TURIN AND VIENNA
A QUEEN WHO REFUSED TO BE PAINTED -- A FOUR-COURSE DINNER OF
FROGS, FROGS, FROGS AND FROGS -- VILLEGGIATURA -- FRENCH REFUGEES
AT TURIN -- THEIR HEARTRENDING PLIGHT -- VIENNA -- NEWS OF THE
"AWFUL MURDER" OF LOUIS XVI. AND MARIE ANTOINETTE -- BAREFOOT
PRINCESS LICHTENSTEIN -- INDUCEMENTS TO VISIT RUSSIA -- JOURNEY
THITHER VIA DRESDEN -- THE SISTINE MADONNA.
Meanwhile, it being my desire to see France again, I reached Turin
with this end in view. The two aunts of Louis XVI. had been kind
enough to give me letters to Clotilda, Queen of Sardinia, their niece.
They sent word that they very much wished to have a portrait done by
me, and consequently, as soon as I was settled, I presented myself
before Her Majesty. She received me very well after reading the
letters of Princess Adelaide and Princess Victoria. She told me that
she regretted having to refuse her aunts, but that, having renounced
the world altogether, she must decline being painted. What I saw
indeed seemed quite in accord with her statement and her resolve. The
Queen of Sardinia had her hair cut short and wore on her head a little
cap, which, like the rest of her garb, was the simplest conceivable.
Her leanness struck me particularly, as I had seen her when she was
very young, before her marriage, when her stoutness was so pronounced
that she was called "Fat Milady" in France. Be it that this change
was caused by too austere religious practices, or by the sufferings
which the misfortunes of her family had made her undergo, the fact was
that she had altered beyond recognition. The King joined her in the
room where she received me. He was likewise so pale and thin that it
was painful to look at them together.
I lost no time in going to see Madame, the wife of Louis XVIII. She
not only accorded me a warm welcome, but arranged picturesque drives
for me in the neighbourhood of Turin, which I took with her
lady-in-waiting, Mme. de Gourbillon, and her son. Said surroundings
are very beautiful, but our first expedition was not very auspicious.
We set out in the heat of the day to visit a monastery situated high
up on a mountain. As the mountain was very steep, we were obliged to
get out of the carriage when we had gone half way and then climb on
foot. I remember passing a spring of the clearest water, whose drops
sparkled like diamonds, and which peasants declared to be a cure for
sundry diseases. After climbing so long that we were exhausted, we at
length arrived at the monastery dying with heat and hunger. The table
was already laid for the monks and for travellers, which filled us
with joy, since it may be imagined how impatient we were for dinner.
As there was some delay, we thought that something special was being
done for us, seeing that Madame had recommended us to the monks in a
letter she had given us addressed to them. At last a dish of frogs'
breasts was served, which I took for a chicken stew. But as soon as I
tasted it I found it impossible to eat another morsel, hungry as I
was. Then three other dishes were brought on, boiled, fried and
grilled, and I set great hopes on each in turn. Alas! they were only
frogs again! So we ate nothing but dry bread, and drank water, these
monks never drinking nor offering wine. My heart's desire was then an
omelet--but there were no eggs in the house.
After my visit to the monastery I met Porporati, who wanted me to live
with him. He proposed occupying a farm he owned two miles from Turin,
where he had some plain but comfortable rooms. I gladly accepted this
offer, as I hated living in town, and at once went to establish myself
with my daughter and her governess in this retreat. The farm stood in
the open country, surrounded with fields, and little streams edged by
trees high enough to form delightful bowers. From morning till night I
took rapturous walks in these enchanting solitudes. My child enjoyed
the pure air as much as I did the quiet, peaceful life that we led.
Alas! it was in this peaceful place, while I was in such a happy state
of mind, that I was struck a most cruel blow. The cart which brought
our letters having come one evening, the carter handed me one from my
friend M. de Riviere, my sister-in-law's brother, who apprised me of
the dreadful events of the 10th of August and supplied me with some
horrible details. I was quite overcome, and made up my mind to go back
to Turin immediately.
On entering the town, great heavens! what did I behold! Streets,
squares, were all filled with men and women of all ages who had fled
from French towns and come to Turin in search of a home. They were
coming in by thousands, and the sight broke my heart. Most of them
brought neither baggage, nor money, nor even food, for they had had no
time to do anything but think of saving their lives. Since then the
case has been cited to me of the aged Duchess de Villeroi, whose
lady's maid, possessing a small sum of money, kept her alive on the
way by a daily expenditure of ten sous. The children were crying with
hunger in lamentable fashion. In fact, I never saw anything more
pitiful. The King of Sardinia ordered these unfortunates to be housed
and fed, but there was not room for all. Madame also did much to
succour them; we went all over the town, accompanied by her equerry,
seeking lodgings and victuals for the poor wretches, without being
able to find as many of either as were wanted.
[Illustration: MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE.]
Never shall I forget the impression made upon me by an old soldier,
decorated with the cross of St. Louis, who might have been about
sixty-five years old. He was a fine man with a noble mien, supporting
himself against the curbstone at the corner of a lonely street; he
accosted nobody and asked for nothing; I believe he would rather have
died of hunger than beg, but the profound unhappiness imprinted on his
face compelled interest at first sight. We went straight to him,
giving him a little money that remained to us, and he thanked us with
sobs in his throat. The next day he was lodged in the King's palace,
as several other refugees were, for there was no more room in the
town.
It may well be imagined that I abandoned the plan of going to Paris. I
decided to leave for Vienna instead.
Vienna is of considerable extent, if you count its thirty-two suburbs.
It is full of very fine palaces. The Imperial Museum boasts pictures
by the greatest masters, and I often went to admire them, as well as
those belonging to Prince Lichtenstein. His gallery comprises seven
rooms, of which one contains only pictures by Van Dyck and the others
some fine Titians, Caravaggios, Rubens, Canalettos, and so on. There
are also several masterpieces by the last-named painter in the
Imperial Museum.
It has been said with truth that the Prater is one of the best
promenades in existence. It is a long, magnificent avenue in which
large numbers of elegant carriages drive up and down, and which is
lined on either side by sitting spectators, just as in the great
avenue of the Tuileries. But what renders the Prater more pleasant
and more picturesque is that the avenue leads to a wood, which is not
very thick, and full of deer so tame that one can approach them
without frightening them. There is another promenade on the bank of
the Danube, where every Sunday various companies of the middle classes
meet together to eat fried chicken. The park of Schoenbrunn is also
well frequented, especially on Sundays. Its broad avenues, and the
pretty resting places on the heights at the end of the park, make it
very pleasant for walking in.
In Vienna I went to several balls, especially to those given by the
Russian Ambassador, Count Rasomovski. They danced the waltz there with
such fury that I could not imagine how all these people, spinning
round at such a rate, did not fall down from giddiness; but men and
women were so accustomed to this violent exercise that they never
rested a single moment while a ball lasted. The "polonaise" was often
danced, too, and was much less fatiguing, for this dance is nothing
more than a procession in which you quietly walk two by two. It suits
pretty women to perfection, as there is time to look their faces and
figures all over.
I also wanted to see a great court ball. I was invited to one. The
Emperor Francis II. had taken for his second wife Maria Theresa of the
two Sicilies, daughter to the Queen of Naples. I had painted this
Princess in 1792, but I found her so changed on meeting her at this
ball that I had difficulty in recognising her. Her nose had
lengthened, and her cheeks had sunk so much that she resembled her
father. I was sorry for her sake that she had not kept her mother's
features, who reminded me strongly of our charming Queen of France.
A person whose friendship I had great pleasure in renewing at Vienna
was the Countess de Brionne, Princess de Lorraine. She had been most
kind to me in my early youth, and I resumed the agreeable habit of
supping at her house, where I often met the valiant Prince Nassau, so
formidable in a fight, so gentle and modest in a _salon_.
I also made frequent visits at the house of the Countess de Rombec,
sister of Count Cobentzel. The Countess de Rombec gathered about her
the most distinguished society of Vienna. It was under her roof that I
saw Prince Metternich and his son, who has since become prime
minister, and who was then nothing but a very handsome young man. I
there met again the amiable Prince de Ligne; he told us about the
delightful journey he had made in the Crimea with the Empress
Catherine II., and inspired me with a wish to see that great ruler. In
the same house I encountered the Duchess de Guiche, whose lovely face
had not changed in the least. Her mother, the Duchess de Polignac,
lived permanently at a place near Vienna. It was there that she heard
of the death of Louis XVI., which affected her health very seriously,
but when she heard the dreadful news of the Queen's death she
succumbed altogether. Her grief changed her to such an extent that her
pretty face became unrecognisable, and every one foresaw that she had
not much longer to live. She did, in fact, die in a little while,
leaving her family and some friends who would not leave her
disconsolate at their loss.
I can judge how terrible that which had happened in France must have
been to her by the sorrow I experienced myself. I learned nothing from
the newspapers, for I had read them no more since the day when, having
opened one at Mme. de Rombec's, I had found the names of nine persons
of my acquaintance who had been guillotined. People even took care to
hide all political pamphlets from me. I thus heard of the horrible
occurrence through my brother, who wrote it down and sent the letter
without giving any further particulars whatever. His heart broken, he
simply wrote that Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette had perished on the
scaffold. Afterward, from compassion toward myself, I always abstained
from putting the least question concerning what accompanied or
preceded that awful murder, so that I should have known nothing about
it to this very day had it not been for a certain fact to which I may
possibly refer in the future.
As soon as spring came I took a little house in a village near Vienna
and went to settle there. This village, called Huitzing, was adjacent
to the park of Schoenbrunn. I took with me to Huitzing the large
portrait I was then doing of the Princess Lichtenstein, to finish it.
This young Princess was very well built; her pretty face had a sweet,
angelic expression, which gave me the idea of representing her as
Iris. I painted her standing, as if about to fly into the air. She had
about her a fluttering, rainbow-coloured scarf. Of course I painted
her with naked feet, but when the picture was hung in her husband's
gallery the heads of the family were greatly scandalised at seeing the
Princess exhibited without shoes, and the Prince told me that he had
had a pair of nice, little slippers placed under the portrait, which
slippers, so he had informed the grandparents, had slipped off her
feet and fallen on the ground.
At Vienna I was as happy as any one possibly could be away from her
kin and country. In the winter the city offered one of the most
agreeable and brilliant societies of Europe, and when the fine weather
returned I delightedly sought my little country retreat. Not thinking
of leaving Austria before I could safely return to France, the Russian
Ambassador and some of his compatriots urged me strongly to go to St.
Petersburg, where, they assured me, the Empress would be pleased to
see me. Everything that the Prince de Ligne had told me about
Catherine II. inspired me with an irrepressible desire to get a
glance at that potentate. Moreover I reasoned correctly that even a
short stay in Russia would complete the fortune I had decided to make
before resuming residence in Paris. So I made up my mind to go.
[Illustration: QUEEN MARIE ANTOINETTE.]
After a sojourn at Vienna of two years and a half, I left that place
in April of the year 1795 for Prague. I then passed on to Budweis,
whose surroundings are most engaging. The town is deserted, the
fortifications are in ruins; there are only old men and some women and
children to be met with--and not many of those. Finally we reached
Dresden by a very narrow road skirting the Elbe at a great height, the
river flowing through a broad valley. The very day after my arrival I
visited the famous Dresden gallery, unexcelled in the world. Its
masterpieces are so well known that I render no special account. I
will only observe that here, as everywhere else, one recognises how
far Raphael stands above all other painters. I had inspected several
rooms of the gallery, when I found myself before a picture which
filled me with an admiration greater than anything else in the art of
painting could have evoked. It represents the Virgin, standing on some
clouds and holding the infant Jesus in her arms. This figure is of a
beauty and a nobility worthy of the divine brush that traced it; the
face of the child bears an expression at once innocent and heavenly;
the draperies are most accurately drawn, and their colouring is
exquisite. At the right of the Virgin is a saint done with admirable
fidelity to life, his two hands being especially to be noted. At the
left is a young saint, with head inclined, looking at two angels at
the bottom of the picture. Her face is all loveliness, truth and
modesty. The two little angels are leaning on their hands, their eyes
raised to the persons above them, and their heads are done with an
ingenuity and a delicacy not to be conveyed in words.
Being in great haste to get to St. Petersburg, I went from Dresden to
Berlin, where I only remained five days, my project being to return
thither and make a longer stay on my way back from Russia, for the
purpose of seeing Prussia's charming Queen.