Tea is introduced.--Horse-racing of Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette goes
to see it--The Queen's Submissiveness to the Reproofs of the Empress.--
Birth of the Duc d'Angoulême.--She at times speaks lightly of the King.--
The Emperor remonstrates with her.--Character of some of the Queen's
Friends.--The Princess de Lamballe.--The Countess Jules de Polignac.--
They set the Queen against Turgot.--She procures his Dismissal.--She
gratifies Madame Polignac's Friends.--Her Regard for the French People.--
Water Parties on the Seine.--Her Health is Delicate.--Gambling at the
Palace.
Nor were these the only innovations which marked the age. A rage for
adopting English fashions--_Anglomanie_, as it was called--began to
prevail; and, among the different modes in which it exhibited itself, it
is especially noticed that tea[1] was now introduced, and began to share
with coffee the privileges of affording sober refreshment to those who
aspired in their different ways to give the tone to French society.
A less innocent novelty was a passion for horse-racing, in which the Comte
d'Artois and the Duc de Chartres set the example of indulging,
establishing a race-course in the Bois de Boulogne. The count had but
little difficulty in persuading the queen to attend it, and she soon
showed so decided a fancy for the sport, and became so regular a visitor
of it, that a small stand was built for her, which in subsequent years
provoked some unfavorable comments, when the princess obtained her leave
to give luncheon in it to some of their racing friends, who were not in
all instances of a character deserving to be brought into a royal
presence.
She pursued this, as she pursued every other amusement which she took up,
with great keenness for a while, so much so as to provoke earnest
remonstrances from her mother, whose letters were commonly dictated by
Mercy's reports and suggestions. Nor, if she felt uneasiness, did Maria
Teresa spare her daughter, or take any great care to moderate her language
of reproof. At times her tone is so severe as to excite a feeling of
wonder at the submissiveness with which her letters were received. No
express eulogy of her admirers could give so great an idea of Marie
Antoinette's amiability, good-nature, genuine modesty, and sincere
affection for her mother, as the ingenuousness with which she admits
errors, or the temper with which she urges excuses. To that venerated
parent she is just as patient of admonition, now that she is seated on a
throne, as she could have been in her schoolroom at Schönbrunn; and, in
reply to the scoldings (no milder word can do justice to the earnest
vehemence of the letters which at this time she received from Vienna), she
pleads not only that an appetite for amusement is natural to her age, but
that she enters into none of which the king does not fully approve, and
none which are ever allowed to interfere with her giving him full
enjoyment of her society whenever he has leisure or inclination for it.
But her replies to her mother hint also at the continuance of the old
causes for her restlessness, and for her eager pursuit of new diversions
to distract her thoughts. Her natural desire for children of her own was
greatly increased when, on the 12th of August, her sister-in-law, the
Countess d'Artois, presented her husband with a son.[2] She treated the
young mother with a sisterly kindness suited to the occasion, which
extorted the unqualified praise of Mercy himself; but she could not
restrain her feelings on the subject to her mother, and she expressed to
her frankly the extreme pain "which she suffered at thus seeing an heir to
the throne who was not her own child." Nor is it strange that at such
moments she should feel hurt at the coldness with which her husband
continued to behave toward her, or that she should ran eagerly after any
excitement which might aid in diverting her mind from a comparison of her
own position with that of her happier sister-in-law.[3]
It would have been well if she had confined her expressions of
disappointment to her mother. But since we may not disguise her occasional
acts of imprudence, it must be confessed that at times her mortification
led her to speak of her husband to strangers in a tone of disparagement
which was highly unbecoming. Maximilian had been accompanied by the Count
de Rosenburg, who had in consequence been admitted to the intimate society
of the court during the archduke's visit, and who had inspired Marie
Antoinette with so favorable an opinion of his character and judgment that
after his return to Vienna she more than once sent him an account of the
proceedings at the palace since her brother's departure. She describes to
him a series of concerts, at which she had sung herself with some of her
ladies. She gives him a list of the guests, remarking, with a
particularity which seems to show that she expects her words to be
reported to the empress, that the gentlemen, though amiable and well bred,
were not young. But she also complains that the king's tastes do not
resemble hers, that he cares for nothing but hunting and mechanical
employments; and, indulging in an unwonted bit of sarcasm, she proceeds:
"You will allow that I should not look well beside a forge. I could never
become a Vulcan; and the part of Venus would displease him more than my
real tastes, which he does not disapprove." In another letter she mentions
him in a tone of contemptuous pity, almost equally unbecoming, speaking of
him as "the poor man" whom she had made a tool of to further some views of
her own, though Mercy assured the empress that her assertion of having so
treated him was a mere fiction of her imagination, to impart a sort of
lively tone to her letter; that, in spite of occasional outbursts of
levity, she had in reality the firmest affection and esteem for Louis; and
that nothing could be more irreproachable than her conduct toward him in
every respect. He added that the people in general did her full justice on
this head; that if her popularity with the Parisians had for a moment
suffered any diminution through the artifices of faction, the cloud had
been blown away; and that she had been recently received at the different
theatres with as fervent a loyalty as had greeted even her first
appearance.
The empress, however, was so uneasy that she induced her son, the Emperor
Joseph, to add his expostulations to hers; and he, who was a prince of
considerable shrewdness, as well as of a high idea of the proprieties of
his rank, wrote her a long letter of remonstrance; imputing with great
truth the failings, which he pointed out with sufficient plainness, to a
facility of disposition which made her indulgent to the manoeuvres of
those whom she admitted to her friendship, but who did not deserve such an
honor. He even spoke of the society which she had gathered round her, as
calculated to prevent him from performing his promise of paying her a
visit; "for what should he do in a court of frivolous intriguers?" And he
concluded by urging her to prevent these false friends from making a tool
of her for the gratification of their own selfishness and rapacity; and to
be solicitous for no friendship or confidence but that of her husband; the
study of whose wishes was to her not only a state duty, but the only one
which would make her permanently happy, and secure to her the lasting
affection of the people.
There was, however, no subject on which Marie Antoinette was so little
amenable to advice as the choice of her friends, and none on which she
more required it. Above all the frequenters of the court, two ladies were
distinguished by her especial favor--the Princess de Lamballe and the
Countess de Polignac. The princess, a daughter of the Prince de Carignan
in Savoy, having been married to the son of the Duc de Penthièvre, was
left a widow before she was twenty years of age. She had been originally
recommended to Mario Antoinette in the first year of her residence in
France, partly by her royal birth, and partly by her misfortunes; and the
attachment which the dauphiness at once conceived for her was cemented by
the ardor with which it was returned. In many respects the princess well
deserved the favor with which she was regarded. Her temper was sweet and
amiable; her character singularly truthful and sincere; and, that she
might never be separated from her friend, the place of superintendent of
the queen's household was revived for her. Some cavilers were disposed to
grumble at the re-establishment of an office which had been suppressed as
useless and costly; but no one could allege that Madame de Lamballe abused
the royal favor, and her share in the calamities of later days justified
the queen's choice by the proof it afforded of the princess's unalterable
fidelity and devotion.
But the countess was a very different character. She had, indeed, a
well-bred air of good humor, but that, with her youth (she was but
twenty years of age), was her only qualification; for her capacity was
narrow, her disposition selfish and grasping, and she was so inveterate
a manoeuvrer, that, when she had no intrigues of her own on foot, she
was always ready to lend herself to the plots of others. What was worse,
she did not enjoy an untainted character. The name of the Comte de
Vaudreuil was often coupled with hers in the scandals of the court. And
the queen, since she could hardly be ignorant of the reports which were
circulated, incurred, by the marked favor which she showed to the
countess, the imputation of shutting her eyes to the frailties of her
friends, and thus showing that dissoluteness was not an insuperable
barrier to her partiality. It was only the earnest remonstrance of Mercy
which prevented her from conferring the place of lady of honor on the
countess; but she allowed her to exert a pernicious influence over her
in many ways, for the countess was unwearied in soliciting appointments
and pensions for her relatives; at times making demands in such numbers,
and of so exorbitant a character, that the queen herself was forced to
admit the impossibility of granting them all, though she still sought to
gratify her to far too great an extent, and would not allow the proved
insatiability of her and her family to open her eyes to her real
character.
It was, however, a far more mischievous submission to the influence of the
countess and her coterie, when she permitted them to prejudice her against
Turgot, whom she had more than once described to her mother as an upright
statesman, and who had constantly shown, so far as he could make
compliance consistent with his duty to the State, a sincere desire to
consult her wishes. But as the Polignac party saw in his prudence,
integrity, and firmness the most formidable obstacle to their project of
using the queen's favor to enrich themselves, she now yielded up her
judgment to their calumnies. Forgetting her former praises of the
minister's integrity, she began to disparage him as one whose measures
caused general dissatisfaction, and at last she pushed her hostility to
him so far that she actually tried to induce Louis not to be content with
dismissing him from office, but to send him as a prisoner to the
Bastille.[4] That she could not avoid feeling some shame at the part which
she had acted may be inferred from the pains which she took to conceal it
from her mother, whom she assured that, though she was not sorry for his
dismissal, she had in no degree interfered in the matter; but "her conduct
and even her intentions were well known, and known to be far removed from
all manoeuvres and intrigues.[5]"
Unfortunately the ambassador's letters tell a different story. As a
sincere friend as well as a loyal servant of Marie Antoinette, he
expresses to the empress his deep feeling that, "as the comptroller-
general enjoyed a great reputation for integrity, and was beloved by the
people, it was a melancholy thing that his dismissal should be in part the
queen's work,[6]" and his fear that her conduct in the affair may
"hereafter bring upon her the reproaches of the king her husband, and even
of the entire nation." The foreboding thus uttered was but too sadly
realized. She had driven from her husband's councils the only man who
combined with the penetration to perceive the absolute necessity of a
large reform and the character of the changes required, the genius to
devise them and the firmness to carry them out.
Thirteen years later, a variety of causes, some of which will be unfolded
in the course of this narrative, had contributed to irritate the
impatience of the nation, while the unskillfulness of the existing
minister had disarmed the royal authority. And the very same reforms which
would now have been accepted with general thankfulness were then only used
by demagogues as a pretext for further inflaming the minds of the
multitude against every thing which bore the slightest appearance of
authority, even against the very sovereign who had granted them. France
and all Europe to this day feel the sad effects of Marie Antoinette's
interference.
She had given fatal proof of the truth of the words wrung from her by
nervous excitement at the moment of the late king's death, when she
declared that Louis and she were too young to reign; and the best excuse
that can be found for her is that she was not yet one-and-twenty. It was
not, however, wholly from submission to the interested malevolence of
others that she had shown herself the enemy of the great financier and
statesman. She had a spontaneous dislike to the retrenchments which
necessarily formed a great portion of his economical measures; not as
interfering with the indulgence of any extravagant tastes of her own, but
as restraining her power of gratifying her friends. For she was entirely
impressed with the idea that no person or body could have any right to
call in question the king's disposal of the national revenue; and that
there was no prerogative of the crown of which the exercise was more
becoming to the royal dignity than that of granting pensions or creating
sinecures with no limitations but such as might be imposed by his own will
or discretion. And on this point her husband fully shared her feelings.
"What," said he, on one occasion to Turgot, who was urging him to refuse
an utterly unwarrantable application for a pension. "What are a thousand
crowns a year?" "Sire," replied the minister, "they are the taxation of a
village." The king acquiesced for the moment, but probably not without
some secret wincing at the control to which he seemed to be subjected; and
we may, perhaps, suppose that even the queen's disapproval of the minister
would have been less effectual had it not been re-enforced by the king's
own feelings.
In fact, that the part which she took against the great minister was the
fruit of mere inconsiderateness and ignorance of the feelings and
necessities of the nation, and that, if she had known the depth of the
people's distress, and the degree in which it was caused by the
viciousness of the whole existing system of government, she would gladly
have promoted every measure which could tend to their relief, we may find
abundant proof in a letter which she had written to her mother, a few
weeks earlier. Maria Teresa had spoken with some harshness of the French
fickleness. Marie Antoinette replies:[7]
"You are quite right in all you say about French levity, but I am truly
grieved that on that account you should conceive an aversion for the
nation. The disposition of the people is very inconsistent, but it is not
bad. Pens and tongues utter a great many things which are not in their
heart. The proof that they do not cherish hatred is that on the very
slightest occasion they speak well of one, and even praise one much more
than one deserves. I have just this moment myself had experience of this.
There had been a terrible fire in Paris in the Palace of Justice, and the
same day I was to have gone to the opera, so I did not go, but sent two
hundred louis to relieve the most pressing cases of distress;[8] and ever
since the fire, the very same people who had been circulating libels and
songs against me[9] have been extolling me to the skies."
These revelations of her inmost thoughts to her mother show how real and
warm was her affection for the French as a nation, as well as how little
she claimed any merit for her endeavors to benefit them; though a
subsequent passage in the same letter also shows that she had been so much
annoyed by some pasquinades and libels, of which she had been the subject,
that she had become careful not to furnish fresh opportunities to her
enemies: "We have had here such a quantity of snow as has not been seen
for many years, so that people are going about in sledges, as they do at
Vienna. We were out in them yesterday about this place; and to-day there
is to be a grand procession of them through Paris. I should greatly have
liked to be able to go; but, as a queen has never been seen at such
things, people might have made up stories if I had gone, and I preferred
giving up the pleasure to being worried by fresh libels."
She was still as eager as ever in the pursuit of amusement, and especially
of novelties in that way, when not restrained by considerations such as
those which she here mentions. When at Choisy, she gave water parties on
the river in boats with awnings, which she called gondolas, rowing down as
far as the very entrance to the city. It was not quite a prudent diversion
for her, for at this time her health was not very strong. She easily
caught cold, and the reports of such attacks often caused great uneasiness
at Vienna; but the watermen were highly delighted, looking on her act in
putting herself under their care as a compliment to their craft; and some
of them, to increase her pleasure, jumped overboard and swam about. Their
well-meant gallantry, however, was nearly having an unfavorable effect;
unaware that it was not an accident, she thought that their lives were in
danger, and the fear for them turned her sick, while Madame de Lamballe
fainted away. But when she perceived the truth, the qualm passed away, and
she rewarded them handsomely for their ducking; begging, however, that it
might not be repeated, and assuring them that she needed no such proof to
convince her of their dutiful and faithful loyalty.
But the craving for excitement which was bred and nourished by the
continuance of her unnatural position with respect to her husband in some
parts of his treatment of her, was threatening to produce a very
pernicious effect by leading her to become a gambler. Some of those ladies
whom she admitted to her intimacy were deeply infected with this fatal
passion; and one of the most mischievous and intriguing of the whole
company, the Princess de Guimenée, introduced a play-table at some of her
balls, which she induced Marie Antoinette to attend. At first the queen
took no share in the play; as she had hitherto borne none, or only a
formal part, in the gaming which, as we have seen, had long been a
recognized feature in court entertainments; but gradually the hope of
banishing vexation, if only by the substitution of a heavier care, got
dominion over her, and in the autumn of 1776 we find Mercy commenting on
her losses at lansquenet and faro, at that time the two most fashionable
round games, the stakes at which often rose to a very considerable amount.
Though she continued to indulge in this unhealthy pastime for some time,
in Mercy's opinion she never took any real interest in it. She practiced
it only because she wished to pass the time, and to drive away thought;
and because the one accomplishment she wanted was the art of refusing. She
even carried her complaisance so far as to allow professed gaming-table
keepers to be brought from Paris to manage a faro-bank in her apartments,
where the play was often continued long after midnight. It was not the
least evil of this habit that it unavoidably left the king, who never quit
his own apartments in the evening, to pass a great deal of time by
himself; but, as if to make up for his coldness in one way, he was most
indulgent in every other, and seemed to have made it a rule never to
discountenance any thing which could amuse her. His behavior to her, in
Mercy's eyes, seemed to resemble servility; "it was that of the most
attentive courtier," and was carried so far as to treat with marked
distinction persons whose character he was known to disapprove, solely
because she regarded them with favor.[10]
In cases such as these the defects in the king's character contributed
very injuriously to aggravate those in hers. She required control, and he
was too young to exercise it. He had too little liveliness to enter into
her amusements; too little penetration to see that, though many of them--
it may be said all, except the gaming-table--were innocent if he partook
of them, indulgence in them, when he did not share them, could hardly fail
to lead to unfriendly comments and misconstruction; though even his
presence could hardly have saved his queen's dignity from some humiliation
when wrangles took place, and accusations of cheating were made in her
presence. The gaming-table is a notorious leveler of distinctions, and the
worst-behaved of the guests were too frequently the king's own brothers;
they were rude, overbearing, and ill-tempered. The Count de Provence on
one occasion so wholly forgot the respect due to her, that he assaulted a
gentleman in her presence; and the Count d'Artois, who played for very
high stakes, invariably lost his temper when he lost his money. Indeed,
the queen seems to have felt the discredit of such scenes; and it is
probable that it was their frequent occurrence which led to a temporary
suspension of the faro-bank; as a violent quarrel on the race-course
between d'Artois and his cousin, the Duke de Chartres, whom he openly
accused of cheating him, for a while disgusted her with horse-races, and
led her to propose a substitution of some of the old exercises of
chivalry, such as running at the ring; a proposal which had a great
element of popularity in it, as being calculated to lead to a renewal of
the old French pastimes, which seemed greatly preferable to the existing
rage for copying, and copying badly, the fashions and pursuits of England.