Impressions made on the Queen by the Emperor's Visit.--Mutual Jealousies
of her Favorites.--The Story of the Chevalier d'Assas.--The Terrace
Concerts at Versailles--More Inroads on Etiquette.--Insolence and
Unpopularity of the Count d'Artois.--Marie Antoinette takes Interest in
Politics.--France concludes an Alliance with the United States.--Affairs
of Bavaria.--Character of the Queen's Letters on Politics.--The Queen
expects to become a Mother.--Voltaire returns to Paris.--The Queen
declines to receive him.--Misconduct of the Duke of Orléans in the Action
off Ushant.--The Queen uses her Influence in his Favor.
The emperor's admonitions and counsels had not been altogether unfruitful.
If they had not at once entirely extinguished his sister's taste for the
practices which he condemned, they had evidently weakened it; even though,
as the first impression wore off, and her fear of being overwhelmed with
_ennui_[1] resumed its empire, she relapsed for a while into her old
habits, it was no longer with the same eagerness as before, and not
without frequent avowals that they had lost their attraction. She visibly
drew off from the entanglements of the coterie with which she had
surrounded herself. The members had grown jealous of one another. Madame
de Polignac feared the influence of the superior disinterestedness of the
Princess de Lamballe; Madame de Guimenée, who was suspected of a want of
even common honesty, grudged every favor that was bestowed on Madame de
Polignac; and their rivalry, which was not always suppressed even in the
queen's presence, was not only felt by her to be degrading to herself, but
was also wearisome.
Throughout the autumn her occupations and amusements were of a simpler
kind. She read more, and agreeably surprised De Vermond by the soundness
of her reflections on many incidents and characters in history. Accounts
of chivalrous deeds had an especial charm for her. Hume was still her
favorite author. And it happened that, while the gallantry of the loyal
champions of Charles I. was fresh in her memory, a casual conversation
threw in her way an opportunity of doing honor to the self-devoted heroism
of a French soldier whom the proudest of the British cavaliers might have
welcomed as a brother, but whose valiant and self-sacrificing fidelity had
been left unnoticed by the worthless sovereign in whose service he had
perished, and by his ministers, who thought only of securing the favor of
the reigning mistress--favor to be won by actions of a very different
complexion.
In the Seven Years' War, when the French army, under the Marshal De
Broglie, and the Prussians, under Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, were
watching one another in the neighborhood of Wesel, the Chevalier d'Assas,
a captain in the regiment of Auvergne, was in command of an outpost on a
dark night of October. He had strolled a little in advance of his sentries
into the wood which fronted his position, when suddenly he found himself
surrounded and seized by a body of armed enemies. They were the advanced
guard of the prince's army, who was marching to surprise De Broglie by a
night attack, and they threatened him with instant death if he made the
slightest noise. If he were but silent, he was safe as a prisoner of war;
but his safety would have been the ruin of the whole French army, which
had no suspicion of its danger. He did not for even a moment hesitate.
With all the strength of his voice he shouted to his men, who were within
hearing, that the enemy were upon them, and fell, bayoneted to death,
almost before the words had passed his lips. He had saved his comrades and
his commander, and had influenced the issue of the whole campaign. The
enemy, whose well-planned enterprise his self-devotion had baffled, paid a
cordial tribute of praise to his heroism, Ferdinand himself publicly
expressing his regret at the fate of one whose valor had shed honor on
every brother-soldier; but not the slightest notice had been taken of him
by those in authority in France till his exploit was accidentally
mentioned in the queen's apartments. It filled her with admiration. She
asked what had been done to commemorate so noble a deed. She was told
"nothing;" the man and his gallantry had been alike forgotten. "Had he
left descendants or kinsmen?" "He had a brother and two nephews; the
brother a retired veteran of the same regiment, the nephews officers in
different corps of the army." The dead hero was forgotten no longer. Marie
Antoinette never rested till she had procured an adequate pension for the
brother, which was settled in perpetuity on the family; and promotion for
both the nephews; and, as a further compliment, Clostercamp, the name of
the village which was the scene of the brave deed, was added forever to
their family name. The pension is paid to this day. For a time, indeed, it
was suspended while France was under the sway of the rapacious and
insensible murderers of the king who had granted it; but Napoleon restored
it; and, amidst all the changes that have since taken place in the
government of the country, every succeeding ruler has felt it equally
honorable and politic to recognize the eternal claims which patriotic
virtue has on the gratitude of the country.
Marie Antoinette had thus the honor of setting an example to the
Government and the nation. Her heart was getting lighter as the vexations
under which she had so long fretted began to disappear. The late
card-parties were often superseded, throughout the autumn, by concerts on
the terrace at Versailles, where the regimental bands were the performers,
and to which all the well-dressed towns-people were admitted, while the
queen, attended by the princesses and her ladies, and occasionally
escorted by Louis himself, strolled up and down and among the crowd,
diffusing even greater pleasure than they themselves enjoyed; Marie
Antoinette, as usual, being the central object of attraction, and greeting
all with a teaming brightness of expression, and an affability as cordial
as it was dignified, which deserved to win all hearts. One of the
entertainments which she gave to the king at the Little Trianon may he
recorded, not for any unusual sumptuousness of the spectacle, but as
having been the occasion on which she made one more inroad on the
established etiquette of the court in one of its most unaccountable
restrictions: to such royal parties the king's ministers had never been
regarded as admissible, but on this night Marie Antoinette commanded the
company of the Count and Countess de Maurepas. And the innovation was
regarded not only by them as a singular favor, but by all their colleagues
as a marked compliment to the whole body of ministers, and served to
increase their desire to consult her inclinations in every matter in which
she took an interest.
And the esteem which she thus conciliated was at this time not destitute
of real importance, since the conduct of the other members of the royal
family excited very different feelings. The Count de Provence was
generally distrusted as intriguing and insincere. And the Count d'Artois,
whose bad qualities were of a more conspicuous character, was becoming an
object of general dislike, not so much from his dissipated mode of life as
from the overbearing arrogance which he imparted into his pleasures. No
rank was high enough to protect the objects of his displeasure from his
insolence; even ladies were not safe from it;[2] while his extravagance
was beyond all bounds since he considered himself entitled to claim from,
the national treasury whatever he might require in addition to his stated
income. He was at the same time repairing one castle, that of St. Germain,
which the king had given him; rebuilding another large house which he had
purchased in the same neighborhood; and pulling down and rebuilding a
third, named Bagatelle, in the Bois de Boulogne, which he had just bought,
and as to which he had laid an enormous wager that it should be completed
and furnished in sixty days. To win his bet nearly a thousand workmen were
employed day and night, and, as the requisite materials could not be
provided at so short a notice, he sent patrols of his regiment to scour
the roads, and seize every cart loaded with stones or timber for other
employers, which he thus appropriated to his own use. He did, indeed, pay
for the goods thus seized, and he won his bet, but when the princes of the
land made so open a parade of their disregard of all law and all decency,
one can hardly wonder that men in secret began, to talk of a revolution,
or that all the graces and gentleness of the queen should be needed to
outweigh such grave causes of discontent and indignation.
As the new year opened, affairs of a very different kind began to occupy
the queen's attention. On political questions, the advice which the
empress gave her differed in some degree from that of her embassador.
Maria Teresa was an earnest politician, but she was also a mother; and, as
being eager above all things for her daughter's happiness, while she
entreated Marie Antoinette to study politics, history, and such other
subjects as might qualify her to be an intelligent companion of the king,
and so far as or whenever he might require it, his chief confidante, she
warned her also against ever wishing to rule him. But Mercy was a
statesman above every thing, and, feeling secure of being able to guide
the queen, he desired to instill into her mind an ambition to govern the
king. On one most important question she proved wholly unable to do so,
since the decision taken was not even in accordance with the judgment or
inclination of Louis himself; but he allowed himself to be persuaded by
two of his ministers to adopt a course against which Joseph had earnestly
warned him in the preceding year, and which, as he had been then
convinced, was inconsistent alike with his position as a king and with his
interests as King of France.
England had been for some years engaged in a civil war with her colonies
in North America, and from the commencement of the contest a strong
sympathy for the colonists had been evinced by a considerable party in
France. Louis, who, for several reasons disliked England and English
ideas, was at first inclined to coincide in this feeling as a development
of anti-English principles: he was far from suspecting that its source was
rather a revolutionary and republican sentiment. But he had conversed with
his brother-in-law on the possibility of advantages which might accrue to
France from the weakening of her old foe, if French aid should enable the
Americans to establish their independence. Joseph's opinion was clear and
unhesitating: "I am a king; it is my business to be royalist." And he
easily convinced Louis that for one sovereign to assist the subjects of
another monarch who were in open revolt, was to set a mischievous example
which might in time be turned against himself. But since his return to
Vienna, unprecedented disasters had befallen England; a whole army had
laid down its arms; the ultimate success of the Americans seemed to every
statesman in Europe to be assured, and the prospect gave such
encouragement to the war party in the French cabinet that Louis could
resist it no longer. In February, 1778, a treaty was concluded with the
United States, as the insurgents called themselves; and France plunged
into a war from which she had nothing to gain, which involved her in
enormous expenses, which brought on her overwhelming defeats, and which,
from its effects upon the troops sent to serve with the American army, who
thus became infected with republican principles, had no slight influence
in bringing about the calamities which, a few years later, overwhelmed
both king and people.
All Marie Antoinette's language on the subject shows that she viewed the
quarrel with England with even greater repugnance than her husband; but it
is curious to see that her chief fear was lest the war should be waged by
land, and that she felt much greater confidence in the French navy than in
the army;[3] though it was just at this time that Voltaire was pointing
out to his countrymen that England had always enjoyed and always would
possess a maritime superiority which different inquirers might attribute
to various causes, but which none could deny.[4]
Even before the conclusion of this treaty, however, the Americans had
found sympathizers in France, to one of whom some of the circumstances of
the war which they were now waging gave a subsequent importance to which
no talents or virtues of his own entitled him. The Marquis de La Fayette
was a young man of ancient family, and of fair but not excessive fortune.
He was awkward in appearance and manner, gawky, red-haired, and singularly
deficient in the accomplishments which were cultivated by other youths of
his age and rank.[5] But he was deeply imbued with the doctrines of the
new philosophy which saw virtue in the mere fact of resistance to
authority; and when the colonists took up arms, he became eager to afford
them such aid as he could give. He made the acquaintance of Silas Deane,
one of the most unscrupulous of the American agents, who promised him,
though he was only twenty years of age, the rank of major-general. As he
was at all times the slave of a most overweening conceit, he was tempted
by that bait; and, though he could not leave France without incurring the
forfeiture of his military rank in the army of his own country, in April,
1777, he crossed over to America to serve as a volunteer under Washington,
who naturally received with special distinction a recruit of such
political importance. He was present at more than one battle, and was
wounded at Brandywine; but the exploit which made him most conspicuous was
a ridiculous act of bravado in sending a challenge to Lord Carlisle, the
chief of the English Commissioners who in 1778 were dispatched to America
to endeavor to re-establish peace. However, the close of the war, which
ended, as is well known, in the humiliation of Great Britain and the
establishment of the independence of the colonies, made him seem a hero to
his countrymen on his return. The queen, always eager to encourage and
reward feats of warlike enterprise, treated him with marked distinction,
and procured him from her husband not only the restoration of his
commission, but promotion to the command of a regiment;[6] kindness which,
as will be seen, he afterward requited with the foulest ingratitude.
Nor was this most imprudent war with England the only question of foreign
politics which at this time interested Marie Antoinette. Her native land,
her mother's hereditary dominions, were also threatened with war. On the
death of the Elector of Bavaria at the end of 1777, Joseph, who had been
married to his sister, claimed a portion of his territories; and Frederick
of Prussia, that "bad neighbor," as Marie Antoinette was wont to call him,
announced his resolution to resist that claim, by force of arms if
necessary. If he should carry out the resolution which he had announced,
and if war should in consequence break out, much would depend on the
attitude which France would assume on her fidelity to or disregard of the
alliance which had now subsisted more than twenty years. So all-important
to Austria was her decision, that Maria Teresa forgot the line which, as a
general rule of conduct, she had recommended to her daughter, and wrote to
her with the most extreme earnestness to entreat her to lose no
opportunity of influencing the King's council. If it depended upon Maria
Teresa, the claim would probably not have been advanced; but Joseph had
made it on the part of the empire, and, when it was once made, the empress
could not withhold her support from her son. She therefore threw herself
into the quarrel with as much earnestness as if it had been her own.
Indeed, since Joseph had as yet no authority over her hereditary
possessions, it was only by her armies that it could be maintained; and in
her letters to her daughter she declared that Marie Antoinette had her
happiness, the welfare of her house, and of the whole Austrian nation in
her hands; that all depended on her activity and affection. She knew that
the French ministers were inclined to favor the views of Frederick, but if
the alliance should be dissolved it would kill her.[7] Marie Antoinette
grew pale at reading so ominous a denunciation. It required no art to
inflame her against Frederick. The Seven Years' War had begun when she was
but a year old; and all her life she had heard of nothing more frequently
than of the rapacity and dishonesty of that unprincipled aggressor. She
now entered with eagerness into her mother's views, and pressed them on
Louis with unremitting diligence and considerable fertility of argument,
though she was greatly dismayed at finding that not only his ministers,
but he himself, regarded Austria as actuated by an aggressive ambition,
and compared her claim to a portion of Bavaria to the partition of Poland,
which, six years before, had drawn forth unwonted expressions of honorable
indignation from even his unworthy grandfather. The idea that the alliance
between France and the empire was itself at stake on the question, made
her so anxious that she sent for the ministers themselves, pressing her
views on both Maurepas and Vergennes with great earnestness. But they,
though still faithful to the maintenance of the alliance, sympathized with
the king rather than with her in his view of the character of the claim
which the emperor had put forward; and they also urged another argument
for abstaining from any active intervention, that the finances of the
country were in so deplorable a state that France could not afford to go
to war. It was plain, as she told them, that this consideration should at
least equally have prevented their quarreling with England. But, in spite
of all her persistence, they were not to be moved from this view of the
true interest of France in the conjuncture that had arisen; and,
accordingly, in the brief war which ensued between the empire and Prussia,
France took no part, though it is more than probable that her mediation
between the belligerents, which had no little share in bringing about the
peace of Teschen,[8] was in a great degree owing to the queen's influence.
For she was not discouraged by her first failure, but renewed her
importunities from time to time; and at last did succeed in wringing a
promise from her husband that if Prussia should invade the Flemish
provinces of Austria, France would arm on the empress's side. So fully did
the affair absorb her attention that it made her indifferent to the
gayeties which the carnival always brought round. She did, indeed, as a
matter of duty, give one or two grand state balls, one of which, in which
the dancers of the quadrilles were masked, and in which their dresses
represented the male and female costumes of India, was long talked of for
both the magnificence and the novelty of the spectacle; and she attended
one or two of the opera-balls, under the escort of her brothers-in-law and
their countesses; but they had begun to pall upon her, and she made
repeated offers to the king to give them up and to spend her evenings in
quiet with him. But he was more inclined to prompt her to seek amusement
than to allow her to sacrifice any,[9] even such as he did not care to
partake of; nevertheless, he was pleased with the offer, and it was
observed by the courtiers that the mutual confidence of the husband and
wife in each other was more marked and more firmly established than ever.
He showed her all the dispatches, consulted her on all points, and
explained his reasons when he could not adopt all her views. As Marie
Antoinette wrote to her brother, "If it were possible to reckon wholly on
any man, the king was the one on whom she could thoroughly rely.[10]"
So greatly, indeed, did the quarrel between Austria and Prussia engross
her, that it even occupied the greater part of letters whose ostensible
object is to announce prospects of personal happiness which might have
been expected to extinguished every other consideration. In one, after
touching briefly on her health and hopes, she proceeds:
"How kind my dear mamma is, to express her approval of the way in which I
have conducted myself in these affairs up to the present time! Alas! there
is no need for you to feel obliged to me; it was my heart that acted in
the whole matter. I am only vexed at not being able to enter myself into
the feelings of all these ministers, so as to be able to make them
comprehend how every thing which has been done and demanded by the
authorities at Vienna is just and reasonable. But unluckily none are more
deaf than those who will not hear; and, besides, they have such a number
of terms and phrases which mean nothing, that they bewilder themselves
before they come to say a single reasonable thing. I will try one plan,
and that is to speak to them both in the king's presence, to induce them,
at least, to hold language suitable to the occasion to the King of
Prussia; and in good truth it is for the interest and glory of the
king[11] himself that I am anxious to see this done; for he can not but
gain by supporting allies who on every account ought to be so dear to him.
"In other respects, and especially in my present conditions, he behaves
most admirably, and is most attentive to me. I protest to you, my dear
mamma, that my heart would be torn by the idea that you could for a moment
suspect his good-will in what has been done. No; it is the terrible
weakness of his ministers, and tis own great want of self-reliance, which
does all the mischief; and I am sure that if he would never act but on his
own judgment, every one would see his honesty, his correctness of feeling,
and his tact, which at present they are far from appreciating.[12]"
And at the end of the month she writes again:
"I saw Mercy a day or two ago: he showed me the articles which the King of
Prussia sent to my brother. I think it is impossible to see any thing more
absurd than his proposals. In fact, they are so ridiculous that they must
strike every one here; I can answer for their appearing so to the king. I
have not been able to see the ministers. M. de Vergennes has not been here
[she is writing from Marly]; he is not well, so that I must wait till we
return to Versailles.
"I had seen before the correspondence of the King of Prussia with my
brother. It is most abominable of the former to have sent it here, and the
more so since, in truth, he has not much to boast of. His imprudence, his
bad faith, and his malignant temper are visible in every line. I have been
enchanted with my brother's answers. It is impossible to put into letters
more grace, more moderation, and at the same time more force. I am going
to say something which is very vain; but I do believe that there is not in
the whole world any one but the emperor, the son of my dearest mother, who
has the happiness of seeing her every day, who could write in such a
manner."
There is no trace in these letters of the levity and giddiness of which
Mercy so often complains, and which she at times did not deny. On the
contrary, they display an earnestness as well as a good sense and an
energy which are gracefully set off by the affection for her mother, and
the pride in her brother's firmness and address which they also express.
With respect to the conduct of Louis at this crisis we may perhaps differ
from her; and may think that he rarely showed so much self-reliance, the
general want of which was in truth his greatest defect, as when he
preferred the arguments of Vergennes to her entreaties. But if her praises
of the emperor are, as she herself terms them, vanity, it is the vanity of
sisterly and patriotic affection, which can not but be regarded with
approval; and we may see in it an additional proof of the correctness of
an assertion, repeated over and over again in Mercy's correspondence,
that, whenever Marie Antoinette gave the rein to her own natural impulses,
she invariably both thought and acted rightly.
In one of the extracts which have just been quoted, the queen alludes to
her own condition; and that, in any one less unselfish, might well have
driven all other thoughts from her head. For the event to which she had so
long looked forward as that which was wanted to crown her happiness, and
which had been so long deferred that at times she had ceased to hope for
it at all, was at last about to take place--she was about to become a
mother. Her own joy at the prospect was shared to its full extent by both
the king and the empress. Louis, roused out of his usual reserve, wrote
with his own hand to both the empress and the emperor, to give the
intelligence; and Maria Teresa declared that she had nothing left to wish
for, and that she could now close her eyes in peace. And the news was
received with almost equal pleasure by the citizens of Paris, who had long
desired to see an heir born to the crown; and by those of Vienna, who had
not yet forgotten the fair young princess, the flower of her mother's
flock, as they had fondly called her, whom they had sent to fill a foreign
throne. Her own happiness exhibited itself, as usual, in acts of
benevolence, in the distribution of liberal gifts to the poor of Paris and
Versailles, and a foundation of a hospital for those in a similar
condition with herself.[13]
In the course of the spring, Paris was for a moment excited even more than
by the declaration of war against England, or than by the expectation of
the queen's confinement, by the return of Voltaire, who had long been in
disgrace with the court, and had been for many years living in a sort of
tacit exile on the borders of the Lake of Geneva. He was now in extreme
old age, and, believing himself to have but a short time to live, he
wished to see Paris once more, putting forward as his principal motive his
desire to superintend the performance of his tragedy of "Irene." His
admirers could easily secure him a brilliant reception at the theatre; but
they were anxious above all things to obtain for him admission to the
court, or at least a private interview with the queen. She felt in a
dilemma. Joseph, a year before, had warned her against giving
encouragement to a man whose principles deserved the reprobation of all
sovereigns. He himself, though on his return to Vienna he had passed
through Geneva, had avoided an interview with him, while the empress had
been far more explicit in her condemnation of his character. On the other
hand, Marie Antoinette had not yet learned the art of refusing, when those
who solicited a favor had personal access to her; and she had also some
curiosity to see a man whose literary fame was accounted one of the chief
glories of the nation and the age. She consulted the king, but found
Louis, on this subject, in entire agreement with her mother and her
brother. He had no literary curiosity, and he disapproved equally the
lessons which Voltaire had throughout his life sought to inculcate upon
others, and the licentious habits with which he had exemplified his own
principles in action. She yielded to his objections, and Voltaire, deeply
mortified at the refusal,[14] was left to console himself as best he could
with the enthusiastic acclamations of the play-goers of the capital, who
crowned his bust on the stage, while he sat exultingly in his box, and
escorted him back in triumph to his house; those who could approach near
enough even kissing his garments as he passed, till he asked them whether
they designed to kill him with delight; as, indeed, in some sense, they
may be said to have done, for the excitement of the homage thus paid to
him day after day, whenever he was seen in public, proved too much for his
feeble frame. He was seized with illness, which, however, was but a
natural decay, and in a few weeks after his arrival in Paris he died.
As the year wore on, Marie Antoinette was fully occupied in making
arrangements for the child whose coming was expected with such impatience.
Her mother is of course her chief confidante. She is to be the child's
godmother; her name shall be the first its tongue is to learn to
pronounce; while for its early management the advice of so experienced a
parent is naturally sought with unhesitating deference. Still, Marie
Antoinette is far from being always joyful. Russia has made an alliance
with Prussia; Frederick has invaded Bohemia, and she is so overwhelmed
with anxiety that she cancels invitations for parties which she was about
to give at the Trianon, and would absent herself from the theatre and from
all public places, did not Mercy persuade her that such a withdrawal would
seem to be the effect, not of a natural anxiety, but of a despondency
which would be both unroyal and unworthy of the reliance which she ought
to feel on the proved valor of the Austrian armies.
The war with England, also, was an additional cause of solicitude and
vexation. The sailors in whom she had expressed such confidence were not
better able than before to contend with British antagonists. In an
undecisive skirmish which took place in July between two fleets of the
first magnitude, the French admiral, D'Orvilliers, had made a practical
acknowledgment of his inferiority by retreating in the night, and eluding
all the exertions of the English admiral, Keppel, to renew the action. The
discontent in Paris was great; the populace was severe on one or two of
the captains, who were thought to have taken undue care of their ships and
of themselves, and especially bitter against the Duke de Chartres, who had
had a rear-admiral's command in the fleet, and who, after having made
himself conspicuous before D'Orvilliers sailed, by his boasts of the
prowess which he intended to exhibit, had made himself equally notorious
in the action itself by the pains he took to keep himself out of danger.
On his return to Paris, shameless as he was, he scarcely dared show his
face, till the Comte d'Artois persuaded the queen to throw her shield over
him. It was impossible for him to remain in the navy; but, to soften his
fall, the count proposed that the king should create a new appointment for
him, as colonel-general of the light cavalry. Louis saw the impropriety of
such a step: truly it was but a questionable compliment to pay to his
hussars, to place in authority over them a man under whom no sailor would
willingly serve. Marie Antoinette in her heart was as indignant as any
one. Constitutionally an admirer of bravery, she had taken especial
interest in the affairs of the fleet and in the details of this action.
She had honored with the most marked eulogy the gallantry of Admiral du
Chaffault, who had been severely wounded; but now she allowed herself to
be persuaded that the duke's public disgrace would reflect on the whole
royal family, and pressed the request so earnestly on the king that at
last he yielded. In outward appearance the duke's honor was saved; but the
public, whose judgment on such matter is generally sound, and who had
revived against him some of the jests with which the comrades of Luxemburg
had shown their scorn of the Duke de Maine, blamed her interference; and
the duke himself, by the vile ingratitude with which he subsequently
repaid her protection, gave but too sad proof that of all offenders
against honor the most unworthy of royal indulgence is a coward.