principle, and to
teach them by her own example that none could be so lowly as to be beneath
the notice even of a sovereign; and that, on the contrary, the greater the
depression of the poor, the greater claim did it give them on the
solicitude and protection of their princes and rulers.
Nor were these lessons, which even worldly policy might have dictated, the
only ones which she sought to inculcate on the little princess before the
more exciting pursuits of society should have rendered her less
susceptible to good impressions. Unfriendly as her husband's aunts had
always been to herself, and little as there was that was really amiable in
their characters, there was yet one, the Princess Louise, the Nun of St.
Denis, whose renunciation of the world seemed to point her out to her
family as a model of holiness and devotion; and as, above all things,
Marie Antoinette desired to inspire her little daughter with a deep sense
of religious obligation, she soon began to take her with her in all her
visits to the convent, and to encourage her to converse with the other
Sisters of the house. Nor did she abandon the practice even when it was
suggested to her that such an intercourse with those who were notoriously
always on the watch to attract recruits of rank or consideration, might
have the result of inclining the child to follow her great-aunt's example;
and perhaps, by renouncing the world, to counteract plans which her
parents might have preferred for her establishment in life. Marie
Antoinette declared that should the princess express such a desire, far
from being annoyed, "she should feel flattered by it;[4]" she would, it
may be presumed, have regarded it as a convincing testimony of the
soundness of her own system of education, and of the purity of the
instruction which she had given.
But such was not to be the destiny of her whose life at this moment seemed
to beam with prospects of happiness which it would have been cruel to
allow her to exchange for the gloom of a convent, though, even before she
arrived at womanhood, the most austere seclusion of such an abode would
have seemed a welcome asylum from dangers yet undreamed of. Her destiny
was indeed to be one of trials and afflictions even to the end; trials
very different in their kind from those which the gates of the Carmelite
sisterhood would have opened to her. But her mother's early lessons of
humility and piety, and still more her mother's virtuous and heroic
example, never ceased to bear their fruit in their influence on her
character, amidst all the vicissitudes of fortune. The unhappy
daughter,[5] as she was styled by the faithful and eloquent champion of
her race, lived to win the respect even of its enemies,[6] supplying, at
more than one critical moment, a courage and decision of which her male
relatives were destitute; and, in the second and final ruin of her house,
her fortitude and resignation still commanded the loyal adherence of a
large party among her countrymen, and the esteem of foreign statesmen, who
gladly recognized in her no small portion of the nobility of her female
ancestors.
In the spring of 1782 the attention of the Parisians was occupied for a
while by the arrival of two visitors from a nation which as yet had sent
forth but few of its sons to mingle in society with those of other
countries. The Grand Duke of Russia, who had indeed been its rightful
emperor ever since the murder of his father twenty years before, but who
had been compelled to postpone his claims to those of his ambitious and
unscrupulous mother, Catherine II., had conceived a desire so far to
imitate the example of his great ancestor, the founder of the Russian
empire, Peter the Great, as to make a personal investigation of the
manners of other people besides his own. To use the language in which the
empress communicated to Louis XVI. her son's wish to pay him a visit, he
sought, in the first instance, "to take lessons in courtesy and nobility
from the most elegant court in the world." And as Louis had responded with
a cordial invitation to Versailles, at the end of May he, with his grand
duchess, a princess of Wuertemberg, arrived at the palace.
Paul had not as yet given any indications of the brutal and ferocious
disposition which distinguished him in his later years, till it gradually
developed into a savage insanity which neither his nobles nor even his
sons could endure. He appeared rather a young man of frank and open
temper, somewhat more unguarded in his language, especially concerning his
own affairs and position, than was quite prudent or becoming; but kind in
intention, sometimes even courteous in manner, shrewd in discerning what
things and what persons were most worthy of his notice, and showing no
deficiency of judgment in the observations which he made upon them. The
grand duchess, however, was generally regarded as greatly superior to her
husband in every respect. He was almost repulsive in his ugliness. She was
extremely handsome in feature, though disfigured by a stoutness
extraordinary in one so young. She had also a high reputation for
accomplishments and general ability, though that too was disguised by a
coldness or ungraciousness of manner that gave strangers a disagreeable
impression of her; which, however, a more intimate acquaintance greatly
removed.
Their characters had preceded them, and Marie Antoinette, for perhaps the
first time in her life, felt very uneasy as to her own power of receiving
them with the dignity which became both her and them. As she afterward
explained her feelings to Madame de Campan, "she found the part of a
queen much move difficult to play in the presence of other sovereigns, or
of princes who were born to become sovereigns, than before ordinary
courtiers.[7]" She even fortified her courage before dinner with a glass
of water, and the medicine proved effectual. Even if it cost her an effort
to preserve her habitual gayety, her difficulty was unperceived, and
indeed, after the few first moments, ceased to be a difficulty. Paul
himself cared but little for female attractions or graces; but the
archduchess was charmed with her union of liveliness and dignity, which
surpassed all her previous experiences of courts; and one of her ladies,
Madame d'Oberkirch, who has left behind her some memoirs, to which all
succeeding writers have been indebted for many particulars of this visit,
could scarcely find words to describe the impression the queen's beauty
had made upon her and all her fellow-travelers. "The queen was marvelously
beautiful; she fascinated every eye. It was absolutely impossible for any
one to display a greater grace and nobility of demeanor.[8]" Madame
d'Oberkirch, like herself, was German by birth; and Marie Antoinette
begged her to speak German to her, that she might refresh her recollection
of her native language; but she found that she had almost forgotten it.
"Ah," said she, "German is a fine language; but French, in the mouths of
my children, seems to me the finest language in the world." And in the
same spirit of entire adoption of French feelings, and even of French
prejudices, she declared to the baroness that though the Rhine and the
Danube were both noble rivers, the Seine was so much more beautiful that
it had made her forget them both.
But her preference for every thing French did not make her neglect the
duties of hospitality to her foreign visitors; she wished rather that they
should carry with them as fixed an idea as she herself entertained of the
superiority of France to their own country, in this as in every other
particular. And she gave two magnificent entertainments in their honor at
the Little Trianon, displaying the beauties of her garden by day, and also
by night, by an illumination of extraordinary splendor. They were highly
delighted with the beauty and the novelty of a scene such as they had
never before witnessed; but her pleasure was in a great degree marred by
the indecent boldness of one whose sacred profession, as well as his
ancient lineage, ought to have restrained him from such misconduct, though
it was but too completely in harmony with his previous life. Prince Louis
de Rohan was a descendant of the great Duke de Sully, and a member of a
family which, during the last reign, had possessed an influence at court
which was surpassed by that of no other house among the French nobles.[9]
He himself had reaped the full advantage of its interest. As we have
already seen, he had been coadjutor of Strasburg when Marie Antoinette
passed through that city on her way to France in 1770. He had subsequently
been promoted to the rank of cardinal; and, though he was notoriously
devoid of capacity, yet through the influence of his relations, and that
of Madame du Barri, with whom they maintained an intimate connection, he
had obtained the post of embassador to the court of Vienna, where he had
made himself conspicuous for every species of disorder. His whole life in
the Austrian capital had been a round of shameless profligacy and
extravagance. The conduct of the inferior members of the embassy,
stimulated by his example, and protected by his official character, had
been equally scandalous, till at last Maria Teresa had felt herself bound,
in justice to her subjects, to insist on his recall. The moment that he
became aware that his position was in danger, he began to write abusive
letters against the Empress-queen, and to circulate libels at Vienna
against both her and Marie Antoinette, on whom he openly threatened to
avenge himself, if his pleasures or his prospects should in any way be
interfered with.[10]
Since his return to France he had had the address to conciliate Maurepas,
who, adding the authority of his ministerial office to the solicitations
of the cardinal's sister, Madame de Marsan, had succeeded in wringing from
the unwilling king his appointment to the honorable and lucrative
preferment of grand almoner. But even that post, though it made him one of
the great officers of the court, did not weaken his desire to annoy the
queen, for having, as he believed, used her influence to deprive him of
his embassy, and for having by her marked coldness since his return from
Vienna, showed her disapproval of his profligate character, and of his
insolence to her mother.
And, unhappily, there were not wanting persons base enough to co-operate
with him, generally discredited as he was, as instruments of their own
secret malice. The birth of the dauphin had been a fatal blow to the hopes
which had been founded on the possible succession of the king's brothers;
and from this time forth the whisperers of detraction and calumny were
more than ever busy, sometimes venturing to forge her handwriting, and
sometimes daring, with still fouler audacity, to invent stories designed
to tarnish her reputation by throwing doubts on her conjugal fidelity. At
such a moment the presence of such a man as the cardinal on the stage was
an evil omen. His audacity, it seemed, could hardly be purposeless, and
his purpose could not be innocent.
He had been most anxious to obtain admission to one of the entertainments
which the queen gave to the Russian princes; and, when he was
disappointed, he had the silly audacity to bribe the porter of the Trianon
to admit him into the garden, where, as the royal party passed down the
different walks, he thrust himself ostentatiously at different points into
their sight, professing to disguise himself by throwing a mantle over his
shoulders, but taking care that his scarlet stockings should prevent any
uncertainty from being felt as to his identity. That he should have
presumed to intrude into the queen's presence in her own palace without
permission was in itself an insult; but those behind the scenes believed
that he had a deeper design, and that he wished to diffuse a belief that
Marie Antoinette secretly regarded him with a favor which she was
unwilling to show openly, and that he had not obtained admission to her
garden without her connivance.
The princes of the blood, too, the Prince de Conde and the Duke de
Bourbon, invited Paul and his archduchess to an entertainment at
Chantilly, which far surpassed in splendor the display at Trianon. But the
queen was willing, on such an occasion, to be eclipsed by her subjects.
"The princes," she said, "might well give festivities of vast cost,
because they defrayed the charges out of their private revenues; but the
expenses of entertainments given by the king or by herself fell on the
national treasury, of which they were bound to be the guardians in the
interest of the poor tax-payers."
Not that, in all probability, Paul and his archduchess noticed the
inferiority. Court festivities at St. Petersburg were as yet neither
numerous nor magnificent, and they soon showed themselves so wearied with
the round of gayety which had been forced upon them, that some of the
diversions which had been projected at other royal palaces besides
Versailles were given up to avoid distressing them.[11] The sight which
pleased them most was the play, to which, at their own special request,
the queen accompanied them, and where they were greatly struck by the
magnificence of the theatre and every thing connected with the
performance, as well as with the reception which the audience gave the
queen. Much as they had admired what they had seen, it was her grace and
kind solicitude for their gratification which made the greatest impression
on them; and the archduchess kept up a correspondence with her during the
rest of their travels, especially dwelling on the scenes which pleased her
most in Germany, and on the persons she met who were known to and regarded
by the queen.
Political affairs were at this time causing Marie Antoinette great
anxiety. One of her most frequently expressed wishes had been that the
French fleet should have an opportunity of engaging that of England in a
pitched battle, when the judicious care which M. de Sartines had bestowed
on the marine would be seen to bear its fruit. But when the battle did
take place, the result was such as to confound instead of justifying her
patriotic expectations. In April, the English Admiral Rodney inflicted on
the Count de Grasse a crushing defeat off the coast of Jamaica. In
September, the combined forces of France and Spain were beaten off with
still heavier loss from the impregnable fortress of Gibraltar; and the
only region in which a French admiral escaped disaster was the Indian Sea,
where the Bailli de Suffrein, an officer of rare energy and ability,
encountered the British admiral, Sir Edward Hughes, in a series of severe
actions, and, except on one occasion in which he lost a few transports,
never permitted his antagonist to claim any advantage over him; the single
loss which he sustained in his first combat being more than
counterbalanced by his success on land, where, by the aid of Hyder Ali's
son, the celebrated Tippoo, be made himself master of Cuddalore; and then,
dropping down to the Cingalese coast, recaptured Trincomalee, the conquest
of which had been one of Hughes's most recent achievements.[12] The queen
felt the reverses keenly. She even curtailed some of her own expenses in
order to contribute to the building of new ships to replace those which
had been lost; and she received M. de Suffrein, on his return from India
at the conclusion of the war, with the most sincere and marked
congratulations. She invited him to the palace, and, when he arrived, she
caused Madame de Polignac to bring both her children into the room. "My
children," said she, "and especially you, my son, know that this M. de
Suffrein. We are all under the greatest obligations to him. Look well at
him, and ever remember his name. It is one of the first that all my
children must learn to pronounce, and one which they must never
forgot.[13]"
She was acting up to her mother's example, than whom no sovereign had
better known how to give their due honor to bravery and loyalty. Such a
queen deserved to have faithful friends; and Suffrein was a man who, had
his life been spared, might, like the Marquis de Bouille, have shown that
even in France the feelings of chivalry and devotion to kings and ladies
were not yet extinguished. But he died before either his country or his
queen had again need of his services, or before he had any opportunity of
proving by fresh achievements his gratitude to a sovereign who knew so
well how to appreciate and to honor merit.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Peace is re-established.--Embarrassments of the Ministry.--Distress of the
Kingdom.--M. de Calonne becomes Finance Minister.--The Winter of 1783-'84
is very Severe.--The Queen devotes Large Sums to Charity.--Her Political
Influence increases--Correspondence between the Emperor and her on
European Politics.--The State of France.--The Baron de Breteuil.--Her
Description of the Character of the King.
The conclusion of peace between France and England was one of the earliest
events of the year 1783, but it brought no strength to the ministry; or,
rather, it placed its weakness in a more conspicuous light. Maurepas had
died at the end of 1781, and, since his death, the Count de Vergennes had
been the chief adviser of the king; but his attention was almost
exclusively directed to the conduct of the diplomacy of the kingdom, and
to its foreign affairs, and he made no pretensions to financial knowledge.
Unluckily the professed ministers of finance, Joly de Fleury and his
successor, D'Ormesson, were as ignorant of that great subject as himself,
and, within two years after Necker's retirement, their mismanagement had
brought the kingdom to the very verge of bankruptcy. D'Ormesson was
dismissed, and for many days it was anxiously deliberated in the palace by
whom he should be replaced. Some proposed that Necker should he recalled,
but the king had felt himself personally offended by some circumstances
which had attended the resignation of that minister two years before. The
queen inclined to favor the pretensions of Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop
of Toulouse; not because he had any official experience, but because
fifteen years before he had recommended the Abbe de Vermond to Maria
Teresa; and the abbe, seeing in the present embarrassment an opportunity
of repaying the obligation, now spoke highly to her of the archbishop's
talents. But Madame de Polignac and her party persuaded her majesty to
acquiesce in the appointment of M. de Calonne, a man who, like Turgot, had
already distinguished himself as intendant of a province, though he had
not inspired those who watched his career with as high an opinion of his
uprightness as of his talents. He had also secured the support of the
Count d'Artois by promising to pay his debts; and Louis himself was won to
think well of him by the confidence which he expressed in his own capacity
to grapple with the existing, or even with still greater difficulties.
Nor, indeed, had he been possessed of steadiness, prudence, and principle,
was he very unfit for such a post at such a time. For he was very fertile
in resources, and well-endowed with both physical and moral courage; but
these faculties were combined with, were indeed the parents of, a
mischievous defect. He had such reliance on his own ingenuity and ability
to deal with each difficulty or danger as it should arise, that he was
indifferent to precautions which might prevent it from arising. The spirit
in which he took office was exemplified in one of his first speeches to
the queen. Knowing that he was not the minister whom she would have
preferred, he made it his especial business to win her confidence; and he
had not been long installed in office when she expressed to him her wish
that he would find means of accomplishing some object which she desired to
promote. "Madame," was his courtly reply, "if it is possible, it is done
already. If it is impossible, I will take care and manage it." But being
very unscrupulous himself, he overshot his mark when he sought to
propitiate her further by offering to represent as hers acts of charity
which she had not performed. The winter of 1783 was one of unusual
severity. The thermometer at Paris was, for some weeks, scarcely above
zero; scarcity, with its inevitable companion, clearness of price, reduced
the poor of the northern provinces, and especially of the capital and its
neighborhood, to the verge of starvation. The king, queen, and princesses
gave large sums from their privy purses for their relief; but as such
supplies were manifestly inadequate, Louis ordered the minister to draw
three millions of francs from the treasury, and to apply them for the
alleviation of the universal distress. Calonne cheerfully received and
executed the beneficent command. He was perhaps not sorry, at his first
entrance on his duties, to show how easy it was for him to meet even an
unforeseen demand of so heavy an amount; and he fancied he saw in it a
means of ingratiating himself with Marie Antoinette. He proposed to her
that he should pay one of the millions to her treasurer, that that officer
might distribute it, in her name, as a gift from her own allowance; but
Marie Antoinette disdained such unworthy artifice. She would have felt
ashamed to receive praise or gratitude to which she was not entitled. She
rejected the proposal, insisting that the king's gift should be attributed
to himself alone, and expressing her intention to add to it by curtailing
her personal expenditure, by abridging her entertainments so long as the
distress should last, and by dedicating the sums usually appropriated to
pleasure and festivity to the relief of those whose very existence seemed
to depend on the aid which it was her duty and that of the king to
furnish. For there was this especial characteristic in Marie Antoinette's
charity, that it did not proceed solely from kindness of heart and
tenderness of disposition, though these were never wanting, but also from
a settled principle of duty, which, in her opinion, imposed upon
sovereigns, as a primary obligation, the task of watching over the welfare
of their subjects as persons intrusted by Providence to their care; and
such a feeling was obviously more to be depended upon as a constant motive
for action than the most vivid emotion of the moment, which, if easily
excited, is not unfrequently as easily overpowered by some fresh object.
Meanwhile events were gradually compelling her to take a more active part
in politics. Maurepas had been jealous of her influence, and, while that
old minister lived, Louis, who from his childhood had been accustomed to
see him in office, committed almost every thing to his guidance. But, as
he always required some one of stronger mind than himself to lean upon, as
soon as Maurepas was gone he turned to the queen. It was to her that he
now chiefly confided his anxieties and perplexities; from her that he
sought counsel and strength; and the ministers naturally came to regard
her as the real ruler of the State. Accordingly, we find from her
correspondence of this period that even such matters as the appointment of
the embassadors to foreign states were often referred to her decision; and
how greatly the habit of considering affairs of importance expanded her
capacity we may learn from the opinion which her brother, the emperor, who
was never disposed to flatter, or even to spare her, had evidently come to
entertain of her judgment. In one long letter, written in September of the
year 1783, he discussed with her the attitude which France had assumed
toward Austria ever since the dismissal of Choiseul; the willingness of
her ministers to listen to Prussian calumnies; the encouragement which
they had given to the opposition in the empire; and their obsequiousness
to Prussia; while Austria had not retaliated, as she had had many
opportunities of doing, by any complaisance toward England, though the
English statesmen had made many advances toward her. It is a curious
instance of fears being realized in a sense very different from that which
troubled the writer at the moment, that among the acts of France of which,
had he been inclined to be captious, he might justly have complained, he
enumerates her recent acquisition of Corsica, as one which, "for a number
of reasons, might be very prejudicial to the possessions of the house of
Austria and its branches in Italy." It did indeed prove an acquisition
which largely influenced the future history, not only of Austria, but of
the whole world, when the little island, which hitherto had been but a
hot-bed of disorder, and a battle-field of faction burdensome to its
Genoese masters, gave a general to the armies of France whose most
brilliant exploits were a succession of triumphs over the Austrian
commanders in every part of the emperor's dominion. His letter concludes
with warnings drawn from the present condition and views of the different
states of Europe, and especially of France, whose "finances and resources,
to speak with moderation, have been greatly strained" in the recent war;
embracing in their scope even the designs of Russia on the independence of
Turkey; and with a request that his sister would inform him frankly what
he is to believe as to the opinions of the king; and in what light he is
to regard the recent letters of Vergennes, which, to his apprehension,
show an indifference to the maintenance of the alliance between the two
countries.[1]
It is altogether a letter such as might pass between statesmen, and proves
clearly that Joseph regarded his sister now as one fully capable of taking
large views of the situation of both countries. And her answer shows that
she fully enters into all the different questions which he has raised,
though it also shows that she is guided by her heart as well as by her
judgment; still looks on the continuance of the friendship between her
native and her adopted country as essential not only to her comfort, but
even in some degree to her honor, and also that on that account she is
desirous at times of exerting a greater influence than is always allowed
her.
"Versailles, September 29th, 1783.
"Shall I tell you, my dear brother, that your letter has delighted me by
its energy and nobleness of thought and why should I not tell you so? I am
sure that you will never confound your sister and your friend with the
tricks and manoeuvres of politicians.
"I have read your letter to the king. You may be sure that it, like all
your other letters, shall never go out of my hands. The king was struck
with many of your reflections, and has even corroborated them himself.
"He has said to me that he both desired and hoped always to maintain a
friendship and a good understanding with the empire; but yet that it was
impossible to answer for it that the difference of interests might not at
times lead to a difference in the way of looking at and judging of
affairs. This idea appeared to me to come from himself alone, and from the
distrust with which people have been inspiring him for a long time. For,
when I spoke to him, I believe it to be certain that he had not seen M. de
Vergennes since the arrival of your courier. M. de Mercy will have
reported to you the quietness and gentleness with which this minister has
spoken to him. I have had occasion to see that the heads of the other
ministers, which were a little heated, have since cooled again. I trust,
that this quiet spirit will last, and in that case the firmness of your
reply ought to lead to the rudeness of style which the people here adopted
being forgotten. You know the ground and the characters, so you can not be
surprised if the king sometimes allows answers to pass which he would not
have given of his own accord.
"My health, considering my present condition,[2] is perfect. I had a
slight accident after my last letter; but it produced no bad consequences:
it only made a little more care necessary. Accordingly I shall go from
Choisy to Fontainebleau by water. My children are quite well. My boy will
spend his time at La Muette while we are absent. It is just a piece of
stupidity of the doctors, who do not like him to take so long a journey at
his age, though he has two teeth and is very strong. I should be perfectly
happy if I were but assured of the general tranquillity, and, above all,
of the happiness of my much-loved brother, whom I love with all my
heart.[3]"
Another letter, written three months later, explains to the emperor the
object of some of the new arrangements which Calonne had introduced,
having for one object, among others, the facilitation of a commercial
intercourse, especially in tobacco, with the United States. She hopes that
another consequence of them will be the abolition of the whole system of
farmers-general of the revenue; and she explains to him both the
advantages of such a measure, and at the same time the difficulties of
carrying it out immediately after so costly a war, since it would involve
the instant repayment of large sums to the farmers, with all the clearness
of a practiced financier. She mentions also the appointment of the Baron
de Breteuil as the new minister of the king's household,[4] and her
estimate of his character is rendered important by his promotion, six
years later, to the post of prime minister. The emperor also had ample
means of judging of it himself, since the baron had succeeded the Cardinal
de Rohan as embassador at Vienna. "I think, with you, that he requires to
be kept within bounds; and he will be so more than other ministers by the
nature of his office, which is very limited, and entirely under the eyes
of the king and of his colleagues, who will be glad of any opportunities
of mortifying his vanity. However, his activity will be very useful in a
thousand details of a department which has been neglected and badly
managed for the last sixty years." And though it is a slight anticipation
of the order of our narrative, it will not be inconvenient to give here
some extracts from a third letter to the same brother, written in the
autumn of the following year, in which she describes the king's character,
and points out the difficulties which it often interposes to her desire of
influencing his views and measures.
It may perhaps be thought that she unconsciously underrates her influence
over her husband, though there can be no doubt that he was one of those
men whom it is hardest to manage; wholly without self-reliance, yet with a
scrupulous wish to do right that made him distrustful of others, even, of
those whose advice he sought, or whose judgment he most highly valued.
"September 22d, 1784.
"I will not contradict you, my dear brother, on what you say about the
short-sightedness of our ministry. I have long ago made some of the
reflections which you express in your letter. I have spoken on the subject
more than once to the king; but one must know him thoroughly to be able to
judge of the extent to which, his character and prejudices cripple my
resources and means of influencing him. He is by nature very taciturn; and
it often happens that he does not speak to me about matters of importance
even when he has not the least wish to conceal them from me. He answers me
when I speak to him about them, but he scarcely ever opens the subject;
and when I have learned a quarter of the business, I am then forced to use
some address to make the ministers tell me the rest, by letting them think
that the king has told me every thing. When I reproach him for not having
spoken to me of such and such matters, he is not annoyed, but only seems a
little embarrassed, and sometimes answers, in an off-hand way, that he had
never thought of it. This distrust, which is natural to him, was at first
strengthened by his govern--or before my marriage. M. de Vauguyon had
alarmed him about the authority which his wife would desire to assume over
him, and the duke's black disposition delighted in terrifying his pupil
with all the phantom stories invented against the house of Austria. M. de
Maurepas, though less obstinate and less malicious, still thought it
advantageous to his own credit to keep up the same notions in the king's
mind. M. de Vergennes follows the same plan, and perhaps avails himself of
his correspondence on foreign affairs to propagate falsehoods. I have
spoken plainly about this to the king more than once. He has sometimes
answered me rather peevishly, and, as he is never fond of discussion, I
have not been able to persuade him that his minister was deceived, or was
deceiving him. I do not blind myself as to the extent of my own influence.
I know that I have no great ascendency over the king's mind, especially in
politics; and would it be prudent in me to have scenes with his ministers
on such subjects, on which it is almost certain that the king would not
support me? Without ever boasting or saying a word that is not true, I,
however, let the public believe that I have more influence than I really
have, because, if they did not think so, I should have still less. The
avowals which I am making to you, my dear brother, are not very flattering
to my self-love; but I do not like to hide any thing from you, in order
that you may be able to judge of my conduct as correctly as is possible at
this terrible distance from you, at which my destiny has placed me.[5]"
A melancholy interest attunes to sentences such as these, from the
influence which the defects in her husband's character, when joined to
those of his minister, had on the future destinies of both, and of the
nation over which he ruled. It was natural that she should explain them to
a brother; and though, as a general rule, it is clearly undesirable for
queens consort to interfere in politics, it is clear that with such a
husband, and with the nation and court in such a condition as then existed
in France, it was indispensable that Marie Antoinette should covet, and,
so far as she was able, exert, influence over the king, if she were not
prepared to see him the victim or the tool of caballers and intriguers who
cared far more for their own interests than for those of either king or
kingdom. But as yet, though, as we see, these deficiencies of Louis
occasionally caused her annoyance, she had no foreboding of evil. Her
general feeling was one of entire happiness; her children were growing and
thriving, her own health was far stronger than it had been, and she
entered with as keen a relish as ever into the excitements and amusements
becoming her position, and what we may still call her youth, since she was
even now only eight-and-twenty.
CHAPTER XIX.
"The Marriage of Figaro"--Previous History and Character of Beaumarchais.
--The Performance of the Play is forbidden.--It is said to be a little
altered.--It is licensed.--Displeasure of the Queen.--Visit of Gustavus
III. of Sweden.--Fete at the Trianon.--Balloon Ascent.
In the spring of 1784, the court and capital wore wrought up to a high
pitch of excitement by an incident which was in reality of so ordinary and
trivial a character, that it would be hard to find a more striking proof
how thoroughly unhealthy the whole condition and feeling of the nation
must have been, when such a matter could have been regarded as important.
It was simply a question whether a play, which had been recently accepted
by the manager of the principal theatre in Paris, should receive the
license from the theatrical censor which was necessary to its being
performed.
The play was entitled "The Marriage of Figaro." The history of the author,
M. Beaumarchais, is curious, as that of a rare specimen of the literary
adventurer of his time. He was born in the year 1732. His father was a
watch-maker named Caron, and he himself followed that trade till he was
three or four and twenty, and attained considerable skill in it. But he
was ambitious. He was conscious of a handsome face and figure, and knew
their value in such a court as that of Louis XV. He gave up his trade as a
watch-maker, and bought successively different places about the court, the
last of which was sold at a price sufficient to entitle him to claim
gentility; so that, in one of his subsequent railings against the nobles,
he declared that his nobility was more incontestable than that of most of
the body, since he could produce the stamped receipt for it. Following the
example of Moliere and Voltaire, he changed his name, and called himself
Beaumarchais. He married two rich widows. He formed a connection with the
celebrated financier, Paris Duverney, who initiated him in the mysteries
of stock-jobbing. Being a good musician, he obtained the protection of the
king's daughters, taught them the harp, and conducted the weekly concerts
which, during the life of Marie Leczinska, they gave to the king and the
royal family. He wrote two or three plays, none of which had any great
success, while one was a decided failure. He became involved in lawsuits,
one of which he conducted himself against the best ability of the Parisian
bar, and displayed such wit and readiness that he not only gained his
cause, but established a notoriety which throughout life was apparently
his dearest object. He crossed over to England, where he made the
acquaintance of Wilkes, and one or two agents of the American colonies,
then just commencing their insurrection; and, partly from political
sympathy with their views of freedom, partly, as he declared, to retaliate
on England for the injuries which France had suffered at her hands in the
Seven Years' War, he became a political agent himself, procuring arms and
ships to be sent across the Atlantic, and also a great quantity of stores
of a more peaceful character, out of which he had hoped to make a handsome
profit. But the Americans gave him credit for greater disinterestedness;
the President of Congress wrote him a letter thanking him for his zeal,
but refused to pay for his stores, for which he demanded nearly a hundred
and fifty thousand francs. He commenced an action for the money in the
American courts, but, as he could not conduct it himself, he did not
obtain an early decision; indeed, the matter imbittered all his closing
days, and was not settled when he died.
But while he was in the full flush of self-congratulation at the degree in
which, as he flattered himself, he had contributed to the downfall of
England, the exuberance of his spirits prompted him to try his hand at a
fourth play, a sort of sequel to one of his earlier performances--"The
Barber of Seville." He finished it about the end of the year 1781, and, as
the manager of the theatre was willing to act it, he at once applied for
the necessary license. But it had already been talked about: if one party
had pronounced it lively, witty, and the cleverest play that had been seen
since the death of Moliere, another set of readers declared it full of
immoral and dangerous satire on the institutions of the country. It is
almost inseparable from the very nature of comedy that it should be to
some extent satirical. The offense which those who complained of "The
Marriage of Figaro" on that account really found in it was, that it
satirized classes and institutions which could not bear such attacks, and
had not been used to them. Moliere had ridiculed the lower middle class;
the newly rich; the tradesman who, because he had made a fortune, thought
himself a gentleman; but, as one whose father was in the employ of
royalty, he laid no hand on any pillar of the throne. But Beaumarchais, in
"The Marriage of Figaro," singled out especially what were called the
privileged classes; he attacked the licentiousness of the nobles; the
pretentious imbecility of ministers and diplomatists; the cruel injustice
of wanton arrests and imprisonments of protracted severity against which
there was no appeal nor remedy; and the privileged classes in consequence
denounced his work, and their complaints of its character and tendency
made such an impression that the court resolved that the license should
not he granted.
The refusal, however, was not at first pronounced in a straightforward
way; but was deferred, as if those who had resolved on it feared to
pronounce it. For a long time the censor gave no reply at all, till
Beaumarchais complained of the delay as more injurious to him than a
direct denial. When at last his application was formally rejected, he
induced his friends to raise such a clamor in his favor, that Louis
determined to judge for himself, and caused Madame de Campan to read it to
himself and the queen. He fully agreed with the censor. Many passages he
pronounced to be in extremely bad taste. When the reader came to the
allusions to secret arrests, protracted imprisonments, and the tedious
formalities of the law and lawyers, he declared that it would be necessary
to pull down the Bastile before it could be acted with safety, as
Beaumarchais was ridiculing every thing which ought to be respected. "It
is not to be performed, then?" said the queen. "No," replied the king,
"you may depend upon that."
Similar refusals of a license had been common enough, so that there was no
reason in the world why this decision should have attracted any notice
whatever. But Beaumarchais was the fashion. He had influential patrons
even in the palace: the Count d'Artois and Madame de Polignac, with the
coterie which met in her apartments, being among them; and the mere idea
that the court or the Government was afraid to let the play be acted
caused thousands to desire to see it, who, without such a temptation,
would have been wholly indifferent to its fate. The censor could not
prevent its being read at private parties, and such readings became so
popular that, in 1782, one was got up for the amusement of the Russian
prince, who was greatly pleased by the liveliness of the dramatic
situations, and, probably, not sufficiently aware of the prevalence of
discontent in many circles of French society to sympathize with those who
saw danger in its satire.
The praises lavished on it gave the author greater boldness, which was
quite unnecessary. He even meditated an evasion of the law by getting it
acted in a place which was not a theatre, and tickets were actually issued
for the performance in a saloon which was often used for rehearsals, when
a royal warrant[1] peremptorily forbidding such a proceeding was sent down
from the palace. A clamor was at once raised by the friends of
Beaumarchais, as if "sealed letters" had never been issued before. They
talked in a loud voice of "oppression" and "tyranny;" and any one who knew
the king's disposition might have divined that such an act of vigor was
sure to be followed by one of weakness. Presently Beaumarchais changed his
tone. He gave out that he had retrenched the passages which had excited
the royal disapproval, and requested that the play might be re-examined. A
new censor of high literary reputation reported to the head of the
police[2] that if one or two passages were corrected, and one or two
expressions, which were liable to be misinterpreted, were suppressed, he
foresaw no danger in allowing the representation. Beaumarchais at once
promised to make the required corrections, and one of Madame de Polignac's
friends, the Count de Vaudreuil, the very nobleman with whom that lady's
name was by many discreditably connected, obtained the king's leave to
perform it at his country house, that thus an opportunity might be
afforded for judging whether or not the alterations which had been made
were sufficient to render its performance innocent.
The king was assured that the passages which he had regarded as
mischievous were suppressed or divested of their sting. Marie Antoinette
apparently had her suspicions; but Louis could never long withstand
repeated solicitations, and, as he had not, when Madame de Campan read it,
formed any very high opinion of its literary merits, he thought that, now
that it was deprived of its venom, it would be looked upon as heavy, and
would fail accordingly. Some good judges, such as the Marquis de
Montesquieu, were of the same opinion. The actors thought differently. "It
is my belief," said a man of fashion to the witty Mademoiselle Arnould,
using the technical language of the theatre, "that your play will be
'damned.'" "Yes," she replied, "it will, fifty nights running." But, even
if Louis had heard of her prophecy, he would have disregarded it. He gave
his permission for the performance to take place, and on the 27th April,
1784, "The Marriage of Figaro" was accordingly acted to an audience which
filled the house to the very ceiling; and which the long uncertainty as to
whether it would ever be seen or not had disposed to applaud every scene
and every repartee, and even to see wit where none existed. To an
impartial critic, removed both by time and country from the agitation
which had taken place, it will probably seem that the play thus obtained a
reception far beyond its merits. It was undoubtedly what managers would
call a good acting play. Its plot was complicated without being confused.
It contained many striking situations; the dialogue was lively, but there
was more humor in the surprises and discoveries than verbal wit in the
repartees. Some strokes of satire were leveled at the grasping disposition
of the existing race of courtiers, whose whole trade was represented as
consisting of getting all they could, and asking for more; and others at
the tricks of modern politicians, feigning to be ignorant of what they
knew; to know what they were ignorant of; to keep secrets which had no
existence; to lock the door to mend a pen; to appear deep when they were
shallow; to set spies in motion, and to intercept letters; to try to
ennoble the poverty of their means by the grandeur of their objects. The
censorship, of course, did not escape. The scene being laid in Spain,
Figaro affirmed that at Madrid the liberty of the press meant that, so
long as an author spoke neither of authority, nor of public worship, nor
of politics, nor of morality, nor of men in power, nor of the opera, nor
of any other exhibition, nor of any one who was concerned in any thing, he
might print what be pleased. The lawyers were reproached with a scrupulous
adherence to forms, and a connivance at needless delays, which put money
into their pockets; and the nobles, with thinking that, as long as they
gave themselves the trouble to be born, society had no right to expect
from them any further useful action. But such satire was too general, it
might have been thought, to cause uneasiness, much more to do specific
injury to any particular individual, or to any company or profession.
Figaro himself is represented as saying that none but little men feared
little writings.[3] And one of the advisers whom King Louis consulted as
to the possibility of any mischief arising from the performance of the
play, is said to have expressed his opinion in the form of an apothegm,
that "none but dead men were killed by jests." The author might even have
argued that his keenest satire had been poured upon those national
enemies, the English, when he declared what has been sometimes regarded as
the national oath to be the pith and marrow of the English language, the
open sesame to English society, the key to unlock the English heart, and
to obtain the judicious swearer all that he could desire.[4]
And an English writer, with English notions of the liberty of the press,
would hardly have thought it worth while to notice such an affair at all,
did he not feel bound to submit his judgment to that of the French
themselves. And if their view be correct, almost every institution in
France must have been a dead man past all hopes of recovery, since the
French historical writers, to whatever party they belong, are unanimous in
declaring that it was from this play that many of the oldest institutions
in the country received their death-blow, and that Beaumarchais was at
once the herald and the pioneer of the approaching Revolution.
Paris had scarcely cooled down after this excitement, when its attention
was more agreeably attracted by the arrival of a king, Gustavus III. of
Sweden. He had paid a visit to France in 1771, which had been cut short by
the sudden death of his father, necessitating his immediate return to his
own country to take possession of his throne; but the brief acquaintance
which Marie Antoinette had then made with him had inspired her with a
great admiration of his chivalrous character; and in the preceding year,
hearing that he was contemplating a tour in Southern Europe, she had
written to him to express a hope that he would repeat his visit to
Versailles, promising him "such a reception as was due to an ancient ally
of France;[5]" and adding that "she should personally have great pleasure
in testifying to him how greatly she valued his friendship."
Her mention of the ancient alliance between the two countries, which,
indeed, had subsisted ever since the days of Francis I., was very welcome
to Gustavus, since the object of his journey was purely political, and he
desired to negotiate a fresh treaty. But those matters he, of course,
arranged with the ministers. The queen was only concerned in the
entertainments due from royal hosts to so distinguished a guest. Most of
them were of the ordinary character, there being a sort of established
routine of festivity for such occasions. And it may be taken as a proof
that the court had abated somewhat of its alarm at Beaumarchais's play
that "The Marriage of Figaro" was allowed to be acted on one of the king's
visits to the theatre. She also gave him an entertainment of more than
usual splendor at the Trianon, at which all the ladies present, and the
invitations were very numerous, were required to be dressed in white,
while all the walks and shrubberies of the garden were illuminated, so
that the whole scene presented a spectacle which he described in one of
his letters as "a complete fairy-land; a sight worthy of the Elysian
Fields themselves.[6]" But, as usual, the queen herself was the chief
ornament of the whole, as she moved graciously among her guests, laying
aside the character of queen to assume that of the cordial hostess; and
not even taking her place at the banquet, but devoting herself wholly to
the pleasurable duty of doing honor to her guests.
One of the displays was of a novel character, from which its inventors and
patrons expected scientific results of importance, which, though nearly a
century has since elapsed, have not yet been realized. In the preceding
year, Montgolfier had for the first time sent up a balloon, and the new
invention was now exhibited in the Court of Versailles: the queen allowed
the balloon to be called by her name; and, to the great admiration of
Gustavus, who had a decided taste for matters which were in any way
connected with practical science, the "Marie Antoinette" made a successful
voyage to Chantilly. The date of another invention, if, indeed, it
deserves so respectable a title, is also fixed by this royal visit. Mesmer
had recently begun to astonish or bewilder the Parisians with his theory
of animal magnetism; and Gustavus spent some time in discussing the
question with him, and seems for a moment to have flattered himself that
he comprehended his principles. But the only durable result which arose
from his stay in France was the sincere regard and esteem which he and the
queen mutually conceived for each other. They established a
correspondence, in which Marie Antoinette repeatedly showed her eagerness
to gratify his wishes and to attend to his recommendations; and when, at a
later period, unexpected troubles fell on her and her husband, there was
no one whom their troubles inspired with greater eagerness to serve them
than Gustavus, whose last projects, before he fell by the hand of an
assassin, were directed to their deliverance from the dangers which,
though neither he nor they were as yet fully alive to their magnitude,
were on the point of overwhelming them.
CHAPTER XX.
St. Cloud is purchased for the Queen.--Libelous Attacks on her.--Birth of
the Duc de Normandie.--Joseph presses her to support his Views in the Low
Countries.---The Affair of the Necklace.--Share which the Cardinal de
Rohan had in it.--The Queen's Indignation at his Acquittal.--Subsequent
Career of the Cardinal.
Marie Antoinette had long since completed her gardens at the Trianon, but
the gradual change in the arrangements of the court had made a number of
alterations requisite at Versailles, with which the difficulty of finding
money rendered it desirable to proceed slowly. It was reckoned that it
would be necessary to give up the greater part of the palace to workmen
for ten years; and as the other palaces which the king possessed in the
neighborhood of Paris were hardly suited for the permanent residence of
the court, the queen proposed to her husband to obtain St. Cloud from the
Duc d'Orleans, giving him in exchange La Muette, the Castle of Choisy, and
a small adjacent forest. Such an arrangement would have produced a
considerable saving by the reduction of the establishments kept up at
those places, at which the court only spent a few days in each year. And
as the duke was disposed to think that he should be a gainer by the
exchange, it is not very easy to explain how it was that the original
project was given up, and that St. Cloud was eventually sold to the crown
for a sum of money, Choisy and La Muette being also retained.
St. Cloud was bought; and Marie Antoinette, still eager to prevent her own
acquisition from being too costly, proposed to the king that it should he
bought in her name, and called her property; since an establishment for
her would naturally lie framed on a more moderate scale than that of any
palace belonging to the king, which was held always to require the
appointment of a governor and deputy-governors, with a corresponding staff
of underlings, while she should only require a porter at the outer gate.
The advantage of such a plan was so obvious that it was at once adopted.
The porters and servants wore the queen's livery; and all notices of the
regulations to be observed were signed "In the queen's name.[1]" Yet so
busy were her enemies at this time, that even this simple arrangement,
devised solely for the benefit of the people who were intimately concerned
in every thing that tended to diminish the royal expenditure, gave rise to
numberless cavils. Some affirmed that the issue of such notices in the
name of the queen instead of in that of the king was an infringement on
his authority. One most able and influential counselor of the Parliament,
Duval d'Espremesnil, who in more than one discussion in subsequent years
showed that in general he fully appreciated the principles of
constitutional government, but who at this time seems to have been
animated by no other feeling than that of hatred for the existing
ministers, even went the length of affirming that there was "something not
only impolitic but immoral in the idea of any palace belonging to a queen
of France.[2]" But when the arrangements had once been made, Marie
Antoinette not unnaturally thought her honor concerned in not abandoning
it in deference to clamor so absurd, as well as so disrespectful to
herself; and St. Cloud, to which she had always been partial, continued
hers, and for the next five years divided her attention with the Trianon.
But though she herself disregarded all such attacks with the calm dignity
which belonged to her character, her friends were not free from serious
apprehensions as to the power of persistent detraction and calumny. It was
one of the penalties which the nation had to pay for the infamies which
had stained the crown during the last three centuries, that the people had
learned to think that nothing was too bad to say and to believe of their
kings; and Marie Antoinette seemed as yet a fairer mark than usual for
slanderous attack, because her position was weaker than that of a King.[3]
It depended on the life of her husband and of a single son, who was
already beginning to show signs of weakness of constitution. It was
therefore with exceeding satisfaction that in the autumn of 1784 her
friends learned that she was again about to become a mother. They prayed
with inexpressible anxiety that the expected child should prove a son; and
on the 27th of March, 1785, their prayers were granted. A son was born,
whom his delighted father at once took in his arms, calling him "his
little Norman," and, saying "that the name alone would bring him
happiness," created Duke of Normandy. No prophecy was ever so sadly
falsified; no king's son had ever so miserable a lot; but no forebodings
of evil as yet disturbed his parents. Their delight was fully shared by
the body of the people; for the cabals against the queen were as yet
confined to the immediate precincts of the court, and had not descended to
infect the middle classes. It was with difficulty when, after her
confinement, she paid her visit to Paris to return thanks at Notre Dame
and St. Genevieve, that the citizens could he prevented from unharnessing
her horses and dragging her coach in triumph through the streets.[4] And
their exultation was fully shared by the better-intentioned class of
courtiers, and by all Marie Antoinette's real friends, who felt assured
that the birth of this second son had given her the security which had
hitherto been wanting to her position.
Meanwhile, she was again led to interest herself greatly in foreign
politics, though in truth she hardly regarded any thing in which her
brother's empire was interested as foreign, so deep was her conviction
that the interests of France and Austria were identical and inseparable,
and so unwearied were her endeavors to make her husband's ministers see
all questions that concerned her brother's dominions with her eyes.
Throughout the latter part of 1784, and the earlier months of 1785,
Joseph, who was always restless in his ambition, was full of schemes of
aggrandizement which he desired to carry out through the favor and
co-operation of France. At one moment he projected obtaining Bavaria in
exchange for the Netherlands, at another he aimed at procuring the opening
of the Scheldt by threatening the Dutch with instant war if they resisted.
But, as all these schemes were eventually abandoned, they would hardly
require to be mentioned here, were it not for the proofs which his
correspondence with his sister affords of his increasing esteem for her
capacity, and his evident conviction of her growing influence in the
French Government, and for the light which some of her answers to his
letters throw on her relations with the ministers, which had perhaps some
share in increasing the annoyance that the affair of "the necklace," as
will be presently mentioned, caused her before the end of the year. Her
difficulties with Louis himself were the same as she had already described
to her brother on former occasions. "It was impossible to induce him to
take a strong line, so as to speak resolutely to M. de Vergennes in her
presence, and equally so to prevent his changing his mind afterward;[5]"
while she distrusted the good faith of the minister so much that, though
she resolved to speak to him strongly on the subject, she would not do so
till she could discuss the question with him "in the presence of the king,
that he might not be able to disfigure or to exaggerate what she said."
Yet she did not always find her precautions effectual. Louis's judgment
was always at the mercy of the last speaker. She assured her brother that
"he had abundant reason to be contented with the king's personal feelings
on the subject. When he received the emperor's letter, he spoke to her
about it in a way that delighted her. He regarded Joseph's demands as
just, and his motives as most reasonable. Yet--she blushed to own it even
to her brother--after he had seen his minister, his tone was no longer the
same; he was embarrassed; he shunned the subject with her, and often found
some new objection to weaken the effect of his previous admissions."
At one time she even feared a rupture between the two countries. Vergennes
was urging the king to send an army of observation to the frontier; and,
if it were sent, the proximity of such a force to the Austrian troops in
the Netherlands would, to her apprehension, be full of danger. There was
sound political acuteness in her remark that the dispatch of an army of
observation was not "in itself a declaration of war, but that when two
armies are so near to one another an order to advance is very soon
executed;" and, with a shrewd perception of the argument which was most
likely to influence the humane disposition of her husband, she pressed
upon him that "the delays and shuffling of his ministers might very
probably involve him in war, in spite of his own intentions." However,
eventually the clouds which had caused her anxiety were dissipated; the
mediation of France had even some share in leading to a conclusion of
these disputes in a manner in which Joseph himself acquiesced; and the
good understanding between the two crowns, on which, as Marie Antoinette
often declared, her happiness greatly depended, was preserved, or, as she
hoped, even strengthened, by the result of these negotiations.
But on one occasion of real moment to the personal comfort and credit of
the queen, Louis behaved with a clear good sense, and, what was equally
important, with a firmness which she gratefully acknowledged,[6] and
contrasted remarkably with the pusillanimous advice that had been given by
more than one of the ministers. That the affair in which he exhibited
these qualities should for a moment have been regarded as one of political
importance, is another testimony to the diseased state of the public mind
at the time; and that it should have been possible so to use it as to
attach the slightest degree of discredit to the queen, is a proof as
strange as melancholy how greatly the secret intrigues of the basest cabal
that ever disgraced a court had succeeded in undermining her reputation,
and poisoning the very hearts of the people against her.[7]
Boehmer, the court jeweler, had collected a large number of diamonds of
unusual size and brilliancy, which he had formed into a necklace, in the
hope of selling it to the queen, whose fancy for such jewels had some
years before been very great. She had at one time spent sums on diamond
ornaments, large enough to provoke warm remonstrances from her mother,
though certainly not excessive for her rank; and Louis, knowing her
partiality for them, had more than once made her costly gifts of the kind.
But her taste for them had cooled; her children now engrossed far more of
her attention than her dress, and she was keenly alive to the distress
which still prevailed in many parts of the kingdom, and to the
embarrassments of the revenue, which the ingenuity of Calonne did not
relieve half so rapidly as his rashness encumbered it. Accordingly, her
reply to Boehmer's application that she would purchase his necklace was
that her jewel-case was sufficiently full, and that she had almost given
up wearing diamonds; and that if such a sum as he asked, which was nearly
seventy thousand pounds, were available, she should greatly prefer its
being spent on a ship for the nation, to replace the _Ville de Paris_,
whose loss still rankled in her breast.
The king, who thought that she must secretly wish for a jewel of such
unequalled splendor, offered to make her a present of the necklace, but
she adhered to her refusal. Boehmer was greatly disappointed; he had
exhausted his resources and his credit in collecting the stones in the
hope of making a grand profit, and declared loudly to his patrons that he
should be ruined if the queen could not be induced to change her mind. His
complaints were so unrestrained that they reached the ears of those who
saw in his despair a possibility of enriching themselves at his expense.
There was in Paris at the time a Countess de la Mothe, who, as claiming
descent from a natural son of Henri II., had added Valois to her name, and
had her claim to royal birth so far allowed that, as she was in very
destitute circumstances, she had obtained a small pension from the crown.
Her pension and her pretensions had perhaps united to procure her the hand
of the Count de la Mothe, who had for some time been discreditably known
as one of the most worthless and dangerous adventurers who infested the
capital. But her marriage had been no restraint on a life of unconcealed
profligacy, and among her lovers she reckoned the Cardinal de Rohan, who,
as we have already seen, was as little scrupulous or decent as herself.
As, however, the cardinal's extravagance had left him with little means of
supplying her necessities, Madame La Mothe conceived the idea of swindling
Boehmer out of his necklace, and of making de Rohan an accomplice in the
fraud. The one thing which in the transaction is difficult to determine is
whether the cardinal was her willing and conscious assistant, or her dupe.
That his capacity was of the very lowest order was notorious, but he was a
man who had been bred in courts; he knew the manner in which princes
transacted their business, and in which queens signed their names. He had
long been acquainted with Marie Antoinette's figure and gestures and
voice; while, unhappily, there was nothing in his character which was
incompatible with his becoming an accomplice in any act of baseness.
What followed was a drama of surprises. It was with as much astonishment
as indignation that Marie Antoinette learned that Boehmer believed that
she had secretly bought the necklace, which openly and formally she had
refused, and that he was looking to her for the payment of its price. And
about a fortnight later it was like a thunder-clap that a summons came
upon the Cardinal de Rohan, who had just been performing mass before the
king and queen, to appear before them in Louis's private cabinet, and that
he found himself subjected to an examination by Louis himself, who
demanded of him with great indignation an explanation of the circumstances
that had led him to represent himself to Boehmer as authorized to buy a
necklace for the queen. Terrified and confused, he gave an explanation
which was half a confession; but which was too complicated to be
thoroughly intelligible. He was ordered to retire into the next room and
write out his statement. His written narrative proved more obscure than
his spoken words. In spite of his prayers that he might be spared the
degradation of being arrested while still clad in his pontifical habits,
he was at once sent to the Bastile. A day or two afterward Madame La Mothe
was apprehended in the provinces, and Louis directed that a prosecution
should be instantly commenced against all who had been concerned in the
transaction.
For the queen's name had been forged. The cardinal did not deny that he
had represented himself to Boehmer as employed by her for the purchase of
the jewel which, as he said, she secretly coveted, and for the payment of
its price by installments. But, as his justification, he produced a letter
desiring him to undertake the business, and signed "Marie Antoinette de
France." He declared that he had never suspected the genuineness of this
letter, though it was notorious that such an addition to their Christian
names was used by none but the sons and daughters of the reigning
sovereign, and never by a queen. And eventually his whole story was found
to be that Madame La Mothe had induced him to believe that she was in the
queen's confidence, and also that the queen coveted the necklace and was
resolved to obtain it; but that she was unable at once to pay for it; and
that, being desirous to make amends to the cardinal for the neglect with
which she had hitherto treated him, she had resolved on employing him to
make arrangements with Boehmer for the instant delivery of the ornament,
and for her payment of the price by installments.
This was strange enough to have excited the suspicions of most men. What
followed was stranger still. Not content with forging the queen's
handwriting, Madame La Mothe had even, if one may say so, forged the queen
herself. She had assured the cardinal that Marie Antoinette had consented
to grant him a secret interview; and at midnight, in the gardens of
Versailles, had introduced him to a woman of notoriously bad character
named Oliva, who in height resembled the queen, and who, in a conference
of half a minute, gave him a letter and a rose with the words, "You know
what this means." She had hardly uttered the words when Madame La Mothe
interrupted the pair with the warning the Countesses of Provence and
Artois were approaching. The mock queen retired in haste. The cardinal
pressed the rose to his heart; acted on the letter; and protested that he
had never doubted that he had seen the queen, and had been acting on her
commands in obtaining the necklace from Boehmer and delivering it to
Madame La Mothe, though he now acknowledged that he had been imposed upon,
and offered to pay the jeweler for his property.
There were not wanting those who advised that this offer should be
accepted, and that the matter should be hushed up, rather than that a
prince of the Church should be publicly disgraced by a prosecution for
fraud. But Louis and Marie Antoinette both rightly judged that their duty
as sovereigns of the kingdom forbade them to compromise justice by
screening dishonesty. It was but two years before that a great noble, the
most eloquent of all French orators, had singled out Marie Antoinette's
love of justice as one of her most conspicuous, as it was one of her most
noble, qualities; and the words deserve especially to be remembered from
the melancholy contrast which his subsequent conduct presents to the
voluntary tribute which he now paid to her excellence. In 1783, the young
Count de Mirabeau, pleading for the restitution of his conjugal rights,
put the question to the judges at Aix before whom he was arguing, "Which
of you, if he desired to consecrate a living personification of justice,
and to embellish it with all the charms of beauty, would not set up the
august image of our queen?"
She and her husband might well have felt they were bound to act up to such
a eulogy. Some of their advisers also, and especially the Baron de
Breteuil and the Abbe de Yermond, fortified their decision with their
advice; being, in truth, greatly influenced by a reason which they forbore
to mention, namely, by their suspicion that the untiring malice of the
queen's enemies would not have failed to represent that the suppression of
the slightest particle of the truth could only have been dictated by a
guilty consciousness which felt that it could not bear the light; and that
the queen had forborne to bring the cardinal into court solely because she
knew that he was in a situation to prove facts which would deservedly
damage her reputation.
It is impossible to doubt that the resolution which was adopted was the
only one consistent with either propriety or common sense. However
plausible may be the arguments which in this or that case may be adduced
for concealment, the common instinct of mankind, which rarely errs in such
matters, always conceives a suspicion that it is dictated by secret and
discreditable motives; and that he who screens manifest guilt from
exposure and punishment makes himself an accomplice in the wrong-doing, if
he was not so before. But, though Louis judged rightly for his own and his
queen's character in bringing those who were guilty of forgery and robbery
to a public trial, the result inflicted an irremediable wound on one great
institution, furnishing an additional proof how incurably rotten the whole
system of the Government must have been, when corruption without shame or
disguise was allowed to sway the highest judicial tribunal in the country.
The Parliament of Paris, constantly endeavoring throughout its whole
history to encroach upon the royal prerogative, had always founded its
pretensions on its purity and disinterestedness. Since its
re-establishment at the beginning of the present reign, it had advanced
its claim to the possession of those virtues more loudly than ever; yet
now, in the very first case which came before it in which a noble of the
highest rank was concerned, it was made apparent not only that it was
wholly destitute of every quality which ought to belong to a judicial
bench, of a regard for truth and justice, and even of a knowledge of the
law; but that no one gave it credit for them, and that every one regarded
the decision to be given as one which would depend, not on the merits of
the case, but on the interest which the culprits might be able to make
with the judges.[8]
The trial took place in May of the following year. We need not enter into
its details; the denials, the admissions, the mutual recriminations of the
persons accused. In the fate of the La Mothes and Mademoiselle Oliva no
one professed to be concerned; but the friends of the cardinal were
numerous, rich, and powerful; and for months had been and still were
indefatigable in his cause. Some days before the trial, the attorney-
general had become aware that nearly the whole of the Parliament had been
gained by them; he even furnished the queen with a list of the names of
those judges who had promised their verdict beforehand, and of the means
by which they had been won over. And on the decisive morning the cardinal
and his friends made a theatrical display which was evidently intended to
overawe those members of the Parliament who were yet unconvinced, and to
enlist the sympathies of the public in general. He himself appeared at the
bar in a long violet cloak, the mourning robe of cardinals; and all the
passages leading to the hall of justice were lined by his partisans, also
in deep mourning; and they were not solely his own relations, the nobles
of the different branches of his family, the Soubises, the Rohans, the
Guimenees; but though, as princes of the blood, the Condes were nearly
allied to the king and queen, they also were not ashamed to swell the
company assembled, and to solicit the judges as they passed into the court
to disregard alike justice and their own oaths, and to acquit the
cardinal, whatever the evidence might be which had been, or was to be,
produced against him. They were only asking what they had already assured
themselves of obtaining. The queen's signature was indeed declared to be a
forgery, and the La Mothes, Mademoiselle Oliva, and a man named Retaux de
Villette, who had been the actual writer of the forged letters, were
convicted and sentenced to the punishment which the counsel for the crown
had demanded. But the cardinal was acquitted, as well as a notorious
juggler and impostor of the day, called Cagliostro, who had apparently
been so entirely unconnected with the transaction that it is not easy to
see how he became included in the prosecution; and permission was given to
the cardinal to make his acquittal public in any manner and to any extent
which he might desire.[9]
The subsequent history of the La Mothes was singular and characteristic.
The countess, who had been sentenced to be flogged, branded, and
imprisoned for life, after a time contrived, it is believed by the aid of
some of the Rohan family, to escape from prison. She fled to London, where
for some time she and her husband lived on the proceeds of the necklace,
which they had broken up and sold piecemeal to jewelers in London and
other cities; but they were soon reduced to great distress. After the
Revolution had broken out in Paris, they tried to make money by publishing
libels on the queen, in which they are believed to have obtained the aid
of some who in former times had been under great personal obligations to
Marie Antoinette. But the scheme failed: they were overwhelmed with debt;
writs were issued against them, and in trying to escape from the sheriff's
officers, the countess fell from a window at the top of a house, and
received injuries which proved fatal.
A most accomplished writer of the present day, who has devoted much care
and ability to the examination of the case, has pronounced an opinion that
the cardinal was innocent of dishonesty,[10] and limits his offense to
that of insulting the queen by the mere suspicion that she could place her
confidence in such an unworthy agent as Madame La Mothe, or that he
himself could be allowed to recover her favor by such means as he had
employed. But his absolute ignorance of the countess's schemes is not
entirely consistent with the admitted fact that, when he was arrested, his
first act was to send orders to his secretary to burn all the letters
which he had received from her on the subject; and unquestionably neither
Louis nor Marie Antoinette doubted his full complicity in the conspiracy.
Louis at once deprived him of his office of grand almoner, and banished
him from the court, declaring that "he knew too well the usages of the
court to have believed that Madame La Mothe had really been admitted to
the queen's presence and intrusted with such a commission.[11]" And Marie
Antoinette gave open expression to her indignation at the acquittal "of an
intriguer who had sought to ruin her, or to procure money for himself, by
abusing her name and forging her signature," adding, with undeniable
truth, that still more to be pitied than herself was a "nation which had
for its supreme tribunal a body of men who consulted nothing but their
passions; and of whom some were full of corruption, and others were
inspired with a boldness which always vented itself in opposition to those
who were clothed with lawful authority.[12]"
But her magnanimity and her sincere affection for the whole people were
never more manifest than now even in her first moments of indignation.
Even while writing to Madame de Polignac that she is "bathed in tears of
grief and despair," and that she can "hope for nothing good when
perverseness is so busy in seeking means to chill her very soul," she yet
adds that "she shall triumph over her enemies by doing more good than
ever, and that it will be easier for them to afflict her than to drive her
to avenging herself on them.[13]" And she uses the same language to her
sister Christine, even while expressing still more strongly her
indignation at being "sacrificed to a perjured priest and a shameless
intriguer." She demands her sister's "pity, as one who had never deserved
such injurious treatment;[14] but who had only recollected that she was
the daughter of Maria Teresa--to fulfill her mother's exhortations, always
to show herself French to the very bottom of her heart;" but she concludes
by repeating the declaration that "nothing shall tempt her to any conduct
unworthy of herself, and that the only revenge that she will take shall he
to redouble her acts of kindness."
It is pleasing to be able to close so odious a subject by the statement
that the disgrace which the cardinal had thus brought upon himself may be
supposed in some respects to have served as a lesson to him, and that his
conduct in the latter days of his life was such as to do no discredit to
the noble race from which he sprung.
A great part of his diocese as Bishop of Strasburg lay on the German side
of the Rhine; and thither,[15] when the French Revolution began to assume
the blood-thirsty character which has made it a warning to all future
ages, he was fortunate to escape in safety from the fury of the assassins
who ruled France. And though he was no longer rich, his less fortunate
countrymen, and especially his clerical brethren, found in him a liberal
protector and supporter.[16] He even levied a body of troops to re-enforce
the royalist army. But, when the First Consul wrung from the Pope a
concordat of which he disapproved, he resigned his bishopric, and shortly
afterward died at Ettenheim,[17] where, had he remained but a short time
longer, he, like the Duke d'Enghien, might have found that a residence in
a foreign land was no protection against the ever-suspicious enmity of
Bonaparte.
CHAPTER XXI.
The King visits Cherbourg.--Rarity of Royal Journeys.--The Princess
Christine visits the Queen--Hostility of the Duc d'Orleans to the Queen.--
Libels on her.--She is called Madame Deficit.--She has a Second Daughter,
who dies.--Ill Health of the Dauphin.--Unskillfulness and Extravagance of
Calonne's System of Finance.--Distress of the Kingdom.--He assembles the
Notables.--They oppose his Plans.--Letters of Marie Antoinette on the
Subject.--Her Ideas of the English Parliament.--Dismissal of Calonne.--
Character of Archbishop Lomenie de Brienne.--Obstinacy of Necker.--The
Archbishop is appointed Minister.--The Distress increases.--The Notables
are dissolved.--Violent Opposition of the Parliament--Resemblance of the
French Revolution to the English Rebellion of 1642.--Arrest of
d'Espremesnil and Montsabert.
It was owing to Marie Antoinette's influence that Louis himself in the
following year began to enter on a line of conduct which, if circumstances
had not prevented him from persevering in it, might have tended, more
perhaps than any thing else that he could have done, to make him also
popular with the main body of the people. The emperor, while at
Versailles, had strongly pressed upon him that it was his duty, as king of
the nation, to make himself personally acquainted with every part of his
kingdom, to visit the agricultural districts, the manufacturing towns, the
fortresses, arsenals, and harbors of the country. Joseph himself had
practiced what he preached. No corner of his dominions was unknown to him;
and it is plain that there can be no nation which must not be benefited by
its sovereign thus obtaining a personal knowledge of all the various
interests and resources of his subjects. But such personal investigations
were not yet understood to be a part of a monarch's duties. Louis's
contemporary, our own sovereign, George III., than whom, if rectitude of
intention and benevolence of heart be the principal standards by which
princes should be judged, no one ever better deserved to be called the
father of his country, scarcely ever went a hundred miles from Windsor,
and never once visited even those Midland Counties which before the end of
his reign had begun to give undeniable tokens of the contribution which
their industry was to furnish to the growing greatness of his empire; and
the last two kings of France, though in the course of their long reigns
they had once or twice visited their armies while waging war on the
Flemish or German frontier, had never seen their western or southern
provinces.
But now Marie Antoinette suggested to her husband that it was time that he
should extend his travels, which, except when he had gone to Rheims for
his coronation, had never yet carried him beyond Compiegne in one
direction and Fontainebleau in another; and, as of all the departments of
Government, that which was concerned with the marine of the nation
interested her most (we fear that she was secretly looking forward to a
renewal of war with England), she persuaded him to select for the object
of his first visit the fort of Cherbourg in Normandy, where those great
works had been recently begun which have since been constantly augmented
and improved, till they have made it a worthy rival to our own harbors on
the opposite side of the Channel. He was received in all the towns through
which he passed with real joy. The Normans had never seen their king since
Henry IV. had made their province his battle-field; and the queen, who
would gladly have accompanied him, had it not been that such a journey
undertaken by both would have resembled a state procession, and therefore
have been tedious and comparatively useless, exulted in the reception
which he had met with, and began to plan other expeditions of the same
kind for him, feeling assured that his presence would be equally welcomed
in other provinces--at Bourdeaux, at Lyons, or at Toulon. And a series of
such visits would undoubtedly have been calculated to strengthen the
attachment of the people everywhere to the royal authority; which,
already, to some far-seeing judges, seemed likely soon to need all the
re-enforcement which it could obtain in any quarter.
In the summer of 1786 she had a visit from her sister Christine, the
Princess of Teschen, who, with her husband, had been joint governor of
Hungary, and since the death of her uncle, Charles of Lorraine, had been
removed to the Netherlands. She had never seen her sister since her own
marriage, and the month which they spent together at Versailles may be
almost described as the last month of perfect enjoyment that Marie
Antoinette ever knew; for troubles were thickening fast around the
Government, and were being taken wicked advantage of by her enemies, at
the head of whom the Duc d'Orleans now began openly to range himself. He
was a man notorious, as has been already seen, for every kind of infamy;
and though he well knew the disapproval with which Marie Antoinette
regarded his way of life and his character, it is believed that he had had
the insolence to approach her with the language of gallantry; that he had
been rejected with merited indignation; and that he ever afterward
regarded her noble disdain as a provocation which it should be the chief
object of his life to revenge. In fact, on one occasion he did not scruple
to avow his resentment at the way in which, as he said, she had treated
him; though he did not mention the reason.[1]
Calumny was the only weapon which could be employed against her; but in
that he and his partisans had long been adept. Every old libel and pretext
for detraction was diligently revived. The old nickname of "The Austrian"
was repeated with pertinacity as spiteful as causeless; even the king's
aunts lending their aid to swell the clamor on that ground, and often
saying, with all the malice of their inveterate jealousy, that it was not
to be expected that she should have the same feelings as their father or
Louis XIV., since she was not of their blood, though it was plain that the
same remark would have applied to every Queen of France since Anne of
Brittany. Even the embarrassments of the revenue were imputed to her; and
she, who had curtailed her private expenses, even those which seemed
almost necessary to her position, that she might minister more largely to
the necessities of the poor--who had declined to buy jewels that the money
might be applied to the service of the State--was now held up to the
populace as being by her extravagance the prime cause of the national
distress. Pamphlets and caricatures gave her a new nickname of "Madame
Deficit;" and such an impression to her disfavor was thus made on the
minds of the lower classes, that a painter, who had just finished an
engaging portrait of her surrounded by her children, feared to send it to
the exhibition, lest it should be made a pretext for insult and violence.
Her unpopularity did not, indeed, last long at this time, but was
superseded, as we shall presently see, by fresh feelings of gratitude for
fresh labors of charity; nevertheless, the outcry now raised left its seed
behind it, to grow hereafter into a more enduring harvest of distrust and
hatred.
She had troubles, too, of another kind which touched her more nearly. A
second daughter, Sophie[2], had been born to her in the summer of 1786;
but she was a sickly child, and died, before she was a year old, of one of
the illnesses to which children are subject, and for some months the
mother mourned bitterly over her "little angel," as she called her. Her
eldest boy, too, was getting rapidly and visibly weaker in health: his
spine seemed to diseased, Marie Antoinette's only hope of saving him
rested on the fact that his father had also been delicate at the same age.
Luckily his brother gave her no cause for uneasiness; as she wrote to the
emperor[3]--"he had all that his elder wanted; he was a thorough peasant's
child, tall, stout, and ruddy.[4]" She had also another comfort, which, as
her troubles thickened, became more and more precious to her, in the warm
affection that had sprung up between her and her sister-in-law, the
Princess Elizabeth. A letter[5] has been preserved in which the princess
describes the death of the little Sophie to one of her friends, which it
is impossible to read without being struck by the sincerity of the
sympathy with which she enters into the grief of the bereaved mother. In
these moments of anguish she showed herself indeed a true sister, and, the
two clinging to one another the more the greater their dangers and
distresses became, a true sister she continued to the end.
Meanwhile the embarrassments of the Government were daily assuming a more
formidable appearance. Calonne had for some time endeavored to meet the
deficiency of the revenue by raising fresh loans, till he had completely
exhausted the national credit; and at last had been forced to admit that
the scheme originally propounded by Turgot, and subsequently in a more
modified degree by Necker, of abolishing the exemptions from taxation
which were enjoyed by the nobles--the privileged classes, as they were
often called--was the only expedient to save the nation from the disgrace
and ruin of total bankruptcy. But, as it seemed probable that the nobles
would resist such a measure, and that their resistance would prove too
strong for him, as it had already been found to be for his predecessors,
he proposed to the king to revive an old assembly which had been known by
the title of the Notables; trusting that, if he succeeded in obtaining the
sanction of that body to his plans, the nobles would hardly venture to
insist on maintaining their privileges in defiance of the recorded
judgment of so respectable a council. His hopes were disappointed. He
might fairly have reckoned on obtaining their concurrence, since it was
the unquestioned prerogative of the king to nominate all the members; but,
even when he was most deliberate and resolute, his rashness and
carelessness were incurable. He took no pains whatever to select members
favorable to his views; and the consequence was that, in March, 1787, in
the very first month of the session of the Notables, the whole body
protested against one of the taxes which he desired to impose; and his
enemies at once urged the king to dismiss him, basing their recommendation
on the practice of England, where, as they affirmed, a minister who found
himself in a minority on an important question immediately retired from
office.
Marie Antoinette, who, as we have seen, had been a diligent reader of
Hume, had also been led to compare the proceedings of the refractory
Notables with the conduct of our English parliamentary parties, and to an
English reader some of her comments can not fail to be as interesting as
they are curious. The Duchess de Polignac was drinking the waters at Bath,
which at that time was a favorite resort of French valetudinarians, and,
while she was still in that most beautiful of English cities, the queen
kept up an occasional correspondence with her. We have two letters which
Marie Antoinette wrote to her in April; one on the 9th, the very day on
which Calonne was dismissed; the second, two days latter; and even the
passages which do not relate to politics have their interest as specimens
of the writer's character, and of the sincere frankness with which she
laid aside her rank and believed in the possibility of a friendship of
complete equality.
"April 9th, 1787.
"I thank you, my dear heart, for your letter, which has done me good. I
was anxious about you. It is true, then, that you have not suffered much
from your journey. Take care of yourself, I insist on it, I beg of you;
and be sure and derive benefit from the waters, else I should repent of
the privation I have inflicted on myself without your health being
benefited. When you are near I feel how much I love you; and I feel it
much more when you are far away. I am greatly taken up with you and yours,
and you would be very ungrateful if you did not love me, for I can not
change toward you.
"Where you are you can at least enjoy the comfort of never hearing of
business. Although you are in the country of an Upper and a Lower House,
you can stop your ears and let people talk. But here it is a noise that
deafens one in spite of all I can do. The words 'opposition' and 'motions'
are established here as in the English Parliament, with this difference,
that in London, when people go into opposition, they begin by denuding
themselves of the favors of the king; instead of which, here numbers
oppose all the wise and beneficent views of the most virtuous of masters,
and still keep all he has given them. It may be a cleverer way of
managing, but it is not so gentleman-like. The time of illusion is past,
and we are tasting cruel experience. We are paying dearly to-day for our
zeal and enthusiasm for the American war. The voice of honest men is
stifled by members and cabals. Men disregard principles to bind themselves
to words, and to multiply attacks on individuals. The seditious will drag
the State to its ruin rather than renounce their intrigues."
And in her second letter she specifies some of the Opposition by name; one
of whom, as will be seen hereafter, contributed greatly to her subsequent
miseries.... "The repugnance which you know that I have always had to
interfering in business is today put cruelly to the proof; and you would
be as tired as I am of all that goes on. I have already spoken to you of
our Upper and Lower House,[6] and of all the absurdities which take place
there, and of the nonsense which is talked. To be loaded with benefits by
the king, like M. de Beauvau, to join the Opposition, and to surrender
none of them, is what is called having spirit and courage. It is, in
truth, the courage of infamy. I am wholly surrounded with folks who have
revolted from him. A duke,[7] a great maker of motions, a man who has
always a tear in his eye when he speaks, is one of the number. M. de La
Fayette always founds the opinions he expresses on what is done at
Philadelphia.... Even bishops and archbishops belong to the Opposition,
and a great many of the clergy are the very soul of the cabal. You may
judge, after this, of all the resources which they employ to overturn the
plans of the king and his ministers."
Calonne, however, as has already been intimated, had been dismissed from
office before this last letter was written. There had been a trial of
strength between him and his enemies; which he, believing that he had won
the confidence of Louis himself, reckoned on turning to his own advantage,
by inducing the king to dismiss those of his opponents who were in office.
To his astonishment, he found that Louis preferred dispensing with his own
services, and the general voice was probably correct when it, affirmed
that it was the queen who had induced him to come to that decision.
Lomenie de Brienne, Archbishop of Toulouse, was again a candidate for the
vacant post, and De Vermond was as diligent as on the previous occasion[8]
in laboring to return the obligations under which that prelate had
formerly laid him, by extolling his abilities and virtues to the queen,
and recommending him as a worthy successor to Calonne, whom she had never
trusted or liked. In reality, the archbishop was wholly destitute of
either abilities or virtues. He was notorious both for open profligacy and
for avowed infidelity, so much so that Louis had refused to transfer him
to the diocese of Paris, on the ground that "at least the archbishop of
the metropolis ought to believe in God.[9]" But Marie Antoinette was
ignorant of his character, and believed De Vermond's assurance that the
appointment of so high an ecclesiastic would propitiate the clergy, whose
opposition, as many of her letters prove, she thought specially
formidable, and for whose support she knew her husband to be nervously
anxious. Some of Calonne's colleagues strongly urged the king to
re-appoint Necker, whose recall would have been highly popular with the
nation. But Necker had recently given Louis personal offense by publishing
a reply to some of Calonne's statements, in defiance of the king's express
prohibition, and had been banished from Paris for the act; and the queen,
recollecting how he had formerly refused to withdraw his resignation at
her entreaty, felt that she had no reason to expect any great
consideration for the opinions or wishes of either herself or the king
from one so conceited and self-willed, who would be likely to attribute
his re-appointment, not to the king's voluntary choice, but to his
necessities: she therefore strongly pressed that the archbishop should be
preferred. In an unhappy moment she prevailed;[10] and on the 1st of May,
1787, Lomenie de Brienne was installed in office with the title of Chief
of the Council of Finance.
A more unhappy choice could not possibly have been made. The new minister
was soon seen to be as devoid of information and ability as he was known
to be of honesty. He had a certain gravity of outward demeanor which
imposed upon many, and he had also the address to lead the conversation to
points which, his hearers understood still less than himself; dilating on
finance and the money market even to the ladies of the court, who had had
some share in persuading the queen of his fitness for office.[11] But his
disposition was in reality as rash as that of Calonne; and it was a
curious proof of his temerity, as well as of his ignorance of the feeling
of parties in Paris, that though he knew the Notables to be friendly to
him, as indeed they would have been to any one who might have superseded
Calonne, he dismissed them before the end of the month. And the language
held on their dissolution both by the ministers and by the President of
the Notables, and which was cheerfully accepted by the people, is
remarkable from the contrast which it affords to the feelings which swayed
the national council exactly two years afterward. Some measures of
retrenchment which the Notables had recommended had been adopted; some
reductions had been made in the royal households; some costly ceremonies
had been abolished; and one or two imposts, which had pressed with great
severity on the poorer classes, had been extinguished or modified. And not
only did M. Lamoignon, the Keeper of the Seals, in the speech in which he
dismissed them, venture to affirm that these reductions would be found to
have effected all that was needed to restore universal prosperity to the
kingdom; but the President of the Assembly, in his reply, thanked God "for
having caused him to be born in such an age, under such a government, and
for having made him the subject of a king whom he was constrained to
love," and the thanksgiving was re-echoed by the whole Assembly. But this
contentment did not last long. The embarrassments of the Treasury were too
serious to be dissipated by soft speeches. The Notables were hardly
dissolved before the archbishop proposed a new loan of an enormous amount;
and, as he might have foreseen, their dissolution revived the pretensions
of the Parliament. The queen's description of the rise of a French
opposition at once received a practical commentary. The debates in the
Parliament became warmer than they had ever been since the days of the
Fronde: the citizens, sharing in the excitement, thronged the palace of
the Parliament, expressing their approval or disapproval of the different
speakers by disorderly and unprecedented clamor; the great majority
hooting down the minister and his supporters, and cheering those who spoke
against him. The Duc d'Orleans, by open bribes, gained over many of the
councilors to oppose the court in every thing. The registration of several
of the edicts which the minister had sent down was refused; and one member
of the Orleanist party even demanded the convocation of the States-
general, formerly and constitutionally the great council of the nation,
but which had never been assembled since the time of Richelieu.
The archbishop was sometimes angry, and sometimes terrified, and as weak
in his anger as in his terror. He persuaded the king to hold a bed of
justice to compel the registration of the edicts. When the Parliament
protested, he banished it to Troyes. In less than a month he became
alarmed at his own vigor, and recalled it. Encouraged by his
pusillanimity, and more secure than ever of the support of the citizens
who had been thrown into consternation by his demand of a second loan,
nearly[12] six times as large as the first, it became more audacious and
defiant than ever, D'Orleans openly placing himself at the head of the
malcontents. Lomenie persuaded the king to banish the duke, and to arrest
one or two of his most vehement partisans; and again in a few weeks
repented of this act of decision also, released the prisoners, and
recalled the duke.
As a matter of course, the Parliament grew bolder still. Every measure
which the minister proposed was rejected; and under the guidance of one of
their members, Duval d'Espremesnil, the councilors at last proceeded so
far as to take the initiative in new legislation into their own hands. In
the first week in May, 1788, they passed a series of resolutions affirming
that to be the law which indeed ought to have been so, but which had
certainly never been regarded as such at any period of French history. One
declared that magistrates were irremovable, except in cases of misconduct;
another, that the individual liberty and property of every citizen were
inviolable; others insisted on the necessity of convoking the States-
general as the only assembly entitled to impose taxes; and the councilors
hoped to secure the royal acceptance of these resolutions by some previous
votes which asserted that, of those laws which were the very foundation of
the Constitution, the first was that which assured the "crown to the
reigning house and to its descendants in the male line, in the order of
primogeniture.[13]"
But Louis, or rather his rash minister, was not to be so conciliated; and
a scene ensued which is the first of the striking parallels which this
period in France affords to the events which had taken place in England a
century and a half before. As in 1642 Charles I. had attempted to arrest
members of the English Parliament in the very House of Commons, so the
archbishop now persuaded Louis t 
The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France / Yonge, Charles Duke, 1812-1891