The Life of Marie Antoinette

CHAPTER XIII. Impressions made on the Queen by the Emperor's Visit.-Mutual Jealousies of her Favorites.-The Story of the Chevalier d'Assas.-The Terrace Concerts at Versailles-More Inroads on Etiquette.-Insolence and Unpopularity of the Count d'Artois.-Marie Antoinette takes Interest in Politics.-France concludes an Alliance with the United States.-Affairs of Bavaria.-Character of the Queen's Letters on Politics.-The Queen expects to become a Mother.-Voltaire returns to Paris.-The Queen declines to receive him.-Misconduct of the Duke of Orleans in the Action off Ushant.-The Queen uses her Influence in his Favor.

The emperor's admonitions and counsels had not been altogether unfruitful. If they had not at once entirely extinguished his sister's taste for the practices which he condemned, they had evidently weakened it; even though, as the first impression wore off, and her fear of being overwhelmed with ennui[1] resumed its empire, she relapsed for a while into her old habits, it was no longer with the same eagerness as before, and not without frequent avowals that they had lost their attraction. She visibly drew off from the entanglements of the coterie with which she had surrounded herself. The members had grown jealous of one another. Madame de Polignac feared the influence of the superior disinterestedness of the Princess de Lamballe; Madame de Guimenee, who was suspected of a want of even common honesty, grudged every favor that was bestowed on Madame de Polignac; and their rivalry, which was not always suppressed even in the queen's presence, was not only felt by her to be degrading to herself, but was also wearisome.

Throughout the autumn her occupations and amusements were of a simpler kind. She read more, and agreeably surprised De Vermond by the soundness of her reflections on many incidents and characters in history. Accounts of chivalrous deeds had an especial charm for her. Hume was still her favorite author. And it happened that, while the gallantry of the loyal champions of Charles I. was fresh in her memory, a casual conversation threw in her way an opportunity of doing honor to the self-devoted heroism of a French soldier whom the proudest of the British cavaliers might have welcomed as a brother, but whose valiant and self-sacrificing fidelity had been left unnoticed by the worthless sovereign in whose service he had perished, and by his ministers, who thought only of securing the favor of the reigning mistress-favor to be won by actions of a very different complexion.

In the Seven Years' War, when the French army, under the Marshal De Broglie, and the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were watching one another in the neighborhood of Wesel, the Chevalier d'Assas, a captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was in command of an outpost on a dark night of October. He had strolled a little in advance of his sentries into the wood which fronted his position, when suddenly he found himself surrounded and seized by a body of armed enemies. They were the advanced guard of the prince's army, who was marching to surprise De Broglie by a night attack, and they threatened him with instant death if he made the slightest noise. If he were but silent, he was safe as a prisoner of war; but his safety would have been the ruin of the whole French army, which had no suspicion of its danger. He did not for even a moment hesitate. With all the strength of his voice he shouted to his men, who were within hearing, that the enemy were upon them, and fell, bayoneted to death, almost before the words had passed his lips. He had saved his comrades and his commander, and had influenced the issue of the whole campaign. The enemy, whose well-planned enterprise his self-devotion had baffled, paid a cordial tribute of praise to his heroism, Ferdinand himself publicly expressing his regret at the fate of one whose valor had shed honor on every brother-soldier; but not the slightest notice had been taken of him by those in authority in France till his exploit was accidentally mentioned in the queen's apartments. It filled her with admiration. She asked what had been done to commemorate so noble a deed. She was told "nothing;" the man and his gallantry had been alike forgotten. "Had he left descendants or kinsmen?" "He had a brother and two nephews; the brother a retired veteran of the same regiment, the nephews officers in different corps of the army." The dead hero was forgotten no longer. Marie Antoinette never rested till she had procured an adequate pension for the brother, which was settled in perpetuity on the family; and promotion for both the nephews; and, as a further compliment, Clostercamp, the name of the village which was the scene of the brave deed, was added forever to their family name. The pension is paid to this day. For a time, indeed, it was suspended while France was under the sway of the rapacious and insensible murderers of the king who had granted it; but Napoleon restored it; and, amidst all the changes that have since taken place in the government of the country, every succeeding ruler has felt it equally honorable and politic to recognize the eternal claims which patriotic virtue has on the gratitude of the country.

Marie Antoinette had thus the honor of setting an example to the Government and the nation. Her heart was getting lighter as the vexations under which she had so long fretted began to disappear. The late card-parties were often superseded, throughout the autumn, by concerts on the terrace at Versailles, where the regimental bands were the performers, and to which all the well-dressed towns-people were admitted, while the queen, attended by the princesses and her ladies, and occasionally escorted by Louis himself, strolled up and down and among the crowd, diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he recorded, not for any unusual sumptuousness of the spectacle, but as having been the occasion on which she made one more inroad on the established etiquette of the court in one of its most unaccountable restrictions: to such royal parties the king's ministers had never been regarded as admissible, but on this night Marie Antoinette commanded the company of the Count and Countess de Maurepas. And the innovation was regarded not only by them as a singular favor, but by all their colleagues as a marked compliment to the whole body of ministers, and served to increase their desire to consult her inclinations in every matter in which she took an interest.

And the esteem which she thus conciliated was at this time not destitute of real importance, since the conduct of the other members of the royal family excited very different feelings. The Count de Provence was generally distrusted as intriguing and insincere. And the Count d'Artois, whose bad qualities were of a more conspicuous character, was becoming an object of general dislike, not so much from his dissipated mode of life as from the overbearing arrogance which he imparted into his pleasures. No rank was high enough to protect the objects of his displeasure from his insolence; even ladies were not safe from it;[2] while his extravagance was beyond all bounds since he considered himself entitled to claim from, the national treasury whatever he might require in addition to his stated income. He was at the same time repairing one castle, that of St. Germain, which the king had given him; rebuilding another large house which he had purchased in the same neighborhood; and pulling down and rebuilding a third, named Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, which he had just bought, and as to which he had laid an enormous wager that it should be completed and furnished in sixty days. To win his bet nearly a thousand workmen were employed day and night, and, as the requisite materials could not be provided at so short a notice, he sent patrols of his regiment to scour the roads, and seize every cart loaded with stones or timber for other employers, which he thus appropriated to his own use. He did, indeed, pay for the goods thus seized, and he won his bet, but when the princes of the land made so open a parade of their disregard of all law and all decency, one can hardly wonder that men in secret began, to talk of a revolution, or that all the graces and gentleness of the queen should be needed to outweigh such grave causes of discontent and indignation.

As the new year opened, affairs of a very different kind began to occupy the queen's attention. On political questions, the advice which the empress gave her differed in some degree from that of her embassador. Maria Teresa was an earnest politician, but she was also a mother; and, as being eager above all things for her daughter's happiness, while she entreated Marie Antoinette to study politics, history, and such other subjects as might qualify her to be an intelligent companion of the king, and so far as or whenever he might require it, his chief confidante, she warned her also against ever wishing to rule him. But Mercy was a statesman above every thing, and, feeling secure of being able to guide the queen, he desired to instill into her mind an ambition to govern the king. On one most important question she proved wholly unable to do so, since the decision taken was not even in accordance with the judgment or inclination of Louis himself; but he allowed himself to be persuaded by two of his ministers to adopt a course against which Joseph had earnestly warned him in the preceding year, and which, as he had been then convinced, was inconsistent alike with his position as a king and with his interests as King of France.

England had been for some years engaged in a civil war with her colonies in North America, and from the commencement of the contest a strong sympathy for the colonists had been evinced by a considerable party in France. Louis, who, for several reasons disliked England and English ideas, was at first inclined to coincide in this feeling as a development of anti-English principles: he was far from suspecting that its source was rather a revolutionary and republican sentiment. But he had conversed with his brother-in-law on the possibility of advantages which might accrue to France from the weakening of her old foe, if French aid should enable the Americans to establish their independence. Joseph's opinion was clear and unhesitating: "I am a king; it is my business to be royalist." And he easily convinced Louis that for one sovereign to assist the subjects of another monarch who were in open revolt, was to set a mischievous example which might in time be turned against himself. But since his return to Vienna, unprecedented disasters had befallen England; a whole army had laid down its arms; the ultimate success of the Americans seemed to every statesman in Europe to be assured, and the prospect gave such encouragement to the war party in the French cabinet that Louis could resist it no longer. In February, 1778, a treaty was concluded with the United States, as the insurgents called themselves; and France plunged into a war from which she had nothing to gain, which involved her in enormous expenses, which brought on her overwhelming defeats, and which, from its effects upon the troops sent to serve with the American army, who thus became infected with republican principles, had no slight influence in bringing about the calamities which, a few years later, overwhelmed both king and people.

All Marie Antoinette's language on the subject shows that she viewed the quarrel with England with even greater repugnance than her husband; but it is curious to see that her chief fear was lest the war should be waged by land, and that she felt much greater confidence in the French navy than in the army;[3] though it was just at this time that Voltaire was pointing out to his countrymen that England had always enjoyed and always would possess a maritime superiority which different inquirers might attribute to various causes, but which none could deny.[4]

Even before the conclusion of this treaty, however, the Americans had found sympathizers in France, to one of whom some of the circumstances of the war which they were now waging gave a subsequent importance to which no talents or virtues of his own entitled him. The Marquis de La Fayette was a young man of ancient family, and of fair but not excessive fortune. He was awkward in appearance and manner, gawky, red-haired, and singularly deficient in the accomplishments which were cultivated by other youths of his age and rank.[5] But he was deeply imbued with the doctrines of the new philosophy which saw virtue in the mere fact of resistance to authority; and when the colonists took up arms, he became eager to afford them such aid as he could give. He made the acquaintance of Silas Deane, one of the most unscrupulous of the American agents, who promised him, though he was only twenty years of age, the rank of major-general. As he was at all times the slave of a most overweening conceit, he was tempted by that bait; and, though he could not leave France without incurring the forfeiture of his military rank in the army of his own country, in April, 1777, he crossed over to America to serve as a volunteer under Washington, who naturally received with special distinction a recruit of such political importance. He was present at more than one battle, and was wounded at Brandywine; but the exploit which made him most conspicuous was a ridiculous act of bravado in sending a challenge to Lord Carlisle, the chief of the English Commissioners who in 1778 were dispatched to America to endeavor to re-establish peace. However, the close of the war, which ended, as is well known, in the humiliation of Great Britain and the establishment of the independence of the colonies, made him seem a hero to his countrymen on his return. The queen, always eager to encourage and reward feats of warlike enterprise, treated him with marked distinction, and procured him from her husband not only the restoration of his commission, but promotion to the command of a regiment;[6] kindness which, as will be seen, he afterward requited with the foulest ingratitude.

Nor was this most imprudent war with England the only question of foreign politics which at this time interested Marie Antoinette. Her native land, her mother's hereditary dominions, were also threatened with war. On the death of the Elector of Bavaria at the end of 1777, Joseph, who had been married to his sister, claimed a portion of his territories; and Frederick of Prussia, that "bad neighbor," as Marie Antoinette was wont to call him, announced his resolution to resist that claim, by force of arms if necessary. If he should carry out the resolution which he had announced, and if war should in consequence break out, much would depend on the attitude which France would assume on her fidelity to or disregard of the alliance which had now subsisted more than twenty years. So all-important to Austria was her decision, that Maria Teresa forgot the line which, as a general rule of conduct, she had recommended to her daughter, and wrote to her with the most extreme earnestness to entreat her to lose no opportunity of influencing the King's council. If it depended upon Maria Teresa, the claim would probably not have been advanced; but Joseph had made it on the part of the empire, and, when it was once made, the empress could not withhold her support from her son. She therefore threw herself into the quarrel with as much earnestness as if it had been her own. Indeed, since Joseph had as yet no authority over her hereditary possessions, it was only by her armies that it could be maintained; and in her letters to her daughter she declared that Marie Antoinette had her happiness, the welfare of her house, and of the whole Austrian nation in her hands; that all depended on her activity and affection. She knew that the French ministers were inclined to favor the views of Frederick, but if the alliance should be dissolved it would kill her.[7] Marie Antoinette grew pale at reading so ominous a denunciation. It required no art to inflame her against Frederick. The Seven Years' War had begun when she was but a year old; and all her life she had heard of nothing more frequently than of the rapacity and dishonesty of that unprincipled aggressor. She now entered with eagerness into her mother's views, and pressed them on Louis with unremitting diligence and considerable fertility of argument, though she was greatly dismayed at finding that not only his ministers, but he himself, regarded Austria as actuated by an aggressive ambition, and compared her claim to a portion of Bavaria to the partition of Poland, which, six years before, had drawn forth unwonted expressions of honorable indignation from even his unworthy grandfather. The idea that the alliance between France and the empire was itself at stake on the question, made her so anxious that she sent for the ministers themselves, pressing her views on both Maurepas and Vergennes with great earnestness. But they, though still faithful to the maintenance of the alliance, sympathized with the king rather than with her in his view of the character of the claim which the emperor had put forward; and they also urged another argument for abstaining from any active intervention, that the finances of the country were in so deplorable a state that France could not afford to go to war. It was plain, as she told them, that this consideration should at least equally have prevented their quarreling with England. But, in spite of all her persistence, they were not to be moved from this view of the true interest of France in the conjuncture that had arisen; and, accordingly, in the brief war which ensued between the empire and Prussia, France took no part, though it is more than probable that her mediation between the belligerents, which had no little share in bringing about the peace of Teschen,[8] was in a great degree owing to the queen's influence.

For she was not discouraged by her first failure, but renewed her importunities from time to time; and at last did succeed in wringing a promise from her husband that if Prussia should invade the Flemish provinces of Austria, France would arm on the empress's side. So fully did the affair absorb her attention that it made her indifferent to the gayeties which the carnival always brought round. She did, indeed, as a matter of duty, give one or two grand state balls, one of which, in which the dancers of the quadrilles were masked, and in which their dresses represented the male and female costumes of India, was long talked of for both the magnificence and the novelty of the spectacle; and she attended one or two of the opera-balls, under the escort of her brothers-in-law and their countesses; but they had begun to pall upon her, and she made repeated offers to the king to give them up and to spend her evenings in quiet with him. But he was more inclined to prompt her to seek amusement than to allow her to sacrifice any,[9] even such as he did not care to partake of; nevertheless, he was pleased with the offer, and it was observed by the courtiers that the mutual confidence of the husband and wife in each other was more marked and more firmly established than ever. He showed her all the dispatches, consulted her on all points, and explained his reasons when he could not adopt all her views. As Marie Antoinette wrote to her brother, "If it were possible to reckon wholly on any man, the king was the one on whom she could thoroughly rely.[10]"

So greatly, indeed, did the quarrel between Austria and Prussia engross her, that it even occupied the greater part of letters whose ostensible object is to announce prospects of personal happiness which might have been expected to extinguished every other consideration. In one, after touching briefly on her health and hopes, she proceeds:

"How kind my dear mamma is, to express her approval of the way in which I have conducted myself in these affairs up to the present time! Alas! there is no need for you to feel obliged to me; it was my heart that acted in the whole matter. I am only vexed at not being able to enter myself into the feelings of all these ministers, so as to be able to make them comprehend how every thing which has been done and demanded by the authorities at Vienna is just and reasonable. But unluckily none are more deaf than those who will not hear; and, besides, they have such a number of terms and phrases which mean nothing, that they bewilder themselves before they come to say a single reasonable thing. I will try one plan, and that is to speak to them both in the king's presence, to induce them, at least, to hold language suitable to the occasion to the King of Prussia; and in good truth it is for the interest and glory of the king[11] himself that I am anxious to see this done; for he can not but gain by supporting allies who on every account ought to be so dear to him.

"In other respects, and especially in my present conditions, he behaves most admirably, and is most attentive to me. I protest to you, my dear mamma, that my heart would be torn by the idea that you could for a moment suspect his good-will in what has been done. No; it is the terrible weakness of his ministers, and tis own great want of self-reliance, which does all the mischief; and I am sure that if he would never act but on his own judgment, every one would see his honesty, his correctness of feeling, and his tact, which at present they are far from appreciating.[12]"

And at the end of the month she writes again:

"I saw Mercy a day or two ago: he showed me the articles which the King of Prussia sent to my brother. I think it is impossible to see any thing more absurd than his proposals. In fact, they are so ridiculous that they must strike every one here; I can answer for their appearing so to the king. I have not been able to see the ministers. M. de Vergennes has not been here [she is writing from Marly]; he is not well, so that I must wait till we return to Versailles.

"I had seen before the correspondence of the King of Prussia with my brother. It is most abominable of the former to have sent it here, and the more so since, in truth, he has not much to boast of. His imprudence, his bad faith, and his malignant temper are visible in every line. I have been enchanted with my brother's answers. It is impossible to put into letters more grace, more moderation, and at the same time more force. I am going to say something which is very vain; but I do believe that there is not in the whole world any one but the emperor, the son of my dearest mother, who has the happiness of seeing her every day, who could write in such a manner."

There is no trace in these letters of the levity and giddiness of which Mercy so often complains, and which she at times did not deny. On the contrary, they display an earnestness as well as a good sense and an energy which are gracefully set off by the affection for her mother, and the pride in her brother's firmness and address which they also express. With respect to the conduct of Louis at this crisis we may perhaps differ from her; and may think that he rarely showed so much self-reliance, the general want of which was in truth his greatest defect, as when he preferred the arguments of Vergennes to her entreaties. But if her praises of the emperor are, as she herself terms them, vanity, it is the vanity of sisterly and patriotic affection, which can not but be regarded with approval; and we may see in it an additional proof of the correctness of an assertion, repeated over and over again in Mercy's correspondence, that, whenever Marie Antoinette gave the rein to her own natural impulses, she invariably both thought and acted rightly.

In one of the extracts which have just been quoted, the queen alludes to her own condition; and that, in any one less unselfish, might well have driven all other thoughts from her head. For the event to which she had so long looked forward as that which was wanted to crown her happiness, and which had been so long deferred that at times she had ceased to hope for it at all, was at last about to take place-she was about to become a mother. Her own joy at the prospect was shared to its full extent by both the king and the empress. Louis, roused out of his usual reserve, wrote with his own hand to both the empress and the emperor, to give the intelligence; and Maria Teresa declared that she had nothing left to wish for, and that she could now close her eyes in peace. And the news was received with almost equal pleasure by the citizens of Paris, who had long desired to see an heir born to the crown; and by those of Vienna, who had not yet forgotten the fair young princess, the flower of her mother's flock, as they had fondly called her, whom they had sent to fill a foreign throne. Her own happiness exhibited itself, as usual, in acts of benevolence, in the distribution of liberal gifts to the poor of Paris and Versailles, and a foundation of a hospital for those in a similar condition with herself.[13]

In the course of the spring, Paris was for a moment excited even more than by the declaration of war against England, or than by the expectation of the queen's confinement, by the return of Voltaire, who had long been in disgrace with the court, and had been for many years living in a sort of tacit exile on the borders of the Lake of Geneva. He was now in extreme old age, and, believing himself to have but a short time to live, he wished to see Paris once more, putting forward as his principal motive his desire to superintend the performance of his tragedy of "Irene." His admirers could easily secure him a brilliant reception at the theatre; but they were anxious above all things to obtain for him admission to the court, or at least a private interview with the queen. She felt in a dilemma. Joseph, a year before, had warned her against giving encouragement to a man whose principles deserved the reprobation of all sovereigns. He himself, though on his return to Vienna he had passed through Geneva, had avoided an interview with him, while the empress had been far more explicit in her condemnation of his character. On the other hand, Marie Antoinette had not yet learned the art of refusing, when those who solicited a favor had personal access to her; and she had also some curiosity to see a man whose literary fame was accounted one of the chief glories of the nation and the age. She consulted the king, but found Louis, on this subject, in entire agreement with her mother and her brother. He had no literary curiosity, and he disapproved equally the lessons which Voltaire had throughout his life sought to inculcate upon others, and the licentious habits with which he had exemplified his own principles in action. She yielded to his objections, and Voltaire, deeply mortified at the refusal,[14] was left to console himself as best he could with the enthusiastic acclamations of the play-goers of the capital, who crowned his bust on the stage, while he sat exultingly in his box, and escorted him back in triumph to his house; those who could approach near enough even kissing his garments as he passed, till he asked them whether they designed to kill him with delight; as, indeed, in some sense, they may be said to have done, for the excitement of the homage thus paid to him day after day, whenever he was seen in public, proved too much for his feeble frame. He was seized with illness, which, however, was but a natural decay, and in a few weeks after his arrival in Paris he died.

As the year wore on, Marie Antoinette was fully occupied in making arrangements for the child whose coming was expected with such impatience. Her mother is of course her chief confidante. She is to be the child's godmother; her name shall be the first its tongue is to learn to pronounce; while for its early management the advice of so experienced a parent is naturally sought with unhesitating deference. Still, Marie Antoinette is far from being always joyful. Russia has made an alliance with Prussia; Frederick has invaded Bohemia, and she is so overwhelmed with anxiety that she cancels invitations for parties which she was about to give at the Trianon, and would absent herself from the theatre and from all public places, did not Mercy persuade her that such a withdrawal would seem to be the effect, not of a natural anxiety, but of a despondency which would be both unroyal and unworthy of the reliance which she ought to feel on the proved valor of the Austrian armies.

The war with England, also, was an additional cause of solicitude and vexation. The sailors in whom she had expressed such confidence were not better able than before to contend with British antagonists. In an undecisive skirmish which took place in July between two fleets of the first magnitude, the French admiral, D'Orvilliers, had made a practical acknowledgment of his inferiority by retreating in the night, and eluding all the exertions of the English admiral, Keppel, to renew the action. The discontent in Paris was great; the populace was severe on one or two of the captains, who were thought to have taken undue care of their ships and of themselves, and especially bitter against the Duke de Chartres, who had had a rear-admiral's command in the fleet, and who, after having made himself conspicuous before D'Orvilliers sailed, by his boasts of the prowess which he intended to exhibit, had made himself equally notorious in the action itself by the pains he took to keep himself out of danger. On his return to Paris, shameless as he was, he scarcely dared show his face, till the Comte d'Artois persuaded the queen to throw her shield over him. It was impossible for him to remain in the navy; but, to soften his fall, the count proposed that the king should create a new appointment for him, as colonel-general of the light cavalry. Louis saw the impropriety of such a step: truly it was but a questionable compliment to pay to his hussars, to place in authority over them a man under whom no sailor would willingly serve. Marie Antoinette in her heart was as indignant as any one. Constitutionally an admirer of bravery, she had taken especial interest in the affairs of the fleet and in the details of this action. She had honored with the most marked eulogy the gallantry of Admiral du Chaffault, who had been severely wounded; but now she allowed herself to be persuaded that the duke's public disgrace would reflect on the whole royal family, and pressed the request so earnestly on the king that at last he yielded. In outward appearance the duke's honor was saved; but the public, whose judgment on such matter is generally sound, and who had revived against him some of the jests with which the comrades of Luxemburg had shown their scorn of the Duke de Maine, blamed her interference; and the duke himself, by the vile ingratitude with which he subsequently repaid her protection, gave but too sad proof that of all offenders against honor the most unworthy of royal indulgence is a coward.