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HEROINES OF FRENCH SOCIETY
[Illustration:
_Painted by herself. Uffizi, Florence_
MADAME LE BRUN
_Frontispiece_]
HEROINES OF
FRENCH SOCIETY
IN THE COURT, THE REVOLUTION
THE EMPIRE, AND THE RESTORATION
By
Mrs. Bearne
Author of “A Queen of Napoleon’s Court,”
“Early Valois Queens,” etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET
MCMVII
(_All rights reserved._)
THIS BOOK
IS DEDICATED
TO
ANNA AND KATE
PREFACE
In the histories of the four women whose lives are here related, I
have tried, as far as is possible in the limited space, to give an
idea of the various ways in which the Revolutionary tempest at the
close of the eighteenth century and the eventful years which preceded
and followed it, affected, and were regarded by, persons of the
different parties and classes to which they belonged.
The characters of the four heroines form as strong a contrast as their
circumstances, principles, and surroundings.
In Mme. Le Brun, the most gifted of all, we see a beauty, a genius,
and a woman unusually charming and attractive, thrown, before she was
sixteen, into the society of the magnificent, licentious court of
Louis XV. Married to a dissipated, _bourgeois_ spendthrift, for whom
she had never cared; sought after, flattered, and worshipped in all
the great courts of Europe; courted by fascinating, unscrupulous men
of the highest rank, without the protection of family connections and
an assured position; yet her religious principles, exalted character,
and passionate devotion to her art, carried her unscathed and honoured
through a life of extraordinary dangers and temptations.
She emigrated early, and far from being, as in most cases, a time of
poverty and hardship, her exile was one long, triumphant career of
prosperity.
Owing to her brilliant success, to the affection and friendship
which surrounded her wherever she went, to her absorbing interest
in her art, the delightful places and society in which she spent
her time, and also to her own sunny, light-hearted nature, her long
life, in spite of certain serious domestic drawbacks and sorrows,
was a very happy one. Her wonderful capacity for enjoyment, her
appreciation of beauty in nature and art, the great interest she took
in matters intellectual and political, her pleasure in the society of
her numerous friends, and her ardent devotion to the religious and
royalist principles of her youth, continued undiminished through the
peaceful old age which terminated her brilliant career.
With the same religious and political principles, the conditions of
life which surrounded the Marquise de Montagu were totally different.
A contrast indeed to the simple, artistic household, the early grief,
poverty, and hard work, the odious step-father, the foolish mother,
the worthless husband and daughter, the thousand difficulties and
disadvantages which beset Mme. Le Brun, were the state and luxury, the
sheltered life, the watchful care, and powerful protection bestowed
upon the daughter of the house of Noailles; her mother, the saintly,
heroic Duchesse d’Ayen, her husband the gallant, devoted Marquis de
Montagu.
She also was thrown very early into society; but she entered it as a
member of one of the greatest families in France, surrounded by an
immense number of relations of the highest character and position.
Neither a genius nor yet possessed of any great artistic or
intellectual talent, without worldly ambition, little attracted by the
amusements of society, she was a sort of mixture of a _grande dame_
and a saint.
The lofty asceticism of her theories and practice was perhaps almost
too severe for ordinary mortals living in the world, and in some
respects better adapted for a monastic than a secular life; her
emigration, so long delayed, was no time of success and happiness:
long years of terror, danger, poverty, fearful trials, and sorrows
endured with heroic fortitude and angelic patience, passed before she
was restored to France and to the ancient castle which was the home
and refuge of her later life.
In Mme. Tallien we have a woman exactly opposite to the other two in
character, principles, and conduct. Differing from both of them in
birth and circumstances—for she was the daughter of a Spanish banker
of large fortune—with extraordinary beauty, the hot, passionate blood
of the south, a nature, habits, and principles undisciplined by
authority and unrestrained by religion, she was early imbued with the
creed of the revolutionists, and carried their theories of atheism and
licence to the logical consequences.
Yet the generosity and kindness of her heart, and the number of
victims she saved, outweighed, though without effacing, the disorders
of her earlier life,[1] during the latter part of which, as the wife
of a Catholic, royalist prince, whose love she returned and to whose
opinions she was converted, she deeply regretted the errors of Notre
Dame de Thermidor.
In Mme. de Genlis we have a fourth and more complex type, a character
in which good and evil were so mingled that it was often hard to
say which predominated. With less beauty than the other three but
singularly attractive, with extraordinary gifts and talents, with
noble blood and scarcely any fortune, she spent a childhood of
comparative poverty at her father’s _château_, where she was only half
educated, and at seventeen married the young Comte de Genlis, who had
no money but was related to most of the great families of the kingdom.
From this time began her brilliant career. Essentially a woman of the
world, delighting in society and amusement, though always praising
the pleasures of solitude and retirement, she entered the household
of the Duchesse d’Orléans, wife of the infamous Philippe-Égalité,
and while constantly declaiming against ambition managed to get all
her relations lucrative posts at the Palais Royal, and married one
if not both her daughters to rich men of rank with notoriously bad
reputations.
Perpetually proclaiming her religious principles and loyalty to the
throne, she was suspected of being concerned in the disgraceful libels
and attacks upon the Queen, was on terms of friendship with some of
the worst of the revolutionists, rejoiced in the earliest outbreaks of
the beginning of the Revolution, and while she educated the Orléans
children with a pompous parade of virtue and strictness, was generally
and probably rightly looked upon as the mistress of their father.
She was a strange character, full of artificial sentiment,
affectation, and self-deception, and, unlike the first three heroines
of this book, the mystery and doubts which hung over her have never
been cleared up.
Against the saintly Marquise de Montagu no breath of scandal could
ever be spoken. Such calumnies as were spread against Mme. Le Brun,
the work of the revolutionists, who hated her only for her religion
and loyalty, never believed by those whose opinion would be worthy of
consideration, soon vanished and were forgotten.
The _liaisons_ of Mme. Tallien had nothing doubtful about them.
But the stories against Mme. de Genlis have never been cleared up.
Much that was said about her was undoubtedly false, but there remain
serious accusations which can neither be proved nor disproved; and
that a long, intimate friendship between a prince of the character of
Philippe-Égalité and a young, attractive woman who was governess to
his children should have been no more than a platonic one, passes the
bounds of credibility.
The history of Mme. de Genlis in the emigration differs from the other
two, for having contrived to make herself obnoxious both to royalists
and republicans her position was far worse than theirs.
But the deep affection she and her pupils displayed for each other,
the devotion and kindness she showed them during their misfortunes,
the courage and cheerfulness with which she bore the hardships and
dangers of her lot, and the remorse and self-reproach which, in spite
of the excellent opinion she usually entertained of herself, do
occasionally appear in her memoirs, prove that many good qualities
existed amongst so much that was faulty.
As to her writings, then so much in vogue, they were mostly works
intended either to explain, assist, or illustrate the system of
education which was the hobby of her life and which, if one may judge
by “Adèle et Théodore,” one of the most important of her tales, can
only be called preposterous.
That the false sentiment, the absurd rules of life, the irksome,
unnecessary restrictions, the cramping and stifling of all the
natural affections and feelings of youth here inculcated should have
been regarded with approval, even by the sourest and most solemn of
puritans, seems difficult to believe; but that in the society of Paris
at that time they should have been popular and admired is only another
example of the inconsistency of human nature. She had a passion for
children, but kindness to animals does not seem to have been one
of the virtues she taught her pupils. We may hope that the fearful
little prigs described as the result of her system never did or could
exist.
I have endeavoured to be accurate in all the dates and incidents,
and have derived my information from many sources, including the
“Mémoires de Louis XVIII., recueillis par le Duc de D——,” Mémoires de
la Comtesse d’Adhémar, de Mme. Campan, MM. de Besenval, de Ségur, &c.,
also the works of the Duchesse d’Abrantès, Comtesse de Bassanville,
Mme. de Créquy, Mme. de Genlis, Mme. Le Brun, MM. Arsène Houssaye, de
Lamartine, Turquan, Dauban, Bouquet, and various others, besides two
stories never yet published, one of which was given me by a member of
the family to which it happened; the other was told me in the presence
of the old man who was the hero of it.
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Tallien, on hearing of her proposed marriage with the Prince de
Chimay, remarked, “_Elle a beau faire, elle sera toujours Madame
Tallien_.”
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE vii
I
MADAME VIGÉE LE BRUN
CHAPTER I
The _ancien régime_—Close of the reign of Louis XIV.—The
Regent Orléans—The court of Louis XV.—The philosophers—The
artists—M. Vigée 3
CHAPTER II
The childhood of Lisette—Extraordinary talent—The convent—The
household of an artist—Death of M. Vigée—Despair
of Lisette—Begins her career—Re-marriage of
her mother—The Dauphine 15
CHAPTER III
Brilliant success of Lisette—Love of her art—The Vernet—Life
in Paris before the Revolution—Mme. Geoffrin—Marriage
of Lisette to M. Le Brun—A terrible prediction 29
CHAPTER IV
Marie Antoinette—Birth of Mme. Le Brun’s daughter—The
Royal Family—Brussels—Antwerp—The charms of
French society—The Opera ball—An incident in the
terror—A Greek supper—_Le jeu de la Reine_ 45
CHAPTER V
The theatre—Raincy—Chantilly—Calonne—Attempt to ruin
the reputation of Mme. Le Brun—Two deplorable
marriages—Fate of Mme. Chalgrin—Under the shadow
of death—Mme. Du Barry 60
CHAPTER VI
End of the _ancien régime_—Foretaste of the
Revolution—Threatened—Resolves to emigrate—Another
alarm—Preparations—“You are wrong to go”—A terrible
journey—Safe across the frontier 79
CHAPTER VII
Turin—Parma—The Infanta—Florence—Rome: Delightful
life there—Artistic success—Social life—The French
refugees—The Polignac—Angelica Kaufmann—An Italian
summer—Life at Gensano—The Duchesse de Fleury 90
CHAPTER VIII
Naples—Lady Hamilton—Marie Caroline, Queen of Naples—Mesdames
de France—Their escape—_Les chemises de
Marat_—Rome—Terrible news from France—Venice—Turin—The
Comtesse de Provence—The 10th August—The
Refugees—Milan—Vienna—Delightful society—Prince
von Kaunitz—Life at Vienna 104
CHAPTER IX
Dresden—St. Petersburg—The Empress Catherine
II.—Orloff—Potemkin—Russian hospitality—Magnificence of society
at St. Petersburg—Mme. Le Brun is robbed—Slanders
against her—The Russian Imperial family—Popularity
and success of Mme. Le Brun—Death of the Empress Catherine 122
CHAPTER X
Paul I.—Terror he inspired—Death of the mother of Mme.
Le Brun—Marriage of her daughter—Moscow—The
Tsarevitch Alexander—Assassination of Paul I.—“I
salute my Emperor”—Mme. Le Brun returns to
Paris—Changes—London—Life in England—Paris—Separated
from M. Le Brun—Society during the Empire—Caroline
Murat—Switzerland—Fall of the Empire—Restoration—Death
of M. Le Brun—Of her daughter—Travels in
France—Her nieces—Conclusion 139
II
LA MARQUISE DE MONTAGU
CHAPTER I
The House of Noailles—The court of Louis XV.—The
Dauphin—The Dauphine—An evil omen—The Queen—The
Convent of Fontevrault—Death of Mme. Thérèse—The
Infanta—Madame Henriette and the Duc d’Orléans—Mesdames
Victoire, Sophie, and Louise 161
CHAPTER II
The Greatest Names in France—The Maréchale de Noailles—Strange
proceedings—Death of the Dauphin—Of the Dauphine—Of the
Queen—The Children of France—Louis XIV. and Louis XV. 173
CHAPTER III
The Duchesse d’Ayen—Birth and death of her sons—Her five
daughters—Their education at home—Saintly life of the
Duchess—Marriage of her eldest daughter to the Vicomte
de Noailles—Of the second to the Marquis de la Fayette—Of
the Dauphin to the Archduchess Marie Antoinette—The
Comtesse de Noailles—Marriages of the Comtes de
Provence and d’Artois to the Princesses of Sardinia—Death
of Louis XV.—Unhappy marriage of the third
daughter of the Duc d’Ayen to the Vicomte du Roure—Afterwards
to Vicomte de Thésan—Paulette and Rosalie
de Noailles—Adrienne de la Fayette—Radical ideas of
the Vicomte de Noailles and Marquis de la Fayette—Displeasure
of the family and the King—La Fayette and
de Noailles join the American insurgents—Grief and
heroism of Adrienne—Marriage of Pauline to the Marquis
de Montagu 182
CHAPTER IV
The Marquis de Montagu rejoins his regiment—Life of Pauline
at the _hôtel de Montagu_—Affection of her
father-in-law—Brilliant society—Story of M. de Continges—Death
of Pauline’s child—Marriage of Rosalie to Marquis de
Grammont—Birth of Pauline’s daughters—The court of Louis
XVI.—The royal family—Dissensions at court—Madame
Sophie and the storm—Extravagance of the Queen and
Comte d’Artois—The Comte d’Artois and Mlle. Duthé—Scene
with the King—_Le petit Trianon_—The Palace of
Marly—A sinister guest 194
CHAPTER V
Weak character of Louis XVI.—Quarrels at court—Mme. de
Tessé—Forebodings of Mme. d’Ayen—La Fayette—Saintly
lives of Pauline and her sisters—Approach of the
Revolution—The States-General—Folly of Louis XVI.—Scenes
at Versailles—Family political quarrels—Royalist
and Radical—Death of Pauline’s youngest child 206
CHAPTER VI
The Château de Plauzat—Varennes—Increasing danger—Decided
to emigrate—Triumphal progress of La Fayette—The
farewell of the Duchesse d’Ayen—Paris—Rosalie—A
last mass—Escape to England 219
CHAPTER VII
M. de Montagu returns to Paris—M. de Beaune—Richmond—Death
of Noémi—Aix-la-Chapelle—Escape of the Duc
d’Ayen and Vicomte de Noailles—La Fayette arrested in
Austria—The Hague—Crossing the Meuse—Margate—Richmond—Hardships
of poverty—Brussels—Letter from Mme. de Tessé—Joins her in
Switzerland—Murder of M. and Mme. de Mouchy—Goes to meet the
Duc d’Ayen—He tells her of the murder of her grandmother, Mme.
de Noailles, her mother, the Duchesse d’Ayen, and her eldest
sister, the Vicomtesse de Noailles—Mme. de la Fayette
still in prison 227
CHAPTER VIII
Illness—Leaves Switzerland with Mme. de Tessé—They settle
near Altona—Hears of Rosalie’s safety—Life on the farm—Release
of Adrienne—Her visit—Farm of Wittmold—Peaceful
life there—Rosalie and Adrienne—Birth of
Pauline’s son—He and her other children live—Release
of La Fayette—Their visit to Wittmold—Meeting of
Adrienne, Pauline, and Rosalie at the Hague 248
CHAPTER IX
Return to France—The inheritance of the Duchesse d’Ayen—Loss
of the Noailles property—Inherits the Castle of
Fontenay—Death of Mme. de la Fayette—Prosperous
life at Fontenay—Conclusion 258
III
MADAME TALLIEN
CHAPTER I
Térèzia Cabarrus—Comes to Paris—Married to the Marquis
de Fontenay—Revolutionary sympathies—Unpopularity
of royal family—The wig of M. de Montyon—The
Comte d’Artois and his tutor—The Comte de Provence
and Louis XV. 269
CHAPTER II
The makers of the Revolution—_Fête à la
Nature_—Tallien—Dangerous times—An inharmonious
marriage—Colonel la Mothe—A Terrorist—The beginning of
the emigration—A sinister prophecy 281
CHAPTER III
The 10th of August—The September massacres—Tallien—The
emigrant ship—Arrest at Bordeaux—In prison—Saved by Tallien 297
CHAPTER IV
Divorced—M. de Fontenay escapes to Spain—The mistress of
Tallien—Her influence and his save many
lives—Robespierre—Singular circumstances at the birth of
Louis XVII.—The vengeance of the Marquis de —— —Enmity
of Robespierre—Arrest of Térèzia—La Force 308
CHAPTER V
The Bastille—Prisons of the Revolution—Les Carmes—Cazotte—The
Terrorists turn upon each other—Joséphine
de Beauharnais—A musician in the Conciergerie—A
dog in prison—Under the guardianship of a
dog—Tallien tries to saves Térèzia—A dagger—La Force—The
last hope—The Tocsin—The 9th Thermidor 323
CHAPTER VI
“Robespierre is dead!”—Notre Dame de Thermidor—End of
the Terror—The prisons open—Decline of Tallien’s
power—Barras—Napoleon—“Notre Dame de Septembre!”—M.
Ouvrard—Separates from Tallien—He goes to Egypt—Consul
in Spain—Dies in Paris—Térèzia stays in Paris—Ingratitude
of some she had saved—Marries the Prince de Chimay—Conclusion 335
IV
MADAME DE GENLIS
CHAPTER I
Birth of Félicité Ducrest—Château de Saint-Aubin—Made
_chanoinesse_—Story of her uncle and her mother—Her
childhood—Comes to Paris—Goes into society—Evil
reputation of the _hôtel Tencin_ 351
CHAPTER II
M. de la Haie—Death of the Dauphin—M. de Saint-Aubin
goes to St. Domingo—Taken prisoner by the English—Returns
to France—Imprisoned for debt—His death—Difficulties
and poverty—Félicité marries the Comte de
Genlis—His family—The Abbesse de Montivilliers and
the robbers—Life in the convent—Birth of a daughter 362
CHAPTER III
Presentation at Versailles—La Rosière—Father and son—Mme.
de Montesson—A terrible scene—The Comtesse
de Custine—Mme. de Genlis enters the Palais Royal 375
CHAPTER IV
Society of the Palais Royal—Philippe-Égalité—An apparition—Mlle.
Mars—M. Ducrest—Marriage of Mme. de
Montesson—Marly—The Prime Minister of France 386
CHAPTER V
La Muette—Sunrise—Italy—Nocturnal adventure—Governess
to the children of Orléans—Scandalous reports—Marriages
of her daughters—Death of the elder one—The
Comte de Valence 397
CHAPTER VI
Death of the Duc d’Orléans—M. de Genlis—Sillery—Coming
of the Revolution—The Bastille—Anger of the Duchesse
d’Orléans—Dissensions 411
CHAPTER VII
In England—Sheridan—Strange adventure—Raincy—Farewell
to Philippe-Égalité—Proscribed—Tournay—Pamela—Death of the King 426
CHAPTER VIII
Flight and danger—Mons—Zurich—Zug—The Convent of
Bremgarten—Death of M. de Sillery—Of Égalité—Mademoiselle
d’Orléans and the Princesse de Conti 438
CHAPTER IX
A wandering life—“The tyrant is no more”—Marriage of
Henriette—Hamburg—Berlin—Antwerp—Brussels—Returns
to France—Terrible changes—Shattered fortune—Literary
success—The Empire—Napoleon—Mme.
de Genlis and her friends—Death of Mme. de Montesson 449
CHAPTER X
Interesting society—Anecdotes of the past Terror—Casimir—The
Restoration—Madame Royale—Louis XVIII.—The
_coiffeur_ of Marie Antoinette—The regicide—Return of
the Orléans family—An astrologer—A faithful servant—Society
of the Restoration—Isabey—Meyerbeer—Conclusion 466
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MADAME LE BRUN. (_Painted by herself. Uffizi, Florence_)
_Frontispiece_
LOUIS XV. (_Rigaud_) 8
MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE. (_Mme. Vigée Le Brun_) 45
ANTWERP. (_E. H. Bearne_) 49
CALONNE. (_Mme. Vigée Le Brun_) 65
MADAME LE BRUN ET SA FILLE. (Painted by herself) 76
THE PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE. (_E. H. Bearne_) 92
ROME. (_E. H. Bearne_) 107
VENICE. (_E. H. Bearne_) 112
CATHERINE II., EMPRESS OF RUSSIA. (_Schebanoff_) 125
PAUL, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. (_From picture given to Sir Home
Popham, Capt. R.N., by the Empress Marie_) 139
COMTESSE D’ANDLAU. (_Mme. Vigée Le Brun_) 152
MADAME ADÉLAÏDE. (_Nattier_) 170
COMTE D’ARTOIS, AFTERWARDS CHARLES X. 179
MADAME SOPHIE. (_Nattier_) 201
LE PETIT TRIANON. (_E. H. Bearne_) 203
MARIE ANTOINETTE. (_Paul Delaroche_) 238
PALAIS DU LUXEMBOURG. (_E. H. Bearne_) 245
MARIE DE VICHY-CHAMBRON, MARQUISE DU DEFFAND. 281
FRANÇOIS-MARIE AROUET DE VOLTAIRE. (_Tournières_) 284
Maximilien Robespierre. (_Guiard_) 321
GEORGES DANTON. (_Greuze_) 330
NAPOLEON. 340
LA MARQUISE DE POMPADOUR. (_Boucher_) 3523
AMSTERDAM. (_E. H. Bearne_) 390
NICE. (_E. H. Bearne_) 399
CHILLON. (_E. H. Bearne_) 448
MADAME ROYALE. (_Mme. Vigée Le Brun_) 472
JUDITH PASTA. (_Gérard_) 480
MALIBRAN. 484
I
MADAME VIGÉE LE BRUN
CHAPTER I
The _ancien régime_—Close of the reign of Louis XIV.—The Regent
Orléans—The court of Louis XV.—The philosophers—The artists—M.
Vigée.
When Elisabeth Louise Vigée was born at Paris, April, 1755, the French
court and monarchy were still at the height of their splendour and
power.
Only a few years since, the chronicler Barbier had remarked, “It is
very apparent that we make all Europe move to carry out our plans, and
that we lay down the law everywhere.”[2]
Louis XV. was upon the throne; the manners and customs of the _ancien
régime_ were in full force, though mitigated and softened by the
growing enlightenment and liberalism which were spreading not only
in the literary and professional circles, but amongst the younger
generation in all classes.
Middle-aged men and women had seen Louis XIV., _Louis le Grand_, “_le
Roi Soleil_,” as an old man; old people could remember him in the
prime of his life, the most magnificent King with the most stately
court in Christendom. The Cardinal de Luynes, the Maréchal de Croz,
the Duc de Richelieu and other _grands seigneurs_ who preserved the
manners and traditions of that time, were looked upon as models of
courtly manners and high-breeding by those who complained that in the
reaction and licence of the regency and court of Louis XV., vice and
corruption were far more unrestrained, more scandalous, less disguised
and altogether more indecorous than under the ceremonious and stately
rule of his great-grandfather.[3]
The Queen, Marie Leczinska, daughter of Stanislaus, ex-King of Poland,
was a harmless, uninteresting woman, who had no ambition, no talent,
no influence, and a great many children.
The King had been married to her when he was fifteen and she
two-and-twenty; and after the first few years had lived in an open
immorality which was very general at his court, and for a long time
did not much affect his popularity with the nation, though every now
and then caricatures and epigrams more witty than prudent appeared;
as, for instance, the following, written upon the base of the pedestal
of an equestrian statue of him, around which were grouped the figures
of Strength, Prudence, Justice, and Peace:
“Grotesque monument, infâme piédestal.
Les vertus sont à pied, le vice est à cheval.”
And a few days afterwards upon the same monument:
“Il est ici comme à Versailles
Il est sans cœur et sans entrailles.”[4]
Louis, however, was more selfish and indifferent than cruel. He was by
no means like Frederic William of Prussia, a savage to his family and
his subjects, or like three out of the four Georges of England, who
were not only outrageously immoral themselves, but brutal tyrants to
their wives[5] and bitter enemies of their parents and children.
His court was the most splendid, the most extravagant, and the most
licentious in Europe; the cruelty and oppression of many of the great
nobles and especially the princes of the blood, were notorious; the
laws were harsh and unjust to a frightful extent, but they were not
of his making. He neglected the Queen, but did not ill-treat her; he
was fond of his children and indulgent to them; while, far from being
disliked by his subjects, he was called _Louis le Bien-aimé_.
Barbier, writing in December, 1758, gives another sarcastic verse
going about in society, which, as it was directed against the King’s
all-powerful mistress, the Marquise de Pompadour, attracted general
attention, irritated the King, and caused the author, who was
discovered to be an officer of the guards, to be sentenced to a year’s
imprisonment, after which to be banished to Malta, as he belonged to
the order of St. John of Jerusalem.
The lines are as follows, and refer to a _château_ then being built by
Louis for the Marquise de Pompadour, whose original name was Jeanne
Antoinette Poisson:
“Fille d’une sangsue, et sangsue elle-même
Poisson d’une arrogance extrême,
Étale en ce château sans crainte et sans effroi
La substance du peuple et la honte du Roi.”
Barbier, a lawyer and man of the world, whose journal of eight volumes
gives a vivid impression of the life of that time, after remarking
that the sentence was a very lenient one,[6] that the _château_
was not so large as that of many a _fermier général_, and that the
building thereof gave employment to many poor people, goes on to say,
“As for ‘shame,’ ... if it is because the King has a mistress, why
who has not? except M. le duc d’Orléans.[7]... The Comte de Clermont,
Abbé de Saint-Germain-des-Près, openly keeps Mlle. le Duc, who was
an opera dancer; she spends three-quarters of the year at Berny, the
Abbé’s country house, where she does the honours. She has a fine house
in the _rue de Richelieu_, where the Prince often spends a week. The
fathers of the abbey who have business with him go to him there in the
morning, for he does not lodge in the palace of the abbey. This goes
on in sight of every one, and nobody says a word about it.
“For more than twenty years M. le Comte de Charolois has detained
in captivity, against her will, Mme. de Conchamp, wife of a
Maître-des-Requêtes, whom he carried off, and who would have been
much happier in her own house. Fifteen out of twenty men at the court
do not live with their wives but have mistresses, and even amongst
private people at Paris, nothing is more frequent; therefore it is
ridiculous to expect the King, who is absolutely the master, to be in
a worse position than his subjects and all the kings his predecessors.”
There had, in fact, been a strong reaction against the restraint
and dullness of the last few years of the reign of Louis XIV., when
the magnificent, pleasure-loving King, whose victorious armies had
devastated Europe, who had made princes of his illegitimate children,
lavished the riches of the country upon his mistresses, and yet in his
stately beauty and fascination been the idol of France; had changed
into a melancholy old man, depressed and disillusioned, looking
with uneasiness upon the past, with fear upon the future; while the
brilliant beauties and splendid festivities of bygone days had given
place to virtue, strict propriety, and Mme. de Maintenon.
When Louis XIV. died, people were very tired of this altered state of
things. For some time they had been extremely dull and were eager for
change and amusement.
With a King of five years old, and such a Regent as the Duke of
Orléans, they were tolerably sure of both. The reign of pleasure,
luxury, and licence began with enthusiasm. Never, during the life of
Louis le Grand, had the atmosphere of the Court been what it became
under the regency, and under his great-grandson.
The Regent Orléans was not, like the Princes of Condé, Conti,
Charolois, and others of the blood royal, cruel, haughty, or
vindictive; on the contrary, he was good-natured, easy, and indulgent;
but he was dissipated, extravagant, and licentious to such a degree
that he himself, the court, and his family were the scandal of Europe.
The same frenzied pursuit of enjoyment, the same lavish, sensual,
reckless, luxurious life, characterised the whole of the reign of
Louis XV.
In reading the memoirs and chronicles of that time one scarcely
realises the existence of the many families and households, especially
among the _noblesse de province_[8] or country gentlemen, and the
middle classes, amongst whom the principles of order and religion were
observed; and of an increasing circle of literary and philosophic
persons who inveighed against the crimes, vices, and abuses of the age.
Those whose ideas of France in the eighteenth century are derived
only from such books as Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities,” or even from
a casual acquaintance with a few of the histories and chronicles
of the time, are apt vaguely to picture to themselves a nation
composed partly of oppressed, starving peasants, and partly of their
oppressors, a race of well-bred ruffians and frivolous, heartless
women; all splendidly dressed, graceful, polite, and charming in their
manners amongst themselves; but arrogant, cruel, and pitiless to those
beneath them.
[Illustration:
_Rigaud_
LOUIS XV.]
Many such undoubtedly there were; the laws were terribly
oppressive, the privileges of the favoured classes outrageously
unjust; while as for public opinion, Barbier himself remarks that the
public is a fool, and must always be unworthy of the consideration of
any man.
But still, in all ages human nature is the same, and has to be
reckoned with under all circumstances, and that people in general are
much better than the laws which govern them is evident.
If the cruel, unjust marriage laws of England, which until a few years
ago were in force, had been universally and fully carried out, making
the husband an almost irresponsible tyrant and the wife a helpless,
hopeless slave, domestic life would have been hell upon earth. But
as the great majority of men had no wish to ill-treat their wives,
confiscate their money, deprive them of their children or commit any
of the atrocities sanctioned by the laws of their country, families
upon the whole went on in harmony and affection. It was only now and
then, when a man _did_ wish to avail himself of the arbitrary power
placed in his hands, that the results of such iniquitous laws were
brought before the public. At the same time, however, the knowledge of
their existence and the tone of thought, prejudices, and customs which
consequently prevailed, had an influence upon men who were not the
least tyrannically inclined, but merely acted in accordance with the
ideas and opinions of every one around them.
And amidst all the oppression, vice, and evil of which we hear so
often in France of the eighteenth century, there was also much good
of which we hear little or nothing. The reason is obvious. Good
people are, unfortunately, seldom so amusing to write or read about
as bad ones. Has any one ever met with a child who wanted to be told
a story about a good little girl or boy? And is it not true, though
lamentable, that there are many persons who would rather read a book
about a bushranger than a bishop?
The _noblesse d’epée_ was the highest, most brilliant, and most
scandalous in France; but in its ranks were to be found heroic
examples and saintly characters; while far away in the convents
and _châteaux_ scattered over the country and in quiet _bourgeois_
families in the towns lives were led of earnest faith, devotion, and
self-denial.
Many an abbess, many a _châtelaine_ spent time and money amongst the
rich and poor; and there were _seigneurs_ who helped and protected
the peasants on their estates and were regarded by them with loyalty
and affection. To some extent under the influence of the ideas and
prejudices amongst which they had been born and educated, yet they
lived upright, honourable, religious lives, surrounded by a mass of
oppression, licence, and corruption in the destruction of which they
also were overwhelmed.
Amongst the philosophic set, the “encyclopædists,” so-called from the
encyclopædia which had been started by Diderot, and to which Grimm,
d’Alembert, Buffon, Marmontel, and many other well-known men were
contributors, there was a spirit of passionate revolt against the
cruelties and abuses of the time, an ardent thirst for liberty, much
generous sympathy with the poor and oppressed, and desire to alleviate
the sufferings of humanity.
They were, as usual, men of all sorts, shades, and aims. Many,
inspired with lofty but unpractical enthusiasm, dreamed of an
impossible republic founded upon that of Plato; the ideal of others
was a constitutional monarchy and free parliament such as existed in
England; there were also, of course, numbers who desired to upset the
present order of things so that they might usurp the power and seize
the property of everybody for themselves.
But besides their hostility to religion, the private characters of
these philosophers did not, in many cases, by any means correspond
with their writings and professions.
Rousseau, notwithstanding his assumption of superior virtue, his
pretence of being a leader and teacher thereof, his especial
exhortations and instructions to parents about the care and education
of their children, and his theories on friendship and love, was
absolutely without gratitude for the help and kindness of his friends,
ill-tempered, conceited, and quarrelsome; saw no degradation in his
_liaison_ with a low, uneducated woman, and abandoned all his children
in their infancy at the gate of the _enfants trouvés_.
Freethinkers, deists, or open atheists most of them were, delighting
in blasphemous assaults and attacks, not only upon the Church and
religion in general, but upon God himself; and so outrageous and
scurrilous was their habitual language upon such subjects that they
found it necessary to disguise, by a sort of private slang known only
to each other, their conversation in public places where it might be
not only offensive to their hearers, but dangerous to themselves.
The _salon_ of the famous Mme. Geoffrin was the great resort of
philosophers, literary men of different kinds, painters, musicians,
and celebrities of various countries, people distinguished in the
political world, or belonging to the court and the great noblesse,
French and foreign.
In art, as in everything else, it was still the age of the artificial.
The great wigs and flowing drapery of the last reign had given place
to powder and paint, ribbons and _pompons_, pink roses, and pale blue
satin or velvet, _à la Pompadour_.
When people in Parisian society thought of the country, they thought
of lambs with ribbons round their necks, shepherdesses in fanciful
costumes with long crooks, or a “_rosière_” kneeling before the family
and friends of the seigneur to be crowned with flowers and presented
with a _rose_ as the reward of virtue, in the presence of an admiring
crowd of villagers; of conventional gardens, clipped trees, and
artificial ruins; but wild, picturesque mountain scenery was their
abhorrence.
The taste of the day was expressed in the pictures of the favourite
artists, Watteau and Greuze, who painted the graceful groups and
landscapes every one admired: charming women sitting in beautiful
gardens dressed in costumes suitable for a ball or court festivity, or
anything on earth but being out of doors in the country.
Fragonard, the Provençal, had more depth and dramatic feeling, the
passion of the south and the love of nature in his work gave a
stronger, truer, more impressive tone to his pictures; but Boucher,
the favourite painter of Louis XV., the Marquise de Pompadour, and the
court would seem from his pictures to have looked upon everything in
life as if it were a scene in a carnival or _fête_. His goddesses and
saints, even the holy Virgin herself, were painted from models from
the theatre, and looked as if they were; his gardens, roses, silks,
satins, nymphs, fountains, and garlands were the supreme fashion;
every one wanted him to paint their portrait; he had more commissions
than he could execute, and his head was turned by the flattery
lavished upon him.
David, Chardin, the celebrated _genre_ painter, Van Loo, Gérard, La
Tour, Joseph Vernet, and many others were flourishing. Louis Vigée was
also an artist. He painted portraits in pastel, of which his daughter
says that they were extremely good, many of them worthy of the famous
La Tour; also charming scenes after the style of Watteau, in oil.
Although not a great painter he was absolutely devoted to his art,
in which he would become so absorbed as to forget everything else.
On one occasion he was going out to dinner and had already left the
house, when he remembered something he wanted to do to a picture
upon which he was working. He therefore went back, took off the
wig he was wearing, put on a night-cap, and began to retouch the
picture. Presently he got up, went out again, forgetting all about the
night-cap which he still had on, and which formed a singular contrast
to his coat trimmed with gold braid, and the sword at his side; and
would certainly have presented himself at the party to which he was
going in this costume had he not fortunately met a neighbour, who
stopped him and pointed out the strangeness of his appearance.
FOOTNOTES:
[2] Journal de Barbier, “Chronique de la Régence,” 1741.
[3] Louis XV. was five years old when he succeeded this
great-grandfather, Louis XIV. (1715).
[4] “Chronique de la Régence” (Barbier, 1748).
[5] George II., although in other respects much resembling the first
and fourth Georges, did not ill-treat his wife.
[6] It was afterwards changed into twenty years’ imprisonment, and
then banishment (d’Argenson).
[7] Son of the late Regent.
[8] It is, however, true that such of the _noblesse de province_ as
were inclined to be tyrannical were worse than the great nobles who
belonged to the court; and their oppression was more felt.