The palace of Versailles has been turned into a bricabrac shop of late
years, and its time-honored walls have been covered with many thousand
yards of the worst pictures that eye ever looked on. I don’t know how
many leagues of battles and sieges the unhappy visitor is now obliged
to march through, amidst a crowd of chattering Paris cockneys, who are
never tired of looking at the glories of the Grenadier Français; to the
chronicling of whose deeds this old palace of the old kings is now
altogether devoted. A whizzing, screaming steam-engine rushes hither
from Paris, bringing shoals of badauds in its wake. The old coucous are
all gone, and their place knows them no longer. Smooth asphaltum
terraces, tawdry lamps, and great hideous Egyptian obelisks, have
frightened them away from the pleasant station they used to occupy
under the trees of the Champs Elysées; and though the old coucous were
just the most uncomfortable vehicles that human ingenuity ever
constructed, one can’t help looking back to the days of their existence
with a tender regret; for there was pleasure then in the little trip of
three leagues: and who ever had pleasure in a railway journey? Does any
reader of this venture to say that, on such a voyage, he ever dared to
be pleasant? Do the most hardened stokers joke with one another? I
don’t believe it. Look into every single car of the train, and you will
see that every single face is solemn. They take their seats gravely,
and are silent, for the most part, during the journey; they dare not
look out of window, for fear of being blinded by the smoke that comes
whizzing by, or of losing their heads in one of the windows of the down
train; they ride for miles in utter damp and darkness: through awful
pipes of brick, that have been run pitilessly through the bowels of
gentle mother earth, the cast-iron Frankenstein of an engine gallops
on, puffing and screaming. Does any man pretend to say that he ENJOYS
the journey?—he might as well say that he enjoyed having his hair cut;
he bears it, but that is all: he will not allow the world to laugh at
him, for any exhibition of slavish fear; and pretends, therefore, to be
at his ease; but he IS afraid: nay, ought to be, under the
circumstances. I am sure Hannibal or Napoleon would, were they locked
suddenly into a car; there kept close prisoners for a certain number of
hours, and whirled along at this dizzy pace. You can’t stop, if you
would:—you may die, but you can’t stop; the engine may explode upon the
road, and up you go along with it; or, may be a bolter and take a fancy
to go down a hill, or into a river: all this you must bear, for the
privilege of travelling twenty miles an hour.
This little journey, then, from Paris to Versailles, that used to be so
merry of old, has lost its pleasures since the disappearance of the
coucous; and I would as lief have for companions the statues that
lately took a coach from the bridge opposite the Chamber of Deputies,
and stepped out in the court of Versailles, as the most part of the
people who now travel on the railroad. The stone figures are not a whit
more cold and silent than these persons, who used to be, in the old
coucous, so talkative and merry. The prattling grisette and her swain
from the Ecole de Droit; the huge Alsacian carabineer, grimly smiling
under his sandy moustaches and glittering brass helmet; the jolly
nurse, in red calico, who had been to Paris to show mamma her darling
Lolo, or Auguste;—what merry companions used one to find squeezed into
the crazy old vehicles that formerly performed the journey! But the age
of horseflesh is gone—that of engineers, economists, and calculators
has succeeded; and the pleasure of coucoudom is extinguished for ever.
Why not mourn over it, as Mr. Burke did over his cheap defence of
nations and unbought grace of life; that age of chivalry, which he
lamented, àpropos of a trip to Versailles, some half a century back?
Without stopping to discuss (as might be done, in rather a neat and
successful manner) whether the age of chivalry was cheap or dear, and
whether, in the time of the unbought grace of life, there was not more
bribery, robbery, villainy, tyranny, and corruption, than exists even
in our own happy days,—let us make a few moral and historical remarks
upon the town of Versailles; where, between railroad and coucou, we are
surely arrived by this time.
The town is, certainly, the most moral of towns. You pass from the
railroad station through a long, lonely suburb, with dusty rows of
stunted trees on either side, and some few miserable beggars, idle
boys, and ragged old women under them. Behind the trees are gaunt,
mouldy houses; palaces once, where (in the days of the unbought grace
of life) the cheap defence of nations gambled, ogled, swindled,
intrigued; whence high-born duchesses used to issue, in old times, to
act as chambermaids to lovely Du Barri; and mighty princes rolled away,
in gilt caroches, hot for the honor of lighting his Majesty to bed, or
of presenting his stockings when he rose, or of holding his napkin when
he dined. Tailors, chandlers, tinmen, wretched hucksters, and
greengrocers, are now established in the mansions of the old peers;
small children are yelling at the doors, with mouths besmeared with
bread and treacle; damp rags are hanging out of every one of the
windows, steaming in the sun; oyster-shells, cabbage-stalks, broken
crockery, old papers, lie basking in the same cheerful light. A
solitary water-cart goes jingling down the wide pavement, and spirts a
feeble refreshment over the dusty, thirsty stones.
After pacing for some time through such dismal streets, we deboucher on
the grande place; and before us lies the palace dedicated to all the
glories of France. In the midst of the great lonely plain this famous
residence of King Louis looks low and mean.—Honored pile! Time was when
tall musketeers and gilded body-guards allowed none to pass the gate.
Fifty years ago, ten thousand drunken women from Paris broke through
the charm; and now a tattered commissioner will conduct you through it
for a penny, and lead you up to the sacred entrance of the palace.
We will not examine all the glories of France, as here they are
portrayed in pictures and marble: catalogues are written about these
miles of canvas, representing all the revolutionary battles, from Valmy
to Waterloo,—all the triumphs of Louis XIV.—all the mistresses of his
successor—and all the great men who have flourished since the French
empire began. Military heroes are most of these—fierce constables in
shining steel, marshals in voluminous wigs, and brave grenadiers in
bearskin caps; some dozens of whom gained crowns, principalities,
dukedoms; some hundreds, plunder and epaulets; some millions, death in
African sands, or in icy Russian plains, under the guidance, and for
the good, of that arch-hero, Napoleon. By far the greater part of “all
the glories” of France (as of most other countries) is made up of these
military men: and a fine satire it is on the cowardice of mankind, that
they pay such an extraordinary homage to the virtue called courage;
filling their history-books with tales about it, and nothing but it.
Let them disguise the place, however, as they will, and plaster the
walls with bad pictures as they please, it will be hard to think of any
family but one, as one traverses this vast gloomy edifice. It has not
been humbled to the ground, as a certain palace of Babel was of yore;
but it is a monument of fallen pride, not less awful, and would afford
matter for a whole library of sermons. The cheap defence of nations
expended a thousand millions in the erection of this magnificent
dwelling-place. Armies were employed, in the intervals of their warlike
labors, to level hills, or pile them up; to turn rivers, and to build
aqueducts, and transplant woods, and construct smooth terraces, and
long canals. A vast garden grew up in a wilderness, and a stupendous
palace in the garden, and a stately city round the palace: the city was
peopled with parasites, who daily came to do worship before the creator
of these wonders—the Great King. “Dieu seul est grand,” said courtly
Massillon; but next to him, as the prelate thought, was certainly
Louis, his vicegerent here upon earth—God’s lieutenant-governor of the
world,—before whom courtiers used to fall on their knees, and shade
their eyes, as if the light of his countenance, like the sun, which
shone supreme in heaven, the type of him, was too dazzling to bear.
Did ever the sun shine upon such a king before, in such a palace?—or,
rather, did such a king ever shine upon the sun? When Majesty came out
of his chamber, in the midst of his superhuman splendors, viz, in his
cinnamon-colored coat, embroidered with diamonds; his pyramid of a
wig,[*] his red-heeled shoes, that lifted him four inches from the
ground, “that he scarcely seemed to touch;” when he came out, blazing
upon the dukes and duchesses that waited his rising,—what could the
latter do, but cover their eyes, and wink, and tremble? And did he not
himself believe, as he stood there, on his high heels, under his
ambrosial periwig, that there was something in him more than
man—something above Fate?
* It is fine to think that, in the days of his youth, his Majesty Louis
XIV. used to POWDER HIS WIG WITH GOLD-DUST.
This, doubtless, was he fain to believe; and if, on very fine days,
from his terrace before his gloomy palace of Saint Germains, he could
catch a glimpse, in the distance, of a certain white spire of St.
Denis, where his race lay buried, he would say to his courtiers, with a
sublime condescension, “Gentlemen, you must remember that I, too, am
mortal.” Surely the lords in waiting could hardly think him serious,
and vowed that his Majesty always loved a joke. However, mortal or not,
the sight of that sharp spire wounded his Majesty’s eyes; and is said,
by the legend, to have caused the building of the palace of
Babel-Versailles.
In the year 1681, then, the great king, with bag and baggage,—with
guards, cooks, chamberlains, mistresses, Jesuits, gentlemen, lackeys,
Fénélons, Molières, Lauzuns, Bossuets, Villars, Villeroys, Louvois,
Colberts,—transported himself to his new palace: the old one being left
for James of England and Jaquette his wife, when their time should
come. And when the time did come, and James sought his brother’s
kingdom, it is on record that Louis hastened to receive and console
him, and promised to restore, incontinently, those islands from which
the canaille had turned him. Between brothers such a gift was a trifle;
and the courtiers said to one another reverently:[*] “The Lord said
unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy
footstool.” There was no blasphemy in the speech: on the contrary, it
was gravely said, by a faithful believing man, who thought it no shame
to the latter, to compare his Majesty with God Almighty. Indeed, the
books of the time will give one a strong idea how general was this
Louis-worship. I have just been looking at one, which was written by an
honest Jesuit and Protégé of Père la Chaise, who dedicates a book of
medals to the august Infants of France, which does, indeed, go almost
as far in print. He calls our famous monarch “Louis le Grand:—1,
l’invincible; 2, le sage; 3, le conquérant; 4, la merveille de son
siècle; 5, la terreur de ses ennemis; 6, l’amour de ses peuples; 7,
l’arbitre de la paix et de la guerre; 8, l’admiration de l’univers; 9,
et digne d’en être le maître; 10, le modèle d’un héros achevé; 11,
digne de l’immortalité, et de la vénération de tous les siècles!”
* I think it is in the amusing “Memoirs of Madame de Crequi” (a
forgery, but a work remarkable for its learning and accuracy) that the
above anecdote is related.
A pretty Jesuit declaration, truly, and a good honest judgment upon the
great king! In thirty years more—1. The invincible had been beaten a
vast number of times. 2. The sage was the puppet of an artful old
woman, who was the puppet of more artful priests. 3. The conqueror had
quite forgotten his early knack of conquering. 5. The terror of his
enemies (for 4, the marvel of his age, we pretermit, it being a loose
term, that may apply to any person or thing) was now terrified by his
enemies in turn. 6. The love of his people was as heartily detested by
them as scarcely any other monarch, not even his great-grandson, has
been, before or since. 7. The arbiter of peace and war was fain to send
superb ambassadors to kick their heels in Dutch shopkeepers’
ante-chambers. 8, is again a general term. 9. The man fit to be master
of the universe, was scarcely master of his own kingdom. 10. The
finished hero was all but finished, in a very commonplace and vulgar
way. And 11. The man worthy of immortality was just at the point of
death, without a friend to soothe or deplore him; only withered old
Maintenon to utter prayers at his bedside, and croaking Jesuits to
prepare him,[*] with heaven knows what wretched tricks and mummeries,
for his appearance in that Great Republic that lies on the other side
of the grave. In the course of his fourscore splendid miserable years,
he never had but one friend, and he ruined and left her. Poor La
Vallière, what a sad tale is yours! “Look at this Galerie des Glaces,”
cries Monsieur Vatout, staggering with surprise at the appearance of
the room, two hundred and forty-two feet long, and forty high. “Here it
was that Louis displayed all the grandeur of royalty; and such was the
splendor of his court, and the luxury of the times, that this immense
room could hardly contain the crowd of courtiers that pressed around
the monarch.” Wonderful! wonderful! Eight thousand four hundred and
sixty square feet of courtiers! Give a square yard to each, and you
have a matter of three thousand of them. Think of three thousand
courtiers per day, and all the chopping and changing of them for near
forty years: some of them dying, some getting their wishes, and
retiring to their provinces to enjoy their plunder; some disgraced, and
going home to pine away out of the light of the sun;[**] new ones
perpetually arriving,—pushing, squeezing, for their place, in the
crowded Galerie des Glaces. A quarter of a million of noble
countenances, at the very least, must those glasses have reflected.
Rouge, diamonds, ribbons, patches, upon the faces of smiling ladies:
towering periwigs, sleek shaven crowns, tufted moustaches, scars, and
grizzled whiskers, worn by ministers, priests, dandies, and grim old
commanders.—So many faces, O ye gods! and every one of them lies! So
many tongues, vowing devotion and respectful love to the great king in
his six-inch wig; and only poor La Vallière’s amongst them all which
had a word of truth for the dull ears of Louis of Bourbon.
* They made a Jesuit of him on his death-bed.
** Saint Simon’s account of Lauzun, in disgrace, is admirably facetious
and pathetic; Lauzun’s regrets are as monstrous as those of Raleigh
when deprived of the sight of his adorable Queen and Mistress,
Elizabeth.
“Quand j’aurai de la peine aux Carmélites,” says unhappy Louise, about
to retire from these magnificent courtiers and their grand Galerie des
Glaces, “je me souviendrai de ce que ces gens là m’ont fait
souffrir!”—A troop of Bossuets inveighing against the vanities of
courts could not preach such an affecting sermon. What years of anguish
and wrong had the poor thing suffered, before these sad words came from
her gentle lips! How these courtiers have bowed and flattered, kissed
the ground on which she trod, fought to have the honor of riding by her
carriage, written sonnets, and called her goddess; who, in the days of
her prosperity, was kind and beneficent, gentle and compassionate to
all; then (on a certain day, when it is whispered that his Majesty hath
cast the eyes of his gracious affection upon another) behold three
thousand courtiers are at the feet of the new divinity.—“O divine
Athenais! what blockheads have we been to worship any but you.—THAT a
goddess?—a pretty goddess forsooth;—a witch, rather, who, for a while,
kept our gracious monarch blind! Look at her: the woman limps as she
walks; and, by sacred Venus, her mouth stretches almost to her diamond
ear-rings?”[*] The same tale may be told of many more deserted
mistresses; and fair Athenais de Montespan was to hear it of herself
one day. Meantime, while La Vallière’s heart is breaking, the model of
a finished hero is yawning; as, on such paltry occasions, a finished
hero should. LET her heart break: a plague upon her tears and
repentance; what right has she to repent? Away with her to her convent.
She goes, and the finished hero never sheds a tear. What a noble pitch
of stoicism to have reached! Our Louis was so great, that the little
woes of mean people were beyond him: his friends died, his mistresses
left him; his children, one by one, were cut off before his eyes, and
great Louis is not moved in the slightest degree! As how, indeed,
should a god be moved?
* A pair of diamond ear-rings, given by the King to La Vallière, caused
much scandal; and some lampoons are extant, which impugn the taste of
Louis XIV. for loving a lady with such an enormous mouth.
I have often liked to think about this strange character in the world,
who moved in it, bearing about a full belief in his own infallibility;
teaching his generals the art of war, his ministers the science of
government, his wits taste, his courtiers dress; ordering deserts to
become gardens, turning villages into palaces at a breath; and indeed
the august figure of the man, as he towers upon his throne, cannot fail
to inspire one with respect and awe:—how grand those flowing locks
appear; how awful that sceptre; how magnificent those flowing robes! In
Louis, surely, if in any one, the majesty of kinghood is represented.
But a king is not every inch a king, for all the poet may say; and it
is curious to see how much precise majesty there is in that majestic
figure of Ludovicus Rex. In the Frontispiece, we have endeavored to
make the exact calculation. The idea of kingly dignity is equally
strong in the two outer figures; and you see, at once, that majesty is
made out of the wig, the high-heeled shoes, and cloak, all
fleurs-de-lis bespangled. As for the little lean, shrivelled, paunchy
old man, of five feet two, in a jacket and breeches, there is no
majesty in HIM at any rate; and yet he has just stepped out of that
very suit of clothes. Put the wig and shoes on him, and he is six feet
high;—the other fripperies, and he stands before you majestic,
imperial, and heroic! Thus do barbers and cobblers make the gods that
we worship: for do we not all worship him? Yes; though we all know him
to be stupid, heartless, short, of doubtful personal courage, worship
and admire him we must; and have set up, in our hearts, a grand image
of him, endowed with wit, magnanimity, valor, and enormous heroical
stature.
And what magnanimous acts are attributed to him! or, rather, how
differently do we view the actions of heroes and common men, and find
that the same thing shall be a wonderful virtue in the former, which,
in the latter, is only an ordinary act of duty. Look at yonder window
of the king’s chamber;—one morning a royal cane was seen whirling out
of it, and plumped among the courtiers and guard of honor below. King
Louis had absolutely, and with his own hand, flung his own cane out of
the window, “because,” said he, “I won’t demean myself by striking a
gentleman!” O miracle of magnanimity! Lauzun was not caned, because he
besought majesty to keep his promise,—only imprisoned for ten years in
Pignerol, along with banished Fouquet;—and a pretty story is Fouquet’s
too.
Out of the window the king’s august head was one day thrust, when old
Condé was painfully toiling up the steps of the court below. “Don’t
hurry yourself, my cousin,” cries magnanimity, “one who has to carry so
many laurels cannot walk fast.” At which all the courtiers, lackeys,
mistresses, chamberlains, Jesuits, and scullions, clasp their hands and
burst into tears. Men are affected by the tale to this very day. For a
century and three-quarters, have not all the books that speak of
Versailles, or Louis Quatorze, told the story?—“Don’t hurry yourself,
my cousin!” O admirable king and Christian! what a pitch of
condescension is here, that the greatest king of all the world should
go for to say anything so kind, and really tell a tottering old
gentleman, worn out with gout, age, and wounds, not to walk too fast!
What a proper fund of slavishness is there in the composition of
mankind, that histories like these should be found to interest and awe
them. Till the world’s end, most likely, this story will have its place
in the history-books; and unborn generations will read it, and tenderly
be moved by it. I am sure that Magnanimity went to bed that night,
pleased and happy, intimately convinced that he had done an action of
sublime virtue, and had easy slumbers and sweet dreams,—especially if
he had taken a light supper, and not too vehemently attacked his en cas
de nuit.
That famous adventure, in which the en cas de nuit was brought into
use, for the sake of one Poquelin alias Molière;—how often has it been
described and admired? This Poquelin, though king’s valet-de-chambre,
was by profession a vagrant; and as such, looked coldly on by the great
lords of the palace, who refused to eat with him. Majesty hearing of
this, ordered his en cas de nuit to be placed on the table, and
positively cut off a wing with his own knife and fork for Poquelin’s
use. O thrice happy Jean Baptiste! The king has actually sat down with
him cheek by jowl, had the liver-wing of a fowl, and given Molière the
gizzard; put his imperial legs under the same mahogany (sub iisdem
trabibus). A man, after such an honor, can look for little else in this
world: he has tasted the utmost conceivable earthly happiness, and has
nothing to do now but to fold his arms, look up to heaven, and sing
“Nunc dimittis” and die.
Do not let us abuse poor old Louis on account of this monstrous pride;
but only lay it to the charge of the fools who believed and worshipped
it. If, honest man, he believed himself to be almost a god, it was only
because thousands of people had told him so—people only half liars,
too; who did, in the depths of their slavish respect, admire the man
almost as much as they said they did. If, when he appeared in his
five-hundred-million coat, as he is said to have done, before the
Siamese ambassadors, the courtiers began to shade their eyes and long
for parasols, as if this Bourbonic sun was too hot for them; indeed, it
is no wonder that he should believe that there was something dazzling
about his person: he had half a million of eager testimonies to this
idea. Who was to tell him the truth?—Only in the last years of his life
did trembling courtiers dare whisper to him, after much circumlocution,
that a certain battle had been fought at a place called Blenheim, and
that Eugene and Marlborough had stopped his long career of triumphs.
“On n’est plus heureux à notre âge,” says the old man, to one of his
old generals, welcoming Tallard after his defeat; and he rewards him
with honors, as if he had come from a victory. There is, if you will,
something magnanimous in this welcome to his conquered general, this
stout protest against Fate. Disaster succeeds disaster; armies after
armies march out to meet fiery Eugene and that dogged, fatal
Englishman, and disappear in the smoke of the enemies’ cannon. Even at
Versailles you may almost hear it roaring at last; but when courtiers,
who have forgotten their god, now talk of quitting this grand temple of
his, old Louis plucks up heart and will never hear of surrender. All
the gold and silver at Versailles he melts, to find bread for his
armies: all the jewels on his five-hundred-million coat he pawns
resolutely; and, bidding Villars go and make the last struggle but one,
promises, if his general is defeated, to place himself at the head of
his nobles, and die King of France. Indeed, after a man, for sixty
years, has been performing the part of a hero, some of the real heroic
stuff must have entered into his composition, whether he would or not.
When the great Elliston was enacting the part of King George the
Fourth, in the play of “The Coronation,” at Drury Lane, the galleries
applauded very loudly his suavity and majestic demeanor, at which
Elliston, inflamed by the popular loyalty (and by some fermented liquor
in which, it is said, he was in the habit of indulging), burst into
tears, and spreading out his arms, exclaimed: “Bless ye, bless ye, my
people!” Don’t let us laugh at his Ellistonian majesty, nor at the
people who clapped hands and yelled “bravo!” in praise of him. The
tipsy old manager did really feel that he was a hero at that moment;
and the people, wild with delight and attachment for a magnificent coat
and breeches, surely were uttering the true sentiments of loyalty:
which consists in reverencing these and other articles of costume. In
this fifth act, then, of his long royal drama, old Louis performed his
part excellently; and when the curtain drops upon him, he lies, dressed
majestically, in a becoming kingly attitude, as a king should.
The king his successor has not left, at Versailles, half so much
occasion for moralizing; perhaps the neighboring Parc aux Cerfs would
afford better illustrations of his reign. The life of his great
grandsire, the Grand Llama of France, seems to have frightened Louis
the well-beloved; who understood that loneliness is one of the
necessary conditions of divinity, and being of a jovial, companionable
turn, aspired not beyond manhood. Only in the matter of ladies did he
surpass his predecessor, as Solomon did David. War he eschewed, as his
grandfather bade him; and his simple taste found little in this world
to enjoy beyond the mulling of chocolate and the frying of pancakes.
Look, here is the room called Laboratoire du Roi, where, with his own
hands, he made his mistress’s breakfast:—here is the little door
through which, from her apartments in the upper story, the chaste Du
Barri came stealing down to the arms of the weary, feeble, gloomy old
man. But of women he was tired long since, and even pancake-frying had
palled upon him. What had he to do, after forty years of reign;—after
having exhausted everything? Every pleasure that Dubois could invent
for his hot youth, or cunning Lebel could minister to his old age, was
flat and stale; used up to the very dregs: every shilling in the
national purse had been squeezed out, by Pompadour and Du Barri and
such brilliant ministers of state. He had found out the vanity of
pleasure, as his ancestor had discovered the vanity of glory: indeed it
was high time that he should die. And die he did; and round his tomb,
as round that of his grandfather before him, the starving people sang a
dreadful chorus of curses, which were the only epitaphs for good or for
evil that were raised to his memory.
As for the courtiers—the knights and nobles, the unbought grace of
life—they, of course, forgot him in one minute after his death, as the
way is. When the king dies, the officer appointed opens his chamber
window, and calling out into the court below, Le Roi est mort, breaks
his cane, takes another and waves it, exclaiming, vive le Roi!
Straightway all the loyal nobles begin yelling vive le Roi! and the
officer goes round solemnly and sets yonder great clock in the Cour de
Marbre to the hour of the king’s death. This old Louis had solemnly
ordained; but the Versailles clock was only set twice: there was no
shouting of Vive le Roi when the successor of Louis XV. mounted to
heaven to join his sainted family.
Strange stories of the deaths of kings have always been very recreating
and profitable to us: what a fine one is that of the death of Louis
XV., as Madame Campan tells it. One night the gracious monarch came
back ill from Trianon; the disease turned out to be the small-pox; so
violent that ten people of those who had to enter his chamber caught
the infection and died. The whole court flies from him; only poor old
fat Mesdames the King’s daughters persist in remaining at his bedside,
and praying for his soul’s welfare.
On the 10th May, 1774, the whole court had assembled at the château;
the oeil de Boeuf was full. The Dauphin had determined to depart as
soon as the king had breathed his last. And it was agreed by the people
of the stables, with those who watched in the king’s room, that a
lighted candle should be placed in a window, and should be extinguished
as soon as he had ceased to live. The candle was put out. At that
signal, guards, pages, and squires mounted on horseback, and everything
was made ready for departure. The Dauphin was with the Dauphiness,
waiting together for the news of the king’s demise. AN IMMENSE NOISE,
AS IF OF THUNDER, WAS HEARD IN THE NEXT ROOM; it was the crowd of
courtiers, who were deserting the dead king’s apartment, in order to
pay their court to the new power of Louis XVI. Madame de Noailles
entered, and was the first to salute the queen by her title of Queen of
France, and begged their Majesties to quit their apartments, to receive
the princes and great lords of the court desirous to pay their homage
to the new sovereigns. Leaning on her husband’s arm, a handkerchief to
her eyes, in the most touching attitude, Marie Antoinette received
these first visits. On quitting the chamber where the dead king lay,
the Duc de Villequier bade M. Anderville, first surgeon of the king, to
open and embalm the body: it would have been certain death to the
surgeon. “I am ready, sir,” said he; “but whilst I am operating, you
must hold the head of the corpse: your charge demands it.” The Duke
went away without a word, and the body was neither opened nor embalmed.
A few humble domestics and poor workmen watched by the remains, and
performed the last offices to their master. The surgeons ordered
spirits of wine to be poured into the coffin.
They huddled the king’s body into a post-chaise; and in this deplorable
equipage, with an escort of about forty men, Louis the well-beloved was
carried, in the dead of night, from Versailles to St. Denis, and then
thrown into the tomb of the kings of France!
If any man is curious, and can get permission, he may mount to the roof
of the palace, and see where Louis XVI. used royally to amuse himself,
by gazing upon the doings of all the townspeople below with a
telescope. Behold that balcony, where, one morning, he, his queen, and
the little Dauphin stood, with Cromwell Grandison Lafayette by their
side, who kissed her Majesty’s hand, and protected her; and then,
lovingly surrounded by his people, the king got into a coach and came
to Paris: nor did his Majesty ride much in coaches after that.
There is a portrait of the king, in the upper galleries, clothed in red
and gold, riding a fat horse, brandishing a sword, on which the word
“Justice” is inscribed, and looking remarkably stupid and
uncomfortable. You see that the horse will throw him at the very first
fling; and as for the sword, it never was made for such hands as his,
which were good at holding a corkscrew or a carving-knife, but not
clever at the management of weapons of war. Let those pity him who
will: call him saint and martyr if you please; but a martyr to what
principle was he? Did he frankly support either party in his kingdom,
or cheat and tamper with both? He might have escaped; but he must have
his supper: and so his family was butchered and his kingdom lost, and
he had his bottle of Burgundy in comfort at Varennes. A single charge
upon the fatal 10th of August, and the monarchy might have been his
once more; but he is so tender-hearted, that he lets his friends be
murdered before his eyes almost: or, at least, when he has turned his
back upon his duty and his kingdom, and has skulked for safety into the
reporters’ box, at the National Assembly. There were hundreds of brave
men who died that day, and were martyrs, if you will; poor neglected
tenth-rate courtiers, for the most part, who had forgotten old slights
and disappointments, and left their places of safety to come and die,
if need were, sharing in the supreme hour of the monarchy. Monarchy was
a great deal too humane to fight along with these, and so left them to
the pikes of Santerre and the mercy of the men of the Sections. But we
are wandering a good ten miles from Versailles, and from the deeds
which Louis XVI. performed there.
He is said to have been such a smart journeyman blacksmith, that he
might, if Fate had not perversely placed a crown on his head, have
earned a couple of louis every week by the making of locks and keys.
Those who will may see the workshop where he employed many useful
hours: Madame Elizabeth was at prayers meanwhile; the queen was making
pleasant parties with her ladies. Monsieur the Count d’Artois was
learning to dance on the tight-rope; and Monsieur de Provence was
cultivating l’eloquence du billet and studying his favorite Horace. It
is said that each member of the august family succeeded remarkably well
in his or her pursuits; big Monsieur’s little notes are still cited. At
a minuet or syllabub, poor Antoinette was unrivalled; and Charles, on
the tight-rope, was so graceful and so gentil, that Madame Saqui might
envy him. The time only was out of joint. O cursed spite, that ever
such harmless creatures as these were bidden to right it!
A walk to the little Trianon is both pleasing and moral: no doubt the
reader has seen the pretty fantastical gardens which environ it; the
groves and temples; the streams and caverns (whither, as the guide
tells you, during the heat of summer, it was the custom of Marie
Antoinette to retire, with her favorite, Madame de Lamballe): the lake
and Swiss village are pretty little toys, moreover; and the cicerone of
the place does not fail to point out the different cottages which
surround the piece of water, and tell the names of the royal
masqueraders who inhabited each. In the long cottage, close upon the
lake, dwelt the Seigneur du Village, no less a personage than Louis
XV.; Louis XVI., the Dauphin, was the Bailli; near his cottage is that
of Monseigneur the Count d’Artois, who was the Miller; opposite lived
the Prince de Condé, who enacted the part of Gamekeeper (or, indeed,
any other rôle, for it does not signify much); near him was the Prince
de Rohan, who was the Aumônier; and yonder is the pretty little dairy,
which was under the charge of the fair Marie Antoinette herself.
I forget whether Monsieur the fat Count of Provence took any share of
this royal masquerading; but look at the names of the other six actors
of the comedy, and it will be hard to find any person for whom Fate had
such dreadful visitations in store. Fancy the party, in the days of
their prosperity, here gathered at Trianon, and seated under the tall
poplars by the lake, discoursing familiarly together: suppose of a
sudden some conjuring Cagliostro of the time is introduced among them,
and foretells to them the woes that are about to come. “You, Monsieur
l’Aumônier, the descendant of a long line of princes, the passionate
admirer of that fair queen who sits by your side, shall be the cause of
her ruin and your own,[*] and shall die in disgrace and exile. You, son
of the Condés, shall live long enough to see your royal race
overthrown, and shall die by the hands of a hangman.[**] You, oldest
son of Saint Louis, shall perish by the executioner’s axe; that
beautiful head, O Antoinette, the same ruthless blade shall sever.”
“They shall kill me first,” says Lamballe, at the queen’s side. “Yes,
truly,” replies the soothsayer, “for Fate prescribes ruin for your
mistress and all who love her.”[***] “And,” cries Monsieur d’Artois,
“do I not love my sister, too? I pray you not to omit me in your
prophecies.”
* In the diamond-necklace affair.
** He was found hanging in his own bedroom.
*** Among the many lovers that rumor gave to the queen, poor Ferscu is
the most remarkable. He seems to have entertained for her a high and
perfectly pure devotion. He was the chief agent in the luckless escape
to Varennes; was lurking in Paris during the time of her captivity; and
was concerned in the many fruitless plots that were made for her
rescue. Ferscu lived to be an old man, but died a dreadful and violent
death. He was dragged from his carriage by the mob, in Stockholm, and
murdered by them.
To whom Monsieur Cagliostro says, scornfully, “You may look forward to
fifty years of life, after most of these are laid in the grave. You
shall be a king, but not die one; and shall leave the crown only; not
the worthless head that shall wear it. Thrice shall you go into exile:
you shall fly from the people, first, who would have no more of you and
your race; and you shall return home over half a million of human
corpses, that have been made for the sake of you, and of a tyrant as
great as the greatest of your family. Again driven away, your bitterest
enemy shall bring you back. But the strong limbs of France are not to
be chained by such a paltry yoke as you can put on her: you shall be a
tyrant, but in will only; and shall have a sceptre, but to see it
robbed from your hand.”
“And pray, Sir Conjurer, who shall be the robber?” asked Monsieur the
Count d’Artois.
This I cannot say, for here my dream ended. The fact is, I had fallen
asleep on one of the stone benches in the Avenue de Paris, and at this
instant was awakened by a whirling of carriages and a great clattering
of national guards, lancers and outriders, in red. His MAJESTY LOUIS
PHILIPPE was going to pay a visit to the palace; which contains several
pictures of his own glorious actions, and which has been dedicated, by
him, to all the glories of France.