The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Part 21

Even after all the atrocities and horrors of the last twelve months, the news of the resolution to bring her to a trial, which, it was impossible to doubt, it was intended to follow up by her execution, was received as a shook by the great bulk of the nation, as indeed by all Europe. And Necker's daughter, Madame de Stael, who, as we have seen, had been formerly desirous to aid in her escape, now addressed an energetic and eloquent appeal to the entire people, calling on all persons of all parties, "Republicans, Const.i.tutionalists, and Aristocrats alike, to unite for her preservation." She left unemployed no fervor of entreaty, no depth of argument. She reminded them of the universal admiration which the queen's beauty and grace had formerly excited, when "all France thought itself laid under an obligation by her charms;[12]" of the affection that she had won by her ceaseless acts of beneficence and generosity. She showed the absurdity of denouncing her as "the Austrian"--her who had left Vienna while still little more than a child, and had ever since fixed her heart as well as her home in France. She argued truly that the vagueness, the ridiculousness, the notorious falsehood of the accusations brought against her were in themselves her all-sufficient defense. She showed how useless to every party and in every point of view must be her condemnation. What danger could any one apprehend from restoring to liberty a princess whose every thought was tenderness and pity? She reproached those who now held sway in France with the barbarity of their proscriptions, with governing by terror and by death, with having overthrown a throne only to erect a scaffold in its place; and she declared that the execution of the queen would exceed in foulness all the other crimes that they had yet committed. She was a foreigner, she was a woman; to put her to death would be a violation of all the laws of hospitality as well as of all the laws of nature. The whole universe was interesting itself in the queen's fate. Woe to the nation which knew neither justice nor generosity! Freedom would never be the destiny of such a people.[13]

It had not been from any feeling of compunction or hesitation that those who had her fate in their hands left her so long in her dungeon, but from the absolute impossibility of inventing an accusation against her that should not be utterly absurd and palpably groundless. So difficult did they find their task, that the jailer, a man named Richard, who, when alone, ventured to show sympathy for her miseries, sought to encourage her by the a.s.surance that she would be replaced in the Temple. But Marie Antoinette indulged in no such illusion. She never doubted that her death was resolved on. "No," she replied to his well-meant words of hope, "they have murdered the king; they will kill me in the same way. Never again shall I see my unfortunate children, my tender and virtuous sister." And the tears which her own sufferings could not wring from her flowed freely when she thought of what they were still enduring.

But at last the eagerness for her destruction overcame all difficulties or scruples. The princ.i.p.al articles of the indictment charged her with helping to overthrow the republic and to effect the reestablishment of the throne; with having exerted her influence over her husband to mislead his judgment, to render him unjust to his people, and to induce him to put his veto on laws of which they desired the enactment; with having caused scarcity and famine; with having favored aristocrats; and with having kept up a constant correspondence with her brother, the emperor; and the preamble and the peroration compared her to Messalina, Agrippina, Brunehaut, and Catherine de' Medici--to all the wickedest women of whom ancient or modern history had preserved a record. Had she been guided by her own feelings alone, she would have probably disdained to defend herself against charges whose very absurdity proved that they were only put forward as a pretense for a judgment that had been previously decided on. But still, as ever, she thought of her child, her fair and good son, her "gentle infant," her king. While life lasted she could never wholly relinquish the hope that she might see him once again, perhaps even that some unlooked-for chance (none could be so unexpected as almost every occurrence of the last four years) might restore him and her to freedom, and him to his throne; and for his sake she resolved to exert herself to refute the charges, and at least to establish her right to acquittal and deliverance.

Louis had been tried before the Convention. Marie Antoinette was to be condemned by the, if possible, still more infamous court that had been established in the spring under the name of the Revolutionary Tribunal; and on the 13th of October she was at last conducted before a small sub-committee, and subjected to a private examination. To every question she gave firm and clear answers.[14] She declared that the French people had indeed been deceived, but not by her or by her husband. She affirmed "that the happiness of France always had been, and still was, the first wish of her heart;" and that "she should not even regret the loss of her son's throne, if it led to the real happiness of the country." She was taken back to her cell. The next day the four judges of the tribunal took their seats in the court. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, a man whose greed of blood stamped him with an especial hideousness, even in those days of universal barbarity, took his seat before them; and eleven men, the greater part of whom had been carefully picked from the very dregs of the people--journeymen carpenters, tailors, blacksmiths, and discharged policemen--were const.i.tuted the jury.

Before this tribunal--we will not dignify it with the name of a court of justice--Marie Antoinette, the widow Capet, as she was called in the indictment, was now brought. Clad in deep mourning for her murdered husband, and aged beyond her years by her long series of sorrows, she still preserved the fearless dignity which became her race and rank and character. As she took her place at the bar and cast her eyes around the hall, even the women who thronged the court, debased as they were, were struck by her lofty demeanor. "How proud she is!" was the exclamation, the only sign of nervousness that she gave being that, as those who watched her closely remarked, she moved her fingers up and down on the arm of her chair, as if she had been playing on the harpsichord. The prosecutor brought up witness after witness; some whom it was believed that some ancient hatred, others whom it was expected that some hope of pardon for themselves, might induce to give evidence such as was required. The Count d'Estaing had always been connected with her enemies. Bailly, once Mayor of Paris, as has been seen, had sought a base popularity by the wantonness of the unprovoked insults which he had offered to the king. Michonis knew that his head was imperiled by suspicions of his recent desire to a.s.sist her. But one and all testified to her entire innocence of the different charges which they had been brought forward to support, and to the falsehood of the statements contained in the indictment. Her own replies, when any question was addressed to herself, were equally in her favor.

When accused of having been the prompter of the political mesures of the king's government, her answer could not be denied to be in accordance with the law: "That she was the wife and subject of the king, and could not be made responsible for his resolutions and actions." When charged with general indifference or hostility to the happiness of the people, she affirmed with equal calmness, as she had previously declared at her private examination, that the welfare of the nation had been, and always was, the first of her wishes.

Once only did a question provoke an answer in any other tone than that of a lofty imperturbable equanimity. She had not known till that moment the depth of her enemies' wickedness, or the cruelty with which her son's mind had been dealt with, worse ten thousand times than the foulest tortures that could be applied to the body. Both her children had been subjected to an examination, in the hope that something might be found to incriminate her in the words of those who might hardly be able to estimate the exact value of their expressions. The princess had been old enough to baffle the utmost malice of her questioners; and the boy had given short and plain replies from which nothing to suit their purpose could be extracted, till they forced him to drink brandy, and, when he was stupefied with drink, compelled him to sign depositions in which he accused both the queen and Elizabeth of having trained him in lessons of vice. At first, horror at so monstrous a charge had sealed the queen's lips; but when she gave no denial, a juryman questioned her on the subject, and insisted on an answer. Then at last Marie Antoinette spoke in sublime indignation. "If I have not answered, it was because nature itself rejects such an accusation made against a mother. I appeal from it to every mother who hears me."

Marie Antoinette had been allowed two counsel, who, perilous as was the duty imposed upon them, cheerfully accepted it as an honor; but it was not intended that their a.s.sistance should be more than nominal. She had only known their names on the evening preceding the trial; but when she addressed a letter to the President of the Convention, demanding a postponement of the trial for three days, as indispensable to enable them to master the case, since as yet they had not had time even to read the whole of the indictment, adding that "her duty to her children bound her to leave nothing undone which was requisite for the entire justification of their mother," the request was rudely refused; and all that the lawyers could do was to address eloquent appeals to the judges and jurymen, being utterly unable, on so short notice, to a.n.a.lyze as they deserved the arguments of the prosecutor or the testimony by which he had professed to support them. But before such a tribunal it signified little what was proved or disproved, or what was the strength or weakness of the arguments employed on either side. It was long after midnight of the second day that the trial concluded. The jury at once p.r.o.nounced the prisoner guilty. The judges as instantly pa.s.sed sentence of death, and ordered it to be executed the next morning.

It was nearly five in the morning of the 16th of October when the favorite daughter of the great Empress-queen, herself Queen of France, was led from the court, not even to the wretched room which she had occupied for the last ten weeks, but to the condemned cell, never tenanted before by any but the vilest felons. Though greatly exhausted by the length of the proceedings, she had heard the sentence without betraying the slightest emotion by any change of countenance or gesture. On reaching her cell she at once asked for writing materials. They had been withheld from her for more than a year, but they were now brought to her; and with them she wrote her last letter to that princess whom she had long learned to love as a sister of her own, who had shared her sorrows. .h.i.therto, and who, at no distant period, was to share the fate which was now awaiting herself.

"16th October, 4.30 A.M.

"It is to you, my sister, that I write for the last time. I have just been condemned, not to a shameful death, for such is only for criminals, but to go and rejoin your brother. Innocent like him, I hope to show the same firmness in my last moments. I am calm, as one is when one's conscience reproaches one with nothing. I feel profound sorrow in leaving my poor children: you know that I only lived for them and for you, my good and tender sister. You who out of love have sacrificed everything to be with us, in what a position do I leave you! I have learned from the proceedings at my trial that my daughter was separated from you. Alas! poor child; I do not venture to write to her; she would not receive my letter. I do not even know whether this will reach you. Do you receive my blessing for both of them. I hope that one day when they are older they may be able to rejoin you, and to enjoy to the full your tender care. Let them both think of the lesson which I have never ceased to impress upon them, that the principles and the exact performance of their duties are the chief foundation of life; and then mutual affection and confidence in one another will const.i.tute its happiness. Let my daughter feel that at her age she ought always to aid her brother by the advice which her greater experience and her affection may inspire her to give him. And let my son in his turn render to his sister all the care and all the services which affection can inspire. Let them, in short, both feel that, in whatever positions they may be placed, they will never be truly happy but through their union. Let them follow our example. In our own misfortunes how much comfort has our affection for one another afforded us! And, in times of happiness, we have enjoyed that doubly from being able to share it with a friend; and where can one find friends more tender and more united than in one's own family? Let my son never forget the last words of his father, which I repeat emphatically; let him never seek to avenge our deaths. I have to speak to you of one thing which is very painful to my heart, I know how much pain the child must have caused you. Forgive him, my dear sister; think of his age, and how easy it is to make a child say whatever one wishes, especially when he does not understand it.[15] It will come to pa.s.s one day, I hope, that he will better feel the value of your kindness and of your tender affection for both of them. It remains to confide to you my last thoughts. I should have wished to write them at the beginning of my trial; but, besides that they did not leave me any means of writing, events have pa.s.sed so rapidly that I really have not had time.

"I die in the Catholic Apostolic and Roman religion, that of my fathers, that in which I was brought up, and which I have always professed. Having no spiritual consolation to look for, not even knowing whether there are still in this place any priests of that religion[16] (and indeed the place where I am would expose them to too much danger if they were to enter it but once), I sincerely implore pardon of G.o.d for all the faults which I may have committed during my life. I trust that, in his goodness, he will mercifully accept my last prayers, as well as those which I have for a long time addressed to him, to receive my soul into his mercy. I beg pardon of all whom I know, and especially of you, my sister, for all the vexations which, without intending it, I may have caused you. I pardon all my enemies the evils that they have done me. I bid farewell to my aunts and to all my brothers and sisters. I had friends. The idea of being forever separated from them and from all their troubles is one of the greatest sorrows that I suffer in dying. Let them at least know that to my latest moment I thought of them.

"Farewell, my good and tender sister. May this letter reach you. Think always of me; I embrace you with all my heart, as I do my poor dear children. My G.o.d, how heart-rending it is to leave them forever! Farewell!

farewell! I must now occupy myself with my spiritual duties, as I am not free in my actions. Perhaps they will bring me a priest; but I here protest that I will not say a word to him, but that I will treat him as a person absolutely unknown."

Her forebodings were realized; her letter never reached Elizabeth, but was carried to Fouquier, who placed it among his special records. Yet, if in those who had thus wrought the writer's destruction there had been one human feeling, it might have been awakened by the simple dignity and unaffected pathos of this sad farewell. No line that she ever wrote was more thoroughly characteristic of her. The innocence, purity, and benevolence of her soul s.h.i.+ne through every sentence. Even in that awful moment she never lost her calm, resigned fort.i.tude, nor her consideration for others. She speaks of and feels for her children, for her friends, but never for herself. And it is equally characteristic of her that, even in her own hopeless situation, she still can cherish hope for others, and can look forward to the prospect of those whom she loves being hereafter united in freedom and happiness. She thought, it may be, that her own death would be the last sacrifice that her enemies would require. And for even her enemies and murderers she had a word of pardon, and could address a message of mercy for them to her son, who, she trusted, might yet some day have power to show that mercy she enjoined, or to execute the vengeance which with her last breath she deprecated.

She threw herself on her bed and fell asleep. At seven she was roused by the executioner. The streets were already thronged with a fierce and sanguinary mob, whose shouts of triumph were so vociferous that she asked one of her jailers whether they would tear her to pieces. She was a.s.sured that, as he expressed it, they would do her no harm. And indeed the Jacobins themselves would have protected her from the populace, so anxious were they to heap on her every indignity that would render death more terrible. Louis had been allowed to quit the Temple in his carriage. Marie Antoinette was to be drawn from the prison to the scaffold in a common cart, seated on a bare plank; the executioner by her side, holding the cords with which her hands were already bound. With a refinement of barbarity, those who conducted the procession made it halt more than once, that the people might gaze upon her, pointing her out to the mob with words and gestures of the vilest insult. She heard them not; her thoughts were with G.o.d: her lips were uttering nothing but prayers. Once for a moment, as she pa.s.sed in sight of the Tuileries, she was observed to cast an agonized look toward its towers, remembering, perhaps, how reluctantly she had quit it fourteen months before. It was midday before the cart reached the scaffold. As she descended, she trod on the executioner's foot. It might seem to have been ordained that her very last words might be words of courtesy. "Excuse me, sir," she said, "I did not do it on purpose;" and she added, "make haste." In a few moments all was over.

Her body was thrown into a pit in the common cemetery, and covered with quicklime to insure its entire destruction. When, more than twenty years afterward, her brother-in-law was restored to the throne, and with pious affection desired to remove her remains and those of her husband to the time-honored resting-place of their royal ancestors at St. Denis, no remains of her who had once been the admiration of all beholders could be found beyond some fragments of clothing, and one or two bones, among which the faithful memory of Chateaubriand believed that he recognized the mouth whose sweet smile had been impressed on his memory since the day on which it acknowledged his loyalty on his first presentation, while still a boy, at Versailles.

Thus miserably perished, by a death fit only for the vilest of criminals, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of one sovereign, the wife of another, who had never wronged or injured one human being. No one was ever more richly endowed with all the charms which render woman attractive, or with all the virtues that make her admirable. Even in her earliest years, her careless and occasionally undignified levity was but the joyous outpouring of a pure innocence of heart that, as it meant no evil, suspected none; while it was ever blended with a kindness and courtesy which sprung from a genuine benevolence. As queen, though still hardly beyond girlhood when she ascended the throne, she set herself resolutely to work by her admonitions, and still more effectually by her example, to purify a court of which for centuries the most shameless profligacy had been the rule and boast; discountenancing vice and impiety by her marked reprobation, and reserving all her favor and protection for genius and patriotism, and honor and virtue. Surrounded at a later period by unexampled dangers and calamities, she showed herself equal to every vicissitude of fortune, and superior to its worst frowns. If her judgment occasionally erred, it was in cases where alternatives of evil were alone offered to her choice, and in which it is even now scarcely possible to decide what course would have been wiser or safer than that which she adopted. And when at last the long conflict was terminated by the complete victory of her combined enemies-- when she, with her husband and her children, was bereft not only of power, but even of freedom, and was a prisoner in the hands of those whose unalterable object was her destruction--she bore her acc.u.mulated miseries with a serene resignation, an intrepid fort.i.tude, a true heroism of soul, of which the history of the world does not afford a brighter example.

FOOTNOTES

PREFACE

[1] One ent.i.tled "Marie-Antoinette, correspondance secrete entre Marie- Therese et le Comte Mercy d'Argenteau, avec des lettres de Marie-Therese et de Marie-Antoinette." (The edition referred to in this work is the greatly enlarged second edition in three volumes, published at Paris, 1875.) The second is ent.i.tled "Marie-Antoinette, Joseph II., and Leopold II," published at Leipsic, 1866.

[2] Ent.i.tled "Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, et Madame Elizabeth," in six volumes, published at intervals from 1864 to 1873.

[3] In his "Nouveau Lundi," March 5th, 1866, M. Sainte-Beuve challenged M.

Feuillet de Conches to a more explicit defense of the authenticity of his collection than he had yet vouchsafed; complaining, with some reason, that his delay in answering the charges brought against it "was the more vexatious because his collection was only attacked in part, and in many points remained solid and valuable." And this challenge elicited from M.F.

de Conches a very elaborate explanation of the sources from which he procured his doc.u.ments, which he published in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15th, 1866, and afterward in the Preface to his fourth volume. That in a collection of nearly a thousand doc.u.ments he may have occasionally been too credulous in accepting cleverly executed forgeries as genuine letters is possible, and even probable; in fact, the present writer regards it as certain. But the vast majority, including all those of the greatest value, can not be questioned without imputing to him a guilty knowledge that they were forgeries--a deliberate bad faith, of which no one, it is believed, has ever accused him.

It may be added that it is only from the letters of this later period that any quotations are made in the following work; and the greater part of the letters so cited exists in the archives at Vienna, while the others, such as those, addressed by the Queen, to Madame de Polignac, etc., are just such as were sure to be preserved as relics by the families of those to whom they were addressed, and can therefore hardly be considered as liable to the slightest suspicion.

CHAPTER I.

[1] Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," August 8th, 1864.

CHAPTER II.

[1] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par E. and J. de Goncourt, p. 11.

[2] How popular masked halls were in London at this time may be learned from Walpole's "Letters," and especially from a pa.s.sage in which he gives an account of one given by "sixteen or eighteen young Lords" just two months before this ball at Vienna.--_Walpole to Mann_, dated February 27th, 1770. Some one a few years later described the French nation as half tiger and half monkey; and it is a singular coincidence that Walpole's comment on this masquerading fas.h.i.+on should be, "It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there should be a good dose of the monkey too."

[3] "Memoires concernant Marie Antoinette," par Joseph Weber (her foster- brother), i., p. 6.

[4] "Goethe's Biography," p. 287.

[5] "Memoires de Bachaumont," January 30th, 1770.

[6] La maison du roi.

[7] Chevalier d'honneur. We have no corresponding office at the English court.

[8] The king said, "Vous etiez deja de la famille, car votre mere a l'ame de Louis le Grand."--SAINTE-BEUVE, _Nouveaux Lundis_, viii., p. 322.

[9] In the language of the French heralds, the t.i.tle princes of the royal family was confined to the children or grandchildren of the reigning sovereign. His nephews and cousins were only princes of the blood.

CHAPTER III.

[1] The word is Maria Teresa's own; "anti-francais" occurring in more than one of her letters.

[2] Quoted by Mme. du Deffand in a letter to Walpole, dated May 19th, 1770 ("Correspondance complete de Mme. du Deffand," ii., p.59).

[3] Mercy to Marie-Therese, August 4th, 1770; "Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et la Comte de Mercy Argenteau, avec des Lettres de Marie-Therese et Marie Antoinette," par M. le Chevalier Alfred d'Arneth, i., p. 29. For the sake of brevity, this Collection will be hereafter referred to as "Arneth."

[4] "The King of France is both hated and despised, which seldom happens to the same man."--LORD CHESTERFIELD, _Letter to Mr. Dayrolles_, dated May 19th, 1752.

[5] Maria Teresa died in December, 1780.

[6] Mme. du Deffand, letter of May 19th, 1770.

[7] Chambier, i., p. 60.

[8] Mme. de Campan, i., p. 3.

[9] He told Mercy she was "'vive et un peu enfant, mais," ajouta-t-il, "cela est bien de son age.'"--ARNETH, i., p. 11.