Marie Antoinette and Her Son Part 3

"Well," cried Madame Adelaide, angrily, "its purport may be similar to that of the former letter; for, unfortunately, the causes are the same, and we may not wonder if the effects are also the same."

"Ah! one can easily see that your highness knows the contents of the letter," said Marie Antoinette, smiling, "and you will therefore certainly pardon me for not reading it. It was unquestionably written in the presence of your highness, in the pious cell of the prioress. She gave over for a while her prayers for the repose of the departed king, in order to busy herself a little with worldly things, and to listen to the calumnies which Madame Adelaide, or the Count de Provence, or the Cardinal de Kohan, or some other of the enemies of my person, have sought to hurl against the Queen of France."

"Calumnies!" replied Madame Adelaide, with an angry flash in her eyes. "Would to G.o.d, madame, that it were calumnies with which we have to do, and that all these things which trouble and disturb us were only malicious calumnies, and not sober facts!"

"And will your highness not have the goodness to communicate these facts to me?" said the queen, undisturbed, but smiling, and so only increasing the anger of the princess.

"These facts are of so varied kinds that it would be a difficult thing to choose out any separate ones among them," cried she, with fiery tone. "Every day, every hour of the life of your majesty, brings new facts to light."

"Oh!" said Marie Antoinette, "I had no idea that your highness had such tender care for me."

"And I had no idea, madame, that your frivolity went so far as continually to wound the laws, the customs, and the hallowed order of things. You do it--you do it, scorning every thing established with the random wantonness of a child that plays with fire, and does not know that the waves will flare up and consume it. Madame, I have come here to warn you once more, and for the last time."

"G.o.d be thanked, for the last time!" cried the queen, with a charming glance of her eyes.

"I conjure you, queen, for your own sake, for your husband's, for your children's, change your course; take a new direction; leave the path of danger on which you are hastening to irretrievable destruction."

The countenance of the queen, before so pleasant and animated, now darkened. Her smile gave way to a deep earnestness; she raised her head proudly and put on a royal bearing.

"Madame," said she, "up to this time I have been inclined to meet your biting philippics with the quiet indifference which innocence gives, and to remain mindful of the reverence due to age, and not to forget the harsh eyes with which the aged always look upon the deeds of youth. But you compel me to take the matter more earnestly to heart, for you join to my name that of my husband and my children, and so you appeal to my heart of hearts. Now, then, tell me, madame, what you have to bring against me."

"Your boundless frivolity, your culpable short-sightedness, your foolish pleasures, your extravagance, your love of finery, your mixing with politics, your excessive jovialness, your entertainments, your--"

Marie Antoinette interrupted this series of charges with loud, merry laughter, which more enraged the princess than the most stinging words would have done.

"Yes," she continued, "you are frivolous, for you suppose the life of a queen is one clear summer's day, to be devoted to nothing but singing and laughing. You are short-sighted, for you do not see that the flowers of this summer's day in which you rejoice, only bloom above an abyss into which you, with your wanton dancing, are about to plunge. You indulge in foolish pleasures, instead of, as becomes a Queen of France, pa.s.sing your life in seclusion, in devout meditation, in the exercise of beneficence, in pious deeds. You are a spendthrift, for you give the income of France to your favorites, to this Polignac family, which it has been reckoned receives alone a twentieth part of the whole income of the state; to these gracious lords and ladies of your so-called 'society,' supporting them in their frivolity, allowing them to make golden gain out of you. You are a lover of finery, not holding it beneath your dignity to spend whole hours with a poor milliner; allowing a man to dress your hair, and afterward to go into the toilet chambers of the Parisian dames, that their hair may be dressed by the same hands which have arranged the hair of a queen, and to imitate the coiffure which the Queen of France wears. And what kind of a coiffure is that which, invented by a queen, is baptized with a fantastic name, and carried through Paris, France, and all Europe?"

"But," said Marie Antoinette, with comical pathos, "these coiffures have, some of them, horrid names. We have, for example, the 'hog's bristles coiffure,' the 'flea-bite coiffure,' the 'dying dog,' the 'flame of love,' 'modesty's cap,' a--"

"A queen's levee," interrupted the princess; "a love's nest of Marie Antoinette. Yes, we have come to that pa.s.s that the fas.h.i.+ons are named after the queen, and all acquire a certain frivolous character, so that all the men and all the honorable women of Paris are in despair because the thoughts of their daughters, infected with the millinery tastes of the queen and the court, shun all n.o.ble thoughts, and only busy themselves with mere affairs of taste. I have shown you, and you will not be able to deny it, madame, that this decline in manners, which has been engendered by this love of finery, proceeds from you, and from you alone; that not only your love of finery is to blame, but also your coquetry, your joviality, and these unheard-of indescribable orgies to which the Queen of France surrenders herself, and to which she even allures her own husband, the King of France, the oldest son of the Church."

"What does your highness mean?" asked the queen.

"Of what entertainments are you speaking?"

"I am speaking of the entertainments which are celebrated in Trianon, to the perversion of all usage and all good manners. Of those orgies in which the queen transforms herself into a shepherdess, and permits the ladies of her court, who ought to appear before her with bended knee and with downcast eyes, to clothe themselves like her, and to put on the same bearing as the queen's!

I speak of those orgies where the king, enchanted by the charms of his wife, and allured by her coquetry, so far forgets his royal rank as even to take part himself in this stupid frivolity, and to bear a share in this trivial masquerading. And this queen, whose loud laughter fills the groves of Trianon, and who sometimes finds her pleasure in imitating the lowing of cows or the bleating of goats-- this queen will afterward put on the bearing of a statesman, and will, with those hands which have just got through arranging an 'allegorical head-dress,' dip into the machinery of state, interrupting the arrangements of her entertainments to busy herself with politics, to set aside old, cherished ministers, to bring her friends and favorites into their places, and to make the king the mere executor of her will."

"Madame," said the queen, as glowing with anger and with eyes of flame she rose from her seat--"madame, this is going too far, this oversteps the bounds that every one, even the princesses of the royal house, owe to their sovereign. I have allowed you to subject to your biting criticism my outer life, my pleasures, and my dress, but I do not allow you to take in hand my inner life--my relations to my husband and my personal honor. You presume to speak of my favorites. I demand of you to name them, and if you can show that there is one man to whom I show any other favor than a gracious queen may show to a servant, a subject whom she can honor and trust, I desire that you would give his name to the king, and that a close investigation be made into the case. I have friends; yes, thank Heaven! I have friends who prize me highly, and who are every hour prepared to give their life for their queen. I have true and faithful servants; but no one will appear and give evidence that Marie Antoinette has ever had an illicit lover. My only lover has been the king, my husband, and I hope before G.o.d that he will always remain so, so long as I live. But this is exactly what the n.o.ble princesses my aunts, what the Count de Provence, and the whole party of the old court, never will forgive me for. I have had the good fortune to win the love of my husband. The king, despite all calumnies and all intrigues, lowered his glance to the poor young woman who stood solitary near him, and whom he had been taught to prize lightly and to despise, and then he found that she was not so simple, stupid, and ugly, as she had been painted. He began to take some notice of her, and then, G.o.d be thanked, he overlooked the fact that she was of Austrian blood, and that the policy of his predecessor had urged her upon him; his heart warmed to her in love, and Marie Antoinette received this love as a gracious gift of G.o.d, as the happiness of her life. Yes, madame, I may say it with pride and joy, the king loves me, he trusts me, and therefore his wife stands nearer to him than even his exalted aunts, and I am the one whom he most trusts and whom he selects to be his chief adviser. But this is just the offence which will never be forgiven me: it has fallen to my lot to take from my enemies and opponents their influence over my husband. The time has gone by when Madame Adelaide could gain an attentive ear when she came to the king, and in her pa.s.sionate rage charged me with unheard of crimes, which had no basis excepting that in some little matters I had loosened the ancient chains of etiquette; the time is past when Madame Louise could presume to drive me with her flas.h.i.+ng anger from her pious cell and make me kneel in the dust; and when it was permitted to the Count de la Morch to accuse the queen before the king of having risen in time to behold the rising of the sun at Versailles, in company with her whole court. The king loves me, and Madame Adelaide is no longer the political counsellor of the king; the ministers will no longer be appointed according to her dictate, and the great questions of the cabinet are decided without appealing to her! I know that this is a new offence which you lay to my charge, and that by your calumniations and suspicions you make me suffer the penalty for it. I know that the Count de Provence stoops to direct epigrams and pamphlets against his sister-in-law, his sovereign, and through the agency of his creatures to scatter them through Paris. I know that in his saloons all the enemies of the queen are welcome, and that charges against me are made without rebuke, and that there the weapons are forged with which I am a.s.sailed. But take care lest some day these weapons be turned against you! It is you who are imperilling the kingdom, and undermining the throne, for you do not hesitate setting before the people an example that nothing is sacred to you; that the dignity of the throne no longer has an existence, but that it may be denied with vile insinuations, and the most poisonous arrows directed against those who wear the crown of St.

Louis on their head. But all you, the aunts, the brothers of the king, and the whole swarm of their intimates and dependents, you are all undermining the monarchy, for you forget that the foreigner, the Austrian, as you call her--that she is Queen of France, your sovereign, your lord, and that you are nothing better than her subjects. You are criminals, you are high traitors!"

"Madame," cried the Princess Adelaide, "Madame, what language is this that--"

"It is the language of a woman in reply to a calumniator, the language of a queen to a rebellious subject. Madame, have the goodness not to answer me again. You have come into the palace of your sovereign to accuse her, and she has answered you as becomes her station. Now we have nothing more to say to each other. You requested a half-hour's private audience with me, and the time has gone. Farewell, madame; my carriage stands ready, and I go to Trianon. I shall, however, say nothing to the king respecting the new attack which you have made upon me, and I promise you that I shall forget it and forgive it."

She nodded lightly, turned herself around, and, with lofty carriage and proud self-possession, left the apartment.

Princess Adelaide looked after her with an expression of the deepest hate, and entirely forgetful of her lofty station, even raised her hand threateningly in the direction of the door through which the n.o.ble figure of the queen had just vanished. "I shall not forget nor forgive," muttered she. "I shall have my revenge on this impudent person who dares to threaten me and even to defy me, and who calls herself my sovereign. This Austrian, a sovereign of the princess royal of France! We will show her where are the limits of her power, and where are the limits of France! She shall go back to Austria; we want her not, this Austrian who dares to defy us."

Proud and erect though the bearing was with which the queen left Madame Adelaide, she had hardly entered her own room and closed the door which separated her from her enemy, when she sank groaning upon a seat, and a flood of tears streamed from her eyes.

"Oh, Campan, Campan! what have I been compelled to hear?" cried she, bitterly. "With what expressions have they ventured to address the Queen of France!" Madame de Campan, the first lady-in-waiting on the queen, who had just then entered the porcelain room, hastened to her mistress, and, sinking upon her knees, pressed the fallen hand of the queen to her lips. "Your majesty is weeping!" she whispered with her mild, sympathetic voice. " Your majesty has given the princess the satisfaction of knowing that she has succeeded in drawing tears from the Queen of France, and reddening her beautiful eyes."

"No, I will not give her this pleasure," said the queen, quickly raising herself up and drying her eyes. "I will be merry, and why do I weep? She sought to make me sick; she sought to wound me, but I have given back the sickness, and the wounds which I have inflicted upon her will not so soon heal."

"Has your majesty inflicted anything upon the princess?" cried Madame de Campan, in agitation.

"Yes," answered Marie Antoinette, with triumphant joy. "I have scourged her, I have wounded her, for I have distinctly intimated to her that I am Queen of France, and she my subject. I have told her, that when she dares direct her calumnies against the queen, she is guilty of high-treason."

"Oh!" exclaimed Madame de Campan, "the proud princess will never pardon that. Your majesty has now become her irreconcilable enemy, and she will leave no stone unturned to revenge herself upon you."

"She may attempt to revenge herself upon me," cried the queen, whose countenance began to brighten up once more. "I fear neither her nor her whole set. All their arrows will fall powerless at my feet, for the love of my husband and my pure conscience form the protection which secures me. And what can these people accomplish against me?

They can slander me, that is all. But their calumnies will, in the end, prove that it is lies they tell, and no one will give them confidence more."

"Ah! your majesty does not know the wickedness of the world," sighed Campan, sadly. "Your majesty believes that the good are not cowardly, and that the bad are not reckless. Your majesty does not know that the bad have it in their power to corrupt public opinion; and that then the good have not the courage to meet this corrupting influence. But public opinion is a monster that brings the charge, pa.s.ses judgment, p.r.o.nounces the sentence, and inflicts the punishment in one person. Who thinks lightly of it, arrays against himself an enemy stronger than a whole army, and less open to entreaty than death."

"Ah!" cried the queen, raising her head proudly, "I do not fear this enemy. She shall not dare to attack me. She shall crouch and shrink before my gaze as the lion does when confronted by the eye of a virgin. I am pure and blameless. I pledged my troth to my husband before he loved me, and how shall I now break it, when he does love me, and is the father of my dear children? And now, enough of these disagreeable things that want to cast their vileness upon us! And the sun is s.h.i.+ning so splendidly, and they are waiting for me in Trianon! Come, Campan, come; the queen will take the form of a happy wife."

Marie Antoinette hastened before her lady-in-waiting, hurried into her toilet-chamber in advance of her lady-in-waiting, who followed, sighing and shaking her head, and endeavored with her own hands to loosen the stiff corset of her robe, and to free herself from the immense crinoline which imprisoned her n.o.ble form.

"Off with these garments of state and royal robes," said Marie Antoinette, gliding out of the stiff apparel, and standing in a light, white undergarment, with bare shoulders and arms. "Give me a white percale dress and a gauze mantle with it."

"Will your majesty appear again in this simple costume?" asked Madame de Campan, sighing.

"Certainly, I will," cried she; "I am going to Trianon, to my much- loved country-house. You must know, Campan, that the king has promised to spend every afternoon of a whole week with me at Trianon, and that there we are going to enjoy life, nature, and solitude. So, for a whole week, the king will only be king in the forenoon, and in the afternoon a respectable miller in the village Trianon. Now, is not that a merry thought, Campan? And do you not see that I cannot go to Trianon in any other than a light white dress?"

"Yes, your majesty, I understand; but I was only thinking that the trades-people of Lyons had just presented a paper to your majesty, in which they complain of the decadence of the silk manufacture, explaining it on the ground that your majesty has a preference for white clothing, and stating that all the ladies feel obliged to follow the example of their queen, and lay their silk robes aside."

"And do you know, too," asked Marie Antoinette, "that Madame Adelaide has herself supported this ridiculous paper of the Lyonnese merchants, giving out that I wear white percale because I want to do my brother, the Emperor Joseph, a service, and so ordered these white goods from the Netherlands? Ah, let us leave these follies of the wicked and the stupid. They shall not prevent my wearing white clothes and being happy in Trianon. Give me a white dress quickly, Campan."

"Pardon, your majesty, but I must; first summon the ladies of the robing-room," answered Madame de Campan, turning to the door of the sleeping-room.

"Oh, why all this parade?" sighed the queen. "Can I never be free from the fetters of all this ceremony? Could you not yourself, Campan, put a simple dress upon me?"

"Your majesty, I am only a poor, powerless being, and I fear enmities. The ladies would never forgive me if I should encroach upon their rights and separate them from the adored person of the queen. It is their right, it is their duty to draw the robe upon the person of your majesty, and to secure your shoes. I beg, therefore, your gracious permission to allow the ladies to come in."

"Well, do it then," sighed the queen. " Let me bear the fetters here in Versailles until the last moment. I shall have my compensation in Trianon. Be a.s.sured I shall have my compensation there."

A quarter of an hour later the queen was arrayed in her changed attire, and came out from the toilet-chamber. The stiff crinoline had disappeared; the whalebone corset, with the long projecting point, was cast aside; and the high coiffure, which Leonard had so elaborately made up in the morning, was no more to be seen. A white robe, decorated at the bottom with a simple volante, fell in broad artistic folds over her n.o.ble figure, whose full proportions had been concealed by the rigid state dress. A simple waist encircled her bust, and was held together by a blue sash, which hung in long ends at her left side. Broad cuffs, held together with simple, narrow lace, fell down as far as the wrist, but through the thin material could be seen the fair form of her beautiful arms; and the white triangle of gauze which she had thrown over her naked neck, did not entirely veil the graceful lines of her full shoulders and her n.o.ble bust. Her hair, deprived of its unnatural disfigurement, and almost entirely freed from powder, arched itself above her fine forehead in a light toupet, and fell upon her shoulders in rich brown locks, on which only a mere breath of powder had been blown.

On her arm the queen carried a great, round, straw hat, secured by blue ribbons, and over her fair, white hands she had drawn gloves of black netting.

Thus, with beaming countenance, with blus.h.i.+ng cheeks, and with smiles curling around her full red lips; thus, all innocence, merriment, and cheerfulness, Marie Antoinette entered the sitting- room, where the d.u.c.h.ess de Polignac was waiting for her, in an attire precisely like that of the queen.

The latter flew to the d.u.c.h.ess with the quickness of a young girl, with the tenderness of a sister, and drew her arm within that of her friend.

"Come, Julia," said she, "let us leave the world and enter paradise."

"Ah, I am afraid of paradise," cried the d.u.c.h.ess, with a merry smile. "I have a horror of the serpent."