"Du Barry was by when this was said, and she never forgave it. To this,

and to the letter, her rancour may principally be ascribed. To all those

of the Court party who owed their places and preferments to her exclusive

influence, and who held them subject to her caprice, she, of course,

communicated the venom.

"Meanwhile, the Dauphin saw Marie Antoinette mimicking the monkey tricks

with which this low Sultana amused her dotard, without being aware of the

cause. He was not pleased; and this circumstance, coupled with his

natural coolness and indifference for a union he had been taught to deem

impolitic and dangerous to the interests of France, created in his

virtuous mind that sort of disgust which remained so long an enigma to

the Court and all the kingdom, excepting his royal aunts, who did the

best they could to confirm it into so decided an aversion as might induce

him to impel his grandfather to annul the marriage and send the Dauphine

back to Vienna."

"After the Dauphin's marriage, the Comte d'Artois and his brother

Monsieur--[Afterwards Louis XVIII., and the former the present Charles

X.]--returned from their travels to Versailles. The former was delighted

with the young Dauphine, and, seeing her so decidedly neglected by her

husband, endeavoured to console her by a marked attention, but for which

she would have been totally isolated, for, excepting the old King, who

became more and more enraptured with the grace, beauty, and vivacity of

his young granddaughter, not another individual in the Royal Family was

really interested in her favour. The kindness of a personage so

important was of too much weight not to awaken calumny. It was, of

course, endeavoured to be turned against her. Possibilities, and even

probabilities, conspired to give a pretext for the scandal which already

began to be whispered about the Dauphine and D'Artois. It would have

been no wonder had a reciprocal attachment arisen between a virgin wife,

so long neglected by her husband, and one whose congeniality of character

pointed him out as a more desirable partner than the Dauphin. But there

is abundant evidence of the perfect innocence of their intercourse. Du

Barry was most earnest in endeavouring, from first to last, to establish

its impurity, because the Dauphine induced the gay young Prince to join

in all her girlish schemes to tease and circumvent the favourite. But

when this young Prince and his brother were married to the two Princesses

of Piedmont, the intimacy between their brides and the Dauphine proved

there could have been no doubt that Du Barry had invented a calumny, and

that no feeling existed but one altogether sisterly. The three stranger

Princesses were indeed inseparable; and these marriages, with that of the

French Princess, Clotilde, to the Prince of Piedmont, created

considerable changes in the coteries of Court.

"The machinations against Marie Antoinette could not be concealed from

the Empress-mother. An extraordinary Ambassador was consequently sent

from Vienna to complain of them to the Court of Versailles, with

directions that the remonstrance should be supported and backed by the

Comte de Mercy, then Austrian Ambassador at the Court of France. Louis

XV. was the only person to whom the communication was news. This old

dilettanti of the sex was so much engaged between his seraglio of the

Parc-aux-cerfs and Du Barry that he knew less of what was passing in his

palace than those at Constantinople. On being informed by the Austrian

Ambassador, he sent an Ambassador of his own to Vienna to assure the

Empress that he was perfectly satisfied of the innocent conduct of his

newly acquired granddaughter.

"Among the intrigues within intrigues of the time I mention, there was

one which shows that perhaps Du Barry's distrust of the constancy of her

paramour, and apprehension from the effect on him of the charms of the

Dauphine, in whom he became daily more interested, were not utterly

without foundation. In this instance even her friend, the Duc de

Richelieu, that notorious seducer, by lending himself to the secret

purposes of the King, became a traitor to the cause of the King's

favourite, to which he had sworn allegiance, and which he had supported

by defaming her whom he now became anxious to make his Queen.

"It has already been said, that the famous Duchesse de Grammont was one

of the confidential friends of Louis XV. before he took Du Barry under

his especial protection. Of course, there can be no difficulty in

conceiving how likely a person she would be, to aid any purpose of the

King which should displace the favourite, by whom she herself had been

obliged to retire, by ties of a higher order, to which she might prove

instrumental.

"Louis XV. actually flattered himself with the hope of obtaining

advantages from the Dauphin's coolness towards the Dauphine. He

encouraged it, and even threw many obstacles in the way of the

consummation of the marriage. The apartments of the young couple were

placed at opposite ends of the palace, so that the Dauphin could not

approach that of his Dauphine without a publicity which his bashfulness

could not brook.

"Louis XV. now began to act upon his secret passion to supplant his

grandson, and make the Dauphine his own Queen, by endeavouring to secure

her affections to himself. His attentions were backed by gifts of

diamonds, pearls, and other valuables, and it was at this period that

Boehmer, the jeweller, first received the order for that famous necklace,

which subsequently produced such dreadful consequences, and which was

originally meant as a kingly present to the intended Queen, though

afterwards destined for Du Barry, had not the King died before the

completion of the bargain for it.

"The Queen herself one day told me, 'Heaven knows if ever I should have

had the blessing of being a mother had I not one evening surprised the

Dauphin, when the subject was adverted to, in the expression of a sort of

regret at our being placed so far asunder from each other. Indeed, he

never honoured me with any proof of his affection so explicit as that you

have just witnessed'--for the King had that moment kissed her, as he left

the apartment--'from the time of our marriage till the consummation. The

most I ever received from him was a squeeze of the hand in secret. His

extreme modesty, and perhaps his utter ignorance of the intercourse with

woman, dreaded the exposure of crossing the palace to my bedchamber; and

no doubt the accomplishment would have occurred sooner, could it have

been effectuated in privacy. The hint he gave emboldened me with

courage, when he next left me, as usual, at the door of my apartment, to

mention it to the Duchesse de Grammont, then the confidential friend of

Louis XV., who laughed me almost out of countenance; saying, in her gay

manner of expressing herself, "If I were as young and as beautiful a wife

as you are I should certainly not trouble myself to remove the obstacle

by going to him while there were others of superior rank ready to supply

his place." Before she quitted me, however, she said: "Well, child, make

yourself easy: you shall no longer be separated from the object of your

wishes: I will mention it to the King, your grandpapa, and he will soon

order your husband's apartment to be changed for one nearer your own."

And the change shortly afterwards took place.

"'Here,' continued the Queen, 'I accuse myself of a want of that courage

which every virtuous wife ought to exercise in not having complained of

the visible neglect shown me long, long before I did; for this, perhaps,

would have spared both of us the many bitter pangs originating in the

seeming coldness, whence have arisen all the scandalous stories against

my character--which have often interrupted the full enjoyment I should

have felt had they not made me tremble for the security of that

attachment, of which I had so many proofs, and which formed my only

consolation amid all the malice that for yearn had been endeavouring to

deprive me of it! So far as regards my husband's estimation, thank fate,

I have defied their wickedness! Would to Heaven I could have been

equally secure in the estimation of my people--the object nearest to my

heart, after the King and my dear children!'"

[The Dauphine could not understand the first allusion of the Duchess; but

it is evident that the vile intriguer took this opportunity of sounding

her upon what she was commissioned to carry on in favour of Louis XV.,

and it is equally apparent that when she heard Marie Antoinette express

herself decidedly in favour of her young husband, and distinctly saw how

utterly groundless were the hopes of his secret rival, she was led

thereby to abandon her wicked project; and perhaps the change of

apartments was the best mask that could have been devised to hide the

villany.]

"The present period appears to have been one of the happiest in the life

of Marie Antoinette. Her intimate society consisted of the King's

brothers, and their Princesses, with the King's saint-like sister

Elizabeth; and they lived entirely together, excepting when the Dauphine

dined in public. These ties seemed to be drawn daily closer for some

time, till the subsequent intimacy with the Polignacs. Even when the

Comtesse d'Artois lay-in, the Dauphine, then become Queen, transferred

her parties to the apartments of that Princess, rather than lose the

gratification of her society.

"During all this time, however, Du Barry, the Duc d'Aiguillon, and the

aunts-Princesses, took special care to keep themselves between her and

any tenderness on the part of the husband Dauphin, and, from different

motives uniting in one end, tried every means to get the object of their

hatred sent back to Vienna."

SECTION IV.

"The Empress-mother was thoroughly aware of all that was going on. Her

anxiety, not only about her daughter, but her State policy, which it may

be apprehended was in her mind the stronger motive of the two, encouraged

the machinations of an individual who must now appear upon the stage of

action, and to whose arts may be ascribed the worst of the sufferings of

Marie Antoinette.

"I allude to the Cardinal Prince de Rohan.

"At this time he was Ambassador at the Court of Vienna. The reliance the

Empress placed on him favoured his criminal machinations against her

daughter's reputation. He was the cause of her sending spies to watch

the conduct of the Dauphine, besides a list of persons proper for her to

cultivate, as well as of those it was deemed desirable for her to exclude

from her confidence.

"As the Empress knew all those who, though high in office in Versailles,

secretly received pensions from Vienna, she could, of course, tell,

without much expense of sagacity, who were in the Austrian interest. The

Dauphine was warned that she was surrounded by persons who were not her

friends.

"The conduct of Maria Theresa towards her daughter, the Queen of Naples,

will sufficiently explain how much the Empress must have been chagrined

at the absolute indifference of Marie Antoinette to the State policy

which was intended to have been served in sending her to France. A less

fitting instrument for the purpose could not have been selected by the

mother. Marie Antoinette had much less of the politician about her than

either of her surviving sisters; and so much was she addicted to

amusement, that she never even thought of entering into State affairs

till forced by the King's neglect of his most essential prerogatives, and

called upon by the Ministers themselves to screen them from

responsibility. Indeed, the latter cause prevailed upon her to take her

seat in the Cabinet Council (though she took it with great reluctance)

long before she was impelled thither by events and her consciousness of

its necessity. She would often exclaim to me: 'How happy I was during

the lifetime of Louis XV.! No cares to disturb my peaceful slumbers! No

responsibility to agitate my mind! No fears of erring, of partiality, of

injustice, to break in upon my enjoyments! All, all happiness, my dear

Princess, vanishes from the bosom of a woman if she once deviate from the

prescribed domestic character of her sex! Nothing was ever framed more

wise than the Salique Laws, which in France and many parts of Germany

exclude women from reigning, for few of us have that masculine capacity

so necessary to conduct with impartiality and justice the affairs of

State!'

"To this feeling of the impropriety of feminine interference in masculine

duties, coupled with her attachment to France, both from principle and

feeling, may be ascribed the neglect of her German connexions, which led

to many mortifying reproaches, and the still more galling espionage to

which she was subjected in her own palace by her mother. These are,

however, so many proofs of the falsehood of the allegations by which she

suffered so deeply afterwards, of having sacrificed the interests of her

husband's kingdom to her predilection for her mother's empire.

"The subtle Rohan designed to turn the anxiety of Maria Theresa about the

Dauphine to account, and he was also aware that the ambition of the

Empress was paramount in Maria Theresa's bosom to the love for her child.

He was about to play a deep and more than double game. By increasing the

mother's jealousy of the daughter, and at the same time enhancing the

importance of the advantages afforded by her situation, to forward the

interests of the mother, he, no doubt, hoped to get both within his

power: for who can tell what wild expectation might not have animated

such a mind as Rohan's at the prospect of governing not only the Court of

France but that of Austria?--the Court of France, through a secret

influence of his own dictation thrown around the Dauphine by the mother's

alarm; and that of Austria, through a way he pointed out, in which the

object that was most longed for by the mother's ambition seemed most

likely to be achieved! While he endeavoured to make Maria Theresa beset

her daughter with the spies I have mentioned, and which were generally of

his own selection, he at the same time endeavoured to strengthen her

impression of how important it was to her schemes to insure the

daughter's co-operation. Conscious of the eagerness of Maria Theresa for

the recovery of the rich province which Frederick the Great of Prussia

had wrested from her ancient dominions, he pressed upon her credulity the

assurance that the influence of which the Dauphine was capable over Louis

XV., by the youthful beauty's charms acting upon the dotard's admiration,

would readily induce that monarch to give such aid to Austria as must

insure the restoration of what it lost. Silesia, it has been before

observed, was always a topic by means of which the weak side of Maria

Theresa could be attacked with success. There is generally some peculiar

frailty in the ambitious, through which the artful can throw them off

their guard. The weak and tyrannical Philip II., whenever the recovery

of Holland and the Low Countries was proposed to him, was always ready to

rush headlong into any scheme for its accomplishment; the bloody Queen

Mary, his wife, declared that at her death the loss of Calais would be

found engraven on her heart; and to Maria Theresa, Silesia was the

Holland and the Calais for which her wounded pride was thirsting.

"But Maria Theresa was wary, even in the midst of the credulity of her

ambition. The Baron de Neni was sent by her privately to Versailles to

examine, personally, whether there was anything in Marie Antoinette's

conduct requiring the extreme vigilance which had been represented as

indispensable. The report of the Baron de Neni to his royal mistress was

such as to convince her she had been misled and her daughter

misrepresented by Rohan. The Empress instantly forbade him her presence.

"The Cardinal upon this, unknown to the Court of Vienna, and indeed, to

every one, except his factotum, principal agent, and secretary, the Abbe

Georgel, left the Austrian capital, and came to Versailles, covering his

disgrace by pretended leave of absence. On seeing Marie Antoinette he

fell enthusiastically in love with her. To gain her confidence he

disclosed the conduct which had been observed towards her by the Empress,

and, in confirmation of the correctness of his disclosure, admitted that

he had himself chosen the spies which had been set on her. Indignant at

such meanness in her mother, and despising the prelate, who could be base

enough to commit a deed equally corrupt and uncalled for, and even thus

wantonly betrayed when committed, the Dauphine suddenly withdrew from his

presence, and gave orders that he should never be admitted to any of her

parties.

"But his imagination was too much heated by a guilty passion of the

blackest hue to recede; and his nature too presumptuous and fertile in

expedients to be disconcerted. He soon found means to conciliate both

mother and daughter; and both by pretending to manage with the one the

self-same plot which, with the other, he was recommending himself by

pretending to overthrow. To elude detection he interrupted the regular

correspondence between the Empress and the Dauphine, and created a

coolness by preventing the communications which would have unmasked him,

that gave additional security to the success of his deception.

"By the most diabolical arts he obtained an interview with the Dauphine,

in which he regained her confidence. He made her believe that he had

been commissioned by her mother, as she had shown so little interest for

the house of Austria, to settle a marriage for her sister, the

Archduchess Elizabeth, with Louis XV. The Dauphine was deeply affected

at the statement. She could not conceal her agitation. She

involuntarily confessed how much she should deplore such an alliance. The

Cardinal instantly perceived his advantage, and was too subtle to let it

pass. He declared that, as it was to him the negotiation had been

confided, if the Dauphine would keep her own counsel, never communicate

their conversation to the Empress, but leave the whole matter to his

management and only assure him that he was forgiven, he would pledge

himself to arrange things to her satisfaction. The Dauphine, not wishing

to see another raised to the throne over her head and to her scorn, under

the assurance that no one knew of the intention or could prevent it but

the Cardinal, promised him her faith and favour; and thus rashly fell

into the springs of this wily intriguer.

"Exulting to find Marie Antoinette in his power, the Cardinal left

Versailles as privately as he arrived there, for Vienna. His next object

was to ensnare the Empress, as he had done her daughter; and by a

singular caprice, fortune, during his absence, had been preparing for him

the means.

"The Abbe Georgel, his secretary, by underhand manoeuvres, to which he

was accustomed, had obtained access to all the secret State

correspondence, in which the Empress had expressed herself fully to the

Comte de Mercy relative to the views of Russia and Prussia upon Poland,

whereby her own plans were much thwarted. The acquirement of copies of

these documents naturally gave the Cardinal free access to the Court and

a ready introduction once more to the Empress. She was too much

committed by his possession of such weapons not to be most happy to make

her peace with him; and he was too sagacious not to make the best use of

his opportunity. To regain her confidence, he betrayed some of the

subaltern agents, through whose treachery he had procured his evidences,

and, in farther confirmation of his resources, showed the Empress several

dispatches from her own Ministers to the Courts of Russia and Prussia. He

had long, he said, been in possession of similar views of aggrandisement,

upon which these Courts were about to act; and had, for a while, even

incurred Her Imperial Majesty's displeasure, merely because he was not in

a situation fully to explain; but that he had now thought of the means to

crush their schemes before they could be put in practice. He apprised her

of his being aware that Her Imperial Majesty's Ministers were actively

carrying on a correspondence with Russia, with a view of joining her in

checking the French co-operation with the Grand Signior; and warned her

that if this design were secretly pursued, it would defeat the very views

she had in sharing in the spoliation of Poland; and if openly, it would

be deemed an avowal of hostilities against the Court of France, whose

political system would certainly impel it to resist any attack upon the

divan of Constantinople, that the balance of power in Europe might be

maintained against the formidable ambition of Catherine, whose gigantic

hopes had been already too much realised.

"Maria Theresa was no less astonished at these disclosures of the

Cardinal than the Dauphine had been at his communication concerning her.

She plainly saw that all her plans were known, and might be defeated from

their detection.

"The Cardinal, having succeeded in alarming the Empress, took from his

pocket a fabulous correspondence, hatched by his secretary, the Abbe

Georgel. 'There, Madame,' said he, 'this will convince Your Majesty that

the warm interest I have taken in your Imperial house has carried me

farther than I was justified in having gone; but seeing the sterility of

the Dauphine, or, as it is reported by some of the Court, the total

disgust the Dauphin has to consummate the marriage, the coldness of your

daughter towards the interest of your Court, and the prospect of a race

from the Comtesse d'Artois, for the consequences of which there is no

answering, I have, unknown to Your Imperial Majesty, taken upon myself to

propose to LOUIS XV. a marriage with the Archduchess Elizabeth, who, on

becoming Queen of France, will immediately have it in her power to

forward the Austrian interest; for LOUIS XV., as the first proof of his

affection to his young bride, will at once secure to your Empire the aid

you stand so much in need of against the ambition of these two rising

States. The recovery of Your Imperial Majesty's ancient dominions may

then be looked upon as accomplished from the influence of the French

Cabinet.

"The bait was swallowed. Maria Theresa was so overjoyed at this scheme

that she totally forgot all former animosity against the Cardinal. She

was encouraged to ascribe the silence of Marie Antoinette (whose letters

had been intercepted by the Cardinal himself) to her resentment of this

project concerning her sister; and the deluded Empress, availing herself

of the pretended zeal of the Cardinal for the interest of her family,

gave him full powers to return to France and secretly negotiate the

alliance for her daughter Elizabeth, which was by no means to be

disclosed to the Dauphine till the King's proxy should be appointed to

perform the ceremony at Vienna. This was all the Cardinal wished for.

"Meanwhile, in order to obtain a still greater ascendency over the Court

of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and

Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the

correspondence to and from Austria.

"At the same crisis the Empress was informed by Prince Kaunitz that the

Cardinal and his suite at the palace of the French Ambassador carried on

such an immense and barefaced traffic of French manufactures of every

description that Maria Theresa thought proper, in order to prevent future

abuse, to abolish the privilege which gave to Ministers and Ambassadors

an opportunity of defrauding the revenue. Though this law was levelled

exclusively at the Cardinal, it was thought convenient under the

circumstances to avoid irritating him, and it was consequently made

general. But, the Comte de Mercy now obtaining some clue to his

duplicity, an intimation was given to the Court at Versailles, to which

the King replied, 'If the Empress be dissatisfied with the French

Ambassador, he shall be recalled.' But though completely unmasked, none

dared publicly to accuse him, each party fearing a discovery of its own

intrigue. His official recall did not in consequence take place for some

time; and the Cardinal, not thinking it prudent to go back till Louis XV.

should be no more, lest some unforeseen discovery of his project for

supplying her royal paramour with a Queen should rouse Du Barry to get

his Cardinalship sent to the Bastille for life, remained fixed in his

post, waiting for events.

"At length Louis XV. expired, and the Cardinal returned to Versailles. He

contrived to obtain a private audience of the young Queen. He presumed

upon her former facility in listening to him, and was about to betray the

last confidence of Maria Theresa; but the Queen, shocked at the knowledge

which she had obtained of his having been equally treacherous to her and

to her mother, in disgust and alarm left the room without receiving a

letter he had brought her from Maria Theresa, and without deigning to

address a single word to him. In the heat of her passion and resentment,

she was nearly exposing all she knew of his infamies to the King, when

the coolheaded Princesse Elizabeth opposed her, from the seeming

imprudence of such an abrupt discovery; alleging that it might cause an

open rupture between the two Courts, as it had already been the source of

a reserve and coolness, which had not yet been explained. The Queen was

determined never more to commit herself by seeing the Cardinal. She

accordingly sent for her mother's letter, which he himself delivered into

the hands of her confidential messenger, who advised the Queen not to

betray the Cardinal to the King, lest, in so doing, she should never be

able to guard herself against the domestic spies, by whom, perhaps, she

was even yet surrounded! The Cardinal, conceiving, from the impunity of

his conduct, that he still held the Queen in check, through the influence

of her fears of his disclosing her weakness upon the subject of the

obstruction she threw in the way of her sister's marriage, did not resign

the hope of converting that ascendency to his future profit.

"The fatal silence to which Her Majesty was thus unfortunately advised I

regret from the bottom of my soul! All the successive vile plots of the

Cardinal against the peace and reputation of the Queen may be attributed

to this ill-judged prudence! Though it resulted from an honest desire of

screening Her Majesty from the resentment or revenge to which she might

have subjected herself from this villain, who had already injured her in

her own estimation for having been credulous enough to have listened to

him, yet from this circumstance it is that the Prince de Rohan built the

foundation of all the after frauds and machinations with which he

blackened the character and destroyed the comfort of his illustrious

victim. It is obvious that a mere exclusion from Court was too mild a

punishment for such offences, and it was but too natural that such a mind

as his, driven from the royal presence, and, of course, from all the

noble societies to which it led (the anti-Court party excepted), should

brood over the means of inveigling the Queen into a consent for his

reappearance before her and the gay world, which was his only element,

and if her favour should prove unattainable to revenge himself by her

ruin.

"On the Cardinal's return to France, all his numerous and powerful

friends beset the King and Queen to allow of his restoration to his

embassy; but though on his arrival at Versailles, finding the Court had

removed to Compiegne, he had a short audience there of the King, all

efforts in his favour were thrown away. Equally unsuccessful was every

intercession with the Empress-mother. She had become thoroughly awakened

to his worthlessness, and she declared she would never more even receive

him in her dominions as a visitor. The Cardinal, being apprised of this

by some of his intimates, was at last persuaded to give up the idea of

further importunity; and, pocketing his disgrace, retired with his hey

dukes and his secretary, the Abbe Georgel, to whom may be attributed all

the artful intrigues of his disgraceful diplomacy.

"It is evident that Rohan had no idea, during all his schemes to supplant

the Dauphine by marrying her sister to the King, that the secret hope of

Louis XV. had been to divorce the Dauphin and marry the slighted bride

himself. Perhaps it is fortunate that Rohan did not know this. A brain

so fertile in mischief as his might have converted such a circumstance to

baneful uses. But the death of Louis XV. put an end to all the then

existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real,

though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a

powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian,

independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a

spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in

the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes

trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy

in the earth secretly to undermine her. Nay, had not Louis XV. died at

the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the

quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young

Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt

with,--even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed

himself to be reigning. But she has been preserved from her enemies to

become their sovereign; and if her crowned brow has erewhile been stung

by thorns in its coronal, let me not despair of their being hereafter

smothered in yet unblown roses."

SECTION V.

"The accession of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette to the crown of France

took place (May 10, 1774) under the most propitious auspices!

"After the long, corrupt reign of an old debauched Prince, whose vices

were degrading to himself and to a nation groaning under the lash of

prostitution and caprice, the most cheering changes were expected from

the known exemplariness of his successor and the amiableness of his

consort. Both were looked up to as models of goodness. The virtues of

Louis XVI. were so generally known that all France hastened to

acknowledge them, while the Queen's fascinations acted like a charm on

all who had not been invincibly prejudiced against the many excellent

qualities which entitled her to love and admiration. Indeed, I never

heard an insinuation against either the King or Queen but from those

depraved minds which never possessed virtue enough to imitate theirs, or

were jealous of the wonderful powers of pleasing that so eminently

distinguished Marie Antoinette from the rest of her sex.

"On the death of Louis XV. the entire Court removed from Versailles to

the palace of La Muette, situate in the Bois de Boulogne, very near

Paris. The confluence of Parisians, who came in crowds joyfully to hail

the death of the old vitiated Sovereign, and the accession of his adored

successors, became quite annoying to the whole Royal Family. The

enthusiasm with which the Parisians hailed their young King, and in

particular his amiable young partner, lasted for many days. These

spontaneous evidences of attachment were regarded as prognostics of a

long reign of happiness. If any inference can be drawn from public

opinion, could there be a stronger assurance than this one of

uninterrupted future tranquility to its objects?

"To the Queen herself it was a double triumph. The conspirators, whose

depravity had been labouring to make her their victim, departed from the

scene of power. The husband, who for four years had been callous to her

attractions, became awakened to them. A complete change in the domestic

system of the palace was wrought suddenly. The young King, during the

interval which elapsed between the death and the interment of his

grandfather, from Court etiquette was confined to his apartments. The

youthful couple therefore saw each other with less restraint. The

marriage was consummated. Marie Antoinette from this moment may date

that influence over the heart (would I might add over the head and

policy!) of the King, which never slackened during the remainder of their

lives.

"Madame du Barry was much better dealt with by the young King, whom she

had always treated with the greatest levity, than she, or her numerous

courtiers, expected. She was allowed her pension, and the entire

enjoyment of all her ill-gotten and accumulated wealth; but, of course,

excluded from ever appearing at Court, and politically exiled from Paris

to the Chateau aux Dames.

"This implacable foe and her infamous coadjutors being removed from

further interference in matters of State by the expulsion of all their

own Ministers, their rivals, the Duc de Choiseul and his party, by whom

Marie Antoinette had been brought to France, were now in high expectation

of finding the direction of the Government, by the Queen's influence,

restored to that nobleman. But the King's choice was already made. He

had been ruled by his aunts, and appointed Ministers suggested by them

and his late grandfather's friends, who feared the preponderance of the

Austrian influence. The three ladies, Madame la Marechale de Beauveau,

the Duchesse de Choiseul, and the Duchesse de Grammont, who were all

well-known to Louis XVI. and stood high in his opinion for many excellent

qualities, and especially for their independent assertion of their own

and the Dauphine's dignity by retiring from Court in consequence of the

supper at which Du Barry was introduced these ladies, though received on

their return thither with peculiar welcome, in vain united their efforts

with those of the Queen and the Abbe Vermond, to overcome the prejudice

which opposed Choiseul's reinstatement. It was all in vain. The royal

aunts, Adelaide especially, hated Choiseul for the sake of Austria, and

his agency in bringing Marie Antoinette to France; and so did the King's

tutor and governor, the Duc de Vauguyon, who had ever been hostile to any

sort of friendship with Vienna; and these formed a host impenetrable even

to the influence of the Queen, which was opposed by all the leaders of

the prevailing party, who, though they were beginning externally to

court, admire, and idolize her, secretly surrounded her by their noxious

and viperous intrigues, and, while they lived in her bosom, fattened on

the destruction of her fame!

"One of the earliest of the paltry insinuations against Marie Antoinette

emanated from her not counterfeiting deep affliction at the decease of

the old King. A few days after that event, the Court received the

regular visits of condolence and congratulation of the nobility, whose

duty prescribes their attendance upon such occasions; and some of them,

among whom were the daughters of Louis XV., not finding a young Queen of

nineteen hypocritically bathed in tears, on returning to their abodes

declared her the most indecorous of Princesses, and diffused a strong

impression of her want of feeling. At the head of these detractors were

Mesdames de Guemenee and Marsan, rival pretenders to the favours of the

Cardinal de Rohan, who, having by the death of Louis XV. lost their

influence and their unlimited power to appoint and dismiss Ministers,

themselves became ministers to their own evil geniuses, in calumniating

her whose legitimate elevation annihilated their monstrous pretensions!

"The Abbe Vermond, seeing the defeat of the party of the Duc de Choiseul,

by whom he had been sent to the Court of Vienna on the recommendation of

Brienne, began to tremble for his own security. As soon as the Court had

arrived at Choisy, and he was assured of the marriage having been

consummated, he obtained, with the Queen's consent, an audience of the

King, for the purpose of soliciting his sanction to his continuing in his

situation. On submitting his suit to the King, His Majesty merely gave a

shrug of the shoulders, and turned to converse with the Duc d'Aiguillon,

who at that moment entered the room. The Abbe stood stupefied, and the

Queen, seeing the crestfallen humour of her tutor, laughed and cheered

him by remarking, 'There is more meaning in the shrug of a King than in

the embrace of a Minister. The one always promises, but is seldom

sincere; the other is generally sincere, but never promises.' The Abbe,

not knowing how to interpret the dumb answer, finding the King's back

turned and his conversation with D'Aiguillon continuing, was retiring

with a shrug of his own shoulders to the Queen, when she exclaimed,

good-humouredly, to Louis, laughing and pointing to the Abbe, 'Look!

look! see how readily a Church dignitary can imitate the good Christian

King, who is at the head of the Church.' The King, seeing the Abbe still

waiting, said, dryly, 'Monsieur, you are confirmed in your situation,'

and then resumed his conversation with the Duke.

"This anecdote is a sufficient proof that LOUIS XVI. had no

prepossession in favour of the Abbe Vermond, and that it was merely not

to wound the feelings of the Queen that he was tolerated. The Queen

herself was conscious of this, and used frequently to say to me how much

she was indebted to the King for such deference to her private choice, in

allowing Vermond to be her secretary, as she did not remember the King's

ever having held any communication with the Abbe during the whole time he

was attached to the service, though the Abbe always expressed himself

with the greatest respect towards the King.

"The decorum of Marie Antoinette would not allow her to endure those

public exhibitions of the ceremony, of dressing herself which had been

customary at Court. This reserve was highly approved by His Majesty; and

one of the first reforms she introduced, after the accession, was in the

internal discipline of her own apartment.

"It was during one of the visits, apart from Court etiquette, to the

toilet of the Queen, that the Duchesse de Chartres, afterwards Duchesse

d'Orleans, introduced the famous Mademoiselle Bertin, who afterwards

became so celebrated as the Queen's milliner--the first that was ever

allowed to approach a royal palace; and it was months before Marie

Antoinette had courage to receive her milliner in any other than the

private apartment which, by the alteration Her Majesty had made in the

arrangements of the household, she set apart for the purpose of dressing

in comfort by herself and free from all intruders.

"Till then the Queen was not only very plain in her attire, but very,

economical--a circumstance which, I have often heard her say, gave great

umbrage to the other Princesses of the Court of Versailles, who never

showed themselves, from the moment they rose till they returned to bed,

except in full dress; while she herself made all her morning visits in a

simple white cambric gown and straw hat. This simplicity, unfortunately,

like many other trifles, whose consequences no foresight would have

predicted, tended much to injure Marie Antoinette, not only with the

Court dandies, but the nation; by whom, though she was always censured,

she was as suddenly imitated in all she wore or did.

"From the private closet, which Marie Antoinette reserved to herself, and

had now opened to her milliner, she would retire, after the great points

of habiliment were accomplished, to those who were waiting with memorials

at her public toilet, where the hairdresser would finish putting the

ornaments in Her Majesty's hair.

"The King made Marie Antoinette a present of Le Petit Trianon. Much has

been said of the extravagant expense lavished by her upon this spot. I

can only declare that the greater part of the articles of furniture which

had not been worn out by time or were not worm or moth-eaten, and her own

bed among them, were taken from the apartments of former Queens, and some

of them had actually belonged to Anne of Austria, who, like Marie

Antoinette, had purchased them out of her private savings. Hence it is

clear that neither of the two Queens were chargeable to the State even

for those little indulgences which every private lady of property is

permitted from her husband, without coming under the lash of censure.

"Her allowance as Queen of France was no more than 300,000 francs. It is

well known that she was generous, liberal, and very charitable; that she

paid all her expenses regularly respecting her household, Trianon, her

dresses, diamonds, millinery, and everything else; her Court

establishment excepted, and some few articles, which were paid by the

civil list. She was one of the first Queens in Europe, had the first

establishment in Europe, and was obliged to keep up the most refined and

luxurious Court in Europe; and all upon means no greater than had been

assigned to many of the former bigoted Queens, who led a cloistered life,

retired from the world without circulating their wealth among the nation

which supplied them with so large a revenue; and yet who lived and died

uncensured for hoarding from the nation what ought at least to have been

in part expended for its advantage.

"And yet of all the extra expenditure which the dignity and circumstances

of Marie Antoinette exacted, not a franc came from the public Treasury;

but everything out of Her Majesty's private purse and savings from the

above three hundred thousand francs, which was an infinitely less sum

than Louis XIV. had lavished yearly on the Duchesse de Montespan, and

less than half what Louis XV. had expended on the last two favourites, De

Pompadour and Du Barry. These two women, as clearly appeared from the

private registers, found among the papers of Louis XV. after his death,

by Louis XVI. (but which, out of respect for the memory of his

grandfather, he destroyed), these two women had amassed more property in

diamonds and other valuables than all the Queens of France from the days

of Catherine de Medicis up to those of Marie Antoinette.

"Such was the goodness of heart of the excellent Queen of Louis XVI.,

such the benevolence of her character, that not only did she pay all the

pensions of the invalids left by her predecessors, but she distributed in

public and private charities greater sums than any of the former Queens,

thus increasing her expenses without any proportionate augmentation of

her resources."

[Indeed, could Louis XVI. have foreseen--when, in order not to expose the

character of his predecessor and to honour the dignity of the throne and

monarchy of France, he destroyed the papers of his grandfather--what an

arm of strength he would have possessed in preserving them, against the

accusers of his unfortunate Queen and himself, he never could have thrown

away such means of establishing a most honourable contrast between his

own and former reigns. His career exhibits no superfluous expenditure.

Its economy was most rigid. No sovereign was ever more scrupulous with

the public money. He never had any public or private predilection; no

dilapidated Minister for a favourite: no courtesan intrigue. For gaming

he had no fondness; and, if his abilities were not splendid, he certainly

had no predominating vices.]

NOTE:

[I must once more quit the journal of the Princess. Her Highness here

ceases to record particulars of the early part of the reign of Louis

XVI., and everything essential upon those times is too well known to

render it desirable to detain the reader by an attempt to supply the

deficiency. It is enough to state that the secret unhappiness of the

Queen at not yet having the assurance of an heir was by no means weakened

by the impatience of the people, nor by the accouchement of the Comtesse

d'Artois of the Duc d'Angouleme. While the Queen continued the intimacy,

and even held her parties at the apartments of the Duchess that she might

watch over her friend, even in this triumph over herself, the poissardes

grossly insulted her in her misfortune, and coarsely called on her to

give heirs to the throne!

A consolation, however, for the unkind feeling of the populace was about

to arise in the delights of one of her strongest friendships. I am come

to the epoch when Her Majesty first formed an acquaintance with the

Princesse de Lamballe.

After a few words of my own on the family of Her Highness, I shall leave

her to pursue her beautiful and artless narrative of her parentage, early

sorrows, and introduction to Her Majesty, unbroken.

The journal of the history of Marie Antoinette, after this slight

interruption for the private history of her friend, will become blended

with the journal of the Princesse de Lamballe, and both thenceforward

will proceed in their course together, like their destinies, which from

that moment never became disunited.]

SECTION VI.

[MARIA THERESA LOUISA CARIGNAN, Princess of Savoy, was born at Turin on

the 8th September, 1749. She had three sisters; two of them were married

at Rome, one to the Prince Doria Pamfili, the other to the Prince

Colonna; and the third at Vienna, to the Prince Lobkowitz, whose son was

the great patron of the immortal Haydn, the celebrated composer.

The celebrated Haydn was, even at the age of 74, when I last saw him at

Vienna, till the most good-humoured bon vivant of his age. He delighted

in telling the origin of his good fortune, which he said he entirely owed

to a bad wife.

When he was first married, he said, finding no remedy against domestic

squabbles, he used to quit his bad half and go and enjoy himself with his

good friends, who were Hungarians and Germans, for weeks together. Once,

having returned home after a considerable absence, his wife, while he was

in bed next morning, followed her husband's example: she did even more,

for she took all his clothes, even to his shoes, stockings, and small

clothes, nay, everything he had, along with her! Thus situated, he was

under the necessity of doing something to cover his nakedness; and this,

he himself acknowledged, was the first cause of his seriously applying

himself to the profession which has since made his name immortal.

He used to laugh, saying, "I was from that time so habituated to study

that my wife, often fearing it would injure me, would threaten me with

the same operation if I did not go out and amuse myself; but then," added

he, "I was grown old, and she was sick and no longer jealous." He spoke

remarkably good Italian, though he had never been in Italy, and on my

going to Vienna to hear his "Creation," he promised to accompany me back

to Italy; but he unfortunately died before I returned to Vienna from

Carlsbad.

She had a brother also, the Prince Carignan, who, marrying against the

consent of his family, was no longer received by them; but the

unremitting and affectionate attention which the Princesse de Lamballe

paid to him and his new connexions was an ample compensation for the loss

he sustained in the severity of his other sisters.

With regard to the early life of the Princesse de Lamballe, the arranger

of these pages must now leave her to pursue her own beautiful and artless

narrative unbroken, up to the epoch of her appointment to the household

of the Queen. It will be recollected that the papers of which the

reception has been already described in the introduction formed the

private journal of this most amiable Princess; and those passages

relating to her own early life being the most connected part of them, it

has been thought that to disturb them would be a kind of sacrilege.

After the appointment of Her Highness to the superintendence of the

Queen's household, her manuscripts again become confused, and fall into

scraps and fragments, which will require to be once more rendered clear

by the recollections of events and conversations by which the preceding

chapters have been assisted.]

"I was the favourite child of a numerous family, and intended, almost at

my birth--as is generally the case among Princes who are nearly allied to

crowned heads--to be united to one of the Princes, my near relation, of

the royal house of Sardinia.

"A few years after this, the Duc and Duchesse de Penthievre arrived at

Turin, on their way to Italy, for the purpose of visiting the different

Courts, to make suitable marriage contracts for both their infant

children.

"These two children were Mademoiselle de Penthievre, afterwards the

unhappy Duchesse d'Orleans, and their idolised son, the Prince de

Lamballe.

[The father of Louis Alexander Joseph Stanislaus de Bourbon Penthievre,

Prince de Lamballe, was the son of Comte de Toulouse, himself a natural

son of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan, who was considered as the most

wealthy of all the natural children, in consequence of Madame de

Montespan having artfully entrapped the famous Mademoiselle de

Moutpensier to make over her immense fortune to him as her heir after her

death, as the price of liberating her husband from imprisonment in the

Bastille, and herself from a ruinous prosecution, for having contracted

this marriage contrary to the express commands of her royal cousin, Louis

XIV.--Vide Histoire de Louis XIV. par Voltaire.]

"Happy would it have been both for the Prince who was destined to the

former and the Princess who was given to the latter, had these

unfortunate alliances never taken place.

"The Duc and Duchesse de Penthievre became so singularly attached to my

beloved parents, and, in particular, to myself, that the very day they

first dined at the Court of Turin, they mentioned the wish they had

formed of uniting me to their young son, the Prince de Lamballe.

"The King of Sardinia, as the head of the house of Savoy and Carignan,

said there had been some conversation as to my becoming a member of his

royal family; but as I was so very young at the time, many political

reasons might arise to create motives for a change in the projected

alliance. 'If, therefore, the Prince de Carignan,' said the King, 'be

anxious to settle his daughter's marriage, by any immediate matrimonial

alliance, I certainly shall not avail myself of any prior engagement, nor

oppose any obstacle in the way of its solemnisation.'

"The consent of the King being thus unexpectedly obtained by the Prince,

so desirable did the arrangement seem to the Duke and Duchess that the

next day the contract was concluded with my parents for my becoming the

wife of their only son, the Prince de Lamballe.

"I was too young to be consulted. Perhaps had I been older the result

would have been the same, for it generally happens in these great family

alliances that the parties most interested, and whose happiness is most

concerned, are the least thought of. The Prince was, I believe, at

Paris, under the tuition of his governess, and I was in the nursery,

heedless, and totally ignorant of my future good or evil destination!

"So truly happy and domestic a life as that led by the Duc and Duchesse

de Penthievre seemed to my family to offer an example too propitious not

to secure to me a degree of felicity with a private Prince, very rarely

the result of royal unions! Of course, their consent was given with

alacrity. When I was called upon to do homage to my future parents, I

had so little idea, from my extreme youthfulness, of what was going on

that I set them all laughing, when, on being asked if I should like to

become the consort of the Prince de Lamballe, I said, 'Yes, I am very

fond of music!' No, my dear,' resumed the good and tender-hearted Duc de

Penthievre, 'I mean, would you have any objection to become his

wife?'--'No, nor any other person's!' was the innocent reply, which

increased the mirth of all the guests at my expense.

"Happy, happy days of youthful, thoughtless innocence, luxuriously felt

and appreciated under the thatched roof of the cottage, but unknown and

unattainable beneath the massive pile of a royal palace and a gemmed

crown! Scarcely had I entered my teens when my adopted parents strewed

flowers of the sweetest fragrance to lead me to the sacred altar, that

promised the bliss of busses, but which, too soon, from the foul

machinations of envy, jealousy, avarice, and a still more criminal

passion, proved to me the altar of my sacrifice!

"My misery and my uninterrupted grief may be dated from the day my

beloved sister-in-law, Mademoiselle de Penthievre, sullied her hand by

its union with the Duc de Chartres.--[Afterwards Duc d'Orleans, and the

celebrated revolutionary Philippe Egalite.]--From that moment all

comfort, all prospect of connubial happiness, left my young and

affectionate heart, plucked thence by the very roots, never more again to

bloom there. Religion and philosophy were the only remedies remaining.

"I was a bride when an infant, a wife before I was a woman, a widow

before I was a mother, or had the prospect of becoming one! Our union

was, perhaps, an exception to the general rule. We became insensibly the

more attached to each other the more we were acquainted, which rendered

the more severe the separation, when we were torn asunder never to meet

again in this world!

"After I left Turin, though everything for my reception at the palaces of

Toulouse and Rambouillet had been prepared in the most sumptuous style of

magnificence, yet such was my agitation that I remained convulsively

speechless for many hours, and all the affectionate attention of the

family of the Duc de Penthievre could not calm my feelings.

"Among those who came about me was the bridegroom himself, whom I had

never yet seen. So anxious was he to have his first acquaintance

incognito that he set off from Paris the moment he was apprised of my

arrival in France and presented himself as the Prince's page. As he had

outgrown the figure of his portrait, I received him as such; but the

Prince, being better pleased with me than he had apprehended he should

be, could scarcely avoid discovering himself. During our journey to

Paris I myself disclosed the interest with which the supposed page had

inspired me. 'I hope,' exclaimed I, 'my Prince will allow his page to

attend me, for I like him much.'

"What was my surprise when the Duc de Penthievre presented me to the

Prince and I found in him the page for whom I had already felt such an

interest! We both laughed and wanted words to express our mutual

sentiments. This was really love at first sight.

[The young Prince was enraptured at finding his lovely bride so superior

in personal charms to the description which had been given of her, and

even to the portrait sent to him from Turin. Indeed, she must have been

a most beautiful creature, for when I left her in the year 1792, though

then five-and-forty years of age, from the freshness of her complexion,

the elegance of her figure, and the dignity of her deportment, she

certainly did not appear to be more than thirty. She had a fine head of

hair, and she took great pleasure in showing it unornamented. I remember

one day, on her coming hastily from the bath, as she was putting on her

dress, her cap falling off, her hair completely covered her!

The circumstances of her death always make me shudder at the recollection

of this incident! I have been assured by Mesdames Mackau, de Soucle, the

Comtesse de Noailles (not Duchesse, as Mademoiselle Bertin has created

her in her Memoirs of that name), and others, that the Princesse de

Lamballe was considered the most beautiful and accomplished Princess at

the Court of Louis XV., adorned with all the grace, virtue, and elegance

of manner which so eminently distinguished her through life.]

"The Duc de Chartres, then possessing a very handsome person and most

insinuating address, soon gained the affections of the amiable

Mademoiselle Penthievre. Becoming thus a member of the same family, he

paid me the most assiduous attention. From my being his sister-in-law,

and knowing he was aware of my great attachment to his young wife, I

could have no idea that his views were criminally levelled at my honour,

my happiness, and my future peace of mind. How, therefore, was I

astonished and shocked when he discovered to me his desire to supplant

the legitimate object of my affections, whose love for me equalled mine

for him! I did not expose this baseness of the Duc de Chartres, out of

filial affection for my adopted father, the Duc de Penthievre; out of the

love I bore his amiable daughter, she being pregnant; and, above all, in

consequence of the fear I was under of compromising the life of the

Prince, my husband, who I apprehended might be lost to me if I did not

suffer in silence. But still, through my silence he was lost--and oh,

how dreadfully! The Prince was totally in the dark as to the real

character of his brother-in-law. He blindly became every day more and

more attached to the man, who was then endeavouring by the foulest means

to blast the fairest prospects of his future happiness in life! But my

guardian angel protected me from becoming a victim to seduction,

defeating every attack by that prudence which has hitherto been my

invincible shield.

"Guilt, unpunished in its first crime, rushes onward, and hurrying from

one misdeed to another, like the flood-tide, drives all before it! My

silence, and his being defeated without reproach, armed him with courage

for fresh daring, and he too well succeeded in embittering the future

days of my life, as well as those of his own affectionate wife, and his

illustrious father-in-law, the virtuous Duc de Penthievre, who was to all

a father.

"To revenge himself upon me for the repulse he met with, this man

inveigled my young, inexperienced husband from his bridal bed to those

infected with the nauseous poison of every vice! Poor youth! he soon

became the prey of every refinement upon dissipation and studied

debauchery, till at length his sufferings made his life a burthen, and he

died in the most excruciating agonies both of mind and body, in the arms

of a disconsolate wife and a distracted father--and thus, in a few short

months, at the age of eighteen, was I left a widow to lament my having

become a wife!

"I was in this situation, retired from the world and absorbed in grief,

with the ever beloved and revered illustrious father of my murdered lord,

endeavouring to sooth his pangs for the loss of those comforts in a child

with which my cruel disappointment forbade my ever being blest--though,

in the endeavour to soothe, I often only aggravated both his and my own

misery at our irretrievable loss--when a ray of unexpected light burst

upon my dreariness. It was amid this gloom of human agony, these

heartrending scenes of real mourning, that the brilliant star shone to

disperse the clouds which hovered over our drooping heads,--to dry the

hot briny tears which were parching up our miserable vegetating

existence--it was in this crisis that Marie Antoinette came, like a

messenger sent down from Heaven, graciously to offer the balm of comfort

in the sweetest language of human compassion. The pure emotions of her

generous soul made her unceasing, unremitting, in her visits to two

mortals who must else have perished under the weight of their

misfortunes. But for the consolation of her warm friendship we must have

sunk into utter despair!

"From that moment I became seriously attached to the Queen of France. She

dedicated a great portion of her time to calm the anguish of my poor

heart, though I had not yet accepted the honour of becoming a member of

Her Majesty's household. Indeed, I was a considerable time before I

could think of undertaking a charge I felt myself so completely incapable

of fulfilling. I endeavoured to check the tears that were pouring down

my cheeks, to conceal in the Queen's presence the real feelings of my

heart, but the effort only served to increase my anguish when she had

departed. Her attachment to me, and the cordiality with which she

distinguished herself towards the Duc de Penthievre, gave her a place in

that heart, which had been chilled by the fatal vacuum left by its first

inhabitant; and Marie Antoinette was the only rival through life that

usurped his pretensions, though she could never wean me completely from

his memory.

"My health, from the melancholy life I led, had so much declined that my

affectionate father, the Duc de Penthievre, with whom I continued to

reside, was anxious that I should emerge from my retirement for the

benefit of my health. Sensible of his affection, and having always

honoured his counsels, I took his advice in this instance. It being in

the hard winter, when so many persons were out of bread, the Queen, the

Duchesse d'Orleans, the Duc de Penthievre, and myself, introduced the

German sledges, in which we were followed by most of the nobility and the

rich citizens. This afforded considerable employment to different

artificers. The first use I made of my own new vehicle was to visit, in

company with the Duc de Penthievre, the necessitous poor families and our

pensioners. In the course of our rounds we met the Queen.

"'I suppose,' exclaimed Her Majesty, 'you also are laying a good

foundation for my work! Heavens! what must the poor feel! I am wrapped

up like a diamond in a box, covered with furs, and yet I am chilled with

cold!'

"'That feeling sentiment,' said the Duke, 'will soon warm many a cold

family's heart with gratitude to bless Your Majesty!'

"'Why, yes,' replied Her Majesty, showing a long piece of paper

containing the names of those to whom she intended to afford relief, 'I

have only collected two hundred yet on my list, but the cure will do the

rest and help me to draw the strings of my privy purse! But I have not

half done my rounds. I daresay before I return to Versailles I shall

have as many more, and, since we are engaged in the same business, pray

come into my sledge and do not take my work out of my hands! Let me have

for once the merit of doing something good!'

"On the coming up of a number of other vehicles belonging to the sledge

party, the Queen added, 'Do not say anything about what I have been

telling you!' for Her Majesty never wished what she did in the way of

charity or donations should be publicly known, the old pensioners

excepted, who, being on the list, could not be concealed; especially as

she continued to pay all those she found of the late Queen of Louis XV.

She was remarkably delicate and timid with respect to hurting the

feelings of any one; and, fearing the Duc de Penthievre might not be

pleased at her pressing me to leave him in order to join her, she said,

'Well, I will let you off, Princess, on your both promising to dine with

me at Trianon; for the King is hunting, not deer, but wood for the poor,

and he will see his game off to Paris before he comes back:

"The Duke begged to be excused, but wished me to accept the invitation,

which I did, and we parted, each to pursue our different sledge

excursions.

"At the hour appointed, I made my appearance at Trianon, and had the

honour to dine tete-a-tete with Her Majesty, which was much more

congenial to my feelings than if there had been a party, as I was still

very low-spirited and unhappy.

"After dinner, 'My dear Princess,' said the Queen to me, 'at your time of

life you must not give yourself up entirely to the dead. You wrong the

living. We have not been sent into the world for ourselves. I have felt

much for your situation, and still do so, and therefore hope, as long as

the weather permits, that you will favour me with your company to enlarge

our sledge excursions. The King and my dear sister Elizabeth are also

much interested about your coming on a visit to Versailles. What think

you of our plan.

"I thanked Her Majesty, the King, and the Princess, for their kindness,

but I observed that my state of health and mind could so little

correspond in any way with the gratitude I should owe them for their

royal favours that I trusted a refusal would be attributed to the fact of

my consciousness how much rather my society must prove an annoyance and a

burthen than a source of pleasure.

"My tears flowing down my cheeks rapidly while I was speaking, the Queen,

with that kindness for which she was so eminently distinguished, took me

by the hand, and with her handkerchief dried my face.

"'I am,' said the Queen, I about to renew a situation which has for some

time past lain dormant; and I hope, my dear Princess, therewith to

establish my own private views, in forming the happiness of a worthy

individual.'

"I replied that such a plan must insure Her Majesty the desired object

she had in view, as no individual could be otherwise than happy under the

immediate auspices of so benevolent and generous a Sovereign.

"The Queen, with great affability, as if pleased with my observation,

only said, 'If you really think as you speak, my views are accomplished.'

"My carriage was announced, and I then left Her Majesty, highly pleased

at her gracious condescension, which evidently emanated from the kind

wish to raise my drooping spirits from their melancholy.

"Gratitude would not permit me to continue long without demonstrating to

Her Majesty the sentiments her kindness had awakened in my heart.

"I returned next day with my sister-in-law, the Duchesse d'Orleans, who

was much esteemed by the Queen, and we joined the sledge parties with Her

Majesty.

"On the third or fourth day of these excursions I again had the honour to

dine with Her Majesty, when, in the presence of the Princesse Elizabeth,

she asked me if I were still of the same opinion with respect to the

person it was her intention to add to her household?

"I myself had totally forgotten the topic and entreated Her Majesty's

pardon for my want of memory, and begged she would signify to what

subject she alluded.

"The Princesse Elizabeth laughed. 'I thought,' cried she, 'that you had

known it long ago! The Queen, with His Majesty's consent, has nominated

you, my dear Princess (embracing me), superintendent of her household.'

"The Queen, also embracing me, said, 'Yes; it is very true. You said the

individual destined to such a situation could not be otherwise than

happy; and I am myself thoroughly happy in being able thus to contribute

towards rendering you so.'

"I was perfectly at a loss for a moment or two, but, recovering myself

from the effect of this unexpected and unlooked for preferment, I thanked

Her Majesty with the best grace I was able for such an unmerited mark of

distinction.

"The Queen, perceiving my embarrassment, observed, 'I knew I should

surprise you; but I thought your being established at Versailles much

more desirable for one of your rank and youth than to be, as you were,

with the Duc de Penthievre; who, much as I esteem his amiable character

and numerous great virtues, is by no means the most cheering companion

for my charming Princess. From this moment let our friendships be united

in the common interest of each other's happiness.'

"The Queen took me by the hand. The Princesse Elizabeth, joining hers,

exclaimed to the Queen, 'Oh, my dear sister! let me make the trio in

this happy union of friends!'

"In the society of her adored Majesty and of her saint-like sister

Elizabeth I have found my only balm of consolation! Their graciously

condescending to sympathise in the grief with which I was overwhelmed

from the cruel disappointment of my first love, filled up in some degree

the vacuum left by his loss, who was so prematurely ravished from me in

the flower of youth, leaving me a widow at eighteen; and though that loss

is one I never can replace or forget, the poignancy of its effect has

been in a great degree softened by the kindnesses of my excellent

father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre, and the relations resulting from my

situation with, and the never-ceasing attachment of my beloved royal

mistress."

SECTION VII.

[The connexion of the Princesse de Lamballe with the Queen, of which she

has herself described the origin in the preceding chapter, proved so

important in its influence upon the reputation and fate of both these

illustrious victims, that I must once more withdraw the attention of the

reader, to explain, from personal observation and confidential

disclosures, the leading causes of the violent dislike which was kindled

in the public against an intimacy that it would have been most fortunate

had Her Majesty preferred through life to every other.

The selection of a friend by the Queen, and the sudden elevation of that

friend to the highest station in the royal household, could not fail to

alarm the selfishness of courtiers, who always feel themselves injured by

the favour shown to others. An obsolete office was revived in favour of

the Princesse de Lamballe. In the time of Maria Leckzinska, wife of

Louis XV., the office of superintendent, then held by Mademoiselle de

Clermont, was suppressed when its holder died. The office gave a control

over the inclinations of Queens, by which Maria Leckzinska was sometimes

inconvenienced; and it had lain dormant ever since. Its restoration by a

Queen who it was believed could be guided by no motive but the desire to

seek pretexts for showing undue favour, was of course eyed askance, and

ere long openly calumniated.

The Comtesse de Noailles, who never could forget the title the Queen gave

her of Madame Etiquette, nor forgive the frequent jokes which Her Majesty

passed upon her antiquated formality, availed herself of the opportunity

offered by her husband's being raised to the dignity of Marshal of

France, to resign her situation on the appointment of the Princesse de

Lamballe as superintendent. The Countess retired with feelings

embittered against her royal mistress, and her annoyance in the sequel

ripened into enmity. The Countess was attached to a very powerful party,

not only at Court but scattered throughout the kingdom. Her discontent

arose from the circumstance of no longer having to take her orders from

the Queen direct, but from her superintendent. Ridiculous as this may

seem to an impartial observer, it created one of the most powerful

hostilities against which Her Majesty had afterwards to contend.

Though the Queen esteemed the Comtesse de Noailles for her many good

qualities, yet she was so much put out of her way by the rigour with

which the Countess enforced forms which to Her Majesty appeared puerile

and absurd, that she felt relieved, and secretly gratified, by her

retirement. It will be shown hereafter to what an excess the Countess

was eventually carried by her malice.

One of the popular objections to the revival of the office of

superintendent in favour of the Princesse de Lamballe arose from its

reputed extravagance. This was as groundless as the other charges

against the Queen. The etiquettes of dress, and the requisite increase

of every other expense, from the augmentation of every article of the

necessaries as well as the luxuries of life, made a treble difference

between the expenditure of the circumscribed Court of Maria Leckzinska

and that of Louis XVI.; yet the Princesse de Lamballe received no more

salary than had been allotted to Mademoiselle de Clermont in the selfsame

situation half a century before.

(And even that salary she never appropriated to any private use of her

own, being amply supplied through the generous bounty of her

father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre; and latterly, to my knowledge, so

far from receiving any pay, she often paid the Queen's and Princesse

Elizabeth's bills out of her own purse.)

So far from possessing the slightest propensity either to extravagance in

herself or to the encouragement of extravagance in others, the Princesse

de Lamballe was a model of prudence, and upon those subjects, as indeed

upon all others, the Queen could not have had a more discreet counsellor.

She eminently contributed to the charities of the Queen, who was the

mother of the fatherless, the support of the widow, and the general

protectress and refuge of suffering humanity. Previously to the purchase

of any article of luxury, the Princess would call for the list of the

pensioners: if anything was due on that account, it was instantly paid,

and the luxury dispensed with.

She never made her appearance in the Queen's apartments except at

established hours. This was scrupulously observed till the Revolution.

Circumstances then obliged her to break through forms. The Queen would

only receive communications, either written or verbal, upon the subjects

growing out of that wretched crisis, in the presence of the Princess; and

hence her apartments were open to all who had occasion to see Her

Majesty. This made their intercourse more constant and unceremonious.

But before this, the Princess only went to the royal presence at fixed

hours, unless she had memorials to present to the King, Queen, or

Ministers, in favour of such as asked for justice or mercy. Hence,

whenever the Princess entered before the stated times, the Queen would

run and embrace her, and exclaim: "Well, my dear Princesse de Lamballe!

what widow, what orphan, what suffering or oppressed petitioner am I to

thank for this visit? for I know you never come to me empty-handed when

you come unexpectedly!" The Princess, on these occasions, often had the

petitioners waiting in an adjoining apartment, that they might instantly

avail themselves of any inclination the Queen might show to see them.

Once the Princess was deceived by a female painter of doubtful character,

who supplicated her to present a work she had executed to the Queen. I

myself afterwards returned that work to its owner. Thenceforward, the

Princess became very rigid in her inquiries, previous to taking the least

interest in any application, or consenting to present any one personally

to the King or Queen. She required thoroughly to be informed of the

nature of the request, and of the merit and character of the applicant,

before she would attend to either. Owing to this caution Her Highness

scarcely ever after met with a negative. In cases of great importance,

though the Queen's compassionate and good heart needed no stimulus to

impel her to forward the means of justice, the Princess would call the

influence of the Princesse Elizabeth to her aid; and Elizabeth never sued

in vain.

Marie Antoinette paid the greatest attention to all memorials. They were

regularly collected every week by Her Majesty's private secretary, the

Abbe Vermond. I have myself seen many of them, when returned from the

Princesse de Lamballe, with the Queen's marginal notes in her own

handwriting, and the answers dictated by Her Majesty to the different,

officers of the departments relative to the nature of the respective

demands. She always recommended the greatest attention to all public

documents, and annexed notes to such as passed through her hands to

prevent their being thrown aside or lost.

One of those who were least satisfied with the appointment of the

Princesse de Lamballe to the office of superintendent was her

brother-in-law, the Duc d'Orleans, who, having attempted her virtue on

various occasions and been repulsed, became mortified and alarmed at her

situation as a check to his future enterprise.

At one time the Duc and Duchesse d'Orleans were most constant and

assiduous in their attendance on Marie Antoinette. They were at all her

parties. The Queen was very fond of the Duchess. It is supposed that

the interest Her Majesty took in that lady, and the steps to which some

time afterwards that interest led, planted the first seeds of the

unrelenting and misguided hostility which, in the deadliest times of the

Revolution, animated the Orleanists against the throne.

The Duc d'Orleans, then Duc de Chartres, was never a favourite of the

Queen. He was only tolerated at Court on account of his wife and of the

great intimacy which subsisted between him and the Comte d'Artois. Louis

XVI. had often expressed his disapprobation of the Duke's character,

which his conduct daily justified.

The Princesse de Lamballe could have no cause to think of her

brother-in-law but with horror. He had insulted her, and, in revenge at

his defeat, had, it was said, deprived her, by the most awful means, of

her husband. The Princess was tenderly attached to her sister-in-law,

the Duchess. Her attachment could not but make her look very

unfavourably upon the circumstance of the Duke's subjecting his wife to

the humiliation of residing in the palace with Madame de Genlis, and

being forced to receive a person of morals so incorrect as the guardian

of her children. The Duchess had complained to her father, the Duc de

Penthievre, in the presence of the Princesse de Lamballe, of the very

great ascendency Madame de Genlis exercised over her husband; and had

even requested the Queen to use her influence in detaching the Duke from

this connexion.

(It was generally understood that the Duke had a daughter by Madame de

Genlis. This daughter, when grown up, was married to the late Irish Lord

Robert Fitzgerald.)

But she had too much gentleness of nature not presently to forget her

resentment. Being much devoted to her husband, rather than irritate him

to further neglect by personal remonstrance, she determined to make the

best of a bad business, and tolerated Madame de Genlis, although she made

no secret among her friends and relations of the reason why she did so.

Nay, so far did her wish not to disoblige her husband prevail over her

own feelings as to induce her to yield at last to his importunities by

frequently proposing to present Madame de Genlis to the Queen. But

Madame de Genilis never could obtain either a public or a private

audience. Though the Queen was a great admirer of merit and was fond of

encouraging talents, of which Madame de Genlis was by no means deficient,

yet even the account the Duchess herself had given, had Her Majesty

possessed no other means of knowledge, would have sealed that lady's

exclusion from the opportunities of display at Court which she sought so

earnestly.

There was another source of exasperation against the Duc d'Orleans; and

the great cause of a new and, though less obtrusive, yet perhaps an

equally dangerous foe under all the circumstances, in Madame de Genlis.

The anonymous slander of the one was circulated through all France by the

other; and spleen and disappointment feathered the venomed arrows shot at

the heart of power by malice and ambition. Be the charge true or false,

these anonymous libels were generally considered as the offspring of this

lady: they were industriously scattered by the Duc d'Orleans; and their

frequent refutation by the Queen's friends only increased the malignant

industry of their inventor.

An event which proved the most serious of all that ever happened to the

Queen, and the consequences of which were distinctly foreseen by the

Princesse de Lamballe and others of her true friends, was now growing to

maturity.

The deposed Court oracle, the Comtesse de Noailles, had been succeeded as

literary leader by the Comtesse Diane de Polignac. She was a favourite of

the Comte d'Artois, and was the first lady in attendance upon the

Countess, his wife.

(The Comtesse Diane de Polignac had a much better education, and

considerably more natural capacity, than her sister-in-law, the Duchess,

and the Queen merely disliked her for her prudish affectation. The

Comtesse d'Artois grew jealous of the Count's intimacy with the Comtesse

Diane. While she considered herself as the only one of the Royal Family

likely to be mother of a future sovereign, she was silent, or perhaps too

much engrossed by her castles in the air to think of anything but

diadems; but when she saw the Queen producing heirs, she grew out of

humour at her lost popularity, and began to turn her attention to her

husband's Endymionship to this now Diana! When she had made up her mind

to get her rival out of her house, she consulted one of the family; but

being told that the best means for a wife to keep her husband out of

harm's way was to provide him with a domestic occupation for his leisure

hours at home, than which nothing could be better than a handmaid under

the same roof, she made a merit of necessity and submitted ever after to

retain the Comtesse Diane, as she had been prudently advised. The

Comtesse Diane, in consequence, remained in the family even up to the

17th October, 1789, when she left Versailles in company with the De

Polignacs and the D'Artois, who all emigrated together from France to

Italy and lived at Stria on the Brenta, near Venice, for some time, till

the Comtesse d'Artois went to Turin.)

The Queen's conduct had always been very cool to her. She deemed her a

self-sufficient coquette. However, the Comtesse Diane was a constant

attendant at the gay parties which were then the fashion of the Court,

though not greatly admired.

The reader will scarcely need to be informed that the event to which I

have just alluded is the introduction by the Comtesse Diane of her

sister-in-law, the Comtesse Julie de Polignac, to the Queen; and having

brought the record up to this point I here once more dismiss my own pen

for that of the Princesse de Lamballe.

It will be obvious to every one that I must have been indebted to the

conversations of my beloved patroness for most of the sentiments and

nearly all the facts I have just been stating; and had the period on

which she has written so little as to drive me to the necessity of

writing for her been less pregnant with circumstances almost entirely

personal to herself, no doubt I should have found more upon that period

in her manuscript. But the year of which Her Highness says so little was

the year of happiness and exclusive favour; and the Princess was above

the vanity of boasting, even privately in the self-confessional of her

diary. She resumes her records with her apprehensions; and thus

proceeds, describing the introduction of the Comtesse Julie de Polignac,

regretting her ascendency over the Queen, and foreseeing its fatal

effects.]

"I had been only a twelvemonth in Her Majesty's service, which I believe

was the happiest period of both our lives, when, at one of the Court

assemblies, the Comtesse Julie de Polignac was first introduced by her

sister-in-law, the Comtesse Diane de Polignac, to the Queen.

"She had lived in the country, quite a retired life, and appeared to be

more the motherly woman, and the domestic wife, than the ambitious Court

lady, or royal sycophant. She was easy of access, and elegantly plain in

her dress and deportment.

"Her appearance at Court was as fatal to the Queen as it was propitious

to herself!

"She seemed formed by nature to become a royal favourite, unassuming,

remarkably complaisant, possessing a refined taste, with a good-natured

disposition, not handsome, but well formed, and untainted by haughtiness

or pomposity.

"It would appear, from the effect her introduction had on the Queen, that

her domestic virtues were written in her countenance; for she became a

royal favourite before she had time to become a candidate for royal

favour.

"The Queen's sudden attachment to the Comtesse Julie produced no

alteration in my conduct, while I saw nothing extraordinary to alarm me

for the consequences of any particular marked partiality, by which the

character and popularity of Her Majesty might be endangered.

"But, seeing the progress this lady made in the feelings of the Queen's

enemies, it became my duty, from the situation I held, to caution Her

Majesty against the risks she ran in making her favourites friends; for

it was very soon apparent how highly the Court disapproved of this

intimacy and partiality: and the same feeling soon found its way to the

many-headed monster, the people, who only saw the favourite without

considering the charge she held. Scarcely had she felt the warm rays of

royal favour, when the chilling blasts of envy and malice began to nip it

in the bud of all its promised bliss. Even long before she touched the

pinnacle of her grandeur as governess of the royal children the blackest

calumny began to show itself in prints, caricatures, songs, and pamphlets

of every description.

"A reciprocity of friendship between a Queen and a subject, by those who

never felt the existence of such a feeling as friendship, could only be

considered in a criminal point of view. But by what perversion could

suspicion frown upon the ties between two married women, both living in

the greatest harmony with their respective husbands, especially when both

became mothers and were so devoted to their offspring? This boundless

friendship did glow between this calumniated pair calumniated because the

sacredness and peculiarity of the sentiment which united them was too

pure to be understood by the grovelling minds who made themselves their

sentencers. The friend is the friend's shadow. The real sentiment of

friendship, of which disinterested sympathy is the sign, cannot exist

unless between two of the same sex, because a physical difference

involuntarily modifies the complexion of the intimacy where the sexes are

opposite, even though there be no physical relations. The Queen of

France had love in her eyes and Heaven in her soul. The Duchesse de

Polignac, whose person beamed with every charm, could never have been

condemned, like the Friars of La Trappe, to the mere memento mori.

"When I had made the representations to Her Majesty which duty exacted

from me on perceiving her ungovernable partiality for her new favourite,

that I might not importune her by the awkwardness naturally arising from

my constant exposure to the necessity of witnessing an intimacy she knew

I did not sanction, I obtained permission from my royal mistress to visit

my father-in-law, the Duc de Penthievre, at Rambouillet, his

country-seat.

"Soon after I arrived there, I was taken suddenly ill after dinner with

the most excruciating pains in my stomach. I thought myself dying.

Indeed, I should have been so but for the fortunate and timely discovery

that I was poisoned certainly, not intentionally, by any one belonging to

my dear father's household; but by some execrable hand which had an

interest in my death.

"The affair was hushed up with a vague report that some of the made

dishes had been prepared in a stew-pan long out of use, which the clerk

of the Duke's kitchen had forgotten to get properly tinned.

"This was a doubtful story for many reasons. Indeed, I firmly believe

that the poison given me had been prepared in the salt, for every one at

table had eaten of the same dish without suffering the smallest

inconvenience.

"The news of this accident had scarcely arrived at Versailles, when the

Queen, astounded, and, in excessive anxiety, instantly sent off her

physician, and her private secretary, the Abbe Vermond, to bring me back

to my apartments at Versailles, with strict orders not to leave me a

moment at the Duke's, for fear of a second attempt of the same nature.

Her Majesty had imputed the first to the earnestness I had always shown

in support of her interests, and she seemed now more ardent in her

kindness towards me from the idea of my being exposed through her means

to the treachery of assassins in the dark. The Queen awaited our coming

impatiently, and, not seeing the carriages return so quickly as she

fancied they ought to arrive, she herself set off for Rambouillet, and

did not leave me till she had prevailed on me to quit my father-in-law's,

and we both returned together the same night to Versailles, where the

Queen in person dedicated all her attention to the restoration of my

health.

"As yet, however, nothing in particular had discovered that splendour for

which the De Polignacs were afterwards so conspicuous.

"Indeed, so little were their circumstances calculated for a Court life,

that when the friends of Madame de Polignac perceived the growing

attachment of the young Queen to the palladium of their hopes, in order

to impel Her Majesty's friendship to repair the deficiencies of fortune,

they advised the magnet to quit the Court abruptly, assigning the want of

means as the motive of her retreat. The story got wind, and proved

propitious.

"The Queen, to secure the society of her friend, soon supplied the

resources she required and took away the necessity for her retirement.

But the die was cast. In gaining one friend she sacrificed a host. By

this act of imprudent preference she lost forever the affections of the

old nobility. This was the gale which drove her back among the breakers.

"I saw the coming storm, and endeavoured to make my Sovereign feel its

danger. Presuming that my example would be followed, I withdrew from the

De Polignac society, and vainly flattered myself that prudence would

impel others not to encourage Her Majesty's amiable infatuation till the

consequences should be irretrievable. But Sovereigns are always

surrounded by those who make it a point to reconcile them to their

follies, however flagrant, and keep them on good terms with themselves,

however severely they may be censured by the world.

"If I had read the book of fate I could not have seen more distinctly the

fatal results which actually took place from this unfortunate connexion.

The Duchess and myself always lived in the greatest harmony, and equally

shared the confidence of the Queen; but it was my duty not to sanction

Her Majesty's marked favouritism by my presence. The Queen often

expressed her discontent to me upon the subject. She used to tell me how

much it grieved her to be denied success in her darling desire of uniting

her friends with each other, as they were already united in her own

heart. Finding my resolution unalterable, she was mortified, but gave up

her pursuit. When she became assured that all importunity was useless,

she ever after avoided wounding my feelings by remonstrance, and allowed

me to pursue the system I had adopted, rather than deprive herself of my

society, which would have been the consequence had I not been left at

liberty to follow the dictates of my own sense of propriety in a course

from which I was resolved that even Her Majesty's displeasure should not

make me swerve.

"Once in particular, at an entertainment given to the Emperor Joseph at

Trianon, I remember the Queen took the opportunity to repeat how much she

felt herself mortified at the course in which I persisted of never making

my appearance at the Duchesse de Polignac's parties.

"I replied, 'I believe, Madame, we are both of us disappointed; but Your

Majesty has your remedy, by replacing me by a lady less scrupulous.'

"'I was too sanguine,' said the Queen, 'in having flattered myself that I

had chosen two friends who would form, from their sympathising and

uniting their sentiments with each other, a society which would embellish

my private life as much as they adorn their public stations.'

"I said it was by my unalterable friendship and my loyal and dutiful

attachment to the sacred person of Her Majesty that I had been prompted

to a line of conduct in which the motives whence it arose would impel me

to persist while I had the honour to hold a situation under Her Majesty's

roof.

"The Queen, embracing me, exclaimed, 'That will be for life, for death

alone can separate us!'

"This is the last conversation I recollect to have had with the Queen

upon this distressing subject.

"The Abbe Vermond, who had been Her Majesty's tutor, but who was now her

private secretary, began to dread that his influence over her, from

having been her confidential adviser from her youth upwards, would suffer

from the rising authority of the all-predominant new favourite.

Consequently, he thought proper to remonstrate, not with Her Majesty, but

with those about her royal person. The Queen took no notice of these

side-wind complaints, not wishing to enter into any explanation of her

conduct. On this the Abbe withdrew from Court. But he only retired for

a short time, and that to make better terms for the future. Here was a

new spring for those who were supplying the army of calumniators with

poison. Happy had it been, perhaps, for France and the Queen if Vermond

had never returned. But the Abbe was something like a distant country

cousin of an English Minister, a man of no talents, but who hoped for

employment through the power of his kinsman. 'There is nothing on hand

now,' answered the Minister, 'but a Bishop's mitre or a Field-marshal's

staff.'--'Oh, very well,' replied the countryman; 'either will do for me

till something better turns up.' The Abbe, in his retirement finding

leisure to reflect that there was no probability of anything 'better

turning up' than his post of private secretary, tutor, confidant, and

counsellor (and that not always the most correct) of a young and amiable

Queen of France, soon made his reappearance and kept his jealousy of the

De Polignacs ever after to himself.

"The Abbe Vermond enjoyed much influence with regard to ecclesiastical

preferments. He was too fond of his situation ever to contradict or

thwart Her Majesty in any of her plans; too much of a courtier to assail

her ears with the language of truth; and by far too much a clergyman to

interest himself but for Mother Church.

"In short, he was more culpable in not doing his duty than in the

mischief he occasioned, for he certainly oftener misled the Queen by his

silence than by his advice."

SECTION VIII.

"I have already mentioned that Marie Antoinette had no decided taste for

literature. Her mind rather sought its amusements in the ball-room, the

promenade, the theatre, especially when she herself was a performer, and

the concert-room, than in her library and among her books. Her coldness

towards literary men may in, some degree be accounted for by the disgust

which she took at the calumnies and caricatures resulting from her

mother's partiality for her own revered teacher, the great Metastasio.

The resemblance of most of Maria Theresa's children to that poet was

coupled with the great patronage he received from the Empress; and much

less than these circumstances would have been quite enough to furnish a

tale for the slanderer, injurious to the reputation of any exalted

personage.

"The taste of Marie Antoinette for private theatricals was kept up till

the clouds of the Revolution darkened over all her enjoyments.

"These innocent amusements were made subjects of censure against her by

the many courtiers who were denied access to them; while some, who were

permitted to be present, were too well pleased with the opportunity of

sneering at her mediocrity in the art, which those, who could not see

her, were ready to criticise with the utmost severity. It is believed

that Madame de Genlis found this too favourable an opportunity to be

slighted. Anonymous satires upon the Queen's performances, which were

attributed to the malice of that authoress, were frequently shown to Her

Majesty by good-natured friends. The Duc de Fronsac also, from some

situation he held at Court, though not included in the private household

of Her Majesty at Trianon, conceiving himself highly injured by not being

suffered to interfere, was much exasperated, and took no pains to prevent

others from receiving the infection of his resentment.

"Of all the arts, music was the only one which Her Majesty ever warmly

patronised. For music she was an enthusiast. Had her talents in this

art been cultivated, it is certain from her judgment in it that she would

have made very considerable progress. She sang little French airs with

great taste and feeling. She improved much under the tuition of the

great composer, her master, the celebrated Sacchini. After his death,

Sapio was named his successor; but, between the death of one master and

the appointment of another, the revolutionary horrors so increased that

her mind was no longer in a state to listen to anything but the howlings

of the tempest.

"In her happier days of power, the great Gluck was brought at her request

from Germany to Paris. He cost nothing to the public Treasury, for Her

Majesty paid all his expenses out of her own purse, leaving him the

profits of his operas, which attracted immense sums to the theatre.

"Marie Antoinette paid for the musical education of the French singer,

Garat, and pensioned him for her private concerts.

"Her Majesty was the great patroness of the celebrated Viotti, who was

also attached to her private musical parties. Before Viotti began to

perform his concertos, Her Majesty, with the most amiable condescension,

would go round the music saloon, and say, 'Ladies and gentlemen, I

request you will be silent, and very attentive, and not enter into

conversation, while Mr. Viotti is playing, for it interrupts him in the

execution of his fine performance.

"Gluck composed his Armida in compliment to the personal charms of Marie

Antoinette. I never saw Her Majesty more interested about anything than

she was for its success. She became a perfect slave to it. She had the

gracious condescension to hear all the pieces through, at Gluck's

request, before they were submitted to the stage for rehearsal. Gluck

said he always improved his music after he saw the effect it had upon Her

Majesty.

"He was coming out of the Queen's apartment one day, after he had been

performing one of these pieces for Her Majesty's approbation, when I

followed and congratulated him on the increased success he had met with

from the whole band of the opera at every rehearsal. 'O my dear

Princess!' cried he, 'it wants nothing to make it be applauded up to the

seven skies but two such delightful heads as Her Majesty's and your

own.'--'Oh, if that be all,' answered I, 'we'll have them painted for

you, Mr. Gluck!'--'No, no, no! you do not understand me,' replied Gluck,

'I mean real, real heads. My actresses are very ugly, and Armida and her

confidential lady ought to be very handsome:

"However great the success of the opera of Armida, and certainly it was

one of the best productions ever exhibited on the French stage, no one

had a better opinion of its composition than Gluck himself. He was quite

mad about it. He told the Queen that the air of France had invigorated

his musical genius, and that, after having had the honour of seeing Her

Majesty, his ideas were so much inspired that his compositions resembled

her, and became alike angelic and sublime!

"The first artist who undertook the part of Armida was Madame Saint

Huberti. The Queen was very partial to her. She was principal female

singer at the French opera, was a German by birth, and strongly

recommended by Gluck for her good natural voice. At Her Majesty's

request, Gluck himself taught Madame Saint Huberti the part of Armida.

Sacchini, also, at the command of Marie Antoinette, instructed her in the

style and sublimity of the Italian school, and Mdlle. Benin, the Queen's

dressmaker and milliner, was ordered to furnish the complete dress for

the character.

"The Queen, perhaps, was more liberal to this lady than to any other

actress upon the stage. She had frequently paid her debts, which were

very considerable, for she dressed like a Queen whenever she represented

one.

"Gluck's consciousness of the merit of his own works, and of their

dignity, excited no small jealousy, during the getting up of Armida, in

his rival with the public, the great Vestris, to whom he scarcely left

space to exhibit the graces of his art; and many severe disputes took

place between the two rival sharers of the Parisian enthusiasm. Indeed,

it was at one time feared that the success of Armida would be endangered,

unless an equal share of the performance were conceded to the dancers.

But Gluck, whose German obstinacy would not give up a note, told Vestris

he might compose a ballet in which he would leave him his own way

entirely; but that an artist whose profession only taught him to reason

with his heels should not kick about works like Armida at his pleasure.

'My subject,' added Gluck, 'is taken from the immortal Tasso. My music

has been logically composed, and with the ideas of my head; and, of

course, there is very little room left for capering. If Tasso had

thought proper to make Rinaldo a dancer he never would have designated

him a warrior.'

"Rinaldo was the part Vestris wished to be allotted to his son. However,

through the interference of the Queen, Vestris prudently took the part as

it had been originally finished by Gluck.