Settlement of the Queen's Allowance.--Character and Views of Turgot.--She
induces Gluck to visit Paris.--Performance of his Opera of "Iphigénie
en Aulide."--The First Encore.--Marie Antoinette advocates the
Re-establishment of the Parliaments, and receives an Address from them.--
English Visitors at the Court.--The King is compared to Louis XII. and
Henri IV.--The Archduke Maximilian visits his Sister.--Factious Conduct of
the Princes of the Blood.--Anti-Austrian Feeling in Paris.--The War of
Grains.--The King is crowned at Rheims.--Feelings of Marie Antoinette.--
Her Improvements at the Trianon.--Her Garden Parties there.--Description
of her Beauty by Burke, and by Horace Walpole.
Maria Teresa had warned her daughter against extravagance, a warning which
would have been regarded as wholly misplaced by any other of the French
princes, who were accustomed to treat the national treasury as a fund
intended to supply the means for their utmost profusion, but which
certainly coincided with the views of Marie Antoinette herself, who, as we
have seen, vindicated herself from the charge of prodigality, and declared
that she took great care that her improvements at the Trianon should not
be beyond her means. Yet it would not have been surprising if they had
been found to be so, since, even after she became queen, her income
continued to be far too narrow for her rank. The nominal allowance of all
former kings and queens had been fixed at an unreasonably low rate, from
the pernicious custom of drawing on the treasury for all deficiencies; but
this mode of proceeding was inconsistent with the notions of propriety
entertained by the new sovereigns, and with those of the new finance
minister.
Maurepas himself had never been distinguished for ability, but he was
sufficiently clear-sighted to be aware that the principal difficulties of
the State arose from the disorder into which the profligacy and
prodigality of the late reign, ever since the death of the wise Fleury,
had thrown its finances; and he had made a most happy choice for the
office of comptroller-general of finance, appointing to it a man named
Turgot, who, as Intendant of the Limousin, had brought that province into
a condition of prosperity which had made it a model for the rest of the
kingdom. In his new and more enlarged sphere of action, Turgot's abilities
expanded; or, perhaps it should rather be said, had a fairer field for
their display. He showed himself equally capable in every department of
his duties; as a financial reformer, as an administrator, and as a
legislator. No minister in the history of the nation had ever so united
large-minded genius with disinterested integrity. He had not accepted
office without a full perception of its difficulties. He saw all that had
to be done, and applied himself to putting the finances of the nation on a
healthy footing, as an indispensable preface to other reforms equally
necessary. He easily secured the co-operation of the king and queen, Louis
cheerfully adopting the retrenchments which he recommended, though some of
them, such as the reduction in the hunting establishment, touched his
personal tastes. But at the same time, as there was no illiberality in his
economy, or, rather, as he saw that real economy could only be practiced
if the sovereigns had a fixed income really adequate to the call upon it,
he placed their allowances on a more satisfactory footing than had ever
been fixed for them before, the queen's privy purse being settled at a sum
which Mercy agreed with him would prove sufficient for all her expenses,
though it was but 200,000 francs a year.
And so it was generally found to be; for, with the exception of an
occasional fancy for some splendid jewel, Marie Antoinette had no
expensive tastes. Her economy was even far greater than her attendants
approved, extending to details which they would have wished her to regard
as beneath the dignity of a sovereign;[1] and so judiciously did she
manage her resources that she was able to defray out of her privy purse
the pensions which she occasionally conferred on men eminent in arts or
literature, whom she rightly judged it a royal duty to encourage.
One of her first acts of liberality of this kind was exercised in favor of
a countryman of her own, the celebrated Gluck. Music was one of her most
favorite accomplishments. She still devoted a portion of almost every day
in taking lessons on the harp; but the French music was not to her taste;
while, since the death of Handel, Gluck's superiority to all his other
musical contemporaries had been generally acknowledged in all countries.
She now, by the gift of a pension of 6000 francs, induced him to visit
Paris. It was at the French opera that many of his most celebrated works
were first given to the world; and an incident which took place at the
performance of one of them showed that, if the frequenters of Versailles
were dissatisfied at the inroads lately made on the old etiquette, the
queen had a compensation in the warm attachment with which she had
inspired the Parisians. Instead of conveying the performers to Versailles,
as had been the extravagant practice of the late reign, Louis and Marie
Antoinette went into Paris when they desired to visit the theatre. The
citizens, delighted at the contrast which their frequent visits to the
capital afforded to the marked dislike of it shown by the late king,
crowded the theatre on every night on which they were expected; and on one
of these occasions Gluck's "Iphigénie" was the opera selected for
performance. It contains a chorus in which, according to the design of the
dramatist, Achilles was directed to turn to his followers with the words
"Chantez, célébrez votre reine."
But the French opera-singers were a courtly race. The French opera had
been established a century before as a Royal Academy of Music by Louis
XIV., who had issued letters patent which declared the profession of an
opera-singer one that might be followed even by a nobleman; and it seemed,
therefore, quite consistent with the rank thus conferred on them that they
should take the lead in paying loyal compliments to their princes.
Accordingly, when the performer who represented the invincible son of
Thetis, the popular tenor singer, Le Gros, came to the chorus in question,
he was found to have prepared a slight change in his part. He did not
address himself to the myrmidons behind him, but he came forward, and,
with a bow to the boxes and pit, substituted the following,
"Chantons, célébrons notre reine,
L'hymen, que sous ses lois l'enchaîne,
Va nous rendre à jamais heureux."
The audience was taken by surprise, but it was a surprise of delight. The
whole house rose to its feet, cheering and clapping their hands. For the
first time in theatrical history, the repetition of a song was demanded.
The now familiar term of "Encore!" was heard and obeyed. The queen herself
was affected to tears by the enthusiastic affection displayed toward her,
nor at such a moment did she suffer her feeling of the evanescent
character of popularity among so light-minded a people to dwell in her
mind, or to mar the pleasure which such a reception was well calculated to
impart.
Popularity at this moment seemed doubly valuable to her, because she was
not ignorant that the feeling of disappointment at the unproductiveness of
her marriage had recently been increased by the knowledge that the young
Countess d'Artois was about to become a mother. And the attachment which
she inspired was not confined to the play-goers; it was shared by a body
so little inclined to exhibitions of impulsive loyalty as the Parliament.
It has been seen that Louis XV. had abolished that body; but one of the
first proposals made by Maurepas to the new king had had its
re-establishment for its object. The question had been discussed in the
king's council, and also in the royal family, with great eagerness. The
ablest of the ministers protested against the restoration of an assembly
which had invariably shown itself turbulent and usurping, and the king
himself was generally understood to share their views. But Marie
Antoinette, led by the advice of Choiseul, was eager in her support of
Maurepas, and it was believed that her influence decided Louis. If it was
so, it was an exertion of her power that she had ample cause to repent at
a subsequent period; but at the time she thought of nothing but showing
her sense of the general superiority of Choiseul, and so requiting some of
the obligations under which she considered that she lay to him for
arranging her marriage; and she received a deputation from the
re-established Parliament with marked pleasure, and replied to their
address with a graciousness which seemed intended to show that she
sincerely rejoiced at the event which had given cause for it.
It was not till Christmas that the royal family went out of mourning; but,
as soon as it was left off, the court returned to its accustomed gayety--
balls, concerts, and private theatricals occupying the evenings; though
the people remarked with undisguised satisfaction that the expenses of
former years had been greatly retrenched. It was also noticed that many
foreigners of distinction, and especially some English ladies of high
rank, gladly accepted invitations to the balls, which they certainly would
not have done while their presence was likely to bring them into contact
with Madame du Barri. Lady Ailesbury is especially mentioned as having
been received with marked distinction by the queen, and also by the king,
who was careful to show his approval of her entertainments by the share
which he took in them; and, as he paraded the saloons arm-in-arm with her,
to distinguish those whom she noticed, so that, to quote the words of one
of the most lively chroniclers of the day, their example seemed to be fast
bringing conjugal love and fidelity into fashion. She even persuaded him
to depart still further from his usual reserve, so as to appear in costume
at more than one fancy ball; the dress which he chose being that of the
only predecessor of his own house whom he could in any point have desired
to resemble, Henry IV. He had already been indirectly compared to that
monarch, the first Bourbon king, by the ingenious flattery of a print-
*seller. In the long list of sovereigns who had reigned over France in the
five hundred years which had passed by since the warrior-saint of the
Crusades had laid down his life on the sands of Tunis, there had been but
two to whom their countrymen could look back with affection or respect--
Louis XII., to whom his subjects had given the title of The Good, and
Henry, to whom more than one memorial still preserved the surname of The
Great. And the courtly picture-dealer, eager to make his market of the
gratitude with which his fellow-citizens greeted the reforms with which
the reigning sovereign had already inaugurated his reign, contrived to
extract a compliment to him even out of the severe prose of the
multiplication-table; publishing a joint portrait of the three kings,
Louis XII., Henry IV., and Louis XVI., with an inscription beneath to
testify that 12 and 4 made 16.
In the spring of 1775, Marie Antoinette received a great pleasure in a
visit from her younger brother, Maximilian. He was the only member of her
family whom she had seen in the five years that had elapsed since she left
Vienna. But, eagerly as she had looked forward to his visit, it did not
bring her unmixed satisfaction, being marred by the ill-breeding of the
princes of the blood, and still more by the approval of their conduct
displayed by the citizens of Paris, which seemed to afford a convincing
evidence of the small effect which even the queen's virtues and graces had
produced in softening the old national feeling of enmity to the house of
Austria. The archduke, who was still but a youth, did not assert his royal
rank while on his travels, but preserved such an _incognito_ as princes on
such occasions are wont to assume, and took the title of Count de Burgau.
The king's brothers, however, like the king himself, paid no regard to his
disguise, but visited him at the first instant of his arrival; but the
princes of the blood stood on their dignity, refused to acknowledge a rank
which was not publicly avowed, or to recollect that the visitor was a
foreigner and brother to their queen, and insisted on receiving the
attention of the first visit from him. The excitement which the question
caused in the palace, and the queen's indignation at the slight thus
offered, as she conceived, to her brother, were great. High words passed
between her and the Duc d'Orléans, the chief of the recusants, on the
subject; and one part of her remonstrance throws a curious additional
light on the strange distance which, as has been already pointed out, the
etiquette of the French court had established between the sovereigns and
the very highest of their subjects, even the nearest of their relations.
The duke had insisted on the _incognito_ as debarring Maximilian from all
claim to attention from a prince like himself whose rank was not
concealed. She urged that the king and his brothers had not regarded it in
that light. "The duke knew," she said, "that the king had treated
Maximilian as a brother; that he even invited him to sup in private with
himself and her, an honor to which no prince of the blood had ever
pretended." And, finally, warming with her subject, she told him that,
though her brother would be sorry not to make the acquaintance of the
princes of the blood, he had many other things in Paris to see, and would
manage to do without it.[2] Her expostulation was fruitless. The princes
adhered to their resolution, and she to hers. They were not admitted to
any of the festivities of the palace during the archduke's stay, and were
even excluded from all the private entertainments which were given in his
honor, since she made it known that the king and she would refuse to
attend any to which they were invited. But, though their conduct was
surely both discourteous to a foreigner and disrespectful to their
sovereign, the Parisian populace took their part; and some of them who
showed themselves ostentatiously in the streets of the city on days on
which there were parties at Versailles were loudly applauded by a crowd
which was not entirely drawn from the lower classes. It was noticed that
the Duc de Chartres, the son of the Duc d'Orléans, was one of the foremost
in exciting this anti-Austrian feeling, the outbreak of which was
especially remarkable as the first instance in which the enthusiasm of the
citizens for Marie Antoinette seemed to have cooled, or at least to have
been interrupted. And this change in their feelings produced so painful an
impression on her mind, that, after her brother's departure, she abandoned
her intention of going to the opera, though Gluck's "Orfeo" was to be
performed, lest she should meet with a reception less cordial than that to
which she had hitherto been accustomed.
This ebullition against the house of Austria, however, was at the moment
dictated rather by discontent with the Home Government than by any settled
feeling on the subject of foreign politics. Corn had been at a rather high
price in Paris and its neighborhood throughout the winter; and the
dearness was taken advantage of by the enemies of Turgot, and employed by
them as an argument to prove the impolicy of his measures to introduce
freedom of trade. They even organized[3] formidable riots at Paris and
Versailles, which, however, Turgot, whose resolution was equal to his
capacity, prevailed on the king to repress by acts of vigor very unusual
to him, and very foreign to his disposition. The troops were called out;
the Parliament was summoned to a Bed of Justice, and enjoined to put the
law in force against the guilty; two of the most violent revolters were
executed; order was restored, and the wholly factitious character of the
outbreak was proved by the tranquillity which ensued, though the price of
bread remained unaltered till the commencement of the harvest, the
citizens themselves presently making a jest of their sedition, and
nicknaming it The War of the Grains.[4]
In France, one excitement soon drives out another, and the whole attention
of the nation was now fixed on the coronation, which had been appointed to
take place in June. After some discussion, it had been settled that Louis
should be crowned alone. There had not been many precedents for the
coronation of a queen in France; and the last instance, that of Marie de
Medicis, as having been followed by the assassination of her husband, was
regarded by many as a bad omen. If Marie Antoinette had herself expressed
any wish to be her husband's partner in the solemnity, it would certainly
have been complied with, and their subsequent fate would have been
regarded as a confirmation of the evil augury. But she was indifferent on
the subject, and quite contented to behold it as a spectator. It took
place on Sunday, the 11th of June, in the grand Cathedral at Rheims. The
progress of the royal family, which had quit Versailles for that city on
the preceding Monday, had resembled a triumphant procession, so
enthusiastic had been the acclamations which had greeted the king and
queen at each town through which they had passed; and all the previous
displays of joy were outdone by the demonstrations afforded by the
citizens of Rheims itself. It was midnight, on the 8th of June, when the
queen reached the gates; but the road outside and the streets inside were
thronged with a crowd as dense as midday could have produced, which
followed her to the archbishop's palace, making the whole city resound
with their loyal cheers; and which, the next morning, awaited her
coming-forth after holding a grand reception of all the nobles of the
province, to meet the king when he made his solemn entry in the
afternoon. The ceremony in the cathedral was one of great magnificence;
but, in the account of the day which, after her return to Versailles,
she wrote to her mother, she does not enter into details, as being
necessarily known to the empress in their general character; confining
herself rather to a description of the impression which the manifest
cordiality with which the whole people had entered into the spirit of
the solemnity had made upon her own mind and heart.[5]
"The coronation was perfect in every respect. It was made plain that every
one was highly delighted with the king, and so he deserves that all his
subjects should be. Great and small, all displayed the greatest interest
in him; and at the moment of placing the crown on his head the ceremonies
of the church were interrupted by the most touching acclamations. I could
not restrain myself; my tears flowed in spite of all my efforts, and the
people were pleased to see them. During the whole time of our journey I
did my best to correspond to the earnestness of the people; and although
the heat was great, and the crowd immense, I do not regret my fatigue,
which, moreover, has not injured my health. It is a very astonishing
circumstance, but at the same time a very pleasant one, to be so well
received only two months after the revolt, and in spite of the high price
of bread, which unhappily still continues. It is a strange peculiarity in
the French character to allow themselves to be so easily led away by
mischievous suggestions, and then immediately to return to good behavior.
It is very certain that when we see people, even in times of distress,
treating us so well, we are the more bound to labor for their happiness.
The king seems to me penetrated with this truth. As for me, I feel that
all my life, even if I were to live a hundred years, I shall never forget
the coronation day."
But all the tumultuous pomp and exultation only made her return with
renewed pleasure to her quiet retreat of the Trianon, which, with the
assistance of the illustrious Buffon, then superintendent of the king's
gardens, and of Bernard de Jussieu, Director of the Jardin des Plantes,
and celebrated as one of the first botanists of Europe, she was laying out
with a delicate taste that long rendered it one of the chief attractions
to all the inhabitants of the district. For the sentiment which she
expressed in the letter to the empress, which has just been quoted, was
not the mere formal utterance of a barren philanthropy, but was dictated
and carried out by an active benevolence. She felt in her inmost heart the
duty which she there professed, of exerting herself to promote the
happiness of the people, and was far too unselfish to desire to keep to
herself the whole of the delight her gardens were calculated to afford.
The Trianon was a possession exactly calculated to gratify her taste for
innocent rural pleasure. As she said herself, at Versailles she was a
queen; here she was a plain country lady, superintending not only her
flowers, but her farm-yard and her dairy, taking pride in her stock and
her produce. She would invite the king and the rest of the royal family to
garden parties, where, at a table set out under a bower of honeysuckle,
she would pour out their coffee with her own hands, boasting of the
thickness of her cream, the freshness of her eggs, the ruddiness and
flavor of her strawberries, as so many proofs of her skill in managing her
establishment; and would not fear to shock her aunts by tempting one of
her sisters-in-law to a game at ball, or battledoor and shuttlecock. But
she probably enjoyed still more the power of gratifying the inhabitants of
Versailles and the neighborhood. The moment that her improvements were
completed, she opened the gardens to the public to walk in, and gave
out-of-door parties and children's dances, to which all the inhabitants of
Versailles who presented themselves in decent apparel were admitted. She
would even open the dance herself with some well-conducted boy, and
afterward stroll among the crowd, talking affably to all the company, even
to the governesses and nurses, and delighting the parents with the
interest which she exhibited in the characters, the growth, and even the
names of the children.
There were some who, startled at the unwonted sight of a sovereign so
treating her subjects as fellow-creatures, confessed a fear that such
familiarity was not without its dangers;[6] but the objects of her
condescension worshiped her for it; and for a time at least the great
majority of the nation forgot that she was Austrian. She was now nearly
twenty years of age. Her form had developed into a rare perfection of
elegance. Her features had added to the original brilliancy of her girlish
loveliness something of that higher beauty which judgment and sagacity
inspire, and which dignity renders only the more imposing; while the same
benevolence and purity beamed in every look which were remarked as her
most sterling characteristics on her first arrival in the country. And it
is not to her French or German admirers alone that we are reduced to trust
for the impression which at this time she made on all beholders. We have
seen that English gentlemen and ladies of rank were frequent visitors to
the French court; and from two of these, men of widely different
characters, talents, and turns of mind, we have a striking concurrence of
testimony as to the power of the fascination which she exerted on all who
came within the sphere of her influence. Burke was the earlier visitor.
Indeed, it was in the last months of the preceding reign, while she was
still dauphiness, that she had excited in his enthusiastic imagination
those emotions which he afterward described in words which will live as
long as the English language. It was in the spring of 1774 that it seemed
to him that "surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to
touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon,
decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in--
glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy." No
one could be less like Burke than Horace Walpole, a cynical observer, who
piqued himself on indifference, and especially on a superiority to the
vulgar belief in the merits and attractions of kings and princes. Yet his
report of the charms of Marie Antoinette, as he saw them in the autumn of
this year, 1775, reveals an admiration of them as vivid as that of the
warm-hearted and more poetical Irishman. He saw her, as he reports to Lady
Ossory, first at a state court hall,[7] given on the occasion of the
marriage of the Princess Clotilde, in the theatre of the palace; and he
would have desired to give his correspondent some description of the
beauty of the building; "the bravest in the universe, and yet one in which
taste predominates over expense;" but he was absorbed by the still more
powerful attractions of the princess whom he had seen in it: "What I have
to say I can tell your ladyship in a word, for it was impossible to see
any thing but the queen. Hebes, and Floras, and Helens, and Graces are
street-walkers to her. She is a statue and beauty when standing or
sitting; grace itself when she moves." As he is writing to a lady, he
proceeds to describe her dress, which to ladies of the present day may
still have its interest: "She was dressed in silver, scattered over with
_laurier_ roses; few diamonds; and feathers, much lower than the
monument." He proceeds to describe the ball itself, and some of the
company, which was, however, very select; but at every sentence or two he
comes back to the queen, so deep and so real was the impression which she
had made on him. "Monsieur is very handsome. The Comte d'Artois is a
better figure and a better dancer. Their characters approach to those of
two other royal dukes.[8] There were but eight minuets, and, except the
queen and princesses, only eight lady dancers; I was not so much struck
with the dancing as I expected. For beauty I saw none, or the queen
effaced all the rest. After the minuets were French country-dances, much
incumbered by the long trains, longer tresses, and hoops. In the intervals
of dancing, baskets of peaches, china oranges (a little out of season),
biscuits, ices, and wine-and-water were presented to the royal family and
dancers. The ball lasted just two hours. The monarch did not dance, but
for the first two rounds of the minuet even the queen does not turn her
back to him. Yet her behavior is as easy as divine."
Such was a French court ball on days of most special ceremony, a somewhat
solemn affair, which required graciousness such as that of Marie
Antoinette to make admission to every one a very enviable privilege; even
though its stiffness had been in some degree relieved by a new regulation
of the queen, that the invitations, which had hitherto been confined to
matrons, should be extended to unmarried girls. Scarcely any change
produced greater consternation among the admirers of old customs. The
dowagers searched all the registers of those who had been admitted to the
court balls since the beginning of the century to fortify their
objections. But, to their dismay, some of the early festivities in the
time of Marie Leczinska proved to have been shared by one or two noble
maidens. The discovery was of little importance, since Marie Antoinette
had shown that she was not afraid of making precedents. But still it in
some degree silenced the grumblers, and for the rest of the reign no one
contested the queen's right to decide who should, and who should not, be
admitted to her society.