o’clock on the morning of the 18th of August, and was at once hurried off
to Paris, distant about one hundred and forty miles from Bar-sur-Aube,
“entirely ignorant,” she remarks, “whither I was intended to be conveyed,
and so little anticipating the event that I was dozing in the carriage.
In the course of our journey the vehicle was stopped, and questions asked
by some person without, to whom the person within said: ‘Don’t you know
this carriage?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ replied the other. ‘Don’t stop us then; we
have nothing but a state prisoner;’ upon which the vehicle proceeded.
Hearing this conversation I awoke; the termination of it roused all my
faculties. ‘What do you say?’ exclaimed I in a tone of extreme agitation.
‘A state prisoner! alas! then am I a state prisoner?’ ‘Oh, no, madame,
no such thing;’ and these people swore that I was not one. But there
is some excuse for them; they belonged to the police, and perjury and
bearing false witness is no small part of their employment. Yet they used
such kind expressions that, knowing my innocence, I flattered myself I
was not deceived. One of them said to me: ‘Madame, it is so very early,
I’m afraid we shall not be able to get an interview with the Baron de
Breteuil, who has given me orders if we arrived too early to conduct you
to my house, and to wait upon him about eleven; therefore be composed
and try to sleep a little.’ All this time I remained upon my seat; but
soon after, they desired me to conceal myself in the bottom of the
vehicle; this was when we arrived at the Porte St.-Antoine, where they
endeavoured as much as possible to place themselves in such positions
before me that I might neither be seen by any one nor observe the turning
of the Bastille. Finding myself rather warm, ‘Let me see,’ said I; and
looking out I discovered the Bastille. ‘How!’ exclaimed I, with agitated
surprise; ‘is it to the Bastille then that I am going? Oh! you are all
impostors!’ They endeavoured to pacify me, and begged me not to make a
disturbance; told me that they were not their own masters; that they
had received their orders, but that they were absolutely ignorant of
the motive for which I was taken to the Bastille, and that they were
persuaded in a very few days I should be liberated.
“By this time we arrived at the first bridge leading to the governor’s
house. The postillion knocked, and many _invalides_ came out. The
post-chaise belonging to the police drove up to the governor’s door, who
came out himself in a _robe de chambre_ to the carriage to give me his
hand, begging me at the same time to excuse his _déshabille_. He then
conducted me into a large hall. Soon afterwards, the king’s lieutenant
arrived with a large book, wherein he entered the date of my arrival,
and afterwards presented it to me to sign my name, which request I
complied with. During this ceremony, which only occupied a few minutes,
the governor was in the court with the _exempts_, who were giving him an
account of every circumstance which occurred in the execution of their
orders. This over, the governor returned, and asked me if I would take
any refreshment, adding: ‘We shall take great care of you, madame.’ I
then asked him into which apartment I should go to receive the Baron
de Breteuil, remarking at the same time that I hoped he would come at
eleven, as the _exempts_ had informed me. ‘Oh, there is not the least
doubt of it, madame,’ replied the governor. He then called Saint-Jean,
the turnkey, to whom he gave my papers, to place them, as I have since
heard, in the archives; after which the governor desired the king’s
lieutenant to conduct me to my apartment. Some little conversation passed
relative to the place of my destination, of which the lieutenant seemed
uncertain. ‘Oh,’ said the governor, ‘_La Comtée_ is the best; it is
very light.’ He then put me in charge of the king’s lieutenant, whose
arm I took, persuaded that I should be shown into some other apartment,
and for a far different purpose. As I went along I saw some soldiers
(_invalides_) enveloped in blue cloaks, with large hoods over their
heads, and long bands hanging down. As I passed them I was not a little
surprised to see them turn their backs towards me, it being the rule
when any prisoner arrives for them to turn themselves round lest they
should take too much notice. I began to laugh with the lieutenant at the
novelty of this, and particularly at these grotesque figures in their
masquerade....
“We passed on till we arrived at the court, the staircase of which led
to the tower of _La Comtée_. After ascending this we arrived at the
apartment destined for my reception, all the gates of which were very
large, and moreover open. St. Jean, who was to be my turnkey, attended me
thither.
“Struck with such a dismal change of situation, so very different from
what I had ever been accustomed to, I could not help expressing my
dissatisfaction to the lieutenant. ‘If this is the place,’ said I, ‘which
the governor pleases to call my apartment, be sure I am greatly obliged
to him.’ I then went to look at the bed, which was indeed a wretched one;
told him that it would be impossible for me to sleep in so miserable a
bed as that, and demanded if he could not accommodate me with one as good
as the cardinal’s? He replied, very politely, that he really did not
comprehend my meaning....
“My disapprobation of the bed, however, was attended with favourable
results, for the turnkey substituted for the one which I had great
reason to complain of an excellent feather bed with fine sheets and
curtains. Thus accommodated, and extremely fatigued, I attempted to get
some rest; but I was scarce in bed when the lieutenant, with my own and
another turnkey, arrived. The two turnkeys examined my clothes and my
pockets, out of which they took all the contents, consisting of several
little articles, particularly a gold _étui_ set with pearls, another of
tortoiseshell, a small ivory box ornamented with gold, having on its lid
a miniature with a gold rim, containing a small mirror and some rouge, an
English pocket-knife, a knife with a tortoiseshell handle and gold blade,
my purse, containing eighteen louis and about nineteen livres, and a gold
repeating watch with a diamond chain.
“Indignant at such humiliating treatment, which I could not patiently
endure, I remonstrated with some asperity, and threatened to inform the
Baron de Breteuil, whom I was simple enough to believe I should see.
They were, however, regardless of my threats, and having executed their
orders, departed through those dreadful doors which with their horrid
bolts were closed upon me, and the sound pierced my very soul....
“About eight o’clock the turnkey came to my door. I spoke to him, but he
paid no attention to me, and departed without saying a word. I rose to
examine my dismal habitation, and traversed the room in every direction
backwards and forwards. I opened the window to see if I could discover
anybody, or make myself sufficiently conspicuous for any one to see
me. I climbed upon the sill, and held my face close to the bars, but I
could discover nothing; as for people, it was impossible to distinguish
them.”[213]
At noon the lieutenant of the Bastille came to fetch the countess to
an interview, as she asserts she thought, with the Baron de Breteuil,
instead of which she was conducted into the presence of the lieutenant of
police and the Commissary Chénon, who commenced examining her respecting
the Diamond Necklace, and ended by accusing her of having first obtained
possession of, and afterwards absconding to a foreign country with
the missing jewel. Madame de la Motte, perfectly unabashed, says that
she laughed outright in the commissary’s face at what she styles the
“ridiculous absurdity” of such an accusation. Her examination was
continued day by day, and when completed, the commissary, as the countess
artfully states, “gabbled over something which she scarce understood,”
but which she nevertheless signed. “It was this cunning dissembler,”
she remarks, “who made me sign those odious things which I was supposed
to have said myself, and which were so detestable that when they were
read by his majesty he spat upon them, saying, ‘Fie upon the filthy
creature!’”[214]
The countess, who in early life was glad to feed upon broken victuals
passed through a trap-hole in the miserable hovel that sheltered the
Saint-Remi family at Fontette, appears not to have entirely approved
of the _cuisine_ of the Bastille. What more particularly annoyed her,
however, was that she, who had been latterly accustomed to gold and
silver plate, should now be expected to dine off vulgar pewter. According
to her own account, she preferred enduring the pangs of hunger to
submitting to such an indignity, and sent the dishes away untouched. The
turnkey, she tells us, somewhat surprised at this proceeding, “said in a
rude manner, ‘So then you don’t choose to eat, don’t you?’ ‘No,’ replied
I, ‘I don’t choose to eat, and I desire to know if you serve the cardinal
off pewter? Inform the governor that the Valois are quite as nice as and
entitled to equal respect with the Rohans.’ The turnkey was astounded. He
looked at me respectfully, and mildly answered that he was ignorant who I
was; then begging my pardon he departed, and returned shortly afterwards
with a better dinner served in beautiful dishes with silver covers.”[215]
Poor Madame de la Tour, Count de la Motte’s sister, having applied
to the Marquis de Launay for permission to visit the countess in the
Bastille, was arrested by two _exempts_ on leaving the governor’s house,
and forthwith conducted to a cell in the gloomy old fortress, where she
was kept confined for a period of six months, in spite of the efforts of
her husband and family to procure her release. This was paying rather
a heavy penalty for her feelings of sympathy towards an incriminated
sister-in-law.
Before the countess had been immured in the Bastille a fortnight, we find
her attempting a rambling exculpation of herself in a document which
bears no address, but was no doubt intended to produce an impression
on the Baron de Breteuil, and which she describes as “Explanatory
reflections on the accusations made by Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan.”
“Does Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan believe me ass enough
not to have disappeared immediately if I had desired to retain
the Necklace under some pretext, as he accuses me of doing?
“Does Monseigneur le Cardinal believe that I caused the
Necklace to be sold here under the eyes both of the vendor
and of himself, and that I should have been able, had I been
guilty, to have so far deluded them as to remain at Paris so
tranquilly as I did, knowing all the while the date of payment?
Should I not rather have taken a safe departure before the
moment of payment arrived? Monseigneur le Cardinal de Rohan
was at Saverne for six weeks. Could not I have profited by his
absence to join my husband in England, with my whole household
and have remained there?
“Instead of which my husband was there by his orders, and
returned as agreed upon with Monseigneur le Cardinal. Would
it have been possible, with me living almost at his door, for
him not to have given me something during four years, or at
least to have taken care of me and mine, since all I had was
my pension of 800 livres? The expenses of my house were always
heavy enough to make it requisite for the cardinal to give me
large sums to keep it up; and at this time I solicited more
than ever both at Versailles and at Paris. Every day I required
_voitures de remise_, which were very dear; I had, too, a house
at Versailles to reside in when there. How, moreover, let me
ask, should I have done the bidding of a sovereign without
anticipating great returns from it, since sooner or later this
intimacy would certainly have been discovered? How could I
have exercised so little precaution, I say, as to remain in
Paris, where, if guilty, I should have taken the utmost care
on the contrary to appear more at my ease than under ordinary
circumstances, fearful of being suspected by Monseigneur
le Cardinal, whose people, and especially M. le Baron de
Planta (whom he also brought as a witness against me), came
continually to my house?
“Will Monseigneur le Cardinal dare to deny all the facts which
I have advanced in my examination, and which will at least
convince him that I have been forced to this, and that it has
only been in self-defence? But he accuses me wrongfully. I must
tell the truth to prove my innocence, and to prove that he was
not in a position to use me as a servant, as Monseigneur le
Cardinal pretends, in an affair of such importance, since it
concerned the person of the queen. Moreover I do not know any
one who is attached to her.
“I have the honour to be, with submission,
“COMTESSE DE VALOIS DE LA MOTTE DE LA PÉNICIÈRE.
“At the Bastille this Monday, 29th August, 1785.”[216]
Another letter is extant, bearing date Sept. 13, 1785, evidently written
by the countess during her confinement in the Bastille, though it has no
signature to it, and which, couched in terms of extreme familiarity, is
addressed to the Duke de Guines, a very grand gentleman of the court,
and, what is more, one of the queen’s most intimate friends. In this
letter, in the midst of the most absurd and nonsensical details, the
countess introduces the names of her sister and of Cagliostro and his
wife, on the two last of whom she seeks to turn the accusation directed
against herself.[217] The duke, who pretended not to understand the drift
of the letter, sent it to the Baron de Breteuil.
XXV.
EFFECT PRODUCED ON THE PUBLIC MIND BY THESE ARRESTS.—THE ENEMIES OF THE
QUEEN.
It is impossible to conceive the sensation produced throughout France,
and indeed throughout Europe generally, by these arrests and the
extravagant rumours to which they gave rise. Marie-Antoinette in various
ways had unfortunately made numerous enemies—through her persistent
efforts, for instance, to get the Duke de Choiseul appointed prime
minister; through her too decided partiality for particular favourites,
for whom she secured both places and pensions; and through what was
affectedly styled her want of prudence—in other words, her open disregard
of the rigid formalities of French court etiquette. Arrayed against her
were many of the oldest families in France, each of whom cherished some
particular grievance of its own. The consequence was, there were many
hostile interests at work intent upon destroying her reputation and
bringing about her ruin if need be, even at the expense of the monarchy
itself, so that the great fraud of the Diamond Necklace was altogether
regarded in the light of a political event, and no time was lost by the
different inimical factions in twisting it to serve their own purposes,
without the slightest regard being paid by any one of them to the real
character of the act itself.
We will here interrupt the course of our narrative to examine at some
length into the origin of this widespread animosity against the queen,
and to trace the causes of its rapid extensions through all classes of
French society. To do this it will be necessary for us to go back to the
very outset of her career.
When Marie-Antoinette, then a young girl of fifteen, first set foot
on French soil, nothing could exceed the enthusiasm with which she
was welcomed. Her progress from Strasbourg to Versailles was one long
ovation. At Versailles, save the dauphin’s old maiden aunts, who
made themselves sufficiently disagreeable, and the king’s mistress,
Madame Dubarry, who could not tolerate this fair and pure young spirit,
every one was more or less charmed with her. The old king, worn out by
excesses, and weary of the deceptive flattery which he daily had to
listen to, was captivated, not merely by her personal graces, but by her
frank and lively nature, her open unaffected ways. The women may have
secretly envied her, but the men could not help adoring her. She far
excelled the young female members of the royal family in beauty. At the
time of her marriage her form was not fully developed: her stature was
short, and her figure altogether small, though perfectly proportioned;
her arm was finely rounded and of a dazzling whiteness, her hand plump,
her fingers tapering, her nails transparent and rose-coloured, her foot
charming. When she grew taller and stouter the foot and hand remained
perfect, her figure only became a little inelegant, and her chest a
trifle too broad. Her face formed a rather long oval; her complexion,
which was really dazzling, displayed the most tender shades of colour,
from pearly white to delicate rose tint; her eyes were blue, soft, and
animated, and shaded by long, full lashes; her nose was aquiline, and
slightly tapered at the end; her mouth was small and delicate and well
arched, her lower lip prominent, after the Austrian type; her neck was
slender and a trifle long, but well set; her forehead was convex, and
furnished with too little of her beautiful chestnut-colour hair. The
_coiffure_ of the empire would have accomplished marvels for her, for the
hair turned down over her forehead would have given to her face a regular
beauty.[218]
Though the young dauphiness was addicted to reverie, and displayed a
fondness for retirement in the society of a few chosen friends, she was
far from being of a reserved disposition; indeed, she was a good deal
given to gaiety of that light, playful, almost pert character which
imparts movement and life to all around. She forced every one to laugh
with her. She cared nothing for the restraints imposed by the barriers of
etiquette. If it did not please her to walk in stately fashion, she would
run and skip about, regardless of her train or her ladies of honour. In
winter-time she would scamper over the slippery ground, dragging after
her the youngest lady of her court, whose duty it was to hold up her
train, and delighted while glancing behind at the score of racing trains
which etiquette required should follow in procession. In the old king’s
days she was known to have even laughed out loud in the royal box at
Preville’s funny face, to the great scandal of those who only deigned to
smile.[219]
At the very first court she held after she became queen, provoked by some
pleasantries on the part of one of her ladies, and the ridiculous figures
cut by certain ancient court dames who had come to pay their respects to
her, she could not refrain from laughing at them behind her fan. This
naturally enough gave great offence to these antiquated dowagers, who
vowed the queen had mocked at them, that she had not a proper respect for
age, and was utterly wanting in propriety. The name of “_moqueuse_” was
given to her in consequence.[220]
The young queen, with the full sanction of her husband, went early one
morning to see the sun rise from the highest point of Marly gardens—a
harmless enough proceeding, one would think, but which nevertheless gave
rise to most disgraceful calumnies. On another occasion she displayed her
skill as a charioteer, by driving about Marly in a cabriolet, preceded
merely by a single officer of the king’s body-guard. This spectacle
astonished the old courtiers, who had never seen a queen handle the reins
before, and who therefore pronounced the proceeding highly unbecoming, if
not, indeed, improper. At Marly, too, Marie-Antoinette established a kind
of _café_, to which the lords and ladies of the court betook themselves
in their morning gowns. All etiquette was set aside, and people enjoyed
here the same kind of liberty which was ordinarily to be met with in
establishments of this class. Every one had his own little table, at
which he was served with whatever he asked for.[221]
Marie-Antoinette, who was fond of dancing, organized a series of fancy
dress balls in the _Salle de Comédie_ at Versailles, into the spirit of
which her brothers-in-law and their young wives entered most heartily.
Being herself a good dancer, she was glad to secure good dancers for
these entertainments, but had to undergo no end of reproaches because
she, a young queen of twenty years of age, had appealed to the minister
of war to grant leave of absence to certain officers, favourites at these
fêtes, who had been ordered to rejoin their regiments. Everything she
did was wrong. She was blamed for being present at the summer promenades
on the terrace of the château of Versailles, then open to the general
public, when, attired in a plain white cambric dress and a simple straw
hat, she and Madame Elisabeth, and perhaps her married sisters-in-law,
would mix unobserved among the crowd, or seated on a bench, would listen
to the music performed by the king’s guards; watching and commenting
meanwhile on the secret flirtations which under cover of the night were
carried on on these occasions.
The foregoing incidents seem to have been harmless enough, but the same
can hardly be said of her excursions to the _bals de l’opéra_, when “lost
in their vortex, she was happy or trembling under her mask,” and whither
she would resort attended merely by a single lady of the court and with
her servants in undress grey liveries. On one of these occasions her
carriage broke down, and she was obliged to have recourse to a public
vehicle. On entering the theatre she is reported to have exclaimed to
her friends, “It is I, come in a _fiacre_! Isn’t it droll?” One can well
conceive an incident like this giving rise to much unpleasant scandal,
and can sympathise in the reproaches which her brother the Emperor Joseph
addressed to her on her frequent presence at these entertainments.
It was the misfortune of Marie-Antoinette to have made for herself a host
of enemies almost from the very first day she was called upon to share a
throne. Among others, of her brother-in-law, the Count de Provence, who,
attached to her at the outset of her career, took to quizzing her, and
criticising her conduct, and even to caricaturing her, while preserving
an outward appearance of friendship towards her, soon after she became a
queen. The Prince de Condé, allied to the Cardinal de Rohan by marriage,
was embittered against her because she very properly declined to receive
his mistress, Madame de Monaco, at court. A warm friendship had sprung
up between Marie-Antoinette and the young Duke de Chartres, afterwards
Orléans _Égalité_, on her first arrival in France; but after a time,
Louis XVI., who disliked the duke, and made a point of insulting his
friends whenever he got the chance, availed himself of the duke’s known
immorality to forbid the queen associating with him on the same familiar
terms as heretofore. The consequence was, the duke, who was unaware of
the real cause of his disgrace, conceived a strong dislike for the queen,
who on her part retaliated by saying many spiteful things respecting him.
Dislike grew into hatred, and hatred grew bitter and more bitter, until
at last the duke pursued Marie-Antoinette with a relentless vengeance
that was positively diabolic, and which only terminated with her life.
Dissolute, gouty old De Maurepas, prime minister, and all his kin, and
more particularly his nephew, the Duke d’Aiguillon, a former creature
of the Dubarry’s, and now a creature of the Duke d’Orléans, and whose
disgrace at court had been brought about by the queen’s influence,
were arrayed against her on account of the persistent exertions she
made to get her favourite, De Choiseul—whom Catherine of Russia used
to style the coachman of Europe, as when in power he directed all the
cabinets—appointed prime minister in De Maurepas’ stead. M. de Vergennes
too, whose handsome Greek wife the queen would not consent to receive,
cherished a steady hatred of her—all the more dangerous because it was
concealed—and even wrote regular reports respecting her to Louis XVI,
which the king kept secret, and which only came to light on the discovery
of the famous “_armoire de fer_” in the wall of the royal closet in the
Tuileries, a few months before the king’s death.