betrothed for the first time between Nangis and Corbeil. The nuptial
benediction was given to the pair in the chapel of Versailles,
February 8, 1747. Four days afterward, Marshal Saxe wrote to Augustus
III.: “Sire, I shall have no difficulty in saying agreeable things
to Your Majesty about Madame the Dauphiness, and renown will serve
as my guaranty. No one could succeed better than this Princess; she
is adored by everybody, and the Queen loves her as if she were her
own child; the King is enchanted with her, and M. the Dauphin loves
her passionately. She has steered her way through all this with all
imaginable address; I could not but admire her. At fifteen, according
to what they say, there is no such thing as childhood in this society;
and, in truth, she has astonished me. Your Majesty could hardly believe
with what nobility, what presence of mind, Madame the Dauphiness has
conducted herself. M. the Dauphin seems a schoolboy beside her.”
The married pair were installed on the ground floor, in the south wing
of the central portion of the palace, under the Queen’s apartments.
(The Dauphin’s bedroom, where the Regent died, is now the third hall
of the Marshals, No. 46 of M. Eudore Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_.
That of the Dauphiness is now the second hall of the Marshals, No. 41
of the _Notice_.) It was in the latter chamber that, according to
usage, the ceremonial of the putting to bed took place. In the letter
we are about to quote, Marshal Saxe gives his brother an account of
this strange custom:--
“Certainly,” he says, “there are moments which call for all the
assurance of a person formed to sustain his part with dignity. Among
others there is one, that of the bed, whose curtains are opened when
the husband and wife have been put into the nuptial bed, which is
terrible, because the whole court is in the room; and the King told
me to remain near Madame the Dauphiness in order to reassure her.
She endured this with a tranquillity which astonished me. The Dauphin
drew the coverings over his face; but my Princess never stopped
talking to me with a charming ease, paying no more attention to the
people of the court than if there had been no one in the chamber. On
approaching her, I said the King had ordered me to do so to keep her in
countenance, and that all this would only last a moment. She told me I
gave her pleasure; and I did not leave her until her women had closed
the curtains, and the crowd had gone away. They departed with a sort
of sadness, for it looked like a sacrifice, and she has continued to
interest everybody in her. Your Majesty will laugh, perhaps, at what I
have just said; but the blessing of the bed, the priests, the candles,
the brilliant pomp, the beauty and youth of the Princess, in fine, the
desire one has that she may be happy,--all these things taken together
provoke more thought than laughter.”
This etiquette which weighed upon royal families was a heavy burden,
an excessive fatigue. For two days the Dauphiness had eaten nothing.
“Her great fatigue is the cause of this,” the Marshal wrote again to
Augustus III.; “and I have told the King that if she could not have
some rest she would fall ill. Indeed, I don’t know how she can avoid
it. I am completely knocked up with following her. It is so hot in
all the apartments, what with the quantity of people and the candles
in the evening, that it is enough to kill one. And besides that, her
clothes are so heavy that I don’t know how she has been able to carry
them. What is still more fatiguing are all these endless presentations;
and she wishes to remember all the names, which is a terrible task to
a mind incessantly occupied, moreover, in trying to please and show
attentions. The other day the King made me take up her skirt which lay
on a sofa. It weighed, at least, sixty pounds; not one of our cuirasses
weighs as much. I don’t know how the Princess could have remained on
her feet eight or nine hours with that enormous weight.”
Marie Josèphe knew how to make herself esteemed and loved. A courtier,
who admired the graces and virtues of this good and beautiful
Dauphiness, said: “Nobody ought to take a wife anywhere but in Saxony;
and rather than dispense with a Saxon wife, when there are no more, I
will make one out of porcelain.” Marie Leczinska forgot the quarrels
that had existed between the house of Saxony and her father for the
throne of Poland. She became tenderly attached to her daughter-in-law,
and showed her an almost maternal love.
The Dauphiness was delivered, September 13, 1751, of a son, who bore
the title of Duke of Burgundy, and who died when nine years old, after
long and horrible sufferings which he endured, a precocious Christian,
with admirable courage. The Marquis de Pompignan wrote a biography of
the little prince. Some years later, another child, likewise fated
to undergo tortures, learned to read in this book: it was that most
innocent of victims, the future Louis XVII. “How did my little uncle
manage to have already so much knowledge and goodness?” cried the
compassionate child.
The Duke of Berry was born August 23, 1754; the Count of Provence,
November 17, 1755; the Count of Artois, November 9, 1757. These three
princes were to be called Louis XVI., Louis XVIII., and Charles
X.,--three names which on their first appearance affect the imagination
with a nameless trouble, and transport it into an unprecedented world
of revolutions and catastrophes.
Marie Josèphe of Saxony had eight children, five only of whom survived
her; the three sons, who were all to reign, and two daughters, Madame
Clotilde, who was Queen of Sardinia, and another whose mere name evokes
the memory of the purest virtues, the profoundest piety, the most
sublime sacrifices, the most heroic courage in sufferings, in prisons,
on the scaffold: Madame Elisabeth.
The Dauphiness was a perfect wife and mother. Her goodness, sweetness,
and charity rendered her at once lovable and worthy of veneration....
One finds consolation for the scandals of the court in contemplating a
united household, a Christian household which set an example to France.
Unhappily death was soon to break up this virtuous and holy life. The
Dauphin, at the age of thirty-six, fell ill in November, 1765.
Had we not good reason to say, at the beginning of this study, that
epochs in appearance most scandalous and corrupt contain, like every
other, treasures of edification? The admirable death of the son of
Louis XV. is a proof of this verity. The agony of the Dauphin was about
to commence.
“Thanks be to God,” he said to his confessor, the Jesuit Callet, as
soon as he saw him enter, “I have never been dazzled by the splendor of
the throne to which I was summoned by my birth; I saw it only from the
side of formidable duties by which it is accompanied, and the perils
that surround it; I would desire to have a better soul, but I hope in
the infinite mercy.” Then, turning towards his sisters and his wife,
the good Prince exclaimed: “I cannot tell you how glad I am to be the
first to go; I shall be sorry to leave you, but I am well pleased not
to remain behind you.” The next day, November 13, the Archbishop of
Rheims came to bring the sacraments. Louis XV. was kneeling at the
threshold of the chamber, while the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of
Condé approached the bed to hold the communion cloth. After the Mass
the Dauphin said: “God has made me taste at this moment so sweet a
consolation that I have never known one like it.” And as the Queen was
speaking of his recovery: “Ah, mamma!” he exclaimed with vivacity,
“keep that hope for yourself, for my part I do not desire it at all.”
The Prince, who had one day said, while looking at Paris from the
terrace of the Château of Bellevue: “I am thinking of the delight that
ought to be experienced by a sovereign in causing the happiness of so
many people;” this truly exemplary Prince was taken, December 20, 1765,
from the affection of a people, who honored his virtues and his sincere
devotion. Nine days afterward, the Dauphiness wrote to her brother,
Prince Xavier of Saxony: “The good God has willed that I should survive
him for whom I would have given a thousand lives; I hope He will grant
me the grace to employ the rest of my pilgrimage in preparing, by
sincere penitence, to rejoin his soul in heaven, where I doubt not he
is asking the same grace for me.”
Marie Leczinska mourned bitterly for her son, who had always been so
good, so tender, and respectful to her. The pious Queen was to undergo
new trials. She surrounded her aged father with the most touching
attentions, and though far away, busied herself with him as though she
were by his side. He was at Nancy, and she had just sent him a wadded
dressing-gown for the coming winter. It caught fire while Stanislas was
sleeping in his armchair; always amiable and affectionate, he attempted
to tranquillize his daughter by a note in which he wrote pleasantly:
“What consoles me, daughter, is that I burn for you.” This was the last
letter Marie Leczinska was to receive from a father whom she cherished.
King Stanislas breathed his last February 24, 1766. His death brought
about, according to treaty stipulations, the definitive reunion of the
duchies of Lorraine and Bar to France. As the Countess d’Armaillé has
said, this was Queen Marie’s last gift to the land of her adoption.
Afflictions succeeded each other with deplorable rapidity. Marie
Josèphe of Saxony died fifteen months after her husband, March 12,
1767, recommending her family to Marie Leczinska, who regretted her as
much as if she had been her daughter. The Queen bowed to the decrees
of Providence. Her soul remained strong, but her body was crushed by
sorrow. “Give me back my children,” she said, “and you will cure me.”
XVI
THE DEATH OF MARIE LECZINSKA
At the close of that last dialogue where, in the harbor of Ostia, under
a starry sky, overlooking the limpid waves, she aspired to that life
eternal which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor the heart of man
attained, Saint Monica said to her son: “My child, nothing any longer
attaches me to earth. What should I do here? Why am I still here? I
have realized all my hopes in this world. One thing there was for
which I desired to sojourn awhile in this life,--it was to see thee a
Christian before I died. God has given me that joy in over-measure,
since I see thee despising all earthly felicity in order to serve Him.
What have I to do here any longer?”
What Saint Monica said in the harbor of Ostia, Marie Leczinska could
say in the palace of Versailles. She had inspired her children with
Christian sentiments. Two of her daughters and her son had expired in
the peace of the Lord. The four remaining daughters thought and lived
like saints. Her task was accomplished. She thought of nothing now but
dying.
The convent of the Carmelites of Compiègne had become her chosen
refuge. It was there that, fleeing from grandeurs which had never
dazzled her, she humbled herself, annihilated herself before the
King of Kings, before Him who strengthens and consoles. This Queen
to whom her son had said one day: “Do you know, mamma, you will end
by quarrelling with Saint Teresa? Why do you want to be more fervent
here than the most fervent Carmelites, and make still longer prayers
than theirs?” This Queen, who would willingly have exchanged the royal
mantle for a serge habit, had for her oratory a cell in no respect
different from that of the nuns. She said she wanted to learn how to
die to the world and to herself.
Madame de Campan, who knew the four last daughters of Louis XV. so
well, thus describes the salutary influence which the Queen exercised
over their destiny: “Mesdames had in their august mother, Marie
Leczinska, the noblest model of all the pious and social virtues; by
her eminent qualities and her modest dignity, this princess veiled
the wrongs with which, but too unfortunately, one was authorized to
reproach the King; and so long as she lived, she guarded for the court
of Louis XV. that dignified and imposing aspect which alone maintains
the respect due to power. The princesses, her daughters, were worthy
of her; and if some few vile creatures tried to launch the shafts of
calumny against them, they fell at once, repelled by the high idea
people entertained of the loftiness of their sentiments and the purity
of their conduct.”
The woman who had been able to preserve a remnant of decency in a
corrupt society, and had thus saved the remnants of royal prestige, was
surrounded by unmixed veneration. At this epoch, as at all others, one
encountered types of honor and virtue, patriarchal and truly Christian
existences, interiors which were sanctuaries. It will not do to judge
the eighteenth century by the court and certain salons. Worthy people
were still numerous, especially among the provincial nobility, the
middle classes, and the people. In spite of Voltaire’s attacks, in
spite of the building of that Tower of Babel called the Encyclopedia,
Christianity continued to be what it had been for so many centuries:
the soul of France. The attempts of the philosophers to create a
morality independent of religion failed miserably, and all good minds
recognized that the Voltairian school was leading the nation into ruin.
The life of Marie Leczinska may be called the symbol of the religious
and virtuous element. In the face of adultery, the pious sovereign
had maintained the sacred rights of the family; in spite of his
irregularities, Louis XV. would never have dared, like Louis XIV., to
legitimate the children of his debaucheries and declare them eligible
to the throne of France. The scandal was in the boudoir of the
favorites, the edification by the hearth fire of the Queen.
As greatly as Madame de Pompadour was hated and despised, so greatly
was Marie Leczinska loved and respected. Her arrival was a festival,
her departure caused general sadness. “Is it not admirable,” she
wrote, “that I cannot leave Compiègne without seeing everybody crying?
Sometimes I ask myself what I have done to all these people whom I do
not know, to be so loved by them. They remember all my wishes.” She
gave away all she had, according to her lady of honor, the Maréchale
de Mouchy, and when nothing was left, she sold her jewels. One year
when the high price of bread had caused more than common distress, she
pawned her precious stones and wore false ones. Her charity was as
inexhaustible as her kindness. She had the virtues of a woman of the
middle classes, the manners of a great lady, the dignity of a queen.
The resignation with which she endured her sorrows inspired in every
one a sympathy blended with respectful compassion. Public opinion paid
her homage, envy and slander were silent in her presence. Even the
philosophers honored her.
In a changing epoch, when all minds and hearts were in disorder, she
preserved three qualities which are rare in courts,--honesty, tact,
and good sense. There was nothing gloomy or morose about her virtue.
Her sweet, agreeable devotion recalled that of Saint Francis de Sales,
the most lovable of all the saints. She had the gift of making herself
beloved by a word, a smile. As has been remarked by the Countess
d’Armaillé, there was hardly a salon in France toward the close of the
last century, in which one could not meet some old lady always ready
to tell about her presentation at Versailles, and to become affected
in reciting the compliments which the good Queen Marie had paid her on
that memorable evening. Affable by nature and principle, indulgent by
instinct and reasoned conviction, Marie Leczinska was distinguished
among all the women of the court by a quality which is a force and a
charm, a quality still more necessary to sovereigns than to private
persons,--benevolence.
When she fell ill, the emotion was general. Every Frenchman entertained
for her the sentiments of a brother or a sister. The people besieged
the doors of the château of Versailles to get tidings of her. Sometimes
Louis XV. gave these himself. The churches of Paris and the provinces
were crowded with people praying for the good Queen.
The final moment was drawing near. The four daughters of Marie
Leczinska spent the last nights at their mother’s bedside with a
devotion which made them resemble Sisters of Charity. At the moment
when the death struggle was about to begin, Louis XV. kneeled beside
his wife’s bed, and said to her, weeping: “Here are our daughters whom
I present to you.” A Christian, the mother understood what these words
implied; and raising her eyes to heaven, she gave her children her last
blessing.
It is an hour of torture and anguish, a doleful hour, an hour
heart-rending above all, when one loses a cherished mother. The grief
borders on stupor. One feels one’s self the sport of a bad dream. One
cannot grow accustomed to so horrible a thought. Those holy, venerable
hands will never again be laid in blessing on your head! Those lips
whence issued counsels so wise, words so affectionate, are closed
forever! That heart, so warm, so loving, is cold; it beats no more.
Again you call to your mother; you call, and for the first time,
alas! she does not answer you. Then, all she has done for you, your
childhood, your youth, your whole life, rises up before you. Long
years of devotion, of sacrifices and tenderness, are concentrated in
a single minute. The heart, invaded by memories as by a rising tide,
overflows, and you burst into sobs. Oh! woe to him who at this fatal
moment believes that all ends here below! Woe to him who has not the
conviction that the dead woman is in heaven, that she is watching over
her children; that they can still love and implore her; that she will
always be their strength, their consoler, their good angel! But happy
in the midst of tears, happy amid the most cruel trials, the Christians
who then recall the prayer of Saint Louis, lamenting his mother,
Blanche of Castile: “I return thee thanks, O my God! Thou hadst lent me
a good, an incomparable, mother; but I know well she was not mine! Now,
Lord, thou hast withdrawn her to thyself.... Thus has thy Providence
determined. It is true that I cherished her beyond all creatures in
the world.... Nevertheless, since thou hast thus ordained, may thine
adorable will be done! My God! may thy holy name be blessed forever!”
Marie Leczinska died in angelic tranquillity. She was still trying to
say her rosary, when death interrupted on earth the prayer which the
holy woman was about to resume in heaven. These beautiful words of
Massillon were realized for the pious Queen: “The soul of the just,
during the days of their mortal life, dare not gaze fixedly upon the
profundity of God’s judgments; they work out their salvation with
fear and trembling, they shudder at the bare thought of that terrible
future where the just themselves will hardly be saved, if they are
judged without mercy; but on the bed of death, ah! the God of peace,
who manifests Himself, calms their agitations; their fears cease of a
sudden and are changed into a sweet hope, their dying eyes pierce the
cloud of mortality which still environs them, and see that immortal
country after which they have sighed so long, and where they have
always dwelt in spirit.” Oh! you who have seen a saintly mother die,
you who have in your hearts a regret and an expectation, do not forget!
It was the 24th of June, 1768, when Marie Leczinska yielded her last
breath. The very day before she had entered her sixty-eighth year. Her
reign had lasted forty-three years, and during that long period she
had caused no tears to flow but those of joy and gratitude. Her women,
her servants, her poor, collected the least scraps of her clothing to
preserve as relics. Her mortal remains, exposed for eight days on a
bed of state, was the object of a real cult on the part of the people.
The Archbishop of Troyes preached her funeral sermon. “Pontiff of the
living God,” said he, addressing himself to the Archbishop of Paris,
“fear not to offer above her tomb an incense which may one day be
offered above her altars.” Compare this life and death with those of
the Marquise de Pompadour, if you wish to know what vice is, and what
is virtue.
Marie Leczinska is the last queen who has ended her days upon the
throne of France. The women, who for now a century have worn the royal
or imperial crown in our unhappy and inconstant land, have all been
the innocent victims of the Revolution and the caprices of fate. One
perished an august martyr on the scaffold; another died at the moment
of the invasion, her heart broken by the afflictions of her vanquished
country. A third faded away almost forgotten in the little duchy given
her in exchange for the finest empire of the world. A fourth died
holily in a foreign land, regretting perhaps that she had been Queen;
and there is one who, at this very moment, is sadly rewarded for her
charity and courage, her virtue and her patriotism. To-day, above
all, might a Bossuet say before Versailles abandoned or the Tuileries
in ruins: _Et nunc, reges intelligite! Erudimini, que judicatis
terram!_ And now, O Kings, comprehend! Be instructed, O ye who judge
the earth!
INDEX
_Abrégé chronologique_, Hénault’s, 238, 239.
Adelaide, Madame, allowed to remain at Versailles, 246;
her apartment, 255.
Aix-la-Chapelle, the peace of, 130, 131.
_Almases_, performed at Versailles, 140.
Austria, France’s alliance with, 203 _et seq._;
an Austrian party at Versailles, 205.
Artois, Count of, 265.
Asturias, Prince of, 19.
Bachelier, the confidant of Louis XV., 51.
Barbier, quoted, 40, 44, 55;
his criticism of Bishop Fitz-James, 80.
Barthélemy, Édouard de, 245.
Beaujolais, Mademoiselle de, her birth, 19;
affianced to Don Carlos, 19;
sent back to France, 20;
later life and death, 21.
Beaumont, Christopher de, summoned to the archbishopric of Paris,
196;
his integrity to the Church, 196, 197;
exiled, 197;
his charge sent from Conflans to Paris, 198, 199;
recalled by the King, 197;
again exiled, 197.
Bellevue, Château of, 145, 146, 151.
Bernis, Abbé de, verses quoted, 126;
his attitude towards Madame de Pompadour, 183, 184, 185;
accused of drawing up the treaty of Versailles, 206;
his words on the convention of Cloister-Seven, 207, 208;
counsels peace, 208, 209;
threatened, 210;
resigns, 210, 211.
Berry, Duke of, 265.
Bonhomme, Honoré, his book on Louis XV. and his family, 245, 246;
his description of Madame Henriette, 249.
Bossuet, quoted, 195, 229.
Bourbon, Duke of, prime minister, 16;
ruled by his mistress, Madame de Prie, 16–18;
his uneasiness at court, 18;
his description of Marie Leczinska, 25;
endeavors to overthrow Fleury, Bishop of Fréjus, 34;
his downfall, 34, 35.
Burgundy, Duke of, 264.
Campan, Madame de, quoted, 255;
her words concerning Marie Leczinska, 270.
Carlos, Don, 19.
Charles X., 265.
Charolais, Mademoiselle de, 50.
Chartres, Duchess de, 76, 78.
Chartres, Duke of, sketch of his career, 114, 115;
efforts to effect a marriage between Madame Henriette and, 250,
251;
his marriage, 251;
his unhappiness after marriage, 252.
Chateaubriand, quoted, 222.
Châteauroux, Duchess de, 1, 6;
words of the Goncourts concerning, 71;
wishes to follow the King to the army, 73;
joins the King, 76, 77, 78;
falls sick, 78;
is compelled to leave the King, 79;
her return to Paris, 84–86;
believes she will regain the King’s favor, 84, 86, 87;
the type of the passionate woman, 87;
among the crowd at the King’s triumph, 88;
visited by the King, 88, 89;
invited to return to Versailles, 89, 90;
her final illness and death, 90–92.
Choiseul, Duke de, 211;
his popularity, 213.
Christianity, the soul of France, 271.
Cloister-Seven, the convention of, 207.
Clotilde, Madame, 265.
Coaslin, Madame de, her insolent conduct toward Madame de
Pompadour, 157.
Conti, Princess de, 125.
D’Alembert, 215.
Damiens, wounds Louis XV., 180–182.
D’Argenson, quoted, 44, 105, 106, 218;
his attitude towards Madame de Pompadour, 183;
possesses confidence of Louis XV., 186;
misled as to the feelings of the King towards Madame de
Pompadour, 186;
proposes that meetings of the ministers be held in the Dauphin’s
apartments, 187;
dismissed from service, 188;
his words on women in politics, 194;
a true prophet, 218, 219.