The palace of Marly is no more. It was built by Mansard for Louis XIV,
and was architecturally a little pretentious, and very ugly. Louis,
finding the great Versailles he had created too splendid a world, built
Trianon as a refuge from it; but the world flowed towards Trianon,
and then he fled to Marly; not that he hated the world and its pomp,
but that every man, even a Grand Monarque, loves to snatch a moment
or two of tranquillity, and shake off his starched ruffles and stiff
court-dress, that he may stretch his limbs at ease, forget politics,
even forget pleasure, and do nothing and think of nothing. Marly was
to be the sans souci of French royalty; but care was not to be evaded,
it pursued the great Monarch there, and there also it fastened on the
little king.
St. Simon relates that in the construction of Marly, whole forests
of full-grown trees were brought from Compiègne, and that as they
died, they were replaced by others; extensive tracts of copse were
converted into lakes and ponds, and then, at the caprice of the king,
were reconverted into shady groves, and all to adorn a small villa in
a contracted valley, in which Louis might pass a week or fortnight in
the course of the year.
To Marly, Louis XVI had been hurried by the queen, that, in its
comparative quiet and retirement, she might be able to mould him to her
will, or rather to the will of that party whose interests she had at
heart.
Much cruel slander has been cast upon the memory of the unfortunate
queen; her moral character has been defamed, her virtues called in
question. This has been as unjust as it is untrue. Marie Antoinette
was a good wife and a good mother. Her fidelity to her husband and
her affection for her children should never have been doubted. The
hatred which she inspired caused every evil to be believed of her, and
those, whose interest it was to stir up disaffection, were not slack in
spreading calumnious reports, which everyone retailed and some believed.
Louis, amiable, simple and weak, mistrusting his own opinion, was a
puppet in her hands. He loved his wife passionately, and trusted her
implicitly.
She, loving pleasure above all things, cared only to be the most
brilliant centre of a brilliant circle. She wanted the treasury
to be full, that she might lavish gifts on her friends, and live
extravagantly herself.
Sometimes she acquiesced in reforms, when they appeared inevitable;
more often, when she thought the royal authority was menaced, she
restrained the king, and drove away the popular ministers.
The queen was walking on the terrace at Marly, with her inseparable
friend, the Princess de Lamballe, a little fair-haired, soft-eyed,
pretty creature, and Madame Elizabeth, the sister of the king, who had
left her charming villa at Montreuil to assist the queen in turning
Louis from the Liberal party towards that of the Court.
Madame Elizabeth was a noble woman, with a firm lip and eye, very like
her brother, but with a refinement and a determination foreign to his
face. None doubted the purity of her intentions, and her devotion to
what she believed to be the right cause, though, unfortunately, she was
mistaken in her appreciation of events.
Afterwards, when the king and queen were in peril, and all their
friends took refuge in voluntary exile from probable death, she
hesitated for a moment whether to follow her aunts or to remain with
the prisoners.
'What! will you desert us?' asked the queen. Elizabeth instantly
resolved on sharing their fate; and on the 9th May, 1794, her head fell
on the scaffold.
'There is my little flower-girl,' said the queen, as Madeleine Chabry
appeared with her basket of roses, and Gabrielle near her; 'but do
look, sister, at the funny little peasantess at her side!'
'She is a Normande, your majesty,' said Mademoiselle de Lamballe; 'I
know the cap well enough.'
'It is picturesque,' observed the queen; 'I should like to examine it
closer. Suppose I were to adopt it, and set the fashion?'
The hint was sufficient. Marie Thérèse de Lamballe ran towards the
girls, and bade them approach the queen.
Poor little Gabrielle was bewildered by what she saw. On entering
the park, her eyes had wandered down the alleys to the fountains
and statues terminating them; but when she stood on the terrace and
looked down the twelve avenues, each leading to a temple of one of the
zodiacal signs, which Mansard had designed in compliment to Louis XIV,
who was the central sun in his shrine of Marly, she held up her hands
and laughed with delight.
'Hush!' said Madeleine; 'there is the queen.'
'But where is her crown?'
'Oh! she forgot it and left it under her pillow, when she woke this
morning.'
Gabrielle folded her hands and stood still, with her large eyes staring.
'See!' exclaimed Madeleine; 'she is sending for us.'
'Her majesty desires you to wait on her,' said the Princess de
Lamballe; 'bring your flowers, Madeleine, and let the little Norman
girl accompany you. What is her name?'
'Mademoiselle,' said the girl Chabry; 'my cousin is called Françoise
Rolin.'
Gabrielle looked round at Madeleine with surprise, but the queen's
flower-girl repeated, fixing her eye steadily on her, 'Françoise Rolin.'
'Well, follow me, my girls,' said the princess.
When they stood before the queen, Madeleine bent, as she was
accustomed; but Gabrielle, unacquainted with etiquette, looked
earnestly in the face of Marie Antoinette.
The queen smiled. The expression of the young countenance was one of
simple admiration.
'Oh! how beautiful you are, madame!' escaped involuntarily from the
lips of the peasantess.
The queen was pleased; a little colour rose to her cheek, and she held
out her hand, which Gabrielle kissed reverently.
'It is not polite to flatter any person to her face,' said Marie
Antoinette; 'but, as you have broken rule, I must follow suit, and
assure you that you have a charming little face. What is your name,
mignonne?'
'Her name, if it please your majesty, is Françoise Rolin,' answered
Madeleine.
The queen turned to her and said, sharply, 'When I speak to you, answer
me. I addressed my question to this child. Is she any relation of
yours?'
'Your majesty, she is my cousin.'
'And where do you live, mignonne?' she asked of Gabrielle.
'Madame, at Bernay.'
'Bernay,' echoed the queen; 'where is that?'
'Madame, it is in Normandy.'
'Ah! you are a brave Norman, then?'
'Yes, madame.'
'How long have you been in Paris?'
'Madame, ever since the end of April.'
'Alas!' said Marie Antoinette, with a sigh; 'you little bird of
ill-omen, you came fluttering towards the capital to announce the
coming on of care and worry. Who knows but you may have come here
to Marly to give omen of more care and more worry, and perhaps of
disaster?'
'No, dear, beautiful queen!' cried Gabrielle, looking full in her eyes;
'I should cry my eyes out if I thought so.'
'Why do you call me "dear?"' asked Marie Antoinette, with an accent of
sadness; 'your people do not generally express much affection for me.'
'My people!'
'Well, well; I mean the people,--the mob, the lower orders.'
Gabrielle remained silent.
'What brought you to Paris?' again asked the queen; 'have you come like
little David, in the naughtiness of your heart, to see the battle?'
'Madame!'
'I asked you a simple question,' said the queen, petulantly.
'Her majesty asked you why you left Normandy and came to Paris,' said
Marie Thérèse de Lamballe.
Gabrielle fell at the queen's feet.
'Dear, beautiful madame!' she cried, raising her hands and her eyes,
which filled instantly with tears; 'I came to see you.'
The queen surprised, and by no means offended, looked at her with
benevolence; this encouraged Gabrielle, who pursued,--'Madame! I had a
dear mistress, one so kind, so good, and so gentle; she loved me, and I
loved her. I was not long with her, but that was quite long enough for
her to have gained my heart; and then, madame, she had no one else to
love, except yellow Gabriel.'
'Yellow what!' exclaimed the queen.
'Her cat, madame,--she had dyed it saffron; and she was passionately
attached to it. Then, poor thing, she had nothing else to love,--no
little child to hug, no sisters to confide to, her mother dead, and her
father so cold and hard and dreadful.'
'Why, what was there dreadful about him? Jump up, don't kneel there.'
'Please let me remain here, dear, good queen; I used to kneel before
my dear mistress and talk to her, and she would console me in my
dreadful troubles.'
'Were your troubles very bad?'
'Oh, madame!' she said, wringing her hands; 'my poor father!'
'What of him?'
'Madame, he hung himself.'
The queen recoiled, shocked and pained. With tenderness, she stooped
over the girl, and said, 'I am sorry to have distressed you by asking
that question; go on with your story about the mistress. What was she
like?'
'Madame, do you mean in disposition or in appearance?'
'You have told me that she was good and kind; was she old or young,
handsome or plain?'
'Oh, madame, she was like lead.'
'What do you mean, Françoise, my girl?'
'Her face was like lead,--the colour of lead, blue-grey.'
'My God! how dreadful.'
'And that was why her husband hated her, and teased her beyond
endurance. Besides, he was a bad,--oh! such a wicked man.'
'Where is the poor lady now?' asked the queen.
'In the Bastille.'
The queen started, and Madame Elizabeth and the Princess de Lamballe
looked at one another. A cold shadow passed over the queen's face.
'Well,' she said, in an altered voice; 'what do you want now?'
'I want to get her out of that horrible prison.'
'Indeed!'
'Yes, madame, with your kind help.'
'Do not count on that.'
'But, madame, when you know all the circumstances.'
'Tell me the lady's name.'
'She is Madame Berthier de Sauvigny, wife of the Intendant of Paris.'
'Oh, indeed!'
'Come here, little girl,' said Madame Elizabeth, stepping forward;
'come with me apart and tell me the whole story, and I will talk to her
majesty about it.'
'Do go, Elizabeth,' the queen said; 'but give her no hopes. Now,
Madeleine, let me see your bouquets.'
Whilst the queen was selecting a bunch of flowers which pleased her,
Monseigneur de Narbonne approached from the house, and stood at a
little distance, after having made a formal bow.
'Ah, monseigneur,' said the queen; 'do come here and choose me a
bouquet. We want your opinion on their respective merits. I like this
one, and Mademoiselle de Lamballe prefers that.'
'Whichever your majesty prefers is sure to be the most beautiful,' said
the bishop, placing his hand on his breast and bending.
'No compliments!' exclaimed Marie Antoinette; 'I have had several paid
me already by an untutored mouth,' and she nodded towards Gabrielle.
'I have a few remarks I desire to make to your majesty,' said the
bishop, with another bow; 'if your majesty will allow me to make them
in private?'
'Mademoiselle de Lamballe can be no hindrance to your speaking, my
lord,' said the queen; 'you have some news from Versailles.'
'I have,' answered the bishop.
'Good or bad? but,' added Marie Antoinette, shaking her beautiful head,
'of course bad.'
'Very bad; indeed, most serious,' said the prelate.
'And my influence with the king is wanted?'
'My royal mistress, unless that influence which your virtue and your
charms unite to make irresistible, be exerted to the uttermost,
everything will be lost.'
'What is the news, then?' she asked, somewhat impatiently, for the
fulsome flattery of the bishop was too much even for her to endure.
'I have just received news by special messenger from the cardinal, that
the clergy are resolved on uniting with the Commons. He says----'
the bishop drew a letter from his pocket; 'he says:--"I will do the
best I can to protract the business, so as to postpone the vote till
to-morrow, but I have no hope of putting it off later. The Abbé Maury
is speaking against time, and that demagogue Lindet, your Évreux man,
is branching off into all kinds of irrelevant subjects; but I insist,
the union will be voted by a majority; I leave it to you to communicate
with her majesty and consider whether a bold stroke of policy is not
the only resource left us. The Archbishop of Paris and I shall post to
Marly the moment we are released." Such is his message; and I venture
to express my humble opinion that it contains a warning of the most
serious description.'
'And if the union does take place?' said the queen, stamping her foot
on the gravel, and plucking at a rose in the bouquet she had selected.
'If the union takes place, everything goes. Remember, M. Necker
persuaded his majesty to consent to the doubling of the Third Estate.
Therefore, the Commons will have a majority over the two other orders;
and remember that, once united with the Commons, more than half the
clergy will oppose all privileges and break down all rights, so that
the last check is removed from the Assembly, which seems to me to be
whirling down-hill into sheer democracy as fast as it can go.'
'Go on,' said the queen, pouting.
'The fault lay with M. Necker at the first, in giving to the Commons a
double representation.'
'I always thought so,' exclaimed Marie Antoinette.
'An immense importance and preponderance was given to the lowest house,
to those who had nothing to lose and much to gain by a revolution.
The popular will, which first insisted on a convocation of the
States-General, which then demanded a doubling of the representation
of the mob,--the nobodies, clamours now for the union of the orders.
The largest body always attracts the smaller ones to it. Now that the
equipoise is disturbed, there is of necessity a gravitation towards the
compact mass of the Tiers. That house which feels it most is the house
of the Clergy, the majority of the members of which are bound up in
interest rather with the people than with the aristocracy. The wound
opened on the first day of session, and the cardinal had much ado to
hold the lips together. Now, healing it is impossible. What course lies
open? One only, if the crown and the coronet are not to be trampled
under foot by the Assembly.'
'You exaggerate, monseigneur.'
'I hope sincerely that I do, your majesty; but believe me, I am
sincere. Judge, I pray you, for yourself. At present, the king is
supported by the great body of the nobles, and by the heads of the
Church, who are ready to resist any encroachment on his prerogative;
but if you allow this breakwater to be blown into the air, the waves of
popular opinion will be allowed to burst over the throne with nothing
to protect it from violence and to preserve it from wreck. Excuse my
vehemence, I speak strongly because I feel strongly. The bough on which
you are seated is being sawn through. Necker supplied the saw when he
called together the States. Does your majesty ask what is to be done?
One thing alone can be done,--insist on the separation of the orders.'
The queen looked down on the gravel and mused. The bishop continued:
'War has now been declared. M. Necker has allowed the orders to try
their arms, and now they have proclaimed war and no quarter. He has
temporised, he has left the orders to themselves, and by so doing, he
has assured the victory to the strongest. I believe he has, throughout,
determined that the Third Estate should conquer the others. How else
explain his silence on the subject of the separation or union of the
houses? His attitude has been one of indecision, and that indecision
has been taken advantage of as, I think, he intended. The nobility have
declared in their house that the separation of orders is a fundamental
principle of the constitution. They have refused to give their pure
and simple adhesion to the conciliatory plan proposed by his majesty.
On the other hand, the Third Estate has taken a decisive line; it
has constituted itself a National Assembly, has summoned the other
orders to attend, and has proclaimed itself the sole representative
of the French nation. It is a double declaration of war. Each party
has taken up a position. The time for arbitration is past, utterly and
irrevocably past.'
'I see,' said the queen, sharply, raising her head, and showing a face
crimson with anger. 'You would have the king not arbitrate, but give in
his adhesion to one side or the other.'
'Your majesty has understood me. He _must_ do that; he cannot hesitate;
he must choose his side, with the people or with the nobles. He must
yield at once and become nothing, or he must strike a _coup d'état_ and
make himself master of the field.'
'Yes,' said the queen, vehemently; 'I am satisfied, it must be so.'
'It is probable that a bold stroke may establish the position of the
throne, which has been somewhat shaken.'
'It shall be done,' the queen said, passionately; 'never, never
shall it be said of Louis XVI that he flung his crown into the dirt.
In a weak moment he yielded to that banking fellow Necker, and he
surrendered a part of his supreme, absolute authority to a convocation
of the people, and already has he learned to rue it. Well says the
Gospel, "give not that which is holy to the dogs;" and what more holy
than the royal prerogative,--"lest they trample them under their feet
and turn again and rend you."' Marie Antoinette was thoroughly roused,
her pride was stung; she walked up and down the terrace with heaving
bosom, flushed face, and sparkling eye, turning every moment to the
bishop to utter some caustic remark.
'When Mob is king, my Lord, what will become of us, the anointed of
God? We shall have to fly the country, and who will take us in?'
'If such a dire event were to happen,' answered the prelate,
obsequiously, 'our ancestral castle of Lara should be at your majesty's
disposal.'
If the bishop had seen the expression of contempt which came over the
queen's face at his absurd remark, he would have instantly withdrawn.
He saw her turn abruptly from him and converse with her friend, but he
was too self-sufficient to suppose for a moment that he had offended
her.
Madame Elizabeth came up, leading Gabrielle by the hand.
'I cannot attend to her story now,' said the queen.
'But it really is touching, and it may interest you,' said the sister
of Louis; 'do let her tell it to you in full,--it is quite a romance.'
The queen tossed her head. Madame Elizabeth saw that something was
wrong, but what it was she did not know.
'Berthier!' said the queen; 'the wife of Berthier in the Bastille,
that is it. Monseigneur,' her lips curled; 'this little idiot has come
from--what was the name of the place?'
'Bernay,' answered Elizabeth.
'Has come all the way from Bernay; and what do you think is her object?
She has read the fable of the mouse and the netted lion, and she thinks
she can get the wife of the Intendant of Paris out of the Bastille.'
'I venture to suggest that she should be driven out of your majesty's
presence,' said the bishop; 'this is too audacious, too insolent to be
tolerated. We are beginning to discover that the people are utterly
lost to the sense of decency and modesty. Let her be turned out.'
'Not if I choose to listen to her history,' answered the queen,
sharply, glad to cross her chaplain, whom she despised, whilst she
sought to retain him about her.
'By all means,' said De Narbonne; 'but if your majesty will condescend
to allow me to make a remark,--I am well, I may say very well,
acquainted with M. Berthier, and his most amiable father M. Foulon,
Bernay being in my diocese, and my desire ever being to make myself
acquainted with all the influential laity in it. I have seen much of
those two most estimable gentlemen, and I appreciate their urbanity of
manner equally with their moral excellence.'
'That is rather a different account from what we have received from
this girl,' said the queen; 'perhaps you are inclined to take too
favourable a view of their conduct. What about Madame Berthier? Do you
know her?'
'I cannot say that I know more of her than this, that she is a maniac,
and as such is obliged to be kept in custody. Berthier himself told me
once that she assaulted him with a knife.'
'Madame and Monsieur!' exclaimed Gabrielle; 'you do not know the reason
of that. I was there when that took place; she defended me.'
'Defended you!' echoed the queen; 'who did she defend you from?'
Gabrielle became crimson; she hung her head and whispered, 'from her
husband.'
'This is insufferable,' said the bishop; 'Berthier is my friend, and
I will answer for his conduct. If your majesty were to listen to all
the slanders that are cast against their betters and superiors by the
rag-tag of the lower orders, you would become a revolutionist.'
'Monsieur! Madame!' pleaded Gabrielle; 'ask Madame Berthier herself if
it be not true; ask M. le Curé Lindet!'
'What!' the bishop turned upon her savagely, whilst his red face became
purple,--'what about _him_?'
'Monsieur le Curé received me into his house when I ran away; he knows
all about me, and about the truth of what I say.'
'Enough, amply enough to satisfy me,' said the prelate, in a loud
voice, as he scowled upon the frightened girl; 'I know you now. Go
from this terrace instantly!' He turned towards the queen, composed
his face, and said, as calmly as he could, 'Your majesty must really
not see any more of that unfortunate girl. On her account, I have had
to inhibit one of the priests in my diocese,--the very priest, by the
way, of whom the Cardinal de la Rochefoucauld speaks in his letter as
a demagogue,--a priest elected by the malcontents to represent them in
the States-General,--a man without principle and without morals,--a
turbulent leveller, and a violent democrat.'
'Good, dear queen!' cried Gabrielle, casting herself once more at the
feet of the royal lady; 'do not believe him, listen to me! Pray obtain
the release of my dear mistress from the Bastille!'
Marie Antoinette looked at her for one moment with coldness and with
disgust, then turned her back upon her and walked away.
Madeleine waited till the queen and her party had passed to the farther
end of the terrace, and then running to Gabrielle, she caught her up
in her arms, kissed her, and drew her away. 'You have tried your best
in one quarter,' she said; 'do not despair, if that be closed to you.
Another may open ere long. You have appealed in vain to the majesty
of royalty; let your next appeal be to the majesty of the people, and
that, I promise you, shall not be in vain.'