"DC 
 
 .3 
 I313L 
 
 Qfornell Ittiocrattg Hibrarg 
 
 JItliaca. Hnn fork 
 
 Uljtte il^istnncal ffiihcara 
 
 THE GIFT OF PRESIDENT WHITE 
 
 MAINTAINED BY THE UNIVERSITY IN ACCORD- 
 ANCE WITH THE PROVISIONS 
 OF THE GIFT 
 
DAT PUE 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 DC 133.3.1322 1893 
 
 The last years of Louis XV. 
 
 3 1924 024 289 807 
 
The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924024289807 
 
THE 
 
 LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV. 
 
The Publication Committee of The Club of Odd Volumes 
 certify that this Copy is one of an Edition of One Hundred 
 and Fifty Copies printed on Holland Hand-made Paper, and this 
 Copy is No. /AZ 
 
 Chairman. 
 
M 
 S? 
 
 ^ 
 
THE 
 
 Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 SCtanglateli from tije iFrenrij 
 
 OF 
 
 IMBERT DE SAINT-AMAND 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE CLUB OF ODD VOLUMES 
 
 1893 
 
 ^' 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 V. The Childhood of Marie- Antoinette ........ 121 
 
 VI. Marie- Antoinette's Arrival in France 131 
 
 VII. The Marriage of Marie-Antoinette, and the F^tes at- 
 tending IT 141 
 
 VIII. The Dauphine and the Royal Family IN1770 150 
 
 IX. Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry 159 
 
 X. The Dauphine and Maria Theresa 172 
 
 XL The Pavilion of Luciennes 188 
 
 XII. Death of Louis XV. ■ 200 
 
 EPILOGUE. — The Passing of Madame du Barry 211 
 
 INDEX 227 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 MADAME DU BARRY Frontispiece 
 
 A fac-simile in Goupilgravure reproduced from a Portrait by De Creuse, 
 after Drouais, in the Museum of Versailles. 
 
 A GouPiL Photogravure in bistre of the same . . . To face page i 
 
 * 
 MARIE ANTOINETTE 131 
 
 A Goupil Photogravure in black reproduced from a Portrait by Mme. Vig^e 
 Lebrun, painted in 1783. 
 
 A Goupil Photogravure in bistre of the same 141 
 
THE LAST YEARS OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 PART FIRST 
 
 COURT AND CITY AT THE CLOSE OF THE REIGN 
 OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 TO live the life of those who are no more, to study an 
 epoch thoroughly, to identify one's self with the per- 
 sons, and familiarize one's self with their customs, their 
 modes of thought, their passions, their tastes, their fashions, 
 their prejudices, is in itself a sort of metempsychosis. 
 
 In order to accomplish that purpose, one must detach 
 himself from his own epoch, and, forgetting his own identity, 
 imagine that he is somebody else. At first you pay but 
 slight attention to the details of the memoirs of the time 
 which you are studying, to the minutice of all sorts which 
 are only to be discerned, so to speak, with the aid of a 
 magnifying-glass. But after a little, all the petty gossip and 
 tittle-tattle of the day begin to fascinate you, and you seem 
 to live again in a recreated past. It seems as if you were 
 intimately acquainted with the original actors in the drama 
 of which you are having a performance all by yourself. 
 You fancy that you hear their voices, watch the play of 
 their features, and you become for the nonce the courtier 
 
2 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 a la mode, the subscriber to the theatres, and the habitue 
 of the salons which you are trying to restore in all their 
 former glory. 
 
 It is something Hke that which I propose to myself to try 
 and do for the last years of Louis XV., — those six years, from 
 the death of the good Queen Marie Leczinska, to that of the 
 monarch himself, who was no longer, except by antiphrasis, 
 the " Well-Beloved." It is a period made interesting by the 
 striking contrasts which it offers to the view, by the uncer- 
 tain conflict between the old regime, which was just tottering 
 in the last stages of debility, and the new order of things, 
 which was still in an embryotic state. French society, with 
 no regret for the past, and no fear for the future, was dancing 
 and singing on towards the abyss. 
 
 I try to imagine that instead of being an obscure man 
 of letters of the nineteenth century, I am a courtier of the 
 eighteenth ; that I am an eye-witness of the triumph of 
 Madame du Barry ; that I saw Madame Louise of France 
 take the veil as a Carmelite nun ; and that I have been pres- 
 ent at the bedside reception of that rising star who was 
 called Marie-Antoinette. I doat upon Versailles, where the 
 monarchy, even in its decadence, retains some little prestige ; 
 but I much prefer Paris, — Paris, the fountain-head of public 
 opinion, the city of luxury and intellect and pleasure. I live 
 with the philosophes, though I distrust their doctrines, of 
 which they do not appreciate the inevitable result. At 
 Versailles a courtier of Louis XV., at Paris I am the inti 
 mate friend of the kings and queens of fashion. I frequent 
 
Court and City. 3 
 
 the salon of the Marquise du Deffand without getting my- 
 self into hot water with Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. At 
 Madame Geoffrin's I meet those great nobles, men of under- 
 standing and taste, who, by mingling freely with authors and 
 artists, establish a fusion between the aristocracy and men of 
 letters, and those foreign diplomatists who do not conceal 
 their infatuation with the advanced civilization of France, 
 — of Paris above all. 
 
 I am a welcome guest at those charming supper-parties 
 where one forgets, for a moment, everything that is sad or 
 gloomy in life, and thinks only of that which is soothing and 
 pleasant. 
 
 I dip into politics a bit at my leisure ; and when the Due 
 de Choiseul falls from power, I pose as his warm adherent, 
 and go to write my name with the rest upon the pillar at 
 Chanteloup. The disputes between the magistracy and 
 the clergy also possess interest for me; but I do not take 
 them so tragically as some. 
 
 I see society divided into two hostile camps, — pessimists 
 and optimists ; those who believe in the threatening danger, 
 and those who laugh at it. But the last are vastly in the 
 majority. The former declare that if the foundations of the 
 altar are shaken, those upon which the throne is built may be 
 no more solid. They regret the expulsion of the Jesuits ; 
 they are loud in their condemnation of Voltaire. The fu- 
 ture looks very black to them ; they are the true prophets 
 of evil. The others smile when one gives sign of fear. 
 When they have uttered the words " toleration," " equality," 
 
4 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 " liberty," they think they have said all there is to be said. 
 They scoff at the Cassandras foretelling public disaster, at 
 the priests who wring their hands over the prevailing in- 
 credulity, at Louis XV. gazing uneasily at the portrait of 
 Charles I. of England. How absurd the thought that a loyal, 
 chivalrous nation, such a nation as the French, could ever 
 send its anointed king to the scaffold ! Is not society 
 becoming every day more moderate in tone, more enlightened 
 and more tolerant .? Are not the old religious disputes 
 falling into desuetude ? Is not the nobility taking the lead 
 in a free and liberal movement 1 Have not the priests 
 become socially as eligible as worldly people .? Is not edu- 
 cation making marvellous progress every day. 
 
 When had literature greater prestige 1 Was there ever 
 a time when liberal ideas, desire for useful reforms, and 
 plans looking to the extension of civilization were more 
 fashionable.? Is not science, which brings to light new 
 marvels every day, joining hands with the new philosophy 
 to benefit, to pacify, and to regenerate the human race.? 
 
 And it is such an epoch as this that you would charac- 
 terize as a time given over to confusion, to anarchy, and 
 to bloody revolution ! 
 
 " Back, ye waverers ! " cry the philosophes. " Back, ye 
 men of former days, who would enchain and degrade man- 
 kind ! Nothing, no, nothing, will impede the irresistible 
 movement which is drawing France, and all Europe in her 
 wake, on in the path of progress towards indefinable, 
 boundless perfection. Lay aside these cowardly arguments. 
 
Court and City. 5 
 
 these imaginary alarms, this terror fit only for children, or 
 old men in their dotage. All the spectres which you 
 evoke will not terrify us. Your phantasmagoria only makes 
 us laugh. In vain do you raise your voice to frighten us 
 with your tragic threats and your gloomy predictions. Back, 
 back, ye waverers ! The world is moving on, and you can- 
 not stop it ! " 
 
 I listen to this torrent of fine words, but I confess that 
 they are not altogether convincing to me ; I have not such 
 a firm belief as that in the approach of the Golden Age. 
 " After me, the deluge," cried Louis XV., they say, in 
 Madame Du Barry's boudoir, Louis XV. sees no good 
 augury for the future, and it may be that he is right. 
 
 And I, who am whirled about in the vortex of society; 
 I, who am in the thick of that excited, feverish, brilliant life, 
 the life of the court and the city, of salons and boudoirs, of 
 academies and theatres ; I, who am of all the supper-parties, 
 all the fetes, and an indefatigable first-nighter ; I, the friend 
 of all the great lords and famous men, of all the fashionable 
 beauties, — I too have, in common with the old king, my 
 moments of depression and discouragement. Sometimes 
 all these men and women whom I meet in society seem 
 to me, as to the old Marquise du Deffand, " like mere 
 machines, who go and come, chatter and laugh, without 
 thought or reflection or emotion, playing each his part 
 mechanically and from long habit." Mere worldly creatures, 
 outwardly earnest and enthusiastic, but really indifferent 
 to everything ; spiteful allusions, upon which jealousy and 
 
6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 idleness feed and thrive ; insipid love-making, which is a mere 
 burlesque of passion ; everlasting disquisitions upon love 
 and friendship pronounced by those who never have 
 known, and never will know, more than the theory of those 
 sentiments ; selfish, lukewarm alliances, growing out of the 
 artificial life of the salons, — yes, there are times when 
 you weary me beyond measure, and the mere thought of 
 you is horrible to me. There are moments when I say 
 to myself, " Where will this rage for philosophy end ? 
 What sort of a structure will rise over all this ruin ? 
 What will become of the throne without the altar, of the 
 nobility without the clergy? What will come of this 
 Tower of Babel called the Encyclopedie ? ' " 
 
 And, after all, what a world of sadness really lies hidden 
 beneath this mask of gayety ! What emptiness and wretched- 
 ness ! How bitter is the flavor at the bottom of these cups 
 of crystal ! How many thorns among the roses, and how 
 many bitter cares beneath these powdered wigs ! Ye brilliant 
 beauties, what lines of anguish are drawn on your rouge- 
 laden cheeks! 
 
 O eighteenth century, which vaunted so proudly thy 
 intellect, thy boldness, and thy alleged progress; century 
 of philosophers, of learned great ladies, of noblemen turned 
 artists, of omnipotent wielders of the pen ; century of 
 Rousseau and Voltaire, of Diderot and Helvetius, — thou 
 eighteenth century, now drawing to a close, what will thy 
 last years be ? 
 
 But a truce to gloomy forebodings. I cry, with Horace 
 
Court and City. 7 
 
 Walpole, " I laugh so, that I need not weep. I play with 
 monkeys and dogs and cats, to avoid being devoured by the 
 beast of Gevaudan." Let us then, since there is still time, 
 taste the sweets of life and emotion. Let us scrutinize with- 
 out prejudice this society which has so much that is charm- 
 ing and alluring, with all its faults and vices. Court and 
 city, nobility, clergy, magistracy, bourgeoisie, common people, 
 philosophes, men of letters, women, — yes, the women above 
 all ; let us pass them in review one after another, the 
 actors and supernumeraries of a comedy which will end, soon 
 it may be, with the most pathetic and sombre of imaginable 
 scenes. The new world comes on apace ; let us cast a last 
 glance upon the old. 
 
THE KING. 
 
 TOWARDS the close of the reign of Louis XV. the 
 court was out of fashion. To be sure, the old etiquette 
 was in force there, and one found the same old names and 
 the same distinctions of caste. But the king was old, and, 
 more than that, the king was ridiculous. His passion for a 
 mere courtesan, for a Du Barry, had in it something absurd 
 and pitiably grotesque. Versailles no longer trembled before 
 him, but laughed at him. They made sport of the amorous 
 monarch who was playing an out-of-date pastoral comedy 
 with a harlot. The " Well-beloved of the Almance," as he 
 was satirically called, was no longer taken seriously. 
 
 In 1 77 1 some joker circulated this version of the Lord's 
 Prayer, dedicated to His Most Christian Majesty: "Our 
 Father who art at Versailles, hallowed be thy name: thy 
 reign is played out, and thy will is no more done in earth 
 than in heaven. Give back to us our daily bread, which 
 thou hast taken away ; forgive thy Parliaments who have 
 upheld thy interests, as thou hast forgiven thy ministers who 
 have betrayed them. Yield no more to the temptations of 
 the Du Barry, but deliver us from thy devil of a chancellor." 
 Affairs at Versailles, however, are still conducted as deco- 
 
The King. 9 
 
 rously as of yore. The gentlemen on duty fulfil the func- 
 tions of their respective offices with the same assiduity. The 
 king's levee is still a farce in five acts, in which the courtiers 
 appear as supernumeraries of high degree. There are still 
 the entrees familieres, when the king is awake, but still in 
 bed; the grandes entrees, when he has risen and donned his 
 dressing-gown ; then the so-called entrees de la chambre, 
 when he is seated in his arm-chair at the toilette-table ; and, 
 lastly, the general entree, which admits the common herd 
 of courtiers, who have been waiting since dawn in the 
 Galerie des Glaces. 
 
 Versailles is still, as of old, a city of eighty thousand 
 souls, filled and dominated by the life of a single man, — an 
 essentially royal city, marvellously well adapted to supply the 
 service, the pleasures, the body-guard, and the society of the 
 sovereign. The immortal race of courtiers is unceasingly 
 recruited from the clever and compliant men who, -upon 
 making their debut at court, have received this advice, and 
 followed it to the letter : " You have but three things to 
 do, — speak well of everybody, apply for every vacant post, 
 and sit down whenever you can." 
 
 But all these courtiers, in spite of their irreproachable 
 demeanor, resemble priests who have ceased to believe in 
 their god. Quantities of incense are still burned at the idol's 
 feet, through force of habit ; but the idol hardly deceives 
 anybody now. Etiquette, which is still enforced in all its 
 tedious regulations, is a custom simply ; it is no longer a 
 cult. Prestige has disappeared. No successor to Dangeau 
 
lo The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 or to De Luynes is to be found ; moreover, money, the vital 
 principle of courts, is becoming less plentiful. Horace Wal- 
 pole writes, on the 30th July, 1771 : "There is incredible 
 distress here, especially at court ; the king's tradesmen are 
 ruined ; his servants are dying of hunger ; the angels and 
 archangels themselves would fail to receive their pensions or 
 salaries. So they are singing, ' Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! ' instead 
 of ' Hosannah ! ' Compiegne is abandoned. Villers-Cotterets 
 and Chantilly are crowded. Chanteloup is even more in 
 vogue.* Every one goes there who chooses, although, when 
 the king's permission is asked, the invariable reply is, ' I 
 say neither yes nor no.' It is the first time that the will of 
 a king of France has ever been interpreted against his 
 meaning. After abolishing the Parliament and destroy- 
 ing the public credit, he meekly submits to the slights of 
 his personal attendants. Madame de Beauvau and two or 
 three 'other ladies of an enterprising character defy this Tsar 
 of the Gauls." 
 
 Walpole takes care to add that the insubordination of 
 these ladies is really of no serious importance. " It must 
 be said that they and their intrigues have about as little 
 cohesive power as their party. They make epigrammes, sing 
 vaudevilles aimed at the favorite, and distribute pamphlets 
 against the Chancellor Maupeou ; but all this has no more 
 result than a shot fired in the air." 
 
 * Villers-Cotterets and Chantilly were the seats of the Due d'Orldans and 
 Prince de Condd, who were then in disgrace for taking sides with the former Par- 
 liament of Paris against the Chancellor Maupeou. Chanteloup was the place of 
 exile of the Due de Choiseul. 
 
The King. i r 
 
 To sum up, people retain for the king, if not affection 
 and respect, — they have long since ceased to exist, — a cer- 
 tain indulgent feeling. They make excuses for the old 
 fellow as they might do for a spoiled child. He has done 
 wrong, perhaps ; but then he has done some good too. He 
 has lost the colonies ; but he has annexed Lorraine and 
 Corsica to France. He has held his own against powerful 
 coalitions. He is the victor of Fontenoy. His old arm has 
 been strong enough to smite the Parliament ; and that coup 
 d'etat postponed the final catastrophe for some years. 
 
 Louis XV., pious and debauched, discontented with 
 others as with himself, a curious compound of indecision 
 and energy, of heedlessness and common-sense ; Louis 
 XV., retaining still something of dignity and quiet good- 
 breeding, of the demeanor befitting a gentleman and a 
 sovereign ; Louis XV., to be pitied rather than blamed, it 
 may be, — is the type of the old regime, the incarnation of 
 the monarchy, which, notwithstanding its visible decay, has 
 clung to some fragments of attractiveness and of strength 
 and authority. 
 
 He is a confirmed debauchee, no doubt ; but, after all, he 
 is no better or worse than so many gray-haired Celadons, 
 so many veterans of Cythera and superannuated rakes, who 
 would think their vital spark was extinct if they ceased to 
 have mistresses. Even learned magistrates play such pranks 
 sometimes. They have their little houses, their boudoirs, 
 their temples of pleasure. The eighteenth century, epicu- 
 rean at heart, is only half indignant with the royal gallantry. 
 
li The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 It laughs at it, and the monarchical principle is assailed 
 much less by direct attack than by a weapon more formi- 
 dable, perhaps, — ridicule. When I see Louis XV. at mass 
 in the chapel at Versailles, praying very earnestly in the 
 royal gallery, not far from his unworthy favorite, — who is 
 without paint or powder, and has not even made her toilet, — 
 I have difficulty in repressing a contemptuous exclamation. 
 
 As for the old king, proud as a peacock of his victory 
 over Parliament, he thinks that he has, by a master-stroke, 
 assured himself a long and peaceable old age. In his own 
 mind he gives himself several more years of dissipation. 
 Then, he tells himself, the time for repentance will come ; 
 then he will repent and be truly devout, and will be the 
 most Christian king, otherwise than in name. How many 
 old rakes there are who thus postpone the hour of their final 
 conversion, while boasting of an inborn, if somewhat hypo- 
 critical, respect for religion ! This half piety, this rough 
 draught of virtue, this penitence dependent upon a future 
 contingency, we find in many souls. Is there aught more 
 feeble or inconsequent than the nature of man? We rub 
 elbows with such as Louis XV. every hour of our lives. 
 Men with his proclivities almost all resemble the lover of 
 the Du Barry, when they grow old ; and examples are very 
 rare of such men who, while their health is intact and money 
 plentiful, will consent to become hermits, notwithstanding 
 their gray hairs. 
 
 The prevailing sentiment with regard to the kino- is not 
 so much hatred as indifference. He will be allowed to die 
 
The King. 13 
 
 in peace, and his subjects will be content to look on, with no 
 emotion of any sort, at the setting of this winter sun which 
 gives neither heat nor light. Some there are who sigh 
 impatiently for a new reign to begin. Wise heads consider 
 the future Louis XVI. too young. After all, Louis XV., 
 despite his mistakes, his defects, and his vicious habits, is a 
 man of experience, and skilled in the science of government. 
 But when will the Dauphin possess the necessary knowledge? 
 How much time will be required to teach him the most 
 elementary principles of that difficult art, the art of reign- 
 ing? He will have the best intentions; he will be honorable, 
 upright, and virtuous. But all that is not enough. The task 
 will be a heavy one for young shoulders. For this reason, 
 Maria Theresa, woman of genius that she is, and endowed 
 with keen and accurate vision, fears nothing so much as 
 the death of Louis XV., the much-decried monarch. As 
 king, if not as man, the oldster was worth much more than 
 the child. 
 
II. 
 
 THE NOBILITY. 
 
 THERE are two parties in the nobility, — conservatives 
 and liberals ; men of the past, and men of the future. 
 The former are firm in support of the alliance between 
 throne and altar, and insist upon respectful observance of 
 all the old customs, and the rigid maintenance of the formal- 
 ities of etiquette. Irreconcilable foes of the new philos- 
 ophy, of Anglomania, and the " Encyclopedic," they look 
 with a scornful and angry eye upon the changes in dress, 
 the disuse of liveries, and the rage for foreign fashions. The 
 liberals, combining with the advantages of patrician birth 
 the charm of a life of independence, joyfully adopt the 
 cabriolets, the dress-coats, and the simple English fashions. 
 They applaud the republican declamations at the theatres, 
 the levelling discourses of the academies, the anti-Christian 
 theories of the philosophes. They treat the old social edifice 
 as architecture of the Gothic style. Their own social privi- 
 leges, the remnants of their own former prestige, are being 
 dug from beneath their feet ; but what matters it t This 
 " little war," as the Comte de Segur says, both pleases and 
 entertains them. They do not yet feel the danger, they see 
 only the spectacle. Slaves of the prevailing fashion, they 
 
The Nobility. 15 
 
 rush to pay their court to D'Alembert, Diderot, Marmontel, 
 or Raynal, — a word of praise from whose mouth they 
 esteem more highly than the favor of a prince of the blood. 
 
 Equality begins to make its appearance in the world. 
 On many occasions literary eminence takes precedence of 
 titles of nobility. One often sees, in the first society, men 
 of letters of the second or third rate treated with more 
 deference and consideration than is bestowed upon the pro- 
 vincial nobility. But do not be misled ; all this democratic, 
 almost republican, show is as yet only an optical illusion. 
 The old customs — so says the same liberal authority, 
 the Comte de Segur — still maintain between nobles and 
 bourgeoisie a tremendous gulf, which mere talents, even 
 the most distinguished, only seem to cross. There is more 
 familiarity than equality. Great trees, which lose their roots 
 whether they will or no, are none the less proud of their 
 foliage. So splendid ancestry, magnificent establishments, 
 feudal ways of life, attributes of former power, — all these 
 seem fated to live forever. The castes of the old social 
 regime, with their proud hierarchy, their splendid display, 
 their heraldic blazonry, their opulence and their power, are 
 like " those gorgeous picture* of a thousand hues, drawn 
 with sand upon glass, where one can see and admire superb 
 castles, smiling landscapes, and bounteous harvests, which 
 it needs but the lightest breath to blow away." 
 
 Do not think, however, that the nobility has lost all its 
 former prestige, despite its decadence. No, it" still retains 
 its loyalty, its refinement, and its courteous manners and 
 
1 6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 breeding The least of the provincial squires preserve its 
 traditions. They have frequented the salon of the com- 
 mandant, or intendant, and have met some ladies from 
 Versailles, visiting in the provinces. Thus are they, almost 
 all, acquainted with the changing fashions and customs. 
 
 " The most unpolished will go dow^n to the lowest step 
 of his porch, hat in hand, to escort his guests to their 
 carriage, thanking them for the honor they have done him. 
 The most boorish, when with a lady, will hunt up in his 
 memory some fragments of the gallantry of the days of 
 chivalry. The poorest and most secluded will furbish up 
 his coat of king's blue, and his cross of Saint Louis, that 
 he may be able, on occasion, to pay his respects to his 
 neighbor, the great lord of the neighborhood, or to the 
 prince on his travels." * 
 
 The nobility of the court, frivolous, dissipated, and Voltai- 
 rian, must not make us lose sight of the provincial nobility, 
 who live in austere tranquillity, respecting the principles, 
 customs, and tenets of their class, bearing honorable poverty 
 without a murmur rather than beg favors at Versailles, and 
 making ready, in their retirement, to meet with noble resolu- 
 tion the tempests of which* they can already foresee the 
 approach. 
 
 * M. Taine, " Les Origines de la France contemporaine." One volume. 
 Hachette. 
 
III. 
 
 THE CLERGY. 
 
 JUST as we find in the ranks of the aristocracy, by the 
 side of the nobly born courtiers who too often lead 
 corrupt and useless lives, a provincial nobility faithful to 
 their honorable traditions and to morality and virtue, so 
 there are to be found beside the worldly, corrupt prelates, 
 priests who lead honorable and respectable lives of sincere 
 piety, and who set an edifying example to their countrymen. 
 
 In the body of the clergy, as in the nobility, I distinguish 
 between the rich and the poor, the scoffers and the true 
 believers, the men whose whole lives are a scandal, and 
 those who strive to do what is right. Doubtless there are 
 many reforms to be desired, many abuses to be put down. 
 The princes of the Church, vested with feudal prerogatives, 
 the heirs or successors of the former sovereign princes of 
 the country ; the hundred and thirty-one bishops and arch- 
 bishops, the seven hundred abbes commendataires, with their 
 fashionable manners, their great wealth, and their luxurious 
 establishments, — are not all models of morality. I might 
 name more than one prelate who not only has his mistresses, 
 his hangers-on, his select boon-companions, his morning 
 reception, his crowded ante-chamber, and his ushers and 
 
1 8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 household officers, but who is also deeply in debt; thereby 
 putting the finishing touch to the parallel between himself 
 and the great nobles. 
 
 The Marquis de Mirabeau writes in 1766: "It would be 
 looked upon as insulting by the majority of the ecclesiastics 
 with pretensions, simply to suggest to them to take charge 
 of a parish. The salaries and preferments are for the abbes 
 commendaiaires, for the incumbents who have received the 
 tonsure without taking orders, or for the numerous chapters." 
 There are churchmen who have an income of half a million. 
 One hears mention of the hunting-stable of this bishop, of 
 the satin-trimmed confessionals of another, and of the superb 
 solid silver kitchen outfit of a third. I meet at every turn 
 in the salons or boudoirs of the ladies of fashion these min- 
 cing court abbes who have nothing of the priest save the 
 dress, and who do not always wear that, — these anacreontic 
 abbes, compliant friends of the grandes dames, worshippers 
 at the footstool of the philosophes, purveyors of scandal, and 
 scribblers of frivolous verses. But they are not the clergy 
 properly so-called. The real clergy are to be found in the 
 unpretending vicarages of the cities and villages, — above 
 all, in the latter. Yes, although I know the prelate who 
 plays the great lord, who leads a life of luxurious idleness, 
 frequenter of salons and the court, and who mounts the 
 steps of the marble stairway at Versailles with much more 
 alacrity than he shows in mounting the steps of the altar, 
 I know also the humble, poor, all-enduring priest, the pattern 
 of devotion, of self-sacrifice, and faithfulness to duty, — the 
 
The Clergy. 19 
 
 veritable man of God. Although I meet the bishop exult- 
 ing in his golden cross, so do I reverently salute the 
 country curate who walks leagues upon leagues in the mud 
 or the snow, staff in hand. There are, without doubt, some 
 female convents which are so tainted with worldliness that 
 they seem like centres of the fashionable aristocracy; but 
 there are, on the other hand, real convents, the abode of true 
 piety and saintly devotion. 
 
 One of the daughters of Louis XV., Madame Louise 
 de France, becomes a Carmelite; and the daughters of 
 the order of Mount Carmel make no terms with half- 
 hearted piety. There do exist, I know, certain preachers 
 who are more engrossed in the " Encyclopedic " than in 
 the holy Gospels, and who more nearly resemble Acade- 
 micians than priests. There are some, too, — so I am told, 
 — who forget to make the sign of the cross when they 
 ascend the pulpit, who entirely omit all forms of prayer, 
 and make their sermon a sort of conference with their 
 hearers. Bachaumont tells us that that is called preaching 
 a la grecque. But there are, on the other hand, energetic, 
 impassioned preachers, on whose eloquent lips the sacred 
 terrors of the doctrine of the Church lose none of their 
 force ; men of faith and courage, who, like the apostles, 
 cry out, in view of the scandalous tendencies of the age: 
 " Non possumus non loqui" — " We cannot keep silence." 
 In a sermon remarkable for its saintlike courage, the 
 Bishop of Alais divides society into two classes, — one 
 which has everything, the other nothing, — and demands to 
 
20 The Last Years of Louis XV, 
 
 know what justification there can be for the possession of 
 inimitable privilege by those whose virtue is infinitesimal. 
 
 One day, the Abbe de Beauvais, preaching in the chapel 
 of the palace at Versailles, spoke in terms of severe 
 censure, before the king himself, of the shameful life of 
 the gray-bearded libertines. At the close of the sermon 
 Louis XV. said to that old sot, the Marechal de Richelieu : 
 " Well, Marechal, I should say the preacher has been 
 throwing stones into your garden." 
 
 " Yes, Sire," rejoined the malicious courtier, " and one 
 or two of his missiles rebounded into the park of 
 Versailles." 
 
 The evangelical traditions are maintained, in spite of 
 everything. Even in the most heedless, the most corrupt 
 and vicious epochs, there are always — and if not on the 
 surface, in the depths of society — hidden treasures, inex- 
 haustible springs of love and virtue. No, no. Messieurs 
 les Philosophes, do not confound the Church, the Holy 
 Church, with a few simoniacal priests, a few contraband 
 abbes, who are its bane. 
 
 Do but count up all those who are still to be found in 
 the city and country, in every market-town, in every hamlet, 
 of faithful servants of Christ, bringing succor to the needy, 
 and comfort to the afflicted. There are, to be sure, grave 
 scandals and crying abuses, at which Christian souls 
 deeply grieve. And yet you will see, when the supreme 
 crisis arrives, how many priests will have the strength and 
 courage to meet death like the early Christian martyrs. 
 
The Clergy. 21 
 
 You, who believe that the clergy are done with forever, 
 will soon be lost in wonder, perhaps, to see how many 
 heroic and fearless men it can boast. During the storm 
 which is at hand you will realize what this ridiculed, 
 decried religion is, how great its worth and its power. 
 You think now that the Church is in a state of decay. 
 But persecution will bring back its youth, if necessary. 
 It will be rebaptized ; and its second baptism, which will 
 wash out every stain, will be a baptism of blood. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE MAGISTRACY. 
 
 n^HE same contrasts which I find in the nobility and 
 the clergy are repeated in the magistracy. Beside 
 magistrates of the old-fashioned temper, sober-minded and 
 severe, devoted to tradition, obeying the dictates of duty, 
 and conscious of the dignity of their profession, I am 
 grieved to observe epicurean brethren, disciples of 
 Voltaire, intriguing devotees of pleasure, superficial and 
 frivolous, partisans of revolutionary ideas, and preparing 
 the way, unknown to themselves, for the overturning of 
 throne and altar alike, with no suspicion of the serious 
 nature of the blows they are dealing at the foundations of 
 society. They are only in appearance the defenders of law 
 and order; in reality they are nothing better than active 
 agents of their subversion. They do not even take the 
 pains to be hypocritical about it. The same men who 
 send Calas to the wheel, and La Barre to the scaffold, 
 keep a copy of Voltaire's " Pucelle " upon their drawing- 
 room tables, and are the intimate friends and flatterers 
 of the materialists, the atheists. If a book is ordered to 
 be burned, the sentence brings a smile to the lips of 
 the magistrate who utters it. 
 
The Magistracy. 23 
 
 " They inveigh against the decrees," says Bachaumont ; 
 " a bright saying is a sufi6cient answer to a sermon ; and 
 if Parliament intervenes, they congratulate themselves on 
 the honor of having the book burned." 
 
 It is no longer looked upon as a punishment, but as 
 an advertisement. Do not imagine, either, that monsieur 
 the executioner of noble works of the pen is allowed to 
 cast into the fire those books whose titles appear in the 
 decree of the court. " Messieurs the magistrates would 
 be very sorry to deprive their libraries of a copy of each 
 of those works, which will come to them in due course ; 
 so the clerk supplies their place with some wretched, 
 paltry volumes which no one will ever miss." * 
 
 These parliamentarians, who occupy a position midway 
 between the greatest nobles and the bourgeoisie ; who are 
 wealthy, influential, allied to the most powerful families in 
 France ; these great lords of the robe, each one of whom 
 has his own little Versailles, — a fine mansion, with court- 
 yard and garden, — and who are to the main body of the 
 magistracy what the prelates are to the clergy, — these 
 leading spirits of the Parliament gradually become formi- 
 dable foes of the Monarchy. 
 
 Louis XV. holds them in holy horror. From the time 
 of Madame de Pompadour he has looked upon them as 
 enemies, and the most to be dreaded of all. 
 
 " These great gentlemen of the robe," he said one day 
 to the favorite, *' are always at daggers drawn with the 
 
 * Grimm, Correspondance Litt^raire, 1773. 
 
24 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 clergy ; they drive me to distraction with their quarrelling ; 
 but I despise the gentlemen of the robe much the more. 
 My clergy are in their hearts devoted and faithful to me, 
 while the others would like to keep me under guardianship. 
 The Regent was very ill-advised to restore their right of 
 remonstrating ; they will end by destroying the State." 
 
 "Ah, Sire," rejoined M. de Gontant, "the State is much 
 too powerful to be demoralized by such little wretches as 
 they." 
 
 "You have no idea of their capacity for ill," replied 
 the king ; " it is an assemblage of republicans. But never 
 mind ; things will endure in their present state as long 
 as I live." 
 
 Confusion is already rife in the governing class. Mon- 
 tesquieu wrote : " There are in France three estates, — the 
 Church, the sword, and the robe. Each of the three has 
 a sovereign contempt for the other two." 
 
 One of Louis' ministers for Foreign Affairs, the Marquis 
 d 'Argenson, has predicted the inevitable outcome of this 
 regime of dissension, of unceasing conflict of power. 
 
 " What will be the reply in the future," he wrote, " to 
 the question whether despotism shall flourish or be put 
 down in France ? For my own part, I am for the second 
 course, — I even hope for the advent of republicanism. 
 Louis XV. has not succeeded in governing tyrannically, 
 or as the head of a republic ; and in this land, when one 
 does not assume either the one or the other of those char- 
 acters, woe to royal prestige ! The people have become 
 
The Magistracy. 25 
 
 excellent critics of the parliaments, and see in them only 
 the cure for the annoyance which they suffer from another 
 direction. All this portends a revolution smouldering 
 under the ashes." 
 
 It was in 1752 that the same Marquis d 'Argenson 
 penned the following prophetic lines : " The wretched 
 fruits of our absolute monarchy are sure to demonstrate 
 to France and to all Europe that it is the very worst of 
 all possible forms of government. I do not mean to say, 
 with the philosophes, that even anarchy would be better. 
 However, that opinion is making rapid headway, and may 
 end by producing a national revolution." 
 
 An earnest and militant opposition has been directed 
 against the Church in the very bosom of Catholicism, and 
 against the royal power among the nobility of the robe 
 and the parliamentary bourgeoisie. A species of league 
 has been formed by all the Parliaments in France, which 
 look upon themselves as constituent parts of a single 
 assembly, as the joint and several members of an indivisible 
 body. Louis XV., surprisingly energetic at times, awakes 
 from his torpor, and realizes the need of striking a vigorous 
 blow. During the night of the 19th of January, 1771, 
 all those members of the Parliament of Paris who, in a 
 spirit of opposition, have refused to- fulfil their functions, 
 are arrested in their houses, and required to reply "Yes" 
 or " No " to a royal command to resume their customary 
 duties. They reply, " No," and are exiled. 
 
 The people remain impassive, and the dissolved Parlia- 
 
26 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 ment makes way, without resistance, for the new one, — 
 called, from the name of the chancellor, the Parliament 
 Maupeou. Louis XV. believes himself to be more power- 
 ful than Louis XIV., and the chancellor mightier than 
 Richelieu. Madame de Pompadour overthrew the Jesuits f 
 Madame Du Barry overthrows the parliamentary party, 
 — that is to say, the Jansenists. The two rival factions, 
 Jesuit and Jansenist, having disappeared, would one not 
 believe that absolute monarchy remains standing alone and 
 unshaken upon their ruins ? 
 
 But it is only an optical delusion. The Parliament 
 Maupeou is discredited from the start, and is sustained 
 with but little vigor by the power which created it. It 
 allows the affair of Beaumarchais against the Counsellor 
 Goezman — an affair of most trifling importance in itself, 
 but momentous in its consequences — to assume incredible 
 proportions. The Polish question, dramatic and terrible, 
 engrosses the attention of Versailles and Paris less than 
 this wretched quarrel between the author of the " Barbier 
 de Seville " and one of his judges, or, to speak more accu- 
 rately, the wife of one of his judges. 
 
 What was the point at issue ? Whether or not the 
 wife of a Counsellor of the Parliament retained the sum 
 of fifteen louis received from a litigant. Whence, pray, 
 so much public interest and passion ? Why this feverish 
 anxiety, this insane curiosity, with which all Paris, — indeed, 
 all France, — follows the trivialities of this lawsuit? Be- 
 cause it is a symbolical episode. The subject of inves- 
 
The Magistracy. 27 
 
 tigation is not so much the domestic economy of the 
 Goezman household as the Parliament Maupeou as a 
 whole. Upon the culprit's stool I seem to see, not Beau- 
 rnarchais, but the magistracy. He it is, he, the defendant, 
 who, by an interchange of characters, appears as the king's 
 prosecutor — what do I say ? — as the prosecutor, rather, 
 of the new-born power, public opinion. His statements 
 become the public prosecutor's address to the court. The 
 cause is a political quite as much as a judicial one. All 
 parts of the old social structure are honeycombed and 
 mined. All the springs of the old machine are getting out 
 of order one by one. And instead of weeping, the privi- 
 leged classes do nothing but laugh. The Goezman lawsuit 
 is a comedy, in which the proscenium boxes find as much 
 amusement as the pit. 
 
 I am not sure that Louis XV. himself — even Louis 
 XV., so hard as he is to amuse — does not unbend some- 
 what over it ; certainly Madame Du Barry gets a vast 
 amount of sport out of it. She has proverbs acted in her 
 apartments, in which Madame Goezman and Beaumarchais 
 are brought face to face. Beaumarchais is the cynosure of 
 every eye, he has become the fashionable lion, the hero 
 of the hour. 
 
 " 1 am afraid," writes Voltaire, " that this brilliant hot- 
 head is right against all the world. His naivete enchants 
 me (the naivete of Beaumarchais I ). 1 forgive him his 
 imprudence and petulance." 
 
 The conclusion of the most serious of all affairs, a most 
 
28 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 momentous treaty of peace, would be awaited less im- 
 patiently than is the result of this lawsuit, which fills 
 the thoughts, incredible as it may seem, of many nations 
 and many kings, to so great a degree does France, even in 
 her decline, preserve the faculty, in these closing years of 
 Louis XV., of attracting the attention of all Europe to 
 anything which takes place within her borders! "Judg-, 
 ment at last ! " as Chicaneau says in Racine's " Plaideurs. " 
 On the 26th of February, 1774, after seven months of 
 expectation, the decree is pronounced. Madame Goezman 
 is condemned to be reprimanded, and to make restitution of 
 the fifteen louis, to be distributed among the poor. And 
 Beaumarchais, too, is condemned to be reprimanded. 
 
 To be reprimanded! It is no trifling punishment, but 
 an infamous one, and renders him who undergoes it, 
 ineligible for public employment. The culprit receives the 
 sentence on his knees before the court, the president 
 addressing him thus ; " The court reprimands you, and 
 declares you infamous." Oh, well I The man whom the 
 Parliament Maupeou fancied that it could thus brand with 
 infamy, is throned in triumph, and all Paris hastens to write 
 its name upon the convict's visitor's book. The Prince de 
 Conti and the Due de Chartres give a great banquet for 
 him, the day after the sentence ; M. de Sartine says to 
 him ; " It is not enough to be reprimanded, you must be 
 modest too." 
 
 The opposition, nodding for an instant, awakes with 
 energy renewed. Pamphlets and diatribes begin again 
 
The Magistracy. 29 
 
 to rain down upon the Parliament Maupeou, which, by 
 the very act of inflicting civil death upon a man whom 
 public opinion idolized, has dealt itself a mortal blow. Its 
 days, like those of the old king, are numbered. As for 
 Louis XV., basing his opinion of Beaumarchais upon the 
 address which the clever fellow has shown in the Goez- 
 man matter, he intrusts him with a secret mission to 
 England. 
 
 When such discordant notes are heard in society, the 
 catastrophe is not far away. 
 
V 
 
 THE BOURGEOISIE. 
 
 A N extraordinary fact is that the Revolution has its origin 
 '^^ in the higher ranks of society; that it works down, not 
 up. The suffering classes, the hungry classes, are submissive 
 and silent. The privileged classes, on the other hand, — 
 those who, amid the public distress, are gorged with gold 
 and debauchery, are the ones who whine and complain. The 
 higher you mount in the social scale, the less virtue and 
 true faith do you find. The common people are better than 
 the bourgeoisie, the bourgeoisie better than the nobility ; the 
 provincial nobles are more estimable than those of the 
 court, the lower orders of the priesthood than the prelates. 
 One would say that morality, being in inverse ratio to 
 rank, the most formidable foes of society are the very ones 
 who have the most to lose if it goes under. The great 
 landed proprietors are demolishing their own mansions and 
 chateaux. The prelates are sapping the underpinning of the 
 Church. The princes of the blood are shaking the throne. 
 It is in this way that the self-styled defenders of the social 
 fortress are spiking their guns, levelling their breastworks, 
 dampening their powder, shattering their v/eapons, and will 
 eventually end by delivering the key of the citadel to the 
 enemy. 
 
The Bourgeoisie. 31 
 
 The great mass of the bourgeoisie still holds out against 
 the invading forces of impiety. At Paris, as well as in the 
 provinces, the prevailing idea among good citizens of the 
 middle class is still : " Without the Monarchy, and with- 
 out the Church — anarchy." In religion and in politics, 
 even though they are in the opposition, their demands go 
 no farther than the liberties of the Galilean Church, and the 
 constitutional guarantees thereof demanded by the Pai-lia- 
 ments. Even though they have ceased to love and respect 
 Louis XV., they continue to respect in his person the 
 royal idea. 
 
 Estimable men, of calm and reflective temperament, they 
 have as little desire to make war upon the nobility as to 
 truckle to them. As for the Monarchy, they look upon it as 
 a dogma, an indispensable portion of their faith. 
 
 The bourgeois Regnaud thus expresses himself: " It is 
 a law of the realm, sanctioned throughout the ages by the 
 divine command, to respect the sovereign, even when he 
 brings misfortune upon the people whom Providence has 
 intrusted to his care. God forbid that in this narrative 
 which I am writing I should undertake to disregard that 
 sacred law." * 
 
 Another bourgeois, Prosper Hardy, delivers himself as 
 follows in his Memoirs : " Although I have never regarded 
 myself as anything more than a mere molecule of society, I 
 think that I deserve to occupy an honorable position there by 
 
 * MS. MSmoires of Regnaud, Procureur of the Parliament of Paris under the 
 coup d'dtatoi 177 1. 
 
32 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 virtue of my unswerving fidelity to my sovereign, and my love 
 for his sacred person. The sentiments which I have imbibed 
 in the course of my education, and in the books which I 
 have read, will never be rooted out of my heart. Although, 
 by God's will, my fortune is of the slightest, the promise of 
 an income of one hundred thousand crowns would not tempt 
 me to give up a possession which is of inestimable value to 
 me, and which cannot be stolen from me, — to wit, the 
 sense of my unblemished honor and my genuine patriot- 
 ism. I should always consider it my bounden duty to 
 have no other opinions in the present controversies than 
 those held by the first magistrates of the realm and the 
 princes of the blood royal, who have demonstrated their 
 sentiments in no uncertain tone, and with all due respect 
 for our august master, by their solemn protest, to which all 
 good citizens cannot fail to render a tribute of admiration, 
 and to subscribe with all their souls."* 
 
 The opposition still hedges itself about with most defe- 
 rential respect for the person and the authority of the 
 sovereign. Hardy casts the odium for the ill that is done 
 upon the ministers, and makes no charge against Louis XV. 
 He complains of despotism, but never of the king. 
 
 Just as one finds in the heart of the provinces old- 
 fashioned manor-houses, castle-keeps blackened by the hand 
 of time, where abide virtuous and estimable gentlemen of 
 the old school, proud of their pedigree and their poverty, so 
 one finds, even in worldly and frivolous Paris, time-worn 
 
 * MS. Mhnoires of Simeon Prosper Hardy. 
 
The Bourgeoisie. 33 
 
 mansions which shelter honorable folk who lead a tranquil, 
 patriarchal existence, — peaceable bourgeois, good citizens of 
 their quarter, regular in their attendance upon parish meet- 
 ings, and members of their guild. 
 
 Their life slips away, a succession of days exactly alike, 
 " following, like a captive stream, the course marked out for 
 it in advance, without ever losing sight of the steeple under 
 whose shadow they were born, of the church where lie the 
 sacred remains of their forbears, and where the same tomb 
 stands open for the generation still to come. In the brief 
 period between the beginning and the end, the prescribed 
 forms of professional duty take possession of the man, fur- 
 nish occupation for his mind, and fill the measure of his 
 intellect." * 
 
 Religious feeling is still uppermost, even at Paris, among 
 the bourgeoisie and the common people. In February, 1 766, 
 Louis XV. crossed the Pont-Neuf, at the conclusion of a 
 Bed of Justice which he had held in the palace of the 
 Parliament. A priest bearing the viaticum met the royal 
 procession. The king descended from his carriage, and 
 knelt in the road. This act of devotion aroused tremen- 
 dous enthusiasm in the crowd of bystanders, and cries 
 of " Vive le Roi ! " were heard on all sides with more 
 unanimity and heartfelt vigor than ever before. 
 
 The bourgeoisie is still Christian and royalist. But let us 
 not deceive ourselves, it threatens to become revolutionary. 
 Certain characteristic symptoms are beginning to appear. 
 
 * M. Charles Aubertin, L Esprit public du Dix-huitihne Siicle. 
 
 3 
 
34 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 The clerks of the basoche * sometimes wear the aspect of 
 demagogues, and a sort of democratic hiss is coming to be 
 frequently heard from the pit of the theatres. I notice the 
 presence among the bourgeoisie of a restless younger gene- 
 ration who will pour all the effervescence of the new move- 
 ment into the old bottles of a disorganized society. The 
 opposition will wax gradually stronger, working down from 
 one social stratum to another, from the jDrinces of the blood 
 to the mass of the people, who are not yet infected. 
 
 * Basoche was the term applied to the jurisdiction of the clerks to the solicitors 
 of the Parliament of Paris. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE PEOPLE. 
 
 "PVO you see, in the fields, those creatures like wild beasts, 
 of both sexes, "burned black and red by the sun, 
 crouching on the ground which they are digging and turn- 
 ing up with unremitting persistence ? They have something 
 like an articulate voice, and when they rise to their feet they 
 exhibit the faces of human beings, — and such, in fact, they 
 are. When night comes, they disappear in their dens, where 
 they live on black bread, water, and roots. They save other 
 men the trouble of sowing, ploughing, and reaping for a 
 livelihood, and thus they well deserve a bit of the bread 
 which they have sown." * 
 
 Do you see them now, " in frightful misery, without beds 
 or furniture, the greater part of them, for half the year even 
 lacking the bread made of barley and oats which is their 
 only sustenance, and which they are obliged to take from 
 their own mouths and their children's to pay the taxes? " t 
 
 Do you see " the poor slaves, beasts of burden fastened to 
 a yoke, who toil painfully along under the lash," ^ the mis- 
 erable wretches, the outcasts, who in famine years — and 
 
 * La Bmjhre. f Massillon. t Marquis d'Argenson. 
 
36 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 they come with frightful frequency, those famine years — eat 
 grass Hke sheep, and die, like flies, in swarms ? 
 
 And yet, would one believe it, they do not complain. 
 They do not so much as think of complaining. Their 
 suffering and penury seem to them a part of the ordinary 
 course of nature, like the winter or the frost. They do not 
 complain. Why.? Because, though they lack bread for the 
 body, they have that bread of the soul, — hope. Yes, the 
 hope of heaven to come, of an ideal world as far superior to 
 the real world as a gilded pavilion is to a foul sewer, — hope 
 of the veritable fatherland, where there will be no more 
 weariness, or tears, or sorrow ; hope their sustenance, their 
 consolation, their vision of the future ; hope, that highest of 
 all possessions, which the philosophes are determined at all 
 hazards to wrest from them ! But they have something 
 which the philosophes have not, — the sanctified poesy of the 
 Church, its sad and joyous songs, the recurring cycle of its 
 festal days, which give variety and charm to the year. They 
 have, too, the church-tower of their native village ; the 
 cemetery where their parents lie at rest, and whither they go 
 to pray ; the crucifix, image of God the Son, whose feet and 
 hands and side they kiss and bathe with their tears. They 
 have that which ye have not, ye freethinking men of the 
 world, — the only real, inestimable treasure, which still sub- 
 sists in all its force, even when the knell for the dying 
 is sounding, against which death itself is powerless : they 
 have faith ! Around each poor hut the angels of Christ are 
 flying, — angels who, when the poor devils are tempted to 
 
The People. 37 
 
 dash the bitter cup from their lips, induce them to drain it to 
 the dregs with calm resignation. 
 
 Ye great lords and noble dames, who swear by the 
 " Enclyclopedie," men of learning and of letters, beware ! 
 Perhaps you laugh at these poor wretches. You sneer at 
 what you are pleased to call their ignorance, because they 
 cling to the worship of the past, because they lay a cover 
 for the dead on their ill-furnished board on All Saints' Day. 
 You ridicule them because they spend their paltry savings for 
 what ? To burn wax tapers to the Virgin. Be on your 
 guard ; for if they do not burn these tapers, which you 
 despise, it will be your houses and castles which they will 
 burn. Do not scoff at these people of little account, these 
 nobodies, for they outnumber you, and have only to close up 
 their ranks to suffocate you. 
 
 Ye great philosophes, why do you not endeavor to turn 
 your marvellous discoveries to account in effecting the salva- 
 tion of that sacred object, the human soul, rescuing it from 
 misery, and laying it upon God's bosom comforted and at 
 peace ? Oh, why need you be of that deplorable race of 
 men who destroy souls } Why do you turn aside from the 
 cabin whose inmates are dying of hunger, from the work- 
 shops where the proletariat, transformed into living parts 
 of the machinery, can no longer breathe God's air, or warm 
 themselves in his blessed sunlight.? Beware, beware ! What 
 will become of you when the day comes that the poor will 
 say to you great nobles, " You are but men like the rest of 
 us ! " to you prelates, " You are impostors ! " Bew^are, I say; 
 
38 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 for if your impious doctrines triumph, here are all these 
 workmen and peasants, all the disinherited of fortune, who 
 will cry out to you in a voice terrible to hear, " No more 
 resignation, but vengeance ! No more tears, but guns ; and 
 if there are no guns, pikes ; and if there are no pikes, clubs ! 
 We are done with docility and forbearance and humility! 
 ' Forward,' the cry ! " 
 
 Madmen, madmen ! You say to them, " Poor fools, you 
 are awaiting immortality to obtain the reward of your suffer- 
 ing ; but there is no immortality. Poor fools, you are hoard- 
 ing your tears and sorrow like so much treasure, — those 
 of your wives and your children, too, in the hope of laying 
 them, after death, at the foot of God's throne; but there is 
 no God ! " 
 
 Ye admirers of Helvetius, of Baron d'Holbach and 
 Diderot, those shining lights of philosophy, beware ! The 
 day when the incredulity of which you boast shall have made 
 its way at last from your salons, your boudoirs, and your 
 academies into the peasant's cabin, — on that day tremble 
 ye, for the vengeance of Heaven will be at hand. 
 
 The people are continually forgotten, whereas they are of 
 all classes the one to be most sedulously kept in mind. It is 
 in their ranks that royalty, strong and far-seeing, will always 
 find the most reliable support of its material authority and 
 its moral prestige. The people shed their sweat and their 
 blood without a murmur. It is the people who, in time 
 of peace as in war-time, in city and country, and upon 
 the battle-field, give utterance with infectious enthusiasm. 
 
The People. 39 
 
 with all the force of their robust lungs, to the cry which 
 expresses in a breath the unity of the fatherland, — the cry 
 of fidelity and patriotism, " Vive le Roi ! " 
 
 Reforms are absolutely necessary ; but we need not look 
 to a nobility saturated with Voltairianism, to a magistracy 
 permeated by the spirit of rebellion, to secure the triumph of 
 the two cardinal principles, order and liberty. Nor can we 
 depend upon a bourgeoisie, which is, after all, but a feeble 
 minority. No, it is to the people considered as a whole, — 
 that is to say, the entire nation, — that we must appeal for the 
 working out of real progress. Upon the common people, 
 — not upoo the privileged classes, but upon the common 
 people, have the great reformers of the past always leaned 
 for support. But that fact is overlooked in the apartments 
 at Versailles. There, men are too busy with the superficial 
 aspect of affairs to probe below the surface. Too much 
 attention is paid to the mansions of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain, the academies, salons, castles, and palaces of justice, 
 and not enough thought is bestowed upon the garrets and 
 hovels, upon the honest, devout masses, who would be such 
 a mighty rampart for the Monarchy against the attacks of 
 a revolution half aristocratic, and half bourgeois. There 
 royalty might find the elixir of youth, and assurance for 
 the future. The king ought to appear, not to the govern- 
 ing classes alone, but to all his subjects, in the guise of a 
 protector, a friend, and a father. Louis XV. is too prone to 
 forget that of all the social strata of the eighteenth century, 
 the best, the most worthy and patriotic, is that in which are 
 
40 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 found the poor and lowly, the working-men, the peasants, and 
 the proletariat. There one must go in search of honesty, 
 piety, and conscientious toil, — a welcome relief from the dis- 
 graceful scandals of the court and the city; beneath those 
 rough exteriors dwell souls of rare beauty. In that class, if 
 royalty but understood the situation of affairs, lie the true 
 bulwark of the throne, and the welfare of the country. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE FEMALE POLITICIANS. 
 
 AT Versailles, at Paris, throughout the kingdom in fact, 
 women are coming to play a more and more important 
 part. At Versailles they rule Louis XV. and his ministers ; 
 at Paris they are the acknowledged arbiters of fashion, litera- 
 ture, and art. Throughout the kingdom they are taking 
 sweet revenge for the Salic law. 
 
 In 1770, CoUe writes in his Memoirs: "Women have so 
 got the upper hand among Frenchmen, and have put them 
 beneath the yoke so completely, that they no longer think 
 and feel except at woman's bidding." Not all the women of 
 influence are frivolous, empty-headed coquettes, like those 
 who figure in the plays of Marivaux. Some such there are, 
 to be sure ; but there are earnest, sober-minded women as 
 well. There are pious women too, mothers of the Church, 
 friends of the Jesuits, deadly enemies of the " Encyclopedic," 
 — such women as the Princesse de Marsan, who shares with 
 Madame de Talmont, Madame de Noailles, and the Due de 
 Nivernais, the leadership of the so-called devout party. 
 
 There are female philosophes as well, carried away by the 
 latest craze, — the craze for irreligion, — and casting them- 
 selves fearlessly into the sea of new doctrines with all the 
 passionate abandonment of their sex. 
 
42 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 There are learned women, who develop a most remarkable 
 aptitude for the most difficult sciences, and handle a compass 
 as naturally as a fan ; others, who place in their boudoirs, by 
 the side of the little altar dedicated to Benevolence or 
 Friendship, dictionaries of natural history, treatises on physics 
 or chemistry ; others, who have their portraits painted, not in 
 the guise of fascinating goddesses sitting upon a cloud, but as 
 thoughtful divinities seated in a laboratory, surrounded by 
 mathematical and astronomical instruments. 
 
 There are female politicians, pupils of Rousseau, eulogists 
 of the Contrat Social, dreaming of being the Egerias and 
 Numas of the future, of changing their arm-chairs for the 
 rostrum, and their salons for clubs, zealously preaching 
 the merits of the Parliamentary system in vogue across the 
 Channel, and declaiming like good citizenesses — the word was 
 just coming into fashion — against the abuses and the turpi- 
 tude of the absolute regime. They wish to be considered 
 energetic. ("Energy," — another word which is becoming 
 acclimated in the best society.) They pose as models of the 
 patrician ladies of ancient Rome, passionately desirous of 
 freedom. Their charming mouths open for the passage of 
 weighty words. From the depths of their satin-hung bou- 
 doirs flow eloquent denunciations of arbitrary power. These 
 grandes dames of the liberal party — a novel type in French 
 society — confide to Gustavus III., king of Sweden, their 
 indignation with Louis XV. Read the letters of the Swedish 
 monarch's regular correspondents, — Mesdames d'Egmont, 
 de la Marck, de Croy, de Boufflers, de Mesmes, and de Lux- 
 
The Female Politicians. 43 
 
 embourg. There you will see with what vigorous language 
 and nervous strength of style these fine ladies express their 
 thoughts.* 
 
 The beautiful and clever Comtesse d'Egmont, as serious- 
 minded as her father, the Marechal de Richelieu, is frivolous, 
 a charming creature, whose fate it was to die so young, and 
 whose suffering and melancholy arouse such tender interest, 
 — how violent and bitter and overflowing with virtuous 
 indignation are her expressions with reference to the Du 
 Barry's old lover! 
 
 " How can we bear it," she writes to Gustavus, " that he, 
 who has tasted the celestial happiness of being passionately 
 adored by his subjects, and who would be so adored to this 
 day, had he left us the least opportunity to delude ourselves, 
 should take pleasure in shattering all our hopes, and look 
 unmoved upon such an entire cTiange ! " 
 
 Again she writes to the king of Sweden on the 27th 
 June, 1771 : "Sire, they say that you have asked for Ma- 
 dame du Barry's portrait : they even go so far as to declare 
 that you have written to her. I have denied it at all risks ; 
 but the statement has been repeated to me so positively that 
 I beg you to authorize me to deny it as positively. No, it 
 cannot be." And on the 23d November, 1771: "I ask you 
 once more to answer my question as to Madame du Barry's 
 portrait. Be kind enough, I pray you, to give me your word 
 of honor that you have it not, and never will have it, for I 
 am very anxious to send you mine." 
 
 * Gustave III. et la cour de France, par M. A. Goffroy. 
 
44 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Madame de Boufflers writes to Gustavus in this tone: 
 " Absolute power is a mortal disease, which, by imperceptibly 
 corrupting the moral qualities of its possessors, ends by destroy- 
 ing States. The acts of sovereigns have to undergo the 
 censure of the whole world. France is doomed if the present 
 administration continues." 
 
 The Comtesse de la Marck, in a letter to the king of 
 Sweden, draws the following picture of society at the close of 
 the reign of Louis XV. : " Our young women are bursting 
 with wit ; but as for the power of reasoning, one rarely hears 
 it mentioned. They are all initiated into the secrets of the 
 State, they have their fingers in every pie, and make love for 
 pastime. Some repositories of wit there are, where God and 
 religion are made a mockery, and where those who believe in 
 God and religion are looked upon as fools ; such, in brief, is 
 our plight. Healthy emulation and moral principle are alike 
 abandoned; even in the stage-plays, everything is out of 
 joint. We have one or two sculptors still, and three or four 
 painters. Jewelry is still fashionable, but it will soon be out 
 of date, for people buy nothing but diamonds now : to be 
 sure, they do not pay for them. In a word, we have fallen 
 very low, and ought to be content so long as we are not 
 attacked ; for in that case I cannot imagine what would 
 become of us." 
 
 The movement has begun. Henceforth the women 
 will be in the forefront of the opposition to the powers 
 that be. The current sets in that direction, and they must 
 float with it. The leading salons of Paris are so many 
 
The Female Politicians. 45 
 
 rall5ang points of hostility to the king. Politics envelops 
 everything. 
 
 " Social gatherings, ostensibly for pleasures," says Besenval, 
 "have become little States-General, where the ladies, trans- 
 formed into legislators, discuss public affairs, and lay down 
 principles with the assurance and self-sufficiency which they 
 derive from their longing to rule the roast, and to bring 
 themselves into prominence, — a longing which is increased 
 tenfold by the importance of the issue, and the noise it is 
 making." 
 
 Do not imagine, however, that most of these eloquent 
 stateswomen, prating at random about the respective preroga- 
 tives of the throne and the magistracy, absolute power and 
 freedom, mean by that to renounce their customary wiles of 
 coquetry, of what is called love. Be shy of these fine ladies, 
 who are sober-minded only in appearance. Politics is but 
 the pretext: love-making is the real motive. 
 
VIII. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 OF all forms of love, the least common in the first society 
 during the reign of Louis XV. is conjugal love. 
 Well-bred married people occupy the position towards one 
 another of courteous and dignified strangers. The husband 
 calls his wife Madame, and she calls him Monsieur. They 
 live under the same roof, but have entirely distinct suites, and 
 each gives the other notice of an intended visit. They never 
 ride in the same carriage, they never meet in the same salon. 
 A husband who followed his wife about would be laughed 
 at as a jealous fellow, a country bumpkin. A woman who 
 should have the extraordinary idea of falling in love with 
 her husband would be overwhelmed with ridicule. Such 
 a passion in society would not be comme il faut. Conjugal 
 love is absolutely out of fashion. The Baron de Besenval 
 is of opinion that " though this fact is perhaps destructive 
 of good morals, society is an enormous gainer thereby." 
 He adds, that, " relieved from the chilly embarrassment of 
 the presence of the husbands, there is a sense of extreme 
 freedom ; the flirting of the men and women keeps up 
 the interest, and furnishes daily subjects for salacious 
 adventures." 
 
.ove. 
 
 47 
 
 Salacious adventures, indeed, are sought on every hand. 
 There is little thought of true passion, for pleasure is what 
 is desired. Hear what a great lady has to say, in 1764, to the 
 Due de Lauzun, the future Lovelace, whose education in the 
 art of gallantry is not yet entirely concluded. 
 
 " Believe me, my dear little cousin, romance is quite out 
 of date ; it makes one ridiculous, and that is all. I took quite 
 a fancy to you, my child ; it is not my fault if you mistook it 
 for a grande passion, and made up your mind that it would 
 never end. What difference does it make to you, so long as 
 that fancy has passed away, whether I have taken a similar 
 fancy to another, or remain without a lover } You have 
 many things in your favor in making yourself agreeable to 
 the other sex : make good use of them to that end, and be 
 sure that the loss of one can always be repaired by another. 
 It is the only way to be happy and amiable." * Chamfort 
 defines love as merely " The exchange of fancy, and the 
 contact of person." Such are the morals a la mode. One 
 takes it off in the same way that one puts it on. As 
 the Prince de Ligne says : " One has been happy in the 
 possession, and one is delighted to have ceased to pos- 
 sess." 
 
 Where are the good old days of heartfelt passion, of 
 trembling avowals, of sighs and tears and despair ? Where 
 the days of heroic attachments, with their accompaniment 
 of chivalrous respect, long and weary waiting, sublime 
 devotion, oaths of everlasting fidelity, unimpeachable dis- 
 
 * Memoires of the Due de Lauzun. 
 
48 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 cretion, touching gratitude, and lofty and generous virtues ? 
 Just look at the Cupid of the reign of Louis XV., the noisy, 
 insolent, triumphant Cupid, who bids contemptuous defiance 
 to the true love of former days, as a mischievous, ill-bred 
 child makes sport of an old man. Hear him, as he says, with 
 his cunning leer : " Your lovers are only boobies ; they can do 
 nothing but languish, and sigh ' Alas ! ' and tell their anguish 
 to the neighboring echoes. I have suppressed the echo 
 business. My subjects do not talk ; may I die if there is 
 anything as much alive as they are. Languishing timidity 
 and pink-and-white martyrdom are not in vogue now; all 
 those things are insipid platitudes of bygone days. I do not 
 put my subjects to sleep, I wake them up. They are so 
 active that they have no leisure to be tender; their looks 
 express their desires : instead of sighing, they attack at 
 once. They do not say, ' Grant me the favor ! ' but take it 
 for themselves ; and that is as it should be." * 
 
 Hear Madame d'Epinay, who speaks of modesty as " A 
 charming quality, which one fastens on with pins." 
 
 Hear how the age boasts, with Crebillon fils, " of having 
 at last got to the bottom of things," of having put down what 
 he calls " exaggerations, affectations, and grimaces." 
 
 Listen to the materialistic language of Buffon himself, 
 the grave and majestic Buffon : " Why does love make all 
 other created beings happy, and man alone wretched } Is it 
 because only the physical side of that passion is attractive, 
 and the moral side is of no account ? " t 
 
 * Marivaux, La Reunion des Amours. 
 
 t Buffon, Discours sur la nature des animaux. 
 
Love. 49 
 
 Thus we see that it is a well-understood rule, proclaimed 
 by the great minds of the age, that the moral side of love 
 must be suppressed first of all. Love is no longer repre- 
 sented as a pretty little god, flying about, naked and free. 
 The foes of ceremony and of long waiting form a sect of 
 their own, the Antifagonniers. Another similar corporation 
 dubs itself the Societe du Moment. To choose the moment 
 wisely, that is the acme of the art. 
 
 " How many liaisons have begun by active insolence, in a 
 carriage whose driver is a shrewd fellow for going the longest 
 way about, pretending to be deaf, and walking his horses.'' 
 Brutal love-making ends by having principles of its own, a 
 certain sort of philosophy, and specious excuses. There are 
 keen intellects, who decree that a bold lover has in reality 
 more consideration for a woman than one of the bashful 
 sort, and that he shows his respect for her to better purpose 
 by sparing her the long agony of yielding one point after 
 another." * 
 
 To the lover who remains too long upon his knees, the 
 eighteenth century cries. " Get up, and take your mistress in 
 your arms ! " 
 
 Very perverse and frivolous and guilty is the society of 
 the time of Louis XV. Very immoral are these galantes 
 great ladies, the patricians of harlotry, who love scandal for 
 scandal's sake, and take keen and haughty enjoyment in the 
 loss of their reputation. We must, however, do them the 
 justice to acknowledge that they preserve, amid all their 
 
 * MM. de Goncourt, L' Amour au XVI lie sifecle. i vol. Dentu. 
 
 4 
 
50 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 demoralization, one quality which is lacking in many of the 
 fashionable beauties of democratic times, — disinterested- 
 ness. No, no, they bear no resemblance to you, selfish, 
 treacherous, avaricious women, who combine with the 
 ordinary vices of the courtesan a vice more odious than 
 all the others, — hypocrisy ! — to you, abandoned creatures, 
 who were born to give the lie to every real passion, every 
 noble emotion ; to you, who know no remorse save that 
 you have not sold yourselves sufficiently dear, and who, if 
 by chance or mischance you should happen to yield once 
 or twice to a veritable passion of the flesh, if not of the 
 heart, would blame yourself without pity for such weakness, 
 like a shopkeeper who is in despair because he has sold 
 something for nothing. 
 
 Ye sirens of low estate, women who amuse yourselves by 
 laying snares for men of honor, and diverting yourselves 
 with them as inferior wretches of no use except to arouse 
 the self-love or prick the jealousy of your wealthy lovers, 
 your complaisant financiers ; venal creatures, and venal with- 
 out excuse, because your need of money is not for the 
 necessaries of life, but for luxuries, for a jewel, a carriage, 
 a box at the theatre, new toilets made by the latest 
 fashionable dressmaker, — oh, ye degrading and degraded 
 females, happily you are rare in the good society of the 
 eighteenth century, much more rare than in democratic 
 circles, where the salons are crowded with male and female 
 parvenus living beyond their means, and venality, the death 
 of true love, assumes frightful dimensions. From the great 
 
Love. 
 
 51 
 
 ladies of the eighteenth century one asks at least the 
 qualities of an honest woman, if not her virtue. In the 
 best society of the epoch, love is immoral, indecent, and 
 unblushing, but love does still exist. To be sure, it is not 
 the elevated, magnanimous, inspired passion which moves 
 the heroines of the great Corneille or the gentle Racine. It 
 is not the ideal passion, purified by the spirit of self-sacrifice 
 and by the burning flame of enthusiastic adoration. No, 
 that sort of love is no more to be found. But love of some 
 sort does still exist, or, even if it is but a simulacrum of the 
 real thing, it is not at all events a vile traffic. 
 
 Let us add, to be strictly just, that towards the close of 
 the reign the level of sentiment began to rise a little. The 
 " Nouvelle Heloi'se " gave a new turn to the erotic morals 
 of France ; and if it is sometimes a bit declamatory, we 
 can but admit that it has something of the element of 
 spirituality. 
 
 Buffon's sentiment is no longer approved, that "in choos- 
 ing to yield to a sentimental passion, man simply abuses 
 himself, and creates in his heart a void which nothing can 
 fill." The fashion has changed; affectation of passion 
 takes the place of affected indifference. There is in 
 Cythera's isle the figure of the sensitive man, the out-and- 
 out lover. " Sensitiveness," that is the expressive word of 
 the day. 
 
 The Comtesse de Blot declares, at a reception given by 
 the Duchesse de Chartres : " Unless endowed with super- 
 human virtue, a really sensitive woman could refuse nothing 
 
52 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 to Rousseau's passion." Formerly sarcasm and scepticism 
 were the rule, but now enthusiasm has supplanted them. 
 Declarations of love are philosophical disquisitions or 
 tragical declamations. Every lover is an actor, who speaks 
 his part with attitudes, inflections of the voice, emphasis 
 and gestures all studied up beforehand. From one extreme 
 we have gone to the other. Henceforth we see upon the 
 stage of the salons the comedians of love, Don Juans emeriti 
 virtuosi in the art of sentiment. 
 
 " Before everything else they aim at satisfying their own 
 conceit, and congratulating themselves, prouder to end the 
 comedy content with their own performance than with that 
 of the lady concerned. To succeed in moving and grieving 
 her, there are-some who carry out upon their face the lie 
 they are acting with their whole person, — who assume the 
 airs of an old man, cover their faces with plaster, rub the 
 powder off their hair, and make themselves pale by ceasing 
 to drink wine. There are some even, who, to procure a 
 definite rendezvous, will lay despair on their faces, as one 
 lays on rouge ; with diluted gum Arabic they draw upon 
 their cheeks the traces of tears but half wiped away." * 
 
 They boast of returning to the worship of nature, of 
 admiring the country, of being tender-hearted, and of 
 possessing other common instincts of humanity. Whereas 
 they used to deny the existence of love, they now parody it. 
 
 * MM. de Goncourt. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE FAMOUS SALONS. 
 
 THE leading salons of Paris are famous throughout 
 Europe. They are the undisputed arbiters of style, 
 and give society its tone. The women are enthroned there 
 as sovereigns, give direction to the conversation, and by that 
 means to public opinion. The former standard of taste there 
 becomes the interpreter of the new ideas. 
 
 The most striking thing in society in the last years of 
 Louis XV. is the constant diminution of the interval which 
 separates the nobility from the men of letters. 
 
 " The haughty Marechale de Luxembourg always chooses 
 La Harpe for her escort, for he has such a distinguished way 
 of offering his arm. The man of humble birth not only 
 obtains the entree of the salon, but he acquires a leading 
 position there, if he has the talent to sustain it. The very 
 first place in conversation, and indeed in the public esteem, 
 belongs to Voltaire, the son of a notary; to Rousseau, the 
 son of a clockmaker; and to D'Alembert, a foundling 
 picked up by a glazier." * 
 
 In Walpole's opinion, literature henceforth fills too great 
 a place in social intercourse. " Literature," he writes, " is an 
 
 * M. Taine, Origines de la France contemporaine. 
 
54 The Last Years of Louis X V. 
 
 excellent pastime, when one has nothing better to do; but it 
 becomes mere pedantry in society, and is a terrible bore when 
 one makes a show of it in public. The authors whom one 
 runs across everywhere are worse than their works, — which is 
 not complimentary to either. In general, the prevailing tone 
 of conversation is solemn and pedantic, and there is scarcely 
 any amusement to be got out of it except in quarrelling." 
 
 This judgment is a little harsh. After all, Paris still 
 holds the sceptre, from a worldly standpoint, and foreign 
 princes on their travels consider it an honor to be admitted 
 to these salons, whose brilliancy and prestige are everywhere 
 acknowledged. 
 
 The Marechale de Luxembourg, whose first husband was 
 the Due de Boufflers, heroine of the famous chanson., — 
 
 " Quand Boufflers parut a la cour, 
 On crut voir la m^re d'Amour ; 
 Chacun s'empressait a lui plaire, 
 Et chacun I'avait a son tour," * — 
 
 the Marechale de Luxembourg, adapting herself to the time, 
 has amended her ways. "By means of a great name, unlim- 
 ited assurance, and, above all, a hospitable mansion, she has 
 succeeded in making people forget her former lapses, and in 
 setting herself up as the sovereign arbiter of propriety and 
 good form, and of those elements which enter into the com- 
 position of refinement. Her empire over the young people 
 
 * " When Boufllers appeared at court, she was hailed as the mother of 
 Love. Every one was extremely anxious to make himself agreeable to her, and 
 each possessed her in turn." 
 
The Famous Salons. 55 
 
 of both sexes is absolute : she restrains the giddiness of the 
 young women, forces them to be entirely impersonal in their 
 flirtations, and compels the young men to be moderate and 
 considerate : in short, she maintains the sacred flame of 
 French urbanity, and in her salon is preserved intact the 
 tradition of noble and unaffected manners, which Europe 
 has always admired, and tried in vain to imitate. Never 
 was Roman censor of more service to the morals of the 
 republic than the Marechale de Luxembourg has been to 
 the attractiveness of society." * 
 
 By her cleverness and her air of authority, by compelling 
 a hearing, and, more than all else, by making herself feared, 
 the Marechale has succeeded in acquiring consideration, and, 
 more than that, respect. She rules the aristocratic, and the 
 literary world also, with a firm and despotic hand. Presenta- 
 tion at court is not enough now, one must also receive the 
 approbation of Madame la Marechale de Luxembourg. Even 
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the irascible and morose Jean- 
 Jacques, seems fascinated by this venerable dame. " I had 
 hardly laid eyes upon her," he writes, "before I was under 
 her spell. I found her charming, with the charm which time 
 cannot dispel, and which has the most power over my heart. 
 I expected to find her with a biting tongue, and overflow- 
 ing with epigrams. But I found something much better 
 than that. Madame de Luxembourg's conversation does not 
 scintillate with wit; there are no witty sallies, and nothing 
 of what is properly called finesse ; but there is a pervading 
 
 * Due de L^vis, Souvenirs et portraits. 
 
56 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 exquisite refinement and delicacy, which is never striking, 
 but is always delightful. Her flattery is so much the more 
 intoxicating because it is couched in such simple language. 
 One would say that it passed her lips without being in her 
 thoughts, and that her heart was overflowing, simply because 
 it was too full." 
 
 Another woman of superior parts, whose salon at Paris, 
 at Versailles, and at Chanteloup is an aristocratic and intellec- 
 tual centre of the first order, is the clever and virtuous 
 Duchesse de Choiseul, wife of the famous minister. " In an 
 age when every coterie has its own philosophe, who acts as 
 its leading spirit, Madame de Choiseul thinks for herself. 
 Neither the sarcasms of Voltaire nor the diatribes of Rous- 
 seau disturb her sense of right or her keen discernment. She 
 forms sound judgments of men and things, without allowing 
 herself to be biassed by fashion or prejudice. In her salon 
 one always recognizes an instinctive taste for the noble and 
 the beautiful. Hers is a noble nature, which wins one's love 
 at first sight, and in whose company one would discover 
 every day some reason for loving her more." * 
 
 The Duchesse de Choiseul will never be the dupe of 
 Rousseau. " He has inculcated a good moral," she writes, 
 speaking of the author of " La Nouvelle Heloise," "but a moral 
 which we knew before, because there can be no other. But 
 he has drawn from it dangerous and untrustworthy conclu- 
 sions, or has put it in our power to draw them by the way in 
 
 * Prosper Merim^e, article in the "Moniteur universel " for 29th April, 1867. 
 
The Famous Salons. 57 
 
 which he has set them forth. We ought always to be 
 suspicious of metaphysics when applied to simple things. 
 Fortunately for us, nothing is more simple than moral maxims; 
 and the truest of all such is the one which comes most nearly 
 home to our hearts : Do not do to another what you would not 
 wish to have done to you. Everybody knows that, and under- 
 stands it. There is no need of fine disquisitions upon good 
 and bad morals, the origin of passion, prejudice, etc., and the 
 hosts of other twaddle with which these gentlemen fill our 
 newspapers and our book-stalls and libraries, to teach us 
 what virtue is." 
 
 The Duchesse de Choiseul is equally distrustful of Rous- 
 seau when viewed as a moralist or as a political publicist. 
 " I agree," she says, " that our prejudices must lead us into 
 error as inevitably as abuses creep into the execution of the 
 law ; but to desire to destroy everything, to correct the errors, 
 is as if one should cut off a man's head to get rid of a few 
 white hairs. To employ one's intellect at the expense of 
 public order is one of the worst of crimes. It is the sort of 
 offence which is described by the parable of the tares in the 
 Gospel. A worthy citizen will serve. his country with mind 
 and brain to the utmost of his ability ; but he will not expend 
 his talents in writing essays upon the social compact, to arouse 
 suspicion of the legitimacy of governments, and to load us 
 down with the weight of chains which we have never felt." 
 Madame de Choiseul brings this edifying letter of 1 7th July, 
 1776, to an end with these words : " I am always distrustful 
 of this Rousseau, with his strange systems, his extraordinary 
 
58 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 costume, and his way of shouting his pulpit eloquence from 
 the house-tops. He has always seemed to me to be an 
 impostor posing as a virtuous man." 
 
 The Duchesse de Choiseul is of a type which arouses our 
 respect as well as our sympathy. If one shudders to see a 
 Madame de Boufflers, the idol of the Temple, doing the 
 honors of the Prince de Conti's household in company with 
 Mademoiselle Auguste, the dancer from the Opera, or to see 
 a Marechale de Mirepoix sitting upon the front seat of 
 Madame de Pompadour's carriage, and Madame du Barry's 
 after her, one is happy to meet a woman worthy of her 
 exalted rank and her fortune, a woman who, at all times and 
 in all places, sets an example of all that is honorable and 
 beautiful and true. There is in her whole life such perfect 
 purity, such virtuous and unpretentious charm in her 
 attractive personality, and such a great mind in her small 
 body. * 
 
 " The Duchesse de Choiseul is not very pretty," writes 
 Horace Walpole, " but she has beautiful eyes. She is a little 
 model in wax, and for a long time was not allowed to speak, 
 as she was deemed incapable of it, so bashful and modest 
 is she. The court has hardly cured her modesty. Her 
 bashfulness is compensated by the most fascinating voice, 
 which makes one almost forget the extreme purity of her 
 language, and the exquisite propriety of her expression. Oh ! 
 she is the most refined, the most lovable and sweetest little 
 creature that ever came out of an enchanted egg." 
 
 * See M.Grasset's study of Madame de Choiseul et son temps, i vol. Dentu. 
 
The Famous Salons. 59 
 
 The salons of the Marechale de Luxembourg and the 
 Duchesse de Choiseul are notably aristocratic centres. From 
 a literary standpoint, the three principal salons of Paris are 
 those of Madame Geoffrin, the Marquise du Deffand, and 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. The first is in Rue St. 
 Honore, the second in Rue St. Dominique, in one of the 
 buildings of the Convent of St. Joseph, * and the third in 
 Rue de Bellechasse. 
 
 Madame Geoffrin's power is a characteristic sign of the 
 times. Is this influential person a scion of a noble stock ? 
 No. Her birth was of the obscurest. Who is her husband .? 
 One of the founders of the manufacture of mirrors, a very 
 rich bourgeois, but extremely unprepossessing, and an abso- 
 lute nullity as far as intellect is concerned. It is said that 
 one day, one of the lady's friends, resuming her place in her 
 salon, after quite a long absence, said, in a reminiscent vein : 
 " Pray, what has become of the old gentleman who always 
 sat at the foot of the table, and never spoke to anybody t " 
 "Ah ! " replied Madame Geoffrin, " I know whom you 
 mean. He is dead." " Really ! Who was he, pray .? " 
 "My husband." 
 
 Is Madame Geoffrin literary ? Not the least in the 
 world. In fact, she is the personification of ignorance. She 
 does not even know how to spell. Speaking of education, 
 she says, " I have got along so well without it that I have 
 never felt the need of it." 
 
 Think of it! At the close of the reign of Louis XV. 
 
 * Now the Ministry of War. 
 
6o The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 this woman of the people, without youth * or beauty, without 
 talent or education, this old woman, who at any other time 
 would have died in obscurity, is one of the principal powers 
 in France, one of those who guide public opinion ! Her 
 salon, celebrated throughout Europe, may be considered one 
 of the institutions of the eighteenth century. The greatest 
 nobles pay their court to her. Crowned heads actually do 
 homage to her. When, in the month of June, 1766, she goes 
 to pay a visit to her friend — I had almost said her protege — 
 Stanislas Poniatowski, king of Poland, her journey is looked 
 upon by all the courts as an event of political significance. 
 At Warsaw she is received by the king as a dear mother, 
 with all imaginable respect and delight and tenderness. At 
 Vienna, the Empress Maria Theresa overwhelms her with 
 attentions. A princess of the blood could not meet with a 
 more flattering reception. The Czarina Catherine II. takes 
 pleasure in writing affectionate letters to her, and attaches an 
 extraordinary value to the correspondence. 
 
 Why the prodigious success of this woman, — the excep- 
 tional honor bestowed by France and by foreign nations 
 upon one who ought in reality to marvel at the part she is 
 playing ? Why ? Because Madame Geoffrin has been clever 
 enough to create for herself a literary salon; because she 
 invites artists and authors to dinner and supper; because she 
 is one of those who loaned the money to found the " Ency- 
 clopedic ; " because she has done more, perhaps, than any 
 other one person to establish real sympathy between the aris- 
 
 * she was born in 1699. 
 
The Famous Salons. 6i 
 
 tocracy of birth and the aristocracy of talent. A vogue such 
 as hers is always susceptible of some explanation. Madame 
 Geoff rin understands — no one better — the art of hand- 
 ling the exacting, vain, irritable race of artists and littera- 
 teurs. Though she lacks wit, she has an abundant supply 
 of tact and finesse, and of a certain sort of cleverness, 
 combined with unfailing good-humor.* 
 
 " Madame Geoffrin's manner," says the Baron de Glei- 
 chen, " may be compared to La Fontaine's style. There is 
 much art, but it is hidden. Everything about her seems 
 very ordinary, and yet no one who tries to imitate her will 
 ever equal her. Everything at her house is sensible, easy- 
 going, convenient, useful, and unpretentious. Her bourgeois 
 tone and her homely language give a piquant turn to her 
 shrewd and sensible conversation." 
 
 Horace Walpole also admires this past mistress in the art 
 of maintaining a salon. He writes to Lady Hervey on the 
 13th October, 1765 : " Madame Geoff rin is a perfect prodigy 
 of good sense, useful information, good and timely advice. 
 She has a way of taking one which is fascinating to me. I 
 have never in my life seen anybody who was so quick to 
 pounce upon one's defects, little vanities, and deceits, nor 
 who could explain them to one so clearly, and convince one 
 so easily. I never cared, as you know, about being told of 
 my faults ; but you cannot imagine the pleasure which I have 
 in her society. I take her for confessor and guide at once, 
 
 * See the introduction by M. Ciiarles de Mouy printed with the Correspon- 
 dence of King Stanislas and Madam Geoffrin. Plon. i vol. 
 
62 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 and I really begin to think that I shall end by becoming a 
 reasonable creature, which I have never yet claimed to be. 
 The next time I see her, I mean to say to her, ' O Com- 
 mon-sense, take a seat, pray ! ' If she chose to take the 
 trouble, I assure you, Madame, that she could lord it over 
 me as if I were a mere child." 
 
 The principal rival of Madame Geoffrin's salon is that 
 of the Marquise du Defifand. She is no less representative 
 of the grandes dames of the day than Madame Geoffrin of 
 the bourgeoisie, and she is as well informed as Madame 
 Geoffrin is ignorant. One of the two does not even know 
 how to spell, while the other writes as well as the most 
 famous authors. 
 
 Both are well advanced in years, while their respective 
 salons wield a preponderating influence in Paris. They are, 
 in fact, very nearly of the same age. Madame Geoffrin was 
 born in 1699, and Madame du Deffand in 1697, — a year 
 after that Madame de Sevigne in whose wake she was to 
 tread, and whose fame she was to parallel. 
 
 The Marquise du Deffand is not only old, she is blind 
 as well. Her eyes, once so beautiful, which are said to 
 have wrought such havoc, are dimmed and lustreless. But 
 her lack of bodily eyes was more than supplied by the eyes 
 of her mind, with which she sees everything. Seated night 
 and day in the famous arm-chair which she calls her tonneau, 
 this bright and clever blind woman is a power to be reckoned 
 with. Her salon is an Areopagus whose decrees are not to 
 be laughed aside. To be numbered among those who are 
 
The Famous Salons. 63 
 
 admitted there is a very great distinction, a favor to be 
 envied. To cross her threshold one must be a personage 
 of note, whether in the book of heraldry or in the golden 
 volume of literature.* A procession of notables and 
 celebrated people is passing in and out at all hours. It is a 
 centre of intelligence which can furnish the key to every 
 enigma, knows the ramifications of every intrigue, and is 
 the nursery of all the new ideas. It is a salon devoted to 
 literary and political diplomacy at once ; it might almost be 
 called the ofiBcial rendez-vous of the foreign diplomatists, 
 who assemble there in quest of the material for their daily 
 despatches to their respective governments. It is the place 
 where all the burning questions of the day, of French or 
 European interest, are dealt with in an extraordinary way 
 by men of charming qualities, who converse, but do not 
 argue, and who, while striving first of all to be agreeable, 
 can in a m.oment pass, as Boileau has it, " from grave to gay, 
 from joke to sober earnest." 
 
 The sharp-tongued dowager presided at all the symposia 
 with a sort of sovereign majesty. The prestige of her 
 celebrity, the nervous eloquence of her speech, the purity of 
 her style and language, her rank, her high connections, her 
 marvellous wit, so quick, so keen, and so biting, make of her 
 a woman to whose dominion the most unruly must per- 
 force submit. She has the art of making herself feared. 
 Woe to the poor wretch whose peculiarities she takes it into 
 
 * See the monograph of M. de Lescure prefixed to the Correspondence of the 
 Marquise du Deffand. 2 vols. Plon. 
 
64 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 her head to ridicule. She has, indeed, been well called the 
 female Voltaire, the high-priestess of sarcasm. In her slim, 
 nervous hands, the sceptre of intellect resembles a rod of 
 chastisement. She is often amiable, but a very little thing 
 is enough to irritate and embitter her ; and then her dreaded 
 arm-chair becomes a tribune from which she pours forth the 
 vials of her wrath, and lets fly all the shafts of satire. 
 
 Hers is the leading Parisian salon. Her letters are 
 models of style, marvels of clear and precise statement 
 and of fine wit. No classical writer had ever a more irre- 
 proachable mode of expression. As Madame de Sevigne 
 personified the seventeenth century, so is Madame du 
 Deffand the very incarnation of the eighteenth. Even 
 Voltaire, in whose eyes she is the final awarder of fame, is 
 so much in fear of her that he tries to insinuate himself 
 into her good graces by pretending to be as blind as she. 
 There is one man, however, who dares to defy the avenging 
 thunderbolts of the Marquise du Deffand, and who for 
 many reasons might well fear her ; for he is a savant, aca- 
 demician, man of the world, and pkilosophe, — D'Alembert. 
 But it is all explained by this : D'Alembert is in love with 
 the marquise's deadly foe. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse. 
 
 The two rivals were fast friends in the beginning. Dur- 
 ing the ten years from 1754 to 1764, they lived beneath the 
 same roof. Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, who was an illegiti- 
 mate daughter, born in 1732, of the Comtesse d'Albon, had 
 had a hard road to travel. Poor, and without resource, she 
 was only too glad at first to find shelter with Madame du 
 
The Famous Salons. 65 
 
 Deffand. Without being at all pretty, she was bright, agree- 
 able, and well informed, talked and wrote well, and concealed 
 beneath a calm and reserved exterior a restless mind and 
 feverish imagination. So she came at last to suffer torments 
 in the secondary role she was playing, — a sort of literary 
 servitude. 
 
 The humble companion made a coup d'etat. She artfully 
 assembled in her own little apartment a select circle, limited 
 to a chosen few, who came there in secret for a few moments 
 before the hour at which the salon of the marquise was 
 open to her friends. But some jealous tongue betrayed the 
 secret, and her old blind mistress was informed of the scheme. 
 Enraged by such a revolutionary proceeding, she pitilessly 
 drove Mademoiselle de Lespinasse out of her house. 
 
 The rupture between these two split Parisian society 
 into two camps, one of which approved the action of the 
 marquise, the other sympathizing with the younger woman. 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse was by no means left without 
 adherents. Her faithful friends, D'Alembert, Turgot, the 
 Chevalier de Chastellux, the Abbe de Boismont, and the 
 Archbishop of Aix, subscribed to assure her a modest, 
 but independent, competence, and hired an apartment 
 for her in Rue de Bellechasse. Her salon is not a very 
 extensive one, but it is inspired by abundance of intellect 
 and earnestness, and by most perfect sympathy among its 
 frequenters, who are limited to a chosen few, and who find 
 there more pleasure than in the great intellectual symposia 
 of a Marquise du Deffand or a Madame Geoffrin. 
 
 s 
 
66 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 They are very fascinating and very pleasant on the 
 surface, these famous salons, which arouse the admiration of 
 all Europe. But what a mass of inconsistencies and pitiful 
 trifling do we find in this society of aristocrats by birth, 
 wealth, or wit! What dreary hours of discouragement, 
 ennui, and disappointment do all these people know who 
 amuse themselves thus, or, to speak more accurately, pretend 
 to be amusing themselves ! Even Madame Geoffrin, for all 
 her robust health, her common-sense, and equable disposition, 
 has moments of anxiety and terror as she contemplates the 
 work that is being done by these encyclopedisies, to whom her 
 services are without end. She opens her doors to them, 
 shelters them with her influence, and furnishes them abun- 
 dantly with funds, artisans of confusion that they are, 
 wreckers of throne and altar together! While, by one of 
 those strange inconsistencies so often met with in the 
 eighteenth century, she is at heart a devoted royalist and 
 devout churchwoman. The friend, confidante, and adviser of 
 the greatest scoffers among i\\t philosophes and of the most 
 dangerous materialists, the woman who by her bounty has 
 made the publication of the " Encyclopedie " possible, con- 
 fesses to a Capuchin, is most punctual in attendance at mass 
 and other religious ceremonies at the church of St. Roch, 
 and is very careful to have a priest at hand when any of 
 her friends is in extremis. Sometimes it seems as if this 
 aged woman, than whom no one is more addicted to repose 
 and conservatism, had an instinctive foreboding that this 
 house of hers, which seems so tranquil and peaceful, is 
 
The Famous Salons. 67 
 
 really the cursed laboratory wherein the poisons which are 
 to spread death and destruction among individuals and 
 societies are being compounded in silence, by the light of 
 the salon lamp, in the presence of a few choice spirits of 
 destruction. 
 
 Even Madame du Deffand has occasional fleeting yearn- 
 ings for the solace which religion brings. At certain hours 
 she has vague aspirations for a devout frame of mind, 
 " which seems to her," as she says, " the happiest possible 
 state." Bitterly does she sigh for that peace of heart and 
 soul which is the gift of faith, and is the source of so much 
 strength and comfort in this vale of tears. Despite her 
 great powers of mind, she bends under the weight of an 
 ennui that will not be driven away, and her letters are some- 
 times despairing in tone. In the midst of her worldly 
 pursuits, sublime in their utter emptiness, she gives voice 
 here and there, with sinister eloquence, to thoughts which 
 make one shudder. At such times her reflections, pregnant 
 with deep thought and mental anguish, are as thrilling as 
 Hamlet's soliloquy. Her arm-chair, which she calls her 
 tonneau, she might call her tomb. She sits in it like 
 one dead, who still has the sensation of living. To the 
 man who has said, " Glissez, mortels, n'appuyez pas," to 
 Voltaire, the superficial, this poor old creature, blind morally 
 as well as physically, hesitating between longing for death 
 and the dread of it, propounded with touching anxiety 
 certain questions upon the terrible problems of the destiny 
 of mankind. 
 
68 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 On the 1st of April, 1769, she wrote to him as follows : 
 " Tell me why it is that though I detest living, I fear 
 death. There is nothing to make me think that it will not 
 be the end of everything with me ; on the other hand, I can 
 see that my mind is going to pieces, as well as my body. 
 Whatever is said to me on the one side or the other makes 
 no impression on me. I listen to no voice but my own, and 
 I can find nothing but doubt and darkness. ' Have faith,' 
 some one says ; ' that is the surest way.' But how can one 
 be expected to have faith in what one does not understand .? 
 Things which I do not understand may exist, without doubt, 
 and for that reason I do not deny their existence ; I am like 
 one born deaf and blind. Such a one will agree that 
 sounds and colors exist; but does he know what he is 
 agreeing to ? If it were enough simply not to deny, well 
 and good ; but it is not enough. How can one make up 
 his mind between the finite and the infinite ; between 
 emptiness and fulness.? No one of my faculties can teach 
 me ; and what can I learn without them ? And yet, if I 
 do not believe what I must believe, I am threatened with 
 being thousands and thousands of times more wretched 
 after I am dead than I have been in life. How shall I 
 decide ; or is it possible for me to come to a decision .? 
 I ask you the question, you, whose character is so true 
 that you ought through very sympathy to discern the truth, 
 if it be discernible. You must teach me something about the 
 other world, and tell me if we are fated to play a part there." 
 To cap the climax of her woes, Madame du Deffand is 
 
The Famous Salons. 69 
 
 the victim of anguish of the heart no less than mental 
 anguish. She, who had never known the meaning of real 
 love, plunged into a sort of ecstatic passion when she was 
 wellnigh seventy years old. She has conceived for a man 
 twenty years her junior, and who is more afraid of ridicule 
 than anything in the world, the clever and satirical English- 
 man, Horace Walpole, a strange affection, hesitating in a 
 certain sense, and yet headstrong and jealous, which is more 
 than friendship, but cannot be love. By a curious whim of 
 fate, she falls in love, for the first time, at an age when it is 
 no longer allowable to love even for the last time. 
 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse is in some respects even 
 more unfortunate than Madame du Deffand. This young 
 woman, frivolous to all seeming, loves like Sappho, or the 
 Portuguese nun, or like La Nouvelle H'eldise. Hers is a type 
 of high-flown, ardent, frantic passion. She loves madly, to 
 the point of insanity, a brilliant officer who does not care a 
 fig for her, — M. de Guibert. She lives on her love, and 
 dies of it. Her poor body and her poor soul are as if they 
 were wrapped in the mantle of Nessus. One would say she 
 was the victim of the fatalism in which the ancients believed. 
 In the despair of her death agony she writes to her unfeeling 
 lover : " Ah, how cruel men are ! Beside them tigers are 
 angels of gentleness. I ought naturally to have devoted 
 my energies to hatred of mankind ; but I have but ill ful- 
 filled my destiny. I have loved much, and hated but little. I 
 have not the strength to love any more ; my soul wearies 
 and torments me, and it is of no use for me to live any 
 
yo The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 longer. I have fever every day, and my doctor, who is not 
 the most skilful of men, keeps dinning into my ears that I 
 am wasting away with grief, and that my pulse and respi- 
 ration alike denote acute mental suffering; and he always 
 says as he takes his leave, ' We have no cure for the 
 soui; " 
 
 O worthy philosophes, think you that you know such a 
 cure ? Authors of the " Encyclopedie," habitues of the 
 famous salons, if you care to know the difference be- 
 tween your philosophy and true faith, contrast the dying 
 hours of one of your proselytes with those of a God- 
 fearing Christian woman! 
 
X. 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHES. 
 
 T^rHERE are the days when La Bruyere wrote: "A man 
 who is born a Christian and a Frenchman finds him- 
 self restricted in the indulgence of his satirical vein, for 
 great subjects are forbidden him." 
 
 Where are the days when the advocate Barbier wrote these 
 words in his journal : " I believe that a man should do what 
 he has to do honorably and straightforwardly, without 
 meddling with affairs of state, for which he has no capacity, 
 and which do not concern him." 
 
 Prudence, modesty, respect for authority, dread of shak- 
 ing the foundations of the social structure, — the philosophes 
 have done away with all that. The salons have become 
 academies where politics and religion are discussed unend- 
 ingly, by way of attacking the Church and the monarchy. 
 In 1762 Bachaumont speaks of a deluge of pamphlets and 
 political dissertations, " as disclosing a perfect rage for argu- 
 ing about matters relating to finance and government." 
 
 In 1765 Horace Walpole declares that "the atheists, 
 who monopolize conversation, are declaiming as loudly 
 against kings as against priests. They do nothing but 
 preach, and their avowed doctrine is atheism. Voltaire him- 
 
72 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 self does not satisfy them. One of their fellowship said of 
 him, ' Oh, he 's a mere bigot ; why, he 's a deist ! ' " 
 
 The philosophes are the heroes of the hour. Their 
 doctrines have not yet permeated the mass of the people, 
 but among the aristocrats, the wealthy bourgeoisie, the men 
 of letters, the higher magistrates, and the financial magnates, 
 they speak with the assured and lofty tone of masters. 
 They are to be found in all the academies, in the mansion of 
 every great noble, at all the fetes and all the elegant supper- 
 parties. It is alleged that even some of the higher orders 
 of the clergy are on friendly terms with them. Now that 
 the day of the dandies has gone by, the philosophes are 
 the fashion. A philosophe with his subversive ideas seems 
 to be as necessary an appendage of a well-ordered salon 
 as the candelabrum and its candles. Philosophy, before 
 it became the most dangerous and threatening of facts, 
 was a mere pastime, a fashionable form of entertainment in 
 refined circles. The flame which is to consume the structure 
 appears at first in the guise of a holiday illumination, an 
 entertaining display of Bengal lights. The great nobles are 
 playing with loaded guns, without a suspicion that they will 
 explode. It is as if workmen while engaged in demolishing 
 an edifice should have a delusion, and innocently fancy that 
 they were building one. 
 
 Extraordinary types of revolutionists these, with their 
 lace ruffles, their fashionable oaths, their gold and crystal 
 cups filled with an intoxicating but poisoned beverage, these 
 Q.^^mv!\z.\.^ philosophes, who, with a fascinating smile, languish- 
 
The Philosopkes. 73 
 
 ing glance, and soft and mellow accent, utter most impious 
 sentiments, as one might recite an idyl or a madrigal. 
 
 What strange functions are these supper-parties, where 
 " the company consists of smiling women in full dress, and 
 intelligent and attractive men, between whom there is perfect 
 harmony and complete sympathy. With the second course 
 their imaginations begin to work, bright sallies are heard on 
 all sides, and keen wits begin to blaze and sparkle. When 
 dessert arrives, can they resist the temptation to make witty 
 remarks upon subjects the most grave ? With the coffee, 
 comes the great question of the immortality of the soul, and 
 the existence of God." * 
 
 Scepticism is looked upon as a mark of good fellowship ; 
 they take pleasure in it, and glorify themselves upon it. The 
 old-time aristocratic dulness has given place to a habit of 
 joking, and making satirical allusions to sacred things. The 
 Revolution still wears cuffs. Before assuming the carma- 
 gnole, it is clothed in silk, and velvet coats. It will end with 
 red caps, but it begins with red heels. 
 
 There are many curious inconsistencies to be noted in all 
 this. Let us listen to Walpole for a moment : — 
 
 " From what I have said of their religious, I might better 
 say irreligious, opinions, you must not conclude that the 
 people of quality are atheists, — the men, at least. Happily 
 for them, poor devils, they are incapable of going to such 
 lengths of freethinking. They give their assent to many 
 things, because they are a la mode, and because they don't 
 
 * M. Taine, Origines de la France contemporaine. 
 
74 The Last Years of Louis XV, 
 
 know how to contradict them. They would be ashamed to 
 stand up for the Roman Catholic Church, because it is 
 fashionable to gird at it ; but I am very sure that they really 
 believe in it in their hearts." * 
 
 T\\Q. pkilosopkes themselves recoil from the contemplation 
 of the results and the application of their doctrines. Diderot, 
 in his " Projet d'Instruction publique pour la Russie," admits 
 that " atheism is intended only for a few chosen thinkers, 
 and is by no means adapted for the great body of society." 
 Indeed, this alleged destroyer of religion and tyranny, who 
 in a burst of mad passion wrote this frantic couplet, — 
 
 " Et ma main ourdirait les entrailles du pr^tre 
 A defaut de cordon pour ^trangler les rois," 
 
 professes guileless admiration for the Empress Catherine II., 
 goes to Russia to pay his respects to her, and accepts a mass 
 of compliments and gifts from this sovereign of the North. 
 
 Voltaire cries, in a moment of frankness, " The infamous 
 thing," — such was the Patriarch of Ferney's name for the 
 Catholic religion, — " the infamous thing is fit only for the 
 riffraff, great and small." 
 
 I read in Bachaumont, under date of April 23d, 1769, 
 " From various letters which M. de Voltaire has written to 
 people here, it is known that the great poet has repeated 
 this year the edifying spectacle of last year, and has attended 
 communion at Easter with a great show of piety, but some- 
 
 * January 26, 1766. Letters from Horace Walpole to his Friends during his 
 Visits to France. Translated [into French], and preceded by an Introduction by 
 the Comte de Baillon. Didier. 
 
The Philosophes. ye 
 
 what less publicly ; he pleaded indisposition as a pretext for 
 remaining in bed, and received the sacrament there. 
 
 " They say that M. de Voltaire, annoyed by the com- 
 plaints of the Bishop of Belley, who has been lamenting 
 his unbelief, and his obstinate persistence in disseminating 
 libellous attacks upon religion, determined to go through 
 with this devotional function, and applied to certain notaries 
 very recently to receive his profession of faith, which he has 
 forwarded to Monseigneur. Whatever may be the truth as 
 to this matter, which is told in various ways, it is easy to 
 see, from several letters of his to different friends, how sin- 
 cerely attached he is to religion, with what deep respect 
 he regards it, and how eagerly and humbly he fulfils the 
 duties of a true Catholic." 
 
 I wonder if Bachaumont is in sober earnest when he 
 expresses himself thus ? I would not answer for it. But 
 there is one thing of which there is no doubt ; and that is, 
 that Voltaire has built at his own expense, close beside his 
 chateau, a Catholic church, and that over the porch he has 
 had engraved this inscription, which savors more of pride 
 than piety: Deo erexit Voltaire. 
 
 Horace Walpole's good sense is revolted by such a sea of 
 contradictions. "Atheism," he cries, "is a wretched dish, 
 even though all the cooks in France exert their powers to 
 compose new sauces for it. As for the soul, it may be that 
 they do not have such things upon the Continent ; but I 
 am inclined to think that we do have them in England. 
 Shakspeare, for example, had several of them, in my opinion. 
 
76 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 I love the Jews, although they eat no pork, because they are 
 better Christians than Voltaire." * 
 
 The phlegmatic, methodical, courteous, liberal-minded 
 Walpole, accustomed to the manners and morals of his 
 own country, — Walpole, the friend of the Marquise du 
 Deffand, the keen-witted habitue of salons, the man of 
 fashion, — cannot accustom himself to the philosophes of 
 France. In his eyes they are ill-bred, conceited, and tire- 
 some. He accuses them of " having put on the mask of 
 sobriety, believing that it was philosophical and English, 
 and have acquired no new quality to take the place of their 
 natural light-heartedness and animation. They have adopted 
 contemptuous and constrained manners, instead of continu- 
 ing to display their former frank impertinence, whose very 
 absurdity made it easy to forgive." t 
 
 What has become of the old-time French gayety.? It 
 is nought now but a reminiscence of our younger days. 
 " Laughing has gone out of fashion as completely as jump- 
 ing-jacks, and the old game of cup-and-ball," says Walpole. 
 " Poor souls ! They have n't the time to laugh. The first 
 thing to be thought about is how to make an end of God 
 and the king. Every one of them, men and women, is 
 busily engaged in the work of destruction. I am looked 
 upon as one outside the pale because I still retain some 
 slight belief in something ; but that is not my only crime, 
 for I have told them, and thereby ruined myself forever, 
 
 * Letter of March 17, 1771. 
 t Letter of 25 January, 1766. 
 
The Philosophes. 77 
 
 that they have borrowed from us the two most tedious 
 things we have, — whist and Richardson." * 
 
 " I would have been glad to send the philosophes to 
 Heaven, although they scarcely care about going there, they 
 are so impertinent and ill-bred. I used sometimes to go to 
 Baron d' Holbach's ; but I have given up his dinner-parties, 
 for I was tired to death of his authors, his philosophes, 
 and his scholars, of whom he always has his dovecote full. 
 He had wellnigh turned my head with a new theory of 
 antediluvian floods, which they have invented to prove the 
 immortality of matter." t 
 
 All this philosophical and scientific confusion wearied 
 the clever Briton, and made him dizzy. Perpetual blasphemy 
 made him doubly fond of religion. " Don't be surprised," he 
 cries, " if you hear that I have suddenly become a Jesuit." 
 
 The gilded salons resplendent with light and animation, 
 the perfumed boudoirs filled with flowers, where marquises 
 and duchesses, bepowdered, and covered with glistening 
 gems, and great nobles in coats of many hued velvet, vied 
 with one another in unreasoning Invective against the Christ, 
 made him long to leave it all, and repair to some lonely 
 cloister far away from the philosophes, there in peace to 
 meditate. 
 
 " When I am tired out with their madness," he says again, 
 " I seek an asylum at the Chartreuse, % where I am tempted 
 to prefer Lesueur to all the painters of my acquaintance." 
 
 * Letter of October 19, 1765. \ Letter of December 5, 1765. 
 
 X The Carthusian convent, Rue d'Enfer. Lesueur's Galerie de Bruno, now in 
 the Musde du Louvre, was then at the convent. 
 
yS The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 He never revisited the Carthusian convent without deep 
 emotion. In 1739 he had said: "One finds there all the 
 surroundings which conduce to sadness, reflection, and de- 
 spair; and yet one is glad to be there." But in 1771, his 
 feeling is not so keen ; on the 9th of July he writes : " I 
 do not take half the pleasure I used in visiting the churches 
 and convents. The consciousness that the dream is at an 
 end, and the absence of the earnestness so essential in every- 
 thing which concerns religion, impart to these places the 
 aspect of theatres doomed to destruction. The monks run 
 here and there as if they had not long to stay there; and 
 things which for half a day seemed sacred to me, are now 
 unpleasant and gloomy." 
 
 Who can say that the fashionable impiety has not already 
 made its way into these abodes of piety, where used to be 
 found such chaste emotion and such sweet comfort ? The 
 saints carved on the Gothic structure no longer seem so 
 venerable as of old. The variegated rays of the stained 
 glass windows no longer have their pristine mystic clear- 
 ness. The tones of the organ are less triumphant, less 
 stirring. Walpole grows melancholy over the spirit of the 
 time, the cursed breath which corrupts and dries up the soul. 
 The same feeling of vague unrest, of apprehension and dis- 
 couragement, exists in many minds and in many hearts. 
 Amid this society, rotten to the core, notwithstanding its 
 brilliancy, and the paint and patches which disfigure the 
 cheeks of the fashionable beauties to hide their pallor, how 
 many are trying to divert their thoughts by frivolity, like 
 
The Philosophes. 79 
 
 those timid persons who whistle to keep up their courage ! 
 In the solitude of their own thoughts, when they are 
 divorced for a moment from the tumult of their world, and 
 thrown back upon their own resources, what do all these 
 successful characters, male or female, find to say to them- 
 selves ? What are their thoughts when the lights of the 
 feast are extinguished, the flowers withered, and the soft, 
 clear light of day appears, after a night of blatant impiety 
 and fictitious enjoyment? 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 THE WOMEN OF THE COURT AT VERSAILLES AT THE 
 CLOSE OF THE REIGN OF LOUIS XV. 
 1 768-1 774. 
 
 I. 
 
 LOUIS XV. IN 1768. 
 
 IVTARIE LECZINSKA was no more, and Versailles, 
 bowed with grief, presented a melancholy and 
 depressing appearance. Mademoiselle Genet, the future 
 Madame Campan, who had been for some da)'^s installed 
 as reader to Mesdames de France* was deeply impressed 
 by the gloomy aspect of the chateau. " These vast rooms 
 draped in black," she wrote ; " the state chairs, placed sev- 
 eral steps higher than the floor, with a canopy trimmed with 
 plumes stretched above them; the caparisoned horses, the 
 great funeral procession, all in deep mourning ; the huge 
 shoulder-knots, trimmed with gold and silver spangles, which 
 embellished the livery of the pages, and of the footmen as 
 well, — all this paraphernalia of mourning produced such an 
 
 * Daughters of the king. 
 6 
 
82 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 effect upon my feelings that I could scarcely stand when I 
 was taken to the apartments of the princesses. The first 
 day that I read to them in Madame Victoire's cabinet, I 
 found it impossible to read more than two sentences, for 
 my heart was beating wildly, my voice trembled, and I 
 could scarcely see." 
 
 In two years and a half Louis XV. had lost his son, 
 his daughter-in-law, and his wife. The deaths of these three, 
 met in each instance with saintly and touching resignation, 
 were well calculated to arouse for a moment in his heart a 
 feeling of repentance and of the need of religious con- 
 solation. During the long and painful illness of Marie 
 Leczinska, he had devoted himself to her with such affec- 
 tionate assiduity that the poor queen, little accustomed to 
 so much consideration, could not begin to show how grateful 
 she was. After she had ceased to breathe, her husband, 
 with sincere and deep emotion, imprinted a last kiss upon 
 her icy brow. 
 
 People thought that such oft-repeated warnings would 
 not be without effect upon him. Louis XV. was fifty-eight 
 years old. His surgeon advised him to follow a life of 
 virtue, as healthful for the body as for the soul ; he urged 
 him not simply to put on a drag, but to unharness the 
 horses. 
 
 Vice, though pardonable to a certain extent in a young 
 man, is shameful, absurd, and revolting in one whose hair 
 is gray. Eyerything conspired to induce the king to mend 
 his ways, — his physical condition, his honor, his interest, his 
 
Louis XV. in 1768. 83 
 
 conscience, the voice of public opinion, the call of morality 
 and religion, the dignity of the throne, and the welfare of 
 his soul. 
 
 For four years, — that is to say, since the death of Ma- 
 dame de Pompadour, — he had had no titular mistress. The 
 Parc-aux-Cerfs was not closed, but the obscure orgies of 
 that mysterious establishment did not cause such deplorable 
 scandal among courtiers or the people at large as a royal 
 favorite enthroned in the palace of Versailles. Louis XV. 
 was much attached to his four remaining daughters, Mes- 
 dames Adelaide, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise ; and it was 
 hoped that their influence would tend to lead their father 
 back into the ways of righteousness. The Most Christian 
 King had religious faith, and there was room to believe that, 
 with passions moderated by approaching old age, he would 
 at last atone for the bad example he had set, by a life of 
 piety and respectability. It may be that he himself longed 
 to make his peace with God ; but the force of habit, the 
 selfish promptings of those who trade upon vice, and a 
 sort of mad impulse were destined to gain another victory 
 over his sense of right and his remorse. 
 
 The dominating sentiment in the heart of Louis XV. 
 was not religious enthusiasm, but a mixture of apathy and 
 heedlessness. Men who have reigned for many years, 
 whether they end their days upon the throne, or abdicate, 
 or die in exile, are almost invariably, towards the close of 
 their career, the victims of a sort of weariness and disgust 
 with things in general. They have witnessed so many 
 
84 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 intrigues, so many base acts, so many recantations ; they 
 have been the object of so much insipid flattery and sick- 
 ening adulation ; they are so well versed in the sinuosities 
 of the human soul, — that they finally come to hold mankind 
 in supreme contempt. This feeling does not arouse them 
 to anger; it is rather tranquil, indolent, and disdainful. 
 The sovereign who has had long experience no longer 
 indulges in any illusions on his own account, or as to 
 other people. To every suggestion, he is tempted to 
 reply , " What is the use ? " 
 
 Ministers, courtiers, mistresses, and more humble sub- 
 jects alike arouse his suspicious distrust. There are 
 moments when he longs to let the machine run itself, 
 so sad are his memories of the past, and so bitter his 
 discouragement for the present. As an old pilot watches 
 from the 'shore the struggling of a storm-driven bark, 
 which he is powerless to aid, so the monarch sees from 
 his palace the ship of state foundering in the distance, 
 and mutters sadly to himself that he has not even the 
 power to rescue the crew. 
 
 His mind agitated by presentiments of evil, Louis XV. 
 no longer believed in the prestige of his throne, still less 
 in the future of his race. He resorted to paltry ex- 
 pedients, pitiful tricks, and plots against himself, with 
 the hope of re-establishing his tottering power. As 
 Madame Campan well observes, " To distinguish Louis de 
 Bourbon from the king of France was the most interest- 
 ing object of the royal existence." 
 
Louis XV. in 1768. 85 
 
 " They would have it so ; they thought it was for the 
 best," was his invariable formula when the plans of his 
 ministers failed of success. He reigned in two persons, 
 so to speak, having two domestic and two foreign policies, 
 a private treasure-chest, and a secret, underground gov- 
 ernment, working in opposition to the oflficial one. 
 
 As M. de Bontaric says : " As a man, he passed part 
 of his life in impeding and thwarting the king. What 
 an extraordinary spectacle ! An absolute monarch reduced 
 to the most obscure intrigues as a means of accomplishing 
 his will, which he did not dare to declare aloud ; waging 
 a bitter but under-hand war against his ministers, and, after 
 all, deceived in his expectations, his self-esteem wounded, 
 conspirator emeritus, persisting to his dying hour in schemes 
 which were known to all the world, and saved by nothing 
 but his exalted rank from sharing the captivity or exile of 
 his agents — I had almost said his accomplices ! " 
 
 This explains the presence in his secret diplomatic 
 corps of such persons as the Chevalier d'Eon, who was 
 man and woman by turns, and the celebrated Comte de 
 Saint-Germain, who claimed to be several centuries old, and 
 was supposed to possess a most potent elixir of life. Baron 
 de Gleichen says, in his " Souvenirs " that " this claim 
 was responsible for the invention of the absurd fable of 
 the old lady's maid whose mistress had a phial of the 
 divine fluid hidden away : the old soubrette found it, and 
 drank so much of it that she overdid the business of 
 rejuvenating, and became a little baby." 
 
86 The Last Years of Louis X V. 
 
 This backstairs diplomatic body included some adven- 
 turers, but it also contained some remarkable men. The 
 Comte de Broglie was the leader. This mysterious 
 ministry of Foreign Affairs was in operation contempo- 
 raneously with the official ministry, 
 
 " Before long it had trustworthy agents at all the 
 courts: sometimes it was the resident minister, who thus 
 performed a twofold duty, without the knowledge of the 
 titular Minister of Foreign Affairs; more frequently it 
 was some subordinate official of the legation, who thus 
 became a spy upon the actions of his immediate superior. 
 M. d'Ogny, director of the secret post-office, recognizes by 
 a mark on the outside the despatches of the diplomats 
 who were in the secret; they were sent to the Comte de 
 Broglie by Guinard, a page at the palace, deciphered 
 in the Comte's cabinet, and then handed over to Louis 
 XV., with drafts of the proposed replies, to which the 
 king affixed his signature, after making such corrections 
 as he saw fit. The Baron de Breteuil, ambassador to 
 Sweden in 1766, whom the king had requested to follow 
 the course of events in that country with particular 
 attention, the Comte Desalleurs, ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople, M. de Vergennes, and M. de Saint-Priest were 
 members of the secret body.* 
 
 The Comte de Broglie continued to superintend it 
 even after he was exiled, as the result of an official dis- 
 grace which was really of no importance. To quote M. 
 
 * Gustave III. et la Cour de France, par M. A. Geffroy. 
 
Louis XV. in 1768. %^ 
 
 Geffroy once more : " Louis XV., with the assistance of 
 these unknown agents, took pleasure in guiding the prin- 
 cipal transactions himself. It may be that he was jealous 
 of the horde of ministers, favorites, and mistresses by whom 
 he was encompassed, and was glad of an opportunity to 
 thwart them and fight them under cover, and to conspire 
 against them, without taking the trouble to resist them 
 openly. His underground policy was frequently more to 
 his credit than the declared policy of the cabinet of 
 Versailles." 
 
 M. Theophile Lavallee has reached a similar conclu- 
 sion. " The secret correspondence of Louis XV.," he 
 says, "proves that prince to have had, by royal instinct 
 and family tradition, a deep sense of national greatness ; 
 it overflows with good sense, dignity, and patriotism. One 
 cannot peruse it without deploring that so lofty a policy 
 should have been sterilized by lack of strength of will, 
 and that such deep insight into the true interests of 
 France in the future should have gone for nought in the 
 orgies of the Parc-aux-Cerfs." 
 
 Louis XV. did not lack intelligence, — he had that 
 quality in abundance ; nor did he lack moral sense, for 
 while he was doing what was wrong, he had a very clear 
 idea of the right. No, what he lacked was will-power, 
 strength of purpose. He had had in his youthful days, 
 and from time to time he still displayed, upright and 
 clean intentions ; but he was not animated with a suffi- 
 cient degree of energy to repel the torrent of the 
 
88 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 century's vice. In the words of his huntsman, Le Roy, 
 whom Sainte-Beuve calls " a La Bruyere on horseback," 
 "he despaired of ever being able to do what was right, 
 because one is always inclined to look upon that which 
 one lacks the courage to do, as impossible. To this 
 point had this man gradually come, who, if he had been 
 born to private life, would have been deemed, by virtue 
 of his intellect and character, above the common herd, 
 and what is properly called un galant homme" 
 
 Despite his advancing years, he had preserved his 
 graceful and commanding figure, and regular features ; he 
 was still somewhat reserved in conversation, but always 
 refined and clever; his courtesy was beyond criticism, and 
 he was extremely careful of his personal appearance. 
 
 " The king was still beloved by his people ; they might 
 well have hoped that he would at least adopt a manner 
 of life suited to his years and his dignity, which would 
 serve to throw a veil over the errors of the past, and 
 justify the affection which Frenchmen had bestowed upon 
 him in his youth. It was very hard to visit severe 
 condemnation upon him. When he enthroned titular 
 mistresses at court, they blamed the queen's excessive 
 piety. They found fault with Mesdames because they did 
 not foresee and seek to prevent the danger which would 
 attend the king's forming an intimate circle around some 
 new favorite. They sighed for Madame Henriette, twin- 
 sister of the Duchess of Parma : that princess had some 
 influence upon the king; and if she had lived, she would 
 
Louis, XV. in 1768. 89 
 
 have devoted herself to entertaining him in the bosom of 
 his family, she would have attended the king in his little 
 excursions, and would have done the honors of the 
 little supper-parties which he loved so to give in his 
 apartments." * 
 
 The Comte de Segur, a man of wit and of society, 
 who saw the last years of Louis XV., also speaks of him 
 with a certain amount of sympathy. " This weak but 
 well-meaning monarch," he says, in his charming Memoirs, 
 " was in his youth the object of enthusiastic admiration 
 which was little deserved ; the harsh strictures upon his 
 old age were no less exaggerated. Inheritor of the ab- 
 solute power of Louis XIV., he reigned for sixty years 
 without once laying himself open to the charge of having 
 used his power cruelly. It is hard to find a prince who 
 has not shared, to a greater or less degree, in the errors, 
 the weaknesses, and follies of his time. Moreover, the 
 French have always shown too little severity for offences 
 of this description ; but they demand at least that the 
 stains shall disappear in the splendor of some ray of 
 glory. In that event they become only too forgiving, and 
 almost utter panegyrics upon these same faults, as com- 
 mitted by the chivalrous Franyois I., the gallant Henri 
 IV., and the majestic Louis XIV., while they make them 
 the subject of bitter -reproach to Louis XV." 
 
 Sovereigns are almost always the personification of the 
 age in which they live. They seem to make the law, 
 
 * Mdmoires de Madame Campan. 
 
go The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 whereas on most occasions they simply follow it. The 
 strongly contrasted characteristics of Louis XV. are re- 
 produced in the society of which he was the head. He 
 belongs to that period of dissolution and decomposition 
 when, in the words of Chateaubriand, " Statesmen became 
 men of letters and vice versa, great nobles became bank- 
 ers, and farmers-general great nobles. The fashions were 
 as absurd as art was degenerate : shepherdesses in paniers 
 were painted on the walls of salons where colonels 
 sat over the embroidery frame. Everything was out of 
 joint in men's minds and their morals, — a sure sign of 
 impending revolution. To see the monarch slumbering 
 in the lap of debauchery, corrupt courtiers, designing or 
 incapable ministers, philosophes attacking religion and the 
 State; the nobles either ignorant, or tainted with the pre- 
 vailing vices ; ecclesiastics at Paris the disgrace of their 
 order, and in the provinces slaves of prejudice : looking 
 upon all these, one would have said they were a crowd 
 of workmen in a tremendous hurry to tear down a noble 
 edifice." 
 
 And yet there was no noticeable change. As the 
 Comte de Segur says, " The old social structure was 
 undermined throughout its whole extent, and yet no 
 exterior marks indicated that it was almost ready to fall. 
 The change of morals was unobserved, because it had 
 been gradual ; the court etiquette was unchanged ; there 
 were the same throne, the same names, the same distinc- 
 tions of rank, the same formalities. The Parliaments, 
 
Louis XV. in 1768. gi 
 
 defying the power of the throne, albeit with outward 
 expressions of respect, had become almost republican 
 without suspecting it, and they were themselves giving 
 the signal for revolution, while they thought that they 
 were simply following the examples of their predecessors 
 when they resisted the concordat of Fran9ois I., and the 
 fiscal despotism of Mazarin." 
 
 Louis XV., who, notwithstanding his many faults, was 
 a shrewd and perspicacious observer, fully appreciated the 
 gravity of the situation. But to apply an effective rem- 
 edy, something more was needed than clever management 
 or learning or wisdom : downright genius was indispen- 
 sable. In the last years of the eighteenth century, to 
 harmonize the freedom that had become necessary, with 
 absolute authority, was a problem which the greatest and 
 wisest of mankind might not have succeeded in solving. 
 Louis XV. contented himself with saying, " Things will 
 endure in their present shape as long as I live." 
 
 By his side reigned a minister whose character pre- 
 sented a most striking contrast to that of his master. 
 In the same degree that Louis was reserved, taciturn, and 
 bored, the Due de Choiseul was impulsive, voluble, ana 
 good-humored. In the same degree that the monarch, 
 albeit his piety, was but ill understood, had a deep and 
 earnest religious faith, the piinister was a disciple and 
 follower of Voltaire. Beloved by parliamentarians, aristo- 
 crats, and men of letters alike, bel esprit and courtier 
 rather than statesman, Choiseul, with his impatience and 
 
g2 The Last Years of Lotus XV. 
 
 audacity, his facility and brilliant capacity for affairs, his 
 charming and never-failing learning, his entertaining and 
 eloquent conversation, his faith in his lucky star, his 
 habit of believing all manner of success attainable, his 
 philosophy, which drew the line after Voltaire, and 
 despised Rousseau, his inconsequent ' lavishness, which 
 caused him no uneasiness on the score of the immense 
 chasm it dug beneath the throne, because he relied upon 
 the coming suppression of the monasteries and the tax 
 upon ecclesiastical property to make up the deficit, — 
 Choiseul was a perfect specimen of that courageous, 
 fascinating, light-headed, and venturesome nobility which 
 was marching laughingly on towards an abyss hidden by 
 flowers. 
 
 " Never," said the Baron de Gleichen, in his " Souvenirs," 
 " have I known a man who could scatter joy and con- 
 tentment wherever he went, as he could. When he entered 
 a room, he seemed to rummage in his pocket, and take 
 from it an inexhaustible supply of jokes and gayety." 
 
 Notwithstanding his fascination and his good nature, the 
 minister, whom Pope Benedict XIV. described as "a mad- 
 man with a great deal of brains," had stirred up irrecon- 
 cilable hatred in some hearts. His rivals and jealous 
 detractors could not forgive his great eminence, and 
 anxiously deliberated how best they could succeed in over- 
 turning the colossus which towered above everybody. In 
 what salon, by what means, could they hope to plot and 
 accomplish the downfall of this man who tormented them 
 
Louis XV. in 1768. 93 
 
 so: that was the question which they put to themselves 
 and one another unceasingly. 
 
 As Madame Campan observes, Louis at this time had 
 relations with no women except those of a class so low 
 that they could not be used for an intrigue which was 
 likely to be of some duration ; especially as the Parc-aux- 
 Cerfs was a little harem whose inmates were constantly 
 changing. The enemies of the omnipotent minister 
 desired to fix the monarch's attention upon some one 
 mistress who, by persistent, daily representations might 
 succeed in overthrowing him. As a counterfoil to the 
 grand vizier, a sultana was essential. Animated by such 
 purposes, the enemies of the Due de Choiseul cast their 
 eyes upon the woman whose origin we are now about to 
 recount, — the Comtesse du Barry. 
 
II. 
 
 THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE COMTESSE DU BARRY. 
 
 ON the 9th January, 1829, a curious lawsuit was 
 argued before the civil tribunal of original juris- 
 diction at Paris. The litigants were members of two 
 families, each of which claimed to be the only true heirs 
 of the Comtesse du Barry, and they were contending 
 for a legacy bequeathed to the comtesse by the Due de 
 Cosse-Brissac, who was slaughtered by the revolutionists 
 in 1792. The due, naming his daughter, Madame de 
 Mortemart, as sole legatee, had encumbered the succes- 
 sion with this legacy, which at first could not be paid. 
 But under the Restoration, the Mortemart family having 
 received a large share of the indemnity of a milliard 
 granted to the emigres, found itself in a position to carry 
 out the last wishes of the Due de Brissac. 
 
 The Gomard heirs presented themselves as claimants 
 for the legacy, relying upon the following alleged extract 
 from the baptismal register of the parish of Vaucouleurs, 
 in the diocese of Toul, as the birth-certificate of Madame 
 du Barry : — 
 
 "Jeanne, daughter of Jean-Jacques Gotnard de Vaubernier and 
 Anne Becu, called Quantigny, was born the 19th August, 1746, 
 
Early History of the Comtesse du Barry. 95 
 
 baptized the same day, having for godfather Joseph de Mange, and 
 for godmother Jeanne de Birabin, who have signed with me. 
 
 L. GALON, Vicar of Vaucouleurs. 
 JOSEPH DE MANGE. 
 JEANNE DE BIRABIN. 
 
 The heirs on the mother's side, the Becus, also came 
 forward. They came, not only to claim their rights, but 
 to contest the right of the Gomards to the inheritance of 
 Madame du Barry. They maintained that the certificate 
 produced by the latter was fictitious ; that it had been 
 invented in 1 768 to flatter the comtesse ; and they pro- 
 duced in opposition to it another certificate, taken from 
 the registers of the civil jurisdiction of the town of 
 Vaucouleurs on the 25th September, 1827, and thus 
 conceived : — 
 
 " Jeanne, natural daughter of Anne B^cu, called Quantigny, was 
 born the 19th August, 1743, and baptized the same day. She had 
 for godfather Joseph Demange, and for godmother Jeanne Birabin." 
 
 By decree of the 9th January, 1829, — affirmed by the 
 Cour Royale of Paris the 22d February, 1830, — the 
 court of first instance of the Seine decided in favor of 
 the Becu heirs. The certificate produced by the Gomards 
 was declared to be apocryphal. The court also found 
 that in 1768 a genealogy had been obligingly made to 
 order for the mistress of Louis XV. They had under- 
 taken to transform an illegitimate into a legitimate child : 
 the filia nullius Becu was metamorphosed into Miss 
 Gomard de Vaubernier. The particle was bestowed upon 
 the godfather, Joseph Demange, who became Joseph de 
 
96 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Mange, while the godmother, Jeanne Birabin — la Bira- 
 bine, as they called her in the country — figured as 
 Madame de Birabin. The flattery of the courtiers went 
 even farther than this. They rejuvenated the favorite, so 
 to speak, and fixed the date of her birth, not upon the 
 19th August, 1743, when she actually was born, but three 
 years later, the 19th August, 1746. 
 
 M. Le Roi, the extremely well-informed custodian of 
 the library at Versailles, has told the truth concerning the 
 origin of Madame du Barry in his very interesting work, 
 " Curiosites Historiques." He gives her her true name, — 
 Jeanne Becu, — and proves the falsity of innumerable 
 fables which have had a tendency to create an absolutely 
 baseless legend on the subject of the royal mistress. 
 
 The child, who was one day to be called Madame la 
 Comtesse du Barry, was the daughter of a peasant 
 mother. From the cradle she had to struggle with 
 adversity. A provisions contractor, M. Dumonceau, pro- 
 vided the means to procure an elementary education for 
 her, solely from charity. He placed her in the convent of 
 St. Anne, with a trousseau consisting of two pairs of 
 sheets and six towels. It was said that she peddled 
 haberdashery at a later period; and after that, under the 
 name of Mademoiselle Rangon, which was the name of 
 her mother's husband, she entered the employ of one 
 Labille, man-miUiner, Rue Saint-Honore. 
 
 It would appear that the young shop-girl was not a 
 pattern of virtue. Alas! with all the snares which beset 
 
Early History of the Comtesse du Barry. 97 
 
 the feet of pretty girls, virtue and beauty are almost 
 incompatible among the poorer classes. The milliner fell 
 in with one of those men who are common in all capi- 
 tals, Comte Jean du Barry. He told himself that such a 
 fascinating young person ought to make her way in the 
 world, and in a burst of enthusiasm he applied a seraphic 
 appellation to his divinity; he called her Mademoiselle 
 I'Ange [Miss Angel]. This angel, of an inferior category, 
 presided at the gambling parties which the comte gave. 
 It was at one of these that Dumouriez saw her in 1764. 
 In the same year the Due de Lauzun followed her 
 when she left the Bal de I'Opera, and found her ravish- 
 ingly beautiful. Lebel, Louis' valet-de-chambre, who by 
 reason of his peculiar functions was on the watch for 
 suitable morsels for the king, thought that he would do 
 well to put Mademoiselle I'Ange upon his list. He fancied 
 that she would be a mere bird of passage, and would dis- 
 appear, after a momentary incumbency of the Parc-aux- 
 Cerfs. He was in error. The former milliner was destined 
 to occupy a post which had been vacant for four years, — 
 the post of successor to the Marquise de Pompadour. 
 
 Instead of aping the manners of the great ladies who 
 wearied the king beyond measure, she showed herself as 
 she was, a courtesan pure and simple, with all the cyni- 
 cism, impulsiveness, and tricks of her trade. Louis felt his 
 jaded senses awakened as if by a miracle. He was in 
 raptures, and the new favorite seemed to him an ex- 
 ceptional being. He longed to cover her with a shower 
 
 7 
 
g8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 of gold and jewels, and to make her the queen of all the 
 mistresses of France or of Europe. 
 
 In his opinion an unmarried woman could not with 
 propriety fulfill the duties of the office, and he speedily 
 determined to transform her into a woman with a husband, 
 and a title as well. Nothing was more easy than to find a 
 nominal spouse, who would be well content to disappear with 
 well-filled pockets, and never appear on the scene again. 
 
 This lucrative role Comte Jean du Barry was unable 
 to assume himself, because he already had a wife; but 
 he had a bachelor brother who seemed to have been born 
 for the occasion. This obliging fellow was called Comte 
 Guillaume du Barry; he was an indigent officer of 
 marines, and lived with his mother at Toulouse. To 
 summon him to Paris, marry him to Louis' mistress, 
 give him a comfortable sum of money, and send him 
 back to Toulouse, was a matter of only a day or two. 
 
 Queen Marie Leczinska died on the 24th June, 1768. 
 Her husband mourned her but a short time, for during 
 the month following he became enamoured of this so- 
 called Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, this Anne Becu, 
 called I'Ange, the future Madame la Comtesse du Barry. 
 It was on the 23d July that the marriage contract was 
 executed before the notaries of the Chatelet at Paris, and 
 on the ist September this farcical union was solemnized 
 at the church of St. Laurent at Auteuil. The nuptial 
 blessing was no sooner pronounced than the groom was 
 off for Toulouse, while the bride took up her abode at 
 
Early History of the Comtesse du Barry. 99 
 
 the palace of Versailles. At the same time all Paris was 
 
 humming the chanson of the " Bourbonnaise," a commonplace 
 
 tune which did not deserve the popularity it attained : — 
 
 " La Bourbonnaise, 
 Arrivant ^ Paris, 
 A gagn^ des louis. 
 La Bourbonnaise 
 A gagne des louis 
 Chez un marquis. 
 
 " Pour apanage 
 Elle avait la beaut^ ; 
 L'esprit, la volupte. 
 Pour apanage : 
 Mais ce petit tr^sor 
 Lui vaut de I'or. 
 
 " De paysanne, 
 Elle est dame a present, 
 Elle est dame a present, — 
 Mais grosse dame; 
 Porte les falbalas 
 De haut en bas. 
 
 " Fille gentille, 
 Ne desesp^rez pas ; 
 Quand on des appas, 
 Qu'on est gentille, 
 On trouve t6t ou tard 
 Pareil hasard." * 
 
 * Translation ; " La Bourbonnaise, on arriving at Paris, earned good wages in 
 the establishment of a marquis. 
 
 " For stock-in-trade she had beauty, wit, and easy virtue ; but this small out- 
 fit was a mint to her. 
 
 " From being a peasant, she has now become a lady, — a vulgar lady, to be sure ; 
 she is all furbelowed from top to toe. 
 
 " My pretty girl, do not despair. When one has influence, and is pretty, one is 
 sure to find such a chance sooner or later." 
 
loo The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Another chanson also went the rounds at Versailles. 
 It was the new mistress's song of victory ; for she already 
 had her train of courtiers and poets: — 
 
 " Lisette, ta beaute s^duit 
 Et charme tout le monde ; 
 En vain la duchesse en rougit, 
 Et la princesse en gronde. 
 Chacun sait que V^nus naquit 
 De r^cume de I'onde. 
 
 " En vit-elle moins tous les dieux 
 Lui rendre un juste hommage, 
 Et Paris, ce berger fameux, 
 Lui donner I'avantage, 
 Meme sur la reine des cieux 
 Et Minerva la sage ? 
 
 " Dans le s^rail du Grand Seigneur 
 Quelle est la favorite? 
 C'est la plus belle au gr6 du coeur 
 Du maitre qui I'habite ; 
 C'est le seul titre k sa faveur, 
 Et c'est le vrai m6rite." * 
 
 Louis XV. congratulated himself upon his choice. 
 Madame du Barry was neither educated nor clever. She 
 did not like to talk politics; she had no relatives at 
 
 * Translation : "Lisette, thy beauty fascinates and entrances all the world. 
 In vain does the duchess blush that it is so, and the princess grumble about it. 
 Every one knows that Venus was born of the foam of the sea. 
 
 " Was it the less true that she had all the gods at her feet, and that Paris, the 
 famous shepherd, gave her the preference over the queen of Olympus herself, 
 and the sage Minerva ? 
 
 " In the seraglio of the Grand Seigneur who is the favorite ? She who is 
 the loveliest in the eyes of the master who dwells there. It is the only way to his 
 favor, and is the true reward of merit." 
 
Early History of the Comtesse du Barry. loi 
 
 court, — and these were very great recommendations in the 
 eyes of the monarch. He would not have cared for 
 another grande dame, like the Duchesse de Chateauroux, 
 who would have arrived with a long procession of rela- 
 tives and proteges, nor a politician in petticoats, like 
 Madame de Pompadour, who would be forever stirring 
 up the parliaments and the clergy. What he wanted 
 was somebody to entertain him, — not a mentor. 
 
III. 
 
 THE COMTESSE DU BARRY'S TRIUMPH. 
 
 WHAT will be the fate of the Comtesse du Barry? 
 Will she be merely the ephemeral fancy of a day, 
 like the damsels of the Parc-aux-Cerfs, or will she occupy 
 officially the post of favorite? That was the question 
 which everybody was asking. The important point was, 
 whether she would or would not be presented. Bets 
 were freely made upon this question at Versailles. The 
 Due de Choiseul, who looked askance upon the new 
 comtesse, was opposed to her being presented ; but the 
 king desired that she should be, and in the end he had 
 his way. He had made Madame du Barry's acquaintance 
 in July, 1768, but it was not until the 22d April, 1769, 
 that she was formally presented to him. 
 
 The ceremony was performed with the usual form- 
 alities. After receiving the orders of the king, who had 
 been advised of the names of the lady making the 
 presentation, or sponsor, and her two associates, who 
 must always be ladies of the court circle, the recipient of 
 the honor appeared at the door of the large cabinet, in 
 full dress ; that is to say, with her gown spread out upon a 
 petticoat four ells and a half wide, with a long mantle 
 
The Comtesse du Barry s Triumph. 103 
 
 clasped at the waist, bodice to match, drooping feathers, and 
 as many diamonds as she could make out to secure. 
 
 The Comtesse du Barry was presented by the Comtesse 
 de Beam. Louis' face was radiant with the joy which he 
 felt in the triumph of the woman upon whom his choice 
 had fallen. His days of fickleness were at an end. 
 Madame du Barry needed no assistance in retaining her 
 hold upon the affections of her royal lover, who was weary 
 of his secret visits to the Parc-aux-Cerfs, for the neces- 
 sity of keeping them secret made them burdensome to 
 him. He closed the mysterious establishment, and fur- 
 nished his new inamorata with apartments in the palace of 
 Versailles, just above the suite which he occupied himself. 
 He could visit her at any hour, without being seen, by 
 a secret staircase leading from the Cour des Cerfs. A 
 door opened upon a little landing, whence he could 
 enter one of the closets adjoining the recess in the favor- 
 ite's room. Her suite was a succession of boudoirs, each 
 more charming than the others. It was the apotheosis of 
 luxury. The clock in the bedroom represented the three 
 Graces holding a vase in which was a revolving dial, and 
 above was Cupid, pointing with his arrow to the hour. 
 Most exquisite objects of art, marvels of decorative work, 
 bronze, marble, lacquer, porcelain, and statuettes were 
 scattered about in the greatest profusion in this paradise 
 of debauchery. 
 
 " It was the wild dream of a courtesan," say MM. 
 de Goncourt ; " it was luxurious extravagance and profu- 
 
104 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 sion gone mad. There were millions lavished upon fashion- 
 able whims, upon rare bits of bijouterie, lace, silk, and velvet ; 
 a perfect torrent of wealth ; the royal treasury flowing out 
 through the hands of a pretty woman upon tailors, dress- 
 makers, and milliners." 
 
 Her life, passed entirely in furnishing and refurnish- 
 ing, in giving orders and receiving bills, in making 
 her toilet, and in buying everything under the sun, was a 
 life of caprice and whim. Her apartments in the palace 
 did not satisfy her, and Louis gave her a mansion in the 
 town in Rue de I'Orangerie,* where she quartered her 
 servants and her dependants. 
 
 At the beginning of 1769, she received an annuity of 
 100,000 livres charged upon the city of Paris, and an 
 income of 10,000 livres upon the States of Bourgogne. 
 On the 24th July of that year her generous lover, whose 
 passion for her was ever growing, did homage to her 
 charms by the gift of the beautiful chateau of Luciennes, 
 purchased from the Due de Penthievre. 
 
 The favorite fairly revelled in her triumph. She had 
 as fine an establishment, as great wealth, and as lofty a 
 position as the Marquise de Pompadour had had. 
 
 Young, beautiful, and more than fascinating, with blue 
 eyes, brown eyebrows, fair hair, a little Greek nose, red 
 lips, a skin like satin, a sweet face with a touch of mis- 
 chief in her expression, she shone with all the brilliancy 
 of her twenty-five years. She was not a goddess of 
 
 * This mansion is to-day No. 2 in that street. 
 
The Comtesse du Barry s Triumph. 105 
 
 majestic mien, but a frolicsome, lively beauty, who, when 
 arrayed in her most magnificent toilets, had an air of 
 charming carelessness and insouciance. It is impossible 
 to deny her charms. Louis XV. was like one bewitched. 
 
 The Marechal de Richelieu, who was so harsh in his 
 treatment of the Marquise de Pompadour, gave his un- 
 stinted approval to Madame la Comtesse du Barry. On 
 the 25th June, 1769, the Marquise du Deffand wrote as 
 follows to Horace Walpole : — 
 
 " The other day, in the country, while the master of 
 the house (the king) was at his whist, the leader of the 
 conspiracy (Richelieu) got up a little game of lansquenet 
 to teach the mistress of the mansion (Madame du Barry). 
 He lost two hundred and fifty louis. The master of the 
 house laughed at him, and asked him how he came to lose 
 at such a game as that. He replied by a passage from an 
 opera : — 
 
 " ' Le plus sage 
 S'enflamme et s'engage, 
 Sans savoir comment.' * 
 
 The master laughed, and so did all the troop." 
 
 However, there were some persons who declined to go 
 into raptures over the new favorite's charms of person. 
 Horace Walpole saw her in the chapel at Versailles in 
 September, 1769. His admiration was very lukewarm, and 
 he thus described the impression she made upon him, in 
 
 * Translation : " The wisest of men may lose his head and find himself 
 involved, without knowing how." 
 
io6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 a letter to George Montagu : " A front bench in the 
 gallery had been reserved for us. Madame du Barry 
 took her place below and opposite us; she was without 
 rouge or powder, and indeed her toilet was not made. A 
 strange way to exhibit herself, for she was near the altar, 
 in the midst of the court, and where she could be seen 
 by everybody! She is pretty, if one looks closely at her; 
 yet there is so little out of the common in her appear- 
 ance that I should never have dreamed of asking who 
 she was. There was no insolence or arrogance or 
 affectation in her demeanor. Her husband's sister was 
 with her. In the upper gallery I espied, among a lot of 
 prelates, the king, who is still a fine-looking man. One 
 could but smile at this conglomeration of piety, parade, 
 and vice." 
 
 Madame du Barry was the first to wonder at her own 
 fate. Her transformation into a great lady seemed to 
 her only a disguise. She was even more surprised when 
 they undertook to make a politician of her. With no 
 hatred to indulge, no ambition to gratify, and no schemes 
 to execute, she ask^d only to be left to her toilets and 
 decorations. Politics to her mind was an unmitigated 
 bore. What had she to do with parliaments and clergy 
 and diplomacy.'' She had very different matters in her 
 head. Since her first day at court, her only aim had 
 been to live on amicable terms with the ministers. She 
 sent word to the Due de Choiseul that if he chose to 
 be on friendly terms with her, she was ready to meet him 
 
The Comtesse du Barry s Triumph. 107 
 
 half way. The person intrusted with this conciliatory 
 message recalled the fact that mistresses overthrew min- 
 isters, but that the converse was not true. The due 
 contented himself by replying with a cold and indefinite 
 promise to grant such requests of Madame du Barry as 
 were just. The minister's enemies had very great diffi- 
 culty, despite their unremitting urgency, in driving the 
 pacific comtesse to the resolution to take up arms against 
 him. At first her assaults upon him were mere skir- 
 mishes, — feints it would be better to say. The Marquise 
 du DefFand wrote to Horace Walpole on the 2d No- 
 vember, 1 769 : " Grandpapa (a sobriquet bestowed upon 
 Choiseul) receives little slights every day, such as not 
 being invited to the supper-parties in the cabinets ; and, 
 at Madame du Barry's, when he is her partner at 
 whist, grimaces and witticisms and shrugs of the shoul- 
 ders, — in short, all varieties of petty boarding-school 
 malice." 
 
 However, Choiseul's friends did not yet feel alarmed. 
 On the 15th January, 1770, Madame du Deffand wrote, 
 still to Walpole : " La dame du Barry seems to gain no 
 influence, and there is no appearance that she ever will. 
 She has neither affection nor dislike for anybody; she 
 can say what she is told to say, like a parrot, but she is 
 entirely free from ulterior views, selfishness, or passion. 
 It is not with such dispositions as hers that one succeeds 
 in acquiring power." 
 
 But the confidence of the marquise as to the Due de 
 
io8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Choiseul's security did not long endure. " The Controller- 
 General is at Madame du Barry's feet, and does not 
 blush to be there," she wrote on the 3d March, 1770: 
 " he is following, so he says, the example of all ministers 
 who desire to retain the ear of kings, and to be useful to 
 them. So far our friend is all right, but I doubt whether 
 the year will pass without great changes." In the same 
 letter, she added : " The king is still very much in love, 
 but without exhibiting any great amount of consideration 
 for the lady, whom he treats much like any courtesan. 
 However, she will behave well or ill according to the per- 
 son who governs her: her own character counts for 
 nothing. She may be able to assist in fulfilling the 
 desires of other people, but never with the energy and 
 success which she would have if she shared them herself. 
 She will repeat her lesson, but on any point on which 
 she has not been coached, her own wit will never supply 
 the deficiency." 
 
 About this time a malicious skit was put in circulation, 
 which is quoted in one of the letters of the marquise 
 (the 2d November, 1769). It was supposed to recite the 
 grievances of the Due de Choiseul, friend of Madame de 
 Pompadour, and foe of Madame du Barry. It was sung 
 to the tune of " Vive le Vin, vive I'Amour ! " 
 
 " Vive le Roi ! Foin de I'Amour ! 
 Le drole m'a joue d'un tour, 
 Qui peut confondre mon audace. 
 La Du Barry, pour moi de glace, 
 
The Comtesse du Barry s Triumph. 109 
 
 Va, dit-on, changer mes destins. 
 Jadis, je dus ma fortune aux catins ; 
 Je leur devrai done ma disgrace." * 
 
 Madame du Barry allowed herself to be drawn into 
 the struggle almost in spite of herself. Three men urged 
 her to it, — the Due d'Aiguillon, the Abbe Terray, and the 
 Chancellor Maupeou. Surrounded by this triumvirate, the 
 comtesse smilingly entered the lists of politics. We can 
 easily understand how great must have been the indig- 
 nation felt by so proud and bold a man as the Due de 
 Choiseul upon finding himself confronted by such an 
 adversary. He chafed at his bit. His power was doomed 
 to last but a few months more; but before his fall he was 
 to witness the arrival in France of the princess whose 
 marriage with the dauphin had been negotiated by him, — 
 that charming poetic maiden who brightened up the dull 
 court like a ray of purest sunshine ; that touching victim 
 of a cruel fate, whose lovely yet august figure forms a 
 startling contrast to that of the Du Barry, and whose 
 name one cannot utter except with an indescribable feel- 
 ing of sympathy and pity and respectful emotion, — Marie- 
 Antoinette. 
 
 At the moment when all minds were full of the ap- 
 proaching marriage of the young archduchess to the 
 prince who was one day to be known as Louis XVI., a 
 
 * Translation : " Vive le roil a plague upon Love ! The wretch has played me 
 a trick which may be too much even for my assurance and conceit. La Du Barry, 
 cold as ice to me, will change my future prospects, they say. In the first place, 
 I owed my good fortune to harlots, and I shall owe my disgrace to them." 
 
no The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 novice at the Carmelite convent of St. Denis was pray- 
 ing for the welfare of France, threatened with dire 
 disaster. That novice was one of the daughters of Louis 
 XV. While selfish licentiousness reigned supreme at the 
 palace of Versailles, the spirit of self-sacrifice sought shel- 
 ter in a convent near the last abode of the French kings. 
 Madame du Barry was the scandal of the age ; Madame 
 Louise de France its edification. 
 
IV. 
 
 MADAME LOUISE DE FRANCE, INMATE OF THE CARMELITE 
 
 CONVENT. 
 
 IT was in 1770, Madame Louise de France, youngest of 
 the daughters of the king, was in her thirty-third year. 
 " For several years," says Madame Campan, " Madame 
 Louise Hved in strict seclusion. I used to read to her five 
 hours a day : my voice often expressed the weariness of my 
 chest, and the princess would prepare eau sucree^ and put it 
 by my side, apologizing for making me read so long, by 
 pleading the importance of finishing a course of reading 
 which she had marked out for herself." 
 
 Why was this king's daughter in such haste to finish 
 this course of reading ? That was her secret. Apparently 
 she led a life of luxury ; really she was quietly serving a 
 mysterious apprenticeship in renunciation and self-sacrifice, 
 accustoming herself to bear extreme heat or cold, and to 
 wear beneath her fine linen the coarse serge worn by the 
 Carmelites. In the evening, when she was alone in her 
 apartment, she would put out her wax candles, and light 
 tallow ones, so as to become used to the odor, which at first 
 she could hardly endure. " Hers was a noble soul," says 
 Madame Campan ; " she loved noble things, and she has 
 often interrupted my reading to exclaim, ' Oh, how grand. 
 
112 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 how noble! ' She had it in her power to do but one glori- 
 ous deed, — to exchange a palace for a cell, and her fine 
 clothes for a robe of sackcloth. She did it." 
 
 Some writers, who, having no religious feeling themselves, 
 insist upon keeping their eyes always on the earth, and never 
 looking heavenward, have undertaken to ascribe the pious 
 resolution of Madame Louise to worldly motives, and they 
 come dangerously near representing a Carmelite nun as an 
 ambitious schemer. M. Honore Bonhomme, author of the 
 work entitled, " Louis XV. et sa Famille," takes a juster view 
 of the subject when he says : " When the queen died, 
 Louis XV. had a spasm of repentance ; there was reason to 
 think that he would change his habits for the better : but no. 
 Soon a new favorite, the Du Barry, made her appearance, and 
 we know what followed. Now, it was after this notorious re- 
 lapse of her father, it was when she saw that he had plunged, 
 body and soul, deeper than ever into the shameful sea of 
 vice, that Madame Louise, torn with grief, and utterly hope- 
 less, hastened to pray to God in the austere seclusion of the 
 cloister, not for pardon for herself, — she needed it not ; not 
 for the peace and tranquillity which she lacked, — she had 
 voluntarily sacrificed them ; but she prayed to God with 
 heartfelt, tearful fervor for her father's conversion, for the 
 salvation of the king's soul." 
 
 On the 2 2d April, 1769, Madame du Barry was officially 
 presented at court; on the 30th January, 1770, Madame 
 Louise instructed Monseigneur de Beaumont, Archbishop 
 of Paris, to ask the king's leave for her to enter the 
 convent. 
 
Madame Louise de France. 113 
 
 Louis, deeply moved and profoundly surprised at so 
 unexpected a communication, was dumb at first. At last he 
 exclaimed several times, " It is cruel ! it is cruel ! " and 
 postponed his reply for two weeks. But he finally gave his 
 consent. The Abbe Terray, the princess's confessor, 
 brought her a letter from the king, dated the 20th February, 
 1770, which ran thus: — 
 
 " Monseigneur the Archbishop, my dear daughter, having com- 
 municated to me all that you have said and written to him, will 
 surely have reported to you all that I said to him in reply. If it 
 is for God alone, I can make no opposition to his will and determina- 
 tion. You should have reflected solemnly, so I have nothing more 
 to ask you. It would seem that your plans are all made ; you can 
 mention it to your sisters whenever you think best. Compiegne is 
 out of the question ; outside of that you can choose where you will, 
 and I should be very sorry to force your inclination in any way. I 
 have made enforced sacrifices, but this will be entirely voluntary on 
 your part. May God give you strength to support your new life, for 
 when you have taken the step, you cannot retract it. I embrace you 
 with all my heart, my dear daughter, and give you my blessing." 
 
 There was at St. Denis a Carmelite monastery in such 
 straits financially that the nuns had been obliged to retrench 
 in the matter of food, which was frugal enough before, and 
 the baker had begun to refuse them bread. It was this 
 establishment, reduced to the last extremity, and threatened 
 with extinction, from lack of funds, which Madame Louise 
 selected for her asylum. Just when the nuns were under- 
 going a nine days' fast, and beseeching God to insure the 
 continued existence of their community, Louis XV. gave 
 to his daughter the consent which she so earnestly sought. 
 
114 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Madame Louise still kept her purpose entirely secret, par- 
 ticularly from her sisters, whose comments she dreaded. 
 
 On the 5th April, she received the following note, dated 
 at Choisy, from her father : — 
 
 " I embrace you with all my heart, my dear daughter ; I send 
 you the order for your departure, which you mention, and I will do 
 what you wish for your servants, and will carry out all your other 
 arrangements. You will have only a word from me to-night, my 
 little heart, for it is late." 
 
 On the nth April, in the morning, the princess took 
 carriage at Versailles, attended by a maid of honor and an 
 equerry, giving the order : " To St. Denis." She wore a 
 silk dress under a great black cape, and a high bonnet with 
 a red bow. Upon reaching St. Denis, she said, " To the 
 Carmelites." 
 
 The door of the cloister opened, and Madame Louise dis- 
 appeared. Her maid of honor, the Princesse de Ghistelles, 
 and her equerry, M. d'Haranguier de Quincerot, supposed 
 that she would come out again as soon as mass had been 
 said. Imagine their amazement when the princess sent 
 word to them from within, and they read the order of 
 the king! 
 
 The sisters of the novice learned during the day what 
 had happened. At first they were in despair ; but after 
 the first flush of indignation, they came to feel only the 
 deepest respect for so devout a resolution. In his valuable 
 work upon the Daughters of Louis XV., M. Edouard de 
 Barthelemy quotes the letters of Madame Adelaide and 
 
Madame Louise de France. 115 
 
 Madame Sophie to their sister. Madame Adelaide wrote as 
 follows : — 
 
 " You can imagine better than I can describe what my heart has 
 felt and still feels. My grief was quite equal to my surprise; but 
 you are happy, and I am content. Pray God for me, my dear 
 heart : you know my needs, and they are more urgent to-day than 
 ever. I shall certainly come to see you as soon as I can, — as soon 
 as I have the strength and you feel like receiving me without 
 putting yourself out. Adieu, my dear heart! I am going to 
 vespers, where I fear I may be a little inattentive. Love me 
 always, and believe that I return it tenfold." 
 
 Madame Sophie's letter was in these words: — 
 
 " If I had not told you again and again, dear heart, that I 
 suspected you of a longing to become a nun, I believe you would 
 never have done it. I forgive you freely for not mentioning it to 
 me. Your sacrifice is noble, because it is entirely voluntary ; but do 
 you suppose that the involuntary sacrifice which you impose upon 
 me in thus abandoning us is any easier to bear t Never for an 
 instant doubt my love, dear heart, or that I shall love you all my 
 life, and shall come to see you in all haste as soon as you will 
 permit me. I embrace you with all my 'heart." 
 
 A circular letter to the king's representatives at foreign 
 courts notified them of the " exemplary and touching event " 
 which had occurred, and the Pope, Clement XIV., wrote 
 the Most Christian King a letter which read like a song 
 of thanksgiving. 
 
 Madame Campan relates that the first time she visited 
 the princess at the convent, she met her coming out of the 
 laundry, where her royal hands had been at work in the tub. 
 Said she to her former reader : " I sadly abused your young 
 
ii6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 lungs for two years before I carried out my plan. I knew 
 that here I could only read such books as tend to secure 
 our salvation, and I was anxious to run through all the 
 historical writers who had aroused my interest." Going on 
 to speak of her chosen lot in life, she said : " Believe me 
 when I say that the moral writers are right in declaring that 
 true happiness does not dwell in palaces; I have become 
 convinced of that. If you wish to be happy, I advise you 
 to seek a retreat like this, where the activity of one's mind 
 can content itself with uplifting aspirations towards a better 
 world than this." 
 
 The grated doors closed forever upon the daughter 
 of Louis XV. The chasm between the world and her 
 became impassable. What a contrast between the palace 
 and the cloister! Yesterday, all the splendor and magnifi- 
 cence of radiant galleries, marble stairways, and stately 
 apartments ; to-day, humility, poverty, and the rigorous and 
 monotonous conventual existence ! Yesterday, robes of gold 
 and brocade, laces, precious gems, and diadems ; to-day, the 
 robe of sackcloth and the earthen cup ! Yesterday, the 
 festive animation of the bristling world ; to-day, the silence 
 and gloom of the grave. 
 
 It is said that certain courtiers, misunderstanding the 
 motives of Madame Louise, criticised or pitied her ; that the 
 Marechale de Mirepoix called her " a madwoman, who had 
 entered the convent to make trouble at court, under the 
 cloak of Heaven ; " that the Due d' Ayen thought he was 
 very clever when he said : " If Madame Louise is in such 
 
Madame Louise de France. 117 
 
 a hurry to get to Paradise, she may be very certain of not 
 passing eternity with her family." 
 
 The Marquise du Deffand, playing the philosophe, 
 writes in one of her letters : " This exploit has not made 
 a very great sensation. People shrug their shoulders, 
 pity her weak-mindedness, and go on to talk of some- 
 thing else." 
 
 The satirical marquise has much compassion for a 
 princess who, as she puts it, " makes herself miserable for 
 a whim." Madame du Deffand is in error; with all her 
 wit, she is herself more deserving of compassion than 
 Madame Louise. There are vastly more whims in her 
 salon than in the Carmelite convent. As for Louis XV., 
 at the bottom of his heart he thinks his daughter fortunate. 
 " But, Sire," said Madame du Barry one day, " Madame 
 Louise will have a wretched life at the convent." " Not at 
 all," he replied ; " she will be more nearly at peace than 
 any other of the family. Quietism was not invented for 
 nothing." 
 
 It may even be that it sometimes happened to him, 
 dissipated prince that he was, to conceive a distaste for 
 his palaces, and to feel what might be called homesick for 
 the cloister. Charles V. is not the only sovereign who 
 has dreamed of living the life of a monk. Even the most 
 abandoned voluptuaries have their occasional moments of 
 mysticism. 
 
 The daughter of the terrestrial king now puts her trust 
 in the King of Heaven. As she is no longer bound to the 
 
ii8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 perishable throne, but to the imperishable, immortal Cross, 
 she experiences, in her voluntary captivity, a higher sense 
 of freedom than she ever knew in the vortex of the court. 
 No, no, she has no regretful thoughts of the mob of 
 courtiers crowding about the doors of the CEil-de-Boeuf. 
 She has no sigh for the splendors of the palace, where care 
 and anxiety dwell, where, as La Bruyere has it, one rises 
 and retires upon selfishness. She longs not for the vulgar 
 fawning, the deafening clamor which wearies the ear and 
 the heart alike ; the protestations of zealous affection, 
 which are prompted only by selfish scheming, ambition, and 
 greed ; the pomp and vain show which afford not a 
 moment of true happiness. The rules of the cloister, 
 strict and harsh as they are, seem less irksome than the 
 bonds of etiquette. To all worldly treasure she prefers 
 the privilege of breathing an earnest prayer to Christ, 
 of shedding tears of pious ecstasy. No more scandal, 
 hypocrisy, and shameful deeds here, but repose and real 
 adoration ! 
 
 It is interesting to notice that Madame Louise's angel 
 at the Monastery of St. Denis, that is to say, the nun who 
 was charged with the duty of instructing her in the customs 
 and duties of the Carmelites, was Sister Julie, — in the world 
 Julienne de MacMahon, of the illustrious family to which 
 belonged Marshal MacMahon, recently at the head of the 
 French government. 
 
 Several contemporaneous publicists have spoken rather 
 lightly of the works which have been written relating to the 
 
Madame Louise de France. 1 1 q 
 
 religious vocation of the royal Carmelite, — those of the 
 Abbe Proyart and the Comtesse de Drohojowska, for 
 instance, and the Comte de Chambord's letter to the Holy 
 Father. For my own part, I confess that such productions 
 are extremely touching to me. 
 
 Is it not a pleasant thought that, not far from the 
 boudoir where a Du Barry dragged the royal power in the 
 dust, there was a narrow cell where a descendant of Saint 
 Louis sought, by the power of prayer, to avert the wrath of 
 God? Since debauchery has its priestesses of vice and 
 degradation, purity, by way of reprisal, must have its virgins 
 and heroines. Blasphemy, vile and cynical, must be met by 
 prayer, ardent and exalted. To compensate for all the 
 assaults upon divine majesty, virtues must exist so sublime 
 and enthusiastic as to seem exaggerated, almost insane to 
 profane eyes. To secure momentary oblivion of the mad- 
 ness of debauchery, just men must display what Saint Paul 
 called the madness of the Cross. It was for this very 
 reason — that, in spite of the mass of vice, there were still 
 some noble souls who preserved the treasure of purity in 
 the sanctuary of their conscience — that the eighteenth 
 century was not destroyed at one blow, and that, in the 
 cataclysm of the Revolution, the women of that social body, 
 which was supposed to be so corrupt and frivolous, recalled, 
 by their greatness of soul, and their firmness and courage 
 upon the scaffold, the strength of mind of the early 
 Christians, and the saintly courage of the martyrs. Who 
 can say 1 It may be that if Madame Louise had not joined 
 
120 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 the Carmelite community, the august woman, whose first 
 appearance at the palace of Versailles we are about to 
 witness, would not have borrie herself with such unfail- 
 ing dignity before her persecutors, or have faced her 
 executioners with such magnificent courage. 
 
V. 
 
 THE CHILDHOOD OF MARIE-ANTOINETTE. 
 
 ON the 2d November, 1755, the Feast of the Dead, a 
 terrible earthquake engulfed the city of Lisbon, On 
 the same day a child was born at Vienna, to whom Destiny 
 had allotted the most tragic fate, — a princess who was, like 
 the Saviour, to have her Feast of Palms and her Golgotha, 
 and to experience all the joy and anguish, the triumph and 
 suffering, which have ever fallen to the lot of woman. 
 
 This existence, doomed to terminate in a catastrophe 
 which far exceeds in horror the most memorable instances 
 of the stern decrees of fate in ancient times, opened in the 
 tranquillity which is so often the precursor of an impending 
 tempest. The Empress Maria Theresa, a woman of genius 
 and of heart as well, was equally worthy of admiration as 
 sovereign, as wife, and as mother. No less simple than 
 dignified in her bearing, she needed none of the factitious 
 aid of etiquette to inspire veneration. , 
 
 A few days before the birth of Marie-Antoinette, the Due 
 de Tarouka laid a wager with the empress that she would 
 bring an archduke into the world. When he lost his wager, 
 he presented her Majesty with a model in porcelain of a 
 kneeling figure, holding out to her a tablet on which were 
 engraved four lines of the Italian poet Metastasio, which 
 
122 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 may be translated thus : " I have lost ; the royal maiden has 
 forced me to pay. But if it be true that she resembles you, 
 the world will be the gainer." 
 
 Maria Theresa was careful to give her daughter instruc- 
 tion in many useful matters while the latter was still quite 
 young. The empress showed her daughter her own shroud, 
 woven with her royal hands, and took her into the vault 
 where their ancestors lay at rest. " My subjects," said the 
 empress, " are now paying me the homage of which these 
 who lie here were once the recipients. I shall be forgotten, 
 as they have been." 
 
 In their daily drives the empress and her husband fre- 
 quently allowed the progress of their carriage to be stopped 
 by more modest equipages, and would quietly take their 
 place in the line. As Goethe has said, the imperial family 
 were nothing but Germans of the higher middle class. 
 
 Maria Theresa walked about the city with her daughters 
 like a private individual. She used to make unceremonious 
 calls upon Count Palfy and Prince Esterhazy and von Kinsky. 
 Her welcome of a nobleman or an artisan, a diplomat or an 
 artist, was equally gracious and engaging. She allowed little 
 Marie-Antoinette to play with the child Mozart. 
 
 The young archduchess grew to maturity under this 
 tender and healthy influence. Her father, the Emperor 
 Francis, seemed to be even more attached to her than to his 
 other children. In 1765 he went to Innspriick, to be present 
 at the marriage of the Archduke Leopold to a Spanish 
 infanta. He had gone but a short distance from Schon- 
 
The Childhood of Marie- Antoinette. 1 2 
 
 o 
 
 brunn on his journey when he ordered the coachman to stop. 
 " Go and find the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette," said he to 
 one of his suite ; " I must see her once more." The little 
 princess came, and her father kissed her, with tears in his 
 eyes. He asked God's blessing upon her ; and it was only 
 by making a great effort of his will that he parted from her. 
 He was never to see her again ; for a few days later he died 
 suddenly of an apoplectic shock. Marie-Antoinette never 
 forgot the last look which her father gave her. As he cast 
 upon her that look, overflowing with affection and anxiety, 
 had he a presentiment of the impending catastrophe } 
 
 One day Maria Theresa questioned the clairvoyant Gass- 
 ner as to the future of the young princess. " Is my 
 Antoinette destined to lead a happy life t " she asked him. 
 Gassner turned pale, and said nothing. As he was urged by 
 the empress to reply, he said reluctantly, "Madame, every 
 back has its cross to bear." 
 
 But let us have done with these gloomy thoughts of the 
 future. The most brilliant destiny was apparently in store 
 for the young archduchess. It was she who was to unite 
 the families of Hapsburg and Bourbon ; she who was to 
 be queen of France ! Maria Theresa took great pleasure in 
 dreaming that fair dream. In 1766, a Parisian woman of 
 influence, who had succeeded in making her salon famous 
 throughout Europe, — Madame Geoffrin, — journeyed to 
 Poland on a visit to Stanislas Poniatowski. She broke her 
 journey at Vienna, where she received a welcome which 
 stirred her pride. 
 
1 24 The Last Years of Louis X V. 
 
 "I think I must be in a dream," she wrote, on the 12th 
 June, 1766, to M. Bautin, Receiver-General; "I am better 
 known here than in Rue Saint-Honore, and for the last 
 fortnight my journey has made an incredible amount of talk." 
 Farther on in the same letter she speaks of Marie-Antoi- 
 nette : " The empress has requested me to write home to 
 France that I have seen the little lady, and how beautiful 
 I thought her." 
 
 Madame Geoff rin took the princess on her knees. "Ah," 
 said she, "this is a little girl I should much like to take 
 away with me!" "Take her; take her," rejoined the 
 empress, gayly, for she was dreaming of Versailles and 
 the dauphin. From that time on, she strove to form the 
 future dauphine on the model of the French court. 
 Speech, literature, novels, history, fashions, plays, books, 
 almanacs, pictures, — all the surroundings of the young 
 archduchess were French. 
 
 As M. Feuillet de Conches has said, in the eloquent 
 preface to his Collection : " The wind from France ruffled 
 the fair locks of Marie-Antoinette." She danced with 
 Noverre, studied elocution with Sainville, read the tragedies 
 of Racine and the fables of La Fontaine with Dufresne. 
 A fashionable hairdresser, Larsonneur, was imported from , 
 Paris, with milliners and dressmakers, to arrange the young 
 princess's wardrobe and dress her hair. Her truest adorn- 
 ment, however, was the grace which Nature gave her. 
 
 As Madame la Comtesse d'Armaille has said, in a captivat- 
 ing litde sketch called "Mother and Daughter," "There 
 
The Childhood of Marie-Antoinette. 125 / 
 
 are certain women's faces whose beauty seems to strike us 
 only when they are under the stimulus of some excitement ; 
 others there are which accord perfectly with the freshness of 
 Nature, the poetic loveliness of lonely fields. Marie- Antoi- 
 nette's beauty was of the latter type. Her tall and slender 
 form, her light and graceful step, recalled the heroines of 
 the old German legends. Undine was not more bewitching 
 when she abandoned the shelter of the waves, and lived 
 among mortals for a few short days. The princess's blue 
 eyes, whose limpid purity equalled that of the waters of 
 the Danube, were melting and sparkling at once. Her 
 rosy, smiling mouth was rendered doubly charming by the 
 little dimple in her chin. Her light-brown hair, pushed 
 back in the fashion of the day, exposed to view her pure 
 and noble forehead, and her slender and graceful neck. 
 Everything in her face .and figure told of distinguished 
 birth, openness of disposition, and kindness of heart." 
 
 She was no longer a child, nor was she yet a woman. She 
 had that mixture of knowledge and ignorance, of intelligence 
 and innocence, which is so attractive and fascinating. 
 Already a shadow of sadness flitted now and again across 
 her pure and radiant features, brightened by the sweetest 
 of smiles. 
 
 " Poor women ! " said Mademoiselle Rosa Ferrucci, a young 
 girl whose touching story has been told by Abbe Perreyve ; 
 " we poor women are more powerless than the leaves which 
 are torn from the trees and scattered abroad by the first 
 breath of air ; our childhood is barely over, when our hearts. 
 
126 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 which can only love and endure, are torn by a thousand 
 conflicting emotions, joyous and sad." 
 
 Versailles appeared to Marie-Antoinette with the enchant- 
 ment which distance lends. A French priest, Abbe de 
 Vermond, who was her preceptor after 1 768, told her marvel- 
 lous tales of that abode of bliss, where she was destined to 
 shine with such lustre. But the thought that she must part 
 from her dearest mother, from her loving family and the good 
 people of Vienna, who are famous for their devoted affection 
 for their sovereigns, grieved the tender heart of the princess 
 in advance. To-day when sovereigns give their daughters 
 in marriage, they are almost certain of seeing them again ; 
 but formerly it was not so. In those days, partings were 
 likely to be forever. 
 
 We can imagine the suffering of Maria Theresa as she 
 said to herself: "Soon I shall have to say farewell forever to 
 my beloved daughter, of whom I am so proud. Soon I must 
 give her my blessing and a mother's kiss for the last time." 
 Like many another mother, the empress's heart was made 
 sad by the very occurrence which she had sought with the 
 utmost earnestness to bring to pass. 
 
 The alliance, which was in strict accord with the policy 
 of Austria, was determined upon. Marie- Antoinette was to 
 be dauphine of France. As the moment of her daughter's 
 departure approached, the emotion of the empress grew 
 deeper and deeper. She took her in her arms, kissed her 
 time and time again, and made her sleep in the same room 
 with herself. Longing to retain the treasure she was on the 
 
The Childhood of Marie- Antoinette. 127 
 
 point of losing, she would have been glad to stay the flight 
 of time. Nor was Marie-Antoinette less sad and anxious 
 than her mother. 
 
 On the 23d January, 1770, she received the wedding-ring 
 from the dauphin, and twenty-three years later — twenty- 
 three years, day for day — But no, let us not touch yet, 
 even in thought, upon the last dread catastrophe ! 
 
 On the 1 6th April, the Marquis de Durfort went to 
 the imperial palace, and in the name of the Most Christian 
 King formally made the request for the archduchess's hand 
 for the dauphin. On the 17th, the princess renounced her 
 claim to the Austrian succession. On the i8th, the fetes 
 were begun at Vienna, and they continued until the 21st, — 
 the day fixed for the departure of the archduchess. 
 
 On the 19th, she was married by proxy, the dauphin 
 being represented by the Archduke Maximilian. The sign- 
 ing of the imperial register took place at the palace Von 
 der Burg. It was said that when Maria Theresa took the 
 pen her hand trembled. 
 
 The dauphin having expressed a wish that his fiancee 
 should personally declare her assent to the marriage, Marie- 
 Antoinette had written to him : " I thank you for the very 
 kind expressions of which you make use ; I am very deeply 
 touched and honored by them, and I appreciate my obliga- 
 tions to you for such kindliness of feeling. The example 
 and the teachings of my glorious and loving mother have 
 inspired in me the desire to fulfil all my duties, and, with 
 God's help, I hope that my earnest efforts may make me 
 
128 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 worthy of my destiny. You were pleased to ask that my 
 own consent to your choice should accompany that of the 
 empress-queen, and you must, you say, take me as a gift 
 from myself. I may reply, since she permits me, that I have 
 received my mother's commands with no less pleasure than 
 respect. You will find in me a faithful and devoted wife, 
 with no other thought than to employ such powers as I 
 possess to please you and merit your affection." 
 
 The city of Vienna was in holiday attire and in mourn- 
 ing at the same time. Shouts of gladness were mingled 
 with tears. Three days of seclusion, ending with the admin- 
 istration of the sacrament, were followed by a visit to the 
 tomb of the emperors. The archduchess knelt, and invoked 
 the blessing of her ancestors. 
 
 At last she must depart; the 21st April has arrived. 
 Farewell to the patriarchal residence, the palace Von der 
 Burg ! Farewell to the shady walks of Schonbrunn ! Fare- 
 well to the blue and limpid lakes of Laxenbourg ! Farewell, 
 ye good people of Vienna, who weep for the young exile ! 
 Ah, be she peasant or empress, the mother who for the last 
 time looks upon the face and hears the voice of her daughter 
 follows her every movement with her eyes, and intrusts her 
 to the hand of Providence ; and then, seeking her in vain, 
 enters her lonely chamber, closes the door, and falls upon 
 her knees in an agony of grief ! The mother who has 
 known the anguish and heartrending torture of separation 
 will understand what took place in the heart of Maria 
 Theresa. 
 
The Childhood of Marie- Antoinette. 1 29 
 
 The departure of Marie-Antoinette reminds me of a 
 chanson once on everybody's lips, but forgotten long ago, 
 the distant echo of which moves me almost to tears at this 
 moment, doubtless because my mother used to sing it to 
 me in my childhood : — 
 
 " Ici commence ton voyage. 
 Si tu n'allais pas revenir ! 
 Ta pauvre mfere est sans courage 
 Pour te quitter, pour te benir. 
 Travaille bien, fais ta priere : 
 La priere donne du coeur, 
 Et quelquefois pense a ta mere, 
 Cela te portera bonheur. 
 
 Adieu, ma fille, adieu ! 
 
 A la grace de Dieu ! 
 
 " Ella s'en va, douce exilde, 
 Gagner son pain, sous d'autres cieux. 
 Longtemps encor, dans la vallee, 
 Sa m^re la suivit des yeux. 
 Puis, lorsque sa douleur am^re 
 N'eut plus sa fille pour temoin, 
 Ella pleura, la pauvre mere, 
 L'enfant qui lui disait de loin : 
 
 Adieu, ma m^re, adieu ! 
 
 A la grace de Diau ! " * 
 
 * "Here thy journey begins. Oh, if thou shouldst never return! Thy 
 poor mother has no courage to take leave of thee or to give thee her blessing. 
 Labor faithfully, and pray ; for prayer gives strength. And think sometimes of thy 
 mother, — that will bring thee good luck. Adieu, my daughter, adieu! May 
 God's blessing go with thee ! 
 
 " She has gone, dear exiled one, to earn her bread under other skies. Still 
 for a long time her mother's eyes follow her through the valley; but when her 
 bitter grief can be indulged without her daughter witnessing it, she weeps, poor 
 mother, for her separation from the child who called back to her from afar: 
 Adieu, dear mother, adieu ! May God's blessing stay with thee ! " 
 
 9 
 
130 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Weber says in his Memoirs : " It is hard to disbelieve in 
 presentiments, when one has witnessed such leave-takings 
 as those between Marie-Antoinette and her family, her 
 servants, and her country. Men and women abandoned 
 themselves to their grief, nor did any one return to his 
 house until the last courier who attended her was lost to 
 sight ; and then they went home only to lament with their 
 families the loss that was felt by all alike." 
 
 The die was cast ! Leaving home and friends, never 
 more to return, the maiden of fourteen years was already 
 under the fatal spell which was impelling her towards the 
 abyss. 
 
^■Lo tiy(j.n(H>-urc S'oupi/ S. L"" . 
 
 Pniited by GOUP]L&C° of PARIS, for the CLUB OF ODD VOLUMES, 
 
VI. 
 
 MARIE-ANTOINETTE'S ARRIVAL IN FRANCE. 
 
 AS Maria Theresa pressed Marie-Antoinette to her heart 
 for the last time, she handed her a paper of great 
 value, which contained most judicious advice. This master- 
 piece of maternal solicitude, written by the empress with 
 her own hand, was entitled, " Rules to be read every 
 month." It began thus : " On this 2\st April, the day of our 
 parting. When you awake, you will say your morning 
 prayers on your knees as soon as you leave your bed ; and 
 read some good book for a little while, even if it is not more 
 than fifteen minutes, without attending to anything else, or 
 speaking to anybody. Everything depends upon beginning 
 the day well, and upon the spirit in which it is begun, 
 which may make even the most trifling actions creditable 
 and praiseworthy." 
 
 Maria Theresa went on to enter into all the details of a 
 pious existence. " I do not know," said she, " whether the 
 custom of ringing the Angelus obtains in France; but do 
 you devote a few moments to meditation at that hour ; in 
 your heart, at least, if not in public. If your confessor 
 approves, you will receive communion every six weeks, also 
 on the great feasts of the Church, and particularly the feast 
 
132 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 of the Holy Virgin : on those days, or the day before, do not 
 forget the especial veneration of your family for the Holy 
 Virgin, with whose particular protection it has at all times 
 been honored. Do not read any book, however harmless it 
 may seem, without first asking your confessor's approval. 
 This point is so much the more essential to observe in 
 France, because books are continually being published 
 there which teem with grace and learning, but which con- 
 tain, under cover of these attractive elements, many things 
 most harmful from a moral and religious standpoint. I 
 implore you, therefore, my daughter, to read no book what- 
 soever, not even a pamphlet, without consulting your 
 confessor. I ask of you, my dearest, this most striking 
 proof of your affection and your regard for the advice of a 
 loving mother who has no desire except for your welfare and 
 happiness." 
 
 These rules, to be read every month, were brought to a 
 close with these simple and touching words : " Never fail to 
 remember the anniversary of your dear father's death, nor of 
 mine when it comes to pass. Meanwhile, you can take my 
 birthday as a day on which to pray for me." 
 
 The youthful bride began her journey to France. The 
 heavens were resplendent with the rays of a joyous spring- 
 time sun. 
 
 " All Nature smiled upon this new Iphigenia, who directed 
 her steps with the same proud confidence towards Hymen 
 and the sword. O merciful God ! why didst thou not 
 interrupt that royal progress, that triumphant progress of 
 
M arie- Antoinette' s Arrival in France. 133 
 
 grandeur and youth and beauty? Why didst thou not 
 rescue the royal child from the heartrending fate which 
 awaited her ? Ah, how happy would have been her death 
 then, in comparison with that which was in store for her 
 at the hands of infamous murderers! Austria would have 
 received with pious emotion the mortal remains of the 
 daughter of the Hapsburgs. The prayers of a Christian 
 mother would have accompanied her spotless soul to its ever- 
 lasting home, and France, afflicted by the unforeseen blow, 
 would also have mourned for the sweet young princess, and 
 for the hopes blighted by her untimely death." * 
 
 On the 6th May, 1770, Marie-Antoinette arrived at 
 Schutteren, the last German village before Kehl and the 
 bridge across the Rhine. There she saw the soil of France 
 for the first time. She heard the music of the waters of the 
 Rhine, the poetic and majestic stream so often, alas! turbu- 
 lent and colored with blood, — the stream which now flows 
 between two German banks, but which then bathed the soil 
 of France upon one shore. 
 
 On the He du Rhin had been built a pavilion called the 
 " Pavilion de I'Echange." It contained a large hall, with 
 a smaller apartment on each side : one for the ladies and 
 gentlemen of the Viennese court to whom had been 
 irttrusted the duty of accompanying the princess to the 
 threshold of her adopted country ; the other for her French 
 suite, — her maid of honor, the Comtesse de Noailles, her 
 dame d'atours, the Duchesse de Cosse ; four ladies in wait- 
 
 * Madame la Comtesse d'Armailld, La Mere et la Fille. 
 
134 '^^^ Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 ing; the Comte de Saulx-Tavannes, knight of honor, 
 Comte de Tesse, first equerry, the Bishop of Chartres, first 
 chaplain, with the other ofiicers and equerries and her 
 body-guards. 
 
 There took place the symbolical ceremony of delivering 
 the bride to her new countrymen. The pavilion was adorned 
 with tapestries, of which an unfortunate selection had been 
 made. " The subject," says Goethe, then a student at the 
 University of Strasbourg, " was nothing less than the story of 
 Jason, Medea, and Croesus. At the left of the throne was 
 seen the ill-fated bride, in the throes of the most cruel of 
 deaths ; on the right, Jason, in a delirium of grief, was be- 
 wailing the loss of his children, who lay dead at his feet ; 
 while the Fury who slew them was making her escape upon 
 her chariot with its team of dragons." 
 
 As he viewed the preparations, the future author of " Faust" 
 cried, " In Heaven's name, can it be that the most frightful 
 instance of hymeneal misery is to be thus inconsiderately 
 forced upon a young princess at her first coming into her 
 new estates } Is there no one among the French artists and 
 decorators who realizes that a picture is like an acted play 
 in its effect upon the senses and the soul, and that it often 
 arouses presentiments of evil ? " 
 
 When Marie-Antoinette entered the Pavilion de I'Echange, 
 it was dark and threatening. A heavy black cloud obscured 
 the view of the Strasbourg side of the river, and moved 
 slowly towards the island. The three commissioners 
 appointed by the king were awaiting her in the centre 
 
Marie-Antoinette s Arrival in France. 135 
 
 of the hall. About noon, the door on the Austrian side 
 opened, and the dauphine was seen in the doorway. She 
 walked to the platform in the centre, and listened to the 
 reading of the commissioners' powers and the act of 
 delivery. These formalities at an end, the members of her 
 Austrian suite passed before the former archduchess for 
 the last time, kissed her hand, and returned to the Austrian 
 salon, the door of which was closed behind them. 
 
 The dauphine then changed her garments throughout. 
 " When she had been entirely re-apparelled, so that she 
 retained no single article coming from a foreign court, not 
 even her stockings (such was the invariable custom on such 
 occasions), the doors opened, and the young princess, fixing 
 her eyes upon the Comtesse de Noailles, threw herself into 
 her arms, and begged her, with tears in her eyes, and with 
 heartfelt earnestness, to lead and advise her, to be in every- 
 thing her guide and her staff. One could but admire this 
 fascinating proceeding: with a single smile she won all 
 hearts, and in this enchanting personality, instinct with 
 animation truly French, a certain august serenity, aided, it 
 may be, by the majestic pose of her head upon her shoulders, 
 recalled the daughter of the Caesars." * 
 
 The ceremony of the exchange was finished. Upon 
 reaching the French shore of the Rhine, the dauphine 
 entered one of the king's carriages, and drove to Stras- 
 bourg. The storm which had been threatening for some 
 hours broke at last. The Pavilion de I'Echange was sub- 
 
 * Memoires de Madame Campan. 
 
136 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 merged beneath a pouring rain, and the shouts of the 
 crowd were mingled with the roaring of the thunder. 
 
 On the next day, May 8th, Marie-Antoinette repaired to 
 the Cathedral of Strasbourg. Before the great door stood 
 a young prelate clad in a golden chasuble, cross in hand, 
 and mitre on his head. Prince Louis de Rohan. 
 
 " Madame," said he, " two nations met together in this 
 temple eagerly return thanks to the God of Empires, who 
 by these solemn and welcome nuptials puts the seal to 
 their mutual happiness, and cements an alliance whose pur- 
 pose has ever been to protect religion, and promote peace. 
 You see that Alsace is overflowing with joy, and France 
 awaits in your person the fulfilment of her dearest wish. In 
 the outburst of gladness which will be visible on every side, 
 recognize, Madame, the same emotion which caused tears to 
 flow at Vienna, and which leaves in the hearts of those who 
 must be sundered from you, the most heartfelt and affec- 
 tionate regret. Thus is the Archduchess Antoinette known 
 already, even in a land where she has never been seen. Such 
 celebrity is oftentimes the result of high birth alone ; but 
 in your case, Madame, it is the rightful meed of your virtue 
 and your grace ; above all, it is the result of your reputation 
 as the possessor of those natural, kindly qualities which the 
 loving care of an ever-illustrious mother has fostered and 
 made perfect in you. In our eyes you will be the living 
 image of the revered empress, who has long been the 
 admiration of all Europe, as she will be of the generations to 
 come. The soul of Maria Theresa is to be linked with the 
 
'Marie- Antoinette s Arrival in France, 137 
 
 soul of the Bourbons. Of a union so much to be desired, 
 an age of gold should be born ; and our nephews, who live 
 under the happy empire of Antoinette and Louis-Auguste, 
 will witness the perpetuation of the happiness which we 
 enjoy under the sway of Louis the Well-Beloved." 
 
 The man who uttered these words was the future Cardinal 
 de Rohan, the unhappy hero of the affair of the necklace. 
 
 Paris, Versailles, all France, indeed, were in a state of 
 excitement. Nothing was talked about but the expected 
 arrival of the dauphine. Decorators went from town to 
 town, preparing apartments for her in advance. Sixty new 
 travelling carriages awaited her at Strasbourg. 
 
 At Paris the shops of the court tailors were thronged by 
 those who came to stare at the garments made for the fetes 
 that were to celebrate her arrival. People spoke of a display 
 of fireworks, the centre-piece of which, composed of thirty 
 thousand rockets, would cost, so they said, four thousand 
 louis (nearly fifty thousand of our francs). 
 
 The dauphine continued her journey. Along the route 
 the towns were given over to merry-making, and the whole 
 country-side was in holiday attire. The ground was covered 
 with a carpet of flowers. Young girls, clothed in white, 
 offered bouquets to Marie-Antoinette. The bells rang at 
 random. On every side arose hearty shouts of " Vive la 
 Dauphine ! " " Vive le Dauphin ! " The roads were well- 
 nigh blocked by the multitude of spectators : the blinds of 
 the princess's carriage were raised, so that everybody could 
 gaze at his leisure upon her sweet and lovely face, and her 
 
138 The Last Years of Loids XV. 
 
 fascinating smile. The young peasants said to one another, 
 " How pretty our dauphine is ! " A lady who was in the 
 carriage called her attention to that flattering remark, and 
 the dauphine replied, " Madame, the French look upon me 
 with very indulgent eyes." 
 
 Official speeches followed fast, one close upon another. It 
 was a succession of dithyrambs in honor of the young 
 princess. One orator essayed to address her in German. 
 " Monsieur," said she, " from this day forth, I understand no 
 language but French." 
 
 At Nancy she paid a visit of pious respect to the tombs 
 of the Lorraine princes, her father's ancestors. At Rheims, 
 she said, thinking of the future ceremony of consecration, 
 " This is a city which I desire not to see again for a very 
 long time." 
 
 A few leagues from Compiegne she met the Due de 
 Choiseul, who welcomed her as a devoted friend of her 
 family. It was the 14th May, 1770. A moment later, in 
 the forest of Compiegne, at the cross-road of the Pont-de- 
 Berne, the king and the dauphin appeared, attended by a 
 large escort. Marie-Antoinette at once left her carriage, 
 and threw herself upon the turf at the feet of Louis XV., 
 who quickly raised her to her feet and kissed her. The 
 dauphin, more bashful than herself, hardly dared to look 
 at her; as the official report had it, "he saluted her on 
 the cheek." 
 
 The next day they left Compiegne for Versailles. On 
 their way through St. Denis, Marie-Antoinette expressed a 
 
Marie- Antoinette s Arrival in France. 139 
 
 desire to see her aunt, Madame Louise, novice at the Car- 
 melite convent. She entered the gates with the king at six 
 in the evening on the 15th May. One of the nuns speaks 
 of this visit in a letter now among the manuscripts in the 
 Bibliotheque Nationale : " The king requested me to call the 
 sisters, and introduce them to Madame la Dauphine. She 
 is, reverend mother, a princess of unexceptionable features, 
 figure, and manners ; and, what is infinitely better, she is 
 said to be of an eminently pious turn. Her features are 
 majestic, modest, and sweet. The king, Mesdames, and 
 Monseigneur le Dauphin more than all, seem enchanted 
 with her; they vie with one another in pronouncing her 
 incomparable." 
 
 Along the whole of the route the crowd was innumer- 
 able. The air rang with enthusiastic acclamations. Marie- 
 Antoinette had the tact to attribute all the honor of the 
 ovation to Louis XV. " The French," said she, " never see 
 enough of their king; they cannot treat me with more 
 grateful kindness than by thus demonstrating to me their 
 love for him whom I have already come to look upon as a 
 second father." 
 
 The night of the 15th May, Marie- Antoinette lay at the 
 chateau of La Muette, where the king gave her, with other 
 jewels, the celebrated pearl necklace, of unexampled beauty, 
 which was brought to France by Anne of Austria, and by 
 her handed down for the queens and dauphines of France. 
 On the following day she arrived at Versailles. She could 
 not look unmoved upon that celebrated palace, which was 
 
140 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 then playing so great a part in France and in Europe, and 
 of which she had heard so much. At ten in the morning 
 she crossed the threshold of the palace and entered the 
 marble court, where she was welcomed by the king and 
 the dauphin. 
 
J~hA}toqnai>t(no t^ioupiiS. L!:? 
 
 ?pinU-d by OOUPIi. 8-C° ofl'ARiS Tor i.he CLUB OF ODD VOLUMES, 
 
VII. 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF MARIE-ANTOINETTE, AND THE 
 FETES ATTENDING IT. 
 
 WE have seen the dauphine's arrival at the palace of 
 Versailles. It was the i6th May, 1770, and ten 
 o'clock in the morning. But a few moments, and the nuptial 
 benediction will be pronounced upon the young husband 
 and wife. With eager but respectful curiosity all eyes were 
 turned upon the princess, who was in travelling costume. 
 Soon she will reappear in her superb wedding-gown. 
 
 Her portrait is thus drawn by Bachaumont : " She is very 
 well shaped, and her figure is finely proportioned through- 
 out. Her hair is light and of a beautiful shade; I should 
 judge that it will some day be a light chestnut. Her fore- 
 head is fine ; her face is a graceful oval in shape, a little 
 too long ; her eyebrows are as full as a blonde can ever boast. 
 Her eyes are blue, but not by any means dull ; they sparkle 
 with animation and intelligence. She has an aquiline nose, 
 tapering slightly at the end; her mouth is very small, and 
 her lips are rather thick, especially the lower, which has 
 the peculiar formation characteristic of the ' Austrian lip.' 
 Her complexion is of dazzling whiteness, and her natural 
 coloring enables her to dispense with artificial aids. Her 
 bearing is suitable to an archduchess, but her dignity is 
 
142 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 tempered by her gentleness. Gazing upon this princess, it is 
 hard not to avoid a feeling of respect mingled with affection." 
 
 At one in the afternoon, the dauphine, in magnificent 
 attire, and followed by an imposing procession, accompanied 
 the dauphin to the chapel. Monseigneur de La Roche- 
 Aymon, Archbishop of Rheims and Grand Chaplain of 
 France, was the ofificiating clergyman. The bride and 
 groom advanced to the altar, and there knelt down. The 
 chapel, decked with wreaths and flowers, was resplendent 
 with thousands of lights. 
 
 The archbishop blessed thirteen pieces of gold and a 
 golden ring, and handed them to the dauphin, who placed 
 the ring on the fourth finger of the dauphine's left hand, 
 after which he gave her the thirteen pieces. After the Pater, 
 the canopy was held by the Bishop of Senlis on the prince's 
 side, and by the Bishop of Chartres on that of the princess. 
 The newly wedded, with deep emotion mutually pledged to 
 one another an attachment which even death itself had no 
 power to interrupt. 
 
 All Paris had come to Versailles at this time. The 
 people had been arriving on foot since dawn. The bourgeois 
 had come too, some upon hired horses, others in cabs or 
 hired carriages. The park was filled to its utmost limit with 
 an enormous multitude. 
 
 Alas, gloomy presentiments are fated to recur too soon ! 
 At three in the afternoon, the sky became covered with 
 clouds, and a torrent of rain fell. Loud roared the thunder. 
 Every one ran for the nearest shelter; it was a general 
 
The Marriage of Marie- Antoinette. 143 
 
 sauve-qui-peut. The weather was so inclement that the 
 fireworks had to be abandoned. The illuminations were 
 fairly drowned out by the rain, and the streets and squares 
 of Versailles were like a desert. 
 
 But although the approaches to the palace in the evening 
 were unattractive enough, the interior was a blaze of cheer- 
 fulness and light. All the magnificence of a wealthy 
 aristocracy, all the resources of luxury and art, were there 
 accumulated. There was a game of lansquenet in the Ga- 
 lerie des Glaces, and a state supper was served in the apart- 
 ment known as the queen's antechamber.* 
 
 On the following day, the 17th May, the new theatre, 
 begun in 1753, after designs of the architect Gabriel, was 
 opened for the first time. (It is the hall where the Senate 
 now holds its sessions.) The play was the opera " Persee," 
 the words by Quinault, the music by Lulli. On the 19th 
 May, a grand full-dress ball took place in this new hall, 
 and was opened by the dauphin and the dauphine. 
 
 Madame du Deffand wrote to Horace Walpole on the 
 morning of that day : " There are all sorts of entanglements 
 here ; the minuet to be performed by Mademoiselle de 
 Lorraine this evening has caused lots of trouble." 
 
 In truth, this affair of the minuet was of vital importance, 
 and the whole court was stirred to its depths. And what 
 was it all about } Louis XV., to flatter the Empress Maria 
 Theresa, had decreed that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, by 
 virtue of her kinship to the dauphine, should dance the 
 
 * No. 117 of M. Soulie's Notice du Musee de Versailles. 
 
144 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 minuet immediately after the princes and princesses of the 
 royal family. We can see that this tended to establish an 
 intermediate caste between the princes of the blood and 
 the great nobles, in favor of the Lorraine family. 
 
 Thereupon arose a tempest of jealousy and wrath. The 
 dukes got together, and convoked an assemblage of the 
 leading nobles at the house of the Bishop of Noyon, brother 
 of the Marechal de Broglie. There they drew up a gran- 
 diloquent memorial to the king, in which they said: — 
 
 " Sire, the grandees and nobility of the kingdom lay at the 
 foot of the throne, with perfect confidence, the just alarm which 
 they have felt because of the current rumors that your Majesty 
 has been solicited to accord to the family of Lorraine a rank 
 immediately after the princes of the blood, and that it has been 
 ordered that Mademoiselle de Lorraine should dance before all 
 the ladies of the court, at the full-dress ball to be given in honor 
 of the marriage of Monsieur le Dauphin. They are of opinion. 
 Sire, they would fail in the duty which their birth enjoins upon 
 them if they should not lay before you how greatly such a 
 distinction, as humiliating for them as it is novel, would add to 
 their grief at losing the privilege which has always been theirs, of 
 being separated from your Majesty and the royal family by no 
 intermediate rank. 
 
 " The grandeur of the highest dignitaries in every state marks 
 the grandeur of the nation, and the grandeur of the nation is the 
 source of the grandeur of its king. It would be equivalent to 
 casting a doubt upon the pre-eminence of France in Europe to 
 doubt the pre-eminence of those who, in the words of one of 
 your ancestors, ' are a part of its honor and of the honor of its 
 kings.' " 
 
 And all this for a minuet ! The public at large was 
 
The Marriage of Marie- Antoinette. 145 
 
 much diverted by the presentation of this request by a 
 bishop. Observing among the signers the names of those 
 whose dignities were of recent manufacture side by side 
 with those of the most ancient origin, the remark was made 
 that the descendants of such and such a one might some 
 day proudly say : " One of our ancestors signed the famous 
 request concerning the minuet at the time of the marriage 
 of Louis XV.'s grandson ; and for that reason our name was 
 thenceforth reckoned among those which shed the brightest 
 lustre upon the monarchy." 
 
 The request was parodied in these lines : — 
 
 " Sire, les grands de vos fitats 
 Verront avec beaucoup de peine 
 Une princesse de Lorraine 
 Sur eux au bal prendre le pas. 
 Si Votre Majest6 projette 
 De les fl^trir d'un tel affront, 
 lis quitteront le cadenette, 
 Et laisseront li des violons. 
 Avisez-y, la ligue est faite. 
 Sign6: I'eveque de Noyon, 
 La Veaupali^re, Beaufremont, 
 Clermont, Laval et de Villette." * 
 
 Behold a new Fronde, a veritable insurrection ! Louis 
 XV. replied to the request by the following note : — 
 
 "The ambassador of the empress-queen and the emperor 
 requested me, on the part of his sovereigns, to confer some dis- 
 
 * " Sire, the nobles of your realm will be deeply grieved to see a princess 
 of Lorraine take precedence of them at the ball. If your Majesty proposes to 
 offer them such an insult, they will wash their hands of the whole affair, violins 
 and all. Take notice ; the agreement is made. Signed : Bishop of Noyon, La 
 Veaupalifere," etc. 
 
146 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 tinction upon Mademoiselle de Lorraine, on the present occasion of 
 the marriage of my grandson to the Archduchess Marie-Antoinette. 
 The order of dancing at the ball being the only matter which could 
 not be turned into a precedent, since the choice of dancers depends 
 solely upon my will, without distinction of place, rank, or dignity 
 (excepting always the princes and princesses of my blood, who are 
 not to be compared or placed upon the same level with any other 
 Frenchman) ; and, moreover, desiring to make no innovation upon 
 the customs in vogue at my court, — I assume that the grandees 
 and nobles of my kingdom, in view of the fidelity, submission, and 
 attachment which they have always shown to me and my prede- 
 cessors, will never give me occasion to be displeased with them, 
 especially in this matter, in which my only purpose is to show my 
 gratitude to the empress for the gift she has made me, which you 
 and I both hope will secure the happiness of my declining years." 
 
 However, in order to enforce obedience, the king was 
 almost compelled to resort to threats. The ball took place 
 at last, and Mademoiselle Lorraine triumphantly walked the 
 minuet which had caused so much heart-burning. 
 
 The same evening there was a display of fireworks upon 
 the terrace of the palace. After it was at an end, all the 
 paraphernalia were removed, to make room for an illumina- 
 tion of the park, which reached its climax, at the extremity 
 of the great canal, by a magnificent affair representing the 
 Temple of the Sun. The canal was filled with gayly 
 bedecked boats, and the great fountains sparkled in the 
 many colored light. 
 
 Stages for jugglers' performances were erected in, the 
 park, and the light-hearted populace danced to their hearts' 
 content in the half-lighted shade of the arbors. 
 
The Marriage of Marie- Antoinette. 147 
 
 On the 2ist of May, there was a bal masque in the 
 king's apartments, and on the 23d a performance of 
 "Athalie" with choral music. 
 
 Now it was the turn of the good city of Paris to cele- 
 brate the dauphin's nuptials by one of those fetes of 
 bewildering beauty of which she alone has the secret. It 
 was appointed to take place on the 30th May. 
 
 The population of Paris was increased by a number- 
 less multitude of foreigners and provincials. The locality 
 selected for \\\&fete was the Place Louis XV. Prodigious 
 effects were promised in pyrotechny, to be followed by an 
 illumination of the Boulevards. The Place Louis XV. was 
 connected with the Tuileries by a bridge, which was put 
 in place every morning, and taken up every night. Between, 
 were several sunken gardens. 
 
 At eight in the evening crowds of sight-seers overflowed 
 from the Place Louis XV. into Rue Royale and other 
 neighboring streets. Four hundred thousand persons were 
 moving about in the blaze of lanterns and torches. The 
 weather was superb, and the rays of the moon and stars 
 rivalled the illuminations. The equestrian statue of the 
 king was in a blaze of light. The pyrotechnical display 
 took place according to expectation, the principal piece 
 being a representation of the Temple of Hymen. Sur- 
 rounded by a sort of parapet, at the four corners of which 
 were dolphins vomiting flame from their wide-open jaws, 
 the many colored temple had the statue of Louis XV. for a 
 background. Near the statue, and on the bank of the Seine, 
 
148 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 was the platform from which the rockets ascended in bril- 
 liant sheaves of fire. Shouts of applause arose on all sides, 
 and the crowd shrieked its delight. 
 
 Suddenly a stray rocket fell upon the wooden stand of 
 one of the illuminating lamps, and a brisk conflagration was 
 started. At the same time a procession of sight-seers, 
 returning to the Boulevard by Rue Royale, met a similar 
 column on its way to the Place Louis XV. The two bodies 
 blocked the passage, and the arrival of the firemen added 
 to the confusion, which soon became something beyond 
 description. The moats of the Tuileries and the sunken 
 gardens were so many precipices which swallowed up many 
 victims. The terror was increased a thousandfold by the 
 shrieks of the wounded. There seemed to be none but dead 
 and dying. All was horror and despair in that accursed 
 place, destined to be the scene of so many crimes before 
 the century should close. At the height of the confusion, 
 a carriage coming from the Cours-la-Reine turned into the 
 Champs-Elysees. Within was a youthful figure, whose 
 beautiful face and charming manner adorned her even more 
 than the precious gems which sparkled in her hair and upon 
 her dress. It was the dauphine, paying her first visit to 
 Paris, to see the illuminations of that ill-omened Place 
 Louis XV. " To-day," she said to herself, " there is no storm 
 impending; the sky is clear and serene, and all hearts are 
 beating joyfully." She was overjoyed to see under such 
 favorable auspices the fair and famous city of Paris. 
 
 But what is this she hears ? Are these shouts of joy, or 
 
The Marriage of Marie- Antoinette. 149 
 
 shrieks of terror ? The carriage stops. The dauphine asks 
 what has happened, and is told that blood is flowing in 
 streams through Place Louis XV., that the number of those 
 killed is not yet known, but is surely large, and that she 
 must abandon the thought of penetrating farther into the 
 cruelly bereaved city. 
 
 The carriage returns upon its tracks. Marie-Antoinette, 
 deeply shocked, regains Versailles, while the dead are being 
 taken to the cemetery of the Madeleine, where, some years 
 hence, other victims will be laid by their side. 
 
 Thus ended the nuptial fetes of the martyred king and 
 queen. Such was the prologue to the tragedy which will 
 bring tears of compassion to the eyes of generations yet 
 unborn. Such were the first mutterings of the most terrible 
 of tempests. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE DAUPHINE AND THE ROYAL FAMILY IN 1770. 
 
 THE depressing effect of the catastrophe in Place 
 Louis XV. was soon effaced. It was not long before 
 people ceased to talk of it, except to praise the sympathetic 
 natures of the young bridal couple, who had devoted their 
 income for a whole year to the relief of the stricken families 
 of the victims. Marie-Antoinette was the object of an 
 admiration which was almost delirious in its enthusiasm. 
 France was literally mad over this fifteen-year-old dauphine, 
 upon whom the whole vocabulary of praise and encomium 
 was exhausted. They compared her to an angel of comfort, 
 to a bright torch of hope, to a morning star. It was lyricism 
 run wild, an endless succession of mythological comparisons 
 with the Venus de Medicis, the Atalanta at Marly, Flora, 
 goddess ,of gardens, Hebe, radiant image of youth, and 
 Juno, queen of Olympus. 
 
 All France knelt before her. When she made her formal 
 entry into Paris, her carriage was lost to sight beneath a 
 shower of roses. Prostrate before the altar at Notre Dame, 
 the princess seemed a being from another world, the very 
 personification of goodness and purity, of poetry and prayer. 
 As she appeared upon the balcony at the Tuileries, there 
 was a spontaneous outburst of joyous shouts. 
 
The Dauphine and the Royal Family in 1770. 151 
 
 " Mon Dieu, what a crowd ! " she cried. 
 
 " Madame," rejoined the Due de Brissac, " with deference 
 to M. le Dauphin, every man of those who are gazing at 
 you is in love with you." 
 
 Human nature certainly has some strange peculiarities. 
 This woman who was so flattered, so charming, and so much 
 the fashion ; this woman who turned the head of everybody 
 else, — found her husband quite lacking in the prevailing 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 The dauphin was then sixteen. He not only was not in 
 delicate health, but was unusually robust. He loved fresh 
 air and exercise, took delight in manual labor, fenced like a 
 master, and hunted like Nimrod. And yet he was, physi- 
 cally, absolutely cold. The inconceivable dislike of Louis 
 Xni. for the charming Anne of Austria forms the subject 
 of an interesting work by M. Armand Baschet, " Le Roi 
 chez la Reine." The extraordinary coolness of the future 
 Louis XVL towards his spouse might well be investigated 
 similarly. The elements may be found in a collection which 
 we shall have frequent occasion to cite, a collection of 
 unquestionable authenticity and of great historical value, 
 which throws a searching light upon Marie-Antoinette.* 
 
 It was Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, Maria Theresa's am- 
 bassador at the Court of Versailles, the model diplomatist, 
 the shrewd and sagacious observer, who sent the empress 
 
 * Secret correspondence between Maria Theresa and the Comte de Mercy- 
 Argenteau, with the letters of Marie-Antoinette and Maria Theresa ; published 
 by MM. d'Arneth and Geffroy. 3 vols. Firmin Didot. 
 
152 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 the most concise and accurate reports concerning the 
 dauphine and her young husband. This witness it was 
 whose mission made it his interest to know everything, and 
 who was at Hberty to say what he thought, who counted 
 every pulsation of the princess's heart. 
 
 The dauphin found his wife much to his Hking, upon- 
 the condition that they should not be compelled to live as 
 husband and wife. The Comte de Mercy wrote to Maria 
 Theresa, Aug. 20, 1770: " Nature, somewhat backward in the 
 case of M. le Dauphin, is not yet active in him, — probably 
 because his physical strength has been somewhat impaired 
 by his sudden growth. Moreover, there is nothing in his 
 constitution to imply that he will not become healthy and 
 strong, if he uses a little moderation in his over-violent 
 exercises, which may do him much injury. He thinks 
 Madame I'Archiduchesse charming. He is much pleased 
 with her, and shows a desire to oblige and a gentleness in 
 his treatment of her of which he was not believed to be 
 capable. Madame la Dauphine rules him in all small mat- 
 ters without the least demur from him ; and so it only needs 
 a little patience, and everything will come out all right. But 
 in this country they are always in a hurry about everything, 
 and the king and Mesdames are continually making remarks 
 which have no effect, except to cause Madame la Dauphine 
 pain and anxiety." 
 
 October 20th of the same year, the Comte de Mercy 
 recurred to this delicate subject in another letter. " The 
 king," he wrote, "has found fault with M. le Dauphin for 
 
The Dauphine and the Royal Family in 1 770. 153 
 
 his continued coolness, and catechized him about it. The 
 young man repHed that he thought Madame I'Archiduchesse 
 charming, and loved her dearly, but that he must have 
 some time yet to overcome his bashfulness." 
 
 In the month of September, 1770, it was believed that 
 the prince had at last made up his mind. The Comte de 
 Mercy wrote in the letter of the 20th of October, before 
 cited, that the dauphin had promised his wife to go with 
 her to Fontainebleau to pass the night. Much delighted at 
 this promise, the dauphine could not make haste enough to 
 confide it to her aunts and the Comtesse de Narbonne. 
 " Madame Adelaide," continues the ambassador, " chose to 
 add to the effect of the dauphine's indiscretion by preaching 
 to M. le Dauphin ; and he was so put out that he delib- 
 erately broke his word to Madame la Dauphine. As I can 
 see plainly that as long as she indulges in such confidences, 
 they will simply result in keeping M. le Dauphin at a dis- 
 tance, and although I hardly knew how to mention such a 
 delicate matter to Madame la Dauphine, I saw that I must 
 do my duty, and I thought I would say to her Royal High- 
 ness that she had caused me great anxiety because of the 
 rumors current at Paris that she was on bad terms with M. 
 le Dauphin; that the report had its origin in an alleged 
 breach of his word by M. le Dauphin, after he had promised 
 to pass a certain night in her apartments, — whence it was 
 inferred that there was serious trouble between them. Her 
 Royal Highness seemed somewhat embarrassed at my out- 
 spokenness. But, without avoiding the subject, she replied 
 
154 T^^^ Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 thus : ' All that you have said to me has only too solid 
 a basis of truth, and proves my imprudence in making 
 Madame de Narbonne my confidante in this matter. But 
 how was I to suppose that there could be persons so gar- 
 rulous and indiscreet as to publish such things ? ' 
 
 " I impressed upon her that everything which concerns 
 the marriage relation is a sacred secret, the violation of 
 which can on no pretext be excused ; in fact, that a single 
 indiscretion in that regard might easily destroy forever all 
 confidence between husband and wife, and produce a most 
 injurious effect upon public opinion ; that especially was 
 it true in this case, considering the shyness and reserve of 
 M. le Dauphin, for he might remain sundered from her for 
 a long while, if he had reason to fear that what took place 
 between them would be talked about." 
 
 The prince was upright, honorable, and worthy of respect ; 
 his piety, his charity, his estimable qualities of heart and 
 mind, his love for the people, his humane and Christian 
 sentiments, were passports to the regard of all; but his 
 exterior, it must be confessed, was not attractive. There 
 was a heaviness about his gait, and a lack of decision in his 
 expression ; his manners were somewhat rough, his voice 
 was harsh, and his whole action heavy and torpid. One 
 might have said that he was always afraid of being beguiled 
 or deceived. He was continually on the defensive, and 
 embarrassed, notwithstanding his commanding rank, lacking 
 self-confidence, despite the adulation of his flatterers, and 
 being sometimes considered proud from very excess of 
 
The Dauphine and the Royal Family in 1 7 70. 155 
 
 shyness. His two brothers were utterly unlike him. The 
 Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois were as self- 
 confident as he was bashful and retiring. The former, Louis 
 XVIII. that was to be, was a bel esprit, a great admirer of 
 Horace, with apt quotations always at his tongue's end, 
 clever, bright, and politic, remarkable for tact beyond his 
 years, and for skilfully concealed ambition. The latter, the 
 future Charles X., was a young man, a frolicsome child rather, 
 bright, full of life and spirits, already proclaiming that he 
 should love women and horses and pleasure to distraction. 
 
 The two sisters of these three brothers, Madame Clotilde 
 (afterwards Queen of Sardinia) and Madame Elisabeth, the 
 martyred saint, were, when Marie-Antoinette arrived in 
 France, two sweet, lovable children, to whom the young 
 dauphine became sincerely attached. 
 
 She also displayed a very real attachment for Louis XV., 
 who on his part showed much sympathetic regard for her. 
 When his eyes fell upon the fascinating princess, as admired 
 as she was worthy of admiration, the old king had a feeling 
 of satisfaction Hke that which Louis XIV. had when he wel- 
 comed the Duchesse de Bourgogne to Versailles. The lovely 
 daughter of the German Caesars brought new life and activity 
 to the vast apartments of the queen, which had been un- 
 occupied since the death of Marie Leczinska. The bed- 
 chamber which had been occupied successively by the wife 
 of Louis XIV., the Dauphine de Baviere, the Duchesse de 
 Bourgogne, and the wife of Louis XV., was alloted to her. * 
 
 * Salle No. 115 of the "Notice du Musde." 
 
156 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 She rose between nine and ten, dressed, and said her prayers, 
 then breakfasted, and went to call upon her aunts, with whom 
 she generally found the king. A little before noon the formal 
 entrees took place. The dauphine applied her rouge, and 
 washed her hands before everybody. At noon she attended 
 mass in the chapel, after which she dined in public with the 
 dauphin, in the room called the queen's antechamber.* 
 
 " The ushers," says Madame Campan, " allowed all those 
 who were suitably dressed to enter. This spectacle was the 
 everlasting delight of provincial visitors. At the dinner-hour 
 the stairways were thronged with well-dressed people, who, 
 after watching the dauphine eat her soup, went to see the 
 princes eat their boiled meat, and then ran at the top of their 
 speed to be in time to see Mesdames at dessert." 
 
 The dinner ended at half after one. The dauphine then 
 went to the apartments of the dauphin, which were below 
 her own ; then returned to her room, and did needle-work, 
 read or wrote, or took lessons in literature or upon the harp- 
 sichord. A drive in the park and the neighborhood, a visit 
 or two to Mesdames, card-playing from seven to nine, then 
 supper, and at eleven to bed. Such was the daily life of the 
 princess. Her principal associates were her aunts, Mes- 
 dames Adelaide, Victoire, and Sophie, whose ages in 1770 
 were thirty-eight, thirty-seven, and thirty-six years respec- 
 tively. All three had remained unmarried. Notwithstanding 
 their unexceptionable morals, they had their failings. Ma- 
 dame Adelaide liked to have a finger in every pie. She 
 
 * No. 117 of the " Notice du Musde." 
 
The Dauphine and the Royal Family in 1770. 157 
 
 thought that she had much influence with her father, and 
 the ministers were obliged to reckon with her. Madame 
 Victoire followed in general the directions of her elder 
 sister, although she did not lack an active intellect her- 
 self. As for Madame Sophie, hers was an upright, but an 
 indolent nature. " I never saw anybody with such a timid 
 air," says Madame Campan. " She walked very briskly, and 
 in order to recognize the people who moved aside for her, 
 without seeming to look at them, she had adopted the habit 
 of looking out of the corner of her eye, as hares do. She 
 was so terribly bashful that one might see her every day for 
 years without hearing her utter a word. Yet there were 
 times when she would suddenly become most affable and 
 gracious, and communicative too. This occurred in stormy 
 weather : she was so afraid of it that she would then volun- 
 tarily approach persons of the least consequence, and ask 
 them a thousand questions most condescendingly. If there 
 came a flash of lightning, she would grasp their hands, and 
 would have embraced them at a thunder-clap." 
 
 Madame Louise, the youngest of the daughters of Louis 
 XV., was at the Carmelite convent at St. Denis, and we have 
 seen that the dauphine paid her a visit there even before she 
 arrived at Versailles. The ceremony of taking the veil was 
 performed on the loth September, 1770, and Marie-Antoi- 
 nette was present. The Pope's nuncio said mass, and 
 Madame Louise de France, known in the community as 
 Sister Therese-Augustine, received the sacrament. Before 
 assuming the sackcloth garment, the princess dressed her- 
 
158 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 self for the last time in royal attire, — a robe of cloth of silver, 
 with flowers of gold scattered through it. Resplendent with 
 glistening jewels, a diadem upon her head, and surrounded 
 by the lords and ladies who had once composed her house- 
 hold, she stood forth in a cloud of incense, — an apotheosis 
 one would have said. 
 
 The Bishop of Troyes then delivered a discourse of 
 such touching solemnity that, in the words of the Abbe 
 Proyart, who described the ceremony, every listener shed 
 tears, save only the strong-hearted woman for whom they 
 were shed. 
 
 The discourse at an end, all the pomp and show van- 
 ished. After a momentary absence, the daughter of the 
 king returned, clad in Carmelite costume, and received 
 the veil and mantle of a nun from the hands of the 
 dauphine. 
 
IX. 
 
 MARIE-ANTOINETTE AND MADAME DU BARRY. 
 
 MARIE-ANTOINETTE, universally courted and ad- 
 mired, seemed to have attained the summit of earthly 
 felicity. On the surface, her future seemed destined to be 
 all that heart could wish. But in the depths of her heart 
 she was already fearful of ill to come. Her husband's 
 inexplicable lack of warmth was not her only cause of 
 chagrin. Young as she was, she began to be aware of the 
 snares and pitfalls of every description with which her path 
 was beset by her ill-wishers. The very embodiment of in- 
 nocence, sweetness, and frankness, she was forced to dwell 
 in an atmosphere of paltry jealousies, machiavellian plots, 
 and interminable intrigue. She had constantly to submit 
 to a minute and often spiteful scrutiny. All eyes were 
 fastened upon her. Beneath hyperbolical flattery and the 
 warmest praise, was hidden much unkind criticism and a 
 world of jealousy and, incredible as it seems, of hatred. The 
 dauphine was disliked for being young and pretty. All the 
 coquettes who had had their day, all the old maids and 
 ambitious schemers, found it very hard to put up with her 
 superior attractions in the matter of birth and rank, as well 
 as grace and loveliness. Envy was craftily hidden under the 
 
i6o The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 mask of politics. They complained that the dauphine 
 represented the Austrian alliance, which, they said, was 
 directly opposed to all the traditions of French diplomacy. 
 They took it ill of her to be the daughter of a great 
 empress, whose genius had performed such marvels. 
 
 The creatures of Madame du Barry were quite obscured by 
 the young couple, to whom the future belonged, and who 
 at the time stood as a sort of mute protest of virtue against 
 vice, of purity against shame. All the Basils of the court — 
 and God knows how many there were of them — were only 
 too eager to begin, very gently and softly, and on the sly, to 
 spread the slanderous accusations, the crescendo of which was 
 so terrible. 
 
 One of Marie-Antoinette's great crosses vras the having 
 everywhere to come in contact with Madame du Barry, that 
 nobody's daughter, who assumed to treat with her upon a foot- 
 ing of equality, and whom Maria Theresa, a little too politic, 
 perhaps, had directed her to conciliate, out of respect for 
 Louis XV., — the woman who was the bitter enemy of the 
 Due de Choiseul, the mainstay of the Austrian alliance at the 
 Court of Versailles. Her pride revolted at the necessity, as 
 she remembered, with a toss of her shapely aristocratic head, 
 the blood that flowed in her veins, and the fire that shone in 
 her eyes ; and the daughter of the Caesars conceived an 
 intense dislike for the favorite who degraded the throne. 
 
 She wrote to Maria Theresa, July 9th, 1770: "The king 
 shows his regard for me in a thousand ways, and I love him 
 dearly ; but his weakness for Madame du Barry is pitiable, for 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. i6i 
 
 she is the most foolish and impertinent creature you can 
 imagine." 
 
 The two were rivals in the field of politics, for one wished 
 to retain Choiseul in the ministry, while the other was bent 
 upon overthrowing him. Two hostile camps were formed, 
 and the excitement was intense; but Madame du Barry's 
 triumph was a foregone conclusion. The Due de Choiseul, 
 intoxicated by success, and accustomed for so long to 
 triumph over every obstacle, believed himself to be not 
 only necessary to the king, but absolutely indispensable. 
 The powerful minister was quite capable of saying of his 
 enemies what the Due de Guise said shortly before his 
 fall, " They would not dare." The political chess-board was 
 so complicated that any man who was so well acquainted 
 with the position of all the pieces as he, might well think 
 that Louis XV. would not have the courage to dismiss 
 him. 
 
 The Baron de Gleichen, one of Choiseul's strongest 
 friends, considered him imprudent to the point of folly. " It 
 would have been very easy," says the baron, in his interesting 
 " Souvenirs," " to patch up a peace with Madame du Barry, 
 who would have asked nothing better than to be delivered 
 from the rapacious and tyrannical claws of her brother and 
 his patrons, and all the roues whose tool she was. She was 
 a good soul, too, sorry to be employed in doing harm, and 
 her joyous temperament would have been delighted with M. 
 de Choiseul as soon as she really knew him. The king would 
 certainly have attempted the impossible to bring about and 
 
1 62 • The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 cement an alliance between his favorite and his minister, 
 whom he was very sorry to part with. Nothing could prove 
 this more convincingly than a letter which he wrote him 
 towards the last, when they wrote to each other much 
 oftener than they met. M. de Choiseul having complained 
 of a formidable cabal, whose machinations he feared, the 
 king replied : — 
 
 ' Your imagination is all astray ; you have been deceived. Be 
 on your guard against those who surround you, who are no friends 
 of mine. You do not know Madame du Barry ; all France would be 
 at her feet if . . . [Signed] LOUIS.' 
 
 " Did not this letter, which I myself saw, express a desire 
 for an accommodation between the two, and beg him to do 
 his part.? And did it not contain the avowal, most singular 
 for a king to make, that the single voice of his minister 
 would have more effect than the whole power of royalty? "* 
 
 The following reflection of M. de Gleichen is in accord 
 with the taste and style of the eighteenth century : " It is 
 very surprising that a man with M. de Choiseul's common- 
 sense should have been obdurate in the face of such 
 kindness, and should have declined the opportunity of turn- 
 ing the tables upon all his enemies, and of making sure 
 of the stability of his power, with the assistance of a woman 
 who would have been entirely at his orders." 
 
 The Due de Choiseul had been the favorite of Madame 
 de Pompadour ; therefore it could not have been from moral 
 
 * Souvenirs du Baron de Gleichen, preceded by a notice by M. Paul 
 Grimblot. I vol. T^chener. 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. 163 
 
 scruples that he refused to make his peace with Madame 
 du Barry, for so far as public scandal was concerned, the two 
 mistresses were on a par ; and in the matter of disposition, 
 the comtesse had much the advantage of the marquise. 
 
 But the great lord, more vain of his person than his 
 place; the daring statesman, more influential and more 
 courted than his master, and who said to his friends, " Do 
 not rely upon the king, you will get nothing by that;" the 
 haughty duke and peer who remembered that in former 
 days a man of his high rank would have thought that he 
 bemeaned himself by accepting the place of Secretary of 
 State, and who considered that he did much honor to Louis 
 XV. in consenting to make one of his ministry, — Choiseul, 
 infatuated with his triumphs, was no longer the clever cour- 
 tier of Madame de Pompadour's time. 
 
 The idea of bending the knee to a low-born sultana 
 revolted the pride of this grand vizier who had no fear of the 
 halter. As M. Jobez has well said, in his " La France sous 
 Louis XV.," " He was one of those men of pleasure who dip 
 into politics as an avocation which interests their imagination 
 and tickles their vanity." He had no thought of subjecting 
 himself to aught which shocked his sense of propriety or 
 offended his taste. Madame du Barry was offensive to him, 
 and he defied her. The bare idea that the minister who had 
 concluded the "family pact," and had annexed Corsica to 
 France ; who had dared to enter the lists against the most 
 powerful of modern societies, the Jesuits ; who was the 
 idol of nobility, parliaments, and philosophes ; whose glory 
 
1 64 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 was borne on every breeze that blew, by the blaring of all the 
 trumpets of Renown, and who had succeeded in making 
 himself feared and admired by all Europe, — the bare idea 
 that he, the Due de Choiseul, could be • sacrificed to a 
 creature of the Du Barry stamp, seemed to him the height 
 of improbability and absurdity. 
 
 Nevertheless, that was just what happened. Let us 
 hasten to say, however, that the hostility of the comtesse 
 was not the sole cause of the minister's fall. Although he 
 was supported by the dauphine, the dauphin was hostile to 
 him, because he had said, some years before, to that prince's 
 father : " Monseigneur, I may perhaps some day have the 
 misfortune of being your subject; but I shall never have 
 that of being your servant." 
 
 Religious people blamed him for the expulsion of the 
 Jesuits, and for the friendship of Voltaire. Conservatives 
 accused him of a weakness for the parliaments. Partisans 
 of peace at any price considered his foreign policy irritating, 
 and likely to cause trouble. They charged him with being 
 upon the point of doing what Louvois had done under 
 Louis XIV., — of setting Europe in a blaze to prove that the 
 War Department was in skilful hands. 
 
 Louis XV., whose timidity increased as he advanced 
 in years, was alarmed, perhaps with good reason. The alli- 
 ance of the Northern courts already existed in the germ. 
 England's attitude was threatening, and a conflict between 
 English and Spaniards had just broken out in the Falkland 
 Islands. Louis XV. was led to believe that a coalition was 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. 165 
 
 imminent, and a repetition of the Seven Years' War, which, 
 would be due, they said, entirely to the imprudence and 
 inconsequence of Choiseul. The enemies of the minister 
 then notified Madame du Barry that the moment had come 
 to bring matters to a crisis. Dealers in anecdotes told of 
 her playing with oranges, and crying as she tossed them 
 about, laughing uproariously, " Trump, Choiseul ! Trump, 
 Praslin ! " It was also said that after telling Louis that she 
 had dismissed her cook, she said to her royal adorer : " I 
 have got rid of my Choiseul: when will you do as much 
 by yours ? " 
 
 On the 24th December, 1770, the minister received a 
 letter from the king in these words : — 
 
 My Cousin, — My dissatisfaction with your services compels me 
 to send you into exile at Chanteloup, whither you will betake your- 
 self within twenty-four hours. I should have sent you much farther 
 away, except for my special esteem for Madame la Duchesse de 
 Choiseul, in whose well-being I am much interested. Be careful 
 that your conduct does not compel me to take more severe measures. 
 With this, I pray God, my Cousin, to have you in his holy keeping. 
 
 [Signed] LOUIS. 
 
 Then was seen a phenomenon, which, as M. Henri 
 Martin has said, was probably never seen before, — the court 
 faithful to one who was in disgrace. During the few hours 
 which the Due and Duchesse de Choiseul passed at Paris, 
 before setting out for Chanteloup, an enormous number of 
 great lords and ladies, magistrates, military men, bourgeois, 
 and men of letters wrote their names upon the register at 
 
1 66 ' The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 their mansion. The young Due de Chartres, afterwards so 
 well known under the name of Philippe Egalite, forced his 
 way by the sentry, to cast himself into the arms of the exiled 
 minister!* The most exalted personages sought the king's 
 permission to pay a visit at Chanteloup. 
 
 Was it that human nature had changed for the better, 
 and had become more generous than at other epochs ? By 
 no manner of means. It was because opposition was fashion- 
 able at the moment. Moreover, it was the general opinion 
 that Choiseul would return to power. 
 
 The Comte de Segur says, in his " Memoires :" " The king 
 remained almost alone in his mistress's boudoir. A column 
 which was set up at Chanteloup, on which the names of the 
 numerous visitors were inscribed, served as a monument to 
 this new Fronde. The impressions of the young are apt to 
 be very vivid, and I shall never forget my delight when I 
 saw my father's name and my own carved upon that column 
 of opposition, — a forerunner of other acts of resistance, which 
 assumed such grave importance in the sequel. From one 
 end of the kingdom to the other, opposition became a point 
 of honor : it seemed a clear duty to high-minded persons, a 
 virtuous act to men of generous impulse, to the pkilosophes a 
 useful weapon to employ in reasserting the freedom of man- 
 kind, — in short, it was a method of making a sensation, and 
 became, so to speak, a fashion which was largely adopted by 
 the young generation. The parliaments made remonstrances, 
 
 * See the interesting work of M. Grasset : "Madame de Choiseul et son 
 temps." I vol. Didier. 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. 167 
 
 the priests preached sermons, the philosophes wrote books, 
 and the young courtiers turned out epigrams. Every one, 
 feeling that the helm was in unskilled hands, defied a gov- 
 ernment which no longer inspired confidence or respect." 
 
 Madame du Barry, whose character was but poorly adapted 
 for political strife, was amazed at her own triumph. But 
 Marie- Antoinette had not witnessed the fall of the devoted 
 friend of the house of Austria without a feeling of bitter 
 indignation. Maria Theresa, alarmed at the occurrence, 
 desired that her daughter should conciliate the omnipotent 
 favorite ; but the repugnance which she aroused in the 
 dauphine was greater every day. On the 2d Sept. 1771, 
 the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau wrote to the empress : 
 
 "Your Majesty will have deigned to notice, in my first, very 
 humble report, that M. le Dauphin had approved my suggestions 
 as to the advisability of Madame la Dauphine not treating the Com- 
 tesse du Barry with too much severity. This point seems to me 
 more essential than ever, because it is the source of all the trouble, 
 and of all the deplorable steps which the king may allow himself to 
 be drawn into to signify his displeasure with his children. The 
 opportunities which I have had of meeting the favorite have put me 
 in a way to know her. She seems to have little mind, and to be very 
 frivolous and vain, with no symptoms of a designing or vindictive 
 disposition. It is very easy to draw her into conversation, and very 
 often much information may be gained from her, she is so heedless 
 in what she says. I am assured that if Madame la Dauphine could 
 only bring herself to speak to her once, it would then be very easy 
 for me to stop all pretension to anything beyond that, and to put an 
 end to a thousand embarrassments, which spring from the strange 
 condition of things, in the interior of this court." 
 
1 68 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 Maria Theresa fully agreed with her ambassador. She 
 wrote Marie- Antoinette a letter on the 30th September, 1771, 
 in which she urged her to treat Madame du Barry as she 
 would any lady who was admitted to the court and to the 
 society of the king. Declaring that the dauphine, as her 
 sovereign's first subject, owed obedience and submission to 
 Louis XV., she added : " You should set the example to the 
 court and courtiers, so that your master's will may be exe- 
 cuted. If base actions or familiarity were demanded of you, 
 neither myself nor anybody else could advise you to yield ; 
 but an indifferent word and a look or two, not for the woman, 
 but for your grandfather, your master, your benefactor ! " 
 
 Maria Theresa's words to the contrary notwithstanding, it 
 was much to be deplored that a grandfather should choose 
 to inflict such companionship upon his grandson's wife. 
 
 The legitimate and worthy pride of Marie-Antoinette 
 suffered sadly. " The Comtesse du Barry's ascendency 
 over the king's mind is now entirely without limit," wrote 
 the Comte de Mercy, December 19, 1771 ; "it is unmis- 
 takably evident in all that concerns the royal family ; and 
 the more the favorite is mortified by uncivil treatment, the 
 harder she tries to take advantage of every^j opportunity to 
 show her resentment." * /; 
 
 The Comte de Mercy, who, according to the insjfuctions 
 of the empress, was untiring in his endeavors to induce the 
 dauphine to be civil to the favorite, at last succeeded in 
 his suit to a certain extent. He relates it with much satis- 
 faction in a letter of the 14th August, 1772. He says that. 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. 169 
 
 Madame du Barry having arrived, after tlie king's mass, with 
 the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, " Madame la Dauphine spoke to 
 the last-named ; then, turning to the favorite, she made a few 
 remarks about the weather and the hunting, so that although 
 she did not directly address the Comtesse du Barry, she was 
 at liberty to believe that the words were addressed to her as 
 well as to the Duchesse d'Aiguillon. Nothing more was 
 necessary to content the favorite. The king, upon being 
 informed of'what had taken place, seemed much pleased 
 thereat, and signified his gratification to Madame la Dau- 
 phine by various little attentions that evening during the 
 state supper." 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, however, despite her desire to do as her 
 mother urged, could not overcome the repugnance inspired 
 by the woman whose favor was such a scandal and disgrace. 
 In a letter which she wrote her mother on the 21st Janu- 
 ary, 1772, the dauphine could not hide her heartfelt dread 
 of certain possible exigencies. " Madame, my dearest 
 mother," said she, "you can well believe that I always 
 sacrifice my prejudices and my dislike so long as nothing 
 disreputable or dishonorable is proposed. It would be the 
 sorrow of my life if anything should happen to make trouble 
 between my two lam ilies; my heart would be always on the 
 side of my own, 'and my duties here would be very hard to 
 fulfil. I shudder at the thought." 
 
 The noble frankness of Marie-Antoinette touched Maria 
 Theresa to the quick. The empress, accustomed, whether 
 as mother or sovereign, to undisputed domination, answered 
 
lyo The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 her daughter's letter on the 13th February: " You have made 
 me laugh, with your fancy that either I or my minister could 
 ever advise you to do anything dishonorable, or even in the 
 least degree improper. See from this how strong a hold 
 prejudice and bad advice have taken upon your mind ! Your 
 agitation makes me tremble for you. What interest can I 
 have other than your good and that of your country, the 
 dauphin's happiness and your own, and the critical situation 
 of yourself and the whole kingdom and royal* family, sur- 
 rounded by intrigue and faction ? Who can give you better 
 advice than my minister, who knows the whole nation 
 through and through, and the influences which are at work 
 there ? You must follow his advice upon every subject with- 
 out exception, and you must, by a measured and logical 
 course of action, prepare yourself for anything that may 
 happen." 
 
 Maria Theresa's persistence in this direction was due to 
 her knowledge that all the powers hostile to Austria were at 
 that very moment redoubling their efforts to conciliate the 
 favorite, and to break off the alliance between the courts of 
 Versailles and Vienna. " We know beyond question," she 
 wrote to her ambassador, " that England and the King of 
 Prussia are trying to win over the Barry: you ought to 
 know better than I if it is so. The king is constant in his 
 friendships, and I venture to appeal to his heart ; but he is 
 weak, and those who surround him will not give him time to 
 reflect. If France allows herself to be wheedled by Prussia, 
 who will inevitably betray her, then I ought to say to you 
 
Marie- Antoinette and Madame du Barry. 171 
 
 that it is the only circumstance which would make it abso- 
 lutely necessary for me to change my policy; to my great 
 regret, it is true, but it would be unavoidable. To avoid 
 these evil and vexatious consequences for my monarchy and 
 my family, we must use every possible means ; and there is 
 nobody but my daughter, assisted by your advice and your 
 knowledge of the surroundings, who is in a position to 
 render this service to her family and her fatherland. Before 
 everything, she must, by assiduous and affectionate advances, 
 win the king's good graces ; she must try to divine his 
 thoughts, so as to run counter to him in nothing ; and she 
 must treat the favorite well. I do not ask my daughter to 
 bemean herself, still less to become intimate with the favor- 
 ite, but by such attentions as would be a fitting mark of her 
 consideration for her grandfather and master, to gain any 
 advantage which may accrue therefrom to us and to both 
 courts : perhaps the continuance of the alliance depends 
 upon it." 
 
 Oh, the paltriness of human grandeur ! A woman 
 endowed with brain and heart and genius, a Maria Theresa, 
 allowing the friendship of the mightiest empires of the 
 world, the maintenance of the general equilibrium, and the 
 destiny of Europe, to depend upon the fiat of a Du Barry ! 
 Poor Marie-Antoinette, more to be pitied than envied; for 
 all the splendor of her loveliness, for all her prestige, she 
 became what she was to be to the day of her death, — the 
 victim of politics. 
 
X. 
 
 THE DAUPHINE AND MARIA THERESA. 
 
 THERE is not to be found in all history a more 
 interesting series of letters than those which passed 
 between the Empress Maria Theresa and her ambassador 
 at Versailles, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau. Never has 
 the character of a sovereign, and the tact and talent of a 
 diplomat, been more strikingly revealed. 
 
 In her letters Maria Theresa appeared just what she 
 really was, — a clever politician, accustomed to power and 
 domination ; a brainy woman, whom nothing escaped, and 
 who managed everything ; a mother who inspired veneration 
 and awe in her children ; a sovereign who busied herself 
 about the concerns of her family and her empire with equal 
 solicitude and equal authority. Her advice was equivalent 
 to a command, her language that of one who meant to be 
 obeyed. Although her daughter had become French, she 
 continued to look upon her as a German princess, and it was 
 her desire to make her a sort of Austrian ambassadress, 
 accredited to Louis XV., but under the orders of the Comte 
 de Mercy. The empress was surprised to find that a young 
 girl of fifteen had not the experience and the mature power 
 of insight of a woman of middle age, and she did not recog- 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 173 
 
 nize Marie-Antoinette's right to be anything less than perfect 
 in every respect. In her eyes, the dauphine was still the 
 little scholar of Schbnbrunn and the Burg. 
 
 Maria Theresa, like most rulers, had a passionate desire 
 to be well posted on every subject. The most trivial details 
 were interesting to her. She desired to be kept informed as 
 to all the minutice of her daughter's physical and moral 
 status. Nothing escaped her observation, and she thought 
 of everything ; dress, reading, conversation, dancing, driving, 
 everything came under her incessant and rigid scrutiny. 
 She might have been actually living at the palace of 
 Versailles, and have been less familiar with all its details 
 than she was. She did live there in spirit; and she knew 
 all its secrets, and all the snares laid for the unwary. Over 
 and over again she said to her daughter, " Take care ! " 
 As well instructed in the peculiarities of the French char- 
 acter as if she had lived in France all her life, she was no 
 stranger to the frivolity, the wickedness, the ingratitude, and 
 the cowardice of mankind, and knew what depths of base- 
 ness and envy exist in the make-up of many courtiers. The 
 glamour of the Capitol did not make her forget the Tarpeian 
 Rock ; and at certain times her words were so sad, and her 
 thoughts of the future so anxious, that it would seem as if 
 she had foreseen the destiny of her Antoinette, and had 
 caught a glimpse of the scaffold looming in the distance. 
 
 The empress's correspondent, too, was a model for diplo- 
 matists. Supple, energetic, reserved ; very clever in putting 
 himself upon good terms with those who might be useful 
 
1 74 The Last Years of Louis X V. 
 
 to his mission ; persona grata to Louis XV. and the royal 
 family, to the Due de Choiseul and the Due d'Aiguillon, to 
 the devout churchmen and the Comtesse du Barry ; a keen 
 observer of the first rank, and an untiring worker ; exact even 
 in trifles, cautious to an extreme point, skilful in manceu- 
 vring all the pieces in the most involved game of politics, 
 — the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau was heart and soul in his 
 profession. 
 
 When he prepared his "very humble reports" for his 
 sovereign, he expended an excessive amount of care and 
 earnestness upon them. If he was fortunate enough to 
 receive the congratulations of " her sacred majesty," as he 
 always called the empress, his joy knew no bounds. His 
 letters to Maria Theresa, written independently of his official 
 despatches, form a complete journal of the dauphine's exis- 
 tence. Everything is there set down at its proper day and 
 hour. The ambassador knows everything which takes place 
 in the princess's salon, and knows also what does not take 
 place in her alcove. A lady's maid, a physician, — what shall 
 I say } — a father confessor, could have no more accurate 
 information. 
 
 The dauphine was still a mere child. Sweet, innocent, 
 and ingenuous, ignorant of evil ; making a little fun of 
 etiquette ; sincerely religious, but always charming in her 
 piety ; sighing for Vienna, but loving Versailles ; German in 
 memory, but French at heart ; overflowing with respect and 
 affection for her august mother, but finding her words at 
 times a little harsh, — the fascinating princess, thanks to the 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 175 
 
 inexplicable coldness of the husband, was a maid still, 
 though a wife. 
 
 Suppose she had a venial fault or two; suppose that 
 from time to time she was guilty of some trifling acts of 
 imprudence, which she was to expiate so cruelly some day, — 
 they were at most the faults and follies which had the excuse 
 of youth, and its charm as well. Marie-Antoinette had 
 spirits suited to her age ; she had also its animation and 
 sprightliness and thoughtlessness; and it was those very 
 qualities which gave to her features a sympathetic and 
 feminine charm. 
 
 The lovely dauphine, who called Louis XV. " Papa," and 
 leaped upon his neck without asking leave ; who, like the 
 child that she was, took especial delight in the companion- 
 ship of children ; and who, when her maid of honor, the 
 strict and pin-sticking Comtesse de Noailles, appeared, would 
 say, with a laugh, " We must be on our good behavior now, 
 here comes Madame Etiquette," — this lovely and unaffected 
 princess was as different from her surroundings as spring is 
 different from winter. She was like young trees, filled with 
 sap, which spring up in the free air of the open fields, and 
 not like the sickly shrubbery in the park at Versailles, which 
 has to grow by rule and square. Her simple manners were 
 her brightest ornament, and her long fair hair her richest 
 diadem; nor could any of her jewels be compared to the 
 brilliancy of her eyes. 
 
 And yet this same princess, whose innocence and love- 
 liness ought to have touched every heart, was already 
 
176 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 surrounded by enemies, incredible as it seems. Mercy- 
 Argenteau wrote, on the i6th April, 1771: — 
 
 " It would be well nigh impossible for your Majesty to form 
 any conceptions of the horrible confusion which prevails here in 
 every direction. The throne is degraded by the rapid growth of the 
 favorite's influence, and by the villainy of her adherents. The 
 nation is alive with seditious utterances and indecent publications, 
 in which the monarch's person is not spared. I have not hesitated 
 to present the picture to Madame la Dauphine, and to impress upon 
 her strongly that the only possible way to avoid embarrassment at 
 so critical a period is to maintain a profound silence as to persons 
 and affairs alike ; and her Royal Highness is beginning to reahze the 
 necessity of adopting that course of action." 
 
 The young girl, with her open and expansive disposition, 
 was expected to bear herself like an old diplomat. She must 
 carefully weigh and calculate the effect of her every move- 
 ment, her every word, and even of her silence. Everything 
 was remarked, everything commented upon and criticised. 
 The court, for all its majestic exterior, was a perfect ant-hill 
 of petty passions and petty intrigues. Nothing but mines 
 and countermines, traps, coalitions, and cabals. There was 
 Madame du Barry's camp, v/hich was also that of the min- 
 isters ; the camp of Madame Adelaide and her sisters ; the 
 camp of the friends of the Due de Choiseul ; and the camp 
 of the Comte de Provence, who, though a mere boy, was 
 already a skilful politician. 
 
 The partisans of Madame du Barry, who dreaded the 
 future ascendency of the dauphine, fed upon the hope, not 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 177 
 
 only that she would never be a mother, but that her husband 
 would continue to be as shy and timid as at first. There 
 were people who went so far as to hint at a possible rupture 
 of the marriage. The dauphine's movements were watched 
 in the most annoying way. Her letters were read, and pages 
 were torn from her writing-books, with the evident purpose 
 of imitating her handwriting. She was terribly troubled to 
 find that there were duplicate keys to her furniture, and she 
 was forced to hide her mother's letters under her pillow, in 
 order to preserve them. 
 
 This extraordinary state of affairs engrossed much of 
 Maria Theresa's thought. She was particularly bitter against 
 " Mesdames." * Though she recognized their good qualities 
 and their unassailable virtue, she was jealous of them, and 
 criticised them constantly. She would not allow that these 
 princesses had any right to give their niece the least advice. 
 
 " I confess," she wrote to the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, 
 February 11, 1771, "that my daughter's situation makes me 
 very uneasy, in view of the stormy condition of affairs at the 
 French court. Her indifference, her disinclination for seri- 
 ous application, her want of tact (which is due to her 
 youth and light-heartedness), her intimacy with her aunts, 
 especially Madame Adelaide, who is the most scheming and 
 expansive of the sisters, give me more than one reason for 
 alarm." 
 
 Maria Theresa, who was German to her finger-ends, 
 and who, although she was anxious for the French alliance, 
 
 * The king's daughters. 
 12 
 
178 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 had no liking for the French nation, was in a measure 
 jealous of the former archduchess's affection for her new 
 country. " There is much cause for wonder," she wrote 
 her, " in the very slight interest you exhibit in the Germans. 
 Believe me, France will esteem you more, and place more 
 reliance upon you, if you show that you possess the Ger- 
 man steadfastness and frankness. Do not be ashamed 
 that you are a German, even when it makes you appear 
 awkward." 
 
 We can understand that a dauphine of France would 
 require a large store of filial respect not to be somewhat 
 annoyed at this too Germanic advice. The empress was 
 more nearly on the right track when she wrote to her 
 daughter on the 9th July, 1771, in very sensible though 
 severe language : " I look in vain every month for the list of 
 the books you have read, and your other occupations. At 
 your age, one must expect many foolish and puerile notions ; 
 but at last they will bore everybody else as well as yourself, 
 and you will be much the worse therefor. I cannot conceal 
 from you that it is already beginning to be talked about, and 
 you will lose in that way the excellent opinion which people 
 have formed of you, — a most essential point for us who are 
 actors on the world's stage. A life of continual dissipation, 
 without the least pretence of serious occupation, will ever 
 tend to deaden your conscience." 
 
 At times the mother's exhortations to her daughter 
 became veritable reprimands, and her pen was like a rod 
 of chastisement. Take, for instance, the letter of the 30th 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 179 
 
 September of the same year (1771), wherein, complaining 
 especially that the dauphine is not sufficiently civil to 
 Madame du Barry, the imperious sovereign cries in a 
 passion : " And so you fail your benefactor on the very 
 first occasion on which you might oblige him ! And for 
 what reason, pray? From a disgraceful subservience to 
 people who have conquered you by treating you like a 
 child, and getting up horse-races for you, upon donkeys, 
 with children and dogs! Such are the weighty reasons 
 which draw you to them rather than to your master, and 
 which will make you ridiculous in the long run, and destroy 
 all love and esteem for you. And you began so well ! Your 
 face, and your judgment, when not prejudiced by others, 
 are always to be depended upon. I demand that you con- 
 vince the king of your respect and affection by your every 
 act, and by divining at every opportunity what will please 
 him, even though you should thereby embroil yourself with 
 all the others; for you have but one end to keep in view, — 
 to please the king, and do what he wishes." 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, accustomed to respect her mother as 
 much as God himself, always bowed to the authority which 
 admitted no rejoinder. She sometimes happened to forget 
 certain injunctions, but she was surely excusable in that. 
 As the Comte de Mercy wrote the empress, in a letter of the 
 i6th June, 1772, "The deplorable tone of her associates, and 
 being accustomed to receive neither reprimand nor contra- 
 diction, not even advice, from the king or M. le Dauphin, 
 added to the distance of three hundred leagues which sepa- 
 
i8o The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 rates her from you, are doubtless the reasons why your stern 
 letters have not always produced the desired effect." 
 
 But Maria Theresa melted sometimes. From reprimands 
 she often passed to loving words. Her maternal pride is 
 expressed now and then in accents worthy of Madame de 
 Sevigne. On the 31st October, 1771, she wrote to her 
 daughter: "You have something so moving about you 
 that it is very hard to refuse you; it is a gift from God, to 
 whom you must give your thanks for it, while you make use 
 of it for his glory and the welfare of your fellow-creatures." 
 
 It was because she wished her to be perfect, physically 
 and morally, that she said to her, in a letter of the 31st 
 December, 1772: "What! At twelve and thirteen years, 
 Antoinette could receive her friends very prettily, and greet 
 each one with a courteous and graceful word. That this 
 is true, all Vienna, the Empire, Lorraine and France know, 
 because they saw it. And now the dauphine is embarrassed 
 to receive a mere private person ! Do not get in the habit 
 of making such frivolous excuses as embarrassment, fear, 
 shyness, and caprice. It is a very bad habit to yield without 
 thought or reflection to such suggestions. You know that 
 your affability won everybody's heart, and you see the oppo- 
 site every day. Can you make up your mind to neglect 
 this important matter.? I bring my sermons to an end 
 with the old year; you do me great injustice if you do not 
 take them as the surest proof of my affection and my 
 interest in your future welfare, which is an absorbing subject 
 of my thoughts." 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. i8i 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, who was goodness and sensibility per- 
 sonified, bore her mother no ill-will for her sometimes 
 roughly worded advice, and her filial devotion was never 
 in abeyance. In a letter of the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau , 
 (29th February, 1772), we may read of the grief of the lovely 
 dauphine upon learning of her mother's illness. "At the 
 first word, Madame la Dauphine seemed so alarmed that she 
 could hardly comprehend. She returned to her cabinet 
 weeping bitterly, and could say nothing, except that she was 
 unable to give audience. She asked for a rosary which your 
 Majesty sent her, and began to pray. M. le Dauphin, who 
 remained by her side, seemed to sympathize very sincerely 
 with the sorrow of his august spouse." 
 
 Maria Theresa complained sometimes that her daughter's 
 letters were not long enough. She did not fully realize all 
 the obstacles there were to the princess's writing her in 
 peace. M. de Mercy-Argenteau said that Marie-Antoinette 
 always wrote in a hurry, in mortal dread of being caught in 
 the act by her husband or her aunts, to whom she never 
 showed her letters to her mother. Her correspondence 
 was certainly not a masterpiece of style. But, after all, 
 could a young German girl be expected to write French 
 like an academician? Marie-Antoinette's letters have, at all 
 events, the merit of being simple, unaffected, albeit without 
 literary pretension, and of proving that she was endowed 
 with a kind heart, a pure conscience, and a frank and open 
 disposition. 
 
 If instead of studying history only on the surface, we 
 
1 82 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 dig deeper, we are often surprised to find how little differ- 
 ence there really is between a sovereign and a private 
 individual. The great Maria Theresa, the illustrious empress, 
 ^ notwithstanding the prestige of her lofty rank, inevitably 
 reminds us of the worthy mothers of the middle class, who 
 are forever saying to their daughters, " Be sure and do what 
 is right." Palace, hovel, garret, under all your roofs, the 
 same joys and sorrows abide, the same passions and the 
 same disappointments. 
 
 To sum up, Maria Theresa's strictures upon her daughter 
 amount to nothing serious, and at any other time the 
 dauphine would have received nothing but commendation. 
 But men's minds were then inclined to be critical on all 
 subjects, and the first breath of the Revolution was blowing 
 upon the society of France. 
 
 However, the fascinating and incomparable dauphine 
 was still the idol of court and nation. What grace, what 
 brilliancy, what attractive qualities ! And so young, too, 
 and yet she eclipsed all other women ! What a contrast 
 between her and her two sisters-in-law, the Comtesse de 
 Provence and the Comtesse d'Artois ! Everywhere and 
 always Marie-Antoinette stands first, — first in grace, and 
 first in loveliness. It seemed as if she were already seated 
 on the throne. When the chorus, at the beginning of the 
 second act of Gluck's " Iphigenie," cried, " Chantons, cele- 
 brons notre reine " [Let us sing the praises of our queen], 
 the audience turned towards the dauphine, and saluted her 
 with great enthusiasm, as if her reign had already begun. 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 183 
 
 How her vivacity and her sweet smile lighted up the 
 great palace at Versailles, which was so gloomy and 
 forbidding without her! What life and animation char- 
 acterized the select balls which she gave on Mondays in her 
 apartments! There, people danced for love of dancing, 
 without ceremony, and untrammelled by etiquette. The 
 ladies wore white dominos, and the gentlemen their ordinary 
 garments. There shone one of the most poetic and sym- 
 pathetic souls of the age, the Princesse de Lamballe, a 
 young widow of twenty years, who was to be the truest and 
 most faithful friend of Marie- Antoinette, — the Princesse de 
 Lamballe, who devoted herself with such affectionate care 
 to her father-in-law, the venerable Due de Penthievre, of 
 whom Florian said, in addressing to him the dedication of a 
 Biblical poem, * — 
 
 " Pieux cotnme Booz, austere avec douceur, 
 Vous aimez les humains et craignez le Seigneur. 
 H61as ! un seul soutien manque a votre famille : 
 Vous n'epousez pas Ruth, mais vous I'avez pour fille." | 
 
 It was at these Monday balls, where none but the inner 
 circle of the nobility could gain admittance, that those young 
 persons made their first appearance in society who were to 
 become leaders and arbiters of fashion, — those great lords 
 
 * See the interesting work of M. de Lescure, La Princesse de Lamballe. 
 I vol. Plon. 
 
 f " Pious as Boaz, mingling gentleness with austerity, you love your fellow-men 
 and fear the Lord. Alas ! but one source of strength is lacking to your family : 
 you did not marry Ruth, although you have her for a daughter." 
 
184 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 with liberal principles, types of the new France, and who 
 bore the historic names of Lafayette, Lauzun, La Marck, 
 Segur, Dillon, Noailles, and Lameth. 
 
 But these Monday functions were not enough ; other 
 balls were given on Wednesdays in the apartments of the 
 Comtesse de Noailles, Marie-Antoinette's maid of honor. 
 The dauphine went to the first of these, leaning on 
 the arm of her husband, who said to the comtesse as 
 they entered the room, " I trust, Madame, that you will 
 not object to receive a husband and wife who come to 
 share your enjoyment, not to cast a damper upon the 
 party." * 
 
 The dauphin and the Comte de Provence were a little 
 awkward in their dancing; but their shortcomings were more 
 than made up by the Comte d'Artois, that beau ideal of 
 society men, who was an accomplished dancer. And as for 
 Marie-Antoinette, as graceful as she was fair to look upon, 
 and as quick of movement as she was fascinating, she had 
 the bearing of a goddess. 
 
 " Et vera incessu patuit dea." 
 
 Her only failing was her inclination to make sport of every- 
 thing. Like the Comte de la Marck, she was merciless in 
 ridiculing every one who was ugly or dull. She loved youth, 
 and she chose that every one should be light-hearted and 
 should drive dull care far away. Ah, how lovely she was in 
 the winters of 1771 and 1772, when she and the Princesse de 
 
 * Letter from the Comte de Mercy to Maria Theresa, 25th February, 1771. 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 185 
 
 Lamballe passed so much time in her favorite sport, — those 
 sledge races upon the ice, which were hke a dream of the 
 poetic North ! And how majestic and grand she was on the 
 8th June, 1773, the day of her solemn entry into Paris, when 
 she visited in royal state the cathedral of Notre Dame, the 
 church of St. Genevieve, and the palace of the Tuileries 
 in a state carriage glittering with gold, drawn by eight horses, 
 and followed by five equipages only less magnificent than 
 her own. 
 
 The heavens re-echoed the enthusiastic shouts ; all hats 
 were in the air, all hearts in an ecstasy of joy, and all hands 
 joined in tumultuous applause. Cries of " Vive la dauphine " 
 issued from every throat. At every step the smiling and 
 radiant princess might hear such exclamations as " How 
 pretty she is ! How lovely she is ! What a sweet expression 
 she has ! " From every balcony and every window, flowers 
 fell like rain. The feeling manifested was something more 
 than joy or admiration, it was downright intoxication, a very 
 delirium of happiness. Touched to the depths of her soul, 
 and forgetful for the moment of her melancholy and gloomy 
 presentiments, Marie-Antoinette, always affectionate and 
 easily moved, wrote in happy mood to her mother to tell 
 her of the unparalleled/^/^, the memory of which was always 
 so sweet to her. 
 
 " Upon returning from our drive," she wrote in a letter of 
 the 14th June, "we had seats upon an open terrace [at the 
 Tuileries], and remained there about half an hour. I can- 
 not tell you, dearest .Mamma, of the enthusiastic evidences of 
 
1 86 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 affection which we received at that time. Before withdraw- 
 ing, we waved our hands to the populace, to their great delight. 
 How fortunate we are to be able to win the love of a whole 
 nation for the little we have done ! There can be nothing 
 else so precious as that. I feel it deeply, and I shall never 
 forget it. Another point which gave great satisfaction on that 
 day of days was the bearing and behavior of M. le Dauphin. 
 He replied with marvellous aptness to all the speeches, was 
 quick to take note of everything that was done for him, and 
 especially of the striking earnestness and happiness of the 
 people, whom he treated with the greatest affability. To- 
 morrow we go to the Opera at Paris ; as there is a very 
 great desire that we should also go to the Comedie Fran9aise 
 and the Comedie Italienne on two other days, I think that 
 we shall probably do so. I appreciate more fully every day 
 all that my dear mamma has done for my welfare. I was the 
 youngest of all, and she has treated me as if I were her first- 
 born ; and my heart is filled to overflowing with most loving 
 gratitude." 
 
 At this time Marie-Antoinette seemed truly happy. 
 There were, however, two circumstances which always cast a 
 shadow upon her life, — the continued coolness of her hus- 
 band, and the scandal caused by the shameful ascendency of 
 Madame du Barry. But what could she do? As Maria 
 Theresa wrote to the Comte de Mercy, " Van Swieten [an 
 old physician of Vienna] is of the opinion that If a young 
 woman so attractive as the dauphine does not arouse the 
 dauphin's affection, there is nothing to be done ; it is much 
 
The Dauphine and Maria Theresa. 187 
 
 better to make up our minds to wait patiently until time 
 brings about a change in his conduct." 
 
 With regard to Madame du Barry, there was no course 
 but to submit to the inevitable. Her favor, incompre- 
 hensible as it was, was destined to last out the life of 
 Louis XV. 
 
XT. 
 
 THE PAVILION OF LUCIENNES. 
 
 MADAME DU BARRY was enthroned like a legitimate 
 queen. She had at last, when the whim seized her, 
 succeeded in assuming the manners and speech of the 
 grandes dames. Choosing her intimate associates among 
 women of the highest rank, a Marechale de Luxembourg, a 
 Duchesse d'Aiguillon, and a Marechale de Mirepoix, she 
 received in her salons dukes and peers, ministers and am- 
 bassadors. When Gustavus III., king of Sweden, visited the 
 French court in 1771, he bestowed a very costly necklace 
 upon the favorite's little dog. 
 
 Madame du Barry's policy — assuming that a woman of 
 her stamp can have a policy — was more dictatorial and more 
 conservative than that of Madame de Pompadour. Madame 
 du Barry did not lean upon the philosophical faction, and while 
 she kept Louis constantly stirred up concerning the danger 
 to be feared from the Parliament, she as constantly kept 
 before him the example of those princes who, like Charles L, 
 had weakly allowed blows to be aimed at their royal preroga- 
 tives. She had purchased, for twenty-four thousand livres at 
 Baron de Thiers' sale, a portrait of the unfortunate monarch 
 by Van Dyck, and it was said that she remarked one day to 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. 189 
 
 Louis, pointing to that picture : " France, do you see that ? 
 If you allow your Parliament to go on, it will cut off your 
 head, as the English Parliament did with Charles I." 
 
 The thought of danger restored the old king to the vigor 
 which insured his tranquillity for the remainder of his life. 
 Parliament, as the result of its disputes with the Due 
 d'Aiguillon, had assumed a very factious attitude. It had 
 followed up a declaration that " its members, to their great 
 sorrow, were not left with sufficient liberty of thought to 
 decide questions involving the property, the lives, and the 
 honor of the king's subjects," by refusing to fulfil its judicial 
 functions. Louis XV. crushed this revolutionary movement 
 in the bud. During the night of the 17th January, 1771, all 
 the members of Parliament were arrested at their homes, and 
 required to answer yes or no a royal command to resume 
 their duties. Every one refused. They were thereupon 
 declared to have forfeited their positions, and were sent 
 into exile. 
 
 A new Parliament, called the " Parliament Maupeou," 
 from the name of the Chancellor who had advised the coup 
 d'etat, took the place of the old, and showed itself to be 
 an entirely docile body. As M. Theophile Lavallee has 
 remarked, " the parts of the governmental machine were so 
 worm-eaten that at the least touch of the finger of one 
 of Madame du Barry's courtiers it all crumbled away 
 to dust." 
 
 In the persons of the magistrates, the people could see 
 nought but privileged officials who had been cast into utter 
 
IQO The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 discredit by the cases of Lalli, Calas, and La Barre. Mau- 
 peou announced that justice would be administered without 
 charge, that ofifices would cease to be hereditary, and that a 
 new code of procedure, civil and criminal, would be prepared. 
 Voltaire, always on the winning side, went into ecstasies over 
 the glory to be ascribed to the Chancellor, the author of this 
 master-stroke, and commemorated it in a bit of hyperbolical 
 versifying : — 
 
 " Oui, que Maupeou, tout seul, du d^dale des lois. 
 Ait pu retirer la couronne, 
 
 Qu'il I'ait seul rapportee, aux palais de nos rois, 
 Voila ce que j'ai vu, voil^ ce que m'dtonne. 
 J'avoue avec I'antiquite 
 Que ses heros sont admirables ; 
 Mais, pas malheur, ce sont des fables : 
 Et c'est ici la v^rite." * 
 
 Madame de Pompadour had overthrown the Jesuits : the 
 Jansenists were maltreated by Madame du Barry. From 
 the depths of his retreat at Ferney, Voltaire fawned upon 
 the favorite with that refinement of adulation of which he 
 had the monopoly. On the 20th June, 1773, he wrote her 
 the following letter: — 
 
 " M. de Laborde has told me that you commanded him to kiss 
 me on both cheeks for you. 
 
 * " Yes, Maupeou, quite unaided, has succeeded in rescuing the crown from 
 the mazes of the law, and in bringing it baclc to the palace of our kings : I 
 have myself witnessed the exploit, and I marvelled at it. I agree that the deeds 
 of the heroes of antiquity were admirable, but unfortunately they were fabulous; 
 whereas this is truth." 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. igi 
 
 " Quoi ! deux baisers sur le fin de ma vie ! 
 Quel passeport vous daignez m'envoyer ! 
 Deux ! c'est trop d'un, adorable Egerie, 
 Je serais mort de plaisir au premier- * 
 
 He has shown me your portrait: do not be angry Madame, if I 
 took the liberty of returning the two kisses to it. 
 
 " Vous ne pouvez empecher cet hommage, 
 Faible tribut de quiconque a des yeux. 
 C'est aux mortels d'adorer votre image, 
 L'original etait fait pour les dieux. f 
 
 " I have heard several portions of M. de Laborde's ' Pandore,' and 
 they seemed to me abundantly deserving of your patronage. Favor 
 bestowed upon the fine arts is the only thing which can possibly add 
 to the brilliancy of your renown. 
 
 " Condescend to accept, Madame, the deep respect of an aged 
 hermit, whose heart now knows no other emotion save that of 
 gratitude." 
 
 Public opinion was less severe upon the favorite than 
 one would suppose. tier good fortune was forgiven 
 because, as was commonly said, she was " a good creature," — 
 because "she was at heart devoted to the people, and was 
 susceptible of natural affection and regard for the ties of 
 blood." Every fortnight she passed a day with her mother, 
 whom she metamorphosed into the Marquise de Montrable, 
 
 * " What ! two kisses, just at ttie end of my life ! what a passport [to the other 
 world] you deign to send me ! But two ! That is one too many, adorable Egeria, 
 for I should die of pleasure at the first." 
 
 t " You cannot forbid that mark of adoration, the feeble tribute of any one 
 who has eyes. It is for mortals to worship your counterfeit presentiment, for 
 the original was designed for the gods." 
 
192 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 and whom she furnished with comfortable quarters at the 
 Convent of St. EHsabeth, — a carriage, a country-house, 
 and a little farm near Lonjumeau, called the " Maison 
 Rouge." 
 
 Madame de Pompadour, the personification of the bour- 
 geoise parvenue, had stirred up all ranks of society against 
 her. The Du Barry was less obnoxious, because she was less 
 arrogant. Moreover, her triumph was in accord with the 
 spirit of a time when, as Chateaubriand has it, " court and 
 city, economists and encyclopedists, great lords and gentle- 
 men, financiers and bourgeois, were all alike, as is proved by 
 the memoirs they have left us." 
 
 More and more weary of the rigid rules of etiquette, 
 Louis XV. in his old age aspired to lead the life of a pri- 
 vate gentleman, with liberty to love women and hunting 
 and good cheer as long as possible. Everything magni- 
 ficent was a bore : Versailles, in its vastness and majesty, 
 was as odious as a prison to him. He much preferred to 
 the sumptuous abode of Louis XIV. the little pavilion 
 which was built, by his orders, in 1771, directly beside the 
 chateau of Luciennes, and which was Madame du Barry's 
 property. 
 
 There are monuments which fitly symbolize the age 
 in which they were constructed. This palace-boudoir, the 
 shrine of an immoral divinity, was a wonderfully accurate 
 representation of the last years of the reign of Louis XV. 
 The architect Ledoux was the builder of this chef cPceuvre, 
 and the salons were decorated by the pencils of Joseph 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. 193 
 
 Vernet, Greuze, and Fragonard. Situated upon an eleva- 
 tion which commanded a magnificent prospect, the square 
 pavilion, with its five long windows on each side, resembled 
 a chateau d'Alcine, or the dwelling-place of a siren. The 
 eye was first caught by a peristyle of four columns in 
 the Greek style, and a revel of children in bas relief. 
 Upon entering, one found one's self in a vestibule which 
 served as a dining-hall on great occasions. It is the apart- 
 ment shown in the beautiful aquarelle of Moreau le Jeune, 
 now owned by the Musee du Louvre. The walls were of 
 white marble, and were onamented with the arms of Louis 
 XV. and the favorite intertwined, and framed in gold. 
 At one end of the vestibule was a gallery for the comtesse's 
 musicians. This great hall opened into the salon carre, 
 of which Fragonard painted the door-panels. On each 
 side of this great salon was another smaller one ; in that 
 to the right was a series of four paintings by Vien, repre- 
 senting symbolically the story of Love in a young girl's 
 heart; in the other, which was furnished with many mir- 
 rors, in which was reflected again and again a superb 
 chimney-piece of lapis-lazuli in tripod shape, Briard had 
 painted the ceiling with the allegory of Love in the 
 country. 
 
 When Louis XV. came to Luciennes, he had no other 
 apartments than those of the comtesse, except a room for 
 making his toilet. He was extremely careful about his 
 personal appearance, and required a special apartment to 
 repair, when necessary, slight disarrangements of his make- 
 
 13 
 
194 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 up, and to receive an extra touch of powder when his hair 
 had not enough. 
 
 What a lovely, fascinating toy was this wonderful pavilion ! 
 Cornices, bas-reliefs, pilasters, specimens of the goldsmith's 
 art, everything which met the eye was an artistic gem, even 
 to the locks and window-fastenings. The very apotheosis 
 of luxury ! Caprice and whim and fantasy given full play 
 in the decoration: Chinese images, statuettes of Saxony 
 porcelain, caskets of ebony and ivory, pieces of lacquer ware, 
 screens covered with birds of paradise with gaudy plumage, 
 cages filled with parrots, and aviaries made of gold or 
 silver ware. 
 
 Among these interesting curiosities were to be seen a 
 little spaniel, white as snow, a Brazilian monkey, a flame- 
 colored parroquet, and a young Bengalee child with dark 
 copper-colored skin, bright black eyes, and extraordinary 
 garb. This curious little fellow, a living toy, was Zamore, 
 for whom the comtesse and the Prince de Conti had been 
 the sponsors in baptism, and whom Louis XV. had amused 
 himself by appointing governor of the pavilion of Luciennes 
 by decree regularly countersigned by the Chancellor of 
 France. The little negro's costume was changed as many 
 times a day as if he were a doll. Sometimes he was dressed 
 like a savage, with red feathers, parti-colored clothes, and a 
 necklace of gold or coral beads. Again he wore a green 
 frock-coat all bedizened with gold, and accompanied the 
 running footman, who, in a coat of sky-blue cloth, brandished 
 as he ran a magnificent cane with carved head. Again, he 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. 195 
 
 would appear, in vest and hose of pink satin, at the brilliant 
 evening parties, when the notes of violin, flute, and cornet 
 were heard in the galleries of the vestibule, and when, amid 
 the noble dames in their dazzling toilets and gentlemen in 
 velvet coats, surrounded by flashing jewels, decorations, 
 pyramids of flowers, and in the blaze of countless lights, 
 the Comtesse du Barry shone resplendent. It was like a 
 superbly set scene from an opera, the last word of voluptuous 
 libertinism. 
 
 But her coquettish and frisky person did not appear at 
 its best in fine attire. She was even prettier and more capti- 
 vating when she donned the half-feminine, half-masculine 
 uniform of the queen's light horse. It was to her in this 
 garb that Dorat, in his enthusiasm, addressed the following 
 poetical effusion: — 
 
 " Sur ton double portrait le spectateur perplexe, 
 Charmante Du Barry, vent t'admirer partout; 
 A ses yeux changes-tu de sexe, 
 II ne fait que changer de gofit. 
 S'il te voit en femme, dans Time, 
 D'etre homme il sent tout le plaisir; 
 Tu deviens homme, et d'etre femme, 
 Soudain il sent tout le d^sir." * 
 
 At Luciennes, Louis lived like one of the kings of 
 finance in his little establishment. The Most Christian 
 
 * " In thy twofold guise, lovely Du Barry, the perplexed spectator knows not 
 where to bestow his admiration; as often as thou changest thy sex, his fancy 
 changes. If he sees thee in woman's garb, he feels in his soul all the advantage 
 of being a man ; thou becomest a man thyself, and he forthwith longs to be a 
 woman. 
 
196 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 King laid his majesty aside there. He wore a plain white 
 coat, and amused himself, like any good citizen, in playing 
 at gardening a little. He liked to walk about under his 
 lindens, and then take a seat upon the terrace, where he 
 could look down upon the river which lay at his feet, and 
 which wound about the hill in a horseshoe curve. On the 
 horizon he could see St. Germain, where Louis XIV. was 
 rocked in his cradle, and St. Denis, his last resting-place, — 
 St. Denis, where he too must soon go to join his ancestors ; 
 and far away, vaguely seen in the hazy distance, Paris, the 
 malcontent and revolutionary town, which seemed always to 
 menace his tranquillity. Upon that terrace Louis XV., 
 wearied to distraction of Versailles, breathed the free air of 
 heaven, and tried to forget, — to forget the mistakes of his 
 diplomatic policy, official and secret; to forget the first 
 partition of Poland, which was on the point of accomplish- 
 ment, and the stern commands of England, which power, 
 while preventing France from bearing aid to the Swedes and 
 Poles, forbade her to send a fleet either to the Baltic or the 
 Mediterranean ; to forget his own declining years, and the 
 equally deplorable decline of the French monarchy. The 
 worn-out sovereign looked at the present with eyes from 
 which the scales of enchantment had fallen, and the glance 
 with which he surveyed the future was full of anxiety. But 
 let the Comtesse du Barry draw near, with her saucy face 
 and her provoking smile, and her red lips which ask to be 
 kissed, — for the moment the wrinkles are smoothed from 
 Louis' brow. 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. 197 
 
 Was Madame du Barry really lower in the scale of 
 morality than Madame de Pompadour ? We do not think 
 so. Was her influence more harmful to France? We do 
 not think that it was. Was the source of the favor of the 
 marquise more worthy of respect than that from which the 
 comtesse derived her power ? Was more real affection and 
 more unselfishness exhibited by the first than by the second ? 
 For my own part, I can hardly distinguish between them. I 
 should be inclined, however, to consider Madame de Pom- 
 padour the more guilty of the two. Her husband was a 
 much more estimable man than Comte Guillaume du Barry. 
 M. Lenormand d'Etioles did not, like M. du Barry, make 
 a shameful bargain, under the name of a marriage ; he 
 loved his wife, and surrounded her with proofs of his devo- 
 tion and respect. He did absolutely nothing to justify her 
 shameful desertion of him, or the unexpected treachery 
 of which he was the victim. 
 
 M. du Barry, on the contrary, selected his lot for himself. 
 Whatever people may have said, the marquise was really 
 no greater lady than the comtesse. We remember that the 
 aristocracy looked upon her as a bourgeoise. D'Argenson 
 treated her as a strumpet, and RicheHeu could see in her 
 nothing but a plaything out of her sphere, "one who was 
 not fitted to live worthily at court." Voltaire, her flatterer 
 in ordinary, described her as a grisette born to shine at the 
 opera or in the seraglio. 
 
 The Pompadour was sufficiently refined, and the Du 
 Barry was not less so. Both succeeded in acquiring the 
 
1 98 The Last Years of Louis X V. 
 
 language of the court, and in carrying off a grand toilet as 
 successfully as ladies of the very highest rank. D'Aiguillon, 
 the favorite of the comtesse, was of as ancient a family as 
 Choiseul, whom the marquise protected. They were both 
 equally successful in securing a place for their families 
 among the aristocracy. Madame de Pompadour's trans- 
 formation of her brother, Abel Poisson, into the Marquis 
 de Marigny, was matched by Madame du Barry's marriage 
 of her nephew, Vicomte Adolphe du Barry, to a daughter 
 of the Marquis de Tournon, who was a connection of the 
 Soubise and Conde families. The comtesse had the ad- 
 vantage of the marquise in that she could not be held 
 responsible for any war, or for injudicious selection of 
 generals. 
 
 Evil passions — hatred and malice, ambition and avarice, 
 the spirit of domination and overbearing pride — were infi- 
 nitely more active in the heart of Madame de Pompadour 
 than in Madame du Barry's. The former was an intriguing, 
 plotting, mercenary woman, thoroughly self-poised, selfish, 
 arrogant, and revengeful. The other was a child of the 
 common people, entirely without virtue, but equally free 
 from malice ; without high principle, but with no inclination 
 to wickedness for the sake of doing evil ; possessed of all 
 the failings of the race of courtesans, but with all their 
 thoughtlessness, prodigality, and gayety. 
 
 Therefore in the galaxy of the women of Versailles I 
 unhesitatingly place Madame du Barry above Madame de 
 Pompadour, because she had, if all her contemporaries are 
 
The Pavilion of Luciennes. 199 
 
 to be believed, one quality which was lacking in the mar- 
 quise, — a quality which atones for many obliquities and 
 many vices, and without which no woman, whoever she 
 may be, can touch a sympthetic chord : that quality is 
 kindness of heart. 
 
XII. 
 
 DEATH OF LOUIS XV. 
 
 LOUIS XV. had a foreboding that his end was near. 
 Like all men who continue to lead a dissipated life 
 when their hair has grown gray, he experienced more suf- 
 fering than pleasure, more melancholy than joy, in his 
 debauchery. Expiating a few brief moments of apocryphal 
 enjoyment by long hours of ennui and discouragement, he 
 felt the sharp pangs of fatigue, the remorse of the body; 
 and of remorse, the fatigue of the soul. 
 
 On the i6th June, 1773, the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau 
 wrote to Maria Theresa: "Although the king's health has 
 not grown visibly worse the past month, it is noticeable that 
 he is daily more subject to despondency and ennui. His 
 original caprice for the favorite being weakened by lapse of 
 time, and the woman having no means of attracting him in 
 the infinitely slender resources of her intellect and her 
 character, the king derives only the most moderate pleasure 
 from her society now." 
 
 In the course of his correspondence with his sovereign, 
 the ambassador frequently recurs to Louis' incurable de- 
 pression. On the 14th August, 1773, he wrote: "The king 
 is growing old, and seems from time to time to have strange 
 
Death of Louis XV. 201 
 
 fancies. He is quite alone, with no comfort from his 
 children, and no zeal or attachment or fidelity on the part 
 of the motley assemblage which constitutes his ministry, 
 his social circle, and his surroundings generally." 
 
 Again he wrote, February 19, 1774: "The king begins 
 to talk now and then about his age and the condition of his 
 health, and the frightful account he will have to settle some 
 day with the Supreme Being of the use he has made of the 
 time accorded him on earth. These reflections, occasioned 
 by the recent decease of certain persons of about his age, 
 who died almost in his presence, have caused considerable 
 alarm to those persons who are encouraging the monarch to 
 persevere in his present vicious courses; and each one of 
 them is now on the watch for a safe place of shelter in 
 possible contingencies." 
 
 Comments were freely made upon the acts and words 
 and the secret thoughts of the king, upon his feeble impulse 
 to revert to religious practices, the growing frequency of his 
 visits to his daughter Louise, the Carmelite, and the humble 
 mien with which he had listened to the words of a coura- 
 geous prelate, Monseigneur de Beauvais, Bishop of Senez, 
 who addressed him thus, in a sermon preached before the 
 whole court : " Solomon, sated with debauchery, and having 
 exhausted every variety of pleasure which surrounds the 
 throne, ended by seeking some new excitement in the vile 
 haunts^of public vice." 
 
 Louis XV, was sixty-four years old. He was once more 
 wavering, as he had often done in his youth, between vice 
 
202 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 and virtue, when he was stricken at Petit-Trianon, on the 
 28th April, 1774, with a malady which immediately assumed 
 alarming proportions. He was transported to Versailles; 
 and immediately there ensued an exhibition of what was 
 well called " the stock-jobbing and bargaining with the 
 king's conscience." 
 
 The Aiguillonists and the Barriens, as the partisans of the 
 favorite and the minister were termed, maintained that the 
 attack was not serious, and would not listen to suggestions 
 of the administration of the sacrament. The friends of 
 the Due de Choiseul, on the other hand, demanded that 
 the king should at once receive extreme unction, which 
 should be the signal for his mistress to be sent away. 
 Upon this point MM. de Goncourt judiciously observe: 
 " It came about strangely enough, that the D'Aiguillon 
 faction, the party of he Church and the Jesuits, were in 
 league to prevent Louis from receiving communion, while 
 the Choiseul faction, the party of the philosophes and scof- 
 fers, were determined that it should be administered." 
 
 The Aiguillonists were shivering with apprehension. 
 The king's illness was extremely serious : it was small-pox of 
 the most malignant type. If the old monarch died, it was 
 the end of their power ; if he should recover, he would surely 
 become religious. In either case, Madame du Barry would 
 no longer be of any consequence. 
 
 The courtiers, fearing contagion, did not go near the sick 
 room except with great reluctance and fear. One of them, 
 M. de Letorieres succumbed to the disease, simply from hav- 
 
Death of Louis XV. 203 
 
 ing held the door half open and looked at the king for two 
 minutes. Nearly fifty persons were taken ill from having 
 passed through the gallery. Louis' daughters, Mesdames 
 Adelaide, Victoire, and Sophie, at this crisis gave an 
 admirable exhibition of courage and filial devotion. Al- 
 though they had never had the small-pox, they heroically 
 defied the dread scourge. While the dauphin and his 
 brothers, Comtes de Provence and d'Artois, prudently kept 
 away, the three princesses shut themselves up unhesitatingly 
 in their father's deserted sick-room.* There they remained 
 from the beginning of the illness until his death. 
 
 The Archbishop of Paris, Monsigneur Christophe de 
 Beaumont, visited the king upon the 2d of May. " Great 
 precautions were taken," says the Baron de Besenval in his 
 " Memoires ; " " as soon as the archbishop appeared, the 
 Marechal de Richelieu was seen to leave the king's suite in 
 great haste, and go to meet him in the Salle des Gardes ; t 
 there he drew him aside, and they seated themselves upon a 
 bench. The marechal spoke with great earnestness, and 
 gesticulated vehemently; although his words could not be 
 heard, it was easy to imagine that he was trying to divert the 
 archbishop from the idea of the sacrament." 
 
 The king did not come to any determination at once. 
 Meanwhile the disease gained ground. In the bulletin of the 
 2-3d May, the physicians used the word " delirium," — an 
 outspoken avowal which angered the Due d'Aiguillon. 
 
 * Salle No. 126 of M. de Soulie's "Notice du Mus^e." 
 f No. 120 of the Notice du Mus6e. 
 
204 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 In the evening of the 4th, Madame du Barry was ushered 
 into the sick room. " Madame," said the king, " I am ill : I 
 know what I must do. I have no desire to go through the 
 Metz performance again : we must part. Go you to M. 
 d'Aiguillon's house at Rueil. Be assured that I shall always 
 retain the most affectionate regard for you." The following 
 day, at three in the afternoon, the favorite left Versailles, 
 never to return. 
 
 Louis XV. was on his death-bed. In vain he besought 
 his noble-hearted daughters to leave him ; for the first time 
 in their lives they disobeyed him. The old king, as Mercy- 
 Argenteau wrote to the empress, gave " many signs of 
 repentance and resignation." By a Christian death, he 
 atoned for the scandals of his long life. During the night 
 of the 5 -6th May, he asked for his confessor, the Abbe 
 Mondou. He received absolution, and at daybreak of the 
 6th he gave orders to have the sacraments brought to him. 
 Witnessing the greatest impatience for their arrival, he sent 
 M. de Beauvau many times to the window to see if the 
 messenger of God was not on the way. At last the clergy 
 approached with the sacraments. The dying king eagerly 
 threw off the bed-clothing, and struggled to a kneeling 
 posture, supporting himself against the head of the bed. 
 When the doctors urged him to cover himself up again, 
 " When my merciful God," said he, " confers upon such a 
 miserable wretch as I the honor of coming to seek him, the 
 very least that I can do is to receive him with all due 
 respect," 
 
Death of Louis XV. 205 
 
 After the communion, the Cardinal de la Roche-Aymon, 
 first chaplain, read aloud the sovereign's apology to his 
 people. " Although the king," the cardinal cried, " owes to 
 none but God an account of his conduct, he declares that he 
 is sorry that he has caused his subjects to blush for him." 
 Thereupon the moribund muttered in a voice, shaken with 
 suffering, " Say it again, Monsieur Chaplain ; say those 
 words again." 
 
 Let us confess that if Louis XV. did make a failure of 
 his life, he at least had the merit of knowing how to die 
 well. 
 
 A lighted candle in the chamber of death, which was to 
 be extinguished simultaneously with the king's life, was to 
 give the signal for the measures necessary to be taken, 
 and the orders to be given, when he had drawn his last 
 breath. On the loth May, 1774, at two in the afternoon, 
 the candle was extinguished. At once a great uproar, like 
 the rumbling of thunder, shook the arches of Versailles. 
 It was the mob of courtiers fleeing fi-om the antechamber 
 of the deceased to rush headlong to greet the new mon- 
 arch. He who was henceforth to be called Louis XVI. 
 fell instinctively upon his knees, with his wife at his side. 
 "O God," he cried, "guide and watch over us: we are 
 too young to reign ! " At six in the evening the new 
 king and queen set out for Choisy, and Versailles was 
 nought but a desert. 
 
 The Comte de Segur speaks thus, in his " Memoires," of 
 that sudden solitude: "Dazzled from childhood by the 
 
2o6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 brilliancy of the throne and the extent of the royal power, 
 and having witnessed the apparent zeal, the simulated ardor, 
 and the continual assiduity of the courtiers, and the unceas- 
 ing adulation, which was like a sort of worship, the last illness 
 and death of the king moved me to tears. What was my 
 amazement, on hastening to Versailles, to find myself quite 
 alone in the palace ; to observe on all sides, in the city and the 
 gardens, general indifference at least, if not a sort of delight! 
 The setting sun was forgotten ; all the worship was trans- 
 ferred to the newly risen luminary. Even before he was laid 
 in the tomb, the old monarch was relegated to the ranks of 
 his motionless and dumb predecessors. Thenceforth his 
 reign was ancient history, and every one was engrossed with 
 the future: the old courtiers thought of nothing but how 
 they could best maintain their influence under the new reign, 
 and the 3'^ounger generation were bent upon supplanting 
 them. The antidote of court prestige is a change of reign ; 
 then the heart is laid bare, and illusions cease for the time : 
 the dead king is nothing but a common mortal, and often 
 even less than that. There is no event better calculated to 
 teach a moral lesson and make the judicious reflect." 
 
 Just as Louis XV. was in the agony of death, the Due 
 de Liancourt noticed a valet of the wardrobe weeping. 
 " What ! " said the duke, " are you weeping for your master } " 
 " Oh, no ; I am weeping for my poor comrade, who has 
 never had the small-pox, and is going to die of it." 
 
 The king's body, hastily rolled up in the bed-clothes, was 
 placed in a triple casket of oak and lead. Certain priests 
 
Death of Louis XV. 207 
 
 were the only persons who were condemned to stay by the 
 mortal remains of the wretched king, in the lighted chapel. 
 On the 12th May, the casket was placed in a coach. 
 In the words of the Baron de Besenval, " twenty pages, and 
 fifty or more mounted grooms, carrying torches (neither the 
 attendants nor the coach being in mourning), composed 
 the entire funeral procession, which set off at a fast trot at 
 eight in the evening, and reached St. Denis at eleven 
 amid the jeers of the populace, who lined the road, and. 
 under cover of the darkness, gave full vent to the pro- 
 pensity for fooling, which is the dominant characteristic 
 of the French nature. Nor did they confine themselves 
 to that; for epitaphs, placards, and verses were scattered 
 broadcast, all tending to vilify the memory of the late 
 king." 
 
 A letter written by the Comtesse de BoufHers to Gus- 
 tavus III. on the 20th July, 1774, indicates what was at that 
 time the feeling of a part at least of the French nobility. 
 " After his death," says the comtesse, referring to Louis XV., 
 " he was deserted, as is commonly the case, and in a fashion 
 even more horrible than usual, on account of the nature of 
 his illness. He was buried very promptly ; his body passed 
 through the Bois de Boulogne towards midnight on its way 
 to St. Denis. ... As it passed along, derisive cries were 
 heard. The people shouted ' Ta'iaut ! Taiaut ! ' [Tally-ho !] 
 as when a stag is sighted, and burlesqued absurdly the tone 
 in which the king used to say it. If this report is true, it 
 shows much hard-heartedness ; but no one on earth is more 
 
2o8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 inhuman than indignant Frenchmen, and it must be ad- 
 mitted that they never had more cause to be indignant. 
 Never did a nation sensitive upon the point of honor, and 
 a nobiUty naturally proud, receive a more open and less 
 excusable insult than the late king inflicted upon us when 
 we saw him, not content at sixty years with the scandal he 
 had already caused by his mistresses and his harem, raise a 
 creature of the lowest sort from the very scum, and from 
 a life of infamy, to install her at court, admit her to sit at 
 table with his family, make her the absolute mistress of 
 favors and honors and rewards, of politics and laws, which 
 she has overturned, — a catalogue of calamities which we 
 can hardly hope to see repaired. One can but look upon 
 this sudden demise, and the complete disbandment of that 
 infamous troop, as a providential stroke." 
 
 If the noble classes spoke thus, what should we expect 
 to hear from the bourgeoisie and the Parisian populace, 
 always so fault-finding and so biting in its jibes? Their 
 feelings found vent in satirical verses after the style of the 
 following : — 
 
 "Te voila done, pauvre Louis, 
 Dans un cercueil a Saint-Denis ! 
 C'est 14 que la grandeur expire. 
 Depuis longtemps, s'il faut le dire, 
 Inhabile i donner la loi, 
 Tu portals le vain nom de roi, 
 Sous la tutelle, et sous I'empire 
 Des tyrans qui r^gnaient peur toi. 
 
Death of Louis XV. 209 
 
 Etais-tu bon? C'est un probl^me 
 
 Qu'on peut rdsoudre a peu de frais. 
 
 Un bon prince ne fit jamais 
 
 Le malheur d'un peuple qui I'aime, 
 
 Et Ton ne peut appeler bon 
 
 Un roi sans frein et sans raison, 
 
 Qui ne vecut que pour lui-mdme. 
 
 Faible, timide, peu sincere, 
 Et caressant plus que jamais 
 Quiconque avait su te deplaire, 
 Au moment que de ta colore 
 II allait ressentir les traits: 
 Voila, je crois, ton caract^re. 
 Ami des propos libertins, 
 Buveur fameux et roi c^l^bre 
 Par la chasse et par les catins : 
 Voila ton oraison fun^bre ! " * 
 
 Oh, ye kings ! Was not Bossuet justified in saying 
 that all your majesty is borrowed, and that, because you are 
 seated on the throne, you are none the less seated beneath 
 
 * " So there you are, poor Louis, in a coffin at St. Denis ! There grandeur 
 must be laid aside. For a long time, if I must say it, being very awkward on the 
 seat of government, you have simply borne the empty title of king, under the 
 guidance and dominion of the tyrants who reigned in your stead. 
 
 " Were you a good king ? That is a problem which can be solved at short 
 notice. A good king never brings misery upon his subjects who love him, nor 
 can one call him a good king who has no self-restraint or common-sense, and lives 
 only for himself. 
 
 " Weak, wavering, insincere, and lavishing marks of the greatest affection 
 upon any one who had incurred your displeasure, just when he was about to feel 
 the weight of it, — such, in my opinion, was your character. Fond of lewd talk, a 
 famous tippler, and a king celebrated as a huntsman and a rake •. there is a 
 funeral oration for you " 
 
 14 
 
2IO The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 the mighty hand and supreme power of God? What 
 reflections may we not make upon the emptiness of the 
 grandeur of this world, the wretchedness of the life of 
 courts, the recantations and baseness of flatterers, the 
 shameless calculations of ambition and self-interest, and 
 the foulness of the human heart ! What a lesson ! — the 
 frightful, horrifying, repulsive death of this monarch, who 
 had exhausted all the enjoyment and all the distraction to 
 be secured by luxurious living and debauchery ! What a 
 contrast between the flower-strewn boudoir, brilliantly lighted 
 and filled with sweet perfume, and the coffin in which lay 
 rotting that "something which has no name in our tongue"! 
 What spectacle could be at once more forbidding and more 
 instructive than the lamentable end of that prince who had 
 once received the surname of Bien-Aime, the well-beloved ? 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 THE PASSING OF MADAME DU BARRY. 
 
 n^HE fatal year, 1793, has come. Nineteen years have 
 J- passed since the death of Louis XV. But what 
 changes those nineteen years have seen! What awful 
 revolutionary changes ! No more thrones or altars ; no more 
 aristocracy. Versailles is a desert. In the gilded galleries 
 beds for the wounded are placed, and flocks graze in the 
 gardens. The fountains are dry, and grass is growing 
 between the flagstones of the courtyard. The marble 
 statues, the bronze groups, are overturned or mutilated. 
 The greatest crime in all French history has been perpe- 
 trated: the descendant of Saint Louis, the most Christian 
 king, has left his head upon the scaffold. 
 
 Amid all this chaos what has become of Madame du 
 Barry ? Where must we look for that woman who did so 
 much to help along the weakening of the monarchical prin- 
 ciple, and thereby to bring on the final catastrophe..'' Since 
 October, 1792, she has been in London. She is no emigre, 
 properly speaking, and had come to a satisfactory under- 
 standing with the ruling powers of the day, before going to 
 England to prosecute those who committed the robbery at 
 Luciennes. The culprits crossed the Channel, and Madame 
 du Barry has gone in quest of them. 
 
212 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 But before we come to this pursuit, let us go back a little, 
 and see what had been the favorite's career since the acces- 
 sion of Louis XVI. Exiled at first to the abbey of the 
 Bernardines de Pont-aux-Dames in the suburbs of Meaux, 
 she had obtained leave, after a few months, to return to her 
 dear pavilion of Luciennes. Her financial affairs, which 
 were badly involved, on account of her immense debts, were 
 almost put in order. She continued to live in great style, 
 and with a considerable establishment. Many of her courtier 
 friends had remained true to her; and although it would 
 appear that her royal lover had had more than one successor, 
 she retained a sort of worldly regard for his memory. For- 
 eigners of distinction were anxious to be presented to the 
 late king's mistress. 
 
 When the Emperor Joseph II. came to pay a visit to 
 his sister, Marie-Antoinette, he found his way to the pavilion 
 of Luciennes, and walked in the garden with the Comtesse 
 du Barry on his arm. 
 
 In her last years the comtesse made the conquest of an 
 accomplished gentleman, the Due de Cosse-Brissac. He was 
 a fine specimen of the thoroughbred nobleman, brave to 
 heroism, and exquisitely refined and courtly in manner. Not 
 only did he take Madame du Barry seriously, but he mani- 
 fested as much consideration and respect for her as if she 
 had been of the most lofty rank. To enthusiastic admiration 
 he added a most earnest and lasting affection. As MM. de 
 Goncourt have well said, there was in this attachment of M. 
 de Brissac such a complete surrender of himself, accom- 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 213 
 
 panied by such thoughtful and delicate attentions and such 
 deep adoration, that it causes one's judgment to waver as to 
 a woman who could make herself appear worthy of so noble 
 a passion. 
 
 Madame du Barry, still in the bloom of her beauty, believed 
 that she was destined to end her days in happiness and peace, 
 because she had disarmed her bitterest enemies by her sweet- 
 ness and her kind and playful disposition. Luciennes was 
 still a palace of delight. But the tempest was muttering in 
 the distance, and the comtesse, improvident to the last, had 
 reckoned without the tide of revolution, which was rising ever 
 higher, and was to end by submerging everything. 
 
 Madame du Barry did not abjure her allegiance to the 
 court or the monarchy. The woman of the people remained 
 a royalist, remembering that she was a countess, and had 
 been the king's mistress. In 1789, the day after the " Days 
 of October," she gave asylum to the body gardes du corps 
 at Luciennes, and looked after their wounds with great 
 solicitude. The queen thanked her for the courageous deed, 
 and the ex-favorite wrote to the wife of Louis XVL a letter, 
 quoted in the Memoirs of the Comte d'Allonville, in which 
 she thus expressed herself : " These wounded youths have 
 no regret except that they could not die for a princess so 
 deserving of universal homage as your Majesty. What I am 
 able to do for the brave fellows is far beneath their deserts. 
 I comfort them as best I can, and I look upon their wounds 
 with respect, when I think, Madame, that your Majesty might 
 not be living to-day but for their devotion. 
 
214 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 " Luciennes is yours, Madame ; for was it not your gener- 
 ous heart which restored it to me ? All that I have comes 
 to me from the royal family, and my gratitude is too great to 
 allow me ever to forget it. The late king, with a presenti- 
 ment of impending separation, forced me to accept from 
 him a thousand articles of value before sending me away 
 from him. I have had the honor already of placing these 
 treasures at your disposal, in the time of the Notables ; once 
 more I offer them to you, Madame, and most earnestly 
 entreat your acceptance of them. You have so many ex- 
 penses, and are so tireless in generous deeds ! " 
 
 In 1 79 1 Madame du Barry passed a few days in the man- 
 sion of the Due de Brissac at Paris. Thieves took advan- 
 tage of her absence from Luciennes to break into the pavilion 
 and steal the superb jewels which were in her chests. They 
 transported their plunder across the Channel. 
 
 The following year the Due de Brissac was murdered at 
 Versailles. He left a will, wherein he said, speaking of his 
 daughter and sole residuary legatee, Madame de Mortemart: 
 " I earnestly commend to her a person who is very dear 
 to me, and who may be brought to great suffering by the 
 catastrophes of the time. My daughter will find a codicil 
 containing my commands in this matter." 
 
 The codicil contained a considerable legacy to Madame 
 du Barry. " I beseech her," said the due, " to accept this 
 feeble proof of my attachment and my gratitude, my indebt- 
 edness to her being so much the greater in that I was the 
 involuntary cause of the loss of her diamonds ; and further- 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 215 
 
 more, even if she succeeds in recovering any of them from 
 England, the value of those unrecovered, and the expense of 
 the various journeys she has had to make in her search, and 
 of the premiums she will have to pay, will amount to quite as 
 much as this legacy. I beg my daughter to persuade her to 
 accept it. My knowledge of my daughter's heart gives me full 
 assurance that she will see my wishes in this regard punctu- 
 ally executed, whatever burdens may be imposed upon her 
 succession by my will and codicil, it being my desire that no 
 other legacy shall be paid until this one is fully discharged." 
 
 The theft of the jewels was destined to be fatal to 
 Madame du Barry. She was imprudent enough, even in 
 those days of jealousy and hatred, to attract public attention 
 to her wealth by posting upon the blank walls of Luciennes 
 and the neighborhood a placard, which read : " Two 
 thousand louis reward ; diamonds and jewels lost." Then 
 followed a full list of diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, and 
 sapphires. 
 
 Covetousness pricked up its ears : the village of Luciennes 
 had its club, and the report was circulated that the comtesse 
 possessed treasures without number, that inestimable wealth 
 was to be found in the pavilion, that it was the mine to which 
 the royalists came to fill their pockets, and that the comtesse 
 was to direct the counsels and provide funds for the 
 reactionaries. 
 
 M. Sardou has said, " When history takes to dramatic 
 writino-, it does it well." The real historical drama, which 
 has no alloy of fiction, but adheres to truth throughout, has 
 
2i6 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 its contrasts, its catastrophe, and its climax. Above all is it 
 certain to have its traitorous characters. You remember 
 Zamore, the Bengalese boy, whom the sovereign of Luci- 
 ennes held in her arms at the baptismal font, and whom 
 she had laden with benefactions, — the little darkie who 
 carried the parasol over her head, and whose inky visage 
 formed a fine background for the snow-white skin of the 
 gorgeous comtesse ? Oh, well ! the little wretch was a 
 traitor. Through his connection with the former major-domo 
 of Madame du Barry, he became the comrade of one Greive, 
 who thus described and signed himself : " Official defender of 
 the brave sans-culottes of Luciennes, friend of Franklin and 
 Marat, factionary and anarchist of the first rank, and the 
 arch-enemy of despotism in two hemispheres for twenty years 
 past." This odious gang followed the comtesse with the 
 keenness of hatred. She was a prey which the tigers, who 
 caught the smell of blood, soon found means to get their 
 claws upon. Zamore had sworn that he would send his 
 benefactress to the scaffold, and Zamore kept his word. 
 
 Madame du Barry went to England four times in search 
 of those who stole her jewels. Her last stay on that side of 
 the Channel lasted four months and a half, — from the middle 
 of October, 1792, to the early part of March, 1793. How 
 was it that this woman, who was never remarkable for per- 
 sonal bravery, conceived the fatal idea of returning to France ? 
 Was it that her fear that she might never again behold the 
 hidden treasures in the pavilion of Luciennes was stronger 
 than the dictates of prudence ? Or was the victim drawn on 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 217 
 
 by inexplicable fatality, by the resistless fascination of the 
 loadstone rock? 
 
 She left London on the 3d March, 1793, landed at Calais 
 on the 5th, was detained there waiting for new passports 
 until the i8th, and reached Luciennes on the 19th. She 
 found the doors of the pavilion sealed. Zamore and his 
 accomplices, the infamous band of servants to whom Ma- 
 dame du Barry had been so kind and gentle and generous, 
 continued with infernal zeal their hateful denunciations. 
 
 On the 2d June the Convention issued a decree in these 
 words : " The constituted authorities throughout the Repub- 
 lic will hold themselves in readiness to seize and place under 
 arrest all persons notoriously suspected of incivism." 
 
 Madame du Barry's persecutors assumed authority under 
 this decree to arrest her. Once she was released, and rein- 
 stated in her pavilion ; but the hatred of her foes knew no 
 discouragement. The wretches laid before the Convention 
 an address, in which, speaking in the name of the " Brave 
 sans-culottes of Luciennes," they demanded the arrest for 
 good and all of a woman who, they said, " had succeeded 
 by her great wealth and the blandishments which she had 
 learned at the court of a weak and immoral tyrant, and in 
 spite of her notoriously unpatriotic connections, in eluding 
 the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and had made of her 
 chateau the rallying point of tyrannical plots against Paris." 
 
 The Convention applauded this absurd buncombe, and 
 congratulated the commune of Luciennes upon its patriotic 
 spirit. The die was cast, and Madame du Barry was doomed. 
 
2i8 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 On the 2 2d September, surrounded by gendarmes, she left 
 the pavilion of Luciennes, which she was never to see again. 
 She was transferred to the prison of Sainte-Pelagie, where 
 she was confined in the cell which had been occupied by 
 Marie-Antoinette. 
 
 What gloomy presentiments, what terror, what sinister 
 thoughts, must have been hers! In her lonely cell, she who 
 was once the mistress of Louis XV. could muse upon the 
 fate of the mortal remains of her royal lover. Some days 
 earlier, on the loth August, the Convention had given 
 orders for the execution of its decree for violating the 
 sepulchres at St. Denis, — the same St. Denis which the 
 favorite used to look upon from the terrace at Luciennes. 
 They had exhumed " the former kings and queens, princes 
 and princesses," had broken open the coffins, and melted 
 down the lead. The body of Louis XV., with those of 
 Louis XIV. and his predecessors, was tossed at random 
 into a common trench. 
 
 The Comtesse du Barry shuddered. Now her turn had 
 come to die. On the yth December, 1793, at nine in the 
 morning, she appeared, trembling with terror, before the 
 revolutionary tribunal. Fouquier-Tinville, as public pros- 
 ecutor, opened the proceedings, and in his address gave full 
 vent to what he called " the indignation of an honest man 
 and a good patriot." He stormed and raved in that brutal, 
 bombastic jargon, disgusting and absurd, of which that 
 infamous epoch alone had the secret. He declared his 
 unwillingness, "from very modesty, to lift the veil which 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 219 
 
 ought to hide forever the unspeakable vices of the court." 
 The modesty of Fouquier-Tinville ! Heaven save the mark ! 
 
 Several of the former retainers of Madame du Barry, 
 Zamore at their head, were base enough to testify against 
 her. The death penalty was imposed. The poor creature's 
 cheek blanched, and her limbs shook. The gendarmes were 
 obliged to hold her so that she might not fall. On the 
 next day she was to take her place in the fatal tumbril, 
 the " tomb of the living," as Barrere named it. 
 
 Mad with fear, gasping for breath, the condemned passed 
 a night of frantic agony. She racked her brain to devise 
 some means of prolonging her life for a few hours, or even 
 minutes. She said that she had secrets to reveal, that she 
 would point out the hiding-places of all her jewelry and 
 hidden treasure at Luciennes. The public prosecutor's 
 proxy arrived. Like one who fears that she may forget 
 something, she went over singly all the articles which she 
 possessed, thinking that each additional word gave her a 
 second more of life. But the executioner was awaiting her : 
 she must go. 
 
 It was the 8th December, 1 793. Fifty-three days before, 
 another woman, a queen, had emerged from the same cell 
 in the same prison, also on the way to meet her doom. 
 The tumbril was foul : a plank to sit upon, and on the 
 plank not even a wisp of straw. Behind the victim stood 
 Sanson, the executioner, holding the ends of a thick cord, 
 with which the arms of the condemned queen were fastened 
 behind her back. A poor actress had loaned her a dress. 
 
220 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 so that she might present a decent appearance upon the 
 scaffold. And yet, in this poor garb, amid the jeers and 
 hooting of the mob, on a frosty morning in October, the 
 daughter of the Caesars was more sublime, more noble and 
 majestic, than upon the throne. Clothed in white, like a 
 spectre, her face of a deathlike pallor, except for a touch 
 of red upon the cheek-bones, bloodshot but tearless eyes, 
 hair bleached by sorrow, she remained to the last calm, 
 serene, and noble-hearted, gazing mildly and pityingly upon 
 the infernal uproar by which she was surrounded. For a 
 single instant only did her features betray emotion. As 
 the tumbril passed through Rue Saint Honore, opposite- the 
 Oratoire, a baby in its mother's arms threw a kiss to the 
 queen ; and at this greeting from an innocent child, Marie- 
 Antoinette wept. 
 
 Upon reaching Calvary, she gazed sadly upon that sacri- 
 legious spot, the scene of her husband's execution, the 
 accursed place where, twenty years earlier, had occurred the 
 catastrophe which foreboded the evil to come. She turned 
 her eyes towards the cemetery of La Madeleine, where the 
 victims of that casualty were interred, and where her own 
 headless body was soon to be laid. Then she cast a last 
 glance upon the Tuileries, which had held so much misery 
 for her, — the Tuileries, her first place of confinement; and 
 as she looked, she accidentally trod upon the executioner's 
 foot, and said, with queenly courtesy : " I beg your pardon. 
 Monsieur." She died; but it was a hero's, a martyr's death. 
 She died ; but her blood wrapped her in a new royal cloak, 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 221 
 
 and her severed head was encircled with a halo of glory 
 which will glow from generation to generation. She died ; 
 but the pure and radiant angels bore her white soul to 
 heaven ! 
 
 Madame du Barry did herself no more than justice. She 
 felt that it was not in her power to meet death as nobly as her 
 royal mistress had met it. In her case it was not the pass- 
 ing of a saint to heaven, but the expiation of a sinner. The 
 wife of Louis XVI. looked death calmly in the face; but the 
 mistress of Louis XV. had not the courage to do the same. 
 She was terrified, she sobbed, and uttered such heartrending 
 shrieks that even the pitiless Terror itself was touched for the 
 first time. As the cart passed in front of the Palais-Royal, 
 the victim noticed the balcony of a milliner's shop where 
 several of the women were watching the ghastly procession. 
 She recognized the house, — it was the same in which, as a 
 young girl, she had worked as a milliner's apprentice. Alas ! 
 why had she ever become Madame la Comtesse du Barry ? 
 
 Her face was by turns deathly pale and deeply flushed. 
 She struggled wildly with the executioner and his two 
 assistants, who could with difKculty keep her on the seat. 
 Her shrieks redoubled in force. " Life ! life ! " she cried ; 
 "give me my life, and I will give all my estate to the 
 nation!" Thereupon a man in the crowd retorted, "That 
 would be giving the nation only what already belongs to 
 it, for the tribunal has confiscated your property." A coal- 
 heaver, standing in front of the speaker, turned and struck 
 him. The victim renewed her entreaties. "My friends," 
 
222 The Last Years of Louis XV 
 
 she cried, " my friends, I have never harmed a soul ! In 
 Heaven's name I implore you to save me ! " 
 
 Who can say? Perhaps the knitting-women themselves, 
 the furies who licked the blood from the guillotine, might 
 have been moved by these pitiful appeals from the woman of 
 the people. This time it was not a queen who was about to 
 die: it was a countess, but a countess who had been a work- 
 woman. The horses were urged on, and the denouement 
 accelerated, to put an end to the sympathy of the mob. 
 
 At last the tumbril arrived upon the place, formerly 
 called Place Louis XV. On the spot where the statue of 
 the monarch used to stand, stood the scaffold on which his 
 mistress was to die. It was half after four. " Help ! " she 
 shrieked ; " help ! mercy, mercy, Monsieur the executioner, 
 one moment — " The knife fell, and Madame du Barry had 
 ceased to live. 
 
 Were we not justified in saying, as we did at the begin- 
 ning of this study, that history is one long funeral oration ? 
 Ah, there are tears in all things, as Virgil hath it, and what- 
 ever is mortal touches our soul I 
 
 "Sunt lacrymae rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt." 
 
 If one confines his attention to the superficial aspect of 
 an epoch, he remains unmoved and indifferent ; but let him 
 extend his investigations beneath the surface, make his way 
 into men's souls, listen attentively to the voices from beyond 
 the grave, to the lamentations and cries of agony issuing 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 223 
 
 from the gulf of the past, and he finds himself the prey of 
 unconquerable but helpful sadness. He learns, to use the 
 words of Bourdaloue, " that all the grandeur of which the 
 world boasts, and upon which the pride of men feeds ; that 
 the illustrious birth in which mortals take pride, the influence 
 which they assume to possess, the authority which they plume 
 themselves on, the success which they boast, the dignities 
 and honors in which they find their profit, and the beauty, 
 the valor, and the reputation which they idolize, — that all is 
 but a lie." 
 
 The lessons which history teaches are no less instructive 
 nor less eloquent than the best sermons of the finest preach- 
 ers. Every man's destiny has its moral, and no man dies 
 that there is not a lesson to be drawn from his death. It is 
 as if one were encompassed by a multitude of phantoms, 
 pale some, and others bleeding, whose tomb-like appearance 
 makes one tremble, and who say in their sepulchral accent : 
 'O man, remember that thou art dust, and to dust shalt 
 thou return." " Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in puU 
 verem reverteris." 
 
 There they stand, these women of Louis XV.'s court, 
 those royal mistresses, once so fawned upon, who appear once 
 more, and for the last time, and say to us in turn a last word. 
 
 " I," — it is the Comtesse de Mailly who speaks, — "when 
 I was cast off by an earthly king, found comfort at the feet 
 of the King of Heaven. I bitterly and sincerely grieved 
 for my sins, and God in his mercy vouchsafed to give 
 me time to repent." 
 
2 24 '^^^ Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 " I," says the Comtesse de Vintimille, "had barely crossed 
 the threshold of the accursed palace of Versailles, when I 
 was struck down as by a thunder-bolt, and died in giving 
 birth to the child of my sin." 
 
 " And I too," says the Duchesse de Chateauroux, " passed 
 away like the grass of the field, between sunrise and sunset. 
 Broken by insult and suffering, I lost my wretched sceptre ; 
 and just as I was on the point of assuming it again, I died, 
 in the flower of my youth, and shrouded in my shameful 
 triumph as in the most sombre of grave-clothes." 
 
 " In my twenty years of power," says the Marquise de 
 Pompadour, " I did not for one single moment know what 
 true happiness was. I had everything except esteem, which 
 cannot be bought. Beneath my scheming and my suppo- 
 sititious pleasures, I found nothing but emptiness. My 
 conscience spoke louder than my flatterers, and I realized my 
 own wretched condition. My life, so brilliant on the surface, 
 was filled with gloom and sadness within. As a sorceress 
 had foretold, I died of disappointment pure and simple." 
 
 " I," says the Comtesse du Barry, the last of the royal 
 mistresses, whose punishment was in a measure a summing 
 up of all the atonements, — "I paid dearly for the sweets of 
 luxury and debauchery; I knew not how to live or to die. 
 At a time when heroism had become common, I was weak 
 and cowardly, and trembled like a leaf upon the scaffold ! " 
 
 We have listened to the favorites, and it is now the turn 
 of the monarch whose shameful passion was the source of 
 all their woes. What says he ? " Like the Ecclesiast, I have 
 
The Passing of Madame du Barry. 225 
 
 seen everything under the sun, and have found that all was 
 vanity and vexation of spirit. I voluntarily became the 
 victim of guilty passions, which, when the brief period of 
 intoxication was past, left in the mind only grievous torpor 
 and a deeply felt void. I became disgusted with others and 
 with myself; I ceased to believe in the prestige of my own 
 crown, and despite my wealth and power, and my ability to 
 gratify all my whims, I became the very incarnation of that 
 corroding disease, ennui. If my weakness occasioned scan- 
 dal, bitter was my chastisement. I have been punished in 
 my own person and in my family, — punished as man and 
 as king." 
 
 When we study these lessons of history and of death in 
 the solitude of our hearts and minds, we may well reflect, 
 and upon reflection may esteem the problems of human 
 destiny less insoluble than they now seem; and when we 
 reach the point from which such matters should be regarded, 
 we shall discover, as Bossuet says, that that which seems 
 at first to be hopeless confusion, is in fact a perfect system, 
 hidden, to be sure, but of combinations admirably ordained 
 by Providence. Then worldly greatness will appear in its 
 true light, and we shall be conscious of feeling more tranquil, 
 less ambitious, and less inclined to complain of the unequal 
 dispensations of fate. The shades of princes and princesses, 
 of great lords and ladies, have a mysterious language of their 
 own, and all unite in repeating these words from the " Imita- 
 tion of Jesus Christ," the most touching and saintly of all 
 
 books except the Holy Gospel ; — 
 
 ■5 
 
2 26 The Last Years of Louis XV. 
 
 " It is vanity to do nought but amass wealth, and build one's 
 hopes thereon. 
 
 " It is vanity to do nought but strive after worldly honors, and 
 to raise oneself to the highest posts. 
 
 " It is vanity to follow only the desires of the flesh, and to love 
 that which will cause severe punishment to be visited upon us 
 hereafter. 
 
 " It is vanity to sigh for long life, and to take so little care to live 
 an honorable one. 
 
 " It is vanity to think only of the present, and not prepare for 
 the future. 
 
 "It is vanity to love only that which passeth so quickly away, 
 and not to strive with all our might to win a home in heaven, where 
 joy will endure forever." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Adelaide, daughter of Louis XV., 83 ; letter 
 to Madame Louise, 115. 
 
 Aiguillon, Due d', urges Madame du Barry to 
 oppose the Due de Choiseul, 109. 
 
 Aiguillon, Duchesse d', companionship with 
 Madame du Barry, 169; intimate associate 
 of Madame du Barry, 188. 
 
 Aix, Archbishop of, faithful friend of Made- 
 moiselle de Lespinasse, 65. 
 
 Alais, Bishop of, divides society into two 
 classes, 19. 
 
 Albon, Comtesse d'. Mademoiselle de Lespi- 
 nasse the illegitimate daughter of, 64. 
 
 Alembert d', court paid to, 15 ; first place in 
 public esteem belongs to, 53 ; a foundling, 
 53 ; dares to defy the Marquise du Deffand, 
 64; in love with Mademoiselle de Lespi- 
 nasse, 64. 
 
 Alsace, overflowing with joy, 136. 
 
 Ange, Mademoiselle d', appellation given 
 Madame du Barry by Comte Jean du 
 Barry, 97. 
 
 Anglomania, foes of, 14. 
 
 Anne of Austria, dislike of Louis XIII. for, 
 151. 
 
 Aiitifafonniers, 49. 
 
 Areopagus, the salon of Marquise du Deffand 
 an, 62. 
 
 Argenson, Marquis d', Louis' minister for 
 Foreign Affairs, 24 ; wretched fruits of 
 absolute monarchy, 25; wretched condition 
 of the people, 35. 
 
 Armaille, Comtesse d', beauty of Marie- 
 Antoinette, 125. 
 
 Art, women the acknowledged arbiters of, at 
 Paris, 41. 
 
 Artois, Comte d', 155; the beau idlal of 
 society men, 1S4. 
 
 Artois, Comtesse d', contrast between Marie- 
 Antoinette and, 182. 
 
 " Athalie," performance of, 147. 
 
 Atheism, intended only for a few thinkers, 
 74 ; a wretched dish, 75. 
 
 Aubertin, M. Charles, " L'Esprit public du 
 Dix-huitieme Si^cle," 33. 
 
 Auguste, Madame, dancer from the Opera, 58. 
 
 Auteuil, church of St. Laurent at, 98. 
 
 Ayen, Due d', 1 16. 
 
 Bachaumont, preaching h la grecque, 19; 
 
 inveighing against decrees, 23; rage for 
 
 arguments on finance and government, 71 ; 
 
 letter about Voltaire, 74; draws portrait of 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, 141. 
 " Barbier de Se'ville," 26. 
 Barbier, journal of, 71. 
 Barry, Comte Guillaume du, becomes the 
 
 nominal husband of Madame du Barry, 98 ; 
 
 compared with M. Lenormand d'Etioles, 
 
 197- 
 Barry, Comtesse du, triumph of, 2; speech in 
 boudoir of, 5 ; passion o£ Louis XV. for, 
 8; Louis XV the lover of, 12; overthrows 
 the Jansenists, 26; chosen as sultana of 
 harem of the Parc-aux-Cerfs, 93 ; birth cer- 
 tificate of, 94 ; true origin of, 96 ; daughter 
 of a peasant mother, 96 ; early history of, 
 96, 97 ; becomes the favorite of Louis XV., 
 97; presented by the Comtesse de Beam, 
 103; triumph of, 103, 104; non-approval of 
 the Marechal de Richelieu, 105 ; Horace 
 Walpole lukewarm towards, 106; urged 
 
228 
 
 Index. 
 
 to oppose the Due de Choiseul, 109; 
 the scandal of the age, 1 10 ; opposed by 
 the Due de Choiseul, 163; amazed at her 
 triumph over the Due de Choiseul, 167 ; 
 unlimited ascendency over Louis XV., 168; 
 companionship with the Duehesse d'Aiguil- 
 Ion, 169; civil bearing of Marie-Antoinette 
 towards, 169; enthroned like a legitimate 
 queen, 188; intimate associates of, 188 ; 
 Gustavus III. bestows gift on dog of, 188 ; 
 policy more dictatorial and more con- 
 sevative than that of IMadame de Pompa- 
 dour, 188; maltreats the Jansenists, 190; 
 fawned upon by Voltaire, 190; letter from 
 Voltaire, 190; provisions made for her 
 mother by, 192 ; lines addressed by Dorat 
 to, 195 ; compared with IMadame de Pom- 
 padour, 197 ; placed above Madame de 
 Pompadour, 198 ; parting with Louis XV , 
 204 ; exiled to abbey of the Bernardines de 
 Pont-aux-Dames, 212; conquest over the 
 Due de Cosse-Brissac, 212 ; letter to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 213; bequest from the Due de 
 Cosse-Brissac, 214; betrayed by Zamore, 
 216 ; arrested, 217 ; sent to prison of Sainte- 
 Pelagie, 218; condemned to death, 219; 
 terror at execution, 221; death of, 222, 
 last word of, 224. 
 
 Barry du, Comte Jean, seducer of Madame 
 du Barry when a young girl, 97. 
 
 Barry, Vicomte Adolphe du, married to a 
 daughter of the Marquis de Tounion, 198. 
 
 Barrere, " the tomb of the living," 219. 
 
 Barthelemy, M. Edouard de, 1:4. 
 
 Baschet, M Armand, 151. 
 
 Bautin, M., letter from Madame Geoffrin, 
 124. 
 
 Baviire, Dauphine de, 155. 
 
 Beam, Comtesse de, presents Madame du 
 Barry, 103. 
 
 Beaumarchais, affair against the Counsellor 
 Goezman, 26; the cynosure of every eye, 
 27 ; naivete of, 27 ; trusted with secret mis- 
 sion to England, 29. 
 
 Beaumont, Monseigneur Christophe de, Arch 
 bishop of Paris, 112; visit to Louis XV., 
 203. 
 
 Beauvais, Abbe de, censures libertines, 20; 
 Bishop of Senez, 201. 
 
 T.eauvau, Madame de, defies the l<ing, 10 
 
 Becu, Anne, mother of Madame du Barry, 94. 
 
 Becu, Jeanne, true name of Madame du 
 Barry, 96. 
 
 Belley, Bishop of, 75. 
 
 Benedict XIV., Pope, description of the Due 
 de Choiseul, 92. 
 
 Bernardines de Pont-aux-Dames, abbey of, 
 Madame du Barry exiled to, 212- 
 
 Besenval, Baron de, 45 ; lack of conjugal love 
 destructive of good morals, 46 ; visit of 
 Monseigneur Christoj^he de Beaumont to 
 Louis XV., 203 ; burial of Louis XV., 207. 
 
 Birabin, Jeanne de, godmother of Madame 
 du Barry, 95. 
 
 Blot, Comtesse de, power of Rousseau's pas- 
 sion, 51 
 
 Boileau, 63 
 
 Boismont, Abbe de, faithful friend of Made- 
 moiselle de Lespinasse, 65. 
 
 Bonhomme, M Honore, grief of Madame 
 Louise for Louis XV., 112. 
 
 Bontaric, M. de, picture of Louis XV., 85. 
 
 Bossuet, the majesty of kings borrowed, 209. 
 
 Boufilers, Due de, first husband of the Mare- 
 chale de Luxembourg, 54. 
 
 BoufHers, Madame de, correspondence with 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42, 44, 207 ; 
 idol of the Temple, 58. 
 
 " Bourbonnaise," chanson of the, 99. 
 
 Bourdaloue, 223. 
 
 Bourgeoisie, tremendous gulf between nobles 
 and, 15; better than the nobility, 30. 
 
 Bourgogne, Duehesse de, 155. 
 
 Breteuil, Baron de, ambassador to Sweden, 86. 
 
 Broglie, Comte de, leader of the " backstairs " 
 diplomatic body, 86 ; despatches of the 
 diplomats in secret sent to, 86; continues 
 to superintend after exile, 86. 
 
 Buffon, definition of love, 48. 
 
 Burg, the, Marie-Antoinette still the little 
 scholar of, 173. 
 
 Calas, sent to the wheel, 22, 190. 
 
 Campan, Madame, Mademoiselle Genet the 
 future, 81; memoirs of, S8, 89; account 
 of Madame Louise, iii; visits Madame 
 Louise at Convent of St. Denis, 115. 
 
 Capuchin, 65 
 
 Carmel, Mount, order of, 19. 
 
 Catherine II., Czarina, writes affectionate 
 letters to Madame Geoffrin, 60 ; admiration 
 of Diderot for, 74. 
 
Index. 
 
 229 
 
 Celadons, gray-haired, 11. 
 
 Cliambord, Comte de, 119. 
 
 Chamfort, definition of love, 47. 
 
 Chanteloup, pillar at, 3; in vogue, 10; place 
 of exile of Due de Choiseul, 10; the Due 
 de Choiseul exiled to, 165. 
 
 Chantilly, crowded, 10 ; seat of Due d'Orleans 
 and Prince de Conde, 10. 
 
 Charles V., 117. 
 . Chartres, Bishop of, first chaplain to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 134. 
 
 Chartres, Due de, 28 ; assumes the name of 
 " Philippe Egalite," i65. 
 
 Chartres, Duchesse de, 51. 
 
 Chartreuse, the, the Carthusian convent. Rue 
 d'Enfer, 77 ; Walpole seeks asylum at, 77. 
 
 Chastellux, Chevalier de, faithful friend of 
 Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, 65. 
 
 Chateaubriand, changes of the times, 90. 
 
 Chateauroux, Duchesse de, loi; last word 
 of, 224. 
 
 Chicaneau, 28. 
 
 Choiseul, Due de, falls from power, 3 ; Chan- 
 teloup the place of exile of, 10 ; impulsive, 
 voluble, and good-humored, 91 ; a follower 
 of Voltaire, 91 ; his character opposite 
 to that of Louis XV., 91 ; Baron de 
 Gleichen's opinion of, 92 ; Pope Benedict 
 XIV. 's description of, 92 ; Madame du 
 Barry urged to oppose, 109; welcomes 
 Marie-Antoinette, 138; imprudent in his 
 actions, 161 ; letters from Louis XV., 162, 
 165; imprudence of, 161, 162; opposition 
 to Madame du Barry, 163; opinion of 
 Jobez of, 163; turning fortunes of, 164, 
 sent into exile, 165 ; friendship of the court 
 for, 166; Marie-Antoinette indignant, and 
 Maria Theresa alarmed at fall of, 167. 
 
 Choiseul, Duchesse de, clever and virtuous, 
 56; her salon an aristocratic and intellec- 
 tual centre of the first order, 56, 59 ; not 
 disturbed by the sarcasms of Voltaire, nor 
 the diatribes of Rousseau, 56 ; letter about 
 Rousseau, 57 ; honorable, beautiful, true, 
 58; not always pretty, 58; Walpole's des- 
 cription of, 58, 
 
 Church, in state of decay, 21; opposition 
 against, 25 ; prelates sapping the under- 
 pinning of, 30. 
 
 Clement XIV., Pope, 115. 
 
 Clergy, body of, 17. 
 
 Clotilde, Madame, 155. 
 
 Colle, women have the upper hand among 
 Frenchmen, 41. 
 
 Com^die Franjaise, i85. 
 
 Comedie Italienne, 1S6. 
 
 Compiegne, abandoned, 10. 
 
 Conches, M. Feuillet de, early life of Marie- 
 Antoinette, 124. 
 
 Conde, Prince de, Villers-Cotterets and Chan- 
 tilly the seats of, 10. 
 
 Conti, Prince de, 28. 
 
 Constantinople, Comte Desalleurs ambas- 
 sador at, 86. 
 
 Corneille, heroines of, 51. 
 
 Corsica, annexed to France, 11. 
 
 Cosse-Brissac, Due de, legacy of, 94 ; conquest 
 of Madame du Barry over, 212; murder of, 
 214; bequest to Madame du Barry, 214. 
 
 Cosse, Duchesse de, dame d'aiours to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 133. 
 
 Crebillon Jils, 48. 
 
 Croy, Madame de, correspondence with 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42. 
 
 Cythera's isle, 51. 
 
 Cythera, veterans of, 11. 
 
 Dangeau, no successor found to, 9. 
 
 Dauphin of France, marriage of Marie- 
 Antoinette by proxy to, 127 ; letter from 
 Marie-Antoinette, 127, 128. 
 
 Dauphine of France, sec Marie-Antoinette. 
 
 Deffand, Marquise de, salon of, 3, 59 ; a mere 
 machine, 5 ; her salon the principal rival 
 of that of Madame Geoffrin, 62 ; as well- 
 informed as Madame Geoffrin is ignorant, 
 62 ; a power to be reckoned with, 62 ; her 
 salon a centre of intelligence, 63 ; " the 
 female Voltaire," 64 ; the incarnation of 
 the eighteenth century, 64 ; feared by Vol- 
 taire, 64; Mademoiselle de Lespinasse 
 the deadly foe of, 64; Mademoiselle de 
 Lespinasse first finds shelter with, 64 ; 
 rupture with Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, 
 65 ; yearning for religion, 67 ; letter to 
 Voltaire, 68 ; falls in love with Horace 
 Walpole, 69; letters to Horace Walpole, 
 105, 107, 143. 
 
 De Luynes, no successor found to, 10, 
 
 Demange, Joseph, see Mange, Joseph de. 
 
 Desalleurs, Comte, ambassador at Constan- 
 tinople, 85. 
 
230 
 
 Index. 
 
 Diderot, century of, 6; court paid to, 15; 
 
 admirers of, 36; opinion of atheism, 74; 
 
 admiration for Empress Catherine II., 74. 
 Dillon, type of the new France, 184. 
 Dorat, addresses lines to Madame du Barry, 
 
 195- 
 
 Drohojowska, Comtesse de, 119. 
 
 Dufresne, Marie- Antoinette reads tragedies of 
 Racine and fables of La Fontaine with, 124. 
 
 Dumonceau, M., provides for Madame du 
 Barry when a child, 96. 
 
 Dumouriez, 97. 
 
 Durfort, Marquis de, requests hand of Marie- 
 Antoinette for the dauphin of France, 127. 
 
 Egalite, Philippe, assumed name of the 
 
 Due de Chartres, 166. 
 Egmont, Madame d', correspondence with 
 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42, 43 ; 
 
 beautiful and clever, 43. 
 Elisabeth, Madame, the martyred saint, 155. 
 Encyclopedic, a " Tower of Babel," 6 ; women 
 
 the enemies of the, 41 ; Madame Geoffrin 
 
 gives money to found the, 60. 
 Encyclopedistes, work being done by, 66. 
 Eon, Chevalier d', in secret diplomatic corps 
 
 of Louis XV., 85. 
 fipinay, Madame d', definitions of love, 48. 
 Equality, begins to make its appearance, 15. 
 Esterhazy, Prince, unceremonious calls of 
 
 Maria Theresa upon, 122. 
 Etiquette, a custom simply, g. 
 Etiquette, Madame, name bestowed upon the 
 
 Comtesse de Noailles by Marie-Antoinette, 
 
 175- 
 Etioles, M. Lenormand d', compared with 
 Comte Guillaume du Barry, 197. 
 
 Falkland Islands, war in the, 164. 
 
 Fashion, women the acknowledged arbiters 
 of, at Paris, 41. 
 
 Faubourg Saint-Germain, too much attention 
 paid to mansions of the, 39. 
 
 Ferrucci, Mademoiselle Rosa, 125. 
 
 Florian, dedicates poem to the Due de Pen- 
 thiere, 183. 
 
 Fontenoy, Louis XV. victor of, 11. 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, public prosecutor of Ma- 
 dame du Barry, 218. 
 
 Fragonard, decorates pavilion of Luciennes, 
 1 93' 
 
 France, advanced civilization of, 3 ; nothing 
 to impede irresistible movement in path of 
 progress of, 4; Lorraine and Corsica an- 
 nexed to, II ; three estates in, 24. 
 
 Francis, Emperor, father of Marie-Antoinette, 
 122; affection for Marie-Antoinette, 121, 
 122; death of, 123. 
 
 Fran9ois I., 89; resistance to concordat of, 91. 
 
 Franklin, 2i6. 
 
 French society, dancing toward the abyss, 2. 
 
 Gabriel, designs new theatre at Versailles, 
 143- 
 
 Galerie des Glaces, courtiers waiting in, g. 
 
 Gallican Church, liberties of, 31. 
 
 Galon, L., vicar of Vaucoaleurs, 95. 
 
 Gassner, the clairvoyant, 123. 
 
 Genet, Mademoiselle, the future Madame 
 Campan, 81 ; impressed by gloom caused 
 by death of Marie Leczinska, 81 ; installed 
 as reader to Mesdames de France, 81. 
 
 Geoffrin, Madame, 3 ; salon of, 59 ; her power 
 a characteristic sign of the time, 59; Stan- 
 islas Poniatowski, king of Poland, a friend 
 of, 60 ; Empress Maria Theresa pays atten- 
 tion to, 60; Czarina Catherine II. writes 
 affectionate letters to, 60; loans money to 
 found the " Encyclopedic," 60 ; her manner 
 compared to style of La Fontaine, 61 ; 
 Walpole's letter to Lady Hervey about, 61 ; 
 the salon of the Marquise du Deffand the 
 principal rival to that of, 62; as ignorant 
 as Marquise du Deffand is well-informed, 
 62; journey to Poland, 123; letter to M. 
 Bautin, 124. 
 
 Gevaudan, beast of, 7. 
 
 Ghistelles, Princesse de, maid of honor to 
 Madame Louise, 114. 
 
 Gleichen, Baron de, Madame Geoffrin's man- 
 ner compared to La Fontaine's style, 61 ; 
 fable about elixir of life, 85 ; opinion of 
 the Due de Choiseul, 92 ; considers the 
 Due de Choiseul imprudent, 161, 162. 
 
 Goethe, 122 ; presentation of Marie-Antoinette 
 to the French, 134. 
 
 Goezman, Counsellor, affair of Beaumarchais 
 against, 26. 
 
 Goezman, Madame, 27. 
 
 Goffroy, M. A., "Gustave III. et la cour de 
 France," 43. 
 
 Golden Age, uncertain approach of, 5. 
 
Index. 
 
 231 
 
 Goncourt, MM. de, "L' Amour au XVIIIe. 
 siecle," 49; relations of Louis XV. with 
 Madame du Barry, 103. 
 
 Gontant, M. de, the State powerful, 24. 
 
 Grasset, M., study of Madame de Choiseul, 
 S8. 
 
 Greuze, decorates pavilion of Luciennes, 193. 
 
 Guibert, M. de, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse 
 falls in love with, 69. 
 
 Guinard, a page, 85 
 
 Guise, Due de, 161. 
 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42 ; corres- 
 pondence with French ladies, 42-43; be- 
 stows gift on dog of Madame du Barry, 
 188; letter from the Comtesse de Boufflers 
 to, 207. 
 
 Hardy, Prosper, Memoirs of, 31. 
 
 Helvetius, century of, 6 ; admirers of, 36. 
 
 Henriette, Madame, the people sigh for, 88. 
 
 Henri IV., 89. 
 
 Hervey, Lady, letter from Walpole about 
 Madame Geoffrin, to, 61. 
 
 History, lessons taught by, 223. 
 
 Holbach, Baron d', admirers of, 36 ; dinner- 
 parties of, 77. 
 
 Jansenists, overthrown by Madame du 
 Barry, 26 ; disappearance of, 26 ; maltreated 
 by Madame du Barry, 190. 
 
 Jesuits, regret at expulsion of, 3 ; overthrown 
 by Madame de Pompadour, 26 ; disappear- 
 ance of the, 26; women the friends of 
 the, 41. 
 
 Jews, better Christians than Voltaire, 76. 
 
 Jobez, M., opinion of the Due de Choiseul, 
 163. 
 
 Joseph II., Emperor, 212. 
 
 Julie, Sister, instructs Madame Louise at St. 
 Denis, 1 18. See MacMahon, Julienne de. 
 
 KiNSKY, Prince von, unceremonious calls of 
 Maria Theresa upon, 122. 
 
 La Barre, sent to the scaffold, 22, 190. 
 Labille, Madame du Barry, when a young 
 
 girl, in the employ of, 96. 
 Labord, M. de, igo; "Pandore"of, 191. 
 La Bruyere, wretched condition of the people, 
 
 35; restrictions of a "Christian and a 
 
 Frenchman," 71. 
 
 Lafayette, type of the new France, 184. 
 
 La Fontaine, Madame Geoffrin's manner 
 compared to style of, 61. 
 
 La Harpe, chosen as escort by Marechale de 
 Luxembourg, 53. 
 
 Lalli, 190. 
 
 La Madeleine, cemetery of, 220. 
 
 La Marck, Comte de, type of the new France, 
 184 ; merciless in ridiculing every one ugly 
 or dull, 184, 
 
 Lamath, type of the new France, 184. 
 
 Lamballe, Princesse de, one of the most 
 poetic and sympathetic souls of the age, 
 183 ; devotion to the Due de Penthievre, 
 183. ^ 
 
 Lavallee, M. Theophile, secret correspon- 
 dence of Louis XV., 87 ; opinion of the 
 " Parliament Maupeou," 189. 
 
 La Roche-Aymon, Monseigneur de, Arch- 
 bishop of Rheims and Grand Chaplain of 
 France, 142. 
 
 Larsonneur, arranges wardrobe of Marie- 
 Antoinette, 124. 
 
 Lauzun, Due de, the future Lovelace, 47 ; 
 memoirs of, 47 ; follows Madame du Barry, 
 97 ; type of the new France, 184. 
 
 Lebel, valet-de-chainbre of Louis XV., 97. 
 
 Leczinska, Marie, death of, 2 ; grief at death 
 of, 81 ; devotion of Louis XV. during last 
 illness of, 82. 
 
 Ledoux, builds the pavilion of Luciennes, 192. 
 
 Leopold, Archduke, marriage to a Spanish 
 infanta, 122. 
 
 Le Roi, M., custodian of library at Versailles, 
 96. 
 
 Le Roy, huntsman of Louis XV., 88 ; " a La . 
 Bruyfere on horseback," 88. 
 
 Lescure, M. de, monograph of, 63. 
 
 Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de, 3 ; salon of, 59 ; 
 deadly foe of the Marquise du Deffand, 
 64; D'Alembert in love with, 64; an ille- 
 gitimate daughter of the Comtesse d'Albon, 
 64; first finds shelter with the Marquise 
 du Deffand, 64 ; rupture with the Mar- 
 quise du Deffand, 65 ; futile love, 69. 
 
 Lesueur, preferred by Walpole to all painters 
 of his acquaintance, 77. 
 
 Letoriferes, M. de, 202. 
 
 Liancourt, Due de, 206. 
 
 Ligne, Prince de, definition of love, 47. 
 
 Lisbon, terrible earthquake in, 121. 
 
232 
 
 Index. 
 
 Literature, women the acknowledged arbiters 
 of, at Paris, 41 ; fills too great a place in 
 social intercourse, 53. 
 
 Lord's Prayer, dedicated to Louis XV., S. 
 
 Lorraine, annexed to France, 11. 
 
 Lorraine, Mademoiselle de, performs minuet 
 at new theatre at Versailles, 143 ; disturb- 
 ance caused by minuet of, 143, 144. 
 
 Louise, Madame, takes veil of Carmelite nun, 
 2, 19 ; daughter of Louis XV., 83 ; the edi- 
 fication of the age, no; pious life of, no, 
 in ; grief for Louis XV., 112 ; applies for 
 admission to the convent, 112; enters St. 
 Denis, 114; letters from Louis XV., 113, 
 114; letter from Madame Adelaide to, 115; 
 letter from Madame Sophie to, 115; visit 
 from Madame Campan at St. Denis, 115; 
 visit from Marie-Antoinette at St. Denis, 
 139; takes the veil, 157. 
 
 Louis XIII., dislike for Anne of Austria, 151. 
 
 Louis XV. no longer the " Well-Beloved," 2 ; 
 gazes uneasily at portrait of Charles I. of 
 England, 4 ; "After me the deluge," 5 ; sees 
 no good augury for future, 5 ; court out of 
 fashion at close of reign of, 8 ; passion for 
 Du Barry, 8 ; Versailles no longer trembled 
 before, 8; satirically called the "Well- 
 Beloved of the Almance," 8; Lord's Prayer 
 dedicated to, 8; the "Tsar of the Gauls," 
 10 ; a type of the old regime, 11 ; victor of 
 Fontenoy, 11; to be pitied rather than 
 blamed, 11; victory over Parliament, 12; 
 the lover of Du Barry, 12; hatred rather 
 than indifference towards, 12 ; skilled in the 
 science of government, 13; death feared by 
 Maria Theresa, 13 ; daughters of, 19 ; holds 
 Parliamentarians in holy horror, 23 ; has 
 not succeeded in governing tyrannically, 24 ; 
 realizes need of striking a vigorous blow, 
 25 ; believes himself more powerful than 
 Louis XIV., 26; trusts Beaumarchais with 
 secret mission to England, 29 ; crosses the 
 Pont-Neuf, 33 ; too prone to forget the 
 people, 39 ; ruled by women at Versailles, 
 41 ; bereavements of, 82 ; devotion to 
 Marie Leczinska during her last illness, 
 82 ; dangerous condition of, 82 ; much 
 attached to his four remaining daughters, 
 83 ; dominating sentiment a mixture of 
 apathy and heedlessness in heart of, 83 ; 
 tottering power of, 84; M. de Bontaric's 
 
 opinion of, 85 ; secret correspondence of, 
 87; does not lack intelligence, 87; still 
 beloved by his people, 88 ; sympathy of 
 the Comte de Segur for, 89, a shrewd and 
 perspicacious observer, 91 ; his character 
 opposite to that of tlie Due de Choiseul, 
 91 ; Madame du Barry becomes the favor- 
 ite of, 97 ; secret visits to the Parc-aux- 
 Cerfs, 103 ; grief of Madame Louise for, 
 112; gives consent for Madame Louise to 
 enter the convent, 113; letters to Madame 
 Louise, 113, 114; received Marie-Antoi- 
 nette, 138; letter to the Due de Choiseul, 
 162; timidity of, 164; sends the Due de 
 Choiseul into exile, 165 ; unlimited ascend- 
 ency of Madame du Barry over, 168 ; sends 
 members of Parliament into exile, 189 ; 
 desires more seclusion in his old age, 
 192; visit to the pavilion of Luciennes, 
 193 ; freedom at the pavilion of Luciennes, 
 196 ; failing health of, 200; stricken at Petit- 
 Trianon, 202; devotion of his daughters to, 
 203 ; parting with Madame du Barry, 204 ; 
 death-bed of, 204 ; death of, 205 ; deserted 
 at death, 205 ; burial of, 207 ; no respect 
 felt for, 209, 210; last word of, 224, 225. 
 
 Louis XVI., too young, 13; executed, 220. 
 
 Love, conjugal, least common form during 
 reign of Louis XV., 46 ; Chamfort's defi- 
 nition of, 47 ; Prince de Ligne's definition 
 of, 47 ; Buffon's definitioi\ of, 48; Madame 
 d'Epinay's definition of, 48. 
 
 Luciennes, ch&teau of, given by Louis XV. 
 to Madame du Barry, 104. 
 
 Luciennes, Pavilion of, preferred by Louis 
 XV. to sumptuous abode of Louis XVI., 
 192; built by the architect Ledoux, 192; 
 decorated by Joseph Vernet, Greuze, and 
 Fragonard, 193; location of, 193; descrip- 
 tion of, 193; visit of Louis XV. to, 193; 
 curiosities contained in, 194; Zamore ap- 
 pointed governor of, 194; freedom of Louis 
 XV. at, 196. 
 
 Lulli, writes music for the opera "Persee," 
 
 143- 
 Luxembourg, Madame la Marechale de, cor- 
 respondence with Gustavus III., king of 
 Sweden, 42 ; chooses La Harpe for her 
 escort, 53 ; Due de BoufHers the first hus- 
 band of, 54 ; hailed as the mother of Love, 
 54 ; of great service to morals of republic. 
 
Index. 
 
 233 
 
 SS; fascinates Rousseau, 55; conversation 
 does not scintillate with wit, 55 ; salon an 
 aristocratic centre, 59; intimate associate 
 of Madame du Barry, 188. 
 
 MacMahon, Julienne de, becomes " Sister 
 Julie," at monastery of St. Denis, 118. 
 
 Mailly, Comtesse de, last word of, 223. 
 
 " Maison Rouge," house given by Madame du 
 Barry to her mother, 192. 
 
 Mange, Joseph de, godfather of Madame du 
 Barry, 95. 
 
 Marat, 216. 
 
 Marck, Madame de la, correspondence with 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42, 44. 
 
 Maria Theresa, fears death of Louis XV., 
 13 ; overwhelms Madame Geoffrin with at- 
 tention, 60; a woman of genius and of 
 heart, 121 ; ambition for Marie-Antoinette, 
 124; sorrow at parting from Marie-Antoi- 
 nette, 126, 12S; letters of advice to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 131, 168, 170, 178, 180; letters 
 from the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, 152, 
 167,176, 179, 181, 200, 201; letters from 
 Marie-Antoinette, 160, 169, 185 ; alarmed 
 at the fall of the Due de Choiseul, 167 ; 
 letters to the Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, 
 170, 177, 186 ; striking characteristics of, 
 172. 
 
 Marie-Antoinette, bedside reception of, 2, tog ; 
 birth of, 121; early life of, 121, 122; her 
 love for Versailles, 126; to be dauphine of 
 France, 126 ; letter to the dauphin of 
 France, 127, 128; takes leave of her fam- 
 ily, 130 ; letters of advice from her mother, 
 131, i68, 170, 178, 180; presented to the 
 French, 134, 135; triumphal journey of, 
 137; welcomed by the Due de Choiseul, 
 138 ; received by Louis XV., 138 ; visits 
 Madame Louise at St. Denis, 139 ; arrival 
 at palace at Versailles, 140 ; portrait drawn 
 by Bachaumont, 141 ; marriage ceremony 
 of, 142 ; the object of a delirious admira- 
 tion, 150; married life of, 155; snares and 
 pitfalls beset her path, 159 ; lettei 1 to Maria 
 Theresa, 160, 169, 185; indignant at fall of 
 the Due de Choiseul, 167 ; civil bearing 
 towards Madame du Barry, 169 ; a victim 
 of politics, 171 ; the little scholar of Schbn- 
 brunn and the Burg, 173 ; still a mere child, 
 174; surrounded by enemies, 176; partic- 
 
 ularly bitter against " Mesdames," 177 ; still 
 the idol of court and nation, 182; con- 
 trasted with the Comtesse de Provence and 
 the Comtesse d'Artois, 182 ; everywhere 
 stands first, 182 ; attends ball in apartments 
 of the Comtesse de Noailles, 1S4 ; visits the 
 cathedral of Notre Dame, the church of 
 St. Genevieve, and the palace of the Tuile- 
 ries, 185; seemed truly happy, 186; letter 
 from Madame du Barry, 213 ; execution of, 
 219. 
 
 Marivaux, plays of, 41 ; " La Reunion des 
 Amours," 48. 
 
 Marmontel, court paid to, 15. 
 
 Marigny, Marquis de, title given to Abel 
 Poisson, 198. 
 
 Marsan, Princesse de, 41. 
 
 Martin, M. Henri, phenomenon in the court, 
 165. 
 
 Massillon, wretched condition of the people, 
 35- 
 
 Maupeou, Chancellor, pamphlets against, 10; 
 urges Madame du Barry to oppose the Due 
 de Choiseul, 109, 189, 190. 
 
 Maximilian, Archduke, proxy for the dauphin 
 of France at his marriage to Marie-Antoi- 
 nette, 127. 
 
 Mazarin, 91. 
 
 Mercy-Argenteau, Comte de, ambassador at 
 the Court of Versailles, 151 ; letters to 
 Maria Theresa, 152, 167, 176, 179, 181, 200, 
 201 ; letters from Maria Theresa, 170, 177, 
 186; a model for diplomatists, 173; char- 
 acteristics of, 173. 
 
 Merimee, Prosper, 56. 
 
 Mesdames de France (the king's daughters), 
 Mademoiselle Genet installed as reader to, 
 81 ; Marie- Antoinette particularly bitter 
 against, 177 ; devotion to Louis XV., 203. 
 
 Mesmes, Madame de, correspondence with 
 Gustavus III., king of Sweden, 42. 
 
 Metastasio, Italian poet, 121. 
 
 Mirabeau, Marquis de, writes in regard to 
 the clergy, 18. 
 
 Mirepoix, Marechale de, considers Madame 
 Louise a madwoman, n6 ; intimate associ- 
 ate of Madame du Barry, 188. 
 
 Mondou, Abbe, the confessor of Louis XV., 
 204. 
 
 Montagu, George, letter from Horace Wal- 
 pole, describing Madame du Barry, 106. 
 
234 
 
 Index. 
 
 Mortemart, Madame de, daughter of the Due 
 de Cosse-Brissac, 94. 
 
 Montesquieu, three estates in France, 24. 
 
 Montrable, Marquise de, title given by Ma- 
 dame du Barry to her mother, igi ; provis- 
 ions made by Madame du Barry for, 192. 
 
 Moreau le Jeune, beautiful aquarelle of, 193. 
 
 Mortemart, Madame de, daughter of the Due 
 de Cosse-Brissac, 214. 
 
 Mouy, M. Charles de, 61. 
 
 Mozart, the child Marie-Antoinette plays with, 
 122. 
 
 Musee du Louvre, 193. 
 
 Narbonne, Comtesse de, 153. 
 
 Nivemais, Due de, 41. 
 
 Noailles, Comte de, type of the new France, 
 184. 
 
 Noailles, Comtesse de, 41 ; maid of honor to 
 Marie- Antoinette, 133; Marie-Antoinette 
 begs her to be her guide, 135 ; balls given in 
 apartments of, 184. 
 
 Nobility, two parties in, 14. 
 
 Nobles, tremendous gulf between bourgeoisie 
 and, 15. 
 
 Notre Dame, Marie-Antoinette visits cathe- 
 dral of, 185. 
 
 " Nouvelle Heloi'se," gives new turn to the 
 erotic morals of France, 51. 
 
 Noverre, Marie-Antoinette dances with, 124. 
 
 Noyon, Bishop of, assemblage of the leading 
 nobles at house of, 144. 
 
 CEiL-DE-B(EUF, courtiers about doors of the, 
 
 118. 
 Ogny, M. d', director of secret post-office, 86. 
 Orleans, Due d', Villers-Cotterets and Chan- 
 
 tilly the seats of, 10. 
 
 Palfy, Count, unceremonious calls of Maria 
 Theresa upon, 122. 
 
 " Pandore," of M. de Labord, igi. 
 
 Parc-aux-Cerfs, partially suppressed, 83 ; 
 orgies of, 87 ; a harem whose inmates were 
 constantly changing, 93 ; secret visits of 
 Louis XV. to, 103. 
 
 Paris, the fountain-head of public opinion, 2 ; 
 famous salons of, 53. 
 
 Parliamentarians, occupy position midway be- 
 tween greatest nobles and the bourgeoisie, 
 23 ; held in holy horror by Louis XV., 23. 
 
 " Parliament Maupeou," 26 ; discredited from 
 start, 26 ; an entirely passive body, 189. 
 
 Parliament of Paris, 25. 
 
 Parliament, victory of Louis XV., over, 12 ; 
 has become almost Republican, 91. 
 
 Parma, Duchess of, 88. 
 
 " Pavilion de I'fichange," 133 ; Marie-Antoi- 
 nette presented to the French at the, 134. 
 
 Penthievre, Due de, the chdteau of Luciennes 
 purchased from, 104 ; devotion of the Prin- 
 cesse de Lamballe to, 183; Florian dedi- 
 cates poem to, 183. 
 
 Perreyve, Abbe, 125. 
 
 " Persee," performance in the new theatre at 
 Versailles of the opera, 143. 
 
 Petit-Trianon, Louis XV. stricken at, 202. 
 
 Philosophes, distrust of their doctrines, 2 ; foes 
 of, 14 ; female, 41 ; heroes of the hour, 72 ; 
 Walpole's opinion of, 73 ; Walpole cannot 
 accustom himself to, 76. 
 
 Place Louis XV., celebration of the dauphin's 
 nuptials at the, 147 ; catastrophe at the, 
 148 ; place of execution, 222. 
 
 " Plaideurs," of Racine, 28. 
 
 Poisson, Abel, transformation into the "Mar- 
 quis de Marigny," 198. 
 
 Poland, first partition of, 196. 
 
 Pompadour, Madame de, 23 ; overthrew the 
 Jesuits, 26; compared with Madame du 
 Barry, 197 ; Madame du Barry placed 
 above, 198 ; last word of, 224. 
 
 Poniatowski, Stanislas, king of Poland, 60 ; 
 friend of Madame Geoffrin, 60 ; visit from 
 Madame Geoffrin, 123. 
 
 Pont-Neuf, Louis XV. crosses the, 33. 
 
 Provence, Comte de, 155 ; a skilful politician, 
 176. 
 
 Provence, Comtesse de, contrast between 
 Marie-Antoinette and, 182. 
 
 Proyart, Abbe, 119, 158. 
 
 " Pucelle," of Voltaire, 22. 
 
 QuiNAULT, writes words for the opera " Per- 
 see," 143. 
 
 Quincerot, M. d'Haranguier de, equerry of 
 Madame Louise, 114. 
 
 Racine, " Plaideurs " of, 28 ; heroines of, 51. 
 Rangon, Mademoiselle, assumed name of 
 
 Madame du Barry, 96. 
 Raynal, court paid to, 15. 
 
Index. 
 
 235 
 
 Regnaud, Memoirs of, 31. 
 
 Richelieu, Marechal de, 20 ; frivolous, 43 ; 
 approves of Madame du Barry, 105. 
 
 Roche-Aymon, Cardinal de la, at death-bed 
 of Louis XV., 205. 
 
 Rohan, Prince Louis de, remarks to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 136. 
 
 Romance, quite out of date, 47. 
 
 Rome, patrician ladies of ancient, 42. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, century of, 6; pupils 
 of, 42 ; passion of, 52 ; first place in public 
 esteem belongs to, 53 ; the son of a clock- 
 maker, 53 ; fascinated by Madame la Mare- 
 chale de Luxembourg, 55. 
 
 St. Anne, convent of, 96. 
 St. Denis, Carmelite monastery at, 113; Mad- 
 ame Louise enters, 114; to be seen from 
 
 the pavilion of Luciennes, 196 ; Louis XV. 
 
 buried at, 207. 
 St. Elisabeth, Convent of, mother of Madame 
 
 du Barry comfortably located at, 192. 
 Sainte-Beuve, calls Le Roy " a La Bruyjre 
 
 on horseback," 88. 
 Sainte-Pelagie, Madame du Barry sent to the 
 
 prison of, 218. 
 St. Genevieve, Marie-Antoinette visits church 
 
 of, 185. 
 Saint-Germain, Comte de, supposed to possess 
 
 elixir of life, 85. 
 St. Germain, to be seen from the pavilion of 
 
 Luciennes, 196. 
 St. Laurent, church of, 98. 
 Saint Louis, cross of, 16. 
 Saint-Priest, M. de, member of secret body, 
 
 86. 
 St. Roch, Church of, 66. 
 Sainville, Marie-Antoinette studies elocution 
 
 with, 124. 
 Salic law, women take sweet revenge for, 41. 
 Salle des Gardes, 203. 
 Salons, famous ones of Paris, 53 ; arouse the 
 
 admiration of all Europe, 65. 
 Sanson, the executioner of Marie-Antoinette, 
 
 219. 
 Sardou, M., 215. 
 Sartine, M. de, 28. 
 Saulx-Tavannes, Comte de, knight of honor 
 
 to Marie-Antoinette, 134. 
 Schbnbrunn, Marie - Antoinette the little 
 
 scholar of, 173. 
 
 Schutteren, arrival of Marie-Antoinette at, 
 /33- 
 
 Segur, Comte de, 14; tremendous gulf be- 
 tween nobles and bourgeoisie, 1 5 ; sympathy 
 for Louis XV., 89; old social structure 
 undermined, 90; type of the new France, 
 184. 
 
 Senez, Bishop of, see Beauvais, Abbe de. 
 
 Senlis, Bishop of, 142. 
 
 Seven Years' War, repetition likely, 165. 
 
 Sevigne, Madame de, 62 ; the personification 
 of the seventeenth century, 64. 
 
 Societe du Moment, 49. 
 
 Society, divided into two classes, 19; picture 
 of, at the close of reign of Louis XV., 44 ; 
 perverse, frivolous, and guilty, 49 ; rotten to 
 the core, 78. 
 
 Sophie, Madame, daughter of Louis XV., 83 ; 
 letter to Madame Louise, 115. 
 
 Strasbourg, University of, Goethe a student 
 at, 134. 
 
 Taine, M., " Les Origines de la France con- 
 
 temporaine," 16. 
 Talmont, Madame de, 41. 
 Tarouka, Due de, lays wager with Empress 
 
 Maria Theresa, 121. 
 Terney, Abbe du, confessor of Madame 
 
 Louise, 113. 
 Terray, Abbe, urges Madame du Barry to 
 
 oppose the Due de Choiseul, 109. 
 Tesse, Cotnte de, first equerry to Marie- 
 Antoinette, 134. 
 Therese-Augustine, Sister, name assumed by 
 
 Madame Louise after entering monastery 
 
 of St. Denis, 157. 
 Thiers, Baron de, 188. 
 Tournon, Marquis de, daughter married to 
 
 Vicomte Adolphe du Barry, 198. 
 Troyes, Bishop of, 158. 
 Tuileries, Marie-Antoinette visits palace of 
 
 the, 185. 
 Turgot, faithful friend of Mademoiselle de 
 
 Lespinasse, 65. 
 
 Van Dyke, 188. 
 Van Swieten, 186. 
 Vaubernier, Jean-Jacques Gomard de, father 
 
 of Madame du Barry, 94. 
 Vergennes, M. de, member of secret body, 
 
 86. 
 
236 
 
 Index. 
 
 Vermond, Abbe de, preceptor of Marie- 
 Antoinette, 126. 
 
 Vernet, Joseph, decorates pavilion of Lu- 
 ciennes, 193. 
 
 Versailles, still retains prestige, 2 ; no longer 
 trembled before Louis XV., 8 ; affairs still 
 decorously conducted at, 8 ; an essentially 
 royal city, 9; ladies from, 16; marble stair- 
 way at, 18 ; Louis XV. ruled by women at, 
 41 ; cabinet of, 87 ; love of Marie-Antoi- 
 nette for, 126; arrival of Marie-Antoinette 
 at palace at, 140; new theatre opened at, 
 143 ; a desert, 211. 
 
 Vice, revolting in one whose hair is gray, 82. 
 
 Victoire, Madame, cabinet of, 82 ; daughter 
 of Louis XV., 83. 
 
 Vien, paintings by, 193. 
 
 Villers-Cotterets crowded, 10; seat of Due 
 d'Orleans and Prince de Conde, 10. 
 
 Vintimiile, Comtesse de, last word of, 224. 
 
 Virgil, 222. 
 
 Voltaire, condemnation of, 3 ; century of, 6 ; 
 disciples of, 22 ; " Pucelle " of, 22 ; first 
 place in public esteem belongs to, 53 ; the 
 son of a notary, 53 ; fears the Marquise du 
 Deffand, 64 ; letter from the Marquise du 
 Deffand, 68 ; calls Catholic religion infam- 
 ous, 74 ; letter of Bachaumont's about, 74 ; 
 builds Catholic church, 75 ; Jews better 
 Christians than, 76; Due de Choiseul a fol- 
 lower of, 91 ; fawns upon Madame du 
 Barry, 190 ; letter to Madame du Barry, igo. 
 
 Von der Burg, the palace, 127. 
 
 Walpole, Horace, saying of, 7 ; writes on 
 distress at court, 10; thinlis literature fills 
 too great a place in social intercourse, 53 ; 
 picture of Duchesse de Choiseul, 58; letter 
 to Lady Hervey about Madame Geoffrin, 
 61 ; the Marquise du Deffand falls in love 
 with, 69; atheists proclaiming against kings 
 as against priests, 71 ; opinion of the 
 philosophes, 73; opinion of atheism, 75, 
 cannot accustom himself to the philosophes, 
 76 ; laughing gone out of fashion, 76 ; seeks 
 asylum at the Chartreuse, 77; prefers Le- 
 sueur to all painters of his acquaintance, 
 77 ; grows melancholy over spirit of the 
 time, 78 ; letters from the Marquise du 
 Deffand, 105, 107, 143: letter to George 
 Montagu describing Madame du Barry, 
 io5. 
 
 Weber, leave-taking between Marie-Antoi- 
 nette and her family, 130. 
 
 Women, coming to play a more important 
 part, 41 ; rule Louis XV. and his ministers 
 at Versailles, 41 ; acknowledged arbiters of 
 fashion, literature, and art, at Paris, 41 ; 
 take sweet revenge for Salic law, 41 ; have 
 upper hand among Frenchmen, 41 ; friends 
 of the Jesuits, 41 ; enemies of the " En- 
 cyclopedic," 41 ; politicians, 42. 
 
 Zamore, the living toy, 194 ; appointed gov- 
 ernor of the pavilion of Luciennes, 194 ; 
 sends Madame du Barry to the scaffold, 
 216. 
 
-*■