Anglomania in Paris.--The Winter at Versailles.--Hunting.--Private
Theatricals.--Death of Prince Charles of Lorraine.--Successes of the
English in America.--Education of the Duc d'Angoulême.--Libelous Attacks
on the Queen.--Death of the Empress.--Favor shown to some of the Swedish
Nobles.--The Count de Fersen.--Necker retires from Office.--His Character.
It is curious, while the resources of the kingdom were so severely taxed
to maintain the war against England, of which every succeeding dispatch
from the seat of war showed more and more the imprudence, to read in
Mercy's correspondence accounts of the Anglomania, which still subsisted
in Paris; surpassing that which the letters of the empress describe as
reigning in Vienna, though it did not show itself now in quite the same
manner as a year or two before, in the aping of English vices, gambling at
races, and hard drinking, but rather in a copying of the fashions of men's
dress; in the introduction of top-boots; and, very wholesomely, in the
adoption of a country life by many of the great nobles, in imitation of
the English gentry; so that, for the first time since the coronation of
Louis XIV., the great territorial lords began to spend a considerable part
of the year on their estates, and no longer to think the interests and
requirements of their tenants and dependents beneath their notice.
The winter of 1779 and the spring of 1780 passed very happily. If
Versailles, from the reasons mentioned above, was not as crowded as in
former years, it was very lively. The season was unusually mild; the
hunting was scarcely ever interrupted, and Marie Antoinette, who now made
it a rule to accompany her husband on every possible occasion, sometimes
did not return from the hunt till the night was far advanced, and found
her health much benefited by the habit of spending the greater part of
even a winter's day in the open air. Her garden, too, which daily occupied
more and more of her attention, as it increased in beauty, had the same
tendency; and her anxiety to profit by the experience of others on one
occasion inflicted a whimsical disappointment of the free-thinkers of the
court. The profligate and sentimental infidel Rousseau had died a couple
of years before, and had been buried at Ermenonville, in the park of the
Count de Girardin. In the course of the summer the queen drove over to
Ermenonville, and the admirers of the versatile writer flattered
themselves that her object was to pay a visit of homage to the shrine of
their idol; but they wore greatly mortified to find that, though his tomb
was pointed out to her, she took no further notice of it than such as
consisted of a passing remark that it was very neat, and very prettily
placed; and that what had attracted her curiosity was the English garden
which the count had recently laid out at a great expense, and from which
she had been led to expect that she might derive some hints for the
further improvement of her own Little Trianon.
She had not yet entirely given up her desire for novelty in her
amusements; and she began now to establish private theatricals at
Versailles, choosing light comedies interspersed with song, and with but
few characters, the male parts being filled by the Count d'Artois and some
of the most distinguished officers of the household, while she herself
took one of the female parts; the spectators being confined to the royal
family and those nobles whose posts entitled them to immediate attendance
on the king and queen. She was so anxious to perform her own part well,
though she did not take any of the principal characters, but preferred to
act the waiting-woman rather than the mistress, that she placed herself
under the tuition of Michu, a professional actor of reputation from one of
the Parisian theatres; but, though the audience was far too courtly to
greet her appearance on the stage without vociferous applause, the
preponderance of evidence must lead us to believe that her majesty was not
a good actress.[1] And perhaps we may think that as the parts which she
selected required rather an arch pertness than the grace and majesty which
were more natural to her, so, also, they were not altogether in keeping
with the stately dignity which queens should never wholly lay aside.
It was well, however, that she should have amusements to cheer her, for
the year was destined to bring her heavy troubles before its close: losses
in her own family, which would be felt with terrible heaviness by her
affectionate disposition, were impending over her; while the news from
America, where the English army at this time was achieving triumphs which
seemed likely to have a decisive influence on the result of the war,
caused her great anxiety. How great, a letter which she wrote to her
mother in July affords a striking proof. In June, when she heard of the
dangerous illness of her uncle, Prince Charles of Lorraine, now Governor
of the Low Countries, formerly the gallant antagonist of Frederick of
Prussia, she declared that "the intelligence overwhelmed her with an
agitation and grief such as she had never before experienced," and she
lamented with evidently deep and genuine distress the threatened
extinction of the male line of the house of Lorraine. But before she wrote
again, the news of Sir Henry Clinton's exploits in Carolina had arrived,
and, though almost the same post informed her of the prince's death, the
sorrow which that bereavement awakened in her mind was scarcely allowed,
even in its first freshness, an equal share of her lamentations with the
more absorbing importance of the events of the campaign beyond the
Atlantic.
"MY DEAREST MOTHER,--I wrote to you the moment that I received the sad
intelligence of my uncle's death; though, as the Brussels courier had
already started, I fear my letter may have arrived rather late. I will not
venture to say more on the subject, lest I should be reopening a sorrow
for which you have so much cause to grieve.... The capture of
Charleston[2] is a most disastrous event, both for the facilities it will
afford the English and for the encouragement which it will give to their
pride. It is perhaps still more serious because of the miserable defense
made by the Americans. One can hope nothing from such bad troops."
It is curious to contrast the angry jealousy which she here betrays of our
disposition and policy as a nation, with the partiality which, as we have
seen, she showed for the agreeable qualities of individual Englishmen. But
her uneasiness on this subject led to practical results, by inducing her
to add her influence to that of a party which was discontented with the
ministry; and was especially laboring to persuade the king to make a
change in the War Department, and to dismiss the Prince de Montbarey,
whose sole recommendation for the office of secretary of state seemed to
be that he was a friend of the prime minister, and to give his place to
the Count de Ségur. The change was made, as any change was sure to be made
in favor of which she personally exerted herself; even the partisans of M.
de Maurepas himself were forced to allow that the new minister was in
every respect far superior to his predecessor; and Mercy was desirous that
she should procure the dismissal of Maurepas also, thinking it of great
importance to her own comfort that the prime minister should be bound to
her interests.
But she was far more anxious on other subjects. Nearly two years had now
elapsed since the birth of the princess royal; and there was as yet no
prospect of a companion to her, so that the Count d'Artois began to make
arrangements for the education of his infant son, the Duc d'Angoulême,
with a premature solicitude, which was evidently designed to point the
child out to the nation as its future sovereign.[3] The queen was greatly
annoyed; and, to add to her vexation, one of the teething illnesses to
which children are subject at this time threw the little princess into
convulsions, which, to a mother's anxiety, seemed even dangerous to her
life; though in a day or two that apprehension passed away.
But these hopes of D'Artois and his flatterers again filled the court with
intrigues. In the course of the summer she was made highly indignant by
finding that news from the court, with malicious comments, were sent from
Paris across the frontier to be printed at Deux-Ponts or Düsseldorf, and
then circulated in Paris and in Vienna; and it was difficult to avoid
connecting these libels with those who in the palace itself were
manifestly building hopes on the diminution of her influence and the
disparagement of her character.
But this and all other vexations were presently thrown into the shade by a
great grief, the more difficult to bear because it was wholly unexpected
by her--the death of her mother. In reality, Maria Teresa had been unwell
for some time; but the suspicions of the serious character of her
complaint, which she secretly entertained, she had never revealed to Marie
Antoinette; and at last the end followed too quickly on the first
appearance of danger to allow time for any preparatory warnings to be
received at Versailles before the fatal intelligence arrived. On the 24th
of November she was taken ill in a manner which excited the alarm of her
physicians, but her family felt no apprehensions. Even on the 27th, the
emperor felt so sanguine that the cough which seemed her most distressing
symptom was but temporary, that it was with the greatest unwillingness
that he consented to her receiving the communion, as the physicians
recommended; but the next day even he was forced to acquiesce in the
hopeless view which they took of their patient; and on the 29th she died,
after having borne sufferings, which for the last three days had been of
the most painful character, with the same heroism with which, in her
earlier life, she had struggled against griefs of a different kind.
The dispatch announcing her death was brought to the king; and it is
characteristic of his timid disposition that he could not nerve himself to
communicate it to his wife, but suppressed all mention of it during the
evening; and in the morning summoned the Abbé de Vermond, and employed him
to break the news to her, reserving for himself the less painful task of
approaching her with words of affectionate consolation after the first
shock was over. For a time, however, she was almost overwhelmed with
sorrow. She attempted to write to her brother, but after a few lines she
closed the letter, declaring that her tears prevented her from seeing the
paper; and those about her found that for some time she could bear no
other topic of conversation than the courage, the wisdom, the greatness of
her mother, and, above all, her warm affection for herself and for all her
other children.[4]
With the death of the empress we lose the aid of Mercy's correspondence,
which has afforded such invaluable service in the light it has thrown on
the peculiarities of Marie Antoinette's position, and the gradual
development of her character during the earlier years of her residence in
France. We shall again obtain light from the same source of almost greater
importance, when the still more terrible dangers of the Revolution
rendered the queen more dependent than ever on his counsels. But for the
next few years we shall be compelled to content ourselves with scantier
materials than have been furnished by the empress's unceasing interest in
her daughter's welfare, and the embassador's faithful and candid reports.
The death of Maria Teresa naturally closed the court of her daughter
against all gayeties during the spring of 1781. Still, one of the taxes
which princes pay for their grandeur is the force which, at times, they
are compelled to put upon their inclinations, when they dispense with that
retirement which their own feelings would render acceptable; and, after a
few weeks of seclusion, a few guests began to be admitted to the royal
supper-table, among whom, as a very extraordinary favor, were some Swedish
nobles;[5] one of whom, the Count de Stedingk, had established a claim to
the royal favor by serving, with several of his countrymen, as a volunteer
in the Count d'Estaing's fleet in the West Indies. Such service was highly
esteemed by both king and queen, since Louis, though he had been
unwillingly dragged into the war by the ambition of the Count de Vergennes
and the popular enthusiasm, naturally, when once engaged in it, took as
vivid an interest in the prowess of his forces as if he had never been
troubled with any misgivings as to the policy which had set them in
motion; and Marie Antoinette was at all times excited to enthusiasm by any
deed of valor, and, as we have seen, took an especial interest in the
achievements of the navy.
The King of Sweden, the chivalrous Gustavus III., had already made the
acquaintance of Louis and Marie Antoinette in a short visit which he had
paid to France the year after their marriage; and the queen now wrote to
him in warm praise of M. de Stedingk, and all his countrymen who had come
under her notice, while the king rewarded the count's valor and the wounds
which had been incurred in its exhibition by an order of knighthood,[6]
and the more substantial gift of a pension. But the Swede who soon outran
all his compatriots in the race for the royal favor of both king and queen
was the Count Axel de Fersen, a descendant, it was believed, of one of the
Scotch officers of the great Macpherson clan, who, in the stormy times of
the Thirty Years' War, had sought fame and fortune under the banner of
Gustavus Adolphus. The beauty of his countess was celebrated throughout
both Sweden and France, and his own was but little inferior to it. If she
was known as "The Rose of the North," his name was rarely mentioned
without the addition of "The handsome." He was a perfect master of all
noble and knightly accomplishments, and was also distinguished for a
certain high-souled and romantic[7] enthusiasm, which lent a tinge to all
his conversation and demeanor; and this combination won for him the marked
favor of Marie Antoinette. The calumniators, whom the condition and
prospects of the royal family made more busy than ever at this time,
insinuated that he had touched her heart; but those who knew best the
manners of life and characters of both denounced it as the vilest of
libels. The count's was a loyal attachment, doing nothing but honor to him
who felt it, and to the queen who inspired it; and it was marked by a
permanence which distinguishes no devotion but that which is pure and
noble, as he showed ten years later by the well-planned and courageous,
though unsuccessful, efforts which he made for the deliverance of the
queen and all her family.
That Marie Antoinette, who from early youth had shown an intuitive
accuracy of judgment in her estimate of character, should, from the very
first, honorably distinguish a man capable of such devotion to her service
was not unnatural; but there was another circumstance in his favor, which
he shared with the other foreign nobles, English and German, who in these
years were well received by the queen. Their disinterestedness presented a
striking contrast to the rapacity of the French. Every French noble valued
the court only for what he could obtain from it. Even Madame de Polignac,
whom the queen specially honored with the title of her friend, exhibited
an all-grasping covetousness, of which, with all her efforts to shut her
eyes to it, Marie Antoinette could not be unconscious; and her perception
of the difference between her French and her foreign courtiers was marked
by herself in a few words, when the Comte de la Marck, who was himself of
foreign extraction, ventured once to recommend to her greater caution in
her display of liking for the foreign nobles, as what might excite the
jealousy of the French;[8] and she replied that "he might be right, but
the foreigners were the only people who asked her for nothing."
Meanwhile, the war went on in America; the colonists themselves were
making but little, if any, progress, and the French contingent were
certainly reaping no honor, M. de La Fayette, the only officer who came in
contact with a British force, showing no military skill or capacity, and
not even much courage. But in the course of the spring France sustained a
far heavier loss than even the defeat of an army could have inflicted on
her, in the retirement of Necker from the ministry. As a statesman, he was
certainly not entitled to any very high rank. He had neither extensive
knowledge, nor large views, nor firmness; the only project of
constitutional reform which he had brought forward had been but a
mutilated and imperfect copy of the system devised by the original and
statesman-like daring of Turgot. At a subsequent period he proved himself
incapable of discerning the true character of the circumstances which
surrounded him, and wholly ignorant of the feelings of the nation, and of
the principles and objects of those who aspired to take a lead in its
councils. But as yet his financial policy had undoubtedly been successful.
He had greatly relieved the general distress, he had maintained the public
credit, and he had inspired the nation with confidence in itself, and
other countries also with confidence in its resources; but he had made
many and powerful enemies by the retrenchments which had been a necessary
part of his system. As early as the spring of 1780, Mercy had reported to
the empress that both the king's brothers and the Duc d'Orléans complained
that some of his measures infringed upon their established rights; that
the Count d'Artois had had a very stormy discussion with Necker himself,
and, when he could neither convince nor overbear him, had tried, though
unsuccessfully, to enlist the queen against him. The count had since
employed the controller of his own household, M. Boutourlin, to write
pamphlets against him, and, in point of fact, many of the most elaborate
details of a financial statement which Necker had recently published were
very ill-calculated to endure a strict scrutiny; but M. Boutourlin did his
work so badly that Necker had no difficulty in repelling him, and for a
moment seemed the stronger for the attack that had been made upon him.
He had been so far right in his estimate of his position that he could
rely on the support of the queen, who was aware that both her mother and
her brother had a high opinion of his integrity; but though the king also
had from time to time given his cordial sanction to his different
measures, it was not in the nature of Louis to withstand repeated pressure
and solicitation. Necker, too, himself unintentionally played into the
hands of his enemies. He had nominally only a subordinate position in the
ministry. As he was a Protestant, Louis had feared to offend the clergy by
giving him a seat in the council, or the title of comptroller-general; but
had conferred that post on M. Taboureau des Reaux, making Necker director
of the treasury under him. The real management of the exchequer was,
however, placed wholly in his hands; and, as he was one of the vainest of
men, he had gradually assumed a tone of importance as if his were the
paramount influence in the Government; going so far as even to open
negotiations with foreign statesmen to which none of his colleagues were
privy.[9] It was not strange that he was not very well satisfied with a
position which seemed as if it had been contrived in order to keep him out
of sight, and to deprive him of the credit belonging to his financial
successes; but hitherto he had been satisfied to bide his time. Now,
however, his triumph over M. Boutourlin seemed to him so to have
established his supremacy as to entitle him to insist on a promotion which
should be a public recognition of his position as the real minister of
finance, and as entitled to a preponderating voice in all matters of
general policy. He accordingly demanded admission to the council, and, on
its being refused, at once resigned his office.
The consternation was universal; the general public had gradually learned
to place such confidence in him that they looked on his loss as
irreparable. Some even of the princes who had originally striven to
prepossess the king against him either changed their minds or feared to
show their disagreement with the common feeling. And Marie Antoinette, who
fully shared his views as to the primary importance of finance in all
questions of government, condescended to admit him to an interview;
requested him, as a personal favor to herself, to recall his resignation,
urging upon him that patience would surely in time procure him all that he
asked; and, in her honest earnestness for the welfare of the nation, wept
when he withdrew without having yielded to her solicitations. It was late
in the evening and dark when he took his leave, and afterward, when he was
told that he had drawn tears from her eyes by his refusal, he said that,
had he seen them, he should have submitted to a wish so enforced, even at
the sacrifice of his own comfort and reputation.