The Life of Marie Antoinette

by Charles Duke Yonge

  She threw herself on her bed and fell asleep. At seven she was roused by the executioner. The streets were already thronged with a fierce and sanguinary mob, whose shouts of triumph were so vociferous that she asked one of her jailers whether they would tear her to pieces. She was assured that, as he expressed it, they would do her no harm. And indeed the Jacobins themselves would have protected her from the populace, so anxious were they to heap on her every indignity that would render death more terrible. Louis had been allowed to quit the Temple in his carriage. Marie Antoinette was to be drawn from the prison to the scaffold in a common cart, seated on a bare plank; the executioner by her side, holding the cords with which her hands were already bound. With a refinement of barbarity, those who conducted the procession made it halt more than once, that the people might gaze upon her, pointing her out to the mob with words and gestures of the vilest insult. She heard them not; her thoughts were with God: her lips were uttering nothing but prayers. Once for a moment, as she passed in sight of the Tuileries, she was observed to cast an agonized look toward its towers, remembering, perhaps, how reluctantly she had quit it fourteen months before. It was midday before the cart reached the scaffold. As she descended, she trod on the executioner's foot. It might seem to have been ordained that her very last words might be words of courtesy. "Excuse me, sir," she said, "I did not do it on purpose;" and she added, "make haste." In a few moments all was over.

  Her body was thrown into a pit in the common cemetery, and covered with quicklime to insure its entire destruction. When, more than twenty years afterward, her brother-in-law was restored to the throne, and with pious affection desired to remove her remains and those of her husband to the time-honored resting-place of their royal ancestors at St. Denis, no remains of her who had once been the admiration of all beholders could be found beyond some fragments of clothing, and one or two bones, among which the faithful memory of Chateaubriand believed that he recognized the mouth whose sweet smile had been impressed on his memory since the day on which it acknowledged his loyalty on his first presentation, while still a boy, at Versailles.

  Thus miserably perished, by a death fit only for the vilest of criminals, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of one sovereign, the wife of another, who had never wronged or injured one human being. No one was ever more richly endowed with all the charms which render woman attractive, or with all the virtues that make her admirable. Even in her earliest years, her careless and occasionally undignified levity was but the joyous outpouring of a pure innocence of heart that, as it meant no evil, suspected none; while it was ever blended with a kindness and courtesy which sprung from a genuine benevolence. As queen, though still hardly beyond girlhood when she ascended the throne, she set herself resolutely to work by her admonitions, and still more effectually by her example, to purify a court of which for centuries the most shameless profligacy had been the rule and boast; discountenancing vice and impiety by her marked reprobation, and reserving all her favor and protection for genius and patriotism, and honor and virtue. Surrounded at a later period by unexampled dangers and calamities, she showed herself equal to every vicissitude of fortune, and superior to its worst frowns. If her judgment occasionally erred, it was in cases where alternatives of evil were alone offered to her choice, and in which it is even now scarcely possible to decide what course would have been wiser or safer than that which she adopted. And when at last the long conflict was terminated by the complete victory of her combined enemies- when she, with her husband and her children, was bereft not only of power, but even of freedom, and was a prisoner in the hands of those whose unalterable object was her destruction-she bore her accumulated miseries with a serene resignation, an intrepid fortitude, a true heroism of soul, of which the history of the world does not afford a brighter example.

  FOOTNOTES

  PREFACE

  [1] 0ne entitled "Marie-Antoinette, correspondance secrete entre Marie- Therese et le Comte Mercy d'Argenteau, avec des lettres de Marie-Therese et de Marie-Antoinette." (The edition referred to in this work is the greatly enlarged second edition in three volumes, published at Paris, 1875.) The second is entitled "Marie-Antoinette, Joseph II., and Leopold II," published at Leipsic, 1866.

  [2] Entitled "Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, et Madame Elizabeth," in six volumes, published at intervals from 1864 to 1873.

  [3] In his "Nouveau Lundi," March 5th, 1866, M. Sainte-Beuve challenged M. Feuillet de Conches to a more explicit defense of the authenticity of his collection than he had yet vouchsafed; complaining, with some reason, that his delay in answering the charges brought against it "was the more vexatious because his collection was only attacked in part, and in many points remained solid and valuable." And this challenge elicited from M.F. de Conches a very elaborate explanation of the sources from which he procured his documents, which he published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15th, 1866, and afterward in the Preface to his fourth volume. That in a collection of nearly a thousand documents he may have occasionally been too credulous in accepting cleverly executed forgeries as genuine letters is possible, and even probable; in fact, the present writer regards it as certain. But the vast majority, including all those of the greatest value, can not be questioned without imputing to him a guilty knowledge that they were forgeries-a deliberate bad faith, of which no one, it is believed, has ever accused him.

  It may be added that it is only from the letters of this later period that any quotations are made in the following work; and the greater part of the letters so cited exists in the archives at Vienna, while the others, such as those, addressed by the Queen, to Madame de Polignac, etc., are just such as were sure to be preserved as relics by the families of those to whom they were addressed, and can therefore hardly be considered as liable to the slightest suspicion.

  CHAPTER I. [1] Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," August 8th, 1864.

  CHAPTER II. [1] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par E. and J. de Goncourt, p. 11.

  [2] How popular masked halls were in London at this time may be learned from Walpole's "Letters," and especially from a passage in which he gives an account of one given by "sixteen or eighteen young Lords" just two months before this ball at Vienna.-Walpole to Mann, dated February 27th, 1770. Some one a few years later described the French nation as half tiger and half monkey; and it is a singular coincidence that Walpole's comment on this masquerading fashion should be, "It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there should be a good dose of the monkey too."

  [3] "Memoires concernant Marie Antoinette," par Joseph Weber (her foster- brother), i., p. 6.

  [4] "Goethe's Biography," p. 287.

  [5] "Memoires de Bachaumont," January 30th, 1770.

  [6] La maison du roi.

  [7] Chevalier d'honneur. We have no corresponding office at the English court.

  [8] The king said, "Vous etiez deja de la famille, car votre mere a l'ame de Louis le Grand."-SAINTE-BEUVE, Nouveaux Lundis, viii., p. 322.

  [9] In the language of the French heralds, the title princes of the royal family was confined to the children or grandchildren of the reigning sovereign. His nephews and cousins were only princes of the blood.

  CHAPTER III. [1] The word is Maria Teresa's own; "anti-francais" occurring in more than one of her letters.

  [2] Quoted by Mme. du Deffand in a letter to Walpole, dated May 19th, 1770 ("Correspondance complete de Mme. du Deffand," ii., p.59).

  [3] Mercy to Marie-Therese, August 4th, 1770; "Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et la Comte de Mercy Argenteau, avec des Lettres de Marie-Therese et Marie Antoinette," par M. le Chevalier Alfred d'Arneth, i., p. 29. For the sake of brevity, this Collection will be hereafter referred to as "Arneth."

  [4] "The King of France is both hated and despised, which seldom happens to the same man."-LORD CHESTERFIELD, Letter to Mr. Dayrolles, dated May 19th, 1752.

  [5] Maria Teresa died in December, 1780.

  [6] Mme. du Deffand, letter of May 19th, 17
70.

  [7] Chambier, i., p. 60.

  [8] Mme. de Campan, i., p. 3.

  [9] He told Mercy she was "'vive et un peu enfant, mais," ajouta-t-il, "cela est bien de son age.'"-ARNETH, i., p. 11.

  [10] Arneth, i., p.9-16

  CHAPTER IV. [1] Dates 9th and 12th., Arneth, i., pp. 16, 18.

  [2] Marly was a palace belonging to the king, but little inferior in splendor to Versailles itself, and a favorite residence of Louis XV., because a less strict etiquette had been established there. Choisy and Bellevue, which will often be mentioned in the course of this narrative, were two others of the royal palaces on a somewhat smaller scale. They have both been destroyed. Marly, Choisy, and Bellevue were all between Versailles and Paris.

  [3] Mem. de Goncourt, quoting a MS. diary of Hardy, p. 35.

  [4] De Vermond, who had accompanied her from Vienna as her reader.

  [5] See St. Simon's account of Dangeau, i., p. 392.

  [6] The Duc de Noailles, brother-in-law of the countess, "l'homme de France qui a peut-etre le plus d'esprit et qui connait le mieux son souverain et la cour," told Mercy in August that "jugeant d'apres son experience et d'apres les qualites qu'il voyait dans cette princesse, il etait persuade qu'elle gouvernerait un jour l'esprit du roi."-ARNETH, i., p. 34.

  [7] La petite rousse.

  [8] "De monter a cheval gate le teint, et votre taille a la longue s'en ressentira."-Marie-Therese a Marie-Antoinette, Arneth, i., p. 104.

  [9] "On fit chercher partout des anes fort doux et tranquilles. Le 21 on repeta la promenade sur les anes. Mesdames voulurent etre de la partie ainsi que le Comte de Provence et le Comte d'Artois."-Mercy a Marie- Therese, September 19, 1770, Arneth, i., p. 49.

  [10] "Madame la Dauphine, a laquelle le tresor royal doit remettre 6000 frs. par mois, n'a reellement pas un ecu dont elle peut disposer elle-meme et sans le concours de personne" (Octobre 20).-ARNETH, i. p. 69.

  [11] "Ses garcons de chambre recoivent cent louis [a louis was twenty-four francs, so that the hundred made 2100 francs out of her 6000] par mois pour la depense du jeu de S.A.R.; et soit qu'elle perde ou qu'elle gagne, on ne revoit rien de cette somme."-ARNETH, i.

  [12] "Mme. Adelaide ajouta, 'On voit bien que vous n'etes pas de notre sang.'"-ARNETH, i., p. 94.

  [13] Arneth, i., p. 95.

  [14] "Finalement, Mme. la Dauphine se fait adorer de ses entours et du public; il n'est pas encore survenu un seul inconvenient grave dans sa conduite."-Mercy a Marie-Therese, Novembre 16, Arneth, i., p. 98.

  [15] Prince de Ligne, "Mem." ii., p. 79.

  [16] Mercy to Maria Teresa, dated November 17th, 1770, Arneth, i., p. 94.

  [17] Mercy to Maria Teresa, dated February 25th, 1771, Arneth, i, p. 134.

  CHAPTER V. [1] See the "Citizen of the World," Letter 55. Reference has often been made to Lord Chesterfield's prediction of the French Revolution. But I am not aware that any one has remarked on the equally acute foresight of Goldsmith.

  [2] Letter of April 16th, 1771, Arneth, i., p. 148.

  [3] Arneth, i., p. 186.

  [4] Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, July 9th, and August 17th, Arneth, i., p. 196.

  [5] "Ne soyez pas honteuse d'etre allemande jusqu'aux gaucheries.... Le Francais vous estimera plus et fera plus de compte sur vous s'il vous trouve la solidite et la franchise allemande."-Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette. May 8th, 1771, Arneth, i., p. 159.

  [6] Walpole's letter to Sir H. Mann, June 8th, 1771, v., p. 301.

  [7] Mercy to Maria Teresa, January 23d, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 265.

  [8] The Duc de la Vauguyon, who, after the dauphin's marriage, still retained his post with his younger brother.

  CHAPTER VI. [1] Mercy's letter to the empress, August 14th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 335.

  [2] Mercy to Maria Teresa, November 14th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 307.

  [3] Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, December 15th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 382.

  [4] Her sister Caroline, Queen of Naples.

  [5] Her brother Leopold, at present Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterward emperor. His wife, Marie Louise, was a daughter of Charles III. of Spain.

  [6] They, with several of the princes of the blood and some of the peers, as already mentioned, had been banished for their opposition to the abolition of the Parliaments; but now, in the hopes of obtaining the king's consent to his marriage with Madame de Montessan, a widow of enormous wealth, the Due d'Orleans made overtures for forgiveness, accompanying them, however, with a letter so insolent that it might we be regarded as an aggravation of his original offense. According to Madame du Deffand (letter to Walpole, December 18th, 1772, vol. ii., p. 283), he was only prevented from reconciling himself to the king some months before by his son, the Due de Chartres (afterward the infamous Egalite), whom she describes as "a young man, very obstinate, and who hopes to play a great part by putting himself at the head of a faction." The princes, however, in the view of the shrewd old lady, had made the mistake of greatly overrating their own importance. "These great princes, since their protest, have been just citizens of the Rue St. Denis. No one at court ever perceived their absence, and no one in the city ever noticed their presence."

  [7] Lord Stormont, the English Embassador at Vienna, from which city he was removed to Paris. In the preceding September Maria Teresa had complained to him of being "animated against her cabinet, from indignation at the partition of Poland."

  [8] That is, sisters-in-law-the Princesses Clotilde and Elizabeth.

  [9] The Hotel-Dieu was the most ancient hospital in Paris. It had already existed several hundred years when Philip Augustus enlarged it, and gave it the name of Maison de Dieu. Henry IV. and his successors had further enlarged it, and enriched it with monuments; and even the revolutionists respected it, though when they had disowned the existence of God they changed its name to that of L'Hospice de l'Humanite. It had been almost destroyed by fire a fortnight before the date of this letter, on the night of the 29th of December.

  [10] St. Anthony's Day was June 14th, and her name of Antoinette was regarded as placing her under his especial protection.

  CHAPTER VII. [1] They have not, however, been preserved.

  [2] Mercy to Maria Teresa, June 16th, 1773, Arneth, i., p. 467.

  [3] "Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et la Famille Royale", p. 23.

  [4] Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, July 17th, Arneth, ii., p. 8.

  [5] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par M. de Goncourt, p. 50. Quoting an unpublished journal by M.M. Hardy, in the Royal Library.

  [6] It is the name by which she is more than once described in Madame du Deffand's letters. See her "Correspondence," ii., p. 357.

  [7] Mercy to Maria Teresa, December 11th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 81.

  [8] "Memoires de Besenval," i., p. 304.

  CHAPTER VIII. [1] Mercy to Maria Teresa, August 14th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 31.

  [2] The money was a joint gift from herself as well as from him. Great distress, arising from the extraordinarily high price of bread, was at this time prevailing in Paris.

  [3] The term most commonly used by Marie Antoinette in her letters to her mother to describe Madame du Barri. She was ordered to retire to the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux. Subsequently she was allowed to return to Luciennes, a villa which her royal lover had given her.

  [4] Madame de Mazarin was the lady who, by the fulsomeness of her servility to Madame du Barri, provoked Madame du Deffand (herself a lady not altogether sans reproche) to say that it was not easy to carry "the heroism of baseness and absurdity farther."

  [5] Lorraine had become a French province a few years before, on the death of Stanislaus Leczinsky, father of the queen of Louis XV.

  [6] Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, May 18th, and to Mercy on the same day, Arneth, ii., p. 149.

  [7] See his letter of 8th May to Maria Teresa. "Il faut que pour la suite de son bonheur, elle commence a s'emparer de l'autorite que M. le Dauphin n'exercera jamais que d'une facon convenable, et ... ce serait du dernier dang
er et pour l'etat et pour le systeme general que qui ce soit s'emparat de M. le Dauphin et qu'il fut conduit par autre que par Madame la Dauphine."-ARNETH, ii., p. 137.

  [8] "Je parle a l'amie, a la confidente du roi."-Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, May 30th, 1770, Arneth, ii., p. 155.

  [9] "Jusqu'a present l'etiquette de cette cour a toujours interdit aux reines et princesses royales de manger avec des hommes."-Mercy to Maria Teresa, June 7th, 1774, Arneth, ii, p. 164

  [10] "Elle me traite, a mon arrivee, comme tous les jeunes gens qui composaient ses pages, qu'elle comblait de bontes, en leur montrant une bienveillance pleine de dignite, mais qu'on pouvait aussi appeler maternelle."-Marie Therese, Memoires de Tilly, i., p. 25.

  [11] Le don, ou le droit, de joyeux avenement.

  [12] La ceinture de la reine. It consisted of three pence (deniers) on each hogs-head of wine imported into the city, and was levied every three years in the capital.-ARNETH, ii, p. 179.

  [13] The title "ceinture de la reine" had been given to it because in the old times queens and all other ladies had carried their purses at their girdles.

  CHAPTER IX. [1] The title by which the count was usually known: that of the countess was madame.

  [2] St. Simon, 1709, ch. v., and 1715, ch. i, vols. vii. and xiii., ed. 1829.