Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  The following is an excerpt of a letter from Antoinette to her mother Empress Maria Theresa, written on February 17, 1777. Antoinette was twenty-one years old and had been Queen of France for almost three years. It demonstrates that in spite of the popular perception of being brainless, the young Queen had an awareness of the political situation in Europe. At the time the letter was written, Antoinette was at the height of the partying phase of her life, and not actively engaged in political affairs; Louis XVI encouraged her not to become involved. That she had a basic sense of what was going on, long before the Revolution when she played a larger role in the political scene, shows that she had inherited some of her mother’s astuteness. When she says that “it would be the greatest good fortune if these two sovereigns [her husband and her brother Joseph]...could trust each other” she is referring primarily to the fact that Louis did not trust the Emperor and would not go along with his plans. She was also acutely aware of the intrigues of the court and accurately predicted that the appointment of Cardinal Prince Louis de Rohan as Grand Almoner would bring “many intrigues;” it certainly brought about the Diamond Necklace fiasco.

  Although I have very little experience of politics, I cannot help being worried about what is happening everywhere in Europe. It would be very terrible if the Turks and the Russians went back to war. At least here I am very sure they want to keep the peace. If my brother had come, I think, like my dear Mama, that his acquaintance with the King would have been very useful for the general good and quiet. It would be the greatest good fortune if these two sovereigns, who are so close to me, could trust each other, they could settle many things together and would be protected from the lack of skill and the personal interests of their ministers.

  The Grand Almoner is at death’s door; Prince Louis [de Rohan] will replace him in that office. I am really annoyed by this, and it will be much against his own inclination that the King will appoint him; but two years ago he allowed himself to be surprised by M. de Soubise and Mme. de Marsan into a half promise, which they converted into a full one by thanking him, and which they have just now used to the full. If he [Rohan] behaves as he always did, we will have many intrigues. 21

  One of the principle myths about Antoinette is that she manipulated Louis and out of guilt for his shortcomings, he did everything she asked him to do. To her frustration, and that of her Austrian relatives, Louis had a mind of his own and stubbornly held to the course of action he thought best for France. At the beginning of Louis’ reign, Antoinette connived to reinstate Choiseul as Foreign Minister. Choiseul had been dismissed by Louis XV right after her arrival in France in 1770, and Antoinette never gave up trying to restore him to power. However, her husband did not like or trust Choiseul and would have none of it. In 1777, Antoinette found herself once again at odds with Louis over the Bavarian matter. Her brother Emperor Joseph sought to invade and dismember Bavaria as an attempt to absorb it into the Habsburg territories. Louis refused to back him and without French support, Joseph’s plans came to nothing. Antoinette begged Louis in tears to help the Emperor and the King refused, quite firmly.22 Antoinette also did not think it prudent for Louis to help the Americans in their fight for independence against Great Britain, but nothing could change his mind. It was not until after the Empress Maria Theresa died and Antoinette became the mother of Louis’ children that she began to have any influence in political matters. Even so, Louis still preferred her to keep busy with her projects at Trianon.

  Contrary to myths of Versailles being an orgy of immorality when she was Queen, Antoinette tried from the beginning of her husband’s reign to reform the morals of the court, which did not always endear her to the nobles. Under Louis XVand his mistresses, too often

  licentious behavior had been a path to popularity and successs. Antoinette made a rule that she would not receive any lady who was separated from her husband. She also abolished a regulation that prohibited the Queen from sitting at table with any men but members of the royal family. Henceforth, her ladies could dine with her accompanied by their own husbands at the King’s table. To quote from Yonge:

  Such an exclusion from the king’s table of those who were its most natural and becoming ornaments had notoriously facilitated and augmented the disorders of the last reign; and it was obvious that its maintenance must at least have a tendency to lead to a repetition of the old irregularities. Fortunately, the king was as little inclined to approve of it as the queen. All his tastes were domestic, and he gladly assented to her proposal to abolish the custom. Throughout the reign, at all ordinary meals, at his suppers when he came in late from hunting, when he had perhaps invited some of his fellow-sportsmen to share his repast, and at State banquets, Marie Antoinette took her seat at his side, not only adding grace and liveliness to the entertainment, but effectually preventing license, and even the suspicion of scandal; and, as she desired that her household as well as her family should set an example of regularity and propriety to the nation, she exercised a careful superintendence over the behavior of those who had hitherto been among the least-considered members of the royal establishment. Even the king’s confessor had thought the morals of the royal pages either beneath his notice or beyond his control; but Marie Antoinette took a higher view of her duties. 23

  Antoinette took the court pages under her charge as well; since they were mostly young boys away from their parents, she behaved as a mother, gently correcting their misbehavior and praising their achievements and successes.

  The Royal Family of France was seen as belonging to the people. The château of Versailles was open to the public; anyone could enter as long as they were appropriately attired. For gentlemen this meant wearing a sword; swords could be rented at the gates. As for ladies, they had to have a hooped petticoat. The tradition of freedom and openness meant that the royal family often dined surrounded by crowds of people; the princesses were required to give birth in public. Merchants set up stalls in the grand salons, selling ribbons and snuff; beggars roamed the corridors. Security did not seem to be an issue. Unfortunately, such liberty led to Antoinette being stalked by a mental patient, but she refused to have the culprit arrested, and begged him to be allowed his liberty, since he was not dangerous. Madame Campan relates the situation as follows:

  Among the characteristics which denoted the goodness of the Queen, her respect for personal liberty should have a place. I have seen her put up with the most troublesome importunities from people whose minds were deranged rather than have them arrested. Her patient kindness was put to a very disagreeable trial by an ex-councillor of the Bordeaux Parliament, named Castelnaux; this man declared himself the lover of the Queen, and was generally known by that appellation. For ten successive years did he follow the Court in all its excursions. Pale and wan, as people who are out of their senses usually are, his sinister appearance occasioned the most uncomfortable sensations. During the two hours that the Queen’s public card parties lasted, he would remain opposite her Majesty. He placed himself in the same manner before her at chapel, and never failed to be at the King’s dinner or the dinner in public. At the theatre he invariably seated himself as near the Queen’s box as possible. He always set off for Fontainebleau or St. Cloud the day before the Court, and when her Majesty arrived at her various residences, the first person she met on getting out of her carriage was this melancholy madman, who never spoke to any one. 24

  There was another case in which Antoinette interceded for Messieurs de Bellagarde and de Moustiers, whose families had petitioned her. It seems that the gentlemen were being persecuted unjustly; the Queen obtained a new hearing for them, and they were released. “As a token of gratitude, Madame de Bellegarde had a picture painted in which she was represented with her husband kneeling before the queen … the queen was greatly touched, and placed the picture in her apartment.”25

  Chateaubriand, who saw the Queen at Versailles in his youth, described Antoinette as being “enchanted with life.”26 She was indeed a lady of immense charm, possessin
g those subtle qualities which win hearts. There is much talk about how and why Antoinette was hated by the French people, but it is forgotten that she was also greatly loved by many, especially after they came face-to-face with her. Men were ready to die in order to save her. Another reason for the Fersen legend is that people assume that since Count Fersen risked his life and made many sacrifices for Antoinette and her family it must have been because she was sleeping with him. Yet she had the identical effect on other men as well, men who were not even part of her circle of friends, and with whom she was not romantically linked in the rumor mill. Mirabeau and Barnave, two dedicated revolutionaries, were won over by the Queen after meeting her, and afterwards did everything they could to save her. Barnave was quite taken with the entire royal family, especially after spending hours in the coach with them after the capture at Varennes in June 1791. “The Queen treated him with affectionate politeness which had led to her being given the title of ‘Mary full of grace (Marie pleine de graces).’”27 Later, in the Temple prison, the guard Toulan, a zealous revolutionary, was completely smitten by the Queen, and risked his life to retrieve Louis XVI’s wedding ring for her. He tried to help her escape, and the Chevalier Jarjayes as well, but the Queen would not leave her children.

  Nesta Webster, in Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette before the Revolution draws an intriguing comparison between Antoinette and her devout sister-in-law:

  Madame Élisabeth was undoubtedly a saint, and her unblemished reputation, which no one dared assail, has been contrasted with the character for frivolity attributed to Marie-Antoinette. But if Marie-Antoinette had displayed throughout the piety of Madame Élisabeth, if she had never indulged in those four years of “dissipation,” never gambled, never exceeded her dress allowance, never figured on the stage at Trianon, would she have escaped calumny? When one considers the forces ranged against her one is inclined to answer “no.” It must be remembered that Madame Élisabeth gave no cause for envy, she had obstructed no one's path to the throne, and she had none of the personal charm and elegance that distinguished Marie-Antoinette. A woman who goes like wine to the heads of men is naturally more vulnerable to the tongue of calumny than one whom no one would associate with romance....Marie-Antoinette had the power of inspiring passionate and almost uncontrollable adoration. 28

  Antoinette is not the only one in the history of queens, great ladies, and women in general, who had the ability to inspire chivalrous devotion in men. Certainly, Mary Queen of Scots likewise possessed a similar personal charisma. The speech of Elizabeth Tudor to her troops as the Spanish armada approached is another example. Queen Marie of Romania also had the gift of inspiring heroism in her supporters. So did Marie-Antoinette’s mother, the Empress Maria Theresa, especially when she presented herself before the Hungarian nobles, an occasion Antoinette looked to in her own troubles. Such ladies had the gift of inspiring valiance in men.

  Dining in public was a custom which Antoinette found intolerable and she did her best to limit it after she became Queen. She did not realize that by changing centuries old customs, she was initiating the upheavals of the Revolution. Madame Campan describes how she found the custom of dining in public a mortification:

  One of the customs most disagreeable to the Queen was that of dining every day in public. Maria Leczinska had always submitted to this wearisome practice; Marie Antoinette followed it as long as she was Dauphiness. The Dauphin dined with her, and each branch of the family had its public dinner daily. The ushers suffered all decently dressed people to enter; the sight was the delight of persons from the country. At the dinner-hour there were none to be met upon the stairs but honest folks, who, after having seen the Dauphiness take her soup, went to see the Princes eat their bouilli, and then ran themselves out of breath to behold Mesdames at their dessert….She also freed herself from the necessity of being followed in the Palace of Versailles by two of her women in Court dresses, during those hours of the day when the ladies-in-waiting were not with her. From that time she was accompanied only by a single valet de chambre and two footmen. All the changes made by Marie Antoinette were of the same description; a disposition gradually to substitute the simple customs of Vienna for those of Versailles was more injurious to her than she could possibly have imagined.29

  By discarding and disregarding old customs, Antoinette introduced triple rupture at court, young versus old, petite noblesse againt ancient nobility, intimate life versus public life. It was an inversion of the order imposed by the Sun King. Both Louis and Antoinette were enemies of etiquette and representation, the latter meaning that royalty was continually on-stage. Such chipping away was seen by some as sowing the seeds of revolt, as well as substituting Austrian manners for French traditions.30

  Since the state rooms at Versailles were open to the public, even the Queen’s bedroom, it was necessary to have a place to go for minimal privacy. The petit appartement de la reine was a suite of rooms at Versailles used by the Queens of France in their private hours. In Antoinette’s time the petit appartement de la reine consisted of two libraries, a bathroom, le salon doré and the boudoir, called la méridienne. In 1781 Louis XVI ordered the architect Mique to design the small octagonal chamber for Antoinette in honor of birth of their first son the Dauphin Louis-Joseph. It was a place for the Queen to rest in the afternoons after dinner and before the festivities of the evening. It was also the place where she received her dressmaker and decided which clothes she was going to wear to certain events. La méridienne was decorated in grenadine blue silk and in spite of the destruction of revolutions and centuries has been skillfully recreated by French craftsmen. The salon doré on the other hand, was where the Queen would recieve guests and those who sought her patronage or benefaction.

  In the meantime, Louis XVI, from the moment he ascended the throne was active in making reforms; he was considered a liberal-minded monarch. Anyone who thinks Louis XVI was a lazy, sluggish, do-nothing king need only examine the six volumes of laws passed during his reign. He wanted to reform the feudal tax system, which is why he called the Estates-General in 1789. If all the nobles and wealthy clergy had been minimally taxed, there would have been no deficit. In 1774 Louis XVI placed Turgot in charge of finances and introduced free circulation of grain. He also founded the School of Medicine in Paris. In 1775 the droits d’octroi (excise duties) were reduced, prison reform begun, and the death penalty for deserters was abolished. In 1776 Louis XVI signed the six edicts of Turgot comprising the abolition of the corvée. The corvée was an old law which forced the peasantry to maintain the roads. The parlements resisted the edicts, preventing them from becoming law. In the same year he reduced his household. In 1778 more taxes were reduced. In 1779 the king abolished servitude and other reforms were made. In 1780, further reductions in the royal household were made, hospital reform was begun, prison reform continued, most torture was abolished. In 1784 relief from oppressive laws was given to Jews. In 1786 Louis enacted more hospital reform, as well as aid to the deaf, and provisions made for lost children. Then, in 1787, steps were taken towards the total abolition of the corvée, in addition to more reductions in the royal household, and full civil rights accorded to Jews and Protestants. In 1788, the year before the Revolution began, all forms of torture were abolished, greater freedom given to press, steps towards abolition of lettres de cachet which was a warrant that, when signed by the monarch, could mean imprisonment without trial. In 1789 came Louis’ boldest move: he summoned the Estates-General in an attempt to reform the tax sytem.31

  It is fairly well-known that without the military and financial aid given by Louis XVI to the American colonists in their struggle for independence from Great Britain, our nation may never have arisen. The King of France was reluctant to go to war, recoiling from both the expense and the shedding of blood; he did so only when convinced that it would benefit France in the long run. Antoinette was initially against assisting the Americans; she thought it set a dangerous precedent to help the colonists rebel against their
king. Nevertheless, once war was declared, she did not hesitate to embrace the joint cause of France and America. According to Lafayette she once greeted him by saying: “Give me news of our good Americans, of our dear Republicans!”32 Lafayette may have colored her words with his own enthusiasm for the cause. However, the general repartee in the French court over the American revolt is rather humorous, or at least it would be, had the consequences for France not been so tragic. When Antoinette’s brother, Emperor Joseph II, was visiting Versailles, some pro-American French lady kept badgering him about the colonists’ revolt. Finally, the Holy Roman Emperor curtly replied: “Madame, I am a royalist by profession.”33 When Lafayette joined the

  followers of Mesmer, Louis XVI asked him, ironically: “What will Washington think when he hears that you have become the first apothecary of Mesmer?” 34

  The King and Queen graciously received Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Gouveneur Morris and other Americans at Versailles. Louis XVI was depicted in art with Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Louis showed mercy to the enemy as well, by insisting that the sick and wounded British soldiers be treated as his own subjects. He also gave the order that the French navy was not to harm the English fishermen.35 In the HBO production of John Adams, Louis XVI was portrayed as being a foppish popinjay. In real life, the King did not laugh at Adams at their first meeting, although he mumbled “Pas un mot!” “Not a word!” out of surprise that Mr. Adams did not yet speak French, the language of diplomacy.36 Adams did learn French and he and King Louis came to have respect for each other; Adams described the young King as having “goodness and innocence” in his face.37 As for Louis XVI’s opinion of Adams, McCullough writes: “Vergennes, speaking for the King, offered praise [to Adams] for ‘the wise conduct that you have held throughout the tenure of your commission,’ as well as 'the zeal with which you have furthered the cause of your nation, while strengthening the alliance that ties it to His Majesty.’”38 John Adams described Antoinette thus: