MARIE ANTOINETTE AND COURT ETIQUETTE.
"Letters from France, your majesty," said Kaunitz, and the face of the
empress grew bright as she recognized the handwriting of her daughter.
"The dauphiness is well?" said she. "Next to her dear self, I love to
see her writing. Ah, I have grown very lonely since my little Antoinette
has left me! One by one my children go; one dear face alone remains,"
continued she, pointing to the portrait of the emperor. Then looking at
the letters in the hands of the prince, she said:
"Have you good news?"
"Yes, your majesty. The dauphiness is adored by the French people. They
repeat her bon mots, write odes and madrigals to her beauty, and hang up
her portrait in their houses. When she drives out in her caleche they
impede its progress with their welcomes; and when she appears at the
theatre, the prima donnas are forgotten. Half a year ago, when she made
her entry into Paris and more than a hundred thousand people went out to
meet her, the Duke de Brissac said, 'Madame, you have one hundred
thousand lovers, and yet the dauphin will never be jealous of them.'
[Footnote: "Memoirs of Madame de Campan," vol. i., p. 60.] The dear old
Duke! He little knew what literal truth he spoke of the dauphin on that
occasion."
"What do you mean?" asked the empress, hastily. "I know by the
expression of your face that you have something unpleasant to tell."
"I mean to say the dauphin is not jealous, because he is the only man in
France who is not in love with the dauphiness."
The empress turned scarlet. "This is a serious charge which you presume
to make against the dauphin," said she, frowning.
"It is unhappily true," replied Kaunitz, coolly,
"The dauphiness makes no mention of such a state of things in her letter.
It does not breathe a word of complaint."
"Perhaps the dauphiness, in the innocence of her heart, has no idea of
the grounds which she has for complaint."
The empress looked displeased. "Do you know that your language is
offensive?" said she. "You assert that the dauphin is insensible to the
charms of his beautiful young wife."
"Your majesty well knows that I never assert a falsehood. The dauphin is
not in love with his wife, and I do not believe that she has an advocate
at the court of Louis XV. Since the shameless partisans of Du Barry have
triumphed over the noble Duke of Choiseul, the dauphiness is without a
friend. The Duke d'Arguillon is anti-Austrian, and your majesty knows
what an enemy to Austria was the father of the dauphin."
"Why do you seek to torture me, Kaunitz?" said the empress, impatiently.
"You are not telling me all this for nothing. Say at once what you have
to say."
"Your majesty has not yet read the letter which I had the honor of
handing to you just now, I believe," said Kaunitz.
Maria Theresa took up the letter from the gueridon on which she had
laid it, and began to look it over.
"It is true," sighed she. "The dauphiness complains of solitude. 'Since
the Duke de Choiseul has left,' writes she, 'I am alone, and without a
friend.' You are right. The dauphiness is in danger. She writes that her
enemies are intriguing to part her from the dauphin. They attempted in
Fontainebleau to assign her a suite of apartments remote from those of
her husband."
"Yes, the anti-Austrian party, seeing that he is indifferent to her, are
doing their best to convert this indifference into dislike. But the
dauphiness saw through the affair, and complained to the king."
"That was right and bold!" cried the empress, joyfully.
"Yes, it was bold, for it gained another enemy for the dauphiness. She
should have spoken to the king through the Duke d'Arguillon, instead of
which she applied to his majesty herself. The duke will never forgive
her; and when the Duchess de Noailles reproved the dauphiness, she
replied that she would never take counsel of etiquette where her family
affairs were concerned. The consequence is that the duchess also has
gone over to the enemy."
"To the enemy?" exclaimed the empress, anxiously. "Has she, then, other
enemies?"
"Madame de Marsan, the governess of the sisters of the dauphin, will
never forgive her for having interfered in the education of the young
princesses."
"But surely the daughters of the king will be kind to my poor Marie
Antoinette!" exclaimed the empress, ready to burst into tears. "They
promised to love her; and it is but natural and womanly that they should
shun the party which upholds the profligate woman who rules the King of
France!"
Prince Kaunitz slightly elevated his shoulders. "Madame Adelaide, the
eldest, until the marriage of the dauphin, held the first place at
court. Now, the daupbiness has precedence of her, and the court
card-parties are held in her apartments. Madaine Adelaide, therefore,
has refused to be present, and retires to her own rooms, where she holds
rival card-parties which are attended by the anti-Austrians, who are
opposed to Du Barry. This is the second party who intrigue against the
dauphiness.--Madame Sophie perchance remembers her in her prayers; but
she is too pious to be of use to anybody. Madame Victoire, who really
loves the dauphiness, is so sickly, that she scarcely ever leaves her
room. For a while she held little reunions there, which, being very
pleasant, were for a while attended by the dauphiness; but Madame de
Noailles objected, and court etiquette required that they should be
discontinued."
The empress had risen and was acing the floor in great agitation. "So
young, so lovely, and slighted by her husband!" murmured she, bitterly,
while large tear-drops stood in her eyes. "The daughter of the Caesars
in strife with a king's base-born mistress and a vile faction who hate
her without cause! And I--her mother --an empress, am powerless to help
her!"
"No, your majesty," said Kaunitz, "not altogether powerless. You cannot
help her with armies, but you can do so with good advice, and no one can
advise her as effectually as her mother."
"Advise her? What advice can I give?" cried the empress, angrily. "Shall
I counsel her to attend the petits soupers of the king, and truckle to
his mistress? Never! never! My daughter may be unhappy, but she shall
not be dishonored!"
"I should not presume to make any such proposition to the dauphiness,"
said Kaunitz, quietly. "One cannot condescend to Du Barry as we did to La
Pompadour. The latter was at least a woman of mind, the former is
nothing more than a vulgar beauty. But there is another lady whose
influence at court is without limit--one whom Du Barry contemns, but
whom the dauphiness would do well to conciliate."
"Of what lady do you speak, Kaunitz?"
"I speak of Madame Etiquette, your majesty. She is a stiff and tiresome
old dame, I grant you, but in France she presides over every thing.
Without her the royal family can neither sleep nor wake; they can
neither take a meal if they be in health, nor a purge if they be
indisposed, without her everlasting surveillance. She directs their
dress, amusements, associates, and behavior; she presides over their
pleasures, their weariness, their social hours, and their hours of
solitude. This may be uncomfortable, but royalty cannot escape it, and
it must he endured."
"It is the business of Madame de Noailles to attend to the requisitions
of court etiquette," said the empress, impatiently. "And of the
dauphiness to attend to her representations," added Kaunitz.
"She will certainly have enough discretion to conform herself to such
obligations!"
"Your majesty, a girl of fifteen who has a hundred thousand lovers is
not apt to be troubled with discretion. The dauphiness is bored to death
by Madame de Noailles's eternal sermons, and therein she may be right.
But she turns the mistress of ceremonies into ridicule, and therein she
is wrong. In an outburst of her vexation the dauphiness one day called
her 'old Madame Etiquette,' and, as the bon mots of a future queen are
apt to be repeated, Madame de Noailles goes by no other name at court.
Again--not long ago the dauphiness gave a party of pleasure at
Versailles. The company were mounted on donkeys."
"On donkeys!" cried the empress with horror.
"On donkeys," repeated Kaunitz, with composure. "The donkey on which the
dauphiness rode was unworthy of the honor conferred upon it. It threw
its royal rider."
"And Antoinette fell off?"
"She fell, your majesty--and fell without exercising any particular
discretion in the matter. The Count d'Artois came forward to her
assistance, but she waved him off, saying with comic earnestness, 'Do
not touch me for your life! Send a courier for Madame Etiquette and wait
until she has prescribed the important ceremonies with which a
dauphiness is to be remounted upon the back of her donkey.' Every one
laughed of course, and the next day when the thing was repeated,
everybody in Paris was heartily amused--except Madame de Noailles. She
did not laugh."
Neither could the empress vouchsafe a smile, although the affair was
ludicrous enough. She was still walking to and fro, her face scarlet
with mortification. She stopped directly in front of her unsympathizing
minister, and said: "You are right. I must warn Antoinette that she is
going too far. Oh, my heart bleeds when I think of my dear,
inexperienced child cast friendless upon the reef, of that dangerous and
corrupt court of France! My God! my God! why did I not heed the warning
I received? Why did I consent to let her go?"
"Because your majesty was too wise to be guided by lunatics and
impostors, and because you recognized, not only the imperative necessity
which placed Marie Antoinette upon the throne of France, but also the
value and the blessing of a close alliance with the French."
"God grant it may prove a blessing!" sighed the empress. "I will write
to-day, and implore her to call to aid all her discretion--for Heaven
knows it is needed at the court of France!"
"It is not an easy thing to call up discretion whenever discretion is
needed," said Kaunitz, thoughtfully. "Has not your majesty, with that
goodness which does so much honor to your heart, gone so far as to
promise help to the quarrelsome Poles?"
"Yes," said the empress, warmly, "and I intend to keep my promise."
"Promises, your majesty, are sometimes made which it is impossible to
keep."
"But I make no such promises, and therefore honor requires that I fulfil
my imperial pledge. Yes, we have promised help and comfort to the
patriotic Confederates, the defenders of liberty and of the true faith,
and God forbid that we should ever deceive those who trust to us for
protection!"
Kaunitz bowed. "Then your majesty will have the goodness to apprise the
emperor that the army must be put upon a war footing; our magazines must
be replenished, and Austria must prepare herself to suffer all the
horrors of a long war."
"A war? With whom?" exclaimed the astounded empress.
"With Russia, Prussia, Sweden, perchance with all Europe. Does your
majesty suppose that the great powers will suffer the establishment of a
republic here, under the protection of Austria?--a republic upon the
body politic of a continent of monarchies, which, like a scirrhous sore,
will spread disease that must end in death to all?"
"Of what republic do you speak?"