six languages,--Polish, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Latin. Men of
letters were struck by the shrewdness of her judgments on the things
of the mind. Several of her maxims have been preserved, which attest a
lofty soul and a profound knowledge of the human heart. Here are some
of them: “We ought not to reflect more on the faults of others than
will suffice to preserve ourselves from them.--Human wisdom teaches us
to conceal our pride; religion alone destroys it.--To live peaceably
in society, we must open our eyes to the qualities which please us,
and shut them on the follies and caprices which shock us.--The women
who pique themselves most on knowing what it is allowable for them to
be ignorant of are those who care least about instructing themselves
concerning what it is shameful not to know.--Many princes having
regretted, when dying, that they had made war, we never see any who
repented of having loved peace.--Good kings are slaves, and their
people are free.--The only thing which can make amends for the slavery
of the throne is the pleasure of doing some good.--In politics, as in
morals, the shortest way to make men happy is to endeavor to make them
virtuous.”
The sovereign who expressed such thoughts as these was not an ordinary
woman. She surpasses all the favorites of her husband, not merely in
heart and virtue, but also in intelligence, knowledge, and wit.
XIV
MARIE LECZINSKA AND HER DAUGHTERS
Marie Leczinska was a tender mother. She surrounded her daughters and
her son with the most devoted cares, and knew how to inspire them with
Christian sentiments. M. Michelet, who, in his latest works, tried to
sully whatever he touched, has tried in vain to cast odious ridicule
on the daughters of Louis XV. In spite of his venomous insinuations,
his calumnious influence, he has been unable to extinguish the aureole
of purity surrounding the brows of these virtuous princesses. The
truth may be found in the excellent work of M. Édouard de Barthélemy,
an impartial judge, a critic full of sagacity.[62] A curious book,
recently published by M. Honoré Bonhomme,[63] has also avenged the
memory of the daughters of Louis XV. against attacks which the
most bitter adversaries of the monarchy and the most violent of
pamphleteers had not permitted themselves.
All of the daughters of the King, with the exception of Madame
Adelaide, spent their childhood at the Abbey of Fontevrault. Cardinal
Fleury thought the presence of the little princesses at Versailles
entailed too much expense, and Louis XV., yielding to the suggestions
of his parsimonious minister, regretfully determined on separating
himself from his children. Adelaide alone, by dint of prayers and
supplications, was able to escape the abbey. On returning from Mass,
she threw herself at her father’s feet, and, although only seven years
old, succeeded in gaining her cause. The King wept a little, says
Barbier, and promised her that she should not go away.
It is easy to comprehend how much the good Queen must have suffered
from this parting with her daughters. She wrote to the Duchess de
Luynes, October 12, 1747: “The King surprised me by showing me the
portraits of my daughters from Fontevrault. I did not know they had
been painted. The two eldest are really beautiful, but I have never
seen anything so agreeable as the little one. She has an affecting
expression, very remote from sadness. I have never seen anything so
singular; she is touching, sweet, spiritual. If you find my letter too
long, make allowances for the tenderness of a mother and the confidence
of a friend.”
The six daughters of Louis XV. were born: the twins, Elisabeth and
Henriette in 1727; Adelaide in 1732; Victoire in 1733; Sophie in 1734;
Louise, the future Carmelite, in 1737.
The three princesses of whom the Queen speaks in the letter we have
just quoted, and who were still at Fontevrault, were Victoire, Sophie,
and Louise. The twins, Elisabeth and Henriette, had quitted the convent
in 1739, and the former had soon afterwards married the Infant Don
Philip, son of Philip V., King of Spain. Thereafter she is designated
as Madame Infanta. The six sisters were all spoken of as Mesdames de
France. Nevertheless, there was but one of them who married. When she
took her departure for Spain, at the age of twelve years (August 31,
1739), the twin sisters exchanged heart-rending farewells. They could
not resign themselves to separation. “’Tis forever!” they cried, their
voices broken by sobs. Louis XV. accompanied his daughter as far as
Plessis-Picquet. The Duke de Luynes relates that while on the road he
gave his dear child most pathetic advice concerning the conduct she
should observe in her new country, where, said he, her mild temper
would infallibly win all hearts. He spoke to her with so much affection
and tenderness that all who were in the carriage were melted to tears.
In 1748, the husband of Madame Infanta obtained the sovereignty of
Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla. Before going to their new dominions
with her husband, the daughter of Louis XV. came to see her parents at
Versailles. This was a delightful moment for the royal family. Princes
and princesses made few journeys in the eighteenth century. What joy to
embrace a father, mother, brother, sisters, who had never expected to
see one again! Marie Leczinska returned thanks to heaven. The little
girl of twelve, who had left Versailles, returned thither a young woman
in all the brilliancy of her twenty-second year. The Dauphin was beside
himself with joy. In the first moment he embraced every one he saw,
even the lady’s maids (December, 1748). Sophie and Louise were still
at the convent of Fontevrault, but Henriette, Adelaide, and Victoire
were at Versailles. Their sister’s arrival was an extreme happiness for
them. Madame Infanta, so delighted to be once more with her family,
had not courage to leave them. Months passed without her being able
to decide on quitting Versailles, where her filial and sisterly heart
experienced emotions so sweet. Nevertheless, it was necessary to be
resigned. The dreaded moment arrived in October, 1749. The farewells
must be spoken. It cost Henriette so much to part with her beloved
sister that she fainted several times. The Dauphin was in tears, and
Louis XV., who loved his daughters most profoundly, showed by his grief
all the strength of his paternal tenderness.
Madame Infanta returned to Versailles some years later, but at that
time the joy of her return was not untroubled. The Princess no longer
found her twin sister, that dear Henriette whom she regarded, so to
say, as the half of her soul.
Henriette had just died at the age of twenty-four (February 10,
1752). This young girl, as unhappy as sympathetic, was certainly one
of the most touching figures in the feminine gallery of Versailles.
M. Honoré Bonhomme has made an exquisite portrait of her, from both
the physical and the moral point of view: “Of a sickly constitution,
Madame Henriette had that ivory whiteness of complexion peculiar to the
daughters of the North, and which her mother, Polish in blood and race,
seemed to have transmitted to her along with life. Delicate, tall, and
slender, there was something dreamy and inspired in her person. Her
mild, pure features, aristocratic in their outline, charmed and yet
inspired respect; her smile was melancholy, and her whole appearance,
in which gloom seemed constantly warring against brightness, bore the
impress of fatality. It was because she carried in her heart the secret
of her destiny. Like pale Ophelia, she was to die while gathering
flowers, and like Myrto, the young Tarentine of André Chenier, she was
never to cross the threshold of the spouse. For the rest, inwardly
animated by the sacred fire, enamored of great things, she possessed
all subtleties of the mind as well as all delicacies of the heart.
Looking into her great, dreamy eyes, which seemed to reflect the
dormant limpidity of deep lakes, one divined what abysses of tenderness
and devotion were hidden underneath, and felt a presentiment that her
first love would also be her last, that she would die there where her
soul had fixed itself.”
That, in fact, is what happened. Madame Henriette had conceived for
the young Duke de Chartres, son of the Duke d’Orléans, an affection
which was returned. The Marquis d’Argenson wrote, November 30, 1739: “A
secret effort is being made to bring about a marriage between the Duke
de Chartres and Madame _seconde_ [so Madame Henriette was called;
her twin sister, Madame Infanta, was known as Madame _première_],
and it is believed that the King is determined on it and gradually
working toward it. Nothing could be more conformable to pacificatory
views, for Europe would plainly see from this that the King was
disposed to substitute the Orleans branch to the Dauphin, rather than
the Spanish one.”
To understand this phrase, it is necessary to recall that the Dauphin
was not yet married, and that people often wondered what would happen
if this only son of Louis XV. should die without male posterity. Many
thought that in such a case the King, in spite of the renunciations of
the treaty of Utrecht, would take his heir from the Spanish Bourbons,
and not from the Orleans branch. D’Argenson was in favor of the latter
branch. Cardinal Fleury, on the contrary, pursued it with hostility,
as if he had an insight of the future. The old minister prevailed so
far, that the King, who had nevertheless a real liking for the Duke
de Chartres, an amiable and estimable young prince, would not give
his consent to the projected marriage. One day the Duke was riding
beside the King. “Sire,” said he, “I had a great hope. Your Majesty
had not taken it from my father.... I could have contributed to the
happiness of Madame Henriette, who would have remained in France with
Your Majesty. May I still be allowed to hope?” The King inclined toward
the Prince and sadly pressed his hand. This beautiful dream of love,
so quickly faded, must be renounced. Three years later, the Duke de
Chartres espoused the daughter of the Prince de Bourbon-Conté. Madame
Henriette had the courage to conceal her immense sorrow. She was
present, death in her soul, a smile on her lips, at the marriage of
the man she loved (December 9, 1743). From that day she felt herself
heart-stricken, and her last days were merely an immolation. Prince
Nattier has represented the Princess under the double emblems of
_Fire_ and _Meditation_. She is leaning against a tripod
on which half-consumed torches are smoking. These torches are like
the image of the nearly extinguished flame of the Prince to whom the
young girl would willingly have given her faith. She never uttered a
complaint, a murmur. Calm, grave, recollected, she meditated and she
prayed. The stay of her twin sister at Versailles was like a break in
the darkness of her night. But when this dear companion of her infancy
departed, all the wounds of her tender and loyal heart reopened.
The arrival of her three younger sisters, Victoire, Sophie, and Louise,
who left the convent of Fontevrault at the close of the year 1750,
did not console her. Having sacrificed her own happiness, she desired
that at least the Duke de Chartres might be happy. But it was not so.
The Duke had married a woman whose conduct was said to be anything
but exemplary. He could not, then, forget that tender, that virtuous
Henriette who seemed to him the image of sadness. The Princess wept
silently in her oratory, and offered her sufferings to God. Earth was
not worthy of her.
There are characters which can only expand in a better world. Sorrow
had undermined the constitution of Madame Henriette. She died February
10, 1752. “Ah! my sister! my dear sister!” were her last words. She
died as she had lived: while loving. “Sad sport of fate,” says M.
Honoré Bonhomme, “poor saintly girl, virgin and martyr, who spent nine
whole years in climbing, step after step, the Calvary where she yielded
up her soul.”
After relating this death, the Duke de Luynes adds: “No one can
express the sadness into which the King is plunged. The Queen is much
afflicted, and also the Dauphin, Madame the Dauphiness, and Mesdames.
Madame Adelaide does not weep, but silent griefs are usually the
longest. Madame Henriette was much beloved. Her mild character, without
ill temper and even without will, rendered her extremely complaisant
toward the Dauphin, the Dauphiness, and the ladies, her sisters.”
On receiving tidings of this mournful death, Madame Infanta wrote her
father a most touching letter. She said she wished to come and mingle
her tears with those of her family. She arrived in France in September,
1752, and remained with her father for a year.
Madame Infanta was not happy. She did not greatly esteem her husband,
and that Prince cut a rather sorry figure in the little sovereignty of
Parma and Piacenza. He had neither money nor prestige; and his wife,
who was very intelligent, his wife, of whom Bernis said that she would
make a good minister of foreign affairs, was constantly dreaming of
some more considerable establishment for him. She thought by turns
of exchanging the Duchy of Parma for Tuscany, or acquisitions in
Flanders, Lorraine, or even Corsica. She fancied that, thanks to her
father’s affection and the territorial changes in Europe, she would
end by obtaining something. The Marquis d’Argenson, who had not much
sympathy for her, wrote, September 27, 1753: “It is to be hoped she
will never come back to France. Is it just that the State should suffer
because she was married so badly? Along with her go a great quantity of
chariots loaded with all sorts of things that the King has given her.”
Madame Infanta returned to France a third time, but only to die there.
She arrived at the château of Choisy, September 3, 1757. To credit M.
Michelet, it was she alone who brought about the Seven Years’ War. But
there is no foundation for this assertion of the great writer who,
toward the close of his life, created what one might call the school of
imaginative history. At the time when she reappeared at court, Madame
Infanta was glowing with freshness, brilliancy, and health. No one
could have foreseen that her death was so near at hand. One of her last
letters was addressed to her son Ferdinand, whom she had left at Parma.
It commenced as follows:--
“Life is uncertain, my son, and my character is too sincere for me
either to vaunt or even to affect perfect indifference as to the length
of mine; but I feel that the wish to see you, to leave you worthy of
the name you bear in the world, such, in fine, as I desire you, is
one of the ties that attach me most to life, and one of the reasons,
perhaps, which will most abridge mine by the continual torments caused
me by this desire and the fear of not obtaining it. It will be a great
consolation to be able to leave you an avowal of my sentiments if I die
before you are in a condition to read it. If I live, it will serve me
as a plan whereon to form you; and in either case, it will always be to
you a proof of my tenderness and of my care for your welfare at an age
when many people do not yet think of it.”
Not many days after writing this letter, Madame Infanta was attacked
by small-pox, and died December 6, 1759. The twins, who had loved each
other so tenderly, both died prematurely. Madame Henriette had died at
the age of twenty-four, Madame Infanta at thirty-two. She was buried at
Saint Denis, close to her sister, so that their union lasted even in
the tomb.
Marie Leczinska’s heart was broken with grief. But instead of murmuring
against Providence, she bent filially beneath the hand of God who smote
her. Her five remaining children, the Dauphin, Adelaide, Victoire,
Sophie, and Louise, showed her a profound affection. Never was a
mother better loved. Louis XV. took pleasure in the society of his
daughters. As a father, he had that sort of citizenlike good-nature
which is unhappily rare among princes. Mesdames lodged underneath
their father, in the former apartment of Madame de Montespan. Madame
Adelaide occupied a chamber which communicated by a private staircase
with that of her father. “Often,” relates Madame Campan in her Memoirs,
“he brought and drank coffee there which he had made himself. Madame
Adelaide pulled a bell-rope, which announced the King’s visit to Madame
Victoire. On rising to go to her sister, Madame Victoire rang for
Madame Sophie, who in her turn rang for Madame Louise.”
In a twinkling the four sisters were gathered around their father. At
six in the evening, at the unbooting of the King after the chase, as
people said in those days, the princesses came to pay a visit to Louis
XV., but this time with a certain etiquette. “The princesses,” says
Madame Campan again, “put on an enormous hoop which supported a skirt
braided with gold and embroideries. They fastened a long train to
their waist, and hid the negligence of the rest of their habiliments
by a large cape of black taffeta, which covered them up to the chin.
Knights of honor, ladies, pages, equerries, ushers, carrying large
torches, accompanied them to the King. In an instant the whole palace,
usually solitary, was in movement; the King kissed each princess on her
forehead.” In reality, he found more true happiness in the virtuous
intimacy of his daughters than in the circle of his courtiers and the
arms of his favorites. There were moments when people believed that
in growing old the debauchee would become wise. “The King,” wrote
D’Argenson, “seems to wish for no society but that of his family, like
a patriarch and a good man.”
Marie Leczinska felt thankful to her husband for the affection he had
for his daughters. The relations of Mesdames with their mother were
full of confidence, sweetness, and gaiety. They liked to enter those
little apartments of the Queen, where Marie Leczinska forgot the
splendor of the throne to live modestly as a good mother. The little
apartments[64] comprised three rooms: a salon, a bathroom, and a studio
for painting. Madame the Countess d’Armaillé, whose graceful and solid
work we have so often had occasion to quote, has given a charming
description of these three rooms in which Marie Leczinska spent the
greater portion of her time. “Is it not true,” she says, “that one
may divine the character and tastes of a woman by merely inspecting
the sanctuary of her private life, or, to speak more simply, that
place in the dwelling where she habitually prefers to stay? It matters
little whether this room be a garret or a drawing-room. Nothing is so
intimate as certain interior arrangements; nothing tells the story of
a woman better than the way in which she orders the room she inhabits.
In the little apartments of the Queen one found everything which makes
the charm of a peaceful existence. Here, pieces of work begun for the
poor, or for churches, a whole piece of furniture embroidered by her
hand; there, an open harpsichord with Moncrif’s cantatas, Rameau’s
operettas, Polish hymns; further away a drawing-table, a spinning-wheel
provided with its distaff, frames for embroidering and weaving, a
small printing-press; then flowers, paintings, portraits of children,
miniatures. On a console, a vase offered by Marshal de Nangis, a
manuscript given by Cardinal de Fleury, a porcelain pagoda with verses
by Madame de Boufflers; in an embrasure of the window a cabinet
containing the Queen’s favorite books, with some verses by the Duchess
de Luynes; everywhere souvenirs of friendship, of maternal tenderness,
of useful or agreeable occupations.” It was there that, surrounded by
her children, the virtuous Queen tasted the joys of the heart, those
joys imparted only by a good conscience, and which the mistresses for
whom Louis XV. deserted her had never known.
XV
THE DAUPHINESS MARIE JOSÈPHE OF SAXONY
Marie Leczinska was not less happy in her son than in her daughters.
The bad examples of the court had not spoiled the upright and honest
nature of the Dauphin. As is said by Baron de Gleichen in his Memoirs,
the piety of the young prince was enlightened, and his policy foresaw
the dangers of irreligion. As son and father, as brother and husband,
he never ceased to display the qualities of a good and virtuous
heart. He had deeply mourned his first wife, that sympathetic Spanish
Infanta, who died in 1746, when hardly twenty years old. Reasons of
State demanded that, in spite of his great sorrow, he should promptly
contract a second marriage.
Louis XV. selected for his son a princess of the house of Saxony,
after Austria and Prussia the most powerful of the Empire. He intended
thus to consolidate his German alliances. Marshal Saxe, natural
son of Augustus II., King of Saxony, Elector of Poland, and of the
beautiful Countess Aurora of Königsmark, was the principal agent of the
negotiation which was to form a pact of union between his new country
and his old one. A learned Saxon diplomatist, now in the service of
Austria, Count Vitzthum, published some years ago an excellent work,
based on unpublished documents and letters in the archives of Dresden,
on the Marshal and the princess who espoused the Dauphin.
Marie Josèphe of Saxony, daughter of Augustus III., was at this time
fifteen years old. She was an agreeable young person, with large
blue eyes that were at once keen and gentle. Her countenance was
intelligent, her character excellent, her education complete. Marshal
Saxe wrote to his brother, Augustus III.: “Sire, what shall I say to
you? I find this affair advantageous at all points for your family, and
I shall descend without regret to the empire of the shades after I have
seen it terminated; I shall have accomplished my career. I have enjoyed
the delights of this world; glory has covered me with its benefits;
nothing more remained to me but to be useful to you, and all my destiny
will have been fulfilled in a most satisfactory manner.”
Marshal Saxe wrote to the wife of Augustus III., mother of the future
Dauphiness:--
“Madame, the Most Christian King sent me word yesterday, that he had
requested Your Majesty for the hand of the Princess Marie Josèphe for
Monseigneur the Dauphin. I flatter myself that this proposition will
not displease either the Princess or Your Majesty, for, in truth,
Monseigneur the Dauphin is a very good match, and I should like to
live long enough to see our divine Princess Queen of France. I think
that would suit her very well. She has always been my inclination, and
it is long since I destined her for the crown of France, which is a
fine enough morsel, and the Prince who will some day wear it is fine
also. The Princess Josèphe will have no reason to be bored while she
is waiting for it. The kingly father-in-law is charming; he loves his
children, and from the caresses he gave the late Dauphiness, I infer
those which our Princess will have to endure. This is word for word
what the King wrote me in a letter I received yesterday, written by his
own hand from one end to the other. ‘You will not be vexed with this
marriage, my dear Marshal? Let your Princess be sure that it depends on
her alone to make our happiness and the felicity of my people.’”
In the same letter the Marshal gave some very sensible and prudent
counsels: “I will say another word to the Princess. To succeed here,
neither hauteur nor familiarity is required; hauteur, however,
pertaining to dignity, she can more easily incline to that side. The
women of the court all have minds like diamonds, and are wicked withal.
No one will fail in respect towards her, but they will try to entangle
her in their continual quarrels, and at these she must do nothing but
laugh and amuse herself. This is what the King does; and if anything
displeases her, she must address herself directly to the King: he will
advise and conduct her very well. This confidence will please him. He
is the only person at court with whom she should have no reserve. She
should regard him as her refuge, her father, and tell him everything,
good or bad, just as it happens, without disguising anything. With
everybody else, reserve. If she does that, he will adore her.”
The formal demand in marriage was made at Dresden, January 7, 1747,
by two ambassadors, one extraordinary, the Duke de Richelieu, the
other ordinary, the Marquis des Issart. Richelieu wrote to the
Count de Loss, apropos of the future Dauphiness: “I find her really
charming; nevertheless, she is not a beauty, but she has all the graces
imaginable; a large nose, thick, fresh lips, the brightest and most
intelligent eyes in the world, and, in fine, I assure that if there
were any such at the Opera, they would soon be put up at auction. I do
not say too much to you, but I do not say so much to others.”