MARIE ANTOINETTE JOSEPHE JEANNE DE LORRAINE, Archduchess of Austria,
daughter of Francois de Lorraine and of Maria Theresa, was born on the 2d
of November, 1755, the day of the earthquake at Lisbon; and this
catastrophe, which appeared to stamp the era of her birth with a fatal
mark, without forming a motive for superstitious fear with the Princess,
nevertheless made an impression upon her mind. As the Empress already had
a great number of daughters, she ardently desired to have another son, and
playfully wagered against her wish with the Duc de Tarouka, who had
insisted that she would give birth to an archduke. He lost by the birth
of the Princess, and had executed in porcelain a figure with one knee bent
on the earth, and presenting tablets, upon which the following lines by
Metastasio were engraved:
I lose by your fair daughter’s birth
Who prophesied a son;
But if she share her mother’s worth,
Why, all the world has won!
The Queen was fond of talking of the first years of her youth. Her
father, the Emperor Francis, had made a deep impression upon her heart;
she lost him when she was scarcely seven years old. One of those
circumstances which fix themselves strongly in the memories of children
frequently recalled his last caresses to her. The Emperor was setting out
for Innspruck; he had already left his palace, when he ordered a gentleman
to fetch the Archduchess Marie Antoinette, and bring her to his carriage.
When she came, he stretched out his arms to receive her, and said, after
having pressed her to his bosom, “I wanted to embrace this child once
more.” The Emperor died suddenly during the journey, and never saw his
beloved daughter again.
The Queen often spoke of her mother, and with profound respect, but she
based all her schemes for the education of her children on the essentials
which had been neglected in her own. Maria Theresa, who inspired awe by
her great qualities, taught the Archduchesses to fear and respect rather
than to love her; at least I observed this in the Queen’s feelings towards
her august mother. She therefore never desired to place between her own
children and herself that distance which had existed in the imperial
family. She cited a fatal consequence of it, which had made such a
powerful impression upon her that time had never been able to efface it.
The wife of the Emperor Joseph II. was taken from him in a few days by an
attack of smallpox of the most virulent kind. Her coffin had recently
been deposited in the vault of the imperial family. The Archduchess
Josepha, who had been betrothed to the King of Naples, at the instant she
was quitting Vienna received an order from the Empress not to set off
without having offered up a prayer in the vault of her forefathers. The
Archduchess, persuaded that she should take the disorder to which her
sister-in-law had just fallen a victim, looked upon this order as her
death-warrant. She loved the young Archduchess Marie Antoinette tenderly;
she took her upon her knees, embraced her with tears, and told her she was
about to leave her, not for Naples, but never to see her again; that she
was going down then to the tomb of her ancestors, and that she should
shortly go again there to remain. Her anticipation was realised;
confluent smallpox carried her off in a very few days, and her youngest
sister ascended the throne of Naples in her place.
The Empress was too much taken up with high political interests to have it
in her power to devote herself to maternal attentions. The celebrated
Wansvietten, her physician, went daily, to visit the young imperial
family, and afterwards to Maria Theresa, and gave the most minute details
respecting the health of the Archdukes and Archduchesses, whom she herself
sometimes did not see for eight or ten days at a time. As soon as the
arrival of a stranger of rank at Vienna was made known, the Empress
brought her family about her, admitted them to her table, and by this
concerted meeting induced a belief that she herself presided over the
education of her children.
The chief governesses, being under no fear of inspection from Maria
Theresa, aimed at making themselves beloved by their pupils by the common
and blamable practice of indulgence, so fatal to the future progress and
happiness of children. Marie Antoinette was the cause of her governess
being dismissed, through a confession that all her copies and all her
letters were invariably first traced out with pencil; the Comtesse de
Brandes was appointed to succeed her, and fulfilled her duties with great
exactness and talent. The Queen looked upon having been confided to her
care so late as a misfortune, and always continued upon terms of
friendship with that lady. The education of Marie Antoinette was
certainly very much neglected. With the exception of the Italian
language, all that related to belles lettres, and particularly to history,
even that of her own country, was almost entirely unknown to her. This
was soon found out at the Court of France, and thence arose the generally
received opinion that she was deficient in sense. It will be seen in the
course of these “Memoirs” whether that opinion was well or ill founded.
The public prints, however, teemed with assertions of the superior talents
of Maria Theresa’s children. They often noticed the answers which the
young Princesses gave in Latin to the harangues addressed to them; they
uttered them, it is true, but without understanding them; they knew not a
single word of that language.
Mention was one day made to the Queen of a drawing made by her, and
presented by the Empress to M. Gerard, chief clerk of Foreign Affairs, on
the occasion of his going to Vienna to draw up the articles for her
marriage-contract. “I should blush,” said she, “if that proof of the
quackery of my education were shown to me. I do not believe that I ever
put a pencil to that drawing.” However, what had been taught her she knew
perfectly well. Her facility of learning was inconceivable, and if all
her teachers had been as well informed and as faithful to their duty as
the Abbe Metastasio, who taught her Italian, she would have attained as
great a superiority in the other branches of her education. The Queen
spoke that language with grace and ease, and translated the most difficult
poets. She did not write French correctly, but she spoke it with the
greatest fluency, and even affected to say that she had lost German. In
fact she attempted in 1787 to learn her mother-tongue, and took lessons
assiduously for six weeks; she was obliged to relinquish them, finding all
the difficulties which a Frenchwoman, who should take up the study too
late, would have to encounter. In the same manner she gave up English,
which I had taught her for some time, and in which she had made rapid
progress. Music was the accomplishment in which the Queen most delighted.
She did not play well on any instrument, but she had become able to read
at sight like a first-rate professor. She attained this degree of
perfection in France, this branch of her education having been neglected
at Vienna as much as the rest. A few days after her arrival at
Versailles, she was introduced to her singing-master, La Garde, author of
the opera of “Egle.” She made a distant appointment with him, needing, as
she said, rest after the fatigues of the journey and the numerous fetes
which had taken place at Versailles; but her motive was her desire to
conceal how ignorant she was of the rudiments of music. She asked M.
Campan whether his son, who was a good musician, could give her lessons
secretly for three months. “The Dauphiness,” added she, smiling, “must be
careful of the reputation of the Archduchess.” The lessons were given
privately, and at the end of three months of constant application she sent
for M. la Garde, and surprised him by her skill.
The desire to perfect Marie Antoinette in the study of the French language
was probably the motive which determined Maria Theresa to provide for her
as teachers two French actors: Aufresne, for pronunciation and
declamation, and Sainville, for taste in French singing; the latter had
been an officer in France, and bore a bad character. The choice gave just
umbrage to our Court. The Marquis de Durfort, at that time ambassador at
Vienna, was ordered to make a representation to the Empress upon her
selection. The two actors were dismissed, and the Princess required that
an ecclesiastic should be sent to her. Several eminent ecclesiastics
declined taking upon themselves so delicate an office; others who were
pointed out by Maria Theresa (among the rest the Abbe Grisel) belonged to
parties which sufficed to exclude them.
The Archbishop of Toulouse one day went to the Duc de Choiseul at the
moment when he was much embarrassed upon the subject of this nomination;
he proposed to him the Abby de Vermond, librarian of the College des
Quatre Nations. The eulogistic manner in which he spoke of his protege
procured the appointment for the latter on that very day; and the
gratitude of the Abbe de Vermond towards the prelate was very fatal to
France, inasmuch as after seventeen years of persevering attempts to bring
him into the ministry, he succeeded at last in getting him named
Comptroller-General and President of the Council.--[Comte de Brienne,
later Archbishop of Sens.]
This Abbe de Vermond directed almost all the Queen’s actions. He
established his influence over her at an age when impressions are most
durable; and it was easy to see that he had taken pains only to render
himself beloved by his pupil, and had troubled himself very little with
the care of instructing her. He might have even been accused of having,
by a sharp-sighted though culpable policy, purposely left her in
ignorance. Marie Antoinette spoke the French language with much grace,
but wrote it less perfectly. The Abbe de Vermond revised all the letters
which she sent to Vienna. The insupportable folly with which he boasted
of it displayed the character of a man more flattered at being admitted
into her intimate secrets than anxious to fulfil worthily the high office
of her preceptor.
[The Abbe de Vermond encouraged the impatience of etiquette shown by Marie
Antoinette while she was Dauphiness. When she became Queen he endeavoured
openly to induce her to shake off the restraints she still respected. If
he chanced to enter her apartment at the time she was preparing to go out,
“For whom,” he would say, in a tone of raillery, “is this detachment of
warriors which I found in the court? Is it some general going to inspect
his army? Does all this military display become a young Queen adored by
her subjects?” He would call to her mind the simplicity with which Maria
Theresa lived; the visits she made without guards, or even attendants, to
the Prince d’Esterhazy, to the Comte de Palfi, passing whole days far from
the fatiguing ceremonies of the Court. The Abbe thus artfully flattered
the inclinations of Marie Antoinette, and showed her how she might
disguise, even from herself, her aversion for the ceremonies observed by
the descendants of Louis XIV.-MADAME CAMPAN.]
His pride received its birth at Vienna, where Maria Theresa, as much to
give him authority with the Archduchess as to make herself acquainted with
his character, permitted him to mix every evening with the private circle
of her family, into which the future Dauphiness had been admitted for some
time. Joseph II., the elder Archduchess, and a few noblemen honoured by
the confidence of Maria Theresa, composed the party; and reflections on
the world, on courts, and the duties of princes were the usual topics of
conversation. The Abbe de Vermond, in relating these particulars,
confessed the means which he had made use of to gain admission into this
private circle. The Empress, meeting him at the Archduchess’s, asked him
if he had formed any connections in Vienna. “None, Madame,” replied he;
“the apartment of the Archduchess and the hotel of the ambassador of
France are the only places which the man honoured with the care of the
Princess’s education should frequent.” A month afterwards Maria Theresa,
through a habit common enough among sovereigns, asked him the same
question, and received precisely the same answer. The next day he
received an order to join the imperial family every evening.
It is extremely probable, from the constant and well-known intercourse
between this man and Comte de Mercy, ambassador of the Empire during the
whole reign of Louis XVI., that he was useful to the Court of Vienna, and
that he often caused the Queen to decide on measures, the consequences of
which she did not consider. Not of high birth, imbued with all the
principles of the modern philosophy, and yet holding to the hierarchy of
the Church more tenaciously than any other ecclesiastic; vain, talkative,
and at the same time cunning and abrupt; very ugly and affecting
singularity; treating the most exalted persons as his equals, sometimes
even as his inferiors, the Abbe de Vermond received ministers and bishops
when in his bath; but said at the same time that Cardinal Dubois was a
fool; that a man such as he, having obtained power, ought to make
cardinals, and refuse to be one himself.
Intoxicated with the reception he had met with at the Court of Vienna, and
having till then seen nothing of high life, the Abbe de Vermond admired no
other customs than those of the imperial family; he ridiculed the
etiquette of the House of Bourbon incessantly; the young Dauphiness was
constantly incited by his sarcasms to get rid of it, and it was he who
first induced her to suppress an infinity of practices of which he could
discern neither the prudence nor the political aim. Such is the faithful
portrait of that man whom the evil star of Marie Antoinette had reserved
to guide her first steps upon a stage so conspicuous and so full of danger
as that of the Court of Versailles.
It will be thought, perhaps, that I draw the character of the Abbe de
Vermond too unfavourably; but how can I view with any complacency one who,
after having arrogated to himself the office of confidant and sole
counsellor of the Queen, guided her with so little prudence, and gave us
the mortification of seeing that Princess blend, with qualities which
charmed all that surrounded her, errors alike injurious to her glory and
her happiness?
While M. de Choiseul, satisfied with the person whom M. de Brienne had
presented, despatched him to Vienna with every eulogium calculated to
inspire unbounded confidence, the Marquis de Durfort sent off a
hairdresser and a few French fashions; and then it was thought sufficient
pains had been taken to form the character of a princess destined to share
the throne of France.
The marriage of Monseigneur the Dauphin with the Archduchess was
determined upon during the administration of the Duc de Choiseul. The
Marquis de Durfort, who was to succeed the Baron de Breteuil in the
embassy to Vienna, was appointed proxy for the marriage ceremony; but six
months after the Dauphin’s marriage the Duc de Choiseul was disgraced, and
Madame de Marsan and Madame de Guemenee, who grew more powerful through
the Duke’s disgrace, conferred that embassy, upon Prince Louis de Rohan,
afterwards cardinal and grand almoner.
Hence it will be seen that the Gazette de France is a sufficient answer to
those libellers who dared to assert that the young Archduchess was
acquainted with the Cardinal de Rohan before the period of her marriage. A
worse selection in itself, or one more disagreeable to Maria Theresa, than
that which sent to her, in quality, of ambassador, a man so frivolous and
so immoral as Prince Louis de Rohan, could not have been made. He
possessed but superficial knowledge upon any subject, and was totally
ignorant of diplomatic affairs. His reputation had gone before him to
Vienna, and his mission opened under the most unfavourable auspices. In
want of money, and the House of Rohan being unable to make him any
considerable advances, he obtained from his Court a patent which
authorised him to borrow the sum of 600,000 livres upon his benefices, ran
in debt above a million, and thought to dazzle the city and Court of
Vienna by the most indecent and ill-judged extravagance. He formed a
suite of eight or ten gentlemen, of names sufficiently high-sounding;
twelve pages equally well born, a crowd of officers and servants, a
company of chamber musicians, etc. But this idle pomp did not last;
embarrassment and distress soon showed themselves; his people, no longer
receiving pay, in order to make money, abused the privileges of
ambassadors, and smuggled with so much effrontery that Maria Theresa, to
put a stop to it without offending the Court of France, was compelled to
suppress the privileges in this respect of all the diplomatic bodies, a
step which rendered the person and conduct of Prince Louis odious in
every foreign Court.
[I have often heard the Queen say that, at Vienna, in the office of the
secretary of the Prince de Rohan, there were sold in one year more silk
stockings than at Lyons and Paris together.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
He seldom obtained private audiences from the Empress, who did not esteem
him, and who expressed herself without reserve upon his conduct both as a
bishop and as an ambassador. He thought to obtain favour by assisting to
effect the marriage of the Archduchess Elizabeth, the elder sister of
Marie Antoinette, with Louis XV., an affair which was awkwardly
undertaken, and of which Madame du Barry had no difficulty in causing the
failure. I have deemed it my duty to omit no particular of the moral and
political character of a man whose existence was subsequently so injurious
to the reputation of Marie Antoinette.