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Title: Last years of Louis XV
Author: Imbert de Saint-Amand
Translator: Elizabeth Gilbert Martin
Release date: October 3, 2026 [eBook #79712]
Language: English
Original publication: New York, NY: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1893
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79712
Credits: Jamie Brydone-Jack and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV ***
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE.
Dauphiness of France.]
_WOMEN OF VERSAILLES_
LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV
BY
IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND
_TRANSLATED BY_
ELIZABETH GILBERT MARTIN
_WITH PORTRAITS_
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1893
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 1
FIRST PART
THE COURT AND THE CITY AT THE END OF THE
REIGN OF LOUIS XV.
CHAPTER
I. THE KING 9
II. THE NOBILITY 15
III. THE CLERGY 18
IV. THE MAGISTRACY 22
V. THE MIDDLE CLASSES 29
VI. THE PEOPLE 34
VII. POLITICAL WOMEN 40
VIII. LOVE 45
IX. THE FAMOUS SALONS 51
X. THE PHILOSOPHERS 68
SECOND PART
THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES AT THE END OF THE
REIGN OF LOUIS XV.
I. LOUIS XV. IN 1768 79
II. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE COUNTESS DU BARRY 91
III. THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COUNTESS DU BARRY 97
IV. MADAME LOUISE OF FRANCE, CARMELITE NOVICE 105
V. THE CHILDHOOD OF MARIE ANTOINETTE 115
VI. MARIE ANTOINETTE’S ARRIVAL IN FRANCE 125
VII. THE MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES OF MARIE ANTOINETTE 135
VIII. THE DAUPHINESS AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN 1770 143
IX. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME DU BARRY 149
X. THE DAUPHINESS AND MARIA THERESA 162
XI. THE PAVILION OF LUCIENNES 177
XII. THE DEATH OF LOUIS XV 188
EPILOGUE
THE SCAFFOLD OF MADAME DU BARRY 199
LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV
_INTRODUCTION_
To live the life of the dead, to study an epoch thoroughly, to identify
one’s self with personages and become familiar with their habits, ideas,
passions, tastes, fashions, prejudices, is a sort of metempsychosis, an
incarnation. To attain it, one must isolate himself from his own time,
and, forgetting that he is himself, must imagine that he is another.
At first one lends but slight attention to the details given by the
memoirs of the times to which he wishes to transport himself, to the
minutiæ of every sort which are only seen as through a glass. But after
a while, you begin to be captivated by all these petty facts, this daily
tittle-tattle, and the past assumes a second actuality. It seems as if
you knew intimately the actors in the piece of which you are giving
yourself a representation. You think you hear their voices and watch the
play of their countenances, and you become the courtier of palaces, the
holder of season tickets to theatres, the habitué of the salons you are
seeking to revive.
This is what I should like to attempt for the last years of Louis XV.,
those six years which extend from the death of Marie Leczinska to that
of the sovereign who is no longer styled the Well-Beloved except by
antiphrasis. A period curious by its contrasts, its wavering struggle
between the ancient régime which is approaching extreme old age, and
the new which as yet exists only in embryo! French society, regretting
nothing of the past, fearing nothing from the future, advances singing
toward the abyss.
I fancy that instead of being an obscure man of letters of the nineteenth
century, I am a courtier of the eighteenth; that I am present at Madame
Du Barry’s triumph, when Madame Louise of France takes the veil, and
at the rising of that nascent star which is called Marie Antoinette. I
love Versailles, where the monarchy, spite of its decline, has still
some remaining prestige. But I greatly prefer Paris; Paris, capital of
opinion, Paris, city of luxury, intelligence, pleasures. I live with
the philosophers while mistrustful of their doctrines, whose bearings
they do not comprehend well. The courtier of Louis XV. at Versailles,
I am the familiar of the kings and queens of fashion at Paris. I visit
the Marquise du Deffand without embroiling myself with Mademoiselle de
Lespinasse. At the house of Madame Geoffrin I meet those great nobles,
men of wit and taste, who, mingling with writers and artists, establish
a fusion between aristocracy and literature, those foreign diplomatists
who seem ravished with French and Parisian civilization. I go to those
delightful suppers where one forgets for an instant all that is sad, all
that is morose, in existence, in order to think only of what is amiable
and agreeable. When it suits me, I dabble a little in politics. When
the Duke de Choiseul falls into disgrace, I pose as his courtier and go
to inscribe my name on the Chanteloup column. The quarrels between the
magistracy and royalty interest me, but I do not take them too seriously.
I see a society divided into two camps: the pessimists and the optimists,
those who believe in the social peril and those who disbelieve. But the
latter are in the majority. The former declare that if the altar is no
longer solid, the throne cannot be so either. They regret the Jesuits.
They loudly blame Voltaire. The future looks black to them. They are the
prophets of misfortune.
The second smile if one expresses a fear. When they have pronounced
the words justice, tolerance, equality, liberty, they think they have
said all. They jeer at the Cassandras predicting public calamities, at
the priests lamenting over unbelief, at Louis XV. contemplating with a
sort of anxiety the portrait of Charles I., King of England. How could
a loyal, chivalric nation such as the French make its king ascend a
scaffold? Is not society every day becoming milder, more enlightened,
more tolerant? Are not the old religious quarrels falling into oblivion?
Is not the nobility placing itself at the head of a liberal and
generous movement? Are not the priests becoming as agreeable as worldly
people? Is not instruction making progress daily? When had literature
more prestige? When were liberal ideas, the taste for useful reforms,
civilizing schemes, more fashionable? Is not science, which every day
realizes new prodigies, uniting itself with philosophy to embellish,
pacify, and regenerate the human species? And it is such a time as this
that people would like to signalize as a period doomed to troubles,
anarchy, sanguinary violence! “Away, ye tremblers!” cry the philosophers.
“Away, retrograde men, who want to enchain and degrade humanity! Nothing
will impede the diffusing light! Nothing, no, nothing will thwart the
irresistible movement which is carrying France, and after France all
Europe, toward progress, toward indefinite, illimitable perfection.
Drop these pusillanimous arguments, imaginary alarms, infantine or
senile terrors. The phantoms which disturb you will not frighten us.
Your phantasmagoria makes us laugh. It is useless for you to raise your
voices, and seek to intimidate us by your tragic threats and dismal
predictions. Away, away, ye tremblers! The world moves; you will not stop
it!”
I listen to this flow of fine words. But, I own, it does not quite
convince me. I do not altogether believe in the nearness of the age of
gold. After me the deluge, exclaimed, or so they say, Louis XV. in the
boudoir of the Du Barry. Louis XV. forebodes no good of the future.
Perhaps he is right. And I, who am carried away by the vortex of the
world, I who lead this unquiet, feverish, brilliant life of the city and
the court, of salons and boudoirs, academies and theatres, who go to all
the suppers, all the first nights, all the entertainments, I, the friend
of all the great nobles, all the celebrated men, all the fashionable
beauties, I also, like the old King, have my hours of sadness and
discouragement. At times all these men and women whom I meet seem to me,
as they do to the old Marquise de Deffand, “machines on springs, which
go and come, talk and laugh, without thinking, without reflecting, each
playing his part by mere custom.” Yes, people of the world, impassioned
on the surface, indifferent at heart, malicious conversations which
are the aliment of jealousy and idleness, insipid gallantry the parody
of passion, everlastingly renewed discussions on love and friendship
by persons who have never known and never will know anything but the
theory of either sentiment, artificial, egotistic, glacial combinations
of the life of salons, there are moments when you weary me, when I hold
you in horror. There are moments when I say to myself: What will this
philosophic fury result in? What will be built upon so many ruins? What
will the throne be without the altar, the nobility without the clergy?
How will this Babel which they call the Encyclopedia end? And what real
melancholy lies underneath this apparent gaiety! What inanity, what
wretchedness! What bitterness at the bottom of these cups of crystal!
What thorns among these roses! What cares in these powdered heads!
Brilliant beauties, how your painted cheeks are wrinkling with anxiety!
Eighteenth century, century so proud of thy wit, thine audacity, thy
pretended progress, century of philosophers, of learned ladies, of noble
artists, of all-powerful litterateurs, century of Rousseau and Voltaire,
Diderot and Helvétius, eighteenth century which art approaching thy
term, what will thy closing years be like?... But I will banish gloomy
presentiments. I will exclaim with Horace Walpole: “I laugh, that I may
not weep. I play with monkeys, dogs, and cats, that I may not be devoured
by the beast of Gévaudan.” Let us taste, then, while there still is
time, the sweetness of feeling and living. This society which has so
many defects, so many vices, but also so many charms and attractions,
let us examine it without complaisance and without anger. The court,
the city, the nobility, the clergy, the magistracy, the middle class,
the people, the philosophers, the literary men, the artists, the women,
above all the women, let us watch them filing by in turn, the actors
and supernumeraries of a comedy which will end, and very soon perhaps,
in the most pathetic and lugubrious of all dramas.... The new world is
advancing. Let us cast a final glance at the old one.
FIRST PART
THE COURT AND THE CITY AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV.
I
THE KING
At the close of the reign of Louis XV. the court is out of fashion. The
same etiquette, the same names, the same distinctions, are still beheld
there. But the King is old; what is more, the King is ridiculous. His
passion for a nobody, a Du Barry, has something about it that is absurd
and painfully grotesque. Versailles no longer makes people tremble; it
makes them smile. They jeer at the amorous monarch who is playing a
superannuated pastoral with a courtesan. No one now takes seriously the
_Well-Beloved of the Almanac_, as he is still ironically called. A joker
circulated, 1771, the following _pater_, dedicated to His Most Christian
Majesty: “Our father who art at Versailles, hallowed be thy name; thy
kingdom is overcome, thy will is done no more on earth than it is in
heaven. Give us our daily bread which you have taken from us; pardon your
parliaments which have upheld our interests, as you pardon your ministers
who have sold them. Do not succumb to the temptations of the Du Barry,
but deliver us from that devil of a chancellor.”
The scenery of Versailles is not changed, however. The gentlemen on duty
fulfil their functions with as much assiduity as of old. The King’s levee
continues to be a piece in five acts, where the courtiers make their
appearance like ballet dancers of the highest class. There are always
the _familiar entries_, when the just-awakened King is still in his bed;
the _grand entries_, when he has just risen and is in his dressing-gown;
then that which is called the _entry of the chamber_, when he is in his
armchair, in front of his dressing-table; and finally, the _general
entry_, that of the stream of courtiers who have been waiting since
daybreak in the Gallery of Mirrors. Versailles is always that city of
eighty thousand souls which is replenished, peopled, occupied, by the
life of a single man, that essentially royal city which is marvellously
arranged so as to provide for the pleasures, the guard, the society,
and the exhibition of the sovereign. The immortal race of courtiers is
continually recruited by compliant and clever men who, on being presented
at court, have received and obeyed this counsel: “You have only three
things to do: speak well of everybody, ask for everything that is not
taken, and sit down when you can.” But, in spite of their irreproachable
attitude, all these courtiers resemble priests who no longer believe in
their god. They still burn incense at the feet of the idol, as a matter
of custom, but the idol hardly creates the vestige of an illusion.
Etiquette, which subsists in all its rules and its minutiæ, is still in
usage, but it is no longer a religion. Prestige has vanished. One cannot
find another Dangeau, another De Luynes. Money, moreover, that nerve of
courts, is becoming scarcer. Horace Walpole wrote, July 30, 1771:—
“The distress here is incredible, especially at court. The King’s
tradesmen are ruined, his servants starving, and even angels and
archangels cannot get their pensions and salaries, but sing ‘Woe! woe!
woe!’ instead of Hosannahs. Compiègne is abandoned; Villiers Coterêts and
Chantilly[1] crowded, and Chanteloup[2] still more in fashion, whither
everybody goes that pleases; though, when they ask leave, the answer is,
‘Je ne le défends ni le permets.’ This is the first time that ever the
will of a king of France was interpreted against his inclination. Yet,
after annihilating his Parliament, and ruining public credit, he tamely
submits to be affronted by his own servants. Madame de Beauveau, and two
or three high-spirited dames, defy this Czar of Gaul.”
Walpole is careful to add that there is nothing very serious in the
opposition of these ladies. “It must be said, they and their cabals
have as little consistency as their party. They make epigrams, chant
vaudevilles against the favorite, distribute pamphlets against Chancellor
Maupeou, but all that has no more effect than a shot in the air.”
To sum up, people still preserve for the King, if not affection and
respect,—respect and affection ceased to exist long ago,—at least a
certain indulgence. One excuses this old man as one would excuse a
spoiled child. He has done harm, but on the other hand, he has done
good. He has lost the colonies, but he has annexed Lorraine and Corsica
to France. He has resisted powerful coalitions. He is the victor of
Fontenoy. His aged arm has been able to strike the Parliament, and this
_coup d’État_ puts off the cataclysm for several years. Louis XV.,
devotee and debauchee, dissatisfied with others and with himself, a
mixture of feebleness and energy, of heedlessness and judgment,—Louis
XV., possessing still a certain dignity, politeness, and well-bred calm,
a noble and kingly aspect,—Louis XV., perhaps still more to be pitied
than blamed, remains a type of the ancient régime, an incarnation of that
monarchy which, despite its visible decadence, has still its vestiges of
grace and decorum, of force and authority. He is a debauchee. But he is
in fact neither better nor worse than many old Celadons, many veterans
of Cythera, many superannuated seducers who would think themselves
absolutely dead if they had no more mistresses. Learned magistrates
themselves play their pranks. They have their little houses, enlarged
boudoirs, temples of voluptuous pleasure. The epicurean eighteenth
century is only half displeased with royal debauchery. They scoff at it,
and the monarchical principle is stricken far less by violent attacks
than by an arm possibly more to be dreaded,—that of ridicule. When, at
Mass in the chapel of Versailles, I see Louis XV. praying very seriously
in the royal tribune, not far from his unworthy favorite, who is there
without rouge or powder, without even having made her toilette, I can
scarcely keep from shrugging my shoulders.
As to the old King, quite proud of his victory over Parliament, he
thinks this stroke has assured him a long and peaceable old age. In
his previsions he allots himself several more years of pleasure.
Then, he tells himself, will come the time of repentance and penance
and true piety, when he will be the Most Christian King in more than
name. How many old men there are who thus put off the hour of final
conversion, while displaying an interior respect for religion very
slightly hypocritical! This half-piety, this rough sketch of virtue, this
penitence in the shape of contingent future, we find in many souls. What
is feebler, more inconsistent, than human nature? We elbow men like Louis
XV. at every step. All, or nearly all, the lady-killers resemble the
lover of the Du Barry when they grow old, and there are few of them who,
while still retaining their health and plenty of money, consent to become
hermits, no matter what their age.
The dominant sentiment with regard to the King is not hatred, but
indifference. People are going to let him die peaceably, and will behold,
without anger and without emotion, the setting of this wintry sun,
devoid of warmth and radiance. Those who are impatient long for a new
reign. Those who are wiser think the future Louis XVI. too young. After
all, Louis XV., in spite of his errors, faults, and vices, is a man of
experience, a man of government. And when will the Dauphin know anything?
How much time does he not need in order to learn the most elementary
principles of the difficult art of reigning? He may have excellent
intentions, he will be honest and virtuous. But this is not enough.
The task will be too heavy a one for young shoulders. And hence Maria
Theresa, that woman of genius, that sure-eyed sovereign, fears nothing
so much as the death of the decried monarch, Louis XV. As king if not as
man, the old man is still preferable to the child.
II
THE NOBILITY
There are two parties among the nobles: the conservatives and the
liberals, the men of the past and the men of the future. The first
declare for the alliance of the throne and the altar, respect for all
ancient usages, and the absolute maintenance of etiquette. Irreconcilable
adversaries of philosophy, Anglomania, and the Encyclopedia, they regard
the changes in costume, the abandonment of liveries, the vogue of
foreign fashions, with annoyance and contempt. The second, uniting to
the advantages of patrician rank the convenient charms of independence,
joyfully adopt the cabriolets, the frock coats, the simplicity of
English dress. They applaud republican tirades at the theatres, the
subversive discourses of the academies, the anti-Christian theories
of the philosophers. They speak of the old social edifice as Gothic
architecture. Their rank and privileges, the débris of their former
puissance, are being undermined beneath their feet. What of it? This
“little war,” as Count de Ségur says, pleases and diverts them. They do
not feel its attacks as yet; they only see the spectacle. Slaves of
fashion, they go to pay court to D’Alembert, Diderot, Marmontel, Raynal,
a word of praise from whom they prefer to the favor of a prince of the
blood. Equality begins to make its appearance in the world. On many
occasions, literary tables take precedence over those of nobility. In
high society one often sees second or third rate literary men treated
with a consideration and attention not obtained by provincial nobles.
But let no one be deceived—all this democratic, almost republican
machinery, is as yet simply an optical illusion. Ancient usage, as
the same liberal Count de Ségur again affirms, preserves between the
nobility and the middle classes an immense interval which even men of the
most distinguished talents cross in appearance rather than in reality.
There is more familiarity than equality. The great trees which are
unconsciously losing their roots are still very proud of their foliage.
Family splendors, great households, feudal existences, attributes of
power, all seem vivacious and eternal. The classes of the old social
order, with their hierarchy, their luxury, their blazons, their riches
and power, are like “those brilliant pictures formed of a thousand colors
and traced with sand on the crystals of our festivities, wherein one may
admire magnificent castles, gay landscapes, and rich harvests, which the
lightest breath would be enough to efface and cause to disappear.”
Do not believe, moreover, that the nobility, in spite of its decadence,
has lost its former prestige. No, it is still elegant, loyal, full
of courtesy and politeness. The most insignificant of the provincial
gentry preserve their traditions. They have frequented the salons of
the commandant or intendant, they have met on a visit some ladies of
Versailles. Hence they all have some inkling of the changes in dress and
fashion. “The most uncivilized of them accompanies his departing guests,
hat in hand, to the foot of his front steps, thanking them for the honor
they have done him. The most clownish, being near a woman, furbishes up
from the depths of his memory some remnant of chivalrous gallantry. The
poorest and most retired is careful of his coat of ‘king’s-blue’ and
his cross of St. Louis so that he may, on occasion, pay his respects to
the neighboring great lord or the prince on his travels.”[3] The nobles
of the court, too futile, dissipated, and Voltairean, must not cause us
to forget the provincial nobles who live quietly, collected, austere,
respecting principles, usages, and dogmas, enduring an honorable poverty
without complaint, unwilling to go begging favors at Versailles, and
preparing in retreat to support nobly the storms whose approach they
forebode already.
III
THE CLERGY
Just as we find in the ranks of aristocracy, at the side of a court
nobility too often corrupt and frivolous, a provincial nobility which
guards faithfully the traditions of honor and the austere virtues, so
at the side of worldly prelates there are honest, convinced, venerable
priests who continue to edify the country. In the clergy, as in the
nobility, I distinguish the rich and the poor, the unbelieving and the
faithful, the men who give scandal and the men of good will. Doubtless
there are many reforms to make, many abuses to suppress. The princes
of the Church, possessors of feudal rights, heirs or successors of the
ancient prince-sovereigns of the country, the hundred and thirty-one
bishops and archbishops, the seven hundred commendatory abbés, with their
worldly airs, their opulence, their great households, are not all models.
I could name more than one prelate who not only has mistresses, clients,
guests, a levee, an antechamber, ushers, and offices, but who completes
his resemblance to the great nobles by having debts. The Marquis de
Mirabeau wrote in 1766: “It would be an insult to offer a curacy to the
majority of ecclesiastics with pretensions. Revenues and distinction
are for commendatory abbés, for clergymen who have only received the
tonsure, for the numerous chapters.” There are prelates who have an
income of half a million. People talk of one bishop’s hunting-equipage,
of another’s confessionals hung with satin, of the kitchen utensils in
solid silver belonging to a third. In salons and boudoirs I constantly
meet these court abbés, who have nothing of the priest about them but the
habit, and who do not always wear that,—anacreontic abbés, flatterers
of great ladies, admirers of the philosophers, newsmongers, makers of
little verses. But these are not the true clergy. The true clergy are
found in the modest presbyteries of towns, and especially of villages.
Yes, if I know the pompous aristocratic prelate, man of the world, man
of the salon, man of the court, mounting more willingly the marble
staircases of Versailles than the steps of the altar, I also know the
humble, poor, resigned priest, the man of devotion, duty, sacrifice,
abnegation, the man of God. If I meet the bishop proud of his gold cross,
I also salute the country curate who goes, staff in hand, several leagues
on foot through mud and snow. Doubtless there are certain convents of
women whose profane aspect makes them resemble aristocratic circles,
meeting-places for elegant society. But on the other hand there are
veritable convents, holy and religious asylums. One of the daughters
of Louis XV., Madame Louise of France, has become a Carmelite, and the
Carmelites make no compromise with austerity. There exist, I admit it,
certain preachers more intent on the Encyclopedia than on the Gospel,
who resemble academicians more than priests. There are, I am told,
some who forget to make the sign of the cross when they enter the
pulpit, omit all prayer, and turn their sermon into a sort of lecture.
Bachaumont tells us that this is called preaching _à la_ Greek. But,
on the other hand, there are energetic, convinced preachers, in whose
eloquent mouths the sacred terrors of doctrine are not enfeebled, men of
faith and courage who, like the Apostles, exclaim when confronted with
scandal: “It is impossible not to speak.” _Non possumus non loqui._ In
a piously audacious sermon, the Bishop of Alais, dividing society into
two classes, that which has all and that which has nothing, asks why so
enormous a privilege is excused by so little virtue. One day the Abbé de
Beauvais, preaching in the chapel of Versailles in presence of the King,
censures the shameful life of libertines. At the close of the sermon,
Louis XV., apostrophizing Marshal de Richelieu, said to the old coxcomb:
“Eh! Marshal, it seems to me the preacher has been throwing a good many
stones into your garden.”—“Yes, Sire,” returned the sly courtier, “and
some of them even bounced over into the park of Versailles.” Still,
the evangelical tradition continues in spite of everything. Even in
the most relaxed, corrupt, perverse epochs, there are always hidden
treasures, inexhaustible sources of charity and virtue, if not on the
surface at least in the depths of Christianity. No, no, messieurs the
philosophers, do not confound the Church, the holy Church, with certain
simoniacal priests and contraband abbés who are her reproach. Reckon up
how many faithful servants of Christ, helpers of the poor, consolers of
the afflicted, there yet remain in cities and country places, in every
town and village. True, there have been great scandals, abuses from which
Christian souls have suffered profoundly. Nevertheless, when the hour of
supreme crisis shall arrive, you will see how many priests will know how
to die like martyrs, like the early Christians. You who think the clergy
ended, will soon be astonished at the number of its heroic and intrepid
men. When the tempest comes, you will recognize the worth and ability of
this clergy. You think now that the Church has grown old. Well, she will
grow young again if need be, in persecution. She will have her second
baptism, if that is necessary, which will efface all stains; it will be
the baptism of blood!
IV
THE MAGISTRACY
I see the same contrasts in the magistracy as in the nobility and the
clergy. Beside magistrates of the old stamp, grave, austere, preserving
the tradition and sentiment of duty, the consciousness of professional
dignity, I encounter with regret epicurean and Voltairean magistrates,
men of intrigue and pleasure, light, superficial, partisans of
revolutionary ideas, preparing unawares the downfall of the throne as
well as the altar, and not even suspecting the weight of the blows they
are aiming at them. It is only in appearance that they uphold justice.
In reality they are nothing but agents of dissolution. They do not even
trouble themselves to be hypocrites. The same men who break Calas on
the wheel and decapitate La Barre, place Voltaire’s _La Pucelle_ on
the tables of their drawing-rooms, and are the guests and flatterers
of materialists and atheists. If a book is condemned to be burned, the
condemnation makes the magistrates who pronounce it smile. “Injunctions
are decried,” says Bachaumont, “a witticism refutes a sermon, and if
Parliament meddles with it, they glory in the honors of the burning. It
is no longer a punishment, but an advertisement. Moreover, do not fancy
that the executioner of lofty works has permission to throw into the
fire the books whose names appear in the decree of the court. Messieurs
would be very sorry to deprive their libraries of a copy of each of
these works to which they have a legal right, and the clerk of the court
substitutes for them some pettifogging parchments of which there is never
any lack.”[4]
Those members of the judiciary who hold a middle rank between the higher
nobility and the middle classes, who are rich, influential, and allied to
the most powerful families in France; those great nobles of the robe each
of whom has his little Versailles, a fine house between court and garden,
and who are to the magistracy what the prelates are to the clergy; these
parliamentary leaders gradually become the most redoubtable enemies of
the monarchy. Louis XV. has them in horror. Ever since the time of Madame
de Pompadour he has considered them his most dangerous enemies. “Those
long robes and the clergy,” he said one day to the favorite, “are always
at drawn swords; they torment me by their quarrels; but I detest the long
robes far the most. My clergy at bottom are attached to me and loyal;
the others would like to tutor me.... The Regent was much to blame for
giving them the right to make remonstrances; they will end by ruining
the State.”—“Ah! Sire,” remarked M. de Gontaut, “it is rather too strong
for petty lawyers to overthrow.”—“You do not know what they are doing nor
what they can do,” resumed the King; “it is an assembly of republicans.
Enough of that, however. Things will last as long as I do.”[5]
Disorder exists already in the ruling classes. Montesquieu has written
it: “There are three estates in France, the Church, the sword, and the
robe. Each of them has a sovereign contempt for the two others.” One
of Louis XV.’s ministers of foreign affairs, the Marquis d’Argenson,
has foretold what must be the certain end of this régime of divisions
and perpetual conflicts of power. “Who,” he writes, “will decide this
question in the future, to wit, whether despotism will increase or
diminish in France? For my part, I hold for the advent of the second
article, and even for republicanism. Louis XV. has not known how to
govern either tyrannically or like a good republican leader; now, here,
when one takes neither one rôle nor the other, woe to royal authority....
The peoples have grown very fond of parliaments, seeing in them the
only remedy for the vexations they endure from another quarter. All
this points to some revolt which is smouldering under the ashes.” In
1752 the same Marquis d’Argenson had traced these prophetic lines: “The
bad results of our government by absolute monarchy have succeeded in
convincing France and all Europe that it is the very worst kind of
government. I do not mean the same thing as the philosophers, who say
that anarchy itself would be preferable. However, the opinion is growing
and making its way, and that may bring about a national revolution.”
A noisy and active revolution is forming itself against the Church
in the very bosom of Catholicism, and against royalty in that of the
magistracy and the parliamentarian middle classes. A sort of league
is established between all the parliaments of France, which consider
themselves as the different groups of a single assembly, the several
members of an invisible body. Louis XV., energetic at times, awakes from
his torpor and comprehends the necessity of striking a great blow. During
the night of January 19, 1771, all the members of the Paris Parliament
who, through a spirit of opposition, were refusing to render justice,
are arrested in their beds and summoned to give a plain yes or no to an
order requiring them to resume their ordinary functions. They answer
no, and are sent into exile. The people remain quiet, and the dissolved
Parliament gives place without resistance to the new Maupeou Parliament,
so called from the name of the chancellor. Louis XV. thinks himself more
powerful than Louis XIV., the chancellor stronger than Richelieu. Madame
de Pompadour had overthrown the Jesuits. Madame Du Barry has overthrown
the parliamentarians; in other words, the Jansenists. The rival parties,
Jesuits and Jansenists, having disappeared, would not one suppose that
the absolute monarchy would remain standing alone above their ruins?
But that is merely an optical illusion. The Maupeou Parliament is
discredited, and power sustains it but feebly. It allows the affair
of Beaumarchais against Counsellor Goëzman,—an affair so trifling in
itself but so important on account of the noise it makes,—to take truly
incredible proportions. The terrible and dramatic Polish question
preoccupies Versailles and Paris less than the wretched quarrel between
the author of the _Barber of Seville_ and one of his judges, or rather,
the wife of one of them.
What was it all about? To know whether the wife of a counsellor of
Parliament had or had not kept fifteen louis received from a litigant.
Why, then, such passion and excitement in the public? Why this feverish
anxiety, this mad curiosity with which all Paris, all France, follows the
vicissitudes of this trial? Because the affair is symbolical. What is at
stake is less the Goëzman household than the whole Maupeou Parliament.
It is the magistracy that I see on the prisoner’s bench, and not
Beaumarchais. It is the accused who, by an inversion of rôles, appears
as counsel for the King,—what do I say?—as counsel for that new power,
opinion. His statements are the public prosecutor’s speeches. The cause
is as much political as judicial. The old social edifice is cracking and
undermined on every side. All the springs of the old machine are out
of order. And instead of lamenting over this, the privileged classes do
nothing but laugh. The Goëzman trial is a comedy which entertains the
boxes as much as it does the pit. I am not sure that Louis XV. himself,
hard as it is to divert him, is not cheered up by it. It certainly amuses
Madame Du Barry extremely. She has charades at her house in which Madame
Goëzman and Beaumarchais are confronted with each other. Beaumarchais
is the centre of all eyes, the fashionable man, the hero of the day. “I
am afraid,” writes Voltaire, “that this brilliant fellow may be in the
right against everybody.... His naïveté enchants me” (the naïveté of
Beaumarchais!). “I forgive him his imprudence and petulance.”
The conclusion of the most serious act or the most important treaty
of peace would be awaited with less impatience than the issue of this
trial, which preoccupies, if one can believe it, both peoples and
kings,—so entirely does France, in spite of her decline, retain in the
last years of Louis XV. the privilege of concentrating the attention of
all Europe on what is passing within her borders. “Judgment at last!”...
as says the Chicaneau in Racine’s _Plaideurs_. February 26, 1774, after
seven months of waiting, the sentence is pronounced. Madame Goëzman is
condemned to formal censure (_le blâme_) and to the restitution of the
fifteen louis, which are to be distributed among the poor. Beaumarchais
is also condemned to censure. _Le blâme_ is not a slight penalty, but an
infamous one, a penalty which renders him who is stricken by it incapable
of fulfilling any public function; the condemned receives the sentence
kneeling, in presence of the court, while the president says to him: “The
court censures thee and declares thee infamous.” Well! the man whom the
Maupeou Parliament thinks it can thus stamp with infamy, is a victor; all
Paris goes to leave cards at the house of the condemned man. The Prince
de Conti and the Duke de Chartres give him a brilliant entertainment the
day after sentence is decreed. M. de Sartines says to him: “One should be
modest even though one has been censured.” The opposition, silenced for a
moment, starts up anew. A rain of pamphlets and diatribes begins against
this Maupeou Parliament which, by inflicting civil death on a man upheld
by public opinion, has given itself a mortal blow. Its days, like those
of the old King, are numbered. As to Louis XV., judging Beaumarchais from
the address just displayed by this clever man in the Goëzman trial, he
intrusts him with a secret mission to England. When discordances like
these exist in any society, catastrophes are not far distant.
V
THE MIDDLE CLASSES
Curious thing! The revolution does not start from below, but from above.
The classes which suffer and are hungry are resigned and silent. The
privileged classes, those who gorge themselves with gold and pleasures in
the midst of public distress, are those that complain and make an uproar.
The higher up you go on the social ladder, the less faith and virtue
do you find. The people are better than the middle classes, the middle
classes better than the nobility, the provincial nobles better than those
of the court, the lower clergy superior to the prelates. One might say
that, morality being in an inverse ratio to rank, the most dangerous
adversaries of society are the very persons who have most to lose if it
succumbs. The great proprietors are demolishing their houses and castles.
The prelates are sapping the foundations of the churches. The princes
of the blood are shaking down the throne. Thus it is that the so-called
defenders of the social fortress are spiking their cannons, destroying
their ramparts, dampening their powder, breaking their weapons, and will
end by delivering the key of the citadel to the enemy.
A large majority of the middle classes are still resisting the inroads
of impiety. In Paris and the provinces they say: “Without monarchy and
the Church, no government.” In religion and politics, even if they are
on the side of the opposition, they do not go beyond the liberties of
the Gallican Church and the constitutional guaranties demanded by the
parliaments. Even though they have ceased to love and esteem Louis
XV., they continue to respect royalty in his person. Dignified, calm,
reflective, they will neither make war on the nobles nor pay them court.
As to the monarchy, they consider it as a dogma, an article of faith.
Citizen Regnaud thus expresses himself: “It is a law of the State,
consecrated in every age by the Divine law, to respect the sovereign
even when he causes the unhappiness of the peoples confided to him by
Providence. God forbid that I should undertake to infringe this sacred
law in the history I am writing.”[6]
Another citizen, Prosper Hardy, makes the following declaration in
his Memoirs: “Although I have never regarded myself as other than an
atom in society, I think I deserve a distinguished place there by my
inviolable fidelity to my sovereign and my love for his sacred person.
The sentiments I imbibed from books and education will never be effaced
from my heart. Albeit my fortune, by the will of Divine Providence, is of
the most modest sort, a prospective income of a hundred thousand _écus_
would not cause me to forsake a boon which is dear to me and of which I
cannot be deprived; to wit, honor and true patriotism. I shall always
believe it my duty to think concerning the present controversies as the
first magistrates of the realm do and the princes of the royal blood, who
have manifested their sentiments toward our august master in a manner
as authentic as respectful, and in a formal protest to which no good
citizen can avoid paying homage and subscribing with all his soul.”[7]
The opposition still remained dynastic. It enveloped itself in forms
most deferential toward the person and authority of the sovereign. Hardy
blames the ministers for the harm that has been done, without accusing
Louis XV. He complains of despotism, never of the King.
If in the depths of the provinces one finds ancient manors and dungeon
keeps blackened by time wherein dwell austere and worthy nobles,
proud of their ancestors and their poverty, one also finds, even in
worldly, frivolous Paris, old houses which shelter worthy people,
peaceable _bourgeois_, citizens of their quarter, frequenters of their
parish church, members of their corporation, who still lead a calm and
patriarchal existence. Their life glides uniformly by, “developing like
a captive stream its predetermined course, without ever losing sight
of the shadow of the natal bell-tower, the church where rest the pious
souvenirs of the family, and where the same half-open tomb awaits the
generations. Between this ever-present term and this point of departure
which is drawing near, the regulated forms of professional duty take
possession of the man, occupy his soul, and replenish the capacity of his
spirit.”[8]
The religious sentiment is still dominant, even at Paris, in the middle
classes and the people. In February, 1766, Louis XV. is crossing the
Pont-Neuf after leaving a bed of justice he has just held at the
Parliament. A priest carrying the Viaticum passes in front of the
cortège. The King alights from his carriage and kneels down. This mark
of devotion causes enthusiastic admiration in the crowd, and cries of
“Long live the King!” resound from every side with more than ordinary
enthusiasm.
The citizen class is still Christian and royalist. But let no one
be deceived. It also threatens to become revolutionary. Certain
characteristic symptoms are beginning to make their appearance. The law
clerks sometimes assume the aspect of demagogues, and a nameless breath
of democracy often pervades the pits of theatres. I see an impatient
youth springing up amid the middle classes which will bring all the
turmoil of the new spirit into the old settings of a disorganized
society. The opposition will increase by degrees, coming down from one
social layer to another, from the princes of the blood to the popular
masses who are as yet untouched.
VI
THE PEOPLE
Do you see, in country places, a sort of wild animal, male and female,
“black, livid, and scorched by the sun, attached to the earth which
they dig and turn over with invincible obstinacy? They have a kind of
articulate voice, and when they rise to their feet they show a human
face, and in fact they are human beings. At night they retire into dens,
where they live on bread, water, and roots. They spare other men the
trouble of sowing, laboring, and reaping in order to live, and thus
deserve not to lack some of the bread which they have sown.”[9]
Do you see them, notwithstanding, “in frightful misery, without beds
or furniture; the majority of them even lacking that bread of oats and
barley which is their sole nourishment, and which they are obliged
to tear from their own mouths and those of their children to pay the
taxes”?[10] Do you see “these poor slaves, these beasts of burden
fastened to a yoke, and whipped along”?[11] These unfortunates who in
years of famine—years which frequently recur—eat grass like sheep and
die like flies? Well, if one can believe it, they do not complain. They
do not even think of complaining. Their sufferings and privations seem
to them as natural as winter or the hail. They do not complain. Why not?
Because if they have not the bread of the body, they at least have hope,
the bread of the _soul_. Yes, the hope of heaven, the hope of an ideal
world which hovers above the real one like a pavilion of gold above
a filthy sewer, the hope of the true country where there are neither
fatigues, nor tears, nor sorrows,—hope, their support, their consolation,
their future; hope, that supreme good which the philosophers are
determined at any cost to wrench from them! What they have left, and what
the philosophers have no longer, is the sacred poesy of the Church, its
hymns of sadness and of joy, the cycle of its feasts which vary and adorn
the year. They have the steeple of their native village, the graveyard
where their parents sleep and where they offer prayer, the crucifix,
the image of the Man-God whose hands and feet and side they kiss while
weeping. They have what you have not, men of the world and free-thinkers:
the real good, the inestimable treasure, that which subsists entire even
when the bell is ringing for the dying, that which death itself has no
power against: they have faith! The angels of Christ hover over each
thatched cabin, the angels who, when the unfortunates would like to turn
away from the chalice of bitterness, induce them to drink it calmly and
with resignation even to the dregs!
Great lords and ladies, adepts of the Encyclopedia, savants and literary
men, be careful! You mock, perhaps, at these poor people. You criticise
what you call their ignorance, because they still worship as of old,
because, in their simplicity, on All Saints’ Day they lay a plate for the
dead on their wretched tables. You deride them because when they have
saved a few farthings they spend them,—for what? In order to burn some
candles. Take care,—if they did not burn these candles which you sneer
at, they would burn your houses, your castles. Don’t flout these people
who are and have little or nothing, who are the majority, and who would
only have to crowd together in order to stifle you. Great philosophers,
why do you not try to make your discoveries contribute somewhat to
preserve that sacred object, the human soul, to wrest it from misery
and cast it, consoled, pacified, elevated, into the bosom of God? Ah!
why do you belong to that frightful race of men who injure souls? Why
do you discourage the cabin where men die of hunger, the workshop where
the proletarian, become a wheel of flesh in a machine, can no longer
breathe the air of God nor be illumined by His sunshine? Take care! Take
care! What will become of you on the day when these poor people say
to you, nobles: “You are men like others”; to you, prelates: “You are
impostors.” Take care! if your impious doctrines triumph, here are the
workmen, the peasants, all the disinherited of fortune, who will cry to
you in terrible voices: “No more resignation, vengeance! No more tears.
Muskets, and if there are no muskets, pikes! And if there are no pikes,
clubs! Enough of docility! Enough of patience! Enough of humility! Come
on!” Madmen! Fools! It is you who have just said to them: “Poor wretch,
you are awaiting life eternal to find at last a compensation for your
sufferings. There is no eternal life. Poor wretch, you are amassing as
if there were savings, your tears and sorrows, and those of your wife
and your children, in the hope of bringing them after death to the foot
of God’s judgment seat. Well, there is no God!” Admirers of Helvétius,
Baron d’Holbach, Diderot, great philosophic nobles, be on your guard! on
the day when your unbelief shall have spread beyond your salons, your
boudoirs, and academies, into the cabins of your peasantry, tremble, for
that day will be the vengeance of heaven!
It is the people they lose sight of, and it is they above all who should
never be forgotten. It is in them that a strong and intelligent royalty
finds its fulcrum, its natural authority, and its moral prestige. It is
the people who give their sweat and blood without a murmur. It is the
people who in times of peace and times of war, in cities and country
places and on battle-fields, utter enthusiastically and with all the
force of their robust lungs, the cry which sums up the unity of the
country, the cry of loyalty and patriotism: Long live the King! Reforms
are necessary. But it is not a Voltairean nobility and a magistracy
honeycombed by the spirit of rebellion which can cause order and liberty
to triumph. It is not a middle class which, after all, represents only
a feeble minority. No. It is the people taken as a whole, that is to
say the entire nation, which can be counted on for the work of true
progress. The sovereign reformers have always relied on the people, not
on the privileged classes. This is what is forgotten in the apartments
of Versailles. People busy themselves with the surface of society, not
with its depths. They think too much about the houses of the Faubourg
Saint Germain, about academies, salons, castles, palaces of justice, and
not enough about the garrets and thatched cabins, the devout and honest
masses who would be such a powerful rampart for majesty against the
invasions of a revolution half aristocratic, half middle class. There
would be the rejuvenescence and the future of the monarchy. The King
should appear, not merely to the ruling classes, but to the mass of his
subjects, as a protector, friend, and father. Louis XV. does not remember
often enough that of all classes of society in the eighteenth century,
the best, most worthy, most patriotic, is that of the poor, the humble,
the workmen, peasants, and laborers. Among them is found the basis of
honesty, industry, and piety, the compensation for the scandals of the
court and the city, beautiful souls under rude envelopes. There, if
royalty comprehended the situation, it would find the consolidation of
the throne and the welfare of the country.
VII
POLITICAL WOMEN
At Versailles, Paris, and throughout the realm, the women are playing
a part which constantly increases in importance. At Versailles they
dominate Louis XV. and his ministers; at Paris they are the recognized
arbiters of fashion, literature, and the arts. Throughout the realm
they avenge themselves for the Salic law. In 1770 Collé wrote in his
Memoirs: “The women have taken the upper hand so completely among the
French, they have subjugated the men so completely that they no longer
think or feel except in accordance with them.” Not all the influential
women are coquettish, light, superficial, the women of Marivaux. Some of
them are frivolous, but others are serious. There are religious women,
mothers in Israel, friends of the Jesuits, irreconcilable enemies of the
Encyclopædia—such women as the Princess de Marsan, who in association
with Madame de Talmont, Madame de Noailles, and the Duke de Nivernais,
directs what is called the devout party. There are philosophical women,
eaten up by the new fanaticism of irreligion, who plunge head foremost,
with all the enthusiasm and passion of their sex, into the abyss of
novel doctrines. There are scientific women, who assimilate with curious
facility the surface of the most arduous sciences, and manage a compass
as easily as a fan, who place dictionaries of natural history and
treatises on physics and chemistry in their boudoirs beside a little
altar dedicated to Benevolence or Friendship, and who no longer have
themselves painted as alluring goddesses on clouds, but as grave and
meditative muses sitting in a laboratory amidst squares and telescopes.
There are political women, pupils of Rousseau, admirers of the _Contrat
Social_, who dream of being the Egerias of future Numas, of changing
their armchairs into tribunes, and their salons into clubs, who ardently
praise the parliamentary system of the other side of the Channel, and
declaim like good citizenesses—the word begins to be in fashion—against
the excesses and turpitudes of the absolute régime. They want to pass
for energetic women (energy is another word becoming acclimated in the
language of high society). They pose as patricians of ancient Rome,
impassioned for liberty. Grave accents proceed from their delicate
mouths. Eloquent protests against despotism issue from the depths of
boudoirs hung with satin. These liberal great ladies, a new type in
French society, make Gustavus III. of Sweden the confidant of their
wrath against Louis XV. Read the letters of the habitual correspondents
of the Swedish monarch, Mesdames d’Egmont, de La Marck, de Croy, de
Boufflers, de Mesmes, de Luxembourg, and see with what vigor of thought
and vehemence of style these ladies express themselves.[12]
The beautiful and spiritual Countess d’Egmont, as grave as her father,
Marshal de Richelieu, is frivolous, a charming woman, fated to an early
death, whose melancholy and whose sufferings inspire such interest, how
violent, bitter, indignant, is her language concerning the Du Barry’s
aged lover! “How can one endure,” she writes to Gustavus, “that he who
has enjoyed the celestial happiness of being passionately adored, and who
would still be so if he had left us the least illusion, should please
himself by destroying every one of them and look on such a change with
coolness?” Again she writes to the King of Sweden, June 27, 1771: “Sire,
they say you have asked for a portrait of Madame Du Barry. They even
go so far as to say that you have written to her. I have denied it at
all events; but it has been maintained against me so positively that I
entreat you to authorize me to deny it again.... No, that could not be.”
And November 26, 1771: “I ask again for an answer about Madame Du Barry’s
portrait. Deign to give me your word of honor that you have not and never
will have it, for I am greatly pressed to offer you mine.” Madame de
Boufflers wrote such sentences as these to Gustavus: “Absolute power is
a mortal disease, which by insensibly corrupting the moral qualities,
ends by destroying states.... The actions of sovereigns are submitted
to the censure of the universe.... France is ruined if the present
administration lasts.”
The Countess de La Marck draws this picture of society in a letter to the
King of Sweden: “Our young women are bursting with wit; as for reason,
it is hardly mentioned. They are all initiated into State secrets, they
meddle with everything, and make love by way of pastime.... Certain
bureaus of wit where people mock at God and religion, and consider
those who believe imbeciles, such, in short, Sire, is a sketch of our
situation. No more emulation, no more principles; even to the theatres
everything is going wrong. We still have one or two sculptors and three
or four painters. The jeweller’s trade prospers of course; but it will
soon come to a standstill, for no one buys anything now but brilliants;
to be sure, they do not pay for them. In a word, we are as low down as we
can get, and shall be lucky if no one attacks us, for I do not know what
would become of us.”
The impulse is given. Henceforward the women will be in opposition to
power. It is the current; one must go with it. The principal salons of
Paris are so many clubs hostile to the King. Politics invades everything.
Besenval says: “Assemblies of society and pleasure have become petty
States-General, where the women, transformed into legislators, lay
down maxims on public law and settle principles with the audacity and
assurance imparted by the wish to dominate and make themselves observed,
a desire heightened still further by the importance of the matter and its
celebrity....” It must not be believed, however, that the majority of
these eloquent stateswomen, descanting at random on the respective rights
of the throne and the magistracy, on absolute power and liberty, renounce
on that account the ways and habitudes of coquetry, of what is called
love. Suspect these women, serious only in appearance. Politics is the
pretext. The gist of the business is gallantry.
VIII
LOVE
Of all loves, the rarest in high society under the reign of Louis XV. is
conjugal love. Well-bred married couples are on the footing of polite
and courteous strangers with each other. The husband calls his wife
Madame. The wife calls her husband Monsieur. They live in the same house,
but have separate apartments and do not visit each other without being
previously announced. Never do they ride in the same carriage. Never are
they met in the same salon. A husband who should follow his wife would
be treated as a jealous provincial. A woman who should have the singular
idea of being in love with her husband would be thought ridiculous.
Such a passion in good society would be indecorous. Conjugal love is
altogether out of fashion. Baron de Besenval considers that though
morals may suffer from this, society is an infinite gainer, adding that,
“freed from the embarrassment and chill always caused by the presence of
husbands, there is extreme liberty,” and that “the coquetry of men and
women maintains its vivacity and daily supplies piquant adventures.”
Piquant adventures are what is specially sought for. Passion, people care
little about; what they are looking for is pleasure. Listen to a great
lady saying, in 1764, to young Lauzun, the future Lovelace, whose erotic
education is not yet quite finished: “Believe me, little cousin, to be
romantic doesn’t succeed nowadays; it makes you ridiculous, and then it
is all up with you. I have had a great fancy for you, my child; it is not
my fault if you have taken it for a grand passion and persuaded yourself
that it would never end. What does it matter to you, if this fancy is
over, whether I take one for somebody else or remain without a lover? You
have many advantages for pleasing women; use them for that purpose, and
rest assured that the loss of one can always be repaired by another,—that
is the way to be happy and amiable.”[13] Such was fashionable morality.
Chamfort defined love as “the exchange of two fantasies and the contact
of two skins.” People take and leave each other in precisely the same
way. As Prince de Ligne said, one was happy _to have_, one was enchanted
_to have_ no longer.
Where is the time of profound passions, trembling avowals, of sighs and
tears and fond despairs? Where is the time of heroic loves with their
chivalrous respect, their long waiting, sublime devotion, eternal oaths,
their tried devotion and tender gratitude, their virtues of grandeur and
generosity? Look at the Cupid of the reign of Louis XV., the noisy,
insolent, victorious Cupid, who scoffs at the love of former times as a
malicious and ill-bred child mocks at an old man. Listen to him saying in
a gibing tone: “Your lovers were mere blockheads, who only knew how to
languish, say alas! and tell their troubles to the surrounding echoes.
For my part, I have suppressed the echoes.... My subjects do not say: I
am dying; nothing is half so much alive as they are. Languors, timidity,
sweet martyrdom, are out of the question; all that is tame, a platitude
of other days.... I don’t put my subjects to sleep; I wake them up; they
are so keen that they have no leisure to be tender; their glances are
desires; instead of sighing, they attack; they do not say: Be propitious
to me; they seize, and that is what is needed.”[14] Listen to Madame
d’Epinay, who speaks of modesty as a “beautiful virtue which one fastens
on with pins.” Listen to the century which boasts, like Crébillon the
younger, of “having arrived at the truth of things,” of having suppressed
what it calls “exaggerations, affectations, grimaces.” Do you see, in the
picture of _La Chemise Enlevée_, Fragonard’s little love who smilingly
carries off the decency of woman? Do you hear Buffon himself, the grave,
majestic Buffon, employing this materialistic language? “Why does love
create the happy estate of all creatures and the misery of man? It is
because only the physical side of this passion is good; because the
moral side is good for nothing.”[15]
Hence it is an understood thing, proclaimed by the great savants of
the century, that the prime essential is to suppress the moral part of
love. Love is no longer represented except under the image of a pretty
little naked god, flying about, and free. The enemies of constraint and
waiting form a sect called the _anti-ceremonious_. Another aphrodisiacal
corporation entitles itself the _Society of the Moment_. To choose the
moment well is the tactics, the supreme art. “How many liaisons begin
briskly by insolence in a carriage the coachman of which is particular
about taking the longest road, to play deaf and to make the horses go
slowly. The brutal style of gallantry ends by having principles, a sort
of philosophy and means of excusing itself.... It finds wits to decide
that a temerarious man has at bottom more deference for the woman than a
timid one and really respects her more by sparing her the long torment of
successive concessions.”[16] To the lover who remains on his knees too
long, the eighteenth century cries: “Get up, and take your mistress in
your arms.”
It is very perverted, very frivolous and guilty, this society of the
time of Louis XV. They are very immoral, these gay grand ladies, these
_patriciennes_ of libertinage, who love scandal for scandal’s sake, and
take a haughty pleasure in the loss of their reputation. Nevertheless, we
must do them the justice of admitting that for the most part they retain,
amid all their disorders, a quality lacking to many fashionable beauties
in democratic times,—disinterestedness. One asks of the grand ladies
of the eighteenth century, if not the virtues of the honest woman, at
least her qualities. In the high society of these times love is immoral,
indecent, full of effrontery, but still there is love. Doubtless it is
not the lofty, magnanimous, inspired love of the heroines of the great
Corneille or the tender Racine. It is not the ideal passion, purified by
the spirit of sacrifice, by the ardent flame of enthusiasm. No, it is
no longer that love. Nevertheless, it is still love, or, if it is so in
appearance only, at least it is not a vile traffic.
Let us add, in order to be fair, that towards the close of the reign
the level of sentiment begins to rise a little. The _Nouvelle-Héloise_
has created something new in the erotic manners of France; and if this
novelty is at times declamatory, one cannot avoid recognizing also that
it has a touch of spirituality.
No one now approves this remark of Buffon’s: “Man in desiring to base
himself on sentiment simply abuses his being and hollows out in his heart
a void which nothing is able to replenish.” The fashion has changed. The
affectation of passion has been substituted for that of indifference. The
man of sensibility, the lover to excess, makes his appearance in the
isle of Cythera. Sensibility is the watchword, the word which expresses
everything. In a gathering at the house of the Duchess de Chartres, the
Countess de Blot declares “that unless of superior virtue, a woman really
_sensitive_ could refuse nothing to the passion of Rousseau.” Irony,
scepticism, were once the rule, but now it is enthusiasm. Declarations of
love are either philosophic theses or tragic tirades. Every lover is an
actor who declaims his part with emphasis, with attitudes, inflections of
voices and attitudes studied beforehand. Henceforward the salon stage is
monopolized by comic lovers, practised Don Juans, virtuosos of sentiment.
“Before everything else they seek their own applause and are prouder to
make their exit content with themselves than content with the woman.
There are some who falsify their whole person, who paint their faces,
unpowder their hair, who deprive themselves of wine in order to grow
pale, and all in the hope of moving and affecting. There are even some
who for a decisive rendezvous put on despair as one would put on rouge;
they simulate the marks of half-dried tears on their cheeks with diluted
gum arabic.”[17] They boast of returning to nature, of admiring the
country, of being compassionate and humane. Formerly it was the negation
of love, now it is the parody of it.
IX
THE FAMOUS SALONS
The principal salons of Paris are celebrated throughout all Europe. They
lead the fashion. They are the arbiters of style. In them the women
are sovereigns, guiding conversation and consequently opinion. The old
style becomes the elegant interpreter of new ideas. What strikes one
first of all in fashionable life at the close of Louis XV.’s reign is
the increasing intimacy between the nobles and the men of letters. “The
haughty Maréchale de Luxembourg always chooses La Harpe as her cavalier;
he gives his arm so well, in fact. Not only does the plebeian enter the
salon if he has good manners, but he lords it there if he has talent.
The first place in conversation and even in public consideration is for
Voltaire, the son of a notary; for Rousseau, the son of a clockmaker; for
D’Alembert, a foundling picked up by a glazier.”[18] Walpole considers
that literature is taking up too much space in familiar conversation.
“Literature is an excellent amusement,” he writes, “when one has nothing
better to do; but in society it becomes pedantry, and is tiresome when
paraded in public. The authors one meets everywhere are worse than
their books, which is complimentary to neither. Usually the tone of
conversation is solemn and pedantic, and people hardly seem to be amused
unless they are disputing.” This judgment is a trifle severe. After
all, from the worldly point of view, it is still Paris which holds the
sceptre, and foreign princes on their travels esteem it an honor to enter
these salons whose prestige and brilliancy are universal.
The Maréchale de Luxembourg, whose first husband was the Duke de
Boufflers, the heroine of the famous chanson,—
“Quand Boufflers parut à la cour,
On crut voir la mère d’Amour;
Chacun s’empressait à lui plaire,
Et chacun l’avait à son tour,”[19]—
the Maréchale de Luxembourg settled down as she advanced in years.
“Aided by a great name, plenty of audacity, and especially by a fine
house, she has succeeded in making people forget her light conduct and
has established herself as sovereign arbiter of decorum, good taste, and
those forms which make up politeness. Her empire over young people of
both sexes is absolute. She restrains the giddiness of the young women,
forces them to a general coquetry, and obliges the young men to be
prudent and respectful; in fine, she maintains the sacred fire of French
urbanity; at her house the tradition of noble and easy manners which
all Europe comes to Paris to admire and strives in vain to imitate, is
strictly preserved. Never was a Roman censor more useful to the morals
of the republic than the Maréchale de Luxembourg has been to the charm
of society.”[20] By wit and authority, by making herself listened to,
and especially by making herself feared, the Maréchale has ended by
inspiring more than consideration; to wit, respect. She exerts over
the aristocratic, and even over the literary world, a redoubtable and
despotic domination. A presentation at court no longer suffices. One must
also be received by Madame the Maréchale de Luxembourg. Jean Jacques
Rousseau himself, the irascible, morose Jean Jacques, is fascinated,
as it were, by this veritably great lady. “Hardly had I seen her,” he
writes, “when I was subjugated. I found her charming, with that charm
which is proof against time, the one most calculated to act upon my
heart. I was expecting to find her conversation caustic and full of
epigrams. It is not that, but something much better. The conversation
of Madame de Luxembourg does not sparkle with wit. It has no sallies,
and strictly speaking no subtlety, but it has an exquisite delicacy
which never strikes and always pleases. Her flatteries are all the
more intoxicating the simpler they are. One would say they escape her
unawares, and that her heart overflows simply because it is over-full.”
Another superior woman whose salon is an aristocratic and intellectual
centre of the first order, firstly at Paris and Versailles and afterwards
at Chanteloup, is the clever and virtuous Duchess de Choiseul, wife
of the celebrated minister. “At a time when each coterie has its
philosopher, who is as it were its director, Madame de Choiseul thinks
for herself. Neither the irony of Voltaire nor the declamations of
Rousseau disturb her sound sense and correct intelligence. She judges
men and things sanely without permitting herself to be carried away by
fashion or prejudice. One always finds in her an instructive taste for
the grand and the beautiful. Hers is a noble nature, lovable at first
sight, and in which one discovers every day some motive for loving it
more.”[21]
The Duchess de Choiseul will never be Rousseau’s dupe. “He
preaches a good morality,” she writes concerning the author of the
_Nouvelle-Héloise_, “a morality which we were acquainted with, for
that matter, because there is but one; but he has drawn suspicious and
dangerous conclusions from it, or has put us in a position to do so
by the way in which he has presented them. Always suspect metaphysics
applied to simple things; happily for us, nothing is more simple than
morality, and what is truest in this matter is what is nearest to us.
_Do nothing to another that you would not have him do to you._ Everybody
knows that, every one understands that.... There is no need of fine
dissertations on moral good and evil, the origin of passions, prejudices,
manners, etc., and the rest of that fine rigmarole with which these
gentlemen fill the journals, the shops, and our libraries, in order to
teach us what virtue is.”
The Duchess de Choiseul considers Rousseau equally dangerous as a
moralist and as a political publicist. “I admit,” she adds, “that errors
must necessarily creep into prejudices, as abuses do into laws; but
to wish to destroy everything in order to correct them is as if one
wanted to cut off a man’s head to rid him of a few white hairs.... The
employment of wit at the expense of public order is one of the greatest
villainies.... That sort of crime is a seed, it is positively the bad
grain of the Gospel. A true citizen would serve his country as best he
could by his wit and talents, but would not go to writing about the
social compact so as to make us suspect the legitimacy of governments and
overwhelm us with the weight of chains which we had not felt as yet.”
Madame de Choiseul thus concludes this fine letter of July 17, 1766: “I
have always been suspicious of this Rousseau, with his singular systems,
his extraordinary accoutrement, and his chair of eloquence resting on the
roofs of houses. He has always seemed to me a charlatan of virtue.”
The Duchess de Choiseul is a type as venerable as sympathetic. If one
suffers at beholding a Madame de Boufflers, the _idol_ of the Temple,
doing the honors of Prince de Conti’s house, conjointly with Mademoiselle
Auguste, the danseuse of the Opera, or a Maréchale de Mirepoix sitting
on the front seat of Madame de Pompadour’s carriage, and afterwards on
that of Madame Du Barry, one is happy at meeting a woman worthy of her
rank and fortune, a woman who, everywhere and always, gives the example
of what is good, beautiful, and true. There is such purity in her whole
existence, such virtuous and simple grace in her pleasing person, such a
great mind in her little body.[22] “The Duchess of Choiseul is not very
pretty,” writes Horace Walpole, “but has fine eyes, and is a little model
in waxwork, which not being allowed to speak for some time as incapable,
has a hesitation and modesty, the latter of which the Court has not
cured, and the former of which is atoned for by the most interesting
sound of voice, and forgotten in the most elegant turn and propriety of
expression. Oh! it is the gentlest, amiable, civil little creature that
ever came out of a fairy egg.”
The salons of the Maréchale de Luxembourg and the Duchess de Choiseul
are above all aristocratic circles. From the literary point of view,
the three principal salons of Paris are those of Madame Geoffrin, the
Marquise Du Deffand, and Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. The first is
situated in the rue Saint-Honoré, the second in the rue Saint-Dominique,
in a small house belonging to the Convent of Saint Joseph,[23] the third
in the rue de Bellechasse.
Madame Geoffrin’s power is a sign of the times. Does this very
influential woman belong to the nobility? No. She is of very obscure
birth. What is her husband? One of the founders of the manufactory of
glass, a very rich but very ugly commoner, and so far as cleverness goes,
a nullity. It is pretended that one of the lady’s friends, returning
to her one day after a rather long absence, said to her in speaking
of her recollections: “But what has become of that old gentleman
who always sat at the end of the table and never said anything to
anybody?”—“Ah!” responded Madame Geoffrin, “I know whom you mean....
He is dead.”—“Really! And who was he, then?”—“My husband.” Is Madame
Geoffrin literary? Not the least in the world. She is ignorance itself.
She does not even know how to spell. Apropos of instruction she says:
“I have got along so well without it that I have never felt the need
of it.” Very well! at the close of Louis XV.’s reign this commoner,
without youth,[24] beauty, talent, or education, this old woman who
would have passed unnoticed at another epoch, is one of the principal
authorities of France, one of the sovereigns of opinion. Her salon,
celebrated throughout Europe, may be considered one of the institutions
of the eighteenth century. The greatest nobles pay court to her. Even
crowned heads render her a real homage. When, in June, 1766, she
goes to visit her friend, I might almost say her protégé, Stanislas
Poniatowski, King of Poland, her visit is considered by all the courts
as a political event. The King receives her at Warsaw as a mother, with
all imaginable respect, joy, and tenderness! At Vienna the Empress Maria
Theresa overwhelms her with courteous attentions. A princess of the
blood would not receive a more flattering welcome. The Czarina Catherine
II. takes pleasure in writing affectionate letters to her, and values
this correspondence most highly. Why was this prodigious success, this
exceptional importance, accorded by France and foreign countries to a
woman who must herself have been astonished at playing such a part?
Why? Because Madame Geoffrin has had the talent to create by herself
a literary salon, because artists and authors have dined and supped
with her, because she is one of the stockholders of the Encyclopedia,
because she has probably contributed more than any other person to
the establishment of a real sympathy between the two aristocracies of
birth and talent. Such a vogue as hers is always susceptible of some
explanation. Madame Geoffrin understands better than any one else how to
manage the difficult, vain, irritable race of artists and men of letters;
she has, if not wit, at least a great deal of tact, finesse, cleverness,
blended with good-nature.[25] “Madame Geoffrin’s manners,” says Baron de
Gleichen, “may be compared to La Fontaine’s style. There is a good deal
of art in them, but this art is not apparent. Everything in her seems
very ordinary, and yet no one could equal her by trying to imitate her.
Everything in her house is well arranged, easy, commodious, useful, and
simple. Her bourgeois tone and common language impart a certain piquancy
to a discourse full of wisdom and good sense.” Horace Walpole is also an
admirer of this woman who excels in the art of holding a salon. He writes
to Lady Hervey, October 13, 1765: “Madame Geoffrin is a marvel of good
sense, good information, good advice, and timeliness. She has a way of
finding fault with you which charms me. Never in my life have I seen a
person who can so quickly seize the defects, vanities, and deceits of any
one, who explains them to one with such precision, nor who had the art of
convincing one so easily. I have never liked being corrected to my face.
Well! you cannot imagine what pleasure I find in it with her; I take her
both as confessor and director, and begin to believe that in the end I
shall become a reasonable creature, which I have never had any pretension
of being. The next time I see her I think I shall say: O common sense,
seat yourself there!... If she could give herself the trouble, I assure
you, Madame, she would govern me like a child.”
The rival salon to that of Madame Geoffrin is that of the Marquise Du
Deffand. Madame Du Deffand is as much a great lady as Madame Geoffrin
is a commoner. Madame Du Deffand is as learned as Madame Geoffrin is
ignorant. While one does not know how to spell, the other writes as
well as the most illustrious authors. Both are old at the time when
their salons exercise a preponderating influence at Paris. They are of
nearly the same age. Madame Geoffrin was born in 1699, Madame Du Deffand
in 1697, a year later than Madame de Sévigné, whose tradition she was
to continue and to repeat her glory. The Marquise Du Deffand is not
merely old; she is blind. Her eyes, once so beautiful, which had made,
people say, so many ravages, are extinct. But, lacking the eyes of the
body, she has those of the spirit, and with those she sees everything.
Sitting, day and night, in that famous armchair which she calls her
tub, the witty blind woman is a power which must be reckoned with. Her
salon is an areopagus whose decrees are to be dreaded. To be admitted
there is a great distinction, a high favor. To cross its threshold
one must be a somebody, either in the book of heraldry or the golden
book of literature.[26] A procession of influential people, celebrated
persons, well-informed newsmongers, defiles there at all hours. It is a
centre of information which has the word of every enigma, the clue to
every intrigue, the earliest hint of all ideas. It is a salon at once
diplomatic and literary, political and diplomatic; it is the almost
official rendezvous of foreign diplomatists, who come hither to find
the daily materials for their correspondence with their governments. It
is there that all pressing questions in France and elsewhere in Europe
are treated in a remarkable manner by well-bred men who chat, who do
not argue, and who, seeking above all things to be agreeable, know how,
according to Boileau’s precept,—
“To pass from grave to gay, from lively to severe.”
The sarcastic dowager presides at all their interviews with a sort of
magistery. The prestige of her reputation, the verve and eloquence of
her speech, the superiority of her style and language, her rank, her
relations, her marvellous wit, so keen, so subtle, so piercing, make her
a woman whose domination is felt by the most recalcitrant. She has the
talent of making herself feared. Woe to him whose whims she takes it
into her head to ridicule. She is, as she has been called, the female
Voltaire, the high-priestess of irony. In her slim and nervous little
hands the sceptre of wit is like a ferule. She is often amiable, but a
trifle is enough to irritate, to embitter her, and then her redoubtable
armchair is like a tribune whence she launches invectives, whence
she discharges all the shafts of satire. Hers is the chief salon of
Paris. Her letters are models of style, marvels of precision, lucidity,
subtlety. No classic writer has a more irreproachable form. Madame de
Sévigné has personified the seventeenth century. Madame Du Deffand is
like the incarnation of the eighteenth. Voltaire himself, Voltaire, who
considers her as the arbiter of renown, is so afraid of her that, in
order to pay court to her, he tries to persuade her that he is blind
like herself. There is one man, however, who dares to brave the vengeful
thunderbolts of the Marquise Du Deffand, and who must have many reasons
to fear her, for he is a savant, an academician, a man of the world, and
a philosopher: D’Alembert. But that can be explained: D’Alembert is in
love with the enemy of the Marquise,—Mademoiselle de Lespinasse.
The two rivals had begun by being friends. They lived under the same
roof for ten years, from 1754 to 1764. The illegitimate child of the
Countess d’Albon, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, born in 1732, had many
trials to undergo. Poor, without any support, she had at first been
happy to accept a shelter with Madame Du Deffand. Pleasing, though not
pretty, intelligent, instructed, talking and writing well, concealing
a restless mind and an ardent imagination under an apparent calmness
and reserve, her inferior position, her species of social and literary
servitude, caused her at last keen suffering. The companion made her
_coup d’État_. She slyly installed in her little room a sort of intimate
circle reserved to certain initiates coming to spend a few moments there
in secret before the hour when the salon of the Marquise opened. But
some backbiter betrayed the secret. The blind old woman learned of the
conspiracy. Exasperated by such an act of rebellion, she pitilessly
banished Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. The quarrel between these two
women has divided Parisian society into two camps, one defending the
Marquise, the other pitying her companion. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse
has not remained without resources. Her faithful adherents—D’Alembert,
Turgot, the Chevalier de Chastellux, the Abbé de Boismont, the Archbishop
of Aix—have clubbed together to assure her a modest but independent
position, and have hired an apartment for her in the rue de Bellechasse.
Her salon is not large, but it is animated by a flame of intelligence,
sympathy, and passion. The restricted and chosen circle which frequent
it find more charm there than in the great intellectual gatherings of a
Marquise Du Deffand or a Madame Geoffrin.
These celebrated salons which are the admiration of all Europe are very
attractive, very agreeable on the surface. But what contradictions, what
pettinesses, there are in this society of those privileged by birth, wit,
or fortune! What hours of discouragement, ennui, and chagrin are the lot
of all these people who are amusing themselves, or, better, who have the
hope, the pretension, of doing so! Madame Geoffrin herself, in spite of
her good health, her good sense, and good humor, contemplates at times
with inquietude, with alarm, the work of these Encyclopedists to whom she
renders continual services. She receives and protects them, she gives
large sums to these artisans of disorder, these demolishers of the throne
and the altar, and yet, by one of those inconsistencies so frequent in
the eighteenth century, she is at bottom a royalist and a devotee. The
friend, confidant, and counsellor of the most incredulous philosophers,
the most dangerous materialists, the woman whose largesses contribute
greatly to the publication of the Encyclopedia, goes to confession to
a Capuchin, is assiduous at Mass and Vespers, always in her seat at
the church of Saint Roch, and careful to have a priest brought to the
death-beds of her friends. At times a secret instinct warns this aged
woman, who likes repose and discriminating conservations, that her house,
apparently so reserved and tranquil, is the accursed laboratory where the
poisons which will inflict death on individuals and society are being
silently prepared under the light of a salon lamp, by a restricted and
chosen circle.
Madame Du Deffand herself has at times ephemeral inclinations toward
religion and piety. It happens to her at certain hours to aspire vaguely
to the devout estate, “the state,” she says, “which seems to her the
happiest in life.” She bitterly regrets that peace of heart given by
the faith, and which is such a force, such a consolation, in our valley
of tears. In spite of all her wit, she succumbs under the burden of
an incurable ennui, and her letters breathe sometimes the accents of
despair. In this worldly society, the sublimity of frivolity, she
expresses here and there, with sinister eloquence, thoughts which make
one shudder. Then her reflections, profound and full of anguish, are
as striking as the soliloquy of Hamlet. Her armchair, which she calls
her tub, she might also call her tomb. In it she is like a dead woman
who might have the sentiment of life. To the man who said: “Go lightly,
mortals, don’t bear on too hard,” to the superficial Voltaire, this poor
old woman, blind both morally and physically, addresses with doleful
anxiety questions concerning the terrible problems of human destiny.
She writes to him, April 1, 1769: “Tell me why, detesting life, I dread
death. Nothing indicates to me that all will not be at an end with me;
on the contrary, I perceive the dilapidation of my mind as well as that
of my body. All that is said for or against makes no impression on me.
I listen only to myself, and I find nothing but doubt and obscurity.
_Believe_; says one, _it is the safest_. But how can one believe what
one does not comprehend? What one does not comprehend may doubtless
exist; therefore I do not deny it; I am like one born deaf and blind.
He admits that there are sounds and colors; but does he know what he is
admitting? If it were enough not to deny, it would be all very well;
but that is not enough. How can one decide between a beginning and an
eternity, between the full and the empty? Not one of my senses can teach
me; what can one learn without them? Meanwhile, if I do not believe
what ought to be believed, I am threatened with being a thousand times
more unhappy after my death than I am during my life. On what shall one
decide, and is it possible to decide? I ask you, who have a character
so true, that you ought, by sympathy, to discover the truth, if it be
discoverable. I must have tidings of the other world and be told whether
we are destined to play a part there.”
To crown her misfortunes, Madame Du Deffand is at the same time a victim
to the tortures of both mind and heart. She who had never known real
love, falls into a sort of ecstatic passion when she is nearly seventy.
She conceives for a man twenty years younger than herself, and who fears
ridicule above all things, the caustic and witty Englishman, Horace
Walpole, a strange, vague, yet violent and exclusive affection which is
not friendship, which cannot be love. As if by the irony of fate, she
loves for the first time at an age when it is no longer permissible to
love for the last one.
Mademoiselle de Lespinasse is possibly still more unhappy than Madame Du
Deffand. This demoiselle, apparently frivolous, loves like Sappho, like
the Portuguese nun, like the new Heloise. She is a type of hot-headed,
feverish, frenetic love. She loves to madness, to frenzy, a brilliant
officer who cares nothing for her,—M. de Guibert. She lives by this love
and she dies of it. Her poor body and her poor soul are as if enveloped
in a shirt of Nessus. One might call her a victim of the ancient
fatality. In her despair, in her agony, she writes to her insensible
lover: “Ah! how cruel men are! Tigers are kind in comparison to them. I
ought naturally to have devoted myself to hating; I have fulfilled my
destiny badly. I have loved much and hated little.... I have no longer
the strength to love; my soul fatigues, torments me; I am no longer
constant to anything.... I have a fever every day, and my doctor, who is
not the most skilful of men, tells me constantly that I am consumed with
chagrin, that my pulse and my respiration announce an active suffering,
and he always goes away saying, ‘We have no remedy for the soul.’” And
you, O philosophers, do you think you have any? Men of the Encyclopedia,
habitués of the celebrated salons, if you want to know what philosophy
is, and what religion, compare the death of one of your adepts with the
death of a Christian woman!
X
THE PHILOSOPHERS
Where is the time when La Bruyère wrote: “A man born Christian and
French finds himself constrained in satire. The great subjects are
forbidden him.” Where is the time when the advocate Barbier put this
sentence in his journal: “I think one ought to employ himself honorably,
without meddling in State affairs over which he has neither power nor
authority.” Prudence, reserve, respect for authority, fear of weakening
the foundations of the social edifice,—the philosophers have changed all
that. The salons have become academies in which people incessantly talk
of religion and politics, for the sake of attacking the Church and even
royalty. In 1762 Bachaumont calls attention to a deluge of pamphlets,
brochures, and political dissertations, “a rage to argue on matters
of finance and government.” Horace Walpole affirms in 1765, that “the
atheists who engross conversation inveigh as loudly against kings as
against priests.... They do nothing but preach, and their avowed doctrine
is atheism.... Even Voltaire does not satisfy them. One of their
devotees said of him: ‘He is bigoted, he is a deist.’”
The philosophers are the heroes of the day. Their doctrines have not as
yet penetrated the masses of the people. But in the aristocracy, the
wealthy commoners, the world of letters, the superior magistracy, the
world of finance, they take the arrogant tone of masters. One meets
them in all the academies, the houses of all the great nobles, at every
fête, every elegant supper. Certain prelates of the upper clergy even
are accused of fraternizing with them. Now that the fops are out of
fashion, the men in vogue are the philosophers. A philosopher with all
his subversive ideas appears as indispensable to a well-kept salon as a
chandelier with all its candles. Philosophy, before becoming the supreme
danger, is a pastime, a diversion, an elegancy. The fire which is to
burn the edifice shows itself at first under the aspect of an evening
illumination, an amusing Bengal light. The great nobles play with loaded
guns without suspecting that they are about to go off. They are like
workmen who, undertaking works of demolition, should delude themselves
and naïvely imagine that they are building. Strange types, these
revolutionists in lace jabots, with their fashionable blasphemies, their
cups of gold or crystal full of an intoxicating but poisonous beverage,
these effeminate philosophers who, with such a charming smile and eyes
so soft, utter in refined and pleasing tones the most impious remarks in
the very manner in which one would recite an idyl or a madrigal! Curious
repasts, these suppers, where “one is at table amidst a delicate luxury,
among smiling and well-dressed women, with learned and agreeable men,
in a society where intelligence is prompt and intercourse safe. After
the second course there is an explosion of animation, sallies flash out,
wits flame or sparkle. At dessert could one avoid making witticisms on
the gravest subjects? With coffee arises the question of the immortality
of the soul and the existence of God.”[27] Scepticism is regarded as a
thing pertaining to good society. People make a pleasure, a glory of it.
The old-time aristocratic stiffness changes into persiflage or irony
concerning sacred things. The revolution still wears ruffles. Before
putting on the carmagnole it drapes itself in silk and velvet. It will
end with red caps; it begins with red-heeled slippers.
In all this there are many oddities, many inconsistencies. Let Walpole
describe it for us. “By what I said of their religious or rather
irreligious opinions, you must not conclude their people of quality
atheists,—at least, not the men. Happily for them, poor souls! they are
not capable of going so far into thinking. They assent to a great deal,
because it is the fashion, and because they don’t know how to contradict.
They are ashamed to defend the Roman Catholic religion, because it is
quite exploded; but I am convinced they believe it in their hearts.”[28]
The philosophers themselves recoil before the consequences and the
application of their doctrines. Diderot, in his _Projet d’instruction
publique pour la Russie_, recognizes that “atheism, adapted to a small
number of thinkers, cannot be suitable for a society.” He, the pretended
destroyer of religions and tyrannies, he who, in an access of savage
fury, wrote this outrageous distich,—
“_Et ma main ourdirait les entrailles du prêtre,_
_A défaut de cordon pour étrangler les rois._”—[29]
he professes a naïve adoration for the Empress Catherine II., goes to
Russia to pay her homage, and receives from her northern majesty a heap
of compliments and presents. Voltaire exclaims in a candid moment: “The
wretch,”—it is the patriarch of Ferney’s appellation for the Catholic
religion,—“the wretch is good for the rabble great and small.”
I read in Bachaumont, under date of April 23, 1769: “It is known from
various letters which M. Voltaire has written in this region, that this
great poet has renewed this year the edifying spectacle of the last one,
and has again received his Easter Communion with much devotion, but in a
less public manner; he has alleged certain inconveniences which oblige
him to keep his bed, and receive Communion in his own house.
“It is claimed that M. Voltaire, piqued by the complaints of the Bishop
of Belley, lamenting over his incredulity and his continued obstinacy in
spreading libels against religion, determined to verify this Catholic
action, and that he had recourse to notaries to receive at this moment
his profession of faith, which he has sent to Monseigneur. However it
may be with regard to this circumstance, about which people differ, it
is evident in several letters to his friends how much he is attached
to religion, what respect he has for it, and with what humility he has
hastened to satisfy the obligations of Catholicity.”
Is Bachaumont altogether serious when he thus expresses himself? I could
not answer for it. It is certain, at all events, that Voltaire built a
Catholic church at his own expense, close beside his château, and that on
the portal of it he had sculptured this inscription, more haughty than
evangelic: _Deo erexit Voltaire_.
Such contradictions exasperate Horace Walpole’s common sense. “Atheism,”
he writes, “is a pitiable mess, although all the cooks of France exert
themselves to invent new sauces for it. As to the soul, perhaps they
have none on the continent, but I think we have such things in England.
I think that Shakespeare, for example, had several for his part. As to
what concerns the Jews, although they don’t eat pork, I like them,
because they are better Christians than Voltaire.”[30] Walpole, the
phlegmatic Englishman, so moderate, courteous, liberal, so accustomed to
the civil manners of his country, Walpole, the friend of the Marquise
Du Deffand, the wit, the man of fashion, the frequenter of salons,
could not accustom himself to the philosophers of France. He found them
ill-bred, pretentious, tiresome. He accuses them of “having taken up
gravity, thinking it was philosophy and English, and so have acquired
nothing in the room of their natural levity and cheerfulness.... They are
contemptuous and reserved, instead of being ridiculously, consequently
pardonably, impertinent.”[31] What has become of the old French gaiety?
For the nation it is no longer anything but a souvenir of its youth.
“Laughing is as much out of fashion as pantins or bilboquets. Good folks,
they have no time to laugh. There is God and the King to be pulled down
first; and men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in the
demolition. They think me profane for having any belief left. But this
is not my only crime: I have told them, and am undone by it, that they
have taken from us to admire the two dullest things we had, Whist and
Richardson.[32]... There was no soul in Paris but philosophers, whom I
wished in heaven, though they do not wish themselves so. They are so
overbearing and underbred.... I sometimes go to Baron d’Olbach’s; but
I have left off his dinners, as there was no bearing the authors, and
philosophers, and savants, of which he has a pigeon-house full. They soon
turned my head with a new system of antediluvian deluges, which they have
invented to prove the eternity of matter.”[33]
All this philosophic and scientific flurry bewildered and bored the witty
Englishman. These endless blasphemies made him love religion. “Don’t be
astonished,” he writes, “if I become a thorough Jesuit.” These gilded
salons resplendent with lights, these perfumed boudoirs filled with
flowers, where marchionesses and duchesses, powdered, glittering, covered
with precious stones, and great nobles in velvet coats with iridescent
reflections, give themselves up to senseless invectives against the
Christ, make him wish to turn his back upon them all and betake himself
to tranquil meditation in the depths of some cloister, far from the
philosophers. “When I get too tired of their madness,” he says again, “I
retire to the Chartreuse,[34] where I am tempted to prefer Lesueur to
all the painters I know.” This Carthusian convent he always revisited
with emotion on each of his journeys. In 1739 he had said: “One finds
there every convenience which melancholy, meditation, or despair could
desire. And yet, one is pleased there.” But in 1771 the impression is not
so vivid. He writes, July 9: “I have not half the pleasure in visiting
the churches and convents that I formerly felt. The consciousness that
the vision is dispelled, the lack of the fervor so necessary in all
that is religious, gives these places the aspect of theatres doomed to
destruction. The monks trot from one side to the other as if they had not
much longer to stay there, and what once appeared to me a sacred twilight
is now only dirt and shadows.”
Who knows whether impious doctrines have not already crossed the
thresholds of these pious asylums where souls once found emotions so pure
and such sweet consolations? The stone saints of Gothic architecture no
longer seem so venerable. The changing lights of stained windows have
no more the same mysterious clearness. The sound of the organ is less
grandiose, less touching. Walpole is afflicted by that spirit of the
times, that accursed breath which corrupts and withers human souls.
The same sentiment of vague disquiet, of melancholy discouragement, is
found in many minds; above all, in many hearts. In the midst of this
society, ailing in spite of its brilliancy, in spite of the paint and
patches which cover the cheeks of its fashionable beauties, how many
strive to stupefy themselves, like those timid people who sing when they
are afraid! What do these successful personages, men or women, say
to themselves when, wrested from the worldly tumult, they enter into
themselves a moment? What do they think at the hour when the festal
lamps are extinct, the flowers faded, and when, after a night noisy with
impieties and so-called pleasures, the clarity of dawn appears?
SECOND PART
THE WOMEN OF VERSAILLES AT THE END OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV.
[1768-1774]
I
LOUIS XV. IN 1768
Marie Leczinska was just dead, and saddened Versailles presented a
funeral aspect. Mademoiselle Genet, the future Madame Campan, who
had recently become reader to Mesdames de France, was profoundly
struck by the doleful spectacle offered by the château. “Those grand
apartments hung with black,” she wrote, “those State armchairs raised
upon several steps and overhung by a canopy adorned with plumes, those
caparisoned horses, that immense procession in deep mourning, those
enormous shoulder-knots embroidered with gold and silver spangles which
decorated the habits of the pages and even those of the footmen, all that
pageantry, in fine, produced such an effect on my senses that I could
hardly hold myself up straight when I was brought into the apartment
of the Princesses. The first day on which I read in Madame Victoire’s
private room, it was impossible for me to pronounce more than two
sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice trembled, my sight was dim.”
Within two years and a half, Louis XV. had lost his son, his
daughter-in-law, and his wife. These three saintly and affecting deaths
were for a moment to reawaken sentiments of religion and repentance
in his heart. During the long sufferings of Marie Leczinska he had
surrounded her with such assiduous attentions that the poor Queen,
little accustomed to such solicitude, knew not how to show him her
gratitude. After she had breathed her last, it was with sincere emotion
and respectful tenderness that her husband imprinted a last kiss on
her icy forehead. People fancied that so many warnings could not be in
vain. Louis XV. was fifty-eight years old. His surgeon had recommended
virtue to him as being good for the body as well as the soul, and advised
him to not merely rein up his horses, but to take them out of the
traces. Excusable to a certain degree in a young man, vice is ignoble,
ridiculous, revolting, in an old one. Everything combined to induce the
King to amend; health, honor, self-interest, conscience, the clamor of
public opinion, the voice of morality and religion, the dignity of his
throne, and the salvation of his soul. During the last four years, since
the death of Madame de Pompadour that is, he had had no acknowledged
mistress. The Deer Park was not closed; but the mean debaucheries of that
mysterious rendezvous gave less occasion for scandal to the court and the
people than would a reigning favorite in the palace of Versailles. Louis
XV. showed affection for his four remaining daughters, Mesdames Adelaide,
Victoire, Sophie, and Louise, and it was hoped they would bring their
father back to truly religious ideas. The Most Christian King had faith,
and it might be believed that, age having blunted his passions, he would
at last repair the evils wrought by his bad example, by a pious and
respectable life. He may himself have desired a reconciliation with God,
but the force of habit, the interested suggestions of persons speculating
in vice, a sort of impulse and giddiness, were still to prevail over
reason and remorse.
The dominant sentiment in the heart of the aging Louis XV. was not the
religious one, but a mixture of apathy and indifference. Men who have
reigned for a long time, whether they end their days on the throne,
abdicate, or die in exile, are nearly always attacked, at the close of
their career, by a sort of lassitude and disgust. They have seen so many
intrigues, meannesses, and recantations; they have been the object of
such stupid adulations and loathsome flatteries; they know the ugliness
of men’s souls so thoroughly, that they end by conceiving an absolute
contempt for human nature. This contempt does not go so far as wrath
and indignation; it is tranquil, indolent, disdainful. An experienced
sovereign retains no illusions concerning others or himself. Whatever may
be proposed to him, he feels inclined to answer: What is the good of it?
His ministers, his courtiers, his mistresses, his people, inspire him
with equal mistrust. There are hours when he would like to abandon the
governmental machine to itself, so much is he afflicted by the past
and discouraged by the present. Like an old pilot contemplating from
some rocky height the barks threatened by the tempest, which he can no
longer aid, the monarch, from the interior of his palace, sees the ship
foundering in the distance, and sadly tells himself that he is powerless
to save the crew.
Disturbed by gloomy presentiments, Louis XV. believed no longer either in
the prestige of his throne or the future of his family. He had recourse
to petty means, shabby tricks, conspiracies against himself, in the
hope of strengthening his tottering power. As Madame Campan has so well
remarked, “to separate Louis de Bourbon from the King of France was what
the monarch found the most piquant thing in his royal existence.” “They
wanted it so, they thought it would be for the best.” That was the way he
talked when the operations of his ministers had been unsuccessful. One
might say he had a dual reign, with two policies and two diplomacies, a
private treasury and an occult government in opposition to the official
one.
As M. Boutaric says, “the _man_ spent a part of his life in thwarting and
contradicting the _king_. Curious spectacle, that of an absolute monarch
reduced to the most obscure intrigues in order to obtain his will, which
he is afraid to declare, engaging in an underhand and secret struggle
with his ministers, and at last deceived in his expectations, wounded in
his self-love, a retired conspirator, persisting to his last breath in
intrigues transparent on every side, and owing it solely to his supreme
rank that he does not share the captivity or exile of his agents, I was
about to say his accomplices.” It was in this way that he admitted to
his secret diplomacy such persons as the Chevalier d’Eon, by turns man
and woman, and the famous Count de Saint-Germain, who, claiming to be
several centuries old, was supposed to possess a prodigious elixir of
long life. Baron de Gleichen relates in his _Souvenirs_ that this “led to
the composition of the laughable story of the old chambermaid of a lady
who had hidden away a phial of this divine liquor; the ancient soubrette
discovered it and drank so much of it that by dint of drinking and
rejuvenating, she became a little baby.”
There were adventurers in the personnel of the secret diplomacy, but
there were remarkable men likewise. Count de Broglie was the chief of
these. The mysterious Minister of Foreign Affairs acted simultaneously
with the official one. “He presently had trusty agents at every court;
sometimes it was the resident minister himself, unknown to the titular
Minister of Foreign Affairs; more frequently it was some inferior
employee of legation, who thus became a spy on his immediate chief.” M.
d’Ogny, director of the secret postal service, recognized the despatches
of the initiated diplomatists by an exterior sign; they were sent to
Count de Broglie through Guinard, a servant of the château, deciphered in
the cabinet of the Count, and then sent back to Louis XV. with draughts
of replies, to which the King each time affixed his visa after making
corrections. Baron de Breteuil, ambassador to Sweden in 1766, who had
been recommended by the King to pay particular attention to the affairs
of that country, Count Desalleurs, ambassador to Constantinople, M. de
Saint-Priest, and lastly, M. de Vergennes, took part in this secret
diplomacy.[35] “Count de Broglie retained the direction of it even after
he had been exiled in consequence of an official disgrace which was
only apparently such.” As M. Geffroy remarks: “Louis XV., aided by this
unknown personnel, liked to direct the principal affairs himself with a
certain attention. Perhaps, jealous of all who surrounded him,—ministers,
favorites, and mistresses,—he took pleasure in being able to thwart and
oppose them secretly, in conspiring against them without taking the
trouble to make an open resistance. His hidden policy was frequently
more honorable than the avowed policy of the cabinet of Versailles.” M.
Théodore Lavallée has made the same reflection. He says: “The secret
correspondence of Louis XV. shows that this prince had the sentiment of
national grandeur as if by royal instinct and family tradition; it is
full of good sense, dignity, and loyalty. No one can read it without
regretting that this noble policy should have been rendered sterile by
lack of will, that these profound views concerning the interests of
France’s future should have been lost sight of in the debaucheries of the
Deer Park.”
What was lacking to Louis XV. was not intelligence—he had a great deal
of it; nor was it the moral sense, for even while doing evil he had a
clear idea of what was right; it was will. From his youth he had had
upright and pure intentions, and from time to time he had them still, but
he did not feel in himself the needful energy to withstand the torrent
of his time. As was said by his huntsman, Le Roy, that master of the
hounds whom Sainte-Beuve styles a La Bruyère on horseback, “he despaired
of ever being able to do what is right, because one is always more
disposed to regard as impossible in itself what one has not the courage
to do. To this point had a man arrived by degrees whose intelligence and
character, if he had been born a private person, would have made him
considered above the common and what is properly called a gallant man.”
In growing old he had preserved a noble and elegant figure, regular
features, a reserved but subtle and witty style of conversation, an
exquisite politeness, and a very great care of his person. “This prince
was still beloved; one would have desired that a manner of life suitable
to his age and dignity should at last throw a veil over the aberrations
of the past and justify the love which the French people had had for his
youth. It pained them to condemn him severely. If he had established
recognized mistresses at court, the excessive devotion of the Queen was
blamed for it. Mesdames were reproached for not trying to avert the
danger of seeing the King arrange another intimacy for himself with some
new favorite. People regretted Madame Henriette, twin-sister of the
Duchess of Parma; this princess had had some influence over the King’s
mind; they wrote that if she had lived she would have exerted herself
to provide amusements for him in the bosom of his own family; that she
would have accompanied the King on his journeys, and would have done the
honors of those little suppers which he was fond of giving in his private
apartments.”[36]
Count de Ségur, a wit and boon companion _par excellence_, who saw the
last years of Louis XV., likewise speaks of them with a certain sympathy.
“This good, feeble monarch,” he says in his charming Memoirs, “was in
his youth the object of a too little deserved enthusiasm; the rigorous
reproaches cast upon his old age are not less exaggerated. Successor to
the absolute power of Louis XIV., he reigned sixty years without its
being possible to accuse him of an act of cruelty.... No prince can be
found who has not more or less participated in the errors, weaknesses,
and follies of his time. Moreover, the French have always shown
themselves too lenient to this sort of wrong-doings; but they desire at
least that these stains should disappear under the rays of some halo of
glory. Hence they become only too indulgent and almost panegyrize the
same faults when committed by the chivalrous Francis I., the brave Henry,
the majestic Louis XIV., while they bitterly reproach the weak Louis XV.
on account of them.”
Sovereigns are nearly always the personification of their epoch. They
seem to give the law, but generally they merely submit to it. The
contrasts in the character of Louis XV. reappear in the society of
which he was the head. He belongs to that period of dissolution and
decay when, according to Chateaubriand’s expression, “statesmen became
men of letters, and men of letters statesmen; great nobles bankers,
farmers-general great nobles. The fashions were as ridiculous as the arts
were in bad taste; they painted shepherdesses in paniers in salons where
colonels were embroidering. Everything was out of order in both minds
and morals, sure sign of a revolution.... To see the monarch benumbed
in voluptuousness, the courtiers corrupted, the ministers malicious or
imbecile, some of the philosophers undermining religion, and others the
State; the nobles either ignorant or attacked by the vices of the day;
the ecclesiastics, at Paris, the disgrace of their order; the provinces
full of prejudices,—one would have thought of a crowd of workmen
hastening to tear down a great edifice.”
And yet, in appearance, there was very little alteration. As Count de
Ségur remarks, “the old social edifice was completely ruined in its
lowest foundations, without any sign at the surface which announced its
approaching fall. The change in manners was unperceived because it had
been gradual; the etiquette at court was the same,—the same throne,
the same names, distinctions of rank and formalities were still held
there. The parliaments, opposing the government, but in a respectful
manner, had become almost republican without suspecting it, and were
themselves striking the hour of revolutions while supposing they were
merely following the examples of their predecessors when they resisted
the concordat of Francis I. and the fiscal despotism of Mazarin.” Louis
XV., who was a shrewd observer, in spite of his defects, appreciated the
whole gravity of the situation. But to remedy it would have demanded
genius,—not merely cleverness, talent, or wisdom. To conciliate, at the
close of the eighteenth century, necessary liberties with indispensable
authority, was a problem which the greatest of men might have found no
means of solving. Louis XV. contented himself with saying: “Things will
last as they are as long as I do.”
At his side a minister was governing whose character was in singular
contrast with that of his master. The Duke de Choiseul was as
enthusiastic, loquacious, good-humored, as Louis XV. was reserved,
taciturn, and bored. The monarch, although he understood his religion
badly, had a deep and lively faith, while the minister was Voltairean.
Liked by the parliaments, the aristocracy, and the men of letters,
Choiseul, with his audacious petulance, his brilliant and easy way of
transacting business, his seductive and resourceful talent, his witty
even eloquent conversation, his faith in his star, his habit of believing
all successes possible, his philosophy which stopped at Voltaire and
disdained Rousseau, his unconscious prodigality, which, counting on the
future suppression of monasteries and the taxation of ecclesiastical
property to supply the deficit, was untroubled by the pit dug beneath
the throne, Choiseul was the type of that brave and charming, frivolous
and adventurous nobility which marches smilingly toward an abyss covered
with flowers. “Never,” says Baron de Gleichen in his _Souvenirs_, “have I
known a man so capable as he of spreading joy and contentment all around
his person. When he entered a room, he rummaged his pockets and seemed to
draw from them an inexhaustible abundance of pleasantries and gaiety.”
In spite of his charm and kindliness, the minister, whom Pope Benedict
XIV. described as “a fool who had a good deal of genius,” had drawn upon
himself irreconcilable enmities. His rivals and those who were jealous
of him could not forgive him for his lofty fortune, and anxiously sought
means of overthrowing this colossus who dominated everything. In what
salon, by what means, could they hope to prepare and bring about the
fall of the man who hampered them,—such was the question they incessantly
asked themselves. As has been remarked by Madame Campan, Louis XV. had
at this time no relations with women except those of a class that could
be of no use in a prolonged intrigue; the Deer Park, moreover, was a
seraglio in which the beauties were constantly renewed. They would have
liked to give the monarch a mistress who, by means of daily insinuations,
might have force enough to overthrow the powerful minister. To fight a
grand vizier, a sultana was essential. This was why the enemies of the
Duke de Choiseul cast their eyes upon the woman whose beginnings we are
about to recall,—the Countess Du Barry.
II
THE BEGINNINGS OF THE COUNTESS DU BARRY
On the 9th of January, 1829, a curious suit was tried before the civil
tribunal of first instance. It was a contest between two families,
each of which claimed to be the sole heir of the Countess Du Barry,
and demanded the carrying into execution of a legacy bequeathed to the
Countess by the Duke de Cossé-Brissac, massacred by the revolutionists
in 1792. The Duke, while naming his daughter, Madame de Mortemart, as
universal legatee, had burdened her succession by a legacy which, at
first, could not be paid. But under the Restoration the Mortemart family,
having received a considerable portion of the indemnity of a milliard,
granted to the _Émigrés_, found itself in a position to accomplish
the last wishes of the Duke de Brissac. The Gomard heirs presented
themselves, appealing, as the certificate of Madame Du Barry’s birth to
the following extract, drawn, they said, from the baptismal registers
of the parish of Vaucouleurs, diocese of Toul: “Jeanne, daughter of
Jean-Jacquard Gomard de Vaubernier and Anne Bécu, called Quantigny, was
born August 19, 1746, and was baptized the same day, had Joseph de
Mange for godfather and Jeanne de Birabin for godmother, who have signed
with me: L. Galon, vicar of Vaucouleurs, Joseph de Mange and Jeanne de
Birabin.”
The heirs on the maternal side, the Bécus, also presented themselves.
They came not merely to share, but to contest with the Gomards all rights
of succession to Madame Du Barry. They maintained that the certificate
of birth furnished by the latter was false, having been fabricated in
1768 to flatter the Countess, and they opposed to it another act, taken
from the civil registers of the town of Vaucouleurs, September 25, 1827,
and which was expressed in these terms: “Jeanne, natural daughter of
Anne Bécu, called Quantigny, was born August 19, 1743, and baptized the
same day. For godfather she had Joseph Demange, and for godmother Jeanne
Birabin.”
By judgment of January 9, 1829,—a judgment confirmed by a decree of the
royal court of Paris, February 22, 1830,—the Seine tribunal of first
instance decided in favor of the Bécu heirs. The certificate of birth
produced by the Gomards was declared apocryphal. The tribunals thus
established that in 1768 a genealogy of complaisance had been invented in
favor of the mistress of Louis XV. Of a natural daughter they had made a
legitimate daughter. The Bécu girl had been transformed into a Demoiselle
Gomard de Vaubernier. The “particle” was attributed to the godfather,
M. Demange, and to the godmother, Jeanne Birabin, “la Birabine,” as they
said in the country, who became Madame de Birabin. The fawning spirit
went to even further lengths. The favorite was made younger and made to
come into the world, not on August 19, 1743, the real day of her birth,
but three years later, August 19, 1746. In his interesting work, _Les
Curiosités historiques_, M. Le Roi, the learned curator of the Versailles
library, has told the truth about the origin of the Countess Du Barry.
He has given her back her true name: Jeanne Bécu. He has refuted the
numberless falsehoods which tended to create an absolutely false legend
on the subject of the royal mistress.
The child who was one day to call herself the Countess Du Barry had for
mother a simple peasant. She had to struggle against poverty from her
cradle. A commissary of provisions, M. Dumonceau, gave her the first
elements of instruction through charity. He placed her in the convent
of Saint Anne, with two pairs of sheets and six napkins by way of
trousseau. It is said that she afterwards peddled haberdashery through
the streets, and later on, under the name of Mademoiselle Rançon, the
name of the husband recently taken by her mother, entered the millinery
shop of one M. Mabille, rue Saint Honoré. It seems the little shop girl
was not a model of virtue. Alas! the snares of every kind with which
pretty girls are surrounded make goodness and beauty what may almost
be called incompatible things in the poorer classes. The milliner
encountered one of those men who are met in every capital,—Count Jean Du
Barry. He said to himself that so charming a person ought to make her
way, and in his enthusiasm he gave her a seraphic title: he called her
Mademoiselle l’Ange. This angel, of an inferior order, presided at the
gambling-parties given by the Count. It was there Dumouriez saw her in
1764. In 1764 the Duke de Lauzun followed her from the opera ball, and
found her truly ravishing. Lebel, valet-de-chambre to Louis XV., who, in
consequence of his special functions was on the track of all dainties
for the King, thought he would do well to place Mademoiselle l’Ange on
the list of his clients. He fancied she would be only the favorite of a
day and night and would then disappear, after having had her place in
the Deer Park but an instant. He was mistaken. The former milliner was
destined to a succession that had been vacant four years,—that of the
Marquise de Pompadour.
Instead of imitating the great ladies who fatigued the King, she showed
herself just as she was, under the aspect of a veritable courtesan, with
all the cynicism, animation, and refinements of her trade. Louis XV.
found his jaded senses revive as if by miracle. He was delighted by it.
The new favorite seemed to him an exceptional being. He determined to
cover her with a rain of gold and jewels, and make her the first _femme
entretenue_ in France, in all Europe.
Thinking that a demoiselle could not decently fulfil the functions of
royal mistress, he decided that he would at once make the new favorite
a married woman and a woman of title. Nothing easier than to find her a
nominal husband who, having received a goodly sum, would quietly retire
behind the scenes and not appear again on the stage. Count Jean Du Barry
could not play this lucrative part himself, seeing that he was already
married. But he had a bachelor brother who seemed made expressly for
the circumstance. This complaisant brother was called Count William Du
Barry. He was a poor officer of marines, who lived at Toulouse, with his
mother. To summon him to Paris, to marry him to the mistress of Louis
XV., to give him a large sum and send him back at once to Toulouse, was
but the affair of a few days. Queen Marie Leczinska had died June 24,
1768. Her husband did not lament her long, for he was smitten the next
month with this so-called Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, this Jeanne Bécu,
called l’Ange, who was about to become Madame the Countess Du Barry. The
contract was signed, July 23, in presence of the notaries Du Châtelet
of Paris, and this comedy marriage was celebrated, September 1, at the
church of Saint Laurent, Auteuil. The nuptial benediction once given, the
husband departed for Toulouse, and the wife went to take up her quarters
at Versailles.
Louis XV. congratulated himself on his choice. Madame Du Barry was
neither learned nor witty; she had no relatives well placed at court,
and to the monarch these seemed very great advantages. He did not
want either a great lady, like the Duchess de Châteauroux, who would
have arrived with a cortège of relations and favorites, nor a female
politician, like Madame de Pompadour, who would constantly busy herself
with parliaments and the clergy. What he desired was not a female
adviser, but an amusement.
[Illustration: MADAME DU BARRY.]
III
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE COUNTESS DU BARRY
What would the Countess Du Barry become?
Would she be an ephemeral mistress, like the women of the Deer Park, or
would she have the official position of favorite? This was what everybody
was asking. The important thing to know was whether or not she would be
presented. Bets were openly made on this question at Versailles. The Duke
de Choiseul, hostile to the new countess, was against the presentation.
But the King desired it. His will finally prevailed. He had known Madame
Du Barry since July, 1768, but she was not presented until April 22,
1769. The ceremony took place with the ordinary formalities. After having
received the command of the King, who had already been told the names of
the sponsor, a lady making the presentation, and of her two assistants,
who must always be women of the court, they arrived at the door of the
grand cabinet in full toilette; that is, in robes stretched over hoops
measuring three and a half ells in circumference, a long mantle clasped
at the waist, a suitable bodice, flowing lappets, and as many diamonds
as they had been able to procure. Madame Du Barry’s sponsor was the
Countess de Béarn. Louis XV. looked radiant. He enjoyed the triumph of
the woman he had chosen.
Thenceforward he was settled. Madame Du Barry was sufficient for her
royal lover, who was tired of going clandestinely to the Deer Park,
where he was obliged to hide himself, and was consequently not at ease.
He closed that mysterious establishment and lodged his new mistress in
the château of Versailles, in an apartment on the second story, just
over that which he occupied himself. He could go to her at any hour, and
unobserved, by a staircase leading to the Deer Court. A door opening on
a small landing gave admission to one of the two cabinets situated near
the alcove of the favorite’s chamber. Her apartment formed a suite of
boudoirs each more elegant than another. It was the last word of luxury.
The bedroom clock represented the three Graces supporting a vase in which
was a revolving dial, while above it Love indicated the hours with his
arrow. The most exquisite objects of art, marvels of upholstery, bronzes,
marble, lacquer work, china, statuettes, abounded in this asylum of
voluptuous pleasure.
“It is the senseless dream of a gay woman,” say Messrs. de Goncourt;
“a folly of expenditure, an extravagance of luxury. Millions are flung
away for the caprices of fashion, for rarities in jewelry, point lace,
silk and velvet, a flood of money; the royal treasure flowing through
the hands of a pretty woman upon the world of tailors, milliners,
dressmakers.”
All this life spent in furnishing, in giving orders and commissions,
in toilettes and purchases of every sort, is wholly fantastic and
capricious. Her apartment in the château of Versailles no longer
suffices the Countess. Louis XV. gives her a house in the city, rue de
l’Orangerie,[37] where she installs herself with her attendants and
her equipages. At the beginning of the year 1769, she receives one
hundred thousand livres as a life annuity on the city of Paris, and a
pension of ten thousand livres on the States of Burgundy. July 24 of
the same year, her generous lover, who is more and more contented with
her, compliments her by presenting the beautiful château of Luciennes,
bought from the Duke de Penthièvre. The favorite triumphs; she has the
same retinue, riches, and position as the Marquise de Pompadour. Young,
pretty, seductive, with her blue eyes and brown eyebrows, her fair hair,
her little Grecian nose, her rosy lips and satin skin, her mild yet
roguish expression, she shines with all the splendor of her twenty-five
years. Hers is not a majestic beauty, but a sprightly and frolicsome one
which retains a certain carelessness and negligence even when arrayed in
the most magnificent toilettes. It cannot be denied that she possesses
charm. Louis XV. seems bewitched by her. Marshal de Richelieu, who was
so severe on the Marquise de Pompadour, gives the Countess Du Barry his
entire approbation. The Marquise Du Deffand writes to Horace Walpole,
June 25, 1769:—
“Out in the country, the other day, while the master of the house
(the King) was playing whist, the head of the conspiracy (Marshal de
Richelieu) set up a little game of lansquenet to teach it to the lady
(Madame Du Barry). He lost two hundred and fifty louis. The master of the
house jeered at him, asking him how he could have lost at such a small
game; he answered by a quotation from the opera:—
“‘Le plus sage
S’enflamme et s’engage
Sans savoir comment.’[38]
The master laughed and all the troupe.”
There were people, however, who did not go into ecstasies over the beauty
of the new favorite. In September, 1769, Horace Walpole saw her in the
chapel of the château of Versailles. He did not admire her much, and thus
describes the impression she made on him in a letter to George Montagu:
“A first row in the balconies was kept for us. Madame Du Barry arrived
over against us below, without rouge, without powder, and indeed sans
avoir fait sa toilette; an odd appearance, as she was so conspicuous,
close to the altar, and amidst both court and people. She is pretty,
when you consider her; yet so little striking, that I never should have
asked who she was. There is nothing bold, assuming, or affected in her
manner. Her husband’s sister was along with her. In the Tribune above,
surrounded by prelates, was the amorous and still handsome King. One
could not help smiling at the mixture of piety, pomp, and carnality.”
Madame Du Barry was the first to be astonished by her lot. Her
transformation into a great lady seemed to her a disguise. She was still
more surprised when they tried to make a political woman of her. Devoid
of hatred, ambition, or calculation, she asked for nothing but to occupy
herself with her toilettes and her furniture. Politics seemed to her a
tedious thing. What were parliaments, the clergy, and diplomacy to her?
She had a good many other things to think about. From the time when she
had made her entry at court she had asked for nothing but to live at
peace with all the ministers. She sent word to the Duke de Choiseul that
if he wanted to be friends with her, she would go half way to meet him.
The person who carried this message recalled the fact that mistresses
drive out ministers, and ministers do not drive out mistresses. The Duke
contented himself with replying coldly by a vague promise to grant such
of Madame Du Barry’s demands as he considered just.[39] The enemies
of the minister had the greatest difficulty, notwithstanding their
incessant efforts, in persuading the inoffensive Countess to oppose him.
At first her attacks on him were only skirmishes, or better, mere roguish
tricks. The Marquise Du Deffand wrote to Horace Walpole, November 2,
1769: “The grandpapa” (the nickname given to Choiseul) “daily receives
little affronts, such as not being named or invited for the little
cabinet suppers, and, when visiting Madame Du Barry, grimaces when he is
her partner at whist,—mockeries, shruggings of the shoulders; in fine,
the petty revenges of a schoolgirl.”
Meanwhile the friends of the Duke de Choiseul did not as yet disquiet
themselves, and Madame Du Deffand wrote, to Walpole, January 15, 1770:
“Dame Du Barry has no influence, and there seems no likelihood that she
ever will have any; she has neither affection nor hatred for anybody;
she can say what they make her say, like a parrot, but without design,
interest, or passion; no one contrives to govern with a character like
that.” However, the security of the Marquise as to the fate of the Duke
de Choiseul did not last long: “The controller-general is at the feet of
Madame Du Barry, and does not blush at it,” she wrote, March 3, 1770;
“he says he is following the example of all ministers who want to be
listened to by kings, and even to be useful to them. Just at present our
friend seems well disposed; but I doubt whether the year will end without
a great revolution.” In the same letter she adds: “The King continues
much smitten with his dame, but without showing her much consideration;
he treats her sufficiently like a wench; in fine, she will be good or
bad according to him who rules her; her own character will influence
nothing. She may serve the passions of others, but never with the warmth
and success one has when one shares them; she will repeat her lesson; but
in circumstances where she has not been inspired, her own genius will not
make up for it.”
At this epoch a malicious stanza got into circulation which is quoted in
one of the letters of the Marquise (November 2, 1769). It was considered
to sum up the complaints of the Duke de Choiseul, the friend of Madame de
Pompadour, the enemy of Madame Du Barry. It was sung to the air of _Vive
le Vin, Vive l’Amour_.
“Vive le roi! Foin de l’Amour!
Le drôle m’a joué d’un tour,
Qui peut confondre mon audace.
La Du Barry, pour moi de glace,
Va, dit-on, changer mes destins.
Jadis, je dus ma fortune aux catins;
Je leur devrai donc ma disgrace.”[40]
Madame Du Barry let herself be dragged into the struggle almost against
her will. Three men urged her on: the Duke d’Aiguillon, the Abbé
Terray, the Chancellor Maupeou. Surrounded by this triumvirate, the
Countess smilingly entered the political lists. One can understand what
indignation such an enemy must have caused a man so bold and haughty as
the Duke de Choiseul. He chafed at his bit. His power was only to last
some months longer. But before his downfall he was to see the arrival in
France of the princess whose marriage with the Dauphin he had negotiated,
that charming and poetic young girl who appeared in an aged court like
a beam of pure light, that touching victim of fatality whose suave and
august countenance make a striking contrast with that of the Du Barry,
and whose name cannot be pronounced without an unspeakable blending of
sympathy and compassion, tenderness, and respect,—Marie Antoinette.
At the moment when all minds were occupied with the coming marriage of
the Archduchess with the Prince who was one day to be called Louis XVI.,
a novice was praying in the convent of Carmelites at Saint Denis for the
safety of France, menaced by so many catastrophes. This novice was one
of the daughters of Louis XV. While egotism and voluptuousness dominated
in the palace of Versailles, the spirit of immolation and self-sacrifice
took refuge in a convent, near the last dwelling-place of kings. Madame
Du Barry was scandal; Madame Louise of France, edification.
IV
MADAME LOUISE OF FRANCE, CARMELITE NOVICE
We are in 1770. Madame Louise of France, the youngest of the daughters
of Louis XV., is thirty-two years old. “For some years,” says Madame
Campan, “Madame Louise had led a very retired life; I used to read to
her five hours a day; my voice often betrayed the fatigue of my chest;
the Princess would then prepare sugared water and place it beside me,
excusing herself for making me read so long by saying it was necessary
for her to finish a course of reading she had undertaken.” Why is the
King’s daughter bent on finishing this course so quickly? That is her
secret. In appearance, she is leading a luxurious life. In reality, she
is silently making her mysterious apprenticeship of renunciation and
immolation, accustoming herself to endure excessive cold or heat, and
wearing beneath her linen the serge of the Carmelites. In the evenings,
when she is alone in her room, she extinguishes her wax tapers and lights
candles, so as to habituate herself to the odor of tallow, which at
first had caused her unendurable repugnance. “She had a lofty soul,”
says Madame Campan; “she loved great things; she used often to interrupt
my reading to exclaim: ‘How fine that is! How noble!’ There was but one
brilliant action which she could perform: to quit a palace for a cell,
rich garments for a robe of frieze; she performed it.”
Certain writers who, being devoid of the religious sentiment, persist in
seeing the earth everywhere, and never look at heaven, have insisted on
attributing the holy resolutions of Madame Louise to human motives, and
barely refrained from describing a Carmelite as an ambitious intriguant.
M. Honoré Bonhomme, the author of _Louis XV. et sa famille_, was better
inspired when he wrote: “When the Queen died, Louis XV. had had a
glimmering of repentance. People might have fancied that his morals
were to be more regular; but no! Very speedily a new favorite, the Du
Barry, was presented, and we know the rest. Now, it was after this signal
relapse on her father’s part, when she saw him fall back soul and body,
and deeper than ever, into shameful disorders, that, heartbroken with
sorrow, and deprived of all hope, Madame Louise hastened to demand of
God, in the austerity of the cloister, not pardon for herself,—she did
not need it,—not the calm and repose which were lacking to her,—she had
sacrificed them,—but to ask of God, with tears and fervor, the conversion
of her father, the salvation of the King.”
The Countess Du Barry’s formal presentation at court took place April
22, 1769. January 30, 1770, Madame Louise charged Monseigneur de
Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, to ask the King to allow her to enter the
religious state. Profoundly surprised by so unexpected a communication,
Louis XV. remained silent for awhile. Then he exclaimed several times:
“This is cruel! this is cruel!” and deferred his reply for a fortnight.
The desired consent was at last obtained. The Abbé du Terney, the
Princess’s confessor, brought her the following letter from the King,
dated February 20, 1770:—
“Monseigneur the Archbishop, my dear daughter, having given me an account
of all that you have said and written to him, will surely have acquainted
you exactly with all I said to him in reply. If it is for God alone, I
cannot oppose myself to His will nor to His determination. You must have
made your reflections; hence, I have nothing more to ask concerning them;
it seems even that your arrangements are made; you can speak of them to
your sisters when you think proper. Compiègne is not possible; you may
choose any other place, and I would be very sorry to prescribe anything
on the subject. I have made some involuntary sacrifices; this one will be
voluntary on your part. God will give you strength to support your new
state, for, the step once taken, there can be no return. I embrace you
with all my heart, my dear daughter, and give you my blessing.”
There was, at Saint Denis, a Carmelite convent, so poor that the
nuns had been obliged to make retrenchments in their food, already so
frugal, and the baker was beginning to refuse them bread. It was this
house, reduced to profound distress and threatened with dissolution for
lack of pecuniary resources, that Madame Louise selected for her final
refuge. At the very time when the nuns were making a novena to entreat
God to provide for the existence of their community, Louis XV. gave his
daughter the permission she had so ardently desired. Madame Louise still
maintained absolute secrecy, especially with her sisters, whose remarks
she may have dreaded. April 5, 1770, she received the following note from
Louis XV., dated at Choisy:—
“I embrace you with all my heart, my dear daughter, and send you the
order you spoke to me about for your departure, and I will execute what
you desire for your domestics, and all your other arrangements. You
will have only a word from me this evening, my little heart, for it is
late.” In the morning of April 11, the Princess entered a carriage, at
Versailles, with a maid of honor and an equerry, and drove to Saint
Denis. She wore a plain silk dress under a large black mantle, and a high
bonnet adorned with a bunch of red ribbons. On reaching Saint Denis,
she said: “To the Carmelites.” The door of the cloister opened, and
Madame Louise disappeared behind it. Her maid of honor, the Princess de
Ghistelles, and her equerry, M. d’Haranguier de Quincerot, thought she
would return after having heard Mass. Their surprise can be imagined
when, summoned within the convent by the Princess, they read the King’s
order.
During the day, the sisters of the novice learned what had occurred. At
first they were in despair; but after the first involuntary anger had
passed away, they felt nothing but respect for so pious a resolution. In
his book on the daughters of Louis XV., which is so full of facts and
documents, M. Édouard de Barthélemy has given the letters written her by
Mesdames Adelaide and Sophie. This is Madame Adelaide’s:—
“Thou canst fancy better than I can express what has passed and is still
passing in my heart. My grief equals my astonishment; but thou art happy,
and that is all I want. Pray God for me, dear heart, thou knowest my
needs; they are more than ever pressing just now. I will certainly go to
see thee as soon as I have strength enough, and thou canst receive me
without feeling disturbed. Adieu, dear heart. I am going to _Tenebræ_,
where I fear I shall be a little distracted. Love me always, and believe
I shall return it well.”
Here is the letter of Madame Sophie:—
“If I never spoke to thee again, dear heart, of the desire I suspected in
thee to become a nun, it is because I thought thou wouldst never carry it
into effect. I pardon thee with all my heart for telling me nothing about
it. Thy sacrifice is beautiful, because it is voluntary. But dost think
that the one thou hast imposed on me, in leaving us, and which is not
voluntary, is not as hard to bear? Be very sure, dear heart, that I love
thee, that I will love thee all my life, and that when thou permittest,
I will go to see thee with much eagerness. I embrace thee with all my
heart.”
A diplomatic circular addressed to the King’s ambassadors at foreign
courts notified them of the “exemplary and affecting event” which had
just occurred, and Pope Clement XIV. addressed to the Most Christian King
a brief which resembled a canticle of thanksgiving.
Madame Campan relates that when she went to see the Princess at the
convent for the first time, she found her coming out of the laundry,
where her king’s daughter’s hands had just been doing the washing. The
novice said to her former reader at this time: “I greatly abused your
young lungs for two years before executing my purpose. I knew I could
read nothing here but books tending to our salvation, and I wanted to
review all the historians who had interested me.” Speaking afterwards of
her religious vocation, she said: “Believe me, the moralists are right
when they say that happiness does not dwell in palaces; I have acquired
a certainty of that. If you wish to be happy, I advise you to come and
enjoy a retreat where the most active mind might find full exercise in
the contemplation of a better world.”
The grating is closed at last upon the daughter of Louis XV. Between her
and the world the gulf has become impassable. What a contrast between
the palace and the cloister! Yesterday, all splendor and magnificence,
radiant galleries, marble staircases, majestic apartments; to-day,
humility, poverty, a monotonous existence, the rigors of enclosure.
Yesterday, robes of gold brocade, laces, precious stones, diadems;
to-day, the frieze habit, the bitter chalice. Yesterday, noise, worldly
animation; to-day, the silence and obscurity of the tomb.
They say that certain courtiers who did not comprehend Madame Louise,
criticised or pitied her; that the Maréchale de Mirepoix called her
“a mad woman, entering the cloister to annoy the court in the name of
Heaven”; that the Duke d’Agen thought he proved his wit by saying: “If
Madame Louise is in such a hurry to go to Paradise, it is because she
wants to be certain of not spending eternity with her family.”
The Marquise Du Deffand, who plays the philosopher, writes in one of her
letters: “This adventure has not made a great sensation. People shrug
their shoulders, pity her weakness of mind, and talk of something else.”
The sarcastic Marquise compassionates a princess who, says she, “makes
herself miserable for chimeras.” Madame Du Deffand is mistaken; with all
her intelligence, she is much more to be pitied than Madame Louise. There
are a good many more chimeras in her salon than in the Carmelite convent.
As to Louis XV., he was profoundly convinced that his daughter was
happy. “But, Sire,” Madame Du Barry said to him one day, “Madame Louise
will have a wretched fate at the convent!”—“Not at all,” he replied, “she
will be the most tranquil one of the family. The devotees did not invent
quietism for nothing.” Perhaps the voluptuous monarch himself felt, at
times, a disgust for his palaces, and what one might call a homesickness
for the cloister. Charles V. is not the only one who has dreamed of the
monastic life. The greatest debauchees sometimes have their moments of
mysticism.
The daughter of an earthly king now confides herself to the King of
Heaven. As she is no longer attached to a perishable throne, but to
the cross, which is immortal, she finds herself more at liberty in her
voluntary captivity than she once was in the whirlpool of the world. She
does not regret the crowd of courtiers who hasten to the Œil-de-Bœuf. She
does not regret that palace inhabited by cares and troubles, wherein, as
La Bruyère puts it, people rise from and lie down on self-interest. She
does not regret those base flatteries, a deafening murmur which fatigues
ear and heart alike; those protestations of zeal which are merely the
calculations of egotism, ambition, and cupidity, that pompous and vain
magnificence which gives not one moment of true happiness. The rules of
the cloister, though hard and austere, seem to her less painful than the
restrictions of etiquette. She prefers one ardent aspiration toward the
Christ, one tear of religious ecstasy, to all earthly treasures. Here
there are no more scandals, no more falsities, no more infamies; here is
repose, here the veritable love!
It is curious to observe that the _angel_ of Madame Louise at the convent
of Saint Denis, that is to say, the nun whose duty it was to initiate her
into the practices and duties of a Carmelite’s life, was Sister Julie, in
the world Julienne de MacMahon, a daughter of that illustrious family to
which belonged the Marshal who was at the head of the French government.
Several contemporary publicists have spoken with levity of certain
writings connected with the religious vocation of the royal Carmelite,
such as the Abbé Proyart’s work, that of the Countess Drohojowska, and
the Count de Chambord’s letter to the Holy Father. For my part, I own
that such writings seem to me profoundly affecting. Is it not good to
think that not far from the boudoir where a Du Barry was degrading the
royal authority, there was a little cell wherein a descendant of Saint
Louis sought to avert the scourges of God by prayer? If debauchery has
its priestesses of vice and scandal, chastity must have its virgins and
heroines. At the side of blasphemies, abject even to indecency, there
must needs be prayers ardent to exaltation. To compensate for so many
outrages against the divine majesty, there must be virtues whose sublime
and enthusiastic character seems to profane eyes a sort of exaggeration,
a delirium. To make folly and voluptuousness forgotten for a moment,
there must be just persons who display what Saint Paul has called the
folly of the cross. It is because, in spite of so many debauchees,
there were still elect souls who preserved treasures of purity in the
sanctuary of their consciences, that the eighteenth century was not
altogether ruined, and that, when the revolution came, the women of
this society, which was thought so corrupt and frivolous, recalled the
force of the primitive Christians and the sacred energy of the martyrs
by their greatness of soul and their firmness on the scaffold. Who
knows? Perhaps if Madame Louise of France had not become a Carmelite,
the august woman whom we are about to behold for the first time in the
palace of Versailles would have had less dignity when confronted with her
persecutors, less courage in presence of her executioners.
V
THE CHILDHOOD OF MARIE ANTOINETTE
On All Souls Day, November 2, 1755, a formidable earthquake covered
Lisbon with ruins. At Vienna there was born, on the same day, a child
destined to the most tragic fate, a princess who, having like the Christ
her palms and her Golgotha, was to sum up in her own person all the joys
and all the anguish, all the triumphs and all the sorrows, of woman.
This existence, doomed to catastrophes which surpass the most memorable
examples of ancient fatality, began in that calm which heralds the storm.
The Empress Maria Theresa, a woman of both heart and genius, was equally
admirable as a sovereign, wife, and mother. As simple as majestic, she
needed not the prestige of etiquette to inspire veneration. A few days
before Marie Antoinette was born, the Duke de Tarouka had laid a wager
with the Empress that she would give birth to a son. When he lost his
bet, he caused a kneeling figure to be modelled in porcelain, which was
presenting to the Sovereign some tablets on which were engraven four
verses in Italian from the poet Metastasio, which may be thus translated:
“I have lost. The august daughter has condemned me to pay. But it is true
that if she resembles you, all the world will be the gainer.”
Maria Theresa began betimes to give Marie Antoinette the most serious
instructions. She showed her the shroud she had woven for herself with
her own imperial hands, and taking her down into the vaults where
their ancestors were sleeping: “It is to me,” she said, “that people
now address the homage of which they were once the object; I shall be
forgotten like them.” When they were out driving, the Empress and her
husband gave the right of way to the most humble vehicles, and quietly
took their places in the line. According to an expression of Goethe,
the imperial household was only a great German citizen’s family. Maria
Theresa walked out with her daughters like a private person; she visited
familiarly at the castles of the Counts Palfy, and those of the Esterhazy
and de Kinsky princes. She gave an equally benevolent reception to a
noble or a commoner, a diplomat or an artist; she made little Marie
Antoinette play with little Mozart.
The young Archduchess grew up beneath this mild and salutary influence.
Her father, the Emperor Francis, may have felt for her an even greater
tenderness than for his other children. In 1765 he went to Innsprück,
where he was to be present at the marriage of the Archduke Leopold with
a Spanish Infanta. After his journey had begun, he stopped his carriage
at a short distance from Schönbrun: “Go back, and find the Archduchess
Marie Antoinette,” said he to a member of his suite; “I must see her
again.” The little Princess arrived. Her father wept as he embraced her.
He invoked God’s blessing on her, and even then had to make a violent
effort before he could leave her. He was never to see her again. A few
days later he died at Innsprück, from a sudden attack of apoplexy.
Marie Antoinette remembered all her life the last look her father had
bent upon her. Was not this gaze, so full of tenderness and anxiety, a
presentiment? One day, Maria Theresa questioned the thaumaturgist Gassner
concerning the fate of the young Princess. “Will my Antoinette be happy?”
she asked him. Gassner turned pale and was silent. Urged by the Empress
to reply, “Madame,” said he sadly, “there are crosses for all shoulders.”
But let us dispel gloomy images of the future. The most brilliant destiny
is in preparation for the little Archduchess. It is she who is to unite
the Hapsburghs to the Bourbons; she who is to be Queen of France. Maria
Theresa likes to cherish this beautiful dream. In 1766 an influential
Parisian woman, whose salon had become celebrated throughout Europe,
Madame Geoffrin, goes to Poland to visit Stanislas Poniatowski. She stops
in Vienna, where she meets a reception of which she is very proud. “I
think I must be dreaming,” she writes to M. Bautin, Receiver-General of
Finances, June 12, 1766; “I am as well known here as in the rue Saint
Honoré, and for the last fortnight my journey has caused an incredible
commotion.” Speaking of Marie Antoinette in the same letter, Madame
Geoffrin adds: “The Empress has recommended me to write to France that I
have seen this little one, and that I find her beautiful.”
Madame Geoffrin took the Princess on her lap. “Here,” said she, “is a
little girl that I would very much like to take with me.”—“Take her,
take her!” gaily replied the Empress, who was thinking of Versailles
and the Dauphin. From that time Maria Theresa sought to form the future
Dauphiness to the likeness of the court of France. Language, literature,
novels, history, fashions, theatrical pieces, books, almanacs,
engravings, everything that surrounded the young Archduchess, was French.
As M. Feuillet de Conches has said in the eloquent preface to his
collection, “the wind of France breathed through the beautiful fair
tresses of Marie Antoinette.” She danced with Noverre, declaimed with
Sainville, recited Racine’s tragedies and La Fontaine’s fables with
Dufresne. A famous hairdresser, Larsonneur, was brought from Paris, and
with him milliners and dressmakers for the service of the young Princess.
Her true adornment was her natural grace. As has been said by Madame
the Countess Armaillé, in a charming study which she calls _La Mère
et la Fille_, “certain female faces seem to have no brilliancy except
when surrounded by the animation of festivities; others harmonize with
the freshness of nature, the gentle poesy of solitary country places.
It was this kind of beauty that Marie Antoinette possessed. Her supple
and slender figure, the grace and lightness of her bearing, recalled the
heroines of German legends. Undine was not more charming when, rising
from the bosom of the waves, she wandered for a time among mortal beings.
Her blue eyes, whose limpid tint was compared to that of the waters of
the Danube, were both soft and sparkling. Her mouth, rosy and smiling,
seemed to receive an added grace from a little dimple in her chin. Her
hair, of an ashy blond, drawn back in accordance with the fashion of
the day, left visible her pure, haughty forehead and her well-defined
and graceful neck. Everything in her breathed distinction, kindness,
candor.” Though no longer a child, she was not yet a woman. She had that
blending of intelligence and ignorance, wit and simplicity, which has
such grace and charm. Already a shade of melancholy sometimes overspread
that pure and radiant visage, which was lighted up by so sweet a smile.
“Poor women!” has said a young girl, Mademoiselle Rosa Ferrucci, whose
touching story has been related by the Abbé Perreyve, “poor women! we
are weaker than the leaves that the first breeze tears off and scatters,
and childhood is scarcely over when our heart, which knows only how to
love and suffer, is rent by a thousand, contrary thoughts, joyful and
sorrowful.”
Versailles appeared to Marie Antoinette in a brilliant background. The
Abbé de Vermond, a French ecclesiastic who had been her preceptor since
1768, told her wonderful things about this dazzling abode where she was
to shine with so great a splendor. But the affectionate soul of the
Princess was afflicted by the thought that she must leave her cherished
mother, her beloved family, the honest Viennese, who were so devoted
to their sovereigns. Nowadays, when sovereigns give their daughters in
marriage, they have almost the certainty of seeing them again. But it
was not so then. Separations were eternal. One can understand what Maria
Theresa suffered when she reflected: Soon this beloved daughter of whom
I am so proud will depart forever. Soon I must give her a last blessing,
a last embrace. Like many mothers, the Empress was afflicted by an event
she had most ardently desired. The union, so favorable to the Austrian
policy, was decided on. Marie Antoinette was to become the Dauphiness of
France. The nearer the moment of departure came, the more the Empress
was affected. She took her daughter on her lap, embraced her, made her
sleep in her own room. Clinging to the treasure she was about to lose,
she would have liked to arrest the march of time. Marie Antoinette was
not less sad and anxious. January 21, 1770, she received the nuptial ring
sent her by the Dauphin, and just twenty-three years later to a day....
But no, we will not think yet of the final catastrophes.
The Marquis de Durfort repaired to the palace on April 16, and in the
name of the Most Christian King officially demanded the Archduchess
for the Dauphin. On the 17th, the Princess renounced her rights to
the Austrian succession. On the 18th, the fêtes began at Vienna and
were prolonged until the 21st, the day set for the departure of the
Archduchess. The 19th, she was married by proxy. The Dauphin was
represented by the Archduke Maximilian. The signing of the imperial
register took place at the palace of the Burg. It is said that Marie
Antoinette’s hand trembled when she took the pen. The Dauphin having
expressed a wish that the Archduchess herself should signify her consent
to the marriage, Marie Antoinette had written to him: “I thank you for
the expressions so full of benevolence which you employ towards me; I am
profoundly touched and honored by them, and I feel that such goodness
on your part imposes obligations on me. The examples and lessons of my
glorious and tender mother have taught me to accomplish all my duties,
and, with the help of God, I hope by every effort to render myself worthy
of the new destiny created for me. You have kindly asked that my consent
to your choice should accompany that of the Empress-queen; you say you
need to receive me from myself also. I may answer, since she authorizes
me to do so, that I have received my mother’s orders with as much
pleasure as respect. You will find in me a faithful and devoted wife,
having no other thought than that of putting into practice the means of
pleasing you and meriting your attachment.”
The city of Vienna is gay and sorrowful at once. Shouts of joy mingle
with tears. A three-days retreat, ended by the reception of communion,
is followed by a visit to the tombs of the emperors. The Archduchess
kneels down and invokes the souls of her ancestors. At last it is time
to depart. The 21st of April is here. Adieu patriarchal residence of
the Burg! Farewell ye shades of Schönbrun. Adieu blue, limpid lakes of
Laxenbourg! Adieu good Viennese who weep for the young exile! Ah! whether
she be a peasant or an empress, the mother who for the last time beholds
her daughter’s face and hears her voice, follows her with her eyes and
confides her to Providence; then, seeking her, but finding her no more,
she returns alone to her chamber, closes the door and falls upon her
knees; the mother who has felt the anguish of that heartrending torture,
separation, will comprehend what passed in the heart of Maria Theresa.
This departure of Marie Antoinette reminds me of a once popular but now
forgotten chanson, the distant echo of which affects me at this moment,
doubtless because my mother sang it to me when I was a child:—
“Ici commence ton voyage.
Si tu n’allais pas revenir!...
Ta pauvre mère est sans courage
Pour te quitter, pour te bénir.
Travaille bien, fais ta prière.
La prière donne du cœur,
Et quelquefois pense à ta mère,
Cela te portera bonheur.
Adieu, ma fille, adieu!
À la grâce de Dieu!...
“Elle s’en va, douce exilée,
Gagner son pain sous d’autres cieux;
Longtemps encore, dans la vallée,
Sa mère la suivit des yeux,
Puis, lorsque sa douleur amère
N’eut plus sa fille pour témoin,
Elle pleura, la pauvre mère,
L’enfant qui lui disait de loin:
Adieu, ma mère, adieu!
À la grâce de Dieu.”[41]
Weber says in his Memoirs: “One cannot easily shake off the superstition
of presentiments, when one has seen the farewells of Marie Antoinette to
her family, her servants, and her country. Men and women yielded to the
same expressions of grief. No one returned home until after losing sight
of the last courier who followed her, and then only to lament in the
privacy of the family a common loss.” The die was cast! Departing never
to return, the young girl of fourteen was urged by fatality toward the
abyss.
VI
MARIE ANTOINETTE’S ARRIVAL IN FRANCE
At the moment when Maria Theresa pressed Marie Antoinette to her heart
for the last time, she gave her a precious paper containing the wisest
counsels. This masterpiece of maternal solicitude, written by the
Empress’s own hand, was entitled: _A Rule to be read Every Month_. It
began thus: “This 21st of April, the day of departure.—On awaking, you
will kneel down and say your morning prayers as soon as you arise, and
also a short spiritual reading, even if it were only for half a quarter
of an hour, before occupying yourself with anything else and without
having spoken to any person. All depends on the good beginning of the
day and the intention with which one commences it, which can render even
indifferent actions good and meritorious.” Maria Theresa then went on
into all the details of a pious life. “I do not know,” she said, “whether
it is the custom in France to ring the _Angélus_; but collect your
thoughts at that hour, if not in public, at least inwardly.... If your
confessor approves, you will approach the Sacraments every six weeks,
also on the great feasts, and especially those of the Blessed Virgin; on
those days, or the vigil of them, do not forget the special devotion of
your family toward the Blessed Virgin, whose particular protection it has
experienced on all occasions. Read no book, however unimportant, without
having first asked the approval of your confessor. This is a point
especially necessary in France, where books full of entertainment and
erudition are constantly appearing, but among them are some which, under
this veil of respectability, are pernicious to religion and morality. I
conjure you then, my daughter, not to read any book, not even a brochure,
without the advice of your confessor; I require of you, my dear daughter,
this most real mark of your affection and obedience to the counsels of a
good mother who has no end in view but your salvation and your happiness.”
The monthly regulation terminated with these simple and affecting words:
“Never forget the anniversary of your late father’s death, nor mine at
the same time; meanwhile, you can take that of my birthday to pray for
me.”
The young betrothed was on her way to France. The heavens were
illuminated by the joyous sunshine of spring. “All nature was smiling at
this new Iphigenia who was advancing with the same confidence to marriage
and the sword. God of mercy! Why didst Thou not arrest that royal
progress, those triumphs of grandeur, youth, and beauty! Why didst Thou
not withdraw this august child from the fatal destiny that awaited her!
Ah! how sweet her death would have been in comparison to that reserved
for her at the hands of execrable tormentors! Austria would have received
the mortal remains of the daughter of the Hapsburghs with pious emotion.
The prayers of a Christian mother would have borne her virginal soul to
the eternal dwellings, and France, cast down by a blow so unexpected,
would also have lamented this young Princess, too quickly ravished from
its hopes.”[42]
Marie Antoinette reached Schutteren, the last German town before Kehl
and the Rhine bridge, May 6, 1770. She saw France for the first time.
She heard the sound of the Rhine waters, those poetic, majestic waters,
so often, alas, troubled and tinged with blood, those waters which now
wash two German shores, but which then flowed beside a French one. On the
large island of the Rhine a pavilion had been erected, which was called
the pavilion of the Exchange. It comprised a large hall with a room on
either side; one of these was intended for the lords and ladies of the
court of Vienna who had been charged to accompany the Princess to the
threshold of her new country; the other for her French suite, her lady of
honor, the Countess de Noailles, her lady of the bedchamber, the Duchess
de Cossé, her four ladies of the palace, the Count de Saulx-Tavannes, her
chevalier of honor, the Count de Tessé, her first equerry, the Bishop of
Chartres, her first chaplain, her officers, equerries, and body-guards.
Here took place the symbolical ceremony of the delivery. The pavilion
was hung with tapestries. The choice of these was unfortunate. “It was
nothing less,” said Goethe, who was then a student of the University
of Strasburg, “than the history of Jason, Medea, and Creusa. On the
left side of the throne one saw the unfortunate affianced a prey to the
torments of the most cruel death. On the right, the furious Jason was
deploring the loss of his children, lying dead at his feet, while the
Fury who had slain them was taking her flight through the air on her
chariot drawn by dragons.” On beholding these preparations, the future
author of _Faust_ exclaimed: “What! Is it possible that at the first
step a young princess takes in her new kingdom, such an example of the
most horrible marriage possible could be placed so inconsiderately
before her eyes? Was there no one among the architects and decorators
of France able to comprehend that a picture is a representation, that
it moves the senses and the soul, that it excites presentiments?” The
weather was stormy and dark as Marie Antoinette entered the pavilion of
the Exchange. A heavy cloud which veiled the horizon on the Strasburg
side was slowly moving toward the great island of the Rhine. The
three commissioners appointed by the King were waiting in the central
hall. Toward noon the door of the Austrian salon was opened, and the
Dauphiness appeared. She walked to the platform in the middle of the
room, and there listened to the reading of the full powers and the acts
of delivery. When this formality was ended, the members of the Austrian
suite passed for the last time in front of the former Archduchess, kissed
her hand, and then returned to the Austrian salon, the door of which
was closed again. The Dauphiness changed her entire apparel. “When her
dress had been completely renewed, even to her chemise and stockings,
so that she should retain nothing from a foreign court (an etiquette
always observed in this circumstance), the doors were reopened, the young
Princess came forward, looking about for the Countess de Noailles, and
then threw herself into her arms, asking her, with tears in her eyes and
a candor that came from her heart, to direct and counsel her, and to be
in all things her guide and support. It was impossible to refrain from
admiring her aërial deportment; a single smile was enough to attract
one, and in this enchanting being in whom the splendor of French gaiety
shone forth, an indescribable but august serenity, perhaps, also, the
somewhat proud attitude of her head and shoulders, betrayed the daughter
of the Cæsars.”[43] The ceremony of the _exchange_ was terminated. On
reaching the French side of the Rhine, the Dauphiness got into the King’s
carriage, and started for Strasburg. Then the storm broke which had been
threatening for some hours. The pavilion of the Exchange was submerged
under a driving rain. The shouting of the crowd mingled with the claps of
thunder.
The next day, May 8, Marie Antoinette repaired to the Strasburg
cathedral. A young prelate, Prince Louis de Rohan, stood in front of
the door, in a chasuble of cloth of gold, the cross in his hand, the
mitre on his head. “Madame,” said he, “the two nations reunited in this
temple are eager to render eternal thanksgivings to the God of empires,
who, by august and longed-for ties, is about to set the seal to their
common felicity, and to cement an alliance the aim of which has been to
protect religion and bring about the reign of peace. You see the joy of
Alsace breaking forth; France awaits you to crown its wishes. In the
movements of joy about to manifest themselves, recognize, Madame, the
same sentiment which caused tears to flow in Vienna, and which leaves
the keenest and most profound regrets in the hearts of those from whom
you are separated. Thus it is that the Archduchess Antoinette is already
known even where she has not yet been seen; often this is merely the
advantage of birth; for you, Madame, it is the right of your virtues
and your graces; it is, above all, the reputation of those natural and
beneficent qualities which the cares of an ever-memorable mother have
perfected in you. Among us you will be the living image of this cherished
Empress, who has long been the admiration of Europe, as she will be
that of posterity. It is the soul of Maria Theresa which is about to
unite itself to the soul of the Bourbons. A new age of gold should spring
from so beautiful a union, and our nephews, under the happy empire of
Antoinette and Louis Augustus, will see that welfare perpetuated which
we are enjoying under the reign of Louis the Well-Beloved.” The man who
employed this language was the future Cardinal de Rohan, the sorry hero
of the affair of the necklace.
Paris, Versailles, all France, was in commotion. Nothing was talked of
but the arrival of the Dauphiness. Upholsterers, sent from city to city,
prepared apartments for her. Sixty perfectly new travelling-carriages
awaited her at Strasburg. At Paris, people were going to the court
dressmakers to admire the robes intended for the forthcoming festivities.
A piece of fireworks was talked of, the bouquet of which, composed of
thirty thousand rockets, was said to have cost four thousand louis
(nearly fifty thousand francs of the present money).
The Dauphiness continued her route. Along her way the towns were
joyful and the country places in festal array. The ground was covered
with flowers. Young girls, gowned in white, offered bouquets to Marie
Antoinette. The bells were ringing merrily. From every side resounded
cries of “Long live the Dauphiness! Long live the Dauphin!” The road was
obstructed by the crowd of spectators; the curtains of the Princess’s
carriage were drawn up, and everybody could contemplate at leisure her
beauty, her enchanting smile, her sweet expression. Some young peasants
said to each other “How pretty our Dauphiness is!” A lady who was in
the carriage called her attention to this flattering speech. “Madame,”
replied the Dauphiness, “the French look at me with indulgent eyes.”
To all this succeeded the official harangues, a series of dithyrambs in
honor of the young Princess. One orator wished to speak to her in German.
“Monsieur,” said she, “after to-day I understand no language but French.”
At Nancy she piously visited the tombs of her ancestors, the Princes of
Lorraine. At Rheims, thinking of the future ceremony of the coronation,
she said: “This is a city which I hope not to see again for a long
time.” Some leagues from Compiègne she met the Duke de Choiseul, whom
she received as a friend of her family. This was the 14th of May, 1770.
Several minutes later, the King and the Dauphin, followed by a numerous
escort, made their appearance at the cross-roads of the Pont-du-Berne,
in the forest of Compiègne. Marie Antoinette at once alighted, and threw
herself on the grass, at the feet of Louis XV., who hastened to raise and
embrace her.
The Dauphin, more abashed than she was, scarcely dared to look at her,
and, according to the official expression, “saluted her on the cheek.”
The next day they left Compiègne for Versailles. When passing through
Saint Denis, Marie Antoinette expressed a wish to see her aunt, Madame
Louise, the Carmelite novice. She entered the convent, with the King, at
six o’clock in the evening, May 15th. A letter of the Carmelite, which
is among the manuscripts of the National Library, says, concerning this
visit: “The King asked to have the nuns brought in that I might show them
Madame the Dauphiness. She is, my reverend mother, a perfect princess
as far as her face, her figure, and her manners are concerned, and,
which is infinitely more precious, they say she is eminently pious. Her
physiognomy has an air of blended grandeur, modesty, and sweetness. The
King, Mesdames, and above all Monseigneur the Dauphin, appear enchanted
with her. They vie with each other in saying: ‘She is incomparable.’”
There were immense crowds all along their route. The air resounded with
enthusiastic acclamations. Marie Antoinette had the tact to attribute the
honor of this to Louis XV. “The French,” said she, “never see enough of
their King; they could not treat me more kindly than by proving that they
know how to love him whom I am already accustomed to regard as a second
father.” Marie Antoinette slept at the château of La Muette the night
of May 15th, and it was there that the King presented her, among other
jewels, with the famous pearl necklace, threaded on a single string,
which was brought to France by Anne of Austria, and destined by her for
the queens and dauphinesses. The next day, Marie Antoinette arrived at
Versailles; she did not behold unmoved that celebrated palace which then
played so great a part in France and Europe, and of which she had heard
so much. She passed through the castle gate at ten in the morning, and
entered the marble court, where she was received by the King and the
Dauphin.
VII
THE MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES OF MARIE ANTOINETTE
WE have just seen the Dauphiness arriving at the château of Versailles.
It is ten o’clock on the morning of the 16th of May, 1770. In a little
while the nuptial benediction will be given to the spouses. Every
glance is fixed on the young Princess with respectful curiosity. She is
in morning dress, and her hair is carelessly arranged. Presently she
will reappear in the dazzling wedding toilette. This is her portrait
as drawn by Bachaumont: “She is very well made, symmetrical in all her
members. Her hair is a beautiful blonde; one fancies it will some day
be a pale chestnut. Her forehead is fine; her face, a somewhat long,
but a graceful, oval; her eyebrows as well marked as a blonde’s can
be. Her eyes are blue without being dull, and sparkle with a vivacity
full of intelligence. Her nose is aquiline, rather thin at the tip. Her
mouth is small; her lips are thick, especially the under one, which one
knows to be the Austrian lip. Her skin is of dazzling whiteness, and she
has a natural color which needs no rouge. Her bearing is that of an
archduchess, but her dignity is tempered by sweetness. It is difficult to
see this Princess without feeling a mingled respect and tenderness.”
At one o’clock the Dauphiness, in full dress, and followed by a numerous
cortège, goes to the chapel with the Dauphin. The officiating priest is
the Archbishop of Rheims, Monseigneur de La Roche-Aymon, Grand Almoner
of France. The pair advance to the altar and kneel down. The chapel is
decked with flowers and garlands, and glitters with a thousand lights.
The Archbishop blesses thirteen pieces of gold and a gold ring. These
he presents to the Dauphin, who puts the ring on the fourth finger of
the left hand of the Dauphiness, and afterwards gives her the thirteen
gold pieces. After the “Our Father” has been said, the canopy of silver
brocade is held over them by the Bishop of Senlis on the side of the
Prince, and the Bishop of Chartres on that of the Princess. The spouses,
profoundly moved, plight each other an affection which death itself will
not have the power to interrupt.
At this moment all Paris is at Versailles. The people have been coming
on foot since daybreak. The citizens have been arriving, some on hired
horses, some in cabs, some in carriages from livery stables. The park
is thronged by an immense crowd. Alas! The sad omens are about to be
renewed. At three in the afternoon the sky is overcast by clouds. Rain
pours down in torrents. The thunder rumbles. Every one seeks shelter.
There is a general panic. In the evening the weather is so bad that the
fireworks cannot be set off. The illuminations are drowned in rain; the
streets and squares of Versailles are like a desert.
But if the approaches to the château are dismal in the evening, it is
dazzling within. All the splendors of aristocracy, riches, luxury, and
the fine arts are accumulated there. There is a game of lansquenet in
the Gallery of Mirrors, and a supper is served _au grand couvert_ in the
hall known as the Queen’s Antechamber (No. 117 of M. Soulié’s _Notice
du Musée_). The next day, May 17, the new theatre, begun in 1753, and
designed by the architect Gabriel, is opened for the first time. (This is
now the Senate Chamber at Versailles.) The piece presented is the opera
of _Persée_, words by Quinault, music by Lulli. May 19, a grand dress
ball, opened by the Dauphin and the Dauphiness, is given in this new
play-house.
That morning, Madame Du Deffand had written to Horace Walpole: “There
have been bickerings without number; the minuet which is to be given this
evening by Mademoiselle de Lorraine, has vexed a great many people.” The
minuet, in fact, is a great affair, and the whole court is in commotion
over it. What is it all about? Louis XV., in order to be agreeable to
the Empress Maria Theresa, has decided that Mademoiselle de Lorraine,
on account of her relationship to the Dauphiness, shall dance a minuet
immediately after the princes and princesses of the royal family. People
have taken the notion this displays a tendency to establish for the
house of Lorraine an intermediate rank between the princes of the blood
and the great nobles. Thereupon ensues a flood of jealousy and anger.
The dukes unite to convoke an assembly of the principal members of the
nobility at the house of the Bishop of Noyon, a brother of Marshal de
Broglie. There they draw up a grand memorial to the King, in which they
say: “Sire, the great lords and nobles of the realm lay with confidence
at the foot of the throne the just alarms awakened in them by the
widespread rumors that Your Majesty has been solicited to grant the
house of Lorraine a rank immediately after the princes of the blood, and
that you have ordered that at the dress ball of Monsieur the Dauphin’s
marriage, Mademoiselle de Lorraine shall dance before all the ladies
of the court.... They believe, Sire, that they would be lacking in
what is due to their birth if they did not manifest to you how greatly
a distinction as humiliating to them as it is novel, would add to the
grief of losing the advantage they have always had of not being separated
from Your Majesty and the royal family by any intermediate rank. In all
states, the grandeur of the highest ranks denotes that of the nations,
and the grandeur of the nations makes that of the kings. It would be to
doubt the pre-eminence of France in Europe, to doubt the pre-eminence
of those who, in the words of one of your ancestors, make a part of its
honor and the essential honor of its kings.” All that for a minuet!
The public is rather amused by the presentation of this request by a
bishop. On seeing certain new names among the old ones signed to it, some
one remarks that the descendants of such or such persons would some day
say with pride: “One of our ancestors signed the famous request of the
minuet, at the marriage of the grandson of Louis XV.; so our name was
then reckoned among the most illustrious of the monarchy.” The request
was parodied as follows:—
“Sire, les grands de vos États
Verront avec beaucoup de peine
Une princesse de Lorraine
Sur eux au bal prendre le pas.
Si Votre Majesté projette
De les flétrir d’un tel affront,
Ils quitteront la cadenette,
Et laisseront là les violons.
Avisez-y, la ligue est faite.
Signe: l’Evêque de Noyon,
La Veaupalière, Beaufremont,
Clermont, Laval et De Villette.”[44]
This is a new Fronde, a veritable insurrection. Louis XV. replies to
the request by the following note: “The ambassador of the Emperor and
the Empress-queen has asked me, on the part of his masters, to show
some mark of distinction to Mademoiselle de Lorraine on the present
occasion of the marriage of my grandson with the Archduchess Marie
Antoinette. The dance at the ball being the only thing which could entail
no consequences, since the choice of dancers depends solely on my will,
without distinction of place, rank, or dignities, excepting the princes
and princess of my rank, who cannot be compared or put in rank with any
other Frenchmen; and being unwilling, moreover, to innovate in anywise
on what is practised at my court, I rely upon it that the great and the
nobles of my realm, seeing the fidelity, submission, attachment, and even
friendship which they have always shown to me and my predecessors, will
never be the occasion of anything that might displease me, especially in
this occurrence, wherein I desire to prove my gratitude to the Empress
for the present she has made me, which I hope, as you do, will cause
the happiness of the remainder of my days.” Notwithstanding this, Louis
XV. is obliged to go to the length of a threat. The ball at last takes
place. Mademoiselle de Lorraine dances the minuet which provoked so many
quarrels. Fireworks are set off the same evening on the terrace of the
château, and are succeeded by an illumination of the park, terminating,
at the extremity of the grand canal, in a splendid decoration
representing the Temple of the Sun. The canal is covered with gaily
decked barks. The great fountains are playing amidst the illuminations.
The equestrian statue of the King is resplendent. The principal
decoration represents the Temple of Hymen. Surrounded by a sort of
parapet at the four corners of which are dolphins who are vomiting flame
from their yawning mouths, this multicolored temple rests against the
statue of Louis XV. Near the statue, on the Seine side, rises the bastion
from which the rockets stream upward in glittering sheaves. Acclamations
resound. The crowd utter shouts of joy. All of a sudden a misdirected
rocket falls on the yew trees and sets them afire. At the same time, the
column of sightseers who are making their way to the boulevards though
the rue Royale meets another column which is going toward Place Louis
XV. They come into collision. The arrival of the firemen adds to the
confusion. The moats of the Tuileries and the gardens of the place are so
many precipices over which a quantity of victims fall. The cries of the
wounded increase the terror. There is nothing but dead and dying people.
All is horror and desolation on this accursed place, destined, before the
end of the century, to be the scene of so many crimes.
At this moment a carriage, coming from the Cours-la-Reine, arrives at the
Champs-Elysées. In this carriage is a young woman, still more adorned by
the splendor of her grace and beauty than by the glitter of the precious
stones shining in her hair and on her dress. It is the Dauphiness,
entering Paris for the first time,—the Dauphiness, who wishes to see
the illuminations of this place, marked by fatality. She is reflecting
that to-day there has been no tempest, that the sky is clear this time,
and that all hearts are glad. She herself rejoices to see this city of
Paris, so beautiful and famous. But what is that she hears? Are those
cries of joy or of terror? The carriage stops. The Dauphiness asks what
is going on. She is answered that blood is flowing on Place Louis XV.;
that the number of the dead, though unknown as yet, is considerable, and
that it will not do to go any further in a city so grievously stricken.
The carriage retraces its road. Marie Antoinette returns disconsolate
to Versailles, while the dead are being taken to the cemetery of the
Madeleine, where, some years later, other victims will be deposited. Thus
terminated the nuptial festivities of the martyr King and Queen. Such is
the prologue to the tragedy which will wring tears from future eyes; such
are the first rumblings of the most terrible of tempests.
VIII
THE DAUPHINESS AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN 1770
The painful impression produced by the catastrophe on Place Louis XV.
was soon dissipated. It was not long before it ceased to be spoken of
except for the sake of praising the good feeling of the youthful pair,
who had devoted their entire income for a year to the succor of the
families stricken by the disaster. At this time, Marie Antoinette excited
an almost frenzied admiration. France was literally raving over this
fifteen-year-old Dauphiness, in whose honor the formulas of laudation
and enthusiasm were exhausted. People compared her to a consoling
angel, a torch of hope, a morning star. There was a veritable lyrism,
an interminable series of mythological comparisons, with the Venus de’
Medici, the Atalanta of Marly, Flora, goddess of gardens, Hebe, radiant
image of youth, Juno, queen of Olympus. France was on its knees. When
this admirable Dauphiness made her ceremonious entry into Paris, her
carriage disappeared under a rain of flowers. Prostrated before the
altar at Notre Dame, the Princess seemed a celestial being, an ideal
representation of goodness and purity, poesy and prayer. When she showed
herself on the balcony of the Tuileries, there was an explosion of
transport. “_Mon Dieu_, how many people!” she exclaimed. “Madame,” said
the Duke de Brissac, “with all due deference to Monseigneur the Dauphin,
they are all lovers who are looking at you.”
The Dauphin was good, honest, worthy of respect; his devotion, his
charity, the solid qualities of his heart, his love for the people, his
humane and Christian sentiments, pointed him out as an object of public
esteem; but it must be confessed that his appearance was not attractive.
There was something awkward in his gait, something wandering and
uncertain in his glance, something abrupt in his manners, something rude
in the sound of his voice, something heavy in his whole person. One might
have thought he was always afraid of being misled or betrayed. He kept
himself on the defensive, embarrassed in spite of the elevation of his
rank, doubtful of himself in spite of the eulogies of those who flattered
him, and seeming haughty at times through the very excess of his timidity.
His two brothers did not resemble him in the least. The Count de Provence
and the Count d’Artois were as self-confident as he was modest and
reserved. One, the future Louis XVIII., was a wit, a great admirer of
Horace, always ready with happy quotations, adroit, intelligent, clever,
remarkable for precocious prudence and a wisely dissimulated ambition.
The other, the future Charles X., was a young man, or rather a roguish
boy, witty, full of gaiety and high spirits, already showing plainly that
he would love women, horses, and pleasures to madness. The two sisters
of the three brothers, Madame Clotilde, the future Queen of Sardinia,
and Madame Elisabeth, the future martyr, were, at the time of Marie
Antoinette’s arrival in France, two amiable and good little girls to whom
the Dauphiness became sincerely attached.
She displayed, also, a sincere affection for Louis XV., who, on his
side, showed her much attention and sympathy. On seeing this charming
Dauphiness, so admired and so admirable, the old King experienced the
satisfaction felt by Louis XIV. when the Duchess of Burgundy arrived at
Versailles. The seductive daughter of the German Cæsars restored life and
movement to those vast apartments of the Queen, which had been deserted
since the death of Marie Leczinska. She had the chamber successively
occupied by the wife of Louis XIV., the Duchess of Bavaria, the Duchess
of Burgundy, and the wife of Louis XV.[45] She rose between nine and ten
in the morning, dressed, said her prayers, then breakfasted and went to
see her aunts, where she usually found the King. The entries took place
shortly before noon. The Dauphiness rouged herself and washed her hands
before everybody. At noon, she was present at Mass in the chapel. After
Mass, she dined in public, with the Dauphin, in the room known as the
Queen’s antechamber.[46] “The ushers,” says Madame Campan, “suffered all
decently dressed people to enter; the sight was the delight of persons
from the country. At the dinner hour there was nobody to be met on the
stairs but honest folks, who, after having seen the Dauphiness take her
soup, went to see the princes eat their bouilli, and then ran till they
were out of breath to behold Mesdames at their dessert.” Dinner was
over at half-past one. The Dauphiness then went to the apartments of
the Dauphin, which were just underneath hers, and afterwards returned
to her room, where she embroidered, read, wrote, and took lessons in
literature and on the harpsichord; a promenade in the park and the
environs, one or two visits to Mesdames, play from seven o’clock until
nine, then supper, and then to bed at eleven; such was the Princess’s way
of life. Her principal society was that of her aunts, Mesdames Adelaide,
Victoire, and Sophie, who in 1770 had arrived at the respective ages
of thirty-eight, thirty-seven, and thirty-six. All three had remained
unmarried. In spite of their exemplary moral conduct, they had their
defects. Madame Adelaide liked to meddle in everything. She thought
she had influence over her father, and the ministers were obliged to
reckon with her. Madame Victoire usually followed the directions of
her elder sister, although her own mind was not inactive. As to Madame
Sophie, she was upright but indolent. “Never did I see anybody,” says
Madame Campan, “who had such a frightened look; she walked with extreme
rapidity, and to recognize without looking at the people who made way
for her, she had acquired a habit of glancing, sideways, like a hare.
This Princess was so exceedingly diffident that one might be with her
daily, for years together, without hearing her utter a single word....
There were occasions, however, when she became all at once affable and
condescending, and manifested the most communicative good nature; this
was when there was a storm; she was afraid of it, and such was her alarm
that she then approached the humblest persons and would ask them a
thousand obliging questions; a flash of lightning made her squeeze their
hands; a peal of thunder would drive her to embrace them.”
The youngest daughter of Louis XV., Madame Louise, was at the Carmelite
convent of Saint Denis, and we have seen that the Dauphiness visited her
there before going to Versailles. She received the habit, September 10,
1770, and Marie Antoinette was present at the ceremony. The Mass was
said by the Papal Nuncio. Madame Louise of France, in religion Sister
Thérèse Augustine, received communion. Before taking the frieze habit of
Carmel, the Princess put on for the last time a royal vestment, a robe
embroidered with silver and besprent with flowers of gold. Resplendent
with the lustre of jewels, her head covered with a diadem, and beside
her the lords and ladies who once composed her household, she made her
appearance through clouds of incense. One might have thought it an
apotheosis. A discourse was pronounced by the Bishop of Troyes which
was so affecting that, according to the Abbé Proyart, who describes the
solemnity, everybody was wiping away tears except the courageous woman
who caused them to flow. Then all the pomp disappeared. After having
been absent for a moment, the King’s daughter returned, dressed as a
Carmelite, and received from the hands of the Dauphiness the mantle and
the religious veil.
IX
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME DU BARRY
Surrounded by admiration and universal homage, Marie Antoinette appears
at the summit of happiness. On the surface, her destiny is magnificent.
But the depths of her heart are already sorrowful. The inexplicable
coldness of her husband is not her only chagrin. Young as she is, she
already begins to see the snares of every kind which malicious people
are laying for her. Naïve, gentle, ingenuous, she has been transported
in spite of herself into an atmosphere of mean passions, Machiavellian
calculations, and interminable intrigues. She is perforce the object
of minute and often malicious inspection. All eyes are fixed upon her.
Under an appearance of hyperbolical eulogies and enthusiastic adulations
there are many criticisms, many jealousies; and if one could believe it,
many hatreds. Some people begrudged the Dauphiness her youth and beauty.
Converted coquettes, old maids, ambitious or intriguing women, find it
hard to endure this superiority of birth, rank, grace, and beauty. Envy
skilfully conceals itself under the mask of politics. The Dauphiness is
censured as representing the Austrian alliance; an alliance which, they
say, is contrary to the traditions of French diplomacy. They have a spite
against her for being the daughter of the great Empress whose genius has
wrought prodigies. The creatures of Madame Du Barry are offended by the
young couple to whom belongs the future, and who are at present like
the mute protest of virtue against vice, what is honest against what is
scandalous. All the “Basils” of the court, and God knows there are plenty
of them, would already be glad to begin softly, very quietly, on the sly,
the calumnious murmurs whose _crescendo_ is terrible.
One of Marie Antoinette’s sufferings came from the obligation of meeting
the Du Barry, that worthless woman who wanted to treat with her as power
to power, that woman whom Maria Theresa, perhaps a trifle too politic,
had ordered her to treat with deference, out of respect for Louis XV.;
that woman who is the enemy of the Duke de Choiseul, the principal
partisan of the Austrian alliance at the court of Versailles. Revolted
in her youthful pride, throwing back her fine and haughty head, the
Dauphiness remembers the blood which flows in her veins, the lightning
which flashes in her eyes, and the daughter of Cæsars conceives disgust
for the favorite who is debasing the throne. She writes to Maria Theresa,
July 9, 1770: “The King shows me a thousand kindnesses, and I love him
tenderly, but it is pitiable to see the weakness he has for Madame Du
Barry, who is the most stupid and impertinent creature imaginable.”
The two women are on opposite sides in politics; one desires Choiseul’s
retention in the ministry, the other his dismissal. Two camps are
formed, the excitement is keen; Madame Du Barry will triumph. The Duke
de Choiseul, intoxicated by success, and long accustomed to vanquish
all obstacles, has come to believe himself not merely necessary, but
indispensable. The powerful minister would have been willing to say of
his enemies just what the Duke de Guise said shortly before he was struck
down: “They would not dare.” The political chessboard was so complicated,
that a man like him, who knew all the pieces so well, believed that
Louis XV. would not have the courage to dismiss him. Baron de Gleichen,
one of Choiseul’s best friends, thought him imprudent to the point of
blundering. “It would have been very easy for him,” says the Baron in his
curious _Souvenirs_, “to come to terms with Madame Du Barry, who would
have asked nothing better than to be delivered from the rapacious and
tyrannous claws of her brother-in-law, her protectors, and all the roués
whose instrument she was. She was a good-natured creature, moreover, who
disliked being employed to do harm, and whose joyous humor would have
made her dote on M. de Choiseul as soon as she began to know him. The
King would certainly have done the impossible to favor and consolidate
the union between his favorite and his minister, whom he was very
sorry to lose; nothing proves this better than a billet he wrote him
towards the last, when they wrote oftener than they saw each other. M.
de Choiseul complaining to his master of a horrible annoyance by which
he was menaced, the latter replied, ‘What you imagine is false; people
deceive you; be on your guard against those who surround you whom I do
not like. You do not know Madame Du Barry; all France would be at her
feet, if.... Signed: Louis.’ Does not this billet, which I have seen,
express the wish for an arrangement, a prayer to lend himself to it, and
the avowal, strange enough from a king, that the simple suffrage of his
minister would do more than all that lay in his royal power?”[47] This
reflection which is added by M. de Gleichen, is in the taste and style
of the eighteenth century: “It is most astonishing that the sensitive
heart of M. de Choiseul could have resisted so much kindness, the desire
to play a trick on his enemies, and the certainty of reigning more
comfortably by the aid of a woman who would have been entirely at his
orders.”
The Duke de Choiseul had been the favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour.
It was not morality, then, which prevented his being on good terms with
the Countess Du Barry, for, from the point of view of scandal, the
two mistresses were on an equality, and from the point of view of the
goodness of character, the Countess was much better than the Marquise.
The great noble, prouder of his person than of his place, the audacious
statesman, more influential, more flattered than his master, and saying
to those about him: “Don’t outbid the King; that is not worth while,”
the brilliant duke and peer who remembered that in former times a man of
his rank would have thought he degraded himself by accepting a place as
secretary of state, and who fancied he was doing a great honor to Louis
XV. in being willing to be his minister, Choiseul, infatuated with his
triumphs, was no longer the skilful courtier of the days of Madame de
Pompadour.
The idea of inclining before an inferior sultana revolted the pride of
this grand vizier who did not dread the bowstring. As has been very well
said by M. Jobez in his book, _La France sous Louis XV._, he was “one
of those men of pleasure who occupy themselves with public affairs as a
diversion agreeable to both their imagination and their vanity.” He would
not endure anything contrary to his convenience or his tastes. Madame Du
Barry displeased him; he defied her. To believe that the minister who had
concluded the family compact and annexed Corsica to France; who had dared
to break a lance in the face of the most powerful of modern associations,
the Jesuits; who was the idol of the nobility, the Parliaments and the
philosophers; who, celebrated in every tone by all the trumpets of Fame,
had been able to make himself feared and admired by Europe,—to believe
that he, the Duke de Choiseul, would be sacrificed to a creature of the
Du Barry sort, seemed to him unlikely and absurd.
It was this, however, which occurred. Let us affirm, for the rest, that
the enmity of the Countess was not the sole cause of the minister’s
downfall. If he was upheld by the Dauphiness, he had an adversary in the
Dauphin, because, several years before, he had said to the father of
this Prince: “Monseigneur, I shall perhaps have some day the misfortune
to be your subject, but I will never have that of being your servant.”
Religious people reproached him with the expulsion of the Jesuits and
the friendship of Voltaire. The conservatives accused him of a weakness
for the Parliaments. The peace party found his foreign policy bungling
and disquieting. They accused him of being on the point of doing what
Louvois had done under the reign of Louis XIV., of setting Europe afire
in order to prove that the Ministry of War had been well conducted. Louis
XV., who grew more timid as he grew older, became frightened, possibly
not without reason. The alliance of the Northern courts already existed
in principle. England was menacing. A conflict between the English and
the Spanish had just broken out in the Falkland Islands. Louis XV. was
persuaded of the imminence of a coalition, and a new Seven Years’ War,
which would be due, said they, to the imprudence and levity of Choiseul.
The enemies of the minister then apprised Madame Du Barry that the time
had come to be done with him. The story-tellers pretend that, tossing up
oranges, she exclaimed, bursting with laughter: “Skip, Choiseul! skip,
Praslin!” They add that, after having announced to Louis XV. that she had
just discharged her cook, she said to her royal lover: “I have got rid of
my Choiseul; when will you get rid of yours?”
December 24, 1770, the minister received the following letter from the
King:—
“My Cousin,—The discontent caused me by your services forces me to exile
you to Chanteloup, whither you will repair within twenty-four hours. I
would have sent you further, if it were not for the particular esteem
I have for Madame the Duchess de Choiseul, whose health interests me
much. Take care that your conduct does not make me take another course.
Whereupon, I pray God, my cousin, that He may have you in His holy
keeping. Signed: Louis.”
Then was seen, as has been remarked by M. Henri Martin, what had
never been seen before,—the court faithful to the person in disgrace.
During the few hours that elapsed before the Duke and Duchess de
Choiseul quitted Paris, an innumerable crowd of great lords and ladies,
magistrates, military men, citizens, men of letters, came to inscribe
their names on the register of his house. The young Duke de Chartres,
that prince who was afterwards to be called Philippe-Égalité, forced his
way in to throw himself into the arms of the exiled minister.[48] The
highest personages solicited the King’s authorization to pay visits to
Chanteloup. Did this signify that human nature was better, more generous,
than at other epochs? Not at all. It was simply that opposition was then
in fashion. It was thought, moreover, that Choiseul would return to
power. Count de Ségur has said in his Memoirs:—
“The King remained almost alone in his mistress’s boudoir. A column put
up at Chanteloup, on which the numerous visitors of the exile inscribed
their names, served as a monument of this new Fronde. The impressions
of youth are keen, and never shall I forget that produced in me by the
pleasure of seeing my father’s name and mine traced on this column of
opposition, the presage of other resistances which afterwards assumed
such grave importance.... From one end of the kingdom to the other,
people made a point of honor of the opposition; to lofty minds it seemed
a duty, to generous men a virtue, to the philosophers a useful weapon to
regain liberty; in fine, a means of becoming conspicuous, and, so to say,
a fashion which the young seized upon with ardor. The Parliaments made
remonstrances, the preachers sermons, the philosophers books, the young
courtiers epigrams. Feeling that the government was in unskilful hands,
everybody defied a government which no longer inspired either confidence
or respect.”
Madame Du Barry, little adapted to political contests, was all surprise
at her victory. Marie Antoinette had seen, and not without keen vexation,
the downfall of a friend devoted to the house of Austria. Alarmed by
this event, Maria Theresa desired her daughter to treat the powerful
favorite with deference. But the disgust which this woman inspired in
the Dauphiness was daily on the increase. Count de Mercy-Argenteau wrote
to the Empress, September 2, 1771: “Your Majesty will have deigned to
observe in my first and very humble report, that Monsieur the Dauphin
had approved of my representations as to the utility it would be to
Madame the Dauphiness not to treat the Countess Du Barry too badly. This
point appears to me more essential than ever, because it is the focus
of all the annoyances and regrettable proceedings into which the King
might allow himself to be drawn in order to show his resentment toward
his children. The occasions which I have had to see this favorite have
given me an opportunity to become acquainted with her; she seems to have
little intelligence, and much levity and vanity, yet without displaying
a wicked or hateful character. It is very easy to make her talk, and in
many cases one can profit largely by her indiscretion. I am certain that
if Madame the Dauphiness could be induced to speak to her only once, it
would then be very easy for me to curb any further pretensions and to
prevent the thousand embarrassments arising from the singular position of
the interior of this court.”
Maria Theresa abounded in the same sense as her ambassador. She wrote a
letter, September 30, 1771, to Marie Antoinette, in which she recommended
her to treat Madame Du Barry as a lady admitted to the court and the
society of the King. Declaring that the Dauphiness, as first subject of
the sovereign, owed obedience and submission to Louis XV., she added:
“You owe the example to the court and the courtiers, that the wishes of
your master should be executed. If base actions or familiarities were
required of you, neither I nor any one else could counsel them to you,
but an indifferent word, certain attentions, not for the lady, but for
your grandfather, your master, your benefactor!” In spite of all Maria
Theresa could say, it was none the less regrettable that a grandfather
should wish to impose such an associate on the wife of his grandson.
This was a real suffering for the legitimate pride of Marie Antoinette.
“The ascendancy taken by the Countess Du Barry over the King’s mind
has scarcely any bounds,” wrote Count de Mercy, December 19, 1771; “it
visibly influences whatever concerns the royal family, and the more the
favorite is mortified by ill treatment, the more use she seeks to make
of advantageous moments to show her resentment.” Count de Mercy, acting
on the instructions of the Empress, did not cease trying to induce the
Dauphiness to be polite to the favorite, and ended by gaining his cause
in a certain measure. He relates it with satisfaction in a letter written
to Maria Theresa, August 14, 1772. He says that Madame Du Barry having
arrived after the King’s Mass, with the Duchess d’Aiguillon, “Madame the
Dauphiness spoke to the latter; turning toward the favorite afterward,
she made some remarks about the weather and the hunting parties, in such
a way that, without directly addressing the Countess Du Barry, the latter
might nevertheless believe that these remarks were made to her as much as
to the Duchess d’Aiguillon. Nothing more was needed to make the favorite
very well contented. The King, apprised of what had passed, seemed much
satisfied with it, and showed as much to Madame the Dauphiness by the
little attentions he paid her the same evening at the state dinner.”
Marie Antoinette, however, in spite of her desire to conform to her
mother’s recommendations, could not conceal the repugnance inspired in
her by the woman whose favor was such a shameful scandal.
In a letter addressed to her mother, January 21, 1772, the Dauphiness
was unable to dissimulate her feelings of revolt against certain
requirements: “Madame my very dear mother,” said she, “you may well
believe that I will always sacrifice my prejudices and repugnances, so
long as nothing ostentatious or contrary to honor is proposed to me. It
would be the unhappiness of my life if misunderstandings arose between my
two families; my heart will always be for my own, my duties here will be
very hard to fulfil. I shudder at this idea.”
Marie Antoinette’s noble candor stung Maria Theresa to the quick. The
Empress, accustomed to domination both as mother and sovereign, replied
to her daughter, February 13: “You have made me laugh by fancying that
either I or my minister could ever give you counsels against honor, or
even against the least decorum. Such traits show what a hold prejudices
and unwise counsels have on your mind. Your agitation after a few words
makes one tremble for you. What interest could I have but your good
and even that of your State, the Dauphin’s happiness and your own, the
critical situation in which you and all the realm and the family find
yourselves, the intrigues and factions? Who can advise you better than my
minister, who knows the kingdom thoroughly and the instruments at work
there.... It is necessary to follow all the counsels, without exception,
which he will give you, and, by a measured and consistent course of
conduct to undertake to satisfy everybody.”
If Maria Theresa insisted with so much vivacity, it was because she knew
that at this very moment the powers hostile to Austria were redoubling
their efforts to conciliate the favorite and break the alliance between
the courts of Vienna and Versailles. “We know for sure,” she wrote to her
ambassador, “that England and the King of Prussia want to gain over the
Du Barry; you ought to know better than I if you think the thing is so.
The King is constant in his friendships, and I dare appeal to his heart;
but he is feeble, his surroundings do not leave him time to think.... If
France smirks with Prussia, which will surely betray her, then I must
tell you that this is the only point where I could not prevent myself
from changing, even to my great regret; but that would be infallible.
To prevent these evils and annoyances for the monarchy and the family
everything must be employed, and there is no one but my daughter, the
Dauphiness, assisted by your counsels and acquaintance with the locality,
who could render this service to her family and her country. Above all,
she must cultivate the good graces of the King by her assiduity and
affection; let her try to divine his thoughts, avoid shocking him in
any way, and treat the favorite well. I do not require base actions,
still less intimacies, but the attentions due in consideration of her
grandfather and master, and of the good which may result for us and
our two courts; perhaps the alliance depends on it.” O nothingness of
human grandeurs! A woman of mind, of heart, of genius, a Maria Theresa,
subordinating the friendships of the most powerful empires on earth, the
maintenance of the general equilibrium, the destinies of Europe, to the
goodwill of a Du Barry! The unfortunate Marie Antoinette, more to be
pitied than envied, in spite of all her éclat, her beauty, and prestige,
began to become what she was to be until her death: the victim of policy.
X
THE DAUPHINESS AND MARIA THERESA
History does not contain a more curious correspondence than that between
the Empress Maria Theresa and her ambassador at Versailles, Count de
Mercy-Argenteau. Never perhaps was the character of a sovereign and
the talent of a diplomatist revealed in a more striking manner. Maria
Theresa shows herself completely in her letters. What we have here is the
political woman accustomed to power and domination; the woman of brains
who sees, knows, and directs everything; the mother who inspires her
children with fear and veneration; the sovereign who occupies herself
with the same solicitude and the same authority in her family and her
empire. Her counsels are like orders, her language is the language of
command. Although her daughter may have become a Frenchwoman, she always
regards her as a German princess, and would like to make of her a sort
of Austrian ambassadress, accredited to Louis XV., but subordinate to
Count de Mercy. Astonished that a young girl of fifteen should not have
the penetration, the experience, the maturity of a matron, the Empress
does not admit the right in Marie Antoinette to have the slightest
imperfection. To her, the Dauphiness always remains the schoolgirl of
Schönbrun and the Burg.
Like all those who govern, Maria Theresa has a passion to be well
informed. The most minute details interest her. She wants to know the
least particulars of the physical and moral life of her daughter. Nothing
escapes her. She thinks of everything: toilettes, reading, conversations,
dances, promenades, all pass under her rigorous, incessant control.
Were she installed in the château of Versailles she could not know all
its detours in a more thorough manner. She does inhabit it in spirit;
she knows all the secrets, all the snares. Take care! she says to her
daughter every minute. Knowing the French character as well as if she
had lived in France all her life, she knows what to think of human
levity, malice, ingratitude, and cowardice, and what a fund of envy and
meanness exists in the character of many courtiers. The Capitol does
not make her forget the Tarpeian rock for her daughter, and at certain
moments she utters such dismal words, she casts such an unquiet look
toward the future, that one might think that, divining the destiny of her
Antoinette, she sees the scaffold in the misty distance.
On his side, the correspondent of the Empress is a model of diplomacy.
Supple, active, reserved, knowing how to put himself on good terms with
all who can be useful to his government, agreeable to Louis XV. and the
royal family, to the Duke de Choiseul and the Duke d’Aiguillon, to the
devotees and to Madame Du Barry, an observer of the first order and an
indefatigable worker, exact to minutiæ, prudent to exaggeration, skilful
in handling all the pieces of the most complicated diplomatic chessboard,
Count de Mercy-Argenteau is in love with his profession. When he
addresses his _very humble reports_ to his sovereign, he brings to them
an excessive care and zeal; if he happens to receive the felicitations
of the _Sacred Majesty_, as he always calls the Empress, he breaks into
transports of joy. The letters he wrote to Maria Theresa independently of
his official despatches, form a veritable journal of the existence of the
Dauphiness. Everything is there with its date and hour. The ambassador
knows what passes in the salons of the Princess, and knows also what does
not pass in her alcove. A chambermaid, a physician, what am I saying? A
confessor would not be better informed.
As to the Dauphiness, she is still a child. Sweet, simple, ingenuous,
incredulous of evil, mocking a little at etiquette, sincerely pious, but
with an always amiable piety, regretting Vienna but loving Versailles,
German by her memories but French by her heart, full of respect and
affection for her august mother but finding her at times a trifle too
severe, the seductive Princess, on account of the inexplicable coldness
of her husband, is still a young girl although a married woman.
If she has some little defects, if from time to time she can be accused
of some trifling imprudences which one day she will expiate in a manner
so cruel, they are the imprudences and defects which have the excuse of
youth and also its charm. Marie Antoinette, and it is this which gives
her physiognomy something so sympathetic and so graciously feminine,
Marie Antoinette has the spirit of her age, its gaiety, sprightliness,
unconcern. This amiable Dauphiness, who calls Louis XV. papa, and who
throws her arms about his neck without asking his permission; who, still
a child herself, takes her chief pleasure in the society of children, and
who, when she sees her lady of honor appear, the severe and punctilious
Countess de Noailles, says with a laugh: “Now let us behave properly;
here comes Madame l’Etiquette;” this Princess, so natural and charming,
contrasts with her surroundings as spring does with winter. She resembles
the young trees full of sap which grow freely in the fields, and not
those puny shrubs in the park of Versailles which cannot grow except
under rule and square. Her simplicity is her most beautiful ornament.
Her richest diadem is her long fair hair. Not one of her jewels can be
compared to the sparkle of her eyes.
Well, if one can believe it, this Princess whose innocence and
gentleness should soften all hearts, is already surrounded by enemies.
Mercy-Argenteau wrote to Maria Theresa, April 16, 1771: “It is almost
impossible that Your Majesty should form a very exact idea of the
horrible confusion prevailing here in everything. The throne is debased
by the extension of the favorite’s credit and the malevolence of her
partisans. The nation vents itself in seditious proposals and indecent
writings in which the person of the monarch is not spared. I have not
hesitated to make these representations to Madame the Dauphiness, and
have frequently called her attention to the fact that the only possible
means of avoiding the inconveniences of a time so critical is to keep
profound silence concerning things as well as persons, and Her Royal
Highness begins to feel the necessity of this method.” The frank and
expansive young girl must conduct herself like an old diplomatist.
She must measure and calculate each gesture, each word, even her very
silence. Everything is noted, commented on, and criticised. Underneath
its majestic exterior this court is a veritable ant-hill of petty
passions, petty intrigues. There is nothing but mines and countermines,
ambushes, coalitions, cabals. There is Madame Du Barry’s camp, which
is that of the ministers, that of Madame Adelaide and her sisters, the
camp of the Duke de Choiseul’s friends, and even that of the Count
de Provence, who, though so young, is already a wily politician. The
Dauphiness is spied upon in the most odious manner. Her letters, her
composition books, are read, and pages of them are torn out, evidently
with a view to imitating her handwriting. It troubles her to find that
there are double keys to her furniture. In order to preserve her mother’s
letters, she is obliged to hide them under her pillows.
Maria Theresa is intensely preoccupied by this whole state of affairs.
She is especially displeased with Mesdames. Although she recognizes
their solid qualities and incontestable virtue, she is jealous of them,
and is constantly criticising them; she will not admit that these
princesses have the right to give their young niece the least advice. “I
own to you,” she writes to Count de Mercy-Argenteau, February 11, 1771,
“that in the stormy circumstances of the court of France, my daughter’s
situation greatly disturbs me. Her nonchalance, her slight inclination
for all serious application, her indiscretion (caused by her youth and
vivacity), her relations with her aunts, and particularly with Madame
Adelaide, who is perhaps the most intriguing and best known of the
sisters, furnish me with more than one subject of fear.” Maria Theresa,
who is German to the ends of her finger-nails, and who has no liking
for the French nation, although she sought the alliance of the court of
Versailles, experiences, moreover, a sort of jealousy of the affection
manifested for her new country by the former Archduchess. “People have
a right to be astonished,” she writes to her, “at the slight cordiality
and interest that you have for Germans. Believe me, the Frenchman will
esteem and rely upon you more if he finds in you the German solidity
and frankness. Don’t be ashamed to be German even to awkwardness.” One
comprehends that a young Dauphiness of France would need a good deal of
filial respect not to become a trifle impatient under this by far too
Germanic advice. The Empress is sounder when, still using severe, but
this time very sensible, language, she writes to her daughter, July 9,
1771: “I expect in vain every month the list of your reading and your
occupations.... At your age, levities and puerilities are easily excused,
but in the long run they tire everybody and you too; they will make you
very uncomfortable.... I cannot conceal from you that people are already
beginning to talk about them, and by that you will lose the grand idea
that has been formed of you, an essential point for us who are on the
theatre of the great world. A life constantly dissipated, without the
slightest serious occupation, will affect even your conscience.”
There are moments when the mother’s exhortations to her daughter are
veritable lectures, when her pen is like a ferule. One may judge of
them by this letter of September 30, in the same year, wherein, after
complaining especially because the Dauphiness is not gracious enough
toward Madame Du Barry, the imperious sovereign wrathfully exclaims:
“You are so greatly lacking toward your benefactor on the very first
occasion when you can oblige him!... Observe now for whom? By a shameful
wish to please people who have enthralled you by treating you as a child,
by procuring you rides on horseback and on donkeys, with children, with
dogs; such are the great reasons which attach you by preference to
them rather than to your master, and which in the long run will make
you ridiculous, neither loved nor esteemed. You began so well. Your
appearance, your judgment, when not controlled by others, is always
correct and what it should be.... I require you to convince the King of
your respect and tenderness by all your actions, considering on every
occasion what will please him.... Even should you be obliged to embroil
yourself with all the others, you have but one sole aim,—to please the
King and do his will.”
Marie Antoinette, accustomed to respect her mother as much as God
himself, always bends before this authority which admits of no reply.
Sometimes she happens to forget certain recommendations, but she is
assuredly excusable. As Count de Mercy writes the Empress in a letter of
June 16, 1772, “the bad manners of her companions, the habit of receiving
neither reprimand nor contradiction nor even advice from the King, nor
from Monsieur the Dauphin either, and the three hundred leagues which
separate her from you, are doubtless the reasons why severe letters have
not always produced the desired effect.” Moreover, Maria Theresa relents
at times. From the tone of reprimand she passes to that of tenderness.
Occasionally her maternal admiration speaks in accents worthy of Madame
de Sévigné. She writes to her daughter, October 31, 1771: “You have
something so touching in your whole person that it is hard to deny you
anything; this is a gift of God for which you should thank Him, and use
it for His glory and the welfare of others.” It is because she would like
to have her perfect, both physically and morally, that she says in a
letter of December 31, 1772: “What! the Antoinette of twelve or thirteen
years knew how to receive her company very prettily, and say something
polite and gracious to every one; this truth has been evident to all
Vienna, the whole Empire, Lorraine, and France,—and is the Dauphiness now
to be embarrassed by a simple private person? Do not accustom yourself to
these frivolous excuses; embarrassment, fear, timidity, chimeras! People
employ such terms as those without reflection, to excuse a bad habit
of not incommoding themselves. You know how you have gained hearts by
affability; you see the opposite of that daily; can you allow yourself to
neglect this important point. I am ending the old year with my sermons;
you will wrong me if you do not accept them as the greatest mark of my
tenderness and the interest I take in your future welfare, with which I
am continually occupied.”
Marie Antoinette, who is all goodness and sensibility, bears her mother
no ill will for her often severely given counsels, and her filial
piety is never in fault. One should read, in a letter of Count de
Mercy-Argenteau, February 29, 1772, the account of the grief inspired in
this charming Dauphiness by the news that her mother was slightly ill:
“The first word troubled Madame the Dauphiness so greatly that she could
hear nothing further. She returned to her cabinet, dissolved in tears,
and unable to say anything except that she was not in a condition to give
audience. She asked for a rosary Your Majesty had given her, and began to
pray. Monsieur the Dauphin, who did not leave her, seemed to share very
sincerely the grief of his august spouse.”
Maria Theresa sometimes complains that her daughter’s letters are
not long enough. This is because she has not a clear notion of the
difficulties the young Princess encounters when she tries to write to her
in peace. As M. de Mercy-Argenteau tells her, Marie Antoinette always
writes quickly, lest she should be surprised either by her husband or
her aunts, to whom she never shows the letters she addresses to her
mother. Her correspondence is certainly not a masterpiece of style. But,
honestly, could one expect a young German girl to write French like a
member of the Academy? At least, the letters of Marie Antoinette, simple,
natural, and without literary pretension, have the advantage of proving a
good heart, a pure conscience, a character full of frankness.
When one goes to the bottom of history instead of studying nothing
but the surface, what especially strikes one is the slight difference
that exists between sovereigns and ordinary people. Does not the great
Maria Theresa, the illustrious Empress, remind one, in spite of all her
prestige, of those good middle-class women who are constantly telling
their daughters to sit up straight? Palaces, thatched hovels, garrets,
the same joys and sorrows, passions and vexations, are found under the
roof of each.
To sum up, there is nothing grave in the reproaches which Maria Theresa
addresses to her daughter, and at any other epoch the Dauphiness would
have received nothing but praise. But at that time people were inclined
to criticise everything, and the first breath of the Revolution was
agitating French society.
As yet, however, the delightful, the incomparable, Dauphiness is the
idol of the court and the nation. What charm! what brilliancy! what
attractions! How she eclipses all other women! What a difference there
is between her and her sisters-in-law, the Countess de Provence and the
Countess d’Artois! Everywhere and always, Marie Antoinette is the first,
in grace as well as beauty. One would say she is already on the throne.
When, at the beginning of the second act of Gluck’s _Iphigenia_, the
chorus exclaims: “Sing, let us celebrate our queen,” the public turns
toward the Dauphiness and salute her enthusiastically, as if her reign
had already begun. How she animates by her gaiety, how she illumines by
her smile, this grand palace of Versailles which, without her, would be
so dismal! What life there is in the private balls which she gives every
Monday in her apartments! People dance there for the pleasure of dancing,
without ceremony and without etiquette. The ladies come in white dominos,
and the men in their ordinary attire. Here shines one of the most poetic
and sympathetic of women, the Princess de Lamballe, that twenty-year-old
widow who will be Marie Antoinette’s best and most faithful friend; the
Princess de Lamballe, who surrounds with such affectionate cares her
father-in-law, that venerable Duke de Penthièvre, to whom Florian said,
in dedicating to him a Biblical poem:[49]
“Pieux comme Booz, austère avec douceur,
Vous aimez les humains et craignez le Seigneur.
Hélas! un seul soutien manque à votre famille;
Vous n’épousez pas Ruth, mais vous l’avez pour fille.”[50]
At these Monday balls, to which only the élite of the nobility are
admitted, and invitations to which make people so proud and happy, those
young men make their appearance in society who are about to become all
the rage, the great liberal lords, the chevaliers of new France, the
Lafayette, Lauzun, La Marck, Ségur, Dillon, Noailles, Lameth. The Monday
festivities are not enough. Other balls are given on Wednesday, in the
apartment of the Countess de Noailles, Marie Antoinette’s lady of honor.
The Dauphiness comes there for the first time on the arm of her husband,
who says to the Countess on entering: “I hope, Madame, that you will
kindly receive the husband and the wife; we do not come here to cause
embarrassment, but to share your amusements.”[51]
The Dauphin and the Count de Provence dance rather clumsily; on the other
hand, the Count d’Artois, that type of the elegant gentleman, is an
accomplished dancer. As to Marie Antoinette, as graceful as beautiful, as
lively as she is charming, she has the gait of a goddess.
_Et vera incessa patuit dea...._
Her only defect is that of being slightly satirical. Like Count de La
Marck, she makes a jest of what is ugly or unpleasant. She loves young
people, she wishes them to be gay, to amuse themselves and banish gloomy
thoughts. How full of life she is those winters of 1771 and 1772, when,
in company with the Princess de Lamballe, she enjoys her favorite
amusement, those sleigh-rides which are like a vision of Northern
poetry! And how majestic, on the 8th of June, 1773, the day of her
ceremonious entry into Paris, when, in a gala carriage resplendent with
gold and drawn by eight horses, followed by five other equipages not less
magnificent, she goes, in great pomp, first to Notre Dame, afterwards to
the church of Saint Geneviève, and finally to the palace of the Tuileries.
The air is rent with enthusiastic cries, all hats are flung up, all
hearts are enraptured, all hands beat wild applause. The cry, Long live
the Dauphiness! issues from every breast. At every step the Princess
hears them saying: “How pretty she is! How beautiful! How good she
looks!” A rain of flowers descends from every balcony, every window. This
is not merely joy and admiration; it is intoxication, delirium. Moved to
the very depths of her soul, and forgetting this time all her sorrows and
presentiments, Marie Antoinette joyfully describes to her mother this
unparalleled festivity, the remembrance of which will be so sweet.
“On returning from the promenade,” she writes, June 14, 1773, “we climbed
an open terrace (at the Tuileries) and remained there half an hour.
I cannot tell you, my dear mamma, what transports of affection were
displayed for us at this moment. Before leaving it we waved our hands to
the people, which gave them great pleasure. How fortunate we are in our
position to gain the friendship of a whole people so cheaply! And yet
there is nothing so precious; I felt that thoroughly, and shall never
forget it. Another point which caused great pleasure on this beautiful
day was the conduct of Monsieur the Dauphin. He made wonderful replies
to all the addresses, noticed everything that had been done for him, and
especially the joy and eagerness of the people, to whom he displayed
great goodness.... To-morrow we are going to the Opera at Paris; this
is greatly desired, and I even think we shall go two other days to the
French and Italian Comedies. Every day I am more and more sensible of
what my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of
all, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest; hence my soul is
filled with the most tender thankfulness.”
XI
THE PAVILION OF LUCIENNES
Madame Du Barry throned it like a queen. At last she had succeeded in
being able to assume, whenever the notion took her, the manners and
language of the great ladies. Choosing her associates from among women
of the highest rank, a Maréchale de Luxembourg, a Duchess d’Aiguillon,
a Maréchale de Mirepoix, she received dukes and peers, ministers and
ambassadors. When Gustavus III., King of Sweden, came to the court of
France, in 1771, he offered a very rich collar to the favorite’s little
dog. The policy of Madame Du Barry, if one admits that a woman of that
sort can have a policy, was more authoritative, more conservative,
than that of Madame de Pompadour. Madame Du Barry did not rely upon
the philosophers, and always alarming Louis XV. about the danger of
parliaments, she incessantly reminded him of the example of princes
who, like Charles I., allow their royal prerogatives to be attacked. At
the auction of Baron de Thiers’s effects, she bought a portrait of that
unhappy monarch for twenty-four thousand livres, and it is asserted
that, showing this painting to Louis XV., she said to him: “France, do
you see this picture? If you let your Parliament go on, it will cut off
your head, as the English Parliament did to Charles.”
The sense of danger restored to the old sovereign a vigor which assured
his tranquillity so long as he lived. The Parliament had assumed
a factious attitude in consequence of its quarrels with the Duke
d’Aiguillon. Declaring that “its members, in their profound affliction,
found their minds not sufficiently free to give decisions on the
property, life, and honor of the King’s subjects,” it refused to render
justice. Louis XV. destroyed this beginning of revolution in its germ.
During the night of January 17, 1771, all the members of the Parliament
were arrested in their dwellings, and summoned to reply merely yes or
no to an order to resume their functions. All responded negatively.
They were at once declared unseated, and departed into exile. A new
Parliament, called the Maupeou Parliament, after the chancellor who had
advised this coup d’État, took the place of the former one, and showed
itself perfectly docile. As has been remarked by M. Théophile Lavallée,
the wheels of the governmental machine were so worm-eaten that even
the organ of resistance, touched by the finger of a courtesan, a Du
Barry, crumbled into powder. To the people, the magistrates seemed only
privileged persons discredited by the trials of Lalli, Calas, and La
Barre. Maupeou announced that justice would be rendered gratuitously,
that appointments should no longer be hereditary, and that a new
code of civil and criminal procedure would be drawn up. Voltaire,
always the partisan of success, went into ecstasies over the glory of
the chancellor, the author of this stroke, and celebrated it in an
enthusiastic piece of verse:—
“Oui, que Maupeou, tout seul, du dédale des lois
Ait pu retirer la couronne,
Qu’il l’ait seul rapportée au palais de nos rois,
Voila ce que j’ai vu, voila ce qui m’étonne.
J’avoue avec l’antiquité
Que ses héros sont admirables;
Mais, par malheur, ce sont des fables;
Et c’est ici la vérité.”[52]
Madame de Pompadour had overthrown the Jesuits. The Jansenists were
crushed by Madame Du Barry. From his retreat at Ferney, Voltaire
flattered the favorite with those refinements of adulation of which he
had the monopoly. June 20, 1773, he wrote the following letter:—
“MADAME,—M. de Laborde tells me you have ordered him to embrace me on
both cheeks on your account:—
“Quoi! deux baisers sur la fin de ma vie!
Quel passeport vous daignez m’envoyer!
Deux! c’est trop d’un, adorable Egérie,
Je serais mort de plaisir au premier.[53]
“He has shown me your portrait; do not be angry, Madame, if I have taken
the liberty of returning it the two kisses:—
“Vous ne pouvez pas empêcher cet hommage,
Faible tribut de quiconque a des yeux.
C’est aux mortels d’adorer votre image,
L’original était fait pour les dieux.[54]
“I have heard several bits from M. de Laborde’s _Pandora_; they have
seemed to me very well worthy of your protection. The favor shown to the
real fine arts is the only thing which could enhance the brilliancy with
which you shine.
“Deign, Madame, to accept the profound respect of an old solitary whose
heart has no longer hardly any sentiment but that of gratitude.”
Public opinion was less severe on the favorite than might be believed.
People pardoned her fortune, because she was, as they vulgarly said, a
good girl, because “she had in her heart the affections of the common
people, their natural attachments, the sentiment of family.”[55] She went
every fortnight to spend a day with her mother, whom she had transformed
into a Marquise de Montrable, and provided with a lodging at the convent
of Saint Elisabeth, a carriage, a country seat, and a little farm, called
La Maison Rouge, near Lonjumeau.
Madame de Pompadour, the personification of the middle class parvenue,
had excited furious anger in all ranks of society. The Du Barry
displeased less, because she was less haughty. Her triumph, moreover,
was in harmony with an epoch when, as Chateaubriand has said, “court and
city, men of letters, economists and encyclopedists, great lords and
gentlemen, financiers and burghers, resembled each other, as witness the
memoirs they have left us.”
More and more wearied of the rules of etiquette, the aged Louis XV.
thought of nothing but living like a private gentleman, loving women,
hunting, and good cheer as long as possible. All that was grand fatigued
him. Versailles, too vast, too majestic for him, harassed him like a
prison. To the magnificent residence of Louis XIV. he greatly preferred
the little pavilion he had built in 1771, just beside the château of
Luciennes, and which belonged to Madame Du Barry.
There are monuments which are symbols. This palace-boudoir, temple of
a libertine divinity, represents marvellously the close of the reign
of Louis XV. Ledoux was the architect of this little masterpiece, and
its salons were adorned by the brushes of Joseph Vernet, Greuze, and
Fragonard. Situated on an eminence from which one beheld a magnificent
view, this square pavilion, with its five windows fronting in every
direction, resembled a château of Alcina, the abode of an enchantress. It
has a peristyle of four columns in the Grecian style and a Bacchanalian
dance of children in low relief. The entrance is by a vestibule which
served as a dining-room on great days. This is the room reproduced in the
fine water-color of Moreau Jeune, now in possession of the Louvre Museum.
The walls are of white marble. Capitals surrounded by gold display the
united arms of Louis XV. and the favorite. In front of the vestibule are
the tribunes for the Countess’s musicians. This large hall opens on the
square salon; the panels of the door were painted by Fragonard. On either
side of the grand salon is another smaller one. In that on the right
there is a set of four paintings by Vien, representing a symbolic history
of love in the heart of young girls; in that on the left, entirely
adorned by mirrors which reflect a superb mantelpiece of lapis lazuli in
the form of a tripod, Briard has painted on the ceiling the allegory of
love in the country.
When Louis XV. comes to Luciennes, he has no apartments separate from
those of the Countess, with the exception of his dressing-room. Extremely
careful of his person, he needs a private room in which to repair, if
necessary, the little disorders of his toilet, and to have more powder
put on when his hair requires it.
What a little gem, what a charming trifle, is this marvellous pavilion!
Cornices, bas-reliefs, pilasters, bits of jeweller’s work, locks, window
fastenings,—each detail is an object of art, a treasure. What refinements
of luxury! What caprices, what puerilities, what freaks of ornamentation!
Chinese knick-knacks, statuettes in Dresden porcelain, coffers of ebony
and ivory, lacquered furniture, screens covered with birds of paradise
of sparkling plumage, cages of paroquets, aviaries in gold and silver
filigree!
Amidst all these curiosities one perceives a little spaniel, white
as snow, a Brazilian monkey, a small flame-colored parrot, and a
Bengalese child, of a coppery black, with his brilliant eyes and
bizarre accoutrements. This singular negro boy, this living toy, is
Zamora, Zamora whom the Countess held at the baptismal font, with
the Prince de Conti for the other sponsor, and whom Louis XV. amuses
himself by appointing governor of the pavilion of Luciennes, by a
decree countersigned by the Chancellor of France. They change this
negro’s costume as if he were a doll. Sometimes he is dressed as a
savage, with red feathers, variegated garments, necklaces of beads and
coral. Sometimes he puts on a green frock coat, braided with gold, and
accompanies the runner who, squeezed into a polonaise of sky blue cloth,
brandishes, as he runs, a superb cane with a carved head. Sometimes he is
in vest and breeches of pink satin, on those brilliant evenings when from
the tribunes of the vestibule resound the notes of violin, flute, and
hunting-horn; where, amid great ladies in dazzling toilettes and nobles
clad in velvet, precious stones, and blue ribbons, crystals, baskets of
flowers, and innumerable lights, the Countess Du Barry beams as if in an
operatic scene, as in an apotheosis of gallantry and sensual pleasure.
But showy dress is not what best becomes her coquettish and sprightly
person. She is still prettier and more piquant when she puts on the half
feminine, half masculine uniform of the Queen’s light cavalry. Then Dorat
addresses her the following enthusiastic lines:—
“Sur ton double portrait le spectateur perplexe,
Charmante Du Barry, veut t’admirer partout;
A ses yeux changes-tu de sexe,
Il ne fait que changer de goût.
S’il te voit en femme, dans l’âme,
D’être homme il sent tout le plaisir;
Tu deviens homme, et d’être femme
Soudain il sent tout le désir.”[56]
At Luciennes, Louis XV. lives like a banker in a small house. The Most
Christian King has no longer any majesty. He puts on a simple white
vest, and amuses himself, like an honest citizen, in gardening a little.
He likes to walk underneath the lindens, and afterwards to sit on the
terrace whence he can see at his feet the stream, which, making a
double turn, winds like a horseshoe under the hill. On the horizon is
Saint-Germain, the cradle of Louis XIV., Saint Denis, the burial-place of
kings, whither he will presently go to rejoin his ancestors, and, in the
misty distance, Paris, the carping, revolutionary city, which seems to
menace him. Tired of Versailles, Louis XV. breathes the free air on this
terrace and endeavors to forget: to forget the mistakes of his official
and his secret diplomacy, to forget the first partition of Poland which
is going on, the injunctions of England which, preventing France from
aiding the Swedes or the Poles, forbid her fleets to enter either the
Baltic or the Mediterranean; to forget, in fine, his own old age, and
another decline not less afflicting, that of the French monarchy. The
blasé sovereign casts a glance of disenchantment at the present, a glance
of keen anxiety toward the future. But here comes the Countess Du Barry
with her arch face, her provoking smile, her rosy mouth which calls for
kisses. Louis XV. cheers up in an instant.
Was Madame Du Barry more immoral than Madame de Pompadour? I do not
believe it. Was she more detrimental to France? I do not believe that
either. Were the beginnings of the Marquise’s favor more noble than those
of the Countess? Was the first more truly in love, more disinterested,
than the second? For my part, I do not see much difference. Nevertheless,
I am tempted to find Madame de Pompadour more culpable than Madame
Du Barry. Her husband was the better man of the two. M. Lenormand
d’Étioles had not, like M. Du Barry, formed a wretched contract under the
pretext of marriage; he loved his wife, he surrounded her with care and
attentions; he had done absolutely nothing to merit the unjustifiable
abandonment and unexpected treachery of which he was the victim.
M. Du Barry, on the other hand, had willed his own fate. Whatever may
be said about it, the Marquise was not in reality more of a grand lady
than the Countess. One reflects that the aristocracy thought her vulgar.
D’Argenson spoke of her contemptuously; Richelieu saw in her nothing but
a misplaced amusement, “which was not adapted to subsist worthily at
court”; Voltaire, her regularly appointed flatterer, stigmatized her as a
cackler, a grisette created for the opera or the seraglio. The Pompadour
was elegant; the Du Barry was not less so. Each of them contrived to
talk the language of Versailles, and to wear their clothes as well as
the ladies of the highest nobility. D’Aiguillon, the favorite of the
Countess, belonged to a family not less ancient than that of Choiseul,
the favorite of the Marquise. Both of them obliged the aristocracy to
accept their families. If one metamorphosed her brother, Abel Poisson,
into the Marquis de Marigny, the other married her nephew, the Viscount
Adolphe Du Barry, to the daughter of the Marquis de Tournon, a relative
of the Soubises and the Condés. One advantage the Countess certainly had
over the Marquise: no one could lay on her the responsibility for any war
or for the selection of any general.
The evil passions, hatred and rancor, ambition and cupidity, pride and
the love of domination, were infinitely more active in the soul of Madame
de Pompadour than in that of Madame Du Barry. One was a commercial,
intriguing, calculating woman, mistress of herself, egotistic, haughty,
vindictive. The other was a daughter of the people, not virtuous but
not malicious, not lofty in sentiment but not spiteful, possessing all
the defects of courtesans but also their thoughtlessness, prodigality,
playfulness. In the gallery of the women of Versailles I shall place
Madame Du Barry unhesitatingly above Madame de Pompadour, because the
Countess is credited by all her contemporaries with a quality that was
lacking to the Marquise, a quality which expiates many faults, many
shames, many vices, and without which no woman whatever can awaken
sympathy,—that of good nature.
XII
THE DEATH OF LOUIS XV.
Louis XV. foreboded his approaching death. Like all men who retain
the habit of debauchery until they are old, he found more suffering
than delight in sensual pleasure, more pain than joy. Expiating a few
minutes of false rapture by long hours of ennui and discouragement, he
experienced the painful pressure of fatigue, the remorse of the body, and
of remorse, the fatigue of the soul.
Count de Mercy-Argenteau wrote to Maria Theresa, June 16, 1773: “Although
His Majesty’s health has not grown worse within a month, yet it is
observed that he is becoming more subject to vapors and ennui. His first
liking for the favorite having been weakened by time, and this woman
possessing infinitely few resources of mind or character, the King finds
very slender entertainment with her, and even that is mixed up with
inconveniences whose effects he constantly experiences.”
In his correspondence with his sovereign, the ambassador frequently
returns to this incurable melancholy of Louis XV. He wrote, August 14th
of the same year: “The King is growing old, and from time to time seems
to have regrets. He finds himself isolated, without aid or consolation
from his children, without zeal, attachment, or fidelity from the bizarre
assemblage composing his ministry, his society, his surroundings.” And
February 19, 1774: “From time to time the King begins to make remarks
concerning his age, his health, and the frightful account that must one
day be rendered to the Supreme Being for our employment of the life He
has accorded to us in this world. These reflections, occasioned by the
death of some persons of his own age, who died almost before his eyes,
have greatly alarmed those who retain the monarch in his present errors,
and from that moment, everybody has thought it his duty to conceal such
events as far as possible.” People criticised the actions, the secret
thoughts, of Louis XV., his occasional returns to religious practices,
his more frequent visits to his daughter Louise, the Carmelite, the
humility with which he had listened to a courageous prelate, Monseigneur
Beauvais, Bishop of Senez, saying to him in a sermon delivered before
the whole court: “Solomon, satiated with voluptuousness, tired of having
exhausted, in the endeavor to revive his withered senses, every sort of
pleasures that surround the throne, ended by seeking one of a new kind in
the vile remnants of public license.”
Louis XV. was sixty-four years old. In his last days, as in those of his
early youth, he was hesitating between vice and virtue when, April 28,
1774, he was attacked at the Little Trianon, by a malady which at once
became alarming. The sick man was taken to the château of Versailles,
and at once what has been so well named “the jobbing and traffic in
the King’s conscience” began. The Aiguillonists, the Barriens, as the
partisans of the minister and the favorite were called, maintained that
the illness was not serious, and would not listen to any mention of the
sacraments. The friends of the Duke de Choiseul, on the other hand,
urgently demanded that the King should receive extreme unction, which
must be the signal for the dismissal of his mistress. Concerning this,
the brothers Goncourt have made the judicious remark: “It happened,
strangely enough, that the Aiguillon party, that of the devotees and
the Jesuits, combined to prevent the communion of Louis XV., while the
Choiseul party, that of the philosophers and unbelievers, combined to
force this communion.” The Aiguillonists trembled. The King’s malady was
extremely serious, being smallpox of the most dangerous description. If
the old monarch should die, it was all up with their favor. If he should
recover, he would this time become devout. In either case, Madame Du
Barry would be nobody.
The courtiers, fearing contagion, did not come near the chamber of the
royal invalid without alarm. One of them, M. de Létorières, succumbed for
nothing but opening the door and looking at the King two minutes. More
than fifty persons caught it by merely passing through the gallery. The
daughters of Louis XV., Mesdames Adelaide, Victoire, and Sophie, gave
at this time an admirable example of courage and filial piety. Although
they had never had the smallpox, they heroically braved the scourge.
While the Dauphin and his two brothers, the Counts of Provence and
Artois, prudently withdrew, the three Princesses did not hesitate to shut
themselves up in the chamber[57] of their deserted father. They remained
there from the time his illness began until his death.
The Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Christopher de Beaumont, paid a
visit to the King, May 2. “As they were on the watch for everything,”
says Baron de Besenval in his Memoirs, “as soon as the Archbishop
appeared, people saw Marshal de Richelieu hastily leave the King’s
apartment and go as far as the hall of the guards[58] to meet him;
there, drawing him aside, they sat down on a bench. It was noticed that
the Marshal talked with great vehemence and animated gestures; although
what he said could not be overheard, it was not difficult to see that he
was trying to deter him from proposing to administer the sacraments.”
The King did not make up his mind at once. Meanwhile, the sickness was
growing worse. The physicians used the word “delirium” in the bulletin
of May 3, a piece of frankness which exasperated the Duke d’Aiguillon.
In the evening of May 4, Madame Du Barry was introduced into the sick
man’s chamber. “Madame,” he said to her, “I am ill; I know what I have
to do. I will not renew the scenes of Metz; we shall have to part. Go
to M. d’Aiguillon’s house at Reuil. Be sure that I shall always have
the tenderest affection for you.” The next day, at three o’clock in the
afternoon, the favorite left Versailles, where she was never to reappear.
Behold Louis XV. on his deathbed. In vain he entreats his courageous
daughters to leave him; for the first time in their lives they disobey
him. The old King, as Mercy-Argenteau writes to Maria Theresa, gives
“many signs of repentance and resignation.” He is repairing by a
Christian end the scandals of his long existence. In the night of May
5-6, he asks for the Abbé Mondou, his confessor. He receives absolution,
and at the first glimmer of dawn, May 6, he asks to have the sacraments
brought. Showing extreme impatience for the priest’s arrival, he sends
M. de Beauveau several times to the window to see if the messenger of
God is not on his way. At last the clergy approach with the sacraments.
The royal invalid briskly throws off his bed coverings, and forces
himself into a kneeling posture, leaning against the front of his bed.
As the physicians try to induce him to cover himself up, he says: “When
my great God does a wretch like me the honor to come to him, it is the
least he can do to receive Him with respect.” After the Communion, the
grand almoner, Cardinal de La Roche-Aymon, reads aloud the public apology
made by the sovereign to his people. “Although the King,” exclaims the
Cardinal, “owes an account of his conscience to God alone, he declares
that he repents of having given occasion for scandal to his subjects.” At
these words, the dying man, in a voice broken by the last agony, said:
“Repeat those words, Monsieur the almoner, repeat them.” Let us own that
if Louis XV. did not know how to live, he had at least the merit of
knowing how to die well.
A candle burning in the King’s chamber, which was to be extinguished at
the same moment as the life of the King, was the signal agreed on for
the measures to be taken and the orders given as soon as he should have
breathed his last. The candle was put out at two o’clock in the afternoon
of May 10, 1774. Instantly a great tumult, comparable to a clap of
thunder, shook the arches of Versailles. It was the crowd of courtiers
leaving the antechambers of the dead man and noisily hastening to meet
the new monarch. He who now called himself Louis XVI. threw himself
spontaneously on his knees along with his wife. “My God!” he exclaimed,
“guide us, protect us; we are too young to reign!” At six in the evening
the new King and Queen departed for Choisy. Versailles was now only a
desert.
Count de Ségur says, in his Memoirs, concerning this sudden solitude:
“Dazzled from infancy by the splendor of the throne, the extent of the
royal power, a witness of the apparent zeal, the affected ardor, the
continued eagerness of courtiers and those incessant arts of homage which
resembled a sort of cult, the last agony and the death of the King caused
me to shed tears. What was my surprise when, on hastening to Versailles,
I found myself solitary in the palace, when I saw a general indifference
and even a kind of joy pervading the city and the gardens! The setting
sun was forgotten; all adorations were turning toward the rising one.
Not yet laid in his tomb, the old monarch was already numbered among his
motionless and silent predecessors. From that time his reign was ancient
history, and people concerned themselves only about the future; the old
courtiers thought of nothing but how to keep their credit under the new
reign, and the young ones of how to supplant them. The counterspell for
the enchantments of a court is a change of reigns; then the heart is laid
bare; all illusions end; the dead king is no longer more than a man, and
often less. There is no dramatic stroke more moral than that, nor more
adapted to make one reflect.”
At the moment when Louis XV. was in his agony, the Duke de Liancourt
noticed that a valet of the wardrobe was in tears. “Well,” said the
Duke to him, “are you weeping for your master?” To which the domestic
answered in a loud tone: “Oh! not for that. If I am crying, it is for
my poor comrade, who has never had the smallpox, and who will die of
it.” The corpse, rolled up hastily in the sheets of the bed, was thrown
into a triple coffin of oak and lead. Several priests, in the mortuary
chapel, were the only victims condemned not to abandon the remains of the
miserable King. May 12, the coffin was placed on a large coach. As is
related by Baron de Besenval, “a score of pages and fifty mounted grooms,
carrying torches, but like the carriages, not dressed in black, composed
the entire procession, which set off at full trot at eight o’clock in the
evening, and arrived at Saint Denis at eleven, amidst the gibes of the
curious spectators on either side of the road, and who, under cover of
the darkness, gave full scope to jesting, the dominant characteristic of
the nation. They did not confine themselves to that; epitaphs, placards,
verses, were scattered broadcast, aspersing the memory of the late King.”
A letter written by the Countess de Boufflers to Gustavus III., July
20, 1774, shows what were then the sentiments of a part of the French
nobility. “After his death,” says the Countess, speaking of Louis XV.,
“he was abandoned, as usual, and even in a still more terrible manner
on account of the nature of the disease; he was promptly interred;
his corpse passed through the wood of Boulogne on its way to Saint
Denis, about midnight. Cries of derision were heard as it passed by;
people kept repeating: Taïaut! taïaut! as when a stag is seen, and in
that ridiculous tone in which it is customary to pronounce it. If this
circumstance is true, it shows great cruelty; but nothing is more inhuman
than the indignant Frenchman, and, it must be agreed, he never had more
cause to be so; never have a nation squeamish about honor, and a nobility
naturally proud, received a more signal or less excusable insult than
that given us by the late King when, not contented with the scandal he
had given by his mistresses and his seraglio, at the age of sixty we
saw him draw from the vilest class and the most infamous condition, a
creature of the worst sort, in order to establish her at court, admit
her to his table with his family, make her absolute mistress of favors,
honors, and rewards, of politics and the laws, of which she has been
the ruin,—misfortunes which one can hardly expect will be repaired.
One cannot help regarding this sudden death and the dispersion of this
infamous troupe as a stroke of Providence.”
If the nobility spoke thus, what must the bourgeoisie and the Parisian
population, always so caustic and fault-finding, have said? Satirical
verses in the style of those that follow were published:—
“Te voilà donc, pauvre Louis,
Dans un cercueil, à Saint-Denis!
C’est là que la grandeur expire.
Depuis longtemps, s’il faut le dire,
Inhabile à donner la loi,
Tu portais le vain nom de roi,
Sous la tutelle et sous l’empire
Des tyrans qui régnaient pour toi.
“Étais-tu bon? C’est un problème
Qu’on peut résoudre à peu de frais.
Un bon prince ne fit jamais
Le malheur d’un peuple qui l’aime,
Et l’on ne peut appeler bon
Un roi sans frein et sans raison,
Qui ne vécut que pour lui-même....
“Faible, timide, peu sincère,
Et caressant plus que jamais
Quiconque avait su te déplaire,
Au moment que de ta colère
Il allait ressentir les traits:
Voilà, je crois, ton caractère.
Ami des propos libertins,
Buveur fameux, et roi célèbre
Par la chasse et par les catins:
Voilà ton oraison funèbre.”[59]
O kings! was not Bossuet in the right when he said that although seated
on the throne you were none the less sitting under the hand and the
supreme authority of God? What reflections there are to make over the
inanity of the grandeurs of this world, the miseries of court life, the
recantations and meanness of flatterers, the shameful calculations of
ambition and interest, the ugliness of the human heart! What a lesson!
that frightful, horrible, repulsive death struggle of this sovereign,
who had exhausted all the enjoyments of luxury, all the refinements of
pleasure, all the elegances of voluptuousness! What a contrast between
the boudoirs full of lights and flowers and perfumes, and the coffin
where rotted “that indescribable something for which no language has
a name”! What spectacle is at once more dismal and more instructive
than the lamentable ending of this prince who had once been called the
Well-Beloved?
EPILOGUE
THE SCAFFOLD OF MADAME DU BARRY
The fatal year, 1793, has sounded. Nineteen years have elapsed since the
death of Louis XV. How many changes! What revolutions! No throne, no
altars, no aristocracy. Versailles is a solitude. There are sick-beds in
the gilded galleries. Sheep browse in the gardens. Grass grows between
the flagstones of the courtyards. The fountains are dry. The marble
statues, the bronze groups, are thrown down or mutilated. The greatest
crime in all French history has just been accomplished; the head of the
son of Saint Louis, the Most Christian King, has fallen on the scaffold.
What has become of Madame Du Barry in the tempest? Where is that
woman who contributed so greatly to the enfeebling of the monarchical
principle, and, consequently, to the present catastrophes? Since October,
1792, she has been in London. She has not emigrated, and it was only
after having made herself all right with the authorities of the day that
she went to England to prosecute legally the authors of the robberies
committed at Luciennes. The guilty persons have crossed the Channel, and
Madame Du Barry is searching for them.
But before speaking of this pursuit, let us go back a little and recall
the fate of the favorite after the accession of Louis XVI. Exiled at
first to a convent in the suburbs of Metz, the abbey of the Bernardines
of Pont-aux-Dames, she received after a few months an authorization to
return to her dear pavilion of Luciennes. Her affairs, which at first
had been embarrassed on account of enormous debts, were nearly settled.
She always lived in great luxury, with a numerous household. Many of her
relations with the court had remained unbroken, and though it seems that
she gave her royal lover more than one successor, she retained a sort of
mundane veneration for his memory. Distinguished foreigners always made a
point of being presented to the late King’s mistress.
When the Emperor Joseph II. came to pay a visit to his sister, Marie
Antoinette, he went to Luciennes and walked in the garden with the
Countess Du Barry. His Imperial Royal and Apostolic Majesty offered
her his arm. In her later years the Countess had made a conquest of an
accomplished gentleman, the Duke de Cossé-Brissac, a true type of the
great noble, heroically brave and exquisitely courteous. Not merely
did the Duke take Madame Du Barry seriously, but he showed her as much
attention and respect as to the highest placed lady in the kingdom.
To enthusiastic admiration he united the most vivid and profound
attachment. As has been said by MM. de Goncourt, there is in this
attachment of M. de Brissac such a bestowal of himself, such delicate
attentions, such eagerness to oblige, so profound a worship, that it
troubles and disconcerts one’s judgment on the woman esteemed worthy of
such a love. Still beautiful, Madame Du Barry thought herself destined
to a happy and tranquil ending, since she had disarmed her enemies
themselves by her sweetness, gaiety, and good nature. Luciennes was still
a delightful place. But the storm was rumbling in the distance, and the
Countess, always improvident, had reckoned without the revolutionary tide
which was rising, rising incessantly, and which was to submerge all.
Madame Du Barry will abjure neither the court nor the monarchy. The
woman of the people will remain a royalist, not forgetting that she is a
countess and has been the mistress of a king. In 1789, after the October
Days, she had sheltered the body-guards at Luciennes and carefully tended
their wounds. The Queen had thanked her for this courageous act, and
the former favorite of Louis XV. had written to the wife of Louis XVI.
a letter cited in the Memoirs of Count d’Allonville, in which she thus
expressed herself: “These wounded youths have no other regret than that
of not having died for a princess so worthy of all homage as is Your
Majesty. What I have done for these heroes is far less than they deserve.
I console them, and I venerate their wounds when I think, Madame, that
but for their devotion Your Majesty would perhaps be no more.
“Luciennes is yours, Madame; was it not your benevolence which restored
it to me? All that I possess came to me from the royal family: I have
too much gratitude ever to forget it. The late King, by a sort of
presentiment, forced me to accept a thousand precious objects before
removing me from his person. I had the honor to send you this treasure at
the time of the meeting of the notables; I offer it to you again, Madame,
with eagerness. You have so many expenses to provide for, and numberless
benefits to confer!”
In 1791, Madame Du Barry had spent several days in Paris at the house
of the Duke de Brissac. Thieves profited by her absence from Luciennes
to enter the pavilion of the château and possess themselves of the
magnificent gems contained in the jewel cases of the Countess. Then they
had carried their spoil across the Channel. The next year, the Duke
de Brissac had been massacred at Versailles. He left a will in which,
speaking of his daughter, Madame de Mortemart, whom he made his universal
legatee: “I earnestly recommend to her a person who is very dear to
me, and whom the misfortunes of the times may reduce to the greatest
distress. My daughter will have a codicil from me which will indicate to
her what I ordain on this subject.”
The codicil contained an important legacy to Madame Du Barry. “I beg
her,” said the Duke, “to accept this feeble pledge of my sentiments and
my gratitude, for which I am all the more her debtor because I was the
involuntary cause of the loss of her diamonds; and if she ever succeeds
in getting them back from England, those which remain lost, and the cost
of the different journeys rendered necessary by the search for them, in
addition to the reward to be paid, would amount to the actual value of
this legacy. I entreat my daughter to make her accept it. My knowledge of
her heart assures me of the exactitude with which she will acquit herself
of it, whatever may be the charges with which my estate will be burdened
by my testament and my codicil, it being my will that none of my other
legacies shall be paid until this one has been entirely accomplished.”
The theft of the jewels was to prove fatal to the Countess. She had been
so imprudent, in this time of jealousies and hatreds, as to attract
public attention to her riches by posting on the walls of Luciennes
and its environs a bill whereon might be read: “Two thousand louis
reward: diamonds and jewels lost.” Then followed an enumeration of the
diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Greed was aroused.
The village of Luciennes had its club; it was claimed there that the
Countess possessed countless treasures, that incalculable riches were
concealed in the pavilion, that it was the mine from which the royalists
drew with full hands, that the Countess was going to direct and pay the
reactionaries.
M. Sardou has said: “When History makes a drama, she makes it well.”
The true historic drama, that which is no fiction but reality, has
its vicissitudes, its contrasts, its gradations. It has above all
its traitors. Do you remember Zamora, that child of Bengal, whom the
mistress of Luciennes had held at the baptismal font and whom she had
overwhelmed with benefits, that little negro who carried a parasol over
the favorite’s head, and whose inky blackness threw into relief the
snowy whiteness of the Countess’s visage? Well, the miserable Zamora is
a traitor. In league with Madame Du Barry’s former steward, he is the
accomplice of one Greive, who styles and signs himself “Official defender
of the brave sans-culottes of Luciennes, friend of Franklin and of Marat,
factionist and anarchist of the first rank, disorganizer of despotism
in the two hemispheres for twenty years.” This hideous crew pursues the
Countess with its hatred. She is a prey that the tigers who scent the
odor of blood will be sure to find the way to devour. Zamora has sworn
that he will make his benefactress ascend the scaffold, and Zamora will
keep his word.
Madame Du Barry had made four journeys to England in pursuit of those
who stole her jewels. Her last stay on the other side of the Channel had
lasted four months and a half, from the middle of October, 1792, to the
beginning of March, 1793. Why did this woman, who certainly did not
shine by her courage, conceive the fatal idea of returning to France? Was
the fear of never seeing again the treasures hidden in the pavilion of
Luciennes stronger than her sentiment of prudence? Or rather, was not the
victim dragged on by a sort of inexplicable fatality, by the vertigo, the
fascination, of the abyss?
She leaves London, March 3, 1793, lands at Calais the 5th, is detained
there until the 18th to await new passports, and arrives at Luciennes the
19th. She finds seals on the pavilion. Zamora and his accomplices, that
band of infamous servants to whom Madame Du Barry had been so gentle,
kind, and generous, ruthlessly continued their odious denunciations. The
Convention rendered, June 2, a decree expressed in these terms: “The
constituted authorities, throughout the whole extent of the Republic,
shall be obliged to have seized and placed in arrest all persons
notoriously suspected of incivism.” Madame Du Barry’s persecutors availed
themselves of this decree to arrest her. Once she has been released and
reinstated in her pavilion. But hatred is not discouraged. The wretches
take an address to the Convention in which, speaking in the name of “the
brave sans-culottes of Luciennes,” they call for the definitive arrest
of a woman who, say they, “has been able, by means of her riches and
her caresses learned at the court of a feeble and dissolute monarch,
to escape, in spite of her notoriously incivic relations, from the
Declaration of the Rights of Man, and has made her château the centre of
liberticide projects against Paris.” The Convention applauds this stupid
language and felicitates the commune of Luciennes on its patriotism. The
thing is done. Madame Du Barry is ruined.
September 22, surrounded by gendarmes, she quits the pavilion of
Luciennes, which she is never again to see. She is transferred to the
prison of Sainte-Pelagie, where she is placed in the chamber that had
been occupied by Queen Marie Antoinette. What funereal presentiments!
What alarms! What dismal thoughts! In her prison, she who had been the
mistress of Louis XV. could think of the corpse of her royal lover. A few
days before, August 10, the Convention had executed its decree concerning
the violation of the tombs of Saint Denis, of that Saint Denis which the
favorite formerly beheld from the heights of the terrace of Luciennes.
They had exhumed “these former kings and queens, princes and princesses.”
They had broken the coffins, and melted the lead of them. The corpse of
Louis XV., like that of Louis XIV. and his predecessors, had been cast
into the common pit.
The Countess Du Barry shudders. Now it is her time to die. December 7,
1793, at nine o’clock in the morning, she appears all trembling before
the revolutionary tribunal. Fouquier-Tinville is spokesman, in virtue
of his office as public prosecutor, and in his requisition he yields
to what he calls “his indignation as an honest man and a patriot.” He
declaims in that cruel and inflated jargon, odious and grotesque, of
which this infamous epoch has the secret. He declares that he “does not
wish, through modesty, to lift the veil which should cover forever the
frightful vices of the court.” The modesty of Fouquier-Tinville!...
Several of the former domestics of Madame Du Barry, Zamora at their
head, are cowardly enough to depose against her. The penalty of death
is pronounced. The poor woman grows pale and totters. The gendarmes
are obliged to support her so that she may not fall. She is to mount
to-morrow the fatal cart, the bier of the living, as Barrère calls it.
Mad with terror, breathless, the condemned woman passes a night of
anguish. She revolves every means of prolonging her existence for some
hours, some minutes. She says she will make revelations, she will show
at Luciennes the hiding-places of all her jewels, all her treasures.
The public prosecutor sends a substitute to her cell. She details, like
a woman who is afraid of forgetting something, all the items of her
inventory, because she imagines that every word adds a second to her
life. But the executioner is waiting. She must go.
It is the 8th of December, 1793. Fifty-three days before, another woman,
a queen, had come out of the same prison, the same chamber, to go
likewise to execution. The cart was filthy. For a seat a board. On the
board neither hay nor straw. Behind the victim, Sanson the executioner,
holding the ends of a thick cord which tied the condemned Queen’s
arms behind her. A poor comic actress had lent her a gown in which she
could decently present herself at the scaffold. Well! in this sorry
attire, amidst the yelling of the crowd, on a cold morning in October,
the daughter of the Cæsars had been more sublime, more majestic, than
on the throne. Dressed in white, like a phantom, a little red on the
cheekbones, but otherwise pale, the eyes injected, not with tears, but
blood, the hair whitened by grief, she was to the very end calm, serene,
magnanimous, and regarded with mildness and compassion the infernal
tumult that surrounded her. For one instant only did her impassible
features betray emotion. When the cart was passing rue Saint Honoré,
opposite the Oratory, a little child in its mother’s arms threw a kiss
to the Queen, and at this salute of innocence Marie Antoinette wept. On
arriving at Calvary, she sadly contemplated that sacrilegious spot where
her husband had been executed, that accursed spot where, twenty years
before, had occurred a catastrophe which was an omen. She turned her
eyes toward that cemetery of the Madeleine where the victims were then
entombed, and where her own headless body was soon to be placed. Then she
cast a last glance toward the Tuileries, which to her had been so fatal,
the Tuileries, her first prison, and, happening to step on the foot of
the executioner, she said to him with queenly politeness: “Sir, I beg
your pardon.” She died, but it was the death of heroines and martyrs.
She died, but the purple of her blood has covered her with a second
royal mantle, and her head, cut off, is resplendent with the flames of
an aureole which will shine from age to age. She died, but the pure, the
radiant angels have borne her beautiful soul to heaven.
Madame Du Barry does herself justice. She feels that she cannot have so
magnificent a death. The apotheosis of the saint is not for her, but
the expiation of the sinner. The wife of Louis XVI. had looked death in
the face. The mistress of Louis XV. will not have that courage. She is
frightened, she sobs, she utters such heartrending cries that it is much
if the Terror itself, the unpitying Terror, is not for the first time
moved to compassion.
As the cart passes in front of the Palais Royal, the victim perceives the
balcony of a millinery establishment from which a number of working-women
are looking at the funereal procession. She recognizes the house; it
was there she worked as a milliner’s apprentice when a very young girl.
Alas! why did she become Madame the Countess Du Barry? Her countenance is
by turns of a livid pallor or a deep red. She struggles so between the
executioner and his two assistants that they can hardly keep her on her
bench. Her cries redouble. “Life! life!” she says; “only let them leave
me life, and I will give all my property to the nation.” Then, from the
crowd, a man replies: “You would only give the nation what belongs to
it, since the tribunal has just confiscated your property.” A charcoal
peddler, standing in front of this man, turns round and gives him a slap
in the face. The victim begins anew her supplications. “My friends,” she
cries, “my friends, I have never done harm to any one! In the name of
heaven, I beg you, save me!” Who knows? the stocking-knitters themselves,
the furies who lick the guillotine, are perhaps going to be affected by
these accents of the woman of the people. This time it is not a queen
who is about to die; it is a countess, but a countess who was first a
working-woman. The horses are whipped up, the end is hastened to stop
the compassion of the crowd. At last the cart arrives at the place which
was formerly called Place Louis XV.; there where once rose the statue of
the monarch, the scaffold is erected where they are going to execute his
mistress. It is half-past four o’clock. “Help! help!” she cries. “Mercy!
mercy! Monsieur Executioner! Once more....” The knife falls. It is all
over with Madame Du Barry.
Had we not reason to say, at the beginning of this study, that history
is a long funeral oration? Ah! as Virgil has said, there are tears in
things, and all that is mortal affects our soul:—
_Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt._
If we confine ourselves to the surface of the ages, we remain cold,
indifferent; but if we descend to their depths, if we penetrate the
secret of souls, if we lend an attentive ear to voices from beyond the
tomb, to the groanings, the cries of anguish issuing from the abyss
of the past, we are possessed by an invincible sadness, a salutary
melancholy. We perceive, in the language of Bourdaloue, “that all these
grandeurs on which the world glorifies itself and the pride of man is
fed, that this birth on which they pique themselves, this credit which
flatters them, this authority of which they are so proud, these successes
of which they vaunt, these goods in which they glory, these charges and
dignities of which they take advantage, this beauty, valor, reputation
which they idolize, is nothing but a lie.” The lessons of history are
neither less instructive nor less eloquent than the best sermons of the
preachers. All destinies have their conclusion and all deaths their
instruction. One feels surrounded by a host of phantoms, sometimes livid,
sometimes bloody, whose sepulchral aspect causes a shudder, and whose
dismal voices say: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou
must return.—_Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris._”
Behold the women of the court of Louis XV.; behold the royal mistresses,
once so flattered, who appear for the last time, and one after another
take up the word!
“I,” says the Countess de Mailly, “when banished by an earthly king,
found my consolation at the feet of the King of heaven. I have wept
sincerely for my faults, and God, in His mercy, has deigned to grant me
time for repentance.”
“I,” says the Countess de Vintimille, “had barely crossed the threshold
of that fatal château of Versailles, when stricken as by a thunderbolt, I
died in giving birth to the infant of my crime.”
“I also,” says the Duchess de Châteauroux, “I passed like the grass of
the field which withers in a day. Crushed by affronts and anguish, I lost
my miserable sceptre, and at the moment when I seized it again, I died
very young, I died enwrapped in my shameful triumph as in the most sorry
of shrouds.”
“And I,” says the Marquise de Pompadour, “never tasted a single instant
of real happiness in all my twenty years of power. I had everything
except the esteem which cannot be bought. At the bottom of my intrigues
and pretended pleasures I found only nothingness. My conscience spoke
louder than my flatterers; I felt my own wretchedness. My life, brilliant
externally, was inwardly replenished with sorrow and darkness. A
sorceress had predicted it to me: I died of nothing but chagrin.”
“I,” says the Countess Du Barry, the last of the royal mistresses,
she whose execution is as it were the summing up, the symbol of the
expiations, “I have paid very dear for the enjoyments of luxury and
sensuality; I knew neither how to live nor how to die. At an epoch when
heroism was a common thing, I weakened, I was afraid, I shuddered on the
scaffold!”
After the favorites, it is the turn of the sovereign whose fatal love was
the cause of all their misfortunes.
“I,” he says, “have seen, like the Preacher, all that is done under
the sun, and I have found that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. I
became voluntarily the victim of guilty passions which, when once the
inebriation was over, left nothing in the soul but a painful stupor and a
cruelly felt void. I was disgusted with others and with myself. I did not
believe in the prestige of my own crown, and in spite of my riches, my
power, my ability to realize all my caprices, there was incarnated in me
that gnawing evil, ennui. If my weaknesses have given scandal, horrible
has been the chastisement. I have been punished in myself and punished in
my race, punished as man, punished as king.”
When, in the silence of mind and heart one has just listened to these
lessons of history and death, one reflects. After meditating on
instructions so austere, one finds the problems of human destiny less
insoluble, and recognizing the point from which things must be viewed,
one discovers, as Bossuet says, that what at first seems confusion is in
fact only concealed art, an ensemble of combinations admirably ordained
by Providence. Then earthly grandeurs appear in their true light, and
one feels better, calmer, less ambitious, less disposed to complain of
the inequalities of fate. The shades of princes and princesses, of great
lords and ladies, have their mysterious language, and all combine to say
in unison these words from the _Imitation of Christ_, the most affecting
and purest of all books, if the Gospel did not exist:—
“It is vanity to amass perishable riches and place one’s hope in them.
“It is vanity to seek for honors and elevate one’s self to the chief
places.
“It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh and to love that which
in the end will merit rigorous chastisements.
“It is vanity to desire long life and to be so little concerned to have
it good.
“It is vanity to think only of present things and not to foresee those
that are to come.
“It is vanity to love that which passes so quickly, and not to be eager
to gain heaven where joy endures forever.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] Residences of the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Condé, then in
disgrace for having taken sides with the former Parliament against that
of Chancellor Maupeou.
[2] The Duke de Choiseul’s place of exile.
[3] M. Taine, _Les Origines de la France Contemporaine_.
[4] Grimm, _Correspondance littéraire_, 1770.
[5] Memoirs of Madame du Hausset.
[6] Manuscript Memoirs of Regnaud, procureur to the Parliament of Paris
at the time of the _coup d’État_ of 1771.
[7] Manuscript Memoirs of Siméon Prosper Hardy.
[8] M. Charles Aubertin, _L’Esprit public au XVIIIᵉ siècle_.
[9] La Bruyère.
[10] Massillon.
[11] The Marquis d’Argenson.
[12] _Gustave III. et la cour de France_, by M. A. Geffroy.
[13] _Memoirs of the Duc de Lauzun._
[14] Marivaux, _La Réunion des Amours_.
[15] Buffon, _Discours sur la nature des animaux_.
[16] Messrs. de Goncourt, _L’Amour au XVIIIᵉ Siècle_, a very witty and
pleasant volume. Dentu.
[17] Messrs. de Goncourt.
[18] M. Taine, _Origines de la France contemporaine_.
[19]
When Boufflers appeared at court,
People thought they saw the mother of Love;
Every one was eager to please her,
And every one did so in his turn.
[20] Duke de Levis, _Souvenirs et portraits_.
[21] Prosper Mérimée, article in the _Moniteur Universel_ of April 29,
1867.
[22] See M. Grasset’s fine study, _Madame de Choiseul et son temps_.
[23] Now the Ministry of War.
[24] She was born in 1699.
[25] See the excellent introduction by M. Charles de Morey prefaced to
the _Correspondance du roi Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et de Madame
Geoffrin_, a very interesting volume, published by Plon.
[26] See the remarkable study by M. Lescure prefaced to the
_Correspondance de la Marquise Du Deffand_. 2 vol. Plon.
[27] M. Taine, _Origines de la France contemporaine_.
[28] January 25, 1766.
[29]
And my hand would twist the entrails of the priest,
Lacking another cord to strangle kings.
[30] Letter of March 17, 1771.
[31] Letter of January 25, 1766.
[32] Letter of October 19, 1765.
[33] Letter of December 5, 1765.
[34] The Carthusian convent at Paris, rue d’Enfer. At that time Lesueur’s
Saint Bruno, now in the Louvre, might be seen there.
[35] _Gustave III. et la Cour de France_, par M. A. Geffroy.
[36] Memoirs of Madame Campan.
[37] The house is No. 2 at present.
[38] The wisest takes fire and pledges himself without knowing how.
[39] Sénac de Meilhan, _Portraits et Caractères des personnes distinguées
de la fin du XVIIIᵉ. siècle_.
[40]
Long live the King! The deuce take Love!
The rogue has played me a trick
Which may take down my presumption.
The Du Barry, cold as ice to me,
Is about, they say, to change my destiny.
Of old I owed my fortune to wantons;
I am going then to owe them my disgrace.
[41]
Here thy journey begins.
If thou wert never to return!...
Thy poor mother has no courage
To leave thee, to bless thee.
Labor well, say thy prayer;
Prayer gives courage;
And think sometimes of thy mother,
That will bring thee happiness.
Adieu, my child, adieu!
To God’s grace I commend thee!...
She goes, the gentle exile,
To earn her bread ’neath other skies;
A long time yet, in the valley,
The poor mother follows her with her eyes;
Then, when her bitter sorrow
Is no longer witnessed by her child,
She weeps, poor mother,
For the child who says from afar:
Adieu, mother, adieu!
To God’s grace I commend thee!...
[42] Madame the Countess d’Armaillé, _La Mère et la Fille_, (Maria
Theresa and Marie Antoinette).
[43] Memoirs of Madame Campan.
[44]
Sire, the great of your state
Behold with much pain
A princess of Lorraine
Preferred before them at the ball.
If Your Highness project
This affront to inflict,
They will cut off their queues,
And all dancing refuse.
Take heed: all is said,
The league has been made.
Signed: the Bishop of Noyon,
La Veaupalière, Beaufremont,
Clermont, Laval and De Villette.
[45] Room No. 115 of M. Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_.
[46] Room No. 117 of M. Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_.
[47] _Souvenirs de Baron de Gleichen_, preceded by a notice by M. Paul
Grimblot.
[48] See M. de Grasset’s interesting work, _Madame de Choiseul et son
Temps_. 1 vol. Didier.
[49] See M. de Lescure’s interesting work: _La Princesse de Lamballe_.
[50]
Pious like Boaz, gentle though austere,
You love mankind and yet the Lord you fear.
One prop your family yet lacks, alas!
You wed not Ruth, who takes a daughter’s place.
[51] Count de Mercy-Argenteau’s letter to Maria Theresa, February 25,
1771.
[52]
Yes, that Maupeou, alone, from the labyrinth of the laws
Has been able to withdraw the crown,
That he alone has returned it to the palace of our kings,
This is what I have seen, this is what amazes me.
I avow with antiquity
That its heroes are admirable;
But, unfortunately, they are fables;
And this is the verity.
[53]
What! two kisses toward the end of my life!
What a passport you deign to send me!
Two! that is one too many, adorable Egeria,
I shall be dead of pleasure at the first one.
[54]
You cannot prevent this homage,
The feeble tribute of all who have eyes.
’Tis for mortals to adore your image,
The original was made for the gods.
[55] _Les Maîtresses de Louis XV._, by MM. de Goncourt.
[56]
Over thy double portrait, charming Du Barry,
The perplexed spectator wishes to admire thee everywhere;
If thou changest thy sex before his eyes,
He has only to change his taste.
If he sees thee as woman, in his soul
He feels all the pleasure of being man;
Thou becomest man,
And suddenly he is all desire to be a woman.
[57] Room No. 126 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Soulié.
[58] Room No. 120 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Soulié.
[59]
There thou art, poor Louis,
In a coffin at Saint Denis!
There doth grandeur expire.
For a long time, one must needs say,
Incompetent to give the law,
Thou hast borne the idle name of king
Under the tutelage and the empire
Of tyrants who reigned for thee.
Wert thou good? It is a problem
Which can easily be resolved.
A good prince never causes
The wretchedness of a people who love him,
And one cannot call good
A king without restraint or reason,
Who lives for no one but himself....
Feeble, timid, insincere,
And caressing more than ever
Him who had managed to displease thee,
Up to the moment when of thy wrath
He was about to feel the effects:
That, I think, was thy character.
Lover of loose speeches,
Famous drinker, and king celebrated
For hunting and for wantons:
That is thy funeral oration.
INDEX
Adelaide, Madame, 146, 167, 191.
Agen, Duke d’, his words concerning Madame Louise, 111.
Argenson, Marquis d’, his words prophetic of revolution, 24.
Artois, Count d’, his character, 144, 145, 174, 191.
Atheism in France, Walpole’s words concerning, 68, 72;
Diderot’s words concerning, 71.
Barbier, quoted, 68.
Beaumarchais, 26;
the hero of the day, 27;
censured by the court, 27, 28.
Beaumont, Christopher de, Archbishop of Paris, visits Louis XV.
during the King’s last illness, 191.
Beauvais, Abbé de, 20.
Boufflers, Duke de, 52.
Boufflers, Madame de, 56;
her words at death of Louis XV., 195, 196.
Breteuil, Baron de, 84.
Brissac, M. de, see Cossé-Brissac, Duke de.
Broglie, Count de, engaged in secret diplomacy, 83, 84.
Buffon, his words concerning love, 47-50.
Campan, Madame, quoted, 79;
reads to Madame Louise, 105, 106;
visits Madame Louise at Saint Denis, 110;
her words concerning dinners of royal family, 146;
her words concerning Madame Sophie, 147.
Carmelite convent at Saint Denis, the, 107 _et seq._
Catherine II., Czarina, 58;
Diderot’s adoration of, 71.
Chamfort, his definition of love, 46.
Chartres, Duke de, 155.
Chateaubriand, his words concerning society during last years of
Louis XV., 87, 181.
Châteauroux, Duchess de, quoted, 212.
Choiseul, Duchess de, her salon, 54;
her sound sense, 54;
her criticism of Rousseau, 54-56;
her purity, 56;
words of Walpole concerning, 56.
Choiseul, Duke de, character of, 88, 89;
his enemies, 89, 97;
his attitude toward Madame Du Barry, 101-104;
his power weakening, 104;
meets Marie Antoinette, 132;
his downfall, 151-155;
exiled, 155, 156.
Church, a revolution forming against, 25.
Clergy of France during last years of Louis XV., 18-21.
Clotilde, Madame, 145.
Cossé-Brissac, Duke de, his attachment to Madame Du Barry, 200, 201;
massacred, 202;
his legacy to Madame Du Barry, 202, 203.
D’Aiguillon, 187, 190.
D’Alembert, 51;
his love for Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, 62, 67.
Dauphin, the, marriage of, to Marie Antoinette, 121;
letter to, from Marie Antoinette, 121;
meets Marie Antoinette, 132;
celebration of his marriage, 136-142;
his character, 144;
his hostility to Choiseul, 154, 191;
his words at death of Louis XV., 193;
departs for Choisy, 193.
Deer Park, 80, 85, 90, 98.
Deffand, Marquise du, the salon of, 57, 60-63;
compared with Madame Geoffrin, 60;
her blindness, 60;
her wit and satire, 62;
her letters, 62;
Voltaire’s fear of, 62;
her religious inclinations, 65;
her words on life and death, 65, 66;
her affection for Horace Walpole, 66;
her criticism of Madame Louise, 111.
Desalleurs, Count, 84.
Diderot, his words concerning atheism, 71;
his adoration for the Empress Catherine II., 71.
Du Barry, Count Jean, 94, 95.
Du Barry, Count William, his marriage, 95.
Du Barry, Madame, Louis XV.’s passion for, 9, 42;
suit between heirs of, 91-93;
her birth, 92;
her early years, 93;
called Mademoiselle l’Ange, 94;
delights Louis XV., 94;
her marriage, 95;
becomes mistress of Louis XV., 95;
presented at Versailles, 97, 98;
her apartments at Versailles, 98;
her house in the city and her riches, 99;
her personal charms, 99, 100;
Walpole’s words concerning, 100, 101;
her position at court, 101-104;
her attitude toward Duke de Choiseul, 101-104;
her words concerning Madame Louise, 112;
her relations to Marie Antoinette, 150 _et seq._;
her victory over Choiseul, 151-155;
her attitude towards Parliament, 177, 178;
letter to, from Voltaire, 179, 180;
feelings of the people for, 180, 181;
makes her mother Marquise de Montrable, 181;
compared with Madame de Pompadour, 179, 181, 186, 187;
her life after death of Louis XV., 200 _et seq._;
her conquest of the Duke de Cossé-Brissac, 200, 201;
shelters royal body-guards at Luciennes, 201;
her letter offering hospitality of Luciennes to Marie Antoinette,
201, 202;
her pavilion at Luciennes robbed, 202, 203;
her trips to England, 199, 204;
betrayed by her servants, 204-206;
taken from Luciennes to prison, 206;
appears before the revolutionary tribunal, 206, 207;
condemned to death, 207;
her execution, 209, 210, 212.
Durfort, Marquis de, demands Marie Antoinette for the Dauphin, 121.
Egmont, Countess d’, 42.
Elisabeth, Madame, 145.
Eon, Chevalier d’, 83.
Epinay, Madame d’, her words concerning modesty, 47.
Étioles, Lenormand d’, 186.
Encyclopedists, Madame Geoffrin’s attitude towards, 64.
Fouquier-Tinville, 206, 207.
Francis, Emperor, 116, 117.
Gassner, forecasts future of Marie Antoinette, 117.
Genet, Mademoiselle, afterwards Madame Campan; see Madame Campan.
Geoffrin, Madame, her salon, 57-60;
her husband, 57;
her character and manners, 59;
the greatest nobles pay court to her, 58;
her visits to Warsaw and Vienna, 58, 117, 118;
Walpole’s admiration for, 59, 60;
compared with Madame du Deffand, 60;
her relations toward the Encyclopedists, 64;
meets Marie Antoinette, 118.
Gleichen, Baron de, 151, 152.
Goethe, his words concerning marriage of Marie Antoinette, 128.
Goëzman, Counsellor, 26, 27.
Guibert, M. de, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse’s love for, 67.
Gustavus III. of Sweden, letters to, 41-43, 177.
Henriette, Madame, 86.
Joseph II., Emperor, his visit to Luciennes, 200.
Laborde, M. de, 179;
his _Pandora_, 180.
La Bruyère, quoted, 68.
La Harpe, 51.
La Marck, Countess de, 43.
Lamballe, Princess de, 173.
Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de, her salon, 57, 63;
sketch of, 62, 63;
her unhappy love, 67.
Lorraine, Mademoiselle de, accorded preference by Louis XV. in the
minuet at Marie Antoinette’s marriage festivities, 137-140.
Louise of France, Madame, in the Convent of the Carmelites, 104;
her preparation for convent life, 105, 106;
obtains permission to enter the religious state, 107;
letters to, from the King and her sisters, 107-110;
enters convent at Saint Denis, 107, 108;
visited by Madame Campan, 110;
criticisms of, 111;
her life of religious devotion, 112-114;
visited by Marie Antoinette, 133;
takes the habit of the Carmelites, 147, 148.
Louis XV., the court during last years of, 2 _et seq._;
his old age, 9 _et seq._;
a _pater_ dedicated to, 9;
feelings of the people towards, 12, 85, 86;
a type of the ancient _régime_, 12;
his character, 12-14;
his passion for Madame Du Barry, 9;
his victory over Parliament, 12, 13, 25;
his words to Marshal de Richelieu, 20;
his horror of the magistracy, 23;
feelings of the middle classes for, 30;
love during reign of, 45-50;
suffers family bereavements, 79, 80;
his attention to Marie Leczinska in her last illness, 80;
urged to lead a virtuous life, 80;
his apathy and indifference, 81, 82, 88;
his secret intriguing policy, 82-84;
his lack of will, 85;
his personal appearance during later years, 85;
the personification of his epoch, 87;
makes Madame Du Barry his mistress, 94, 95;
closes establishment at Deer Park, 98;
gives Madame Du Barry a house in the city, 99;
grants Madame Louise permission to enter the religious state, 107;
his letters to Madame Louise, 107, 108;
meets Marie Antoinette, 132;
accords Mademoiselle de Lorraine preference in the minuet at Marie
Antoinette’s marriage celebration, 137-140;
his affection for Marie Antoinette, 145;
his reply to Choiseul, 152;
dismisses Choiseul, 155;
at the pavilion of Luciennes, 181-183, 185;
forbodes his death, 188, 189;
his melancholy, 188;
criticised, 189;
taken ill with smallpox at the Little Trianon, 190;
urged to receive extreme unction, 190;
on his deathbed, 192;
receives communion, 192, 193;
dies, 193;
Count de Ségur’s words at death of, 194;
his burial, 195;
public indignities to corpse of, 195, 196;
satirical verses on, 196, 197;
his words concerning his own life, 213.
Love during reign of Louis XV., 45-50;
Chamfort’s definition of, 46;
Buffon’s words concerning, 47-50.
Little Trianon, the, 190.
Luciennes, pavilion of, 181-186, 199, 200, 202.
Luxembourg, Maréchale de, 51;
her position in society, 52-54;
fascinates Rousseau, 53;
her manners and conversation, 53, 54.
MacMahon, Julienne de, 113.
Magistracy of France during last years of Louis XV., 22-28;
horror of Louis XV. for, 23.
Mailly, Countess de, quoted, 211.
Maria Theresa, Empress, 58;
her character, 115, 162, 163;
her instruction of Marie Antoinette, 116;
consults Gassner concerning future of Marie Antoinette, 117;
forms Marie Antoinette after manner of the court of France, 118;
her sorrow at parting with Marie Antoinette, 121;
her _Rule to be Read Every Month_, 125, 126;
urges Marie Antoinette to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 157,
160;
her correspondence with Count de Mercy-Argenteau, 162 _et seq._;
her jealous watchfulness, 167, 168;
her exhortations to Marie Antoinette, 168-172;
her tenderness, 170.
Marie Antoinette, 104;
her birth, 115;
her childhood, 116 _et seq._;
loses her father, 117;
her future forecast by Gassner, 117;
trained to the manner of the court of France, 118;
her beauty, 119;
her marriage arranged, 120, 121;
her letter to the Dauphin, 121;
leaves Vienna, 122;
chanson addressed to, 123;
superstitious presentiments concerning, 124;
sees France for the first time, 127;
the symbolical ceremony of delivery of, 128, 129;
arrives at Strasburg, 130;
Prince Louis de Rohan’s address to, 130, 131;
her route to Paris, 131-133;
meets Duke de Choiseul, the Dauphin, and Louis XV., 132;
visits Madame Louise, 133;
arrives at Versailles, 134;
description of, by Bachaumont, 135, 136;
festivities at her marriage, 136-142;
her reception by the French people, 143;
her affection for Louis XV., 145;
her apartment, 145;
her daily life, 145, 146;
witnesses ceremony of the taking of the veil by Madame Louise, 147,
148;
the object of ill-feeling, 149, 150;
her relations to Madame Du Barry, 150 _et seq._;
advised to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 157, 160;
her repugnance for Madame Du Barry, 150, 159;
her simple, child-like nature, 164, 165;
surrounded by enemies, 149, 150, 166;
spied upon, 166, 167;
lectured by her mother, Maria Theresa, 168, 169;
her filial devotion, 171;
the idol of the court, 172, 176;
dances in apartments of, 173;
goes to Choisy with the Dauphin, 193;
invited by Madame Du Barry to come to Luciennes, 201, 202;
death of, 207, 208.
Marie Leczinska, 79;
last illness and death, 80, 95.
Maupeou Parliament, see Parliament, Maupeou.
Maximilian, Archduke, serves as proxy for the Dauphin in marriage of
Marie Antoinette, 121.
Mercy-Argenteau, Count de, 157;
urges Marie Antoinette to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 158,
159;
his correspondence with Maria Theresa, 162 _et seq._;
his character, 163, 164.
Middle classes in France during last years of Louis XV., 29-33;
their feelings toward Louis XV., 30;
religious sentiment among, 32.
Mirepoix, Maréchale de, 56;
her criticism of Madame Louise, 111.
Montesquieu, his words concerning the ruling classes of France, 24.
Montrable, Marquise de, 181.
Nobility of France during last years of Louis XV., 15-17;
intimacy of, with men of letters, 51.
Ogny, M. d’, 83.
Olbach, Baron d’, 74.
_Pandora_, Laborde’s, 180.
Paris, salons of, see Salons of Paris.
Parliament, victory of Louis XV. over, 12, 13;
the Maupeou, 25, 178, 179.
_Pater_, dedicated to Louis XV., 9.
Penthièvre, Duke de, 173.
People, of France during last years of Louis XV., 34-39;
La Bruyère’s words concerning, 34;
Massillon’s words concerning, 34.
Philosophers, the, during last years of Louis XV., 68-76;
their position in society, 69, 70;
Walpole’s words concerning, 70, 73, 74;
their gravity, 73.
Place Louis XV., catastrophe of, 142, 143.
Poisson, Abel, 187.
Political women, see Women, political.
Pompadour, Madame de, compared with Madame Du Barry, 179, 181, 186,
187;
her unhappiness, 212.
Poniatowski, Stanislas, 58.
Provence, Count de, his character, 144, 191.
Richelieu, Marshal de, 100, 191, 192.
Rohan, Prince Louis de, his address to Marie Antoinette, 130, 131.
Rousseau, his _Nouvelle-Héloise_, 49-51;
fascinated by the Maréchale de Luxembourg, 53;
the Duchess de Choiseul’s criticism of, 54-56.
_Rule to be Read Every Month_, Marie Theresa’s, 125, 126.
Saint-Germain, Count de, 83.
Saint-Priest, M. de, 84.
Salons of Paris, 51 _et seq._
Ségur, Count de, quoted, 86, 87;
his words concerning society during last years of Louis XV., 88;
his words at death of Louis XV., 194.
Society in France during last years of Louis XV., Chateaubriand’s
words concerning, 87;
Count de Ségur’s words concerning, 88.
_Society of the Moment_, The, 48.
Sophie, Madame, 146, 147, 191.
Tarouka, Duke de, his wager with the Empress Maria Theresa, 115.
Trianon, the Little, 190.
Vergennes, M. de, 84.
Vermond, Abbé de, instructor of Marie Antoinette, 120.
Versailles, during last years of Louis XV., 9-11;
after death of Marie Leczinska, 79;
Madame Du Barry’s apartments at, 98;
deserted, 199;
too vast for Louis XV., 181.
Victoire, Madame, 146, 147, 191.
Vintimille, Countess de, quoted, 212.
Voltaire, 51;
his fear of Madame du Deffand, 62, 68;
his show of religious devotion, 71, 72;
his letter to Madame Du Barry, 179, 180.
Walpole, Horace, letters of, quoted, 11, 51, 52, 56, 59, 68;
Madame du Deffand’s affection for, 66;
his words concerning the philosophers, 70, 73, 74;
his words on atheism, 68, 72;
his retirement to Chartreuse, 74;
his words concerning Madame Du Barry, 100, 101.
Women of the court of Louis XV., lessons of their lives, 211-214.
Women, political, in France during last years of Louis XV., 40-44.
Zamora, 183, 184;
a traitor, 204, 205.
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FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS
Former series of M. Imbert de Saint-Amand’s historical works have
depicted the great French historical epochs of modern times. The
stirring events of the Revolution, of the Consulate and Empire, and of
the Restoration period, ending with the July revolution of 1830 and
the accession of Louis Philippe, are grouped around the attractive
personalities of Marie Antoinette, the Empresses Josephine and Marie
Louise, and the Duchesses of Angoulême and of Berry. The remarkable
and uniform success of these works has induced the publishers to
undertake the translation and publication of a previous series of M. de
Saint-Amand’s volumes which deal with epochs more remote, but not for
that reason less important, interesting, or instructive. The distinction
of the cycle now begun with the “Women of the Valois Court” and ending
with “The Last Years of Louis XV.,” is that, whereas in former series
several volumes have been devoted to the historical events associated
with each of the titular personalities to which they were closely
related, in the present instance a more condensed method is followed.
The color of the present series is more personal, and therefore more
romantic, as is to be expected in the annals of a period during which
the famous women of the French Court were not only more numerous but
more influential than their successors of later times. The dawn of the
modern era, chronicled in M. de Saint-Amand’s “Marie Antoinette and
the End of the Old Régime” was the beginning of the extinction of the
feminine influence that flourished vigorously in affairs of state from
Marguerite of Angoulême to Madame Dubarry. It is the history of this
influence that the author has graphically written in the four volumes now
announced—“Women of the Valois Court,” “The Court of Louis XIV.,” and
“The Court of Louis XV.,” and “The Last Years of Louis XV.”
The first volume is devoted to Marguerite of Angoulême and Catherine
de’ Medici and their contemporaries at the French court during the days
of the last of the Valois—the most romantic period of royalty probably
in all history. The two principal figures are depicted with striking
vividness,—the half Catholic, half Protestant sister of Francis I.,
the grandmother of Henry IV., the author of the famous “Heptameron,”
and one of the most admirable historical figures of any epoch; and the
diplomatic, ambitious, unscrupulous but extremely human Catherine,
universally held responsible for the awful Massacre of Saint Bartholomew.
But the subordinate though scarcely less famous women who adorned the
Valois Court—Diane de Poitiers, the Duchess d’Étampes, Marguerite of
Valois, Marie Stuart, and others—are described with an equally brilliant
and illuminating touch.
The volumes on the women of the great Bourbon epoch, the epoch of Louis
XIV. and Louis XV., when the Bourbon star was in the zenith, contain
a great deal of intimate history as well as setting in relief the
interesting personalities of the famous La Vallière and Montespan and
that perennial historical enigma, Madame de Maintenon, in the volume
devoted to the court of the “Sun King,” and those of Madame de Pompadour,
Madame Dubarry, Queen Marie Leczinska, and other celebrities who made
Versailles what it was during the long and varied reign of Louis XV.
The study of Madame de Maintenon is a real contribution to history,
and the pictures of the clever and dazzling beauties who controlled so
long the destinies not only of France but measurably of Europe itself
from the accession of “le Grand Monarque” to the first threatenings of
the Revolution “deluge” are extremely lifelike and skilfully executed.
The historical chronicle of the time is by no means lost sight of by
the author, but in this series even more than in his works heretofore
published in English he appears not only as an interesting and impartial
historian, but as a brilliant historical portraitist.
FOUR NEW VOLUMES.
WOMEN OF THE VALOIS AND VERSAILLES COURTS.
_Each with Portraits, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half
calf, $10.00._
WOMEN OF THE VALOIS COURT.
THE COURT OF LOUIS XIV.
THE COURT OF LOUIS XV.
THE LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV.
VOLUMES PREVIOUSLY ISSUED.
_THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE._
_Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half
calf, $7.50._
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD RÉGIME.
MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES.
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY.
In this series is unfolded the tremendous panorama of political events
in which the unfortunate Queen had so influential a share, beginning
with the days immediately preceding the Revolution, when court life at
Versailles was so gay and unsuspecting, continuing with the enforced
journey of the royal family to Paris, and the agitating months passed
in the Tuileries, and concluding with the abolition of royalty, the
proclamation of the Republic, and the imprisonment of the royal
family,—the initial stage of their progress to the guillotine.
_THREE VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE._
_Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half
calf, $7.50._
CITIZENESS BONAPARTE.
THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL.
THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.
The romantic and eventful period beginning with Josephine’s marriage,
comprises the astonishing Italian campaign, the Egyptian expedition,
the _coup d’état_ of Brumaire, and is described in the first of the
above volumes; while the second treats of the brilliant society
which issued from the chaos of the Revolution, and over which Madame
Bonaparte presided so charmingly; and the third, of the events between
the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon and the end of 1807,
including, of course, the Austerlitz campaign.
_FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE._
_Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $5.00; half
calf, $10.00._
THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE.
MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE.
MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814.
MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS.
The auspicious marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise to the master
of Europe; the Russian invasion, with its disastrous conclusion a few
years later; the Dresden and Leipsic campaign; the invasion of France by
the Allies, and the marvellous military strategy of Napoleon in 1814,
ending only with his defeat and exile to Elba; his life in his little
principality; his romantic escape and dramatic return to France; the
preparations of the Hundred Days; Waterloo and the definitive restoration
of Louis XVIII. closing the era begun in 1789, with “The End of the
Old Régime,”—are the subjects of the four volumes grouped around the
personality of Marie Louise.
_TWO VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULÊME._
_Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $2.50; half
calf, $5.00._
THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULÊME.
THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULÊME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS.
The period covered in this first of these volumes begins with the life
of the daughter of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette imprisoned in the
Temple after the execution of her parents, and ends with the accession
of Louis XVIII. after the abdication of Napoleon at Fontainebleau. The
first Restoration, its illusions, the characters of Louis XVIII., of his
brother, afterwards Charles X., of the Dukes of Angoulême and Berry, sons
of the latter, the life of the Court, the feeling of the city, Napoleon’s
sudden return from Elba, the Hundred Days from the Royalist side, the
second Restoration, and the vengeance taken by the new government on the
Imperialists, form the subject-matter of the second volume.
_THREE VOLUMES ON THE DUCHESS OF BERRY._
_Each with Portrait, $1.25. Price per set, in box, cloth, $3.75; half
calf, $7.50._
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X.
THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE REVOLUTION OF JULY, 1830.
The Princess Marie Caroline, of Naples, became, upon her marriage with
the Duke of Berry, the central figure of the French Court during the
reigns of both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The former of these was
rendered eventful by the assassination of her husband and the birth of
her son, the Count of Chambord, and the latter was from the first marked
by those reactionary tendencies which resulted in the dethronement and
exile of the Bourbons. The dramatic Revolution which brought about
the July monarchy of Louis Philippe, has never been more vividly and
intelligently described than in the last volume devoted to the Duchess of
Berry.
“_In these translations of this interesting series of sketches, we have
found an unexpected amount of pleasure and profit. The author cites for
us passages from forgotten diaries, hitherto unearthed letters, extracts
from public proceedings, and the like, and contrives to combine and
arrange his material so as to make a great many very vivid and pleasing
pictures. Nor is this all. The material he lays before us is of real
value, and much, if not most of it, must be unknown save to the special
students of the period. We can, therefore, cordially commend these books
to the attention of our readers. They will find them attractive in their
arrangement, never dull, with much variety of scene and incident, and
admirably translated._”—THE NATION, _of December 19, 1890_.
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