The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Part 5

It was not till Christmas that the royal family went out of mourning; but, as soon as it was left off, the court returned to its accustomed gayety-- b.a.l.l.s, concerts, and private theatricals occupying the evenings; though the people remarked with undisguised satisfaction that the expenses of former years had been greatly retrenched. It was also noticed that many foreigners of distinction, and especially some English ladies of high rank, gladly accepted invitations to the b.a.l.l.s, which they certainly would not have done while their presence was likely to bring them into contact with Madame du Barri. Lady Ailesbury is especially mentioned as having been received with marked distinction by the queen, and also by the king, who was careful to show his approval of her entertainments by the share which he took in them; and, as he paraded the saloons arm-in-arm with her, to distinguish those whom she noticed, so that, to quote the words of one of the most lively chroniclers of the day, their example seemed to be fast bringing conjugal love and fidelity into fas.h.i.+on. She even persuaded him to depart still further from his usual reserve, so as to appear in costume at more than one fancy ball; the dress which he chose being that of the only predecessor of his own house whom he could in any point have desired to resemble, Henry IV. He had already been indirectly compared to that monarch, the first Bourbon king, by the ingenious flattery of a print- *seller. In the long list of sovereigns who had reigned over France in the five hundred years which had pa.s.sed by since the warrior-saint of the Crusades had laid down his life on the sands of Tunis, there had been but two to whom their countrymen could look back with affection or respect-- Louis XII., to whom his subjects had given the t.i.tle of The Good, and Henry, to whom more than one memorial still preserved the surname of The Great. And the courtly picture-dealer, eager to make his market of the grat.i.tude with which his fellow-citizens greeted the reforms with which the reigning sovereign had already inaugurated his reign, contrived to extract a compliment to him even out of the severe prose of the multiplication-table; publis.h.i.+ng a joint portrait of the three kings, Louis XII., Henry IV., and Louis XVI., with an inscription beneath to testify that 12 and 4 made 16.

In the spring of 1775, Marie Antoinette received a great pleasure in a visit from her younger brother, Maximilian. He was the only member of her family whom she had seen in the five years that had elapsed since she left Vienna. But, eagerly as she had looked forward to his visit, it did not bring her unmixed satisfaction, being marred by the ill-breeding of the princes of the blood, and still more by the approval of their conduct displayed by the citizens of Paris, which seemed to afford a convincing evidence of the small effect which even the queen's virtues and graces had produced in softening the old national feeling of enmity to the house of Austria. The archduke, who was still but a youth, did not a.s.sert his royal rank while on his travels, but preserved such an _incognito_ as princes on such occasions are wont to a.s.sume, and took the t.i.tle of Count de Burgau.

The king's brothers, however, like the king himself, paid no regard to his disguise, but visited him at the first instant of his arrival; but the princes of the blood stood on their dignity, refused to acknowledge a rank which was not publicly avowed, or to recollect that the visitor was a foreigner and brother to their queen, and insisted on receiving the attention of the first visit from him. The excitement which the question caused in the palace, and the queen's indignation at the slight thus offered, as she conceived, to her brother, were great. High words pa.s.sed between her and the Duc d'Orleans, the chief of the recusants, on the subject; and one part of her remonstrance throws a curious additional light on the strange distance which, as has been already pointed out, the etiquette of the French court had established between the sovereigns and the very highest of their subjects, even the nearest of their relations.

The duke had insisted on the _incognito_ as debarring Maximilian from all claim to attention from a prince like himself whose rank was not concealed. She urged that the king and his brothers had not regarded it in that light. "The duke knew," she said, "that the king had treated Maximilian as a brother; that he even invited him to sup in private with himself and her, an honor to which no prince of the blood had ever pretended." And, finally, warming with her subject, she told him that, though her brother would be sorry not to make the acquaintance of the princes of the blood, he had many other things in Paris to see, and would manage to do without it.[2] Her expostulation was fruitless. The princes adhered to their resolution, and she to hers. They were not admitted to any of the festivities of the palace during the archduke's stay, and were even excluded from all the private entertainments which were given in his honor, since she made it known that the king and she would refuse to attend any to which they were invited. But, though their conduct was surely both discourteous to a foreigner and disrespectful to their sovereign, the Parisian populace took their part; and some of them who showed themselves ostentatiously in the streets of the city on days on which there were parties at Versailles were loudly applauded by a crowd which was not entirely drawn from the lower cla.s.ses. It was noticed that the Duc de Chartres, the son of the Duc d'Orleans, was one of the foremost in exciting this anti-Austrian feeling, the outbreak of which was especially remarkable as the first instance in which the enthusiasm of the citizens for Marie Antoinette seemed to have cooled, or at least to have been interrupted. And this change in their feelings produced so painful an impression on her mind, that, after her brother's departure, she abandoned her intention of going to the opera, though Gluck's "Orfeo" was to be performed, lest she should meet with a reception less cordial than that to which she had hitherto been accustomed.

This ebullition against the house of Austria, however, was at the moment dictated rather by discontent with the Home Government than by any settled feeling on the subject of foreign politics. Corn had been at a rather high price in Paris and its neighborhood throughout the winter; and the dearness was taken advantage of by the enemies of Turgot, and employed by them as an argument to prove the impolicy of his measures to introduce freedom of trade. They even organized[3] formidable riots at Paris and Versailles, which, however, Turgot, whose resolution was equal to his capacity, prevailed on the king to repress by acts of vigor very unusual to him, and very foreign to his disposition. The troops were called out; the Parliament was summoned to a Bed of Justice, and enjoined to put the law in force against the guilty; two of the most violent revolters were executed; order was restored, and the wholly fact.i.tious character of the outbreak was proved by the tranquillity which ensued, though the price of bread remained unaltered till the commencement of the harvest, the citizens themselves presently making a jest of their sedition, and nicknaming it The War of the Grains.[4]

In France, one excitement soon drives out another, and the whole attention of the nation was now fixed on the coronation, which had been appointed to take place in June. After some discussion, it had been settled that Louis should be crowned alone. There had not been many precedents for the coronation of a queen in France; and the last instance, that of Marie de Medicis, as having been followed by the a.s.sa.s.sination of her husband, was regarded by many as a bad omen. If Marie Antoinette had herself expressed any wish to be her husband's partner in the solemnity, it would certainly have been complied with, and their subsequent fate would have been regarded as a confirmation of the evil augury. But she was indifferent on the subject, and quite contented to behold it as a spectator. It took place on Sunday, the 11th of June, in the grand Cathedral at Rheims. The progress of the royal family, which had quit Versailles for that city on the preceding Monday, had resembled a triumphant procession, so enthusiastic had been the acclamations which had greeted the king and queen at each town through which they had pa.s.sed; and all the previous displays of joy were outdone by the demonstrations afforded by the citizens of Rheims itself. It was midnight, on the 8th of June, when the queen reached the gates; but the road outside and the streets inside were thronged with a crowd as dense as midday could have produced, which followed her to the archbishop's palace, making the whole city resound with their loyal cheers; and which, the next morning, awaited her coming-forth after holding a grand reception of all the n.o.bles of the province, to meet the king when he made his solemn entry in the afternoon. The ceremony in the cathedral was one of great magnificence; but, in the account of the day which, after her return to Versailles, she wrote to her mother, she does not enter into details, as being necessarily known to the empress in their general character; confining herself rather to a description of the impression which the manifest cordiality with which the whole people had entered into the spirit of the solemnity had made upon her own mind and heart.[5]

"The coronation was perfect in every respect. It was made plain that every one was highly delighted with the king, and so he deserves that all his subjects should be. Great and small, all displayed the greatest interest in him; and at the moment of placing the crown on his head the ceremonies of the church were interrupted by the most touching acclamations. I could not restrain myself; my tears flowed in spite of all my efforts, and the people were pleased to see them. During the whole time of our journey I did my best to correspond to the earnestness of the people; and although the heat was great, and the crowd immense, I do not regret my fatigue, which, moreover, has not injured my health. It is a very astonis.h.i.+ng circ.u.mstance, but at the same time a very pleasant one, to be so well received only two months after the revolt, and in spite of the high price of bread, which unhappily still continues. It is a strange peculiarity in the French character to allow themselves to be so easily led away by mischievous suggestions, and then immediately to return to good behavior.

It is very certain that when we see people, even in times of distress, treating us so well, we are the more bound to labor for their happiness.

The king seems to me penetrated with this truth. As for me, I feel that all my life, even if I were to live a hundred years, I shall never forget the coronation day."

But all the tumultuous pomp and exultation only made her return with renewed pleasure to her quiet retreat of the Trianon, which, with the a.s.sistance of the ill.u.s.trious Buffon, then superintendent of the king's gardens, and of Bernard de Jussieu, Director of the Jardin des Plantes, and celebrated as one of the first botanists of Europe, she was laying out with a delicate taste that long rendered it one of the chief attractions to all the inhabitants of the district. For the sentiment which she expressed in the letter to the empress, which has just been quoted, was not the mere formal utterance of a barren philanthropy, but was dictated and carried out by an active benevolence. She felt in her inmost heart the duty which she there professed, of exerting herself to promote the happiness of the people, and was far too unselfish to desire to keep to herself the whole of the delight her gardens were calculated to afford.

The Trianon was a possession exactly calculated to gratify her taste for innocent rural pleasure. As she said herself, at Versailles she was a queen; here she was a plain country lady, superintending not only her flowers, but her farm-yard and her dairy, taking pride in her stock and her produce. She would invite the king and the rest of the royal family to garden parties, where, at a table set out under a bower of honeysuckle, she would pour out their coffee with her own hands, boasting of the thickness of her cream, the freshness of her eggs, the ruddiness and flavor of her strawberries, as so many proofs of her skill in managing her establishment; and would not fear to shock her aunts by tempting one of her sisters-in-law to a game at ball, or battledoor and shuttlec.o.c.k. But she probably enjoyed still more the power of gratifying the inhabitants of Versailles and the neighborhood. The moment that her improvements were completed, she opened the gardens to the public to walk in, and gave out-of-door parties and children's dances, to which all the inhabitants of Versailles who presented themselves in decent apparel were admitted. She would even open the dance herself with some well-conducted boy, and afterward stroll among the crowd, talking affably to all the company, even to the governesses and nurses, and delighting the parents with the interest which she exhibited in the characters, the growth, and even the names of the children.

There were some who, startled at the unwonted sight of a sovereign so treating her subjects as fellow-creatures, confessed a fear that such familiarity was not without its dangers;[6] but the objects of her condescension wors.h.i.+ped her for it; and for a time at least the great majority of the nation forgot that she was Austrian. She was now nearly twenty years of age. Her form had developed into a rare perfection of elegance. Her features had added to the original brilliancy of her girlish loveliness something of that higher beauty which judgment and sagacity inspire, and which dignity renders only the more imposing; while the same benevolence and purity beamed in every look which were remarked as her most sterling characteristics on her first arrival in the country. And it is not to her French or German admirers alone that we are reduced to trust for the impression which at this time she made on all beholders. We have seen that English gentlemen and ladies of rank were frequent visitors to the French court; and from two of these, men of widely different characters, talents, and turns of mind, we have a striking concurrence of testimony as to the power of the fascination which she exerted on all who came within the sphere of her influence. Burke was the earlier visitor.

Indeed, it was in the last months of the preceding reign, while she was still dauphiness, that she had excited in his enthusiastic imagination those emotions which he afterward described in words which will live as long as the English language. It was in the spring of 1774 that it seemed to him that "surely never lighted on this...o...b.. which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in-- glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy." No one could be less like Burke than Horace Walpole, a cynical observer, who piqued himself on indifference, and especially on a superiority to the vulgar belief in the merits and attractions of kings and princes. Yet his report of the charms of Marie Antoinette, as he saw them in the autumn of this year, 1775, reveals an admiration of them as vivid as that of the warm-hearted and more poetical Irishman. He saw her, as he reports to Lady Ossory, first at a state court hall,[7] given on the occasion of the marriage of the Princess Clotilde, in the theatre of the palace; and he would have desired to give his correspondent some description of the beauty of the building; "the bravest in the universe, and yet one in which taste predominates over expense;" but he was absorbed by the still more powerful attractions of the princess whom he had seen in it: "What I have to say I can tell your ladys.h.i.+p in a word, for it was impossible to see any thing but the queen. Hebes, and Floras, and Helens, and Graces are street-walkers to her. She is a statue and beauty when standing or sitting; grace itself when she moves." As he is writing to a lady, he proceeds to describe her dress, which to ladies of the present day may still have its interest: "She was dressed in silver, scattered over with _laurier_ roses; few diamonds; and feathers, much lower than the monument." He proceeds to describe the ball itself, and some of the company, which was, however, very select; but at every sentence or two he comes back to the queen, so deep and so real was the impression which she had made on him. "Monsieur is very handsome. The Comte d'Artois is a better figure and a better dancer. Their characters approach to those of two other royal dukes.[8] There were but eight minuets, and, except the queen and princesses, only eight lady dancers; I was not so much struck with the dancing as I expected. For beauty I saw none, or the queen effaced all the rest. After the minuets were French country-dances, much inc.u.mbered by the long trains, longer tresses, and hoops. In the intervals of dancing, baskets of peaches, china oranges (a little out of season), biscuits, ices, and wine-and-water were presented to the royal family and dancers. The ball lasted just two hours. The monarch did not dance, but for the first two rounds of the minuet even the queen does not turn her back to him. Yet her behavior is as easy as divine."

Such was a French court ball on days of most special ceremony, a somewhat solemn affair, which required graciousness such as that of Marie Antoinette to make admission to every one a very enviable privilege; even though its stiffness had been in some degree relieved by a new regulation of the queen, that the invitations, which had hitherto been confined to matrons, should be extended to unmarried girls. Scarcely any change produced greater consternation among the admirers of old customs. The dowagers searched all the registers of those who had been admitted to the court b.a.l.l.s since the beginning of the century to fortify their objections. But, to their dismay, some of the early festivities in the time of Marie Leczinska proved to have been shared by one or two n.o.ble maidens. The discovery was of little importance, since Marie Antoinette had shown that she was not afraid of making precedents. But still it in some degree silenced the grumblers, and for the rest of the reign no one contested the queen's right to decide who should, and who should not, be admitted to her society.

CHAPTER XI.

Tea is introduced.--Horse-racing of Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette goes to see it--The Queen's Submissiveness to the Reproofs of the Empress.-- Birth of the Duc d'Angouleme.--She at times speaks lightly of the King.-- The Emperor remonstrates with her.--Character of some of the Queen's Friends.--The Princess de Lamballe.--The Countess Jules de Polignac.-- They set the Queen against Turgot.--She procures his Dismissal.--She gratifies Madame Polignac's Friends.--Her Regard for the French People.-- Water Parties on the Seine.--Her Health is Delicate.--Gambling at the Palace.

Nor were these the only innovations which marked the age. A rage for adopting English fas.h.i.+ons--_Anglomanie_, as it was called--began to prevail; and, among the different modes in which it exhibited itself, it is especially noticed that tea[1] was now introduced, and began to share with coffee the privileges of affording sober refreshment to those who aspired in their different ways to give the tone to French society.

A less innocent novelty was a pa.s.sion for horse-racing, in which the Comte d'Artois and the Duc de Chartres set the example of indulging, establis.h.i.+ng a race-course in the Bois de Boulogne. The count had but little difficulty in persuading the queen to attend it, and she soon showed so decided a fancy for the sport, and became so regular a visitor of it, that a small stand was built for her, which in subsequent years provoked some unfavorable comments, when the princess obtained her leave to give luncheon in it to some of their racing friends, who were not in all instances of a character deserving to be brought into a royal presence.

She pursued this, as she pursued every other amus.e.m.e.nt which she took up, with great keenness for a while, so much so as to provoke earnest remonstrances from her mother, whose letters were commonly dictated by Mercy's reports and suggestions. Nor, if she felt uneasiness, did Maria Teresa spare her daughter, or take any great care to moderate her language of reproof. At times her tone is so severe as to excite a feeling of wonder at the submissiveness with which her letters were received. No express eulogy of her admirers could give so great an idea of Marie Antoinette's amiability, good-nature, genuine modesty, and sincere affection for her mother, as the ingenuousness with which she admits errors, or the temper with which she urges excuses. To that venerated parent she is just as patient of admonition, now that she is seated on a throne, as she could have been in her schoolroom at Schonbrunn; and, in reply to the scoldings (no milder word can do justice to the earnest vehemence of the letters which at this time she received from Vienna), she pleads not only that an appet.i.te for amus.e.m.e.nt is natural to her age, but that she enters into none of which the king does not fully approve, and none which are ever allowed to interfere with her giving him full enjoyment of her society whenever he has leisure or inclination for it.

But her replies to her mother hint also at the continuance of the old causes for her restlessness, and for her eager pursuit of new diversions to distract her thoughts. Her natural desire for children of her own was greatly increased when, on the 12th of August, her sister-in-law, the Countess d'Artois, presented her husband with a son.[2] She treated the young mother with a sisterly kindness suited to the occasion, which extorted the unqualified praise of Mercy himself; but she could not restrain her feelings on the subject to her mother, and she expressed to her frankly the extreme pain "which she suffered at thus seeing an heir to the throne who was not her own child." Nor is it strange that at such moments she should feel hurt at the coldness with which her husband continued to behave toward her, or that she should ran eagerly after any excitement which might aid in diverting her mind from a comparison of her own position with that of her happier sister-in-law.[3]

It would have been well if she had confined her expressions of disappointment to her mother. But since we may not disguise her occasional acts of imprudence, it must be confessed that at times her mortification led her to speak of her husband to strangers in a tone of disparagement which was highly unbecoming. Maximilian had been accompanied by the Count de Rosenburg, who had in consequence been admitted to the intimate society of the court during the archduke's visit, and who had inspired Marie Antoinette with so favorable an opinion of his character and judgment that after his return to Vienna she more than once sent him an account of the proceedings at the palace since her brother's departure. She describes to him a series of concerts, at which she had sung herself with some of her ladies. She gives him a list of the guests, remarking, with a particularity which seems to show that she expects her words to be reported to the empress, that the gentlemen, though amiable and well bred, were not young. But she also complains that the king's tastes do not resemble hers, that he cares for nothing but hunting and mechanical employments; and, indulging in an unwonted bit of sarcasm, she proceeds: "You will allow that I should not look well beside a forge. I could never become a Vulcan; and the part of Venus would displease him more than my real tastes, which he does not disapprove." In another letter she mentions him in a tone of contemptuous pity, almost equally unbecoming, speaking of him as "the poor man" whom she had made a tool of to further some views of her own, though Mercy a.s.sured the empress that her a.s.sertion of having so treated him was a mere fiction of her imagination, to impart a sort of lively tone to her letter; that, in spite of occasional outbursts of levity, she had in reality the firmest affection and esteem for Louis; and that nothing could be more irreproachable than her conduct toward him in every respect. He added that the people in general did her full justice on this head; that if her popularity with the Parisians had for a moment suffered any diminution through the artifices of faction, the cloud had been blown away; and that she had been recently received at the different theatres with as fervent a loyalty as had greeted even her first appearance.

The empress, however, was so uneasy that she induced her son, the Emperor Joseph, to add his expostulations to hers; and he, who was a prince of considerable shrewdness, as well as of a high idea of the proprieties of his rank, wrote her a long letter of remonstrance; imputing with great truth the failings, which he pointed out with sufficient plainness, to a facility of disposition which made her indulgent to the manoeuvres of those whom she admitted to her friends.h.i.+p, but who did not deserve such an honor. He even spoke of the society which she had gathered round her, as calculated to prevent him from performing his promise of paying her a visit; "for what should he do in a court of frivolous intriguers?" And he concluded by urging her to prevent these false friends from making a tool of her for the gratification of their own selfishness and rapacity; and to be solicitous for no friends.h.i.+p or confidence but that of her husband; the study of whose wishes was to her not only a state duty, but the only one which would make her permanently happy, and secure to her the lasting affection of the people.

There was, however, no subject on which Marie Antoinette was so little amenable to advice as the choice of her friends, and none on which she more required it. Above all the frequenters of the court, two ladies were distinguished by her especial favor--the Princess de Lamballe and the Countess de Polignac. The princess, a daughter of the Prince de Carignan in Savoy, having been married to the son of the Duc de Penthievre, was left a widow before she was twenty years of age. She had been originally recommended to Mario Antoinette in the first year of her residence in France, partly by her royal birth, and partly by her misfortunes; and the attachment which the dauphiness at once conceived for her was cemented by the ardor with which it was returned. In many respects the princess well deserved the favor with which she was regarded. Her temper was sweet and amiable; her character singularly truthful and sincere; and, that she might never be separated from her friend, the place of superintendent of the queen's household was revived for her. Some cavilers were disposed to grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified the queen's choice by the proof it afforded of the princess's unalterable fidelity and devotion.

But the countess was a very different character. She had, indeed, a well-bred air of good humor, but that, with her youth (she was but twenty years of age), was her only qualification; for her capacity was narrow, her disposition selfish and grasping, and she was so inveterate a manoeuvrer, that, when she had no intrigues of her own on foot, she was always ready to lend herself to the plots of others. What was worse, she did not enjoy an untainted character. The name of the Comte de Vaudreuil was often coupled with hers in the scandals of the court. And the queen, since she could hardly be ignorant of the reports which were circulated, incurred, by the marked favor which she showed to the countess, the imputation of shutting her eyes to the frailties of her friends, and thus showing that dissoluteness was not an insuperable barrier to her partiality. It was only the earnest remonstrance of Mercy which prevented her from conferring the place of lady of honor on the countess; but she allowed her to exert a pernicious influence over her in many ways, for the countess was unwearied in soliciting appointments and pensions for her relatives; at times making demands in such numbers, and of so exorbitant a character, that the queen herself was forced to admit the impossibility of granting them all, though she still sought to gratify her to far too great an extent, and would not allow the proved insatiability of her and her family to open her eyes to her real character.

It was, however, a far more mischievous submission to the influence of the countess and her coterie, when she permitted them to prejudice her against Turgot, whom she had more than once described to her mother as an upright statesman, and who had constantly shown, so far as he could make compliance consistent with his duty to the State, a sincere desire to consult her wishes. But as the Polignac party saw in his prudence, integrity, and firmness the most formidable obstacle to their project of using the queen's favor to enrich themselves, she now yielded up her judgment to their calumnies. Forgetting her former praises of the minister's integrity, she began to disparage him as one whose measures caused general dissatisfaction, and at last she pushed her hostility to him so far that she actually tried to induce Louis not to be content with dismissing him from office, but to send him as a prisoner to the Bastille.[4] That she could not avoid feeling some shame at the part which she had acted may be inferred from the pains which she took to conceal it from her mother, whom she a.s.sured that, though she was not sorry for his dismissal, she had in no degree interfered in the matter; but "her conduct and even her intentions were well known, and known to be far removed from all manoeuvres and intrigues.[5]"

Unfortunately the amba.s.sador's letters tell a different story. As a sincere friend as well as a loyal servant of Marie Antoinette, he expresses to the empress his deep feeling that, "as the comptroller- general enjoyed a great reputation for integrity, and was beloved by the people, it was a melancholy thing that his dismissal should be in part the queen's work,[6]" and his fear that her conduct in the affair may "hereafter bring upon her the reproaches of the king her husband, and even of the entire nation." The foreboding thus uttered was but too sadly realized. She had driven from her husband's councils the only man who combined with the penetration to perceive the absolute necessity of a large reform and the character of the changes required, the genius to devise them and the firmness to carry them out.

Thirteen years later, a variety of causes, some of which will be unfolded in the course of this narrative, had contributed to irritate the impatience of the nation, while the unskillfulness of the existing minister had disarmed the royal authority. And the very same reforms which would now have been accepted with general thankfulness were then only used by demagogues as a pretext for further inflaming the minds of the mult.i.tude against every thing which bore the slightest appearance of authority, even against the very sovereign who had granted them. France and all Europe to this day feel the sad effects of Marie Antoinette's interference.

She had given fatal proof of the truth of the words wrung from her by nervous excitement at the moment of the late king's death, when she declared that Louis and she were too young to reign; and the best excuse that can be found for her is that she was not yet one-and-twenty. It was not, however, wholly from submission to the interested malevolence of others that she had shown herself the enemy of the great financier and statesman. She had a spontaneous dislike to the retrenchments which necessarily formed a great portion of his economical measures; not as interfering with the indulgence of any extravagant tastes of her own, but as restraining her power of gratifying her friends. For she was entirely impressed with the idea that no person or body could have any right to call in question the king's disposal of the national revenue; and that there was no prerogative of the crown of which the exercise was more becoming to the royal dignity than that of granting pensions or creating sinecures with no limitations but such as might be imposed by his own will or discretion. And on this point her husband fully shared her feelings.

"What," said he, on one occasion to Turgot, who was urging him to refuse an utterly unwarrantable application for a pension. "What are a thousand crowns a year?" "Sire," replied the minister, "they are the taxation of a village." The king acquiesced for the moment, but probably not without some secret wincing at the control to which he seemed to be subjected; and we may, perhaps, suppose that even the queen's disapproval of the minister would have been less effectual had it not been re-enforced by the king's own feelings.

In fact, that the part which she took against the great minister was the fruit of mere inconsiderateness and ignorance of the feelings and necessities of the nation, and that, if she had known the depth of the people's distress, and the degree in which it was caused by the viciousness of the whole existing system of government, she would gladly have promoted every measure which could tend to their relief, we may find abundant proof in a letter which she had written to her mother, a few weeks earlier. Maria Teresa had spoken with some harshness of the French fickleness. Marie Antoinette replies:[7]

"You are quite right in all you say about French levity, but I am truly grieved that on that account you should conceive an aversion for the nation. The disposition of the people is very inconsistent, but it is not bad. Pens and tongues utter a great many things which are not in their heart. The proof that they do not cherish hatred is that on the very slightest occasion they speak well of one, and even praise one much more than one deserves. I have just this moment myself had experience of this.

There had been a terrible fire in Paris in the Palace of Justice, and the same day I was to have gone to the opera, so I did not go, but sent two hundred louis to relieve the most pressing cases of distress;[8] and ever since the fire, the very same people who had been circulating libels and songs against me[9] have been extolling me to the skies."

These revelations of her inmost thoughts to her mother show how real and warm was her affection for the French as a nation, as well as how little she claimed any merit for her endeavors to benefit them; though a subsequent pa.s.sage in the same letter also shows that she had been so much annoyed by some pasquinades and libels, of which she had been the subject, that she had become careful not to furnish fresh opportunities to her enemies: "We have had here such a quant.i.ty of snow as has not been seen for many years, so that people are going about in sledges, as they do at Vienna. We were out in them yesterday about this place; and to-day there is to be a grand procession of them through Paris. I should greatly have liked to be able to go; but, as a queen has never been seen at such things, people might have made up stories if I had gone, and I preferred giving up the pleasure to being worried by fresh libels."

She was still as eager as ever in the pursuit of amus.e.m.e.nt, and especially of novelties in that way, when not restrained by considerations such as those which she here mentions. When at Choisy, she gave water parties on the river in boats with awnings, which she called gondolas, rowing down as far as the very entrance to the city. It was not quite a prudent diversion for her, for at this time her health was not very strong. She easily caught cold, and the reports of such attacks often caused great uneasiness at Vienna; but the watermen were highly delighted, looking on her act in putting herself under their care as a compliment to their craft; and some of them, to increase her pleasure, jumped overboard and swam about. Their well-meant gallantry, however, was nearly having an unfavorable effect; unaware that it was not an accident, she thought that their lives were in danger, and the fear for them turned her sick, while Madame de Lamballe fainted away. But when she perceived the truth, the qualm pa.s.sed away, and she rewarded them handsomely for their ducking; begging, however, that it might not be repeated, and a.s.suring them that she needed no such proof to convince her of their dutiful and faithful loyalty.

But the craving for excitement which was bred and nourished by the continuance of her unnatural position with respect to her husband in some parts of his treatment of her, was threatening to produce a very pernicious effect by leading her to become a gambler. Some of those ladies whom she admitted to her intimacy were deeply infected with this fatal pa.s.sion; and one of the most mischievous and intriguing of the whole company, the Princess de Guimenee, introduced a play-table at some of her b.a.l.l.s, which she induced Marie Antoinette to attend. At first the queen took no share in the play; as she had hitherto borne none, or only a formal part, in the gaming which, as we have seen, had long been a recognized feature in court entertainments; but gradually the hope of banis.h.i.+ng vexation, if only by the subst.i.tution of a heavier care, got dominion over her, and in the autumn of 1776 we find Mercy commenting on her losses at lansquenet and faro, at that time the two most fas.h.i.+onable round games, the stakes at which often rose to a very considerable amount.

Though she continued to indulge in this unhealthy pastime for some time, in Mercy's opinion she never took any real interest in it. She practiced it only because she wished to pa.s.s the time, and to drive away thought; and because the one accomplishment she wanted was the art of refusing. She even carried her complaisance so far as to allow professed gaming-table keepers to be brought from Paris to manage a faro-bank in her apartments, where the play was often continued long after midnight. It was not the least evil of this habit that it unavoidably left the king, who never quit his own apartments in the evening, to pa.s.s a great deal of time by himself; but, as if to make up for his coldness in one way, he was most indulgent in every other, and seemed to have made it a rule never to discountenance any thing which could amuse her. His behavior to her, in Mercy's eyes, seemed to resemble servility; "it was that of the most attentive courtier," and was carried so far as to treat with marked distinction persons whose character he was known to disapprove, solely because she regarded them with favor.[10]

In cases such as these the defects in the king's character contributed very injuriously to aggravate those in hers. She required control, and he was too young to exercise it. He had too little liveliness to enter into her amus.e.m.e.nts; too little penetration to see that, though many of them-- it may be said all, except the gaming-table--were innocent if he partook of them, indulgence in them, when he did not share them, could hardly fail to lead to unfriendly comments and misconstruction; though even his presence could hardly have saved his queen's dignity from some humiliation when wrangles took place, and accusations of cheating were made in her presence. The gaming-table is a notorious leveler of distinctions, and the worst-behaved of the guests were too frequently the king's own brothers; they were rude, overbearing, and ill-tempered. The Count de Provence on one occasion so wholly forgot the respect due to her, that he a.s.saulted a gentleman in her presence; and the Count d'Artois, who played for very high stakes, invariably lost his temper when he lost his money. Indeed, the queen seems to have felt the discredit of such scenes; and it is probable that it was their frequent occurrence which led to a temporary suspension of the faro-bank; as a violent quarrel on the race-course between d'Artois and his cousin, the Duke de Chartres, whom he openly accused of cheating him, for a while disgusted her with horse-races, and led her to propose a subst.i.tution of some of the old exercises of chivalry, such as running at the ring; a proposal which had a great element of popularity in it, as being calculated to lead to a renewal of the old French pastimes, which seemed greatly preferable to the existing rage for copying, and copying badly, the fas.h.i.+ons and pursuits of England.

CHAPTER XII.

Marie Antoinette finds herself in Debt.--Forgeries of her Name are committed.--The Queen devotes herself too much to Madame de Polignac and others.--Versailles is less frequented.--Remonstrances of the Empress.-- Volatile Character of the Queen.--She goes to the Bals d'Opera at Paris.-- She receives the Duke of Dorset and other English n.o.bles with Favor.-- Grand Entertainment given her by the Count de Provence.--Character of the Emperor Joseph.--He visits Paris and Versailles.--His Feelings toward and Conversations with the King and Queen.--He goes to the Opera.--His Opinion of the Queen's Friends.--Marie Antoinette's Letter to the Empress on his Departure.--The Emperor leaves her a Letter of Advice.

But this addiction to play, though it was that consequence of the influence of the society to which Marie Antoinette was at this time so devoted, which would have seemed the most objectionable in the eyes of rigid moralists, was not that which excited the greatest dissatisfaction in the neighborhood of the court. Excessive gambling had so long been a notorious vice of the French princes, that her letting herself down to join the gaming-table was not regarded as indicating any peculiar laxity of principle; while the stakes which she permitted herself, and the losses she incurred, though they seemed heavy to her anxious German friends, were as nothing when compared with those of the king's brothers. Even when it became known that she was involved in debt, that again was regarded as an ordinary occurrence, apparently even by the king himself, who paid the amount (about 20,000) without a word of remonstrance, merely remarking that he did not wonder at her funds being exhausted since she had such a pa.s.sion for diamonds. For a great portion of the debts had been incurred for some diamond ear-rings which the queen herself did not wish for, and had only bought to gratify Madame de Polignac, who had promised her custom to the jeweler who had them for sale. Marie Antoinette had evidently become less careful in regulating her expenses, till she was awakened by the discovery of a crime which she herself imputed to her own carelessness in such matters. The wife of the king's treasurer had borrowed money in her name, and had forged her handwriting to letters of acknowledgment of the loans. The fraud was only discovered through Mercy's vigilance, and the criminal was at seized and punished, but it proved a wholesome lesson to the queen, who never forgot it, though, as we shall see hereafter, if others remembered it, the recollection only served to induce them to try and enrich themselves by similar knaveries.

And this devotion of the queen to the society of the Polignacs and Guimenees, "her society," as she sometimes called it,[1] had also a mischievous effect in diminis.h.i.+ng her popularity with the great body of the n.o.bles. The custom of former sovereigns had been to hold receptions several evenings in each week, to which the men and women of the highest rank were proud to repair to pay their court. But now the royal apartments were generally empty, the king being alone in his private cabinet, while the queen was pa.s.sing her time at some small private party of young people, by her presence often seeming to countenance intrigues of which she did not in her heart approve, and giddy conversation which was hardly consistent with her royal position; though Mercy, in reporting these habits to the empress, adds that the queen's own demeanor, even in the moments of apparently unrestrained familiarity, was marked by such uniform self-possession and dignity, that no one ever ventured to take liberties with her, or to approach her without the most entire respect.[2]

It was hardly strange, then, that those who were not members of this society should feel offended at finding the court, as it were, closed against them, and should cease to frequent the palace when they had no certainty of meeting any thing but empty rooms. They even absented themselves from the queen's b.a.l.l.s, which in consequence were so thinly attended that sometimes there were scarcely a dozen dancers of each s.e.x, so that it was universally remarked that never within the memory of the oldest courtiers had Versailles been so deserted as it was this winter; the difference between the scene which the palace presented now from what had been witnessed in previous seasons striking the queen herself, and inclining her to listen more readily to the remonstrances which, at Mercy's instigation, the empress addressed to her. Her mother pointed out to her, with all the weight of her own long experience, the incompatibility of a private mode of life, such as is suitable for subjects, with the state befitting a great sovereign; and urged her to recollect that all the king's subjects, so long as their rank and characters were such as to ent.i.tle them to admission at court, had an equal right to her attention; and that the system of exclusiveness which she had adopted was a dereliction of her duty, not only to those who were thus deprived of the honors of the reception to which they were ent.i.tled, but also to the king, her husband, who was injured by any line of conduct which tended to discourage the n.o.bles of the land from paying their respects to him.

In the midst of all her giddiness, Marie Antoinette always listened with good humor, it may even be said with docility, to honest advice. No one ever in her rank was so unspoiled by authority; and more than one conversation which she held with the amba.s.sador on the subject showed that these remonstrances, re-enforced as they were by the undeniable fact of the thinness of the company at the palace, had made an impression on her mind; though such impressions were as yet too apt to be fleeting, and too liable to be overborne by fresh temptations; for in volatile impulsiveness she resembled the French themselves, and the good resolutions she made one day were always liable to be forgotten the next. Nothing as yet was steady and unalterable in her character but her kindness of heart and graciousness of manner; they never changed; and it was on her genuine goodness of disposition and righteousness of intention that her German friends relied for producing an amendment as she grew older, far more than on any regrets for the past, or intentions of improvement for the future, which might be wrung from her by any momentary reflection or vexation.

If Versailles was less lively than usual, Paris, on the other hand, had never been so gay as during the carnival of 1777. The queen went to several of the masked b.a.l.l.s at the opera with one or other of her brothers-in-law and their wives; the king expressing his perfect willingness that she should so amuse herself, but never being able to overcome his own indolence and shyness so far as to accompany her. It could not have been a very lively amus.e.m.e.nt. She did not dance, but sat in an arm-chair surveying the dancers, or walked down the saloon attended by an officer of the bodyguard and one lady in waiting, both masked like herself. Occasionally she would grant to some n.o.ble of high rank the honor of walking at her side; but it was remarked that those whom she thus distinguished were often foreigners; some English n.o.blemen, such as the Duke of Dorset and Lord Strathavon being especially favored, for a reason which, as given by Mercy, shows that that insular stiffness which, with national self-complacency, Britons sometimes confess as a not unbecoming characteristic, was not at that time attributed to them by others; since the amba.s.sador explains the queen's preference by the self-evident fact that the English gentlemen were the best dancers, and made the best figure in the ball-room.

But all the other festivities of this winter were thrown into the shade by an entertainment of extraordinary magnificence, which was given in the queen's honor by the Count de Provence at his villa at Brunoy.[3] The count was an admirer of Spenser, and appeared to desire to embody the spirit of that poet of the ancient chivalry in the scene which he presented to the view of his ill.u.s.trious guest when she entered his grounds. Every one seemed asleep. Groups of cavaliers, armed _cap-a-pie_, and surrounded by a splendid retinue of squires and pages, were seen slumbering on the ground; their lances lying by their sides, their s.h.i.+elds hanging on the trees which overshadowed them; their very horses reposing idly on the gra.s.s on which they cared not to browse. All seemed under the influence of a spell as powerful as that under which Merlin had bound the pitiless daughter of Arthur; but the moment that Marie Antoinette pa.s.sed within the gates the enchantment was dissolved; the pages sprung to their feet, and brought the easily roused steeds to their awakened masters.

Twenty-five challengers, with scarfs of green, the queen's favorite color, on snow-white chargers, overthrew an equal number of antagonists; but no deadly wounds were given. The victory of her champions having been decided, both parties of combatants mingled as spectators at a play, and afterward as dancers at a grand ball which was wound up by a display of fire-works and a superb illumination, of which the princ.i.p.al ornament was a gorgeous bouquet of flowers, in many-colored fire, lighting up the inscription "Vive Louis! Vive Marie Antoinette!"

At last, however, the carnival came to an end. Not too soon for the queen's good, since hunts and long rides by day, and b.a.l.l.s kept up till a late hour by night, had been too much for her strength,[4] so that even indifferent observers remarked that she looked ill and had grown thin. But even had Lent not interrupted her amus.e.m.e.nts, she would have ceased for a while to regard them, her whole mind being now devoted to preparing for the reception of her brother, the Emperor Joseph, whose visit, which had been promised in the previous year, was at last fixed for the month of April. It was antic.i.p.ated with anxiety by the Empress and Mercy, as well as by Marie Antoinette. He was a prince of a peculiar disposition and habits. Before his accession to the imperial throne, he had been kept, apparently not greatly against his will, in the background. Nor, while his father lived, did he give any indications of a desire for power, or of any capacity for exercising it; but since he had been placed on the throne he had displayed great activity and energy, though he was still, in the opinion of many, more of a philosopher--a detractor might said more of a pedant--than of a statesman. He studied theories of government, and was extremely fond of giving advice; and as both Louis and Marie Antoinette were persons who in many respects stood in need of friendly counsel, Mercy and Maria Teresa had both looked forward to his visit to the French court as an event likely to be of material service to both, while his sister regarded it with a mixed feeling of hope and fear, in which, however, the pleasurable emotions predominated.

She was not insensible to the probability that he would disapprove of some of her habits; indeed, we have already seen that he had expressed his disapproval of them, and of some of her friends, in the preceding year; and she dreaded his lectures; but, on the other hand, she felt confident that a personal acquaintance with the court would prove to him that many of the tales to her prejudice which had readied him had been mischievous exaggerations, and that thus he would be able to disabuse their mother, and to tranquilize her mind on many points. She hoped, too, that a personal knowledge of each other by him and her own husband would tend to cement a real friends.h.i.+p between them; and that his stronger mind would obtain an influence over Louis, which might induce him to rouse himself from his ordinary apathy and reserve, and make him more of a man of the world and more of a companion for her. Lastly, but probably above all, she thirsted with sisterly affection for the sight of her brother, and antic.i.p.ated with pride the opportunity of presenting to her new countrymen a relation of whom she was proud on account of his personal endowments and character, and whose imperial rank made his visit wear the appearance of a marked compliment to the whole French nation.

High-strung expectations often insure their own disappointment, but it was not so in this instance; though the august visitor's first act displayed an eccentricity of disposition which must have led more people than one to entertain secret misgivings as to the consequences which might flow from a visit which had such a commencement. Like his brother Maximilian, he too traveled incognito, under the t.i.tle of the Count Falkenstein; and he persisted in maintaining his disguise so absolutely that he refused to occupy the apartments which the queen had prepared for him in the palace, and insisted on taking up his quarters with Mercy in Paris, and at a hotel, for the few days which he pa.s.sed at Versailles.

However, though by his conduct in this matter he to some extent disappointed the hope which his sister had conceived of an uninterrupted intercourse with him during his stay in France, in every other respect the visit pa.s.sed off to the satisfaction of all the parties princ.i.p.ally concerned. Fortunately, at their first interview Marie Antoinette herself made a most favorable impression on him. She had been but a child when he had last seen her. She was now a woman, and he was wholly unprepared for the matured and queenly beauty at which she had arrived. He was not a man to flatter any one, but almost his first words to her were that, had she not been his sister, he could not have refrained from seeking her hand that he might secure to himself so lovely a partner; and each succeeding meeting strengthened his admiration of her personal graces. She, always eager to please, was gratified at the feeling she had inspired; and thus an affectionate tone was from the first established between them, and all reserve was banished from their conversation. It was not diminished by the admonitions which, as he conceived, his age and greater experience ent.i.tled him to address to her, though sometimes they took the form of banter and ridicule, sometimes that of serious reproof;[5] but she bore all his lectures with unvarying good humor, promising him that the time should come when she would make the amendment which he desired; never attempting to conceal from him, and scarcely to excuse, the faults of which she was not unconscious, nor the vexations which in some particulars continually disquieted her.

It was, at least, equally fortunate that the king also conceived a great liking for his brother-in-law at first sight. His character disposed him to receive with eagerness advice from one who had himself occupied a throne for several years, and whose relations.h.i.+p seemed a sufficient warrant that his counsels would be honest and disinterested. Accordingly those about him soon remarked that Louis treated the emperor with a cordiality that he had never shown to any one else. They had many long and interesting conversations, sometimes with Marie Antoinette as a third party, sometimes by themselves. Louis discussed with the emperor his anxiety to have a family, and his hopes of such a result; and Joseph expressed his opinion freely on all subjects, even volunteering suggestions of a change in the king's habits; as when he recommended him, as a part of his kingly duty, to visit the different provinces, sea-ports, cities, and manufacturing towns of his kingdom, so as to acquaint himself generally with the feelings and resources of the people. Louis listened with attention. If there was any case in which the emperor's advice was thrown away, it was, if the queen's suspicions were correct, when he recommended to the king a line of conduct adverse to her influence.