Marie Antoinette

by Antonia Fraser

  In the absence of a more formal structure, unofficial influence was the proper sphere of the female and the French court was well used to it. But it was the influence of the mistress not the wife. Throughout the long reign of Louis XV, the mistress had been a force to be reckoned with, whether it was the intelligent, tasteful Pompadour or the Du Barry, who was so much less gifted that the Prince de Ligne said of her that she would have to use important documents as curling papers “in order to get them into her head” (the Du Barry had particularly long thick hair of which she was inordinately proud). The last consort, Maria Lesczinska, trained by her father to be intensely grateful for her position, had made one little venture at a political action nearly fifty years earlier, and had thereafter subsided into a formal, pious, secluded life.13 She was, however, seen—by the French—as a model of a queen.

  The role designed for Marie Antoinette by Count Mercy was intended to be more like that of the mistress, taking advantage of the unique advantage she did have—personal access to the monarch in a period when this was a crucial element in all court intrigues. The fact that she was not fulfilling the most significant function of a mistress was an irritating weakness in such calculations. However, it did at least mean that the “indolent” King showed no penchant for other women, a palliative seized upon by Maria Teresa. In the meantime Marie Antoinette was supposed to infiltrate herself into the confidence of the King, while being careful always to wait for him to consult her, as Mercy emphasized (not an easy mission to fulfil). There was some difference of aim between Mercy and the Emperor Joseph. Whilst Mercy saw Marie Antoinette as playing her part in these court intrigues, Joseph was more interested in his sister exerting a notional “German” influence. But the method of operation was to be the same: her access to the King was to be used.14

  The Queen did have other weapons at her disposal. She had considerable patronage. Here she was on safe ground, with the custom of the country behind her. Even if particular appointments of hers were criticized, there was nothing unusual in her making them. When her mother protested at members of the Queen’s household being rewarded, Marie Antoinette pointed out that it was expected of her, and her supporters would otherwise miss out. Furthermore, showering people she liked with benefits was exactly suited to the temperament of Marie Antoinette, where political infighting was not. This lack of any real interest in politics—the game for its own sake—was an aspect of her character that struck all those who knew her well. The Comte de La Marck said that she had “a repugnance for the whole subject common to women,” ignoring the fact that the Queen’s close female relations felt no such repugnance. It was certainly a cause of despair among her Austrian advisors that she remained fundamentally uninterested, “both by principle and inclination,” in Vermond’s words, except where questions of personal distaste or gratitude were concerned, as with Aiguillon on the one hand (where she succeeded because the King agreed with her) and Choiseul on the other (where she failed because he did not).15

  If not political by temperament, Marie Antoinette was generous and loyal—good qualities in a royal person but expensive ones. The household of a Queen of France traditionally consisted of about 500 people all paid for by the Minister of the Royal Household (Ministre de la Maison du Roi) at a cost of 4 million livres. These ranged from its official Mistress, the Comtesse de Noailles, down to the footmen who turned the royal mattress because it was too heavy for the women to manage. They included the numerous functionaries, who generally worked in a quarterly rota in squads of four, for the stable and the kitchen as well as the bedchamber.16 Looked at with a twenty-first-century eye, this is a vast establishment; it needs to be considered, however, from an eighteenth-century perspective. The King’s household was even larger—that was only to be expected. But the respective households of his younger brothers and their wives were almost as large as the Queen’s, the Mistress of the Household and the Mistress of the Robes for the Comtesse de Provence receiving the same financial reward, for example, as those for Marie Antoinette.

  In general, the royal system, which had been established long before the arrival of Marie Antoinette, was incredibly lavish. And there were many, many people, mainly but not entirely noble, with a vested interest in continuing it. In addition, it was not as if the rest of the world adhered to a different standard of life. The Spanish ambassador had at least seventy servants, the English ambassador over fifty; at the château of Chantilly, an amazed English visitor watched a supper party given by the Prince de Condé at which eight people were waited on at table by twenty-five attendants. As Thomas Jefferson wrote of the French and their lifestyle: “The roughnesses of the human mind are so thoroughly rubbed off with them that it seems as if one might glide through a whole life among them without a justle [sic].”17

  It was theoretically to smooth out roughnesses, then, that Marie Antoinette had, for example, a Grand Almoner, a First Almoner, an Almoner in Ordinary, four almoners who rotated quarterly, four quarterly chaplains, four quarterly chapel boys, down to two chapel summoners. Of course the effect of such gross overmanning was the reverse of smooth and it was also very expensive. All these people, like all the other courtiers, watched each other perpetually to see that no extra advantage was being taken, no privilege neglected. The Queen’s trainbearer, to take only one example, had to be of noble birth; otherwise the First Gentleman Usher, who had to provide a place for him in his coach, could not tolerate the association. The trainbearer also had to surrender the train to a page when the Queen entered the chapel of the private apartments of the King, although he was entitled to carry it in the State Apartments and the Gallery of Mirrors. He was also in charge of her cloak, although he had to hand it to an usher or equerry if she actually wanted to put it on . . . Woe betide the trainbearer who overstepped the limits of his role, committing crimes like carrying the train into the chapel, or handing the Queen her cloak himself.

  This honeycomb of privilege and payment was well described in her memoirs by the Queen’s First Lady of the Bedchamber, Henriette Campan, née Genet.*33 One of the few intelligent women that Marie Antoinette liked and trusted, Madame Campan was three years senior to her mistress, having begun her career as Reader to the Mesdames Tantes when she was fifteen. In a period rich for the first time in female testimonies, that of Madame Campan stands out not only for her intelligence and education but also because she had access to the Queen and the court over a long period at a particular intermediate level where much information could be gathered.

  Shortly before the death of Louis XV, Henriette had been married off to a widower, François Campan, the son of Pierre Campan, Marie Antoinette’s librarian. The junior Campan proved to have been reluctant to remarry; his rapid disappearance abroad meant that Henriette had plenty of time to concentrate on court affairs, her single child, Henri, being born ten years later when she was in her early thirties.19 Apart from being daughter-in-law to the Librarian, Henriette Campan had a sister in the Queen’s household, Adélaïde Auguié, known to Marie Antoinette as “my lioness” because of her exceptional height, and another sister, Julie Rousseau, also in royal service.

  Madame Campan, while defending Marie Antoinette for following the existing structure of a Queen’s household, was critical of her where an innovation of 1775 was concerned. The Princesse de Lamballe was made overall Superintendent of the Household, that is to say, superior to the Comtesse de Noailles and the Duchesse de Cossé, Mistress of the Robes. In theory this was a revival of an ancient post. But since the post itself had been abolished as being too powerful, its reappearance marked an unfortunate decision by a Queen determined to give the Lamballe “greater personal consideration.”20

  Nor was the Princesse de Lamballe’s handling of her post diplomatic. She interfered with the running of the household, but did not issue the requisite invitations for lavish suppers, for which her stipend was intended, on the grounds that it was beneath her status as a Princess of the Blood to solicit others. The other Princesses of the Blood
took offence at this. Lamballe was only the widow of a prince of legitimated royal descent, so it could be argued that if the post was to be re-created, it should have gone to someone with a superior claim: Mademoiselle de Clermont, for example, the daughter of the impeccably royal Prince de Condé, whose aunt had been the last incumbent.21

  It was ironic that the Queen, while generously determined to please her friend, was also beginning to tire of her. Was the Princesse de Lamballe, with all her devotion and her famous sensitivity, becoming, to put it delicately, somewhat of a bore? She certainly did not provide the kind of amusing society to which Marie Antoinette was beginning to turn in compensation for the other deficiencies in her life. The new favourite, Yolande de Polignac, was a far more fascinating and seductive character. Yet by the rules of Versailles, the post of Superintendent, once given, could not be withdrawn. The Princesse de Lamballe continued disconsolately to haunt Versailles and to insist on such prerogatives as putting the Queen’s breakfast on her bed, while the Queen’s feelings of sentimental friendship for her demonstrably waned.

  Comtesse Jules de Polignac, as she was known, had been born Yolande de Polastron, of an ancient but poverty-stricken family, and when very young had married Jules de Polignac, who was similarly noble, similarly poor. She was now twenty-six, but her particular freshness of appearance, giving an impression of “utter naturalness,” was undiminished; Yolande with her cloud of dark hair, her big eyes, her neat nose and pretty pearly teeth was generally likened to a Madonna by Raphael—even if the Duc de Lévis thought her rather an insipid Madonna. People enjoyed themselves in her company; her manner was gently pleasing and she had a delightful laugh.22

  Not everyone could see her attraction. Count Mercy for one thought that neither the Comtesse’s wit nor her judgement made her suitable for the Queen’s favour. He could not understand that it was her apparent passivity, her languid sweetness which convinced bystanders of her lack of “avidity or egotism,” that attracted Marie Antoinette.23 Afterwards the satirists were happily convinced that the Queen’s emotional dependence on Yolande de Polignac was accompanied by a full-blown sexual relationship which lost nothing in the telling, as though affection between two women must invariably take this form. But what Marie Antoinette wanted at this point was an intimacy based on sentiment rather than sex; nothing in her life so far had made her look on sex as anything but duty and a rather disagreeable duty at that. The pattern of intense friendships in France had been set by the Princesse de Lamballe. This was another, deeper version.

  It was the Comtesse who was now, for better or for worse, to form the emotional centre of the world of Marie Antoinette. She came to mean to her what Maria Carolina had meant for so long in the Queen’s early life, and the Princesse de Lamballe more briefly. Furthermore, because Yolande saw to it that all her relations were part of the new royal circle, her family life came to be in effect that of the Queen, who predictably adored the two small Polignac children Armand and Aglä ié. As for Yolande’s character, it was appealing that she was notably calm by nature; she had neither the ultra-sensitivity of the Princesse de Lamballe, nor the capricious moods that increasingly swept over Marie Antoinette.

  None of this corresponded to an active lesbian relationship, if the test of that is physical consummation. But it is plausible to believe that Marie Antoinette was in some romantic sense in love with Yolande de Polignac (or, in girlish language, had a crush on her), at least in the early years of their relationship. The French saying that in love there is always one who bestows kisses and the other who extends the cheek was not irrelevant; Marie Antoinette, metaphorically speaking, bestowed the kisses on the apparently gently indifferent cheek of Yolande de Polignac.

  What were the favourite’s own feelings? Gentle indifference in a love object, however fascinating to an affectionate nature, may mask selfcentredness on a large scale. Yolande had an accepted lover, the clever, artistic but dominating Comte de Vaudreuil. For one seemingly lacking in avidity, she would amass an amazing amount of positions and rewards for herself, her large family, her connections and, of course, Vaudreuil.

  In terms of the court, 1775, which was destined to be the year of the coronation of Louis XVI, also heralded a series of humiliations for his consort. In December, Marie Antoinette had had to break to her mother the news that she had been personally dreading for two years, and she did not expect Maria Teresa herself to receive it with “much joy.” The Comtesse d’Artois was pregnant.24

  The patronage of Gluck continued. Orphée, attended by the Queen, had been a success in the previous August, and at the beginning of January there was a new production of Iphigénie en Aulide, which led to a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm for the Queen. In a moving moment in the second act, Iphigénie’s bridegroom Achilles began to praise her, predicting eternal happiness for the kingdom as a result of their marriage. As the chorus duly responded, “Let us sing, let us celebrate our Queen . . .” loud applause brought them to a halt. The tribute was acknowledged with graceful embarrassment and tears by Marie Antoinette, while others present also wept at the touching spectacle. Once the chorus was allowed to complete the verses, there were shouts of bis and the whole thing was repeated. Then cries of “Long live the Queen” filled the air for fifteen minutes. The Baron Grimm was moved to reflect: “What prologues, what panegyrics can compare to these outbursts of tenderness and public admiration!”25 The popular ecstasy, the worship of the true goddess, was in sad contrast to Marie Antoinette’s private despair over the good fortune of her sister-in-law, which she hid behind a veil of solicitation.

  In February, a visit that should have brought consolation to the Queen turned sour; once again, as in the case of Mademoiselle de Lorraine’s minuet, it was mishandled by Count Mercy. The Archduke Max, the Queen’s youngest brother, chose to pay an incognito visit to Versailles using the name of the Comte de Burgau. A picture painted by Joseph Hauzinger to mark the occasion shows a gloomy-looking Marie Antoinette, hair piled high, cheeks well rouged, and a melancholy Louis XVI, with a complacent Archduke, whose corpulence at the age of eighteen was already earning him the nickname “Fat Max.” The French royal couple had reason to look depressed. The Archduke showed himself tactless in his behaviour on every level.

  To Marie Antoinette’s polite French, he insisted on answering in German. Then he wore uniform, something that was expressly forbidden to the French at court in order to promote the wearing of the French silk civilian dress, as Mercy should surely have warned him. Max was gauche to a degree that appalled the civilized French; when presented with one of Buffon’s works at the Jardin du Roi by the great naturalist himself, he waved it aside, saying casually that he would hate to deprive the author of his own book. All this was, naturally enough, fodder for the Austrophobes at court. But it was the Archduke’s tactless behaviour to the Princes of the Blood, which Mercy also allowed to pass, that created a really unfortunate impression, redounding inevitably to the discredit of the Queen.

  When it came to rank, an Archduke, the son and brother of an Emperor, was obviously superior to a French Prince of the Blood, who was already one rank below that of the French royal family. If, therefore, Max had arrived in full archducal fig, the Princes would have been bound by the rules of etiquette to call on him first. The “Comte de Burgau” was another matter. Since he was a foreigner of no particularly distinguished rank, it could be argued that the Comte should call on the Princes first. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Mercy bear-led Max to call on various ministers without waiting for them to make the first move. So the Princes of the Blood sulked and did not call. The Queen, misled by the ambassador, was both indignant and upset on behalf of her family. As for Max, he left behind him the sobriquet “the Arch Fool.”26

  It was not altogether surprising that as the coronation, planned for mid-June, approached, Mercy’s efforts to get the Queen crowned at Rheims alongside her husband were rebuffed. The burgeoning pregnancy of the Comtesse d’Artois—her baby was due in Au
gust—emphasized the tenuous nature of Marie Antoinette’s claim. Maurepas advised the King to resist the pressure of the ambassador, using the expense of a double ceremony as an excuse, but Louis XVI himself certainly went along with the decision.27

  Marie Antoinette expressed herself indifferent to the whole matter. She would accompany her husband, and she would order a magnificent dress from the fashionable new couturier Rose Bertin. The weight of this robe, due to the richness of the jewelled embroidery, was so great that Bertin, a woman of fearless spirit where her creations were concerned, proposed that the Duchesse de Cossé, as Mistress of the Robes, should convey it to Rheims on an expensive stretcher. When the Duchesse declined to do so, suggesting a more humdrum trunk, the Queen was reduced to carrying it in her own luggage. The expense of the Queen’s dress was, however, a comparatively minor item in the extravagance of the whole occasion. The King’s own clothing was enormously costly. Since the crown of Louis XV was found to be too small, there was a special new gold crown made for the King by the royal goldsmith, Auguste, at a cost of 6000 livres, which included rubies, emeralds, sapphires and “the finest known diamond,” the Regent. A further 150 livres went on a morocco case for it, lined with velvet.28

  The costs of such an elaborate coronation had already been queried by Anne Robert Turgot, the King’s new Controller General of Finance, who had been appointed in August 1774. Through a series of edicts, he was attempting to remedy the finances of government, never properly stable since the Seven Years’ War. There was now a deficit of 22 million livres with a projected further 78 million still to come. Turgot intended to reform the tax system, with measures that involved reducing the fiscal privileges of the nobility. He also tried to establish a free market in grain. Unfortunately a disastrous harvest in 1774 compounded the hardship caused by a system that was ill received in the first place. Prices rocketed and there were rumours that they were deliberately held high for profit. Violent protest in the shape of grain riots followed, the “Flour War,” as it was known, reaching Versailles on 2 May.