MICHAEL'S COLLEGE Presented by . D. J. McDougal 0. DRAMAS AND TRAGEDIES OF CHIVALRIC FRANCE MEMOIRS OF MADAME CAMPAN VOLUME ONE MARIE ANTOINETTE EDITION Limited to Six Hundred Numbered and Registered Copies, of which this is Number.... ROMANCES OF ROYALTY MEMOIRS OF MADAME CAMPAN ON MARIE ANTOINETTE AND HER COURT WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY G. K. FORTESCUE, LL.D. AND WITH A PREFACE BY MME. CAMPAN, A PREFATORY MEMOIR OF MADAME CAMPAN BY F. BARRIERE NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH MADAME CAMPAN BY M. MAIGNE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF G. K. FORTESCUE, LL.D. Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I. BOSTON J. B. MILLET COMPANY 1909 Copyright, 1909, BY J. B. MILLET COMPANY All rights reserved JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. CONTENTS. VOLUME I. PAGE GENERAL INTRODUCTION BY G. K. FOHTESCUE xiii PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR 1 NOTE 6 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MADAME CAMPAN 7 NOTES OF CONVERSATIONS WITH MADAME CAMPAN 33 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. Louis XV. and his Queen 61 CHAPTER I. Court of Louis XV. — His character. — The King's dtbotter. — Charac- ters of Mesdames. — Retreat of Madame Louise to the Carmelites of Saint Denis. — Madame du Barry. — The Court divided between the party of the Due de Choiseul and that of the Due d'Aiguillon . 99 CHAPTER II. Birth of Marie Antoinette attended by a memorable calamity. — Maria Theresa's character. — Education of the Archduchesses. — Precep- tors provided for Marie Antoinette by the Court of Vienna. — Pre- ceptor sent her by the Court of France. — Abbe de Vermond. — Change in the French Ministry. — Cardinal de Rohan succeeds Baron de Breteuil as Ambassador at Vienna. — Portrait of that Prelate 118 CHAPTER III. Arrival of the Archduchess in France. — Brilliant reception of the Dau- phiness at Versailles. — She charms Louis XV. — Madame dn Barry's jealousy. — Court intrigues. — The Dauphin. — His brothers and their wives 128 CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE Death of Louis XV. — Picture of the Court. — Madame du Barry dis- missed.— Departure of the Court to Choisy. — M. de Maurepas Minister. — Influence of example upon the courtiers. — Enthusiasm raised by the new reign. — Mourning at La Mnette. — The Queen. — The King and the Princes, his brothers, are inoculated. — Stay at Marly. — Calumnies against the Queen. — Bcehmer, the jeweller. — Mademoiselle Bertin. — Changes of fashion. —Simplicity of the Court of Vienna. — Extreme temperance, decorum, and modesty of Marie Antoinette 147 CHAPTER V. Revision of the papers of Louis XV. by Louis XVI. — Man in the iron mask. — The late King's interest in certain financial companies. — Representation of Iphigenia in Aulis. — The King gives Petit Tria- non to the Queen. — The Archduke Maximilian's journey to France. — Questions of precedence. — Misadventure of the Archduke. — Accouchement of the Comtesse d'Artois. — The poissardes cry out to the Queen to give heirs to the throne. — Death of the Due de La Vauguyon. — Portrait of Louis XVI. — Of the Comte de Provence. — Of the Comte d'Artois, etc 171 ANNEX 187 CHAPTER VI. Severe winter. — The Princesse de Lamballe appointed superintendant of the Household. — The Comtesse Jules de Polignac appears at Court. — M. de Vaudreuil. — Due and Duchesse de Duras. — Fash- ionable games 201 CHAPTER VII. The Dnc de Choisenl returns to Court. — The Queen obtains a pension of 1200 francs for Chamfort. — She invites Glnck to France and patronises music. — Encouragement given to the art of printing. — Turgot. — M. de Saint Germain. — Amusements at Court. — Par- ticulars of the Household. — Masked balls at the opera. — The Queen goes there in a. fiacre; slanderous reports. — The heron plume. — The Due de Lauzun. — The Queen's attachment to the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac. — Anecdote of the Abbe de Vermond . . 213 CONTENTS. Vll CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Joseph II.'s visit to France. — His reception at the opera. — Fete given to him by the Queen at Trianon. — The Queen enceinte. — Voltaire's return to Paris. — Duel between the Comte d'Artois and the Due de Bourbon. — Return of the Chevalier d'Eon to France. — Partic- ulars relative to his missions, and the causes of his disguise. — Night promenades upon the terrace of Trianon. — Couplets against the Queen. — Indignation of Louis XVI. — Birth of Madame . . . . 231 ANNEX 250 CHAPTER IX. Public rejoicings. — Death of Maria Theresa; the Queen's affliction. — Anecdotes of Maria Theresa. — Birth of the Dauphin. — Bank- ruptcy of the Prince de Guemenee. — The Duchesse de Polignac is appointed governess of the Children of France. — Jealousy of the Court. — Mode of life at Trianon. — Presumption of the Due de Fronsac. — American War. — Franklin. — M. de La Fayette. — Order for admitting none but gentlemen to the rank of officer. — Spirit of the Third Estate 254 CHAPTER X. Visit of the Grand Duke of Russia and his Duchess to France. — Enter- tainment and supper at Trianon. — Cardinal de Rohan. — Cold reception given to Comte d'Haga (Gustavus III., King of Sweden). — Peace with England. — The English flock into France. — Con- duct to be observed at Court. — Mission of the Chevalier de Bressac to the Queen. — Court of Naples. — Queen Caroline. — The Minister Acton. — Debates between the Courts of Naples and Madrid. — Insolent reply of the Spanish Ambassador to Queen Caroline. — Interference of France. — MM. de Se'gur and de Castries appointed ministers through the Queen's influence. — Treachery of M. de Maurepas towards M. Necker. — Appointment of M. de Calonne. — Observations of Marie Antoinette 277 CHAPTER XI. The Queen is dissatisfied with the appointment of M. de Calonne. — Acts of benevolence. — Purchase of St. Cloud. — Regulations of in- ternal police. — State of France. — Beaumarchais. — Marriage of Figaro. — Character of M. de Vaudreuil 295 viii CONTENTS. CHAPTER XII. PAGE The diamond necklace. — Account of Brehmer the jeweller. — His inter- view with Madame Campan. — The Cardinal de Rohan interrogated in the King's Cabinet. — Particulars relative to Madame de Lamotte and her family. — Steps taken by the Cardinal's relations. — The prosecution. — The clergy remonstrate. — Decree of the Parliament. — The Queen's grief. — Remark of Louis XVI 307 CHAPTER XIII. The Archbishop of Sens is appointed to the Ministry. — The Abbe de Vermond's joy on the occasion. — The Queen is obliged to take a part in business. — Money sent to Vienna contrary to her inclina- tion. — Anecdotes. — The Queen supports the Archbishop of Sens in office. — Public rejoicings on his dismissal. — Opening of the States-General. — Cries of " Vive le Due d'OrUans." — Their effect upon the Queen. — Mirabeau. — He requests an embassy. — Misfor- tunes induce the Queen to yield to superstitious fears. — Anecdotes. — Prejudices of the provincial deputies of the tiers €tat. — Causes of these prejudices. — Death of the first Dauphin. — Anecdotes. . . 331 APPENDIX. The Diamond Necklace 345 INDEX . 373 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAOB MARIE ANTOINETTE Frontispiece From an engraving by Danguin after the portrait by Madame Lebrun. The original was formerly in the possession of the Marquis de Biencourt. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. MADAME DE POMPADOUR 64 By La Tour (Maurice Quentin de). The original is at Versailles. FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM Louis XV. TO THE COUNT D'EVREUX 80 FACSIMILE OF A LETTER FROM MADAME DE POMPADOUR TO M. BENTER 96 CHAPTER V. THE DAIRY (NEAR THE PETIT TRIANON) 176 From a photograph. IX. MARLY, CHATEAUX AND PAIRLIONS OF 272 Painted in 1722 by Martin (Pierre Denis), engraved by Devil- liers ; original in galleries Historiques at Versailles. XL BEAUMARCHAIS 304 From an old engraving. APPENDIX. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 352 From an old print. NOTE. THE following titles have the signification given below during the period covered by this work: — MONSEIGNEUK . . . MONSIEUR , MONSIEUR LE PRINCE MONSIEUR LB Duo . MONSIEUR LE GRAND MONSIEUR LE PREMIER ENFANS DE FRANCE . MADAME MESDAMES MADAME ELIZABETH . MADAME ROYALE . . MADEMOISELLE . The Dauphin. The eldest brother of the King, Comte de Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII. The Prince de Conde, head of the House of Conde. The Due de Bourbon, the eldest son of the Prince de Conde", and the father of the Due d'Enghien shot by Napoleon. The Grand Equerry under the anci&n regime. The First Equerry under the ancien regime. The royal children. (Sisters or daughters of the King; or Princesses near the Throne; some- times used also for the wife of Monsieur, the eldest brother of the King), the Princesses Adelaide, Vic- toire, Sophie, Louise, daughters of Louis XV., and aunts of Louis XVI. The Princess Elizabeth, sister of Louis XVI. The Princess Marie The'rese, daughter of Louis XVI., afterwards Duchesse d'Angoule'me. The daughter of Monsieur, the brother of the King. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. BY G. K. FORTESCUE. " All the world is longing for romance, but why not seek it rather in history than in fiction? In history will be found, in infinite variation, the drama of the lives of men and women and of their sterner and gentler passions. Above all, history enjoys the sovereign charm of reality. I admire and appreciate as much as anyone the creative power of imagination which places before us imaginary beings invested with the attributes of humanity, but the biographies of those who have really known the passions, the joys, the sorrows and the calamities of life have a far greater fascination for me than the most perfect productions of poetry or romance. The living creature, the work of God, is more beautiful than any human creation. Of all poets God is the greatest." So, more than fifty years ago, wrote the famous Monsieur Guizot and his words are as well worth remembering to-day as when they appeared in the " Eevue des deux Mondes " in the year 1855. For, after all, what is fiction, but imaginative biography? We pay the highest possible compliment to the greatest masters of the Art when we say that Eob Eoy, or Effie Deans, or Colonel 'Esmond, or d*Artagnan are to us real living men and women. History itself, in so far as it is of real interest and value, is but the collective biography of an epoch or of a country. When it rises or falls into what we are pleased to call the scientific method, and deals with cloudy generalisations or sweeping de- ductions, it is best left alone. Abstract dissertations on the xiii xiv GENERAL INTRODUCTION. causes of events, — differently understood by each generation and indeed by each individual, — seem to me to fall under the excellent definition of metaphysics; "a blind man in a dark room hunting for a black hat, said hat being elsewhere." He who would really study the origin, or the causes of great epochs or of revolutionary movements must necessarily begin by studying the general history of the period, in order to have clearly in his mind the chronological sequence of events, but when these preliminaries are mastered and he has thoroughly learned the topography of the battle-field, he must turn to biog- raphy for the true history of the combat. All the generalisa- tions in the world, all the theories of historical tendencies and the spirit of each successive age will not help us to understand any period of history until we have mastered the lives and the characters of the principal actors in it. Take the Reformation. It is not until we understand what manner of man was Leo X., or Luther, or Calvin, or Henry VIII., or the breed of Valois Kings, that we begin to see how the Reformation came about, or why it took such widely different forms in Germany, in France, in England and in Scotland. Or take another great period of upheaval, the French Revolution. Philosophic his- torians teach us that the Revolution was the direct outcome of the Reformation, that some such cataclysm was inevitable, and that it was in the natural order of events that it should take place in France, where a worn-out despotism and an effete fiscal and legal system was brought face to face with a freedom of thought and an intellectual licence which had no parallel in Europe. All this may be true, indeed for that matter the Revolu- tion may have been the logical sequel of the Deluge, but this does not seem to bring us much nearer to what we want to know. To learn why the Revolution took the shape it did, we must turn to biography and learn what were the characters of GENERAL INTRODUCTION. XV the principal forerunners and actors in that great drama. We must study the lives, we must learn the nature, of Voltaire and Rousseau, of Louis XV. and of his unhappy successor, of Necker and Mirabeau, and of a hundred others. Then, and not until then, we shall begin to understand how and why the great turn- ing point of the Revolution, the breakdown of the Constitution of 1791, took place; and how and why that failure led through anarchy and terror to fresh despotisms and to all the many changes and chances that have marked French history ever since. For these studies French Memoir writers have left us materials such as are to be found in the historical sources of no other nation. Before entering, however, upon this subject, perhaps I may be permitted to give a few conclusions drawn from the expe- rience and reflections of an old Librarian. Happy is the man who in early youth has had leisure or opportunity for storing his mind with literature, and were it ever my good fortune to advise boys or girls fresh from school, as to their best intellectual interests, I should say — " Learn to read books while you are still young. Read poetry by all means ; of prose, read the best, and only the best fiction, and without un- duly neglecting the study of history, devote yourself mainly to biography." While to the man or woman of mature years, to whom the pressure of life has denied the golden opportunities of youth, and for whom poetry and fiction have lost their glamour, I should say, " Turn to history and above all to biog- raphy." Those who have already reaped experience are only the riper for the study of men and of affairs. There is no age and no individual to whom biography has not much to offer. Above this portal is no inscription, " Too late, ye cannot enter now ! " It furnishes in itself that liberal education which comes from a knowledge of the springs of history. Sitting in our own armchair we can place ourselves on terms of familiar xvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION. intercourse with those who have long passed away. In other words we can really get to know the manners, the customs, the mental attitude, the methods, the very look and gestures of our forefathers, near and remote. Such knowledge is tenfold more valuable and a hundredfold more interesting than any acquaint- ance with the mere anatomy of history. Or to take a deeper view, what better help can we find in that "perennial battle which we call life " than a knowledge of how others have faced their combatants and used their one great weapon of free-will to conquer the World, the Flesh and the Devil, or have been trodden underfoot beneath the iron heel of material necessity? It is from biography that we learn practical ethics. When we analyse the best biographies we find that they owe not a little of their value to the fact that they are in part, at least, autobiographical. For instance, of all the biographers of the ancient world, none has been so permanently popular, or has exercised so great an influence over later generations as Plutarch. His " Lives " formed the Old as did Kousseau's " Confes- sions " the New Testament of the generation of Frenchmen who made the Eevolution, and even to-day I believe that Plutarch is read with more general interest than any other Classic. Not that Plutrach was the intellectual equal of the great his- torians of Greece or Eome, — of Thucydides, Herodotus, Livy, or Tacitus. His philosophy is not very deep, his style not very good. It is rather the genial nature of the man himself which carries us along; his eager, wide sympathies; above all the cheery egotism with which he lapses so frequently into auto- biography and tells us of his grandfather, or his father, or his wife and daughter, the cherished Timoxena, whose untimely death he laments so pathetically. Or, again, turn to the greatest of all modern biographers, Boswell. Few critics of to-day follow the paradoxical GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xvii judgment of Macaulay that " if he had not been a great fool, he would never have been a great writer." The present genera- tion tends rather towards Carlyle's truer insight that " Boswell wrote a great book because he had a heart and an eye to dis- cover wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth." In any case, while no one would deny Boswell's inferiority to Johnson himself, or to Burke or Gibbon, he has produced a work which has outlived even the masterpieces of these great men of genius. When Johnson was told that Boswell was col- lecting materials for his life he declared that if he believed it, he would protect himself by taking Boswell's. Little did he foresee that generation after generation would owe their knowl- edge of every detail of the best years of his life to the friend whose warm affection he valued, but whose foibles he rated with such caustic benevolence. To what does Boswell owe this supreme success? The very fact that his own character has been as much discussed as that of Johnson, answers the question. In writing Johnson's life he wrote his own. Such instances might be multiplied indefi- nitely. It will be sufficient to give one more. Can there be a stronger contrast than that between Johnson's Life of Savage and his biographies of the far greater poets of whom he wrote in such measured, correct, indifferent terms ? These were noth- ing to him but objects of criticism ; but when he recalls his own companionship with the poverty-stricken reprobate and remem- bers the cold nights when " Savage and he walked round St. James' Square for want of a lodging, not at all depressed by their situation but in high spirits and brimful of patriotism," the great heart of Johnson overpowers his frigid diction and his " sesquepedalian " vocabulary, and each page teems with a feeling, a pathos that has moved many a reader to realise the tears which lie neath mortal things. It has been justly said that any ordinary man who would put Xviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. on paper a full and honest account of his own life and surround- ings would secure many more readers two centuries after his death than the most popular author in his own generation. The attraction of such an autobiography is greatly heightened if the writer, even without having himself done anything ex- traordinary, has had the good or evil fortune to have lived through stirring times or has been an eyewitness of great events. Such events he can hardly fail to describe with a dramatic force which etches itself upon the memory. For in- stance, a certain Dr. John Moore, happening to be in Paris on the terrible days of the September massacres, 1792, writes thus in his Journal. " 2nd September. Five in the afternoon. The most shocking crimes are at this moment being committed at the prison of the Abbaye, hard by the hotel in which I now write. A thing unequalled in the records of wickedness. The mob, they call them the People here — a set of monsters — have broken into the Abbaye and are massacring the prison- ers. . . . It is now just twelve at midnight and the bloody work goes on. Almighty God ! " Dr. Moore is by no means a picturesque or powerful writer. Yet the very fact that he has been within sight and hearing of such a tragedy and has penned his rapid expressions of horror and dismay, warm upon the spot, gives to his account a vividness which no subsequent narration, however skilfully written, can equal. The same sense of vitality may be produced by even the most trivial observation, hurriedly entered in a diary, such as Madame Junot's delight in a new pink ball dress, or Thibau- deau's description of Fouche's attitude on a memorable occa- sion, standing alone in a recess of the Council Chamber, silent, pallid, and nervous. Details such as these touch the imagination and make us feel more nearly akin to the men and women of past time. Or again, in reported conversations with sovereigns or statesmen, GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xix we frequently find the private motives which have led to meas- ures or actions which seem unaccountable when recorded in state papers, or repeated in what Thackeray was wont to call " the historic page." But of all the advantages we can derive from the study of autobiography, the greatest is that it enables us to place our- selves in the position of the men of the past, to see with their eyes, to hear with their ears, and to understand what were their ideals, what the limitations of their knowledge, what the ethical and intellectual basis of their lives. From such study we ac- quire the habit of seeing each period of history from the point of view of a contemporary ; we learn to understand the evolution and growth of knowledge and the pressure it has brought to bear on political, social, and religious institutions. Above all we escape the stupid error of attempting to judge the past by the standard of the present ; an error which robs us of all understanding and of all sympathy with the struggles, the conquests, and the failures of our forefathers. Such an error may not be a crime but it certainly is a blunder. It can produce a Buckle's " History of Civilisation " and nothing bet- ter. It is in fact precisely this blunder of judging the past by the standards of the present which blinds us to the true causes and confuses the true consequences of that rhythmical action and reaction which swings through every period of the world's history. A hundred instances could be given of the inestimable value of autobiography, from this point of view. Perhaps the most striking is to be found in the history of the Crusades. It is almost impossible for the modern mind to realise the position of the sovereigns, the statesmen, the nobles, the thinkers, of the tenth, eleventh and twelfth century, eager to sacrifice wealth, health, life itself, to the impracticable dream of saving the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidels. But when we read XX GENERAL INTRODUCTION. the Sire de Joinville's Memoirs of Louis IX., the otherwise insoluble problem is resolved. There we see the forces of his day at work, and recognise the stream of tendency which bore on its current that wild outburst of religious and chivalrous enthusiasm. And who can say of what value the opinions and thoughts of our own contemporaries, as expressed in journals and diaries as yet unpublished, may be to future generations. Is Eenan the only thoughtful man who has expressed his prefer- ence for the rule of a "philanthropic, well-informed, intelli- gent and liberal-minded despot" to a representative govern- ment ? The historian of a century or two hence may get some interesting sidelights from the autobiographies of to-day as to the rise, the greatness, and the not impossible fall, of the system of government which has been so long on its trial throughout the world. I think I have said enough to justify the statement that of all forms of history or biography, Autobiography is the most interesting, and in many ways the most valuable. There are, of course, many quite distinct classes of autobiography, present- ing widely different fields of interest. First, there is the introspective, which deals not so much with the outward life as with the thoughts, emotions, faith or phi- losophy of the writer. I think that without any irreverence, the list of such books might be headed by the Epistles of St. Paul, which contain, as every Christian student knows, some of the noblest and most moving passages of autobiography ever penned. To the same class belong two books which have in- fluenced the western world in a degree second only to that of the Bible ; the Confessions of St. Augustine and the widely dif- ferent Confessions of Eousseau. There is no need to dwell upon St. Augustine or the long line of generations who have drawn help and consolation and faith from his Confessions. The famous burst of eloquence with which he closes his work GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xxi and sums up the final expression of his faith and philosophy is almost as familiar to us as any text of the Bible. On Rous- seau's Confessions I should have much to say did space now permit me. I have already spoken of them as the New Testa- ment of the French Revolution, nor do I think it possible to over-estimate the influence of this and of Rousseau's other writ- ings, on the whole course of subsequent French history. In English literature we have Bunyan's " Faith Abounding " and John Wesley's "Journal," to which, by stretching some- what our definition of Autobiography, we may add Sir Thomas Browne's " Religio Medici " and Robert Burton's " Anatomy of Melancholy." In modern French literature Amiel's " Jour- nal Intime" falls naturally into this class of introspective autobiography, and though it would be impossible to rank Amiel with the great writers I have named, his work is as- suredly possessed of no small charm and attraction. Nearly akin to these are the autobiographies of literary men, which form my second class. In these the English-speaking race is tolerably rich. We have the autobiographies of Hume, Gibbon (an admirable book), Carlyle, and many others. The third class consists of the autobiographies of men of action, statesmen, naval and military commanders, courtiers, and others, who though in subordinate positions, have played a part in public life or have been brought into contact with great men. It is to one or other of these subdivisions that the great majority of the French Memoir-writers belong. Though not comparable in quantity or, as a rule, in quality, to the French, our own literature is by no means wanting in Mem- oirs, Journals and Diaries of the sort. We can, however, boast at least of one Autobiography which is worthy to rank with the highest achievements of France, the immortal Diary of Samuel Pepys, the shrewdest of observers, whom no detail of the life of his day escaped, xxii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. the most delightful of gossips, writing apparently simply to gratify the cravings of his extraordinary mental activity and his inexhaustible curiosity. No period of English history, not even that of our own journalistic age, is as intimately known to us as are the ten years covered by Pepys. Who has ever read the last page of his diary without a feeling of deep sympathy with the loss of eyesight which compelled the writer to close his cherished Journal. Among our own diarists, I should put second and third, but whole fields behind the winner, James Howells, who re- minds us more than any other English writer of Pepys him- self, and Horace Walpole, whose journals and letters form in Thackeray's words, " A chronicle of waxlights, fine jokes, fine plate, fine equipages, glitter and sparkle. There never was such a jigging, smirking Vanity Fair as that through which he leads us." There are, both in England and America, many other Jour- nals and Memoirs which, though inferior to these, are interest- ing and valuable as records of contemporary life and history. But it may safely be asserted that the peculiar combination of introspection and observation linked with egoism, vanity and occasionally arrogance which form together the genius of autobiography are not qualities indigenous to the soil of our own country. There is no unbroken line of Memoir writers to enlighten the student of English history. It is only during those pe- riods when French literary and social influences have made themselves most strongly felt in England that the born auto- biographist has flourished. Thus, the reign of Charles II. and of his brother are fully represented, as are these portions of the eighteenth century covered by Boswell and Horace Walpole. Pepys, Boswell and Walpole were all steeped in French lit- GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xxiii erature, and all of them were more nearly akin in character to the French than to their own countrymen. When we turn to the natural home of the Memoir-writer, France, the position is widely different. From the thirteenth to the nineteenth century Frenchmen and French women of every rank and class, Dukes, Cardinals and Cures, Ministers of the Crown, Poets, Great Ladies, Judges and Advocates, Generals and subaltern officers, Valets and Ladies'-maids, all have left behind them records of their own lives and of the society in which they have lived. To show how inexhaustible is the supply of these Memoirs, it must be known that during the earlier years of the last cen- tury six collections, devoted entirely to the works of French diarists and writers of Memoirs were published in Paris. These six collections form a total of three hundred and six volumes with an average of two Memoirs to each volume, so that they contain in all something like six hundred memoirs. But these by no means exhaust the supply. Large numbers of Memoirs, many of them of the highest importance, have been edited and published during the course of the last cen- tury, either as separate works or as portions of the publica- tions of the historical societies which abound, both in Paris and throughout France. Before writing this Introduction, I made a serious effort to ascertain what the exact number of the Memoirs printed and published in France amounted to up to the present time, but I soon found it impossible to make an exhaustive, or even an approximate estimate. The numbers certainly reach many hundreds, indeed I should not be surprised to find that they exceed a thousand. Even to-day the supply of MS. Mem- oirs written between the fifteenth and nineteenth centuries is by no means exhausted, and no year passes without the pub- lication of at least one or two newly unearthed journals. xxiv GENERAL INTRODUCTION. But the amazing thing is that this mass of Memoirs should not only exceed the output of all other nations in quantity, but (Pepys always excepted) in quality also. French Mem- oirs are almost invariably written with care, with thought, with reflection, often with a surprising beauty of style and picturesqueness of description. Whether the writer views the world with the aristocratic disdain of a Saint Simon, the sombre melancholy of a d'Argenson, the gay optimism of a Marbot, the frivolous coxcombry of a Lauzun, or the judicial precision of a Pasquier, he seldom fails to create a living por- trait of himself and of the society in which he lives. To what are we to attribute this combination of introspec- tion, observation, and expression,, so rare in other races, so com- mon among French men and women of all ages? One of the most competent and authoritative of French authors, Cha- teaubriand, asks this question and his answer is : — " Why have we nothing but Memoirs instead of history, and why are almost all of these Memoirs excellent? Frenchmen in all ages have been vain, thoughtless and sociable. The Frenchman reflects little upon general subjects, but he is a keen observer of detail, and his eye is quick, penetrating and accurate. He himself must always occupy the centre of the boards; even when he figures as a historian he cannot make up his mind to keep entirely out of sight. Memoirs leave him at full liberty to follow the bent of his genius. There, without quitting the stage, he introduces his observations, which are always intelligent, sometimes profound. He loves to say, * I was there and the King said to me ! ' — ' The Prince informed me ' — ' I gave my advice, I foresaw the benefit or the mis- chief/ In this way he is best able to gratify his vanity, he makes a fine display of his wit, and his eagerness to gain credit for brilliant ideas often leads him to deep thought and expression. In this kind of history, moreover, he is not obliged GENERAL INTRODUCTION. XXV to renounce his passions from which he finds it so difficult to part. He is an enthusiast for this or that cause or person- ality, and the Memoir allows him freely to vent his spleen on his adversaries and to laud his friends. From the Sire de Joinville to the Cardinal de Eetz this character is everywhere conspicuous, it betrays itself even in the grave Sully." There is truth in this, but by no means the whole truth, and I doubt whether Chateaubriand quite does justice to his coun- trymen. It would be impossible to enter here into that most inter- esting but most complex of subjects, the comparative psychol- ogy of the races of mankind. I can do no more than briefly allude to one or two of the salient points in which the French character differs from that of the Anglo-Saxon, and to the influences which these differences have exercised on French literature. We are apt to conclude that the person who devotes much of his time and thought to writing his own personal history must be essentially an Egoist. Probably he is so; for that matter we are all Egoists. But there are many variations of egoism and the egoism of the Anglo-Saxon differs materially, perhaps not altogether to his own advantage, from that of the Latin races, of the French in particular. We are, in a singular degree, a self-contained, reserved, sol- itary race. Walter Bagehot's saying — " We all go down to dinner together, but each man dines in a room apart/' is pecul- iarly true of the Anglo-Saxon. No Frenchman would write such, a sentence, nor would it apply in anything like the same degree to his own countrymen. The Frenchman is pre-emi- nently a sociable being, his egoism takes the form, not of reserve, but of expansion. His mind is not so keenly set as is that of the Anglo-Saxon on the acquisition of power, of learning or of wealth. His master passion is to excel in xxvi GENERAL INTRODUCTION. social life and to win the admiration of those nearest to him. He longs to be a national hero if that be possible. If not, to be held heroic in his native province or town, or at least in his club or among his circle of neighbours, however narrow. Above all he craves for the respectful affection of his own family and hopes to be remembered with pride by his de- scendants. This craving is the keynote of the great majority of French Memoirs. Few, we might also say hardly any, of those written before the Eevolution, were designed for publication; in fact most of them remained unpublished for a century or more after the writer's death. The men and women who wrote these Mem- oirs lived in an age and country where brilliant conversation and sparkling epigram were the rule, and dulness and ped- antry the exception. Every subject under heaven was open to criticism and ridicule save only the one which they most desired to criticise, the conduct of their own rulers and the faults and frailties of their own government. Those who spoke on such topics above a whisper went thereafter in deadly fear of the Bastille. No wonder that they found a consola- tion in pouring out on paper their keenest criticism and their most biting epigrams on the Minister, the Mistresses, the King himself. But, after all, this desire to talk to themselves of what they dared not speak to others was but a secondary mo- tive. The main desire of one Memoir writer after another, clearly expressed over and over again by the pre-Eevolutionary diarists, was to give to their children and their children's chil- dren a portrait of their ancestor and a record of the great part he had played in the history of his day, such as should cause him to be remembered by all future generations as an honour to his race. To this desire for fame, contemporary or post- humous, must be added a swiftness of thought, a clearness of view and an almost feminine regard for detail, qualities each GENERAL INTRODUCTION. xxvii of which adds to the Frenchman's pre-eminence as a Memoir writer. The Frenchman, moreover, in a much greater degree than the men or women of other nationalities, is possessed of a debonnaire self-confidence which has played so great a part in the history and literature of France that it is impossible to pass it over in silence. Etienne Dumont, of Geneva, an acute observer, who drew from experience an intimate knowledge of the English and French of the period of the Eevolution, remarks, "There is no point of opposition in the character of the two nations more striking than the reserve, approaching timidity, of the Eng- lishman and the confidence in himself displayed by the Frenchman. I often used to think that if a hundred persons indiscriminately were stopped in the streets of London and the same number in the streets of Paris, and a proposal made to each individual to undertake the government of his country, in Paris ninety-nine would accept and ninety-nine refuse in London." This virtue or this vice, for I know not which to call it, has at least this advantage. It gives to its possessor a clearness of aim and a singleness of purpose which in autobiography, as in every other branch of literature and of life, is a distinct advantage. In writing of himself, the self-confident man does not confuse the issue by endeavouring to do justice to his opponents or by setting forth the weakness of his own case. The fact that he has adopted this or that cause is sufficient to justify it. He does not walk in the pallid shadow of dubiety or compromise, and thereby draws he no small advantage in writing his own Memoirs. Finally, the French writer has at his command the finest vehicle in the world for prose com- position. French has inherited more of the spirit and of the letter of Latin than any other of the Romance languages. No xxviii GENERAL INTRODUCTION. other living tongue is at once so terse and so lucid ; none lends itself so gracefully to obscurity, when obscurity is desirable, or to accurate definition, when the writer desires that his meaning should be beyond mistake. Nor is any other lan- guage so rich in expressions either of eulogy, or of scorn, con- tempt and disdain. The Frenchman can graduate his praise or his blame by the use of a hundred subtilities of expression which have no equivalents in English, in German or in any other tongue. In expatiating at such, length on the supreme charm and value of French Memoirs, I have no desire to depreciate the autobiographical literature of other countries. There are many interesting Memoirs written by Germans, Italians and others which it is hoped to present in an English dress in this series. If the lion's share goes to French writers, it is be- cause in the world of Memoirs the Frenchman is the Lion. I have already said that many of the most interesting French Memoirs (still more those of other nations) are rare and costly, and that only a small proportion of them have been trans- lated into our own tongue. The object of the present collection is to offer to those who are unable to procure the originals or to study them in their native language, a set of Memoirs of the highest literary, historical and psychological value. Each will be edited with an introduction, notes and engravings. In fact nothing which can add to the usefulness or interest of the collection will be neglected. PKEFACE. BY MADAME CAMPAN. THE shelves of our libraries bend under the weight of printed works relating to the last years of the eighteenth century. The great moral and political causes of our revolutions have already been ably traced by superior intellects. But posterity will look also for the secret springs by which those events were brought about. Memoirs, penned by ministers and favourites, will alone satisfy the inquisitiveness of our de- scendants, and even these only to a certain extent; for kings very seldom yield unbounded confidence. Louis XVI. possessed an immense crowd of confidants, advisers, and guides; he selected them even from among the factions which attacked him. Never, perhaps, did he make a full disclosure to any one of them, and certainly he spoke with sincerity to but very few. He invariably kept the reins of all secret intrigues in his own hand ; and thence, doubtless, arose the want of co-operation and the weakness which were so conspicuous in his measures. From these causes consider- able chasms will be found in the detailed history of the Eevolution. In order to become thoroughly acquainted with the latter years of the reign of Louis XV., memoirs written by the Due de Choiseul, the Due dAiguillon, the Marechal de Richelieu,1 1 1 heard the Mare"chal de Richelieu desire M. Campan, who was librarian to the Queen, not to buy the Memoirs which would certainly be attributed to him after his death, declaring them false by anticipa- tion; and adding, that he was ignorant of orthography, and had never amused himself with writing. Shortly after the death of the VOL. I—I 2 PREFACE. and the Due de La Vauguyon, should be before us. To give us a faithful portrait of the unfortunate reign of Louis XVI. the Marechal du Muy, M. de Maurepas, M. de Vergennes, M. de Malesherbes, the Due oTOrleans, M. de La Fayette, the Abbe de Vermond, the Abbe Montesquiou, Mirabeau, the Duchesse de Polignac, and the Duchesse de Luynes, should have noted faithfully in writing all the transactions in which they took decided parts. As to the secret history of affairs of a later period, it has been disseminated among a much greater number of persons; there are ministers who have published memoirs, but solely when they had their own measures to justify, and then they confined themselves to the vindication of their own characters, without which powerful motive they probably would have written nothing. In general, those nearest to the sovereign, either by birth or by office, have left no memoirs; and in absolute monarchies the mainsprings of great events will be found in particulars which the most ex- alted persons alone could know. Those who have had but little under their charge find no subject in it for a book ; and those who have long borne the burden of public business con- ceive themselves to be forbidden by duty, or by respect for authority, to disclose all they know. Others, again, preserve notes, with the intention of reducing them to order when they shall have reached the period of a happy leisure ; vain illusion of the ambitious, which they cherish, for the most part, but as a veil to conceal from their sight the hateful image of their inevitable downfall! and when it does at length take place, despair or chagrin deprives them of fortitude to dwell upon the dazzling period which they never cease to regret. Louis XVI. meant to write his own memoirs; the manner in which his private papers were arranged indicated this de- Mare"chal, one Soulavie put forth Memoirs of the Marshal de Richelieu. PREFACE. 8 sign. The Queen also had the same intention; she long pre- served a large correspondence, and a great number of minute reports, made in the spirit and upon the event of the moment. But after the 20th of June 1792 she was obliged to burn the larger portion of what she had so collected. Some parts of the correspondence preserved by the Queen were conveyed out of France. Considering the rank and situations of the persons I have named as capable of elucidating by their writings the his- tory of our political storms, it will not be imagined that I aim at placing myself on a level with them; but I have spent half my life either with the daughters of Louis XV., or with Marie Antoinette. I knew the characters of those Princesses; I became privy to some extraordinary facts, the publication of which may be interesting, and the truth of the details will form the merit of my work. I was very young when I was placed about the Princesses, the daughters of Louis XV., in the capacity of Header. I was acquainted with the Court of Versailles before the time of the marriage of Louis XVI. with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette. My father, who was employed in the department of Foreign Affairs, enjoyed the reputation due to his talents, and to his useful labours. He had travelled much. Frenchmen, on their return home from foreign countries, bring with them a love for their own, increased in warmth; and no man was more penetrated with this feeling, which ought to be the first virtue of every placeman, than my father. Men of high title, academicians, and learned men, both natives and foreigners, sought my father's acquaintance; and were gratified by being admitted into his house. Twenty years before the Eevolution I often heard it re- marked that the imposing character of the power of Louis 4 PREFACE. XIV. was no longer to be found in the Palace of Versailles; that the institutions of the ancient monarchy were rapidly sinking; and that the people, crushed beneath the weight of taxes, were miserable, though silent; but that they began to give ear to the bold speeches of the philosophers, who loudly proclaimed their sufferings, and their rights; and, in short, that the age would not pass away without the occurrence of some grand shock, which would unsettle France, and change the course of its progress. Those who thus spoke were almost all partisans of M. Turgot's system of administration: they were Mirabeau, the father, Doctor Quesnay, Abbe Baudeau, and Abbe Nicoli, charge daffaires to Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and as enthusiastic an admirer of the maxims of the innovators as his sovereign. My father sincerely respected the purity of intention of these politicians. With them, he acknowledged many abuses in the Government; but he did not give these political sec- tarians credit for the talent necessary for conducting a judic- ious reform. He told them frankly that in the art of moving the great machine of Government, the wisest of them was inferior to a good magistrate; and that if ever the helm of affairs should be put into their hands they would be speedily checked in the execution of their schemes by the immeasurable difference existing between the most brilliant theories and the simplest practice of administration. Destiny having formerly placed me near crowned heads, I now amuse my solitude when in retirement with collecting a variety of facts which may prove interesting to my family when I shall be no more. The idea of collecting all the in- teresting materials which my memory affords, occurred to me from reading the work entitled " Paris, Versailles, and the Provinces in the Eighteenth Century." That work, composed PREFACE. 5 by a man accustomed to the best society, is full of piquant anecdotes, nearly all of which have been recognised as true by the contemporaries of the author. I have put together all that concerned the domestic life of an unfortunate Princess, whose reputation is not yet cleared of the stains it received from the attacks of calumny, and who justly merited a dif- ferent lot in life, a different place in the opinion of mankind after her fall. These Memoirs, which were finished ten years since, have met with the approbation of some persons; and my son may, perhaps, think proper to print them after my decease.2 I know not whether my Eecollections will be thought worthy to see the light; but whilst I am occupied in writing them, my mind is diverted, I pass calmer hours, and I seem removed from the melancholy scenes by which I am now surrounded, so far as the sensibility of my heart will permit me to forget the present. 2 When Madame Campan wrote these lines, she little thought that the death of her son would precede her own. See the Biographical Sketch of Madame Campan, p. 28. PEEFATOEY MEMOIE OF MADAME CAMP AN. BY F. BABBIERE. JEANNE LOUISE HENRIETTE GENET was born at Paris, on the 6th of October 1752. M. Genet, her father, had ob- tained, through his own merit and the protection of the Due de Choiseul, the place of first clerk in the office of the minister for foreign affairs. Literature, which he had cultivated in his youth, was often the solace of his leisure hours. Surrounded by a numerous family, he made the instruction of his children his chief recreation, and omitted nothing which was necessary to render them highly accomplished. The progress of the youthful Henriette in the study of music and of foreign languages was surprising; the celebrated Albaneze instructed her in singing, and Goldoni taught her Italian. Tasso, Milton, Dante, and even Shakespeare, soon became familiar to her. But her studies were particularly directed to the acquisition of a correct and elegant style of reading. From prose to verse, from an ode to an epistle, a comedy or a sermon, she was instructed to pass, with the requisite variations of modulation and delivery. Eochon de Chabannes, Duclos, Barthe, Marmontel, and Thomas, took pleasure in hearing her recite the finest scenes of Eacine. Her memory and genius at the age of fourteen charmed them; they talked of her talents in society, and perhaps applauded them too highly. A young female is always sure to pay dearly for the celebrity she acquires ; if she is beautiful, all the women become her rivals; if she has talents, there are many of the other sex weak enough to be jealous of them. 8 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF Mademoiselle Genet was spoken of at Court. Some ladies of high, rank, who took an interest in the welfare of her fam- ily, obtained for her the place of reader to the Princesses. Her presentation, and the circumstances which preceded it, left a strong impression on her mind. " I was then fifteen ; " she says, " my father felt some regret at yielding me up at so early an age to the jealousies of the Court. The day on which I first put on my court dress, and went to embrace him in his study, tears filled his eyes, mingled with the expression of his pleasure. I possessed some agreeable talents, in addi- tion to the instruction which it had been his delight to bestow on me. He enumerated all my little accomplishments, to convince ine of the vexations they would not fail to draw upon me. ' The Princesses/ said he, ' will take pleasure in exer- cising your talents ; the great have the art of applauding grace- fully, and always to excess. Be not too much elated with these compliments, rather let them put you on your guard. Every time you receive such flattering marks of approbation, the number of your enemies will increase. I am warning you, my love, of the inevitable troubles attached to the course of life on which you are entering ; and I protest to you even now, whilst you are thus transported with your good fortune, that could I have provided for you otherwise, I would never have abandoned my dear girl to the anxieties and dangers of a court/ " Mademoiselle Genet, at fifteen, was naturally less of a phi- losopher than her father was at forty. Her eyes were daz- zled by the splendour which glittered at Versailles. "The Queen, Maria Leczinska, the wife of Louis XV., died," she says, "just before I was presented at Court. The grand apartments hung with black, the great chairs of state, raised on several steps, and surmounted by a canopy adorned with plumes; the caparisoned horses, the immense retinue in court MADAME CAMP AN. 9 mourning, the enormous shoulder-knots, embroidered with gold and silver spangles, which decorated the coats of the pages and footmen — all this magnificence had such an effect on my senses that I could scarcely support myself when intro- duced to the Princesses. The first day of my reading in the inner apartment of Madame Victoire I found it impossible to pronounce more than two sentences; my heart palpitated, my voice faltered, and my sight failed. How well understood was the potent magic of the grandeur and dignity which ought to surround sovereigns ! Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, followed by a single servant, through the walks lead- ing to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me; and I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real mistake of all those with which she is reproached." When once her awe and confusion had subsided, Mademoi- selle Genet was enabled to form a more accurate judgment of her situation. It was by no means attractive; the court of the Princesses, far removed from the revels and licentious pleasures to which Louis XV. was addicted, was grave, me- thodical, and dull. Madame Adelaide, the eldest of the Prin- cesses, lived secluded in the interior of her apartments; Madame Sophie was haughty ; Madame Louise a devotee. The gloomy pleasures of pride and the exercises of scrupulous de- votion have few charms for youth. Mademoiselle Genet, how- ever, never quitted the Princesses' apartments; but she at- tached herself most particularly to Madame Victoire. This Princess had possessed beauty; her countenance bore an expression of benevolence, and her conversation was kind, free, and unaffected. The young Reader excited in her that feeling which a woman in years, of an affectionate disposition, readily extends to young people who are growing up in her sight, and who already possess some useful talents. Whole daya 10 PKEFATORY MEMOIR OF were passed in reading to the Princess, as she sat at work in her apartment. Mademoiselle Genet frequently saw there Louis XV., of whom she would often relate the following anecdote : — " One day, at the Chateau of Compiegne, the King came in whilst I was reading to Madame. I rose and went into another room. Alone, in an apartment from which there was no outlet, with no book but a Massillon, which I had been reading to the Princess; happy in all the lightness and gaiety of fifteen, I amused myself with turning swiftly round, with my court hoop, and suddenly kneeling down to see my rose-coloured silk petticoat swelled around me by the wind. In the midst of this grave employment enters his Majesty, followed by one of the Princesses. I attempt to rise; my feet stumble, and down I fall in the midst of my robes, puffed out by the wind. "Daughter" said Louis XV., laughing heartily, "I advise you to send back to school a Reader who makes cheeses" The railleries of Louis XV. were often much more cutting, as Mademoiselle Genet had experienced on another occasion, which, thirty years afterwards, she could not relate without an emotion of fear, which it seemed as if she had never overcome. "Louis XV.," she said, "had the most imposing presence. His eyes remained fixed upon you all the time he was speaking; and, notwithstanding the beauty of his features, he inspired a sort of fear. I was very young, it is true, when he first spoke to me; you shall judge whether it was in a very gracious manner. I was fifteen. The King was going out to hunt, and a numerous retinue followed him. As he stopped opposite me he said, ' Mademoiselle Genet, I am assured you are very learned, and understand four or five foreign languages/ 'I know only two, Sire/ I answered, trembling. 'Which are they?' Eng- lish and Italian/ 'Do you speak them fluently?' 'Yes, MA~nAMTC CAMPAN. 11 Sire, very fluently/ 'That is quite enough, to drive a hus- band mad/ After this pretty compliment the King went on; the retinue saluted me, laughing; and, for my part, I remained motionless with surprise and confusion for some moments on the spot where I stood." It would have been well if Louis XV. had never indulged in more cutting repartees. Kings have no right to be scoffers; raillery is a warfare that requires equal arms, for one does not banter to advantage with a wit who rules over twenty millions of subjects. Justice, however, demands the acknowl- edgment that although this monarch was often the aggressor, he endured the smartest retorts without losing his temper. Possibly the unexpected familiarity of attacks of this kind might be a pungent novelty to a King, so long wearied by the burthen of greatness. With an easy temper, a melan- choly turn of mind, a satirical genius, this prince, majestic in his Court, irresolute in council, agreeable at an evening party, could no longer escape from ennui without the aid of intemperance or debauchery. A woman, whose youth and beauty were sullied by prostitution, astonished Versailles at this time by the disgraceful influence she had acquired. Madame du Barry was effecting the dismissal of the minister who had just negotiated the marriage of the Dauphin with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria. The intrigues of the favourite, the rivalry between the Dues de Choiseul and d'Aiguillon, the disgrace of the one, and the shameful eleva- tion of the other, occupied the last moments of the reign of Louis XV. The Due de Choiseul, fickle, haughty, and violent, but agreeable, brilliant, and generous, had an active mind, great talents, and vast ideas. By means of alterations which had become necessary in the army, new establishments in the navy, new institutions and alliances, he wished to raise France 12 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF from the abasement into which she had sunk through a long course of reverses. He sought the support of public opinion, was a friend to parliaments, an enemy to the Jesuits, and wielded power with a light and easy hand. Eesistance, pro- vided it was open and honourable, did not exasperate him; he had faith in the nation when the Government endeavoured to render it happy at home, powerful and respected abroad. His pride, a natural failing, became a virtue when it taught him never to stoop to flatter shameful caprices. He was beloved whilst in power; sought, I had almost said flattered, when in exile; and he inspired courtiers with courage to remain faithful to the unfortunate, a virtue hitherto unknown to them. D'Auguillon, with considerable address, some boldness, and great perseverance, was obdurate, despotic, and tyrannical. He gained credit for talents because he possessed the spirit of intrigue; but the division of Poland, effected, as it were, in his sight, has for ever blasted his reputation both as a politician and as a man. As a subtle courtier, a bad man, and an unskilful minister, he became obnoxious to public hatred, which, though he defied it, overwhelmed him at last. The Due d'Aiguillon did not understand that force is one of the weakest springs of power, when it is not supported by the confidence created by extensive information, great services performed, and, above all, by striking successes. He was deceived by the example of his grandfather. Eichelieu, while he oppressed the great, rendered essential services to France. The abasement of Austria; the humiliation of Spain; the violent restoration of order in the State; the honours paid to literature; the encouragement of commerce, redeemed in a great degree the tyrannical acts of which he is justly accused. He imparted to the measures of Government something of the loftiness of his own character. Undoubtedly, he was feared; but he was also admired. MADAMTfl CAMP AN. 13 Since the time of Louis XIII. France and Austria had changed places ; the one still rising, the other sinking. Under Louis XV. the House of Bourbon reigned at Naples and Madrid as well as at Versailles. The triumphs of the arms of France or the wisdom of her treaties had successively ac- quired Alsace, Franche-Comte, Flanders, and Lorraine. The magnanimous Maria Theresa had just replaced a mutilated crown on her head; the pride of the heiress of Eundolph of Hapsburg had stooped so low as to flatter the vanity of Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour, by calling her her friend. A warlike power suddenly arising close to Austria, excited her jealousy, and occupied her attention and her forces. The Due de Choiseul, being minister, was at liberty to direct his attention to a greater distance. After the battle of Pultowa, Eussia, long confined to the frozen regions of the north, began to be reckoned as one of the European powers. Four women, successively placed on the throne of the Czars, had completed the work of a great man. A persevering system of aggrandisement, and, what is more extraordinary, a system openly declared, was rapidly being carried into effect. Now that Eussia has adopted only so much of the arts and civilisation of Europe as may increase her military power, without enervating her soldiers; now that that people, born on a barren soil, in a severe climate, has breathed the sweet pure air of our countries, if that powerful Colossus, which already presses upon the centre of Europe, should, with extended arms, succeed in reaching from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, what refuge, what rampart would remain for the independence of the threatened nations ? They could find no security but in the coalition of the Southern States; which was precisely the object of the family compact, prudently conceived, and effected with address by the Due de Choiseul, who thereby strengthened the alliance with Austria. 14: PREFATORY MEMOIR OF Instead, therefore, of stigmatising the shallowness of the min- ister, it would be more just to pay honour to his foresight. Nevertheless, the alliance with Austria was the pretext for the attacks directed against him. The Due de Choiseul had the parliaments, the philosophers, and public opinion on his side. On that of the Due d'Aiguillon were the devotees and Madame du Barry. The two factions disputed over the dying Louis XV., and dis- turbed the first years of Louis XVI. ; whilst the fatal influence which the anti-Austrian party exercised over the fate of the youthful Marie Antoinette will presently appear. The idea of uniting the daughter of Maria Theresa with the grandson of Louis XV. had been conceived by the Due de Choiseul before his fall. By this marriage he cemented the alliance of the two States, and thought he was securing for himself the favour of a new reign. Thus was explained the sense of that distich, according to which Austria was to expect more from marriage than from war or treaties.1 Maria Theresa, happy, though afflicted, had no other un- easiness on her dear daughter's account than that which arose from their separation, and yet prophetic voices seemed already to threaten the future evils which awaited her. Madame Campan often related an anecdote which she had heard from the governor of the children of Prince Kaunitz. There was at that time at Vienna a doctor named Gassner,2 who had fled thither to seek an asylum against the per- secutions of his sovereign, one of the ecclesiastical electors. Gassner, gifted with an extraordinary warmth of imagination, 1 It is said that the Sultan, on receiving the decree of the Con- vention which ordained the abolition of royalty in France, could not help saying, " At least the Republic will not marry an arch- duchess." 2 Jean Joseph Gassner, born at Gratz, a pretender to miraculous powers. MADAME CAMP AN. 15 imagined that he received inspirations. The Empress pro- tected him; saw him occasionally; rallied him on his visions, and, nevertheless, heard them with a sort of interest. " Tell me/' said she to him one day, "whether my Antoinette will be happy." Gassner turned pale, and remained silent. Be- ing still pressed by the Empress, and wishing to give a general kind of expression to the idea with which he seemed deeply oc- cupied, "Madame" he replied, "there are crosses for all shoulders." Goethe, who was then young, was completing his studies at Strasburg. In an isle in the middle of the Ehine a pavilion had been erected, intended to receive Marie Antoinette and her suite. " I was admitted into it," says Goethe in his Memoirs. " On my entrance I was struck with the subject depicted on the tapestry with which the principal pavilion was hung, in which were seen Jason, Creusa, and Medea — that is to say, a repre- sentation of the most fatal union commemorated in history. On the left of the throne the bride, surrounded by friends and distracted attendants, was struggling with a dreadful death. Jason, on the other side, was starting back, struck with horror at the sight of his murdered children, and the Fury was soaring into the air, in her chariot drawn by dragons. Super- stition apart, this strange coincidence was really striking. The husband, the bride, and the children were victims in both cases; the fatal omen seemed accomplished in every point." Maria Theresa might have repeated the fine verses which the father of Creusa addresses to his expiring daughter, in the Medea of Corneille : — " This, then, my child, the hymeneal day, The royal union anxiously expected! Stern fate extinguishes the bridal torch, And for thy marriage-bed the tomb awaits thee." The occurrences at the Place Louis XV. on the marriage 16 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF festivities at Paris are generally known. The conflagration of the scaffolds intended for the fireworks, the want of fore- sight of the authorities, the avidity of robbers, the murderous career of the coaches, brought about and aggravated the dis- asters of that day; and the young Dauphiness, coming from Versailles, by the Cours la Eeine, elated with joy, brilliantly decorated, and eager to witness the rejoicings of the whole people, fled, struck with consternation and drowned in tears, whilst the dreadful scene and the cries of the dying pursued her distracted imagination. It is here that the Memoirs of Madame Campan 3 may truly be said to begin; the first chapter, descriptive of the Court of Louis XV., being only a lively introduction. During a period of twenty years, from the marriage festivities to the attack of the 10th of August, Madame Campan never quitted Marie An- toinette. On the Queen's side all was goodness and unreserved confidence; it will be seen whether Madame Campan did not return the favour of her patroness by gratitude, faith, and devotedness, proof against all calamity, and superior to all danger. In speaking of Marie Antoinette she has depicted the hatred of her enemies, the avidity of her flatterers, and the disinterestedness of the real friends whom she possessed, although seated on the throne. But as she generally confines herself to the domestic circle in which Marie Antoinette de- lighted, it is necessary to take a glance at the spirit of that period, and particularly at the manners of society. I shall not recall the scandalous years of the regency, when the Court, escaping from the constraint of a long course of hypocrisy, combined the excesses of debauchery with the most audacious impiety. But it is necessary to notice particularly 3 The family of Campan, originally from the valley of Campan, in Berne, had adopted the name of that place as their own surname. Their true name was Berthollet. Mademoiselle Genet had married M. Campan, whose father was Secretary of the Queen's Closet. MADAMTC CAMPAN. 17 the reign of Louis XV., because the corruption of that reign may be divided into two distinct periods. Of the first of these Eichelieu was the model and the hero. To love with- out pleasure; to yield without resistance; to part without regret; to call duty a weakness, honour a prejudice, delicacy affectation — such were the manners of the times; seduction had its code, and immorality was reduced to principles. Even these rapid successes soon tired those who obtained them; per- haps because the facility with which triumphs were gained diminished their value. Courtiers and rich financiers main- tained, at enormous expense, beauties with whom they were not expected even to be acquainted; vice became a mere luxury of vanity ; and the condition of a courtezan led rapidly to fortune and even to honour. In the years preceding the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne, and those immediately following, society presented a new spectacle. Manners were not improved, but altered. By a strange abuse, apologies were found for depravity, in the philosophical ideas which daily grew more fashionable. Par- tisans of these principles promulgated such noble maxims, and talked so well that they thought themselves not obliged to act with propriety. Men might be inconstant husbands, and women faithless wives, so that they spoke with respect, with enthusiasm, of the sacred duties of marriage. The love of virtue and of mankind was sufficient without practical morality. "Women, surrounded by their lovers, discussed the means of regenerating social order. There was not a phi- losopher admitted into one of the fashionable circles who did not modestly compare himself to Socrates with Aspasia; and Diderot, the daring author of Philosophical Thoughts, and the licentious writer of Bijoux Indiscrete, though he aspired to the glory of Plato, did not blush to imitate Petronius. The writings of the philosophers, ill understood at that VOL. 1—2 18 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF period, but read with avidity, gave them a great influence over public opinion. The Court, long accustomed to the in- fluence which wit, polished manners, and the habit of filling great offices secured to it, was astonished to see this new power springing up by its side. Instead of opposing, it flattered this competitor. At the tables and in the salons of the first nobles the distinctions of rank were boldly treated as preju- dices. Principles of equality found partisans amongst the nobility, and it became almost an acknowledged truth that merit was superior to birth. Thus, whilst the middle classes were rising, proud of their knowledge, their talents, their attainments, and the higher ranks met them half way, the Court was still a slave to the laws of etiquette. From the cradle to the grave, at table, at council, in the chase, in the army, even in their private apartments, princes in France were governed by cere- monial rules. The injudicious laws of etiquette pursued them to the mysteries of the nuptial bed. Judge how impatiently a young princess, lively, affectionate, and free, bred in the simplicity of the German courts, must have endured the tyrannical customs which, never suffering her for a single instant to be a wife, mother, or friend, reduced her to the dignified ennui of being always a queen. The respectable lady, who was placed near her as a vigilant minister of the laws of etiquette, instead of alleviating their weight, rendered their yoke intolerable to her. The evil was not, however, so serious when it only affected the attendants; because in these cases the Queen used merely to laugh at it. Let Madame Campan herself relate an anecdote on this subject in which she was concerned. " Madame de Noailles," she says, in a manuscript frag- ment, "abounded in virtues; I cannot pretend to deny it. Her piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her MADAME CAMPAN. 19 • ' * worthy of praise ; but etiquette was to her a sort of atmosphere ; at the slightest derangement of the consecrated order, one would have thought she would have been stifled, and that the principles of life would forsake her frame. "One day, I unintentionally threw this poor lady into a terrible agony. The Queen was receiving I know not whom — some persons just presented, I believe; the lady of honour, the Queen's tire-woman, and the ladies of the bed- chamber, were behind the Queen. I was near the throne, with the two women on duty. All was right — at least I thought so. Suddenly I perceived the eyes of Madame de Noailles fixed on mine. She made a sign with her head, and then raised her eyebrows to the top of her forehead, lowered them, raised them again, then began to make little signs with her hand. From all this pantomime, I could easily per- ceive that something was not as it should be; and as I looked about on all sides to find out what it was, the agita- tion of the countess kept increasing. The Queen, who per- ceived all this, looked at me with a smile; I found means to approach her Majesty, who said to me in a whisper, 'Let down your lappets, or the countess will expire' All this bustle arose from two unlucky pins which fastened up my lappets, whilst the etiquette of costume said, ' Lappets hanging down.' " This contempt of the silly vanities of etiquette became the pretext for the first reproaches levelled at the Queen. What misconduct might not be dreaded from a princess who could absolutely go out without a hoop! and who, in the salons of Trianon, instead of discussing the important rights to chairs and stools, good-naturedly invited everybody to be seated.* The anti-Austrian party, discontented and vindic- *Even for the suppression of the most ridiculous customs the Queen was never forgiven. The respectable dowagers, who had passed their innocent youth in the Court of Louis XV., and under the regency, considered the abolition of the hoop as a violation of 20 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF tive, became spies upon her conduct, exaggerated her slightest errors, and calumniated her most innocent proceedings. "What seems unaccountable at the first glance," says Mont- joie, whose opinions must certainly be considered genuine, " and what overwhelms me with grief, is that the first attacks on the reputation of the Queen proceeded from the bosom of the Court. What interest could the courtiers have in seeking her destruction, which involved that of the King? Was it not drying up the source of all the advantages they en- joyed, or could hope for ? " A scandalous plot which was to compromise the most august name, and to dishonour that of a cardinal, was already in preparation. It was conceived by an intriguing female, its principal agent was a forger of writings, it was seconded by a courtezan, unravelled by a priest and related by a Jesuit. As if the most singular coincidences were to appear in this famous suit, together with the most odious morals. Madame Campan herself mentions, almost with regret, that the great ruffs and fardingales worn in the Court of the last of the Valois, were not adopted without a motive; that those appendages, indifferent in appearance, actually had the effect of banishing every idea of gallantry. Although such a precaution may appear, at least, a little singular, in the dissolute Court of Henry III., I shall not pretend to deny the efficacy of the fardingale; I will only add a little anecdote quoted by Laplace. "M. de Fresne Forget, being one day in company with the Queen Marguerite, told her he was astonished how men and women with such great ruffs could eat soup without spoiling them; and still more how the ladies could be gallant with their great fardingales. The Queen made no answer at that time, but a few days after, having a very large ruff on, and some bouilli to eat, she ordered a very long spoon to be brought, and ate her bouilli with it, without soiling her ruff. Upon which, addressing herself to M. de Fresne, she said, laughing, * There now, you see, with a little ingenuity one may manage anything.' ' Yes, faith, Madame,' said the good man, ' as far as regards the soup I am satisfied.' — Vol. ii., p. 350, of La- place's Collection. MAPAMTS CAMP AN. 21 contrasts, the name of Valois now figured along with those of Rohan, Austria, and Bourbon. Whilst everything conspired to show the guilt of a libertine and credulous priest, a great lord, who with 800,000 livres per annum was nevertheless ruined, an ecclesiastical prince, at once the dupe of a swindler, a woman of intrigue, and a quack ; yet it was the Queen whom his credulity injured, as much as did, perhaps, his guilty hopes; it was Marie Antoinette to whom suspicion was daringly attached. The Court, the clergy and the parliaments leagued together to humble the throne, and the Queen who sat on it. The issue of this famous suit is known. The cardinal was acquitted. Madame de Lamotte, condemned, exposed, and saved only by flight, hastened to publish a pamphlet of the most odious description against the Queen. From that period, so fatal to Marie Antoinette, until her death attacks of this species were incessantly renewed against her. Party spirit lent force to them; the press and the arts lent them- selves with equal subserviency to the fury of her enemies. Obscene prints, licentious verses, infamous libels, atrocious accusations — I have seen all, I have read all, and I wish I could add (like that unfortunate Princess, on one of the most honourable occasions of her life), I have forgotten all. The perusal of these monuments of implacable hatred leaves an impression of ineffable disgust, and of poignant distress at the idea of the woes accumulated by calumny on the head of the hapless Marie Antoinette. When the terrible Danton exclaimed, " The Icings of Europe menace us; it behoves us to defy them; let us throw down to them, as our gage, the head of a Icing!" these detestable words, followed by so cruel, so lamentable a result, formed, however, a formidable stroke of policy. But the Queen! What horrible reasons of state could Danton, Collot d'Herbois, 22 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF and Robespierre allege against her? Where did they find that those Greeks and Romans, whose military virtues our soldiers recalled, used to murder weak and defenceless beings ? What savage greatness did they discover in stirring up a whole nation to avenge their quarrel on a woman? Rather what unprecedented cowardice 1 What remained of her former power? Had not the 10th of August torn the diadem from her brow? She was a captive, a widow, trembling for her children! In those judges, who at once outraged modesty mid nature; in llml. people whose vilest seoll's pursued her to the scaffold, who could have recognised the generous people of France? No, of all the crimes which so shockingly dis- graced the Revolution, none is more calculated to show to what a pitch the spirit of party, when it has fermented in the most corrupt hearts, can deprave the character of a nation. The news of this dreadful event reached Madame Campan in an obscure retreat which she had chosen. She had not succeeded in her endeavours to share the Queen's captivity, and she expected every moment a similar fate. After escaping, almost miraculously, from the murderous fury of the Marseillais; after being repulsed by Potion, when she implored the favour of being confined in the Temple; after being denounced and pursued by Robespierre, and entrusted, through the entire confidence of the King and Queen, with papers of the utmost importance, Madame Campan went to conceal her charge and indulge her grief at Coubertin, in the valley of Chevreuse. Madame Augui6, her sister, had just committed suicide, at the very moment of her arrest.6 The scaffold awaited Madame Campan, when the 9th of Thermidor • Maternal affection prevailed over her religious sentiments; she wished to preserve the wreck of her fortune for her children. Hud •he deferred this fatal act for one day she would have been saved; the cart which conveyed Robespierre to execution stopped her funeral procenHion! CAMPAN. 23 restored her to life; but did not restore to her the most constant object of her thoughts, her zeal, and her devotion. A new career now opened to Madame Campan. The information and talents she possessed were about to become useful to her. At Coubertin, surrounded by her nieces, she was fond of directing their studies, as much to divert her mind for a time from her troubles as to form their disposition and judgment. This occupation caused her ideas to revert to the subject of education, and awakened once more the inclina- tions of her youth. At the age of twelve years Mademoiselle Genet could never meet a school of young ladies passing through the streets without feeling ambitious of the situation and authority of their mistress. Her abode at Court had diverted but not altered her inclinations. At a more advanced age, when able to enlarge her operations, she envied Madame de Maintenon, in the height of absolute power, not the success of her ambitious hypocrisy, not the mysterious honour of a royal and clandestine union, but the glory of having founded St. Cyr. Madame Campan had neither the treasures nor the authority of Louis XIV. at her disposal for the realisation of her plans. " A month after the fall of Kobespierre," she says, in a most interesting document, "I considered as to the means of pro- viding for myself, for a mother seventy years of age, my sick husband, my child nine years old, and part of my ruined family. I now possessed nothing in the world but an assignat of five hundred francs. I had become responsible for my hus- band's debts, to the amount of thirty thousand francs. I chose St. Germain to set up a boarding school, for that town did not remind me, as Versailles did, both of happy times and of the misfortunes of France. It was at some distance from Paris, where our dreadful disasters had occurred, and where people resided with whom I did not wish to be acquainted. 24: PREFATORY MEMOIR OF I took with me a nun of I'Enfant-Jesus, to give an unques- tionable pledge of my religious principles. The school of St. Germain was the first in which the opening of an oratory was ventured on. The Directory was displeased at it, and ordered it to be immediately shut up. Not having the means of printing my prospectus, I wrote a hundred copies of it, and sent them to those persons of my acquaintance who had survived the dreadful commotions. At the year's end I had sixty pupils; soon afterwards a hundred. I bought furniture, and paid my debts." The rapid success of the establishment at St. Germain was undoubtedly owing to the talents, experience, and excellent principles of Madame Campan, seconded by public opinion. To cherish and show attention to any person who had been at Court, was to defy and humble the reigning power ; and every one knows that people never deny themselves that pleasure in France. I was then very young, but I did not fail to observe that disposition in those about me. All property had changed hands; all ranks found themselves confusedly jumbled by the shock of the Eevolution : society resembled a library, in which the books have been replaced at random, after tearing off the titles. The great lord dined at the table of the opulent con- tractor; and the witty and elegant marchioness was present at the ball by the side of the clumsy peasant lately grown rich. In the absence of the ancient distinctions, elegant manners and polished language now formed an extraordinary kind of aris- tocracy. The house of St. Germain, conducted by a lady who possessed the deportment and the habits of the best society, was not only a school of knowledge, but a school of the world. " A friend of Madame de Beauharnais," continued Madame Campan, " brought me her daughter Hortense de Beauharnais, and her niece Emilie de Beauharnais. Six months afterwards she came to inform me of her marriage with a Corsican gentle- MADAME CAMPAN. 35 man, who had been brought up in the military school, and was then a general. I was requested to communicate this informa- tion to her daughter, who long lamented her mother's change of name. " I was also desired to watch over the education of little Eugene de Beauharnais, who was placed at St. Germain, in the same school with my son. " A great intimacy sprang up between my nieces and these young people. Madame de Beauharnais set out for Italy, and left her children with me. On her return, after the conquests of Bonaparte, that general, much pleased with the improvement of his step-daughter, invited me to dine at Malmaison, and at- tended two representations of Esther at my school." Never had the establishment at St. Germain been in a more flourishing condition than at this time (1802-3). What more could Madame Campan wish for? Her fortune was respecta- ble ; her occupation and duties agreeable to her taste. Absolute in her own house, she seemed also safe from the caprice of power. But the man who then disposed of the fate of France and Europe was soon to determine otherwise. After the battle of Austerlitz the State undertook to bring up, at the public expense, the sisters, daughters or nieces of those who were decorated with the Cross of Honour. The chil- dren of the warriors killed or wounded in glorious battle were to find paternal care in the ancient abodes of the Montmorencys and the Condes. Accustomed to concentrate around him all su- perior talents, fearless himself of superiority, Napoleon sought for a person qualified by experience and abilities to conduct the institution of ficouen: he selected Madame Campan. She was now to reap the fruits of ten years' experience at St. Germain. The establishment of ficouen had to be created, and Madame Campan commenced this great undertaking. Count Lacepede, the pupil, friend, and rival of Buffon, then Grand 26 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, assisted her with his en- lightened advice. Napoleon, who could descend with ease from the highest political subjects to the examination of the most minute details ; and who was as much at home in inspect- ing a boarding school for young ladies as in reviewing the grenadiers of his guard ; whom it was impossible to deceive, and who was not unwilling to find fault when he visited the estab- lishment at ficouen, was forced to say, "It is all right" * A second house was formed at St. Denis, on the model of that of ficouen. Perhaps Madame Campan might have hoped for a title to which her long labours gave her a right; perhaps the superintendence of the two houses would have been but the fair recompense of her services; but her fortunate years had passed: her fate was now to depend on the most important events. Napoleon had accumulated such a mass of power as no one but himself in Europe could overturn. Trance, con- tent with thirty years of victories, in vain asked for peace and repose. The army which had triumphed in the sands of Egypt, on the summits of the Alps, and in the marshes of Holland, was to perish amidst the snows of Eussia. Nations combined against a single man. The territory of France was invaded. The orphans of ficouen, from the windows of the mansion which served as their asylum, saw in the distant plain the fires of the Eussian bivouacs, and once more wept the deaths of their fathers. Paris capitulated. France hailed the return of the descendants of Henry IV. ; they reascended the throne so long filled by their ancestors, which the wisdom of an enlightened prince established on the empire of the laws. 6 Napoleon had wished to be informed of every particular of the furniture, government, and order of the house, the instruction and education of the pupils. The internal regulations were submitted to him. One of the intended rules, drawn up by Madame Campan, proposed that the children should hear mass on Sundays and Thurs- days. Napoleon himself wrote on the margin, every day. MADAME CAMPAN. - 27 This moment, which diffused joy amongst the faithful serv- ants of the royal family, and brought them the rewards of their devotion, proved to Madame Campan a period of bitter vexation. The hatred of her enemies had revived. The suppression of the school at ficouen had deprived her of her position; the most absurd calumnies followed her into her retreat; her at- tachment to the Queen was suspected ; she was accused not only of ingratitude but of perfidy. The object of such calumnies is Madame Campan, in whose favour Marie Antoinette wrote in 1792 a testamentary disposition, extremely honourable to the devotion of the subject and to the goodness of the sover- eign. It is Madame Campan to whom Louis XVI. in 1792 confided the most secret and dangerous papers ; for whom Louis XVI., in the cell of the Feuillans, on the 10th of August, 1792, cut off two locks of his hair, giving her one for herself, another for her sister, whilst the Queen, throwing her arms about their necks by turns, said to them : " Unhappy women, you are unfortunate only on my account: I am still more wretched than you." Slander has little effect on youth, but in the decline of life its darts are envenomed with a mortal poison. The wounds which Madame Campan had received were deep. Her sister, Madame Auguie, had destroyed herself; M. Eous- seau, her brother-in-law, had perished a victim of the reign of terror. In 1813 a dreadful accident had deprived her of her niece, Madame de Broc, one of the most amiable and inter- esting beings that ever adorned the earth. Madame Campan seemed destined to behold those whom she loved go down to the grave before her. In the cemetery of Pere la Chaise, amongst those ostentatious mausoleums, generally loaded with lying epitaphs, is a modest grave on which she has often been seen to weep. No marble decorates it; no inscription is read upon it; it is remarkable chiefly for its simplicity; the undulating turf giving the only clue to the secret of the tomb. 28 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF After having so many troubles Madame Campan sought a peaceful retreat. Paris had become odious to her. She paid a visit to one of her most beloved pupils, Mademoiselle Crouzet, who had married a physician at Mantes, a man of talent, dis- tinguished for his intelligence, frankness, and cordiality.7 Mantes is a pleasant cheerful residence, and the idea of an abode there pleased her. A few intimate friends formed a pleasant society, and she enjoyed a little tranquillity after so many disturbances. The revisal of her Memoirs, the arrange- ment of the interesting anecdotes of which her Eecollections were to consist, alone diverted her mind from the one power- ful sentiment which attached her to life. She lived only for her son. M. Campan deserved the tenderness of his mother. No sacrifice had been spared for his education. After having pursued that course of study, which, under the Imperial Gov- ernment, produced men of such distinguished merit, he was waiting till time and circumstances should afford him an oppor- tunity of devoting his services to his country. Although the state of his health was far from good, it did not threaten any rapid or premature decay; he was, however, after a few days' illness, suddenly taken from his family. " I never witnessed so heartrending a scene/' M. Maigne says, "as that which took place when Marshal Ney's lady, her niece, and Madame Pan- nelier, her sister, came to acquaint her with this misfortune. When they entered her apartment she was in bed. All three at once uttered a piercing cry. The two ladies threw themselves on their knees, and kissed her hands, which they bedewed with tears. Before they could speak to her she read in their faces that she no longer possessed a son. At that instant her large eyes, opening wildly, seemed to wander. Her face grew pale, 7 M. Maigne, physician to the infirmaries at Mantes. Madame Campan found in him a friend and comforter, of whose merit and affection she knew the value. MADATVfR CAMPAN. 29 her features changed, her lips lost their colour, she struggled to speak, but uttered only inarticulate sounds, accompanied by piercing cries. Her gestures were wild, her reason was sus- pended. Every part of her being was in agony. Her respira- tion scarcely sufficed for the efforts which this unhappy mother made to express her grief, and give vent to her sufferings. To this state of anguish and despair no calm succeeded, until her tears began to flow. Friendship and the tenderest care suc- ceeded for a moment in calming her grief, but not in dimin- ishing its power. This violent crisis had disturbed the whole organisation. A cruel disorder, which required a still more cruel operation, soon manifested itself. The presence of her family, a tour which she made in Switzerland, a residence at the waters of Baden, and, above all, the sight, the tender and charming conversation of a person by whom she was affection- ately beloved, occasionally diverted her mind, and in a slight degree relieved her suffering/' She underwent a serious opera- tion, performed with extraordinary promptitude and the most complete success. No unfavourable symptoms appeared; Madame Campan was thought to be restored to her friends; but the disorder was in the blood ; it took another course ; the chest became affected. " From that moment," says M. Maigne, who watched her malady with all the solicitude of friendship, " I could never look on Madame Campan as living ; she herself felt that she belonged no more to this world." "My friend," she said to her physician the day before her death, "I am attached to the simplicity of religion. I hate all that savours of fanaticism." When her codicil was pre- sented for her signature, her hand trembled ; " It would be a pity," she said, " to stop when so fairly on the road." Her friends witnessed her decease on the 16th of March 1822. The cheerfulness she displayed throughout her malady had nothing affected in it. Her character was naturally powerful 30 PREFATORY MEMOIR OF and elevated. At the approach of death she evinced the soul of a sage, without abandoning for an instant her feminine char- acter. One profound sentiment, her attachment to the Queen — one constant study, the education of youth, occupied her whole life. Napoleon once said to her, " The old systems of education were good for nothing; what do young women stand in need of, to be well brought up in France?" — "Of mothers" answered Madame Campan. "It is well said," replied Napoleon. " Well, Madame, let the French be indebted to you for bringing up mothers for their children." Surrounded by pupils to whom her conversation was a de- light, she talked to them of the duties of their sex, or of the most interesting facts in history. Sometimes her judicious and keen understanding would draw a salutary lesson from a little amusing story. In past events she often sought traits calcu- lated to enlighten their minds and elevate their sentiments. I call on all the pupils of ficouen to bear witness how often she spoke to them of Louis IX., of Charles V., of Louis XII., of Henry IV., in particular, and of the virtues with which they and their successors had adorned the throne. When she came to the stormy period of the Eevolution, she would explain to them the outrages committed against disarmed royalty, tell them of the descendants of kings living in a foreign land, of Louis XVI. and his misfortunes, of the Queen and the afflic- tions she had been made to endure. These recitals affected their young hearts. When they heard her talk of the royal family of France, the daughters of Napoleon's warriors learned the respect that should be paid to calamity, and the gratitude due for benefits received. Beyond the walls of the mansion of ficouen, in the village which surrounds it, Madame Campan had taken a small house where she loved to pass a few hours in solitary confinement. MADAME CAMP AN. 31 There, at liberty to abandon herself to the memory of the past, the superintendent of the imperial establishment became, once more, for the moment, the first lady of the chamber to Marie Antoinette. To the few friends whom she admitted into this retreat she would show, with emotion, a plain muslin gown which the Queen had worn, and which was made from a part of Tippoo Saib's present. A cup, out of which Marie Antoinette had drunk ; a writing stand, which she had long used, were, in her eyes, of inestimable value; and she has often been discov- ered sitting, in tears, before the picture which represented her royal mistress. " Pardon me, august shade ! unhappy Queen, pardon me," she says, in a fragment I have preserved in her handwriting; " thy portrait is near me whilst I am writing these words. My imagination, impressed with the remembrance of thy sorrows, every instant directs my eyes to those features which I wish to animate, and to read in them whether I am doing service to thy memory in writing this work. When I look at that noble head, which fell by the fury of barbarians, tears fill my eyes, and suspend my narration. Yes, I will speak the truth, by which thy shade can never be injured ; truth must prove favour- able to her whom falsehood so cruelly wronged." NOTES OP CONVEKSATIOtfS WITH MADAME CAMPAN, WITH OCCASIONAL ANECDOTES OP NAPOLEON. BY M. MAIGNE. ABOUT the end of 1815 I saw Madame Campan for the first time. She then resided in Paris, in the Eue Saint Lazare. The misfortunes with which she and her family were just then visited rendered her longer residence in the French capital so unpleasant that she resolved to retire into the country. Though this determination accorded with her slender fortune, yet she was unwilling to draw herself too far from the centre of public affairs. She wished still to be within the sphere of the political events of the day; and she was also anxious that her family and numerous friends might be enabled to visit her with facility. She therefore made choice of the little town of Mantes. Madame Maigne, whom she had educated, who had acted as her secretary at ficouen, and to whom she was ten- derly attached, had resided at Mantes for the space of three years, a circumstance which materially influenced Madame Campan in giving the preference to that town, and I was sin- cerely glad of it. About the beginning of April 1816 she came to fix her abode among us. From that period to the time when she was snatched from us I enjoyed the happiness of seeing her twice every day, and I always took leave of her with increased regret; such was the delight which her charming and varied conversation afforded VOL. 1—3 34 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH me. Madame la Marechale de Beauvau observed that no one knew better how to kill time than Madame Campan. "At the time/' Madame Campan told us, "when Mesmer made so much noise in Paris with his magnetism, M. Campan, my husband, was his partisan, like almost every person who moved in high life. To be magnetised was then a fashion; nay, it was more, it was absolutely a rage. In the drawing- rooms nothing was talked of but the brilliant discovery. There was to be no more dying; people's heads were turned, and their imaginations heated to the highest degree. To accom- plish this object it was necessary to bewilder the understand- ing; and Mesmer, with his singular language, produced that effect. To put a stop to the fit of public insanity was the grand difficulty; and it was proposed to have the secret pur- chased by the Court. Mesmer fixed his claims at a very ex- travagant rate. However, he was offered fifty thousand crowns. By a singular chance, I was one day led into the midst of the somnambulists. Such was the enthusiasm of the numerous spectators that in most of them I could observe a wild rolling of the eye, and a convulsed movement of the countenance. A stranger might have fancied himself amidst the unfortunate patients of Charenton. Surprised and shocked at seeing so many people almost in a state of delirium, I withdrew, full of reflections on the scene which I had just witnessed. It hap- pened that about this time my husband was attacked with a pulmonary disorder, and he desired that he might be conveyed to Mesmer's house. Being introduced into the apartment occu- pied by M. Campan, I asked the worker of miracles what treat- ment he proposed to adopt; he very coolly replied, that to en- sure a speedy and perfect cure it would be necessary to lay in the bed of the invalid, at his left side, one of three things — namely, a young woman of brown complexion, a black hen, or MADAME CAMPAN. 35 an empty bottle. * Sir/ said I, ' if the choice be a matter of indifference, pray try the empty bottle/ " M. Campan's side grew worse ; he experienced a difficulty of breathing and a pain in his chest. All the magnetic reme- dies that were employed produced no effect. Perceiving his failure, Mesmer took advantage of the periods of my absence to bleed and blister the patient. I was not informed of what had been done until after M. Campan's recovery. Mesmer was asked for a certificate to prove that the patient had been cured by means of magnetism only, and he gave it. Here was a trait of enthusiasm ! Truth was no longer respected. When I next presented myself to the Queen, their Majesties asked what I thought of Mesmer's discovery. I informed them of what had taken place, earnestly expressing my indignation at the conduct of the barefaced quack. It was immediately determined to have nothing more to do with him." The following anecdotes are put together without regard to order. It would, indeed, have been impossible to preserve any regular arrangement. During the Consulate, Napoleon, one day after dinner, stood leaning against the drawing-room chimneypiece, in a very meditative attitude. A lady, one of his relatives, observing him, said, " You look like a conspirator." " True," he replied, " I am now conspiring against the monarchs of Europe. Time will show that a shrug of the shoulders is sufficient to over- throw a bad political system." A lady asked Madame Campan, during her residence at Mantes, to recommend her to a good confessor. Madame Campan mentioned her own, who, she observed, was a man of 36 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH intelligence and respectability. " But, madame," inquired the lady, " is he a reasonable man ? " — " Oh, very much so/' said Madame Campan, " he was one of the Court abbes." — " Then he is just the man to suit me/' said the lady. At the time when Napoleon was commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, his sisters and younger brother, together with the children of Josephine, were at school at Saint Germain. During the summer they occasionally paid a visit to Paris, accompanied by Madame Voisin. One evening, to finish their holiday, they proposed going to the theatre, and being short of money, they were obliged to mount into the gallery. Madame Campan, while she was at Mantes, frequently dwelt on the extraordinary occurrences brought about by chance. "I was," said she, "the instructress of a nest of kings and queens, without ever dreaming of such a thing; and, indeed, it was very fortunate for all parties that we did not know it. Their education was the same as that of my other pupils. There was no distinction observed among them. When they quitted me they were all possessed of an excellent stock of information, with the exception of one only, who, though gifted with a fine understanding, never evinced a willingness to learn. Had these young women been educated as queens, they would have been flattered instead of instructed. Being ignorant of their future destiny, they received the accomplishments of women of distinction, added to the more solid acquirements requisite to form good mistresses of families." " At the period when the priests were again permitted to say mass during the Eevolution, the churches were found to have been stripped of everything. I provided some fine lawn for the Church of Saint Germain. At the time of the confirma- MADAME CAMPAN. 37 tion, I directed those of my pupils who were most abundantly supplied with money, to purchase a sufficient quantity of lawn, cambric, lace, etc., to make surplices and albs. After the reli- gious ceremony, they were left for the. use of the church; and Saint Germain's was, at that period of my glory, one of the richest churches in Trance." In a conversation which Madame Campan had with Napo- leon he said : " It is not the poor, but the rich, who require to be looked after in a State. It is the higher ranks who de- mand attention. If they were not reined in, they would pull down the sovereign in no time. I hold them with a firm hand, and keep them at a due distance, for they are full of ambition. They are pleasant companions, but they have keen appetites. The poor must be protected, or they would be devoured. The higher orders have every advantage in society. Their rank and wealth protect them but too well. The power of the throne is in the lower ranks, and all the dangers that threaten it pro- ceed from the great." " In 1801 M. Dubreuil, a physician, and Madame PHopital, both inhabitants of St. Germain, were arrested and conveyed to the Temple; the former for having felt the pulse of M. de Talon's child, and the latter for having been visited by M. Dubreuil. Though the last-mentioned individual lived per- fectly retired, his presence nevertheless gave umbrage to the Government. The police, artful as it then was, could not find an excuse for putting him under arrest; but as the principal could not be got at, the accessories were taken in his stead. "M. Dubreuil, on being conducted to prison, wrote to me, requesting that I would exert my influence in his behalf. He could not, he said, guess the cause of such a proceeding. I was much interested for M. Dubreuil, who was my physician 38 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH and my friend ; and I was the more astonished at his arrest as I well knew his quiet inoffensive habits and opinions. I imme- diately repaired to the Tuileries. As soon as the First Consul beheld me, he said, ' You have come to intercede for the in- habitants of St. Germain. Your Madame de 1'Hopital is an intriguer/ — ' I beg pardon, General, she might once, perhaps, have been reproached for a little levity; but surely that must be all over at the age of seventy-eight. An intriguer she can- not be; a little coquetry would perhaps be more to her taste, but she is blind. She receives company every evening, and through the fear of being thought impolite, she makes her courtesy even to the absent/ "When Napoleon was informed of the real circumstances he grew angry, and said, in the presence of Josephine, ' A blind woman, seventy-eight years old, is always innocent of political offences. The minister has committed an act of cruelty, un- worthy of my Government. Had Fouche been plotting with my enemies, he could not have done better. He must be mad. I cannot permit such proceedings to take place under the sanc- tion of my authority. It is my wish that every act emanating from my power should be such as reason will approve. A Gov- ernment should be actuated by exalted views and generous senti- ments. The arbitrary act that has just been committed, is worthy only of a sovereign's mistress in a fit of passion. Mat- ters must not go on in this way. The head of the State should never be biassed by passion. History will record everything, and what will be said of such conduct as this ? But what has the doctor done ? ' — ' Why, General, he attended M. de Talon's child, and he has, for many years past, daily visited his fellow- prisoner in the Temple/ ' This business is almost incredible,' resumed Napoleon. 'A doctor may surely prescribe for my enemies as well as for my friends, without giving offence to the ministry. Medical professors are not, like the holders of Gov- MADAME CAMPAN. 39 eminent places, required to embrace a particular set of opinions. "'Abuses like this degrade and compromise my authority. I must have some conversation with the minister, and the pris- oners shall be liberated/ He rang the bell with violence, and sent for Fouche, who received a severe reprimand. However, the prisoners were not set at liberty until thirty hours after this conversation ; such was the tardiness with which the min- ister went through the formalities necessary for procuring their release. One of Josephine's carriages was sent to convey them from the Temple ; on hearing which, Madame de 1'Hopital ex- claimed, 'Are these Madame Bonaparte's beautiful white horses?' — 'It matters very little, Madame, whether they be white or black,' said M. Dubreuil peevishly, ' so that they draw us out of prison.' '' During the hundred days Napoleon observed that nobility, inflated as it is with pride and ambition, is not a very man- ageable commodity. " In 1806," said he, " the Emperor Alex- ander thought me too happy in having none. The nobility was a trouble of my own creating, I should have made a nobleman of every individual paying fifty francs of taxes. This would have levelled a blow at the very roots of the old nobility, and the new nobles would have been less arrogant. My plans did not answer the ends I had in view. I wished for splendour, and I got nothing but vexation, through the avarice and am- bition of those whom I elevated." "The counts of his making," added Madame Campan, " were worth the counting; 1 they were the work of a master- hand." i"Les comtes de sa fagon, ne se croyaient pas de contes pour rire. II faut convenir qu'ils sont du fait d'un grand homme." 40 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH Napoleon observed, that if he could fairly fight public opin- ion, he should not fear it. But as it could not be beaten down by his artillery, he found himself obliged to conciliate it by justice and equity, two powers by which it is always to be won. To pursue any other course is to endanger wealth and distinc- tion. It is impossible to imprison public opinion; restraint serves only to irritate it. "Public opinion," added Madame Campan, "may be compared to an eel: the tighter one holds it, the sooner it escapes." Napoleon likewise said: — "Kevolutions are brought about only by injustice. Where would be the motive for them if gov- ernments were guided solely by the laws of equity? All revo- lutions, past and to come, must be attributed to injustice, and I defy the most artful politician to assign any other cause for them. In the object of the French Eevolution there was noth- ing to condemn ; all the mischief consisted in the excesses com- mitted by misguided men. It is necessary to bear in mind these two facts, lest we should confound justice on the one hand, and iniquity on the other. What! must a man trace back his pedigree for fourteen centuries before he can be deemed worthy of respect ? Before the Eevolution it was neces- sary to be a nobleman to hold a commission in the army ; and to be connected with a great family to obtain a bishopric. The Eevolution was brought about by the nobility and the high clergy. That's a fact of which I am thoroughly convinced." Madame Campan often told me she had heard from Napo- leon that when he founded the convent of the Sisters of la Charite he was urgently solicited to permit perpetual vows. He, however, refused to do so, on the ground that tastes may change, and that he did not see the necessity of excluding from the world women who might some time or other return to it, and become useful members of society. "Nunneries," he MADAME CAMPAN. 41 added, " assail the very roots of population. It is impossible to calculate the loss which a nation sustains in having ten thousand women shut up in cloisters. War does but little mis- chief; for the number of males is at least one-twenty-fifth greater than that of females. Women may, if they please, be allowed to make perpetual vows at fifty years of age ; for then their task is fulfilled." "During the Directory the Government had ordered my chapel to be closed; and sometime after commissioners were sent to desire that the reading of the Scriptures should be sup- pressed in my school. I inquired what books were to be sub- stituted in their stead. After some minutes' conversation, they observed : ' Citizeness, you are arguing after the old fashion ; no reflections. The nation commands; we must have obe- dience, and no reasoning.' '; On the 19th of March 1815 a number of papers were left in the King's closet. Napoleon ordered them to be examined, and among them was found the letter written by Madame Campan to Louis XVIII., immediately after the first restoration. In this letter she enumerated the contents of the portfolio which Louis XVI. had placed under her care. When Napoleon read this letter, he said, "Let it be sent to the office of Foreign Affairs, it is an historical document." Napoleon, conversing one day with Madame Campan at the Tuileries, said, " I acknowledge no other titles than those which belong to personal merit ; they who do not possess such distinc- tions are truly unfortunate. The men by whom I am sur- rounded have won their titles on the field of honour ; they have given sufficient proofs of their merit ; true nobility is in their mind, and nowhere else. I have espoused no party. Merit determines my choice. I am the patron of talent." 42 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH Madame Murat one day said to Madame Campan : " I am astonished that you are not more awed in our presence; you speak to us with as much familiarity as when we were your pupils ! " — " The best thing you can do," replied Madame Campan, " is to forget your titles when you are with me ; for I can never be afraid of queens whom I have held under the rod." Talma and his brother-in-law dined with Madame Campan on their return from Rouen in 1821. She was delighted at the idea of seeing and conversing with so distinguished a man as Talma. Her countenance beamed with joy at the pleasure she anticipated. " I still retain," said she, " a taste for the truly beautiful. In spite of all my misfortunes my spirits will be revived and refreshed to-day. I require to be roused now and then from the dejection into which events have plunged me." During dinner Madame Campan turned the conversation on the art of elocution; and Talma made some remarks on the subject which arrested the attention of all present. " Good delivery," he said, " is applicable to every class of composition. This art, notwithstanding the powerful effects it produces, is but too much neglected in France. It is indeed quite in its infancy with us. It forms no part of education, and is never thought of in our academies. Yet it presents so many ad- vantages, that I cannot conceive how it should be lost sight of. What effect can even a clever speaker produce without good delivery? He merely fatigues his hearers. I could name sev- eral men of high merit in the legislature who are intolerable on account of their delivery; and similar examples may be found in the pulpit and at the bar. The sermons and speeches of some of our most celebrated preachers and advocates have occasionally dissatisfied me, owing to a want of just harmony between their mental and physical powers. When the mind of MADAME CAMPAN. 43 the speaker was deeply impressed with the truths he was ex- pounding, he would betray no external signs of conviction ; no change would be observable in his features, nor would his voice soften into the accents of persuasion. In Paris party spirit establishes the fame of public speakers; but people of judg- ment form their opinions differently from the loungers of the drawing-room. " The difficulties which the actor has to surmount are greater than those which present themselves to the public orator. The latter has to express only his own ideas; when he speaks in public it is always in his own character. But the actor is obliged to model his mind, and even his body, according to the received notion of the character and manner of the indi- vidual he has to represent. " How else would it be possible to portray vehement passions, enormous vices, and exalted virtues, or to develop the distinc- tive traits belonging to different characters? The actor is obliged, as it were, to seize the spirit of the individual he has to represent, in order that he may produce a living personifica- tion of one of whom no other trace remains on earth save a few lines recorded by the pen of history. This task, I may truly say, demands vast perseverance and study. "Any dissonance between the thought, the look, and the gesture destroys the illusion, and defeats all chance of success. The countenance should be a mirror, reflecting distinctly all that passes in the mind ; the voice, that powerful medium for the communication of impressions, should be clear, flexible, and sonorous, capable of expressing every feeling of the heart. The movements of the body should follow the same impulse; and the spectator should recognise, in the harmony of the representation, the perfect identity of the individual personi- fied." 44 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH I was informed by Madame Campan that a female relative of the Empress Josephine received a letter from an uncle, resid- ing at a distance from Paris, soliciting a place for one of his relations, with the remark that one was bound in honour and in affection to remember one's family. Madame Campan ob- served that Napoleon's heart was too full of family affection. He wished his relations to share the good fortune which he him- self possessed; and this great ambition for his family gave umbrage to Europe. Had he been an only son, his affairs would probably have taken a different turn. In 1814, when Massena was presented at Court, or when he went to take leave of the King, on departing for his command at Marseilles, the great personages by whom his Majesty was surrounded cleared but very narrow space for him to pass through. He had no sooner delivered a few words than he found himself without the circle. Massena was continually alluding to the clever way in which they cut him off, and separated him from the King. " When I was on the field of battle/' said he, " I did not employ so much dexterity in mak- ing my prisoners." " Courtiers," observed Madame Campan, "have a paramount interest in rendering the person of the sovereign inaccessible, so that every favour may fall upon themselves. They are a class of men who very well understand their own interests." About the period of Madame Murat's marriage, and while she was yet at Saint Germain, Napoleon observed to Madame Campan: "I do not like those love matches between young people whose brains are excited by the flames of the imagina- tion. I had other views for my sister. Who knows what high alliance I might have procured for her! She is thoughtless, and does not form a just notion of my situation. The time MADAME CAMPAN. 45 will come when, perhaps, sovereigns might dispute for her hand. She is about to marry a brave man; but in my situa- tion that is not enough. Fate should be left to fulfill her decrees." On one occasion Madame Campan related to me the follow- ing particulars: — "A few days after the battle of Paris the Emperor Alexander came to visit ficouen, and he did me the honour to breakfast with me. After showing him over the establishment I conducted him to the park, the most elevated point of which overlooked the plain of Saint Denis. ' Sire/ said I, ' from this point I saw the battle of Paris/ ' If,' re- plied the Emperor, 'that battle had lasted two hours longer we should not have had a single cartridge at our disposal. We feared that we had been betrayed; for on arriving so precipi- tately before Paris all our plans were laid, and we did not expect the firm resistance we experienced/ I next conducted the Emperor to the chapel, and showed him the seats occupied by le connetable (the constable) of Montmorency, and la con- netable (the constable's lady), when they went to hear mass. 'Barbarians like us/ observed the Emperor, 'would say la connetable and le connetable' " The Emperor inquired into the most minute particulars re- specting the establishment of ficouen, and I felt great pleasure in answering his questions. I recollect having dwelt on sev- eral points which appeared to me to be very important, and which were in their spirit hostile to aristocratic principles. For example, I informed his Majesty that the daughters of distinguished and wealthy individuals and those of the hum- ble and obscure were indiscriminately confounded together in the establishment. 'If/ said I, 'I were to observe the least pretension on account of the rank or fortune of parents I should immediately put an end to it. The most perfect equality is 46 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH preserved; distinction is awarded only to merit and industry. The pupils are obliged to cut out and make all their own clothes. They are taught to clean and mend lace; and two at a time, they by turns, three times a week, cook and distribute victuals to the poor of the village. The young girls who have been brought up at ficouen, or in my boarding-school at Saint Germain, are thoroughly acquainted with everything relating to household business, and they are grateful to me for having made that a part of their education. In my conversations with them I have always taught them that on domestic management depends the preservation or dissipation of their fortunes/ "The postmaster at ficouen was in the courtyard at the moment when the Emperor, as he stepped into his carriage, told me he would send some sweetmeats for the pupils. I immediately communicated to them the intelligence, which was joyfully received; but the sweetmeats were looked for in vain. When Alexander set out for England he changed horses at ficouen, and the postmaster said to him : t Sire, the pupils of, ficouen are still expecting the sweetmeats which your Majesty promised them/ To which the Emperor replied that he had directed Saken to send them. The Cossacks had most likely devoured the sweetmeats, and the poor little girls, who had been, so highly nattered by the promise, never tasted them." "Prince Talleyrand, in a remarkable speech which he de- livered in the Chamber of Deputies in 1821, expressed, in a single phrase, the whole spirit of policy. 'I know/ said he, 'where there is more wisdom than in Napoleon, or Voltaire, or in any minister, present or future: it is in public opinion.' I was struck with the justice of these few words. They told more than a whole treatise on the subject. What is the rest- ing-point of policy ? Public opinion. Has it any other basis ? Surely reason admits of no other. What should we think of MADAME CAMPAN. 47 the minister who follows any other guide? Silence may be commanded, it is true ; but events will run counter to that com- mand. Public opinion cannot be controlled. It must be fol- lowed, for it is always advancing. The brilliant light of the torch may be dimmed, but it cannot be extinguished. It is not to be found in the sneers of Court ladies, nor in the breviary of the Jesuits. Observe the conduct of a selfish poli- tician, he seeks every opportunity to consult the favour of those in power. He is satisfied if he can give proofs of his devoted- ness; no matter on what conditions." " I have been asked by many persons, whether I have not been engaged in writing Memoirs on Napoleon and his Court.2 My answer has been that this task is reserved for those who lived in his household, or who had frequent access to him; that I had undertaken to describe the private life of Marie Antoinette, and that I should do no more. I never made a single memorandum relative to the splendid and martial Court which Napoleon held at the Tuileries." In the course of conversation with me, Madame Campan also made the following remarks : — " Napoleon's genius elevated him; but his temper proved his ruin. A restless, ambitious, reserved and hasty temper, united with imperial power, was naturally calculated to give offence to those who approached him. Human vanity is a delicate string, which should be touched with the greatest caution. Napoleon conceived that his vast power exempted him from the forms which engage the love of subjects and call forth sentiments of attachment. He seemed to think that he was sufficient to himself, and the many imperfections which he observed in mankind rendered him somewhat misanthropic. This disposition caused him to feel the 2 The reader is referred for one of the best books on this subject to the Memoirs of Madame Junot (Duchesse d'Abrantte). 48 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH ingratitude of many persons, because he mortified their vanity ; and the vanity of the great, when it is once wounded, never forgives. He knew how to govern his subjects, and Europe; but he could never govern himself ; so true it is that all great men have a weak point. He was brave, generous, and magnani- mous, and prized glory beyond all things; but, unfortunately, he could never conquer his passions. His luminous under- standing had no influence on his temper. His genius gained him admirers; but his neglect of forms made him enemies. His admirers were far from his person, and his enemies were about him. A lady of the Imperial Court remarked that Napo- leon was a piece of patchwork, made up of parts of a great and a common man. He wished that women should attend to their family affairs, and not interfere with politics. The influence of the mistresses of Louis XV. alarmed him. He thought women might be commanded like an army. He little knew their restless, insinuating, inquisitive, and persevering spirit, and the direct influence they exercise over their husbands. He did not seem to understand women ; they never relinquish their privileges." As Madame Campan was returning from Switzerland she paid a visit to a duchess,8 who had been educated at Saint Germain, and who addressed the following remarks to her : — " I never enjoyed so much happiness as since I have returned to my country residence. I have forgotten my title since I have retired hither, and I have not been the same creature that I was before. My head was full of chimerical fancies. The title of baron begins to disorder the mind ; that of count produces a certain degree of imbecility ; and a dukedom absolutely turns the brain. I know not what effect higher distinctions produce ; s The Duchesse de St. Leu, at Constance. MADAME CAMPAN. 49 but I suppose they complete the moral derangement. This pro- gression is exact, and the result positive. All whom I have known to possess titles have experienced the same fate as my- self. I pity them if they have not had courage to resume pos- session of their reason." "These observations/' said Madame Campan, "showed a justness of thinking which pleased me exceedingly. There appeared to me to be more philosophy in these few words than I have met with in the arguments of most of the men who pro- fess themselves to be the disciples of Socrates. What is there in a title? It serves only to feed and inflate human vanity. This system of distinction, which is the original sin of politics ; this food of vanity, so disgusting to the understanding, gives rise to pretensions of superiority over men who do not possess titles, or who only possess them in a lower degree. Can any- thing be more absurd and ridiculous than to suppose that the nicknames of baron, count, etc., afford grounds for assuming advantages over other men? This is madness, pure madness. On this subject Mirabeau said, ( Two things are necessary to make a citizen a nobleman : first, that he should declare him- self to be so; and next, that those to whom he makes the declaration should be willing to believe him. Were it not for these two conditions, nobility would have no existence/ In the time of the Constituent Assembly this very just observation of Mirabeau's was repeated throughout Paris." Madam Campan dined at the Tuileries in company with the Pope's Nuncio, at the period when the Concordat was in agita- tion. During dinner the First Consul astonished her by the able manner in which he conversed on the subject under dis- cussion. She said he argued so logically that his talent quite amazed her. VOL. 1—4 50 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH " I formerly," said Madame Campari, " enjoyed a high de- gree of Court favour. When I was in childbed, previously to the birth of my poor Henry, four couriers were waiting at my house in Paris to convey intelligence of my delivery to Ver- sailles. One was sent by Louis XVI., one by the Queen, one by Monsieur, now Louis XVIII., and one by the Princesses. Things have changed since then; such is the course of human affairs. I knew real happiness only at Saint Germain; and I have enjoyed tranquillity only since I have lived at Mantes. " I have frequently heard the attendants of princely person- ages cry out to the people, ' Hats off! ' This is a piece of folly. These marks of courtesy should be inspired, not exacted. Con- fidence is not purchased — it is given; and, in like manner, respect should be given and not commanded. When people are happy they do spontaneously that which under other circum- stances authority must compel. An experienced eye can judge with rapidity; it never takes a mistaken view of public opinion." Mole, the actor, after paying a visit to the Due de Fronsac on New- Year's Day, met Fleury on the staircase. The latter inquired whether he had been paying his court to Monseigneur, to which Mole replied, "Yes, certainly; it costs nothing. I always fancy I am on the stage when I lavish this kind of in- cense. It is a part to be played like any other." Madame Campan related to me a fact so extraordinary that I cannot refrain from recording it here. The Marchioness de Forges, whose husband was grand falconer, resided at Ver- sailles in the year 1775. The Marchioness was pregnant, and during childbirth some unpleasant intelligence was commu- nicated to her. If I recollect rightly, she was informed that one of her houses had been burned down. The pains of child- MADAME CAMPAN. 51 birth immediately ceased, and the Marchioness continued preg- nant for the space of twenty-five years. At the expiration of that period she died, and on her body being opened the child was found petrified. The Abbe1 B one day told Madame Campan that during his residence in Italy he frequently saw in the public streets monks of various orders, mounted on chairs or planks of wood, preaching or holding conferences. When these conferences took place in the churches a Christ, as large as a child, whose head was made to move by means of a spring, was supported by one of the chorister boys, concealed within the pulpit. Dur- ing these conferences the priests addressed the Christ, and in- quired whether he would permit or forgive such or such things ; and by the help of the spring, which was moved by the boy, the Christ bowed in token of assent, or shook his head by way of disapproval, just as the priest thought proper to determine. " When M. B told us this I said, ' Never repeat such a story again. I cannot conceive that the clergy would tolerate things of a nature calculated to turn into ridicule the most holy of all religions.' ' These facts,' replied the Abbe, * are well known to travellers. At Naples they make St. Januarius weep. I only relate what I saw.' " " On the day after the publication of the ordinance for the expulsion of the Jesuits, M. Campan, my father-in-law, met Dr. Quesnay in the grand gallery of Versailles, and said to him, 'Well, what think you of the Jesuits?' 'Hush! my friend,' answered M. Quesnay, 'we must not raise the cry of victory yet. Three days must elapse before a dead man be considered as really dead ; these wicked rogues may come to life again.' Forty years afterwards the miracle dreaded by the doctor was fulfilled." 52 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH Napoleon used to say that sobriety and continence were indis- pensable qualities in a military man. Madame Campan quoted this observation, and added a remark made by her nephew, Marshal Ney, when in Spain, to another marshal, who had a mistress : " Such an aide-de-camp as you now possess will cost your army ten thousand men." * A lady, connected with the establishment of St. Denis, told Madame Campan that Napoleon visited it during the hundred days, and that the people were so delighted to see him that they crowded round him, endeavoring to touch his clothes, and evinced the most extravagant demonstrations of joy. The matron endeavoured to silence them ; but Napoleon said, " Let them alone; let them alone. This may weaken the head, but it strengthens the heart." One day during the Consulate Madame Campan dined at Malmaison, and after the coifee had been handed round several members of public bodies gathered about Napoleon, and tried to prevail on him to distrust the Jacobins, as being a very dan- gerous set of men. After hearing what they had to say, he replied, " It appears to me that you do not rightly know what a Jacobin is. He is merely an ambitious fellow, in search of a place. I shall therefore give places to the Jacobins, and make them hold their tongues." " M. Brunier, the Court physician, was called to attend Madame B at Versailles. That distinguished lady was then far advanced in life, and in a bad state of health. After considering her case, the doctor jokingly said, ' What can I do, 4 Vide Memoirs of Madame Junot (Duchesse d* Abr antes ), edition 1883, vol. Hi., p. 268, for a curious illustrative anecdote of the Marshal in question. MADAME CAMPAN. 53 madame? when the oil is exhausted the lamp must die out.' ( A physician/ replied the lady, * should have at least sufficient sense and humanity to speak less plainly. I do not want proverbs, but merely consolation, if there be no other remedy/ " This same M. Brunier was physician to the children of the royal family; and during his visits to the pal- ace, if the death of any of his patients happened to be alluded to, he never failed to say, *Ah! there I lost one of my best friends/ * Well/ said the Queen, ' if he loses all his patients, who are his friends, what will become of those who are not his friends ? ' " "A. petition was drawn up and addressed to the Queen by the people of a corporation in the neighbourhood of Paris, in which they prayed for the destruction of the game which de- stroyed their farming crops. I was myself the bearer of this petition to her Majesty, who said to me, ' I will undertake to have these good people relieved from so burthensome an annoy- ance.' She gave the document herself to M. de Vermond, in my presence, accompanying it with these words, ' / desire that immediate justice be done to this petition.' An assurance was given that her order should be attended to. Six weeks after- wards a second petition was sent from the corporation ; for the nuisance, after all, had not been abated. Thus are sovereigns deceived ! "I am persuaded," added Madame Campan, "that if the second petition had reached the Queen, M. de Vermond would have received a sharp reprimand. She was always so happy when it was in her power to do good." "Previously to the 10th of August 1792 the Queen fre- quently kept me by her bedside, after she had retired, that we might talk over public events. Her Majesty, in taking a re- 54 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH view of them, used to express a presentiment of their results. 'But, Madame/ said I, '& door of escape from this perilous place is pointed out to you — do not, then, I beseech you, con- tinue here/ i History is busy with us/ replied the Queen, ' we neither can nor ought to accept the offers made to us. Were death itself the consequence, we cannot consent to be saved by the men who have possessed themselves of our authority/ ' Madame/ said I, ' history will take her own course ; only save yourself and family in the first place.' The page of history was ever present to the mind of her Majesty ; so true is it that misfortune is not to be fled from." Madame Campan was very much affected whilst relating to me this conversation. Madame Campan once observed: "A man should be in the world what a good book is in a library : an object always seen with interest and pleasure, and from whose acquaintance we never fail to gain something." Madame Eegnier, the wife of a law officer of Versailles, while talking in the presence of a numerous party assem- bled at her own house, dropped some remarks which were out of place, though not very important. Her husband reprimanded her before the whole company, saying : " Silence, madame; you are a fool." She lived twenty or thirty years after this, and never uttered a single word, even to her chil- dren. A pretended theft was committed in her presence, in the hope of taking her by surprise, but without effect; and nothing could induce her to speak. When her consent was requisite for the marriage of any of her children, she bowed her head, and signed the contract. Such an instance of resolute obstinacy was never known ; her vanity never forgave the affront. MADAMF. OAMPAN. 55 M. de Beaumont, chamberlain to the Empress Josephine, was one day at Malmaison, expressing his regret that M. D , one of Napoleon's generals, who had recently been promoted, did not belong to a great family. " You mistake, sir," observed Madame Campan, " he is of very ancient descent; he is one of the nephews of Charlemagne. All the heroes of our army sprang from the elder branch of that sovereign's family, who never emigrated." When Madame Campan related this circumstance to me, she added : " After the 30th of March 1814 some officers of the army of Conde presumed to say to certain French marshals that it was a pity they were not more nobly connected. In answer to this one of them said : * True nobility, gentlemen, consists in giving proofs of it. The field of honour has wit- nessed ours; but where are we to look for yours? Your swords have rusted in their scabbards. Our laurels may well excite envy; we have earned them nobly, and we owe them solely to our valour. You have merely inherited a name. This is the distinction between us.' " 5 Napoleon used to observe that if he had had two such field-marshals as Suchet in Spain he would have not only conquered but kept the Peninsula. Suchet's sound judgment, his governing yet conciliating spirit, his military tact, and his bravery, had procured him astonishing success. " It is to be regretted," added he, "that a sovereign cannot improvise men of his stamp." 6 6 When one of the princes of the smaller German States was showing Marshal Lannes, with a contemptuous superiority of manner but ill concealed, the portraits of his ancestors, and covertly alluding to the absence of Lannes's, that general turned the tables on him by haughtily remarking, " But I am an ancestor." « Apropos of the merits of his various generals, Napoleon said: " I give the preference to Suchet. Before his time Massgna was 56 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH " In the summer of 1811 Napoleon, accompanied by Maria Louisa and several personages of distinction, visited the estab- lishment at £lcouen. After inspecting the chapel and the refectories Napoleon desired that the three principal pupils might be presented to him. ( Sire/ said I, ' I cannot select three ; I must present six/ He turned on his heel and repaired to the platform, where, after seeing all the classes assembled, he repeated his demand. ' Sire/ said I, ' I beg leave to inform your Majesty that I should commit an injustice towards several other pupils who are as far advanced as those whom I might have the honour to present to you/ "Berthier and others intimated to me, in a low tone of voice, that I should get into disgrace by my non-compliance. Napoleon looked over the whole of the house, entered into the most trivial details, and after addressing questions to several of the pupils : ( "Well, madame/ said he, * I am satisfied ; show me your six best pupils/ '' Madame Campan presented them to him; and as he stepped into his carriage, he desired that their names might be sent to Berthier. On addressing the list to the Prince de Neufchatel, Madame Campan added to it the names of four other pupils, and all the ten obtained a pension of 300 francs. During the three hours which this visit occupied the Empress did not utter a single word. During the Consulate Napoleon one day said to Ma- dame Campan, "If ever I establish a republic of women, I shall make you First Consul/7 Josephine having been invited, during the Consulate, to dine with a rich army contractor, Napoleon said, " I do not the first; but he may be considered as dead. Suchet^ Clausel, and G6rard are now in my opinion the best French generals." — Napoleon's words at St. Helena, quoted in Madame Junot's (Duchesse d'Abrantts) Memoirs, edition 1883, vol. iii., p. 291. MADAME CAMPAN. 57 object to your dining with bankers, they are merely dealers in money; but I will not have you visit contractors, for they are robbers of money." Madame Campan has many times told me that Marshal Ney, just at the moment when the battle of the Moskowa was decided, sent to request of Napoleon the whole reserve of the guard. Napoleon inquired of the aide-de-camp whether the Eussian guard had yet engaged; he was told that they had, and had been beaten by the troops of the line. " In that case," replied he, "it will be a finer thing to be able to say in the bulletin that the battle was gained without my reserve having been brought into action." Marshal Ney had made this request with a view to cut off the retreat of the Eussians; and had the reserve marched forward, it is probable that nearly the whole of their army would have been made prisoners, and that a treaty might have been arranged on the field of battle. It was an oft-quoted saying of Napoleon's, that if you but scratched the skin of a Eussian, you would instantly discern the barbarian. "The talent of Madame de Stael," said Madame Campan, "gave her a masculine character. To silence her, it would have been necessary, as I told the Empress Josephine, to give her a Court dress with a long train ; she would have sought no better. The man who persecuted her was at first her hero; her brilliant imagination exalted him into an idol. Napoleon feared her at home ; but she did him a great deal more mischief abroad. Under his own wing he might have kept her in check; but when vexed and irritated she avenged herself with the bitterness that might be expected from a woman of superior 58 NOTES OF CONVERSATION WITH talent wounded to the quick. A woman who can write mani- festoes is worthy of consideration; indeed, policy renders it a duty to respect her. Napoleon one day interrupted Madame de Stael in the midst of a profound political argument to ask her whether she had nursed her children." Napoleon was relating at the Tuileries, after his return from Austerlitz, that he could have made the two Emperors his prisoners in that battle. "Why did you not bring them with you ? " said a princess to him, " we could have enter- tained them with the carnival." "In sooth," was the reply, " such prisoners are apt to create too much embarrassment." He said on another occasion that his conscripts when they quitted their homes wore only the cloak of courage; but that after they had faced the enemy once or twice their hearts were filled with it. " From the situation in which I am placed," said Napoleon to Madame Campan, "I very much pity all who are about me. Their characters are all known to me; and I could make a report of them just as you report the conduct of the scholars under your superintendence. Ambition is their ruling passion. All is right that promotes their advancement, but all is wrong that tends to their retrogression. Their pride is very elastic; their ingenuity enables them to lengthen or shorten it as circumstances require. But I keep them within due bounds. They look only to themselves, and they forget the nation, which is the first principle. What would they be without it? The favours of which I dispose belong to the people ; but the men who are enjoying them would not scruple to show their ingratitude to the nation and to me if tempta- tion should present itself." MADAME CAMPAN. 59 "It must be confessed," said Madame Campan, "that he judged correctly." Napoleon related that a few days before the battle of Auster- litz some agitation had prevailed, particularly in Paris. " The warmth of the Court party," said he, "had fallen to tem- perate; but on hearing of my success they rallied round me as if they had been charged by the Cossacks. This is the way of the world." "If," said Napoleon, "I created so many princes and kings, it was that I might present to the world a specimen of my power. I should have acted very differently but for the reverses I experienced at Moscow. To have kept the English in subjection for three or four years would have sufficiently answered my views. I would have given liberty to all nations, and directed their views to elevated and noble principles. Honour should have been the basis of all. But fate thwarted my plans; this was the greatest calamity that could have befallen the nations of Europe." The Empress Josephine, at the time of her divorce, re- quested permission to proceed to the United States. Napoleon informed her that he could not answer for her safety in crossing the sea. "Then your power finds an obstacle," said she, "would to Heaven there were seas to be crossed for the fulfilment of all your wishes! your glory would then beam for ever ! " END OP MEMOIR AND CONVERSATIONS OF MADAME CAMPAN. INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. THE first event which made any impression on me in my earliest childhood was the attempt of Damiens to assassinate Louis XV. This occurrence struck me so forcibly that the most minute details relating to the confusion and grief which prevailed at Versailles on that day seem as completely present to my imagination as the most recent events. I had dined with my father and mother, in company with one of their friends. The drawing-room was lighted up with a number of candles, and four card-tables were already occupied, when a friend of the gentleman of the house came in, with a pale and terrified countenance, and said, in a voice scarcely audible, "I bring you terrible news. The King has been assas- sinated ! " Two ladies in company instantly fainted ; a brigadier of the Body-guards threw down his cards, and cried out, "I do not wonder at it; it is those rascally Jesuits." — " What are yon saying, brother ? " cried a lady, flying to him ; "would you get yourself arrested?" — "Arrested! for what? for unmasking those wretches who want a bigot for a King ? " My father came in; he recommended circumspection, saying that the blow was not mortal, and that all meetings ought to be suspended at so critical a moment. He had brought a chaise for my mother, who placed me on her knees. We lived in the Avenue de Paris, and throughout our drive I heard incessant cries and sobs from the footpaths. At last I saw a man arrested; he was an usher of the King's chamber, who had gone mad, and was crying out, "Yes, I know them; the 62 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. wretches ! the villains ! " Our chaise was stopped by this bustle. My mother recognized the unfortunate man who had been seized ; she gave his name to the trooper who had stopped him. The poor usher was therefore merely conducted to the gens d'armes' guard-room, which was then in the avenue. In times of public calamities, or national events, the slightest acts of imprudence may be fatal. When the people take part in an opinion or occurrence we ought to avoid coming in contact with them, and even alarming them. Informations are then no longer the result of careful investigation, and punishments cease to emanate from impartial justice. At the period of which I am speaking the love of the sovereign was a sort of religion, and this attempt against the life of Louis XV. brought on a multitude of groundless arrests.1 M. de la Serre, then Governor of the Invalides, his wife, his daughter, 1 When the news of the attempt made against the King's life became publicly known the populace evinced the greatest rage and despair. They assembled under the windows of Madame (de Pompa- dour), uttering threatening cries. She began to dread the fate of Madame de Chateauroux. Her friends every moment came in to bring her intelligence. Many only came out of curiosity, to see how she behaved. She did nothing but weep and faint by turns. Dr. Quesnay saw the King five or six times a day. " There is nothing to fear," said he; "if it were any other person he might go to a ball." I told Madame that the Keeper of the Seals had had an interview with the King, from which he had returned to his own residence, followed by a crowd of people. " And that is a friend!" said she, bursting into tears. The Abbe* Bernis said this was not a time to form a precipitate judgment of him. Half an hour afterwards I returned into the drawing-room. The Keeper of the Seals came in. " How is Madame de Pompadourf " said he, with a cold and severe air. " As you may easily imagine," I re- plied; and he entered her apartment, where he remained half an hour alone with her. At length she rang; I went in, followed by the Abb6 Bernis. " I must go, my dear Abbe," said she. She gave orders for all her domestics to be ready to set out. To several ladies, who came to condole with her, she compared the conduct of M. de Machault, the Keeper of the Seals, with that of the Due de Richelieu at Metz. " He believes, or pretends to believe," said she, " that the priests will LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 63 and some of his domestics, were taken up, because Mademoi- selle de la Serre, who was that very day come from her convent to pass the holiday of the King's birthday with her family, said, in her father's drawing-room, on hearing this news from Versailles, " That is not to be wondered at ; I have often heard Mother N" say that it would certainly happen, because the King is not sufficiently attached to religion." Mother N , the director, and several of the nuns of this convent, were interrogated by the lieutenant of police. The public animosity against the Jesuits, kept up by the partisans require me to be sent away -with disgrace; but Quesnay and all the physicians say there is not the slightest danger." Madame de Mirepoix came in, crying out, " What are all these trunks for, Madame ? Your servants say you are leaving us." — " Alas ! my dear friend, such is the will of the master; at least so says M. de Machault." — " And what is his advice? " " To set out immediately." — " He wishes to be master himself," said Madame de Mirepoix, " and he is betraying you. Whoever leaves the game, loses it." M. de Maurigy afterwards told me that an appearance of an in- tended departure would be kept up to avoid irritating the enemies of Madame; that the little Marechale (Madame de Mirepoix) had de- cided the matter; and that the Keeper of the Seals would be the sufferer. Quesnay came in, and, with his usual grimaces, related a fable of a fox, who, being at dinner with other animals, persuaded one of them that his enemies were seeking him, and having induced him to withdraw, devoured his share in his absence. I did not see Madame until much later, when she was going to bed. She was more calm; affairs were improving. Machault, that faithless friend, was dismissed. The King came as usual to Madame. A few days afterwards Madame paid a visit to M. d'Argenson. She returned much out of temper, and the King shortly afterwards arrived. I heard Madame sobbing. The Abb6 Bernis came to me, and desired me to carry her some Hoffman's drops. The King himself prepared the potion with some sugar, and presented it to her with the most gracious air. She smiled and kissed his hands. I withdrew, and the next day heard of the exile of M. d'Argenson. He was much to blame, and this was the greatest stretch of Madame's influence. The King was very much attached to M. d'Argenson, and the war by sea and land rendered it very impolitic to discard these two ministers. — Journal of Madame de Hausset. 64 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. of Port Eoyal and the adepts in the new philosophy, did not conceal the suspicions which they directed against the Jesuits ; and although there was not the slightest proof against that Order, the attempt to assassinate the King was certainly made use of against it, a few years afterwards, by the party which effected the destruction of the Company of Jesus. The wretch Damiens avenged himself on various persons whom he had served in several provinces, by getting them arrested; and when they were confronted with him, he said to some of them : " It was out of revenge for your ill-treatment of me that I put you into this fright." To some women he said, that he had amused himself in his prison with the thoughts of the terror they would feel. This monster confessed that he had murdered the virtuous La Bourdonnaye, by giving him a lavement of aquafortis. He had also committed several other crimes. People are too careless about those whom they take into their service; such examples prove that too many precau- tions cannot be used in ascertaining the character of strangers before we admit them into our houses. I have often heard M. de Landsmath, equerry and master of the hounds, who used to come frequently to my father's, say, that on the news of the attempt on the King's life he instantly repaired to his Majesty. I cannot repeat the coarse expressions he made use of to encourage his Majesty; but his account of the affair, long afterwards, amused the parties in which he was prevailed on to relate it, when all apprehensions respecting the consequences of the event had subsided. This M. de Landsmath was an old soldier, who had given proofs of extraordinary valour; nothing had been able to soften his manners or subdue his excessive bluntness to the respectful customs of the Court. The King was very fond of him. He possessed prodigious strength, and had often contended with Marshal Saxe, renowned for his great bodily power, in trying La Tour LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 65 the strength of their respective wrists.2 M. de Landsmath had a thundering voice. When he came into the King's apart- ment he found the Dauphin and Mesdames, his Majesty's daughters, there; the princesses, in tears, surrounded the King's bed. " Send out all these weeping ladies, Sire," said the old equerry ; " I want to speak to you alone." The King made a sign to the princesses to withdraw. "Come," said Landsmath, " your wound is nothing ; you had plenty of waist- coats and flannels on." Then uncovering his breast, "Look here," said he, showing four or five great scars, "these are something like wounds ; I received them thirty years ago ; now cough as loud as you can." The King did so. " 'Tis nothing at all," said Landsmath; "you must laugh at it; we shall hunt a stag together in four days." " But suppose the blade was poisoned," said the King. " Old grandams' tales," replied Landsmath; "if it had been so, the waistcoats and flannels would have rubbed the poison off." The King was pacified, and passed a very good night. This same M. de Landsmath, who by his peremptory and familiar language thus calmed the fears of Louis XV. on the day of Damiens' horrible crime, was one of those people who, in the most haughty courts, often tell the truth bluntly. It is remarkable that there is a person of this description to be found in almost every court, who seems to supply the place of the ancient king's jester, and to claim the right of saying whatever he pleases. His Majesty one day asked M. de Landsmath how old he was? He was aged, and by no means fond of thinking 2 One day when the King was hunting in the forest of St. Germain, Landsmath, riding before him, wanted a cart, filled with the slime of a pond, that had just been cleansed, to draw up out of the way. The carter resisted, and even answered with impertinence. Lands- math, without dismounting, seized him by the breast of his coat, lifted him up, and threw him into his cart. — Madame Campan. VOL. 1—5 66 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. of his age; he evaded the question. A fortnight after Louis XV. took a paper out of his pocket and read aloud : " On such a day in the month of one thousand six hundred and eighty , was baptised by me, Eector of , the son of the high and mighty lord/' etc. "What's that?" said Landsmath angrily; "has your Majesty been procuring the certificate of my baptism ? " " There it is, you see, Lands- math," said the King. "Well, Sire, hide it as fast as you can; a prince entrusted with the happiness of twenty-five millions of people ought not wilfully to hurt the feelings of a single individual." The King learned that Landsmath had lost his confessor, a missionary priest of the parish of Notre Dame. It was the custom of the Lazarists to expose their dead with the face uncovered. Louis XV. wished to try his equerry's firm- ness. "You have lost your confessor, I hear," said the King. — "Yes, Sire." — "He will be exposed with his face bare ? " — " Such is the custom." — "I command you to go and see him." — "Sire, my confessor was my friend; it would be very painful to me." — "No matter; I command you." — " Are you really in earnest, Sire ? " — " Quite so." — "It would be the first time in my life that I had disobeyed my sovereign's order. I will go." The next day the King at his levee, as soon as he perceived Landsmath, said, " Have you done as I desired you, Landsmath ? " — "Undoubtedly, Sire." — " Well, what did you see?" — " Faith, I saw that your Majesty and I are no great shakes!"8 3 " The King often talked about death, burials, and cemeteries," says Madame de Hausset: "nobody could be more melancholy by nature. Madame de Pompadour has often told me that he felt a painful sensation whenever he was forced to laugh, and that he often requested her to put an end to a diverting story. He smiled, and that was all. He had, in general, the most gloomy ideas on LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 67 At the death of Queen Maria Leczinska, M. Campan, who was afterwards secretary of the closet to Marie Antoinette, and at that time an officer of the chamber, having performed several confidential duties at the time of that Queen's decease, the King asked Madame Adelaide how he should reward him. She requested him to create an office in his household of master of the wardrobe, with a salary of a thousand crowns for M. Campan. "I will do so/' said the King; "it will be an honourable title; but tell Campan not to add a single crown to his expenses, for you will see they will never pay him." The manner in which Mademoiselle de Eomans, mistress to Louis XV. and mother of the Abbe de Bourbon, was presented to him, deserves, I think, to be related. The King had gone, with a grand cavalcade, to Paris to hold a bed of justice. As he passed the terrace of the Tuileries he observed a chevalier de St. Louis, dressed in a faded lutestring coat, and a woman of a pretty good figure, holding on the parapet of the terrace a young girl strikingly beautiful, much adorned, and dressed in a rose-coloured taffety frock. The King's notice was involuntarily attracted by the marked manner in which he was pointed out to the girl. On returning to Versailles, he called Le Bel, the minister and confidant of his secret pleasures, and ordered him to seek in Paris a young female about twelve or thirteen years of age, describing her as I have just mentioned. Le Bel assured him he saw all events. When a new ministt* came into office, the King would say, ' He spread out his goods, like the rest, and promised the finest things in the world, none of which will ever happen. He does not know how the land lies: he will see.' When schemes for increasing the naval force were proposed to him, he used to say, ' I have heard it talked of continually for the last twenty years; France will never have a navy, I believe.' I had this from M. de Maurigy." 68 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. no probability of the success of such a commission. " Pardon me," said Louis XV., " this family must live in the neighbour- hood of the Tuileries, on the side of the Faubourg St. Honore, or at the entrance of the Faubourg St. Germain. These people certainly go on foot; they would not make the girl, of whom they seem so fond, cross all Paris. They are poor ; the clothes of the child were so new that I have no doubt they were made for the very day I was to enter Paris. She will wear that dress all the summer; they will walk in the Tuileries on Sundays and holidays. Apply to the man who sells lemonade at the terrace of the Feuillans — children take refreshment there ; you will discover her by these means." Le Bel fulfilled his master's orders; and within a month discovered the dwelling of the girl; he found that Louis XV. was not in the least mistaken with respect to the intentions which he supposed to exist. All conditions were easily agreed on; the King contributed, by considerable presents, to the education of Mademoiselle de Eomans for the space of two years. She was kept totally ignorant of her future destiny; and when she had completed her fifteenth year she was taken to Versailles, on pretence of going to see the palace. Between four and five in the afternoon she was conducted into the mirror gallery. All the grand apartments were usually very solitary at that hour. Le Bel, who waited for them, opened the glass door which led from the gallery into the King's closet, and invited Mademoiselle de Eomans to go in and examine its beauties. Encouraged by the sight of a man whom she knew, and excited by the curiosity so excusable at her age, she eagerly accepted the offer, but insisted on Le Bel's procuring the same pleasure for her parents. He assured her that it was impossible; that they were going to sit down in one of the windows of the gallery and wait for her, and that, when she had seen the inner apartments, he would bring her LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 69 back to them. She consented; the glass door closed on her. Le Bel showed her the chamber, the council room, and talked with enthusiasm of the monarch who possessed the splendour with which she was surrounded; and at length conducted her to the private apartments, where Mademoiselle de Eomans found the King himself, awaiting her arrival with all the im- patience and all the desires of a prince who had been two years engaged in bringing about the moment of this inter- view.* What painful reflections are excited by all this immorality ! The art with which this intrigue had been carried on, and the * Among the young ladies of very tender age with whom the King amused himself during the influence of Madame de Pompa- dour, or afterwards, there was also a Mademoiselle de Tiercelin, whom his Majesty ordered to take the name of Bonneval the very day she was presented to him. The King was the first who per- ceived this child, when not above nine years old, in the care of a nurse, in the garden of the Tuileries, one day when he went in state to his "good city of Paris;" and having, in the evening, spoken of her beauty to Le Bel, the servant applied to M. de Sartine, who traced her out, and bought her of the nurse for a few louis. She was daughter of M. de Tiercelin, a man of quality, who could not patiently endure an affront of this nature. He was, however, com- pelled to be silent; he was told his child was lost; and that it would be best for him to submit to the sacrifice, unless he wished to lose his liberty also. Mademoiselle de Tiercelin, now become Madame de Bonneval, was introduced under that name into the private apartments at Versailles, by the King's desire. She was naturally very wild, and did not like his Majesty. " You are an ugly man," said she, throw- ing the jewels and diamonds which the King had given her out of the window. The Due de Choiseul had the weakness to be jealous of this child and her father, who were equally harmless. He was told that the King of Prussia, being tired of Madame de Pompa- dour, was secretly labouring to get Mademoiselle de Tiercelin de- clared the King's mistress; the King certainly doated on her. The minister was assured that M. de Tiercelin was engaged in most extensive operations for effecting the object of this foreign intrigue. The father and daughter were in consequence separately confined in the Bastile. — Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XV., by Soulavie. 70 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. genuine innocence of the youthful de Romans, were doubtless the motives of the King's particular attachment to this mis- tress. She was the only one who prevailed on him to allow her son to bear the name of Bourbon. At the moment of his birth she received a note in the King's handwriting, containing the following words: "The Eector of Chaillot, when he baptizes the child of Mademoiselle de Komans, will give him the following names: Louis N. de Bourbon." A few years afterwards the King, being dissatisfied at the consequence which Mademoiselle de Eomans assumed on account of her good fortune in having given birth to an acknowledged son, and seeing, by the splendid way in which she was bringing him up, that she entertained the idea of causing him to be legitima- tised, had him taken out of his mother's hands. This com- mission was executed with great severity. Louis XV. had vowed never to legitimatise a natural child; the great number of princes of this description which Louis XIV. had left was burdensome to the State, and made this determination of Louis XV. truly laudable. The Abbe de Bourbon was very handsome, and exactly resembled his father; he was much beloved by the princesses, the King's daughters; and his ecclesiastical prospects would have been advanced by Louis XV. to the highest degree. A cardinal's hat was intended for him, as well as the abbey of St. Germain des Pres, and the Bishopric of Bayeux. Without being considered one of the princes of the blood, he would have enjoyed a most happy lot. He died at Rome, of confluent smallpox, generally re- gretted; but the misfortunes with which his family have since been afflicted make us regard his death as a merciful dispen- sation of Providence. Mademoiselle de Romans married a gentleman named Cavanac ; the King was displeased at it, and she was universally blamed for having in some degree aban- LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 71 doned by this alliance the plain title of mother of the Abbe de Bourbon.8 The monotonous habits of royal greatness too frequently in- spire princes with the desire of procuring for themselves the enjoyments of private individuals ; and then they vainly flatter themselves with the hope of remaining concealed in mys- 5 The following, written with extraordinary impartiality by M. de Lacretelle, leaves no possible doubt as to the origin and extent of these scandalous practices: — " Louis, satiated with the conquests which the Court offered him, was led by a depraved imagination to form an establishment for his pleasures, of such an infamous description that, after having depicted the debaucheries of the regency, it is difficult to find terms appropriate to an excess of this kind. Several elegant houses, built in an enclosure called the Parc-aux-cerfs, were used for the recep- tion of women, who there awaited the pleasure of their master. Hither were brought young girls, sold by their parents, and some- times forced from them. They left this place loaded with gifts, but almost certain of never more beholding the King who had dis- honoured them, even when they bore with them a pledge of his base passion. Hence corruption found its way into the most peaceful and obscure habitations. It was skilfully and patiently fostered by those who ministered to the debaucheries of Louis. Whole years were occupied in the seduction of girls not yet of marriageable age, and in undermining the principles of modesty and fidelity in young women. Some of these victims were so unhappy as to feel a true affection and sincere attachment to the King. For a few minutes he would seem moved by their fidelity; but he quickly repressed such feelings, and persuaded himself that it was all artifice, in- tended to govern him; and he himself became the informer against them to the Marchioness, who soon forced her rivals back into their original obscurity. Mademoiselle de Romans was the only one who procured her son to be acknowledged as the King's child. Madame de Pompadour succeeded in removing a rival who seemed to have made so profound an impression on the King's heart. Mademoiselle de Romans had her son taken from her; he was brought up by a peasant, and his mother durst not protest against this outrage, until after the King's death. Louis XVI. restored her her son, and took him under his protection; he was afterwards known under the name of the Abbe" de Bourbon." — History of France, by Lacretelle, vol. iii. 72 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. terious obscurity. They ought to be warned of these errors, and accustomed to support the tediousness of greatness, as well as to enjoy its extensive advantages, which they well know how to do. Louis XV., by his noble carriage, and the mild yet majestic expression of his features, was perfectly worthy to succeed to Louis the Great. But he too frequently indulged in secret pleasures, which at last were sure to become known. During several winters, he was passionately fond of candles' end ballSj as he called those parties amongst the very lowest classes of society. He got intelligence of the picnics given by the tradesmen, milliners, and seamstresses of Versailles, whither he repaired in a black domino, and masked, accompanied by the Captain of his Guards, masked like him- self. His great delight was to go en brouette.* Care was always taken to give notice to five or six officers of the King's or Queen's chamber to be there, in order that his Majesty might be surrounded by safe people, without perceiving it or finding it troublesome. Probably the Captain of the Guards also took other precautions of this description on his part. My father-in-law, when the King and he were both young, has often made one amongst the servants desired to attend masked at these parties, assembled in some garret, or parlour of a public-house. In those times, during the carnival, masked companies had a right to join the citizens' balls; it was sufficient that one of the party should unmask and name himself. These secret excursions and his too habitual intercourse with ladies more distinguished for their personal charms than for the advantages of education, were no doubt the means by which the King acquired many vulgar expressions which otherwise would never have reached his ears. * In a kind of sedan chair, running on two wheels, and drawn by a chairman. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 73 Yet amidst the most shameful excesses the King sometimes resumed suddenly the dignity of his rank in a very noble manner. The familiar courtiers of Louis XV. had one day abandoned themselves to the unrestrained gaiety of a supper, after returning from the chase. Each boasted of and de- scribed the beauty of his mistress. Some of them amused themselves with giving a particular account of their wives' personal defects. An imprudent word, addressed to Louis XV., and applicable only to the Queen, instantly dispelled all the mirth of the entertainment. The King assumed his regal air, and knocking with his knife on the table twice or thrice : " Gentlemen/' said he, " here is the King ! " Three young men of the college of St. Germain, who had just completed their course of studies, knowing no person about the Court, and having heard that strangers were always well treated there, resolved to dress themselves completely in the Armenian costume, and, thus clad, to present them- selves to see the grand ceremony of the reception of several knights of the Order of the Holy Ghost. Their stratagem met with all the success with which they had nattered them- selves. While the procession was passing through the long mirror gallery, the Swiss of the apartments placed them in the first row of spectators, recommending every one to pay all possible attention to the strangers. The latter, however, were imprudent enough to enter the (Eil-de-Bceuf Chamber, where were Messieurs Cardonne and Euffin, interpreters of Oriental languages, and the first clerk of the consuls' department, whose business it was to attend to everything which related to the natives of the East who were in France. The three scholars were immediately surrounded and questioned by these gentlemen, at first in modern Greek. Without being discon- certed, they made signs that they did not understand it. They were then addressed in Turkish and Arabic; at length 74 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. one of the interpreters, losing all patience, exclaimed, " Gen- tlemen, you certainly must understand some of the languages in which you have been addressed. What country can you possibly come from then ? " " From St. Germain-en-Laye, sir," replied the boldest among them; "this is the first time you have put the question to us in French." They then confessed the motive of their disguise; the eldest of them was not more than eighteen years of age. Louis XV. was informed of the affair. He laughed heartily, ordered them a few hours' con- finement and a good admonition, after which they were to be set at liberty. Louis XV. liked to talk about death, though he was ex- tremely apprehensive of it; but his excellent health and his royal dignity probably made him imagine himself invulner- able. He often said to people who had very bad colds, " You've a churchyard cough there." Hunting one day in the forest of Senard, in a year in which bread was extremely dear, he met a man on horseback carrying a coffin. " Whither are you carrying that coffin?" — "To the village of ," answered the peasant. — " Is it for a man or a woman ? " — "For a man."— "What did he die of?"— "Of hunger," bluntly replied the villager. The King spurred on his horse, and asked no more questions. When I was young I often met with Madame de Marchais, the wife of the King's first valet de chambre, in company. She was a very well-informed woman, and had enjoyed the favour of Louis XV., being a relation of Madame de Pompa- dour. M. de Marchais was rich and much respected; he had served in the army, was a chevalier de St. Louis, and, besides being principal valet de chambref was Governor of the Louvre. Madame de Marchais was visited by the whole Court; the captains of the guards came there constantly, and many officers of the Body-guard. Eminent officers of every LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 75 £ind used to get introduced to her, as to Madame Geoff rin; she possessed some influence, particularly in soliciting votes for candidates for the academicians' chairs. I have seen all the celebrated men of the age at her house : La Harpe, Diderot, d!Alembert, Duclos, Thomas, etc. She was as remarkable for her wit and studious display as her husband for his good- nature and simplicity; he was fond of spoiling her most inno- cent schemes for obtaining admiration. No one could de- scribe an academical speech, a sermon, or the subject of a new piece with so much precision and grace as Madame de Mar- chais. She had also the art of turning the conversation at pleasure upon any ancient or modern work; and her husband often delighted in saying to those who sat near him, "My wife read that this morning." Count Angiviller, charmed with the graces of her mind, paid assiduous court to her, and when she became the widow of M. de Marchais, married her. She was still living at Versailles in the early part of the reign of Napoleon, but never left her bed. She had retained her fondness for dress, and although unable to rise, always had her hair dressed as people used to wear it twenty years before that period. She disguised the ravages of time under a prodigious quantity of white and red paint, and seemed, by the feeble light which penetrated through her closed blinds and drawn curtains, nothing but a kind of doll, but a doll which spoke in a charming and most spirited manner. She had retained a very beautiful head of hair to an advanced age ; it was said that the celebrated Count St. Germain, who had appeared at the Court of Louis XV. as one of the most famous alchemists of the day, had given her a liquor which preserved the hair, and prevented it from turning white through age. Louis XV. had, as is well known, adopted the whimsical system of separating Louis de Bourbon from the King of France. As a private individual he had his personal fortune, 76 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. his own distinct financial interests. He used to deal as an individual in all the contracts and bargains he engaged in. He had bought a tolerably handsome house at the Parc-aux- cerfs at Versailles, where he used to keep one of those ob- scure mistresses whom the indulgence or the policy of Madame de Pompadour tolerated, so long as she herself retained the title of his declared mistress.7 After the King had relin- 7 Madame one day called me into her cabinet, where the King was walking up and down with a very serious air. " You must," said she, " go and pass a few days in the Avenue of St. Cloud, at a house which will be pointed out to you, where you will find a young lady ready to lie in. Like one of the goddesses of the poets, you will preside at the birth. The object of your mission is that everything may take place according to the King's wishes, and se- cretly. You will be present at the christening, and give the names of the father and mother." The King began to laugh, and said, " The father is a very worthy man." Madame added, " Beloved by all the world, and adored by all who are acquainted with him." Ma- dame went to a drawer, and took out a little casket, which she opened, and produced a diamond aigrette, saying to the King, " I had reasons for not getting a finer one." " It is too handsome as it is," said the King, embracing Madame; "how kind you are! " She shed tears of emotion, and placing her hand on the King's heart, said, " It is there that my wishes are centred." Tears now came into the King's eyes also, nor could I refrain from crying, though I scarcely knew why. The King then said to me : " Guimard will see you every day to advise and assist you, and at the critical moment you will send for him. But we have said nothing about the godfather and godmother. You are to announce them, as if they were coming, and an instant afterwards you will pretend to receive a letter in- forming you that they cannot come. You will then pretend not to know what to do, and Guimard will say, ' The best way is to have anybody you can get.' You will then take the servant of the house, and some pauper or chairman, and give them only twelve francs to avoid attracting notice." " A louis," interrupted Madame, " that you may not make mischief in another way." When the King was gone Madame said to me, "Well, what do you think of my part in this affair?" "It is that of a superior woman and an excellent friend," said I. "It is his heart that I wish to possess," answered she ; " and none of these little uneducated girls will deprive me of that. I should not be so tranquil if some LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 77 quished this custom, he wished to sell the house. Sevin, first clerk of the War Office, offered to purchase it; the notary instructed to effect the sale informed the King of his pro- posals. The contract for the sale was made out between Louis de Bourbon and Pierre Sevin; and the King sent word to the purchaser to bring him the money himself in gold. The first clerk collected 40,000 francs in louis d'or, and being introduced beautiful woman of the Court were to attempt the conquest." I asked Madame whether the young lady knew that the father of the child was the King. "I do not think so," said she; "but as he seemed to love this one it is thought that there has been too much readiness to let her know it. Were it not for that it was to have been insinuated to the world that the father was a Polish nobleman related to the Queen, and that he had apartments in the chateau." After receiving some additional instructions I went to the Avenue of St. Cloud, where I found the abbess and Guimard, a servant be- longing to the chateau, with a nurse and assistant, two old domestics, and a girl, half housemaid, half femme de chambre. The young lady was extremely pretty and elegantly dressed, but had nothing very striking in her appearance. I supped with her and the gouvernante, called Madame Bertrand. I gave the lady the aigrette, which de- lighted her wonderfully. The next day I had a private conversation with her, when she asked me, " How is the Count [meaning the King] ? He will be very sorry that he cannot be with me; but he has been obliged to take a long journey." I assented. " He is a very hand- some man," continued she, " and loves me with all his heart ; he has promised me an annuity, but I love him disinterestedly, and if he would take me I would go to Poland with him." She afterwards talked of her parents. "My mother," said she, "kept a great drug- gist's shop, and my father belonged to the six companies, and every- one knows there is nothing better than that; he was twice very near being sheriff." Six days afterwards she was delivered of a boy, but was told, according to my instructions, that it was a girl; and soon afterwards that it was dead, in order that no trace of its existence might remain for a certain period, after which it was to be restored to its mother. The King gave ten or twelve thousand francs a year to each of his natural children, and they inherited from one another. Seven or eight had already died. When I returned Madame asked me many questions. " The King," said she, " is disgusted with his princess, and I fancy he will set out for Poland in two days." " And what will 78 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. by the notary of the King's private cabinet, delivered the pur- chase money of the house into his Majesty's own hands.8 Out of his private funds the King paid the household ex- penses of his mistresses, those of the education of his ille- gitimate daughters, who were brought up in convents at Paris, and their dowries when they married. Those men who are most completely abandoned to dissolute manners are not, on that account, insensible to virtue in women. The Comtesse de Perigord was as beautiful as virtuous. During some excursions she made to Choisy, whither she had been invited, she perceived that the King took great notice of her. Her demeanour of chilling respect, her cautious perseverance in shunning all serious conversation with the monarch, were insufficient to extinguish this rising flame, and he at length addressed a letter to her, worded in the most passionate terms. This excellent woman instantly formed her resolution; honour forbade her returning the King's passion, whilst her profound respect for the sovereign made her unwilling to disturb his tranquillity. She therefore voluntarily banished herself to an estate she possessed, called Chalais, near Barbezieux, the mansion of which had been un- inhabited nearly a century: the porter's lodge was the only place in a condition to receive her. From this seat she wrote to his Majesty, explaining her motives for leaving Court; and she remained there several years without visiting Paris. Louis become of the young lady ? " said I. " She will be married to some country gentleman," said she, " and she will have a fortune of forty thousand crowns or so and a few diamonds." This little adven- ture, which thus placed me in the King's confidence, far from pro- curing me marks of his kindness, seemed to make him behave more coolly towards me, for he was ashamed that I should be acquainted with his low amours. He was also embarrassed about the services which Madame rendered him. — Journal of Madame de Hausset. * A different account of this transaction will, however, be found in a footnote a few pages further on. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 79 XV. was speedily attracted by other objects, and regained the composure to which Madame de Perigord had thought it her duty to sacrifice so much. Some years after, Mesdames' lady of honour died. Many great families solicited the place. The King, without answering any of their applications, wrote to the Comtesse de Perigord : " My daughters have just lost their lady of honour; this place, Madame, is your due, no less on account of your personal qualities, than of the illustrious name of your family/' Comte de Halville, sprung from a very ancient Swiss house, commenced his career at Versailles in the humble rank of en- sign in the regiment of Swiss guards. His name and distin- guished ability gained him the patronage of some powerful friends, who, in order to support the honour of the ancient name he bore, by a handsome fortune, obtained for him in marriage the daughter of a very rich financier, named M. de la Garde. The offspring of this union was an only daughter, who married Count Esterhazy. Amongst the estates which belonged to Mademoiselle de la Garde was the Chateau des Trous, situate four leagues from Versailles, where the Count was visited by many people attached to the Court. A young ensign of the Body-guards, who had obtained that rank on account of his name, and of the favour which his family en- joyed, and possessed all the confidence which usually accom- panies unmerited success, but of which the progress of time fortunately relieves young people, was one day taking upon him to give his opinion of the Swiss nobility, although he knew nothing of the great families of Switzerland. Without the least delicacy or consideration for the Count, his host, he asserted boldly that there were no ancient families in Switzer- land. "Excuse me," said the Count very coolly, "there are several of great antiquity." " Can you name them, sir ? " answered the youth. "Yes," said M. de Halville; "for in- 80 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. stance, there is my house, and that of Hapsburg, which now reigns in Germany." " Of course you have your reasons for naming your own family first ? " replied the impudent ensign. " Yes, sir," said M. de Halville sternly ; " because the house of Hapsburg dates from the period when its founder was page to my ancestors. Bead history, study the antiquities of na- tions and families ; and in future be more circumspect in your assertions." Weak as Louis XV. was, the parliaments would never have obtained his consent to the convocation of the States-General. I heard an anecdote on this subject from two officers attached to that prince's household. It was at the period when the remonstrances of the parliaments, and the refusals to register the decrees for levying taxes, produced alarm with respect to the state of the finances. This became the subject of conversa- tion one evening at the coucher of Louis XV. " You will see, Sire," said a courtier, whose office placed him in close com- munication with the King, "that all this will make it abso- lutely necessary to assemble the States-General." The King, roused by this speech from the habitual apathy of his char- acter, seized the courtier by the arm, and said to him, in a passion, "Never repeat these words. I am not sanguinary; but had I a brother, and he were to dare to give me such advice, I would sacrifice him, within twenty-four hours, to the dura- tion of the monarchy, and the tranquillity of the kingdom." Several years prior to his death, the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., had confluent smallpox, which endangered his life; and after his convalescence, he was long troubled with a malignant ulcer under the nose. He was injudiciously ad- vised to get rid of it by the use of extract of lead, which proved effectual; but from that time the Dauphin, who was corpulent, insensibly grew thin ; and a short dry cough evinced that the humour, driven in, had fallen on the lungs. Some per- Letter of Louis XV to the Comte d'fivreux. MY DEAR COUSIN — I should be delighted to please you, but present circumstances do not allow me to grant you at this moment the favour that you ask of me for your great-nephew. Moreover, Monsieur, your nephew is not on the verge of ruin, and I hope that the Prince de Turenne will, by showing himself worthy to add honour to the name that he bears, deserve the favour you ask, and I will grant it to him then with great pleasure, for I have no wish that this office should go out of your family. I send you the original letter of the late Cardinal Fleury, and I pray God to keep you, my dear cousin, in his holy and gracious care. At Versailles, 23 Apr. 1746. Louis. a 3 1s l } * 4 K s^ s !l ? \ I {* 1 "£1 \ \ 4 v ^ LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 81 sons also suspected him of having taken acids in too great a quantity for the purpose of reducing his bulk. The state of his health was not, however, such as to excite alarm. At the camp at Compiegne, in July 1764, the Dauphin reviewed the troops, and evinced much activity in the performance of his duties; it was even observed that he was seeking to gain the attach- ment of the army. He presented the Dauphiness to the sol- diers, saying, with a simplicity which at that time made a great sensation, " Mes enfans, here is my wife." Eeturning late on horseback to Compiegne, he found he had taken a chill ; the heat of the day had been excessive ; the prince's clothes had been wet with perspiration. An illness followed, in which the prince began to spit blood. His principal physician wished to have him bled ; the consulting physicians insisted on purga- tion, and their advice was followed. The pleurisy being ill cured, assumed and retained all the symptoms of consump- tion ; the Dauphin languished from that period until December 1765, and died at Fontainebleau, where the Court, on account of his condition, had prolonged its stay, which usually ended on the 2d of November. The Dauphiness, his widow, was excessively afflicted; but the immoderate despair which characterised her grief induced many to suspect that the loss of the crown was an important part of the calamity she lamented. She long refused to eat enough to support life; she encouraged her tears to flow by placing portraits of the Dauphin in every retired part of her apartments. She had him represented pale, and ready to ex- pire, in a picture placed at tEe foot of her bed, under draperies of gray cloth, with which the chambers of the princesses were always hung in court mournings. Their grand cabinet was hung with black cloth, with an alcove, a canopy, and a throne, on which they received compliments of condolence after the first period of the deep mourning. The Dauphiness, some months VOL. 1—6 82 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. before the end of her career, regretted her conduct in abridg- ing it; but it was too late; the fatal blow had been struck. It may also be presumed that living with a consumptive man had contributed to her complaint. This princess had no oppor- tunity of displaying her qualities; living in a court, in which she was eclipsed by the King and Queen, the only character- istics that could be remarked in her were her extreme attach- ment to her husband, and her great piety. The Dauphin was little known, and his character has been much mistaken. He himself, as he confessed to his intimate friends, sought to disguise it. He one day asked one of his most familiar servants, "What do they say in Paris of that great fool of a Dauphin?" The person interrogated seeming confused, the Dauphin urged him to express himself sincerely, saying, " Speak freely ; that is positively the idea which I wish people to form of me.7' As he died of a disease which allows the last moment to be anticipated long beforehand, he wrote much, and transmitted his affections and his prejudices to his son by secret notes.8 This was really what prevented the Queen from recalling M. de Choiseul at the death of Louis XV., and what promoted M. • The Dauphin had for several years superintended the education of his three children, the Due de Berri, afterwards Louis XVI., the Comte de Provence, and the Comte d'Artois. The deportment of the Due de Berri was austere, serious, reserved, and often rough ; he had no taste for play, exhibitions, or amusements ; he was a youth of inviolable veracity, constantly employing him- self in copying, and afterwards composing geographical maps, and in filing iron. His father had shown a predilection for him, which excited the jealousy of his brothers. Madame Adelaide, who ten- derly loved him, used to say, in order to encourage him and overcome his timidity, " Speak out freely, Berri; shout, scold, make an uproar, like your brother d'Artois; knock aotvn my china and break it; make some noise in the world." The young Due de Berri only became the more silent, and could not lay aside his natural character. — Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by Soulavie, vol. ii. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 83 du Muy, the intimate friend of the Dauphin, to the place of minister of war. The destruction of the Jesuits, effected by M. de Choiseul, had given the Dauphin's hatred of him that character of party spirit which induced him to transmit it to his son. Had he ascended the throne, he would have sup- ported the Jesuits and priests in general, and kept down the philosophers. Maria Leczinska, the wife of Louis XV., placed her highest merit in abstaining from public affairs, and in the strict observance of her religious duties; never asking anything for herself, and sending all she possessed to the poor. Such a life ought to secure a person against future detraction, but has not preserved the memory of this princess from that venom which Soulavie makes the Due de Choiseul deal around him indiscriminately. Queen Maria Leczinska,10 the wife of Louis XV., often spoke of the humble position in which she stood at the time when the policy of the Court of Versailles caused the mar- riage of the King with the young Infanta to be broken off, and raised a Polish princess, daughter of a dethroned monarch, to the rank of Queen of France. Before this unhoped-for event changed the destiny of this virtuous princess, there had been some idea of marrying her to the Due dEstrees ; and, when the Duchess of that name came to pay her court to her at Versailles, she said to those who surrounded her, " I might have been in that lady's place myself, and curtseying to the Queen of France." She used to relate that the King, her father, in- formed her of her elevation in a manner which might have made too strong an impression on her mind; that he had taken care to avoid disturbing her tranquillity, to leave her in 10 In some Memoirs of the Reign of Maria Leczinska, it is said that she was to have been married to the Due de Bourbon. I know not whether this be certain, but I can affirm that she has often con- versed with Madame Campan, my mother-in-law, on the project of her marriage with the Due d'Estre'es. — Madame Campan. 84: LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. total ignorance of the first negotiations set on foot relative to her marriage; and that when all was definitely arranged, and the ambassador arrived, her father went to her apartment, placed an arm-chair for her, had her set in it, and addressed her thus: "Allow me, Madame, to enjoy a happiness which far outweighs all the misfortunes that I have suffered; I wish to be the first to pay my respects to the Queen of France." Maria Leczinska was not handsome ; but she possessed much intelligence, an expressive countenance, and a simplicity of manners, set off by the gracefulness of the Polish lady. She loved the King, and found his early infidelities very grievous to endure. Nevertheless, the death of Madame de Chateauroux, whom she had known very young, and who had even been honoured by her kindness, made a painful impression on her. This good Queen continued to suffer from the bad effects of an early superstitious education. She was fearful of ghosts. The first night after she heard of this almost sudden death she could not sleep, and made one of her women sit up, who endeavoured to calm her restlessness by telling her stories, which she would in such cases call for, as children do with their nurses. On this night nothing could overcome her wake- fulness; her lady-in-waiting, thinking that she was asleep, was leaving her bedside on tiptoe; the slightest noise on the floor roused the Queen, who cried, " Whither are you going ? Stay ; go on with your story." As it was past two in the morning, this woman, whose name was Boirot, and who was somewhat unceremonious, said, "What can be the matter with your Majesty to-night? Are you feverish? Shall I call up the physician ? " " Oh no, no, my good Boirot, I am not ill ; but that poor Madame de Chateauroux, — if she were to come again ! " " Jesus, Madame," cried the woman, who had lost all patience, " if Madame de Chateauroux should come again, it certainly will not be your Majesty that she will look for." LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 85 The Queen burst into a fit of laughter at this observation ; her agitation subsided, and she soon fell asleep. The nomination of Madame le Normand oTEtioles, Marquise de Pompadour, to the place of lady of the bed-chamber to the Queen, offended the dignity, as well as the sensibility, of this princess. Nevertheless, the respectful homage paid by the Marchioness, the interest which certain great personages, who were candidates for her favour, had in procuring her an indul- gent reception from her Majesty, the respect of Maria Lec- zinska for the King's wishes, all conspired to secure her the Queen's favourable notice. Madame de Pompadour's brother re- ceived Letters of Nobility from his Majesty, and was appointed superintendent of the buildings and gardens. He often pre- sented to her Majesty, through the medium of his sister, the rarest flowers, pine-apples, and early vegetables from the gar- dens of Trianon and Choisy. One day, when the Marchioness came into the Queen's apartments, carrying a large basket of flowers, which she held in her two beautiful arms, without gloves, as a mark of respect, the Queen loudly declared her admiration of her beauty; and seemed as if she wished to defend the King's choice, by praising her various charms in detail, in a manner that would have been as suitable to a pro- duction of the fine arts as to a living being. After applaud- ing the complexion, eyes, and fine arms of the favourite, with that haughty condescension which renders approbation more offensive than flattering, the Queen at length requested her to sing, in the attitude in whi^h she stood, being desirous of hearing the voice and musical talent by which the King's Court had been charmed in the performances of the private apartments, and thus combining the gratification of the ears with that of the eyes. The Marchioness, who still held her enormous basket, was perfectly sensible of something offensive in this request, and tried to excuse herself from singing. The 86 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. Queen at last commanded her; she then exerted her fine voice in the solo of Armida — " At length he is in my power." The change in her Majesty's countenance was so obvious that the ladies present at this scene had the greatest difficulty to keep theirs. The Queen received visitors with much grace and dignity; but it is very common with the great to reiterate the same questions; a sterility of ideas is very excusable on public occa- sions, when there is so little to say. The lady of an ambas- sador, however, made her Majesty feel that she did not choose to give way to her forgetfulness in matters concerning herself. This lady was enceinte, but nevertheless constantly appeared at the Queen's drawing-rooms, who never failed to ask her whether she was in the state alluded to, and, on receiving an answer in the affirmative, always inquired how many months of her time had elapsed. At length the lady, weary of the eter- nal repetition of the same question, and of the total forgetful- ness which betrayed the insincerity of the Queen in pretend- ing to take interest in her affairs, replied to the usual inquiry, " No, Madame." This answer instantly recalled to her Majesty's recollection those which the lady had so often given before. "How, Madame," said she, "it appears to me that you have several times answered me that you were so; have you been brought to bed ? " — " No, Madame ; but I was appre- hensive of fatiguing your Majesty by constantly repeating the same thing." From that time she was very coldly received by Maria Leczinska, and had her Majesty possessed more in- fluence, the ambassador might have suffered for his wife's indiscretion. The Queen was affable and modest; but the more she was thankful in her heart to Heaven for having placed her on the first throne in Europe, the more unwilling she was to be reminded of her elevation. This sentiment in- LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 87 duced her to insist on the observation of all the forms of respect due to royal birth; whereas in other princes the con- sciousness of that birth often induces them to disdain the ceremonies of etiquette, and to prefer habits of ease and sim- plicity. There was a striking contrast in this respect between Maria Leczinska and Marie Antoinette, as has been justly and generally observed. The latter unfortunate Queen, perhaps, carried her disregard of everything belonging to the strict forms of etiquette too far.11 One day, when the Marechale de 11 Marie Antoinette has been so often reproached for having dero- gated from the strictness of old customs, that it is extremely neces- sary to answer this accusation, once for all, by facts. No prince was ever more jealously observant of the laws of etiquette than Louis XIV., in whose latter years the prudery of Madame de Main- tenon rather tended to increase than to weaken this inclination. Let those, therefore, who cannot excuse the slightest infraction of ceremony in Marie Antoinette compare her conduct with that of the Duchess of Burgundy. " This princess," says the Duchesse d'0rl6ans, in her Memoirs, " was often entirely alone in her chateau, unattended by any of her people; she would take the arm of one of the young ladies, and walk out without equerries, lady of honour, or tire-woman. At Marly and Versailles she went on foot without a corset; would go into the church, and sit down by the femmes de chambre. At Madame de Maintenon's no distinction of rank was observed, and the whole com- pany seated themselves indiscriminately; she contrived this purposely, that her own rank might not be remarked. At Marly the Dauphiness walked in the garden all night, with the young people, until three or four in the morning. The King knew nothing of these nocturnal excursions." Whence, then, the blame so unjustly thrown on Marie Antoinette, whilst a profound silence is maintained respecting the imprudence, to say no worse, of the Duchess of Burgundy? It is because the excessive mildness of Louis XVI. encouraged audacity and calumny amongst the courtiers, whilst under Louis XIV., on the contrary, the most prompt chastisement would have been the lot of any daring individual who had ventured to point his malignant slanders at a personage placed near the throne. The Duchesse d'0rl6ans makes this sufficiently evident. " Madame de Maintenon," she adds, "had prohibited the Duchesse du Lude from annoying the ^% JJS (-LIBRARY 88 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. Mouchy was teasing her with questions relative to the extent to which she would allow the ladies the option of taking off or wearing their cloaks, and of pinning up the lappets of their caps, or letting them hang down, the Queen replied to her, in my presence: "Arrange all those matters, madame, just as you please; but do not imagine that a Queen, born Arch- duchess of Austria, can attach that importance to them which might be felt by a Polish princess, who had become Queen of France." The Polish princess, in truth, never forgave the slightest deviation from the respect due to her person, and to all be- longing to her. The Duchesse de , a lady of her bed- chamber, who was of an imperious and irritable temper, often drew upon herself such petty slights as are constantly shown towards haughty and ill-natured people by the servants of princes, when they can justify those affronts by the plea of their duty, or of the customs of the Court. Etiquette, or in- deed I might say a sense of propriety, prohibited all per- sons from laying things belonging to them on the seats of the Queen's chamber. At Versailles, one had to cross this chamber to reach the play-room. The Duchesse de laid her cloak on one of the folding-stools, which stood before the balustrade of the bed. The usher of the chamber, whose duty it was to attend to whatever occurred in this room whilst they were at play, saw this cloak, took it, and carried it into the footmen's antechamber. The Queen had a large favourite cat, which was constantly running about the apartments. This satin cloak, lined with fur, appeared very convenient to the Duchess of Burgundy, that she might not put her in an ill-humour; because, when out of temper, the Dauphiness could not divert the King. She had also threatened with her eternal anger whomsoever should dare to accuse the Dauphiness to his Majesty." — "Note by the Editor. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 89 cat, who took possession of it accordingly. Unfortunately, he left very unpleasant marks of his preference, which re- mained but too evident on the white satin of the pelisse, in spite of all the pains that were taken to efface them before it was given to the Duchess. She perceived them, took the cloak in her hand, and returned in a violent passion to the Queen's chamber, where her Majesty remained surrounded by almost all the Court. " Only see, Madame," said she, " the imper- tinence of your people, who have thrown my pelisse on a bench in the antechamber, where your Majesty's cat has served it in this manner ! " The Queen, displeased at her complaints and familiar expressions, said to her, with the coldest look imag- inable : " Know, madame, that it is you, and not I, who keep people. I have officers of my chamber who have purchased the honour of serving me, and are persons of good breeding and education; they know the dignity which ought to belong to a lady of the bed-chamber ; they are not ignorant that you, who have been chosen from amongst the first ladies of the kingdom, ought to be accompanied by a gentleman, or at least a valet de chambre as his substitute, to receive your cloak; and that had you observed the forms suitable to your rank, you would not have been exposed to the mortification of seeing your things thrown on the benches of the antechamber." Queen Maria Leczinska possessed great talents. Her reli- gious, noble, and resigned conduct, and the refinement and judiciousness of her understanding, sufficiently prove that her august father had promoted with the most tender care the development of all those excellent qualities with which Heaven had endowed her. The virtues and information of the great are always evinced by their conduct; their accomplishments, coming within the scope of flattery, are difficult to be ascertained by any authen- 90 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. tic proofs, and those who have lived near them may be excused for some degree of scepticism with regard to their attainments of this kind. If they draw or paint, there is always an able artist present, who, if he does not absolutely guide the pencil with his own hand, directs it by his advice ; he sets the palette, and mixes the colours, on which the tones depend. If a princess attempt a piece of embroidery in colours, of that de- scription which ranks amongst the productions of the arts, a skilful embroideress is employed to undo and repair whatever has been spoilt, and to cover the neglected tints with new threads. If the princess be a musician, there are no ears that will discover when she is out of tune; at least there is no tongue that will tell her so. This imperfection in the accom- plishments of the great is but a slight misfortune. It is suffi- ciently meritorious in them to engage in such pursuits, even with indifferent success, because this taste and the protection it extends produce abundance of talent on every side. The Queen delighted in the art of painting, and imagined she her- self could draw and paint. She had a drawing-master, who passed all his time in her cabinet. She undertook to paint four large Chinese pictures, with which she wished to orna- ment her private drawing-room, which was richly furnished with rare porcelain and the finest marbles. This painter was entrusted with the landscape and background of the pic- tures; he drew the figures with a pencil, the faces and arms were also left by the Queen to his execution; she reserved to herself nothing but the draperies, and the least important accessories. The Queen every morning filled up the outline marked out for her, with a little red, blue, or green colour, which the master prepared on the palette, and even filled her brush with, constantly repeating, " Higher up, Madame — lower down, Madame — a little to the right — more to the LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 91 left." After an hour's work, the time for hearing mass, or some other family or pious duty, would interrupt her Majesty ; and the painter, putting the shadows into the draperies she had painted, softening off the colour where she had laid too much, etc., finished the small figures. When the work was completed the private drawing-room was decorated with her Majesty's work; and the firm persuasion of this good Queen that she had painted it herself was so entire that she left this cabinet, with all its furniture and paintings, to the Comtesse de Noailles, her lady of honour. She added to the bequest: " The pictures in my cabinet being my own work, I hope the Comtesse de Noailles will preserve them for my sake." Ma- dame de Noailles, afterwards Marechale de Mouchy, had a new additional pavilion constructed in her hotel in the Fau- bourg St. Germain, in order to form a suitable receptacle for the Queen's legacy; and had the following inscription placed over the door, in letters of gold : " The innocent falsehood of a good princess." The Queen had selected as her intimate friends the Due, the Duchesse, and the worthy Cardinal de Luynes. She called them her good folks. She often did the Duchesse the honour to spend the evening and sup with her. The President He- nault was the charm of this pious and virtuous society. This magistrate combined the weighty qualifications of his func- tions in society with the attainments of a man of letters and the polish of a courtier. The* Queen one day surprised the Duchesse writing to the President, who had just published his Chronological Abridgment of the History of France. She took the pen from Madame de Luynes, and wrote at the bot- tom of the letter this postscript : " I think that M. de He- nault, who says a great deal in a few words, cannot be very partial to the language of women, who use a vast number of 92 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. words to say very little." Instead of signing this, she added, " Guess who." The President answered this anonymous epis- tle by these ingenious lines : 12 " This sentence, written by a heav'nly hand, Fills with perplexing doubts my conscious mind; Presumptuous, if I dare to understand; Ungrateful, if I fail the truth to find." One evening the Queen, having entered the cabinet of the Due de Luynes, took down several books successively, to read the titles. A translation of Ovid's Art of Love having fallen into her hands, she replaced it hastily, exclaiming, " Oh, fie ! " " How, Madame," said the President, " is that the way in which your Majesty treats the art of pleasing ? " " No, Mon- sieur Henault," answered the Queen, " I should esteem the art of pleasing; it is the art of seducing that I cast from me." Madame de Civrac, daughter of the Due d'Aumont, lady of honour to Mesdames, belonged to this intimate circle of the Queen's. Her virtues and amiable character procured her equal esteem and affection in that circle and in her family, from which a premature death removed her. The President Henault paid her a respectful homage, or rather delighted in being the medium of that which that distinguished society eagerly rendered to her talents, her virtues, and her sufferings. Some time before the death of Madame de Civrac she was ordered to try the mineral waters. She left Versailles much debilitated, and in very bad health. The wish to amuse her during a journey which removed her to a distance from all that was dear to her, inspired the President with the idea of an entertainment, which was given to her at every place she 12 " Ces mots trace's par une main divine, Ne peuvent me causer que trouble et qu'embarras. C'est trop oser, si mon cceur les devine; C'est etre ingrat, s'il ne les devine pas." LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 93 stopped to rest. Her friends set out before her, in order to be a few posts in advance, and prepare their disguises. When she stopped at Bernis, the interesting traveller found a group of lords dressed in the costume of ancient French knights, accompanied by the best musicians of the King's chapel. They sang to Madame de Civrac some stanzas com- posed by the President, the first of which began thus : 13 " Can nought your cruel flight impede ? Must distant climes your charms adore? Why thus to other conquests speed, And leave our hearts enslav'd before ? " At ISTemours the same persons, dressed as village swains and nymphs, presented her with a rural scene, in which they invited her to enjoy the simple pleasures of the country. Elsewhere they appeared as burgesses and their wives, with the mayor and town-clerk, and these disguises, continually varied and enlivened by the amiable ingenuity of the Presi- dent, followed Madame de Civrac as far as the watering- place to which she was going. I read about this ingenious and affecting entertainment when I was young; I know not whether the manuscript has been preserved by the heirs of the President Henault. The candour and religious sim- plicity of the good Cardinal formed a striking contrast to the gallant and agreeable character of the President, and people would sometimes divert themselves with his simplicity without forgetting the respect due to him. One of these instances, however, produced such happy results as to justify the good Cardinal in a singular misappli- cation of his well-meant piety. Unwilling to forget the homilies which he had composed in his youth, and as jealous ls"Quoi! vous partez sans que rien vous arr§te! Vous allez plaire en de nouveaux climats! Pourquoi voler de conquSte en conquSte? Nos occurs soumis ne suffisent-i Js pas ? " 94 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. of his works as the Archbishop of Grenada, who discharged Gil Bias, the Cardinal used to rise at five in the morning, every Sunday, during the residence of the Court at Fontaine- bleau (which town was in his diocese), and go to officiate at the parish church, where, mounting the pulpit, he repeated one of his homilies, all of which had been composed to exhort people of rank and fashion to return to the primitive sim- plicity suitable to true Christians. A few hundred peasants, sitting in their sabots, surrounded by the baskets in which they had carried vegetables or fruit to market, listened to his eminence without understanding a single word of what he was saying to them. Some people belonging to the Court, hap- pening to go to mass previously to setting out for Paris, heard his eminence exclaiming, with truly pastoral vehemence : " My dear brethren, why do you carry luxury even to the foot of the sanctuary? Wherefore are these velvet cushions, these bags covered with laces and fringe, carried before you into the temple of the Lord? Abandon these sumptuous and magnificent customs, which you ought to regard as a cumbrous appendage to your rank, and to put away from you when you enter the presence of your divine Saviour." The fashion- able hearers of these homilies mentioned them at Court ; every one wished to hear them: ladies of the highest rank would be awakened at break of day to hear the Cardinal say mass; and thus his eminence became speedily surrounded by a congregation to which his homilies were perfectly adapted. Maria Leczinska could never look with cordiality on the Princess of Saxony, who married the Dauphin; but the atten- tion, respect, and cautious behaviour of the Dauphiness at length made her Majesty forget that the princess was the daughter of a King who wore her father's crown. Never- theless, when the great entertain a deep resentment, some marks of it will occasionally be observed by those who con- • LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 95 stantly surround them; and although the Queen now saw in the Princess of Saxony only a wife beloved by her son, and the mother of the prince destined to succeed to the throne ; she never could forget that Augustus wore the crown of Stanislaus. One day an officer of her chamber having under- taken to ask a private audience of her for the Saxon minister, and the Queen being unwilling to grant it, he persisted in his request, and ventured to add that he should not have presumed to ask this favour of the Queen had not the minister been the ambassador of a member of the family. " Say of an enemy of the family," replied the Queen angrily; "and let him come in." The Queen was very partial to the Princesse de Tallard, governess of the children of France. This lady, having at- tained an advanced age, came to take leave of her Majesty, and to acquaint her with the resolution she had taken to quit the world, and to place an interval between her life and dissolution. The Queen expressed much regret, en- deavoured to dissuade her from this scheme, and, much affected at the thoughts of the sacrifice on which the princess had determined, asked her whither she intended to retire. "To the entresols of my hotel, Madame," answered Madame de Tallard. Comte de Tesse, father of the last count of that name, who left no children, was first** equerry to Queen Maria Leczinska. She esteemed his virtues, but often diverted her- self at the expense of his simplicity. One day, when the con- versation turned on the noble military action by which the French nobility was distinguished, the Queen said to the Count: "And your family, M. de Tesse, has been famous, too, in the field." " Ah ! Madame, we have all been killed in our masters' service ! " " How rejoiced I am," replied the Queen, "that you have revived to tell me of it." The 96 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. son of this worthy M. de Tesse was married to the amiable and highly-gifted daughter of the Due d'Ayen, afterwards Marechale de Noailles. He was excessively fond of his daugh- ter-in-law, and never could speak of her without emotion. The Queen, to please him, often talked to him about the young countess, and one day asked him which of her good qualities seemed to him most conspicuous. " Her gentleness, Madame, her gentleness," said he, with tears in his eyes ; " she is so mild, so soft — as soft as a good carriage." "Well," said her Majesty, "that's an excellent comparison for a first equerry." In 1730 Queen Maria Leczinska going to mass met old Marshal Villars, leaning on a wooden crutch, not worth fifteen pence. She rallied him about it, and the Marshal told her that he had used it ever since he had received a wound which obliged him to add this article to the equipments of the army. Her Majesty, smiling, said she thought this crutch so un- worthy of him that she hoped to induce him to give it up. On returning home she despatched M. Campan to Paris with orders to purchase at the celebrated Germain's the hand- somest cane, with a gold enamelled crutch, that he could find, and carry it without delay to Marshal Villars' hotel, and present it to him from her. He was announced accordingly, and fulfilled his commission. The Marshal, in attending him to the door, requested him to express his gratitude to the Queen, and said, that he had nothing fit to offer to an officer who had the honour to belong to her Majesty; but he begged him to accept of his old stick, and that his grand- children would probably some day be glad to possess the cane with which he had commanded at Marchiennes and Denain. The known character of Marshal Villars appears in this anecdote; but he was not mistaken with respect to the estimation in which his stick would be held. It was thence- Letter of the Marquise de Pompadour to M. Benyer. THE king is delighted, Monsieur, by the devotion M. Herren- schuand displays in his service; his Majesty desires him to continue in this devotion and to do all he can with circum- spection to obtain more extensive information. His Majesty commands me to inform you of his intentions in this matter, so that you may impart them to M. Herrenschuand. His Majesty approves of the zeal which prompted him to open the project of the twenty-five millions, but it is not in his intention to make any use of it at present. You know, Monsieur, how great is the esteem and the friendship that I entertain for you. LE M. DE POMPADOUR. 14th Oct 1757. P. S. — I send you, dear Benyer, the pardon for the two convicts at the galleys, also a letter from my little buffoon of a doctor. I shall go to Paris on Monday. I shall be at home from three o'clock to half past four. Good day, dear Benyer. LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. 97 forth kept with veneration by M. Campan's family. On the 10th of August 1792 a house which I occupied on the Car- rousel, at the entrance of the court of the Tuileries, was pillaged' and nearly burned down. The cane of Marshal Villars was thrown into the Carrousel as of no value, and picked up by my servant. Had its old master been living at that period we should not have witnessed such a deplorable day. The Queen's father died in consequence of being severely burnt by his fireside. Like almost all old men, he disliked those attentions which imply the decay of the faculties, and had ordered a valet de chambre, who wished to remain near him, to withdraw into the adjoining room; a spark set fire to a taffety dressing-gown wadded with cotton, which his daughter had sent him. The poor old prince, who entertained hopes of recovering from the frightful state into which this accident reduced him, wished to inform the Queen of it himself, and wrote her a letter evincing the playfulness of his disposition, as well as the courage of his soul, in which he said: "What consoles me is the reflection that I am burning for you." To the last moment of her life Maria Leczinska never parted with this letter, and her women often surprised her kissing a paper, which they concluded to be this last farewell of Stanislaus.14 14 This anecdote -does honour to the heart and filial piety of Maria Leczinska. That princess was equally gifted with wit and sensibility, if we may judge by many expressions which fell from her lips in conversation, and have been collected by the Abbe" Proyart. Many of them are remarkable for the depth of thought they dis- play, and frequently for an ingenious and lively turn of expression: — " We should not be great but for the little. We ought to be so only for their good." " To be vain of one's rank is to declare one's self beneath it." " A king who enforces respect to God has no occasion to command homage to be paid to himself." VOL. 1—7 98 LOUIS XV. AND HIS QUEEN. "The mercy of kings is to do justice j and the justice of queens is to exercise mercy." " Good kings are slaves, and their subjects are free." "Content seldom travels with fortune, but follows virtue even in adversity." " Solitude can be delightful only to the innocent." " To consider one's self great on account of rank and wealth is to imagine that the pedestal makes the hero." "Many princes when dying have lamented having made war; we hear of none who at that moment have regretted having loved peace." "Sensible people judge of a head by what it contains; frivolous women by what is on the outside of it." "Courtiers cry out to us, ' Give us without reckoning!' and the people, ' Reckon what we give you I ' " THE PEIVATE LIFE OP MAKIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTEE I. Court of Louis XV. — His character — The King's d6botter — Char- acters of Mesdames — Retreat of Madame Louise to the Car- melites of Saint Denis — Madame du Barry — The Court divided between the party of the Due de Choiseul and that of the Due d'Aiguillon. I WAS fifteen years of age when I was appointed reader to Mesdames. I will begin by describing the Court at that period. Marie Leczinska was just dead; the death of the Dauphin had preceded hers by three years ; the Jesuits were suppressed, and piety was to be found at Court only in the apartments of Mesdames. The Due de Choiseul ruled. The King thought of nothing but the pleasures of the chase ; it might have been imagined that the courtiers indulged them- selves in making epigrams by hearing them say seriously on those days when the King did not hunt, The King does noth- ing to-day. Little journeys were also affairs of great importance with the King. On the first day of the year he noted down in his almanac the days of departure for Compi^gne, Fontainebleau, 100 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP Choisy, etc. The weightiest matters, the most serious events, never deranged this distribution, of his time. Etiquette still existed at Court with all the forms it had ac- quired under Louis XIV. ; dignity alone was wanting. As to gaiety, there was none. Versailles was not the place at which to seek for assemblies where French spirit and grace were dis- played. The focus of wit and intelligence was Paris. Since the death of the Marquise de Pompadour, the King had had no titled mistress; he contented himself with his seraglio in the Parc-aux-Cerfs. It is well known that the monarch found the separation of Louis de Bourbon from the King of France the most animating feature of his royal exist- ence. They would have it so; they thought it for the best, was his way of expressing himself when the measures of his ministers were unsuccessful. The King delighted to manage the most disgraceful points of his private expenses himself; he one day sold to a head clerk in the war department a house in which one of his mistresses had lodged; the contract ran in the name of Louis de Bourbon ; and the purchaser himself took in a bag the price of the house in gold to the King in his private closet.1 1 Until recently little was known about the Parc-aux-Cerfs, and it was believed that a great number of girls had been maintained there at enormous expense. The investigations of M. J. A. Le Roi, Conserv- ateur de la Bibliotheque de Versailles, given in his interesting work, Curiositfo Historiques sur Louis XIII., Louis XIV., Louis XV., etc., Paris, Plon, 1864, have cleared up the matter, the result he arrives at (see page 229 of his work) is that the house in question was No. 4 Rue Saint Me"de"ric in the quarter built on the site of the Parc-aux- Cerfs, or breeding-place for deer, of Louis XIII.; in 1755 this house was very small, and placed in a lane which was not a thorough- fare, and with only one house near it, and that without windows in its direction; it belonged to Jean Michel Denis Cr6mer, a bourgeois of Paris, and on 25th November 1755 was bought by an usher of the Chatelet of Paris, Francois Vallet, who the same day declared before MARIE ANTOINETTE. 101 Louis XV. saw very little of his family ; he came every morn- ing by a private staircase into the apartment of Madame Adelaide.2 He often brought and drank there coffee that he had made himself. Madame Adelaide pulled a bell which apprised Madame Victoire of the King's visit; Madame Vic- toire, en rising to go to her sister's apartment, rang for Madame Sophie, who in her turn rang for Madame Louise. The apartments of Mesdames were of very large dimensions. Madame Louise occupied the farthest room. This latter lady was deformed and very short; the poor Princess used to run with all her might to join the daily meeting, but, having a notaries that the purchase had really been made by the King — Pour et au profit du Roi. The house was held by the King from 1755 to 1771. It has since been enlarged, but at that time was very small, and could only have held one girl, the woman in charge of her, and a servant. Most of the girls only left it when about to be confined, and it sometimes stood vacant for five or six months. It may have been rented before the date of purchase, and other houses seem sometimes to have been used also; but in any case, it is evident that both the number of girls and the expense incurred have been ab- surdly exaggerated. The system flourished under Madame de Pompa- dour, but ceased as soon as Madame du Barry obtained full power over the King, and the house was then sold to M. J. B. SSvin for 16,000 livres, on 27th May 1771, — Louis not acting under the name of Louis de Bourbon, but as King: Vente par le Roi, notre Sire. Thus, in this case at least, Madame Campan is in error in saying that the King made the contract as Louis de Bourbon. 2 Louis XV. seemed to feel for Madame Adelaide the tenderness he had had for the Duchess of Burgundy, his mother, who perished so suddenly under the eyes and almost in the arms of Louis XIV. The birth of Madame Adelaide, 23d March 1732, was followed by that of Madame Victoire-Louise-Marie-The'rese on the llth May 1773. Louis had, besides, six daughters, Mesdames Sophie and Louise, who are mentioned in this chapter; the Princesses Marie and Felicite", who died young; Madame Henriette, died at Versailles in 1752, aged twenty- four; and finally, Madame the Duchess of Parma, who also died at the Court. See the Life of Maria Leczinska by the Abbe" Pro- yart. — Note by the Editor. 102 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF number of rooms to cross, she frequently, in spite of her haste, had only just time to embrace her father before he set out for the chase. Every evening at six Mesdames interrupted my reading to them to accompany the Princes to Louis XV.; this visit was called the King's debotter,3 and was marked by a kind of etiquette. Mesdames put on an enormous hoop, which set out a petticoat ornamented with gold or embroidery; they fastened a long train round their waists, and concealed the undress of the rest of their clothing by a long cloak of black taffety which enveloped them up to the chin. The chevaliers d'honneur, the ladies-in-waiting, the pages, the equerries, and the ushers bearing large flambeaux, accompanied them to the King. In a moment the whole palace, generally so still, was in motion; the King kissed each Princess on the forehead, and the visit was so short that the reading which it interrupted was frequently resumed at the end of a quarter of an hour; Mesdames returned to their apartments, and untied the strings of their petticoats and trains; they resumed their tapestry and I my book. During the summer season the King sometimes came to the residence of Mesdames before the hour of his debotter. One day he found me alone in Madame Victoire's closet, and asked me where Coche * was ; I stared, and he repeated his question, but without being at all the more understood. When the King was gone I asked Madame of whom he spoke. She told me that it was herself, and very coolly explained to me, that being the fattest of his daughters, the King had given her the familiar name of Coche, that he called Madame Adelaide, Loque,* Madame Sophie, Graille* and Madame Louise, Chiffe."1 s D€botter, meaning the time of unbooting. * Meaning an old sow, or a fat woman. & Rag. e Scrap. 1 Bad silk or stuff. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 103 The people of the King's household observed that he knew a great number of such words; possibly he had amused himself with picking them out from dictionaries. If this style of speaking betrayed the habits and tastes of the King, his man- ned savoured nothing of such vulgarity ; his walk was easy and noble, he had a dignified carriage of the head, and his aspect, without being severe, was imposing; he combined great polite- ness with a truly regal demeanour, and gracefully saluted the humblest female whom curiosity led into his path. He was very expert in a number of trifling matters which never occupy attention but when there is a lack of something better to employ it; for instance, he would knock off the top of an egg-shell at a single stroke of his fork, he therefore always ate eggs when he dined in public, and the Parisians who came on Sundays to see the King dine, returned home less struck with his fine figure than with the dexterity with which he broke his eggs. Repartees of Louis XV., which marked the keenness of his wit and the elevation of his sentiments, were quoted with pleasure in the assemblies of Versailles. This Prince was still beloved; it was wished that a style of life suitable to his age and dignity should at length super- sede the errors of the past, and justify the love of his sub- jects. It was painful to judge him harshly. If he had estab- lished avowed mistresses at Court, the uniform devotion of the Queen was blamed for it. Mesdames were reproached for not seeking to prevent the King's forming an intimacy with some new favourite. Madame Henriette, twin sister of the Duchess of Parma, was much regretted, for she had consid- erable influence over the King's mind, and it was remarked that if she had lived she would have been assiduous in finding him amusements in the bosom of his family, would have fol- lowed him in his short excursions, and would have done the 104: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF honours of the petits soupers which he was so fond of giving in his private apartments. Mesdames too much neglected the means of pleasing the King, but the cause of that was obvious in the little atten- tion he had paid them in their youth. In order to console the people under their sufferings, and to shut their eyes to the real depredations on the treasury, the ministers occasionally pressed the most extravagant meas- ures of reform in the King's household, and even in his per- sonal expenses. Cardinal Fleury, who in truth had the merit of re-estab- lishing the finances, carried this system of economy so far as to obtain from the King the suppression of the household of the four younger Princesses. They were brought up as mere boarders in a convent eighty leagues distant from the court. Saint Cyr would have been more suitable for the reception of the King's daughters; but probably the Cardinal shared some of those prejudices which will always attach to even the most useful institutions ; and which, since the death of Louis XIV., had been raised against the noble establishment of Madame de Maintenon. Madame Louise often assured me that at twelve years of age she was not mistress of the whole alpha- bet> and never learned to read fluently until after her return to Versailles. Madame Victoire attributed certain paroxysms of terror, which she was never able to conquer, to the violent alarms she experienced at the Abbey of Fontevrault, whenever she was sent, by way of penance, to pray alone in the vault where the sisters were interred. A gardener belonging to the abbey died raving mad. His habitation, without the walls, was near a chapel of the abbey, where Mesdames were taken to repeat the prayers for those in MARIE ANTOINETTE. 105 the agonies of death. Their prayers were more than once in- terrupted by the shrieks of the dying man. The most absurd indulgences were mixed with these cruel practices. Madame Adelaide, the eldest of the Princesses, was haughty and passionate; the good sisters never failed to give way to her ridiculous fancies. The dancing-master, the only professor of graceful accomplishments who had followed Mesdames to Fontevrault, was teaching them a dance then much in fashion, which was called the rose-coloured minuet. Madame Adelaide insisted that it should be named the blue minuet. The teacher resisted her whim, and urged that he should be laughed at at Court if the Princess should talk of a blue minuet. The Princess refused to take her lesson, stamped, and repeated, "Blue, blue." "Rose, rose" said the master. The sisterhood assembled to decide the important case ; the nuns cried " Blue " with the Princess ; the minuet was re-christened, and she danced. Among women so little worthy of the office of instructress, there was, however, one sister who, by her judicious tenderness, and by the useful proofs which she gave of it to Mesdames, entitled herself to their attachment, and obtained their gratitude; this was Ma- dame de Soulanges, whom they afterwards caused to be ap- pointed Abbess of Eoyal-Lieu.8 They also took upon them- selves the promotion of this lady's nephews; those of the Mother MacCarthy, who had weakly indulged her charges, s This excellent woman fell a victim to the Revolutionary mad- ness. She and her numerous sisters were led to the scaffold on the same day. While leaving the prison, they all chanted the Veni Creator upon the fatal car. When arrived at the place of punishment, they did not interrupt their strains. One head fell, and ceased to mix its voice with the celestial chorus — but the strain continued. The abbess suffered last; and her single voice, with increased tone, still raised the devout versicle. It ceased suddenly — it was the silence of death! — Madame Campan. 106 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF carried for a long time the musket of the King's Guard at the door of Mesdames without the latter thinking of advanc- ing their fortune. When Mesdames, still very young, returned to Court, they enjoyed the friendship of Monseigneur the Dauphin, and profited by his advice. They devoted themselves ardently to study, and gave up almost the whole of their time to it ; they enabled themselves to write French correctly, and acquired a good knowledge of history. Italian, English, the higher branches of mathematics, turning and dialling, filled up in succession their leisure moments. Madame Adelaide, in par- ticular, had a most insatiable desire to learn; she was taught to play upon all instruments, frcm the horn (will it be be- lived!) to the Jew's harp. Madame Adelaide was graced for a short time with a charming figure; but never did beauty so quickly vanish. Madame Victoire was handsome and very graceful; her ad- dress, mien, and smile were in perfect accordance with the goodness of her heart. Madame Sophie was remarkably ugly ; never did I behold a person with so unprepossessing an ap- pearance; she walked with the greatest rapidity; and, in order to recognise the people who placed themselves along her path without looking at them, she acquired the habit of leer- ing on one side, like a hare. This Princess was so exceed- ingly diffident that a person might be with her daily for years together without hearing her utter a single word. It was asserted, however, that she displayed talent, and even amiability, in the society of some favourite ladies. She taught herself a great deal, but she studied alone ; the presence of a reader would have disconcerted her very much. There were, however, occasions on which the Princess, generally so intractable, became all at once affable and condescending, and manifested the most communicative good nature; this would MARIE ANTOINETTE. 107 happen during a storm; sd great was her alarm on such an occasion that she then approached the most humble, and would ask them a thousand obliging questions; a flash of lightning made her squeeze their hands; a peal of thunder would drive her to embrace them, but with the return of the calm, the Princess resumed her stiffness, her reserve, and her repulsive air, and passed all by without taking the slightest notice of any one, until a fresh storm restored to her at once her dread and her affability. Mesdames found in a beloved brother, whose rare attain- ments are known to all Frenchmen, a guide in everything wanting to their education. In their august mother, Maria Leczinska, they possessed the noblest example of every pious and social virtue; that Princess, by her eminent qualities and her modest dignity, veiled the failings of the King, and while she lived she preserved in the Court of Louis XY. that de- corous and dignified tone which alone secures the respect due to power. The Princesses, her daughters, were worthy of her; and if a few degraded beings did aim the shafts of calumny at them, these shafts dropped harmless, warded off by the elevation of their sentiments and the purity of their conduct. If Mesdames had not tasked themselves with numerous oc- cupations, they would have been much to be pitied. They loved walking, but could enjoy nothing beyond the public gar- dens of Versailles; they would have cultivated flowers, but could have no others than those in their windows. The Marquise de Durfort, since Duchesse de Civrac,9 af- forded to Madame .Victoire agreeable society. The Princess 9 Grandmother of two heroes of La Vended, Lescure and La Roche- Jaquelin, by the marriage of her eldest daughter with M. d'Onissan; and of the unfortunate Labecloyere, by the marriage of her second daughter with M. de Chastellux. — Madame Campan. 108 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF spent almost all her evenings with that lady, and ended by fancying herself domiciled with her. Madame de Narbonne had, in a similar way, taken pains to make her intimate acquaintance pleasant to Madame Ade- laide. Madame Louise had for many years lived in great seclusion ; I read to her five hours a day; my voice frequently betrayed the exhaustion of my lungs, the Princess would then prepare sugared water for me, place it by me, and apologise for mak- ing me read so long, on the score of having prescribed a course of reading for herself. One evening, while I was reading, she was informed that M. Bertin, ministre des parties casuelles, desired to speak with her; she went out abruptly, returned, resumed her silks and embroidery, and made me resume my book; when I retired she commanded me to be in her closet the next morning at eleven o'clock. When I got there the Princess was gone out; I learned that she had gone at seven in the morning to the Convent of the Carmelites of Saint Denis, where she was de- sirous of taking the veil. I went to Madame Victoire; there I heard that the King alone had been acquainted with Madame Louise's project; that he had kept it faithfully secret, and that, having long previously opposed her wish, he had only on the preceding evening sent her his consent; that she had gone alone into the convent, where she was expected; and that a few minutes afterwards she had made her appearance at the grating, to show the Princesse de Guistel, who had ac- companied her to the convent-gate, and to her equerry, the King's order to leave her in the monastery. Upon receiving the intelligence of her sister's departure, Madame Adelaide gave way to violent paroxysms of rage, and reproached the King bitterly for the secret, which he had thought it his duty to preserve. Madame Victoire missed MARIE ANTOINETTE. 109 the society of her favourite sister, but she only shed tears in silence. The first time I saw this excellent Princess after Madame Louise's departure, I threw myself at her feet, kissed her hand, and asked her, with all the confidence of youth, whether she would quit us as Madame Louise had done. She raised me, embraced me, and said, pointing to the lounge upon which she was extended, " Make yourself easy, my dear ; I shall never have Louise's courage. I love the conveniences of life too well; this lounge is my destruction." As soon as I obtained permission to do so, I went to Saint Denis to see my late mistress; she deigned to receive me with her face uncovered, in her private parlour; she told me she had just left the wash-house, and that it was her turn that day to attend to the linen. " I much abused your youthful lungs for two years before the execution of my project," added she, " I knew that here I could read none but books tending to our salvation, and I wished to review all the historians that had interested me." She informed me that the King's consent for her to go to Saint Denis had been brought to her while I was reading; she prided herself, and with reason, upon having returned to her closet without the slightest mark of agitation, though she said she felt so keenly that she could scarcely regain her chair. She added that moralists were right when they said that happiness does not dwell in palaces; that she had proved it ; and that, if I desired to be happy, she advised me to come and enjoy a retreat in which the liveliest imagination might find full exercise in the contemplation of a better world. I had no palace, no earthly grandeur to sacrifice to God; noth- ing but the bosom of a united family; and it is precisely there that the moralists whom she cited have placed true hap- piness. I replied that, in private life, the absence of a be- loved and cherished daughter would be too cruelly felt by 110 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF her family. The Princess said no more on the subject.10 The seclusion of Madame Louise was attributed to various motives; some were unkind enough to suppose it to have been occasioned by her mortification at being, in point of rank, the last of the Princesses. I think I penetrated the true cause. Her soul was lofty; she loved everything sublime; often while I was reading she would interrupt me to exclaim, " That is beautiful ! that is noble ! " There was but one brilliant action that she could perform — to quit a palace for a cell, and rich garments for a stuff gown. She achieved it. I saw Madame Louise two or three time more at the grat- ing. I was informed of her death by Louis XVI. " My aunt Louise," said he to me, " your old mistress, is just dead at Saint Denis. I have this moment received intelligence of it. Her piety and resignation were admirable, and yet the delirium of my good aunt recalled to her recollection that she was a princess, for her last words were, ' To paradise, haste, 10 Les Souvenirs de F&icie contain the account of a visit to Saint Denis made by Madame de Genlis : — " M- dame Louise permitted questions, and answered them shortly but kindly. I wanted to know what in her new state she found the hardest to accustom herself to. ' You would never guess it,' answered she, smiling ; ' it is to descend alone a back staircase. At first,' added she, ' it was to me the most fearful precipice. I was obliged to seat myself on the steps, and slide down in order to descend.' In fact, a Princess who had only descended the grand marble staircase of Versailles, leaning on the arm of her chevalier d'honneur, and surrounded by her pages, would tremble at finding herself left alone on a steep spiral staircase. She knew long before all the austerities of the religious life. For ten years she had secretly practised most of them in the Chateau of Versailles, but she had never thought of small staircases. This may well cause reflection on the education, ridiculous on so many accounts, that per- sons of this rank generally receive, who, always followed, helped, escorted, prompted, guarded from their childhood, are thus deprived of the greatest part of the faculties that nature has given them." MARIE ANTOINETTE. HI "haste, full speed' No doubt she thought she was again giv- ing orders to her equerry/' " Madame Victoire, good, sweet-tempered, and affable, lived with the most amiable simplicity in a society wherein she was much caressed: she was adored by her household. With- out quitting Versailles, without sacrificing her easy chair, she fulfilled the duties of religion with punctuality, gave to the poor all that she possessed, and strictly observed Lent and the fasts. The table of Mesdames acquired a reputation for dishes of abstinence, spread abroad by the assiduous parasites at that of their maitre dhotel. Madame Victoire was not in- different to good living, but she had the most religious scru- ples respecting dishes of which it was allowable to partake at penitential times. I saw her one day exceedingly tor- mented by her doubts about a water-fowl, which was often served up to her during Lent. The question to be determined was, whether it was maigre or gras. She consulted a bishop, who happened to be of the party: the prelate immediately as- 11 The retirement of Madame Louise, and her removal from Court, had only served to give her up entirely to the intrigues of the clergy. She received incessant visits from bishops, archbishops, and ambitious priests of every rank; she prevailed on the King, her father, to grant many ecclesiastical preferments, and probably looked forward to playing an important part when the King, weary of his licentious course of life, should begin to think of religion. This, perhaps, might have been the case had not a sudden and unexpected death put an end to his career. The project of Madame Louise fell to the ground in consequence of this event. She remained, in her con- vent, from whence she continued to solicit favors, as I knew from the complaints of the Queen, who often said to me, " Here is another letter from my aunt Louise. She is certainly the most intriguing little Carmelite in the kingdom." The Court went to visit her about three times a year, and I recollect that the Queen, intending to take her daughter there, ordered me to get a doll dressed like a Carmelite for her, that the young Princess might be accustomed, before she went into the convent, to the habit of her aunt the nun. — Madame Compart. 112 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP sumed the grave attitude of a judge who is about to pronounce sentence. He answered the Princess that, in a similar case of doubt, it had been resolved that after dressing the bird it should be pricked over a very cold silver dish: if the gravy of the animal congealed within a quarter of an hour, the creature was to be accounted flesh; but if the gravy remained in an oily state, it might be eaten without scruple. Madame Victoire immediately made the experiment: the gravy did not congeal; and this was a source of great joy to the Prin- cess, who was very partial to that sort of game. The absti- nence which so much occupied the attention of Madame Victoire was so disagreeable to her, that she listened with im- patience for the midnight hour of Holy Saturday being struck; and then she was immediately supplied with a good dish of fowl and rice, and sundry other succulent viands. She confessed with such amiable candour her taste for good cheer and the comforts of life, that it would have been neces- sary to be as severe in principle as insensible to the excellent qualities of the Princess, to consider it a crime in her. Madame Adelaide had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great: abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendered her more than impos- ing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch. One of her chaplains was unlucky enough to say Dominus vobiscum with rather too easy an air: the Prin- cess rated him soundly for it after mass, and told him to re- member that he was not a bishop, and not again to think of officiating in the style of a prelate. Mesdames lived quite separate from the King. Since the death of Madame de Pompadour he had lived alone. The enemies of the Due de Choiseul did not know in what depart- ment, nor through what channel they could prepare and MARIE ANTOINETTE. 113 bring about the downfall of the man who stood in their way. The King was connected only with women of so low a class that they could not be made use of for any delicate intrigue; moreover the Parc-aux-Cerfs was a seraglio, the beauties of which were often replaced; it was desirable to give the King a mistress who could form a circle, and in whose drawing- room the long-standing attachment of the King for the Due de Choiseul might be overcome. It is true that Madame du Barry was selected from a class sufficiently low. Her origin, her education, her habits, and everything about her bore a character of vulgarity and shamelessness ; but by marrying her to a man whose pedigree dated from 1400, it was thought scandal would be avoided. The conqueror of Mahon con- ducted this coarse intrigue.12 Such a mistress was judiciously selected for the diversion of the latter years of a man weary of grandeur, fatigued with pleasure, and cloyed with voluptu- ousness. Neither the wit, the talents, the graces of the Mar- quise de Pompadour, her beauty, nor even her love for the King, would have had any further influence over that worn- out being. He wanted a Roxalana of familiar gaiety, without any re- spect for the dignity of the sovereign. Madame du Barry one day so far forgot propriety as to desire to be present at a Council of State. The King was weak enough to consent to 12 It appeared at this period as if every feeling of dignity was lost. " Few noblemen of the French Court," says a writer of the time, " preserved themselves from the general corruption. The Mar6- chal de Brissac was one of the latter. He was bantered on the strictness of his principles of honour and honesty; it was thought strange that he should be offended at being thought, like so many others, exposed to hymeneal disgrace. Louis XV., who was present, and laughed at his angry fit, said to him : ' Come, M. de Brissac, don't be angry; 'tis but a trifling evil; take courage.' 'Sire,' re- plied M. de Brissac, ' I possess all kinds of courage, except that which can brave shame.' " — Note by the Editor. VOL. 1—8 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP it. There she remained ridiculously perched upon the arm of his chair, playing all sorts of childish monkey tricks, calcu- lated to please an old sultan. Another time she snatched a packet of sealed letters from the King's hand. Among them she had observed one from Comte de Broglie. She told the King that she knew that rascal Broglie spoke ill of her to him, and that for once, at least, she would make sure he should read nothing respecting her. The King wanted to get the packet again; she re- sisted, and made him run two or three times round the table, which was in the middle of the council-chamber, and then, on passing the fireplace, she threw the letters into the grate, where they were consumed. The King became furious : he seized his audacious mistress by the arm, and put her out of the door without speaking to her. Madame du Barry thought herself utterly disgraced; she returned home, and re- mained two hours, alone, abandoned to the utmost distress. The King went to her : she threw herself at his feet, in tears, and he pardoned her. Madame la Marechale de Beauvau, the Duchesse de Choi- seul, and the Duchesse de Grammont had renounced the hon- our of the King's intimate acquaintance rather than share it with Madame du Barry. But a few years after the death of Louis XV., Madame la Marechale, being alone at the Val, a house belonging to M. de Beauvau, Mademoiselle de Dillon saw the Countess's calash take shelter in the forest of Saint Germain during a violent storm. She invited her in, and the Countess herself related these particulars, which I had from Madame de Beauvau.13 is Chamfort gives a different version of Madame du Barry's visit to the Val. " Madame du -Barry," says he, " being at Vincennes, was curious to see the Val. Madame de Beauvau was amused at the idea of going there and doing the honours. She talked of what had happened under Louis XV. Madame du Barry was complaining of MARIE ANTOINETTE. 115 The Cerate du Barry, surnamed le roue (the profligate), and Mademoiselle du Barry 14 advised, or rather prompted, Madame du Barry in furtherance of the plans of the party of the Marechal de Richelieu and the Due d'Aiguillon. Some- times they even set her to act in such a way as to have a use- ful influence upon great political measures. Under pretence that the page who accompanied Charles I. in his flight was a du Barry or Barrymore, they persuaded the Comtesse du Barry to buy in London that fine portrait which we now have in the Museum. She had the picture placed in her drawing- room, and when she saw the King hesitating upon the violent measure of breaking up his Parliament, and forming that which was called the Maupeon Parliament, she desired him to look at the portrait of a king who had given way to his Par- liament.15 various matters, which appeared to show that she was personally detested. ' By no means,' said Madame de Beauvau, ' we aimed at nothing but your place.' After this frank confession Madame du Barry was asked if Louis XV. did not say a great deal against her ( Madame de Beauvau ) and Madame de Grammont. ' Oh ! a great deal' — 'Well, and what of me, for instance?' — 'Of you, madame? That you are haughty and intriguing, and that you lead your husband by the nose.' M. de Beauvau was present. The conversation was soon changed." — Note by the Editor. i* The Comte Jean du Barry and Mademoiselle Claire du Barry, brother and sister-in-law of Madame du Barry. is The Memoirs of General Dumouriez, vol. i., page 142, contain some curious particulars about Madame du Barry; and novel details respecting her will be found at page 243 of Curiosites Historiques, by J. A. Le Roi ( Paris, Plon, 1864 ) . His investigations lead to the re- sult that her real name was Jeanne B6cu, born, 19th August 1743, at Vaucouleurs, the natural daughter of Anne B6cu, otherwise known as " Quantiny." Her mother afterwards married Nicolas Rancon. Comte Jean du Barry met her among the demi-monde, and succeeded, about 1767, and by the help of his friend Lebel, the valet de chambre of Louis XV., in introducing her to the King under the name of " Mademoiselle 1'Ange." To be formally mistress a husband had to be found. The Comte Jean du Barry, already married himself, 116 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The men of ambition who were labouring to overthrow the Due de Choiseul strengthened themselves by their concentra- tion at the house of the favourite, and succeeded in their project. The bigots, who never forgave that minister the suppression of the Jesuits, and who had always been hostile to a treaty of alliance with Austria, influenced the minds of Mesdames. The Due de La Vauguyon, the young Dauphin's governor, infected them with the same prejudices. Such was the state of the public mind when the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette arrived at the Court of Ver- found no difficulty in getting his brother, Comte Guillaume, a poor officer of the marine troops, to accept the post of husband. In the marriage-contract, signed on 23d July 1768, she was described as the daughter of Anne Be"cu and of an imaginary first husband, " Sieur Jean-Jacques Gomard de Vaubernier," and three years were taken off her age. The marriage-contract was so drawn as to leave Madame du Barry entirely free from all control by her husband. The marriage was solemnized on 1st September 1768, after which the nomi- nal husband returned to Toulouse. Madame du Barry in later years provided for him; and in 1772, tired of his applications, she obtained act of separation from him. He married later Jeanne Madeleine Lemoine, and died in 1811. Madame du Barry took care of her mother, who figured as Madame de Montrable. In all she received from the King, Monsieur Le Hoi calculates, about twelve and a half million of livres. On the death of Louis XV. she had to retire first to the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux, then she was allowed to go to her small house at Saint Vrain, near Arpajon, and finally, in 1775, to her chateau at Louveciennes. Much to her credit be it said, she retained many of her friends, and was on the most intimate terms till his death with the Due de Brissac ( Louis-Hercule-Timoleon de Cosse"- Brissac), who was killed at Versailles in the massacre of the prisoners in September 1792, leaving at his death a large legacy to her. Even the Emperor Joseph visited her. In 1791 many of her jewels were stolen and taken to England. This caused her to make several visits to that country, where she gained her suit. But these visits, though she took every precaution to legalise them, ruined her. Betrayed by her servants, among them by Zamor, the negro page, she was brought before the Revolutionary tribunal, and was guillotined on 8th De- cember 1793, in a frenzy of terror, calling for mercy and for delay up to the moment when her head fell. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 117 sallies, just at the moment when the party which brought her there was about to be overthrown. Madame Adelaide openly avowed her dislike to a princess of the House of Austria; and when M. Campan went to re- ceive his orders, at the moment of setting off with the house- hold of the Dauphiness, to go and receive the Archduchess upon the frontiers, she said she disapproved of the marriage of her nephew with an archduchess; and that, if she had the direction of the matter, she would not send for an Austrian. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF CHAPTER II. Birth of Marie Antoinette attended by a memorable calamity — Maria Theresa's character — Education of the Archduchesses — Preceptors provided for Marie Antoinette by the Court of Vienna — Preceptor sent her by the Court of France — Abbe" de Vermond — Change in the French Ministry — Cardinal de Rohan succeeds Baron de Breteuil as Ambassador at Vienna — Portrait of that Prelate. MARIE-ANTOINETTE-JOSEPHE-JEANNE DE LORRAINE, Arch- duchess of Austria, daughter of Francis of Lorraine and of Maria Theresa, was born on the 2d of November 1755, the day of the earthquake at Lisbon; and this catastrophe, which appeared to stamp the era of her birth with a fatal mark, without forming a motive for superstitious fear with the Prin- cess, nevertheless made an impression upon her mind. As the Empress already had a great number of daughters, she ardently desired to have another son, and playfully wagered against her wish with the Due de Tarouka, who had insisted that she would give birth to an archduke. He lost by the birth of the Princess, and had executed in porcelain a figure with one knee bent on the earth, and presenting tablets, upon which the following verses by the celebrated Metastasio were engraved : — " I lose by your fair daughter's birth Who prophesied a son — But if she share her mother's worth, Why, all the world has won! "1 i " lo perdei : Paugusta figlia A pagar m'a condannato; Ma s'e ver che a voi somiglia, Tutto il mondo ha guadagnato." MARIE ANTOINETTE. 119 The Queen was fond of talking of the first years of her youth. Her father, the Emperor Francis, had made a deep impression upon her heart ; she lost him when she was scarcely seven years old. One of those circumstances which fix them- selves strongly in the memories of children frequently recalled his last caresses to her. The Emperor was setting out for Innspruck; he had already left his palace, when he ordered a gentleman to fetch the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, and bring her to his carriage. When she came, he stretched out his arms to receive her, and said, after having pressed her to his bosom, " I wanted to embrace this child once more." The Emperor died suddenly during the journey, and never saw his beloved daughter again. The Queen often spoke of her mother, and with profound respect, but she based all her schemes for the education of her children on the essentials which had been neglected in her own. Maria Theresa, who inspired awe by her great qualities, taught the Archduchesses to fear and respect rather than to love her; at least I observed this in the Queen's feelings to- wards her august mother. She therefore never desired to place between her own children and herself that distance which had existed in the imperial family. She cited a fatal consequence of it, which had made such a powerful impression upon her that time had never been able to efface it. The wife of the Emperor Joseph II. was taken from him in a few days by an attack of smallpox of the worst kind. Her coffin had recently been deposited in the vault of the im- perial family. The Archduchess Josepha, who had been be- trothed to the King of Naples, at the instant she was quit- ting Vienna received an order from the Empress not to set off without having offered up a prayer in the vault of her fore- fathers. The Archduchess, persuaded that she should take the disorder to which her sister-in-law had just fallen a vie- 120 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF tim, looked upon this order as her death-warrant. She loved the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette tenderly; she took her upon her knees, embraced her with tears, and told her she was about to leave her, not for Naples, but never to see her again ; that she was going down then to the tomb of her an- cestors, and that she should shortly go again there to remain. Her anticipation was realised; confluent smallpox carried her off in a very few days, and her youngest sister ascended the throne of Naples in her place. The Empress was too much taken up with high political interests to have it in her power to devote herself to maternal attentions. The celebrated Wansvietten, her physician, went daily to visit the young imperial family, and afterwards to Maria Theresa, and gave the most minute details respecting the health of the Archdukes and Archduchesses, whom she her- self sometimes did not see for eight or ten days at a time. As soon as the arrival of a stranger of rank at Vienna was made known, the Empress brought her family about her, ad- mitted them to her table, and by this concerted meeting in- duced a belief that she herself presided over the education of her children. The chief governesses, being under no fear of inspection from Maria Theresa, aimed at making themselves beloved by their pupils by the common and blamable practice of indul- gence, so fatal to the future progress and happiness of chil- dren. Marie Antoinette was the cause of her governess being dismissed, through a confession that all her copies, and all her letters, were invariably first traced out with pencil; the Comtesse de Brandes was appointed to succeed her, and ful- filled her duties with great exactness and talent. The Queen looked upon having been confided to her care so late as a mis- fortune, and always continued upon terms of friendship with that lady. The education of Marie Antoinette was certainly MARIE ANTOINETTE. 121 very much neglected.3 The public prints, however, teemed with assertions of the superior talents of Maria Theresa's children. They often noticed the answers which the young Princesses gave in Latin to the harangues addressed to them; they uttered them, it is true, but without understanding them ; they knew not a single word of that language. Mention was one day made to the Queen of a drawing made by her, and presented by the Empress to M. Gerard, chief clerk of Foreign Affairs, on the occasion of his going to Vienna to draw up the articles for her marriage-contract. " I should blush," said she, " if that proof of the quackery of my education were shown to me. I do not believe that I ever put a pencil upon that drawing." However, what had been taught her she knew perfectly well. Her facility of learning was inconceivable, and if all her teachers had been as well informed and as faithful to their duty as the Abbe Metastasio, who taught her Italian, she would have attained as great a superiority in the other branches of her education. The Queen spoke that language with grace and ease, and translated the most difficult poets. She did not write French correctly, but she spoke it with the greatest fluency, and even affected to say that she had lost German. In fact she attempted in 1787 to learn her mother-tongue, and took lessons assiduously for six weeks; she was obliged to relinquish them, finding all the difficulties which a Frenchwoman, who should take up the study too late, would have to encounter. In the same man- ner she gave up English, which I had taught her for some 2 With the exception of the Italian language, all that related to belles lettres, and particularly to history, even that of her own country, was almost entirely unknown to her. This was soon found out at the Court of France, and thence arose the generally received opinion that she was deficient in sense. It will be seen, however, in the course of these memoirs, whether that opinion was well or ill founded. — Madame Campan. 122 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF time, and in which she had made rapid progress. Music was the accomplishment in which the Queen most delighted. She did not play well on any instrument, but she had become able to read at sight like a first-rate professor. She attained this degree of perfection in France, this branch of her educa- tion having been neglected at Vienna as much as the rest. A few days after her arrival at Versailles, she was introduced to her singing-master, La Garde, author of the opera of EgU. She made a distant appointment with him, needing, as she said, rest after the fatigues of the journey and the numerous fetes which had taken place at Versailles; but her motive was her desire to conceal how ignorant she was of the rudiments of music. She asked M. Campan whether his son, who was a good musician, could give her lessons secretly for three months. " The Dauphiness," added she, smiling, " must be careful of the reputation of the Archduchess." The lessons were given privately, and at the end of three months of con- stant application she sent for M. la Garde, and surprised him by her skill. , The desire to perfect Marie Antoinette in the study of the French language was probably the motive which determined Maria Theresa to provide for her as teachers two French ac- tors; Aufresne, for pronunciation and declamation, and Sain- ville for taste in French singing ; the latter had been an officer in France, and bore a bad character. The choice gave just umbrage to our Court. The Marquis de Durfort, at that time ambassador at Vienna, was ordered to make a representation to the Empress upon her selection. The two actors were dis- missed, and the Princess required that an ecclesiastic should be sent to her. Several eminent ecclesiastics declined taking upon themselves so delicate an office; others who were pointed out by Maria Theresa (among the rest the Abb6 Grisel) belonged to parties which sufficed to exclude them. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 123 The Archbishop of Toulouse, since Archbishop of Sens,8 one day went to the Due de Choiseul at the moment when he was really embarrassed upon the subject of this nomination; he proposed to him the Abbe de Vermond, librarian of the College des Quatre Nations. The eulogistic manner in which he spoke of his protege procured the appointment for the lat- ter on that very day; and the gratitude of the Abbe de Ver- mond towards the prelate was very fatal to France, inasmuch as after seventeen years of persevering attempts to bring him into the ministry, he succeeded at last in getting him named Comptroller-General and President of the Council. This Abbe de Vermond directed almost all the Queen's ac- tions. He established his influence over her at an age when impressions are most durable; and it was easy to see that he had taken pains only to render himself beloved by his pupil, and had troubled himself very little with the care of instruct- ing her. He might have even been accused of having, by a sharp-sighted though culpable policy, purposely left her in ignorance. Marie Antoinette spoke the French language with much grace, but wrote it less perfectly. The Abbe de Ver- mond revised all the letters which she sent to Vienna. The insupportable folly with which he boasted of it displayed the character of a man more flattered at being admitted into her intimate secrets than anxious to fulfil worthily the high office of her preceptor.4 s Etienne de Lome'nie, Comte de Brienne (1727-1794), afterwards Archbishop of Toulouse and Archbishop of Sens. For further partic- ulars respecting him, see p. 3. * The Abbe de Vermond encouraged the impatience of etiquette shown by Marie Antoinette while she was Dauphiness. When she be- came Queen he endeavoured openly to induce her to shake off the restraints she still respected. If he chanced to enter her apartment at the time she was preparing to go out, " For whom," he would say in a tone of raillery, " is this detachment of warriors which I found in the court? Is it some general going to inspect his army? 124 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF His pride received its birth at Vienna, where Maria Theresa, as much to give him authority with the Archduchess as to make herself acquainted with his character, permitted him to mix every evening with the private circle of her family, into which the future Dauphiness had been admitted for some time. Joseph II., the elder Archduchesses, and a few noble- men honoured by the confidence of Maria Theresa, composed the party; and reflections on the world, on courts, and the du- ties of princes, were the usual topics of conversation. The Abbe de Vermond, in relating these particulars, confessed the means which he had made use of to gain admission into this private circle. The Empress, meeting him at the Archduch- ess's, asked him if he had formed any connections in Vienna. " None, Madame," replied he ; " the apartment of the Arch- duchess and the hotel of the ambassador of France are the only places which the man honoured with the care of the Princess's education should frequent." A month afterwards Maria Theresa, through a habit common enough among sov- ereigns, asked him the same question, and received precisely the same answer. The next day he received an order to join the imperial family every evening. It is extremely probable, from the constant and well-known intercourse between this man and Comte de Mercy, ambassa- dor of the Empire during the whole reign of Louis XVI., that he was useful to the Court of Vienna,5 and that he often Does all thia military display become a young Queen adored by her subjects?" He would call to her mind the simplicity with which Maria Theresa lived; the visits she made without guards, or even attendants, to the Prince d'Esterhazy, to the Comte de Pain, passing whole days far from the fatiguing ceremonies of the Court. The Abbe" thus artfully flattered the inclinations of Marie Antoinette; and showed her how she might disguise, even from herself, her aversion from the ceremonies observed by the descendants of Louis XIV. — Madame Campan. 6 A person who had dined with the Abbe" one day at the Comte de MARIE ANTOINETTE. 125 caused the Queen to decide on measures, the consequences of which she did not consider. Born in a low class of citizens,8 imbued with all the principles of the modern philosophy, and yet holding to the hierarchy of the Church more tenaciously than any other ecclesiastic; vain, talkative, and at the same time cunning and abrupt ; very ugly and affecting singularity ; treating the most exalted persons as his equals, sometimes even as his inferiors, the Abbe de Vermond received ministers and bishops when in his bath; but said at the same time that Cardinal Dubois was a fool; that a man such as he, having obtained power, ought to make cardinals, and refuse to be one himself. Intoxicated with the reception he had met with at the Court of Vienna, and having till then seen nothing of grandeur, the Abbe de Vermond admired no other customs than those of the imperial family; he ridiculed the etiquette of the House of Bourbon incessantly; the young Dauphiness was constantly incited by his sarcasms to get rid of it, and it was he who first induced her to suppress an infinity of practices of which he could discern neither the prudence nor the political aim. Such is the faithful portrait of that man whom the evil star of Marie Antoinette had reserved to guide her first steps upon a stage so conspicuous and so full of danger as that of the Court of Versailles. It will be thought, perhaps, that I draw the character of Mercy's said to that ambassador, " How can you bear that tiresome babbler?" "How can you ask it?" replied M. de Mercy; "you could answer the question yourself: it is because I want him." — Madame Campan. « The Abbe" de Vermond was the son of a village surgeon, and brother of an accoucheur, who had acted in that capacity for the Queen: when he was with her Majesty, in speaking to his brother, he never addressed him otherwise than as Monsieur 1'Accoucheur. — Madame Campan. 126 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the Abbe de Vennond too unfavourably; but how can I view with any complacency one who, after having arrogated to himself the office of confidant and sole counsellor of the Queen, guided her with so little prudence, and gave us the mortifica- tion of seeing that Princess blend, with qualities which charmed all that surrounded her, errors alike injurious to her glory and her happiness? While M. de Choiseul, satisfied with the person whom M. de Brienne had presented, despatched him to Vienna with every eulogium calculated to inspire unbounded confidence, the Marquis de Durfort sent off a hairdresser and a few French fashions; and then it was thought sufficient pains had been taken to form the character of a Princess destined to share the throne of France. It is universally known that the marriage of Monseigneur the Dauphin with the Archduchess was determined upon dur- ing the administration of the Due de Choiseul. The Marquis de Durfort, who was to succeed the Baron de Breteuil in the embassy to Vienna, was appointed proxy for the marriage ceremony; but six months after the Dauphin's marriage the Due de Choiseul was disgraced, and Madame de Marsan and Madame de Guemenee, who grew more powerful through the Duke's disgrace, conferred that embassy upon Prince Louis de Eohan, afterwards cardinal and grand almoner. Hence it will be seen that the Gazette de France is a suf- ficient answer to those libellers, who dared to assert that the young Archduchess was acquainted with the Cardinal de Eo- han before the period, of her marriage. A worse selection in itself, or one more disagreeable to Maria Theresa, than that which sent to her in quality of ambassador a man so frivo- lous and so immoral as Prince Louis de Eohan could not have been made. He possessed but superficial knowledge upon any subject, and was totally ignorant of diplomatic affairs. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 127 His reputation had gone before him to Vienna, and his mis- sion opened under the most unfavourable auspices. In want of money, and the House of Eohan being unable to make him any considerable advances, he obtained from his Court a patent which authorised him to borrow the sum of 600,000 livres upon his benefices, ran in debt above a million, and thought to dazzle the city and Court of Vienna by the most indecent and ill-judged extravagance. He formed a suite of eight or ten gentlemen of names sufficiently high-sounding; twelve pages equally well born, a crowd of officers and serv- ants, a company of chamber musicians, etc. But this idle pomp did not last; embarrassment and distress soon showed themselves; his people, no longer receiving pay, in order to make money abused the privileges of ambassadors, and smug- gled7 with so much effrontery, that Maria Theresa, to put a stop to it without offending the Court of France, was com- pelled to suppress the privileges in this respect of all the diplo- matic bodies, a step which rendered the person and conduct of Prince Louis odious in every foreign Court. He seldom obtained private audiences from the Empress, who did not esteem him, and who expressed herself without reserve upon his conduct both as a bishop and as an ambassador. He thought to obtain favour by assisting to effect the marriage of the Archduchess Elizabeth, the elder sister of Marie An- toinette, with Louis XV., an affair which was awkwardly undertaken, and of which Madame du Barry had no difficulty in causing the failure. I have deemed it my duty to omit no particular of the moral and politica.1 character of a man whose existence was subsequently so injurious to the reputa- tion of Marie Antoinette. 7 I have often heard the Queen say that, at Vienna, in the office of the secretary of the Prince de Rohan, there were sold in one year more silk stockings than at Lyons and Paris together. — Madame Campan, THE PRIVATE LIFE OP CHAPTER III. Arrival of the Archduchess in France — Brilliant reception of the Dauphiness at Versailles — She charms Louis XV. — Madame du Barry's jealousy — Court intrigues — The Dauphin — His brothers and their wives. A SUPERB pavilion had been prepared upon the frontiers near Kehl. It consisted of a vast saloon, connected with two apartments, one of which was assigned to the lords and ladies of the Court of Vienna, and the other to the suite of the Dauphiness, composed of the Comtesse de Noailles, her lady of honour; the Duchesse de Cosse, her dame datours; four ladies of the palace; the Comte de Saulx-Tavannes, chevalier dlionneur; the Comte de Tesse, first equerry; the Bishop of Chartres, first almoner; the officers of the Body Guard, and the equerries. When the Dauphiness had been entirely undressed, in order that she might retain nothing belonging to a foreign court (an etiquette always observed on such an occasion), the doora were opened ; the young Princess came forward, looking round for the Comtesse de Noailles; then, rushing into her arms, she implored her, with tears in her eyes, and with heartfelt sincerity, to direct her, to advise her, and to be in every re- spect her guide and support. It was impossible to refrain from admiring her airy walk ; one smile alone was sufficient to win the heart. While doing justice to the virtues of the Comtesse de Noailles, those sincerely attached to the Queen have always considered it as one of the earliest misfortunes of the latter — perhaps even the greatest that she could experience on her MARIE ANTOINETTE. 129 entrance into the world — not to have found, in the person naturally designed for her adviser, a woman indulgent, en- lightened, and administering good counsel with that sweet- ness which disposes young persons to follow it. The Comtesse de Noailles had nothing agreeable in her appearance; her de- meanour was stiff and her mien severe. She was perfect mis- tress of etiquette; but she wearied the young Princess with it, without making her sensible of its importance. So much cere- mony was indeed oppressive; but it was adopted in order to present the young Princess to the French in such a manner as to command their respect, and guard her by an imposing barrier against the deadly shafts of calumny. It would have been proper to convince the Dauphiness that in France her dignity depended much upon customs by no means necessary at Vienna to secure the respect and love of the good and sub- missive Austrians for the imperial family. The Dauphiness was thus perpetually tormented by the remonstrances of the Comtesse de Noailles; and at the same time caused by the Abbe de Vermond to ridicule both the lessons upon etiquette and her who gave them. She preferred raillery to argument, and nicknamed the Comtesse de Noailles, Madame I'Eti- quette.1 The fetes which were given at Versailles on the marriage i The Comtesse de Noailles, the Queen's lady of honour, possessed abundance of good qualities; piety, charity, and irreproachable morals rendered her worthy of reverence; but the Countess was also abun- dantly provided with all the obtrusiveness which a narrow mind could add even to the noblest qualifications. The Queen required a lady of honour who would explain to her the origin of forms, very incon- venient, it must be confessed, but invented as a fence against malevolence. The custom of having ladies and chevaliers of honour, and that of wearing hoops of three ells in circumference, were certainly invented to entrench young princesses so respectably, that the malicious gaiety of the French, their proneness to insinuations, and too often to calumny, should not by any possibility find an opportunity to attack them. — Madame Campan. VOL. I— 9 130 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP of the Dauphin were very splendid. The Dauphiness arrived there at the hour for her toilette, after having slept at La Muette, where Louis XV. had been to receive her; and where that Prince, blinded by a feeling unworthy of a sovereign and the father of a family, caused the young Princess, the royal family, and the ladies of the Court to sit down to sup- per with Madame du Barry. The Dauphiness was hurt at this conduct; she spoke of it openly enough to those with whom she was intimate, but she knew how to conceal her dissatisfaction in public, and her be- haviour showed no signs of it.2 She was received at Versailles in an apartment on the ground-floor, under that of the late Queen, which was not ready for her until six months after her marriage. The Dauphiness, then fifteen years of age, beaming with freshness, appeared to all eyes more than beautiful. Her walk partook at once of the dignity of the Princesses of her house, and of the grace of the French; her eyes were mild, her smile amiable. When she went to chapel, as soon as she had taken the first few steps in the long gallery, she dis- cerned, all the way to its extremity, those persons whom she ought to salute with the consideration due to their rank; those on whom she should bestow an inclination of the head; and lastly, those who were to be satisfied with a smile, calcu- lated to console them for not being entitled to greater honours. Louis XV. was enchanted with the young Dauphiness; all his conversation was about her graces, her vivacity, and the aptness of her repartees. She was yet more successful with* the royal family when they beheld her shorn of the splendour of the diamonds with which she had been adorned during the 2 See the M&moires de "Weber, tome i. The memoirs of this writer, foster-brother of Marie Antoinette, generally complete what Madame Campan has said of this Princess. The two works are almost in- separable.— Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 131 first days of her marriage. When clothed in a light dress of gauze or taffety she was compared to the Venus di Medicis, and the Atalanta of the Marly gardens. Poets sang her charms; painters attempted to copy her features. One artist's fancy led him to place the portrait of Marie Antoinette in the heart of a full-blown rose. His ingenious idea was rewarded by Louis XV. The King continued to talk only of the Dauphiness; and Madame du Barry ill-naturedly endeavoured to damp his en- thusiasm. Whenever Marie Antoinette was the topic, she pointed out the irregularity of her features, criticised the bon- mots quoted as hers, and rallied the King upon his prepos- session in her favour. Madame du Barry was affronted at not receiving from the Dauphiness those attentions to which she thought herself entitled; she did not conceal her vexation from the King; she was afraid that the grace and cheerful- ness of the young Princess would make the domestic circle of the royal family more agreeable to the old sovereign, and that he would escape her chains; at the same time, hatred to the Choiseul party contributed powerfully to excite the enmity of the favourite. The fall of that minister took place in November 1770, six months after his long influence in the Council had brought about the alliance with the House of Austria, and the arrival of Marie Antoinette at the Court of France. The Princess, young, frank, volatile, and inexperienced, found herself with- out any other guide than the Abbe de Vermond, in a Court ruled by the enemy of the minister who had brought her there, and in the midst of people who hated Austria, and detested any alliance with the imperial house.. The Due d'Aiguillon, the Due de la Vauguyon, the Mare chal de Eichelieu, the Eohans, and other considerable families, who had made use of Madame du Barry to overthrow the 132 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Duke, could not flatter themselves, notwithstanding their powerful intrigues, with a hope of being able to break off an alliance solemnly announced, and involving such high political interests. They therefore changed their mode of attack, and it will be seen how the conduct of the Dauphin served as a basis for their hopes. The Dauphiness continually gave proofs of both sense and feeling. Sometimes she even suffered herself to be carried away by those transports of compassionate kindness which are not to be controlled by the customs which rank establishes. In consequence of the fire in the Place Louis XV., which occurred at the time of the nuptial entertainments, the Dauphin and Dauphiness sent their whole income for the year to the relief of the unfortunate families who lost their relatives on that disastrous day. This was one of those ostentatious acts of generosity which are dictated by the policy of princes, at least as much as by their compassion; but the grief of Marie Antoinette was pro- found, and lasted several days; nothing could console her for the loss of so many innocent victims; she spoke of it, weep- ing, to her ladies, one of whom, thinking, no doubt, to divert her mind, told her that a great number of thieves had been found among the bodies, and that their pockets were filled with watches and other valuables : " They have at least been well punished," added the person who related these particu- lars. " Oh no, no, madame ! " replied the Dauphiness ; " they died by the side of honest people." In passing through Eheims, on her way to Strasburg, she said, " That town is the one, in all France, which I hope not to see again for the longest possible time." 8 8 The coronation of the French kings takes place in Rheims ; so that when she should revisit that city, it would probably be in con- sequence of the death of Louis XV. — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 133 The Dauphiness had brought from Vienna a considerable number of white diamonds; the King added to them the gift of the diamonds and pearls of the late Dauphiness, and also put into her hands a collar of pearls, of a single row, the smallest of which was as large as a filbert, and which had been brought into Prance by Anne of Austria, and appropri- ated by that Princess to the use of the Queens and Dauphin- esses of Prance.* The three Princesses, daughters of Louis XV., joined in making her magnificent presents. Madame Adelaide at the same time gave the young Princess a key to the private cor- ridors of the chateau, by means of which, without any suite, and without being perceived, she could get to the apartments of her aunts, and see them in private. The Dauphiness, on receiving the key, told them, with infinite grace, that if they had meant to make her appreciate the superb presents they were kind enough to bestow upon her, they should not at the same time have offered her one of such inestimable value; since to that key she should be indebted for an intimacy and advice unspeakably precious at her age. She did, indeed, make use of it very frequently; but Madame Victoire alone permitted her, so long as she continued Dauphiness, to visit her familiarly. Madame Adelaide could not overcome her prejudices against Austrian princesses, and was wearied with the somewhat petulant gaiety of the Dauphiness. Madame Victoire was concerned at this, feeling that their society and counsel would have been highly useful to a young person other- wise likely to meet with none but parasites. She endeavoured, therefore, to induce her to take pleasure in the society of the * I mention this collar thus particularly because the Queen thought it her duty, notwithstanding this appropriation, to give it up to the commissaries of the national assembly when they came to strip the King and Queen of the crown diamonds. — Madame Campan. 134: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Marquise de Durfort, her lady of honour and favourite. Sev- eral agreeable entertainments took place at the house of this lady, but the Comtesse de Noailles and the Abbe de Vermond soon opposed these meetings. A circumstance which happened in hunting, near the village of Acheres, in the forest of Fontainebleau, afforded the young Princess an opportunity of displaying her respect for old age, and her compassion for misfortune. A very old peasant was wounded by the stag ; the Dauphiness jumped out of her calash, placed the peasant, with his wife and children in it, had the family taken back to their cottage, and bestowed upon them every attention and every necessary assistance. Her heart was always open to the feelings of compassion, and the recollection of her rank never restrained her sensibility. Several persons in her service entered her room one evening, expecting to find nobody there but the officer in waiting ; 5 they perceived the young Princess seated by the side of this man, who was ad- vanced in years ; she had placed near him a bowl full of water, was stanching the blood which issued from a wound he had received in his hand with her handkerchief which she had torn up to bind it, and was fulfilling towards him all the duties of a pious sister of charity. The old man, affected even to tears, out of respect allowed his august mistress to act as she thought proper. He had hurt himself in endeavouring to bring forward some rather heavy piece of furniture which the Princess had asked him for. In the month of July 1770, an unfortunate occurrence that took place in a family which the Dauphiness honoured with her favour contributed again to show not only her sensibility but also the benevolence of her disposition. One of her women had a son who was an officer in the gens darmes of the guard; 5 The valets de chambre and the ushers were called officiers de I'interieure. — Madame Campari. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 135 this young man thought himself affronted by a clerk in the war department, and imprudently sent him a challenge; he killed his adversary in the forest of Compiegne. The family of the young man who was killed, being in possession of the challenge, demanded justice. The King, distressed on ac- count of several duels which had recently taken place, had unfortunately declared that he would show no mercy on the first event of that kind which could be proved ; the culprit was therefore arrested. His mother, in the deepest grief, hastened to throw herself at the feet of the Dauphiness, the Dauphin, and the young Princesses. After an hour's supplication they obtained from the King the favour so much desired. On the next day a lady of rank, while congratulating the Dauphiness, had the malice to add that the mother had neglected no means of success on the occasion, having solicited not only the royal family, but even Madame du Barry. The Dauphiness replied that the fact justified the favourable opinion she had formed of the worthy woman ; that the heart of a mother should hesi- tate at nothing for the salvation of her son; and that in her place, if she had thought it would be serviceable, she would have thrown herself at the feet of Zamor.' Some time after the marriage entertainments the Dauphin- ess made her entry into Paris, and was received with trans- ports of joy. After dining in the King's apartment at the Tuileries, she was forced, by the reiterated shouts of the multi- tude, with which the garden was filled, to present herself upon the balcony fronting the principal walk. On seeing such a crowd of heads with their eyes fixed upon her, she ex- claimed, " Grand Dieu ! what a concourse ! " " Madame/' said the old Due de Brissac, the Governor of Paris, "I may « A little Indian who carried the Comtesse du Barry's train. Louis XV. often amused himself with the little marmoset; having jestingly made him Governor of Louveciennes, he received an annual income of 3,000 francs. — Madame Campan. 136 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF tell you, without fear of offending the Dauphin, that they are so many lovers." 7 The Dauphin took no umbrage at either acclamations or marks of homage of which the Dauphiness was the object. The most mortifying indifference, a coldness which frequently degenerated into rudeness, were the sole feelings which the young Prince then manifested towards her. Not all her charms could gain even upon his senses. This estrange- ment, which lasted a long time, was said to be the work of the Due de la Vauguyon. The Dauphiness, in fact, had no sincere friends at Court except the Due de Choiseul and his party. Will it be credited that the plans laid against Marie Antoinette went so far as divorce? I have been assured of it by persons holding high situations at Court, and many cir- cumstances tend to confirm the opinion. On the journey to Fontainebleau, in the year of the marriage, the inspectors of public buildings were gained over to manage so that the apart- ment intended for the Dauphin, communicating with that of the Dauphiness, should not be finished, and a room at the extremity of the building was temporarily assigned to him. The Dauphiness, aware that this was the result of intrigue, had the courage to complain of it to Louis XV., who, after severe reprimands, gave orders so positive that within the week the apartment was ready. Every method was tried to continue and augment the indifference which the Dauphin long manifested towards his youthful spouse. She was deeply hurt at it, but she never suffered herself to utter the slightest com- plaint on the subject. Inattention to, even contempt for, the 7 John Paul Timoleon de Coss6, Due de Brissac and Marshal of France, the same who made the noble reply cited in another note in this volume. At the Court of Louis XV. and XVI., he was a model of the virtue, gallantry, and courage of the ancient knights. The Comte de Charolais, finding him one day with his mistress, said to him abruptly, " Go out, sir." " Monseigneur," replied the Due de Brissac, with emphasis, " your ancestors would have said, ' Come out.' " — ~Kote by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 137 charms which she heard extolled on all sides, nothing induced her to break silence ; and some tears, which would involuntarily burst from her eyes, were the sole symptoms of her inward suf- ferings, discoverable by those in her service. Once only, when tired out with the misplaced remonstrances of an old lady attached to her person, who wished to dissuade her from riding on horseback, under the impression that it would prevent her producing heirs to the crown, " Mademoi- selle," said she, " in God's name, leave me in peace ; be assured that I can put no heir in danger." The Dauphiness found at the Court of Louis XV., besides the three Princesses, the King's daughters, the Princes also, brothers of the Dauphin, who were receiving their education, and Clotilde and Elizabeth, still in the care of Madame de Marsan, governess of the children of France. The elder of the two latter Princesses, in 1777, married the Prince of Pied- ^ mont, afterwards King of Sardinia. This Princess was in her infancy so extremely large that the people nicknamed her gros Madame.8 The second Princess was the pious Elizabeth, s Madame Clotilde of France, a sister of the King, was extraor- dinarily fat for her height and age. One of her playfellows, hav- ing been indiscreet enough even in her presence to make use of the nickname given to her, received a severe reprimand from the Comtesse de Marsan, who hinted to her that she would do well in not mak- ing her appearance again before the Princess. Madame Clotilde sent for her the next day : " My governess," said Ishe, " has done her duty, and I will do mine; come and see us as usual, and think no more of a piece of inadvertence, which I myself have forgotten." This Princess, so heavy in body, possessed the most agreeable and playful wit. Her affability and grace rendered her dear to all who came near her. A certain poet, whose mind was solely occupied with the prodigious size of Madame Clotilde, when it was determined that she should marry the Prince of Piedmont, composed the fol- lowing stanza. It must be remembered that two Princesses of Savoy had just married two French Princes: — " Le bon Savoyard qui reclame Le prix de ses double present, 138 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the victim of her respect and tender attachment for the King, her brother, and whose exalted virtues have deserved a celes- tial crown.9 She was still scarcely out of her leading-strings at the period of the Dauphin's marriage. The Dauphiness showed her marked preference. The governess, who sought to advance the Princess to whom Nature had been least favour- able, was offended at the Dauphiness's partiality for Madame Elizabeth, and by her injudicious complaints weakened the friendship which yet subsisted between Madame Clotilde and Marie Antoinette. There even arose some degree of rivalry on the subject of education ; and that which the Empress Maria Theresa bestowed on her daughters was talked of openly and unfavourably enough. The Abbe de Vermond thought him- self affronted, took a part in the quarrel, and added his com- plaints and jokes to those of the Dauphiness on the criticisms of the governess; he even indulged himself in his turn in re- flections on the tuition of Madame Clotilde. Everything be- En echange regoit Madame C'est le bien grassement." " Though we've only returned one princess for the two, Who from Piedmont were sent us of late; Yet surely no question of wrong can ensue, Since the bargain's made up by her weight." Note by the Editor. » Elizabeth Philippine Marie Helena of France, born at Versailles on the 3d of May 1764; guillotined 1794. "Madame Elizabeth," says M. de la Salle, the author of a biographical article upon this in- teresting and unfortunate Princess, " had not, like Madame Clotilde, her august sister, received from nature that softness and flexibility of character which renders the practice of virtue easy; in more points than one she resembled the Duke of Burgundy, the pupil of F6n6lon. Education and piety operated upon her as they did upon that Prince: precepts, and the examples which surrounded her, adorned her with all virtues, and left nothing of her original in- clinations, but amiable sensibility, lively impressions, and a firmness which seemed formed to meet the dreadful trials for which Heaven reserved her." — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 139 comes known at Court. Madame de Marsan was informed of all that had been said in the Dauphiness's circle, and was very angry with her on account of it. From that moment a centre of intrigue or rather gossip against Marie Antoinette was established round Madame de Marsan's fireside; her most trifling actions were there con- strued ill; her gaiety, and the harmless amusements in which she sometimes indulged in her own apartments with the more youthful ladies of her train, and even with the women in her service, were stigmatised as criminal. Prince Louis de Eohan, sent ambassador to Vienna by this clique, was the echo there of these unmerited comments, and threw himself into a series of culpable accusations which he dignified with the name of zeal. He ceaselessly represented the young Dauphiness as alienating all hearts by levities unsuitable to the dignity of the French Court. The Princess frequently received from the Court of Vienna remonstrances, of the origin of which she could not long remain in ignorance. From this period must be dated that aversion which she never ceased to manifest for the Prince de Eohan. About the same time the Dauphiness received information of a letter written by Prince Louis to the Due d'Aiguillon, in which, the ambassador expressed himself in very free lan- guage respecting the intentions of Maria Theresa with rela- tion to the partition of Poland. This letter of Prince Louis had been read at the Comtesse du Barry's; the levity of the ambassador's correspondence wounded the feelings and the dig- nity of the Dauphiness at Versailles, while at Vienna the representations which he made to Maria Theresa against the young Princess terminated in rendering the motives of his in- cessant complaints suspected by the Empress. Maria Theresa at length determined on sending her private secretary, Baron de Neni, to Versailles, with directions to ob- 140 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF serve the conduct of the Dauphiness with attention, and form a just estimate of the opinion of the Court and of Paris with regard to that Princess. The Baron de Neni, after having devoted sufficient time and intelligence to the subject, unde- ceived his sovereign as to the exaggerations of the French ambassador; and the Empress had no difficulty in detecting, among the calumnies which he had conveyed to her under the specious excuse of anxiety for her august daughter, proofs of the enmity of a party which had never approved of the alliance of the House of Bourbon with her own.10 10 The Empress Maria Theresa knew very well which of the persons who composed the Court of Louis XV. were favourable and which un- favourable to Marie Antoinette. It is said that at the moment of that Princess's departure for France, the Empress gave her the fol- lowing note in her own handwriting: — " List of persons of my acquaintance. The Due and Duchesse Comte de Broglie. de Choiseul. The brothers De Montazet. The Due and Duchesse M. d'Aumont. de Praslin. M. Gerard. Hautefort. M. Blondel. The Du Chatelets. La Beauvan, a nun. D'Estr6e. Her companion. D'Aubeterre. The Durforts. " To this last family you will take every opportunity of showing gratitude and attention. " The same to the Abbe1 de Vermond : I have the welfare of these persons at heart. My ambassador has orders to promote it. I shall be sorry to be the first to violate my own principle, which is to recommend nobody; but you and I owe too much to these persons not to seek all opportunities of being serviceable to them, if we can do it without too much impegno. " Consult with De Mercy. I recommend to you in general all the Lorraines in whatever you can do for them." The Abbe Georgel, the clever Jesuit secretary of the French Em- bassy in Austria, obtained, by means of a mysterious unknown per- son, the most important secrets of the Court of Vienna. " A masked man," says he in his memoirs, " one day placed in my hands two papers of secret instructions sent to Comte de Mercy, for him to give personally to the Queen. The first for the King's MARIE ANTOINETTE. 141 At this period the Dauphiness, though unable to obtain any influence over the heart of her husband, dreading Louis XV., and justly mistrusting everything connected with Madame du Barry and the Due dAiguillon, had not deserved the slight- est reproach as to that sort of levity which hatred and her misfortunes afterwards construed into crime. The Empress, convinced of the innocence of Marie Antoinette, directed the Baron de Neni to solicit the recall of the Prince de Eohan, and to inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs of all the mo- tives which made her require it ; but the House of Eohan inter- posed between its protege and the Austrian envoy, and an eva- sive answer merely was given. It was not until two months after the death of Louis XV. that the Court of Vienna obtained his recall. The avowed grounds for requiring it were, first, the public gallantries of Prince Louis with some ladies of the Court and others; sec- ondly, his surliness and haughtiness towards other foreign ministers, which would have had more serious consequences, especially with the ministers of England and Denmark, if the Empress herself had not interfered; thirdly, his contempt for religion in a country where it was particularly necessary to show respect for it. He had been seen frequently to dress himself in clothes of different colours, assuming the hunting uniforms of various noblemen whom he visited, with so much inspection; the second for the Queen alone. This last contained advice as to the method to be adopted for compensating for the King's inexperience, and for profiting by the facility of his character to influence the Government without appearing to interfere in it. The political lesson was given to Marie Antoinette with much art: she was led to feel that it was the surest way to render herself beloved by the French, whose happiness she might thereby secure; and at the same time cement the union of the two Houses of Austria and Bourbon." What Georgel insinuates is obvious; but it must be remembered that he was one of Marie Antoinette's most implacable enemies. — Note by the Editor. 142 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF audacity that one day in particular, during the Fete Dieu, he and all his legation, in green uniforms laced with gold, broke through a procession which impeded them, in order to make their way to a hunting party at the Prince de Paar's; and fourthly, the immense debts contracted by him and his people, which were tardily and only in part discharged.11 The succeeding marriages of the Comte de Provence and the Comte dArtois with two daughters of the King of Sardinia, procured society for the Dauphiness more suitable to her age, and altered her mode of life. A pair of tolerably fine eyes drew forth in favour of the Comtesse de Provence, upon her arrival at Versailles, the only praises which could reasonably be bestowed 'upon her. The Comtesse oTArtois, though not deformed, was very small ; 11 " On the departure of Prince Louis de Rohan for Compiegne," says the Abbe" Georgel, " where the new King held his Court, I re- mained at Vienna, charged with the transaction of the affairs of France with the Austrian ministry. I consequently received in- structions to continue the negotiations, as entrusted with the political correspondence with our ministry, and the King's ambassador at Constantinople. Upon his arrival, the Prince de Rohan heard of the complaints of Maria Theresa, and the steps already taken in her name by Marie Antoinette for his recall. He had an audience of the King; it was short, and far from satisfactory. Louis XVI. listened to him a few minutes, and then abruptly said, ' I will soon let you know my pleasure.' He never could obtain an audience of the Queen, and, without deigning to receive him, she sent for the letter which her mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, had given him for her. His relations warned him that the prejudices of the King and Queen against him were very strong, and advised him not to make any attempt to return to Vienna, saying they would be quite thrown away, and would only give more publicity to his disgrace. Prince Louis remained in perplexity and suspense more than two months, and wrote a letter to the King, in which he described his situation in terms calculated to interest the monarch's feelings. His letter re- mained unanswered; but Louis XVI. told the Comtesse de Marsan, a cousin of the ambassador, that the embassy to Vienna was intended for the Baron de Breteuil, a man preferred by the Empress and se- lected by the Queen." MARIE ANTOINETTE. 143 she had a fine complexion; her face, tolerably pleasing, was not remarkable for anything except the extreme length of the nose. But being good and generous, she was beloved by those about her, and even possessed some influence so long as she was the only Princess who had produced heirs to the crown. From this time the closest intimacy subsisted between the three young families. They took their meals together, except on those days when they dined in public. This manner of living en famille continued until the Queen sometimes indulged her- self in going to dine with the Duchesse de Polignac, when she was governess; but the evening meetings at supper were never interrupted; they took place at the house of the Comtesse de Provence. Madame Elizabeth made one of the party when she had finished her education, and sometimes Mesdames, the King's aunts, were invited. The custom, which had no prece- dent at Court, was the work of Marie Antoinette, and she maintained it with the utmost perseverance. The Court of Versailles saw no change in point of etiquette during the reign of Louis XV. Play took place at the house of the Dauphiness, as being the first female of the State. It had, from the death of Queen Maria Leczinska to the mar- riage of the Dauphin, been held at the abode of Madame Ade- laide. This removal, the result of an order of precedence not to be violated, was not the less displeasing to Madame Adelaide, who established a separate party for play in her apartments, and scarcely ever went to that which not only the Court in general, but also the royal family, were expected to attend. The full-dress visits to the Bang on his debotter were continued. High mass was attended daily. The airings of the Princesses were nothing more than rapid races in berlins, during which they were accompanied by Body Guards, equer- ries, and pages on horseback. They galloped for some leagues from Versailles. Calashes were used only in hunting. 144 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The young Princesses were desirous to infuse animation into their circle of associates by something useful as well as pleasant. They adopted the plan of learning and performing all the best plays of the French theatre. The Dauphin was the only spectator. The three Princesses, the two brothers of the King, and Messieurs Campan, father and son, were the sole performers, but they endeavoured to keep this amusement as secret as an affair of State; they dreaded the censure of Mesdames, and they had no doubt that Louis XV. would forbid such pastimes if he knew of them. They selected a cabinet in the entresol which nobody had occasion to enter for their per- formance. A kind of proscenium, which could be taken down and shut up in a closet, formed the whole theatre. The Comte de Provence always knew his part with imperturbable accuracy ; the Comte cTArtois knew his tolerably well, and recited ele- gantly; the Princesses acted badly. The Dauphiness acquitted herself in some characters with discrimination and feeling. The chief pleasure of this amusement consisted in all the cos- tumes being elegant and accurate. The Dauphin entered into the spirit of these diversions, and laughed heartily at the comic characters as they came on the scene ; from these amuse- ments may be dated his discontinuance of the timid manner of his youth, and his taking pleasure in the society of the Dauphiness. It was not till a long time afterwards that I learned these particulars, M. Campan having kept the secret; but an un- foreseen event had well-nigh exposed the whole mystery. One day the Queen desired M. Campan to go down into her closet to fetch something she had forgotten; he was dressed for the character of Crispin, and was rouged. A private staircase led direct to the entresol through the dressing-room. M. Campan fancied he heard some noise, and remained still, behind the MARIE ANTOINETTE. 145 door, which was shut. A servant belonging to the wardrobe, who was, in fact, on the staircase, had also heard some noise, and, either from fear or curiosity, he suddenly opened the door ; the figure of Crispin frightened him so that he fell down backwards, shouting with all his might, " Help ! help ! " My father-in-law raised him up, made him recognise his voice, and laid upon him an injunction of silence as to what he had seen. He felt himself, however, bound to inform the Dauphiness of what had happened, and she was afraid that a similar occur- rence might betray their amusements. They were therefore discontinued. The Princess occupied her time in her own apartment in the study of music and the parts in plays which she had to learn; the latter exercise, at least, produced the beneficial effect of strengthening her memory and familiarising her with the French language. The Abbe de Vermond visited her daily, but took care to avoid the imposing tone of a tutor; and would not, even as a reader, recommend the useful study of history. I believe he never read a single volume of history in his life to his august pupil ; and, in truth, there never existed a Princess who man- ifested a more marked aversion for all serious studies. While Louis XV. reigned, the enemies of Marie Antoinette made no attempt to change public opinion with regard to her. She always was the object of the love of the French people in general, and particularly of the inhabitants of Paris, who went at every opportunity to Versailles, the majority of them attracted solely by the pleasure of seeing her. The courtiers did not fully enter into the popular enthusiasm which the Dauphiness had inspired; the disgrace of the Due de Choiseul had removed her real support from her; and the party which hajd the ascendency at Court since the exile of that minister VOL. I— 10 146 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF was, politically, as much opposed to her family as to herself. The Dauphiness was therefore surrounded by enemies at Versailles. Nevertheless everybody appeared outwardly desirous to please her; for the age of Louis XV., and the character of the Dauphin, sufficiently warned courtiers of the important part reserved for the Princess during the following reign, in case the Dauphin should become attached to her. MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTER IV. Death of Louis XV. — Picture of the Court — Madame du Barry dis- missed— Departure of the Court to Choisy — M. de Maurepas Minister — Influence of example upon the courtiers — Enthusiasm raised by the new reign — Mourning at La Muette — The Queen — The King and the Princes, his brothers, are inoculated — Stay at Marly — Calumnies against the Queen — Boehmer, the jeweller — Mademoiselle Bertin — Changes of fashion — Simpli- city of the Court of Vienna — Extreme temperance, decorum, and modesty of Marie Antoinette. ABOUT the beginning of May 1774 Louis XV., the strength of whose constitution had promised a long enough life, was attacked by confluent smallpox of the worst kind. Mesdames at this juncture inspired the Dauphiness with a feeling of re- spect and attachment, of which she gave them repeated proofs when she ascended the throne. In fact, nothing was more admirable nor more affecting than the courage with which they braved that most horrible disease: the air of the palace was infected; more than fifty persons took the smallpox, in con- sequence of having merely loitered in the galleries of Ver- sailles ; and ten died of it. The end of the monarch was approaching. His reign, peaceful in general, had inherited strength from the power of his predecessor ; on the other hand, his own weakness had been preparing misfortune for whoever should reign after him. The scene was about to change : hope, ambition, joy, grief, and all those feelings which variously affected the hearts of the courtiers, sought in vain to disguise themselves under a calm exterior. It was easy to detect the different motives which induced them every moment to repeat to every one the ques- 148 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF tion: " How is the King? " At length, on the 10th of May 1774, the mortal career of Louis XV. terminated.1 The Comtesse du Barry had, a few days previously, with- drawn to Euelle, to the Due d'Aiguillon's. Twelve or fifteen persons belonging to the Court thought it their duty to visit i Christopher de Beaumont, Archbishop of Paris, the ardent apostle of frequent communion, arrived at Paris with the intention of solicit- ing, in public, the administration of the sacrament to the King; and secretly retarding it as much as possible. The ceremony could not take place without the previous and public expulsion of the con- cubine, according to the canons of the Church and the Jesuitical party, of which Christopher was the leader. This party, which had made use of Madame du Barry to suppress the Parliaments, to support the Due d'Aiguillon, and ruin the Choiseul faction, could not willingly consent to disgrace her canonically. The Archbishop of Paris had always said openly that she had rendered signal services to religion. This Molinist party was joined by the Dues de Richelieu, de Fronsac, d'Aiguillon, Bertin, Maupeou, and Terray. Madame du Barry being their support with the pusillanimous King, they were bound to defend her, and prevent degradation and such retaliation as the Duchesse de Chateauroux had meditated in a similar case in 1745. The opposite party sought, on the other hand, to accelerate a religious ceremony which was to annihilate a favourite who had driven their leader, the Due de Choiseul, from Court. It was amus- ing to see the latter party, which was the scourge of religion in France, calling it in to their aid during the King's sickness, in order to revenge themselves on Madame du Barry; while the party of the Archbishop and the bigots, in their turn, combined to prevent Louis XV. from receiving the sacrament. At that time they were coolly jobbing and bargaining about the King's conscience and penitence, said the Cardinal de Luynes to me. There was consequently an abso- lute uproar at court. The question was, whether the King should or should not receive the sacrament immediately. " Must we," said the Mar6chal de Richelieu, " must ice suffer Madame du Barry to be sent away with ignominy, and can we forget her services and expose our- selves to her vengeance in case of her return? or rather, shall we await the extremity of the invalid to effect a mere separation and proceed without noise or exposure to a plain administration of the sacrament? " On the morning of the 1st of May the Archbishop of Paris presented himself to the sick monarch. He had scarcely reached the door of the King's antechamber when Marshal de Richelieu went to meet him, and conjured him not to kill the King by a theological MARIE ANTOINETTE. 149 her there; their liveries were observed, and these visits were for a long time grounds for disfavour. More than six years after the King's death one of these persons being spoken of in the circle of the royal family, I heard it remarked, " That was one of the fifteen Euelle carriages." proposition,1 which had killed so many sick persons. " But if you are curious to hear some elegant little sins," said he to the prelate, " place yourself there, monsieur, and I will confess such as you have not heard since you became Archbishop of Paris. If, however, you will absolutely confess the King, and repeat here the role of the Arch- bishop of Soissons, at Metz; if you will send away Madame du Barry with disgrace, you complete the triumph of the Due de Choiseul, from whom Madame du Barry has contributed so much to deliver you, and you persecute your friend for the benefit of your foe. Yes, sir; so much is she your friend that she said to me yesterday : ' Let the Archbishop leave us alone; he shall have his cardinal's cap; I will answer for it.' " The Archbishop then went into the King's bed- chamber, and found there Madame Adelaide, the Due d'Aumont, the Bishop of Senlis, and Richelieu, in whose presence he resolved not to say one word about confession for that day. This reticence so encouraged Louis XV. that, on the Archbishop withdrawing, he had Madame du Barry called in, and kissed her beautiful hands again with his wonted affection. On the 2d of May the King found him- self a little better. Madame du Barry had brought him two con- fidential physicians, Lorry and Bordeu, who were enjoined to con- ceal the nature of his sickness from him in order to keep off the priests and save her from a humiliating dismissal. The King's im- provement allowed of Madame du Barry diverting him by her usual playfulness and conversation. But La Martiniere, who was of the Choiseul party, and to whom they durst not refuse his right of entry, did not coaceal from the King either the nature or the danger of his sickness. The King then sent for Madame du Barry, and said to her: " My love, I have got the smallpox, and my illness is very dangerous on account of my age and other disorders. I ought not to forget that I am the most Christian King and the eldest son of the Church. I am sixty- four; the time is perhaps approaching when we must sep- arate. I wish to prevent a scene like that of Metz." [When, in 1744, he had dismissed the Duchesse de Chateauroux.] " Apprise the Due d'Aiguillon of what I say, that he may arrange with you if my sick- ness grows worse; so that we may part without any publicity." The i The truth of these particulars is confirmed by BesenvaPs Memoirs, vol. i. — Note by the Editor. 150 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The whole Court went to the chateau; the ceil-de-bceuf was filled with, courtiers, and the palace with the inquisitive. The Dauphin had settled that he would depart with the royal family the moment the King should breathe his last sigh. But on such an occasion decency forbade that positive orders Jansenists and the Due de ChoiseuPs party publicly said that M. d'Aiguillon and the Archbishop had resolved to let the King die with- out receiving the sacrament, rather than disturb Madame du Barry. Annoyed by their remarks, Beaumont determined to go and reside at the Lazaristes, his house at Versailles, to avail himself of the King's last moments, and sacrifice Madame du Barry when the monarch's condition should become desperate. He arrived on the 3d of May, but did not see the King. Under existing circumstances, his object was to humble the enemies of his party and to support the favourite who had assisted to overcome them. A contrary zeal animated the Bishop of Carcassonne, who urged " that the King ought to receive the sacrament ; and by expelling the concubine to give an example of repentance to France and Chris- tian Europe, which he had scandalised." " By what right," said Cardinal de la Roche Aymon, a complaisant courtier with whom the Bishop was at daggers drawn, " do you instruct me ? " — " There is my authority," replied the Bishop, holding up his pectoral cross. " Learn, Monseigneur, to respect it, and do not suffer your King to die without the sacraments of the Church, of which he is the eldest son." The Due d'Aiguillon and the Archbishop, who witnessed the discussion, put an end to it by asking for the King's orders relative to Madame du Barry. " She must be taken quietly to your seat at Ruelle," said the King; " I shall be grateful for the care Madame d'Aiguillon may take of her." Madame du Barry saw the King again for a moment on the even- ing of the 4th, and promised to return to Court upon his recovery. She was scarcely gone when the King asked for her. " She is gone," was the answer. From that moment the disorder gained ground; he thought himself a dead man, without the possibility of recovery. The 5th and 6th passed without a word of confession, viaticum, or extreme unction. The Due de Fronsac threatened to throw the Cur<§ of Versailles out of the window if he dared to mention them. But on the 7th, at three in the morning, the King imperatively called for the Abb6 Maudoux.i Confession lasted seventeen minutes. The Dues de la Vrilliere and d'Aiguillon wished to delay the viaticum; but La 1 In Carlyle's French Revolution the confessor of Louis XV. is called Moudou. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 151 for departure should be passed from mouth to mouth. The heads of the stables, therefore, agreed with the people who were in the King's room, that the latter should place a lighted taper near a window, and that at the instant of the King's decease one of them should extinguish it.2 Martiniere said to the King: "Sire, I have seen your Majesty in very trying circumstances; but never admired you as I have done to- day. No doubt your Majesty will immediately finish what you have so well begun." The King had his confessor Maudoux called back: this was a poor priest who had been placed about him some years before because he was old and blind. He gave him absolution. The formal renunciation desired by the Choiseul party, in order to humble and annihilate Madame du Barry with solemnity was no more mentioned. The grand almoner, in concert with the Archbishop, com- posed this formula, pronounced in presence of the viaticum : " Al- though the King owes an account of his conduct to none but God, he declares his repentance at having scandalised his subjects, and is desirous to live solely for the maintenance of religion and the happi- ness of his people." On the 8th and 9th the disorder grew worse; and the King beheld the whole surface of his body coming off piecemeal and corrupted. Deserted by his friends and by that crowd of courtiers which had so long cringed before him, his only consolation was the piety of his daughters. . . . These notes relative to the last sickness of Louis XV. were furnished to me by M. de la Borde, his first valet de chambre, who left some valuable memoirs of the Court of Louis XV., by the Abb€ Dupinet, Canon of Notre Dame, who had them from the Archbishop of Paris; by the Cardinal de Luynes, Madame d'Aiguillon, the Due de Fronsac, and Margchal de Richelieu. I have had recourse to both parties for the account of the intrigues by which the expiring King was tormented. — Historical and Political Memoirs, by Soulavie, vol. i. 2 One grudges to interfere with the beautiful theatrical " candle " which Madame Campan has lit on this occasion, and blown out at the moment of death. What candles may be lit or blown out in so large an establishment as that of Versailles, no man at such distance would like to affirm; at the same time, as it was two o'clock on a May afternoon, and these royal stables must have been five or six hundred yards from the royal sickroom, the candle does threaten to go out in spite of us. It remains burning indeed — in her fantasy : throwing light on much in those M6moires of hers. — Carlyle's French Revolution, vol. i., p. 21. 152 ' THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The taper was extinguished. On this signal the Body Guards, pages, and equerries mounted on horseback, and all was ready for setting off. The Dauphin was with the Dauphiness. They were expecting together the intelligence of the death of Louis XV. A dreadful noise, absolutely like thunder, was heard in the outer apartment; it was the crowd of courtiers who were deserting the dead sovereign's antechamber, to come and do homage to the new power of Louis XVI. This ex- traordinary tumult informed Marie Antoinette and her hus- band that they were called to the throne; and, by a spon- taneous movement, which deeply affected those around them, they threw themselves on 4heir knees ; both, pouring forth a flood of tears, exclaimed: " 0 God! guide us, protect us; we are too young to reign" The Comtesse de Noailles entered, and was the first to salute Marie Antoinette as Queen of France. She requested their Majesties to condescend to quit the inner apartments for the grand salon, to receive the Princes and all the great officers, who were desirous to do homage to their new sovereigns. Marie Antoinette received these first visits leaning upon her husband, with her handkerchief held to her eyes ; the carriages drove up, the guards and equerries were on horseback. The Chateau was deserted — every one hastened to fly from con- tagion, which there was no longer any inducement to brave. On leaving the chamber of Louis XV., the Due de Ville- quier, first gentleman of the bed-chamber for the year, or- dered M. Andouille, the King's chief surgeon, to open the body and embalm it. The chief surgeon would inevitably have died in consequence. "I am ready," replied Andouille; "but while I operate you shall hold the head; your office imposes this duty upon you." The Duke went off without saying a word, and the corpse was neither opened nor embalmed. A few under-servants and workmen continued with the pestiferous MARIE ANTOINETTE. 153 remains, and paid the last duty to their master; the surgeons directed that spirits of wine should be poured into the coffin. The whole of the Court set off for Choisy at four o'clock; Mesdames the King's aunts in their private carriage, and the Princesses under tuition with the Comtesse de Marsan and the under governesses. The King, the Queen, Monsieur, the King's brother, Madame, and the Comte and Comtesse cTArtois, went in the same carriage. The solemn scene that had just passed before their eyes — the multiplied ideas offered to their imaginations by that which was just opening, had naturally inclined them to grief and reflection; but, by the Queen's own confession, this inclination, little suited to their age, wholly left them before they had gone half their journey; a word, drolly mangled by the Comtesse oTArtois, occasioned a general burst of laughter — and from that moment they dried their tears. The communication between Choisy and Paris was incessant; never was a Court seen in greater agitation. What influence will the royal aunts have? — And the Queen? — What fate is reserved for the Comtesse du Barry? — Whom will the young King choose for his ministers? — All these questions were answered in a few days. It was determined that the King's youth required a confidential person near him ; and that there should be a prime minister. All eyes were turned upon De Machault and De Maurepas, both of them much advanced in years. The first had retired to his estate near Paris; and the second to Pont Chartrain, to which place he had long been exiled. The letter recalling M. de Machault was written when Madame Adelaide obtained the preference of that important appointment for M. de Maurepas. The page to whose care the first letter had been actually consigned was recalled.3 3 This fact has been doubted, but I am able to assert that Louis XVI. desired M. Campan to recall the page, whom he found ready 154 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The Due cTAiguillon had been too openly known as the pri- vate friend of the King's mistress; he was dismissed. M. de Vergennes, at that time ambassador of France at Stockholm, was appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs; Comte de Muy, the intimate friend of the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., obtained the War Department. The Abbe Terray in vain said, and wrote, that he had boldly done all possible injury to the creditors of the State during the reign of the late King ; that order was restored in the finances ; that nothing but what was beneficial to all parties remained to be done ; and that the new Court was about to enjoy the advantages of the regenerat- ing part of his plan of finance; all these reasons, set forth in five or six memorials, which he sent in succession to the King and Queen, did not avail to keep him in office. His talents were admitted, but the odium which his operations had neces- sarily brought upon his character, combined with the immo- rality of his private life, forbade his further stay at Court; he was succeeded by M. de Clugny. De Maupeou, the Chan- cellor, was exiled; this caused universal joy. Lastly, the re- assembling of the Parliaments produced the strongest sensa- to mount his horse, and whom he desired to come back again to return the letter to the King himself; and that the Queen said upon the subject to my father-in-law: " If the letter had gone, M. de Machault would have been Prime Minister, for the King would never have consented to write a second letter in contradiction of his first inten- tion." i — Madame Campan. 1 If we may credit a contemporary writer, the Abb6 de Radonvilliers was not without influence in this last determination. Chamfort re- lates the following anecdote a propos of the nomination of the Comte de Maurepas: — " It is a well-known fact that the King's letter, sent to M. de Maurepas, was written for M. de Machault. When M. de Maurepas arrived, the King would do no more than chat with him. At the end of the conversation, M. de Maurepas said to him : ' I will de- tail my ideas to-morrow at the Council.' It is related, too, that at this conversation he said to the King, ' Your Majesty, then, makes me Prime Minister ? ' ' No,' replied the King, ' I have no such intention.' ' I understand,' said M. de Maurepas ; ' your Majesty wishes I should teach you to do without one.' " — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 155 tion; Paris was in a delirium of joy, and not more than one person in a hundred foresaw that the spirit of the ancient magistracy would be still the same; and that in a short time it would make new attempts upon the royal authority. Ma- dame Du Barry had been exiled to Pont-aux-Dames. This was a measure rather of necessity than of severity; a short period of compulsory retreat was requisite in order completely to break off her connection with State affairs. The possession of Louveciennes and a considerable pension were continued to her.4 Everybody expected the recall of M. de Choiseul ; the regret occasioned by his absence among the numerous friends whom he had left at Court, the attachment of the young Princess who was indebted to him for her elevation to the throne of France, and all concurring circumstances, seemed to foretell his return; the Queen earnestly entreated it of the King, but she met with an insurmountable and unforeseen obstacle. The King, it is said, had imbibed the strongest prejudices against that minister,5 from secret memoranda penned by his father, * The Comtesse du Barry never forgot the mild treatment she ex- perienced from the Court of Louis XVI.; during the most violent convulsions of the Revolution she signified to the Queen that there was not in all France a female more grieved at the sufferings of her sovereign than herself; that the honour she had for years enjoyed, of living near the throne, and the unbounded kindness of the King and Queen, had so sincerely attached her to the cause of royalty, that she entreated the Queen to honour her by disposing of all she pos- sessed. Though they did not accept her offer, their Majesties were affected at her gratitude. The Comtesse du Barry was, as is well known, one of the victims of the Revolution. She betrayed the low- est degree of weakness, and the most ardent desire to live. She was the only woman who wept upon the scaffold and implored for mercy. Her beauty and tears made an impression on the populace, and the execution was hurried to a conclusion. — Madame Campan. 5 These prejudices did not arise from the pretended crime of which calumny had accused this minister, but principally from the sup- pression of the Jesuits, in which he had, in fact, taken an active part. — Madame Campan. 156 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF and which had been committed to the care of the Due de La Vauguyon, with an injunction to place them in his hands as soon as he should be old enough to study the art of reigning. It was by these memoranda that the esteem which he had con- ceived for the Marechal du Muy was inspired, and we may add that Madame Adelaide, who at this early period powerfully influenced the decisions of the young monarch, confirmed the impressions they had made. The Queen conversed with M. Campan on the regret she felt at having been unable to procure the recall of M. de Choiseul, and disclosed the cause of it to him. The Abbe de Vermond, who, down to the time of the death of Louis XV., had been on terms of the strictest friendship with M. Cam- pan, called upon him on the second day after the arrival of the Court at Choisy, and, assuming a serious air, said, " Sir, t the Queen was indiscreet enough yesterday to speak to you of a minister to whom she must of course be attached, and whom his friends ardently desire to have near her ; you are aware that we must give up all expectation of seeing the Duke at Court; you know the reasons why ; but you do not know that the young Queen, having mentioned the conversation in question to me, it was my duty, both as her preceptor and her friend, to remonstrate most sharply with her on her indiscretion in com- municating to you those particulars of which you are in pos- session. I am now come to tell you that if you continue to avail yourself of the good nature of your mistress to initiate yourself in secrets of State, you will have me for your most inveterate enemy. The Queen should find here no other confi- dant than myself respecting things that ought to remain secret." M. Campan answered that he did not covet the important and dangerous character at the new Court which the Abbe wished to appropriate ; and that he should confine himself to the duties of his office, being sufficiently satisfied with the continued kind- MARIE ANTOINETTE. 157 ness with which the Queen honoured him. Notwithstanding this, however, he informed the Queen, on the very same even- ing, of the injunction he had received. She owned that she had mentioned their conversation to the Abbe; that he had indeed seriously scolded her, in order to make her feel the necessity of being secret in concerns of State; and she added, "The Abbe cannot like you, my dear Campan; he did not expect that I should, on my arrival in France, find in my household a man who would suit me so exactly as you have done.6 I know that he has taken umbrage at it; that is enough. I know, too, that you are incapable of attempting anything to injure him in my esteem ; an attempt which would besides be vain, for I have been too long attached to him. As to yourself, be easy on the score of the Abbe's hostility, which shall not in any way hurt you. We run the risk of doing unjust actions, only when the persons about us possess the art of disguising those motives of jealousy or ambition by which they are prompted." The Abbe de Vermond having made him- self master of the office of sole confidant to the Queen, was nevertheless agitated whenever he saw the young King; he could not be ignorant that the Abbe had been promoted by the Due de Choiseul, and was believed to favour the Encyclo- pedists, against whom Louis XVI. entertained a secret preju- dice, although he suffered them to gain so great an ascendency « The day after the arrival of the Dauphiness at Versailles, the Comtesse de Noailles asked her what orders she had to give M. Moreau, her librarian. She replied that the only order she had for him was to give up the key of her library to M. Campan, whom she installed in his office; adding that he might retain the title which the King had conferred upon him, but that she did not accept his services. She had been so prejudiced against M. Moreau by the Abbe" de Vermond that she added that she would speak to the King about the matter; that she knew M. Moreau to be a good deal too clever, and that she desired to have no people about her but those on whom she could rely. — Madame Campan. 158 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF during his reign. The Abbe had, moreover, observed that the King had never, while Dauphin, addressed a single word to him; and that he very frequently only answered him with a shrug of the shoulders. He therefore determined on writing to Louis XVI., and intimating that he owed his situation at Court solely to the confidence with which the late King had honoured him; and that as habits contracted during the Queen's education placed him continually in the closest in- timacy with her, he could not enjoy the honour of remaining near her Majesty without the King's consent. Louis XVI. sent back his letter, after writing upon it these words : " I ap- prove the Abbe de Vermond continuing in his office about the Queen." At the period of his grandfather's death Louis XVI. began to be exceedingly attached to the Queen. The first period of so deep a mourning not admitting of indulgence in the diver- sion of hunting, he proposed to her walks in the gardens of Choisy : they went out like husband and wife, the young King giving his arm to the Queen, and accompanied by a very small suite. The influence of this example had such an effect upon the courtiers that the next day several couples, who had long, and for good reasons, been disunited, were seen walking upon the terrace with the same apparent conjugal intimacy. Thus they spent whole hours, braving the intolerable wearisomeness of their protracted tete-a-tetes, out of mere obsequious imi- tation. The devotion of Mesdames to the King their father through- out his dreadful malady had produced that effect upon their health which was generally apprehended. On the fourth day after their arrival at Choisy they were attacked by pains in the head and chest, which left no doubt as to the danger of their situation. It became necessary instantly to send away the young royal family; and the Chateau de la Muette, in the MARIE ANTOINETTE. 159 Bois de Boulogne, was selected for their reception. Their arrival at that residence, which was very near Paris, drew so great a concourse of people into its neighbourhood, that even at daybreak the crowd had begun to assemble round the gates. Shouts of Vive le Roi! were scarcely interrupted for a moment between six o'clock in the morning and sunset. The unpopu- larity the late King had drawn upon himself during his latter years, and the hopes to which a new reign gives birth, occa- sioned these transports of joy. A fashionable jeweller made a fortune by the sale of mourn- ing snuff-boxes, whereon the portrait of the young Queen, in a black frame of shagreen, gave rise to the pun : " Consolation in chagrin." All the fashions, and every article of dress, re- ceived names expressing the spirit of the moment. Symbols of abundance were everywhere represented, and the head- dresses of the ladies were surrounded by ears of wheat. Poets sang of the new monarch; all hearts, or rather all heads, in France were filled with enthusiasm. Never did the com- mencement of any reign excite more unanimous testimonials of love and attachment. It must be observed, however, that, amidst all this intoxication, the anti-Austrian party never lost sight of the young Queen, but kept on the watch, with the malicious desire to injure her through such errors as might arise from her youth and inexperience. Their Majesties had to receive at La Muette the condolences of the ladies who had been presented at Court, who all felt themselves called on to pay homage to the new sovereigns. Old and young hastened to present themselves on the day of gen- eral reception; little black bonnets with great wings, shaking heads, low curtsies, keeping time with the motions of the head, made, it must be admitted, a few venerable dowagers appear somewhat ridiculous ; but the Queen, who possessed a great deal of dignity, and a high respect for decorum, was not guilty of 160 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the grave fault of losing the state she was bound to preserve. An indiscreet piece of drollery of one of the ladies of the pal- ace, however, procured her the imputation of doing so. The Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre, whose office required that she should continue standing behind the Queen, fatigued by the length of the ceremony seated herself on the floor, concealed behind the fence formed by the hoops of the Queen and the ladies of the palace. Thus seated, and wishing to attract attention and to appear lively, she twitched the dresses of those ladies, and played a thousand other tricks. The contrast of these childish pranks with the solemnity which reigned over the rest of the Queen's chamber disconcerted her Majesty : she several times placed her fan before her face to hide an in- voluntary smile, and the severe old ladies pronounced that the young Queen had derided all those respectable persons who were pressing forward to pay their homage to her; that she liked none but the young; that she was deficient in decorum; and that not one of them would attend her Court again. The epithet moqueuse was applied to her; and there is no epithet less favourably received in the world. The next day a very ill-natured song was circulated; the stamp of the party to which it was attributable might easily be seen upon it. I remember only the following chorus : — " Little Queen, you must not be So saucy, with your twenty years ; Your ill-used courtiers soon will see You pass, once more, the barriers. Fal lal lal, fal lal la." 1 The errors of the great, or those which ill-nature chooses to impute to them, circulate in the world with the greatest rapid- 7 " Petite reine de vingt ans, Vous qui traitez si mal le gens, Vous repasserez la barriere, Laire, laire, laire, lanlaire, laire lanla." MARIE ANTOINETTE. 161 ity, and become historical traditions, which every one delights to repeat. More than fifteen years after this occurrence I heard some old ladies in the most retired part of Auvergne relating all the particulars of the day of public condolence for the late King, on which, as they said, the Queen had laughed in the faces of the sexagenarian duchesses and prin- cesses, who had thought it their duty to appear on the occasion. The King and the Princes, his brothers, determined to avail themselves of the advantages held out by inoculation, as a safeguard against the illness under which their grandfather had just fallen ; but the utility of this new discovery not being then generally acknowledged in France, many persons were greatly alarmed at the step ; those who blamed it openly threw all the responsibility of it upon the Queen, who alone, they said, could have ventured to give such rash advice, inoculation being at this time established in the Northern Courts. The operation upon the King and his brothers, performed by Dr. Jauberthou, was fortunately quite successful. When the convalescence of the Princes was perfectly estab- lished, the excursions to Marly became cheerful enough. Par- ties on horseback and in calashes were formed continually. The Queen was desirous to afford herself one very innocent gratification; she had never seen the day break; and having now no other consent than that of the King to seek, she in- timated her wish to him. He agreed that she should go, at three o'clock in the morning, to the eminences of the gardens of Marly; and, unfortunately, little disposed to partake in her amusements, he himself went to bed. Foreseeing some incon- veniences possible in this nocturnal party, the Queen deter- mined on having a number of people with her; and even ordered her women to accompany her. All precautions were ineffectual to prevent the effects of calumny, which thencefor- ward sought to diminish the general attachment that she had VOL. I— 11 162 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF inspired. A few days afterwards, the most wicked libel that appeared during the earlier years of her reign was circulated in Paris. The blackest colours were employed to paint an enjoyment so harmless that there is scarcely a young woman living in the country who has not endeavoured to procure it for herself. The verses which appeared on this occasion were entitled " Sunrise." 8 The Due d'Orleans, then Due de Chartres, was among those who accompanied the young Queen in her nocturnal ramble: he appeared very attentive to her at this epoch; but it was the only moment of his life in which there was any ad- vance towards intimacy between the Queen and himself. The King disliked the character of the Due de Chartres, and the Queen always excluded him from her private society. It is therefore without the slightest foundation that some writers have attributed to feelings of jealousy or wounded self-love the hatred which he displayed towards the Queen during the latter years of their existence. It was on this first journey to Marly that Bcehmer, the jeweller, appeared at Court; a man whose stupidity and avarice afterwards fatally affected the happiness and repu- tation of Marie Antoinette. This person had, at great ex- pense, collected six pear-formed diamonds of a prodigious size; they were perfectly matched and of the finest water. The earrings which they composed had, before the death of Louis XV., been destined for the Comtesse du Barry. 8 It was thus, with libels and ill-natured ballads, that the enemies of Marie Antoinette hailed the first days of her reign. They exerted themselves in every way to render her unpopular. Their aim was, beyond all doubt, to have her sent back to Germany; and there was not a moment to be lost in its accomplishment. That the indifference of the King towards his amiable and beautiful wife had lasted so long was already a kind of prodigy; any day the seductive charms of Marie Antoinette might undo all their machinations. — Madame Campan. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 163 Boehmer, by the recommendation of several persons about the Court, came to offer these jewels to the Queen. He asked four hundred thousand francs for them. The young Princess could not withstand her wish to purchase them ; and the King having just raised the Queen's income, which, under the former reign, had been but two hundred thousand livres, to one hundred thousand crowns a year, she wished to make the purchase out of her own purse, and not burthen the royal treasury with the payment. She proposed to Bcehmer to take off the two buttons which formed the tops of the clusters, as they could be replaced by two of her own diamonds. He con- sented, and then reduced the price of the earrings to three hundred and sixty thousand francs; the payment for which was to be made by instalments, and was discharged in the course of four or five years by the Queen's first femme de chambre, deputed to manage the funds of her privy purse. I have omitted no details as to the manner in which the Queen first became possessed of these jewels, deeming them very needful to place in its true light the too famous circum- stance of the necklace, which happened near the end of the reign of Marie Antoinette. It was likewise on this first journey to Marly that the Duchesse de Chartres, afterwards Duchesse dOrleans, intro- duced into the Queen's household Mademoiselle Bertin, a mil- liner who became celebrated at that time for the total change she effected in the dress of the French ladies. It may be said that the mere admission of a milliner into the house of the Queen was followed by evil consequences to her Majesty. The skill of the milliner, who was received into the household in spite of the custom which kept persons of her description out of it, afforded her the opportunity of in- troducing some new fashion every day. Up to this time the Queen had shown very plain taste in dress; she now began to 164 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF make it a principal occupation ; and she was of course imitated by other women. All wished instantly to have the same dress as the Queen, and to wear the feathers and flowers to which her beauty, then in its brilliancy, lent an indescribable charm. The ex- penditure of the younger ladies was necessarily much in- creased; mothers and husbands murmured at it; some few giddy women contracted debts; unpleasant domestic scenes occurred; in many families coldness or quarrels arose; and the general report was — that the Queen would be the ruin of all the French ladies. Fashion continued its fluctuating progress; and head- dresses, with their superstructures of gauze, flowers, and feathers, became so lofty that the women could not find car- riages high enough to admit them; and they were often seen either stooping, or holding their heads out of the windows. Others knelt down in order to manage these elevated objects of ridicule with less danger.9 Innumerable caricatures, ex- hibited in all directions, and some of which artfully gave the features of the Queen, attacked the extravagance of fashion, but with very little effect. It changed only, as is always the case, through the influence of inconstancy and time. » If the use of these extravagant feathers and head-dresses had con- tinued, say the memoirs of that period very seriously, it would have effected a revolution in architecture. It would have been found neces- sary to raise the doors and ceilings of the boxes at the theatres, and particularly the bodies of carriages. It was not without mortifica- tion that the King observed the Queen's adoption of this style of dress: she was never so lovely in his eyes as when unadorned by art. One day Carlin, performing at Court as harlequin, stuck in his hat, instead of the rabbit's tail, its prescribed ornament, a peacock's feather of excessive length. This new appendage, which repeatedly got en- tangled among the scenery, gave him an opportunity for a great deal of buffoonery. There was some inclination to punish him: but it was presumed that he had not assumed the feather without au- thority.— Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. • 165 The Queen's toilette was a masterpiece of etiquette; every- thing was done in a prescribed form. Both the dame dhon- neur and the dame datours usually attended and officiated, assisted by the first femme de chambre, and two ordinary women.10 The dame datours put on the petticoat, and handed the gown to the Queen. The dame dhonneur poured out the water for her hands and put on her linen. When a Princess of the royal family happened to be present while the Queen was dressing, the dame dhonneur yielded to her the latter act of office, but still did not yield it directly to the Princesses of the blood; in such a case the dame dhonneur was accustomed to present the linen to the first femme de chambre, who, in her turn, handed it to the Princess of the blood. Each of these ladies observed these rules scrupulously as effecting her rights. One winter's day it happened that the Queen, who was entirely undressed, was just going to put on her shift; I held it ready unfolded for her; the dame dhonneur came in, slipped off her gloves, and took it. A scratching was heard at the door ; it was opened, and in came the Duchesse cTOrleans: her gloves were taken off, and she came forward to take the garment ; but as it would have been wrong in the dame dhonneur to hand it to her she gave it to me, and I handed it to the Princess. More scratching; it was Madame the Comtesse de Provence; the Duchesse cTOr- leans handed her the linen. All this while the Queen kept her arms crossed upon her bosom, and appeared to feel cold; Madame observed her uncomfortable situation, and merely 10 The distinction between the honorary service and the ordinary service is easily drawn. " I have the right to do it," says honorary service haughtily. " You must do it," answers ordinary service sulkily. Between people who have the right to act and do not act, and people whose duty it is to act and who will not act, the great are likely to be very ill served. Madame Campan took pains to collect particulars relative to the ordinary service of the Queen of France. They will be found at the end of the work. — Note by the Editor. 166 'THE PRIVATE LIFE OF laying down her handkerchief without taking off her gloves, she put on the linen, and in doing so knocked the Queen's cap off. The Queen laughed to conceal her impatience, but not until she had muttered several times, " How disagree- able ! how tiresome ! " All this etiquette, however inconvenient, was suitable to the royal dignity, which expects to find servants in all classes of persons beginning even with the brothers and sisters of the monarch. Speaking here of etiquette, I do not allude to majestic state, appointed for days of ceremony in all Courts. I mean those minute ceremonies that were pursued towards our Kings in their inmost privacies, in their hours of pleasure, in those of pain, and even during the most revolting of human infirmities.11 These servile rules were drawn up into a kind of code ; they offered to a Kichelieu, a La Rochefoucauld, and a Duras, in the exercise of their domestic functions, opportunities of in- timacy useful to their interests; and their vanity was flat- tered by customs which converted the right to give a glass of water, to put on a dress, and to remove a basin, into hon- ourable prerogatives. Princes thus accustomed to be treated as divinities natu- rally ended by believing that they were of a distinct nature, of a purer essence than the rest of mankind. This sort of etiquette, which led our Princes to be treated in private as idols, made them in public martyrs to decorum. Marie Antoinette found in the Chateau of Versailles a multitude of established customs which appeared to her insup- portable. The ladies-in-waiting, who were all obliged to be sworn, and to wear full Court dresses, were alone entitled to remain 11 Vid'e Wraxall's Memoirs. MARIE ANTOINETTE. , 167 in the room, and to attend in conjunction with the dame d'honneur, and the tire-woman. The Queen abolished all this formality. When her head was dressed, she curtsied to all the ladies who were in her chamber, and, followed only by her own women, went into her closet, where Mademoiselle Bertin, who could not be admitted into the chamber, used to await her.12 It was in this inner closet that she produced her new and numerous dresses. The Queen was also desirous of being served by the most fashionable hairdresser in Paris. Now the custom which forbade all persons in inferior offices, employed by royalty, to exert their talents for the public, was no doubt intended to cut off all communication between the privacy of princes and society at large; the latter being always extremely curious respecting the most trifling par- ticulars relative to the private life of the former.. The Queen, fearing that the taste of the hairdresser would suffer if he should discontinue the general practice of his art, ordered him to attend as usual certain ladies of the Court and of Paris; and this multiplied the opportunities of learning details re- specting the household, and very often of misrepresenting them. One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome practice; Marie Antoinette fol- lowed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently-dressed people to en- 12 Mademoiselle Bertin, it is said, upon the strength of the Queen's kindness, became ridiculously proud. A lady one day went to her to ask for some patterns of mourning for the Empress. Several were shown to her, all of which she rejected. Mademoiselle Bertin ex- claimed in a tone made up of vexation and self-sufficiency, " Show her. then, some specimens of my last negotiations with her Majesty." How- ever ridiculous the expression may sound, it was actually used as related. — Note ~by the Editor. 168 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ter: the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after having seen the Dauphiness take her soup, went to see the Princes eat their bouilli, and then ran themselves out of breath to behold Mesdames at their dessert. Very ancient usage, too, required that the Queens of France should appear in public surrounded only by women; even at meal-times no persons of the other sex attended to serve at table; and although the King ate publicly with the Queen, yet he himself was served by women with everything which was presented to him directly at table. The dame dhonneur, kneeling, for her own accommodation, upon a low stool, with a napkin upon her arm, and four women in full dress, pre- sented the plates to the King and Queen. The dame dhon- neur handed them drink. This service had formerly been the right of the maids of honour. The Queen, upon her ac- cession to the throne, abolished the usage altogether. She also freed herself from the necessity of being followed in the Palace of Versailles by two of her women in Court dresses, during those hours of the day when the ladies-in-waiting were not with her. From that time she was accompanied only by a single valet de chambre and two footmen. All the errors of Marie Antoinette were of the same description; a disposition gradually to substitute the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles was more injurious to her than she could possibly have imagined. The Queen frequently spoke to the Abbe de Vermond of the perpetually recurring annoyances from which she had to release herself; and I always observed that, after having lis- tened to what he had to say on the subject, she indulged with great pleasure in philosophical reveries on simplicity be- neath the diadem, and paternal confidence in devoted subjects. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 169 This -romance of royalty, which it is not given to all sover- eigns to realize, flattered the tender heart and youthful fancy of Marie Antoinette to a singular extent. This unfortunate Princess, against whom the opinions of the French people were at length so much excited, possessed qualities which deserved to obtain the greatest popularity. None could doubt this who, like myself, had heard her with delight describe the patriarchal manners of the House of Lorraine. She was accustomed to say that, by transplanting their manners into Austria, the Princes of that House had laid the foundation of the unassailable popularity enjoyed by the imperial family.13 She frequently related to me the in- teresting manner in which the Dukes of Lorraine levied the taxes. " The sovereign Prince," said she, " went to church ; after the sermon he rose, waved his hat in the air to show that he was about to speak, and then mentioned the sum whereof he stood in need. Such was the zeal of the good Lorrainers that men have been known to take away linen or household utensils without the knowledge of their wives, and is Before the time of Francis Stephen, the Imperial Court of Ger- many was the most magnificent of all Europe. Nowhere was etiquette observed more rigorously. Francis suffered it to continue in State ceremonies, but banished it from the privacy of the Court. The Empress Queen readily acceded to this alteration, and they substituted for ancient formalities the ease and simplicity in which they had indulged at Luneville. Except on days of ceremony their table was frugal, and they received at it persons of merit of both sexes, with- out distinction of birth. In their amusements they discarded all restraint, and their dress in no way distinguished them from their com- panions. Their mode of reception was even more gracious to the humble than the great, the poor than the rich. . . . Marie An- toinette deceived herself in thinking that she too could indulge in such familiarity with impunity. She did not know the disposition of our nation, which, as La Bruye"re says, requires seriousness and dig- nity in its masters; and by the time she had learnt that truth the lesson came too late. — History of Marie Antoinette de Lorraine, Queen of France, by Montjoie. 170 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF sell them to add the value to their contribution. It some- times happened, too, that the Prince received more money than he had asked for, in which case he restored the surplus." All who were acquainted with the Queen's private quali- ties knew that she equally deserved attachment and esteem. Kind and patient to excess in her relations with her household, she indulgently considered all around her, and interested herself in their fortunes and in their pleasures. She had, among her women, young girls from the Maison de Saint Cyr, all well born; the Queen forbade them the play when the per- formances were not suitable; sometimes, when old plays were to be represented, if she found she could not with certainty trust to her memory, she would take the trouble to read them in the morning, to enable her to decide whether the girls should or should not go to see them ; rightly considering herself bound to watch over their morals and conduct. The Queen possessed in a high degree two valuable qualities — temperance and modesty. Her customary dinner was a chicken, roasted or boiled, and she drank water only. She showed no particular partiality for anything but her coffee in the morning, and a sort of bread to which she had been ac- customed in her infancy at Vienna. Her modesty in every particular of her private toilet was extreme. She bathed in a long flannel gown, buttoned up to the neck; and, while her two bathing women assisted her out of the bath, she required one of them to hold a sheet before her, raised so that her attendants might not see her. And yet Soulavie has dared, in the first volume of a most scan- dalous work, to say that the Queen was frightfully immodest, and that she had even given admittance to a venerable ec- clesiastic while in her bath. What punishment can be too great for libellers who dare to give such perfidious falsehoods the title of historical memoirs! MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTER V Revision of the papers of Louis XV. by Louis XVI. — Man in the iron mask — The late King's interest in certain financial com- panies— Representation of Iphigenia in Aulis — The King gives P6tit Trianon to the Queen — The Archduke Maximilian's journey to France — Questions of precedence — Misadventure of the Archduke — Accouchement of the Comtesse d'Artois — The poissardes cry out to the Queen to give heirs to the throne — Death of the Due de la Vauguyon — Portrait of Louis XVI. — Of the Comte de Provence — Of the Comte d'Artois, etc. DURING the first few months of his reign Louis XVI. dwelt at La Muette, Marly, and Compiegne. When settled at Ver- sailles he occupied himself with a general revision of his grandfather's papers. He had promised the Queen to com- municate to her all that he might discover relative to the history of the man with the iron mask, who, he thought, had become so inexhaustible a source of conjecture only in conse- quence of the interest which the pen of a celebrated writer had excited respecting the detention of a prisoner of State, who was merely a man of whimsical tastes and habits. I was with the Queen when the King, having finished his researches, informed her that he had not found anything among the secret papers elucidating the existence of this pris- oner ; that he had conversed on the matters with M. de Maure- pas, whose age made him contemporary with the epoch during which the story must have been known to the ministers; and that M. de Maurepas had assured him he was merely a pris- oner of a very dangerous character, in consequence of his dis- position for intrigue. He was a subject of the Duke of Mantua, and was enticed to the frontier, arrested there, and 172 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF kept prisoner, first at Pignerol, and afterwards in the Bastile. This transfer took place in consequence of the appointment of the governor of the former place to the government of the latter. It was for fear the prisoner should profit by the inex- perience of a new governor that he was sent with the Governor of Pignerol to the Bastile. Such was, in fact, the truth about the man on whom people have been pleased to fix an iron mask. And thus was it re- lated in writing, and published by M. twenty years ago. He had searched the archives of the Foreign Office, and laid the real story before the public; but the public, prepossessed in favour of a marvellous version, would not acknowledge the authenticity of his account. Every man relied upon the au- thority of Voltaire; and it was believed that a natural or a twin brother of Louis XIV. lived many years in prison with a mask over his face. The story of this mask, perhaps, had its origin in the old custom, among both men and women in Italy, of wearing a velvet mask when they exposed themselves to the sun. It is possible that the Italian captive may have sometimes shown himself upon the terrace of his prison with his face thus covered. As to the silver plate which this cele- brated prisoner is said to have thrown from his window, it is known that such a circumstance did happen, but it happened at Valzin, in the time of Cardinal Richelieu. This anecdote has been mixed up with the inventions respecting the Pied- montese prisoner. It was also in this review of the papers of Louis XV. by his grandson that he found some very curious particulars rela- tive to his private treasury. Certain shares in various finan- cial companies afforded him a revenue, and had at last pro- duced him a capital of some amount, which he applied to his secret expenses. The King collected his vouchers of title \ MARIE ANTOINETTE. 173 to these shares, and made a present of them to M. Thierry de Ville dAvray, his chief valet de chambre. The Queen was desirous to secure the comfort of Mesdames, the daughters of Louis XV., who were held in the highest re- spect. About this period she contributed to furnish them with a revenue sufficient to provide them an easy pleasant ex- istence. The King gave them the Chateau of Bellevue; and added to the produce of it, which was given up to them, the expenses of their table and equipage, and payment of all the charges of their household, the number of which was even increased. During the lifetime of Louis XV., who was a very selfish Prince, his daughters, although they had attained forty years of age, had no other place of residence than their apartments in the Chateau of Versailles; no other walks than such as they could take in the large park of that palace; and no other means of gratifying their taste for the cultivation of plants but by having boxes and vases, filled with them, in their balconies or their closets. They had, therefore, reason to be much pleased with the conduct of Marie Antoinette, who had the greatest influence in the King's kindness towards his aunts. Paris did not cease, during the first years of the reign, to give proofs of joy whenever the Queen appeared at any of the plays of the capital. At the representation of Iphigenia in Aulis, the actor who sang the words, " Let us sing, let us cele- brate our Queen!" which were repeated by the chorus, di- rected by a respectful movement the eyes of the whole assem- bly upon her Majesty. Reiterated cries of Bis! and clapping of hands, were followed by such a burst of enthusiasm that many of the audience added their voices to those of the ac- tors in order to celebrate, it might too truly be said, another Iphigenia. The Queen, deeply affected, covered her stream- 174 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ing eyes with her handkerchief; and this proof of sensibility raised the public enthusiasm to a still higher pitch.1 The King gave Marie Antoinette Petit Trianon.2 Hence- forward she amused herself with improving the gardens, with- out allowing any addition to the building, or any change in the furniture, which was very shabby; and remained, in 1789, in the same state as during the reign of Louis XV. Every- thing there, without exception, was preserved; and the Queen slept in a faded bed, which had been used by the Comtesse du Barry. The charge of extravagance, generally made against the Queen, is the most unaccountable of all the popular errors respecting her character. She had exactly the contrary fail- ing; and I could prove that she often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony actually blamable, especially in a sov- ereign. She took a great liking for Trianon, and used to go there alone, followed by a valet; but she found attendants ready to receive her — a concierge, and his wife who served her as femme de chambre; women of the wardrobe, foot- men, etc. When she first took possession of Petit Trianon, it was re- ported that she had changed the name of the seat which the 1 The theatre was a constant topic of conversation at Court. When the Queen had not been present, she never omitted asking, " Was it well attended ? " I have heard more than one courteous Duke reply with a bow, " There was not even a cat." This did not mean that the theatre was empty. It was even possible that it might be full; but only with honest citizens and country gentry. The nobility affected to know only their own class. — Madame Campan. 2 The Chateau of Petit Trianon, which was built for Louis XV., was not remarkably handsome as a building. The luxuriance of the hothouses rendered the place agreeable to that Prince. He spent a few days there several times in the year. It was when he was setting off from Versailles for Petit Trianon that he was struck in the side by the knife of Damiens; and it was there that he was attacked by the smallpox, of which he died on the 10th of May 1774. — Madame Campan. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 175 King had given her, and called it Little Vienna, or Little Schcenbrunn. A person who belonged to the Court, and was silly enough to give this report credit, wishing to visit Petit Trianon with a party, wrote to M. Campan, requesting the Queen's permission to do so. In his note he called Trianon Little Vienna. Similar requests were usually laid before the Queen just as they were made: she chose to give the permis- sions to see her gardens herself, liking to grant these little favours. When she came to the words I have quoted she was very much offended, and exclaimed, angrily, that there were too many fools ready to aid the malicious; that she had been told of the report circulated, which pretended that she thought of nothing but her own country, and that she kept an Austrian heart, while the interests of France alone ought to engage her. She refused the request so awkwardly made, and desired M. Campan to reply, that Trianon was not to be seen for some time; and that the Queen was astonished that any man in good society should believe she would do so ill- judged a thing as to change the French names of her palaces to foreign ones. Before the Emperor Joseph II.'s first visit to France the Queen received a visit from the Archduke Maximilian in 1775. A stupid act of the ambassador, seconded on the part of the Queen by the Abbe de Vermond, gave rise at that period to a discussion which offended the Princes of the blood and the chief nobility of the kingdom. Travelling incognito, the young Prince claimed that the first visit was not due from him to the Princes of the blood ; and the Queen supported his pretension. From the time of the regency, and on account of the resi- dence of the family of Orleans in the bosom of the capital, Paris had preserved a remarkable degree of attachment and respect for that branch of the royal house; and although the 176 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF crown was becoming more and more remote from the Princes of the great House of Orleans, they had the advantage (a great one with the Parisians) of being the descendants of Henry IV. An affront to that popular family was a serious ground of dislike to the Queen. It was at this period that the circles of the city, and even of the Court, expressed themselves bitterly about her levity, and her partiality for the House of Austria. The Prince for whom the Queen had embarked in an im- portant family quarrel — and a quarrel involving national prerogatives — was, besides, little calculated to inspire inter- est. Still young, uninformed, and deficient in natural talent, he was always making blunders. He went to the Jardin du Eoi; M. de Buffon, who received him there, offered him a copy of his works; the Prince de- clined accepting the book, saying to M. de Buffon in the most polite manner possible, " I should be very sorry to deprive you of it." 8 It may be supposed that the Parisians were much entertained with this answer. The Queen was exceedingly mortified at the mistakes made by her brother; but what hurt her most was being accused of preserving an Austrian heart. Marie Antoinette had more than once to endure that imputation during the long course of her misfortunes. Habit did not stop the tears such injus- tice caused; but the first time she was suspected of not lov- ing France, she gave way to her indignation. All that she could say on the subject was useless; by seconding the preten- sions of the Archduke she had put arms into her enemies' hands; they were labouring to deprive her of the love of the people; and endeavoured, by all possible means, to spread a s Joseph II., on his visit to France, also went to see M. de Buffon, and said to that celebrated man, " I am come to fetch the copy of your works, which my brother forgot." — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 177 belief that the Queen sighed for Germany, and preferred that country to France. Marie Antoinette had none but herself to rely on for pre- serving the fickle smiles of the Court and the public. The King, too indifferent to serve her as a guide, as yet had con- ceived no love for her, notwithstanding the intimacy that grew between them at Choisy. In his closet Louis XVI. was immersed in deep study. At the council he was busied with the welfare of his people ; hunt- ing and mechanical occupations engrossed his leisure moments, and he never thought on the subject of an heir. The coronation took place at Eheims, with all the accus- tomed pomp. At this period the people's love for Louis XVI. burst forth in transports not to be mistaken for party demon- strations or idle curiosity. He replied to this enthusiasm by marks of confidence, worthy of a people happy in being gov- erned by a good King; he took a pleasure in repeatedly walk- ing without guards, in the midst of the crowd which pressed around him, and called down blessings on his head. I re- marked the impression made at this time by an observation of Louis XVI. On the day of his coronation he put his hand up to his head, at the moment of the crown being placed upon it, and said, " It pinches me." Henry III. had ex- claimed, " It pricks me." Those who were near the King were struck with the similarity between these two exclama- tions, though not of a class likely to be blinded by the super- stitious fears of ignorance. While the Queen, neglected as she was, could not even hope for the happiness of being a mother, she had the mortifi- cation of seeing the Comtesse oTArtois give birth to the Due cTAngouleme. Custom required that the royal family and the whole Court should be present at the accouchement of the Princesses; the VOL. 1—12 178 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Queen was therefore obliged to stay a whole day in her sister- in-law's chamber. The moment the Comtesse d'Artois was informed a Prince was born, she put her hand to her fore- head and exclaimed with energy, " My God, how happy I am ! " The Queen felt very differently at this involuntary and natural exclamation. Nevertheless, her behaviour was perfect. She bestowed all possible marks of tenderness upon the young mother, and would not leave her until she was again put into bed; she afterwards passed along the stair- case, and through the hall of the guards, with a calm de- meanour, in the midst of an immense crowd. The poissardes, who had assumed a right of speaking to sovereigns in their own vulgar language, followed her to the very doors of her apartments, calling out to her, with gross expressions, that she ought to produce heirs. The Queen reached her inner room, hurried and agitated; she shut herself up to weep with A ) V f r me alone, not from jealousy of her sister-in-law's happiness — of that she was incapable — but from sorrow at her own situa- tion. Deprived of the happiness of giving an heir to the crown, the Queen endeavoured to interest herself in the children of the people of her household. She had long been desirous to bring up one of them herself, and to make it the constant ob- ject of her care. A little village boy, four or five years old, full of health, with a pleasing countenance, remarkably large blue eyes, and fine light hair, got under the feet of the Queen's horses, when she was taking an airing in a calash, through the hamlet of Saint Michel, near Louveciennes. The coach- man and postilions stopped the horses, and the child was res- cued without the slightest injury. Its grandmother rushed out of the door of her cottage to take it ; but the Queen, stand- ing up in her calash and extending her arms, called out that the child was hers, and that destiny had given it to her, to MARIE ANTOINETTE. 179 console her, no doubt, until she should have the happiness of having one herself. " Is his mother alive ? " asked the Queen. "No, Madame; my daughter died last winter, and left five small children upon my hands." — "I will take this one, and provide for all the rest; do you consent?" — "Ah, Madame, they are too fortunate," replied the cottager; "but Jacques is a bad boy. I hope he will stay with you ! " The Queen, taking little Jacques upon her knee, said that she would make him used to her; and gave orders to proceed. It was neces- sary, however, to shorten the drive, so violently did Jacques scream, and kick the Queen and her ladies. The arrival of her Majesty at her apartments, at Versailles, holding the little rustic by the hand, astonished the whole household; he cried out with intolerable shrillness that he wanted his grandmother, his brother Louis, and his sister Marianne, — nothing could calm him. He was taken away by the wife of a servant, who was appointed to attend him as nurse. The other children were put to school. Little Jacques, whose family name was Armand, came back to the Queen two days afterwards; a white 'frock trimmed with lace, a rose-coloured sash with silver fringe, and a hat decorated with feathers, were now substituted for the woollen cap, the little red frock, and the wooden shoes. The child was really very beautiful. The Queen was enchanted with him; he was brought to her every morning at nine o'clock; he breakfasted and dined with her, and often even with the King. She liked to call him my child,* and lavished caresses upon him, still maintaining a deep silence respecting the regrets which con- stantly occupied her heart. This child remained with the Queen until the time when 4 This little unfortunate was nearly twenty in 1792; the fury of the people and the fear of being thought a favourite of the Queen's had made him the most sanguinary terrorist of Versailles. He was killed at the battle of Jemmappes. — Madame Campan. 180 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Madame was old enough to come home to her august mother, who had particularly taken upon herself the care of her edu- cation. The Queen talked incessantly of the qualities which she ad- mired in Louis XVI., and gladly attributed to herself the slightest favourable change in his manner; perhaps she dis- played too unreservedly the joy she felt, and the share she appropriated in the improvement. One day Louis XVI. saluted her ladies with more kind- ness than usual, and the Queen laughingly said to them, " Now confess, ladies, that for one so badly taught as a child, the King has saluted you with very good grace ! " The Queen hated M. de La Vauguyon; she accused him alone of those points in the habits, and even the sentiments, of the King which hurt her. A former first woman of the bed-chamber to Queen Maria Leczinska had continued in office near the young Queen. She was one of those people who are fortunate enough to spend their lives in the service of kings without knowing anything of what is passing at court. She was a great devo- tee; the Abbe Grisel, an ex-Jesuit, was her director. Being rich from her savings, and an income of 50,000 livres, she kept a very good table ; in her apartment, at the Grand Com- mun, the most distinguished persons who still adhered to the Order of Jesuits often assembled. The Due de La Vau- guyon was intimate with her; their chairs at the figlise des Eecollets were placed near each other; at high mass and at vespers they sang the Gloria in Excelsis and the Magnificat together; and the pious virgin, seeing in him only one of God's elect, little imagined him to be the declared enemy of a Princess whom she served and revered. On the day of his death she ran in tears to relate to the Queen the piety, hu- mility, and repentance of the last moments of the Due de MARIE ANTOINETTE. 181 La Vauguyon. He had called his people together, she said, to ask their pardon. — " For what ? " replied the Queen sharply; "he has placed and pensioned off all his servants; it was of the King and his brothers that the holy man you bewail should have asked pardon ; for having paid so little at- tention to the education of Princes on whom the fate and happiness of twenty-five millions of men depend. Luckily," added she, "the King and his brothers, still young, have in- cessantly laboured to repair the errors of their preceptor." 5 The progress of time, and the confidence with which the 5 Grimm gives the following passage : — " The Due de La Vauguyon having lately departed to render an account, at the tribunal of eternal justice, of the manner in which he has acquitted himself of the ap- palling and important duty of educating a Dauphin of France; and to receive the punishment due to the most criminal of undertakings, if it was not fulfilled to the satisfaction of the nation; a remarkable act of vanity, which excited equally the attention of the Court and the city, was witnessed on that occasion; this was the card of in- vitation to the funeral, sent round to every house according to custom. Every one has wished to preserve this card, on account of its singular- ity. I will transcribe it here from beginning to end, as it is already scarce, notwithstanding the profusion with which it was dis- tributed : — " ' You are requested to attend the funeral procession, service and interment of Monseigneur Antoine-Paul- Jacques de Quelen, head of the names and arms of the ancient lords-castellans of Quelen, in Upper Brittany, juveigneur of the Courts of Porhoet, appointed to the name and arms of Sieur de Caulsade, Due de La Vauguyon, peer of France, Prince of Carency, Comte de Quilen, and du Boulay, Marquis de Saint Megrin, de Callonges and d'Archiac, Vicomte de Calvignac, Baron of the ancient and honourable baronies of Tonneins, Gratteloup, Villeton, la Gruere and Picornet, lord of Larnagol and Talcoimur, vidame, knight, and protector of Sarlac, high Baron of Guyenne, second Baron of Quercy, lieutenant-general of the King's armies, knight of his orders, menin of Monseigneur the late Dauphin, first gentleman of the bed-chamber of Monseigneur the Dauphin, grand master of his ward- robe, formerly governor of his person, and of that of Monseigneur the Comte de Provence, governor of the person of Monseigneur the Comte d' Artois, first gentleman of his chamber, grand master of his ward' robe, and superintendant of his household, — which will take place ort 182 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF King and the Princes his brothers were inspired by the change in their situation since the death of Louis XV., had developed their characters. I will endeavour to depict them. The features of Louis XVI. were noble enough, though somewhat melancholy in expression; his walk was heavy and unmajestic; his person greatly neglected; his hair, whatever might be the skill of his hairdresser, was soon in disorder. His voice, without being harsh, was not agreeable; if he grew animated in speaking he often got above his natural pitch, and became shrill. The Abbe de Eadonvilliers, his preceptor, one of the forty of the French Academy, a learned and amiable man, had given him and Monsieur a taste for study. The King had continued to instruct himself; he knew the Eng- lish language perfectly ; I have often heard him translate some of the most difficult passages in Milton's poems. He was a skilful geographer, and was fond of drawing and colouring maps; he was well versed in history, but had not perhaps sufficiently studied the spirit of it. He appreciated dramatic beauties, and judged them accurately. At Choisy, one day, several ladies expressed their dissatisfaction because the French actors were going to perform one of Moliere's pieces; the King inquired why they disapproved of the choice. One of them answered that everybody must admit that Moliere had very bad taste; the King replied that many things might be found in Moliere contrary to fashion, but that it appeared to him difficult to point out any in bad taste.6 This Prince Thursday the 6th of February 1772, at ten o'clock in the morning, at the royal and parochial church of Notre Dame de Versailles, where his body will be interred. DE PROFUNDIS.' " The terms juveigneur and menin are now obsolete: juveigneur sig- nified a feudal dependant, the Due d'0rl€ans being juveigneur of the House of France; menin was the title given to the six gentlemen-in- waiting on the Dauphin, and was first used when the household of the son of Louis XIV. was formed. 6 The King, having purchased the Chateau of Rambouillet from MARIE ANTOINETTE. 183 combined with his attainments the attributes of a good hus- band, a tender father, and an indulgent master. Unfortunately he showed too much predilection for the the Due de Penthievre, amused himself with embellishing it. I have seen a register entirely in his own handwriting, which proves that he possessed a great variety of information on the minutiae of various branches of knowledge. In his accounts he would not omit an outlay of twelve pence. His figures and letters, when he wished to write legibly, were small and very neat, but in general he wrote very ill. He was so sparing of paper that he divided a sheet into eight, six, or four pieces, according to the length of what he had to write. To- wards the close .of the page he compressed the letters, and avoided interlineations. The last words were close to the edge of the paper; he seemed to regret being obliged to begin another page. He was methodical and analytical; he divided what he wrote into chapters and sections. He had extracted from the works of Nicole and Fe'ne'lon, his favourite authors, three or four hundred concise and sententious phrases, these he had classed according to subject, and formed a work of them in the style of Montesquieu. To this treatise he had given the following general title: Of Moderate Monarchy (De la Monarchic temperee), with chapters entitled, "Of the Person of the Prince;" " Of the Authority of Bodies in the State; " " Of the Character of the Executive Functions of the Monarchy." Had he been able to carry into effect all the grand precepts he had observed in Fenelon, Louis XVI. would have been an accomplished monarch, France a powerful kingdom. The King used to accept the speeches his ministers presented to him to deliver on important occasions; but he corrected and modi- fied them; struck out some parts, and added others; and sometimes consulted the Queen on the subject. The phrase of the minister erased by the King was frequently unsuitable, and dictated by the minister's private feelings; but the King's was always the natural expression. He himself composed, three times or oftener, his famous answers to the parliament which he banished. But in his letters he was negligent, and always incorrect. Simplicity was the characteristic of the King's style; the figurative style of M. Necker did not please him; the sarcasms of Maurepas were disagreeable to him. Unfor- tunate Prince! he would predict, in his observations, that if such a calamity should happen, the monarchy would be ruined; and the next day he would consent in council to the very measure which he had condemned the day before, and which brought him nearer the brink of the precipice. — Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI., by Soulavie, vol. ii. 184 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF mechanical arts; masonry and lock-making so delighted him that he admitted into his private apartment a common lock- smith with whom he made keys and locks; and his hands, blackened by that sort of work, were often, in my presence, the subject of remonstrances and even sharp reproaches from the Queen, who would have chosen other amusements for her husband.7 Austere and rigid with regard to himself alone, the King observed the laws of the Church with scrupulous exactness. He fasted and abstained throughout the whole of Lent. He thought it right that the Queen should not observe these cus- toms with the same strictness. Though sincerely pious, the spirit of the age had disposed his mind to toleration. Mod- est and simple in his habits, Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker judged that a Prince of such a character would willingly sacrifice the royal prerogative to the solid greatness of his people. His heart, in truth, disposed him towards reforms; but his prejudices and fears, and the clamours of pious and privileged persons, intimidated him, and made him abandon plans which his love for the people had suggested. Monsieur 8 had more dignity of demeanour than the King ; but his corpulence rendered his gait inelegant. He was fond of pageantry and magnificence. He cultivated the belles-let- tres, and under assumed names often contributed verses to the Mercury and other papers.9 f Louis XVI. saw that the art of lock-making was capable of ap- plication to a higher study. He was an excellent geographer. The most valuable and complete instrument for the study of that science was begun by his orders and under his direction. It was an immense globe of copper, which was long preserved, though unfinished, in the Mazarine library. Louis XVI. invented and had executed under his own eyes the ingenious mechanism required for this globe. — Note by the Editor. s Afterwards Louis XVIII. » During his stay at Avignon, Monsieur lodged with the Due de MARIE ANTOINETTE. 185 His wonderful memory was the handmaid of his wit, fur- nishing him with the happiest quotations. He knew by heart from the finest passages of the Latin classics to the Latin of all the prayers; from the works of Eacine to the vaudeville of Rose et Colas. The Comte cTArtois 10 had an agreeable countenance, was well made, skilful in bodily exercises, lively, impetuous, fond of pleasure, and very particular in his dress. Some happy observations made by him were repeated with approval; sev- eral of them gave a favourable idea of his heart.11 The Parisians liked the open and frank character of this Prince, which they considered national, and showed real affection for him. The dominion that the Queen gained over the King's mind, the charms of a society in which Monsieur displayed his wit, and to which the Comte cTArtois gave life by the vivacity of youth, gradually softened that ruggedness of manner in Louis XVI., which a better-conducted education might have pre- vented. Still this defect often showed itself, and, in spite of his extreme simplicity, the King inspired those who had oc- casion to speak to him with diffidence. Courtiers, submissive in the presence of their sovereign, are only the more ready to caricature him; with little good breeding, they called those answers they so much dreaded, les coups de boutoir du Roi.12 Crillon; he refused the town-guard which was offered him, saying, " A son of France, under the roof of a Crillon, needs no guard." — Note by the Editor. 10 Afterwards Charles X. 11 A selfish courtier was foolish enough to remark that the Abb6 de Besplas had complained improperly of the manner in which prison- ers were treated in gaols, since it might be considered a part of the punishment which their crimes deserved. The Prince interrupted him, indignantly exclaiming, " How can one tell that they are guilty ? That is never known till the sentence is passed." — Note by the Editor. 12 The literal meaning of the phrase " coup de boutoir," is a poke from the snout of a boar. 186 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Methodical in all his habits, the King always went to bed at eleven precisely. One evening the Queen was going with her usual circle to a party, either at the Due de Duras' or the Princesse de Guemenee's. The hand of the clock was slily put forward to hasten the King's departure by a few minutes; he thought bed-time was come, retired, and found none of his attendants ready to wait on him. This joke be- came known in all the drawing-rooms of Versailles, and was disapproved of there. Kings have no privacy. Queens have no boudoirs. If those who are in immediate attendance upon sovereigns be not themselves disposed to transmit their private habits to posterity, the meanest valet will relate what he has seen or heard; his gossip circulates rapidly, and forms public opinion, which at length ascribes to the most august persons characters which, however often they may be false, are almost always indelible. MARIE ANTOINETTE. ANNEX TO CHAPTER V. The following extracts from works relating to this period illustrate the importance then attached to etiquette and cere- monial, and show the character and habits of Louis XVI. : — "MADEMOISELLE DE LORRAINE'S MINUET." " A few days before the Dauphin's marriage it was reported that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, daughter of the Comtesse de Brionne, and sister of the Prince de Lambesc, grand ecuyer of France, was to dance her minuet at the dress ball immediately after the Princes and Princesses of the blood; and that the King had granted her that distinction just after an audience which his Majesty had given to the Comte de Mercy, the am- bassador of the Emperor and Empress. The intelligence about Mademoiselle de Lorraine's minuet caused the greatest ex- citement among the dukes and peers, who enlisted all the su- perior nobility of the kingdom in their cause. They set it down as an incontrovertible principle that there could not be any intermediate rank between the Princes of the blood and the superior nobility; and that, consequently, Mademoiselle do Lorraine could have no rank distinct from that of women of quality presented at Court. The Archbishop of Eheims, the first ecclesiastical peer, being unwell, they met at the house of the Bishop of Noyon, the second ecclesiastical peer, brother of the Marechal de Broglie. They drew up a memorial to be presented to the King; the dukes and peers left intervals be- tween their signatures that the superior nobility might sign without distinction of title or rank. The Bishop of Noyon presented this memorial to his Majesty. 188 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF " The request was hardly known when the following parody on it was publicly circulated : — " ' Sire, the Great, one and all See, with sorrow and pain, A Princess of Lorraine Take the lead at the ball. If your Majesty mean Such affronts to project, Such marked disrespect, They will quit the gay scene; And leave fiddlers and all: Then think what is said, The agreement is made, Signed Bishop of Noyon, De Villette, Beaufremont, etc.* " In fact, it was openly said that if the King's answer were unfavourable, all the women of quality would find themselves suddenly indisposed, and not one of them would dance at the ball. The parody is not without point in other respects. Inde- pendently of the absurdity of a prelate's presiding over delib- erations on the subject of a minuet, the names of some ancient and illustrious houses are enclosed in it, between two grandees of the monarchy of very recent date. This may be taken for a joke, but it is a positive truth that the Marquis de Villette, the son of a treasurer of war extraordinary, who never distin- guished himself further than by a few trifling compositions, was permitted to sign a petition, at the bottom of which we read the names of Beaufremont, Clermont, and Montmorency. No doubt his descendants will be grateful to him for this sig- nature. They will say, t One of our ancestors signed the fa- mous minuet petition on the marriage of the grandson of Louis XV. in concert with all the peers and all the superior nobility of the kingdom; so that our name was thenceforward classed among the most illustrious in the kingdom.' They may also say, ' In 1770, at the dress ball on the marriage of the Dauphin, MARIE ANTOINETTE. 189 a Villette disputed precedence with the Princes of the House of Lorraine/ ' It is the great Villette/ one of his grandsons will add, 'who published, at his own expense, an eulogium upon Charles V. and one upon Henry IV. which have not es- caped the attacks of time either in the archives of literature or in those of our house/ There are plenty of historical proofs which rest on no better foundation." — Grimm's Correspond- ence, tome vii., page 143. The following particulars are added by Soulavie : — " Maria Theresa knew the Court of Versailles well; and yet she so far erred as to demand diplomatically, through M. de Mercy, her ambassador, that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, her relation, and the Prince de Lambesc, should rank next after the Princes of the blood in the entertainments on the marriage of her daugh- ter with the Dauphin. Louis XV., in order to gratify the Dauphiness, who desired it, and Maria Theresa, who demanded it, thought fit to make it an affair of state. He knew the jeal- ousy of the grandees of his Court with regard to their rights of etiquette, and he desired them, by virtue of the submission and attachment which they owed him, and which they had manifested to him, as well as to his predecessors, not to contra- dict him on this occasion, intimating his desire to mark his gratitude to the Empress for the present she made to France of her daughter. The King did not calculate on the obstacles the dukes would throw in the way of this new assumption. The ladies of the Court, from whom Louis XV. had a right to expect most deference, played an obstinate and haughty part, opposing an insurmountable resistance to the King's request. They were firm in their resolution of depriving themselves of the pleasure of the 'ball rather than suffer their right to dance first to be infringed upon. Among all these ladies, Madame de Bouillon distinguished herself most by the asperity of her observations. Louis XV. showed himself so much offended at 190 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF them that she came no more to Court. The Dauphiness, on her part, was so vexed that she procured one of the letters that Louis XV. had written to the peers, and shut it up in her desk, saying, ' / will remember it' However, in order to put an end to the matter, Mademoiselle de Lorraine agreed to dance with the Duchesse de Duras, whose situation kept her at Court." — Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVL, vol. i. CORONATION OF Louis XVI. " The dresses worn by the principal dignitaries at the conse- cration were interesting, on account both of their richness and their ancient form. The lay peers were clad in long vests of gold brocade; they had girdles of gold, silver, and violet- coloured silk mixed, and over the long vest a ducal mantle of violet cloth, lined and edged with ermine ; the round collar was likewise of ermine ; and every one wore a crown upon a cap of violet satin, and the collar of the order of the Holy Ghost over the mantle. The captain of the hundred Swiss of the King's Guard was dressed in silver stuff, with an embroidered shoul- der-belt of the same ; a black mantle lined with cloth of silver, and, as well as his trunk hose, trimmed with lace, and a black cap surmounted with a plume of feathers. The grand master and the master of the ceremonies were dressed in silver stuff doublets, black velvet breeches intersected by bands, and cloaks of black velvet, trimmed with silver lace, with caps of black velvet surmounted with white feathers. " On Sunday the llth of June, at six in the morning, the canons in their copes arrived in the choir. They were soon followed by the Archbishop Due de Eheims, the cardinals and prelates invited, the ministers, the marshals of France, the counsellors of state, and the deputies of the various companies. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 11 About half -past six the lay peers arrived. Monsieur repre- sented the Duke of Burgundy ; M. le Comte d!Artois, the Duke of Normandy; and the Due d!0rleans, the Duke of Aquitaine. The remainder of the ancient peers of France, the Counts of Toulouse, Flanders, and Champagne, were represented by the Due de Chartres, the Prince de Conde, and the Due de Bour- bon, who wore counts' coronets. The ecclesiastical peers con- tinued hooded and mitred during the whole ceremony. " At seven, the Bishop Due de Laon, and the Bishop Comte de Beauvais, set out to fetch the King. These two prelates, in their pontifical dresses, with reliquaries suspended from their necks, were preceded by all the canons of the church of Eheims, with whom were the musicians. The chanter and sub- chanter walked after the clergy and before the Marquis de Dreux, grand master of the ceremonies, who immediately pre- ceded the bishops; they passed through a covered gallery, and came to the King's door, which, according to custom from time immemorial, they found shut. The chanter strikes upon it with his baton; and the great chamberlain, without opening, says to him, ' What is it you require ? ' — ' We aslc for the King' replies the principal ecclesiastical peer. — ' The King sleeps/ returns the great chamberlain. Then the grand chanter strikes again, with the same result. At length the chanter, having struck a third time, and the great chamberlain an- swered ' The King sleeps/ the ecclesiastical peer pronounces these words, ' We demand Louis XVI. , whom God has given us for King/ and immediately the chamber doors open. The grand master of the ceremonies leads the bishops to his Maj- esty, who is stretched \ipon a state bed : they salute him pro- foundly. The monarch is clothed in a long crimson gown, trimmed with gold galoon, and, as well as the shirt, open at those places where he is to be anointed. Above the gown he 192 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF has a long robe of silver stuff, and upon his' head a cap of black velvet, ornamented with a string of diamonds, a plume, and a white double aigrette. The ecclesiastical peer presents the holy water to the King, and repeats the following prayer : — Almighty and everlasting God, who hast raised thy servant, Louis, to the regal dignity, grant him throughout his reign to seek the good of his subjects, and that he may never wander from the paths of truth and justice/ This prayer ended, the two bishops take his Majesty, the one by the right arm, and the other by the left, and raising him from the bed, conduct him in procession to the church through the covered gallery, chant- ing appropriate prayers. The King having reached the church, the Holy Ampulla arrived at the principal door. It was brought from the Abbey of Saint Remi by the grand prior, in a cover of cloth of gold, and mounted upon a white horse from the King's stable, covered with a housing of cloth of silver, richly embroidered, and led by the reins by two chief grooms of the stable. The grand prior was under a canopy of similar materials, carried by four barons, called Tcnights of the Holy Ampulla, clad in white satin, with a mantle of black silk, and a white velvet scarf, trimmed with silver fringe ; they wore the knight's cross, suspended round the neck by a black ribbon. At the four corners of the canopy, the peers named by the King as hostages of the Holy Ampulla were seen on horse- back, each preceded by his esquire with a standard, bearing on one side the arms of France, and on the other those of the peer. They had solemnly sworn upon the Holy Gospels that no injury should be done to the Holy Ampulla, for the preser- vation of which they promised, if necessary, to risk their lives, and declared that they would become hostages until the return of the Holy Ampulla. The Holy Ampulla, which is so conspicuous an article in the consecration of our Kings, is a sort of small bottle filled, it is asserted, with a miraculous MARIE ANTOINETTE. 193 balm, brought by a dove to Saint Eemi, who died about the year 535. It never diminishes ; it is treasured in the tomb of the ancient archbishop, whose body remains entire in a shrine of the abbey bearing his name; and it is enclosed in a silver gilt reliquary, enriched with diamonds and gems of various colours.1 The Archbishop of Eheims received the Holy Am- pulla at the gate of the church ; on placing it in his hands, the grand prior addressed these words to him : e To you, my lord, I entrust this precious treasure sent from Heaven to the great Saint Eemi, for the consecration of Clovis and the Kings his successors: but I request you, according to ancient custom, to bind yourself to restore it into my hands, after the consecra- tion of our King Louis XVI.' The Archbishop took the re- quired oath in these terms : * I receive this Holy Ampulla with reverence, and promise you, upon the faith of a prelate, to re- store it into your hands at the conclusion of the ceremony of the consecration/ The Cardinal de la Eoche Aymon then took the marvellous phial, and deposited it upon the altar. A few minutes afterwards he approached the King, to whom he ad- ministered the oath, called the protection oath, for all the churches in subjection to the crown : a promise which his Maj- esty made sitting and covered. ' I promise,' said the King, 'to prevent the commission of rapine and injustice of every description by persons of all ranks. I swear to apply myself sincerely, and with all my might, to the extermination of heretics, condemned and pointed out by the Church, from all countries subject to my government.' After this oath, two ecclesiastical peers present the King to the assembly, and de- mand whether Louis XVI. is approved of for the dignity of i This phial was afterwards broken to pieces upon the pavement of the abbey by the conventionary Ruhl, deputed for that purpose; the shrine and reliquaries, broken by his direction, were sent to La Monnaie. — Note ~by the Editor. VOt. 1—13 194: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF King of France. A respectful silence announced the general consent. " The Archbishop of Eheims presented the book of the Gos- pels to the King, placing his hands upon which, his Majesty took the oath to maintain and preserve the orders of the Holy Ghost and Saint Louis, and always to wear the cross of the latter order attached to a flame coloured silk ribbon; and to enforce the edict against duels, without any regard to the intercessions of any princes or potentates. The former part of this oath is of very little importance, and the second is broken every day. "When the King, for the second time, received the sword of Charlemagne, he deposited it in the hands of the Marechal de Clermont Tonnerre, officiating as constable, who held it point upwards during the ceremony of the consecration and corona- tion, as well as during the royal banquet. While the King was receiving and returning the sword of Charlemagne, sev- eral prayers were said. When they were finished, the officiat- ing prelate opened the Holy Ampulla, and let a small quan- tity of oil drop from it, and this he diluted with some consecrated oil, called holy cream. The King prostrated him- self before the altar upon a large square of violet-coloured velvet, embroidered with golden fleurs-de-lis, the old Arch- bishop Due de Eheims being also prostrated on his right hand, and remaining in that lowly posture until the conclusion of the litanies chanted by four bishops alternately with the choir. At the end of the litanies the Archbishop of Eheims placed himself in his chair, and the King, kneeling down before him, was anointed upon the crown of the head, the breast, between the two shoulders, upon the right shoulder, the left, upon the joint of the right arm, and upon that of the left arm; at the same time the prelate pronounced certain prayers, the sub- stance of which was as follows : ' May he humble the proud ; MARIE ANTOINETTE. 195 may he be a lesson for the rich; may he be charitable towards the poor; and may he be a peacemaker among nations/ A little further on these words occur among the prayers : ' May he never abandon his rights over the kingdoms of the Saxons, Mercians, people of the north, and the Cimbri.' An anony- mous author says that by the word Cimbri is meant the king- dom of England, over which our Kings expressly reserve their indisputable rights, from the time of Louis VIII., upon whom it was conferred by the free election of the people who had driven out John Sans Terre. After the seven anointings, the Archbishop of Kheims, assisted by the Bishops of Laon and Beauvais, laced up with gold laces the openings of the King's shirt and gown, and he, rising, was invested by the great chamberlain with the tunic, dalmatic, and royal mantle, lined and edged with ermine: these vestments are of violet velvet, embroidered with gold and fleurs-de-lis, and represent the dresses of sub-deacon, deacon, and priest; symbols by which, no doubt, the clergy seek to prove their union with the royal power. The King placed himself upon his knees again before the officiating Archbishop, who made the eighth unction upon the palm of the right hand, and the ninth and last upon that of the left; he afterwards placed a ring upon the fourth finger of the right hand, as a type of unlimited power, and of the intimate union thenceforward to reign between the King and his people. The Archbishop then took the royal sceptre from the altar, and put it into the King's right hand, and afterwards the hand of justice, which he put into the left hand. The sceptre is of enamelled gold, ornamented with Oriental pearls; it may be about six feet in height. Upon it is represented, in relief, Charlemagne, with the globe in his hand, seated in a chair of state, ornamented with two lions and two eagles. The hand of justice is a staff of massive gold, only one foot and a half in length, adorned with rubies 196 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF and pearls, and terminated by a hand formed of ivory, or rather of the horn of a rhinoceros; and it has, at regular dis- tances, three circles of leaves sparkling with pearls, garnets, and other precious stones. "The Keeper of the Seals of France, officiating as Chan- cellor, then ascended the altar, and summoned the peers to the coronation in the following words : — e Monsieur, representing the Duke of Burgundy, come forward to this act,' etc., etc. The peers having approached the King, the Archbishop of Eheims took from the altar the crown of Charlemagne, which had been brought from Saint Denis, and placed it upon the King's head ; immediately the ecclesiastical and lay peers raised their hands to support it there. In one of the prayers at this part of the ceremony an Oriental expression of great energy is made use of : ' May the King have the strength of the rhinoc- eros; and may he, like a rushing wind, drive before him the nations of our enemies, even to the extremity of the earth.' The crown of Charlemagne, which is preserved in the treasury of the Abbey of Saint Denis, is of gold, and enriched with rubies and sapphires ; it is lined with a crimson satin cap, em- broidered with gold, and surmounted by a golden fleur-de-lis, covered with thirty-six Oriental pearls. " After these ceremonies the Archbishop Due de Rheims took the King by the right arm, and, followed by the peers and all the officers of the Crown, led him to the throne raised upon a platform, where he seated him, reciting the enthroning pray- ers. In the first of these it is said : ' As you see the clergy nearer than the rest of the faithful to the holy altar, so ought you to take care and maintain it in the most honourable place.' Then the prelate took off his mitre, made a profound bow to the King, and kissed him, saying, ' Vivat Rex in (sternum ! ' The other ecclesiastical and lay peers also kissed the King, one after the other, and as soon as they returned to their places MARIE ANTOINETTE. 19 Y the gates of the church were opened; the people rushed in, and made the roofs resound with shouts of, 'Long live the King ! ' which were re-echoed by the crowd of persons engaged in the ceremony, who filled the enclosure of the choir like an amphitheatre; an irresistible impulse gave rise to a clapping of hands, which became general; the grandees, the Court, the people, animated by the same enthusiasm, expressed it in the same manner. " The Queen, overcome with emotion, was obliged to with- draw for a short time. When she reappeared she received a similar homage to that just offered by the nation to the King. " While exclamations of joy resounded, the fowlers, accord- ing to a very ancient usage, set at liberty in the church num- bers of birds, symbolising the monarch's regard for the people, and that men are never more truly free than under the reign of an enlightened, just, and beneficent Prince." — Secret Cor- respondence of the Court of Louis XVI. PURSUITS OF THE KING. " The only passion ever shown by Louis XVI. was for hunt- ing. He was so much occupied by it that when I went up into his private closets at Versailles, after the 10th of August, I saw upon the staircase six frames, in which were seen state- ments of all his hunts, when Dauphin and when King. In them was detailed the number, kind, and quality of the game he had killed at each hunting party during every month, every season, and every year of his reign. " The interior of his private apartments was thus arranged : a saloon, ornamented with gilded mouldings, displayed the en- gravings which had been dedicated to him; drawings of the canals he had dug, with the model of that of Burgundy; and the plan of the cones and works of Cherbourg. The upper 198 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF hall contained his collection of geographical charts, spheres, globes, and also his geographical cabinet. There were to be seen drawings of maps which he had begun, and some that he had finished. He had a clever method of washing them in. His geographical memory was prodigious. Over the hall was the turning and joining room, furnished with ingenious instru- ments for working in wood. He inherited some from Louis XV., and he often busied himself, with Duret's assistance, in keeping them clean and bright. Above was the library of books published during his reign. The prayer books and manuscript books of Anne of Brittany, Francis I., the latter Valois, Louis XIV., Louis XV., and the Dauphin, formed the great hereditary library of the Chateau. Louis XVI. placed separately, in two apartments communicating with each other, the works of his own time, including a complete collection of Didot's editions, in vellum, every volume enclosed in a mo- rocco case. There were several English works, among the rest the debates of the British Parliament, in a great number of volumes in folio (this is the Moniteur of England, a complete collection of which is so valuable and so scarce). By the side of this collection was to be seen a manuscript history of all the schemes for a descent upon that island, particularly that of Comte de Broglie. One of the presses of this cabinet was full of pasteboard boxes, containing papers relative to the House of Austria, inscribed in the King's own hand : ' Secret papers of my family respecting the House of Austria; papers of my family respecting the Houses of Stuart and Hanover/ In an adjoining press were kept papers relative to Eussia. Satirical works against Catherine II. and against Paul I. were sold in France under the name of histories; Louis XVI. col- lected and sealed up with his small seal the scandalous anec- dotes against Catherine II., as well as the works of Rhulieres, of which he had a copy, to be certain that the secret life of MARIE ANTOINETTE. 199 that Princess, which attracted the curiosity of her contem- poraries, should not be made public by his means. " Above the King's private library were a forge, two anvils, and a vast number of iron tools; various common locks, well made and perfect; some secret locks, and locks ornamented with gilt copper. It was there that the infamous Gamin, who afterwards accused the King of having tried to poison him, and was rewarded for his calumny with a pension of twelve thou- sand livres, taught him the art of lock-making. This Gamin, who became our guide, by order of the department and mu- nicipality of Versailles, did not, however, denounce the King on the 20th December 1792. He had been made the confidant of that Prince in an immense number of important commis- sions; the King had sent him the Red Book, from Paris, in a parcel; and the part which was concealed during the Con- stituent Assembly, still remained so in 1793. Gamin hid it in a part of the Chateau, inaccessible to everybody, and took it from under the shelves of a secret press before our eyes. This is a convincing proof that Louis XVI. hoped to return to his Chateau. When teaching Louis XVI. his trade Gamin took upon himself the tone and authority of a master. ' The King was good, forbearing, timid, inquisitive, and addicted to sleep,' said' Gamin to me ; ' he was fond to excess of lock-making, and he concealed himself from the Queen and the Court to file and forge with me. In order to convey his anvil and my own backwards and forwards we were obliged to use a thousand stratagems, the history of which would never end.' Above the King's and Gamin's forges and anvils was an observatory, erected upon a platform covered with lead. There, seated on an armchair, and assisted by a telescope, the King observed all that was passing in the courtyards of Versailles, the avenue of Paris, and the neighbouring gardens. He had taken a liking to Duret, one of the indoor servants of the palace, who 200 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF sharpened his tools, cleaned his anvils, pasted his maps, and adjusted eye-glasses to the King's sight, who was short- sighted. This good Duret, and indeed all the indoor servants, spoke of their master with regret and affection, and with tears in their eyes. " The King was born weak and delicate ; but, from the age of twenty-four, he possessed a robust constitution, inherited from his mother, who was of the House of Saxe, celebrated for generations for its robustness. There were two men in Louis XVI., the man of knowledge, and the man of will. The King knew the history of his own family and of the first houses of France perfectly. He composed the instructions for M. de la Peyrouse's voyage round the world, which the minister thought were drawn up by several members of the Academy of Sciences. His memory retained an infinite number of names and situations. He remembered quantities and num- bers wonderfully. One day an account was presented to him in which the minister had ranked among the expenses an item inserted in the account of the preceding year. ' There is a double charge/ said the King; 'bring me last year's account, and I will show it you there.' When the King was perfectly master of the details of any matter, and saw injustice, he was obdurate even to harshness. Then he would be obeyed in- stantly, in order to be sure that he was obeyed. " But in important affairs of state the man of will was not to be found. Louis XVI. was upon the throne exactly what those weak temperaments whom nature has rendered incapable of an opinion are in society. In his pusillanimity, he gave his confidence to a minister; and although amidst various coun- sels he often knew which was the best, he never had the resolu- tion to say, 'I prefer the opinion of such an one.' Herein originated the misfortunes of the State." — Soulavie's Histor- ical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis X~VI., vol. ii. MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTER VI. Severe winter — The Princesse de Lamballe appointed superintendent of the Household — The Comtesse Jules de Polignac appears at Court — M. de Vaudreuil — Due and Duchesse de Duras — Fashionable games. THE winter following the confinement of the Comtesse cTArtois was very severe ; the recollection of the pleasure which sleighing-parties had given the Queen in her childhood made her wish to introduce similar ones in France. This amuse- ment had already been known in that Court, as was proved by sleighs being found in the stables which had been used by the Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI. Some were con- structed for the Queen in a more modern style. The Princes also ordered several; and in a few days there was a tolerable number of these vehicles. They were driven by the princes and noblemen of the Court. The noise of the bells and balls with which the harness of the horses was furnished, the ele- gance and whiteness of their plumes, the varied forms of the carriages, the gold with which they were all ornamented, rendered these parties delightful to the eye. The winter was very favourable to them, the snow remaining on the ground nearly six weeks; the drives in the park afforded a pleasure shared by the spectators.1 No one imagined that any blame i Louis XVI., touched with the wretched condition of the poor of Versailles during the winter of 1776, had several cartloads of wood distributed among them. Seeing one day a file of those vehicles passing by, while several noblemen were preparing to be drawn swiftly over the ice, he uttered these memorable words : " Gentlemen, here are my sleighs! " — Note by the Editor. 202 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF could attach to so innocent an amusement. But the party were tempted to extend their drives as far as the Champs Elysees; a few sleighs even crossed the boulevards; the ladies being masked, the Queen's enemies took the opportunity of saying that she had traversed the streets of Paris in a sleigh. This became a matter of moment. The public discovered in it a predilection for the habits of Vienna; but all that Marie Antoinette did was criticised. Factions formed in courts do not openly carry insignia, as do those generated by revolutionary convulsions. They are not, however, on that account the less dangerous, and the Queen was never without a party against her. Sleigh-driving, savouring of the Northern Courts, had no favour among the Parisians. The Queen was informed of this ; and although all the sleighs were preserved, and several sub- sequent winters lent themselves to the amusement, she would not resume it. It was at the time of the sleighing-parties that the Queen became intimately acquainted with the Princesse de Lamballe, who made her appearance in them, wrapped in fur, with all the brilliancy and freshness of the age of twenty; the emblem of spring, peeping from under her sable and ermine. Her situa- tion, moreover, rendered her peculiarly interesting; married, when she was scarcely past childhood, to a young prince, who ruined himself by the contagious example of the Due cTOrleans, she had nothing to do from the time of her arrival in France but to weep. A widow at eighteen, and childless, she lived with the Due de Penthievre as an adopted daughter. She had the tenderest respect and attachment for that venerable Prince; but the Queen, though doing justice to his virtues, saw that the Due de Penthievre's way of life, whether at Paris or at his country-seat, could neither afford his young daughter-in-law the amusements suited to her time of life, nor insure her in the MARIE ANTOINETTE. 203 future an establishment such as she was deprived of by her widowhood. She determined, therefore, to establish her at Versailles ; and for her sake revived the office of superintendant, which had been discontinued at Court since the death of Mademoiselle de Clermont. It is said that Maria Leczinska had decided that this place should continue vacant ; the super- intendent having so extensive a power in the house of queens as to be frequently a restraint upon their inclinations. Differ- ences which took place between Marie Antoinette and the Princesse de Lamballe respecting the official prerogatives of the latter, proved that the wife of Louis XV. had acted judiciously in abolishing the office ; but a kind of treaty made between the Queen and the Princess smoothed all difficulties. The blame for too strong an assertion of claims fell upon a secretary of the superintendent's, who had been her adviser ; and everything was so arranged that a firm friendship existed between these two Princesses down to the disastrous period which terminated their career. Notwithstanding the enthusiasm which the splendour, graces, and kindness of the Queen generally inspired, secret in- trigues continued in operation against her. A short time after the accession of Louis XVI. to the throne, the minister of the King's household was informed that a most offensive libel against the Queen was about to appear. The lieutenant of police deputed a man named Goupil, a police inspector, to trace this libel ; he came soon after to say that he had found out the place where the work was being printed, and that it was at a country house near Yverdun. He had already got possession of two sheets, which contained the most atrocious calumnies, con- veyed with a degree of art which might make them very dan- gerous to the Queen's reputation. Goupil said that he could obtain the rest, but that he should want a considerable sum for that purpose. Three thousand louis were given him, and very 204: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF soon afterwards he brought the whole manuscript and all that had been printed to the lieutenant of police. He received a thousand louis more as a reward for his address and zeal ; and a much more important office was about to be given him, when another spy, envious of Goupil's good fortune, gave informa- tion that Goupil himself was the author of the libel ; that, ten years before, he had been put into the Bicetre for swindling; and that Madame Goupil had only been three years out of the Salpetriere, where she had been placed under another name. This Madame Goupil was very pretty and very intriguing ; she had found means to form an intimacy with Cardinal de Eohan, whom she led, it is said, to hope for a reconciliation with the Queen. All this affair was hushed up ; but it shows that it was the Queen's fate to be incessantly attacked by the meanest and most odious machinations.2 Another woman, named Cahouette de Villers, whose hus- band held an office in the Treasury, being very irregular in conduct, and of a scheming turn of mind, had a mania for appearing in the eyes of her friends at Paris a person in favour at Court, to which she was not entitled either by birth or office. During the latter years of the life of Louis XV. she had made many dupes, and picked up considerable sums by passing herself off as the King's mistress. The fear of irritating Madame du Barry was, according to her, the only thing which prevented her enjoying that title openly: she came regularly to Versailles, kept herself concealed in a furnished lodging, and her dupes imagined she was secretly summoned to Court. This woman formed the scheme of getting admission, if pos- sible, to th£ presence of the Queen, or at least causing it to be believed that she had done so. She adopted as her lover 2 Readers wishing for fuller details of Qoupil's manoeuvres and their detection may consult La Bastille D6voilee. The account contained there is too long for quotation here. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 205 Gabriel de Saint Charles, intendant of her Majesty's finances; an office, the privileges of which were confined to the right of entering the Queen's apartment on Sunday. Madame de Vil- lers came every Saturday to Versailles with M. de Saint Charles, and lodged in his apartment; M. Campan was there several times ; she painted tolerably well ; she requested him to do her the favour to present to the Queen a portrait of her Majesty which she had just copied. M. Campan knew the woman's character, and refused her. A few days after, he saw on her Majesty's couch the portrait which he had declined to present to her; the Queen thought it badly painted, and gave orders that it should be carried back to the Princesse de Lam- balle, who had sent it to her. The ill success of the portrait did not deter the manceuverer from following up her designs; she easily procured through M. de Saint Charles patents and orders signed by the Queen; she then set about imitating her writing, and composed a great number of notes and letters, as if written by her Majesty, in the tenderest and most familiar style. For many months she showed them as great secrets to several of her particular friends. Afterwards, she made the Queen appear to write to her, to procure various fancy articles. Under the pretext of wishing to execute her Majesty's commis- sions accurately, she gave these letters to the tradesmen to read ; and succeeded in having it said, in many houses, that the Queen had a particular regard for her. She then enlarged her scheme, and represented the Queen as desiring her to borrow 200,000 francs which she had need of, but which she did not wish to ask of the King from his private funds. This letter being shown to M. Beranger, fermier-general of the finances, took effect ; he thought himself fortunate in being able to ren- der this assistance to his sovereign, and lost no time in sending the 200,000 francs to Madame de Villers. This first step was followed by some doubts, which he communicated to people bet- 206 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ter informed than himself of what was passing at Court ; they added to his uneasiness; he then went to M. de Sartine, who unravelled the whole plot. The woman was sent to Saint Pelagie ; and the unfortunate husband was ruined by replacing the sum borrowed, and by paying for the jewels fraudulently purchased in the Queen's name ; the forged letters were sent to her Majesty; I compared them in her presence with her own handwriting, and the only distinguishable difference was a little more regularity in the letters. This trick, discovered and punished with prudence and with- out passion, produced no more sensation out of doors than that of the Inspector Goupil. A year after the nomination of Madame de Lamballe 3 to the post of superintendent of the Queen's household, balls and quadrilles gave rise to the intimacy of her Majesty with the Comtesse Jules de Polignac. This lady really interested Marie Antoinette. She was not rich, and generally lived upon her estate at Claye. The Queen was astonished at not having seen her at Court earlier. The confession that her want of fortune had even prevented her appearance at the celebration of the marriages of the Princes added to the interest which she had inspired. The Queen was full of sensibility, and took delight in coun- teracting the injustice of fortune. The Countess was induced to come to Court by her husband's sister, Madame Diana de Polignac, who had been appointed lady of honour to the Com- tesse d'Artois. The Comtesse Jules was really fond of a tran- quil life; the impression she made at Court affected her but little; she felt only the attachment manifested for her by the Queen. I had occasion to see her from the commencement of 3 Marie The"rese de Savoie-Carignan, born 1748, killed September 1792. Married Louis de Bourbon-Penthievre, Prince de Lamballe (who died about 1767), son of the Due de Penthievre. MARIE ANTOINETTE. * 207 her favour at Court; she often passed whole hours with me, while waiting for the Queen. She conversed with me freely and ingenuously about the honour, and at the same time the danger, she saw in the kindness of which she was the object. The Queen sought for the sweets of friendship; but can this gratification, so rare in any rank, exist between a Queen and a subject — when they are surrounded, moreover, by snares laid by the artifice of courtiers ? This pardonable error was fatal to the happiness of Marie Antoinette. The retiring character of the Comtesse Jules, afterwards Duchesse de Polignac, cannot be spoken of too favourably ; but if her heart was incapable of forming ambitious projects, her family and friends in her fortune beheld their own, and en- deavoured to secure the favour of the Queen.4 The Comtesse Diana, sister of M. de Polignac, and the Baron de Besenval and M. de Vaudreuil, particular friends of the Polignac family, made use of means, the success of which was infallible. One of my friends (Comte de Moustier), who was in their secret, came to tell me that Madame de Polignac was about to quit Versailles suddenly ; that she would take leave of the Queen only in writing; that the Comtesse Diana and M. de Vaudreuil had dictated her letter, and that the whole affair was arranged for the purpose of stimulating the attachment of Marie Antoinette. The next day, when I went up to the palace, I found the Queen with a letter in her hand, which she was reading with much emotion; it was the letter from the Comtesse Jules; the Queen showed it to me. The Countess expressed in it her grief at leaving a Princess who had loaded her with kindness. The narrowness of her fortune compelled her to do so ; but she was much more strongly impelled by the 4 The Comtesse, afterwards Duchesse de Polignac, nee Polastron, married the Comte (in 1780 the Due) Jules de Polignac, the father of the Prince de Polignac of Napoleon's and of Charles X.'s time. She emigrated in 1789, and died at Vienna in 1793. 208* THE PRIVATE LIFE OF fear that the Queen's friendship, after having raised up dan- gerous enemies against her, might abandon her to their hatred, and to the regret of having lost the august favour of which she was the object. This step produced the full effect that had been expected from it. A young and sensitive Queen cannot long bear the idea of contradiction. She busied herself in settling the Com- tesse Jules near her, by making such a provision for her as should place her beyond anxiety. Her character suited the Queen ; she had merely natural talents, no pedantry, no affecta- tion of knowledge. She was of middle size; her complexion very fair, her eyebrows and hair dark brown, her teeth superb, her smile enchanting, and her whole person graceful. She was seen almost always in a demi-toilette, remarkable only for neatness and good taste. I do not think I ever once saw dia- monds about her, even at the climax of her fortune, when she had the rank of Duchess at Court; I have always believed that her sincere attachment for the Queen, as much as her love of simplicity, induced her to avoid everything that might cause her to be thought a wealthy favourite. She had not one of the failings which usually accompany that position. She loved the persons who shared the Queen's affections, and was entirely free from jealousy. Marie Antoinette flattered herself that the Comtesse Jules and the Princesse de Lamballe would be her especial friends, and that she should possess a society formed according to her own taste. " I will receive them in my closet, or at Trianon," said she : " I will enjoy the comforts of private life, which exist not for us, unless we have the good sense to secure them for ourselves." The happiness the Queen thought to secure was destined to turn to vexation. All those courtiers who were not admitted to this intimacy became so many jealous and vindictive enemies. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 209 It was necessary to make a suitable provision for the Coun- tess. The place of first equerry, in reversion after the Comte de Tesse, given to Comte Jules unknown to the tftular holder, displeased the family of Noailles. This family had just sus- tained another mortification ; the appointment of the Princesse de Lamballe having in some degree rendered necessary the resignation of the Comtesse de Noailles, whose husband was thereupon made a marshal of France. The Princesse de Lam- balle, although she did not quarrel with the Queen, was alarmed at the establishment of the Comtesse Jules at Court, and did not form, as her Majesty had hoped, a part of that intimate society which was in turn composed of Mesdames Jules and Diana de Polignac, cTAndlau, and de Chalon; and Messieurs de Guignes, de Coigny, oTAdhemar, de Besenval, lieutenant- colonel of the Swiss, de Polignac, de Vaudreuil, and de Guiche ; the Prince de Ligne and the Duke of Dorset, the English am- bassador, were also admitted. It was a long time before the Comtesse Jules maintained any great state at Court. The Queen contented herself with giving her very fine apartments at the top of the marble staircase. The salary of the first equerry, the trifling emoluments derived from M. de Polignac's regiment, added to their slender patri- mony, and perhaps some small pension, at that time formed the whole fortune of the favourite. I never saw the Queen make her a present of value ; I was even astonished one day at hearing her Majesty mention, with pleasure, that the Countess had gained ten thousand francs in the lottery : she was in great want of it, added the Queen. Thus the Polignacs were not settled at Court in any degree of splendour which could justify complaints from others, and the substantial favours bestowed upon that family were less envied than the intimacy between them and their proteges and VOL. 1—14 210 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the Queen. Those who had no hope of entering the circle of the Comtesse Jules were made jealous by the opportunities of advancement it afforded. However, at the time I speak of, the society around the Comtesse Jules was fully engaged in gratifying the young Queen. Of this the Marquis de Vaudreuil was a conspicuous member; he was a brilliant man, the friend and protector of men of letters and celebrated artists.5 B M. de Vaudreuil was passionately fond of the arts and of litera- ture: he preferred encouraging them as an amateur rather than as a patron. He gave a dinner every week to a party consisting only of literary men and artists. The evening was spent in a saloon fur- nished with musical instruments, pencils, colours, brushes, and pens; and every one composed, or painted, or wrote, according to his taste or genius. M. de Vaudreuil himself pursued several of the fine arts. His voice was very pleasing, and he was a good musician. These ac- complishments made him sought after, from kis earliest entrance into society. The first time he visited Madame la Margchale de Luxem- bourg, that lady said to him after supper, " I am told, sir, that you sing very well. I should be delighted to hear you. But if you do oblige me so far, pray do not sing any fine piece ; no cantata, but some street ballad — just a mere street song. I like a natural style — something lively — something cheerful." M. de Vaudreuil begged leave to sing a street ballad then much in vogue. He did not know that Madame la Margchale de Luxembourg was, before her widow- hood, Comtesse de Boufflers. He sang out with a full and sonorous voice the first line of the couplet, 'beginning, "When Boufflers was first seen at Court." The company immediately began coughing and sneezing. M. de Vaudreuil went on : " Venus' self shone less beau- teous than she did." The noise and confusion increased. But after the third line: "To please her all eagerly sought," M. de Vaudreuil, perceiving that all eyes were fixed upon him, paused. " Pray go on, sir," said Madame la Mar6chale, singing the last line herself : " And too well in his turn each succeeded." M. de Besenval's remarks re- specting Madame de Luxembourg render the anecdote plausible. But perhaps, in such a delicate dilemma, she may be considered as having given a proof of presence of mind rather than of impudence. According to the version of the Marquis de Gouffier, who was pres- ent on this occasion, the conversation turned on Time's ravages on beauty, when M. de Vaudreuil said, turning towards Madame de Luxembourg, " As to you, Madame, he has spared you — we still see MARIE ANTOINETTE. 211 The Baron de Besenval added to the bluntness of the Swiss all the adroitness of a French courtier. His fifty years and gray hairs made him enjoy among women the confidence in- spired by mature age, although he had not given up the thought of love affairs. He talked of his native mountains with enthu- siasm. He would at any tune sing the " ranz des vaches " with tears in his eyes, and was the best story-teller in the Comtesse Jules' circle. The last new song or bon-mot and the gossip of the day were the sole topics of conversation in the Queen's parties. Wit was banished from them. The Comtesse Diana, more inclined to literary pursuits than her sister-in-law, one day recommended her to read the Iliad and Odyssey. The latter replied, laughing, that she was perfectly acquainted with the Greek poet, and said to prove it : " Homere 6tait aVeugle et jouait du hautbois." • " Homer was blind and played on the hautboy." that beauty which turned; all the heads at Court, and has been cele- brated by our best poets." " Yes," said the old lady gaily, " I re- member when I first came out, there were a few songs written in my praise; there was this, for instance," and she began singing: " When Boufflers was first seen at Court, Venus' self shone less beauteous than she did. To please her all eagerly sought " Here she stopped, and did not give the last line: " And too well in his turn each succeeded." " Go on, Madame la Mar6chale," said De Vaudreuil. " Ah ! " said she, smiling, " all that was so long ago that I remember no more of it." — Note by the Editor. • This lively repartee of the Duchesse de Polignac is a droll imita- tion of a line in the Mercure Galant. In the quarrel scene one of the lawyers says to his brother quill: " Ton-pere 6tait aveugle et jouait du hautbois." " Your father was blind and played on the hautboy." It was impossible that the Duchesse de Polignac, with her wit and refined taste, should do otherwise than highly value learning; but the following anecdote conveys a poor idea of the education of some of the men admitted into her society: — " In 1781 the Duchesse de Polignac was enceinte, and in order to be nearer at hand to pay her respects to the Queen, she requested 212 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF The Queen found this sort of humour very much to her taste, and said that no pedant should ever be her friend. Before the Queen fixed her assemblies at Madame de Polig- nac's, she occasionally passed the evening at the house of the Due and Duchesse de Duras, where a brilliant party of young persons met together. They introduced a taste for trifling games, such as question and answer, guerre panpan, blindman's buff, and especially a game called descampativos. The people of Paris, always criticising, but always imitating the customs of the Court, were infected with the mania for these childish sports. Madame de Genlis, sketching the follies of the day in one of her plays, speaks of these famous descampativos; and also of the rage for making a friend, called the inseparable, until a whim or the slightest difference might occasion a total rupture. Madame de Boufflers to let her her house, called d'Auteuil, and famous for its gardens d, I'Anglaise. Madame de Boufflers, who was very fond of her country house, wished to refuse the Duchess without disobliging her, and replied in the following lines: — " ' Around you all are sedulous to please ; Your tranquil days roll on in cloudless ease; Empire to you is but the source of joy, Or if some grief awhile the charm destroy, Attentive courtiers with assiduous art Banish the transient feeling from your heart. Far otherwise with me; if sorrows press, Here, lonely, no one shares in my distress; My only solace are these fragrant flowers, Whose rich perfumes beguile my heavy hours.' " Madame de Polignac showed these lines, and her flatterers, think- ing they were written by Madame de Boufflers, pronounced them good for nothing. Of course the decision of the Duchess's friends was carried to Madame la Marechale. ' I am sorry, then,' said she, ' for poor Racine ; for the lines are his.' " The lines will be found in Britwnnicus, Act 2, Scene 3. They are addressed to Nero by Junia. Madame de Boufflers had merely made a slight alteration in the four last lines, where the name of Britan- nicus is introduced. — Secret Correspondence of the Court: Reign of Louis XVI. MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTEE VII. The Due de Choiseul returns to Court — The Queen obtains a pen- sion of 1200 francs for Chamfort — She invites Gluck to France and patronises music — Encouragement given to the art of print- ing — Turgot — M. de Saint Germain — Amusements at Court — Particulars of the household — Masked balls at the opera — The Queen goes there in a fiacre; slanderous reports — The heron plume — The Due de Lauzun — The Queen's attachment to the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac — Anec- dote of the Abb6 de Vermond. THE Due de Choiseul had reappeared at Court on the cere- mony of the King's coronation.1 The state of public feeling on the subject gave his friends hope of seeing him again in administration, or in the Council of State; but the opposite party was too firmly fixed at Versailles, and the young Queen's influence was outweighed, in the mind of the King, by long- standing prejudices ; she therefore gave up for ever her attempt to reinstate the Duke. Thus this Princess, who has been de- scribed as so ambitious, and so strenuously supporting the in- terest of the House of Austria, failed twice in the only scheme which could forward the views constantly attributed to her ; and spent the whole of her reign surrounded by enemies of herself and her house. Marie Antoinette took little pains to promote literature and the fine arts. She had been annoyed in consequence of having ordered a performance of the Connetable de Bourbon, on the celebration of the marriage of Madame Clotilde with the Prince of Piedmont. The Court and the people of Paris censured as indecorous the naming characters in the piece after the reigning i After his disgrace under Louis XV. in 1770. 214 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF family, and that with which the new alliance was formed.2 The reading of this piece by the Comte de Guibert in the Queen's closet had produced in her Majesty's circle that sort of enthusiasm which obscures the judgment. She promised herself she would have no more readings. Yet, at the re- quest of M. de Cubieres, the King's equerry, the Queen agreed to hear the reading of a comedy written by his brother. She collected her intimate circle, Messieurs de Coigny, de Vau- dreuil, de Besenval, Mesdames de Polignac, de Chalon, etc., and to increase the number of judges, she admitted the two Parnys, the Chevalier de Bertin,3 my father-in-law, and my- self. Mole* read for the author. I never could satisfy my- self by what magic the skilful reader gained our unanimous approbation of a ridiculous work. Surely the delightful voice of Mole, by awakening our recollection of the dramatic beauties of the French stage, prevented the wretched lines of Dorat Cubieres from striking on our ears. I can assert that the exclamation Charming! charming! repeatedly interrupted the reader. The piece was admitted for performance at Fon- tainebleau; and for the first time the King had the curtain dropped before the end of the play. It was called the Dra- momane or Dramaturge. All the characters died of poison in a pie. The Queen, highly disconcerted at having recom- mended this absurd production, announced that she would 2 Th« Connetable de Bourbon was not, it must be admitted, a fit piece for performance before all the French Princes. It would create some surprise if the whole Court should be found approving a com- position in which the Constable above all things desires " the rare pleasure of humbling a king." — Note by the Editor. s The Chevalier de Parny was already known by his erotic poems, and the Chevalier de Bertin by some valued verses. — Madame Campan. 4 An actor who was during thirty years the delight of the Theatre Francais. He preceded Fleury, and took the same line of character. — Madame Campan. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 215 never hear another reading; and this time she kept her word. The tragedy of Mustapha and Zeangir, by M. de Chamfort, was highly successful at the Court theatre at Fontainebleau. The Queen procured the author a pension of 1200 francs, but his play failed on being performed at Paris. The spirit of opposition which prevailed in that city de- lighted in reversing the verdicts of the Court. The Queen determined never again to give any marked countenance to new dramatic works. She reserved her patronage for musi- cal composers, and in a few years their art arrived at a per- fection it had never before attained in France. It was solely to gratify the Queen that the manager of the opera brought the first company of comic actors to Paris. Gluck, Piccinni, and Sacchini were attracted there in succes- sion. These eminent composers were treated with great dis- tinction at Court. Immediately on his arrival in France, Gluck was admitted to the Queen's toilette, and she talked to him all the time he remained with her. She asked him one day whether he had nearly brought his grand opera of Armide to a conclusion, and whether it pleased him. Gluck replied very coolly, in his German accent, " Madame, it will soon be finished, and really it will be superb." There was a great outcry against the confidence with which the composer had spoken of one of his own productions.5 The Queen B Gluck often had to deal with self -sufficiency equal to his own. He was very reluctant to introduce long ballets into Iphigenia. Vestris deeply regretted that the opera was not terminated by a piece they called a chaconne, in which he displayed all his power. He com- plained to Gluck about it. Gluck, who treated his art with all the dignity it merits, replied that in so interesting a subject dancing would be misplaced. Being pressed another time by Vestris on the same subject, " A chaconne ! a chaconne ! " roared out the enraged musician, " we must describe the Greeks ; and had the Greeks 216 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF defended him warmly; she insisted that he could not be igno- rant of the merit of his works; that he well knew they were generally admired, and that no doubt he was afraid lest a modesty, merely dictated by politeness, should look like af- fectation in him. The Queen did not confine her admiration to the lofty style of the French and Italian operas; she greatly valued Gretry's music, so well adapted to the spirit and feeling of the words. A great deal of the poetry set to music by Gretry is by Marmon- tel. The day after the first performance of Zemira and Azor, Marmontel and Gretry were presented to the Queen as she was passing through the gallery of Fontainebleau to go to mass. The Queen congratulated Gretry on the success of the new opera, and told him that she had dreamed of the enchanting effect of the trio by Zemira's father and sisters behind the magic mirror. Gretry, in a transport of joy, took Marmontel in his arms, " Ah ! my friend/' cried he, " excellent music may be made of this." "And execrable words," coolly ob- served Marmontel, to whom her Majesty had not addressed a single compliment.6 chaconnes ? " — " They had not ? " returned the astonished dancer ; " faith then, so much the worse for them ! " — Note by the Editor. « " The Court," says Grimm, " almost invariably confers favour up- on the authors of the pieces performed at Fontainebleau, and those pieces may be performed at Paris immediately after their perform- ance at Court. To this advantage may be attributed the importance attached to the privilege of being first judged of upon a stage where the result is never considered definitive, for it is agreed that a final appeal lies to the public of Paris from the judgments pronounced by the courtly public. And yet the manner of judging adopted at Court is very different now that it is allowable to applaud there as at other theatres. Formerly it was usual to listen in profound silence, which, while manifesting much respect for the presence of their Majesties, left vast uncertainty as to the feelings of the audience. Since the Queen has permitted this point of etiquette to be abrogated, it seldom happens that Paris annuls the decisions of Fontainebleau." — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 217 The most indifferent artists were permitted to have the honour of painting the Queen. A full-length portrait repre- senting her in all the pomp of royalty was exhibited in the gallery of Versailles, This picture, which was intended for the Court of Vienna, was executed by a man who does not deserve even to be named, and disgusted all people of taste. It seemed as if this art had, in France, retrograded several centuries. The Queen had not that enlightened judgment, or even that mere taste, which enables Princes to foster and protect great talents. She confessed frankly that she saw no merit in any portrait beyond the likeness. When she went to the Louvre, she would run hastily over all the little " genre " pic- tures, and come out, as she acknowledged, without having once raised her eyes to the grand compositions. There is no good portrait of the Queen, save that by Werth- muller, chief painter to the King of Sweden, which was sent to Stockholm; and that by Madame le Brun, which was saved from the revolutionary fury by the commissioners for the care of the furniture at Versailles. The composition of the latter picture resembles that of Henrietta of France, the wife of the unfortunate Charles It, painted by Vandyke. Like Marie Antoinette, she is seated, surrounded by her children, and that resemblance adds to the melancholy interest raised by this beautiful production. While admitting that the Queen gave no direct encourage- ment to any art but that of music, I should be wrong to pass over in silence the patronage conferred by her and the Princes, brothers of the King, on the art of printing.7 7 In 1790 the King gave a proof of his particular good will to the bookselling trade. A contemporary writer says: "A company consisting of the first Parisian booksellers, being on the eve of stopping payment, succeeded in laying before the King a statement of their distressed situation. The monarch was affected 218 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF To Marie Antoinette we are indebted for a splendid quarto edition of the works of Metastasio; to Monsieur, the King's brother, for a quarto Tasso, embellished with engravings after Cochin; and to the Comte cTArtois, for a small collection of select works, which is considered one of the chef dceuvres of the press of the celebrated Didot. In 1775, on the death of the Marechal du Muy, the as- cendency obtained by the sect of innovators occasioned M. de Saint Germain to be recalled to Court and made Minister at War. His first care was the destruction of the King's mili- tary household establishment, an imposing and effectual ram- part round the sovereign power. When Chancellor Maupeou obtained from Louis XV. the destruction of the Parliament and the exile of all the ancient magistrates, the Mousquetaires were charged with the execu- tion of the commission for this purpose; and at the stroke of midnight, the presidents and members were all arrested, each by two Mousquetaires. In the spring of 1775 a popular in- surrection had taken place in consequence of the high price of by it; he took from the civil list the sum of which the society stood in immediate need, and became security for the repayment of the remainder of the 1,200,000 livres, which they wanted to borrow. Louis XVI. wrote the following letter to M. Necker, at that time his Minister of Finance : — " ' The interest I take in the welfare of the associated libraries, and of the numerous workmen they employ, as well in Paris as in the country, and who would have been out of work without prompt assist- ance (the caisse d'escompte, and other capitalists, to whom they have made application, being unable to help them), has induced me to advance them, as a loan, out of the funds of my civil list, the 50,000 crowns which they wanted indispensably on the 31st of last month. The same motive leads me to secure, upon the same fund, such sums as they may be able to procure, in order, with the 50,000 crowns which I have advanced them, to make up the sum of 1,200,000 livres, to be repaid in ten years, including my advance; for the re- payment of which I fix no particular time. Saint Cloud, the 4th August 1790 (Signed) Louis.'" — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 219 bread. M. Turgot's new regulation, which permitted un- limited trade in corn, was either its cause or the pretext for it ; 8 and the King's household troops again rendered the great- est services to public tranquillity. I have never been able to discover the true cause of the support given to M. de Saint Germain's policy by the Queen, unless in the marked favour shown to the captains and officers of the Body Guards, who by this reduction became the only soldiers of their rank entrusted with the safety of the sover- eign; or else in the Queen's strong prejudice against the Due d'Aiguillon, then commander of the light horse. M de Saint Germain, however, retained fifty gens darmes and fifty light horse to form a royal escort on State occasions; but in 1787 the King reduced both these military bodies. The Queen then said with satisfaction that at last she should see no more red coats in the gallery of Versailles.9 From 1775 to 1781 were the gayest years of the Queen's life. In the little journeys to Choisy, performances fre- quently took place at the theatre twice in one day: grand opera and French or Italian comedy at the usual hour; and ' 8 Liberty and economy were M. Turgot's two principles. At Court he insisted chiefly on the application of the last. His numerous re- trenchments offended the nobles and clergy. A female relative of the minister once asked a bishop whether it was not allowable to keep Easter and the Jubilee at the same time. " Well, madam," re- plied the prelate, " we live in economical times — I think it can be done." — Note ~by the Editor. 8 The Queen finally said to M. de Saint Germain, " What will you do with the forty-four gens d'armes and forty-four light horse that you keep up? Apparently they are to escort the King to the beds of justice." " No, Madame, they are to accompany him when Te Deums are sung." It must be understood that the Queen would have liked a total suppression, and that the King should have been guarded at Versailles as the Empress, her mother, and the Emperor are at Vienna; and that would have been simple and right. — Secret Corre- spondence of the Court: Reign of Louis XVI. 220 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP at eleven at night they returned to the theatre for parodies in which the best actors of the opera presented themselves in whimsical parts and costumes. The celebrated dancer Gui- mard always took the leading characters in the latter perform- ance: she danced better than she acted; her extreme lean- ness, and her weak hoarse voice, added to the burlesque in the parodied characters of Ernelinde and Iphigenie. The most magnificent fete ever given to the Queen was one prepared for her by Monsieur, the King's brother, at Bru- noy. That Prince did me the honour to admit me, and I fol- lowed her Majesty into the gardens, where she found in the first copse knights in full armour asleep at the foot of trees, on which hung their spears and shields. The absence of the beauties who incited the nephews of Charlemagne and the gallants of that period to lofty deeds was supposed to occa- sion this lethargic slumber. But when the Queen appeared at the entrance of the copse they were on foot in an instant, and melodious voices announced their eagerness to display their valour. They then hastened into a vast arena, mag- nificently decorated in the exact style of the ancient tourna- ments. Fifty dancers dressed as pages presented to the knights twenty-five superb black horses, and twenty-five of a dazzling whiteness, all most richly caparisoned. The party led by Augustus Vestris wore the Queen's colours. Picq, ballet-master at the Eussian Court, commanded the opposing band. There was running at the negro's head, tilting, and, lastly, combats a entrance, perfectly well imitated. Although the spectators were aware that the Queen's colours could not but be victorious, they did not the less enjoy the apparent uncertainty. Nearly all the agreeable women of Paris were ranged upon the steps which surrounded the area of the tourney. The Queen, surrounded by the royal family and the whole Court, MAKIE ANTOINETTE. 221 was placed beneath an elevated canopy. A play, followed by a ballet-pantomime and a ball, terminated the fete. Fire- works and illuminations were not spared. Finally, from a prodigiously high scaffold, placed on a rising ground, the words Vive Louis! Vive Marie Antoinette! were shown in the air in the midst of a very dark but calm night. Pleasure was the sole pursuit of every one of this young family, with the exception of the King. Their love of it was perpetually encouraged by a crowd of those officious peo- ple who, by anticipating the desires and even the passions of princes, find means of showing their zeal and hope to gain or maintain favour for themselves. Who would have dared to check the amusements of a Queen, young, lively, and handsome? A mother or a husband alone would have had the right to do it; and the King threw no impediment in the way of Marie Antoinette's inclinations. His long indifference had been followed by admiration and love. He was a slave to all the wishes of the Queen, who, de- lighted with the happy change in the heart and habits of the King, did not sufficiently conceal the ascendency she was gain- ing over him. The King went to bed every night at eleven precisely; he was very methodical, and nothing was allowed to interfere with his rules. The noise which the Queen unavoidably made when she returned very late from the evenings which she spent with the Princesse de Guemenee, or the Due de Duras, at last annoyed the King, and it was amicably agreed that the Queen should apprise him when she intended to sit up late. He then began to sleep in his own apartment, which had never before happened from the time of their marriage. During the winter the Queen attended the opera balls with a single lady of the palace, and always found there Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois. Her people concealed their liveries 222 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF under gray cloth greatcoats. She never thought she was recognised, while all the time she was known to the whole assembly, from the first moment she entered the theatre; they pretended, however, not to recognise her, and some mas- querade manoeuvre was always adopted to give her the pleasure of fancying herself incognito. Louis XVI. determined once to accompany the Queen to a masked ball ; it was agreed that the King should hold not only the grand but the petit coucher, as if actually going to bed. The Queen went to his apartment through the inner corri- dors of the palace, followed by one of her women with a black domino ; she assisted him to put it on, and they went alone to the chapel court, where a carriage waited for them, with the captain of the guard of the quarter, and a lady of the palace. The King was but little amused, spoke only to two or three persons, who knew him immediately, and found nothing to admire at the masquerade but Punches and Harlequins, which served as a joke against him for the royal family, who often amused themselves with laughing at him about it. An event, simple in itself, brought lamentable suspicions upon the Queen. She was going out one evening with the Duchesse de Luynes, lady of the palace, when the carriage broke down at the entrance into Paris; she was obliged to alight ; the Duchess led her into a shop, while a footman called a -fiacre. As they were masked, if they had but known how to keep silence, the event would never have been known; but to ride in a -fiacre is so unusual an adventure for a Queen that she had hardly entered the opera-house when she could not help saying to some persons whom she met there : " That I should be in a -fiacre! Is it not droll ? " 10 i° An adventure which took place at the masked ball given by the Comte de Viry is whispered about. It was as follows: After the banquet the Queen withdrew with her suite, and returned shortly MARIE ANTOINETTE. 223 From that moment all Paris was informed of the adventure of the fiacre. It was said that everything connected with it was mysterious; that the Queen had kept an assignation in a private house with the Due de Coigny. He was indeed very well received at Court, but equally so by the King and Queen. These accusations of gallantry once set afloat, there were no longer any bounds to the calumnies circulated at Paris. If, during the chase or at cards, the Queen spoke to Lord Edward Dillon, De Lambertye, or others, they were so many favoured lovers. The people of Paris did not know that none of those young persons were admitted into the Queen's private circle of friends; the Queen went about Paris in disguise, and had made use of a fiacre; and a single in- stance of levity gives room for the suspicion of others. Con- scious of innocence, and well knowing that all about her must do justice to her private life, the Queen spoke of these reports afterwards, masked, to the ball. At three o'clock in the morning she was walking with the Duchesse de La Vauguyon; the two masks were accosted by a young foreign nobleman, who was unmasked, and who conversed with them a long time, taking them for two women of quality with whom he was acquainted. The mistake gave rise to a singular conversation, which amused her Majesty the more inasmuch as the topics were light and agreeable, without being indiscreet. Two gentlemen in masks came up and joined the party; after laughing a good deal together they separated. The two ladies intimated a desire to withdraw; the German baron conducted them; a very plain car- riage drew up; when they were about to enter it, Madame de La Vauguyon unmasked. Judge of the stranger's surprise when, on turn- ing round, he recognised the other lady, who had likewise unmasked; respect and confusion succeeded to familiarity. The affability of the charming Princess, however, reassured the foreigner, who, besides, had the advantage of being known to her Majesty. The Queen recom- mended secrecy, and left him. He complied no doubt, but to little purpose, as two or three spectators were not equally discreet. Meet- ing the Queen a few days afterwards, she asked him if he had kept her secret, in a tone which showed that she did not consider it of the slightest importance. — Secret Correspondence of the Court: Reign of Louis XVI. 224 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF with contempt, contenting herself with the supposition that some folly in the young men mentioned had given rise to them. She therefore left off speaking to them or even looking at them. Their vanity took alarm at this, and revenge in- duced them either to say, or to leave others to think, that they were unfortunate enough to please no longer. Other young coxcombs, placing themselves near the private box which the Queen occupied incognito when she attended the public theatre at Versailles, had the presumption to imagine that they were noticed by her; and I have known such notions entertained merely on account of the Queen's requesting one of those gentlemen to inquire behind the scenes whether it would be long before the commencement of the second piece. The list of persons received into the Queen's closet which I gave in the preceding chapter was placed in the hands of the ushers of the chamber by the Princesse de Lamballe; and the persons there enumerated could only present themselves to enjoy the distinction on those days when the Queen chose to be with her intimates in a private manner; and this was only when she was slightly indisposed. People of the first rank at Court sometimes requested special audiences of her; the Queen then received them in a room within that called the closet of the women on duty, and these women announced them in her Majesty's apartment. The Due de Lauzun (since Due de Biron),11 who made himself conspicuous in the Kevolution, among the associates of the Due cFOrleans, has left behind him some manuscript memoirs, in which he insults Marie Antoinette. He relates one anecdote respecting a heron plume. The following is the true history of the matter. iiAnnand Louis, Due de Lauzun (1747-1793), afterwards (1788) Due de Biron; commanded the army of the Rhine 1792, and against the Vendeans in 1793 as General Biron, but was guillotined in 1793. MARIE 'ANTOINETTE. 225 The Due de Lauzun had a good deal of wit, and chivalrous manners. The Queen was accustomed to see him at the King's suppers, and at the house of the Princesse de Gueme- nee, and always showed him attention. One day he made his appearance at Madame de Guemenee's in uniform, and with the most magnificent plume of white heron's feathers that it was possible to behold. The Queen admired the plume, and he offered it to her through the Princesse de Guemenee. As he had worn it the Queen had not imagined that he could think of giving it to her; much embarrassed with the present which she had, as it were, drawn upon herself, she did not like to refuse it, nor did she know whether she ought to make one in return; afraid, if she did give anything, of giving either too much or too little, she contented herself with once letting M. de Lauzun see her adorned with the plume. In his secret memoirs the Duke attaches an importance to his pres- ent, which proves him utterly unworthy of an honour accorded only to his name and rank.12 12 It is interesting to compare the Due de Lauzun's version of this incident (not, however, to be found in the edition of his memohs published since those of Madame Campan were compiled) with Madame Cam pan's narrative : " Madame de Gu6m6n6e," he says, " came up to me and asked in an undertone, laughing, ' Are you very much attached to a certain white heron plume which was in your helmet when you took leave? The Queen is dying for it: will you refuse it her ? " I replied that I should not' dare to offer it to her, but that I should be most happy if she would condescend to receive it from Madame de Gue'me'nee. I sent to Paris for it, and Madame Gue'me'nee gave it to the Queen the next evening. She wore it on the following day; and at dinner she asked me what I thought of her head-dress. I replied that I liked it very much. ' I never,' said she, with infinite affability, ' saw myself so becomingly dressed before.' It certainly would have been better if she had not said anything about it, for the Due de Coigny took notice both of the feather and the phrase. He asked whence the plume came. The Queen said, with some embarrassment, that I had brought it to Madame de Gue'me'n6e from my travels, and that she had given it to her. The Due de Coigny told Madame de Gu6m6n6e in the evening, with much asperity, VOL. 1—15 226 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP A short time afterwards he solicited an audience; the Queen granted it, as she would have done to any other court- ier of equal rank. I was in the room adjoining that in which he was received; a few minutes after his arrival the Queen re-opened the door, and said aloud, and in an angry tone of voice, " Go, sir." M. de Lauzun bowed low, and with- drew. The Queen was much agitated. She said to me: " That man shall never again come within my doors." A few years before the Revolution of 1789 the Marechal de Bi- ron died. The Due de Lauzun, heir to his name, aspired to the important post of colonel of the regiment of French guards. The Queen, however, procured it for the Due du Chatelet. The Due de Biron espoused the cause of the Due d!0rleans, and became one of the most violent enemies of Marie Antoinette. It is with reluctance that I enter minutely on a defence of the Queen against two infamous accusations with which libel- lers have dared to swell their envenomed volumes. I mean the unworthy suspicions of too strong an attachment for the Comte cTArtois, and of the motives for the tender friendship which subsisted between the Queen, the Princesse de Lam- balle, and the Duchesse de Polignac. I do not believe that the Comte oTArtois was, during his own youth, and that of the Queen, so much smitten as has been said with the loveliness of his sister-in-law ; I can affirm that I always saw that Prince •maintain the most respectful demeanour towards the Queen; that she always spoke of his good-nature and cheerfulness with that freedom which attends only the purest sentiments; and that none of those about the Queen ever saw in the af- that nothing could be more indecorous than the footing I was on with the Queen; that to act the lover thus publicly was a thing unheard of; and that it waa incredible that she should look as if she approved of it. What he said was not well received, and he began to contrive means to get me out of the way."— Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 22Y fection she manifested towards the Comte oTArtois more than that of a kind and tender sister for her youngest brother. As to the intimate connection between Marie Antoinette and the ladies I have named, it never had, nor could have, any other motive than the very innocent wish to secure herself two friends in the midst of a numerous Court; and notwith- standing this intimacy, that tone of respect observed by per- sons of the most exalted rank towards majesty never ceased to be maintained.13 The Queen, much occupied with the society of Madame de Polignac, and an unbroken series of amusements, found less time for the Abbe de Vermond; he therefore resolved to re- tire from Court. The world did him the honour to believe that he had hazarded remonstrances upon his august pupil's frivolous employment of her time, and that he considered himself, both as an ecclesiastic and as instructor, now out of is The following note was written by the Queen to the Duchesse de Polignac, in answer to a letter in which the latter, after an illness that had confined her a few days to Paris, told the Queen that she should soon have the honour of paying her respects to her : — " Doubt- less it is I who am the more impatient to embrace you, for to-morrow I shall come and dine with you in Paris." This close friendship be- tween a sovereign and a subject is almost unexampled; unprincipled people, therefore, attributed a criminal motive to it. When a scheme for dethroning the unfortunate Louis XVI. was once determined on, it was thought proper to begin by degrading him, and the most efficacious way was to attack the morals of the Queen. It was also essential for the success of this infernal plot that the Duchesse de Polignac should be lowered in public opinion. For if the Duchess could be made to appear deserving of universal contempt, the op- probrium cast on her would stain her august friend also. Libels against Madame de Polignac, therefore, were not spared; but all in- telligent persons who were well acquainted with the Due and Duchesse de Polignac, were convinced that the authors of those libels were vile calumniators, hired by the enemies of the King and Queen. The Duchess was beloved by her household, and in the bosom of her family she led a very decorous and regular life. — History of Marie An- toinette, by Montjoie. 228 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF place at Court. But the world was deceived: his dissatisfac- tion arose purely from the favour shown to the Comtesse Jules. After a fortnight's absence we saw him at Versailles again, resuming his usual functions. The Queen could express herself with winning graciousness to persons who merited her praise. When M. Loustonneau was appointed to the reversion of the post of first surgeon to the King he came to make his acknowledgments. He was much beloved by the poor, to whom he had chiefly devoted his talents, spending nearly thirty thousand francs a year on in- digent sufferers. The Queen replied to his thanks by saying: " You are satisfied, sir ; but I am far from being so with the inhabitants of Versailles. On the news of your appointment the town should have been illuminated." — " How so, Ma- dame ? " asked the astonished surgeon, who was excessively modest. " Why/' replied the Queen, " if the poor whom you have succoured for the past twenty years had each placed a single candle in their windows it would have been the most beautiful illumination ever witnessed." The Queen did not limit her kindness to friendly words. There was frequently seen in the apartments of Versailles a veteran captain of the grenadiers of France, called the Chev- alier d'Orville, who, for four years, had been soliciting from the Minister of War the post of major, or of King's lieuten- ant. He was known to be very poor; but he supported his lot without complaining of this vexatious delay in rewarding his honourable services. He regularly attended the Marechal de Segur, at the hour appointed for receiving the numerous solicitations in his department. One day the Marechal said to him: "You are still at Versailles, M. d'Orville ?"—" Sir," he replied, " you may observe that, by this board of the floor- ing where I regularly place myself; it is already worn down several lines by the weight of my body." The Queen fre- MARIE ANTOINETTE. 229 quently stood at the window of her bed-chamber to observe with her glass the people walking in the park. Sometimes she inquired the names of those who were unknown to her. One day she saw the Chevalier cTOrville passing, and asked me the name of that knight of Saint Louis, whom she had seen everywhere for a long time past. I knew who he was, and related his history. " That must be put an end to," said the Queen, with some vivacity. " Such an example of indiffer- ence is calculated to discourage our soldiers." Next day, in crossing the gallery to go to mass, the Queen perceived the Chevalier dOrville; she went directly towards him. The poor man fell back in the recess of a window, looking to the right and left to discover the person whom the Queen was seeking, when she thus addressed him : " M. d!0rville, you have been several years at Versailles, soliciting a majority or a King's lieutenancy. You must have very powerless patrons." — " I have none, Madame," replied the Chevalier, in great con- fusion. "Well! I will take you under my protection. To- morrow at the same hour be here with a petition, and a me- morial of your services." A fortnight after M. (lOrville was appointed King's lieutenant, either at La Eochelle or at Eochefort.1* i* Louis XVI. vied with his Queen in benevolent actions of this kind. An old officer had in vain solicited a pension during the ad- ministration of the Due de Choiseul. He returned to the charge in the times of the Marquis de Montesnard and the Due d'Aiguillon. He urged his claims to Comte du Muy, who made a note of them. Tired of so many fruitless efforts, he at last appeared at the King's supper, and having placed himself so as to be seen and heard, cried out at a moment when silence prevailed, " Sire." The people near him said, " What are you about ? This is not the way to speak to the King." — " I fear nothing," said he, and raising his voice, repeated, " Sire." The King, much surpVised, looked at him and said, " What do you want, sir." — " Sire," answered he, " I am seventy years of age; I have served your Majesty more than fifty years, and I am dying for want." — " Have you a memorial ? " replied the King. " Yes, Sire, '230 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF I have." — " Give it to me; " and his Majesty took it without saying anything more. Next morning he was sent for by the King, who said, " Sir, I grant you an annuity of 1500 livres out of my privy purse, and you may go and receive the first year's payment, which is now due." (Secret Correspondence of the Court: Reign of Louis XVI.) The King preferred to spend money in charity rather than in luxury or magnificence. Once during his absence, M. d'Angivillera caused an unused room in the King's apartment to be repaired at a cost of 30,000 francs. On his return the King made Versailles re- sound with complaints against M. d'Angivillers : " With that sum I could have made thirty families happy," he said. — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTER VIII Joseph II.'s visit to France — His reception at the opera — Fete given to him by the Queen at Trianon — The Queen enceinte — Voltaire's return to Paris — Duel between the Comte d'Artois and the Due de Bourbon — Return of the Chevalier d'Eon to France — Particulars relative to his missions, and the causes of his disguise — Night promenades upon the terrace of Trianon — Couplets against the Queen — Indignation of Louis XVI. — Birth of Madame. FROM the time of Louis XVI.'s accession to the throne, the Queen had been expecting a visit from her brother, the Em- peror Joseph II. That Prince was the constant theme of her discourse. She boasted of his intelligence, his love of oc- cupation, his military knowledge, and the perfect simplicity of his manners. Those about her Majesty ardently wished to see at Versailles a Prince so worthy of his rank. At length the coming of Joseph II., under the title of Count Falken- stein, was announced, and the very day on which he would be at Versailles was mentioned. The first embraces between the Queen and her august brother took place in the presence of all the Queen's household. The sight of their emotion was extremely affecting. The Emperor was at first generally admired in France; learned men, well-informed officers, and celebrated artists ap- preciated the extent of his information. He made less im- pression at Court, and very little in the private circle of the King and Queen. His eccentric manners, his frankness, often degenerating into rudeness, and his evidently affected sim- plicity — all these characteristics caused him to be looked upon as a Prince rather singular than admirable. The Queen 232 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF spoke to him about the apartment she had prepared for him in the Chateau; the Emperor answered that he would not ac- cept it, and that while travelling he always lodged at a caba- ret (that was his very expression) ; the Queen insisted, and assured him that he should be at perfect liberty, and placed out of the reach of noise. He replied that he knew the Chateau of Versailles was very large, and that so many scoundrels lived there that he could well find a place ; but that his valet de charribre had made up his camp-bed in a lodging house, and there he would stay. He dined with the King and Queen, and supped with the whole family. He appeared to take an interest in the young Princess Elizabeth, then just past childhood, and blooming in all the freshness of that age. An intended marriage between him and this young sister of the King was reported at the time, but I believe it had no foundation in truth. The table was still served by females only, when the Queen dined in private with the King, the royal family or crowned heads.1 I was present at the Queen's dinner almost every i The custom was, even supposing dinner to have commenced, if a Princess of the blood arrived, and she was asked to sit down at the Queen's table, the comptrollers and gentlemen-in-waiting came immediately to attend, and the Queen's women withdrew. These had succeeded the maids of honour in several parts of their service, and had preserved some of their privileges. One day the Duchesse d'Orlgans arrived at Fontainebleau, at the Queen's dinner-hour. The Queen invited her to the table, and herself motioned to her women to leave the room, and let the men take their places. Her Majesty said she was resolved to continue a privilege which kept places of that de- scription most honourable, and rendered them suitable for ladies of nobility without fortune. Madame de Misery, Baronne de Biache, the Queen's first lady of the chamber, to whom I was made rever- sioner, was a daughter of M. le Comte de Chemant, and her grand- mother was a Montmorency. M. le Prince de Tingry, in the presence of the Queen, used to call her cousin. The ancient household of the Kings of France had prerogatives acknowledged in the State. Many of the offices were tenable only by those of noble blood, and were MARIE ANTOINETTE. 233 day. The Emperor would talk much and fluently; he ex- pressed himself in French with facility, and the singularity •of his expressions added a zest to his conversation. I have often heard him say that he liked spectaculous objects, when he meant to express such things as formed a show, or a scene worthy of interest. He disguised none of his prejudices against the etiquette and customs of the Court of France; and even in the presence of the King made them the subject of his sarcasms.2 The King smiled, but never made any an- swer; the Queen appeared pained. The Emperor fre- quently terminated his observations upon the objects in Paris which he had admired by reproaching the King for suffering himself to remain in ignorance of them. He could not con- ceive how such a wealth of pictures should remain shut up in the dust of immense stores,3 and told him one day that but for the practice of placing some of them in the apartments of Versailles he would not know even the principal chef dceuvres that he possessed.4 He also reproached him for not having visited the Hotel des Invalides nor .the ficole Militaire; and even went so far as to tell him before us that he ought not sold at from 40,000 to 300,000 francs. A collection of edicts of the Kings in favour of the prerogatives and right of precedence of the persons holding office in the royal household is still in existence. — Madame Campan. 2 Joseph II. had a taste, or perhaps we may say a talent, for satire. A collection of his letters has been published, in which his bitter raillery spares neither the nobility nor the clergy, nor even his brother Kings. — Note by the Editor. 3 Shortly after the Emperor's departure, the Comte d'Angivillers laid before the King plans for the erection of the Museum, which was then begun. — Madame Campan. • * The Emperor loudly censured the existing practice of allowing shopkeepers to erect shops near the outward walls of all the palaces, and even to establish something like a fair in the galleries of Ver- sailles and Fontaiuebleau, and even upon the landings of the stair- cases.— Madar^e Campan. 234 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF only to know what Paris contained, but to travel in France, and reside a few days in each of his large towns. At last the Queen was really hurt at the Emperor's indis- cretion, and gave him a few lectures upon the freedom with which he allowed himself to lecture others. One day she was busied in signing warrants and orders for payment for her household, and was conversing with M. Augeard, her secre- tary for such matters, who presented the papers one after an- other to be signed, and replaced them in his portfolio. While this was going forward, the Emperor walked about the room; all at once he stood still, to reproach the Queen rather severely for signing all those papers without reading them, or, at least, without running her eye over them; and he spoke most judiciously to her upon the danger of signing her name incon- siderately. The Queen answered, that very wise princi- ples might be very ill applied; that her secretary, who de- served her implicit confidence, was at that moment laying before her nothing but orders for payment of the quarter's expenses of her household, registered in the Chamber of Accounts; and that she ran no risk of incautiously giving her signature. The Queen's toilette was likewise a never-failing subject for animadversion with the Emperor. He blamed her for having introduced too many new fashions; and teased her about her use of rouge. One day, while she was laying on more of it than usual, before going to the play, he pointed out a lady who was in the room, and who was, in truth, highly painted. " A little more under the eyes," said the Emperor to the Queen ; " lay on the rouge like a fury, as that lady does." The Queen entreated her brother to refrain from his jokes, or at all events to address them, when they were so rude, to her alone. The Queen had made an appointment to meet her brother MARIE ANTOINETTE. 235 at the Italian theatre ; she changed her mind, and went to the French theatre, sending a page to the Italian theatre to request the Emperor to come to her there. He left his box, lighted by the comedian Clarival, and attended by M. de la Ferte, comptroller of the Queen's privy purse, who was much hurt at hearing his Imperial Majesty, after kindly expressing his regret at not being present during the Italian performance, say to Clarival, "Your young Queen is very giddy; but, luckily, you Frenchmen have no great objection to that." I was with my father-in-law in one of the Queen's apart- ments when the Emperor came to wait for her there, and knowing that M. Campan was librarian, he conversed with him about such books as would of course be found in the Queen's library. After talking of our most celebrated authors, he casually said, " There are doubtless no works on finance or on administration here ? " These words were followed by his opinion on all that had been written on those topics, and the different systems of our two famous ministers, Sully and Colbert ; on the errors which were daily committed in France, in points so essential to the prosperity of the empire; and on the reform he himself would make at Vienna; holding M. Campan by the button, he spent more than an hour talking vehemently, and without the slight- est reserve, about the French Government. My father-in-law and myself maintained profound silence, as much from aston- ishment as from respect; and when we were alone we agreed not to speak of this interview. The Emperor was fond of telling secret anecdotes of the Italian Courts that he had visited. The jealous quarrels be- tween the King and Queen of Naples amused him highly; he described to the life the manner and speech of that sov- ereign, and the simplicity with which he used to go and solicit the first chamberlain to obtain permission to return to the 236 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF nuptial bed, when the angry Queen had banished him from it. The time which he was made to wait for this reconciliation was calculated between the Queen and her chamberlain, and always proportioned to the gravity of the offence. He also related several amusing stories relative to the Court of Parma, of which he spoke with no little contempt. If what this Prince said of those Courts, and even of Vienna, had been written down, the whole would have formed an interesting col- lection. The Emperor told the King that the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Naples being together, the former said a great deal about the changes he had effected in his State. The Grand Duke had issued a mass of new edicts, in order to carry the precepts of the economists into execution, and trusted that in so doing he was labouring for the welfare of his people. The King of Naples suffered him to go on speaking for a long time, and then merely asked how many Neapolitan families there were in Tuscany. The Duke soon reckoned them up, as they were but few. "Well, brother," replied the King of Naples, " I do not understand the indif- ference of your people towards your great reforms ; for I have four times the number of Tuscan families settled in my States that you have of Neapolitan families in yours." The Queen being at the opera with the Emperor, the latter did not wish to show himself; but she took him by the hand, and with a little gentle force drew him to the front of the box. This kind of presentation to the public was most warmly received. The performance was Iphigenia in Aulis, and for the second time the chorus, Cliantons, celebrons noire Reine! was called for with universal plaudits. A fete of a novel description was given at Petit Trianon. The art with which the English garden was not illuminated but lighted, produced a charming effect. Earthen lamps, con- cealed by boards painted green, threw light upon the beds of MARIE ANTOINETTE. 237 shrubs and flowers, and brought out their varied tints. Sev- eral hundred burning faggots in the moat behind the Temple of Love made a blaze of light, which rendered that spot the most brilliant in the garden. After all, this evening's enter- tainment had nothing remarkable about it but the good taste of the artists, yet it was much talked of. The situation did not allow the admission of a great part of the Court; those who were uninvited were dissatisfied; and the people, who never forgive any fetes but those they share in, so exaggerated the cost of this little fete as to make it appear that the faggots burnt in the moat had required the destruction of a whole forest. The Queen being informed of these reports, was de- termined to know exactly how much wood had been consumed ; and she found that fifteen hundred faggots had sufficed to keep up the fire until four o'clock in the morning. After staying a few months the Emperor left France, prom- ising his sister to come and see her again. All the officers of the Queen's chamber had many opportunities of serving him during his stay, and expected that he would make them pres- ents before his departure. Their oath of office positively for- bade them to receive a gift from any foreign Prince; they had therefore agreed to refuse the Emperor's presents at first, but to ask the time necessary for obtaining permission to accept them. The Emperor, probably informed of this custom, re- lieved the good people from their difficulty by setting off without making a single present. About the latter end of 1777 the Queen, being alone in her closet, sent for my father-in-law and myself, and giving us her hand to kiss, told us that, looking upon us both as persons deeply interested in her happiness, she wished to receive our congratulations : that at length she was the Queen of France, and that she hoped soon to have children ; that till now she had concealed her grief, but that she had shed many tears in secret. 238 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Dating from this happy but long-delayed moment, the King's attachment to the Queen assumed every characteristic of love; the good Lassone, first physician to the King and Queen, frequently spoke to me of the uneasiness that the King's indifference, the cause of which he had been so long in overcoming, had given him, and appeared to me at that time to entertain no anxiety except of a very different description. In the winter of 1778 the King's permission for the return of Voltaire, after an absence of twenty-seven years, was ob- tained. A few strict persons considered this concession on the part of the Court very injudicious. The Emperor, on leaving France, passed by the Chateau of Ferney without stopping there. He had advised the Queen not to suffer Voltaire to be presented to her. A lady belonging to the Court learned the Emperor's opinion on that point, and reproached him with his want of enthusiasm towards the greatest genius of the age. He replied that for the good of the people he should always endeavour to profit by the knowledge of the philosophers ; but that his own business of sovereign would always prevent his ranking himself amongst that sect. The clergy also took steps to hinder Voltaire's appearance at Court. Paris, however, carried to the highest pitch the honours and enthusiasm shown to the great poet. It was very unwise to let Paris pronounce with such transport an opinion so opposite to that of the Court. This was pointed out to the Queen, and she was told that, without conferring on Voltaire the honour of a presenta- tion, she might see him in the State apartments. She was not averse to following this advice, and appeared embarrassed solely about what she should say to him. She was recom- mended to talk about nothing but the Henriade, Merope, and Zaira. The Queen replied that she would still consult a few other persons in whom she had great confidence. The next day she announced that it was irrevocably decided Voltaire MARIE ANTOINETTE. 239 should not see any member of the royal family — his writings being too antagonistic to religion and morals. " It is, how- ever, strange," said the Queen, " that while we refuse to admit Voltaire into our presence as the leader of philosophical writers, the Marechale de Mouchy should have presented to me some years ago Madame Geoffrin, who owed her celebrity to the title of foster-mother of the philosophers." On the occasion of the duel of the Comte d'Artois with the Prince de Bourbon the Queen determined privately to see the Baron de Besenval, who was to be one of the witnesses, in order to communicate the King's intentions. I have read with in- finite pain the manner in which that simple fact is perverted in M. de Besenval's Memoirs.5 He is right in saying that M. Campan led him through the upper corriders of the Cha- teau, and introduced him into an apartment unknown to him ; but the air of romance given to the interview is equally culpable and ridiculous. M. de Besenval says that he found himself, without knowing how he came there, in an apartment unadorned, but very conveniently furnished, of the existence of which he was till then utterly ignorant. He was aston- ished, he adds, not that the Queen should have so many facil- ities, but that she should have ventured to procure them. Ten printed sheets of the woman Lamotte's libels contain nothing so injurious to the character of Marie Antoinette as these lines, written by a man whom she honoured by unde- served kindness. He could not have had any opportunity of knowing the existence of these apartments, which consisted of a very small antechamber, a bed-chamber, and a closet. Ever since the Queen had occupied her own apartment, these had been appropriated to her Majesty's lady of honour in cases of illness, and were actually so used when the Queen was con- 6 See the Memoires de Baron de Besenval, tome i., in the Collection dei Memoires sur la Revolution. 240 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF fined. It was so important that it should not be known the Queen had spoken to the Baron before the duel that she had determined to go through her inner room into this little apart- ment, to which M. Campan was to conduct him. When men write of recent times they should be scrupulously exact, and not indulge in exaggerations or inventions. The Baron de Besenval appears mightily surprised at the Queen's sudden coolness, and refers it to the fickleness of her disposition. I can explain the reason for the change by re- peating what her Majesty said to me at the time; and I will not alter one of her expressions. Speaking of the strange presumption of men, and the reserve with which women ought always to treat them, the Queen added that age did not de- prive them of the hope of pleasing, if they retained any agree- able qualities; that she had treated the Baron de Besenval as a brave Swiss, agreeable, polished, and witty, whose gray hairs had induced her to look upon him as a man whom she might see without harm; but that she had been much deceived. Her Majesty, after having enjoined me to the strictest secrecy, told me that, finding herself alone with the Baron, he began to address her with so much gallantry that she was thrown into the utmost astonishment, and that he was mad enough to fall upon his knees, and make her a declaration in form. The Queen added, that she said to him : " Eise, sir ; the King shall be ignorant of an offence which would disgrace you for ever;" that the Baron grew pale and stammered apologies; that she left her closet without saying another word, and that since that time she hardly ever spoke to him. " It is delight- ful to have friends," said the Queen ; " but in a situation like mine it is sometimes difficult for the friends of our friends to suit us." In the beginning of the year 1778 Mademoiselle d'fion obtained permission to return to France, on condition that she MARIE ANTOINETTE. 241 should appear there in female dress. The Comte de Vergennes entreated my father, M. Genet, chief clerk of Foreign Affairs, who had long known the Chevalier dfion, to receive that strange personage at his house, to guide and restrain, if possible, her ardent disposition. The Queen, on learning of her arrival at Versailles, sent a footman to desire my father to bring her .into her presence; my father thought it his duty first to in- form the Minister of her Majesty's wish. The Comte de Vergennes expressed himself pleased with my father's pru- dence, and desired that he would accompany him to the Queen. The Minister had a few minutes' audience; her Majesty came out of her closet with him, and condescended to express to my father the regret she felt at having troubled him to no pur- pose; and added, smiling, that a few words from M. de Ver- gennes had for ever cured her of her curiosity. The discovery in London of the true sex of this pretended woman makes it probable that the few words uttered by the Minister contained a solution of the enigma. The Chevalier oTfion had been useful in Eussia as a spy of Louis XV. While very young he had found means to intro- duce himself at the Court of the Empress Elizabeth, and served that sovereign in the capacity of reader. Eesuming after- wards his military dress, he served with honour and was wounded. Appointed chief secretary of legation, and after- wards minister plenipotentiary at London, he unpardonably insulted Comte de Guerchy, the ambassador. The official or- der for the Chevalier's return to France was actually delivered to the King's Council; but Louis XV. delayed the departure of the courier who was to be its bearer, and sent off another courier privately, who gave the Chevalier oTfion a letter in his own writing, in which he said, " I know that you have served me as effectually in the dress of a woman as in that which you now wear. Eesume it instantly ; withdraw into the city ; I warn VOL. 1—16 242 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF you that the King yesterday signed an order for your return to France; you are not safe in your hotel, and you would here find too powerful enemies." I heard the Chevalier d'fion repeat the contents of this letter, in which Louis XV. thus separated himself from the King of France, several times at my father's. The Chevalier, or rather the Chevaliere d'fion had preserved all the King's letters. Messieurs de Maurepas and de Vergennes wished to get them out of his hands, as they were afraid he would print them. This eccentric being had long solicited permission to return to France ; but it was neces- sary to find a way of sparing the family he had offended the insult they would see in his return; he was therefore made to resume the costume of that sex to which in France everything is pardoned. The desire to see his native land once more determined him to submit to the condition, but he revenged himself by combining the long train of his gown and the three deep ruffles on his sleeves, with the attitude and conversation of a grenadier, which made him very disagreeable company.6 6 The account given by Madame Campan of the Chevalier d'Eon is now known to be incorrect in many particulars. Enough details for most readers will be found in the Due de Broglie's Secret of the King, vol. ii., chaps, vi. and x., and at p. 89, vol. ii. of that work, where the Duke refers to the letter of most dubious authenticity spoken of by Madame Campan. The following details will be sufficient for these memoirs : — The Chevalier Charles d'Eon de Beaumont ( born 1728, died 1810) was an ex-captain of dragoons, employed in both the open and the secret diplomacy of Louis XV. When at the Embassy in London he quarrelled with the ambassador, his superior, the Comte de Guerchy (Marquis de Nangis) ; and used his possession of papers concerning the secret diplomacy to shield himself. It was when hid- ing in London, in 1765, on account of this business, that he seems first to have assumed woman's dress, which he retained apparently chiefly from love of notoriety. In 1775 a formal agreement with the French Court, made by the instrumentality of Beaumarchais, of all people in the world, permitted him to return to France, retaining the dress of a woman. He went back to France, but again came to England and died there. He had been a brave and distinguished officer, but his form and a certain coldness of temperament always MARIE ANTOINETTE. 243 At last, the event so long desired by the Queen, and by all those who wished her well, took place; her Majesty became enceinte. The King was in ecstasies. Never was there a more united or happier couple. The disposition of Louis XVI. entirely altered, and became prepossessing and conciliatory; and the Queen was amply compensated for the uneasiness which the King's indifference during the early part of their union had caused her. The summer of 1778 was extremely hot. July and August passed, but the air was not cooled by a single storm. The Queen spent whole days in close rooms, and could not sleep until she had breathed the fresh night air, walking with the Princesses and her brothers upon the terrace under her apart- ments. These promenades at first gave rise to no remark; but it occurred to some of the party to enjoy the music of wind instruments during these fine summer nights. The musicians belonging to the chapel were ordered to perform pieces suited to instruments of that description, upon steps constructed in the middle of the garden. The Queen, seated on one of the terrace benches, enjoyed the effect of this music, surrounded by the whole of the royal family with the excep- tion of the King, who joined them but twice, disliking to change his hour of going to bed. Nothing could be more innocent than these parties; yet Paris, France, nay, all Europe, were soon canvassing them in a manner most disadvantageous to the reputation of Marie Antoinette. It is true that all the inhabitants of Versailles enjoyed these serenades, and that there was a crowd near the spot from eleven at night until two or three in the morning. The windows of the ground floor occupied by Monsieur and remarked in him assisted him in his assumption of another sex. There appears to be no truth in the story of his proceedings at the Russian Court, and his appearing in female attire was a surprise to those w. must have known of any earlier affair of the sort. 244: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Madame7 were kept open, and the terrace was perfectly well lighted by the numerous wax candles burning in the two apart- ments. Lamps were likewise placed in the garden, and the lights of the orchestra illuminated the rest of the place. I do not know whether a few incautious females might not have ventured farther, and wandered to the bottom of the park; it may have been so; but the Queen, Madame, and the Comtesse oTArtois were always arm-in-arm, and never left the terrace. The Princesses were not remarkable when seated on the benches, being dressed in cambric muslin gowns, with large straw hats and muslin veils, a costume universally adopted by females at that time; but when standing up their different figures always distinguished them; and the persons present stood on one side to let them pass. It is true that when they seated themselves upon the benches private individuals would sometimes, to their great amusement, sit down by their side. A young clerk in the war department, either not knowing or pretending not to know the Queen, spoke to her of the beauty of the night, and the delightful effect of the music. The Queen, fancying she was not recognised, amused herself by keeping up the incognito, and they talked of several private families of Versailles, consisting of persons belonging to the King's household or her own. After a few minutes the Queen and Princesses rose to walk, and on leaving the bench curtsied to the clerk. The young man knowing, or having subsequently discovered, that he had been conversing with the Queen, boasted of it in his office. He was merely desired to hold his tongue; and so little attention did he excite that the Eevolu- tion found him still only a clerk. Another evening one of Monsieur's body-guard seated himself near the Princesses, and, knowing them, left the place where he was sitting and placed himself before the Queen, to tell her that he was very i The wife of Monsieur, the Comte de Provence. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 245 fortunate in being able to seize an opportunity of imploring the kindness of the sovereign ; that he was " soliciting at Court " — at the word soliciting the Queen and Princesses rose hastily and withdrew into Madame's apartment.8 I was at the Queen's residence that day. She talked of this little occurrence all the time of her coucher; though she only com- plained that one of Monsieur's guards should have had the effrontery to speak to her. Her Majesty added that he ought to have respected her incognito; and that that was not the place where he should have ventured to make a request. Madame had recognised him, and talked of making a complaint to his captain ; the Queen opposed it, attributing his error to his igno- rance and provincial origin. The most scandalous libels were based on these two insig- nificant occurrences, which I have related with scrupulous exactness. Nothing could be more false than these calumnies. It must be confessed, however, that such meetings were liable to ill consequences. I ventured to say as much to the Queen, and informed her that one evening, when her Majesty had beckoned to me to go and speak to her, I thought I recognised on the bench on which she was sitting two women deeply veiled, and keeping profound silence; that those women were the Comtesse du Barry and her sister-in-law; and that my suspicions were confirmed when, at a few paces from the seat, and nearer to her Majesty, I met a tall footman belonging to Madame du Barry, whom I had seen in her service all the time she resided at Court. My advice was useless. Misled by the pleasure she found in these promenades, and secure in the consciousness of blame- less conduct, the Queen would not see the lamentable results which must necessarily follow. This was very unfortunate 8 Soulavie has most criminally perverted these two facts. — Ma-da Campan. 246 THE PRIVATE LIFE OJ for, besides the mortifications they brought upon her, it is highly probable that they prompted the vile plot which gave rise to the Cardinal de Eohan's fatal error. Having enjoyed these evening promenades about a month, the Queen ordered a private concert within the colonnade which contained the group of Pluto and Proserpine. Senti- nels were placed at all the entrances, and ordered to admit within the colonnade only such persons as should produce tick- ets signed by my father-in-law. A fine concert was performed there by the musicians of the chapel and the female musicians belonging to the Queen's chamber. The Queen went with Mesdames de Polignac, de Chalon, and dAndlau, and Mes- sieurs de Polignac, de Coigny, de Besenval, and de Vaudreuil; there were also a few equerries present. Her Majesty gave me permission to attend the concert with some of my female rela- tions. There was no music upon the terrace. The crowd of inquisitive people, whom the sentinels kept at a distance from the enclosure of the colonnade, went away highly discontented ; the small number of persons admitted no doubt occasioned jealousy, and gave rise to offensive comments which were caught up by the public with avidity. I do not pretend to apologise for the kind of amusements with which the Queen indulged herself during this and the following summer; the consequences were so lamentable that the error was no doubt very great; but what I have said respecting the character of these promenades may be relied on as true. When the season for evening walks were at an end, odious couplets were circulated in Paris; the Queen was treated in them in the most insulting manner; her situation ranked among her enemies persons attached to the only Prince who for several years had appeared likely to give heirs to the crown. People uttered the most inconsiderate language; and those improper conversations took place in societies wherein the im- MARIE ANTOINETTE. 247 minent danger of violating to so criminal an extent both truth and the respect due to sovereigns ought to have been better understood. A few days before the Queen's confinement a whole volume of manuscript songs concerning her and all the ladies about her remarkable for rank or station was thrown down in the ceil-de-bceuf.9 This manuscript was immediately put into the hands of the King, who was highly incensed at it, and said that he had himself been at those promenades; that he had seen nothing connected with them but what was per- fectly harmless; that such songs would disturb the harmony of twenty families in the Court and city; that it was a capital crime to have made any against the Queen herself ; and that he wished the author of the infamous libels to be discovered and punished. A fortnight afterwards it was known publicly that the verses were by M. Champcenetz de Eiquebourg,10 who was not even reprimanded. I knew for a certainty that the King spoke to M. de Maure- pas, before two of his most confidential servants, respecting the risk which he saw the Queen ran from these night walks upon the terrace of Versailles, which the public ventured to censure thus openly, and that the old minister had the cruelty to advise that she should be suffered to go on; she possessed talent; her friends were very ambitious, and longed to see her take a part in public affairs ; and to let her acquire the reputa- tion of levity would do no harm. M. de Vergennes was as hostile to the Queen's influence as M. de Maurepas. It may therefore be fairly presumed, since the Prime Minister durst »A large room at Versailles lighted by a bull's-eye window, and used as a waiting-room. 10 The author of a great many songs, some of which are very well written. Lively and satirical by nature, he did not lose either his cheerfulness or his carelessness before the revolutionary tribunal. After hearing his own sentence read, he asked his judges if he might not be allowed to find a substitute. — • Madame Campan. 248 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP point out to his King an advantage to be gained by the Queen's discrediting herself, that he and M. de Vergennes employed all means within the reach of powerful ministers in order to ruin her in the opinion of the public.11 The Queen's accouchement approached; Te Deums were sung and prayers offered up in all the cathedrals. On the llth of December 1778 the royal family, the Princes of the blood, and the great officers of State, passed the night in the rooms adjoining the Queen's bed-chamber. Madame, the Queen's daughter, came into the world before midday on the 19th of December.12 The etiquette of allowing all persons indiscrim- inately to enter at the moment of the delivery of a queen was observed with such exaggeration that when the accoucheur said aloud, La Reine va s' accoucher, the persons who poured into the chamber were so numerous that the rush nearly de- stroyed the Queen. During the night the King had taken the precaution to have the enormous tapestry screens which sur- rounded her Majesty's bed secured with cords; but for this they certainly would have been thrown down upon her. It was impossible to move about the chamber, which was filled with so motley a crowd that one might have fancied himself in some place of public amusement. Two Savoyards got upon the furniture for a better sight of the Queen, who was placed opposite the fireplace. The noise and the sex of the infant, with which the Queen was made acquainted by a signal pre- 11 Madame Campan's account of the conduct of the Comte de Maurepas is confirmed by a writer with whom she is very seldom in accordance. "It is known," says Soulavie, "that in 1774, 1775, and 1776, M. de Maurepas stirred up private quarrels between Louis XVI. and his wife on pretence of the Queen's inconsiderate conduct. M. de Maurepas was fond of interfering in family disputes. The go- betweens whom he made use of raised the strongest prejudices against the Queen." — Note T>y the Editor. 12 Marie The"rese Charlotte (1778-1851), Madame Royale; married in 1799 Louis, Due d'AngoulSme, eldest son of the Comte d'Artois. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 249 viously agreed on, as it is said, with the Princesse de Lam- balle, or some error of the accoucheur, brought on symptoms which threatened fatal consequences; the accoucheur ex- claimed, " Give her air — warm water — she must be bled in the foot ! " The windows were stopped up ; the King opened them with a strength which his affection for the Queen gave him at the moment. They were of great height, and pasted over with strips of paper all round. The basin of hot water not being brought quickly enough, the accoucheur desired the chief surgeon to use his lancet without waiting for it. He did so; the blood streamed out freely, and the Queen opened her eyes. The Princesse de Lamballe was carried through the crowd in a state of insensibility. The valets dchambre and pages dragged out by the collar such inconsiderate persons as would not leave the room. This cruel custom was abolished ever afterwards. The Princes of the family, the Princes of the blood, the chancellor and the ministers are surely suffi- cient to attest the legitimacy of an hereditary Prince. The Queen was snatched from the very jaws of death; she was not conscious of having been bled, and on being replaced in bed, asked why she had a linen bandage upon her foot. The delight which succeeded the moment of fear was equally lively and sincere. We were all embracing each other, and shedding tears of joy. The Comte cTEsterhazy and the Prince de Poix, to whom I was the first to announce that the Queen was restored to life, embraced me in the midst of the cabinet of the nobles. "We little imagined, in our happiness at her escape from death, for how much more terrible a fate our beloved Princess was reserved. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ANNEX TO CHAPTER VIII. WE are tempted to add some specimens of the Emperor Joseph's correspondence, which forcibly demonstrate the vigour, shrewdness, and originality of his mind, and complete the portrait left of him by Madame Campan. The whole- sale, eccentric, and somewhat cmel ecclesiastical economies effected by Joseph II., which reduced the Papal power in his dominions, suppressed bishoprics and monasteries, prohibited pilgrimages and pillaged churches, drew from Pius VI. many ineffectual remonstrances ; x to one of these the Emperor made the following reply : — To Pope Pius VI. MOST HOLT FATHER — The funds of the clergy of my dominions are not destined, as has been boldly said at Home, to expire with my reign, but rather to become a relief to my people; and as their continuation, as well as the displeasure which has burst forth upon this subject, are within the juris- diction of history, posterity will be masters of the matter with- out our co-operation; this, then, will be a monument of my time, and I hope not the only one. I have suppressed the superfluous convents, and the still more superfluous societies; their revenues serve to support curates and to ameliorate the primary institutions; but amidst all the confidence in matters of account which I am obliged to place in persons employed by the State, the funds of the latter have with me absolutely nothing in common with those of the i See Coxe's House of Austria, vol. iii., p. 490. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 251 Church. An action shall be judged of only by its intention, and the results of this action can only be appreciated by their success, which will not be known for some years. I see, however, that logic is not the same at Eome as it is in my dominions, and hence arises this want of harmony between Italy and the empire. If your Holiness had taken the charitable care to inform yourself, at the proper source, of what was passing in my terri- tories, many things would not have happened; but there were people at Rome who, as it appears to me, would have darkness spread itself more and more over our poor globe. You have now the brief account of the causes which have compelled my arrangements; I hope you will excuse the con- ciseness of my letter on consideration that I have neither the time nor the talent necessary for discussing so vast a theme in the manner used in a Eoman museum. I pray God still long to preserve you to His Church, and to send one of His angels before you to prepare for you the way to heaven. — Your most obedient son in Jesus Christ, JOSEPH. VIENNA, July 1784. Few sovereigns have given their reasons for refusing ap- pointments with the fulness and point of the following letter : — To a Lady. MADAME — I do not think that it is amongst the duties of a monarch to grant places to one of his subjects merely because he is a gentleman. That, however, is the inference from the request you have made to me. Your late husband was, you say, a distinguished general, a gentleman of good family, and thence you conclude that my kindness to your family can do 252 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF no less than give a company of foot to your second son, lately returned from his travels. Madam, a man may be the son of a general and yet have no talent for command. A man may be of a good family and yet possess no other merit than that which he owes to chance — the name of gentleman. I know your son, and I know what makes the soldier; and this twofold knowledge convinces me that your son has not the disposition of a warrior, and that he is too full of his birth to leave the country a hope of his ever rendering it any im- portant service. What you are to be pitied for, Madame, is, that your son is not fit either for an officer, a statesman, or a priest; in a word, that he is nothing more than a gentleman in the most extended acceptation of the word. You may be thankful to that destiny, which, in refusing tal- ents to your son, has taken care to put him in possession of great wealth, which will sufficiently compensate him for other deficiencies, and enable him at the same time to dispense with any favour from me. I hope you will be impartial enough to see the reasons which prompt me to refuse your request. It may be disagreeable to you, but I consider it necessary. Farewell, Madame. — Your sincere well-wisher, JOSEPH. LACHSENBUBG, 4th August 1787. The application of another anxious and somewhat covetous mother was answered with still more decision and irony : — To a Lady. MADAME — You know my disposition ; you are not ignorant that the society of the ladies is to me a mere recreation, and that I have never sacrificed my principles to the fair sex. I MARIE ANTOINETTE. 253 pay but little attention to recommendations, and I only take them into consideration when the person in whose behalf I may be solicited possesses real merit. Two of your sons are already loaded with favours. The eldest, who is not yet twenty, is chief of a squadron in my army, and the younger has obtained a canonry at Cologne, from the Elector, my brother. What would you have more? Would you have the first a general and the second a bishop ? In France you may see colonels in leading strings, and in Spain the royal princes command armies even at eighteen; hence Prince Stahremberg forced them to retreat so often that they were never able all the rest of their lives to comprehend any other manoeuvre. It is necessary to be sincere at Court, and severe in the field, stoical without obduracy, magnanimous without weakness, and to gain the esteem of our enemies by the justice of our actions ; and this, Madame, is what I aim at. JOSEPH. VIENNA, September 1787. (From the inedited Letters of Joseph II., published at Paris, by Persan, 1822.) THE PRIVATE LIFE OF CHAPTEE IX. Public rejoicings — Death of Maria Theresa ; the Queen's affliction — Anecdotes of Maria Theresa — Birth of the Dauphin — Bank- ruptcy of the Prince de Gue'me'ne'e — The Duchess de Polignac is appointed governess of the Children of France — Jealousy of the Court — Mode of life at Trianon — Presumption of the Due de Fronsac — American War — Franklin — M. de La Fayette — Order for admitting none but gentlemen to the rank of officer — Spirit of the Third Estate. DUKING the alarm for the life of the Queen, regret at not possessing an heir to the throne was not even thought of. The King himself was wholly occupied with the care of pre- serving an adored wife. The young Princess was presented to her mother. / " Poor little one/' said the Queen, " you were not wished for, but you are not on that account less dear to me. A son would have been rather the property of the State. You shall be mine; you shall have my undivided care, shall share all my happiness, and console me in all my troubles." The King dispatched a courier to Paris; and wrote letters himself to Vienna, by the Queen's bedside; and part of the rejoicings ordered took place in the capital.1 A great number of attendants watched near the Queen dur- 1 The Queen's propitious delivery was celebrated throughout France. The birth of Madame inspired more than one poet. The following madrigal, by Imbert, was much admired : — " A Dauphin we asked of our Queen; A Princess announces him near: Since one of the Graces is seen, Young Cupid will quickly appear." " Pour toi, France, un Dauphin doit naltre, Une Princesse vient pour en §tre te"moinj Bitot qu'on voit une Grace paraitre, Croyez que 1'Amour n'est pas loin." t Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 255 ing the first nights of her confinement. This custom dis- tressed her ; she knew how to feel for others, and ordered large armchairs for her women, the backs of which were capable of being let down by springs, and which served perfectly well instead of beds. M. de Lassone, the chief physician, the chief surgeon, the chief apothecary, the principal officers of the buttery, etc., were likewise nine nights without going to bed. The royal children were watched for a long time, and one of the women on duty remained, nightly, up and dressed, during the first three years from their birth. The Queen made her entry into Paris for the churching. One hundred maidens were portioned and married at Notre Dame. There were few popular acclamations, but her Majesty was perfectly well received at the opera.2 A few days after the Queen's recovery from her confinement, 2 The acts of benevolence performed by the officers of the city did not prevent them from amusing the people with the usual fetes. There were illuminations, feux de joie, fireworks, fountains of wine, and distributions of bread and sausages. All the theatres of Paris were open gratis — which was a new treat to the public. Every theatre was full before noon, and the performance began at two o'clock. The French comedians performed Zaira, and the little piece called Le Florentin. In spite of all the precautions taken to preserve the King's box for the charcoal venders, who were accustomed to occupy it on similar occasions, as the poissardes, or market-women did that of the Queen, their places were occupied when they arrived. They were informed of this, and thought it very strange. These two chief classes of the lower orders were seen disputing upon etiquette, with almost as much pertinacity as noblemen or sovereign courts. They demanded to know why the boxes appropriated to them by cus- tom had been suffered to be occupied. It was necessary to call the officer for the week, and the histrionic senate being assembled in consultation, the registers were inspected, and the legitimacy of the claim was acknowledged. An offer was then made to the charcoal venders to go upon the" stage, and they all sat there on the King's side, upon benches prepared for them. The poissardes followed, and placed themselves on the opposite side. — Note by the Editor. 256 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the Cure of the Magdelaine de la Cite at Paris wrote to M. Campan and requested a private interview with him; it was to desire he would deliver into the hands of the Queen a little box containing her wedding ring, with this note written by the Cure : " I have received under the seal of confession the ring which I send to your Majesty; with an avowal that it was stolen from you in 1771, in order to be used in sorceries, to prevent you having any children." On seeing her ring again the Queen said that she had in fact lost it about seven years before, while washing her hands, and that she had re- solved to use no endeavour to discover the superstitious woman who had done her the injury. The Queen's attachment to the Comtesse Jules increased every day; she went frequently to her house in Paris, and even took up her own abode at the Chateau de la Muette to be nearer during her confinement.3 She married Mademoiselle de Polignac, when scarcely thirteen years ' of age, to M. de Grammont, who, on account of this marriage, was made Due de Guiche, and captain of the King's Guards, in reversion 3 " The Duchesse de Polignac," says Montjoie, in the Life of Marie Antoinette, " sank under the fatigues of the life which her devotion to the Queen had imposed upon her, and which was little to her taste. Her health declined alarmingly: the physicians ordered her the Bath waters. As it was the established custom of the Court that the governess of the children of France should never be absent from them, the Duchess tendered her resignation to the Queen, who, having lis- tened to her in silence, her eyes wet with tears, replied : ' You ought not to part from me, nor can you do it; your heart could not suffer it. In the rank I fill it is difficult to meet with a friend; and yet it is so useful — so happy — to confide in an estimable person ! You do not judge me as the common herd do — you know that the splendour which surrounds me adds nothing to happiness — you are not ignorant that my soul, full of bitterness and troubles which I must conceal, feels the necessity for a heart that sympathises with them. Ought I not, then, to thank Heaven for having given me a friend like you, faithful, feeling, attached to myself and not to my rank? The benefit is inestimable! in the name of God, do not deprive me of it! '" — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 257 after the Due de Villeroi. The Duchesse de Civrac, Madame Victoire's dame dhonneur, had been promised the place for the Due de Lorges, her son. The number of discontented fam- ilies at Court increased. The title of favourite was too openly given to the Comtesse Jules by her friends. The lot of the favourite of a Queen is not, in France, a happy one; the favourites of Kings are treated, out of gallantry, with much greater indulgence. A short time after the birth of Madame the Queen became again enceinte; she had mentioned it only to the King, to her physician, and to a few persons honoured with her intimate confidence, when having exerted her strength in pulling up one of the glasses of her carriage, she felt that she had hurt herself, and eight days afterwards she miscarried. The King spent the whole morning at her bedside, consoling her, and manifesting the tenderest concern for her. The Queen wept exceedingly; the King took her affectionately in his arms, and mingled his tears with hers. The King enjoined silence among the small number of persons who were informed of this un- fortunate occurrence; and it remained generally unknown. These particulars furnish an accurate idea of the manner in which this august couple lived together. The Empress Maria Theresa did not enjoy the happiness of seeing her daughter give an heir to the Crown of France. That illustrious Princess died at the close of 1780, after hav- ing proved by her example that, as in the instance of Queen Blanche, the talents of a sovereign might be blended with the virtues of a pious Princess. The King was deeply affected at the death of the Empress ; and on the arrival of the courier from Vienna said that he could not bring himself to afflict the Queen by informing her of an event which grieved even him so much. His Majesty thought the Abbe de Vermond, who had possessed the confidence of Maria Theresa during his stay VOL. 1—17 258 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF at Vienna, the most proper person to discharge this painful duty. He sent his first valet de chambre, M. de Chamilly, to the Abbe on the evening of the day he received the despatches from Vienna, to order him to come the next day to the Queen before her breakfast hour, to acquit himself discreetly of the afflicting commission with which he was charged, and to let his Majesty know the moment of his entering the Queen's chamber. It was the King's intention to be there precisely a quarter of an hour after him, and he was punctual to his time ; he was announced ; the Abbe came out ; and his Majesty said to him, as he drew up at the door to let him pass, " Z thank you, Monsieur V Abbe, for the service you have just done me." This was the only time during nineteen years that the King spoke to him. Within an hour after learning the event the Queen put on temporary mourning, while waiting until her Court mourning should be ready; she kept herself shut up in her closets for several days; went out only to mass; saw none but the royal family; and received none but the Princesse de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac. She never ceased talking of the courage, the misfortunes, the successes, and the virtues of her mother. The shroud and dress in which Maria Theresa was to be buried, made entirely by her own hands, were found ready prepared in one of her closets. The Queen found no other comfort in her affliction than talking of her beloved mother; she was thoroughly versed in the various events which distin- guished the Empress' reign, and in all the qualities which ren- dered her dear to her family and her people. She often re- gretted that the numerous duties of her august mother had prevented her from watching in person over the education of her daughters; and modestly said that she herself would have been more worthy if she had had the good fortune to receive MARIE ANTOINETTE. 259 lessons directly from a sovereign so enlightened, and so de- serving of admiration.4 The Queen told me one day that her mother was left a widow at an age when her beauty was yet striking; that she was secretly informed of a plot laid by her three principal ministers to make themselves agreeable to her; of a compact made between them, that the losers should not feel any jeal- ousy towards him who should be fortunate enough to gain his sovereign's heart; and that they had sworn that the successful one should be always the friend of the other two. The Em- press being assured of this scheme, one day after the breaking up of the council over which she had presided, turned the conversation upon the subject of female sovereigns, and the duties of their sex and rank; and then applying her general reflections to herself in particular, told them that she hoped to guard herself all her life against weaknesses of the heart; but that if ever an irresistible feeling should make her alter her resolution, it should be only in favour of a man proof against ambition, not engaged in State affairs, but attached only to a private life and its calm enjoyments — in a word, if her heart should betray her so far as to lead her to love a man invested with any important office, from the moment he should discover her sentiments he would forfeit his place and his influence with the public. This was sufficient; the three ministers, more ambitious than amorous, gave up their projects for ever. On the 22d of October 1781 the Queen gave birth to a * Without desiring to lessen the high estimation in which the char- acter of Maria Theresa may be held, it cannot be denied that certain acts of her policy were censurable. The complaisance or the weak- ness of the other cabinets of Europe did not excuse her. " A bishop of Saint Brieuc, in a funeral oration upon Maria Theresa," says Chamfort, "got over the partition of Poland very easily: 'France,' said he, ' having taken no notice of the partition in question, I will do as France did, and be silent about it likewise.' " — Note by the Editor. 260 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF Dauphin.5 So deep a silence prevailed in the room that the Queen thought her child was a daughter; but after the Keeper of the Seals had declared the sex of the infant, the King went up to the Queen's bed, and said to her, " Madame, you have fulfilled my wishes and those of France ; you are the mother of a Dauphin." The King's joy was boundless; tears streamed from his eyes ; he gave his hand to every one present ; and his happiness carried away his habitual reserve. Cheer- ful and affable, he was incessantly taking occasion to intro- duce the words, my son, or the Dauphin. As soon as the Queen was in bed, she would see the long-looked-for infant. The Princesse de Guemenee brought him to her. The Queen said there was no need for commending him to the Princess, but in order to enable her to attend to him more freely, she would herself share the care of the education of her daughter. When the Dauphin was settled in his apartment, he received the customary homages and visits. The Due cFAngouleme,8 meeting his father at the entrance of the Dauphin's apart- ment, said to him, " Oh, papa ! how little my cousin is ! " " The day will come when you will think him great enough, my dear," answered the Prince, almost involuntarily. The birth of the Dauphin appeared to give joy to all classes. Men stopped one another in the streets, spoke without being acquainted, and those who were acquainted embraced each other. In the birth of a legitimate heir to the sovereign every man beholds a pledge of prosperity and tranquillity.7 B The first Dauphin, Louis, born 1781, died 1789. o Eldest son of the Comte d'Artois, and till the birth of the Dauphin with near prospects of the succession. 7 M. M6rard de Saint Just made a quatrain on the birth of the Dauphin to the following effect: — "This infant Prince our hopes are centred in, Will doubtless make us happy, rich, and freej And since with somebody he must begin, My fervent prayer is — that it may be me! " MARIE ANTOINETTE. 261 The rejoicings were splendid and ingenious. The artificers and tradesmen of Paris spent considerable sums in order to go to Versailles in a body, with their various insignia. Al- most every troupe had music with it. When they arrived at the Court of the palace, thVy there arranged themselves so as to present a most interesting living picture. Chimney- sweepers quite as well dressed as those that appear upon the stage, carried an ornamented chimney, at the top of which was perched one of the smallest of their fraternity. The chair- men carried a sedan highly gilt, in which were to be seen a handsome nurse and a little Dauphin. The butchers made their appearance with their fat ox. Cooks, masons, black- smiths, all trades were on the alert. The smiths hammered away upon an anvil, the shoemakers finished off a little pair of boots for the Dauphin, and the tailors a little suit of the uniform of his regiment. The King remained a long time upon a balcony to enjoy the sight. The whole Court was de- lighted with it. So general was the enthusiasm that (the police* not having carefully examined the procession) the gravediggers had the imprudence to send their deputation also, with the emblematic devices of their ill-omened occupation. They were met by the Princess Sophie, the King's aunt, who was thrilled with horror at the sight, and entreated the King to have the audacious fellows driven out of the procession, which was then drawing up on the terrace. The " dames de la halle " came to congratulate the Queen, and were received with the suitable ceremonies. Fifty of them appeared dressed in black silk gowns, the established full dress of their order, and almost all wore diamonds. The Princesse de Chimay went to the door of the Queen's bedroom " Le fils qui vient de naltre an roi, Fera la bonheur de la France. Par quelqu'un il faut qu'il commence, S'il vou la it commencer par moi." Note by the Editor. 262 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF to receive three of these ladies, who were led up to the Queen's bed. One of them addressed her Majesty in a speech written by M. de la Harpe. It was set down on the inside of a fan, to which the speaker repeatedly referred, but without any embarrassment. She was handsome, and had a remarkably fine voice. The Queen was affected by the address, and an- swered it with great affability; wishing a distinction to be made between these women and the poissardes, who always left a disagreeable impression on her mind. The King ordered a substantial repast for all these women. One of his Majesty's maitres dJiotel, wearing his hat, sat as president and did the honours of the table.8 The public were admitted, and num- bers of people had the curiosity to go. The poissardes' songs were numerous, and some of them tolerably good. The King and Queen were much pleased with the following one, and sang it several times during the Queen's confinement : — "Ne craignez pas, cher papa, D'voir augmenter vot' famille Le bon Dieu z'y pourvoira: Fait's-en tant qu' Versatile en fourmille 'Y eut-il cent Bourbons cheu nous, 'Y a du pain, du laurier pour tous." The Gardes-du-Corps obtained the King's permission to give the Queen a dress ball in the great hall of the opera at Versailles. Her Majesty opened the ball in a minuet with a private selected by the corps, to whom the King granted the baton of an exempt. The fete was most splendid. All then was joy, happiness, and peace.9 8 Proofs of nobility, or at least of being noble in the third degree, were required for the office of maitre d'hdtel. — Madame Campan. » " The well-known antagonism between Marie Antoinette and Madame de Genlis dated," says Madame Campan, " from the birth of the Dauphin, when the Duchesse de Chartres made the authoress' excuses for not appearing to offer her congratulations; indisposition MARIE ANTOINETTE. 263 The Dauphin was a year old when the Prince de Guemenee's bankruptcy compelled the Princess, his wife, who was gov- erness to the Enfans de France, to resign her situation. The Queen was at La Muette for the inoculation of her daughter. She sent for me, and condescended to say she wished to converse with me about a scheme which delighted her, but in the execution of which she foresaw some incon- veniences. Her plan was to appoint the Duchesse de Polignac to the office lately held by the Princesse de Guemenee. She saw with extreme pleasure the facilities which this appoint- ment would give her for superintending the education of her children, without running any risk of hurting the pride of the governess; and that it would bring together the objects of her warmest affections — her children and her friend. " The friends of the Duchesse de Polignac," continued the Queen, " will be gratified by the splendour and importance conferred by the employment. As to the Duchesse, I know her; the place by no means suits her simple and quiet habits, nor the sort of indolence of her disposition. She will give me the greatest possible proof of her devotion if she yields to my wish." The Queen also spoke of the Princesse de Chimay and the Duchesse de Duras, whom the public pointed out as fit for the post; but she thought the Princesse de Chimay's piety too rigid; and as to the Duchesse de Duras, her wit and learning quite frightened her. What the Queen dreaded as the conse- had prevented her. The Queen replied that the Duchesse de Chartres would have caused an apology to be made in such a case; that the celebrity of Madame de Genlis might have occasioned her absence to be noticed; but that she was not of a rank to send an apology for it. This proceeding on the part of the Princess, influenced by the talents of the governess of her children, proves that at the time she still desired the regard and the friendship of the Queen; and from this moment unfavourable reflections on the habits and inclinations of the sovereign, and sharp criticisms on the works and the conduct of the female author, were continually interchanged between Marie An- toinette and Madame de Genlis." 264: THE PRIVATE LIFE OF quence of her selection of the Duchesse de Polignac was prin- cipally the jealousy of the courtiers; but she showed so lively a desire to see her scheme executed that I had no doubt she would soon set at nought all the obstacles she discovered. I was not mistaken: a few days afterwards the Duchesse was appointed governess. The Queen's object in sending for me was no doubt to fur- nish me with means of explaining the feelings which induced her to prefer a governess disposed by friendship to suffer her to enjoy all the privileges of a mother. Her Majesty knew that I saw a great deal of company. The Queen frequently dined with the Duchess after having been present at the King's private dinner. Sixty-one thou- sand francs were therefore added to the salary of the govern- ess as a compensation for this increase of expense. The Queen was tired of the excursions to Marly, and had no great difficulty in setting the King against them. He did not like the expense of them, for everybody was entertained there gratis. Louis XIV. had established a kind of parade upon these excursions, differing from that of Versailles, but still more annoying. Card and supper parties occurred every day, and required much dress. On Sundays and holidays the fountains played, the people were admitted into the gardens, and there was as great a crowd as at the fetes of Saint Cloud. Every age has its peculiar colouring; Marly showed that of Louis XIV. even more than Versailles. Everything in the former place appeared to have been produced by the magic power of a fairy's wand. Not the slightest trace of all this splendour remains ; the revolutionary spoilers even tore up the pipes which served to supply the fountains. Perhaps a brief description of this palace and the usages established there by Louis XIV. may be acceptable. The very extensive gardens of Marly ascended almost im- MARIE ANTOINETTE. 265 perceptibly to the pavilion of the sun, which was occupied only by the King and his family. The pavilions of the twelve zo- diacal signs bounded the two sides of the lawn. They were con- nected by bowers impervious to the rays of the sun. The pa- vilions nearest to that of the sun were reserved for the Princes of the blood and the ministers ; the rest were occupied by persons holding superior offices at Court, or invited to stay at Marly. Each pavilion was named after fresco paintings, which covered its walls, and which had been executed by the must celebrated artists of the age of Louis XIV. On a line with the upper pavilion there was on the left a chapel ; on the right a pavilion called La Perspective, which concealed a long suite of offices, containing a hundred lodging-rooms intended for'the persons belonging to the service of the Court, kitchens, and spacious dining-rooms, in which more than thirty tables were splendidly laid out. During half Louis XV.'s reign the ladies still wore the habit de cour de Marly, so named by Louis XIV., and which differed little from that devised for Versailles. The French gown, gathered in the back, and with great hoops, replaced this dress, and continued to be worn till the end of the reign of Louis XVI. The diamonds, feathers, rouge, and embroidered stuffs, spangled with gold, effaced all trace of a rural resi- dence; but the people loved to see the splendour of their sov- ereign and a brilliant Court glittering in the shades of the woods. After dinner, and before the hour for cards, the Queen, the Princesses, and their ladies, paraded among the clumps of trees, in little carriages, beneath canopies richly embroidered with gold, drawn by men in the King's livery. The trees planted by Louis XIV. were of prodigious height, which, how- ever, was surpassed in several of the groups by fountains of the clearest water; while, among others, cascades over white 266 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF marble, the waters of which, met by the sunbeams, looked like draperies of silver gauze, formed a contrast to the solemn darkness of the groves. In the evening nothing more was necessary for any well- dressed man to procure admission to the Queen's card-parties than to be named and presented, by some officer of the Court, to the gentleman usher of the card-room. This room, which was very large, and of octagonal shape, rose to the top of the Italian roof, and terminated in a cupola, furnished with bal- conies, in which females who had not been presented easily obtained leave to place themselves, and enjoy the sight of the brilliant assemblage. Though not of the number of persons belonging to the Court, gentlemen admitted into this salon might request one of the ladies seated with the Queen at lansquenet or faro to bet upon her cards with such gold or notes as they presented to her. Eich people and the gamblers of Paris did not miss one of the evenings at the Marly salon, and there were always consider- able sums won and lost. Louis XVI. hated high play, and very often showed displeasure when the loss of large sums was mentioned. The fashion of wearing a black coat without being in mourning had not then been introduced, and the King gave a few of his coups de boutoir to a certain Chevaliers de Saint Louis, dressed in this manner, who came to venture two or three louis, in the hope that fortune would favour the hand- some duchesses who deigned to place them on their cards.10 10 Bachaumont in his Memoirs (tome xii., p. 189), which are often satirical and always somewhat questionable, speaks of the singular precautions taken at play at Court. " The bankers at the Queen's table," says he, " in order to prevent the mistakes [I soften the harsh- ness of his expression] which daily happen, have obtained permission from her Majesty that before beginning to play the table shall be bordered by a ribbon entirely round it, and that no other money than that upon the cards beyond the ribbon shall be considered as staked." — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 267 Singular contrasts are often seen amidst the grandeur of courts. In order to manage such high play at the Queen's faro table, it was necessary to have a banker provided with large sums of money; and this necessity placed at the table, to which none but the highest titled persons were admitted in general, not only M. de Chalabre, who was its banker, but also a retired captain of foot, who officiated as his second. A word, trivial, but completely appropriate to express the manner in which the Court was attended there, was often heard. Gentle- men presented at Court, who had not been invited to stay at Marly, came there notwithstanding as they did to Versailles, and returned again to Paris ; under such circumstances, it was said such a one had been to Marly only en polisson; " and it appeared odd to hear a captivating marquis, in answer to the inquiry whether he was of the royal party at Marly, say, " No, I am only here en polisson : " meaning simply " I am here on the footing of all those whose nobility is of a later date than 1400." The Marly excursions were exceedingly expensive to the King. Besides the superior tables, those of the almoners, equerries, maitres dhotel, etc., etc., were all supplied with such a degree of magnificence as to allow of inviting strangers to them; and almost all the visitors from Paris were boarded at the expense of the Court. The personal frugality of the unfortunate Prince who sank beneath the weight of the national debts thus favoured the Queen's predilection for her Petit Trianon; and for five or six years preceding the Eevolution the Court very seldom visited Marly. The King, always attentive to the comfort of his family, gave Mesdames, his aunts, the use of the Chateau de Bellevue, and afterwards purchased the Princesse de Guemenee house, 11 A contemptuous expression, meaning literally " as a scamp " or " rascal." 268 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF at the entrance to Paris, for Madame Elizabeth.12 The Com- tesse de Provence bought a small house at Montreuil; Mon- sieur already had Brunoy; the Comtesse d?Artois built Baga- telle; Versailles became, in the estimation of all the royal family, the least agreeable of residences. They only fancied themselves at home in the plainest houses, surrounded by English gardens, where they better enjoyed the beauties of nature. The taste for cascades and statues was entirely past. The Queen occasionally remained a whole month at Petit Trianon, and had established there all the ways of life in a chateau. She entered the sitting-room without driving the ladies from their pianoforte or embroidery. The gentlemen continued their billiards or backgammon without suffering her presence to interrupt them. There was but little room in the small Chateau of Trianon. Madame Elizabeth accompanied the Queen there, but the ladies of honour and ladies of the palace had no establishment at Trianon. When invited by the Queen, they came from Versailles to dinner. The King and Princes came regularly to sup. A white gown, a gauze ker- chief, and a straw hat were the uniform dress of the Prin- cesses.18 Examining all the manufactories of the hamlet, see- is Madame Elizabeth had this house for several years ; but the King arranged that she should not sleep there, until she was twenty- five years of age. The Revolution broke out before that time. — Madame Campan. 13 The extreme simplicity of the Queen's toilette began to be strongly censured, at first among the courtiers, and afterwards throughout the kingdom; and through one of those inconsistencies more common in France than elsewhere, while the Queen was blamed, she was blindly imitated. There was not a woman but would have the same undress, the same cap, and the same feathers as she had been seen to wear. They crowded to Mademoiselle Bertin, her milliner; there was an absolute revolution in the dress of our ladies, which gave importance to that woman. Long trains, and all those fashions which confer a certain nobility on dress, were discarded; and at last a duchess could not be distinguished from an actress. The men caught the mania; the upper classes had long MARIE ANTOINETTE. 269 ing the cows milked, and fishing in the lake, delighted the Queen; and every year she showed increased aversion to the pompous excursions to Marly. The idea of acting comedies, as was then done in almost all country houses, followed on the Queen's wish to live at Trianon before given up to their lacqueys feathers, tufts of ribbon, and laced hats. They now got rid of red heels and embroidery; and walked about our streets in plain cloth, short thick shoes, and with knotty cudgels in their hands. Many humiliating scrapes were the con- sequence of this metamorphosis. Bearing no mark to distinguish them from the common herd, some of the lowest classes got into quarrels with them, in which the nobles had not always the supe- riority. . . . The Queen showed herself as little the slave of ceremony in her choice of amusements; theatrical performances took place in her apartments; she condescended to take characters not always of the most dignified description; she also played in comic operas. The sort of amusement was, like her plainness in dress, both blamed and imitated: all classes of society imbibed a taste for theatrical representations ; there was not a man of rank, a financier, not even a. citizen in easy circumstances who would be without his theatre. Formerly a private gentleman would have been disgraced if sus- pected of metamorphosing himself into an actor, even in a private house. The Queen having by her example put an end to this preju- dice, the head of the magistracy, unmindful of the dignity of his place, performed the lowest comic parts. The Queen got through the characters she assumed indifferently enough; she could hardly be ignorant of this, as her performances evidently excited little pleasure. Indeed, one day while she was thus exhibiting, somebody ventured to say, by no means inaudibly, " Well, this is royally ill played!" The lesson was thrown away upon her, for never did she sacrifice to the opinion of another that which she thought permis- sible. When she was told that her extreme plainness in dress, the nature of her amusements, and her dislike to that splendour which ought always to attend a queen, had an appearance of levity, which was misinterpreted by a portion of the public, she replied with Madame de Maintenon : " I am upon the stage, and of course I shall be either hissed or applauded." Louis XIV. had a similar taste; he danced upon the stage; but he had shown by brilliant actions that he knew how to enforce respect; and besides, he un- hesitatingly gave up the amusement from the moment he heard those beautiful lines in which Racine pointed out how very unworthy of him such pastimes were. — History of Marie Antoinette, by Montjoie. 270 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF without ceremony. It was agreed that no young man except the Comte cFArtois should be admitted into the company of performers, and that the audience should consist only of the King, Monsieur, and the Princesses, who did not play; but in order to stimulate the actors a little, the first boxes were to be occupied by the readers, the Queen's ladies, their sisters and daughters, making altogether about forty persons. The Queen laughed heartily at the voice of M. d*Adhemar, formerly a very fine one, but latterly become rather tremulous. His shepherd's dress in Colin, in the Devin du Village, con- trasted very ridiculously with his time of life, and the Queen said it would be difficult for malevolence itself to find any- thing to criticise in the choice of such a lover. The King was highly amused with these plays, and was present at every per- formance. Caillot, a celebrated actor, who had long quitted the stage, and Dazincourt, both of acknowledged good character, were selected to give lessons, the first in comic opera, of which the easier sorts were perferred, and the second in comedy. The office of hearer of rehearsals, prompter, and stage manager was given to my father-in-law. The Due de Fronsac, first gentleman of the chamber, was much hurt at this. He thought himself called upon to make serious remon- strances upon the subject, and wrote to the Queen, who made him the following answer: "You cannot be first gentleman when we are the actors. Besides, I have already intimated to you my determination respecting Trianon. I hold no court there, I live like a private person, and M. Campan shall be always employed to execute orders relative to the private fetes I choose to give there." This not putting a stop to the Duke's remonstrances, the King was obliged to interfere. The Duke continued obstinate, and insisted that he was entitled to man- age the private amusements as much as those which were public. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 271 It became absolutely necessary to end the argument in a posi- tive manner. The diminutive Due de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his respects to the Queen at her toilette, to turn the conversation upon Trianon, in order to make some ironical re- marks on my father-in-law, of whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my colleague Campan." The Queen would shrug her shoulders, and say, when he was gone, " It is quite shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal de Kichelieu." La Gageure Imprevue was one of the pieces performed at Trianon. The Queen played the part of Gotte; the Comtesse Diana that of Madame de Clainville; Madame Elizabeth the young woman, and the Comte cFArtois one of the men's char- acters. Colette, in the Devin du Village, was really very well played by the Queen. They performed also in the course of the following seasons, Le Roi et le Fermier; Rose et Colas; le Border: I' Anglais a Bourdeaux: On ne s'avise jamais de tout; le Barbier de Seville, etc.14 i* These performances, in which Marie Antoinette delighted in taking a part, have been repeatedly censured. Montjoie reproaches the Queen almost with severity, and makes observations which ap- pear not to be quite correct. " Formerly," says he, " any private gentleman would have been disgraced upon its being known that he had turned actor, even in a family party." We will not decide whether it would have been more disgraceful in a private gentle- man to act in a play, or, for instance, like the Comte de Grammont, to back with a detachment of cavalry a game of piquet, in which art had corrected fortune; but we will observe that in 1701 J. B. Rousseau's Ceinture Magique was played by the Princes of the blood before the Duchess of Burgundy. — Memoirs of Voltaire, Amster- dam, 1785. Voltaire gives still more minute particulars of these performances, in which private gentlemen would no doubt have con- sented to figure. "There was," says he (tome xxi., p. 157), "a small theatre erected in the apartments of Madame de Maintenon. The Duchessc de Bourgogne, and the Duo d'Orleans, with such per- 272 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF So long as no strangers were admitted to these performances they were little censured; but the praise obtained by the per- formers made them look for a large circle of admirers. The Queen permitted the officers of the Body Guards and the equer- ries of the King and Princes to be present at the plays. Pri- vate boxes were provided for some of the people belonging to the Court ; a few more ladies were invited ; and claims arose on all sides for the favour of admission. The Queen refused to ad- mit the officers of the body guards of the Princes, the officers of the King's Cent-Suisses, and many other persons, who were highly mortified at the refusal. The company, for a private company, was good enough, and the acting was applauded to the skies; nevertheless, as the audience withdrew, adverse criticisms were occasionally heard. While delight at having given an heir to the throne of the Bourbons, and a succession of fetes and amusements filled up the happy days of Marie Antoinette, the public was engrossed by the Anglo-American war. Two Kings, or rather their min- isters, planted and propagated the love of liberty in the new world ; the King of England, by shutting his ears and his heart against the continued and respectful representations of sub- jects at a distance from their native land, who had become numerous, rich, and powerful, through the resources of the soil they had fertilised; and the King of France, by giving support to this people in rebellion against their ancient sov- ereign. Many young soldiers, belonging to the first families of the country, followed La Fayette's example, and forsook sons of the Court as were most conspicuous for talent, performed there. The famous actor Baron instructed them and played with them. The majority of Duche's tragedies were composed for this theatre." We shall add but one word to these positive facts, which is, that the young and amiable Marie Antoinette might well see noth- ing wrong in an amusement tolerated by Madame de Maintenon in the austere, hypocritical, and bigoted Court of the latter years of Louis XIV. — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 273 luxury, amusement, and love to go and tender their aid to the revolted Americans. Beaumarchais, secretly seconded by Mes- sieurs de Maurepas and de Vergennes, obtained permission to send out supplies of arms and clothing. Franklin appeared at Court in the dress of an American agriculturist. His un- powdered hair, his round hat, his brown cloth coat, formed a contrast to the laced and embroidered coats and the powder and perfume of the courtiers of Versailles. This novelty turned the light heads of the Frenchwomen. Elegant en- tertainments were given to Dr. Franklin, who, to the reputa- tion of a man of science, added the patriotic virtues which invested him with the character of an apostle of liberty. I was present at one of these entertainments, when the most beau- tiful woman out of three hundred was selected to place a crown of laurels upon the white head of the American philosopher, and two kisses upon his cheeks. Even in the palace of Ver- sailles, Franklin's medallion was sold under the King's eyes, in the exhibition of Sevres porcelain. The legend of this me- dallion was: " Eripuit ccelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannia." The King never declared his opinion upon an enthusiasm which his correct judgment no doubt led him to blame. The Queen spoke out more plainly about the part France was tak- ing respecting the independence of the American colonies, and constantly opposed it. Far was she from foreseeing that a revolution at such a distance could excite one in which a mis- guided populace would drag her from her palace to a death equally unjust and cruel. She only saw something ungener- ous in the method which France adopted^ of checking the power of England. However, as Queen of France, she enjoyed the sight of a whole people rendering homage to the prudence, courage, and good qualities of a young French man ; and she shared the en- VOL. 1—18 274 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF thusiasm inspired by the conduct and military success of the Marquis de La Fayette. The Queen granted him several audiences on his first return from America, and, until the 10th of August, on which day my house was plundered, I preserved some lines from Gaston and Bayard, in which the friends of M. de La Fayette saw the exact outline of his character, written by her own hand : — . . . "Why talk of youth, When all the ripe experience of the old Dwells with him? In his schemes profound and cool, He acts with wise precaution, and reserves For times of action his impetuous fire. To guard the camp, to scale the leaguered wall, Or dare the hottest of the fight, are toils That suit th' impetuous bearing of his youth; Yet like the gray-hair'd veteran he can shun The field of peril. Still before my eyes I place his bright example, for I love His lofty courage, and his prudent thought. Gifted like him, a warrior has no age." IB These lines had been applauded and encored at the French theatre; everybody's head was turned. There was no class of 16 During the American war a general officer in the service of the United States advanced with a score of men under the English batteries to reconnoitre their position. His aide-de-camp, struck by a ball, fell at his side. The officers and orderly dragoons fled precipitately. The general, though under the fire of the cannon, approached the wounded man to see whether any help could be afforded him. Finding the wound had been mortal, he slowly re- joined the group which had got out of the reach of the cannon. This instance of courage and humanity took place at the battle of Monmouth. General Clinton, who commanded the English troops, knew that the Marquis de La Fayette generally rode a white horse; it was upon a white horse that the general officer who retired so slowly was mounted; Clinton desired the gunners not to fire. This noble forbearance probably saved M. de La Fayette's life, for he it was. At that time he was but twenty-two years of age. — Historical Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XVI. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 275 persons that did not heartily approve of the support given openly by the French Government to the cause of American independence. The constitution planned for the new nation was digested at Paris, and while liberty, equality, and the rights of man were commented upon by the Condorcets, Bail- lys, Mirabeaus, etc., the minister Segur published the King's edict, which, by repealing that of 1st November 1750, de- clared all officers not noble by four generations incapable of filling the rank of captain, and denied all military rank to the roturiers, excepting sons of the Chevaliers de Saint Louis.18 The injustice and absurdity of this law was no doubt a secondary cause of the Eevolution. To understand the de- spair and rage with which this law inspired the tiers-etat one should have belonged to that honourable class. The prov- inces were full of roturier families, who for ages had lived as people of property upon their own domains, and paid the taxes. If these persons had several sons, they would place one in the King's service, one in the Church, another in the Order of Mal- ta, as a chevalier servent darmes, and one in the magistracy; while the eldest preserved the paternal manor, and if he were situated in a country celebrated for wine he would, besides sell- ing his own produce, add a kind of commission trade in the wines of the canton. I have seen an individual of this justly respected class, who had been long employed in diplomatic busi- ness, and even honoured with the title of minister plenipotenti- ary, the son-in-law and nephew of colonels and town mayors, !« " M. de Segur," says Chamfort, " having published an ordinance which prohibited the admission of any other than gentlemen into the artillery corps, and, on the other hand, none but well-educated persons being proper for admission, a curious scene took place: the Abbe Bossat, examiner of the pupils, gave certificates only to plebeians, while Cherin gave them only to gentlemen. Out of one hundred pupils, there were not above four or five who were qualified in both respects." 276 THE PRIVATE UFE OF and, on his mother's side, nephew of a lieutenant-general with a cordon rouge, unable to introduce his sons as sous-lieutenants into a regiment of foot. Another decision of the Court, which could not be an- nounced by an edict, was that all ecclesiastical benefices, from the humblest priory up to the richest abbey, should in future be appanages of the nobility. Being the son of a village surgeon, the Abbe de Vermond, who had great influence in the disposi- tion of benefices, was particularly struck with the justice of this decree. During the absence of the Abbe in an excursion he made for his health, I prevailed on the Queen to write a postscript to the petition of a curate, one of my friends, who was soliciting a priory near his curacy, with the intention of retiring to it. I obtained it for him. On the Abbe's return he told me very harshly that I should act in a manner quite contrary to the King's wishes if I again obtained such a favour; that the wealth of the Church was for the future to be invariably de- voted to the support of the poorer nobility; that it was the interest of the State that it should be so ; and a plebeian priest, happy in a good curacy, had only to remain curate. Can we be astonished at the part shortly afterwards taken by the deputies of the Third Estate, when called to the States- General ? MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTEE X Visit of the Grand Duke of Russia and his Duchess to France — Entertainment and supper at Trianon — Cardinal de Rohan — Cold reception given to Comte d'Haga (Gustavus III., King of Sweden) — Peace with England — The English flock into France — Conduct to be observed at Court — Mission of the Chevalier de Bressac to the Queen — Court of Naples — Queen Caroline — The Minister Acton — Debates between the Courts of Naples and Madrid — Insolent reply of the Spanish Ambassador to Queen Caroline — Interference of France — MM. de S£gur and de Castries appointed ministers through the Queen's influence — Treachery of* M. de Maurepas towards M. Necker — Appoint- ment of M. de Calonne — Observations of Marie Antoinette. ABOUT the close of the last century several of the Northern sovereigns took a fancy for travelling. Christian III., King of Denmark, visited the Court of France in 1763, during the reign of Louis XV. We have seen the King of Sweden and Joseph II. at Versailles. The Grand Duke of Eussia (afterwards Paul I.), son of Catherine II., and the Princess of Wirtemberg, his wife, likewise resolved to visit France. They travelled under the titles of the Comte and Comtesse du Nord. They were presented on the 20th of May 1782. The Queen received them with grace and dignity. On the day of their arrival at Versailles they dined in private with the King and Queen. The plain unassuming appearance of Paul I. pleased Louis XVI. He spoke to him with more confidence and cheerfulness than he had done to Joseph II. The Comtesse du Nord was not at first so successful with the Queen. This lady was of a fine height, very fat for her age, with all the German stiff- ness, well informed, and perhaps displaying her acquireme 278 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF with rather too much confidence. When the Comte and Com- tesse du Nord were presented the Queen was exceedingly nerv- ous. She withdrew into her closet before she went into the room where she was to dine with the illustrious travellers, and asked for a glass of water, confessing " she had just experienced how much more difficult it was to play the part of a Queen in the presence of other sovereigns, or of Princes born to become so, than before courtiers/' She soon recovered from her con- fusion, and reappeared with ease and confidence. The dinner was tolerably cheerful, and the conversation very animated. Brilliant entertainments were given at Court in honour of the King of Sweden and the Comte du Nord. They were re- ceived in private by the King and Queen, but they were treated with much more ceremony than the Emperor, and their Majesties always appeared to me to be very cautious before these personages. However, the King one day asked the Eus- sian Grand Duke if it were true that he could not rely on the fidelity of any one of those who accompanied him. The Prince answered him without hesitation, and before a con- siderable number of persons, that he should be very sorry to have with him even a poodle that was much attached to him, because his mother would take care to have it thrown into the Seine, with a stone round its neck, before he should leave Paris. This reply, which I myself heard, horrified me, whether it depicted the disposition of Catherine, or only ex- pressed the Prince's prejudice against her. The Queen gave the Grand Duke a supper at Trianon, and had the gardens illuminated as they had been for the Em- peror. The Cardinal de Eohan very indiscreetly ventured to introduce himself there without the Queen's knowledge. Having been treated with the utmost coolness ever since his return from Vienna, he had not dared to ask her himself for permission to see the illumination ; but he persuaded the porter MARIE ANTOINETTE. 279 of Trianon to admit him as soon as the Queen should have set off for Versailles, and his Eminence engaged to remain in the porter's lodge until all the carriages should have left the chateau. He did not keep his word, and while the porter was busy in the discharge of his duty, the Cardinal, who wore his red stockings and had merely thrown on a greatcoat, went down into the garden, and, with an air of mystery, drew up in two different places to see the royal family and suite pass by. Her Majesty was highly offended at this piece of boldness, and next day ordered the porter to be discharged. There was a general feeling of disgust at the Cardinal's conduct, and of commiseration towards the porter for the loss of his place. Affected at the misfortune of the father of a family, I ob- tained his forgiveness; and since that time I have often re- gretted the feeling which induced me to interfere. The no- toriety of the discharge of the porter of Trianon, and the odium that circumstance would have fixed upon the Cardinal, would have made the Queen's dislike to him still more publicly known ; and would probably have prevented the scandalous and notorious intrigue of the necklace. The Queen, who was much prejudiced against the King of Sweden, received him very coldly.1 All that was said of the private character of that sovereign, his connection with the Comte de Vergennes, from the time of the Kevolution of Swe- den, in 1772, the character of his favourite Armsfeld, and the prejudices of the monarch himself against the Swedes who were well received at the Court of Versailles, formed the grounds of this dislike. He came one day uninvited and un- i Gustavus III., King of Sweden, travelled in France under the title of Comte d'Haga. Upon his accession to the throne, he man- aged the revolution which prostrated the authority of the senate with equal skill, coolness, and courage. He was assassinated in 1792 at a masked ball by Ankarstroem. — Note by the Editor. 280 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF expected, and requested to dine with the Queen. The Queen received him in the little closet, and desired me to send for her clerk of the kitchen, that she might be informed whether there was a proper dinner to set before Comte cTHaga, and add to it if necessary. The King of Sweden assured her that there would be enough for him; and I could not help smiling when I thought of the length of the menu of the dinner of the King and Queen, not half of which would have made its ap- pearance had they dined in private. The Queen looked sig- nificantly at me, and I withdrew. In the evening she asked me why I had seemed so astonished when she ordered me to add to her dinner; saying that I ought instantly to have seen that she was giving the King of Sweden a lesson for his pre- sumption. I owned to her that the scene had appeared to me so much in the bourgeois style, that I involuntarily thought of the cutlets on the gridiron, and the omelette, which in fam- ilies in humble circumstances serve to piece out short com- mons. She was highly diverted with my answer, and repeated it to the King, who also laughed heartily at it. The peace with England satisfied all classes of society in- terested in the national honour. The departure of the Eng- lish commissary from Dunkirk, who had been fixed at that place ever since the shameful peace of 1763 as inspector of our navy, occasioned an ecstasy of joy. The Government com- municated to the Englishman the order for his departuie before the treaty was made public. But for that precaution the popu- lace would have probably committed some excess or other, in order to make the agent of English power feel the effects of the resentment which had constantly increased during his stay at that port. Those engaged in trade were the only persons dissatisfied with the treaty of 1783. That article which pro- vided for the free admission of English goods, annihilated at one blow the trade of Eouen, and the other manufacturing \ MARIE ANTOINETTE. 281 towns throughout the kingdom. The English swarmed into Paris. A considerable number of them were presented at Court. The Queen paid them marked attention; doubtless she wished them to distinguish between the esteem she felt for their noble nation and the political views of the Govern- ment in the support it had afforded to the Americans. Dis- content was, however, manifested at Court in consequence :>f the favour bestowed by the Queen on the English noblemen; these attentions were called infatuations. This was illiberal; and the Queen justly complained of such absurd jealousy. The journey to Fontainebleau and the winter at Paris and at Court were extremely brilliant. The spring brought back those amusements which the Queen began to prefer to the splendour of fetes. The most perfect harmony subsisted be- tween the King and Queen ; I never saw but one cloud between them. It was soon dispelled, and the cause of it is perfectly unknown to me. My father-in-law, whose penetration and experience I re- spected greatly, recommended me, when he saw me placed in the service of a young Queen, to shun all kinds of con- fidence. " It procures," said he, " but a very fleeting, and at the same time, dangerous sort of favour; serve with zeal to the best of your judgment, but never do more than obey. In- stead of setting your wits to work to discover why an order or a commission which may appear of consequence are given to you, use them to prevent the possibility of your knowing any- thing in the matter." I had occasion to act on this wise ad- vice. One morning at Trianon I went into the Queen's cham- ber; there were letters lying upon the bed, and she was weeping bitterly. Her tears and sobs where occasionally in- terrupted by exclamations of "Ah! that I were dead! — wretches! monsters! What have I done to them?" I of- fered her orange-flower water and ether. " Leave me" said she, 282 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF " if you love me : it would be better to kill me at once" At this moment she threw her arm over my shoulder and be- gan weeping afresh. I saw that some weighty trouble op- pressed her heart, and that she wanted a confidante. I sug- gested sending for the Duchesse de Polignac ; this she strongly opposed. I renewed my arguments, and her opposition grew weaker. I disengaged myself from her arms, and ran to the antechamber, where I knew that an outrider always waited, ready to mount and start at a moment's warning for Versailles. I ordered him to go full speed, and tell the Duchesse de Polig- nac that the Queen was very uneasy, and desired to see her instantly. The Duchess always had a carriage ready. In less than ten minutes she was at the Queen's door. I was the only person there, having been forbidden to send for the other women. Madame de Polignac came in; the Queen held out her arms to her, the Duchess rushed towards her. I heard her sobs renewed and withdrew. A quarter of an hour afterwards the Queen, who had be- come calmer, rang to be dressed. I sent her woman in; she put on her gown and retired to her boudoir with the Duchess. Very soon afterwards the Comte d'Artois arrived from Com- piegne, where he had been with the King. He eagerly in- quired where the Queen was; remained half an hour with her and the Duchess ; and on coming out told me the Queen asked for me. I found her seated on the couch by the side of her friend; her features had resumed their usual cheerful and gracious appearance. She held out her hand to me, and said to the Duchess, " I know I have made her so uncomfortable this morning that I must set her poor heart at ease." She then added, "You must have seen, on some fine summer's day, a black cloud suddenly appear and threaten to pour down upon the country and lay it waste. The lightest wind drives it away, and the blue sky and serene weather are restored. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 283 This is just the image of what has happened to me this morn- ing." She afterwards told me that the King would return from Compiegne after hunting there, and sup with her; that I must send for her purveyor, to select with him from his bills of fare all such dishes as the King liked best; that she would have no others served up in the evening at her table ; and that this was a mark of attention she wished the King to notice. The Duchesse de Polignac also took me by the hand, and told me how happy she was that she had been with the Queen at a moment when she stood in need of a friend. I never knew what could have created in the Queen so lively and so transient an alarm; but I guessed from the particular care she took respecting the King that attempts had been made to irri- tate him against her; that the malice of her enemies had been promptly discovered and counteracted by the King's penetration and attachment; and that the Comte dArtois had hastened to bring her intelligence of it. It was, I think, in the summer of 1787, during one of the Trianon excursions, that the Queen of Naples 2 sent the Cheva- lier de Bressac to her Majesty on a secret mission relative to a projected marriage between the Hereditary Prince, her son, and Madame, the King's daughter; in the absence of the lady of honour he addressed himself to me. Although he said a great deal to me about the close confidence with which the Queen of Naples honoured him, and about his letters of credit, I thought he had the air of an adventurer.3 He had, indeed, private letters for the Queen, and his mission was not feigned ; he talked to me very rashly even before his admission, and entreated me to do all that lay in my power to dispose the Queen's mind in favour of his sovereign's wishes; I declined, assuring him that it did not become me to meddle with State 2 Caroline, sister of Marie Antoinette. 3 He afterwards spent several years shut up in the Chateau de 1'CEuf. — Madame Campan. 284 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF affairs. He endeavoured, but in vain, to prove to me that the union contemplated by the Queen of Naples ought not to be looked upon in that light. I procured M. de Bressac the audience he desired, but without suffering myself even to seem acquainted with the object of his mission. The Queen told me what it was; she thought him a -person ill chosen for the occasion; and yet she thought that the Queen, her sister, had done wisely in not sending a man worthy to be avowed; it being impossible that what she solicited should take place. I had an opportunity on this occasion, as indeed on many others, of judging to what extent the Queen valued and loved France and the dignity of our Court. She then .told me that Madame,4 in marrying her cousin, the Due oTAngouleme, would not lose her rank as daughter of the Queen; and that her situation would be far preferable to that of Queen of any other country; that there was nothing in Europe to be compared to the Court of France ; and that it would be necessary, in order to avoid exposing a French Princess to feelings of deep regret, in case she should be married to a foreign Prince, to take her from the palace of Versailles at seven years of age, and send her immediately to the Court in which she was to dwell; and that at twelve would be too late ; for recollections and comparisons would ruin the happiness of all the rest of her life. The Queen looked upon the destiny of her sisters as far beneath her own; and frequently mentioned the mortifications inflicted by the Court of Spain upon her sister, the Queen of Naples ; and the neces- sity she was under of imploring the mediation of the King of France. She showed me several letters that she had received from * The Princess Marie Thgrese Charlotte, daughter of Louis XVI., •who married her cousin, the Due d'Angoulgme, son of the Comte d'Artois, in 1799. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 285 the Queen of Naples relative to her differences with the Court of Madrid respecting the Minister Acton. She thought him useful to her people inasmuch as he was a man of considerable information and great activity. In these letters she minutely acquainted her Majesty with the nature of the affronts she had received, and represented Mr. Acton to her as a man whom malevolence itself could not suppose capable of interesting her otherwise than by his services. She had had to suffer the im- pertinences of a Spaniard named Las Casas, who had been sent to her by the King, her father-in-law, to persuade her to dismiss Mr. Acton from the business of the State, and from her intimacy. She complained bitterly to the Queen, her sister, of the insulting proceedings of this charge daffaires, whom she told, in order to convince him of the nature of the feelings which attached her to Mr. Acton, that she would have portraits and busts of him executed by the most eminent artists of Italy, and that she would then send them to the King of Spain, to prove that nothing but the desire to retain a man of superior capacity had induced her to bestow on him the favour he enjoyed. This Las Casas dared to answer her, that it would be useless trouble ; that the ugliness of a man did not always render him displeasing; and that the King of Spain had too much experience not to know that there was no ac- counting for the caprices of a woman. This audacious reply filled the Queen of Naples with in- dignation, and her emotion caused her to miscarry on the same day. In consequence of the mediation of Louis XVI. the Queen of Naples obtained complete satisfaction, and Mr. Ac- ton continued Prime Minister. Among the characteristics which denoted the goodness of the Queen, her respect for personal liberty should have a place. I have seen her put up with the most troublesome importu- nities from people whose minds were deranged rather than 286 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF have them arrested. Her patient kindness was put to a very disagreeable trial by an ex-councillor of the Bordeaux Parlia- ment, named Castelnaux; this man declared himself the lover of the Queen, and was generally known by that appella- tion. For ten successive years did he follow the Court in all its excursions. Pale and wan, as people who are out of their senses usually are, his sinister appearance occasioned the most uncomfortable sensations. During the two hours that the Queen's public card-parties lasted, he would remain opposite her Majesty. He placed himself in the same manner before her at chapel, and never failed to be at the King's dinner or the dinner in public. At the theatre he invariably seated himself as near the Queen's box as possible. He always set off for Fontainebleau or Saint Cloud the day before the Court, and when her Majesty arrived at her various residences, the first per- son she met on getting out of her carriage was this melancholy madman, who never spoke to any one. When the Queen stayed at Petit Trianon the passion of this unhappy man be- came still more annoying. He would hastily swallow a morsel at some eating-house, and spend all the rest of the day, even when it rained, in going round and round the garden, always walking at the edge of the moat. The Queen frequently met him when she was either alone or with her children; and yet she would not suffer any violence to be used to relieve her from this intolerable annoyance. Having one day given M. de Seze permission to enter Trianon, she sent to desire he would come to me, and directed me to inform that celebrated advo- cate of M. de Castelnaux's derangement, and then to send for him that M. de Seze might have some conversation with him. He talked to him nearly an hour, and made considerable im- pression upon his mind; and at last M. de Castelnaux re- quested me to inform the Queen positively that, since his pres- ence was disagreeable to her, he would retire to his province. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 287 The Queen was very much rejoiced, and desired me to express her full satisfaction to M. de Seze. Half an hour after M. de Seze was gone the unhappy madman was announced. He came to tell me that he withdrew his promise, that he had not sufficient command of himself to give up seeing the Queen as often as possible. This new determination was a disagreeable message to take to her Majesty; but how was I affected at hearing her say, "Well, let him annoy me! but let him not be deprived of the blessing of freedom/' 5 The direct influence of the Queen on affairs during the ear- lier years of the reign was only shown in her exertions to ob- tain from the King a revision of the decrees in two celebrated causes. It was contrary to her principles to interfere in mat- ters of justice, and never did she avail herself of her influence to bias the tribunals. The Duchesse de Praslin, through a criminal caprice, carried her enmity to her husband so far as to disinherit her children in favour of the family of M. de Guemenee. The Duchesse de Choiseul, who was warmly interested in this affair, one day entreated the Queen, in my presence, at least to condescend to ask the first president when the cause would be called on ; the Queen replied that she could not even do that, for it would manifest an interest which it was her duty not to show. If the King had not inspired the Queen with a lively feeling of love, it is quite certain that she yielded him respect and affection for the goodness of his disposition and the equity of which he gave so many proofs throughout his reign. One evening she returned very late; she came out of the King's 6 On the arrest of the King and Queen at Varennes, this un- fortunate Castelnaux attempted to starve himself to death. The people in whose house he lived, becoming uneasy at his absence, had the door of his room forced open, when he was found stretched senseless on the floor. I do not know what became of him after the 10th of August. — Madame Campan. 288 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP closet, and said to M. de Misery and myself, drying her eyes, which were filled with tears, " You see me weeping, but do not be uneasy at it: these are the sweetest tears that a wife can shed; they are caused by the impression which the justice and goodness of the King have made upon me; he has just com- plied with my request for a revision of the proceedings against Messieurs de Bellegarde and de Monthieu, victims of the Due cFAiguillon's hatred to the Due de Choiseul. He has been equally just to the Due de Guines in his affair with Tort. It is a happy thing for a Queen to be able to admire and esteem him who has admitted her to a participation of his throne; and as to you, I congratulate you upon your having to live under the sceptre of so virtuous a sovereign." The Queen laid before the King all the memorials of the Due de Guines, who, during his embassy to England, was in- volved in difficulties by a secretary, who speculated in the pub- lic funds in London on his own account, but in such a manner as to throw a suspicion of it on the ambassador. Mes- sieurs de Vergennes and Turgot, bearing but little good will to the Due de Guines, who was the friend of the Due de Choiseul, were not disposed to render the ambassador any service. The Queen succeeded in fixing the King's particular attention on this affair, and the innocence of the Due de Guines triumphed through the equity of Louis XVI. An incessant underhand war was carried on between the friends and partisans of M. de Choiseul, who were called the Austrians, and those who sided with Messieurs dAiguillon, de Maurepas, and de Vergennes, who, for the same reason, kept up the intrigues carried on at Court and in Paris against the Queen. Marie Antoinette, on her part, supported those who had suffered in this political quarrel, and it was this feel- ing which led her to ask for a revision of the proceedings against Messieurs de Bellegarde and de Monthieu. The first, MARIE ANTOINETTE. 289 a colonel and inspector of artillery, and the 'second, proprietor of a foundry at Saint fitienne, were, under the ministry of the Due oTAiguillon, condemned to imprisonment for twenty ears and a day for having withdrawn from the arsenals of France, by order of the Due de Chosieul, a vast number of muskets, as being of no value except as old iron, while in point of fact the greater part of those muskets were immediately embarked and sold to the Americans. It appears that the Due de Choiseul imparted to the Queen, as grounds of defence for the accused, the political views which led him to authorise that reduction and sale in the manner in which it had been executed. It rendered the case of Messieurs de Bellegarde and de Monthieu more unfavourable that the artillery officer who made the re- duction in the capacity of inspector was, through a clandestine marriage, brother-in-law of the owner of the foundry, the purchaser of the rejected arms. The innocence of the two pris- oners was nevertheless made apparent; and they came to Ver- sailles with their wives and children to throw themselves at the feet of their benefactress. This affecting scene took place in the grand gallery, at the entrance to the Queen's apart- ment. She wished to restrain the women from kneeling, say- ing that they had only had justice done them; and that she ought to be congratulated upon the most substantial happiness attendant upon her station, that of laying just appeals before the King.9 On every occasion, when the Queen had to speak in public, she used the most appropriate and elegant language, notwith- 6 There is a contemporary engraving which represents this scene of gratitude and kindness tolerably well, reproducing accurately places, costumes, and the likenesses of the principal personages. Among the latter we recognise M. the Comte de Province (his Majesty Louis XVIII.), Madame the Comtesse de Province, M. the Comte and Madame the Comtesse d'Artois, and the Emperor Joseph II. — • Note by the Editor. VOL. 1—19 290 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP standing the difficulty a foreigner might be expected to ex- perience. She answered all addresses herself, a custom which she learned at the Court of Maria Theresa. The Princesses of the House of Bourbon had long ceased to take the trouble of speaking in such cases. Madame Adelaide blamed the Queen for not doing as they did, assuring her that it was quite sufficient to mutter a few words that might sound like an an- swer, while the addressers, occupied with what they had them- selves been saying, would always take it for granted that a proper answer had been returned. The Queen saw that idle- ness alone dictated such a proceeding, and that as the practice even of muttering a few words showed the necessity of answer- ing in some way, it must be more proper to reply simply but clearly, and in the best style possible. Sometimes indeed, when apprised of the subject of the address, she would write/ down her answer in the morning, not to learn it by heart, but in order to settle the ideas or sentiments she wished to in- troduce. The influence of the Comtesse de Polignac increased daily; and her friends availed themselves of it to effect changes in the ministry. The dismissal of M. de Montbarrey, a man without talents or character, was generally approved of. It was rightly attributed to the Queen. He had been placed in administration by M. de Maurepas, and maintained by his aged wife; both, of course, became more inveterate than ever against the Queen and the Polignac circle. The appointment of M. de Segur to the place of Minister of War, and of M. de Castries to that of Minister of Marine, were wholly the work of that circle. The Queen dreaded mak- ing ministers; her favourite often wept when the men of her circle compelled her to interfere. Men blame women for med- dling in business, and yet in courts it is continually the men themselves who make use of the influence of the women in MARIE ANTOINETTE. 291 matters with which the latter ought to have nothing to do. When M. de Segur was presented to the Queen on his new appointment, she said to me, " You have just seen a minister of my making. I am very glad, so far as regards the King's service, that he is appointed, for I think the selection a very good one; but I almost regret the part I have taken in it. I take a responsibility upon myself. I was fortunate in being free from any, and in order to relieve myself from this as much as possible I have just promised M. de Segur, and that upon my word of honour, not to back any petition, nor to hinder any of his operations by solicitations on behalf of my proteges" During the first administration of M. decker, whose ambi- tion had not then drawn him into schemes repugnant to his better judgment, and whose views appeared to the Queen to be very judicious, she indulged in hopes of the restoration of the finances. Knowing that M. de Maurepas wished to drive M. Necker to resign, she urged him to have patience until the death of an old man whom the King kept about him from a fondness for his first choice, and out of respect for his ad- vanced age. She even went so far as to tell him that M. de Maurepas was always ill, and that his end could not be very distant. M. Necker would not wait for that event. The Queen's prediction was fulfiled. M. de Maurepas ended his days immediately after a journey to Fontainebleau in 1781.7 M. Necker had retired. He had been exasperated by a piece of treachery in the old minister, for which he could not forgive him. I knew something of this intrigue at the time; it has since been fully explained to me by Madame la Mare- 7 Louis XVI. deeply regretted Maurepas. During his last illness he went himself to inform him of the birth of the Dauphin, to an- nounce it to his friend and rejoice with him; these were his very expressions. The day after his funeral he said, with an air of great affliction, " Ah ! I shall no longer hear my friend overhead every morning." — Biographic Universelle. 292 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF chale de Beauvau. M. Necker saw that his credit at Court was declining, and fearing lest that circumstance should in- jure his financial operations, he requested the King to grant him some favour which might show the public that he had not lost the confidence of his sovereign. He concluded his letter by pointing out five requests — such an office, or such a mark of distinction, or such a badge of honour, and so on, and handed it to M. de Maurepas. The ors were changed into ands; and the King was displeased at M. Keeker's ambition, and the assurance with which he displayed it. Madame la Marechale de Beauvau assured me that the Marechal de Castries saw the minute of M. Necker's letter, and that he likewise saw the altered copy. The interest which the Queen took in M. Necker died away during his retirement, and at last changed into strong preju- dice against him. He wrote too much about the measures he would have pursued, and the benefits that would have resulted to the State from them. The ministers who succeeded him thought their operations embarrassed by the care that M. Necker and his partisans incessantly took to occupy the pub- lic with his plans; his friends were too ardent. The Queen discerned a party spirit in these combinations, and sided wholly with his enemies. After those inefficient comptrollers-general, Messieurs Joly de Fleury and d'Ormesson, it became necessary to resort to a man of more acknowledged talent, and the Queen's friends, at that time combining with the Comte oTArtois and with M. de Vergennes, got M. de Calonne appointed. The Queen was highly displeased, and her close intimacy with the Duchesse de Polignac began to suffer for this. It was at this period she said that when sovereigns chose favourites they raise powers about them which, being flattered at first for their master's sake, were afterwards flattered for their own; formed a party MARIE ANTOINETTE. 293 in the State, acted alone, and caused the odium of their actions to fall upon the sovereigns to whom they owed their influence. The inconveniences attendant on the private life of a sover- eign then struck the Queen in all their bearings. She talked to me about them in confidence, and often told me that I was the only person aware of the vexations that her social habits brought upon her; but that she must bear the anxieties of which she herself was the sole author : that the appearance of fickleness in a friendship such as that which she had con- tracted with the Duchess, or a total rupture, could only pro- duce fresh calamities. It was not that she had to reproach Ma- dame de Polignac with a single fault which could make her regret the choice she had made of her for a friend, but she had not foreseen the inconvenience of having to support the friends of our friends, which society obliges one to do. Her Majesty, continuing to converse with me upon the diffi- culties she had met with in private life, told me that ambi- tious men without merit sometimes found means to gain their ends by dint of importunity, and that she had to blame her- self for having procured M. dAdhemar's appointment to the London Embassy, merely because he teased her into it at the Duchess' house. She added, however, that it was at a time of perfect peace with the English ; that the minister knew the in- efficiency of M. dAdhemar as well as she did, and that he could do neither harm nor good. Often in conversations of unreserved frankness the Queen owned that she had purchased rather dearly a piece of experi- ence which would make her carefully watch over the conduct of her daughters-in-law; and that she would be particularly scrupulous about the qualifications of the ladies who might attend them; that no consideration of rank or favour should bias her in so important a choice. She attributed several of 294 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF her youthful mistakes to a lady of great levity, whom she found in her palace on her arrival in France. She also deter- mined to forbid the Princesses coming under her control the practice of singing with professors, and said candidly, and with as much severity as her slanderers could have done, " I ought to have heard Garat sing, and never to have sung duets with him." The indiscreet zeal of Monsieur Augeard contributed to the public belief that the Queen disposed of all the offices of fi- nance. He had, without any authority for doing so, required the committee of fermiers-general to inform him of all vacan- cies, assuring them that they would be meeting the wishes of the Queen. The members complied, but not without mur- muring. When the Queen became aware of what her sec- retary had done, she highly disapproved of it, caused her resentment to be made known to the fermiers-general, and abstained from asking for appointments; only making one re- quest of the kind as a marriage portion for one of her attend- ants, a young woman of good family. MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTER XI. The Queen is dissatisfied with the appointment of M. de Calonne — Acts of benevolence — Purchase of St. Cloud — Regulations of internal police — State of France — Beaumarchais — Marriage of Figaro — Character of M. de Vaudreuil. THE Queen did not sufficiently conceal the dissatisfaction she felt at having been unable to prevent the appointment of M. de Calonne; she even one day went so far as to say at the Duchess', in the midst of the partisans and protectors of that minister, that the finances of France passed alternately from the hands of an honest man without talents into those of a skil- ful knave. M. de Calonne was thus far from acting in con- cert with the Queen all the time that he continued in office; and, while dull verses were circulated about Paris describing the Queen and her favourite dipping at pleasure into the cof- fers of the comptroller-general, the Queen was avoiding all communication with him. During the long severe winter of 1783-4 the King gave three millions of livres for the relief of the indigent. M. de Calonne, who felt the necessity of making advances to the Queen, caught at this opportunity of showing her respect and devotion. He offered to place in her hands one million of the three, to be distributed in her name and under her direction. His proposal was rejected : the Queen answered that the charity ought to be wholly distributed in the King's name, and that she would this year debar herself of even the slightest enjoy- ments, in order to contribute all her savings to the relief of the unfortunate. The moment M. de Calonne left the closet the Queen sent for 296 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF me : " Congratulate me, my dear," said she ; " I have just es- caped a snare, or at least a matter which eventually might have caused me much regret." She related the conversation which had taken place word for word to me, adding, "That man will complete the ruin of the national finances. It is said that I placed him in his situation. The people are made to believe that I am extravagant ; yet I refuse to suffer a sum of money from the royal treasury, although destined for the most laudable purpose, even to pass through my hands." The Queen making monthly retrenchments from the ex- penditure of her privy purse, and not having spent the gifts customary at the period of her confinement, was in possession of from five to six hundred thousand francs, her own savings. She made use of from two to three hundred thousand francs of this, which her first women sent to M. Lenoir, to the cures of Paris and Versailles, and to the Sosurs Hospitalieres, and so distributed them among families in need. Desirous to implant in the breast of her daughter not only a desire to succour the unfortunate but those qualities neces- sary for the due discharge of that duty, the Queen incessantly talked to her, though she was yet very young, about the suf- ferings of the poor during a season so inclement. The Prin- cess already had a sum of from eight to ten thousand francs for charitable purposes, and the Queen made her distribute part of it herself. Wishing to give her children yet another lesson of benefi- cence, she desired me on New Year's eve to get from Paris, as in other years, all the fashionable playthings, and have them spread out in her closet. Then taking her children by the hand she showed them all the dolls and mechanical toys which were ranged there, and told them that she had intended to give them some handsome New Year's gifts, but that the cold made the poor so wretched that all her money was spent MAKIE ANTOINETTE. 297 in blankets and clothes to protect them from the rigour of the season, and in supplying them with bread; so that this year they would only have the pleasure of looking at the new play- things. When she returned with her children into her sitting- room, she said there was still an unavoidable expense to be incurred; that assuredly many mothers would at that season think as she did ; that the toyman must lose by it ; and there- fore she gave him fifty louis to repay him for the cost of his journey, and console him for having sold nothing. The purchase of Saint Cloud, a matter very simple in it- self, had, on account of the prevailing spirit, unfavourable consequences to the Queen. The Palace of Versailles, pulled to pieces in the interior by a variety of new arrangements, and mutilated in point of uni- formity by the removal of the ambassadors' staircase, and of the peristyle of columns placed at the end of the marble court, was equally in want of substantial and ornamental repair. The King therefore desired M. Micque to lay before him sev- eral plans for the repairs of the Palace. He consulted me on certain arrangements analogous to some of those adopted in the Queen's establishment, and in my presence asked M. Mic- que how much money would be wanted for the execution of the whole work, and how many years he would be in completing it. I forget how many millions were mentioned: M. Micque re- plied that six years would be sufficient time if the Treasury made the necessary periodical advances without any delay. " And how many years shall you require," said the King, " if the advances are not punctually made ? " — " Ten, Sire," re- plied the architect. " We must then reckon upon ten years," said his Majesty, "and put off this great undertaking until the year 1790; it will occupy the rest of the century." The King afterwards talked of the depreciation of property which took place at Versailles, whilst the Eegent removed the Court 298 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF of Louis XV. to the Tuileries, and said that he must consider how to prevent that inconvenience; it was the desire to do this that promoted the purchase of Saint Cloud. The Queen first thought of it one day when she was riding out with the Duchesse de Polignac and the Comtesse Diana; she mentioned it to the King, who was much pleased with the thought; the purchase confirming him in the intention, which he had enter- tained for ten years, of quitting Versailles. The King determined that the ministers, public officers, pages, and a considerable part of his stabling should remain at Versailles. Messieurs de Breteuil and de Calonne were in- structed to treat with the Due d'Orleans for the purchase of Saint Cloud; at first they hoped to be able to conclude the business by a mere exchange. The value of the Chateau de Choisy, de La Muette, and a forest, was equivalent to the sum demanded by the House of Orleans ; and in the exchange which the Queen expected she only saw a saving to be made instead of an increase of expense. By this arrangement the government of Choisy, in the hands of the Due de Coigny, and that of La Muette, in the hands of the Marechal de Soubise, would be suppressed. At the same time the two concierges, and all the servants employed in these two royal houses, would be reduced ; but while the treaty was going forward Messieurs de Breteuil and de Calonne gave up the point of exchange, and some millions in cash were substituted for Choisy and La Muette. The Queen advised the King to give her Saint Cloud, as a means of avoiding the establishment of a governor; her plan being to have merely a concierge there, by which means the governor's expenses would be saved. The King agreed, and Saint Cloud was purchased for the Queen. She provided the same liveries for the porters at the gates and servants at the chateau as for those at Trianon. The concierge at the latter place had put up some regulations for the household headed : MARIE ANTOINETTE. 299 " By order of the Queen" The same thing was done at Saint Cloud. The Queen's livery at the door of a palace where it was expected none but that of the King would be seen, and the words, "By order of the Queen," at the head of the printed papers pasted near the iron gates, caused a great sensation, and produced a very unfortunate effect, not only among the common people but also among persons of a supe- rior class. They saw in it an attack upon the customs of mon- archy, and customs are nearly equal to laws. The Queen heard of this, but she thought that her dignity would be compromised if she made any change in the form of these regulations, though they might have been altogether superseded without inconvenience. " My name is not out of place," said she, " in gardens belonging to myself; I may give orders there without infringing on the rights of the State." This was her only answer to the representations which a few faithful servants ventured to make on the subject. The discontent of the Pa- risians on this occasion probably induced M. cTEspremenil, upon the first troubles about the Parliament, to say that it was impolitic and immoral to see palaces belonging to a Queen of France.1 The Queen was very much dissatisfied with the manner in which M. de Calonne had managed this matter. The Abbe i The Queen never forgot this affront of M. d'Esprgmenil's ; she said that as it was offered at a time when social order had not yet been disturbed, she had felt the severest mortification at it. Shortly before the downfall of the throne M. d'Esprgmenil, having openly espoused the King's side, was insulted in the gardens of the Tuileries by the Jacobins, and so ill-treated that he was carried home very ill. Somebody recommended the Queen, on account of the royalist principles he then professed, to send and inquire for him. She replied that she was truly grieved at what had happened to M. d'Esprgmenil, but that mere policy should never induce her to show any particular solicitude about the man who had been the first to make so insulting an attack upon her character. — Madame Cam- pan. 300 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF de Vermond, the most active and persevering of that minister's enemies, saw with delight that the expedients of those from whom' alone new resources might be expected were gradually becoming exhausted, because the period when the Archbishop of Toulouse would be placed over the finances was thereby hastened. The royal navy had resumed an imposing attitude during the war for the independence of America; a glorious peace with England had compensated for the former attacks of our enemies upon the fame of France; and the throne was sur- rounded by numerous heirs. The sole ground of uneasiness was in the finances, but that uneasiness related only to the manner in which they were administered. In a word, France felt confident in its own strength and resources, when two events, which seem scarcely worthy of a place in history, but which have nevertheless an important one in that of the French Eevolution, introduced a spirit of ridicule and con- tempt, not only against the highest ranks, but even against the most august personages. I allude to a comedy and a great swindling transaction. Beaumarchais had long possessed a reputation in certain circles in Paris for his wit and musical talents, and at the theatres for dramas more or less indifferent, when his Barber of Seville procured him a higher position among dramatic writers. His memoirs against M. Goesman had amused Paris by the ridicule they threw upon a parliament which was dis- liked; and his admission to an intimacy with M. de Maurepas procured him a degree of influence over important affairs. He then became ambitious of influencing public opinion by a kind of drama, in which established manners and customs should be held up to popular derision and the ridicule of the new philosophers. After several years of prosperity the minds of the French had become more generally critical; and when MARIE ANTOINETTE. 301 Beaumarchais had finished his monstrous but diverting Mar- riage of Figaro all people of any consequence were eager for the gratification of hearing it read, the censors having decided that it should not be performed. These readings of Figaro grew so numerous that people were daily heard to say, " I have been (or I am going to be) at the reading of Beaumarchais' play/' The desire to see it performed became universal: an expression that he had the art to use compelled, as it were, the approbation of the nobility, or of persons in power, who aimed at ranking among the magnanimous; he made his Figaro say that " none but little minds dreaded little books." The Baron de Breteuil, and all the men of Madame de Polignac's circle, entered the lists as the warmest protectors of the comedy. So- licitations to the King became so pressing that his Majesty determined to judge for himself of a work which so much engrossed public attention, and desired me to ask M. Le Noir, lieutenant of police, for the manuscript of the Marriage of Figaro. One morning I received a note from the Queen ordering me to be with her at three o'clock, and not to come without having dined, for she should detain me some time. When I got to the Queen's inner closet I found her alone with the King ; a chair and a small table were ready placed opposite to them, and upon the table lay an enormous manuscript in sev- eral books. The King said to me, " There is Beaumarchais' comedy; you must read it to us. You will find several parts troublesome on account of the erasures and references. I have already run it over, but I wish the Queen to be acquainted with the work. You will not mention this reading to anyone." I began. The King frequently interrupted me by praise or censure, which was always just. He frequently exclaimed, " That's in bad taste ; this man continually brings the Italian concetti on the stage." At that soliloquy of Figaro in which he attacks various points of government, and especially at •• 302 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF the tirade against State prisons, the King rose up and said in- dignantly, " That's detestable ; that shall never be played ; the Bastille must be destroyed before the licence to act this play can be any other than an act of the most dangerous inconsistency. This man scoffs at everything that should be respected in a government." " It will not be played, then? " said the Queen. "No, certainly/' replied Louis XVI.; "you may rely upon that." Still it was constantly reported that Figaro was about to be performed; there were even wagers laid upon the subject; I never should have laid any myself, fancying that I was bet- ter informed as to the probability than anybody else; if I had, however, I should have been completely deceived. The protec- tors of Beaumarchais, feeling certain that they would succeed in their scheme of making his work public in spite of the King's prohibition, distributed the parts in the Marriage of Figaro, among the actors of the Theatre Frangais. Beaumar- chais had made them enter into the spirit of his characters, and they determined to enjoy at least one performance of this so-called chef dceuvre. The first gentleman of the chamber agreed that M. de la Ferte should lend the theatre of the Hotel des Menus Plaisirs, at Paris, which was used for rehearsals of the opera ; tickets were distributed to a vast number of leaders of society; and the day for the performance was fixed. The King heard of all this only on the very morning, and signed a lettre de cachet,2 which prohibited the performance. When the messenger who brought the order ^arrived, he found a part of the theatre already filled with spectators, and the streets leading to the Hotel des Menus Plaisirs filled with carriages ; the piece was not performed. This prohibition of the King's was looked upon as an attack on public liberty. 2 A lettre de cachet was any written order proceeding from the King. The term was not confined merely to orders for arrest. — Madame Campan. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 303 The disappointment produced such discontent that the words oppression and tyranny were uttered with no less passion and bitterness at that time than during the days which immediately preceded the downfall of the throne. Beaumarchais was so far put off his guard by rage as to exclaim, " Well ! gentlemen, he won't suffer it to be played here; but I swear it shall be played — perhaps in the very choir of Notre Dame ! " There was something prophetic in these words.3 It was generally insinuated shortly afterwards that Beaumarchais had deter- mined to suppress all those parts of his work which could be obnoxious to Government; and on pretence of judging of the sacrifices made by the author, M. de Yaudreuil obtained per- mission to have this far-famed Marriage of Figaro performed at his country house. M. Campan was asked there; he had frequently heard the work read, and did not now find the alterations that had been announced ; this he observed to several persons belonging to the Court, who maintained that the author had made all the sacrifices required. M. Campan was so aston- ished at these persistent assertions of an obvious falsehood that he replied by a quotation from Beaumarchais himself, and assuming the tone of Basilio in the Barber of Seville, he said, " Faith, gentlemen, I don't know who is deceived here ; every- body is in the secret." They then came to the point, and begged him to tell the Queen positively that all which had been pronounced reprehensible in M. de Beaumarchais' play had been cut out. My father-in-law contented himself with reply- ing that his situation at Court would not allow of his giving an opinion unless the Queen should first speak of the piece to him. The Queen said nothing to him about the matter. Shortly afterwards permission to perform this play was at 3 The Keeper of the Seals had constantly opposed the performance of this play. The King said in his presence one day, " You will see that Beaumarchais will have more weight than the Keeper of the Seals." — Note by the Editor. 304 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF length obtained. The Queen thought the people of Paris would be finely tricked when they saw merely an ill-conceived piece, devoid of interest, as it must appear when deprived of its satire.4 Under the persuasion that there was not a passage left capable of malicious or dangerous application, Monsieur attended the first performance in a public box. The mad en- thusiasm of the public in favour of the piece and Monsieur's just displeasure are well known. The author was sent to prison soon afterwards, though his work was extolled to the skies, and though the Court durst not suspend its performance. * " The King," says Grimm, " made sure that the public would judge unfavourably of the work. He said to the Marquis de Mon- tesquiou, who was going to see the first representation, ' Well, what do you augur of its success ? ' ' Sire, I hope the piece will fail.' ' And so do I,' replied the King." " There is something still more ridiculous than my piece," said Beaumarchais himself ; " that is, its success." Mademoiselle Arnould foresaw it the first day, and exclaimed, " It is a production that will fail fifty nights successively." There was as crowded an audi- ence on the seventy-second night as on the first. The following is extracted from Grimm's Correspondence: " Answer of M. de Beaumarchais to the Due de Villequier, who requested the use of his private box for some ladies who wished to see ' Figaro,' without being seen. " I have no respect, M. de le Due, for women who indulge them- selves in seeing any play which they think indecorous, provided they can do so in secret. I lend myself to no such fancies. I have given my piece to the public, to amuse, and not to instruct, not to give any compounding prudes the pleasure of going to admire it in a private box, and balancing their account with conscience by censuring it in company. To indulge in the pleasure of vice and assume the credit of virtue is the hypocrisy of the age. My piece is not of a doubtful nature; it must be patronised in good earnest, or avoided altogether; therefore, with all respect to you, M. le Due, I shall keep my box." This letter was circulated all over Paris for a week. At first it was said to be addressed to the Due de Villequier, and afterwards to the Due d'Aumont. It got in this form as far as Versailles, where it was pronounced an extraordinary piece of impertinence. It seemed the more insolent inasmuch as it was well known that certain very great ladies had declared that if did go to see the Marriage of Figaro, it should be only in a MARIE ANTOINETTE. 305 The Queen testified her displeasure against all who had assisted the author of the Marriage of Figaro to deceive the King into giving his consent that it should be represented. Her reproaches were more particularly directed against M. de Vaudreuil for having had it performed at his house. The vio- lent and domineering disposition of her favourite's friend at last became disagreeable to her. One evening on the Queen's return from the Duchess's, she desired her valet de chambre to bring her billiard cue into her closet, and ordered me to open the box that contained it. I was surprised at not finding the padlock belonging to it, the key of which the Queen wore on her watch chain. I opened the box and took out the cue, broken in two. It was of ivory and formed of a single elephant's tooth; the butt was of gold and very tastefully wrought. " There," said she, " that is the way M. de Vaudreuil has treated a thing I valued so highly. I had laid it upon the couch while I was talking to the Duchess in the salon; he had the assurance to make use of it, and in a fit of passion about a blocked ball, he struck the cue so violently against the table that he broke it in two. The noise brought me back into the billiard room; I did not say a word to him, but my looks showed him how angry I was. He is the more provoked at the accident, as he already aspires to the post of Governor to the Dauphin, and with that object in view it is not wise to display passion. I never thought of him private box. The most zealous partisans of M. de Beaumarchais did not dare even to attempt to vindicate him. After having en- joyed this new flash of celebrity owing either to his own consideration or to the threats of his enemies M. de Beaumarchais was compelled to announce publicly that his famous letter never was written to a duke or peer, but to one of his friends, and that upon the first spur of dissatisfaction. It was proved that the letter was written to a president of one of the parliaments, whereupon indignation sub- sided; for that which appeared impertinent when addressed to men of the Court, was deemed so no longer when addressed to one of the long robe." — Note by the Editor. VOL. 1—20 306 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP for the place. It is quite enough to have consulted my heart only in the choice of a governess ; and I will not suffer that of a Governor to the Dauphin to be at all affected by the influ- ence of my friends. I should be responsible for it to the nation. The poor man does not know that my determination is taken; for I have never expressed it to the Duchess. There- fore, judge of the sort of evening he must have passed ! This is not the first occurrence that has shown me that if Queens are bored in their own circle, they are compromised in the circles of others." MARIE ANTOINETTE. CHAPTEE XII. The diamond necklace — Account of Bcehmer the jeweller — His in- terview with Madame Campan — The Cardinal de Rohan interro- gated in the King's Cabinet — Particulars relative to Madame de Lamotte and her family — Steps taken by the Cardinal's rela- tions — The prosecution — The clergy remonstrate — Decree of the Parliament — The Queen's grief — Remark of Louis XVI. SHORTLY after the public mind had been thrown into agitation by the performance of the Marriage of Figaro, an obscure plot, contrived by swindlers and matured in a cor- rupted society, attacked the Queen's character in a vital point and assailed the majesty of the throne. I am about to speak of the notorious affair of the necklace purchased, as it was said, for the Queen by Cardinal de Kohan.1 I will narrate every circumstance that has come to my knowl- edge relating to this business; the most minute particulars will prove how little reason the Queen had to apprehend the blow by which she was threatened; and which must be attrib- uted to a fatality that human prudence could not have fore- seen; but from which, to say the truth, she might have ex- tricated herself with more skill.2 1 For full details of the affair of the diamond necklace, see the work by M. fimile Campardon, Marie Antoinette et le Proces du Collier, Paris, Plon, 1863. The Memoirs of Madame Campan are frequently quoted in this work, in which the answers of the Cardinal and of the other persons implicated to the interrogations made are given, with an engraving of the too celebrated collar. 2 In order to comprehend the account about to be given by Madame Campan, and to appreciate the importance of her historical testimony on this wretched intrigue, the reader should be in possession of the leading facts. There are many remarkable circumstances which, 308 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF I have already said that in 1774 the Queen purchased jewels of Bcehmer to the value of three hundred and sixty thousand francs, that she paid for them herself out of her own private funds, and that it required several years to enable her to com- plete the payment. The King afterwards presented her with a set of rubies and diamonds of a fine water, and subsequently with a pair of bracelets worth two hundred thousand francs. The Queen, after having her diamonds reset in new patterns, told Brehmer that she found her jewel-case rich enough, and was not desirous of making any addition to it.3 Still, this though connected with Madame Campan's narrative, do not form part of it, because she speaks only of what she knew well. A great number of persons acted culpable parts in this shameful drama; it is necessary to be acquainted with them. No one knew the whole affair better than the Abbe Georgel, but at the same time no one was more devoted to the Cardinal de Rohan, or showed more in- genuity in discovering means of defending him, or greater skill in throwing, with artfully affected delicacy, a false light upon the irreproachable conduct of a Princess made the victim of shocking suspicions through either the blind credulity or the corruption of a Prince of the Church. The Abbe" reveals in this part of his Memoirs a respectful hatred against Marie Antoinette. He sup- poses the Queen to be aware of the transaction, while she was still wrapped in all the security of a woman whose imagination could not even conceive the idea of such a masterpiece of intrigue. The reader will do well to glance at his statement [see Appendix] and observe how far the assertions it contains are weakened or disproved by Madame Campan. — Note by the Editor. 3 Except on those days when the assemblies at Court were par- ticularly attended* such as the 1st of January and the 2d of Feb- ruary, devoted to the procession of the Order of the Holy Ghost, and on the festivals of Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, the Queen no longer wore any dresses but muslin or white Florentine taffety. Her head-dress was merely a hat; the plainest were pre- ferred; and her diamonds never quitted their caskets but for the dresses of ceremony, confined to the days I have mentioned. Be- fore the Queen was five-and-twenty she began to apprehend that she might be induced to make too frequent use of flowers and of ornaments, which at that time were exclusively reserved for youth. Madame Bertin having brought a wreath for the head and neck, MARIE ANTOINETTE. 309 jeweller busied himself for some years in forming a collection of the finest diamonds circulating in the trade, in order to compose a necklace of several rows, which he hoped to induce her Majesty to purchase ; he brought it to M. Campan, request- ing him to mention it to the Queen, that she might ask to see it, and thus be induced to wish to possess it. This M. Campan refused to do, telling him that he should be stepping out of the line of his duty were he to propose to the Queen an expense of sixteen hundred thousand francs, and that he believed neither the lady of honour nor the tirewoman would take upon herself to execute such a commission. Bcehmer persuaded the King's first gentleman for the year to show this superb necklace to his Majesty, who admired it so much that he himself wished to see the Queen adorned with it and sent the case to her; but she assured him she should much regret incurring so great an expense for such an article, that she had already very beautiful diamonds, that jewels of that description were now worn at Court not more than four or five times a year, that the neck- lace must be returned, and that the money would be much bet- ter employed in building a man-of-war.4 Bcehmer, in sad composed of roses, the Queen feared that the brightness of the flowers might be disadvantageous to her complexion. She was un- questionably too severe upon herself, her beauty having as yet experienced no alteration; it is easy to conceive the concert of praise and compliment that replied to the doubt she had expressed. The Queen, approaching me, said, " I charge you, from this day, to give me notice when flowers shall cease to become me." " I shall do no such thing," I replied immediately ; " I have not read Gil Bias with- out profiting in some degree from it, and I find your Majesty's order too much like that given him by the Archbishop of Granada, to warn him of the moment when he should begin to fall off in the composition of his homilies." " Go," said the Queen ; " you are less sincere than Gil Bias; and I would have been more amenable than the Archbishop." — Madame Campan. * Messrs. Bcehmer and Bassange, jewellers to the Crown, were proprietors of a superb diamond necklace, which had, as it was said, been intended for the Comtesse du Barry. Being under the 310 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF tribulation at finding his expectations delusive, endeavoured for some time, it is said, to dispose of his necklace among the various Courts of Europe. A year after his fruitless attempts, Bcehmer again caused his diamond necklace to be offered to the King, proposing that it should be paid for partly by instal- ments, and partly in life annuities; this proposal was repre- sented as highly advantageous, and the King, in my presence, mentioned the matter once more to the Queen. I remember the Queen told him that if the bargain was really not bad, he might make it, and keep the necklace until the marriage of one of his children; but that, for her part, she would never wear it, being unwilling that the world should have to reproach her with having coveted so expensive an article. The King replied that their children were too young to justify such an expense, which would be greatly increased by the number of years the diamonds would remain useless, and that he would finally decline the offer. Boehmer complained to everybody of his misfortune, and all reasonable people blamed him for having collected diamonds to so considerable an amount without any positive order for them. This man had purchased the office of jeweller to the Crown, which gave him some rights of entry at Court. After several months spent in ineffectual attempts to carry his point, and in idle complaints, he obtained an audi- ence of the Queen, who had with her the young Princess her daughter; her Majesty did not know for what purpose Bcehmer sought this audience, and had not the slightest idea that it was to speak to her again about an article twice refused by herself and the King. Bcehmer threw himself upon his knees, clasped his hands, burst into tears, and exclaimed, "Madame, I am ruined and necessity of selling it, they offered it, during the last war, to the King and Queen; but their Majesties made the following prudent answer : " We stand more in need of ships than of jewels." — Secret Correspondence of the Court of Louis XVI. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 311 disgraced if you do not purchase my necklace. I cannot out- live so many misfortunes. When I go hence I shall throw myself into the river." "Rise, Bcehmer," said the Queen, in a tone sufficiently severe to recall him to himself ; " I do not like these rhapsodies; honest men have no occasion to fall on their knees to make their requests. If you were to destroy yourself I should regret you as a madman in whom I had taken an interest, but I should not be in any way responsible for that misfortune. Not only have I never ordered the article which causes your present despair, but whenever you have talked to me about fine collections of jewels I have told you that I should not add four diamonds to those which I already pos- sessed. I told you myself that I declined taking the necklace ; the King wished to give it to me, but I refused him also ; never mention it to me again. Divide it, and try to sell it piecemeal, and do not drown yourself. I am very angry with you for acting this scene of despair in my presence and before this child. Let me never see you behave thus again." Boehmer withdrew, overwhelmed with confusion, and nothing further was then heard of him. When Madame Sophie was born the Queen told me M. de Sainte James, a rich financier, had apprised her that Bcehmer was still intent upon the sale of his necklace, and that she ought, for her own satisfaction, to endeavour to learn what the man had done with it; she desired me the first time I should meet him to speak to him about it, as if from the interest I took in his welfare. I spoke to him about his necklace, and he told me he had been very fortunate, having sold it at Con- stantinople for the favourite sultana. I communicated this answer to the Queen, who was delighted with it, but could not comprehend how the Sultan came to purchase his diamonds in Paris. The Queen long avoided seeing Bcehmer, being fearful of 312 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF rash character ; and her valet de chambre, who had the care of her jewels, made the necessary repairs to her ornaments unas- sisted. On the baptism of the Due cTAngouleme in 1785 the King gave him a diamond epaulette and buckles, and directed Bcehmer to deliver them to the Queen. Bcehmer presented them on her return from mass, and at the same time gave into her hands a letter in the form of a petition. In this paper he told the Queen that he was happy to see her "in possession of the finest diamonds known in Europe," and entreated her not to forget him. The Queen read Bcehmer's address to her aloud, and saw nothing in it but a proof of mental aberration ; she lighted the paper at a wax taper standing near her, as she had some letters to seal, saying, " It is not worth keeping." She afterwards much regretted the loss of this enigmatical memorial. After having burnt the paper, her Majesty said to me, " That man is born to be my torment ; he has always some mad scheme in his head ; remember, the first time you see him, to tell him that I do not like diamonds now, and that I will buy no more so long as I live; that if I had any money to spare, I would rather add to my property at Saint Cloud by the purchase of the land surrounding it ; now, mind you enter into all these particulars and impress them well upon him." I asked whether she wished me to send for him ; she replied in the negative, adding that it would be sufficient to avail myself of the first opportunity afforded by meeting him ; and that the slightest advance towards such a man would be misplaced. On the 1st of August I left Versailles for my country house at Crespy; on the 3d came Bcehmer, extremely uneasy at not having received any answer from the Queen, to ask me whether I had any commission from her to him ; I replied that she had entrusted ine with none; that she had no commands for him, and I faithfully repeated all she had desired me to say to him. "But," said Bcehmer, "the answer to the letter I pre- MARIE ANTOINETTE. 313 sented to her — to whom must I apply for that ? " " To no- body," answered I ; " her Majesty burnt your memorial without even comprehending its meaning." " Ah ! madame ! " ex- claimed he, " that is impossible ; the Queen knows that she has money to pay me ! " " Money, M. Bcehmer ? Your last ac- counts against the Queen were discharged long ago." " Ma- dame, you are not in the secret. A man who is ruined for want of payment of fifteen hundred thousand francs cannot be said to be satisfied." " Have you lost your senses ? " said I ; " for what can the Queen owe you so extravagant a sum ! " " For my necklace, madame," replied Bcehmer coolly. " How ! " returned I, " that necklace again, which you have teased the Queen about so many years! Did you not tell me you had sold it at Constantinople ? " " The Queen desired me to give that answer to all who should speak to me on the sub- ject," said the wretched dupe. He then told me that the Queen wished to have the necklace, and had had it purchased for her by Monseigneur the Cardinal de Kohan. " You are de- ceived," I exclaimed ; " the Queen has not once spoken to the Cardinal since his return from Vienna; there is not a man at her Court less favourably looked upon." " You are deceived yourself, madame," said Bcehmer; "she sees him so much in private, that it was to his Eminence she gave thirty thousand francs, which were paid me as an instalment; she took them, in his presence, out of the little secretaire of Sevres porcelain next the fireplace in her boudoir." "And the Cardinal told you all this?" "Yes, madame, himself." "What a detest- able plot ! " cried I. — " Indeed, to say the truth, madame, I begin to be much alarmed, for his Eminence assured me that the Queen would wear the necklace on Whit-Sunday, but I did not see it upon her, and it was that which induced me to write to her Majesty." He then asked me what he ought to do. I advised him to go on to Versailles, instead of returning 314 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF to Paris, whence he had just arrived; to obtain an immediate audience from the Baron de Breteuil, who, as head of the King's household, was the minister of the department to which Bceh- mer belonged, and to be circumspect; and I added, that he appeared to me extremely culpable, not as a diamond mer- chant, but because being a sworn officer it was unpardonable of him to have acted without the direct orders of the King, the Queen, or the minister. He answered, that he had not acted without direct orders; that he had in his possession all the notes signed by the Queen, and that he had even been obliged to show them to several bankers in order to induce them to extend the time for his payments. I urged his de- parture for Versailles, and he assured me he would go there immediately. Instead of following my advice, he went to the Cardinal, and it was of this visit of Bcehmer's that his Emi- nence made a memorandum, found in a drawer overlooked by the Abbe Georgel when he burnt, by order of the Cardinal, all the papers which the latter had at Paris. The memorandum was thus worded : " On this day, 3d August, Boehmer went to Madame Campan's country house, and she told him that the Queen had never had his necklace, and that he had been deceived." When Boehmer was gone, I wanted to follow him, and go to the Queen ; my father-in-law prevented me, and ordered me to leave the minister to elucidate such an important affair, observ- ing that it was an infernal plot ; that I had given Boehmer the best advice, and had nothing more to do with the business. Boshmer never said one word to me about the woman De Lamotte, and her name was mentioned for the first time by the Cardinal in his answers to the interrogatories put to him before the King. After seeing the Cardinal, Boahmer went to Trianon, and sent a message to the Queen, purporting that I MARIE ANTOINETTE. 315 had advised him to come and speak to her. His very words were repeated to her Majesty, who said, " He is mad ; I have nothing to say to him, and will not see him." Two or three days afterwards the Queen sent for me to Petit Trianon, to rehearse with me the part of Eosina, which she was to per- form in the Barber of Seville. I was alone with her, sitting upon her couch; no mention was made of anything but the part. After we had spent an hour in the rehearsal, her Majesty asked me why I had sent Bcehmer to her; saying he had been in my name to speak to her, and that she would not see him. It was in this manner that I learnt that he had not followed my advice in the slightest degree. The change of my counte- nance, when I heard the man's name, was very perceptible; the Queen perceived it, and questioned me. I entreated her to see him, and assured her it was of the utmost importance for her peace of mind; that there was a plot going on, of which she was not aware ; and that it was a serious one, since engage- ments signed by herself were shown about to people who had lent Boehmer money. Her surprise and vexation were exces- sive. She desired me to remain at Trianon, and sent off a courier to Paris, ordering Boehmer to come to her upon some pretext which has escaped my recollection. He came next morning; in fact it was the day on which the play was per- formed, and that was the last amusement the Queen allowed herself at that retreat. The Queen made him enter her closet, and asked him by what fatality it was that she was still doomed to hear of his foolish pretence of selling her an article which she had steadily refused for several years ? He replied, that he was compelled, being unable to pacify his creditors any longer. "What are your creditors to me ? " said her Majesty. Boehmer then reg- ularly related to her all that he had been made to believe had 316 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF passed between the Queen and himself through the intervention of the Cardinal. She was equally incensed and surprised at each thing she heard. In vain did she speak; the jeweller, equally importunate and dangerous, repeated incessantly, " Madame, there is no longer time for feigning ; condescend to confess that you have my necklace, and let some assistance be given to me, or my bankruptcy will soon bring the whole to light." It is easy to imagine how the Queen must have suffered. On Bcehmer's going away, I found her in an alarming condi- tion ; the idea that any one could have believed that such a man as the Cardinal possessed her full confidence; that she should have employed him to deal with a tradesman without the King's knowledge, for a thing which she had refused to accept from the King himself, drove her to desperation. She sent first for the Abbe de Vermond, and then for the Baron de Breteuil. Their hatred and contempt for the Cardinal made them too easily forget that the lowest vices do not prevent the higher orders of the empire from being defended by those to whom they have the honour to belong ; that a Eohan, a Prince of the Church, however culpable he might be, would be sure to have a considerable party which would naturally be joined by all the discontented persons of the Court, and all the frondeurs of Paris. They too easily believed that he would be stripped of all the advantages of his rank and order, and given up to the disgrace due to his irregular conduct; they deceived themselves. I saw the Queen after the departure of the Baron and the Abbe ; her agitation' made me shudder. " Hideous vices must be unmasked," said she; "when the Eoman purple and the title of Prince cover a mere money-seeker, a cheat who dares to compromise the wife of his sovereign, France and all Europe should know it." It is evident that from that moment the MARIE ANTOINETTE. 317 fatal plan was decided on. The Queen perceived my alarm; I did not conceal it from her. I knew too well that she had many enemies not to be apprehensive on seeing her attract the attention of the whole world to an intrigue that they would try to complicate still more. I entreated her to seek the most prudent and moderate advice. She silenced me by desiring me to make myself easy, and to rest satisfied that no imprudence would be committed. On the following Sunday, the 15th of August, being the Assumption, at twelve o'clock, at the very moment when the Cardinal, dressed in his pontifical garments, was about to pro- ceed to the chapel, he was sent for into the King's closet, where the Queen then was. The King said to him, " You have pur- chased diamonds of Boehmer ? " — " Yes, Sire." — " What have you done with them ? " — " I thought they had been delivered to the Queen." — " Who commissioned you ? " — " A lady, called the Comtesse de Lamotte-Valois, who handed me a letter from the Queen; and I thought I was gratifying her Majesty by taking this business on myself." The Queen here inter- rupted him and said, " How sir, could you believe that I should select you, to whom I have not spoken for eight years, to nego- tiate anything for me, and especially through the mediation of a woman whom I do not even know?" — "I see plainly," said the Cardinal, " that I have been duped ; I will pay for the necklace ; my desire to please your Majesty blinded me ; I sus- pected no trick in the affair, and I am sorry for it." He then took out of his pocket-book a letter from the Queen to Madame de Lamotte, giving him this commission. The King took it, and holding it towards the Cardinal, said, " This is neither written nor signed by the Queen; how could a Prince of the House of Rohan, and a Grand Almoner of France, ever think that the Queen would sign Marie Antoinette de France? Everybody knows that Queens sign only by their baptismal B18 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF names.5 But, sir," pursued the King, handing him a copy of his letter to Bcehmer, " have you ever written such a letter as this ? " Having glanced over it, the Cardinal said, " I do not remember having written it." — " But what if the original, signed by yourself, were shown to you ? " — " If the letter be signed by myself it is genuine." He was extremely confused, and repeated several times, " I have been deceived, Sire ; I will pay for the necklace. I ask pardon of your Majesties." — " Then explain to me," resumed the King, " the whole of this enigma. I do not wish to find you guilty; I had rather you would justify yourself. Account for all the manoauvres with Bcehmer, these assurances and these letters." The Cardinal then, turning pale, and leaning against the table, said, " Sire, I am too much confused to answer your Majesty in a way " " Compose yourself, Cardinal, and go into my cabinet, you will there find paper, pens, and ink, write what you have to say to me." The Cardinal went into the King's cabinet, and re- turned a quarter of an hour afterwards with a document as confused as his verbal answers had been. The King then said, " Withdraw, sir." The Cardinal left the King's chamber, with the Baron de Breteuil, who gave him in custody to a lieutenant of the Body Guard, with orders to take him to his apartment. M. d'Agoult, aide-major of the Body Guard, afterwards took him into custody, and conducted him to his hotel, and from thence to the Bastille. But while the Cardinal had with him B The Cardinal ought, it has been said, to have detected the forgery of the approbations and signature to the instructions; his place of Grand Almoner gave him the opportunity of knowing both her Majesty's writing and her manner of signing her name. To this important objection it is answered, that it was long since M. de Rohan had seen her writing; that he did not recollect it, that, besides, not being at all suspicious, he had no inducement to en- deavour to verify it; and that the Crown jewellers, to whom he showed the instrument, had not, any more than himself, detected the imposition. — Secret Correspondence of the Court of Louis XVI. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 319 only the young lieutenant of the Body Guard, who was much embarrassed at having such an order to execute, his Eminence met his Jieyduc at the door of the Salon of Hercules; he spoke to him in German ; and then asked the lieutenant if he could lend him a pencil ; the officer gave him that which he carried about him., and the Cardinal wrote to the Abbe Georgel, his grand vicar and friend, instantly to burn all Madame de Lamotte's correspondence, and all his other letters.6 This commission was 6 The Secret Correspondence thus explains the officer's conduct and confusion: — " The lieutenant, being reprimanded for suffering the Cardinal to write, replied that his orders did not forbid it; and that, besides, he had been much disconcerted by the unusual address of the Baron de Breteuil — 'Sir, in the King's name follow me;' that he had not recovered himself and did not perfectly know what he was about. This excuse is not very satisfactory, though it is true that this officer, who was very irregular in his conduct, was much in debt, and at first feared that the order concerned himself personally." The Abbe" Georgel relates the circumstances in a very different manner: — " The Cardinal, at that dreadful moment, gave an astonishing proof of his presence of mind; notwithstanding the escort which surrounded him, favoured by the attendant crowd, he stopped, and stooping down with his face towards the wall, as if to fasten his buckle, snatched out his pencil and hastily wrote a few words upon a scrap of paper placed under his hand in his square red cap. He rose again and proceeded. On entering his house, his people formed a lane; he slipped this paper, unperceived, into the hand of a con- fidential valet de chambre, who waited for him at the door of his apartment." This story is scarcely credible: it is not at the moment of a prisoner's arrest, when an inquisitive crowd surrounds and watches him, that he can stop and write mysterious words. How- ever, the valet de chambre posts off to Paris. He arrives at the palace of the Cardinal between twelve and one o'clock; and his horse falls dead in the stable. " I was in my apartment," says the Abb6 Georgel, " the valet de chambre entered wildly, with a deadly pale- ness on his countenance, and exclaimed, ' All is lost; the Prince is arrested.' He instantly fell, fainting, and dropped the note of which he was the bearer." The portfolio containing the papers which might compromise the Cardinal was immediately placed be- yond the reach of all search. — Note by the Editor. 320 THE PRIVATE LIFE OP executed before M. de Crosne, lieutenant of police, had re- ceived an order from the Baron de Breteuil to put seals upon the Cardinal's papers. The destruction of all his Eminence's correspondence, and particularly that with Madame de La- motte, threw an impenetrable cloud over the whole affair.7 From that moment all proofs of this intrigue disappeared. Madame de Lamotte was apprehended at Bar-sur-Aube ; her husband had already gone to England. From the beginning of this fatal affair all the proceedings of the Court appear to have been prompted by imprudence and want of foresight; the ob- scurity resulting left free scope for the fables of which the voluminous memorials written on one side and the other con- sisted. The Queen so little imagined what could have given rise to the intrigue, of which she was about to become the vic- tim, that at the moment when the King was interrogating the Cardinal, a terrific idea entered her mind. With that rapidity of thought caused by personal interest and extreme agitation, she fancied that if a design to ruin her in the eyes of the King and the French people were the concealed motive of this in- trigue, the Cardinal would, perhaps, affirm that she had the necklace; that he had been honoured with her confidence for this purchase, made without the King's knowledge; and point out some secret place in her apartment, where he might have got some villain to hide it. Want of money and the meanest swindling were the sole motives of this criminal affair. The necklace had already been taken to pieces and sold, partly in London, partly in Holland, and the rest in Paris. The moment the Cardinal's arrest was known a universal 7 Madame de Lamotte was foolishly allowed sufficient time after she heard of the arrest of the Cardinal to burn all the letters she had received from him. Assisted by Beugnot, she completed this at three the same morning that she was arrested at four. — See Memoirs of Count Beugnot, vol. i., p. 74. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 321 clamour arose. Every memorial that appeared during the trial increased the outcry. On this occasion the clergy took that course which a little wisdom and the least knowledge of the spirit of such a body ought to have foreseen. The Eohana and the House of Conde, as well as the clergy, made their com- plaints heard everywhere. The King consented to having a legal judgment, and early in September he addressed letters patent to the Parliament, in which he said that he was " pene- trated with the most just indignation on seeing the means which, by the confession of his Eminence the Cardinal, had been employed in order to inculpate his most dear spouse and companion/' Fatal moment ! in which the Queen found herself, in conse- quence of this highly impolitic step, on trial with a subject, who ought to have been dealt with by the power of the King alone. Mistaken ideas of equity, ignorance and hatred, united with ill-digested advice to dictate a course of conduct injurious at the same time to the royal authority and to public morals. The Princes and Princesses of the House of Conde, and of the Houses of Eohan, Soubise, and Guemenee, put on mourn- ing, and were seen ranged in the way of the members of the Grand Chamber to salute them as they proceeded to the palace, on the days of the Cardinal's trial; and Princes of the blood openly canvassed against the Queen of France. The Pope wished to claim, on behalf of the Cardinal de Eohan, the right belonging to his ecclesiastical rank, and demanded that he should be judged at Eome. The Cardinal de Bernis, ambassador from France to his Holiness, formerly Minister for Foreign Affairs, blending the wisdom of an old diplomatist with the principles of a Prince of the Church, wished that this scandalous affair should be hushed up. The King's aunts, who were on very intimate terms with the VOL. 1—21 322 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF ambassador, adopted his opinion, and the conduct of the King and Queen was equally and loudly censured in the apartments of Versailles and in the hotels and coffee-houses of Paris. It is easy to refer to this transaction, alike fatal and unex- pected, as wickedly planned as it was weakly and injudiciously punished, disorders which furnished many weapons to the party opposed to authority. Madame, the King's sister-in-law, had been the sole pro- tectress of De Lamotte, and had confined her patronage to granting her a pension of twelve to fifteen hundred francs. Her brother was in the navy, but the Marquis de Chabert, to whom he had been recommended, could never train a good officer. The Queen in vain endeavoured to call to mind the features of this person, of whom she had often heard as an intriguing woman, who came frequently on Sundays to the gal- lery of Versailles. At the time when all France was engrossed by the prosecution against the Cardinal, the portrait of the Comtesse de Lamotte- Valois was publicly sold. Her Majesty desired me one day, when I was going to Paris, to buy her the engraving, which was said to be a tolerable likeness, that she might ascertain whether she could recognise in it any person whom she might have seen in the gallery.8 The woman De Lamotte's father was a peasant at Auteuil, though he called himself Valois. Madame de Boulainvilliers once saw from her terrace two pretty little peasant girls, each labouring under a heavy bundle of sticks. The priest of the village, who was walking with her, told her that the children possessed some curious papers, and that he had no doubt they were the descendants of a Valois, an illegitimate son of one of the Princes of that name.9 8 The public, with the exception of the lowest class, were ad- mitted into the gallery and larger apartments of Versailles, as they were into the park. — Madame Campan. ^ Madame de Lamotte (Jeanne de Saint Re" mi de Valois) was MARIE ANTOINETTE. 323 The family of Valois had long ceased to appear in the world. Hereditary vices had gradually plunged them into the deepest misery. I have heard that the last Valois then known of occu- pied the estate called Gros Bois; that as he seldom came to Court, Louis XIII. asked him what he was about that he re- mained so constantly in the country; and that this M. de Valois merely answered, "Sire, I only do there what I ought." 10 It was shortly afterwards discovered that he was coining, Neither the Queen herself nor any one near her ever had the slightest connection with the woman De Lamotte; and during her prosecution she could point out but one of the Queen's servants, named Desclos, a valet of the Queen's bed-chamber, to whom she pretended she had delivered Bcehmer's necklace. This Desclos was a very honest man; upon being confronted with the woman De Lamotte, it was proved that she had never seen him but once, which was at the house of the wife of a surgeon-accoucheur at Versailles, the only person she visited at Court ; and that she had not given him the necklace. Madame de Lamotte married a private in Monsieur's body-guard; she lodged at Versailles at the Belle Image, a very inferior fur- nished house; and it is inconceivable how so obscure a person could succeed in making herself believed to be a friend of the Queen, who, though so extremely affable, seldom granted audi- ences, and only to titled persons. The trial of the Cardinal is too generally known to require born at Fontette, in the department of the Aube, 22d July 1756. She was the second child of Jacques de Saint R6mi de Valois, who at first called himself De Luz, and later De Valois, Baron de Saint Remi, the seventh in descent from Henri de Saint Remi, the son of Henri II., King of France, and of Nicole de Savigny, Dame de Saint Remi, de Fontette, du Chatelier, and de Noez. — Marie Antoinette et le Proces du Collier, Paris, Plon, 1863, p. 14. !<> Je n'y fait que ce que je dois, which also means, " I only make what I owe," and in that sense was a true answer. 324 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF me to repeat its details here.11 The point most embarrassing to him was the interview he had in February 1785 with M. de Sainte James, to whom he confided the particulars of the Queen's pretended commission, and showed the contract ap- proved and signed Marie Antoinette de France. The mem- orandum found in a drawer of the Cardinal's bureau, in which he had himself written what Bcehmer told him after having seen me at my country house, was likewise an unfortunate document for his Eminence. I offered to the King to go and declare that Bcehmer had told me that the Cardinal assured him he had received from the Queen's own hand the thirty thousand francs given on ac- count upon the bargain being concluded, and that his Eminence had seen her Majesty take that sum in bills from the porcelain secretaire in her boudoir. The King declined my offer, and "The letters patent which gave the Parliament cognisance of the process were couched in these terms: — " Louis, etc. Having been informed that the Sieurs Bcehmer and Bassange sold the Cardinal de Rohan a necklace of brilliants; that the said Cardinal de Rohan, without the knowledge of the Queen our beloved spouse and consort, told them he was authorised by her to purchase it at the price of sixteen hundred thousand livres, paya- ble by instalments, and showed them false instructions to that effect, which he exhibited as approved by the Queen; that the said neck- lace having been delivered by the said Bcehmer and Bassange to the said Cardinal, and the first payment agreed on between them not having been made good, they had recourse to the Queen; we could not without just indignation see an august name, dear to us on so many accounts, thus daringly used, and the respect due to majesty violated with such unheard-of temerity. We therefore have deemed it incumbent to cite before us the said Cardinal, and upon his declaration to us that he had been deceived by a woman named Lamotte, called De Valois, we judged it indispensable to secure his person and that of the said Lamotte, called De Valois, and to take those steps suggested to us by our wisdom for the discovery of the authors or accomplices of an attempt of this nature; and we have thought fit to refer the matter to you, that the process may be instituted and decided by you, the great chamber and criminal court assembled." — Note by the Editor. MARIE ANTOINETTE. 325 said to me, " "Were you alone when Bcehmer told you this ? " I answered that I was alone with him in my garden. " Well ! " resumed he, " the man would deny the fact ; he is now sure of being paid his sixteen hundred thousand francs, which the Cardinal's family will find it necessary to make good to him ; 12 we can no longer rely upon his sincerity; it would look as if you were sent by the Queen, and that would not be proper." The procureur-general's information was severe on the Cardi- nal. The Houses of Conde and Rohan and the majority of the nobility saw in this affair only an attack on the Prince's rank, the clergy only a blow aimed at the privileges of a Cardinal. The clergy demanded that the unfortunate business of the Prince Cardinal de Eohan should be submitted to ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and the Archbishop of Narbonne, then President of the Convocation, made representations upon the subject to the King ; 1S the bishops wrote to his Majesty to remind him 12 The guilty woman no sooner knew that all was about to be discovered than she sent for the jewellers, and told them the Cardinal had perceived that the agreement, which he believed to have been signed by the Queen, was a false and forged document. " How- ever," added she, " the Cardinal possesses a considerable fortune, and he can very well pay you." These words reveal the whole secret. The Countess had taken the necklace to herself, and flattered her- self that M. de Rohan, seeing himself deceived and cruelly imposed upon, would determine to pay and make the best terms he could, rather than suffer a matter of this nature to become public. — Secret Correspondence of the Court of Louis XVI. is The clergy, then assembled, embraced this opportunity to assert its rights. The Archbishop of Narbonne spoke: — "My lords and gentlemen, no one among us is unaware that Cardinal de Rohan has had the misfortune to incur the King's displeasure. Without doubt, we have reason to fear that his guilt has been great, since his Majesty has thought proper to arrest him in a public manner, to secure his person and his papers. But Cardinal de Rohan is both a cardinal and a grand almoner, as well as bishop of the kingdom. This latter title, common to ourselves as well as to him, obliges us to claim the observance of the regulations which prescribe that a bishop must be tried by those of his own rank. God forbid that 326 THE PRIVATE LIFE OF that a private ecclesiastic implicated in the affair then pending would have a right to claim his constitutional judges, and that this right was refused to a cardinal, his superior in the hier- archical order.14 In short, the clergy and the greater part of the nobility were at that time outrageous against authority, and chiefly against the Queen. The procureur-general's conclusions, and those of a part of the heads of the magistracy, were as severe towards the Cardi- nal as the information had been; yet he was fully acquitted by a majority of three voices ; the woman De Lamotte was con- demned to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned ; and her hus- band, for contumacy, was condemned to the galleys for life. As soon as I heard of the sentence passed on the Cardinal I went to the Queen. She heard my voice in the anteroom. She called to me ; I found her very much agitated. In a faltering voice she said, " Condole with me ; the intriguer who wished to ruin me, or get money by misusing my name, and adopting my signature, has just been fully acquitted; but," added she, with warmth, "as a Frenchwoman let me pity you. Unfor- tunate indeed are a people who have for their supreme tribunal a set of men who consult only their passions; some of whom are capable of being corrupted, and others of an audacity which they have always manifested against authority, and which they by so doing we should pretend to render our order exempt from punishment, and seduce it from the obedience due to the King! " — Note by the Editor. i* The Sovereign Pontiff assembled a consistory, which unani- mously declared that the Cardinal de Rohan had erred against his dignity as a member of the sacred college in recognising the authority of Parliament, that he was suspended for six months, and that if he persisted he should be struck out of the list of cardinals. An Abb£ Lemoine, a doctor of the Sorbonne, had to be sent to Rome to prove to the Pope that M. de Rohan had made the protests required by his dignity, and that he had only accepted the judgment of a secular tribunal because he had to yield to the will of his King. — Campardon, Marie Antoinette et al Proces y the Editor. 8 Louis, Dauphin of France, who died at Versailles on the 4th of June 1789, gave promise of intellectual precocity. The following particulars, which convey some idea of his disposition, and of the assiduous attention bestowed upon him by the Duchesse de Polignac, MARIE ANTOINETTE. 343 draw from the Queen, already overwhelmed with apprehensions respecting the state of the kingdom ! Her grief was enhanced by petty intrigues, which, when frequently renewed, became intolerable. An open quarrel between the families and friends of the Due (JHarcourt, the Dauphin's governor, and those of the Duchesse de Polignac, his governess, added greatly to the Queen's affliction. The young Prince showed a strong dislike to the Duchesse de Polignac, who attributed it either to the Due or the Duchesse dHarcourt, and came to make her com- plaints respecting it to the Queen. The Dauphin twice sent her out of his room, saying to her, with that maturity of man- ner which long illness always gives to children : " Go out, Duchess, you are so fond of using perfumes, and they always make me ill ; " and yet she never used any. The Queen per- ceived, also, that his prejudices against her friend extended will be found in a work of that time : — "At two years old the Dauphin was very pretty: he articulated well, and answered ques- tions put to him intelligently. While he was, at the Chateau de La Muette everybody was at liberty to see him. Having received, in the presence of the visitors, a box of sweetmeats sent him by the Queen with her portrait upon it, he said, "Ah! that's mamma's pic- ture." The Dauphin was dressed plainly, like a sailor; there was nothing to distinguish him from other children in external appear- ance but the cross of Saint Louis, the blue ribbon, and the Order of the Fleece, decorations that are the distinctive signs of his rank. The Duchesse Jules de Polignac, his governess, scarcely ever left him for a single instant: she gave up all the Court excursions and amuse- ments in order to devote her whole attention to him. The Prince always manifested a great regard for M. de Bourset, his valet de chambre. During the illness of which he died, he one day asked for a pair of scissors; that gentleman reminded him that they were forbidden. The child insisted mildly, and they were obliged to yield to him. Having got the scissors, he cut off a lock of his hair, which he wrapped in a sheet of paper : ' There, sir,' said he to his valet de chambre, ' there is the only present I can make you, having nothing at my command; but when I am dead you will present this pledge to my papa and mamma ; and while they remember me, I hope they will not forget you.' " — Note by the Editor. 344 THE PK1VATE LIFE OF to herself ; her son would no longer speak in her presence. She knew that he had become fond of sweetmeats, and offered him some marsh-mallow and jujube lozenges. The under-govern- ors and the first valet de chambre requested her not to give the Dauphin anything, as he was to receive no food of any kind without the consent of the faculty. I forbear to describe the wound this prohibition inflicted upon the Queen; she felt it the more deeply because she was aware it was unjustly be- lieved she gave a decided preference to the Duke of Normandy, whose ruddy health and amiability did, in truth, form a strik- ing contrast to the languid look and melancholy disposition of his elder brother. She could not doubt that a plot had for some time existed to deprive her of the affection of a child whom she loved as a good and tender mother ought. Previous to the audience granted by the King on the 10th August 1788 to the envoy of the Sultan Tippoo Saib, she had begged the Due d'Harcourt to divert the Dauphin, whose deformity was already apparent, from his intention to be present at that cere- mony, being unwilling to expose him to the gaze of the crowd of inquisitive Parisians who would be in the gallery. Not- withstanding this injunction the Dauphin was suffered to write to his mother, requesting her permission to be present at the audience. The Queen was obliged to refuse him, and warmly reproached the governor, who merely answered, that he could not oppose the wishes of a sick child. A year before the death of the Dauphin the Queen lost the Princesse Sophie ; this was. as the Queen said, the first of a series of misfortunes.9 • The article on Louis XVI. in the Biographie Universelle makes no mention of the Princesse Sophie. " This Prince," says the work in question, " had three children : Louis, the Dauphin, who died in 1789; Louis XVII.; and Marie Thgrese Charlotte, now Duchesse d'AngoulSme." The omission is of little importance; but we are surprised, when the family of Louis XVI. is spoken of, to meet with a mistake in an article signed Bonald. — Note by the Editor. APPENDIX. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. " THE Comtesse de Lamotte was born in Champagne, under a thatched roof and in indigent circumstances, though she has since proved her descent, on the side of the Comtes de Saint Kemi, from the royal House of Yalois. D'Hozier, the genealogist, confirmed it by his certificate. She became the wife of M. de Lamotte, a gentleman and a private gendarme. Their united resources were very limited, and she presented herself before the Grand Almoner * to interest his generosity, and at the same time to implore his good offices with the King. The Comtesse de Lamotte, without possessing beauty, was gifted with all the graces of youth, and her countenance was intelligent and attractive. She expressed herself with fluency, and gave an air of truth to her appeals. The mis- fortunes of a descendant of the House of Valois excited a deep interest in the compassionate breast of the Cardinal de Eohan, who would have rejoiced in placing her on a level with her ancestors; but the finances of the King did not permit such bounty, and he could only supply the exigencies of the moment. The artful woman soon imagined that the heart of her benefactor was susceptible of yet stronger impressions; gratitude and fresh wants renewed her visits and her inter- views. His Eminence advised her to address herself imme- diately to the Queen, presuming that that generous Princess would be struck by the contrast between her position and her birth, and would doubtless find some means of extricating her i Cardinal de Rohan. 346 APPENDIX from so painful a situation. The Cardinal, avowing that he was himself unable to procure her an interview with the Queen, described to Madame de Lamotte the deep mortifica- tion he experienced in having incurred the displeasure of her Majesty; it created, he observed, a bitterness in his soul which poisoned his happiest moments. This confidence gave rise to a plan of imposture to which the annals of human credulity can furnish few parallels. The outline of the scheme was as follows: — Madame de Lamotte undertook to persuade the Cardinal that she had obtained a considerable degree of intimacy with the Queen; that, influenced by the excellent qualities she had discovered in the Grand Almoner, she had spoken of them so often and with so much enthusiasm to her Majesty, that she had by degrees succeeded in removing her prejudices, and Marie Antoinette had permitted the Cardinal to justify himself to her; and finally, had desired to have a correspondence with him, which should be kept secret till the auspicious moment should arrive for the open avowal of his complete restoration to her favour. The Comtesse de Lamotte was to be the vehicle of his correspondence, the result of which would be to place the Cardinal at the very summit of favour and influence. " Madame de Lamotte, after having increased the hopes of the Cardinal with all the power of intrigue of which she was mistress, at length said to him, ' I am authorised by the Queen to demand of you, in writing, a justification for the faults that you are accused of.' This authorisation, invented by the Comtesse de Lamotte, and credited by the Cardinal, appeared to him the herald of an auspicious day; in a little time his written apology was confided to Madame de Lamotte. Some days afterwards she brought him an answer, written on a small sheet of gilt-edged paper, in which Marie Antoinette, whose handwriting was successfully imitated, was made to say, 'I APPENDIX 347 have read your letter. I am rejoiced to find you not guilty. At present I am not able to grant you the audience you desire. When circumstances permit, you shall be informed of it. Be discreet/ These few words caused in the Cardinal a delirium of satisfaction which it would be difficult to describe. Ma- dame de Lamotte from that moment was his tutelary angel, who smoothed for him the path to happiness, and from that period she might have obtained from him whatever she de- sired. Soon afterwards, encouraged by success, she fabricated a correspondence between the Queen and the Cardinal. The demands for money, which, under different pretexts, the Queen appeared to make on the Grand Almoner in these forged let- ters, produced Madame de Lamotte 120,000 livres; and yet nothing opened the eyes of this credulous and immoral man to the deceit practised on him. . . . " Meanwhile some speedy cures, effected in cases pronounced incurable in Switzerland and Strasburg, spread the name of Cagliostro far and wide, and raised his renown to that of a miraculous physician. His attention to the poor, and his contempt for the rich, excited the greatest enthusiasm. Those whom he chose to honour with his familiarity left his society in ecstasies at his transcendent qualities. The Cardinal de Eohan was at his residence at Saverne when the Comte de Cagliostro astonished Strasburg and all Switzerland with his conduct, and the extraordinary cures he had performed. Curi- ous to behold so remarkable a personage, the Cardinal went to Strasburg. It was found necessary to use interest to be admitted. ' If M. le Cardinal is sick/ said he, * let him come to me and I will cure him; if he be well, he has no business with me, nor have I with him/ This reply, far from giving offence to the Cardinal, increased his desire to be acquainted with the Count. At length, having gained admission to the sanctuary of this new JEsculapius, he saw, as he has since de- 348 APPENDIX clared, on the countenance of this uncommunicative man a dignity so imposing that he felt penetrated with religious awe. This interview, which was very short, excited more strongly than ever the wish for more intimate acquaintance. At length it was obtained, and the crafty empiric timed his ad- vances so well that at length, without seeming to desire it, he gained the entire confidence of the Cardinal, and the greatest ascendency over him. ' Your soul/ said he one day to the Cardinal, l is worthy of mine, and you deserve to be the con- fidant of all my secrets/ This declaration captivated the in- tellectual aspirations of a man who, at all times, had sought to discover the secrets of chemistry and botany. " The Baron de Planta, whom the Cardinal had employed at the time of his embassy at Vienna, also became about this period his intimate confidant, and one of his most accredited agents with Cagliostro and Madame de Lamotte. I remem- ber having heard that this Baron de Planta had frequent orgies at the palace of Strasburg, where it was said the tokay flowed in rivers, to render the repast agreeable to Cagliostro and his pretended wife. I thought it my duty to inform the Cardinal of the circumstance. His reply was, fl know it; and I have even given him liberty to let it run to waste if he thinks proper/ . . . " One of the Queen's jewellers had in his possession a most superb diamond necklace, worth eighteen hundred thousand livres. Madame de Lamotte knew that the Queen, who was much pleased with it, had not liked, under circumstances wherein the strictest economy became an indispensable duty, to propose to the King to buy it for her. Madame de Lamotte had had an opportunity of seeing this famous necklace, and Bcehmer, the jeweller whose property it was, did not conceal from her that he found it quite an encumbrance, that he had hoped in purchasing it to prevail on the Queen to buy it, but APPENDIX 349 that her Majesty had refused; he added that he would make a handsome present to any one who might procure him a pur- chaser for it. " Madame de Lamotte had already made trial of the credu- lity of his Eminence. She flattered herself that by continuing to deceive him she might be able to appropriate both the neck- lace and the promised present. She intended to persuade the Cardinal that the Queen had a great desire for this necklace; that, wishing to buy it unknown to the King, and to pay for it by installments out of her savings, she proposed to give the Grand Almoner a particular proof of her goodwill by getting him to make the bargain in her name; that for this purpose he would receive an order, written and signed by her hand, which he should not give up until the payments should be completed: that he would arrange with the jeweller to give him receipts for the amount from one quarter to another, be- ginning from the first payment, which could not be made until the 30th of July 1785 ; that it would be essential not to men- tion the Queen's name in that transaction, which- was to be carried on entirely in the name of the Cardinal; that the secret order, signed Marie Antoinette de France, would be quite authority enough; and that in giving it the Queen be- stowed a signal mark of her confidence in his Eminence. " Such was the romance composed by this mischievous woman. She offered the cup of Circe to this too credulous Cardinal, and persuaded him to drink of it. Her deceptions being hitherto so successful. as to secure her from even the slightest suspicion, she boldly launched into her perilous ca- reer. The Cardinal was in Alsace. Madame de Lamotte despatched a courier through Baron de Planta with a gilt- edged billet, in which the Queen was made to say : f The wished-for moment is not yet arrived, but I wish to hasten your return, on account of a secret negotiation which interests 350 APPENDIX me personally, and which I am unwilling to confide to any one except yourself. The Comtesse de Lamotte will tell you from me the meaning of this enigma.' After reading this letter the Cardinal longed for wings. He arrived most un- expectedly in a fine frost in January. His return appeared as extraordinary to us as his departure had been precipitate. The Cardinal had no sooner learned the pretended solution of the enigma, than, delighted with the commission with which his sovereign had been pleased to honour him, he eagerly asked for the necessary order, in order that the necklace might be procured with as little loss of time as possible. The order was not long delayed; it was dated from Trianon, and signed Marie Antoinette de France. If the thickest web of deception had not blinded the eyes of the Cardinal, this signature alone, so clumsily imitated, might have shown him the snare which awaited him. The Queen never signed herself anything but Marie Antoinette; the words de France were added by the grossest ignorance. No remark, however, was made. Caglios- tro, at that time recently arrived at Paris, was consulted. This Python mounted his tripod; the Egyptian invocations were made at night, illuminated by an immense number of wax tapers, in the Cardinal's own saloon. The oracle, under the inspiration of its familiar demon, pronounced 'that the negotiation was worthy of the Prince, that it would be crowned with success, that it would raise the goodness of the Queen to its height, and bring to light that happy day which would unfold the rare talents of the Cardinal for the benefit of France and of the human race/ I am writing facts, though it may be imagined that I am only relating fictions. The advice of Cagliostro dissipated all the doubts which might have been inspired, and it was decided that the Cardinal should acquit himself as promptly as possible of a commission which was regarded as equally honourable and flattering. APPENDIX 351 "Everything being thus arranged, the Cardinal treated with Bcehmer and Bassange for the necklace on the condi- tions proposed. He did not conceal from them that it was for the Queen, and he showed them the authority under which he acted, requiring it to be kept secret from all but the Queen. The jewellers must have believed all that the Grand Almoner told and showed them, as they accepted his note, and agreed on the 30th of January to deliver up the necklace to him on the 1st of February, being the Vigil of the Purification. The Countess had fixed on this day, when there was to be a grand fete at Versailles, as the epoch for which the Queen was anx- ious to have the superb ornament. The casket which con- tained this treasure was to be taken to Versailles that day, and carried to the house of Madame de Lamotte, whence the Queen was to be supposed to send for it. The Cardinal, to whom the time had been specified, came at dusk to the house of Madame de Lamotte, followed by a valet de chambre, who carried the casket. He sent him away when he got to the door, and entered alone the place where he was to be sacrificed to his credulity. It was an alcoved apartment, with a closet in it which had a glass door. The skilful actress puts her spectator into this closet, the room is dimly lighted, a door opens, a voice exclaims, ' From the Queen.' Madame de La- motte advances with an air of respect, takes the casket and places it in the hands of the pretended messenger; thus the transfer of the necklace is made. The Cardinal, a mute and hidden witness of the transaction, imagined that he recog- nised this envoy. Madame de Lamotte told him that it was the Queen's confidential valet de chambre at Trianon. He wore the same garb, and had much the same air. Among her different modes of deception, Madame de Lamotte had succeeded in making it appear that she had paid several visits at Trianon to the Queen, who had lavished upon her marks of 352 APPENDIX the most intimate familiarity. She often mentioned to the Cardinal the day on which she was to go, and the hour at which she was to return. His Eminence often watched her setting out and coming back again. One night, when she knew that he was aware of the time of her return, she got the principal agent in her schemes to walk some way back with her, and afterwards to appear as if returning to Trianon. The Cardinal, who was in disguise, joined her according to custom, and inquired who this person might be. She told him that it was the Queen's confidential valet de chambre at Tria- non. This pretended valet de chambre was a man named De Villette, of Bar-sur-Aube, the friend of Madame de La- motte, and the comrade of her husband. This woman had initiated him into her iniquitous practices. He concurred in them, and expected to have a share in the profits that might result. He it was who counterfeited the hand of the august Princess: the letters which Madame de Lamotte fabricated in the name of the Queen were written by him, as was also the order signed Marie Antoinette de France for the purchase of the necklace. The Cardinal having scrutinised the features of the man into whose hands the casket was delivered, and imagining that he recognised in them those of the pretended valet de chambre at Trianon who had accompanied Madame de Lamotte one evening on her way home, had no doubt of the necklace being safely conveyed to its place of destination. " Thus did this intriguing woman attain her ends ; and such ascendency had she gained over the mind of the Cardinal that from the time of the necklace being given up, his Emi- nence incessantly pressed the jewellers to obtain an audience of the Queen, in order that they might make themselves easy respecting the purchase he had negotiated for her. This fact, the truth of which has been proved beyond the possibility of denial by the evidence of Bcehmer and Bassange in court, THE FAMOUS DIAMOND NECKLACE APPENDIX 353 ought to remove every doubt as to the sincerity of the Car- dinal, and his entire persuasion that he was only obeying the orders of the Queen. How shall I conceal in this place a fact which I would willingly omit, but which is too essentially connected with the consequences of this unfortunate affair to be passed over in silence. The jewellers, who had often ac- cess to the Queen on business, and were, moreover, pressed by the Cardinal to speak of it, took care not to leave her in ignorance of the negotiation and sale of the necklace. Not- withstanding the writing signed Marie Antoinette de France which had been shown to them; notwithstanding the solvency of the Cardinal, who had given his note for it, it was im- portant to their interest to assure themselves that this neck- lace was for her Majesty, and not to risk a thing of so much value on the least uncertainty. This fact is not admitted by Messieurs Bcehmer and Bassange in the proces; but they se- cretly acknowledged it to one who revealed it to me, only on condition that his name should in no way be compromised in the affair. The Cardinal in his defence appeared never to have had any doubt on the subject.2 Bassange being at Bale 2 In the Memoirs of Madame Campan it is shown in how obscure, doubtful, and unintelligible a manner the jeweller Boehmer explained himself the first time on the subject of the necklace, and what was the surprise, the indignation, and the wrath of the Queen when she was made to understand the odious nature of the intrigue in which her name was introduced. The secret disclosure was made, it is said, to a person who only revealed it under the assurance that his name should be neither cited nor compromised in the affair: this dis- closure, received by an anonymous person, can scarcely be sufficient to overthrow the circumstantial details of Madame Campan. If the Queen only understands the former declarations of Bcehmer from a tardy and unexpected communication, if her resentment bursts out immediately on her acquaintance with it, what becomes of the sup- position made by the Abbe" Georgel, of a plan conducted with cool ness and deliberation, and for a considerable period, to lead Cardinal deeper and deeper into the snare, to surprise him destroy him ? — Note ~by the Editor. VOL. 1—23 354 APPENDIX in 1797, and questioned by me on this matter, did not deny it, and formally confessed that his depositions, and those of his companion in this suit, had been regulated by the Baron de Breteuil; that they had not indeed indiscriminately fol- lowed everything that had been desired of them, but that they were obliged to be silent on what he was not willing that they should declare. After such an assurance, how can we attempt to justify the Queen from a connivance little honour- able either to her principles or her rank ? " So shameless a manoeuvre as that of Madame de Lamotte, in which the name of the Queen was introduced only to com- mit, with still more impunity and boldness, a fraud of such magnitude, ought to have shocked the delicacy and probity of this Princess. How was it that at this moment her indig- nation did not burst forth? If the Queen had only followed the first dictates of her wounded feelings she would surely have apprised the jewellers that they had been deceived, and that they must take their precautions accordingly. Even sup- posing that the Queen wished to be revenged on the Car- dinal, and to ruin him, what had already passed, and what she had just heard, was more than sufficient to compel him to give up his place, to leave Court, and to retire to his diocese, The Queen would have done an act of justice, for which no one could have condemned her; the Grand Almoner would have been justly blamed for his credulity; the House of Rohan would have been grieved at his disgrace, but could not have opposed it; there would have been no shameful publicity, no criminal suit, no Bastille. Marie Antoinette, if left to her own inclinations, would surely have acted with this sincerity, but she suffered herself to be influenced by two men, who equally led her astray, though each from different motives." The Abbe" Georgel here flatters himself that he proves the APPENDIX 355 Queen to have consulted the Abbe de Vermond, and the Baron de Breteuil (which is true), and that they suffered the Car- dinal to fall more and more deeply into the snare, and con- tinued him in his error to ruin him entirely, which is false, as is proved by the Memoirs of Madame Campan. She left Versailles on the 1st of August; on the 3d, Bcehmer went to see her at her country house. It was not until the 6th or 7th that the Queen was informed with certainty of the matter, and on the 15th the Cardinal was arrested. Are any of the perfidious delays imagined by the Abbe Georgel to be found in this rapid progress of things? The reproach of dissimu- lation, after all, does not attach to the Queen, as Georgel only accuses the Abbe de Vermond and the Baron de Breteuil of these preconcerted tardinesses. " The day fixed upon for the first payment of a hundred thousand crowns being the 30th of July, the Cardinal, whose presence was necessary for the payment, was summoned in the course of the month of June. He came with the eagerness of a man who believes himself on the point of obtaining his wishes. He was assured in a little billet that everything was arranged for the accomplishment of his desire and the ful- filment of the Queen's promises. It was adroitly added that measures were being taken for making up the first payment; that some unforeseen events had thrown obstacles in the way, but that it was hoped, nevertheless, that no delay would occur, " The assemblies at Cagliostro's, in the meantime, were delightful: all was a joyful anticipation of the happy day when the Queen was to crown the good fortune of the Grand Almoner. Madame de Lamotte alone was in possession of a secret of contrary nature. Saint James, a proselyte of Cag- liostro's, was admitted to those evening parties by the advice of this woman, for which she had her own reasons. She one day said to the Cardinal, 'I see the Queen is greatly per- 356 APPENDIX plexed about this hundred thousand crowns for the 30th of July. She does not write to you for fear of making you un- easy concerning it, but I have thought of a way for you to pay your court to her by setting her at ease. "Write to Sainte James; a hundred thousand crowns will appear nothing to him when he is given to understand that it is to render the Queen a service. Profit by the enthusiasm which the atten- tions you and the Comte de Cagliostro lavish upon him have inspired. The Queen will not discountenance it : speak in her name. The success of this new negotiation can only add to the interest she already takes in you/ The Cardinal thanked Madame de Lamote for her good advice. He then thought to secure the goodwill of Sainte James by relating to him, with an air of confidence, all that had passed regarding the purchase of the necklace. He showed him the order signed Marie Antoinette de France; he likewise confided to him the Queen's embarrassment, and assured him that an infallible way to merit her protection would be to take upon himself the making the first payment to the jeweller. Sainte James, like all upstarts, was more anxious for consequence than for money; he had wished to obtain the cordon rouge by some place or office, but he had not been able to succeed. The Cardinal promised it to him in the name of the Queen as a recompense for the service she asked of him. The financier replied that he looked upon himself as extremely fortunate to be able to give her Majesty proofs of his unbounded de- votion; and that as soon as he should be honoured with , her orders, she might make herself perfectly easy with respect to the hundred thousand crowns for the first payment. The Grand Almoner informed Madame de Lamotte of the answer of Sainte James, and gave an account of it in the first letter which he sent to the Queen through her hands. The forger who framed the answer was absent. M. de Lamotte had returned APPENDIX 357 from London, and had sent for him to Bar-sur-Aube, where these skilful sharpers concerted together the precautions neces- sary in order to establish their fortunes out of the spoil of the necklace. The delay of the anxiously-expected answer from the Queen tormented the Cardinal. He communicated his uneasiness to Madame de Lamotte; he could not conceive the motive for maintaining this silence as the time of pay- ment approached. He was, moreover, afraid that Sainte James might suspect him of a design to impose upon him; he added, with infinite chagrin, that what he still less com- prehended was the unabated coldness of the Queen towards him outwardly, in spite of the warm and lively interest ex- pressed in her letters. This last observation was a daily com- plaint with the Cardinal after his return from Alsace. Till then Madame de Lamotte had always been able to calm his anxiety by different stratagems. The diabolical genius of this woman, fruitful in expedients, suggested a method of abusing still further the Cardinal's credulity, by which she hoped to make him exert himself to the utmost to complete the first payment for the necklace, either by himself or through M. de Sainte James. Meanwhile the forger De Villette re- turned from Bar-sur-Aube, and the long-expected answer from Marie Antoinette was immediately put into the hands of Cardinal. The Queen, it was said in the letter, would not so long have delayed her reply had she not hoped to be able to dispense with the good offices of M. de Sainte James; that she would accept them for the first payment only, and promised a speedy reimbursement to him, adding that she should wish M. de Sainte James to furnish her with an early opportunity of showing her sense of his services. Some days elapsed before the Cardinal could communicate this answer to Sainte James. In the interval Madame de Lamotte, in concert with her husband and De Villette, had arranged every- 358 APPENDIX thing for the performance of a farce, the plan and execution of which betrayed the most diabolical invention. She under- took to make the Cardinal believe that the Queen, not being able to give him the public proofs of her esteem which she could wish, would grant him an interview in the groves of Versailles, between eleven and twelve o'clock, and that she would then assure him of that restoration to her favour which she was not at liberty to write. These happy tidings were conveyed in a little gilt-edged note; it appointed the night and the hour for the meeting; never was interview more eagerly anticipated. " The Comtesse de Lamotte had remarked in the prome- nades of the Palais Royal at Paris a girl of very fine figure, whose profile was extremely like the Queen's, and her she fixed on as principal actress in the grove. Her name was D'Oliva, and she had been made to believe that the part she undertook to perform was at the desire of the Queen, who had some plan of amusement in it.3 The reward offered on this occa- sion was not refused by a creature who had made a traffic of her charms. Mademoiselle d'Oliva accordingly proceeded to Versailles, conducted by M. de Lamotte in a hired carriage, the coachman belonging to which has been examined in evi- dence. She was led to inspect the scene of action to which she was to be secretly conveyed by M. de Lamotte; there she was made to rehearse the part she was expected to perform. She was given to understand that she would be accosted by a tall man in a blue riding-coat with a large hat turned down, who would approach and kiss her hand with the utmost respect; and that she was to say to him in a low tone of voice, 'I have but a moment to spare; I am satisfied with your conduct, and I shall speedily raise you to the pinnacle 3 Marie Nicole Leguay, called D'Oliva or Designy. See Beugnot, vol. i., p. 60, as to her resemblance to the Queen. APPENDIX 359 of favour ; ' that she was then to present him with a small box and a rose, and immediately afterwards, at the noise of persons who should approach, to observe, still in a low voice, ' Madame and Madame 6"Artois are coming ; we must separate.' The grove and the place of entrance agreed on had been also pointed out to the Cardinal, with the assurance that he might in that place pour out without constraint his sentiments of loyal devotion and explain his feelings in what most concerned his interests; and that, as a pledge of her good intentions towards him, the Queen would present him with a case containing her portrait and a rose. It was well known at Versailles that the Queen was in the habit of walk- ing in the evening with Madame and the Comtesse oTArtois in the grove. The appointed night arrived; the Cardinal, dressed as agreed on, repaired to the terrace of the Chateau with the Baron de Planta; the Comtesse de Lamotte in a black domino was to come and let him know the precise time when the Queen was to enter the grove. The evening was sufficiently dark; the appointed hour glided away; Madame de Lamotte did not appear; the Cardinal became anxious; when the lady in the black domino came to meet him say- ing, 'I have just left the Queen — everything is unfavour- able— she will not be able to give you so long an interview as she desired. Madame and the Comtesse oTArtois have pro- posed to walk with her. Hasten to the grove; she will leave her party, and, in spite of the short interval she may obtain, will give you unequivocal proofs of her protection and good- will/ The Cardinal hastened to the appointed scene and Madame de Lamotte and the Baron de Planta retired to await his return. .The scene was played as it had been arranged by Madame de Lamotte; the pretended Queen, in an evening dishabille, bore a striking resemblance in figure and dress to the personage she was to represent. The Cardinal in ap- 360 APPENDIX preaching her testified emotion and respect; the pretended Queen in a low voice pronounced the words that had been dic- tated to her, and presented the box. Meantime, as had been agreed, a noise as of persons approaching was made, and it was necessary to part somewhat abruptly. The Cardinal went to rejoin Madame de Lamotte and the Baron de Planta : he complained bitterly of the vexatious interruptions which had shortened an interview so interesting and delightful for him. Then they separated. The Cardinal appeared fully persuaded that he had spoken with the Queen, and had re- ceived the box from her hands. Madame de Lamotte congrat- ulated herself on the success of her scheme. Mademoiselle oTOliva, interested in keeping the part she had played secret, was conveyed back to Paris and well rewarded. M. de La- motte and M. de Villette, who had counterfeited the voices and the approaching footsteps agreed on to abridge the in- terview, joined Madame de Lamotte, and every one rejoiced at the successful issue. The next day a little billet brought by the ordinary messenger expressed great regret at the ob- stacles which had prevented a longer conversation. " Whatever the illusion might be that had so blinded the Car- dinal, the unimpassioned reader will scarcely believe that a Prince endowed with so much intelligence and good sense could have entertained for more than a year not the slightest suspicion of the snare that was laid for him: and if it did enter his mind, why did he not put every method in force to throw a light on the behaviour of his conductress? The Queen still evincing complete estrangement towards the Car- dinal, how could he possibly reconcile this mode of treatment with the sentiments contained in the little billets he received, wherein the greatest interest and kindness were expressed? "The Cardinal acknowledges that, impelled by a boundless desire to be restored to the favour of the Queen, he rushed APPENDIX 361 with impetuosity towards the object that promised to effect his purpose, without considering the nature of the path he was made to tread. However that might be, the adventure of the grove and the little billet next morning had given new energy to the zeal which entirely engrossed him for the in- terests and tranquillity of the Queen, whom he believed to be embarrassed respecting the first payment for the necklace. The return of the financier Sainte James hastened the de- nouement of the intrigue, which was about to involve him in endless disgrace and vexation. The Cardinal having met with this financier at Cagliostro's, communicated to him the new orders which he imagined he had received." It is needless to prolong this extract. The latter scenes and the catastrophe of this plot are well known. We ought, nevertheless, to mention the individual to whom the Cardinal at length owed the discovery of the means which had been put in practice to deceive him. "A certain Abbe de Juncker, a sensible and well-informed man, came," says the Abbe Georgel, "to offer his services. I felt confidence in him because he seemed anxious for the honour and interest of the Cardinal. He it was who gave me the first clue by which the diabolical intrigue of Madame de Lamotte came to be unmasked. A friar of the order of Minims,4 called Father Loth, had come to inform him that, urged by his conscience, and by gratitude to the Grand Al- moner for services he had rendered him, he was anxious to make the most important disclosures; that, having lived on 4 Minims, or Fratres Minimi, an order of religion instituted about the year 1440 (then called the Hermits of St. Francis) by St. Francis de Paulo. They were confirmed in 1473 by Sixtus IV., and by Julius II. in 1507. The name Minims or Minimi ("the least or the smallest " ) was assumed as expressing the humility of the founder and his followers. They were called also " Bonshom- mes," it is said originally by Louis XI. 362 APPENDIX intimate terms with Madame de Lamotte, he could not longer be silent. This monk was procureur to the Minims of La Place Royahj which the house of Madame de Lamotte ad- joined. This woman had found means to inspire him with pity in her moments of want and distress. He often relieved her, and his kindness at length induced her to communicate to him the particulars of her good fortune, which she at- tributed to the Queen and to the Cardinal. Being soon on terms of great intimacy, Father Loth saw at the house of Madame de Lamotte many things that excited his suspicions. A few words which her vanity and indiscretion let fall; the boast of a considerable present from the Court jewellers, on account of her expecting to procure them a purchaser for their valuable necklace; the display of some superb diamonds which she pretended to have had from Marie Antoinette; the com- munication of billets which she declared to be from the Queen to the Cardinal, and from the Cardinal to the Queen; the comparison which Father Loth had taken the trouble to make between the writing of these billets and other writings of M. de Villette, the friend of Madame de Lamotte, who was often shut up writing with her and her husband; the compli- ments which he had heard Madame de Lamotte pay a tall beautiful woman, named D'Oliva, respecting the success of some part she had played in the garden of Versailles; the perplexities which had spread confusion and alarm through- out the house of this intriguing woman in the early part of August; the declaration made in his presence that Bcehmer and Bassange would be the ruin of the Cardinal ; the precipi- tate flight of de Villette, and of M. and Madame de Lamotte at that period — such were the details which Father Loth came to confide to me one evening between eleven and twelve, after disguising himself at the house of the Abbe Juncker, in order that he might not be suspected, should his judicial depo- APPENDIX 363 sition be found necessary. The friar, wishing to have the title of preacher to the King of his Order, had requested to preach the sermon at Pentecost before his Majesty. The Grand Al- moner had desired me to examine his discourse and his de- livery. I was not satisfied with it, and gave it as my opinion that he should not preach; but I was not aware that Madame de Lamotte, who protected him, was desirous that this favour should be granted him, and that the Cardinal, yielding to the entreaties of this patroness, had procured Father Loth a well-written sermon, which he delivered with tolerable pro- priety. " Amongst the particulars which I have just related, Father Loth, during the three hours' conversation I had with him, gave much important information respecting M. de Villette and some fragments of his writing, which he assured me greatly re- sembled that of the pretended billets from the Queen. He told me also that he had surprised Madame de Lamotte the evening before her departure burning those notes that she had told him were from the Queen. The friar, in speaking to me of Mademoiselle dOliva, recollected the time when she was taken by M. de Lamotte to Versailles in a hired car- riage; at last he added, in such a manner as led me to sus- pect that he did not tell me all he knew, that he had strong reasons for believing that the Comtesse de Lamotte had im- posed on the credulity of the Cardinal to obtain very consider- able sums from him, and even to appropriate the necklace to herself. This important communication did not amount to certainty; but it was like the first blush of morn, which, dissipating the thick clouds of night, announces a fine day." — Memoirs of the Abbe Georgel, vol. ii. We shall now add from another work details relative to the trial. " The Cardinal was closely guarded in his apartments at 364 APPENDIX Versailles. He was brought to his hotel in Paris in the afternoon, and remained there until the next day. The car- riage was escorted by Body Guards, and M. cFAgoult, aide- major-general, had orders not to lose sight of the prisoner. In the evening the Marquis de Launay, Governor of the Bas- tille, came to lodge his Eminence in that same prison. The Cardinal wished to go thither on foot, under cover of the night; the favour was readily granted. On the following day, 17th August, he was sent in a carriage to his palace, to be present at the breaking of the seals, at which all the min- isters assisted, except Marechal de Segur. M. de Rohan, looking on M. de Breteuil as his personal enemy, had required this formality; and the Baron de Breteuil had complied the more willingly as he had declared that his own sense of deli- cacy would not permit him to acquit himself of his ministerial duty in any other manner than publicly, and in the presence of respectable witnesses. Doubtless, no proof appeared of the secret crimes ascribed to the Cardinal, since no trace of it is to be found in the proceedings. The Cardinal had permission to see his friends in the hall of the Bastille. He was allowed to retain out of all his numerous retinue two valets de cham- bre and a secretary; this last favour showed him that he was to have the privilege of writing, at least for the purposes of his defence. He was treated in every other respect with much consideration, and his situation rendered as tolerable as it could be in such a fortress. The Abbe Georgel, Grand Vicar to the Grand Almoner, on whose papers seals were likewise put, testified as little uneasiness as the Cardinal. ' Authority must be respected/ said he, 'but we must nevertheless en- lighten it/ B s To show the spirit evinced by the clergy during the imprison- ment of the Cardinal, we quote a passage from Jervis' Gallican Church, vol. ii., p. 379: — " The Abbe" Georgel, Vicar-General to the Cardinal, in his quality of Grand Almoner, had occasion to publish a APPENDIX 365 " Madame de Lamotte, wishing to gratify at once her hatred and revenge, declared on her first examination that Comte de Cagliostro was the contriver of the fraud of the necklace ; that he had persuaded the Cardinal to purchase it. She insinu- ated that it was taken to pieces by him and his wife, and that they alone reaped the profit of it. This declaration, sup- ported by a thousand other falsehoods, which unfortunately, however absurd, wore an appearance of probability, caused the singular personage implicated to be sent to the Bastille, with the woman who resided with him. The latter remained there nearly eight months, and the pretended count did not come out until after the suit was decided. It is certain that Cardi- nal de Eohan was credulous enough to place the greatest con- fidence in this charlatan, who had assured him that it was possible to make gold, and to transmute small diamonds into large precious stones; but he only cheated the Cardinal out of large sums, under pretence of revealing to him the secrets of the Eosicrucians and other madmen who have believed, or pretended to believe, the absurd fables of the philosopher's stone, the elixir of life, etc. Thus the Cardinal saw part of his money evaporate in the smoke of crucibles, and part find its way into the pockets of the sharper who passed himself off as a great alchemist. When this person was examined by the court touching the affair of the necklace, he made his ap- pearance dressed in green embroidered with gold, and his locks, curled from the top of his head, fell in little tails down his shoulders, which completed his resemblance to a mounte- bank. 'Who are you? Whence came you?' he was asked. ' I am a noble traveller/ was his reply. At these words every countenance relaxed, and seeing this appearance of good hu- Lenten mandement. He began by comparing himself to Timothy, whom St. Paul commissioned to supply his place in preaching the word of life to the disciples while the Apostle was detained in bonds at Rome for his faithfulness to the Christian cause." 366 APPENDIX mour, the accused entered boldly on his defence. He inter- larded his jargon with Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Italian; his looks, his gestures, his vivacity, were as amusing as his speech. He withdrew very well pleased with having made his judges laugh. " The Cardinal had sometimes permission to walk after din- ner upon the platform of the towers of the Bastille, accom- panied by an officer. He wore a brown greatcoat, with a round hat. The parlement issued a decree to arrest the Car- dinal and the other parties. The fraud of the necklace was not the motive which determined this decree against the Car- dinal de Eohan, but the forgery of the Queen's signature. It was concluded that, as soon as the true author of the forgery was discovered, all the rigour of the sentence would fall on him. On the 21st December this decree, more fright- ful to him in imagination than in reality, was made known to the Cardinal. The examinations were vigorously pursued. The commissioner, M. Dupuis de Marce, a counsellor of Par- liament, repaired for this purpose to the fortress of the Bas- tille. On one occasion he detained the Cardinal from nine in the morning until one o'clock, and then from four till mid- night. On the appointed day Prince Louis de Eohan put on his State dress, his red calotte, red stockings, and all the in- signia of his rank. The Governor of the Bastille came to lead him from his apartment, conducted him to the door of the council chamber, left him with the magistrate and other official persons, and remained in attendance in the antecham- ber. When the judge wanted anything, he rang; the Marquis de Launay immediately presented himself, and if a glass of water was asked for, he carried it himself to the door, where the magistrate came to meet him. After the sitting the Gov- ernor took charge of his prisoner at the door of the council chamber, and conducted him back to his apartment. APPENDIX 367 "It has been pretended that the all-powerful family of the Cardinal had so suborned the commissioner and the greffier that they altered the sense of the depositions and examina- tions, and when they were fearful of the Cardinal's involv- ing himself in his replies, and saying something that would make against his cause, they suddenly broke up the sitting without even waiting for the conclusion of a sentence already begun. The following extract from the voluminous Memoirs of Madame de Lamotte supports this assertion : — * One day the Cardinal and I being confronted upon a delicate point, which neither of us had any intention to throw light upon, I said something not conformable to truth. ' " Ah, madame," cried the Cardinal, " how can you advance what you know to be false ? " " As every one else does, sir ; you know very well that neither you nor I have said a single word of truth to these gentlemen since they have begun to interrogate us." It was not in fact possible/ says this woman, whose testimony ought to be estimated at its proper value; 'our answers were prepared for us, as well as our questions, and we were obliged to say or reply this or that, or expect to be murdered in the Bastille/" " The deposition of the Comtesse du Barry forms an inter- esting episode in this curious affair. She came into court on the evening of the 7th December, where she was received with all the honours due to persons of the first rank. The greffier went to hand her in, and one of the ushers carried the torch. Her deposition turned on the following circumstance. Ma- dame de Lamotte called on her one day, after the death of Louis XV., to offer her services as a companion. When she declared her name and birth Madame du Barry regarded her as unfit for the situation ; and, thanking her, assured her that she did not wish for society, and that, moreover, she was not such a great lady herself as to take one of Madame de Va- 368 APPENDIX lois's elevated rank for her companion. The latter went again some days after, begging that Madame du Barry would rec- ommend her to some persons who might lay one of her peti- tions before the King. In this petition she entreated an increase of her pension. She had signed the words de France after her name. The Comtesse du Barry could not help show- ing her surprise at the sight of the signature. Madame de Lamotte replied that as she was known to belong to the House of Valois she always signed herself de France. Madame du Barry smiled at her pretensions, and promised to get the petition recommended. So long as the Comtesse de Lamotte saw none of her accomplices arrested, she flattered herself that the Cardinal and Cagliostro would be the victims of her fraud; but Mademoiselle d'Oliva, the principal actress in the park scene, being taken at Brussels, where she had sought refuge, began to draw aside the veil with which the Countess had hitherto covered her intrigues. " To crown her misfortunes, and ensure her the punish- ment she deserved, Ketaux de Villette suffered himself to be taken at Geneva. He was taken to the Bastille and con- fronted with the perfidious Lamotte, who was struck as by a thunderbolt at the unexpected sight. She was now convinced that she was lost, notwithstanding her natural effrontery. The prisoners who were detained in the Bastille on account of the necklace were transferred to the Conciergerie on the nights of the 29th and 30th of August 1786, by an officer of the court. The Cardinal was confined under the guard of the King's lieutenant of the Bastille, in the cabinet of the chief greffier. The justice of that day had the most profound re- spect for birth and titles. " The examinations lasted from six in the morning until half-past four in the afternoon. When Madame de Lamotte appeared before the Grand Council assembled she was ele- APPENDIX 369 gantly dressed, as she had been all the time she was in prison. This audacious woman, being sent for by the judges, often repeated that she was going to confound a great rogue. At the sight of the august assembly her confidence somewhat abandoned her; above all, when the usher said to her in a severe tone, pointing out the stool for the accused, ' Madame, seat yourself there/ she started back in affright, but on the order being given a second time, she took the ill-omened seat, and in less than two minutes she recovered heself, and her countenance was so composed that she appeared as if reclin- ing in her own room upon the most elegant sofa. She replied with firmness to all the questions of the First President. Being interrogated afterwards by the Abbe Sabathier, one of the ecclesiastical counsellors, whom she knew to be unfavour- able to her, ' That is a very insidious question,' said she ; ' I expected you would put it to me, and I shall now reply to it.' After extricating herself with sufficient address from many other questions, she made a long speech, with so much pres- ence of mind and energy that she at least astonished her judges, if she could not succeed in convincing them. As soon as she had retired the First President ordered the stool to be removed, and sent to inform the Cardinal that the stool hav- ing been taken out of the chamber, he might present himself before the court. The Cardinal was habited in a long violet- coloured robe (which colour is mourning for cardinals) ; he wore his red calotte and stockings, and was decorated with his orders. His emotion was evident ; he was extremely pale, and his knees bent under him; five or six voices, probably pro- ceeding from members gained over to his side, observed that the Cardinal appeared to be ill, and that he ought to be al- lowed to sit, to which D'Aligre, the First President, replied, 'Monsieur le Cardinal can sit if he wish.' The illustrious accused profited by this permission, and seated himself at the VOL. 1—24 370 APPENDIX end of the bench where the examiners sit when they attend the grand chamber. Having soon recovered himself, he re- plied extremely well to the questions of the First President; he afterwards, still remaining seated, spoke for about half an hour with emphasis and dignity, and repeated his protesta- tions respecting the whole proceedings against him. His speech being finished, he bowed to the bench and the other magistrates. Every one returned his salute, and those on the bench even got up, which was a peculiar mark of distinc- tion. Only the Cardinal and Cagliostro returned to the Bas- tille. M. de Rohan had in his coach the Governor and an officer of the ministerial prison. The Marquis de Launay gave the order to set off, and said " a I'Tiotel " instead of using the word Bastille. On the 31st, the day fixed for the final de- cision of this singular and famous trial — after more than a year of proceedings and delays — the judges met at a quar- ter before six in the morning. They were sixty-two in num- ber, but were reduced to forty-nine by the retiring of the ecclesiastical counsellors, on account of its being a question which involved corporal punishment. Some time past nine in the evening the decision of the parlement was made known, as follows : — " 1st. The instrument which is the foundation of the suit, with the approvals and annexed signatures, are declared for- geries, and falsely attributed to the Queen. "2d. Lamotte, being in contumacy, is condemned to the galleys for life.6 "3d. Madame de Lamotte to be whipped, branded on the two shoulders with the letter V, and shut up in the Hospital for life. "4th. Retaux de Villette banished the kingdom for life. " 5th. Mademoiselle cTOliva discharged. «He had escaped to England. APPENDIX 371 " 6th. Cagliostro acquitted. " 7th. The Cardinal acquitted of all suspicion. The in- jurious accusations against him, contained in the memorial of Madame de Lamotte, suppressed. " 8th. The Cardinal is allowed to cause the judgment of the court to be printed. " The next day the court received an order for delay of exe- cution. The Court of Versailles was much displeased with the sentence; it had hoped that the Cardinal would have been declared guilty, and the degrading sentence passed on the Comtesse de Lamotte appeared too severe; a writer has per- mitted himself to observe that the court had proceeded with so much severity against this female, a descendant from the House of Valois, in order to mortify to the utmost of their power the reigning branch of the Bourbons. The King was desirous to inspect all the writings belonging to the suit, but they only sent him copies of them. " The parlement, after a few days' delay, was allowed to execute its sentence with respect to the Comtesse de Lamotte, who had remained at the Conciergerie. She was informed one morning that her presence was required at the palace. Sur- prised at this intelligence (for she had for some time been refused permission to speak to any one), she replied that she had passed a restless night, and desired to be left quiet. The gaoler said her counsel was waiting. ' I can see him, then, to- day?' she asked, and immediately rose, slipped on a loose robe, and followed. Being brought before her judges, the greffier pronounced her sentence; immediately astonishment, fear, rage, and despair pervaded her soul, and threw her into agitation difficult to describe. She had not strength to hear the whole of the matter read to her ; she threw herself on the ground and uttered the most violent shrieks. It was with the greatest difficulty that she could be removed into the palace 372 APPENDIX yard to undergo her sentence. It was scarcely six in the morning, and but few persons were present to witness its exe- cution. No sooner did the Countess perceive the instruments of her punishment than she seized one of the executioners by the collar, bit his hands in such a manner as to take a piece out, and fell upon the ground in more violent convulsions than ever. It was necessary to tear off her clothes to imprint the hot iron upon her shoulders. Her cries and imprecations redoubled; at length they took her into a coach and conveyed her to 1'Hopital. Aften ten months' confinement 7 Madame de Lamotte found means to escape from 1'Hopital, either by having gained over some sister of the house, or through connivance of the Government. This last opinion may be correct, if it be true that her flight was permitted on condi- tion that M. de Lamotte should not publish in London his account of the trial, which it is said he threatened to do un- less his wife should be restored to him." — Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XVI., vol. i. [In the third series of Notes and Queries, vols. vii., viii., and ix., will be found some remarks concerning the authen- ticity of the letters of Marie Antoinette, published after her death in the time of the Second Empire, which it may be use- ful to note here.] i Madame Cam pan says " a few days," see Vol. I., p. 329. INDEX. ADELAIDE (Princesse), daughter of Louis XV., anecdote of, 106; characterization of, 112; openly avows her dislike for Marie Antoinette, 116, 117, 143; per- suades Louis XVI. to appoint M. de Maurepas Prime Minis- ter, 153. Aiguillon (Due d'), his character- istics, 12; his rivalry with Due de Choiseul, 11, 14 ; intrigues to overthrow Due de Choiseul, 115; dismissed by Louis XIV., 154. Alexander, Emperor of Russia, anecdote of, 45, 46. American Revolution, attitude of France towards, 272, 273. Artois (Comte d'), characteriza- tion, 185; alienation between him and Marie Antoinette, 338. Artois (Comtesse d'), intimacy with Marie Antoinette, 143; builds Bagatelle, 268; birth of her son, Due d' Angoul&me, 177. Auguifi (Madame), sister of Ma- dame Campan, commits suicide, 22. Austria, alliance between France and, 14. BARRT&RE, F., his Prefatory Mem- oir of Madame Campan, 7-31. Beauharnais (Madame de), her marriage with Napoleon Bona- parte, 24, 25. Beaumarchais ( Pierre Augustin Caron de ) , gives so-called ex- purgated production of his Mar- riage of Figaro, after its pro- hibition by Louis XVI., 300- 306. Be"cu (Anne), mother of Madame du Barry, H5n. Bertin (Mademoiselle), milliner to Marie Antoinette, her influ- ence, 163; anecdote of, 167w. Besenval (Baron de), calumni- ates Marie Antoinette, 239, 240. 373 Boehmer, jeweller, sells earrings to Marie Antoinette, 162, 163; his connection with the incident of the diamond necklace, 307- 330, 348, 350, 351. Boswell, his supreme success as a biographer, xvi, xvii. Bourbon (Louis N. de, Abbe"), his death, 70. Bressac (Chevalier de), sent by the Queen of Naples on a se- cret mission to Marie Antoi- nette, 283, 284. Breteuil (Baron de), implicates Cardinal de Rohan in the in- cident of the diamond necklace, 316, 329. Brissac (Mar6chal de), his inti- macy with Madame du Barry, 116n; anecdotes of, 113n, 136». CAGLIOSTKO (Comte de), his influ- ence over Cardinal de Rohan, 347, 348, 350, 365; is sent to the Bastille, 365; is acquitted, 370. Calonne (M. de), appointed Comptroller-General, 292 ; is snubbed by Marie Antoinette, 295. Campan (M.), father-in-law of Madame Campan, appointed master of the wardrobe by Louis XV., 67; arouses the jealousy of the Abbe" de Ver- mond, 156, 157; is appointed Librarian by the Queen, 157ft-. Campan (M.), husband of Ma- dame Campan, his illness and attendance by the celebrated Mesmer, 34, 35. Campan (M.), son of Madame Campan, his death, 28. Campan (Jeanne Louise Henriette Genet, Madame ) , acquaintance with the Court of Louis XV., 3; her Recollections, 5, 28; Memoir of, 7-31; birth, 9; be- comes reader to the daughters of 374 INDEX. Louis XV., 8, 9, 99; intimacy with Marie Antoinette, 16; her family, 16«; opens boarding schools, 24-26; her misfortune, 27; visits Madame Maigne, 28; death of her son, 28, 29; under- goes operation, death, 29; Notes of Conversations with, 33-59; contents of her Memoirs, 47; her conversation with Boeh- mer concerning the diamond necklace, 313, 314; anecdotes of, 30, 34-36, 41, 42, 44-46, 49. Caroline, Queen of Naples, seeks marriage of her son to daughter of Louis XVI., 283, 284; her differences at the Court of Spain, 284, 285. Castelnaux, lunatic, haunts Ma- rie Antoinette, 286, 287. Chartres (Due de), his attentions to Marie Antoinette, 162. Chateaubriand, quotation from, in regard to French Memoirs, xxiv. Choiseul (Due de), his character- istics, 11, 12; his rivalry with d'Aiguillon, 11, 14; effects an alliance with Austria, 13, 14; rules court of Louis XV., 99; his ruin, 131 ; reappears at Court, 213; object of political quarrel, 288, 289. Christian III., King of Denmark, visits the Court of France, 277. Civrac (Madame de), description of novel entertainment tendered to her by President Hennault, 92, 93. Clermont-Tonnerre (Marquise de), her indiscretion on behalf of the Queen, 160. DAMIENS (Robert Francois), at- tempts to assassinate Louis XV., 61, 62; confesses the mur- der of La Bourdonnaye, 64. Dauphin, son of Louis XV., his sickness and death, 80, 81. Diamond Necklace, The, a full ac- count of the incident of, 345- 372 (Appendix). Du Barry (Madame), her influ- ence on Louis XV., 11, lOln, 115; her conduct as his mis- tress, 113, 114; origin of her birth, H5n; guillotined, 116n; her jealousy of Marie Antoi- nette, 131; her informal part- ing with Louis XV. on his death-bed, 148n-150n; exiled to Pont-aux-Dames, 155; spies on Marie Antoinette, 245; her dep- osition concerning Madame de Lamotte, 367, 368. Dumont (Etienne), his compari- son of the Englishman and the Frenchman quoted, xxvii. Du Muy (Margchal), appointed to the War Department, 83, 154; his death, 218. £ON (Chevalier d'), serves as spy for Louis XV., 240-243. FBANCIS of Lorraine, Emperor of Austria, his sudden death, 119. Franklin (Benjamin), is enter- tained at the Court of France, 273. French Revolution, explanation of, xiv, xv ; early intimations of, 4; secondary cause of, 275; two events bearing on, 300. GENLIS (Madame de), antago- nism between her and Marie An- toinette, 262w. Georgel (Abbe1), his Memoirs quoted concerning the incident of the diamond necklace, 361- 363. Goethe (Johann Wolfgang von), his description of a pavilion erected for Marie Antoinette, 15. Guines (Due de), establishes his innocence, 288. Guizot (M.), quotation from, xiii. Gustavus III., King of Sweden, re- ceives a cold reception from Marie Antoinette, 279, 280. HAUSSET (Madame de), attends an obscure mistress of Louis XV., in her confinement, at the order of Madame de Pompa- dour, 76n-78n. Hennault (President), his orig- inal entertainment for Madame de Civrac, 92, 93. INDEX. 375 JOSEPH II., Emperor of Austria, his visit to Marie Antoinette; his unpopularity, 231-236; fete given in his honor, 236, 237; his eccentric correspondence, 250-253. Josepha (Archduchess of Aus- tria), anecdote of, 119, 120. Juncker (Abbe" de), gives the first clue to the exposure of Madame de Lamotte, 361. LA FAYETTE (Marquis de), is fa- vored by Marie Antoinette, 274; anecdote of, 274n. Lamballe ( Princesse de ) , is ap- pointed superintendant by Ma- rie Antoinette, 203. Lamotte (Comtesse de), publishes an odious pamphlet against Marie Antoinette, 21; her con- nection with the incident of the diamond necklace, 317, 320, 322, 323, 325n, 326, 329; her birth, 345; her appeals to Car- dinal de Rohan for assistance, 345; obtains the Cardinal's con- fidence under false pretences, 346, 347; details of her plots to secure the diamond necklace, 346-361; her exposure, 361- 363; her trial, 365, 368, 369; sentence upon, 370; her con- duct at the execution of her sentence, 371, 372; her escape from 1'Hdpital, 372. Landsmath, master of the hounds to Louis XV., his intimacy with the King, 84-66. Lauzan (Due de), his attempt to compromise Marie Antoinette, 224-226. La Vauguyon (Due de), intrigues for the overthrow of Due de Choiseul, 131; attempts to es- trange the Dauphin and the Dauphiness, 136, 180; unusual card of invitation to his fu- neral, 18 In, 182». Lorraine (Mademoiselle de), her famous Minuet, 187-190. Loth (Father), reveals his suspi- cions in regard to Madame de Lamotte's plot to secure the diamond necklace, 361-363. Louis (Dauphin), son of Louis XVI., his birth, 259 ; celebration of his birth, 261; his death, 342; his precocity, 342n, 343n. Louis XIV., Court of, description of the life at, 264-267. Louis XV., Memoirs dealing with his reign, 1, 2; anecdotes of, 10, 11, 73, 80; characteristics, 10, 11, 66»; corruption of his reign, 17; Damiens' attempt to kill him, 61, 62; takes Made- moiselle de Romans as his Mis- tress, 67-69; establishes the Parc-aux-cerfs, 71n, lOOn, lOln; fondness for low society, 72; his disposal of an obscure mis- tress, 76n-78n; his overtures to Comtesse de Perigord, 78, 79; his marriage with the young Infanta broken off, 83; his love of hunting, 99; family life, 101, 102, 104; his enemies select Du Barry as his mistress, 113; causes the royal family to dine with Du Barry, 130; his fondness for Marie Antoinette, 130, 131; his sickness and death, 147-153; on his death- bed, sends Du Barry away, 148n<-150n ; his posthumous papers revised by Louis XVI., 171. Louis XVI., results of his reti- cence, 1; memoirs dealing with his reign, 2; confides secret papers to Madame Campan, 27; his youthful deportment, 82n; his marriage, 129; indifference to Marie Antoinette, 136, 137, 177; acknowledged King, 152; appoints M. de Maurepas Prime Minister, 153, 153n, 154n; his noticeable devotion to the Queen, 144, 158, 221, 238; his reign welcomed by the people, 159 ; his vaccination, 161 ; his jealousy of the Due de Chartres, 162; revises the papers of Louis XV., 171-173; gives Petit Tri- anon to Marie Antoinette, 174; characterization of, 182-184, 200; anecdote of, 177, 186; his coronation, 190-197; his pursuits, 197-200; makes a 376 INDEX. large loan to Parisian book- sellers, 217 n; 218n; his benev- olence, 229n, 230n, 336; grants permission for Voltaire's re- turn, 238; his delight over the birth of an heir, 260; his solicitude for his aunts, 267; supports America in rebellion against England, 272; issues edict in regard to military rank, 275; aids Caroline, Queen of Naples, 285; his fondness for M. de Maurepas, 29 In; pur- chases Saint Cloud, 297, 298; his censure of Beaumarchais' Marriage of Figaro, 302; ex- presses his opinion of the affair of the diamond necklace, 327. Louis XVIII., characterization of, 184; he presides over the first meeting of the Assembly of the Notables, 337n. Louise (Princesse), daughter of Louis XV., takes the veil at the Convent of the Carmelites of Saint Denis, 108-111. Luxembourg (Madame la Mare"- chale de), anecdote of, 21 On, 21 In. Luynes (Duchesse de), her inti- macy with Maria Leczinska, 91, 92. MAOHATTLT (M. de), loses the of- fice of Prime Minister, owing to the petition of Madame Ade- laide in behalf of M. de Maure- pas, 33-59. Maigne (M.), his Notes of Con- versations with Madame Cam- pan, 33-59. "Man in the iron mask," the truth of his identity, 171, 172. Maria Leczinska of Poland, Queen of France, her various suitors, 83n; characterization of, 89; her accomplishments, 90, 91; her intimacy with the de Luynes family, 91; her at- titude towards the Princess of Saxony, 94; death of her father, 97; quotations of her sayings by Abbe" Proyart, 97n, 98; anecdotes of, 84-86, 88, 89, 92, 96. Maria Theresa, Empress of Aus- tria, her attitude towards her children, 119, 120; investigates conduct of Marie Antoinette, 139-141; her advisory letter to Marie Antoinette upon her mar- riage, 140n; succeeds in pro- curing the recall of Prince de Rohan, 141, 142n; her death, 257; her sentiments in regard to a second marriage, 259. Marie Antoinette of Austria, Queen of France, fate of her Memoirs, 3 ; Anti- Austrian party fateful to, 14; pavilion erected for, 15, 128; tragedies connected with her marriage, 15, 16; her disregard for court etiquette, 18, 19, 87n, 88, 168, 169, 169n; plots against her, 20, 21; her birth, 118; her early education, 120-123; her wel- come upon her marriage, 130, 131; her kindness, 132, 228, 229, 296, 336; anecdote of, 134, 135; greeted by the Parisians, 135, 136; estrangement of Louis XVI., 136, 137; Ma- dame de Marsan intrigues against, 138, 139; intervention of Maria Theresa in regard to scandal against, 139-141; inti- macy with the Comtesse d'Ar- tois and the Comtesse de Prov- ence, 143; her love of pleasure, 144, 212, 269-272; acknowl- edged Queen, 152; her reputa- tion suffers undeservedly, 160, 162, 162n, 226, 227, 239, 240, 294; sets up new styles in dress, 163, 164, 164n, 268»; etiquette of her toilet, 165-167; her solicitude for the King's aunts, 173; her enjoyment of Petit Trianon, 174, 268; child- less, she adopts a village boy, 178-180; introduces sleighing, 201; libel against her is sup- pressed, 203, 204; her attach- ment for Comtesse Jules de Polignac, 206-210, appoints her as governess, 263, regrets inti- macy, 292, 293; patronizes music and drama, art of print- ing, 214-217; portraits of, 217; INDEX. 377 fete given her at Brunoy, 220, 221; her indiscreet conduct, 222-225; becomes enceinte, 237, 243; her evening promenades arouse public slander, 243-247; fives birth to a daughter, 248, 49 ; suffers a miscarriage, 257 ; gives birth to the Dauphin, 259, 260, celebrations, 261, 262; pre- vails upon Louis XVI. to dis- continue excursions to Marly, 264, 267; entertains Grand Duke of Russia, 278; slights King of Sweden, 279, 280; har- mony between her and Louis XVI. threatened, 281-283; her regard for personal liberty, 285- 287; her influence in affairs of state, 287-289, obliged to take part in, 333-335; her polished speeches, 290; purchase of Saint Cloud brings disfavor to, 297- 299 ; incident of " the diamond necklace," 307-330, 354 ; accused of undue financial support to Austria, 332, 333 ; appears in re- gal attire for the last time, 339 ; her unhappiness over the open- ing of the States-General, 337, 338, 341n; loses two children by death, 342, 344. Marie Therese Charlotte (Madame Royale), daughter of Louis XVI., birth of, 248, celebration of, 255n: her marriage, 284n. Marsan (Madame de), intrigues against Marie Antoinette, 139. Maupeou (Chancellor), exiled by Louis XVI., 154. Maurepas (Jean Fre'de'rie Phely- peaux), made Prime Minister, 153; attempts to calumniate Marie Antoinette, 248; his death, 291; his treachery to- wards M. Necker, 291, 292. Maximilian (Archduke of Aus- tria), visits Marie Antoinette at Court, 175, 176. Memoirs (French), writers of, xxvi-xxviii. Mesmer, celebrated mesmerist, an- ecdote of, 34, 35. Mirabeau (Gabriel Honor6 Ri- quetti), requests an embassy and is refused, 340. NAPOLEON BONAPABTE, his inter- est in Madame Campan's school, 25, 26n; his loss of pres- tige, 26; anecdotes of, 30, 35- 41, 44, 52, 55-59; characteriza- tion of, 47. Necker (M.), retires in disfavor from Court, 291, 292. Noailles (Madame de), Mar6- chale de Mouchy, her adher- ence to Court etiquette, 18, 19; anecdote of, 91; her position as adviser to Marie Antoinette, 128, 129; her resignation, 209. D'OuvA (Marie Nicolay Leguay), is hired to counterfeit the Queen by Madame de Lamotte, 358-360; reveals her deception, 368; is discharged, 370. Orville (Chevalier d'), is ap- pointed King's lieutenant, through the kindness of the Queen, 228, 229. PAUL I. ( Grand Duke of Russia ) , visits the Court of France, 277, entertainments in his honor, 278. Pepys (Samuel), his immortal Diary, xxi. Perigord (Comtesse de), leaves Court to avoid the overtures of Louis XV., 78, 79. Planta (Baron de), intimate con- fidant of the Cardinal de Ro- han, 348, 349, 359. Plutarch, his " Lives " the Old Testament of French Revolu- tionists, xvi. Polignac (Duchesse de), installed at Court by Marie Antoinette, 206-210, 227, her influence, 290; resigns her office, 256n; appointed as governess to the Queen's children, 263. Pompadour ( Jeanne Poisson, Marquise de), her influence over Louis XV., 62n, 63n, 76n, 10 In; nominated lady of the bed-chamber to the Queen, 85; revenges herself upon the Queen, 85, 86. Provence (Comtesse de), her in- 378 INDEX. timacy with Marie Antoinette, 143. Proyart (Abb6), his quotations of the sayings of Queen Maria Leczinska, 97n, 98; his Life of Maria Leczinska quoted, 101«. RICHELIEU ( Cardinal ) , Memoirs of, In; his services to France, 12; intrigues to overthrow Due de Choiseul, 131. Rohan (Louis de, Cardinal), his profligacy, 127 ; calumniates Marie Antoinette, 139; is re- called by the Court of Vienna, 141, 142w; offends Marie An- toinette at Trianon, 279; his notoriety in the incident of the diamond necklace, 307-330; pa- tronizes the physician, Comte de Cagliostro, 347, 348, 350, 365; his innocent negotiations in the incident of the diamond necklace, 349-371. Romans (Mademoiselle de), se- lected by Louis XV. as his fu- ture mistress, 67; her son chris- tened a Bourbon, 70; her mar- riage to Cavanac, 70. Rousseau, his " Confessions " the New Testament of French Rev- olutionists, xvi, xxi. Russia, extension of, 13. ST. GERMAIN (Count), is made Minister of War, abolishes the King's household troops, 218, 219, 219n. Sainte James, is used as a tool by Madame de Lamotte, 355-357. Sens (Archbishop of), is ap- pointed head of the council of finance, 331; his disgrace and dismissal, 335. Serre (M. de la), Governor, ar- rested with his family, 63. Sophie (Princesse), daughter of Louis XV., her peculiar tem- perament, 105, 106; her death, 344. Soulavie, puts forth Memoirs of the Margchal de Richelieu, 2n. Stael (Madame de), anecdote of, 57. States-General, opening of, 4th. of May 1789, 338-340. TIERCELIN (Mademoiselle de), made Madame de Bonneval, as a favorite of Louis XV., 69n. Tiers-etat, spirit of, 275, 276; prejudices of, 341, 342. Treaty of 1783, satisfaction of the French nation with, 280. VAUDREUH, (Marquis de), anec- dote of, 210n; the Marriage of Figaro first performed at his house, 303; loses favor with Marie Antoinette, 305, 306. Vergennes (M. de), appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, 154; attempts to ruin Marie Antoinette's reputation, 248. Vermond ( Abb6 de ) , appointed as French teacher to Marie An- toinette, 123, influence upon her, 123w, 124n, 145; Maria Theresa admits him to her fam- ily circle, 124; his birth, I25n; characterization of, 125, 331 ; retains his office under Louis XVI., 158 ; his jealousy of Comtesse de Polignac, 228; an- ecdote of, 276; breaks friend- ship with Baron de Breteuil, 329. Versailles, Court of, splendor of, 8, 9. Victoire (Princesse), daughter of Louis XV., characterization of, 111, 112; welcomes Marie An- toinette, 133. Villers (Cahouette de), forges the Queen's handwriting to get money, etc., 204-206. Villette (Retaux de), his com- plicity, with Madame de La- motte, in the incident of the diamond necklace, 352, 357, 360, 362, 363; his arrest, 368; Jiis sentence of banishment, 370. Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet de), returns to Court after twenty-seven years, 238. WIRTEMBERG (Princesse), wife of Paul I., Grand Duke of Russia, visits Court of France, 277. Campari, Mad?me Jeanne. DC M W.I Memoirs . ^o ? vol.1