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THE GUARDIAN OF
MARIE ANTOINETTE
LETTERS FROM THE COMTE DE MERCY-
ARGENTEAU, AUSTRIAN AMBASSADOR
TO THE COURT OF VERSAILLES, TO
MARIE THERESE, EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA
1770-1780
BY
LILLIAN C, SMYTHE
ILLUSTRATED WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS,
PHOTOGRAPHS, (FACSIMILE LETTERS, ETC.
VOLUME II
NEW YORK
DODD MEAD AND COMPANY
1902
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
CONTENTS
VOL. II
CHAPTER I
PAGE
TAKING THE CENSUS— LOUIS XVI.— BANISHMENT
OF MADAME DU BARRY — MESDAMES AND THE
SMALLPOX 363
CHAPTER II
PAPERS OF LOUIS XV. — HIS WILL — REVENUES OF
QUEENS OF FRANCE — FALL OF TERRAY — LIBEL
AGAINST MARIE ANTOINETTE . . . .385
CHAPTER III
COURT BALLS — THE ARCHDUKE MAXIMILIAN —
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER DRESS— HORSE-
RACING — THE CORONATION .... 4O3
CHAPTER IV
INDISCRETIONS OF MARIE ANTOINETTE — SON OF
THE COMTE D'ARTOIS — DAILY LIFE OF THE
QUEEN 421
vi Contents
CHAPTER V
PAGE
THE WINTER OF 1 77 5— COMTESSE JULES DE
POLIGNAC— DEATH OF THE PRINCE DE CONTI . 433
CHAPTER VI
AMUSEMENTS OF THE QUEEN — GAMBLING — THE
PRINCE DE LIGNE 450
CHAPTER VII
MARIE ANTOINETTE'S DEBTS — THE RACES AT
SABLONS — ABBE GEORGEL — GAMBLING AT
VERSAILLES 466
CHAPTER VIII
FORGED LETTERS — ARRIVAL OF THE EMPEROR
JOSEPH II. IN PARIS — HIS EXAMINATION INTO
THE STATE OF FRANCE 483
CHAPTER IX
JOSEPH II. IN PARIS 498
CHAPTER X
FARO— THE FRENZY OF GAMBLING— BAGATELLE . 51 5
Contents vii
CHAPTER XI
PAGE
BAVARIA — JOSEPH II. AS STATESMAN— THE QUEEN
AND HER PLEASURES 53©
CHAPTER XII
DECLARATION OF WAR WITH GREAT BRITAIN —
VOLTAIRE IN PARIS 547
CHAPTER XIII
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN — RECEPTION BY LOUIS XVI.
— DEATH OF VOLTAIRE 565
CHAPTER XIV
MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF LOUIS XVL-— WAR
DECLARED BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND PRUSSIA . 581
CHAPTER XV
THE WAR WITH ENGLAND— ITS COURSE . . -597
CHAPTER XVI
BIRTH OF MARIE ANTOINETTE'S CHILD — THANKS-
GIVING OFFERINGS 614
viii Contents
CHAPTER XVII
PAGE
SIEGE OF GIBRALTAR— MARIE ANTOINETTE HAS
THE MEASLES — LAFAYETTE AND PAUL JONES
—TROUBLE IN IRELAND 63O
CHAPTER XVIII
THE FRENCH FLEET — FINANCES — ECONOMY AT
COURT 646
CHAPTER XIX
NECKER — TAXATION — NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY
— MERCY-ARGENTEAU GOVERNOR OF THE
NETHERLANDS 662>
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOL. II
FLORIMOND CLAUD, COMTE DE MERCY-ARGENTEAU {Photogravure)
Frontispiece
{From the portrait noiv at tlic Clidtean d'Argentvaii.)
To face page
THE DUCHESSE DE MAZARIN . . 366
{From the iiuiiin'iire at the Chdicuit (f .Irgcittcan.)
LOUIS XVL .... . 378
{From the portrait i;iven by the King to the Comic dc Mcrcy-Argcnlean).
THE DUG DE CHOISEUL . . 366
{From the tniiiialitre at tl:e CInilcnu d' .irgenteaii.)
LETTER FROM JOSEPH H., EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA, TO THE COMTE
DE MERCY-ARGENTEAU, ON CONFERRING THE ORDtR OF THE
GOLDEN FLEECE . 428
{From the origitial dneinit:iit at the Clniltau d'Argeittcait.)
LOUIS RENE EDOUARD, CARDINAL DE ROHAN . 476
{From an engraving by I'oyc Ic J eune.)
JOSEPH II., EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA . . 492
{From the portrait givoi by the Emperor to the Comtc de Mercy-Argentcau.)
THE COMTE D'ARTOIS . . , .524
{From an cns^raving by Fcsehi.)
VOL. II. i'^ b
X Contents
To face page
THE COMTE DE PROVENCE . . 560
{From an engraving by fcrili'.)
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 572
{From an engraving Ijy Aug. dc St. Aubin ajlcr C. N. Cochin.)
VOLTAIRE . , 576
(From nn engraving by N. dc Lattnay after C. P. Mai dlicr.)
MARIE THERESE, EMPRESS OF AUSTRIA . 604
{From L'lc portrait given by (he Empress to Ihc Comtc de DIci ry-A rii^cnlcaii .)
LETTER OF MARIE THERESE, APRIL I779 . 6l2
{From the original document at Ihc Chateau d'Argentca/r.)
INSTRUCTIONS FOR TREATY OF COMMERCE WITH THE UNITED
STATES, 1786, SIGNED BY JOSEPH II., EMPEROR OF AUSTRIA 65O
{From the original document at the CJidlcau d^Argenleau.)
LETTERS PATENT, FROM LEOPOLD II., CONFERRING THE
GOVERNORSHIP OF THE NETHERLANDS ON THE COMTE DE
MERCY-ARGENTEAU, I79O 680
{From ihc original document at the Chateau d'Argcn/can.)
THE GUARDIAN OF
MARIE ANTOINETTE
CHAPTER I
Secret Numbering of the People — Consecrated Taxes — -
Louis XVI., his Kingly Qualities— The Duchesse
de Mazarin — The Sweepings of the Court — The
Banishment of Madame du Barry — Her Arrival
at Pont-aux-Dames — Her Life in a Nunnery — The
Pity of the Empress — The Prince de Kaunitz — •
Mesdames and the Smallpox — The Princesse de
Lamballe — The Petit Trianon — The King is
inoculated — " Coiffure a rinoculation "
THE scurrylngs at Court, like those in an ant-
heap opened to the day, are ended by the
date of the first letter that Marie Antoinette,
as Queen, writes to Marie Ther^se. All the busy
whisperers have gone ; some straight off into the
darkness of banishment ; some still wait near to
learn if there is a place for them in the new scheme
of things. France is waiting too, her population
duly counted, its total hidden in strict secrecy, lest
haply the people learn its own sheer weight of
VOL. II. 363 I
364 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
numbers. In secret this numbering of the people is
taken (its result is to be seen to-day in a manuscript
of 1777, in the British Museum) ; and the subjects of
Louis XVI. are twenty-two millions, eight hundred and
eighty-seven thousand, three hundred and fifty-seven
souls. But the only subjects who count are those
who cluster round the Court ; the rest are but ciphers
in the addition that reckons heads as subjects — of
poll-tax. In these twenty-two millions there is not
one peasant, however abject and mean, who can escape
the honouring and nicely-adjusted notice of the Jaw.
There are burdens suited thoughtfully to every back ;
there are tithes, and land taxes, and property taxes,
poll-tax, hut-tax, tolls, the gabelle, the corvee^ and
services of every feudal ingenuity, designed to squeeze
from these millions a sufficiency of just and righteous
tribute (" the forced slavery and taxes are presque
cons acres par V anciennetiy said Advocate-General de
Siguier in Paris Parliament in 1776) for those
privileged to spend without producing. There are
no taxes for the noblesse^ none for the clergy. It is
the privilege of the peasant only, to pay or be hanged ;
to starve on boiled grass, with the prospect of a
whipping if he snare a rabbit ; the while grants of free
shooting over the Royal preserves are showered in-
discriminately by Mademoiselle Guimard, the dancer
at the Op6ra, upon whom Louis XV. had bestowed
a pension of 1,500 francs after a little ballet given by
Madame du Barry, she responding to this grace by :
*' It will just serve tc pay my stage candle-snuifer ! "
14 May, 1774 3^5
But all is to be changed now that the Bien-aime is
dead. Bread is already lowered in price ; largesse
adroitly distributed ; and the chief commission-taker
from the farmers of monopolies is already at Rueil,
expecting to be ordered still further away from a
virtuous King and Queen who loathe the very surname
she bears.
Marie Antoinette writes from Choisy four days
after the death of the King : *' My dear
. Choisy,
mother, Mercy will have told you the circum- 14 May,
. . 1774.
stances. . . . Happily the cruel illness left
the King's mind clear till the very last, and his end
was very edifying. The new King seems to have
won the hearts of his people. Two days before the
death of grandpapa he distributed 200,000 francs
[^8jOOo] to the poor, which produced a great effect.
Since the death he has not ceased to work ; and to
answer with his own hand ministers whom he cannot
yet see ; and he writes many other letters. This is at
least certain^ — he has a turn for economy, and a great
desire to make his subjects happy. In everything
he has as much wish as he has need to teach
himself I hope that God will bless his good intention.
The public expects many changes at this moment.
The King has contented himself with sending that
creature [Madame du Barry] to the convent, and
with driving out from the Court every one who bears
that surname of scandal. The King, in fact, found
it necessary to give this example to the people at
Versailles, who, even at the time of the illness, were
366 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
truckling to Madame de Mazarin, one of the most
humble of the favourite's servants. They beg me
to preach toleration to the King on behalf of a number
of corrupt souls, who have committed very much
evil in past years ; and I am much inclined to
do so."
The Duchesse de Mazarin brought the dukedom
to her husband, who was already Due de Villequier ;
she was a curious personality, manque partout^ as was
said of the Due de Nivernais. She was beautiful, yet
unable to attract ; generous, yet always considered mean ;
good at heart, yet always showing apparent ill-nature ;
witty, yet despised ; full of common sense, and always
involving herself in difficulties ; and possessed of a
genius for the inappropriate. She never seized the
right moment : she was the friend of the de Choiseuls
until shortly before the fatal illness of Louis XV. ; she
then forsook de Choiseul and proffered her friendship
to the favourite [becoming, as was said, an * under-
study '] ; and thus was swept out with the broom, with
which, in Madame du DefFant's words, they were
'' sweeping the Court, and when they have finished
they will replace the ornaments."
Marie Antoinette's letter continues : " They have
just come to forbid my going to see my aunt Adelaide,
who is in a high fever accompanied with much pain ;
it is feared it is the smallpox. I shiver, and dare not
think what may happen ; it is terrible enough for
her to pay so soon the price of her sacrifice."
The one great pious act of Mesdames met its
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[Page 477.
i8 March, 1777 477
was more than the nine proverbial points, yielded to
this show of authority and retired ; and Louis ran
instantly to tell the Queen what he had done.
In the meantime the Cardinal de la Roche-Aymon
recovered.
In reporting all this affair to the Empress, Mercy
says that he considers the appointment of de Rohan
would be a very great evil, very ominous for the Queen ;
that Marie Antoinette cannot endure this man and,
though she treats him severely, does not overawe
him, but rather exasperates him to more intrigues,
*' This cahal is the most dangerous at Court. All
means are alike to them if they promote their ends ;
and they have fit tools to carry them out — for instance,
this Abbe Georgel, who, to my knowledge, has been
employed to forge letters and to spread false reports
among the public."
Mercy here plainly hints at the origin of the many
letters purporting to have been written by Marie
Th^rese, of which de Rohan had already made such
base use in Vienna. His dread for the future of Marie
Antoinette, founded on his knowledge of these two
men, was justified ; and it was de Rohan and Georgel,
the disgraced smuggler-prelate and the unscrupulous
forger, that the French nation believed against the
fair name of Marie Antoinette.
March comes, but the Emperor does not, and the
Court life continues without change, except -^g March
that the balls have ceased, as it is now Lent ; ^'^'^'^•
but the racing and play are more marked than before.
47^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
The racecourse at Sablons, beyond the Bois de Boulogne,
is the scene of interest. *' There have been four races
of English horses, and the Queen has been to see them
alJ. They had built a wooden pavilion similar to that
at Fontainebleau ; they prepared a luncheon, and men
came there, all very carelessly dressed, and there ensued
an uproar and a tumult most indecorous in the presence
of the Court. . . . The Comte d'Artois, the promoter
of these race meetings, ought to feel discouraged by
his failures. In spite of his large expenditure upon
horses and English jockeys, he never wins a single
bet, and every one permits himself to makes jokes upon
the fact, which irritates him greatly." The fact of
the proximity of the plain of Sablons to Paris added to
Mercy's horror ; for to the racecourse flocked the
majority of the inhabitants of Paris, drawn thither by
curiosity, who occupied their time afterwards in making
remarks, " either true or false, on what they believed
they had seen."
Even when Marie Antoinette returned early to
Versailles, there was no cessation of dissipation, for
play commenced each night in her rooms, where they
played for such high stakes that many people had
been driven away for fear of heavy losses ; and their
absence contrasted sharply with the overflowing Court
before the gambling mania had fallen upon the few.
Mercy has nothing to note in the inner relationships
at Court but the varying degrees of influence that
the favourites obtain over the Queen, and " each
abuses, in a greater or less deo^ree accordino; to
i8 March, 1777 479
the demands of her own interests." The Comtesse
de Pohgnac maintains a superiority over the others,
and her power increases daily, while that of the
Princesse de Lamballe diminishes. But that soft,
charming "nullity under a childish air" was philo-
sophical. She had tried all the resources of weeping
and jealousy, of fainting and the vapours, " she gave
herself many torments and quite futile troubles," says
Mercy, '' and now she begins to contemplate more
tranquilly the advantages of her rival." She combined
a shrewd business capacity with this tranquillity; and
recouped her loss of favour by an increase of favours,
for she asked and obtained endless little concessions
for herself and her family. Especially did she abuse
her privileges in military matters, and with regiments
at the disposal of the Queen (all regulations notwith-
standing) there were few relatives or friends for whom
a commission was not forthcoming. " There is not
one single person among all those who surround the
Oueen, who tries, in true zeal, to be of service to
her Majesty. I have often told her Majesty so
with the frankness she permits."
The Princesse de Guemenee was, as the Due de
Lauzun said of her, " a very singular person, with
much esprit^ which she uses to plunge into the most
mad follies." If she had heard this description
(written to his mistress, Madame de Coigny) she might
not have been so warm a supporter of the Due.
Mercy tells of a curious favour she had asked from
the Oueen on behalf of Lauzun — that the Queen
4^0 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
should give him one of the lettres aEtat to save him
from arrest for debt. These letters were nominally
for the protection of those acting in the direct service
of the King ; they were granted by his Majesty and
countersigned by the Secretary of State, and their
object was to protect from a debtors' prison (for which
nearly every distinguished personage was eligible) any
one despatched on a special commission of the King.
They were not so usual an article of commerce as the
lettres de cachet^ which, being at the disposal of the
Due de la Vrilliere, who was himself at the disposal of
the Irish lady, " La Sabatin," afterwards the Marquise
de Langeac, were kept by her in printed stocks, and
sold for 25 louis each. Thus, for the trifle of {^1\^
any one could consign an enemy to sudden and eternal
disappearance ; and trade was brisk in Paris.
The boon for the spendthrift de Lauzun was not
granted, owing to Mercy's instant unveiling of
motives. The Due de Lauzun had inherited a large
fortune from his mother, the Duchesse de Gontaut
(sister of and co-heiress with the Duchesse de
Choiseul), and another from his wife, the only child
and heiress of the Due de Boufflers ; but, as Mercy
writes, " at the age of twenty-six years he has
devoured the capital that brought him in 100,000
ecus annual income [^12,000], and he is now
pursued by his creditors for about two millions of debts
[^80,000]." To the great indignation of the Due de
Lauzun (who had announced in his ineffable memoirs
that he intended to rule France and Russia by the
i8 March, 1777 481
sway he had over the affections of both Queen and
Empress), the trifluig boon of hnmunity from arrest
for such trifles as tradesmen's bills was denied.
Another demand, this time made to Louis, is from
Madame Louise of the Carmelites, who, finding that
the young King had given a pension of 200,000 livres
[^8,000] to each of the other aunts, asked for an
equal income to be bestowed upon her. But this
claim from " the Papal engine," as Walpole calls the
aunt in the Carmelites, was considered by the austere
Louis as a breach of her vow of perpetual poverty ;
and he did not even answer it, discontinuing also his
visits to the convent. As for Mesdames de France,
they now ceased from troubling, and remained quietly
in their own apartments ; but " Madame Adelaide,
and especially Madame Sophie, do not love the Queen ;
Madame Victoire preserves more friendliness."
The gambling of the Queen grows more and more
unrestrained. The public know that the identical
games, strictly prohibited to them by the laws of Paris,
are played nightly and to excess by the Queen. Since
the Court gave the example, all laws, therefore, had
been disregarded and gambling carried on without
constraint or limit. During the winter that had
just passed there had been such heavy losses from
gambling, such numberless acts of rascality, and so
many rogueries, that the Government had been obliged
to renew all the old enactments with added severity.
'* The Queen showed some ill-humour to the King
about this, who, with his usual docility and gentleness,
4^2 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
hardly dared to confess the prohibitions that he had
been obhged to sign ; but the Queen does not bother
herself in the least ; they play faro in her rooms
nearly every night. . . . The Comte d'Artois has the
fury of gambling upon him, and torments every one
to give to a sort of collection he has made in Versailles,
which will form a bank when it has reached five or
six hundred louis \_£S7^~\^ against which they will
gamble heavily. The Oueen loses considerably and
almost daily. . . . The sums that the King destines
to the paying of the Queen's debts, and which he
brings to her week by week — these sums, I say, are,
in part at least, swallowed up by the daily losses at
play ; and the Queen will find herself in the double
embarrassment of seeing her debts increasing at the
same time that she is taking advantage of the goodness
of the King. It seems to me that your Majesty would
do well to give the most serious advice on the subject
of gambling ; but your Majesty must not appear to
know anything about the debts paid by the King, or
I shall be compromised, as the secret was confided
to me."
CHAPTER VIII
Cahuette de Villers and the Forged Letters — A Successful
Fraud — Medical Science in France — The Doctors
of Paris — Comparison between Marie Antoinette
and her Husband — Arrival of the Emperor
Joseph II. in Paris — Mercy's Illness — The Admir-
ation of Joseph — His Interview with the King — His
Opinions of King and Queen — His Examination
into the State of France — He explores the Past, the
Present, and the Future
THE anticipation of the Emperor's visit to Paris
dwarfed everything else in the correspond-
ence between Mercy and the Empress ; but the
Ambassador finds place to mention the scandalous
intrigue of a lady known as Cahuet, or Cahuette, de
Villers, who had dared to borrow money in the name
of the Queen and for that purpose had employed the
weapon (so fatal in after years) of forged letters
purporting to be from Marie Antoinette, Mercy
had discovered the swindle, laid his complaint before
the Minister of Paris, and had caused " la dite de
Villers " to be arrested and conveyed to the Bastille :
within whose overwhelming walls she had been induced
to confess a portion of her knaveries upon arrival and
the remainder after a few days. Madame de Villers
was a lady of irregular conduct, who carried her
483
4^4 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
commercial spirit into all the relations of life. She
had two main ambitions — one the hope of being
suspected of an intrigue at Court, the other the deter-
mination to bring this flattering suspicion to money
value — and being an ingenious and inventive person,
she was successful in both. Her husband was
judiciously selected — he was in the Treasury. Her
lover was even better chosen — he was Superintendent
of the Finances of Marie Antoinette. But he was only
adopted after a failure to win the notice of Louis XV. ;
and after a little comedy of well-calculated errors,
including an unappreciated hotel garni at Versailles.
The reputation of a Royal intrigue, however, was
as sound a commercial asset as an actual connection ;
and on the strength of one quite imaginary Madame
de Villers succeeded in borrowing large sums of money
from many dupes, until the death of Louis put an end
to this convenient fiction. But the inventive lady had
other resources.
The imaginary intrigue was followed by a real one
with Gabriel de St. Charles, whose position in the
household of Marie Antoinette was extremely useful to
her. She first endeavoured to approach the Queen
by means of the Princesse de Lamballe, whom she
induced to convey to Marie Antoinette a portrait she
had painted of the Queen. This was considered by
her Majesty to be so bad that it was rejected and no
interview granted ; but the genuineness of the acquaint-
ance was of small consequence. She commenced to
write letters to herself imitating Marie Antoinette's
i6 April, 1777 4^5
hand, commissioning her to buy jewels, etc. She
found in St. Charles' rooms an account-book with the
Queen's arms upon the binding, and with these as her
ostensible proofs, she carried on business in good style
for many months.
Mercy bemoans " the facility with which any one
can play on the credulity of this country." le April,
Though Madame de Villers had never been ^'^'^'^'
actually in the presence of Marie Antoinette, the
numerous little notes that she showed, as from the
Oueen, in strictest confidence to many friends, obtained
so o-reat a success that on the strenijth of them she
ordered what she chose from the Paris shops — jewels
and '' ol'je/s de fantaisie " — deceiving the vendors with-
out the least difficulty.
Encouraged by the limitless field of gulls, she flew
at bigger game, borrowed (for the Oueen) 100,000
livres [^4,000] from a banker named Lafosse, and then
demanded 100,000 ecus [^12,000] from Berenger, the
treasurer of the Due d'Orleans, saying in a letter (from
the Queen) that she needed the money, but did not
like to ask the King for it. Berenger, overjoyed at
this opportunity of rendering a service, handed the
money to Madame de Villers ; and then (rather late in
the proceedings) made some inquiries, which exploded
the whole farce.
Mercy says : " The researches into the secret practices
of this woman have brought to light many intrigues in
which very distinguished personages are mixed, which
would be made public if the trial of this criminal
4^6 The Guardian of Made Antoinette
were carried on in the ordinary courts. As nothing
could come out which was not to the honour of the
Queen, I proposed to her Majesty to insist on justice
taking its ordinary course ; but the ministers of the
King objected, and preferred that investigation and trial
of this affair should be reserved for a special commission.
The Comte de Maurepas was particularly strong upon
this point ; probably because he knows his nephew,
the Due d'Aiguillon, is too deeply involved in the
machinations of this de Villers, who had a great hand
in the rise of Madame du Barry. If this criminal
were judged according to the laws of the land she could
be condemned to the gallows ; but she will probably
be sent to a house of correction for life."
The next instance of intrigue was upon a subject
concerning which all French people pretended know-
ledge. Walpole wrote, in his very plain-spoken Paris
letters : " There is not a man or woman here who does
not talk gruel and anatomy with equal fluency and
ignorance." The fluency of which he speaks was so
marvellous that it never ceased, the minutest details of
illness were discussed at crowded supper-tables with a
copiousness and a coarseness of speech absolutely
horrifying to Walpole when heard from the lips of the
most distinguished ladies of the Court. " I thought
we were fallen," said he, " but they are ten times
lower ; " and the *' filthy stream in which everything is
washed without being cleaned," the incredible dirt and
foul habits of the Court ladies and gentlemen, the
amazing indecency, are all described with the shudder
i6 April, 1777 4^7
of a wholesome soul. As an example of their medical
remedies, Walpole's own experience may be given. He
had an attack of gout when in Paris ; and Madame de
Bonzols recommended him an infallible gout cure — to
preserve the parings of his nails in a bottle closely
stoppered.
Madame de Bonzols was the daughter of Marechal
Berwick, sister of the Due de Fitz-James, and there-
fore granddaughter of James II. ; and her knowledge
was on a par with that of other Court ladies. But
the French ladies possessed at least the desire of
investigation in their medical studies. Madame de
Coigny had in its extreme the passion for anatomy
to which Walpole refers. We are told by the Due de
Lauzun — who ought to have known — that she never
travelled without a corpse packed into the body of
the carriage.
Walpole tells an anecdote of the Duchess of Douglas
which shows that this eccentric coach habit was not
entirely French. Walpole was driving to Paris from
Amiens, when he met the Duchess returning to
London. One of her servants had died in Paris, so
she had tied the body in front of her chaise. She
had taken the precaution of having it embalmed first ;
but " it is a droll way of being chief mourner," said
Walpole.
This universal interest in medicine made the
appointment of a new doctor to Louis XVI. almost
one of personal feeling to everybody at Court.
When the King ascended the throne, his own doctor,
4^8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Lieutaud, became by right his senior physician. But
Lieutaud was failing, he was seventy-four years old ;
and it was proposed that Marie Antoinette's doctor,
Lassone, should take the place of Lieutaud, as he had
a certain hereditary claim to the appointment, his father
having been doctor to Louis XV., and he himself
having attended Marie Leczinska. The immediate
thought of all at Court was to provide a doctor for
Marie Antoinette ; and amongst others a Doctor Bordeu
was suggested, a ** man of some reputation in his
profession, but well known as an intriguer of the
first degree," says Mercy. The Queen permitted
herself to be hurried into a decision, before Mercy
knew what was going on ; and Bordeu would have
gained the appointment but for his sudden death, just
as it was arranged.
His medical confrere^ Bouvard, said of him, on
hearing the news of his decease : "I never should
have thought he would have died a horizontal death ! "
Barthez was another doctor of the same time. He
had not the advertisement of attending the marvellously
healthy Madame du Barry, as had Bordeu ; but he
compelled from the reluctant Bouvard the appreciation
that '* he is witty and knows many things — and even
a little medicine."
It will be seen that there was no great choice in
French medical advisers and Mercy's suggestion that
Lassone might as well be Chief Physician to both
their Majesties, was finally appreciated and carried
out. Mercy's reason for the appointment was chiefly
i6 April, 1777 489
that " Lassone is a straight man, and attached to
the Queen." His qualifications do not enter into
consideration.
Mercy, in his secret report to the Empress, expresses
his deep appreciation of her gratitude for his ceaseless
care of Marie Antoinette : *' It is the most precious
of my duties . . . and I am personally so much attached
to the Queen that nothing is a burden to me that
concerns her glory or her happiness. This noble
Princess, who is so attractive by her individual
character and wit, would be beyond reproach if they
would only leave her to herself. It is against her
unworthy surroundings that one must guard her ; and
I will fight them till my last moment with the same
stubbornness I have always shown. . . .
'^ On Saturday I was nearly two hours with the
Queen ; and in that time I discovered how much these
mischief-makers had worked to fill her mind with fears
and suspicions of the Emperor, and to take from her
all confidence in him. The Queen, accustomed to
show me the inmost thoughts of her soul, repeated
to me remarks that so stirred me that, regardless of
prudence, I made one of the fiercest attacks I have
ever dared against the favourites, whom I characterised
one after the other . . . omitting no point nor
subtlety. The Queen was greatly moved, and my
audience ended in a way that greatly eased my mind,
her Majesty saying : ' I see how much you are
attached to me. You have always proved it to me,
and I feel it deeply.' "
490 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
The growing dread of her brother's sharp reproofs,
inspired by conscience and increased by intriguers, had
led Marie Antoinette into contemplating the idea of
deceiving him on the subjects of her gambling, the
influence of her favourites, and the advantage which
they took of her affection. Mercy says that he
intends to explain all clearly to the Emperor, and to
lay stress on the chief evil — her carelessness, which was
permitting a certain estrangement between Marie
Antoinette and her husband, by failing to take every
opportunity of being in his society, and by neglecting
to ensure that he sought no other society in con-
sequence of her absence. Mercy mentions the various
attempts at Court to throw temptation in the way of
Louis, particularly by the charms of an actress at the
Comedie Fran^aise ; and adds that, although these
attempts had not been, and, he was convinced, never
would be, of the slightest effect, yet the Queen should
be on her guard and he should tell the Emperor of
the true position of affairs.
That Marie Antoinette should not avail herself of
every opportunity of being in the society of her
husband causes little wonder when one realises what
that society implied, for Walpole describes both
husband and wife as they were about this time, when
he was writing to the Countess of Ossory. He had
been told that he would be astonished and subjugated
by Marie Antoinette ; and the brilliant Englishman,
accustomed to judge of the value of Court praises,
made his journey to Paris in sceptical spirit. His
i6 April, 1777 491
enchantment has been often quoted in French memoirs,
for he went to see the Court and he saw nothing: but
Marie Antoinette. ''It was impossible to see anything
but the Queen. Hebes and Floras and Helens and
Graces are street-walkers to her. She is a statue of
beauty when standing or sitting ; grace itself when she
moves. She was dressed in silver, scattered over with
laurier-roses ; few diamonds, and feathers much lower
than the Monument. They say she does not dance
in time, but then, it is wrong to dance in time. . . ."
In Louis he traces a curious Stuart resemblance in
the heavy face : " If you only saw how like this
King is to one [of King Charles's breed] and what
horrid grimaces he makes, I am sure all my power
of description would not reconcile you to him."
The daily Hfe and desires of King and Queen grow
ever more widely opposed. The Queen, alive in every
nerve of her body, every thought of her mind, in vivid
health, untiring, brilliant, emotional, to whom the day
and night are too short for all her interests, witty,
sweet-natured, proud, and sovereign ; the King, dull,
plodding, ignorant, stolid, half-alive, imperfectly
conscious, undeveloped in body and in mind, toiling
at his little mechanical duties of kingship, as he does
at his forge, with a great desire to do his poor best,
so seldom speaking that his disused voice squeaks
with the effort, with the loud, meaningless laugh and
" horrid grimaces " and loutish tricks of the imbecile,
yet with gentle, docile nature that submits meekly
to the inevitable impulses from stronger wills. He
VOL. II. 9
49^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
lives a life by routine ; she, by caprice. He is bent by
every force ; she resents even the shadow of domination.
He took his kingdom with " duel fardeau four moi I "
and she took hers with "admiration of the arrange-
ments of Providence that has chosen me for the
most beautiful kingdom of Europe ! "
The great event of the Emperor's visit took place
7 May, °^^ ^^ April ; and on 7 May Mercy writes,
^'''^'^' ill and distracted, for he has been seized
with an illness that prevents any prospect of accom-
panying his Majesty, although he is treating it by the
only method apparently known to Paris doctors — he
is being bled continuously. But it was not till ten
days after the arrival of Joseph 11. in Paris that
Mercy was well enough to attend the *' Comte de
Falckenstein," who, in spite of all resolutions and
hiring of furnished apartments, stayed during part of
his visit to Paris in Mercy's mansion at the Petit
Luxembourg-.
The arrival of Joseph II. was as informal as he
wished. He came into Mercy's room at half-past
seven one evening, stayed with him awhile, as he was
in great suffering, then had his supper and visited him
again, staying from nine till half-past ten, during
which time Mercy detailed everything that he would
be likely to encounter.
The arrival at Versailles was equally informal.
19 April, ^^^ Emperor left the Petit Luxembourg at
^'^'^'^' a quarter-past eight the niorning after his
arrival in Paris, attended only by the Comte de
|<>si:i'|| II., n.MIIKnK (iK AI'SIKIA,
(ttuiii tin pui ti ml ijiivt II hytlic LiiiJH I til ti> tlic Luinli ilt Mtnv Ai m iiIkiii.)
[Page 492.
7 May, 1777 493
Belgiojoso, and was at Versailles at half-past nine.
The Abbe de Vermond^ instructed by Mercy, was in
waiting ; and the Emperor alone, leaving even the one
attendant below, slipped up the secret stair, and not a
soul saw him come. He came into Marie Antoinette's
room, where she, eager and timid, was waiting for
him ; and for two hours the brother and sister were
alone in the privacy so desired by both for their first
meeting after seven years.
Afterwards Mercy heard the details of the interview,
the emotion of Marie Antoinette, the amazement of
Joseph at his charming sister, his confession that if
she were not his sister he would certainly have married
so attractive a woman ; and then his insistance that if
she found herselt a childless widow (the prospect
anticipated by all) she must come back to Vienna to
be with him. Marie Antoinette's tear fled ; the dreaded
Joseph was her friend and brother, and she told him
her whole heartful of the troubles of years — the strange
position in which she was, a wite and no wife, her
habits, her gambling, her dissipations, her favourites —
everything, frankly and fully. Joseph, to whom a
lecture was too dear to miss, yet softened it so gently
that there was no lessening of trust.
Then came the interview with Louis, for which
his sister's talk had now prepared Joseph. " The
Queen led him into the King's room ; the two
monarchs embraced ; the King made some remarks that
showed a real desire to appear cordial and polite ;
the Emperor noticed the desire and was content with
494 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
that ; with his ready wit and gracious manners, he
knew how to put the King at ease from the first
moment. The Queen then took her august brother
to the apartments of the Princes and Princesses."
The anger of Joseph at the dissipations of his sister
had melted away before her charm ; it turned now
to pity for her fate. When, with further knowledge
of Louis, he found out what was worthy under the
poor feeble brain and physique, he wrote thoughtfully
of both : " Her situation with the King is singular. . . .
This man is weak-minded, but not an idiot. He
has some ideas and some judgment, but his apathy of
body and of mind are equal. He can hold a rational
conversation ; he has neither desire for instruction nor
any curiosity — in short, ' Fiat lux ' has not yet been
spoken."
Of Marie Antoinette he wrote in this same month
of May 1777 : *' She is perfectly virtuous ; she is even
austere, by character more even than by judgment. . . .
She is a sweet-natured and straightforward woman,
rather young, rather thoughtless, but with a basis of
uprightness and honesty truly wonderful in her situation.
In addition, she has wit and a power of just penetration
which often astonished me."
In that first busy day Joseph called upon the Comte
de Maurepas, and paid the " Scoundrel-et " so many
compliments that the hght and aged minister told every
one, in confidence, "with extraordinary satisfaction" ;
then upon the Comte de Vergennes " who had learnt
diplomacy in the seraglio when minister to Turkey,"
7 May, 1777 495
then upon the Comptroller-General and the Prince
de Montbarey ; then he dined with the King and
Queen, and returned in the evening to tell Mercy all
that had happened.
On the 2 1 St the Emperor had a conversation of
over tw^o hours with the King, even discussing affairs
of State : " He found the King was not absolutely
devoid of knowledge {^ahsolununt depourvu de con-
naissances), that he appeared to hold to his own ideas
more by obstinacy than by rational conviction, but
that he seemed to have a tendency to wish to do well."
These phrases of Mercy, rounded for the Empress's
eye, yet smack of the vigorous descriptions that
Joseph must have given when he told Mercy each
night his impressions of the day. He had supper
in the apartments of " Madame ; " and afterwards the
King, " Monsieur," and the Comte d'Artois had been
so much at their ease in his presence, that they amused
themselves by " des eiifari tillages^'' running up and
down the room, and flinging themselves upon sofas,
" till the Queen and the Princesses were embarrassed
by reason of the presence of the Emperor, who,
ignoring these incongruities, continued to talk to the
Princesses , . . and did not permit himself to make
any remark on his surprise at so strange a spectacle."
There were dinners at the Trianon which served
as text for little lectures ; and a visit to the Opera,
where the Emperor wished to remain hidden in the
back of the Queen's box, but Marie Antoinette drew
her brother forward by the arm and placed him in
49^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the front of the box, the action causing storms of
applause. Wherever he went he strove to hide ; but
was always discovered, and followed by crowds. His
popularity upon arrival was unbounded ; he went
everywhere, saw everything, spoke to every one, and
won admiration from all, even from the severe
Madame Adelaide, who called him into her rooms
upon pretext of showing some interesting portraits,
*' and being alone with him, she embraced the
Emperor, saying ' this mark of friendship should at
least be permitted to an old aunt.' "
This touching sentiment, recorded by Mercy, loses
in value when we remember that the difference of
age between the aunt and the Emperor was one of
only nine years, Madame Adelaide being at this time
forty-five, and the twice-widowed Joseph II. a man
of thirty-six.
Joseph's visit was one of instruction, to give and
to receive ; and in pursuance of his own programme
he worked diligently. He made the most exhaustive
examination into the finances of France and the
expenditure of the Court, aided by the knowledge
of Laborde, formerly Court Banker ; and he took
copious notes of all matters of interest. He went
with Mercy to examine into all details concerning
the internal communication of France ; he studied
maps, inspected models of bridges, etc., and surprised
every one by his grasp of the subject. He explored
the dusty, forgotten picture galleries ; he visited the
hospital called La Salp^tri^re, the prison of Bicetre,
7 May, 1777 497
that great failure, the " Colisee^' which had cost
2,700,000 francs [^108,000] the previous year; and
the famous Gobehns' manufactory to see the Royal
tapestries. He inspected the Royal printing works,
which owed much to the taste and patronage of
Marie Antoinette, for this was the only form of art
in which the Queen took interest ; he visited the
Savonnerie to see the Royal carpets made ; he went
to the Veterinary School, to Mass, and to the Deaf
and Dumb Institution. Madame du Deffand said of
him : " He has been everywhere ; he wishes to see the
past, present, and future ; one cannot find out which
epoch he prefers." There was nothing in Paris and
its neighbourhood that escaped his restless investi-
gations ; and he saw everywhere the network of this
vast, unwieldy apparatus of Royalty — its wasteful, ex-
travagant manufacture of inutilities, its riot of abuses,
its imposing shams, its superb magnificence of State
supported upon a system of finance that his own
examinations had shown to be rotten, its luxury that
laid the world under tribute, its dirt that reeked
with disease, and its squalor that turned the galleries
of Versailles and Fontainebleau, even the landings of
the grand staircases, into common haunts of street
hawkers.
CHAPTER IX
The Emperor Joseph's Opinions of his Relations — Of
the Favourites — He Soothes the Princes of the
Blood — Buffon and his Book — He visits the
Comtesse du Barry and the Works at Marly —
The Duchesse de Bourbon — The Royal Stables
— Joseph n. Lectures upon Thrift — He makes
Slighting Allusions in Public to the Queen — His
Domineering Ways — His Dislike of " English "
Fashions — Coiffures and Rouge — The Emperor
leaves Paris — Mortification of de Choiseul, de
Rohan, and Voltaire — The Emperor's Provincial
Tour and that of the " Sons of France.''
THE personal links between the Emperor Joseph
and his sister's Court are of more interest
than the sights of Paris. After the first warm
outburst of affection came the cooler attitude of
criticism. Joseph observed sharply, and rebuked with
acerbity, choosing rather to humiliate than to lead ;
and Marie Antoinette, resenting the attacks upon her
dignity, made by reproaches addressed to her in the
presence of her attendants, was not predisposed toward
acknowledgment of her faults. The Emperor was
taken to the races ; he found all the noise, tumult,
and betting, the familiarity, and the indecorous luncheon
as Mercy had described. He went, at his sister's
4q8
May, 1777 499
request, to spend an evening in the apartments of
her favourite, the Princesse de Guemenee ; there the
bad style and general licence of the guests shocked
him, and the frenzied gambling at faro, ending in
loud accusations of cheating flung by her guests against
Madame de Guemenee, seemed to him such insolent
familiarity that he left the room, saying to the Queen
it was nothing: but a common oramblinor-house. For
*' Monsieur " he had an instant aversion (although
he admitted that " this unaccountable being, of mortal
coldness " had more intelligence than the King) ; and
M. de Provence in return disliked him cordially, and
said that Joseph imagined he possessed penetration,
but in reality he was so greedy for flattery that he
let himself be penetrated. The Comte d'Artois he
dismissed as '^ the complete coxcomb " ; '' Madame,"
he said, "is not Piedmontese for nothing; she is
full of intrigue"; and the Comtesse d'Artois "is an
absolute imbecile."
With such sentiments towards his relatives, Joseph's
family Hfe became rather strained. He had another
interview with the King ; who summoned courage
enough to say that he wished he had some children,
and to make some vague remarks upon the interior
government of France, to which the Emperor listened,
not wishinp; to embarrass him. With a little more
encouragement, Louis was induced to confide his love
of his wife and his admiration for her grace and charm ;
and, further, to give some rational opinions upon things
in general, to the confessed amazement of the Emperor,
500 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
who told Mercy that he had thought even such efforts
were far beyond the mental capacity of the King.
The favourites met with no greater appreciation.
The Emperor took a marked dislike to the Princesse
de Lamballe and showed it plainly ; he treated the
Comtesse de Polignac with more outward respect, but
laid traps for her in conversation, leading it into
channels in which the Comtesse was lost and betrayed
her want of wit ; Madame de Guemen^e he detested
cordially, and spoke so plainly to the Queen about the
impropriety of her behaviour, which was not limited
to indecorum in gambling only ('^ elle ne se singularisait
fas dans sa societe par une vertii qui 7i kait point de
mise'')^ that the interview became stormy (un peu
orageuse) and Mercy implored the Emperor not to
hold the reins too tightly. Many visits were paid
with the intention of obliterating the memory of his
brother Maximilian's want of tact. The irritable
pride of the Princes of the Blood was soothed by the
" Comte de Falckenstein " calling upon the Due de
Chartres and spending some time in the gardens of
the Palais-Royal ; and paying another visit to the
Duchesse de Chartres, an attention to their relative
that won the hearts of both Orleans and Penthi^vre
famihes. The Choiseul party was conciliated by a
visit to the Duchesse de Praslin, described by Walpole
as "jolly, red-faced, looking very vulgar, and being
very attentive and civil." The Due de Praslin (cousin
of the Due de Choiseul), " important and empty,"
served Walpole as a text upon which to write of the
May, 1777 501
pomp and poverty of the Court : *' His footmen are
powdered from the break of day, but wait on their
master with a red pocket handkerchief tied round their
necks." Both de Praslin and de Choiseul had suffered
in the reign of Madame du Barry, who hated both
frankly, and heralded their downfall by crying : ^^ Saute
Choiseul/ saute Praslin!'' as she tossed oranges in
the air after supper " to divert King Solomon."
Another judicious visit of the Emperor's was to the
Botanical Gardens to see M. de Buffbn ; and Joseph
gave a sequel to the story of his brother's bad manners
by saying to the renowned author whose books had
been rejected by Maximihan : " I have come to seek
the work that my brother forgot to bring."
The visit to the Comtesse du Barry was not regarded
as so diplomatic ; although its ostensible reason was an
overwhelming desire to study the celebrated hydraulic
machine at Marly, which is close to Louveciennes.
The visit to the machine was regulated by a previous
inquiry as to the possibility of finding Madame du
Barry at home ; and that lady naturally took an unpre-
meditated walk in the direction of the hydraulic
machine whose mechanism is said to have groaned so
loudly that it was very disturbing to the rest of dwellers
in the neighbourhood. Joseph II. went on foot upon
this scientific expedition, met the so celebrated lady, con-
fessed great admiration — of the Pavilion ; and remained
in it, talking to the owner for two hours. He then
admired the gardens : the Comtesse proposed to show
them : the Emperor offered her his arm : she modestly
502 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
declared herself unworthy of such an honour ; and he
replied : " Raise no objections on that score. Beauty is
always Queen." His private opinion, given after the
inspection of the works at Marly, was that she was
not so beautiful as he had expected to find, but he was
very glad to have seen la belle recluse.
A visit of curiosity as well as conciliation was paid
to the Duchesse de Bourbon, the latter pleasing the
Prince de Cond6, the former satisfying the Emperor
as to the personality of one of the most calumniated
personages in Court history, if a portion only of the
anecdotes concerning her were true. Among the
minor points of interest connected with her was her taste
for music, and many musical parties (where the Due de
Guines played the flute and the Comtesse Amelie de
Bouf^lers the harp, and other musicians showed their
skill) are referred to in the Court records as having
been given in the magnificent palace in the faubourg
St. Honor6. The Duchesse escaped the guillotine, by
some strange chance ; and on the fall of the monarchy
she was escorted to Marseilles by two hundred soldiers,
lodged for three months in a cell as if she were a
criminal, and all her fortune seized. But her reputa-
tion, or lack of it, must have served her with the
Revolutionaries for she was the only bearer of a great
(if not a good) name who was permitted to escape ; and
a mob that murdered the harmless Princesse de
Lamballe for the crime of being sister-in-law to an
Orleans, allowed the Duchesse de Bourbon to live,
philosophically nursing the sick in Spain, and declaring
May, 1777 s^3
she was not to be pitied, " above all as they had left
her her stable." The Comte d'Allonville gives this
anecdote, and says the " stable " consisted of one single
ass !
The Emperor Joseph had many opportunities of
counting the number of horses in the Royal stables,
for he was taken over the great establishments of the
King, then over those of the Queen (which alone in-
cluded about three hundred horses). He was then asked
if he would like to see those of '' Monsieur ; " and he
demanded in his amazement whether among these
hundreds already seen there were not enough tor
him to use. But not only had " Monsieur " his own
great stables, but they were distinct from those set
apart for the use of '' Madame " ; there was then
the still greater establishment (including the racing
stables) of the Comte d'Artois ; and even Mesdames
had their own stables and kept their own pack of
hounds (with master, the Marquis de Dampierre),
called the c/iie}is verts from the colour of the hunt
uniform. The only member of the Royal family
who had not her own separate stables was Madame
Elizabeth, the young sister of Louis XVI., who being
only thirteen years of age was not considered old
enough to have her full establishment. The Emperor
cried out : " In Vienna my mother has forty horses ! "
The pleasure with which Marie Antoinette showed
her brother these proofs of her regal magnificence was
damped by his utilising each for subject of fresh
lectures. He reproached her for the enormous waste
504 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
that such ostentation imphed, after a visit to these
stables ; he blamed both her and the King for their
ignorance of their own art treasures, after he had gone
through the empty and unfashionable picture galleries ;
he pointed out the extravagance that marked the
household administration, and in this there were
really immense abuses. For instance, there were two
First Women of the Bedchamber, their salary was
12,000 livres [^^480] ; but as they had the right to
take each day all the candles in the bedroom, the
cabinets, and the gambling-room, this perquisite alone
amounted to 50,000 livres [^2,000]. The candles
of Mesdames meant an income of 215,000 francs
[^8,600] to some one, and Madame Elizabeth was
supposed to devour 70,000 francs' worth [^2,800] of
meat and 30,000 francs [^1,200] of fish, which
attributes an expensive appetite for ^4,000 worth of
two items only of food to a child of thirteen.
Joseph's remarks upon all these matters were tinged
with much indiscreet sincerity ; and he did not limit
his expressions to the audience whom they were
supposed to benefit. Great indignation was felt, not
only by Marie Antoinette, but by her Court, at one
instance of the Emperor's too ready tongue. The
Queen had written to her brother to meet her at the
Italian Theatre ; but changed her mind and sent a
messenger to the Italian Theatre, asking him to come
on to the Fran^ais where she was waiting. The
Emperor left the Italian Theatre ; but observed to
Clairval, the actor, " Your young Queen is very
May, 1777 505
thoughtless, but, fortunately, you French do not
mind that." As Clairval had been a barber's boy,
and as his scandalous life was well known, it was felt
that the Emperor in passing a public stricture upon
the Queen might have better selected his auditor.
Marie Antoinette confided to Mercy that she had
great regard for her brother's opinion, but she wished
that he would not adopt so severe a form of
administering them ; she had been wishing for some
trifle, when Joseph interrupted saying that if he had
been her husband she would have known better than
to suggest such things.
Another time Marie Antoinette had supported
Joseph's own suggestion that Louis should travel,
should visit his chief provincial towns, should go
especially to Brest. She had expressed her intention
of accompanying her husband on these travels ; and
Joseph said that she should not go, as she was
" no good to him in any way." He continued in the
severest manner to reprove her for her " too un-
ceremonious manner towards her husband " ; he spoke
of her language to him as being '* insufliciently
respectful," and said she showed " lack of submission."
These remarks actually horrified the Queen, as they
were made to her in the presence of the Comtesse
de Polignac and the Due de Coigny ; and they were
followed by the stern order to her to go and seek
the King in his apartment. As if this manner of
addressing the Queen of France were insufHciently
irritating, Joseph added a deliberate slight later in
5o6 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the evening. After supper the Queen proposed to
go and walk on the terraces ; and the King and
'* Monsieur " prepared to accompany her. Joseph,
seeing this, sneered at their complaisance and an-
nounced that he, at least, had no intention of going
out with her.
The words of Marie Antoinette to Mercy, that
if her brother were to stay much longer there would
be undoubtedly " frequent and great disputes," were
heartfelt. All her cherished frivolities were held up
to be demolished, and Joseph, this time backed up
by the King, made a fierce onslaught on the taste
that preferred everything English in ways and in
fashions, pointing his remarks by the English standard
of manners as seen — at the races. The resemblance
of these modes to their English models may be gauged
from the instance of the vast dinner given in Paris
to the Duchess of Bedford by the Marechale de Villars,
who desired that everything should be perfectly English
in honour of her guest. In the middle of the dessert
she called out : " Lord, they have forgot ! yet I
bespoke them. You English love hot rolls — bring
the rolls ! " And a huge dish of hot rolls was handed,
with a sauce-boat of melted butter !
The coiffureSy those indexes of the taste of the
moment, were also reflections of what the French Court
took to be English fashions ; ladies afflicted with
" Anglomanie " carried upon their plastered heads an
entire racecourse, with horses, jockeys, dogs, and a
few five-barred gates, the mixture of racing and hunting
May, 1777 507
being, of course, typically British. Perhaps Joseph's
animadversions upon the madness of head-dresses were
caused by the special visit before-mentioned to the
Duchesse de Chartres, who, in a Court that calculated
its coiffures by the yard, made it her ambition to outdo
the most enterprising ; and she would almost certainly
be arrayed in the most advanced of her modes
for an Imperial visit. The memory of the Duchesse
de Chartres is enshrined in one monstrous coiffure
that she designed with the aid of Leonard. Fourteen
yards of gauze covered the scaffolding of a tower
upon her head, designed by the architect to exceed by
two inches the height of the " coiffure a loge d' opera "
worn by the Queen. From the summit of the tower
waved feathers ; and upon the building were two
waxen figures, representing her son, the Due de Valois
(afterwards Louis Philippe), in the arms of his nurse.
Besides these there were a black boy, a parrot, a
plate of cherries, and (worked in their own hair) the
initials of her husband, Due de Chartres, of her father,
Due de Penthi^vre, and of her father-in-law, Due
d'Orl^ans. This erection was called ^' le pouf senii-
mentair It is interesting to remember that its creator,
Leonard, the Court coiffeur^ died in the enjoyment of
the appointment ot Inspector-General of Funerals^ an
office bestowed upon him in answer to his application
for that of director of the Opera-Comique.
The universal habit of rouge was one to which
the eyes of Joseph would never become accustomed ;
and Marie Antoinette had to submit to incessant
VOL. II. 10
5o8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
criticism upon this and every other subject connected
with her dress. He used to be a constant visitor at
the public toilette of the Queen, when the rouge was
put on with ceremony in the presence of those who
had the privilege of entry. Upon one occasion Joseph
called out : '' Put on some more, under the eyes, mettez
du rouge en furie comme Madame ! " pointing to a lady
who was present. These remarks did not tend to
make Joseph popular within the Court ; nor did his air
of universal instructor upon all points connected with
the government, to which the King listened in perfect
silence, " giving no sign that he understood what
was said."
Mercy says that time will show if the visit of the
Emperor has had any effect upon the mental condition
of the King. " We cannot assume that the mind of
the King is sufficiently developed to render him capable
either of deep esteem or strong friendship ; these
sentiments require more sensitive feeling, more
reasoning power, and more reflection than we can
attribute to the King ; but to judge by appearances
he has felt as much liking for the Emperor as his
capacity admits, and we cannot say more than that.'*
The French public were enchanted with the simple,
familiar ways of the Emperor, and proved it by such
demonstrations of exuberant homage that Joseph
showed his disgust in his face. He told Madame
du Deffand that he was surprised at their surprise :
* It is natural to be a man, not natural to be a King."
And he mingled with the crowd that thronged to
30 May, 1777 509
see their Majesties eat their meals in public on
Sundays, saying he had so often played the game
himself that it was amusing to look on at the comedy.
The day came for Joseph's departure ; and grief
on each side was solaced by gifts. The 39 May
Emperor presented a snuff-box, with his ^'^'^•
portrait set in diamonds, to Mercy, and a diamond-
set box to the Comte d'Angivillers, who was the
Director of Buildings ; he gave a hundred louis
[^96] to the Gobelins and the Savonnerie, and half
that amount to the Sevres porcelain works ; and he
distributed diamond ringrs to such as had served him.
Madame Campan declares that he gave no present
to any one in the household ; but as he had preserved
his dignity by the little hotel garni in the Rue
Tournon, instead of staying at Versailles (he forebore
to lodge at the bath-keeper's, as he had threatened),
he doubtless felt disinclined to pay that tax. Louis
presented him with some of the finest tapestries from
the Gobelins, several carpets from the Savonnerie, and
a service of Sevres porcelain, the value of the whole
amounting to 200,000 livres [;(^8ooo]. It is not
stated what Joseph gave in return. Marie Antoinette's
present to her brother was a watch whose only
ornament was her own portrait. She had at first
the intention to give a watch-chain also, formed of
her own hair ; but she decided that this little idea
would not please the Emperor (would probably be
classed with the pouf sentimental), and the chain was
not made. The last hours that Joseph spent with his
Sio The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
sister were employed by him in improving converse ;
he went through all the points in her conduct that
he disliked, and gave her a written (and somewhat
verbose) statement of his ideas upon her future
behaviour, both as wife and as Queen. He embraced
the King and commended his sister into his care,
saying that he should never know ease of mind until
he was assured she was happy. Louis managed to
reply that this was his own desire. Marie Antoinette,
filled with deep grief now that the time of parting
had come, with difficulty commanded her emotion,
and said good-bye very tenderly ; and Joseph left
Versailles at eleven at night, quitting Paris soon after
five o'clock the next morning.
The counsels of Joseph, aided by his departure,
had immediate effect. Marie Antoinette did not
make a single excursion to Paris, nor did she gamble
once for eight days.
The Empress heard with joy of the good feeling
between brother and sister. She did not
Schlosshof, , r A/r i i • r
29 June, hear rrom Mercy more than mere hints or
Aim
his errors of judgment ; and she hastened to
write to Marie Antoinette an extract from Joseph's
letter to her : '* I have left Versailles with grief and
with real affection for my sister. I found there a
sweetness in hfe which I had thought I had renounced,
but for which I still find I have the desire. She is
amiable and she is charming ; I have spent hours
upon hours with her without observing how they
flew. Her feeling at my departure was deep, her
29 June, 1777 511
self-command great ; it needed all my strength to
tear myself away." Marie Therese begs that her
daughter will send her portraits, " that I may see
the face and the carriage, that I do not know, but
all the world much admires. Having known
my dear daughter so small and such a child, the
desire to know her as she is now will excuse my
importunity." She asks for two portraits, one small
that she may have in her own cabinet, one large
" for the hall where all the family portraits hang ;
and shall this charming Queen not be amongst them ^ "
If the arrival of Joseph had given solace to many
affronted personages, his departure left three in bitterest
mortification. These were the Due de Choiseul,
ex-Ambassador de Rohan, and Voltaire. Of these
possibly de Rohan was the least affected : presuming
on the favour shown him in Vienna, he wrote to the
Emperor to ask permission to pay his Court ; but he
did not take into account that Joseph, posing as the
upright mentor of pleasure-seeking youth, was not
the Joseph who listened so greedily to his scandalous
stories that he overlooked the disgrace that de Rohan
was to the Church, and his insolence to his mother
and Sovereign. The Emperor took no notice of the
letter of his former ally, in sympathy with whom he
had degraded himself by pubhc mockery at the
Ambassador of France who replaced him. The case
of Voltaire and of the Due de Choiseul were more
deplorable ; for each had made vast preparations for
the anticipated visit. The Due de Choiseul relied
512 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
on the services he had rendered to Austria, the alliance
between that country and France, and the marriage of
Marie Antoinette. He came to Paris and was received
by Joseph in a short, rather cool interview in the
ante-chamber of his apartments ; and the Emperor,
who ostentatiously avoided him afterwards, rewarded
his services by congratulating Louis that he was rid of
'* this restless and turbulent minister," and by leaving
Chanteloup far out of his line of route through the
provinces. Voltaire's suffering was due to wounded
vanity : he had expected to have a philosopher-Emperor
at his feet ; he, the correspondent of Kings, anticipated
that devouring curiosity would draw Joseph to Ferney,
and he found himself merely overlooked, although he
had taken the precaution to send two friends to meet
Joseph and to point out the road to Ferney.
The Emperor travelled through France, writing to
the King and Queen from Brest and Rochefort ; but
wherever he went it was in the same spirit of inquiry
and absence of ceremony, refusing all entertainment,
paying his way and giving himself incredible labour
to acquire knowledge in every place. At the same
time '' Monsieur " and the Comte d'Artois were
travelling through the French provinces in considerable
state, with immense expense and a great retinue of
servants. They disorganised all the post service, put
the provinces to great cost, and returned with
the only results of their travel plainly visible —
*' Monsieur as fat as a barrel " and the Comte d'Artois
increased surprisingly. Joseph, who termed himself
3 July, 1777 5^3
" an adroit charlatan/' knew well how to take advantage
of the comparison between the Emperor of Austria,
busy, learned and learning, silent and doubtless
profound : and the " sons of France," the sly, sleek,
elder brother plotting everywhere to ingratiate himself at
the expense and to the detriment of the King, and
the debauched, w^ild, insolent, younger brother who
finished the ruin of his reputation by his excesse-s
on this tour.
Of the two, Joseph speaks more hotly of*' Monsieur,"
saying : '' I like the King, and if needs be
r ^?^ r - Toulon,
I will fight tor him ; and unless M. de 3 July,
. . 1777.
Maurepas has no more spirit than a baked
apple, I cannot conceive his enduring such things."
This letter had been sent by the ordinary post, and
probably therefore had been read, as Mercy believes.
Joseph's tour through the French provinces showed
him another side of the national character — diligent,
laborious, widely opposed to that shown at Court ;
though the result of his investigations at all the chief
ports was a growing distrust ot the French navy.
He said that the whole marine did not inspire the
least confidence, as ships and handling were alike
bad, and as to their seamanship he need only refer
to the continual accidents that befell all their
shipping. He mentioned that he had been to the
Garonne, *' where were two or three hundred sail.
There is great trade here, tor it serves as the seaport
of the American islands, and of the American rebels,
of whose shipping I saw a dozen vessels."
514 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
This was the first allusion by Joseph II. to any
sign of interest in the American war, a subject that
in later times became so attractive to him that he
declared his intention of going to America to study
the war there. Marie Antoinette, with all her
sympathy for the Americans, said : " I hope he will
think twice before going to a country the declared
enemy of all sovereigns. . . . The last outbreak has
made me tremble and given me much subject of
thought." Her instinct warned her of the danger of
ideas of liberty and independence to her own un-
disciplined and ferocious people, unused to self-govern-
ment. Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin were in
Paris, sent as envoys to the French, to solicit their
help and support.
CHAPTER X
A Fleeting Reform — Faro Resumed — The Due de
Fronsac — The Due de RicheHeu's Three Marriages
— Music on the Terrace at Versailles — Joseph's
P"'alse Move, and its Failure — His isix Reprimands
— His Instructions Thrown into the Fire — The
Queen's Revolt from his Control — The Frenzy of
Gambling — The Defection of Abbe de Vermond —
Marie Antoinette and her Husband — She wearies
of her Life — The Comte d'x^rtois and Bagatelle —
Meudon
THE reforms at Court lasted for three months,
with diminishing virtue. For the first month
after the departure of Joseph, Marie Antoinette
obeyed the rules laid down for her by the Emperor —
no visits to Paris, no gambling — instead, a simple life
in her own Petit Trianon, with the company of two
or three ladies, more attention to the King, and an
hour and a half daily devoted to solid reading.
Mercy mentions to the Empress, with pride, that
the Queen is studying Hume's " History of .
England," and has already advanced a long 15 July,
way through the book. But he does not
allude to the fact that Marie Antoinette had been
reading this history for four and a half years, and
had plumed herself upon her broadminded study of
515
5^6 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the work of '' a Protestant " as long ago as January
1773. She profited by Joseph's verbose admonitions,
given in writing as a permanent guide, sought the
King's society daily, and remained with him an hour
or two each afternoon. This virtuous existence
coincided with the absence of the Comte d'Artois,
who was expensively undermining his constitution in
the provinces.
The first step back into the old routine was the
concession to herself that play might be permitted
if it were merely in her own private apartments ; but
faro was as great a danger in her own rooms as
elsewhere, and Mercy saw with apprehension that
the little private gambling meant the loss of large
sums. The players were objectionable, for the
institution of a faro bank involved the acceptance of
the Marquis d'Ossun and the Due de Fronsac as
" banquiersT The Due de Fronsac, son of the
Marechal de Richelieu, had every vice of his father
without his one redeeming quahty of politeness. The
Marechal Due de Richelieu, who was called " le heros
de la galanterie du sihle^^ had the unique distinction
of being married three times, each time in the reign
of a different King of France. He took to himself his
first wife in the times of Louis XIV., his second in
Louis XV. 's reign, and his' third (at the age of eighty-
four), in that of Louis XVI., this last alliance being
openly undertaken as a means of annoying the Due
de Fronsac whose ruffianism had disgusted even his
father.
12 September, 1777 517
Again every evening faro was played ; the Queen
lost more often than she won, the debts for the
diamonds remained unpaid, and all available money
was swallowed up by the gambling fever, although
Marie Antoinette herself recoo^nised its evil and also
its power. The wise resolution of playing only in
her own rooms did not avoid scandals or disgraceful
scenes ; and by September all dissipations were in as
full rush as before the advent of Joseph.
Mercy describes one of these gambling evenings :
" They have become tumultuous and un-
seemly ; they give rise to altercations ^^"^'
between those who keep the bank and those ^^^^^^^^^'
who play, to reproaches to the ladies of the
Court upon their methods. . . . There was a lively
scene of this sort the other niorht between the Due de
Fronsac and the Comtesse de Gramont [the exile in
Madame du Barry's day of power]. It is impossible
to hide such scandals, and they give rise to much
malicious talk." The Queen was embarrassed, and
thought of removing the indecorum of such scenes
from her own apartments to those of Madame de
Gu^m^n^e, by going there to play ; which looks as
if the disapproval were merely one of locality. With
the desire of novelty a new amusement was adopted,
*' most unsuitable," says Mercy, " which, happily,
must cease when the fine weather does." This was
the idea of having the regimental bands of the Swiss
and French guards to play on the grand terrace of
the gardens at Versailles ; but the wish that the people
51 8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
should share in the pleasure led to the indiscriminate
admission of crowds, some of whom were even from
the village of Versailles. " In the midst of this throng
the Royal family walk, without attendants and almost
in disguise. Sometimes the Queen and the Princesses
are together, sometimes they walk about alone, except
that each takes one of her ladies by the arm." The
scandals to which this simple form of entertainment
gave rise in the foul minds of the time are mentioned
in their memoirs ; but it was not until a year or two
later that the scurrilous journals dared to ascribe
immorality to Marie Antoinette herself, for thus sitting
or walking on the terrace with her ladies, to hear the
band. The King was present upon one or two
occasions, and seemed amused by the crowd ; and his
approval served as an additional reason for continuing
this entertainment, which, as having been promoted
by the Comte d'Artois, was regarded with deepest
distrust by Mercy.
By October the last shadow of Joseph's domination
had disappeared. Mercy writes two letters
bleau!^^' ^^ ^^^ Empress on this date, the secret one
^^ 1777^^**' ^^^^g ^^^ more interesting, as the one for
open Court use is only a '' very slight sketch "
of the evils now becoming rampant. He says he is
perfectly astounded at the short time for which the
Emperor's counsels remained valued and regarded.
But he need not have felt such surprise, knowing the
character of Marie Antoinette so intimately, for he had
warned the Emperor solemnly and repeatedly that the
17 October, 1777 519
Queen would be led easily by afFection, but would never
be driven by harshness ; he had foretold the evil effect
of severe reprimands from a brother, and had begged
the Emperor to remember that by nothing but loving
suggestions would her imperious spirit be guided.
Joseph, with Marie Antoinette, persisted in the same
disastrous policy that he employed towards his
subjects of the Netherlands ; he initiated radical
reforms, and pressed them tempestuously, regardless
of deep-rooted prejudices, of character, of circum-
stances. Where diplomacy would have succeeded,
he tried bullying ; when concession was advised, he
was rigid ; domineering, narrow-minded, well-meaning,
he had the arrogant certainty of his superiority that
creates by intense irritation its own opposition ; and he
drove both Marie Antoinette and the Netherlands
into open revolt. Mercy says sadly that the Emperor
had written six letters to his sister, each more severe
and harsh than the preceding, and all on the subject
of gambling. He says that the little loving note from
her mother about the same question, deeply moved
and touched the Queen, who was greatly struck by
her mother's anxiety ; but to the series of six irate
scoldings of her Imperial brother (which were merely
repetitions, couched in the severest language, of all
points he considered essential to good behaviour) she
paid no attention and sent no answer. Mercy says,
with deep dejection, " I have even reason to believe
that the instructions drawn up by the Emperor have
been torn up, and thrown into the fire ! "
52 o The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Mercy has reason to write of his afflictions ; the
Queen has now determined to take her own course,
*' but what is so remarkable is her attitude towards
me. Her Majesty shows me her absolute confidence ;
she never resents anything, no matter how strongly
worded, that I say to her, she never hesitates to agree
with me that my arguments are based on sound reason ;
but, all the same, she never takes my advice. She
knows and sees that I am entirely devoted to her, but
she believes at the same time that my attachment is
so great that I should never take upon myself to tell
your Majesty of her conduct ; and this idea, which,
fortunately, she has always held, maintains my credit
with her, although all it permits me is that I can
tell her the truth but not induce her to follow it."
He draws a picture of the life of the Queen. For
the last three weeks reading has ceased, the taste for
music seems to have disappeared entirely, riding has
been given up, in deference to the idea that her health
may possibly suffer, the chief occupation is " long and
certainly very idle conversations with the chief
favourite, the Comtesse de Polignac," and gambling
is the one interest in life. All the time not taken up
by actual play is filled with plans for it in the evening.
The difficulties which this frenzy induces are manifold.
" The custom of this country permits the position of
banker at faro to be filled only by persons of quality.
The Due de Fronsac and the Marquis d'Ossun under-
took it in order to please the Queen ; but some
indecorous disputes obliged them to retire. Their
17 October, 1777 521
place was taken by the Comte de Merle ; but he is not
nearly rich enough to risk the chances of a game,
that by its enormous stakes might ruin him in one
night. He has therefore been obliged to take partners,
and the Queen has intervened to facihtate this,"
To maintain the bank against which the Court
played the Comte d'Artois used all manner of
expedients for borrowing money from the courtiers ;
with the result that many persons at Court were half
ruined, their families distressed, and the scandal and
talk of Paris much increased. The Queen herself
lost daily ; she tried to hide from Mercy the extent
of her losses, but he had means of ascertaining them
approximately. One grievous result of the present
mania was the introduction at Court of many persons,
wholly unworthy of the honour, whose only claim was
the reputation of bold gamesters. Amongst them is
said to have been an Englishman named Smith, a
man of low birth and common manners. He went
to Paris with a large fortune and no reputation ;
published the announcement that he had brought
200,000 louis [^192,000] to lose, was instantly taken
up by the Comte d'Artois and the Due de Chartres
and presented to the Queen ; he played at the Court
tables and speedily won 1,500,000 livres [£60,006].
The Court seemed returning to the days of the
Regency, when every great noble thought it no shame
to turn his family mansion into a pubUc gambling
house, for any one to enter in who would ; and to
place great blazing braziers before his doors as a sign
522 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
of invitation to any passer-by. Walpole computed
that in Paris at least one hundred and fifty personages
of high rank made their whole living in this way.
The races were commencing again, owing to the
efforts of the Comte d'Artois, and with greater circum-
stance than ever. Mercy says : " They expect a
great number of English to come over for them ; and
if they are like those whom we saw last autumn they
certainly are not fit people to appear before a Court."
The position of Mercy is rendered harder by the
disloyalty of the Abbe de Vermond, who, when his
presence was more than ever necessary in the hope of
influencing the Queen, considered his own clerical
advancement ; and, declaring himself shocked at the
dissipations, went to stay with the brother of the Arch-
bisop of Toulouse for a month's holiday in Champagne.
Mercy writes that this defection had been a great blow
to him : " I endeavoured, but in vain, to induce the
Abb6 to remain, for his departure deprives me of a
support very essential to the service of the Queen.
I shall have to redouble my own zealous efforts to
supply his place." With the greatest sweetness and
grace, Marie Antoinette had tried to persuade the
Abb6 to remain, had made excuses for herself, had
begged him to stay with her ; but de Vermond could
only be induced by her pleadings to promise that in
the greatly desired event of her having hopes of
becoming a mother he would come back.
This was the one great hope of Mercy ; and to
Marie Therese he says that this alone can win the
19 November, 1777 S'^3
Queen from her present follies, into which she would
never have fallen had the most ardent desire of her
seven years of marriage been granted her. Her
passionate love of children, her keen longing for the
happiness of motherhood had been thwarted and
disappointed by her childless state ; and she had
plunged into the wild excitement of gambling to
distract her mind from her own defeated hopes.
Mercy dares not build upon the chance, but yet in
that vague hope lies all his trust. It is not only the
present happiness of Marie Antoinette that is at
stake, it is her future as Queen of France : for the
mob of Paris cry aloud to her to give an heir to the
throne ; and the Comtesse d'Artois sees, in her
ambition, her children already reigning in her stead.
In this great pre-occupation both Mercy and Marie
Therese are absorbed ; for the Empress grows old and
feeble and fears that she may die without the con-
solation of knowinor that Marie Antoinette's future
is assured.
Mercy writes his constant endeavours to persuade
the Queen to less repugnance towards Louis,
to persuade her to seek his company, and 19 '
please him and to amuse him ; but he says ^^'^^tt^^^'
that she has so low an opinion of the
faculties of her husband, that all his persuasions cannot
move her to the effort. She told Mercy her real
opinion of the apathy and feebleness of Louis, saying
that she kept him well in order by fear ; and that she
possessed so complete an ascendancy over him that it
VOL. II. I I
524 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
was an easier, quicker, and more sure means of ruling
him than boring herself to show him quite un-
appreciated attentions. Mercy pointed out that she
could only blame herself if the hereditary pre-disposi-
tions of the King led him astray ; and she replied that
she should be neither grieved nor annoyed if the
King did take some passing fancy, if by that means he
acquired more energy and activity. Mercy told her
such indifference shocked him, and that she was under-
rating the capacity of the King, " but all I had to say
on the subject seemed to produce no effect ; still,
I was heard with patience and without appearance
of disgust."
But he wrote to Marie Therese that the Bourbons
were all alike in one thing — they were slaves of any
habit formed ; and in the history of France the proofs
of this were innumerable. Habit alone had retained
Louis XV. in his chosen manner of life ; and habit
would exert its hereditary influence on the opposite
temperament of his grandson, upon whom the natural
passions never had hold.
Mercy writes that the dissipations of Fontainebleau
have been incessant, and more uninterrupted than he
remembered on any previous visit ; but the Queen
confessed to him that she had found no pleasure in it
all, and had been at least as much bored as amused.
She had been to some masked balls in the town,
" which were remarkable only for their abundance
of bad company," and to the races, which she had
found dull ; and even at play she had wearied of her
THK ( IIAITE D ARTOIS.
(J-'ici/i (III cut;) cii'i iii^ by t ii.i:ln )
[Fcii^e 525.
19 November, 1777 S^S
continued bad luck. The Comte d'Artois had been
winning, at one time had gained nearly 50,000 ecus,
[^6,000], but had lost it again ; and his treasurer
lived always in dread of the difficulties into which his
extravagant ideas and expenses constantly brought him.
One of his mad bets was that he would pull down,
rebuild, and give a fete to the Queen in his house
Bagatelle within six or seven weeks. Bagatelle was
then a little country box in the Bois de Boulogne
which had belonged, until 1758, to Mademoiselle de
Charolais, of the house ot Conde, the " Frere Auge de
Charolais " ot Voltaire, in allusion to her preference
for the disguise ot a Capuchin monk. The bet of
100,000 livres [^4,000] was won by the Comte
d'Artois, the chateau demolished and rebuilt on the
existing plan, completed, decorated and furnished
within the appointed time. Nine hundred workmen
were employed upon it, working day and night ; as
materials ran short and there was no time to obtain
them in the usual course, the Comte d'Artois ordered
out his regiment of the Swiss Guards, (of which he
was Colonel), and sent patrols along every road to
seize all carts with stone, lime, or other necessaries,
and use them for the building. Mercy adds that
they paid on the spot the value of the materials, but
that did not compensate the people to whom they
were consigned, and who suffered by this act of violence.
Bagatelle is well known as having been the property
of Lord Hertford who left it to Sir Richard Wallace ;
and the treasures that it once contained are now in
526 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Hertford House, where are also some Bouchers, etc.,
of which the followhig story is told.
The private apartments of Louis XV., to which the
young princes did not have access, were hung with
these gems ; but when Louis XVL entered, he declined
to transact business with de Maurepas until every
picture had first been taken from the walls, as they
affronted an artistic taste that did not rise above the
colouring of maps. De Maurepas removed — and kept
— the pictures, hiding them under silk hangings in his
own apartments, in which they were more suitably
placed, as these were the very rooms formerly occupied
by Madame du Barry. At the time of the Revolution
they were removed from France to Amsterdam, and
finally bought for very large sums for the Wallace
collection.
The expensive building hobby of the Comte d'Artois
was not satisfied with the feat of Bagatelle. At the
same time he was seized with the idea of repairing the
Chateau de St.-Germain, which the King had given
him ; and also of restoring a great country house,
known as Maisons, which he had bought in the forest
of St.-Germain. The absurdity of rebuilding two
chateaux^ within a short distance of each other, was
increased by the cost of the repairs which amounted
to five millions [^200,000]. With so many chateaux
under discussion it was not surprising that the Queen
should desire another one of her own. Mercy heard
that her Majesty had asked the King to give her
Meudon, with its demesnes ; and he hastened at once
22 December, 1777 5^7
to tell her how her favourites had abused her
confidence. He explained that Meudon was an
ancient, crumbling Royal possession that existed only
because there was a governor, with a salary, to see
that it was not demolished. The Superintendent
of Buildings had informed the King that Meudon,
already half-ruined and entirely useless, had better
be pulled down. The Governor of Meudon, whose
sinecure would cease with the chateau, knew that the
only way to preserve both a little longer was to induce
the Queen to become its owner. After pointing out
this intrigue, Mercy informed her that this Royal
house cost 40,000 livres [/^ 1,600] a year to keep
up ; and to be made habitable would require more
than 1,500,000 livres [^60,000] to be spent upon
its dilapidations.
In the last month of the year Marie Antoinette
resolved upon certain reforms in her play ; December
and Mercy was thankful to chronicle the ^'^^'^'
half-loaf of retrenchment. She announced that hence-
forward the stakes at her table should not exceed
ten louis [^9 I2J".J on a single card. This rule was
aimed at certain hicjh ijamesters, and would not affect
the Court ladies, who never played so high. The
second rule was that no one who was not seated at
her table should play cards, or stake. This did away
with the worst evil of all, the crowding gamblers
standing behind the Duchesses at the Queen's table
and handing them their money to put on, which gave
incessant opportunities for cheating and quarrelling.
52 8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
The only person who objected to this regulation was
the Comte d'Artois, who found his methods of gambling
so much hampered that Mercy was in constant dread
lest the old disorder should be restored in deference
to his complaints.
His consolation was that faro must soon cease at
Court for lack of any one prepared to take the bank.
All those who had held it at Fontainebleau had
retired, and an officer named de Chalabre had under-
taken it ; but he could not fulfil the duties without
a croupier to assist him, as it was not possible for
one man to keep watch on the play of so many keen
and unscrupulous gamblers. But although men had
been found to take the bank in order to please the
Queen, their complaisance did not extend as far as
this ; and to Mercy's joy faro actually ceased for
want of a croupier. The Queen also, who gambled
only to distract her mind, not from passionate
love of cards, told Mercy that her taste for play
was lessening, balls and theatres now wearied her,
and she did not know how to find any fresh means
of killing the tedium of her life. It had occurred
to her that a fresh interest would be obtained if
her brother Ferdinand and his wife could come to
see her in France. Ferdinand had been ill, and
when he was on a visit to Vienna his mother had
written very disquietingly of his health, saying : "He
is as thin as Leopold was, but looks much worse in
the face, and has attacks of nerves and of indigestion
every moment." Marie Antoinette sent for Mercy
22 December, 1777 529
and asked if this visit could not be arranged, as
she longed to see her brother again, and wished
also to make the acquaintance of his wife, Marie
Beatrix d'Este.
Mercy's diplomatic eye saw many difficulties. He
said one Archduke could be arranged, but an
Archduchess, who was the daughter of a Duke of
Modena, in a Royal circle where were two Piedmontese
Princesses, Mesdames and their prejudices, and
Princesses of the Blood with pretensions, jealousies,
and ideas of precedence, presented so many snares
that it would be wiser not to risk them. He
reminded her of the neglected Princesse de Saxe
and her fate amid the pushing Royal ladies, while
apologising tor mentioning her as an example of
what miirht be the treatment of an Austrian
Archduchess who tried to compare ranks with these
ladies.
CHAPTER XI
The Menace from Bavaria — The Danger to Marie
Th^rese — Joseph's Schemes — The Death of the
Elector — Gathering Evils — Gambling at Fontaine-
bleau — Cheating by the Court Ladies — Marie
Antoinette and her Sleigh Drives — Sleighs with
Golden Bells — Mademoiselle Duth^ and her Coach
for the Races — France prepared for War with
England — The Queen and Politics — Louis' Opinion
■ — The Methods of Mercy — Marie Antoinette plays
a New Game — The Due de Deux Fonts.
THROUGHOUT the year 1777 Bavaria had
been the subject of perpetual dread to Marie
Th6rese. She had hoped the menace would remain
inactive during the remaining years of her life ; that
she might die before the inevitable blow fell. For
with her statesmanlike outlook she recognised the evil
was certain and inevitable in the future ; but her pre-
cautions and her policy alike were nullified by the
actions of her son Joseph. Bavaria had always been
a danger to the Empress ; from the days of her
accession to the throne it had been a word of fear,
summoning memories of the flight from her capital
with the infant Joseph, of the advance of the Elector
of Bavaria against Vienna and his proclamation as
Charles VII. ; of the French armies pouring into
530
4 January, 1778 531
Bavaria in support of the Elector, and of Frederick
the Great of Prussia leading thirty thousand men
into Silesia. Then came years of struggle for her
crown and the heritage of her son, in which her
only loyal subjects were the Hungarians, her only
staunch allies the British troops ; and her chief
support the British Parliament (with its subsidy of
five million pounds voted to carry on her war, and
a yearly contribution from this country of ^300,000,
increased by Pitt to half a million in 1745), the
struggle ceasing only when Charles VII. died at
Munich, and the husband of Marie Th6rese, elected
Emperor, became the founder of the line of Hapsburg-
Lorraine.
Now, more than thirty years afterwards, she saw her
dread again rise. Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria was
childless and the last of the line of Wittelsbach ; and
upon his life hung the issues of peace or war. Joseph,
to whom the cession of Silesia, as the price of peace
with Frederick II., had remained a rankling memory,
resolved to round the Austrian domains by the
annexation of Bavaria. He considered that the alliance
with France (concluded with the Due de Choiseul by
Marie Therese) existed for one of two purposes, either
the restoration of Silesia by wresting it from the grip
of Frederick, or an indemnification for its loss by
the possession of Bavaria. He therefore prepared for
one of those coups that are called in history brilliant
statesmanship when they are lucky, and mad folly when
they are not. He based his claims upon some fifteenth
53 2 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
century rights and the French alliance ; but he took the
precaution of approaching the probable successor of
Maximilian Joseph, who was Charles Theodore the
Elector Palatine, and arranging terms for the cession
of his claims. Charles Theodore was in favour of
anything that saved him trouble, and at the same
time gave him means to continue his extravagant life
in his own lands, where his credit was already exhausted,
by the endeavour to imitate in a petty little German
Court the magnificently regal state of Versailles.
Joseph's horizon was limited ; he saw nothing but
an easy stroke "which I flatter myself will be carried
out without war." Marie Therese, the wise and far-
seeing, knew that her ancient enemy Frederick, the
" monster " as she always called him, would never
permit such an aggrandisement of Austria ; she knew
also that the Elector of Saxony would press his claim
to the succession by right of his mother, Marie
Antoinette of Bavaria.
While Joseph was stormily lecturing Marie
Antoinette in Versailles, and addressing long and
instructive dissertations on the whole art of govern-
ment to King Louis, who received them in the silence
of stupefaction, " giving no sign that he understood
what they were about," Marie Therese was writing
to Mercy her conviction that the King of Prussia
had already penetrated the designs of Joseph on
Bavaria and on the Black Sea, that he was certainly
instilling into the minds of the French the " most
odious suggestions " against them, and that it would
4 January, 1778 533
need all Mercy's dexterity to prevent the revival of
the former jealousy of France against any increase of
Austria. She had written to Mercy in July 1777:
'' I do not see clearly the justice of the title by
which we pretend to lay claim to Bavaria ; but I
do see the numerous difficulties that oppose our
views. I think the arrangement most profitable to
the monarchy would be one ot an exchange of States."
Then she said that she did not suppose she should
survive the Elector, for he was in good health,
and young enough to be her son. With regard to
the Black Sea commerce she was even more opposed
to Joseph's plans, being convinced that Austria could
never hope to compete with England ; but the
Bavarian danger was by far the more urgent, for it
concerned all the chief nations of Europe. Spain
would follow France, as she did before, Prussia was
only hoping for a chance to seize Bohemia, England
was engrossed with her American war (Burgoyne had
surrendered, London was in a ferment, our whole
island was dotted with camps). Thus all the interested
Powers of Europe were waiting on the frontiers of
Bavaria for the stroke to fall ; and Maximilian Joseph
died on 30 December, 1777, when the contract of
Charles Theodore with Joseph was still unsigned.
Marie Therese sent a despatch at once to Mercy
to announce the fatal event, '' which I have
1 . J T 1 1 J r " Vienna,
always hopecl 1 snoulu not live to see ; 4 January,
• 1778
and told him her gloomy outlook on the
future. She says that the Dowager-Electress of
534 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Saxony (Marie Antoinette of Bavaria) has already
lodged her claims for allodial rights — this claim
amounted to 47,000,000 florins, of which 41,000,000
were subsequently disallowed — and she was so violent
an intriguer that to gain them she seemed wiUing
to throw in her lot with that of the enemies of
Austria. She touched lightly upon the same subject
to Marie Antoinette, in whom was all the hope of
the Franco-Austrian alliance ; but she wrote more fully
upon the subject of pictures. There were two
pictures at Vienna in which the little Archduchess
Marie Antoinette figured with her brothers and
sisters, which had been painted at the time of the
marriage of the Emperor Joseph, when Marie
Antoinette was a child of eight ; she now wished
to have these pictures to place in the Petit Trianon.
Her mother says she will be delighted to send them,
and that she will try and despatch them before eight
years have passed, " the time during which I have
been waiting eagerly for your promised portrait ; " but
she says she will not let them go until the picture
of "my dear Queen" comes.
Marie Antoinette, conscience-stricken, confesses in
her letter of 15 January that innumerable painters
have commenced portraits of her, but they have all
failed in the likeness, hence the delay. She also is
interested in the Bavarian succession, for to one of
her house the very name held history ; and she says
she heard the news of the Elector's death with a
shock of uneasiness, but she hopes that a peaceful
17 January, 1778 535
settlement will be possible, for the idea of war would
bring misery to her life.
War was, nevertheless, gathering on all sides ;
England and France were at such variance that the
next month saw the breaking of the strained links ;
Austria, counting on the " very favourable " troubles
of England, was already plunging into disaster ; and
in Paris the first cry of the mob was raised for war
against Austria upon the news of the death of the
Elector of Bavaria and of the designs of their idol
of last year, Joseph. The Paris mob, of all mobs
the most readily inflamed, had many admirations,
but the life of none exceeded five weeks ; and nothing
burns more quickly than dead laurels.
The Queen was struck by the outcry ; she had
as little sympathy with the eagerness of Joseph in
this matter as her mother, though her reasons were
not as deeply founded. The Emperor had written
to Mercy : " An army corps of twelve thousand men
will march at once into Bavaria to take possession. . . .
That will not give over-much pleasure where you are,
but I do not see what objection they can raise " ; and
Marie Antoinette, in a private note to the Comtesse
Jules de Polignac, said she was afraid her brother
was only " playing his own hand."
As nothing, private or otherwise, escapes Mercy,
he informs the Empress that he had heard ^j January,
this " through those channels by means of ^'^'^^•
which everything reaches me ; " and he had at once
written to the Queen that if this indiscretion became
S3^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
known to the French ministers, there would be an
end of all hope of maintaining the alliance, for they
would conclude she was not in sympathy with the
desires of her own Imperial house. Mercy adds that
the movements of Austria are being watched with
malevolence by the French ministry, and that intrigues
with Prussia and the Elector- Palatine are to be
expected ; but that France has so many reasons to
restrain herself that she is not likely to give herself
over to great enterprises.
He says that the inner Court Hfe is far from
tranquil. The Queen was the first to break her
own rule limiting the stakes at play, as she found
the ten louis limit very insipid. She was now
gambling more desperately than she had ever done
before ; on one evening she had lost 300 louis [^{^288],
which the King himself paid the next morning, as
he often took upon himself the payment of similar
debts. Joseph had written a very sharp and short
letter to her, saying that he had heard from some
Enghsh strangers that when the Queen played at
Fontainebleau the tables resembled a gambling-house,
that nothing was to be seen but confusion and
unseemly crowding of persons ; that they had watched
with horror the cheating of some of the Court ladies ;
but, he added, he should not waste his sight in writing
to her as he had wasted his breath in talking to her,
and he ended with wishes to the Queen for all
happiness in continuing such a system of life. To
which Marie Antoinette sent a very gentle little reply,
17 January, 1778 537
saying she had never seen and never heard of any
cheating by the ladies of her Court. Mercy says
significantly, however, that the accusation was justified.
Mercy remarks that the Queen now finds great
difliculty in maintaining a semblance of friendship
between her two favourites ; he says she has grown
very tired of the Princesse de Lamballe, but is
increasingly fond of the Comtesse de Polignac, and
to avoid the look of partiality she spends hours with
Madame de Lamballe, who now bores her extremely.
The Queen has again taken up her music but without
much energy, and other occupation she has none.
Even the sleigh driving has been more moderate,
although the snow is lying attractively, out ot deference
to the feelings of the poor.
To the starved and perishing multitudes of Paris,
freezing in the streets, the long-drawn, glittering line
of Royal sleighs, painted and sparkling with gold, with
gold embroidered trappings, and scarlet leather with
silver ornaments, was insulting in its enjoyment of
the frost that meant death to them. They calculated
the cost of the luxury in which the Queen (instantly
recognisable even if masked) drove her shell-shaped
sleigh with the tossing white feathers, on her own
and on the horse's head, flying past down the Bois de
Boulogne to the tinkling of innumerable little gold
and silver bells. The resentment ot the mob at
such luxury of equipage, which did not dare to show
itself openly against the Queen, vented itself upon
Mademoiselle Duth6 (" insti tut rice des plaisirs ") at
53 8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Longchamps. This lady's coach was of the costliness
usual where no question of payment arises ; its body
was supported upon a large gold cockle shell, whose
inner curve was mother of pearl ; the naves of the
wheels were of solid silver ; the panels of the coach
were painted by a pupil of Boucher, the carpet was
formed of the plumage of tropical birds and cost
36,000 livres [^1,440], the satin cushions fof vert
celadon) were stuffed with scented herbs from
Montpellier ; and the white horses, harnessed in green
and gold, bore the white plumes of feathers to which
the populace had grown accustomed upon the carriages
of the Queen. The people of Paris were mute before
the equipage of the Queen, but the frantic luxury
of Duthe (the Royal accompaniment to " biscuit de
Savoie ") drove them into fury ; they hissed and
hustled the lady, in her semi-royal state, and the
mother-of-pearl coach took final refuge in the pound.
In February Marie Antoinette, so long uninterested
in political matters, suddenly awakens to the
February, position that war with England is to be
1778 . • •
anticipated ; and that France will have to
guard her own interests as well as to forward those
of the Emperor of Austria. She writes : " Our
relations with England are thrown into great confusion;
the English have attacked several of our ships, so
that we no longer think it necessary to hide the
preparations we have made here to repay their insults ;
our vessels are being armed, and the artillery and
troops are proceeding into Bretagne. Perhaps our
i8 February, 1778 539
preparations will teach them wisdom ; it is not yet
certain that war is inevitable. I have just seen Mercy ;
after all that he tells me, and that I have seen for
myself, I hope that the little clouds that enemies
have tried to raise, may disappear, and that there will
be no change in the alliance so valuable to Europe,
in which there can be no one whose interest is greater
than is mine."
All Mercy's thoughts are on the same subjects,
Bavaria and England. He tells the Empress
that Marie Antoinette, hitherto so disinclined February,
1778
to affect an interest in politics, is filled with
genuine dread lest anything should diminish the friend-
ship between Austria and France. The prospect of
war with England is less disturbing than a rupture of
the alliance ; and the Queen devotes time and attention
to Mercy's lessons, who repeats to her the arguments
she is to use in conversation with Louis, of the rights
that the Empress has over Bavaria ; and he uses all his
skill to foresee the insinuations that Frederick the
Great may have made to Louis' ministers, and to
forearm her with arguments against them. The de
Choiseul party regard the future with hope, almost
with certainty, that in the event of an outbreak of
war with England, ^' the burden of State would be too
heavy for the Comte de Maurepas to support, then it
would be necessary to turn to a man with brains, and
the Due de Choiseul was the only man for the
office." These opinions were uttered freely by the
supporters of de Choiseul, amongst whom was the all-
voL. II. 12
54^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
powerful Comtesse de Polignac, who had been won over
to their side, although she was a relative of the Comte
de Maurepas and under obligations to him. But against
the selection of the Due de Choiseul were ranged the
Empress, who feared his patriotism, which would
withhold the assistance that she, for the sake of her
son, so much desired ; Joseph, who had called him
" turbulent and restless " ; and Louis himself, who clung
with all the obstinacy of a man of weak intellect to the
ridiculous idea, instilled into him when he was a child.
He had been told that his father, the Dauphin, had
been poisoned by de Choiseul, out of spite because he
favoured the Jesuits ; and although the illness and
death of the Dauphin were known, even to the medical
expert of that time, to have been due to consumption,
the early aversion continued unchanged, and the claims
and merits of de Choiseul were small in comparison.
Mercy interrupted his letter to the Empress (which
details his plan of gradually " accustoming, even forcing
the King to reason," by Marie Antoinette's prepared
arguments) by a visit to Versailles to see the Queen ;
and when he takes it up again it is to give bad news.
He had found the Queen more agitated, more uneasy,
than he had ever seen her in any circumstances. She
had an interview with her husband ; in it she had
been talking with earnestness on the Bavarian affair,
exposing the intrigues of Frederick, showing the danger
to the alliance, and dwelling upon the advantage to
France which this alliance would be in her war with
England, for she would only have to think of her
i8 February, 1778 541
sea forces, and be quite secure from attack on the
Continent. Louis then spoke : " It is the ambition
of your relations that is upsetting everything ; they
began with Poland and now they have gone on to
Bavaria. I am sorry, for your sake." And when
Marie Antoinette exclaimed that he could not deny
he had been told and had agreed about Bavaria, the
King said that far from agreeing, he had told his
ministers they were to send to all the Courts of
Europe and say that the King did not approve it.
The shock of these words, with the knowledge that
if his ministers had actually succeeded in imbuing
Louis with these views, his slow, obstinate nature
would not permit him to turn from them, was terrifying
to the Oueen ; who felt the alliance at stake and
remembered the words of her mother : ''If the alliance
breaks, it will be mv death." Mercy had small
comfort to offer. Too good a courtier to give his
opinion unasked, there is a silence as to the very name
of the Emperor which reveals it. There are no more
references to his great pouers, his noble and enlightened
mind, and his wisdom. Mercy's sympathy is with his
Empress, stricken in her last years by calamities that
she sees rushing towards her, invited by the precipitate
action of her son. Mercy's reliance is on the war
with England ; France dare not then risk the loss of
the friendship of Austria. England has once before
thrown her armies (sixteen thousand British, sixteen
thousand Hanoverians in British pay, for George II.
risked no Hanoverian cash, six thousand Hessians)
54^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
into Germany to fight for Marie Therese, and had
routed the French army under the Due de Gramont
at Dettingen ; and if Austria's alliance is flung off,
England would again do as she had done so short a
time before, and would attack France both by land
and by sea.
Mercy tells the Empress in his secret report the
attitude he intends to take up towards the ministers,
who are, he says, " unintelligent men, who become
like lunatics when they are pre-occupied with anything,
and may thus be led easily into errors." He is
going to be " confident, frank, and to speak with
studied moderation, to make them feel that while
your Majesty holds strongly to the alliance it is more
from personal sentiment than from State reasons."
And he will insinuate convincingly that now is the
*' unique and priceless opportunity for humiliating
England," which will be lost if that Power is enabled
to approach Austria by breach of the alliance with
France.
Mercy says also that the Queen is interested
heart and soul, that she is learning from him all
the delicate shades of poHtical views by means of
which she can best work upon the ministers ; that
she has changed her manner of life in the anxiety
that now fills it, is far more often with and more
attentive to the King, that even the gambling has
suddenly lost interest in face of the game of life in
which she is now called to play ; and he begs the
Empress to send a few lines to confirm the Queen
19 February, 1778 543
in this new sense of responsibility. "A line, a
single phrase, from your Majesty moves the Queen
more than two hours of my political reasoning. ... I
saw the Queen grow pale as she read the words,
' ce qui me donnerait la mort^ the shock of which
threw her into the utmost agitation." This awakening
to responsibility was exploited by Joseph to the
political ruin of Marie Antoinette, for it was one
of the fiercest denunciations against the Queen in
after years that, urged by her affection for her family,
she had strained all her power and influence over the
King for the benefit of Austria, to obtain the loan
of ten millions to the Netherlands in payment of the
expenses of Joseph's unsuccessful war.
Marie Therese responded to the spur. She wrote
to Marie Antoinette : " It is five o'clock in yienna,
the morning, and I write to you in utmost February
haste, for the messenger waits at my door. 1'^'^®*
I was not warned in time, and they press for his
departure that the message may reach the King
quickly, and dispel the black and malicious insinua-
tions of the Kino; of Prussia. I trust that the Kins:
is aware of their character, and will not let himself
be misled by villains ; and I rely on his justice and
his tenderness for his dear little wife. I give no
details ; the Emperor and Mercy will take that duty
upon themselves. . . . Think how deeply I am
feeling ! The interest of both our houses, still
more, of both our States and of Europe, depends
upon the alliance. I pray that there may be no
544 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
precipitation, and that all will try to gain time
that may save the outbreak of a war that, once
begun, may last long, and bring griefs to all of us.
Think of my own personal anxiety. The Emperor
and your brother [Maximilian] and Prince Albert
[brother-in-law of Marie Antoinette] will be the
chief leaders. The mere idea makes me sink, but
I can prevent nothing, and even if I do not sink
under this, my life will be worse than death."
To Mercy the Empress can speak with full con-
3 March ^dence. She tells him her apprehensions :
1778. " You know how much it costs me to
embark upon these affairs of Bavaria, undertaken in
complete opposition to my opinions. ... I beg of
you to employ all your zeal and all your skill in
maintaining my alliance with the King of France,
which is already shaken by the insidious insinuations
of the King of Prussia and our own interference
with Bavarian matters. The rupture of this alliance
would fill the measure of my unhappy hfe." She
repeats in this letter her conviction that Marie
Antoinette is attached to her family and determined to
give every proof of goodwill ; but she fears her levity
will not permit her to act with prudence, and that she
may weary the King and make him suspicious without
gaining any real benefit. The word " ambition,"
thrown out by Louis in reference to the Austrian
" relations," had stung the Empress the more deeply
as she recognised its truth ; and she feared the result
of such opinion. She dreaded the possible return
3 March, 1778 545
of de Cholseul, triumphantly snuffing the air with
his conquering ''^ nez an vent^' his restless spirit, his
vindictive temper, " which could not fail to have been
roused by our coldness." She dreaded even more
the possible d'Aiguillon, of openly anti-Austrian
policy, and with many slights and injuries from the
Queen to avenge. The one thing certain seems that
change is imminent, but in no course can she see
hope ; and she says piteously, as she had twice re-
peated in the letter to Marie Antoinette : " Think
of my position ! We have already received a great
humiliation from the Due de Deux Fonts, which will
lead to sad issues. His good faith and confidence
would have been worth two hundred thousand men."
Charles Augustus, Due de Deux Fonts, or Herzog
Karl von Zweibrilcken, to mention the title by which
he is more famihar in German history, was the heir
presumptive of Charles Theodore, the easy-going,
purchasable Palatinate Elector, who, having no
legitimate heir, was not mindful of the future of
Charles Augustus. When the contract for the partition
of Bavaria became known, and Austria's troops already
marched to take possession of her share, it was found
that the " monster," Frederick the Great, had taken
measures with the Due de Deux Fonts and was pre-
pared to press his claim to the heritage that was
passing from him. Thus Joseph, at once headstrong
and tardy, had committed himself to military move-
ments which Frederick the Great with instant joy
took as an excuse to fling his armies into Bohemia.
54^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Louis was interesting himself secretly in trying to
arrange terms of peace ; not between the nations that
so earnestly desired his intervention, but between Russia
and Turkey, whose war had dragged on for years ;
and the success of the French plans of pacification was
a renewed blow to Austria, for Catherine of Russia,
released from the Turkish affair, proceeded immediately
to ally herself with Frederick the Great. It was vain
to invoke peace in Europe, for the year 1778 saw the
world at war. France, the peace-maker, at once
embroiled herself with England ; and Spain followed
her Bourbon lead, but she paid with Gibraltar for
the play.
CHAPTER XII
Declaration of War with Great Britain — Tlie Policy
that led to it — Manner of announcing it —
Reception in Britain — British Measures — Recall of
the British and French Ambassadors — Voltaire in
Paris — The Church in France — Voltaire receives
all Paris, but the Court refuses Recognition — The
Mar^chale de Luxembourg — Balls at the Opera —
The Comte d'Artois strikes the Duchesse de
Bourbon in Public — Duel between the Due de
Bourbon and the Comte d'Artois.
" ^"T^HE King has announced to the King of
1 England that he has made a treaty with the
Americans. My Lord Stormond received on Sunday
the command from his Court to leave France. There
is every prospect that our fleet, which has
. ... x6PScllll6Sj
for long been busily preparing, will soon 18 March,
be on active service. God grant that all
these measures may not bring about a war by land
also ! "
Thus simply runs the letter of Marie Antoinette
to her mother that tells of the Declaration of War
with England. The policy that dictated the rupture
was as simple. It was the same that has guided all
despotisms from the commencement of the world,
547
54^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
— the policy of diversions. In Rome the means
of distracting attention from abuses was to give
fanem et circenses. The Government of Louis XVI.
had no bread to offer the discontented millions of
France ; but there could be no more popular " circus ''
than the prospect of a war with hated England, at
a moment that seemed favourable to even the most
cautiously vindictive.
England seemed sinking ; appeared beaten to her
knees. She was alone against a world in arms, without
an ally, without even a friendly neutral Power ; she was
waging a hopeless, dogged fight with the States, the
failure of which was certain ; she was being drained
of men, of money, and of ships ; her troops were
exhausted ; her armies, consisting of the (well-paid)
scrapings of the Continent, were thousands of miles
from the heart of England, which lay open to attack.
The reports of French spies (amongst whom was the
Due de Lauzun) were filled with news of the discontent
in the navy and of the sailors' murmurings against
their pay, that remained as it had been fixed in the
reign of Charles II., although the price of necessaries
had risen at least 30 per cent. The division of
political feeling was noted as proof of national weakness ;
the " popular " grumblings against the Government (to
use the word in double significance) were construed
into a possibility of internal enfeebling dissension.
Walpole wrote : " James I. was contemptible, but
he did not lose an America ! His eldest grandson
sold us, his younger lost us — but we kept ourselves.
i8 March, 1778 549
Now we have run to meet the ruin — and it is
coming ! "
No wonder therefore that the French ministers hailed
the opportunity as a God-send. To deal a blow at
the supremacy of England at a time when her whole
strength was required as shield, and she could not
therefore hit back ; to pacify the turbulent mobs
of France by the glittering prospect of cheap glory
in lieu of the reforms they demanded ; to gain from
them fresh supplies instead of having to yield con-
cessions of revenue, and at the same time to ship
off all the wildest, most effervescent spirits to America
on pretext of taking part in a just struggle — these
were chances too promising to be missed. For the
bitterness still rankled that had been felt in 1763,
when the Peace of Paris gave England Canada and its
dependencies, Cape Breton and all the islands of
St. Lawrence, Senegal in Africa, the East Indies and
part of Louisiana ; and France had been left with
a navy almost annihilated and her best colonies lost.
Now there was little fear of loss or of danger ; the
dreaded British navy was encumbered with the duty
of guarding the British commerce on all the seas
of the world, and was (they believed) rotten with
discontent. Expenses would be paid by the capture
of British merchant ships that our naval strength was
inadequate to guard ; and France had been diligently
working at her navy, as Marie Antoinette confessed,
for two years in the ambition of striking a blow when
the chance should come.
SS^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
The chance came, and the French ministers seized
13 March i^- To show the contempt the Government
1778. Qf Prance had for its feeble Royal figure-
head, it is only necessary to point out that although
Louis XVI. signed the treaty with the American
States only on ii March, 1778, the ministers had
sent copies of this treaty, with all the force which
such Governmental despatch could give, to America
in the previous month, hastening their envoy in the
frigate Andromede which had sailed in February.
The notification of this treaty was duly conveyed
to Lord Weymouth by the Marquis de Noailles,
French Ambassador to London ; and the tenor of
the despatch and its insolent manner of delivery
raised a storm of furious indignation in this country.
Walpole wrote on 17 March : " The French
Ambassador notified to Lord Weymouth on Friday
that his Court had concluded a treaty of commerce
and amity with the independent States of America, but
has had the attention not to make it an exclusive treaty,
so that we may trade with America if America will
condescend to trade with us. And some words of
France not being disposed to be molested in their
commerce with their new friends." This notification
is dated 13 March, 1778, is signed " Le Marquis
de Noailles " and begins : " The United States of
America which are in full possession of independence
{en pleine possession de F independance) ; " and the clause
to which Walpole refers runs : " [France and United
States] have had the attention not to stipulate for
March, 1778 S^^
any exclusive advantages in favour of the French
nation."
The scene in Parliament upon the reception of this
communication is historical. The act of France in
concluding an alliance with States, over which Great
Britain still claimed sovereignty, with which she was
in open war, was denounced as '' a formal and pre-
meditated act of aggression equivalent to a declara-
tion of war." Lord Chatham's dramatic appearance
in the House, to protest against the weakness of
submitting to the dictation of France, with the former
fiery spirit flaming through the failing strength of a
dying man : and his fall, struck down by his death-
blow, as he delivered his protest, were the signal for
war ; and England, bristling with indignation, prepared
for a fresh enemy, while France found herself much
inconvenienced by the prompt measures taken by
Great Britain, even before the decision of Parliament
announced formal hostilities.
Friction had been great for some time past. Marie
Antoinette made mention, in her letter of 13 February,
of the English attacks upon French vessels, and the
French determination to repay these insults ; the chief
cause of these outbreaks was the fact that prizes, taken
at sea by American ships, were conveyed into French
ports, to the fury of the British who saw them escape
under the protection of an ostensibly friendly Power.
It was known also that France was continually supply-
ing the Americans with arms ; that the French
Government itself had sent thirty thousand " fire-
552 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
locks," two hundred brass field pieces, and other
military stores, despatched on a sloop of war, as long
before open warfare as 1776. But the protests of
England only resulted in the conclusion of an arrange-
ment by which these munitions were not to be sent
openly and free, but to be paid for by a return of
American produce, tobacco, etc. The artillery that
captured Burgoyne was obtained from France. The
temper of the British was not prepared to regard the
limits of a neutrality so honeycombed with breaches ;
and the instant course was now taken of seizing all
materials for arming or constructing ships of war
which they found in neutral bottoms and consigned
to French ports.
A Histoire de la derniire Guerre entre La Grande
Bretagne et Les Etats Unis de F Amerique^ La France^
UEspagne et La Hollande^ published in 1787 in Paris,
gives a tedious but pleasantly innocent account of the
French attitude from 1775 to 1783 ; and it regards this
British riposte to the French Declaration of War, in
the most childlike manner, as a little unfair, seeing the
French were not quite ready to play. " [This act]
greatly hindered the French from proceeding, as it
was thereby rendered impossible for them to arm ; "
and it continues to dwell upon the difficulty of getting
munitions of war, masts, rigging, and the like
necessaries delivered to their ports because the English
were most unkindly blockading the whole of the
French coasts. However, the French Minister of
Marine checkmated the English move by discovering —
March, 1778 SS3
apparently the question had never been contemplated
before — that it was possible to convey these essential
" matures " by using the canals of Flanders and Picardy ;
and the *' Histoire " above-mentioned details gleefully
how they managed to get their stores from Holland
in spite of England's meanness. They came to
Cambray by the canals of Dort and I'Escaut, or by the
canal of Bruges ; from Cambray they were carried
fourteen leagues over land to St. Quentin, then
en trains they floated by the Crozat canal to Chauni ;
thence they entered the Oise and descended to
Conflancs St. Honorine ; thence they ascended the
Seine to the canal of Briare, traversed it, and fell into
the Loire, which they descended to the He d'Aindret
below Nantes ; there they were embarked on barges,
which carried them to Brest and Rochefort. In the
meantime the French fleet waited in harbour, and
decided that England did not play the game fairly.
The French had, naturally, seized all British vessels
that were in their power. Walpole writes : '* France
has stopped all our shipping in their ports and
our omniscient Lord Stormont learnt that piece
of news at Boulogne, being detained there by the
embargo. . . . He must either stay there or come
round by Holland ; " so even the passage of the
Ambassador was forbidden. Lord Stormont, being an
honest man and desirous of paying his just debts,
advertised in Paris on 17 March, the day before his
departure, that all creditors were to present themselves
at the Embassy, and to bring their bills if they wished
554 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
to be paid, as he would not hold himself responsible
for payment after the 20th of that month. Paris, or
at least the Court, regarded this as an eccentric pro-
ceeding, and were not sure whether it should not be
taken as a fresh insult to France. It is probable that
the Paris tradespeople did not look upon it in that
light ; and were thankful to pocket the insult of payment
in consideration of the rarity of such an event among
French Ambassadors.
The recall of Lord Stormont from Paris was simul-
taneous with that of the detested Marquis de Noailles
from London ; and the Due de Lauzun wrote on
I 8 March to de Vergennes a vivid description of the
terror that the departure of de Noailles had caused
in London. Fear and general consternation are his
lightest terms to describe the departure of an Ambas-
sador whose manner had been as unfortunate as his
policy had been unpopular. He says : " There Is no
misery that they do not expect in consequence ; and
this nation, so long blind to its situation, is now
awakened to its inevitable disasters, and can see neither
remedy nor consolation." As de Lauzun wrote this
description of London's panic from the depths of his
isolation " in the profoundest retreat " at Bath ; and as
he adds fatuously that he has not '' sufficient fatuity
to attribute to myself all the credit of this event,"
the value of his testimony may be gauged.
With so brilliant and inexpensive a campaign
opening before France, there is time to study the
strangers within the gates of Paris. Amongst them
lo February^ 1778 SSS
was Voltaire, who had been permitted to return to
Paris, after an absence of more than twenty-seven years.
This permission of Louis XVI. filled the austere of
France with horror, but it was not followed by any
gracious presentation of the philosopher at Court such
as he had wished, to atone for the neglect of Joseph II.
At the time of the outbreak of war with England
Voltaire was one of the chief spectacles of Paris. He
had arrived on 10 February, about four o'clock in the
afternoon, to be the guest of that M. le Marquis
de Villette of whom Madame de Crequy wrote that he
was a perfect fool (" un ridicule achevi'')^ and Madame
du Deffant described as a comic nullity ('' un plat
personnage de comedie "), and both ladies were right.
Voltaire's impatience for notoriety would not permit
him to remain in his host's house an hour after his
arrival in Paris ; he rushed out instantly to call upon
his friend d'Argental at the Quai d'Orsay. He fled
along the Paris streets, wrapped in a vast pelisse of
crimson velvet trimmed with gold braid and sables,
with a woollen wig on his shrivelled head ; and above
that a furred bonnet of crimson velvet. The passers-
by stood and gaped, thinking it was a masquerader ;
and the polissons followed and hooted, so that
Voltaire was assured of attention.
The house of the Marquis and Marquise de Villette
(" Belle et Bonne'') was in the Rue de Beaune. It was
a remarkable building and well suited to its owners ;
all its space was sacrificed to one vast salon^ the roof
of which reached to the attics ; the dining-room was
VOL. II. 13
SS^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
on the second floor and was reached by a rustic ladder
of twisted woodwork, and the walls were ingeniously-
covered with paper to give the illusion of country
bowers. It is needless to say in such circumstances
that the bedrooms were sketchily designed. *' Madame
le Marquise sleeps in a cupboard at the end of the
corridor ; Monsieur le Marquis lives^ economically,
under the tiles, in the midst of the representation of
a seafight."
Voltaire received all Paris in his bedroom. There
was an ante-chamber in which the crowds waited and
were introduced one by one to the gifted writer, who
spoke to each in return for a compliment ; and then
turned his back upon him, to correct ostentatiously
the proofs of his tragedy of Irhe. He was wrapped
in his velvet pelisse and wore a nightcap, saying he
could not dress, as he was dying ; but he received
from 7 a.m. till 10.30 p.m., as gratified vanity does
not kill. Paris went mad over the famous genius with
the geographical religious convictions ; all the most
celebrated men and women flocked to the bedroom in
the Rue de Beaune ; the Acad^mie Fran^aise and the
Com^die Fran^aise sent deputations ; all the world
came to pay homage. But the Court remained icily
indifferent to the presence of the man termed by Marie
Th6rese, the despiser of Divinity ; and Voltaire's cup
of happiness was poisoned by this. He sighed for the
honours of the Court, and hoped that the production
of his tragedy, " Irhie^'' would induce the King and
Queen to receive him. He toiled at the perfecting of
February, 1778 557
his work, received the actors who were to play in it,
M. Bellecourt and the extremely stout Madame Vestris
who was to be " Irhie' (and who played it in a Chinese
dress). He heard of the death of Lekain who was to
have taken a leading part in it ; and he first fainted,
and then tied crape round his nightcap, for over this
tragedy many comedies were played ; and the Place
de Notre Dame grew black with priests hurrying to
the archbishop to implore him to remove this anti-
Christ that all Paris was worshipping.
But the priests had little weight in France ; the
Church was silent, " like a dumb ox, lowing only for
provender (of tithes)," and full twenty years had
passed since its voice carried conviction as it pressed
for the execution of the Anti-Protestant laws, that
condemned a preacher of those principles to death,
or forbade burial to the body of a follower of the
Bishop of Ypres. Even in the churches themselves
there was a significant diversion provided for the
entertainment of those guests whom habit took to
mass. The family prayer-books remained there in
readiness in the family gallery, and readers studied
piously therein, when setting an example by their
presence to the common folk ; but the smiles on the
faces of these worshippers were not due to religious
exhortations. Within the sacred book covers (as
provided by the Archbishop of Narbonne, Monseigneur
Dillon, for such of his fiock as were of quality), were
chroniques scandaleuses^ that beguiled the tedium of
the service, and remained on the shelves of the
SS^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
family place of worship for the edification, between
services, of the church cleaners at Hautefontaine. Free-
masonry took the place of religion : one of its most
worthy supporters was Grand Master the Due de
Chartres, the intimate of the Prince Regent, who had
made his wife, the Duchesse de Chartres, a Freemason
at the Lodge of the Folic Titon in Paris, on
28 February 1776, an example followed by many.
The Church, with de Rohan as its representative
(now Cardinal by interest of Stanislas Poniatowski,
King of Poland), was powerless against the welcoming
of Voltaire ; even the Comte d'Artois (in defiance of
the King's wishes) sent a message of compliment.
The visits of all the chief Court celebrities are
chronicled, despite the Royal opposition. The aged
Marechal Due de Richelieu, Fami a pendre et a
dipendre^ called to see the contrast between the
" hero of a century of gallantry " and the philosopher,
both men of eighty-four years of age ; and it is said
the shrivelled Voltaire, in his nightcap, looked better
preserved than the Due, who appeared magnificently
dressed, in all his decorations, and with his wrinkles
gathered up ^ind fastened under his peruke. Madame
du Deffand called also — Walpole's "old, blind debauchee
of wit," ^^ la femme Voltaire" of others — and was
received with great respect by his niece Denis whom
she describes as *' the best woman in the world,
mais certaineynent la plus gaupeT But Madame
la Marechale de Luxembourg, whose homage was
conveyed in written eulogies of Voltaire's *' Orestes "
February, 1778 559
and covered four large pages, was less fortunate ; for
all his reply was : " Madame la Marechale, Orestes
is not spelt with an * H.' I remain, with deep
respect. . . ."
Madame de Luxembourg (formerly Duchesse
de Boufflers was the daughter of the Due de Villeroy,
the wife of one Due de Boufflers and the mother of
another, and her granddaughter, AmeHe de Boufflers,
married the Due de Lauzun. Walpole says : '* The
Marechale has been very handsome, very abandoned,
and very mischievous. Her beauty is gone, her lovers
are gone, and she thinks the devil is coming." She
was known by her intimates, the de Choiseuls, as
*' la chatte rose^' and she lived with her relative
Madame de Boufflers (directress of the late Prince
de Conti), when that Idol was visiblement cachee
at Aries in consequence of the cessation of her office.
The confusion that now exists between the various
Mesdames de Boufflers of history was equally dis-
turbing to their contemporaries ; and it did not cease
upon the marriage of the Duchesse de Boufflers to
the Marechal de Luxembourg, it only became more
embarrassing. A story is told of M. de Vaudreuil,
one of the most talented men of the Court, who
was asked to sing at the reception given by Madame
de Luxembourg upon his first introduction to her,
and who commenced, in perfect innocence, ' a song
very much in vogue out of her presence :
Quafid Boufflers parut a la cour
On crut voir la mere d' Amour ^
Cha-cjoi cherchait a lui plaire. . . .
560 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
And then became aware by the horror-stricken
coughings of his audience that something was wrong.
The Mar6chale herself then sang the last line :
Et chaaoi Vavait a son totir.
Proving her esprit to be at least equal to her
experience.
This same month of February that witnessed
the arrival of Voltaire and the preparations for war
with England, had the most extravagant carnival
season at the Court. The Queen's ball at Versailles
was the talk of Paris ; for the beauty of its masked
quadrilles in which, as Mercy said, the dancers were
all dressed in Indian robes, and the magnificent dresses
and perfect precision of the figures danced, made the
entertainment brilliantly successful. A ball was given
to the Queen at the Palais-Royal by the Due d'Orleans
on the following night, where her Majesty stayed
until five o'clock ; and then went on to the ball at the
Opera, where she remained until seven o'clock on
Friday morning. Then came the ball given by the
Princesse de Guem6n6e on the Saturday, which lasted
until early on Sunday morning. Sunday night saw
the masked ball at the Opera, where the Queen
remained until six o'clock in the morning. Monday
was a day of rest ; and on Tuesday was another ball
at the Opera that was productive of much incident, and
where the Queen stayed until seven o'clock the next
day. The author of the disturbance was the Comte
d'Artois, whose manners seem to have been more
ruffianly even than usual. The Duchesse de Bourbon
■ -i
? }
A la })luloHOplno il joiiu 1 .i vt"riU\
il a lr.s tortus (ic st)ii Iimmm-,
I'U s ' il n 'a paw io S copdH', il a la iaa| oh(o,
m\
n
I
iLiifyJiilf I HIiUi I liiiiliii
/.iifi'/if~
> \\ > ^
THE COMTE DE I'ROVENCE.
{Front an eiignr^'uiL; by l^('ti/>.)
[PaS^e 561.
February, 1778 561
was present and had been talking to the Comte
d'Artois ; the subject of their conversation, Mercy
said to the Empress, he did not know, but the
memoirs of the time without Mercy's reticence, give
full details of the reason. The Duchesse de Bourbon
took hold of the Prince's mask to lift it, when the
string broke, and the Comte d'Artois, furious at being
unmasked in the Opera ball on Shrove Tuesday, tore
ofF the mask of the Duchesse de Bourbon and struck
her a violent blow in the face with his fist, striking
her again with the mask whose removal had been the
cause of the outburst, and left her without speaking
a word further. '^ Monsieur," who saw the scene,
came to the rescue ; and the Duchesse de Bourbon,
bleeding, injured, and humiliated, retired under the
protection of the other Royal brother, only thankful
to find that the disgraceful brutality had passed
unnoticed by the crowd, which says much for the
general decorum when such trifles attracted no special
attention.
It was impossible that such a scandal could be
hidden. The Duchesse de Bourbon complained to her
brother, the Due de Chartres ; who laughed and said
it was only to be expected, considering the nature
of the ball and of the Comte d'Artois, with whom
he then went hunting. The Comte d'Artois, who
thought but lightly of striking a woman and a
Princess of the Blood Royal violently in the face at
a public baD, published the story himself, adding many
jocular comments ; and the Duchesse de Bourbon,
562 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
finding no redress from her brother de Chartres or
her father d' Orleans, took the step of publicly revealing
the whole story at a large reception at Court, saying
that although the Comte d'Artois was the brother
of the King, he was none the less a ruffian. The
fact had not stirred the Blood Royal ; but the term
did. " From that moment the Princes of the Blood
were in open mutiny," said Mercy. The Prince de
Conde, whose daughter-in-law had received this insult,
laid the complaint before the King, who would hear
nothing against his brother. The Due de Bourbon
(who was not on speaking terms with his wife,
for the usual reasons) felt the honour of his name
insulted ; and sent a challenge to the Comte d'Artois.
The public of Paris was by now in the wildest
excitement, universal blame was poured upon the
Comte d'Artois ; and the strain at Court was so intense
that the King was obliged to summon a family meeting,
for which the following programme was drawn up.
All concerned were to meet at the de hotter, suitably
on 14 March, the date of Declaration of War, and
when Royalty had taken his boots off, they were to
retire into a private apartment ; the Duchesse de
Bourbon would then apologise for her vigorous
epithets applied to his Royal Highness ; the Comte
d'Artois would then enter and say some choses honnetes,
a few fair words, to the Duchesse, and the King
would declare the incident closed. All followed their
orders except the Comte d'Artois, who said nothing,
honnete or otherwise^ to the Duchesse. The Prince
14 March, 1778 5^3
de Conde left the apartment ; the Duchesse de
Bourbon was following him when her husband stopped
her and began to speak to the King. Scarcely had
he uttered his preliminary "Sire ..." when
Louis shouted him into silence and the family party
left, more filled with rancour than before the " recon-
ciliation " ; and Paris buzzed anew with the scandal,
and with inconceivable wrath against the Comte
d'Artois.
Honour could now only be saved by blood-letting,
other than that of the unfortunate Duchesse de
Bourbon. A meeting was arranged in the Bois de
Boulogne ; the Comte d'Artois drove there, with
his best sword under the coach cushions, as M. de
Crussol, captain of his Royal Highness's body-guard
and his second, relates. The Princes met and arranged
a place ; it was found too sunny ; arranged another
under the shadow ot a wall ; found they could not
fight with their spurs on ; took them off ; found their
coats too tight, and took them off also. " They
then advanced, sword in hand, and in the first instant
the Comte d'Artois received a slight scratch [une legere
egratignure) on the arm," and M. de Crussol stopped
the fieht. The Due de Bourbon declared himself
" penetrated with recognition " of the honour paid
him ; which was a greater penetration than that received
by the Comte d'Artois. The two Princes embraced.
Honour was quite satisfied. Then the Comte d'Artois
rushed to the house of the Duchesse de Bourbon
and apologised. That night the injured Duchesse
5^4 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
went to the Theatre Franc^ais with her husband, and
both were greeted with " extraordinary applause "
by the public ; Marie Antoinette received fewer
acclamations than usual, as Paris suspected her of
friendly feelings towards the young ruffian, her brother-
in-law ; and d'Artois himself was received by the
public with marked coldness. The King exiled the
Comte d'Artois to Choisy and the Due de Bourbon
to Chantilly, this severe punishment to be for eight
days.
CHAPTER XIII
Great Britain and France — Voltaire in Paris — Benjamin
Franklin — His Career — His Arrival in France — He
becomes the Vogue — The Court Hesitates — The
Opinion of Louis XVI. and its Expression —
Portraits of Benjamin Franklin — His Presentation
at Court — Franklin at the Jen de la Reine — His
Dress — His Diplomacy — Louis XVL and the
Equality of Man — La Fayette — Voltaire and His
Tragedy — The First of April — The Delirium of
Paris — Voltaire's Reception at the Theatre — Marie
Antoinette Yawns at the Great Tragedy — Death of
Voltaire — His Funeral Procession and Secret
Burial.
WHILE Britain, with back to the wall, prepared
to fight, not only France, but all the world
beside if it cared to risk the combat, and flung
savage defiance at foes present and possible, France
danced with light heart and delicate, ornamental vices,
through the pleasant, costly, glittering froth of the
existence that Talleyrand said was Life. " Qiui na
pas vecu avant 17B9 n* a fas connu la douceur de vivre^''
said he. Britain poured out hoarded moneys to equip
troops for which the Government could not pay, and
would not speak of ruin ; France rushed to easy glory
and obvious conquest, without a thought of national
bankruptcy. Both nations were blinded, but by
565
S^^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
different flames. *' Like an infant, we are delighted
with having set our own frock in a blaze," said
Walpole ; and its light of battle scorched the suggestion
of surrender, whatever the odds. From France her
future was hidden by the smoke of her own incense,
offered on the altars of all those strange gods in the
Pantheon of caprice, which repaid worship by the ruin
of the worshippers. Her eyes were sealed ; and the
whole noblesse of France rushed to pay homage to the
two men whose mission it was to root out their caste,
by inspiring desires that the people could feel, although
they were incapable of recognising their aims.
Voltaire was in Paris, feted, caressed, worshipped,
crowned ; " nobles disguised themselves as tavern-
waiters to obtain sight of him ; the loveliest of France
would lay their hair beneath his feet." He, whose
abhorrence of the Church was summed up in the
repetition in each letter during years, of the phrase
'^ ecrasez rinfdme^' was treated as a god ; he, whose
life had been devoted to the destruction of the forms of
kingship, was treated as a king. The most irreverent
conspired to show reverence to the teaching that
demanded their own annihilation. The withered
little wit in the mountebank's robes, who swallowed
the longed-for ocean of flattery so greedily that he
died of its surfeit, was no less inconsistent than his
worshippers ; for he felt his adulation incomplete
while the Court frowned, and the avowed enemy of
monarchy sighed miserably for permission to pay his
own court to the King and Queen.
March, 1778 567
But a stronger man than Voltaire was in Paris,
representing a power as much greater than his as the
force of integration is greater than that of disintegra-
tion. Benjamin Franklin had been in France since
December 1776 ; and by 1778 he was one of the idols
in the Pantheon of Paris, that worshipped in turn a
hero or a new bouillie of chestnuts with equal favour
and perfect impartiality, until either indigestion or
a new fashion in heroes intervened. Benjamin Franklin
had many claims on French appreciation. He repre-
sented a nation at successful war with their hated
enemy, a point their policy could grasp ; he came
with a world-wide reputation for scientific knowledge,
the European foundation of which was its recognition
by Paris after the Royal Society of England had
treated his papers on electricity with such indifference
that they were even omitted from the Reports of the
Society's Transactions, and could obtain publicity in
England only by the aid of the Gentleman s Magazine.
France forgave (perhaps she did not even know)
that she owed the loss of Canada to the acute and
statesmanlike views of Franklin, who, recognising that
the Dominion was the vulnerable spot of France, and
that its possession would be of the highest value to
Britain, pointed the way to the British Government
when he was, for the second time, in England, as
the agent of the assembly of Pennsylvania. The
French welcomed with effusion the ideas of liberty,
equality, and fraternity, which they hailed as seed
from Heaven ; and sowed in a soil rank with the
568 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
weeds of centuries, sour with oppression, and darkened
by incredible ignorance ; and they blossomed into
* The Terror."
Franklin's links with England were broken. He
had compelled recognition of his abilities ; the com-
positor who had worked in '' Little Britain " (behind
St. Marti n-le-Grand) when Great Britain was blowing
the South Sea Bubble, and who had paid eighteen-
pence a week for his lodging in Duke Street, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, while planning the diffusion of public
intelligence by means of newspapers, had won the
degrees of LL.D. and D.C.L. from the Universities of
St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Oxford. He had been
in England when the odious Stamp Act was passed ;
and by his efforts it had been repealed. He had been
summoned to the bar of the House of Commons, and
had defended the cause of the American Colonies
with the utmost eloquence and ability. But no
eloquence could stay a Government without judgment
but with a majority. Walpole says : " Fortunate it
had been for the King and the kingdom had the
Court had no majority for these six years ! America
had still been ours ! — and all the lives and all the
millions we have squandered ! A majority that has
lost thirteen provinces by bullying and vapouring and
the most childish menaces."
Franklin made his last attempt to prevent an out-
break. He had been commissioned to offer the King
(through Lord Chatham) ^350,000 a year from
America if the obnoxious bills were repealed, but
March, 1778 S^9
the petty duties on tea were too tempting and the
crass obstinacy of the Government too impenetrable ;
and Franklin sailed for Philadelphia in 1775, returning
to Europe in 1776 as the representative of the States
to France.
He arrived in the glory of success, for the United
States sloop Reprisal had captured two British brigs
on the way ; and Franklin landed at Auray in
December, and proceeded to Paris on his embassy
to Louis XVI. He was at once received with popular
favour, and greeted with acclamations as the " Apostle
of Liberty " ; but such titles were cheap and meant
nothing without the support of the King, and
Franklin had need of all his diplomacy to win his
way to practical aid, although this way had been well
laid by the efforts of Silas Deane. Still, Franklin
became the mode in 1777 ; the ever-sensitive coiffures
showed the weight of his personality — at least upon
the outside of heads — and a coiffure aux insurgens,
with ingenious allegories of the struggle between
Britain and America, showed the extent to which the
French were prepared to carry their convictions.
With the passing of the months of 1777 the popularity
of Franklin grew ever greater ; his little house at
Passy became a shrine for pilgrimages ; morning, noon,
and night coaches rolled down the road to it, all Paris
(as usual) flocking to see the new rival to parfilage
or a fashionable instructor of the deaf and dumb or
horse-racing. Robes a la Franklin were the only
wear ; bonnets, materials, all were named after him ;
570 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
and, as a final extinguishing blow to the pretensions
of England, whist was tabooed and a new game, le
bostoHy played in its stead.
As early as February 1777, Franklin experienced
these rather unsatisfying tributes. He wrote on
8 February : '^ Here the ladies are civil ; they call
us les insurgens^ a character that usually pleases them ;
and methinks all the women who smart, or have
smarted, under the tyranny of a bad husband ought
to be fixed in revolution principles and act accordingly."
The ladies were indeed very civil. The Due de Lauzun
said : " All the prettiest ladies of the Court and of
the town go to solicit the favour of embracing him ;
and he lends himself very gallantly to their desire."
It is not recorded what Franklin thought of these
gratifying scenes, which doubtless left the same im-
pression upon him as similar evidences of affection
had done upon Walpole, who says gravely : '' The
Marechales de Luxembourg and Mirepoix came to
Paris to see me ; the Duchesse de la Vali^re embraced
me. I am smeared with red like my own crest the
Saracen, and, in short, have been so kissed on both
cheeks that had they been as large as Madame de
Virri's they would have lost leather."
But rouge, even when administered by the prettiest
ladies at Court, was not what Franklin had come to
France to seek ; and the Court still hesitated. To
receive Franklin would be equivalent to open hostilities ;
and Louis (or, rather, his Government) was not prepared
for this. Louis himself had no sympathy with wild
March, 1778 571
enthusiasms ; nor with the evidence of such that took
the form of wearing Benjamin FrankUn's portrait in
clay medallions, or in miniatures, on lids of snuff-boxes,
in rings, in bracelets, and on everything susceptible of
being painted. It was a very usual form of adoration
for the latest hero. The Dowager Duchesse d'Aiguillon
wore the portrait of Charles Stuart, the Young Pre-
tender, in her bracelet, with the head of the Saviour on
the reverse ; the connection in this case being supplied
by Madame de Rochefort, who declared the text,
" My Kingdom is not of this world," applied to both.
But Louis XVI. was incapable of hero-worship ; and
when the Comtesse Diane de Polignac wearied him
with even more obtrusive devotion to Franklin than
the rest of the Court ladies, he showed his sentiments
in the delicate and refined manner usual with his
jests. He sent her a present of a specimen of Sevres
porcelain, manufactured after his special command ;
and with the portrait of Benjamin Franklin painted
inside. But the nature of the specimen of porcelain
must be read in French memoirs.
Joseph II. had not shown any more enthusiasm
than his brother-in-law, although his curiosity had led
him, when in Paris, to try and arrange an apparently
unpremeditated interview with Franklin by the medium
of the Abbe Niccoli, but they did not meet ; and
Joseph's well-known expression, ^' mon metier a moi
est d'etre royaliste^' forbade any feeling for those
engaged in the overthrow of sovereignty. Marie
Antoinette, *' the daughter of the Caesars," with all
VOL. II. 14
572 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
her quick sympathy for those oppressed, her intense
admiration of all courage, her pride in any great
and daring deed, recognised the danger to the principle
of monarchy in the wild support given to les insurgens ;
and she feared the spread of Republican doctrines
in a nation unaccustomed to self-control and rendered
incapable of self-government by six centuries of
despotism.
The French people, however, declared war months
before the Government took that step ; and to
judge by the gazettes and the talk in assemblies,
war might have been in open progress by the middle
of 1777. The discontent in the army grew every
day more pronounced ; pay was uncertain and poor
at best. It was true that the army had been paid
in the reign of Louis XV. ; but to raise the sum
necessary to wipe off arrears the King had to suspend
payment of the billets de rescripion^ and revenues were
dwindhng. Peace had lasted many years, since 1763 ;
there was no chance of promotion, for nothing removed
the seniors in command ; and the only thing lacking
to an outbreak was an opportunity. In these circum-
stances a battlefield must either be found or made,
and young French officers began to leave their
regimental duties to go to America, with or without
furlough. It says much for their state of discipline
when we read that many officers had already gone,
but that ** their absence was unnoticed." The French
memoirs say that Franklin employed every means
in his power to induce the French officers to desert
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
{From (1)1 I )ii;iai'itii;' by Awj:- c/r St. .liiOi/i, ofUi C. A\ Cnr/uH.)
[Page 573.
March, 1778 573
their duties and go to America, either openly or
secretly. But in one of Franklin's quiet letters from
Passy he says that Congress had been so greatly
embarrassed with crowds of officers arriving from other
countries, each coming with strong recommendations,
that the only course open was to ship them back again
" at above a hundred thousand livres expence."
The surrender of Burgoyne had been the spark
to all this train ; and its immediate result was pressure
upon the Government to recognise the United States,
and to receive their representative, Benjamin Franklin.
The great ceremony of presentation took place in
March, immediately after the Declaration of War with
England, and Benjamin Franklin, accompanied by
about twenty '' insurgens " (three or four of whom
were in uniform), was presented to the King, to the
Queen, and to all the Royal family, and recognised
as the Ambassador of America by the Comte de
Maurepas and the Comte de Vergennes. He was
honoured by a special invitation to the Court, in the
evening to the Jeu de la Reine^ and Marie Antoinette
distinguished him by gracious and marked attentions.
The dress of FrankUn had long been a subject of
great interest in Paris, although even his immense
vogue had not led to its general adoption. He
appeared everywhere in the snuff-brown cloth suit of
an American farmer, simple, very severe. He describes
himself : '' I am very plainly dressed, wearing my thin,
grey, straight hair that peeps out under my only
coiffure, a fine fur cap, which comes down my forehead
574 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
almost to my spectacles. Think how this must
appear among the powdered heads of Paris ! "
Madame Campan records her amazement at " his
straight hair, without any powder, his round hat, his
brown cloth suit, contrasting with the be-jewelled,
. embroidered dresses and powdered, scented coiffures of
the Court at Versailles." Madame de Crequy, to
whom simpHcity was insufficiently piquant, did not
appreciate this fashion of admiration ; and regarded a
breach of the sacred etiquette of dining as worse
than an infraction of the Decalogue. She sat next
Franklin at supper, and noticed every flaw in accepted
traditions — long hair, " like a diocesan of Quimper,"
brown coat, brown vest, brown breeches, " and hands
of the same colour'* ; a linen cravat ; but most re-
markable of all, his way of eating fresh eggs. He
took five or six eggs, broke them into a goblet,
put butter, salt, pepper, and mustard ; and then
'' nourished himself with little spoonfuls of this joli
ragout philadelphiqueT He bit his asparagus and
took a knife to his melon. " Vous voyez que cetait
un vilain sauvage^
The Marquise de Crequy seems to have been the
only person at Court who regarded Franklin malevo-
lently. The world of Paris thought otherwise, and
exhausted itself in fetes in honour of him and his
doctrine of equality. Competition was keen among
three hundred beauties as to the most worthy to
place a laurel wreath on his white locks. And
Franklin, who, in his capacity of man of science, was
March^ 1778 575
impressing upon France the merits of lightning con-
ductors^ was well aware that in his capacity as man
of society he was himself serving as one. By his
philosophy in accepting the homage of a Court, that
gave to his principles almost as much admiration
as it did to the spectacle of his Royal Highness the
Comte d'Artois dressed in spangles and dancing on
the tight-rope, he won all hearts ; and the appre-
ciative world noted that he permitted his two
grandsons to wear shoes with red heels, for talons
rouges implied so much more than a mere reference
to leather.
Although the Court thus prattled of equahty and
the rights of man, an edict signed by Louis XVI.
spread despair and furious resentment in the middle
classes of France, and flung them back into the
serfdom of the peasantry. The middle classes, which
comprised the only educated, intelligent, and pro-
gressive men of France, and furnished the main
support of all professions and sciences in the country,
were forbidden to aspire to hold any rank in the
army. No man could rise to any military grade unless
he could prove four quarterings of nobility. No
*' roturier^' except he were the son of a Chevalier
of Saint Louis, could hold any military command,
whatever his merits ; and the great provincial families
of country gentlemen, who had owned their lands
for centuries, paid their taxes, and supported their
country, were thus stigmatised as unworthy of holding
commissions in the service of the King. These great
57^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
country families, untitled gentlemen, had followed the
usual choice of professions, the eldest son administered
the estate, and, if it were in a wine country, added to
that duty the trade in his own wine ; the second son
went into the army, the third into the law or the
Church. By this edict the military profession, of all
dearest to Frenchmen, was closed to them ; and a man
might succeed to the highest rank in the Diplomatic
service, might, through his wife, be connected with
officers of the highest military rank, and yet be unable
to obtain a commission for a son because he was a
'* roturierT
All honours were poured upon the Marquis de la
Fayette, who, at the age of twenty, preferred to leave
his country and his wife, and fight in the cause of
sacred liberty in America ; but none was given to
those whose patriotism led them, untitled, to desire
to fight for France.
This same month of March 1778, that had seen
the presentation of Benjamin Franklin at Versailles,
saw the apotheosis of Voltaire. '' Irlne " was to be
produced at the Com6die Fran^aise on i April ; and
Paris prepared a reception of ** the new Apollo " which
was worthy of the occasion — and the date. By way
of preparation, Voltaire dressed for the first time since
his arrival, doffed the nightcap on 28 March, and
appeared in public in a huge brown unpowdered wig
of the reign of Louis XIV., in which his little shrivelled
head disappeared, showing only eyes *' brilliant as
carbuncles," gleaming Hke thoseof a wild cat in a bush.
VOLTAIKf:.
{/tuin ail £iii;/(ii'iJii; Ly N. di Laiuuiy, ajltr (. P. Manllui.
[Page 576.
I April, 1778 577
Upon this wig he placed a square red cap that could
scarcely find room upon it ; and he donned a robe
of scarlet lined with ermine. The news flew that such
preparations implied Voltaire would be present at
the theatre ; and the world made ready to rush into the
streets and take up positions to see him pass. The
day came, and on i April Voltaire's coach drew up
at the house in the Rue de Beaune, where the Marquis
de Villette (wearing his name on the red heels of his
shoes) and the adoring Marquise, " Belle et Bonne ^'
attended. The coach was specially ordered for so
great a triumph ; it was painted sky-blue, and
powdered with gold stars. But the stars were only
of gilt paper, stuck on with paste ; and when the bright
sun of T April shone upon them they first cockled up,
and then fell off the blue leather heaven. Voltaire
wore a vast and ancient tunic of blue velvet, trimmed
with gold to match the coach ; his stockings had silver
clocks ; he wore the huge brown wig of the days
of Louis XIV., perhaps because he was a man of
twenty-one at the death of the Roi Soleil.
He proceeded, through shouting throngs, to the
Academic Frangaise, to receive homage such as had
been paid to but one mortal before him — the Cardinal
de Richelieu. He was made Director without even
the form of ballot. Then, through streets lined with
madly shouting worshippers, welcoming from every
window, every resting-place, to the theatre, where
homage became delirium. Paris flung itself in
adoration ; the greatest ladies pressed to touch the
57^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
hem of his garment, to pluck a single hair from his
fur robe ; he was mobbed, pushed, carried into his box,
placed between his niece la gaupe Madame Denis and
the Marquise de Villette, while the vast throng rose
in worship and screamed from its thousand throats
to crown him with laurel. The actor Brizard brought
a crown and placed on the wig of the genius ; Voltaire
wept, and the crown hung askew. He took it off and
placed it upon Madame de Villette. The bust of
Voltaire was erected upon the stage, and encircled with
garlands to an accompaniment of kettledrums. But
the tragedy of ** Irlne " was a failure ; and a failure
also was the final act of the comedy "of i April. It
had been intended that the return procession should
be a culmination of triumph, as the poet was to be
drawn home by the strong arms of his adorers instead
of mere horses. A few enthusiasts dashed to the
coach, and cut the traces ; but found, when it came
to pulling this sky-blue coach, that the raving crowds
had gone home. Nothing could be done but bring
back the discarded horses (which had been led away,
and kissed, and wreathed with laurels), and mend
the traces hurriedly and ignominiously ; while Voltaire
shivered inside the coach, with his paper stars falling
from the sky.
Either this outburst of frenzied acclamation, or
annoyance at the indifference of the King and Queen,
was too great a strain upon the patriarch. He heard
with fury that Marie Antoinette preferred the Opera
to " Irlne " ; that she had been seen to yawn when
1 April, 1778 579
" Irhe " was produced at Versailles, and that the
whole Court, in courtly imitation, had yawned in
unison till the jaws of Versailles had nearly suffered
dislocation. On 30 May the philosopher died.
With his death the Church re-asserted herself.
Religion could not stay the worship of an infidel ; but
she could prevent the burial of his body. His adorers
could trick him out in a dramatic, pseudo-classic,
funeral procession ; but they could not obtain decent
interment for his bones. Strange was the ceremony
of the funeral. A Quadriga, with a waxen effigy of
Voltaire in heroic garb, attended by all the filles de
Paris (suitably attired as vestal virgins), attended by
Greeks, Romans, Gauls, and Mexicans, drew up before
the house of the Marquis de Villette. Madame la
Marquise came out, dressed en manure de fantome^
in a great white chemise^ and with her hair scattered
wildly. She carried her baby, says Madame de Cr^quy,
who loves details ; and she had herself hoisted up to
the pinnacle of the car, an operation of some difficulty.
She set herself to rub this baby against the coffin, till
it sent forth piercing cries. No one could explain this
funereal rite.
Further facts as to his burial are uncertain. It is
said that Voltaire's nephew, Abb(^ Mignot, had a
successful idea by which he tricked the abbey of
Scellieres into burying him in consecrated ground.
He announced to the monks that his uncle had con-
fessed his belief in the faith of his fathers (true, but
Voltaire had added, had he died on the banks of the
580 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Ganges he would have preferred to expire with a cow's
tail in his hand) ; that he was dying in the coach
outside the abbey and wished to depart this life within
its sacred walls. It was said that the long-dead corpse
of Voltaire had been propped up in the coach with the
wig huddled on its head, the better to carry out this
pious fraud ; and that the monks buried him with a
haste due to more reasons than the fear of a prohibition
from the Bishop of Troyes, which arrived on the
morrow of the stealthy burial of the worshipped, rose-
stifled Voltaire.
But the adoring throngs of Paris quite forgot the
man as they polished verses on his memory ; and so
thick flew the memorial poems that Madame du
Defi^and said that Voltaire had to submit to the lot of
other mortals, and after death become '' la future
des vers.''
CHAPTER XIV
Marie Antoinette and her Hope — The Mental Develop-
ment of Louis — Disappointment of the Princes —
Its Outcome — The Queen gives Thankofferings —
Rejoicings of the Empress— Effects of the News
— Political Change — Households are Appointed —
The Royal Governess — The Treatment of Babies —
War Declared between Austria and Prussia — Louis
and his Ministers — Marie Antoinette and her
Mother.
THIS month of April 1778 was for Marie
Antoinette the turning-point of her life. It
brought to her a hope that transfigured the world.
After eight years of marriage in which she had
been no wife — years in which she had screened her
husband, a man in age only, hidden his incapacity,
tried with long patience to stimulate the slowly waking
faculties — she could write to her mother that the
joy of motherhood might be her own at last. She
had borne the bitter disappointments of these years
in proud silence ; the tears of wretchedness were shed
in secret ; only to Mercy-Argenteau did she confess
her weariness of life and her distaste for her task.
He, in deepest sympathy, had preached patience
and again patience ; had helped her to foster and
train the struggling mind of Louis ; had encouraged
581
582 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
her by pointing out every sign of improvement in
her husband's tardy development ; and had even
given her renewed hope by Httle pious frauds that
brought comfort.
Even from the mother who blamed her reckless
dissipation, she had hidden the reasons that had forced
her to seek in its excitement some forgetfulness of
her position. She had watched in silence the schemes
of the King's brothers, who based high hopes
on the incapacity of Louis ; and counted even
openly on succession to the throne. They had
formed their rival Courts, each the centre of intrigues
against the welfare of feeble Louis and his wife ; and
these eight years had turned their anticipations into
certainty. Thus to the bitterness of her lot was
added the knowledge that her nearest relatives were
those who most ardently desired her unhappiness.
Her hope of motherhood would be to them the
downfall of their ambitions ; its realisation was
the downfall of the monarchy ; for the malice of
the baffled brothers sowed the first suspicions against
Marie Antoinette, whose harvest was reaped by the
guillotine.
It is not often realised that the death of Marie
Antoinette, and of her children, lies at the door of the
Comte de Provence and the Comte d'Artois. There
was no question put to the Queen by the Revolutionary
tribunal whose origin may not be traced in the
venomous scandals spread by her brothers-in-law.
Each horrible accusation was confessedly based upon
19 April, 1778 583
suspicions instilled by the two men whose expectations
of succession to the throne were swept away by the
birth of a child. The first timid hopes of happiness
for Marie Antoinette and her passionate thankfulness
for the blessing of motherhood, were to their malice
the signal for foul slanders, whose dissemination was
as surely the cause of her execution as the treachery
of the Due d'Orlcans was of that of his cousin
Louis XVI.
But Marie Antoinette did not dream of such
possibilities of baseness when she wrote the „
' Versailles,
first letter of her hope to her mother. She 19 April,
1778
was too full of happiness, of confidence in
her future, of tender little promises that all would
now be changed in her life, that her mother would
no longer have cause to reproach her with frivolity
or recklessness. She says in this letter that her
health will be henceforward a matter of interest to
herself, and she will guard and watch over her own
well-being as she has never cared to do before ;
for her life has now become of value to herself. She
asked Louis for money to give the poor, as a thank-
offering for her hopes; 12,000 francs [^480] to be
distributed among the debtors detained in prison
in Paris for the non-payment of their monthly nurses
(a very usual reason for imprisonment) ; and 4,000
francs [^160] to be given to the poor of Versailles.
By the letter of Mercy, confirming the joyful news,
we learn the happy agitation of Louis and the
rejoicings in Paris, that " are not so spurious as the
5^4 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
congratulations of * Monsieur ' and * Madame ' and
the Comte and Comtesse d'Artois ; " although their
demonstrations had been regulated by due regard for
appearances. The sentiments of *' Monsieur " were
undisguised in his correspondence, however ; and he
wrote to his friend, Gustavus III. of Sweden (the
friend also of Madame du Barry) : " You have
heard the change in my fortunes. ... I soon mastered
myself — at least outwardly . . . showing no joy (for
that would have been too obvious hypocrisy and you
can be sure that I felt none at all), nor depression —
that might have been construed into weakness of
spirit. But the inner man is more difficult to
conquer."
The happiness of Marie Therese was intense ; but
her relief at the promise for her daughter's future
was mingled with anxiety and the dread of some
desperate act on the part of the disappointed intriguers.
She showed her fears to Mercy : "I confess that I
am in terror for both mother and child. . . . The
most atrocious crimes are of no account in a country
where irreligion is carried to extremes. Besides, there
are the ever-increasing Piedmontese intrigues to fear.
I should feel easier if it were possible to place a
faithful servant by the side of my daughter ; but
as that is out of the question I can only trust in
Providence, and try to forget the many miserable
examples of such horrors as have been furnished
by the history of France.*' In another letter she
tells Mercy that her only consolation is his presence
19 April, 1778 585
at the French Court: "If 1 did not have the
knowledge that you are with my daughter to sus-
tain me, I should be still more uneasy both for her
and for the future of her child." And Mercy
apologises for " the lack of precision and order in
my humble despatches " with the explanation that
he is quite overcome by agitation, and the mingled
feelings of joy, hope, and anxiety.
The news was so important, its effects so far-reaching,
that Mercy had to readjust his views upon every point
of politics. The Queen, as mother of an heir to
France, would be a personage of such political
importance that she could not longer be regarded
as the charming ''^petite reine^' merely the beautiful
leader of society. Marie Antoinette, if left a childless
widow, would be packed off to Austria immediately
upon the accession of the expectant *' Monsieur ; "
and Queen Marie Josephe of Savoy would reign in
her stead. Marie Antoinette, as the mother of a
" son of France," would remain Sovereign even if
the feeble constitution of Louis XVI., or some
unfortunate blacksmith accident, removed him from
the throne.
The change in her position was shown at once by
the attitude of the French ministers. De Maurepas
and de Vergennes had been playing with both Prussia
and Austria ; holding hopes to each and intending
to help neither in the matter of Bavaria. Now they
had to reckon with Marie Antoinette as a powerful
factor ; and the change in the political wind blew
S^6 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
them round with ludicrous swiftness. On 30 March
the two ministers sent to Austria an insulting re-
fusal to abide by the terms of the Franco-Austrian
alliance, as drawn up by the treaty of Versailles. On
26 April they had to withdraw it ; and send another
messenger with a despatch of different tenor, in which
France undertook, in the event of Prussia attacking
Austria, to aid her by her forces. This concession had
been gained from the blissfully happy Louis by Marie
Antoinette, armed with her new power that was strong
enough to move the King to action, even to that of
setting himself in opposition to his ministers. In order
that she might fully carry out her instructions from
Mercy, she asked him to write them out for her to
learn ; she then copied the memorandum and burnt
the original, that no one should learn that Mercy had
intervened.
Mercy said this was a great advantage gained, ^' but
in dealing with such people as these French ministers,
it is necessary to use much patience and persuasion to
bring them by degrees into the path of reason " ; and
he described their little cunning diplomacies as *' pitiful
conduct due to the ignorance and pusillanimity of the
Comte de Maurepas."
Marie Antoinette has now a new garhe to play and
plays it with zest. All gambling ceases suddenly at
Court — even billiards is discarded — frivolity is past ;
music and conversation are her only recreations, and the
serious business of sovereignty is taken up, as the only
suitable employment of a Queen who hopes to be
26 April, 1778 587
the mother of a King. In these new circumstances
two men discover fresh chances for their own interests.
De Choiseul comes forth from the obscurity of
Chanteloup, ostensibly to congratulate, really to convey
the suggestion that he alone is the right man to be
called to the direction of affairs ; and the Abbe de
Vermond takes the opportunity of asserting himself,
pettishly refuses (in spite of his promises) to remain
with the Queen when she most needs him, and after
sulking for several days, retires to his abbey of Tiron,
Mercy was greatly annoyed by this act of disloyalty, for
at no period since 1770 was de Vermond so necessary.
He spent two whole days in fruitless persuasion ; but
even the diplomacy of Mercy could avail naught against
wounded vanity. " I found him very sore because the
King has never yet spoken one word to him, although
he sees him continually when he is with the Queen ;
from which the Abb^ concludes that his Majesty must
find his appearance repulsive."
That de Vermond was ^^ fort laid'' is proved by
the records of the time ; but his opinion of his own
personality is only revealed by his actions. He actually
left Paris, in spite of urgent letters from the Queen
and the expostulations of his benefactor Mercy, and
retired to the enjoyment of the 12,000 francs [^^480]
income derived from the living he owed to them.
The utmost concession that he would grant to their
entreaties was that he would come, once a week, to
pay his court to the Queen, if her Majesty sent for
him. Mercy endeavoured to prevent the difficulties
VOL. II. 15
5^8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
to which this breach of trust gave rise ; and he took
up his residence within a short distance of the Court
at Marly, that he might be enabled to see the Queen
three or four days a week ; but he was greatly
embarrassed by the Abba's failure.
Within the Court itself the chief interest centred
in the appointment of households, one for the
expected heir and one for Madame Elizabeth, the
young sister of the King, who was now fourteen years
old, and could no longer remain without her own
ladies-in-waiting. The Royal Governess was the
Princesse de Guemenee, who received this appoint-
ment by virtue of her relationship to Madame de
Marsan, the function of instruction being considered
vested in the family of de Rohan. There was no
doubt that the Princesse de Guemenee was capable of
instructing upon many matters. She was a great
lover of little dogs, and invariably appeared surrounded
by a multitude of them. '' She offered to them a
species of worship, and pretended, through their
medium, to hold communication with the world of
spirits." She had been convicted of cheating at cards
on several occasions. She was distinguished for the
urbanity of her manner towards the ladies honoured
by her husband's preference, paying the most delicate
attentions to each in turn ; thus she compelled
admiration for her exemplary fulfilment of a wife's
highest duty. She entertained magnificently, royally,
outshone the whole Court by her dress, and paved
the way for the greatest bankruptcy known in France —
29 May, 1778 5^9
the failure that affected all classes of society and
plunged France into ruin ; for all, from dukes to
poor Breton sailors, had invested their moneys in the
house of de Guem6nee. "Only a King or a Rohan
could have made such a failure," was the consoling
sentiment of the Princesse, as she contemplated her
bootmaker's bill of 60,000 livres [^2,400], or the
amount of 16,000 livres [;/^64o] owed to her paper-
hanger. And the ruin of the Rohans hastened the
Revolution.
The appointment of the Princesse de Guemenee,
which had been a well-paid sinecure for 29 May,
years, had drawn no remonstrance from ^'^'^^'
Mercy while there was no prospect of the Royal
Governess having any one to govern. But all is
changed now. " In accordance with the customs of
this Court, the Governess of the children of France
has the ncrht to make all arrangiements in connection
with the elementary education of the Queen's children.
The appointment has been given to the Princesse
de Guemenee ; and there is very much that might
be said about this lady." He made no more definite
reference to the Due de Coigny, or to the marriage
arrangements, " not halved but doubled," of the
Prince and Princesse de Guemenee ; but Marie Therese
was doubtless well acquainted with the facts, as the
Empress paid a yearly subscription to ensure the receipt
of the Paris scandal-loving gazettes. All Mercy's
efforts were aimed at Hmiting the power of Madame
de Guemenee, which gave her the right to select all
590 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the teachers and attendants of the Queen's child ;
and he saw with relief that Marie Antoinette was
determined to retain the decision herself, of rejection
or of choice, and herself nominate all who should
be privileged to approach her child. He informed
the Empress that his advice had resulted in the Queen
obtaining a distinct promise from Louis that, " in
case Heaven grants a Dauphin," no Governor shall
be appointed for five years.
There might be deep peace in Europe for all the
references to war which appear in the letters of this
time. Austria is on the brink of an outbreak with
Prussia ; but its Empress writes only directions about
baby linen and similar matters. '' Be sure and obey
your doctor in all things. . . . Babies should not be
swathed up too tightly . . . they should not be kept
too warm . . . they should not be over-fed with
victuals (^mange allies), . . . You must look out for a
good, healthy nurse, which is a rare thing in Paris,
and almost as rare among women from the country
because of the corruption of morals." France is at
open war with Great Britain, but its Queen does not
touch upon it at all ; she is engrossed in greater
subjects. " Babies are not swaddled here, but are
brought up with much more freedom . . . they are
always in a cradle or else carried in the arms, and
from the moment they can be taken into the fresh
air they are accustomed to it by degrees until they
practically live out of doors. I consider this the best
and most healthy method. . . . Mine will live on the
7 July, 1778 591
ground floor with a little railing to keep him from
the rest of the terrace ; and he will learn to walk
there sooner than upon polished floors." And the
Ambassador enters into details of deep interest to
the mother. *' The Queen goes for a walk directly
she rises, thus taking moderate exercise in the healthiest
hours of the day. She employs the rest of the
morning in needlework or in netting purses. . . . She
takes another walk in the evening before supper. . . .
She is in perfect health."
Suddenly the peace ended. A letter from the
Empress, agitated, horror-stricken, conveyed 7 juiy,
to Mercy the news. Frederick the Great was ^'^'^
tired of carrying on a correspondence with Joseph II.,
the sole object of which appeared to be the providing,
by each party, of its own justificatory evidence from
the letters of its opponent — for the edification of the
French ministry. Both sides had fought stoutly with
the pen, and sent its enemy's letters to France ; and
Frederick II. closed the correspondence by entering
Bohemia at the head of his army.
" We are at war. It is what I have been dreading
since January ; and what a war ! With nothing to
gain and everything to lose. The King has entered
Nachod [in Bohemia, close to the Prussian frontier]
in force ; he will surround us on all sides, for he
has 40,000 more men than we have. You can con-
ceive my despair ! God help us if this war ends as
I foresee from its beginning ! France has assuredly
wrought us harm by her secret intrigues with the
592 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
King. We may have done her some wrong, but
none that counterbalances the shocking indifference
that she now shows to our fate. I dare not insist
too strongly with the Queen for fear of compromising
or affecting her. Show her this letter, if in your judg-
ment you think fit. I should fail in my duty if I placed
her suffering above that of her sister Marie, of the
Emperor, of my son, and of my son-in-law [Albert
of Teschen]. I am overwhelmed. ... I do not know
how I live. Nothing but my faith sustains me, but
in the end I shall sink."
To Marie Antoinette the news of war came as a
rude awakening from her dreams of happiness.
There was no need for spur to her interest. Her
anxiety for her mother, for the safety of her brother
(who had written her the unjust reproach : " As you
do not wish to prevent this war, we shall fight like
brave men "), for the future of her house — each was
sufficient cause. She poured out her grief and her
hopes to her mother ; and related her endeavours to
force Louis into more active measures for the aid of
Austria.
" I had a very touching scene with the King this
15 July, iriorning. My dear mother knows that I
^'^'^®' have never blamed his kind heart ; all
that happens is due to his extreme weakness and
to his lack of confidence in himself. To-day, when
he came to see me, he found me so sad and so
frightened that he was deeply touched, and he cried."
Poor feeble Louis, with the ready tears and the
15 July, 1778 593
unready mind, whose only reply to the vehement
arguments of his wife that he should try and rule
was : ^' You see I have so many faults that I cannot
answer a word." Marie Antoinette took up again
her almost motherly attitude of excuse for the weak,
childish husband, and explained to her mother that
he had been too much bothered by the intrigues
of the Prince de Conde, who had demanded the
command of the troops, and by the trouble the
Marechal de Broglie had given in wishing to take
away from the King the right of selecting the officers
of the staff; "but he is really very fond of me,
and 1 hope some day that he will learn to take his
own part, and will become a true and good ally."
This feeling of protection and pity for the feeble
Louis, trying in his dim way to do his poor best,
grew stronger in Marie Antoinette as she realised
his desire to please her. She had wept too as she
told Mercy the story of her interview with the
King ; how he had come to her with his eyes full of
tears, declaring he could not bear to see her in such
trouble ; that he would like to do anything in the
world to comfort her, that he had always wished
to do it ; but his ministers would not let him, and
hsd told him that the welfare of his kingdom would
not permit him to do any more than he had done.
She had proved to him that his honour and glory
bound him to the alliance with Austria and against
Prussia ; and he had found nothing to contradict.
But the pity that melted her towards her husband's
594 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
failings had no part in her feelings in reference to
de Maurepas. She regarded his little quibbles and
evasions as breaches of the honour of France. His
legerdemain, that strove to atone for uselessness
by nimbleness, was beheld by her with righteous
contempt ; where a great game was to be played she
had no patience with any little card trick, however
neat. His whole policy was that of avoidance of
difficulties, not their removal. As long as he could
dance on the surface of power, could " emerge, cork-
like, unsunk," from the flood of politics, he cared
little for its currents ; and (being eighty years of
age) the future of France interested him not at all.
He had not hitherto found any difficulty in
maintaining his equilibrium in office (although his
appointment had been due to a mistake of Louis
which he had been too shy to rectify), for a ready
jest and much suppleness were helpful qualities ; but
now the Queen had both intention and power, and
she insisted upon being present when Louis received
his ministers for discussion of State matters.
Mercy described in a despatch one interview between
the Queen and de Maurepas. The minister had made
his usual shuffling reply to her questions and Marie
Antoinette, in indignation, addressed him, saying in
a firm, clear voice : '* This is the fourth or fifth time
that I have spoken to you upon this matter, but you
have never made me any satisfactory answer. I have
kept patience till now, but things are growing serious,
and I will no longer be put off with such evasions."
17 July, 1778 S9S
She then, by the gift that had so often drawn Mercy's
admiration, recalled all his views and their expressions,
and made a masterly little survey of the whole political
scene, exposing all the intrigues with Prussia in their
due order, and showing clearly that France, by thus
yielding to the tricks of the King of Prussia, had
confirmed him in his course instead of deterring him
from it. To Maurepas, who did not know the long
course of Mercy's training, this quick grasp of the
situation by Marie Antoinette was startling ; and he
confused himself in excuses and in protestations of
deep devotion to the Queen, who received them with
open dislike.
She told Mercy this episode ; and he described it
all to the Empress. " I have never seen ^^ July
the Queen so depressed ; and in an out- ^'^''^•
pouring of confidence she said she wished to make
me a general confession ; she spoke of her amuse-
ments, her society, and all the details of her private
life, and commanded me to give her my advice upon
each point and each person. ... I did so, with zeal,
not omitting one single detail . . . she listened to me
with extraordinary kindness, and added that her deep
trouble had led her to think seriously of the life
that lay before her. . . . She told me she had counter-
manded a little fete that she had intended giving
that day at the Trianon to please the King ; because
she could not bear to think of amusements — she was
too sorrowful for her mother's sake. The Queen
shed tears as she spoke."
59^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Marie Antoinette had asked him how she could
best convey to the Empress the immense difficulties
with which she was contending ; for she could not
bear to betray the condition of her husband ; and
yet, without exposing his weakness, how could she
explain that he was not responsible for the failure of
France ? Mercy, who knew that the visit of Joseph II.
to his brother-in-law had rent the screen she was
so loyally holding up, replied that to a mother all
might be said. He insisted strongly that the Queen
owed to herself the duty of some diversion ; for
if she brooded over the sorrows of her country
she might injure her health, and, further, give the
public reason to talk of them. He pointed out
to Marie Antoinette that this Comte de Maurepas,
so vain, shallow, and timorous, could easily be won
to her side ; it needed but a little flattery, a little
soothing of his self-love, and he would be at her
feet. That, as it was not possible to give the King
either more nerve or more strength of will, it might
be wise to bind the minister to her cause by stooping
to a little easy diplomacy and condescension. But
Marie Antoinette, upright and honest, had said " it
seemed to her a low thing to pretend graciousness
to a man she despised."
CHAPTER XV
The War with England — Four months of Naval Pre-
parations — Camps formed in Normandy and
Brittany — Plan of Descent upon England —
England's Attitude — The French Fleet sails from
Brest, and the British Fleet from Plymouth — The
Battle of Ushant — The Prudence of a Prince of the
Blood — The Price of Admiralty — French Com-
merce and the British Corsairs — The War between
Austria and Prussia — Pressure upon Marie
Antoinette — Diversions at Versailles — The Trans-
mission of News in France — The Empress to be
Godmother — Marriage of a Relative of the Comte
de Mercy-Argenteau — Letter of Marie Ther^se.
MEANWHILE the war with England, for which
the stage had been swept in March, had
flagged. The unexpected, unsportsmanlike acts of
Britain, in stopping supplies and munitions of war
immediately upon the insolent Declaration by the
Marquis de Noailles, and prowling the Channel
with fierce predatory squadrons before France was
ready to emerge from her ports, had delayed hostilities
until July 1778. Even of the proceedings in July
there is little information to be gleaned by searching
of records. Carlyle dismisses the majestic sortie of
597
59^ The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the French navy, when at length it did emerge, with :
" Off Ushant some naval thunder was heard " ; which
seems a slighting allusion to an action for which four
months had been spent in preparation. The French,
however, had not been idle in that time. Camps had
been formed, at Parame in Brittany under M. de
Castries, and at Vaucieux in Normandy under the
Mar6chal de Broglie ; to the expressed satisfaction of
Mercy-Argenteau, who saw in them merely a means
of withdrawing dangerous and inflammatory elements
from Versailles. *' All the principal gamblers at faro
will soon be obliged to join their regiments in the
camp in Normandy ; and that will cause a cessation of
this injurious excitement."
On the northern coasts of France thirty-five thousand
men mustered ; and three hundred vessels, destined
to transport them to England, gathered in the ports
of St. Malo and Havre. There was a suggestion of
sending a detachment of the Gardes fran^aises to
Dunkirk, under the command of the Marechal de
Biron ; and, with the recollection, doubtless, that the
fleet had taken four months to mobilise, the Marechal
was asked whether he could have his men ready in
fifteen days. He showed his watch in reply : " It
is now one o'clock ; at four this afternoon, they shall
march, bag and baggage." But there is no record
that they started at four o'clock, or even went at all.
Troops gathered on the coasts from Calais to Brest —
and stayed there. They talked one day of conquering
Jersey and Guernsey, the next of seizing the Isle of
i8 July, 1778 599
Wight and Portsmouth, the next of taking the
Bermudas and St. Helena. But the Channel persist-
ently flowed between the forces.
Walpole wrote on 1 8 July : " Notices are up in
Lloyd's cofl^ee-house, that a merchant of the City
received an express from France that the Brest fleet,
consisting of twenty-eight ships of the line, were sailed
with orders to burn, sink, and destroy . . . that Admiral
Keppel was at Plymouth, and had sent to demand
three more ships of the line to enable him to meet
the French. . . . Keppel said that he had the lVorceste?\
Peggy J Thunderer^ and others, and when he had received
the Shrewsbury he should have thirty sail ; and would
try his strength against the French, on our coasts or on
theirs. . . . The French fleet has thirty-one ships of
the line, two 50-guns, and eight frigates. . . . Thus
you see how big the moment is."
In England the mihtia was called out and encamped
in the south ; the stocks fell j-J per cent ; and all
the inhabitants of Devonshire and Cornwall (according
to French history) left the coasts and fled inland with
their wives and families.
The future of Britain seemed very gloomy, for
the news of the sailing of the French fleet was con-
firmed ; and to the misfortune of the loss of America
was added the dread of an invasion from France.
" It is hard to be gamed for without one's consent . . .
but when one is old, and nobody, one must be whirled
with the current and shake one's wings like a fly if
one lights on a pebble. The prospect is so dark, that
6oo The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
one shall rejoice at whatever does not happen that
may."
Walpole's fears were unjustified by events ; Keppel
23 July, came out with the British fleet and met the
1778. French off Ushant on 23 July. Keppel had
twenty-five sail, and his flag was on the Victory^ a 100-
gun ship ; Palliser was on the 90-gun Formidable^ and
Vice-Admiral Harland on the 90-gun Queen. The
French ships out-numbered them by five, for they had
thirty sail ; and they approached with all the prestige
of numbers, heavier guns, and the presence of a
Prince of " the Blood." But three of the French
ships were unable to sail against the wind (for
some reason that is not clearly stated in the French
Histoire de la Dernier e Guerre^ ; and this left twenty-
seven sail, nominally under the command of the
Comte d'Orvilliers, divided in three squadrons of
nine ships each. D'Orvilliers was on ha Bretagne
of 110 guns ; Du ChafFault on La Couronne, with
80 guns ; and the Due de Chartres on the 80-gun
St. Esprit.
The sultry July day blazed over the ocean. Through
all that summer of 1778 France and England lay
oppressed in heat whose temperature was *' above
Indian ; " and the battle of Ushant consisted mainly
of manoeuvres to catch the light airs. It was
indecisive ; and yet from it sprang great results —
of scandal for both sides. Keppel and Palliser worked
off their disappointment by mutual incriminations, salted
by political differences. Keppel was courtmartialled
23 July^ 1778 601
on Palliser's charges ; and honourably acquitted.
London was illuminated at this verdict, and Palliser
burnt in effigy ; then Palliser demanded a court-
martial on himself, and was also acquitted. The
French side had its own experience, equally, if not
more, improving. The Comte d'Orvilliers signalled
his ships to come into line. The French history
says : " But this signal, imperfectly understood, was
not executed sufficiently quickly to have any effect."
The French memoirs are less dignified and less reticent.
On the return of the French fleet to Brest the Due
de Chartres hastened to Versailles, to convey the news
of a great naval victory. He was received with frantic
rejoicings and applause, until the official despatches
arrived. Then all was changed ; and caricatures and
bitter epigrams betrayed the secret. There had been
no valiant de Chartres on the quarter-deck, brave in
a white waistcoat, glittering with decorations and
with the cordon bleu. But there had been a de Chartres,
hidden in the hold of the ship he should have
commanded ; and the " imperfect understanding " of
the signal that threw the line into confusion was due
to princely prudence dictating a movement of his
squadron to the rear. Floods of caricatures deluged
Paris. They showed the Due de Chartres in sailor's
dress, with the psalm inscription : " Mare vidit et
fugit^' and with every other allusion to cowardice
that malice could invent. His face, " carbuncle-
studded," was greeted with mocking laughter at the
Opera. *' Monsieur," the King's brother, wrote a
6o2 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
song upon him ; and every one, from Marie Antoinette
downwards, sang about :
" Cherchant la toison fametise,
Jaso7i sur la mer orageiise
Se hasarday
The Due permitted himself to observe of a passing
lady that her beauty was faded ; " like your reputa-
tion, Monseigneur ! " was the retort. De Maurepas
heard that this heir of the House of Orleans wished
to be made Admiral for this naval victory. He said
that at last he had learnt what was meant by a naval
victory. " Two squadrons come out of two opposite
ports ; there are manoeuvres ; cannons are fired, some
masts knocked down, a few sails torn ; then both
squadrons retire ; each claims to have remained mistress
of the battlefield ; both sing Te Deums ; and the
sea remains as salt as before."
Perhaps the final addition to the " confusion of
confusions " bottled, as Carlyle says, within the Due de
Chartres, was made by de Maurepas ; possibly it was
due to the wit of Marie Antoinette, for assuredly
it did not emanate from the brain of its ostensible
author, Louis. In answer to his demand for the rank
of Admiral, he received the following honour, published
in the Gazette de France : " The King, to reward
Monseigneur the Due de Chartres for his services at
sea has appointed him — Colonel of Hussars."
An appointment whose reason of selection reminds
one of the honour paid by Catherine of Russia to the
Princesse d'AshkofF, her friend — or rival — in Court
23 July, 1778 603
circles. The Empress rewarded her feminine services
by placing her, with the rank of a genera], at the
head of her Academy.
Thus ended the famous " descent upon England."
The thirty-five thousand men remained in the camps
of Parame and Vaucieux until November ; when they
returned to fight imaginary battles in Paris. The
French fleet, when it had repaired its injuries, sailed
away to the West Indies in the hope of meeting some
merchant vessels from the Antilles. Sixty French
merchant ships had been left in St. Domingo when
the men-of-war had been ordered to Brest ; but before
they could return to escort them no less than fifty
had been snapped up by the " multitudes of British
corsairs," as the resentful French history has it.
It continues to complain that Britain gave France
no chance at all ; she never left her own commerce
unprotected ; and even when the French sent an escort
to convoy home their own ships, they always had
the bad luck to fall in with a superior British force
and get taken ; " which plunged in grief the in-
habitants of Bordeaux, Nantes, St. Malo, and Havre
de Grace," it says piteously.
Louis XV. had said : " France will never get a
navy, I believe " ; and although vessels had been given
voluntarily by rich ports to aid the dwindled sea
forces, yet this drain by grasping Britain was reducing
them to the former state of penury, in which the
gift by Bordeaux, six years before, of a war vessel
had been so welcome. Of this ship, launched with
VOL. II. 16
6 04 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
such splendour at Bordeaux in 1772, there remained
not even its name ; for it had been christened, with
time-serving sycophancy, La Comtesse du Barry^ and
the times had not served at all.
Although the war against England had more the
air of a naval farce (such as those upon the Opera
stage, recommended by Sophie Arnould as useful
study for de Boynes, First Lord of the French
Admiralty) than of serious combat, that into which
Austria rushed was an ominous reality. While the
battle of Ushant was being fought, and the people
of Paris were exercising their wits in suitable addresses
to the Due de Chartres, Marie Therese was in despair
at the ruin brought upon her country by Joseph's
action.
*' The Prussians are in Bohemia . . . and now the
31 July, Emperor and his four Marshals, Prince
1778. Albert, Hadik, Lacy, and Laudon, have
come to the conclusion that as the Saxons have joined
the King [of Prussia] we are inferior in number
by forty thousand men. They say that with our
armies of one hundred and eighty thousand men we
cannot act on the defensive ; cannot prevent the
King from establishing himself in Bohemia or
Moravia for the winter ; or ravaging and devastating
our good provinces during the summer months, and
taking from us all our resources in men, stores,
and money. If these gentlemen had only said
this in April, or even in May, we should not have
let things go so far. . . . But then they played the
ftlAKlK THERKSK, KWPRFSb OF ALfSTRIA.
{From llif I'lniiail j^iz'iii bv llii Einpiess lo llif Cuiiile lie I\liny-Argt)iltau.)
iPage 605.
31 July, 1778 605
courtier, and now see what a state we are in ; for
they think of nothing less than abandoning Prague,
and the whole of Bohemia, and retirino: behind the
Elbe. . . . And all this before we have received
the slightest repulse ! "
The Empress saw the same fate threaten her
again as had overwhelmed her before ; even the
retreat was upon the same road to Kolin, ''as in
1757, before the battle that saved Prague." The
Saxons had joined her enemy ; the Hanoverians were
mustering at Miihlhausen ; Hesse and other little
princedoms were summoning their troops, all per-
suaded or purchased by Frederick the Great ; " and
we sit here with our arms folded."
The misery of her country, the success of her old
and dreaded enemy — these were the reasons that led
the Empress to put such pressure upon Marie
Antoinette. *' I beg of you to help Mercy to save
your house and your brothers. I do not wish to
drag the King [Louis] into this unhappy war, but
only for him to make a show, to call out some
regiments, to come to our aid in case the Hanoverians
and others ally themselves with our enemies." So
Marie Antoinette, broken-hearted at the misfortunes
of her family, was forced by these woes to strain all
the influence she had gained as Queen of France, in
trying to save Austria from the evils brought upon
it by the brother who was indeed only " playing his
own game," as she had said with perfect truth.
Mercy's policy was peace at any price ; and with
6o6 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
that view he contemplated the mediation of France.
That alone with the weight of alliance could inter-
vene and stay the disastrous advance of Prussia.
'* But I shall have to lead that weak and timorous
17 August spirit, the Comte de Maurepas, by slow steps,
^778. , , , blindfolding him, so to speak, and
taking him, without his seeing my guidance, so far on
the road before he recognises whither he is going, that
he will be too much compromised to retreat."
The summer passed in these slow manoeuvres. The
Austrian and Prussian armies lay opposite each other,
not moving until October, when the Prussians re-
treated. De Maurepas advanced no step, but evaded
lightly every effort made to draw France into action ;
and inaction was natural to the character of Louis.
He was so much occupied in finding little means of
pleasing his wife that he could not think of the great
ones. He disliked the Comtesse de Polignac, but he
sent an express messenger to fetch her from the
country when he found his wife in tears he knew
no means to dry. He hated gambling, but he made
a first attempt at faro to please her, to the astonish-
ment of his Court.
Mercy said this was the greatest proof he could
give of his desire to please his wife ; but it was to
be hoped that his complaisance would not lead him
to repeat it, " for it would be dangerous and greatly
to be deprecated, as the King is not at all a good
loser, and his irritation draws him into regrettable
explosions. The Queen agrees with me in this ; and
17 August, 1778 607
I hope it will be another reason against this gambling,
the fury for which has greatly lessened." The
chief reason of this diminution was again the difficulty
of finding a banker whose purse could support the
honour. For in Paris, as in London (where the
Princess Amelia gambled nightly at Marlborough
House), faro was found too ruinous for any banker
to continue long. *' Faro (or Pharaoh) has had a
short reign. The bankers find that all the calculated
advantages of the game do not balance pinchbeck
parolis and debts of honourable women." In Ver-
sailles, too, the same discovery was made. " Madame "
observed to the bankers, with her true Piedmontese
sharpness of notice : ^' Messieurs, they are cheating
you pretty well ; " and they replied gallantly :
" Madame, we do not notice such things." But the
cheating Duchesses, whose rank ensured them the
privilege of sitting at the gaming table of the Queen,
had to submit to a regulation that diminished their
opportunities. A broad ribbon border was placed
round the edge of the table ; and stakes had thus
to be placed beyond the graceful manipulation of
casual fingers. With this double drawback, faro
dwindled ; and when the Normandy camp was well
filled it ceased at Court, until such time as the defenders
of their country returned to Paris.
But the active energies of Marie Antoinette must
be employed, and in default of faro, there were fairs ;
where the Queen sold lemonade to her Court, and
the ladies played at being saleswomen, at a cost to
6o8 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
the State of about 400,000 livres [^^ 16,000]. Or
there was a procession of masks organised to divert
her, in which M. de Maurepas appeared as Cupid.
Walpole says : " Maurepas was a short man, with a
vulgar and inexpressive face, simple manners, and
cold deportment, clothed in great dignity ; " the
suitability of clothing is suggestive in this connection.
Madame de Maurepas was Venus, from similar
reasons. The ministers were all present, de Vergennes
with the world on his head, a map of America on
his breast, and one of England upon his back. The
octogenarian Marechal de Richelieu appeared as
Cephalus, and danced a minuet with the Marechale
de Mirepoix, who hid her seventy years and *' trouble-
some nervous affection " under the guise of Aurora ;
for " she has read, but seldom shows it, and has
perfect taste," but classic knowledge will betray itself
even in the recognition of the Greek fret in a mere
fender pattern. The Due de Coigny appeared as
Hercules ; and the Due de Lauzun, " qui devient
prhomptueux et talon rouge quand il s'agit de succes
fhnininSj' very suitably, as the Sultan ; while all the
Court pages were dressed, " en jockeys.'' At one o'clock
the Queen ended the Carnival, which had come to
amuse her in her enforced absence from the Opera
balls ; and all the company partook of chocolate
and ices.
There were daily receptions by the Queen at
eleven o'clock ; to which all the Court went without
ceremony (and " much too carelessly dressed," said
17 November, 1778 609
Mercy), where all sorts of childish games were played.
The nightly gambling recommenced, to amuse Marie
Antoinette, with the King's consent and approval.
'* The gaming-room was open to all without distinc-
tions ; rascals were introduced, and one was
' 17
arrested who was caught passing a rouleau November
of counters as louis." [He was sent to
the Bastille, but the titled fripons remained.] '^ Other
very indecorous events occurred, which cannot fail
to excite comment among the public, and will create
the worst impression. The Queen lost 1,000 louis
[^960], but regained 400 [;£384] the evening before
leaving Marly. Mesdames, who had been residing at
their chateau Bellevue during the month of October,
came to spend the day at Marly ; and arrived when the
reception was being held before luncheon. They
showed plainly in their visages that they disapproved
of this class of social gathering." Mesdames made
the acid remarks that might have been expected
from ladies whose standard of a Queen's Court was
that of the dreary, silent, etiquette-ridden self-efface-
ment of Marie Leczinska. " Monsieur " was the
bearer of these strictures to Marie Antoinette ; who
received them " with much temper." However, no
serious quarrel resulted.
In December the great preoccupation of the Empress
and Mercy was that of arranging for the speedy
transmission of the all-important news of the birth
of the child. Marie Therese directed Mercy to have
his letter all written in advance, just to fill in the
6io The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
blanks with the date and the sex, and send the messenger
with all haste, so that she might receive the news
within eight days from the time of its despatch.
Mercy laid his plans ; and then found, to his vast
vexation, that etiquette forbade his despatching a
courier within forty-eight hours after the French
messenger had left to convey the news officially to
the Baron de Breteuil. The Comte de Vergennes
was so wedded to this formality, which ensured the
French Ambassador in Vienna first receiving the
great news, that all Mercy's representations could
obtain was permission for his courier to leave Paris
after twenty-four hours had elapsed. Without a
passport Mercy's messenger could not quit Paris ;
and he wrote to the Empress on 5 December that he
was unable to promise her the news she so anxiously
awaited, as etiquette was more important than humanity.
He pointed out that the delay would not be much
greater, for obviously it would be to the interest of
the French messenger to make all possible speed ; and
his own letter would be able to give a report of the
health of Marie Antoinette on the day following.
*' But after sending this courier, I shall have no means
of communicating except by the ordinary post, for in
all France there is no arrangement for despatching
letters by express messengers."
The ordinary post, with its lack of privacy so
recognised that it served to diffuse news as well as
convey it, its delays, and its dangers, was never
employed except as a vehicle of rumours that the
25 November, 1778 611
sender wished to publisK. Then it had no equal as
a means of percolation.
In anticipation of an heir to France, Marie
Antoinette had begged her mother to be the god-
mother, as the King of Spain was to be the godfather ;
and all due State would be thus observed. She had
asked her to name her proxy at the ceremony ; and to
send a list of names which her son should bear. All
these State ceremonies were carried out by proxies. At
Marie Antoinette's own marriage, her husband had
been represented by her brother the Archduke
Ferdinand, who kneeled at her side in the church of
the Augustines on 19 April, in place of the Dauphin.
Marie Therese had asked Mercy for his advice upon
all ceremonial observances necessary, and it had been
agreed that *' Madame," as the lady of highest rank
after the Queen, should represent the Empress. But
the agitation consequent on Frederick's invasion of
Bohemia, the outbreak of war, the danger of her son's
life as well as throne, made her forget these matters,
and she wrote to Mercy on 25 November that the
whole thing had escaped her memory.
" If by good luck it had not come into my mind
it would have been fororotten altoo^ether." She
CD O
enjoined upon Mercy to make all excuses, and convey
her formal request for "Madame" to represent her
at the christening ; she sent also a list of presents
" which you can add to, take away, or augment at
your good pleasure. Give what sums you think
right in money. Could you not do as Breteuil did
6i2 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
in Naples — turn your entertainment into a thank-
offering, by freeing some unhappy prisoners, or giving
dowries to some girls ? I leave that in your hands. . . .
The tablets of lacquer for Madame de Provence are
not quite ready. I thought them more suitable than
only the bracelet with my portrait, which cost 8,000
florins. . . . The bracelet with my monogram is for
Madame de Guemenee ; you can add a snuff-box
or some other trifle you may procure in Paris, if
it is necessary to increase this present. It did not
seem to me correct to give a bracelet with my portrait
to the Governess, as I am giving one to ' Madame.*
There is a lady's snuff-box with my portrait, which
you can give away or keep yourself as you think best ;
and one for a man, in green, with my monogram,
which is also at your disposal. The rings are for the
doctors ; but in this, as in everything else, you need not
keep to the list, but do exactly what you think best."
In this same letter she mentions the approaching
marriage of a relation of the Comte de Mercy-
Argenteau, in whose welfare she was interesting
herself. " I have seen M. d'Argenteau." [He was
Joseph Louis Eugene, Comte d'Argenteau, head of
the cadet branch of Argenteau d'Ochain, descended
from Guillaume II. in 1453.] ''It is enough for me
that he belongs to you, and that you are interested
in him, to make this affair one of importance to
me. The parties interested have already seen each
other, and it is an extremely suitable match. He
could please any reasonable person ; but she is very
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taxable persons, who now reaped the reward of their
own or their fathers' shrewd investment in nobility.
The burden of the State's support thus pressed solely
on the lower classes, who were ground into the dust,
to raise the means of carrying on the appearance of
Royalty from one year to the next.
Taxes were levied with such calculating ingenuity,
that there was nothing in the possession of the most
wretched herd that was exempt, except that '* chilly,
tight-fitting coat of nothing in front and nothing
behind and sleeves of the same," as Rabelais called
his skin. That the peasants recognised this as their
one exemption was shown in the Revolution by their
fiendish revenge of the tannery of Meudon ; where
the skins of their hated seigneurs were made into
*' perfectly good washleather for breeches . . . equal
to shamoy." It was chronicled calmly that the
exquisite women of the French nobility were as use-
less in death as in life, for their skins were '' good for
nothing, being too soft in texture."
Of the taxes from which were wrung the revenues
of the French monarchy, the chief were the Taille,
Capitation^ the Vingtihne, the Corvk^ and the Gahelle.
The Taille was a tax on land or on income from
land ; this touched every little farmer. Capitation
was a poll-tax, from which no living soul was supposed
to be exempt. The Vingtieme was a tax of the
twentieth part of a franc, levied arbitrarily and at
the pleasure of the Government whenever money was
needed, and even doubled or trebled when occasion
17 January, 1780 667
served. The Corvee was forced labour, to which every
peasant was subject. He was obliged to leave his
farm or employment, no matter what the urgency
of his own harvest, take his ox and carry wood, make
roads, transport convicts to the awful '^ Bagne^'' or
perform any other duty required. He might be called
off for fifty days in the year, while his corn rotted or
his hay spoiled. No age was exempt ; the child had
his Corvhy the old man had his.
Gabelle^ the name of which (from gabe^ a gift) was
so neatly ironical, was the tax on salt, which produced
thirty-eight millions of francs [^1,520,000], in the
reign of Louis XVI. Every person in France above
seven years of age had to consume, or at least pur-
chase, seven pounds of salt a year ; a strict watch
was kept on the increase of every family and the
head of it had to pay the Government price (for it
was a State monopoly) for himself, his wife, and each
child over seven years. The tax was the more
resented because it was not uniform ; in one province
it was a halfpenny the pound, in another sixpence. Salt
smuggling was in consequence so profitable that the
risks of death or the galleys were run to evade the
officials. At least ten thousand men were imprisoned
each year for evading the salt tax, about five hundred
hanged, and another five hundred sent to the Bagne.
For the law seized all who did not eat his seven pounds
of salt ; all who paid for that amount but used it for
other purposes, such as to give to their cattle ; all who
manufactured salt for themselves ; all who smuggled
VOL. II. 20
668 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
it from one province into another ; all who used it
for salting food for trade unless paid for in addition
to the minimum seven pounds. But there was no
Gabelle for nobles, clerics, or Government officials.
When the peasant had satisfied his King's demands,
there were the rights of his seigneur to be fulfilled ;
and these were even more oppressive. Upon one
fief the following were the seigneur's rights, and
this was by no means an uncommon instance. All
offices of Government, all the civil jurisdiction, gaoler,
bailiffs, etc., were in the seigneur's gift, and had to be
paid for. All Jewish families had a special tax to
permit them to exist. The tenth of everything^ small
and great, was his — chickens, corn, hay, potatoes, etc.
Every wife on the estate had to spin two pounds of flax
a year. Every male and every female to work ten
days a year for nothing. Every cart and waggon
to work ten days a year. Every innkeeper to pay
for his sign. Every gallon of wine to pay duty.
Rights of heriot existed ; taxes on salt, tar, coal, etc.
All these were sanctioned by general use up to the
time of the Revolution. Carlyle says that the law
authorising a seigneur, as he returned from hunting,
to kill not more than two serfs and refresh his feet
in their warm blood, had by now fallen into desuetude.
But the law " Mercheta Mulierum^' the right of the
seigneur paramount over that of any peasant husband
on the wedding night, was long enforced.
The legacy of his fathers to Louis XVI. was one
of colossal corruption. In every department of State,
17 January, 1780 669
in every detail of administration, such gross deep-
rooted evils flourished, that the reform, even of surface
trifles, caused an outbreak of fury from those whose
privilege of peculation was thereby infringed. Common
honesty and fair-mindedness did not exist in depart-
ments of State, where the measure of roguery was
its opportunity. They did not exist in the classes
to whom the word justice meant merely the recognition
of their own privileges. All men had their price ;
bribery was as natural as breathing ; and the best-
natured man of quality denied the bond of a common
humanity with his serfs. To Louis were given two
great chances, and he threw both away. Turgot
or Necker would have saved his kingdom for him ;
but his feeble brain probably first realised on the
scaflbld that there had been any necessity for such
salvation.
Louis was so good-natured that he refused to
abolish serfdom ; he was so great a lover of justice
that he refused to interfere with the rights of — the
seigneurs. He loved the idea of equality ot man
so much that he plunged France into war to support
the abstract quality in America ; but he submitted
Necker himself to humiliations because he was a mere
Protestant and of bourgeois family. By one edict
Louis could have freed all the serfs in France ; but
his idea of justice prevented his passing so just an
act. He freed his own serfs, and left all those unfreed
who had the misfortune to be on Church lands or
slaves to his seigneurs. Turgot abolished the Corvee ;
670 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
Louis reimposed It through de Clugny, doubtless
because he so loved his people that he would not
remove from them their right to labour. Necker
cut down expenses by removing in this year of 1780
no less than four hundred and six posts at Court,
useless hangers-on to the King's household ; and his
fall became inevitable, for who was there at Court,
from the de Polignacs downward, who did not
recognise that he also was a mere hanger-on and
also useless ?
Chief amongst those who raised indignant outcries
against the suppression of fat sinecures
17 April, were the brothers of the King and the Due
1780
d'Orleans. Mercy relates that these three
Princes regarded all similar economies as infringe-
ments upon their sacred rights of patronage, which
they sold for high prices. The Comte d'Artois was,
as usual, louder than any one in his disgust at any
retrenchment ; but Marie Antoinette was not dragged
into any support of his complaints. It was true that
the Queen had no cause of complaint herself ; the title
of Due had been bestowed upon the husband of
the Comtesse de Polignac, who by this means became
a Duchesse, and as such entitled to the privilege of
her rank, that of sitting on the '' tabouret ^^ or foot-
stool, in her Majesty's presence. The ducal title was
no empty grace, for a suitable estate was provided —
out of the Royal Treasury to Necker's wrath.
Poor Necker had a hard time in this year. He
could please no one. The King could recognise no
17 April, 1780 6-^1
virtue in a financier who came from Geneva and
refused to give up his Calvinism ; the Court objected
to a bourgeois who dared to limit the privileges of
their rank ; the wealthy middle classes violently
opposed a man who intended to make them bear a
fair share of the taxes. The ministers delighted in
obliging Necker to sit alone in outer Protestantism
in a little room under the roof of Versailles while they
discussed his projects of finance ; for the good of the
State required a financier to be of the religion of the
Abbe Terray before he could be present at a Council.
The war with England demanded such incessant
supplies that a country already bankrupt could not
raise them ; but no thought of peace was entertained
until absolute exhaustion compelled it. The sums
raised for a war, that was popular because it was
against England, never reached the navy for which
they were voted ; they melted by the way. In 1780
one hundred and forty-three millions of francs
[^5,720,000] were spent on the navy ; and at the
end of it the men had not even received their arrears
of pay. Not even the gallant fighting of the French
sailors could avail them, with the ignorance of their
commanders nullifying their efforts ; and almost the
only news that came to France was of losses and
disasters. Taxes could raise no more, and the fatal
policy of loans was impairing public credit. The King
saved on a country trip, and then rushed into
extravagances that made Mercy groan in sympathy
with Necker.
672 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
The Court, however, saw no reason to groan.
Mercy tells of diversions that appear to him wholly
unsuitable for the King and Queen of France.
"Amusements have been introduced of such noisy
and puerile character that they are little suited to
Lenten meditations, and still less to the dignity of the
august personages who take part in them. They are
games resembling blindman's buff, that first lead to
the giving of forfeits, and then to their redemption by
some bizarre penance ; the commotion is kept up
sometimes until late into the night. The number
of persons who take part in these games, both of the
Court and the town, makes them still more unsuit-
able ; every one is surprised to see that the King plays
them with great zest, and that he can give himself
up wholly to such frivolities in such a serious condition
of State affairs as obtains at present."
The spectacle of Louis XVI. playing forfeits while his
kingdom slipped from him, filled Mercy with horror, the
keener because he recognised that all blame would fall
upon Marie Antoinette. " The Queen, who has not the
slightest taste for this sort of amusement, lends herself
to these games purely from good nature ; but the unjust
public lays upon her the odium of it all. . . ." So
absorbed was the King (now twenty-six years old) in
the games of blindman's buff and forfeits (games suited
to his mental capacity), that his pleasure in them was
a sad revelation to those who had hoped for a permanent
brightening of wits. " The Comte de Maurepas is
suspected of having introduced this incongruous amuse-
i6 August, 1780 673
ment in order to lead the King into total abandonment
of affairs." This sentence shows Mercy's despair of
the future of France, whose ruler was too engrossed
in a new nursery game to play any longer at being
King. " It will be as pernicious to the credit of the
young monarch as it is injurious to the personal
interests of the Queen." The public could more easily
pardon the mania for faro, with its losses of thousands
of louis, than the blameless love of blindman's buff
that alone woke their King into eager interest in his
surroundings. Marie Antoinette, faithful to her duty,
watched over her husband with care ; and never left
him, lest some chances might arise of diverting his
unstable mind from her in her absence.
Mercy said : '' 1 see that the Queen becomes ever
more attentive to her husband and partici- ^q August,
pates daily in his amusements. The King is ^''®^*
very fond of a game called loto. It consists in drawing
out a number of balls, with figures on them which
correspond to those on a card ; this results in an
extremely minute gain to those players who draw the
right figure. The Queen has no taste for this game
— it even bores her — but she diligently arranges for
it after supper, and her Majesty plays at it until the
King wishes to go to bed — that is to say, until about
eleven o'clock."
Marie Antoinette's preference was for less simple
and childish pleasures. She had discovered in herself
a talent for the stage ; and the pleasure of acting in
her own little theatre of Trianon was greater than
674 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
that derived from the gorgeous fete given by the
Princesse de Guemenee in her vast and beautiful
garden at Versailles. The occasion was the marriage
of her daughter, the Princesse de Montbazon to the
Prince de Rohan Rochefort. The fete was so mag-
nificent that even Mercy speaks of it with respect ;
and one of its results was the bankruptcy of the
Gu^m^nee family and the desolation the ruin of that
house brought upon France. " There was a sort of
Arcadia, with illuminations, fireworks, entertainments,
and a ball. The King, the Queen, and all the Royal
Princes and Princesses were present at this fete, and
remained there throughout the whole night."
But ostentation, even if it involved the ruin of
thousands, had no charm for the Queen, and her
chief pleasure at this time was private theatricals, so
very private that the only spectators were the King
and the Princes and Princesses ; and Mercy himself
(by special command), who hid himself in a box, lest
the distinction of being the sole guest should lead to
jealousies from the uninvited. Not even the ladies-
in-waiting or the chief officers might be present, but
in the distance the silent, respectful little throng of
valets and fe^nmes de chamhre.
Mercy took the new amusement with philosophy.
" The time necessary to learn their parts, and the
rehearsals, will keep them all out of mischief in
gambling ; and when they are performing in the
evening they cannot be walking out on the terrace."
The actresses were the Queen, the Duchesse de
14 October, 1780 675
Polignac and her cousin, the Comtesse de Chalons (the
lady supposed by false rumour to have placed un-
recognised temptation in the way of the King) ; the
actors were the Comte de Polignac, the Comte
d'Adhemar (French Ambassador to Brussels), and
the Comte Esterhazy. Two well-known actors, Caillot
and Dazincourt, were chosen as instructors ; and
their lessons resulted in the usual performances such
as are expected from noble amateurs. The King
yawned openly ; he woke up once and hissed the
Queen, who was playing the Marquise de Clainville in
La Gageure imprivue. Marie Antoinette thereupon
made a little speech : " I have done what I could to
amuse you ; I would like to have played better to
have better pleased you. Another time I will try
harder." But Louis did not care. Madame Campan
says of the dramatic company that " it was good — for
a society company ; " but every one said privately of
the performance that it had been '* Royally badly
played."
Mercy's account was, however, that of an eye-
witness, and it differs a little from that of
, r 1 ■ Paris,
contemporary writers, who, tor obvious 14 October,
reasons, must have written from hearsay.
He watched from within a box, screened from all
observation by those in the theatre ; and he was
conducted to this place in the theatre by a man who
guided him so that he did not encounter any one.
Thus there was no outcry and no intrigue resulting
from this favour. The company played two little
676 The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
comic operas : Rose et Colas and Le Devin du Village ;
the performers were the Comte d'Artois, the Due
de Guiche, the Comte d'Adhemar, the Duchesse de
Polignac, and the Duchesse de Guiche in the first
piece. " The Queen played the part of Colette in
the second piece, the Comte de Vaudreuil sang that
of the soothsayer and the Comte d'Adhemar that of
Colin. The Queen has a very pretty and very true
voice, her manner of acting is dignified and full of
grace ; in short, this performance was quite as well
done as any society entertainment could be. I noticed
that the King was attentive, and that his expression
seemed pleased ; between the scenes he went up on
to the stage to see the Queen in her dressing-room.
The only spectators beside the King were ' Monsieur,'
the Comtesse d'Artois, and Madame Elizabeth. In
the balcony circle were a few of the servants, but
there was no person of the Court present."
That such theatricals were better than gambling,
and certainly more economical, was the consolation
of Marie Ther^se, who took the most statesmanlike
interest in the finance of Necker. She studied his
methods of improving the revenues ; and sent many
messages of appreciation to him and to Madame
Necker. One message, that was sent to Mercy, with
instructions to convey it to Madame Necker, was
so flattering to the vanity of the once neglected
betrothed of the gay Gibbon, that she asked Mercy
if she might copy it out and keep as a souvenir. The
Empress wrote : " You can tell Madame de Necker,
14 October, 1780 677
that when the painter Liotard came here from Geneva
a few years ago I wished to examine his pictures.
I was struck with one among them representing
a pretty young person, with a book in her hand,
in a very interesting attitude. I liked the picture so
much that I became possessed of it. It is the portrait
of Madame Necker which I always look at with
pleasure." This flattering presentment is very different
from the description given by the Marquise de Crequy
of Madame Necker : " She was a big woman, got up,
stayed, stiffened, always in her best clothes {endimanchie)^
always as if just out of a band-box ; and tied up as
if she were a packet of tobacco. She had the figure
of a savings bank and the physiognomy of a register
by double entry. She was merely the town of Geneva
in an orange satin case. Doubtless a very worthy
person, but an insupportable pedant."
The Marquise de Crequy marked the distinction
between persons of words and of deeds. Madame
Necker's " insupportable pedantry " included the author-
ship of Reflections on Divorce. Other ladies did not
publish their reflections.
Madame Necker's refinements of speech gave rise
to much derision from those at Court who had no
scruples at all in speech. She would never speak,
for instance, of the thigh of a partridge, or of the
rump of a turkey, always referring to the mitre instead
of croupion when designating that portion of the bird ;
and using the term portefeuille when speaking of
the inside of an artichoke. This over-delicacy in a
67 B The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
coarse-tongued society invited strictures ; and it was
said openly that if Madame Necker were really of
such reticent modesty, she would refrain from making
such exhibitions pectorales^ as these were not customary
revelations. But the Court, in the person of the
Marquise de Crequy, could have little in sympathy
with the benevolent, learned reformer, Madame Necker,
who was much more interested in hospitals and in
prisons than in Royal fetes at Versailles, and the
brilliant spendthrifts whose existence left them no virtue
but that of courage ; but who gained in death the
respect they had lost by life.
In the last month of 1780 came the blow that plunged
Austria into desolation — the death of the great Empress
Marie Ther^se. The news reached Marie Antoinette
early in December ; but her mother passed away on
29 November, Sovereign to the last, signing the State
documents and receiving her Council. In the days
of her death she was as great as in her life ; calm
and confident she died with dignity. " I have always
tried to do my best ; I trust in the mercy of God."
She dictated letters to those of her children who were
far away. Her son Joseph wrote them at her side.
She waited, peacefully expectant : '^ I will not sleep ;
I do not wish to be taken unawares ; I wish to
watch death coming."
With the courage that had borne unshaken the
burden of calamities she waited for the moment of her
release ; and in the intervals of weakness she planned
for the future of her children. For her invalid eldest
29 November^ 1780 679
daughter Marie Anne, deformed and ailing, she was
full of thought ; and with a voice almost quenched
and scarcely audible she bade her think well before
she took the convent vows ; and above all she must
promise not to leave her home for convent rigours till
the winter months had passed. Her son Joseph was
beside her, crushed with distress. The Empress called
the doctor, and bade him take upon himself the duty
of lighting her funeral taper — " It is asking too
much of the Emperor." Marie Christine was there
with her husband, Albert of Teschen, Elizabeth the
Abbess of Innsbruck, and Maximilian her youngest
child and favourite son. But her thoughts dwelt
most upon those far away, and on Marie Antoinette,
" my charming Queen," of whose future she thought
with dread, although the prevision of her awful fate
was spared her. Her last letters to Marie Antoinette
and to Mercy were written on 3 November, 1780,
but there is no knowledge that her eyes ever saw
their answers. These letters of 3 November are sad
and weary. '* I am losing all I love, one after
another," she wrote. To her friend Mercy she
had written before : " Take care of yourself. You
must remember we all grow older every day, and
you have the happiness of both mother and daughter
to safeguard."
That had been Mercy's work for ten years ; for
yet another ten years he strove to carry out his
work. But the wise hand of the great Empress no
longer guided the Austrian policy ; and with her
68o The Guardian of Marie Antoinette
passing, passed also the weight of the Franco-Austrian
alliance. Upon his mother's death, Joseph had tried
to whirl reform throughout his Empire. His scheme
for unification of his peoples led to their disruption.
He tried to weld into one nation his heterogeneous
nationalities — Austria, Hungary, Bavaria, the Nether-
lands — to compass the union of opposite faiths and
customs and different races by sudden edicts. He
ignored the invincible power of the Churches, of the
priesthoods, in whom was vested all instruction ;
whose influence was boundless. He divided all the
Netherlands into nine circles of influence, each with
its governor, responsible to a Governor-General in
Brussels. Then he proclaimed universal religious
toleration, an affront to each intolerant religion. He
interfered with the crusted methods of priestly in-
struction, and instituted a thorough school reform.
One outbreak after another showed the folly of
attempting to force unripe reforms ; first, religious
riots, then civil — till church and nobles, equally menaced
in their privileges, led the mobs in open revolt.
Brabant refused to pay taxes till the old order was
restored ; the towns raised an armed volunteer force
in order to compel the return of old and cherished
abuses. Joseph refused to yield to the storm ; sent
troops to beat down the insurrection ; and these were
swept away by the angry swarms of rioters. The
Netherlands declared themselves independent ; civil
war raged ; monks, with crucifix in one hand and
sword in the other, led the rioting armies to burn and
■^rTTT
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sy-x
LETTFRS I'ATFNT, KROINI LEOPOLD TL, Lftri'FKOR OF ALTSTRIA.
Conferring- the Governorship of the Netherlands on the Comte de Mercj'-Argenteaii.
{From the tni'^inul (iociinicnls nt l/ic Cluilcnii