The Life of Marie Antoinette

CHAPTER VII. Marie Antoinette is anxious for the Maintenance of the Alliance between France and Austria.-She, with the Dauphin, makes a State Entry into Paris.-The "Dames de la Halle."-She praises the Courtesy of the Dauphin.-Her Delight at the Enthusiasm of the Citizens.-She, with the Dauphin, goes to the Theatre, and to the Fair of St. Ovide, and to St. Cloud.-Is enthusiastically received everywhere.-She learns to drive.- She makes some Relaxations in Etiquette.-Marriage of the Comte d'Artois. -The King's Health grows Bad.-Visit of Marshal Lacy to Versailles.-The King catches the Small-pox.-Madame du Barri quits Versailles.-The King dies.

Politics were, indeed, taking such a hold over Marie Antoinette that they begin to furnish some topics for her letters to her mother, one of which shows that she had already formed that opinion of French fickleness which she had afterward too abundant cause to maintain. "I do hope," she says, "that the good intelligence between our two nations will last. One good thing in this country is, that if ill-natured feelings are quick to arise, they disappear with equal rapidity. The King of Prussia is innately a bad neighbor, but the English will also always be bad neighbors to France, and the sea has never prevented them from doing her great mischief." We might, firstly, demur to any actions of our statesmen being classed with the treacherous aggressions of Frederick of Prussia, nor did many years of her husband's reign pass over before the greatest of English ministers proposed and concluded a treaty between the two countries, which he fondly and wisely hoped would lay the foundations of a better understanding, if not of a lasting peace, between the two countries. But even before that treaty was framed, and before Pitt's voice had become predominant in the State, Marie Antoinette's complaint that the sea had never disarmed us of power to injure France had received the strongest exemplification that as yet the history of the two nations afforded in Rodney's great victory. However, she soon turns to more agreeable subject, and proceeds to speak of a pleasure to which she was looking forward, and which, as we have already seen, had been unaccountably deferred till this time, in defiance of all propriety and of all precedent. "I hope that the dauphin and I shall make our entry into Paris next month, which will be a great delight to me. I do not venture to speak of it yet, though I have the king's promise: it would not be the first time that they had made him change his mind."

The most elaborate exposure of the cabals and intrigues which ever since her marriage had been persistently directed against Marie Antoinette could not paint them so forcibly as the simple fact that three years had now elapsed since her marriage; and that, though the state entrance of the heir of the crown and his bride into the metropolis of the kingdom ought to have been a prominent part of the marriage festivities, it had never yet taken place. Nor, though Louis had at last given his formal promise that it should be no longer delayed, did the young pair even yet feel sure that an influence superior to theirs might not induce him to recall it. However, at last the intrigues were baffled, and, on the 8th of June, the visit, which had been expected by the Parisians with an eagerness exceeding that of the dauphiness herself, was made. It was in every respect successful; and it is due to Marie Antoinette to let the outline of the proceeding be described by herself.

"Versailles, June 14th.

"MY DEAREST MOTHER,-I absolutely blush for your kindness to me. The day before yesterday Mercy sent me your precious letter, and yesterday I received a second. That is indeed passing one's fete day happily. On Tuesday I had a fete which I shall never forget all my life. We made our entrance into Paris. As for honors, we received all that we could possibly imagine; but they, though very well in their way, were not what touched me most. What was really affecting was the tenderness and earnestness of the poor people, who, in spite of the taxes with which they are overwhelmed, were transported with joy at seeing us. When we went to walk in the Tuileries, there was so vast a crowd that we were three-quarters of an hour without being able to move either forward or backward. The dauphin and I gave repeated orders to the Guards not to beat any one, which had a very good effect. Such excellent order was kept the whole day that, in spite of the enormous crowd which followed us everywhere, not a person was hurt. When we returned from our walk we went up to an open terrace, and staid there half an hour. I can not describe to you, my dear mamma, the transports of joy and affection which every one exhibited toward us. Before we withdrew we kissed our hands to the people, which gave them great pleasure. What a happy, thing it is for persons in our rank to gain the love of a whole nation so cheaply! Yet there is nothing so precious; I felt it thoroughly, and shall never forget it.

"Another circumstance which gave great pleasure on that glorious day was the behavior of the dauphin. He made admirable replies to every address, and remarked every thing that was done in his honor, and especially the earnestness and delight of the people, to whom he showed great kindness. Of all the copies of verses which were given me on this occasion, these are the prettiest which I inclose to you.[1] Tomorrow we are going to Paris to the opera, There is great anxiety for us to do so; and I believe that we shall go on two other days also to visit the French and the Italian comedy. I feel more and more, every day of my life, how much my dear mamma has done for my establishment. I was the youngest of all her daughters, and she has treated me as if I were the eldest; so that my whole soul is filled with the most tender gratitude.

"The king has had the kindness to procure the release of three hundred and twenty prisoners, for debts due to nurses who have brought up their children. Their release took place two days after our entrance. I wished to attend Divine service on my fete day; but the evening before, my sister, the Countess of Provence, had a party for me, a proverb with songs and fire-works, and this distraction forced me to put off going to church till the next day.

"I am very glad to hear that you have such good hope of the continuance of peace. While the intriguers of this country are devouring one another, they will not harass their neighbors nor their allies."

She does not enter into details; the pomp and ceremony of their reception by nobles and magistrates had been in her eyes as nothing in comparison with the cordial welcome given to them by the poorer citizens. While they, on their part, must have been equally gratified at perceiving the sincere pleasure with which she and the dauphin accepted their salutations; a feeling how different from that which had animated any of their princes for many years, we may judge from the order given to the guards to forbear beating the crowd which gathered round them, as no doubt, without such an order, the soldiers would have thought it usual and natural to do.

Not that the proceedings of the day had not been magnificent and imposing enough to attract the admiration of any who thought less of the hearts of the citizens than of pomp and splendor. The royal train, conveyed from Versailles in six state carriages, was received at the city gate by the governor, the Marshal Duc de Brissac, accompanied by the head of the police, the provost of the merchants, and all the other municipal authorities. The marshal himself was the heir of the Comte de Brissac who, nearly two centuries before, being also Governor of Paris, had tendered to the victorious Henry IV. the submission of the city. But Henry was as yet only the chief of a party, not the accepted sovereign of the whole nation; and the enthusiasm with which half the citizens rained their shouts of exultation in his honor had its drawback in the sullen silence of the other half, who regarded the great Bourbon as their conqueror rather than their king, and his triumphant entrance as their defeat and humiliation.

To-day all the citizens were but one party. As but one voice was heard, so but one heart gave utterance to it. The joy was as unanimous as it was loud. From the city gates the royal party passed on to the great national cathedral of Notre Dame, and from thence to the church dedicated by Clovis, the first Christian king, to St. Genevieve, whose recent restoration was the most creditable work of the present reign, and which subsequently, under the new name of the Pantheon, was destined to become the resting-place of many of the worthies whose memory the nation cherishes with enduring pride. At last they reached the Tuileries, their progress having been arrested at different points by deputations of all kinds with loyal and congratulatory addresses; at the Hotel-Dieu by the prioress with a company of nuns; on the Quai Conti by the Provost of the Mint with his officers; before the college bearing the name of its founder, Louis le Grand, the Rector of the University, at the head of his students, greeted them in a Latin speech, at the close of which he secured the re-doubling of the acclamations of the pupils by promising them a holiday. Not that the cheers required any increase. The citizens in their ecstasy did not even think their voices sufficient. As the royal couple moved slowly through the gardens of the Tuileries arm-in-arm, every hand was employed in clapping, hats were thrown up, and every token of joy which enthusiasm ever devised was displayed to the equally delighted visitors. "Good heavens, what a crowd!" said Marie Antoinette to De Brissac, who had some difficulty in keeping his place at her side. "Madame," said the old warrior, as courtly as he was valiant, "if I may say so without offending my lord the dauphin, they are all so many lovers." When they had made the circuit of the garden and returned to the palace, the most curious part of the day's ceremonies awaited them. A banqueting-table was arranged for six hundred guests, and those guests were not the nobles of the nation, nor the clergy, nor the must renowned warriors, nor the municipal officers, but the fish-women of the city market. A custom so old that its origin can not be traced had established the right of these dames to bear an especial part in such festivities. In the course of the morning they had made their future queen free of their market, with an offering of fruits and flowers. And now, as, according to a singular usage of the court, no male subject was ever allowed to sit at table with a queen or dauphiness of France, the dinner party over which the youthful pair, sitting side by side, presided, consisted wholly of these dames whose profession is not generally considered as imparting any great refinement to the manners, and who, before the close of the entertainment, showed, in more cases than one, that they had imported some of the notions and fashions of their more ordinary places of resort into the royal palace.

It was characteristic of Marie Antoinette that, in her description of the day to her mother, she had dwelt with special emphasis on the gracious deportment of her husband. It was equally natural for Mercy to assure the empress[2] that it had been the grace and elegance of the dauphiness herself which had attracted general admiration, and that it was to her example and instruction that every one attributed the courteous demeanor which, as he did not deny, the young prince had unquestionably exhibited. It was she whom the king, as he affirmed, had complimented on the result of the day; a success which she had gracefully attributed to himself, saying that he must be greatly beloved by the Parisians to induce them to give his children so splendid a reception[3]. To whomsoever it was owing, the embassador certainly did not exaggerate the opinion of the world around him when he affirmed that, in the memory of man, no one recollected any ceremony which had made so great a sensation, and had been attended by so complete a success.

And it was followed up, as she expected, by several visits to the different Parisian theatres, which, in compliance with the king's express direction, were made in all the state which would have been observed had he himself been present. Salutes were fired from the Bastile and the Hotel des Invalides; companies of Royal Guards lined the vestibule and the passage of the theatre; sentinels stood even on the stage; but, fond as the French are of martial finery and parade, the spectators paid little attention to the soldiers, or even to the actors. All eyes were fixed on the dauphiness alone. At Mercy's suggestion, the dauphin and she had previously obtained the king's permission to allow the violation of the rule which forbade any clapping of hands in the presence of royalty. This relaxation of etiquette was hailed as a great condescension by the play-goers, and throughout the evening of their appearance at the Italian comedy the spectators had already made abundant use of their new privilege, when the enthusiasm was brought to a height by a chorus which ended with the loyal burden of "Vive le roi!" Clerval, the performer of the principal part, added, "Et ses chers enfants;" and the compliment was re-echoed from every part of the house with continued clapping and cheering, till it reminded Marie Antoinette of a somewhat similar scene which, as a child, she had witnessed in the theatre of Vienna,[4] when the empress, from her box, had announced to the audience that a son (the heir to the empire) had just been born to the Archduke Leopold.

The ice being, thus, as it were, once broken, the dauphin and dauphiness took many opportunities of appearing in public during the following months, visiting the great Paris fair of St. Ovide, as it was called, walking up and down the alleys, and making purchases at the stalls the whole Place Louis XV., to which the fair had recently been removed, being illuminated, and the crowd greeting them with repeated and enthusiastic cheers. They also went in state to the exhibition of pictures at the Louvre, and drove to St. Cloud to walk about the park attached to that palace, which was one of the most favorite places of resort for the Parisians on the fine summer evenings; so that, while the court was at Versailles, scarcely a week elapsed without her giving them an opportunity of seeing her, in which it was evident that she fully shared their pleasure. To be loved was with her a necessity of her very nature; and, as she was constantly referring with pride to the attachment felt by the Austrians for her mother, she fixed her own chief wishes on inspiring with a similar feeling those who were to become her and her husband's subjects. She was, at least for the time, rewarded as she desired. This is, indeed, said they, the best of innovations, the best of revolutions,[5] to see the princes mingling with the people, and interesting themselves in their amusements. This was really to units all classes; to attach the country to the palace and the palace to the country; and it was to the dauphiness that the credit of this new state of things was universally attributed.

She was looking forward to a greater pleasure in a visit from her. brother, the emperor, which the empress hoped might be attended with consequences more important than those of passing pleasure; since she trusted to his influence, and, if opportunity should occur, to his remonstrances, to induce the dauphin to break through the unaccountable coldness with which, in some respects, he still treated his beautiful wife. But Joseph was forced to postpone his visit, and the fulfillment of the empress's anticipations was also postponed for some years.

However, Marie Antoinette never allowed disappointments to dwell in her mind longer than she could help. She rather strove to dispel the recollection of them by such amusements as were within her reach. She learned to drive, and found great diversion in being her own charioteer through the glades of the forest. She began to make further inroads in the court etiquette, giving balls in which she broke through the custom which prescribed that special places should be marked out for the royal family, and directed that the princes and princesses should sit with the rest of the company during the intervals between the dances; an arrangement which enabled her to talk to every one, and which gained her general good-will from the graciousness of her manner. She did not greatly trouble herself at the jealousy of her popularity openly displayed by her aunts and her sister-in-law, who could not bear to hear her called "La bellissima.[6]" Nor was her influence weakened when, in November, a fresh princess, the sister of Madame de Provence, arrived from Italy, to be married to the Comte d'Artois, for the bride was even less attractive than her sister. According to Mercy, she was pale and thin, had a long nose and a wide mouth, danced badly, and was very awkward in manner. So that Louis himself, though usually very punctilious in his courtesies to those in her position, could not forbear showing how little he admired her.

An incident occurred on the evening of the marriage which is worth remarking, from the change which subsequently took place in the taste of the dauphiness, who a few years afterward provoked unfavorable comments by the ardor with which she surrendered herself to the excitement of the gaming-table. As a matter of course, a grand party was invited to the palace to celebrate the event of the morning; and, as an invariable part of such entertainments, a table was set out for the then fashionable game of lansquenet, at which the king himself played, with the royal family and all the principal persons of the court. In the course of the evening Marie Antoinette won more than seven hundred pounds; but she was rather embarrassed than gratified by her good fortune. She had tried to lose the money back; but, as she had been unable to succeed, the next morning she sent the greater part of it to the curates of Versailles to be distributed among the poor, and gave the rest to some of her own attendants who seemed to her to need it, being determined, as she said, to keep none of it for herself.

The winter revived the apprehensions concerning the king's health; he was manifestly sinking into the grave, while

"That which should accompany old age,

As love, obedience, honor, troops of friends,

He might not look to have."

His very mistress began with great zeal than ever, though with no better taste, to seek to conciliate the dauphiness. She tried to purchase her good-will by a bribe. She was aware that the princess greatly admired diamonds, and, learning that a jeweler of Paris had a pair of ear-rings of a size and brilliancy so extraordinary that the price which he asked for them was 700,000 francs, she persuaded the Comte de Noailles to carry them to Marie Antoinette to show them, with a message from herself that if the dauphiness liked to keep them, she would induce the king to make her a present of them.[7] Whether Marie Antoinette admired them or not, she had far too proper a sense of dignity to allow herself to be entrapped into the acceptance of an obligation by one whom she so deservedly despised. She replied coldly that she had jewels enough, and did not desire to increase the number. But the overture thus made by Madame du Barri could not be kept secret, and more than one of her partisans followed the hint afforded by her example, and showed a desire to make their peace with their future queen. The Duc d'Aiguillon himself was among the foremost of her courtiers, and entreated the mediation of Mercy in his favor, making the ambassador his messenger to assure her that "he should impose it upon himself as a law to comply with her wishes in every thing;" and only desired that he might be allowed to know which of the requests that she might make were dictated by her own judgment, and which merely proceeded from her indulgent favor to the importunities of others. For Marie Antoinette had of late often broken through the rule which, in compliance with her mother's advice, she had at first laid down for herself, to abstain from recommending persons for preferment; and had pressed many a petition on the minister's notice as to which it was self-evident that she could know nothing of their merits, nor feel any personal interest in their success.

In the spring of 1774 she had an opportunity of convincing her mother that any imputation of neglect of her countrymen when visiting the court was unfounded, by the marked honors which she paid to Marshal Lacy, one of the most honored veterans of the Seven Years' War. Knowing how highly he was esteemed by her mother, she took care to be informed beforehand of the day of his arrival. She gave orders that he should find invitations to her parties awaiting him. She made arrangements to give him a private audience even before he saw the king, where her reception of him showed how deep and ineffaceable was her love for her family and her old home, even while fairly recognizing the fact that her first duties and her first affections now belonged to France. The old warrior avowed that he had been greatly moved by the touching affection with which she spoke to him of her love and veneration for her mother; and by the tears which he saw in her eyes when she said that the one thing wanting to her happiness was the hope of being allowed one day to see that dear mother once more. She showed him some of the last presents which the empress had sent her, and dwelt with fond minuteness of observation on some views of Schoenbrunn and other spots in the neighborhood of Vienna which were endeared to her by her early recollections.

The return of mild weather seemed to be bringing with it same return of strength to the king, when, on the 28th of April, he was suddenly seized with illness, which was presently pronounced by the physicians to be the small-pox. All was consternation at Versailles, for it was soon perceived to be a severe if not a malignant attack; and at the same time all was perplexity. Thirty years before, when Louis had been supposed to be on his deathbed at Metz, bishops, peers, and ministers had found in the loss of royal favor reason to repent the precipitation with which they had insisted on the withdrawal of Madame de Chateauroux; and now, should he again recover, it was likely that Madame du Barri would he equally resentful, and that the confessor who should make her removal a necessary condition of his administering the sacraments of the Church to the king, and the courtiers who should support or act upon their requisition, would surely find reason to repent it. Accordingly, for the first few days of Louis's illness, she remained at Versailles; but he grew visibly worse. His daughters, who, though they had not had the disease themselves, tended his sick-bed with the most devoted and fearless affection, consulted the physicians, who declared it dangerous to admit of any further delay in the ministration of the rites of the Church. He himself gave his sanction to the ladies' departure, and then the royal confessor administered the sacraments, and drew up a declaration to be published in the royal name, that, "though he owed no account of his conduct to any but God alone, he nevertheless declared that he repented having given rise to scandal among his subjects, and only desired to live for the support of religion and the welfare of his people."

Even this avowal the Cardinal de Roche-Aymer promised Madame du Barri to suppress; but the royal confessor, the Abbe Mandoux, overruled him, and compelled its publication, in spite of the Duc de Richelieu, the chief confidant of the mistress, and long the chief minister and promoter of the king's debaucheries, who insulted the cardinal with the grossest abuse for his breach of promise.[8] It may be doubted whether such a compromise with profligacy, and such a profanation of the most solemn rites of the Church by its ministers, were not the greatest scandal of all; but it was in too complete harmony with their conduct throughout the whole of the reign. And, as it was impossible but that religion itself should suffer in the estimation of worldly men from such an open disregard of all but its mere outward forms, it can hardly be denied that the French cardinals and prelates about the court had almost as great a share in bringing about that general feeling of contempt for all religion which led to that formal disavowal of God himself which was witnessed twenty years later, as the scoffers who were now uniting against it, or the professed infidels who then, renounced it. Such as it was, the king's act of penitence was not performed too soon. At the end of the first week of May all prospect of his recovery vanished. Mortification set in, and on the 10th of May he died.