Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  The subject of many portraits during her lifetime, the Queen of France was sketched during her last moments by Jacques-Louis David. He sketched her from a window as she was riding by in a cart on the way to the guillotine. Some say the sketch is more of a caricature than an accurate depiction, in that David might have made the Queen appear worse in order to mock her. Ironically, David, the hardened Revolutionary and friend of Robespierre’s, would later paint Napoleon and Joséphine being crowned at Notre Dame.

  In our discussion of Antoinette and the arts, a word must be said about the magnificence of Sèvres porcelain. Before their untimely deaths, Louis XVI and Antoinette patronized the national porcelain, as was their duty. They usually had simple taste compared to the revolutionaries who took over the government. The laiterie (dairy) at Rambouillet, which Louis created as a gift to Antoinette, featured the famous “breast cup” and other vessels. The dairy and its porcelain vessels were supposed to celebrate all that was wholesome and natural, from breast-feeding, which most noblewomen shunned, to the manual labor that went into running a dairy. The aristocracy had traditionally looked down upon manual labor and peasant life. Louis XVI and Antoinette wanted to show that it was good and beautiful and life-giving. The royal dairy was a sort of monument to the way that staples such as cheese and milk were produced. At times, Louis’ taste could often be more elaborate then his wife’s. Between 1778 and 1782, Sèvres manufactured for Louis XVI a series of vases with handles shaped as busts of infants, young women, and old men, hence the name vases des âges. They bore an additional decoration of “jewels” composed of enamel drops over gold foil. The vases were designed by Jacques-François Deparis and can be found at the Walters Art gallery in Baltimore, Maryland. Sèvres survived the Revolution, and had a gaudy resurgence during the reign of Napoleon, who also patronized the opulent porcelain, just like the kings and queens whom he had replaced.

  Not only did Antoinette patronize talented women artists, helping them achieve official posts in the royal court and but she also assisted women writers. According to an article by Mary D. Sheriff:

  In 1774…the Journal des dames reappeared under Marie-Antoinette’s protection after a five-year suspension. Madame de Montaclos dedicated the new publication to Marie-Antoinette, who had lent her support in late 1773, when she was still a dauphine. Although Marie-Antoinette may not have advocated many of the political and moral stances taken by the Journal des dames, she maintained her patronage of the publication….Finally, today the Bibliotheque Nationale de France also houses many novels from the eighteenth century bound with the arms of Marie-Antoinette. It is not so important for the Queen actually to have read the books: it was enough that she owned them to enhance a writer’s reputation.10

  She patronized lady novelists by permitting her personal coat-of-arms to be on their books.11 Writing novels was one of the few respectable ways that gentlewomen had of making a living. Although she was not the reader that Louis was, Antoinette did enjoy novels as well as dramas. It is interesting that the Queen read the novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Chodleros de Laclos; like the plays of Beaumarchais, it exposed the vices of the nobility, which Marie-Antoinette had tried to reform at the Royal Court. She named her adopted daughter Ernestine after an opera for which Laclos wrote the libretto. The opera was based upon a favorite novel of the Queen’s by Madame Riccoboni called Ernestine.12 As with the works of Beaumarchais, Antoinette kept a false cover on Les Liaisons Dangereuse, since her husband had banned it for popular consumption and she did not wish to give scandal. Of course, she had many books in her library which would give nothing but edification. Here is a sample of books from her private library at Versailles. There was a small library at Petit Trianon as well. The Latin and French books are bound in citron Moroccan leather and have triple gilt fillet borders.13 The covers are stamped with Antoinette’s coat of arms. The titles are: Collection de Moralistes Anciene, L'Office de la semaine sainte, à l'usage de la maison du roi by the Abbot of Bellegarde, Les Plaideurs by Jean Baptiste Racine, Officium parvum B. Mariæ Virginis, ad usum ordinis Cisterciensis, Histoire des Celtes, nouvelle édition by Simon Pelloutier. To translate, the books are Collections of Ancient Moralists, The Office of Holy Week, The Litigants by Jean Baptiste Racine, The Little Office of The Blessed Virgin Mary: According to the Usage of the Cistercian Order, and History of the Celts by Simon Pelloutier.14 It should be remembered that Antoinette had two sisters who were nuns and a brother who was a bishop, and history was one of her favorite subjects.

  10 Marie-Antoinette and Music

  Chantons, célébrons notre reine!

  Chantons, célébrons notre reine.

  L'Hymen qui sous ses loix t'enchaîne,

  Va nous rendre à jamais heureux.

  —Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide

  In 1782, the Paris Opera burned down, killing ten people, which did not stop a couturier from coming up with a new shade called opéra brûlé, which is one reason why Antoinette stayed away from the color orange. Louis ordered that a new Opera be built, designed by Lenoir, on the Porte Saint-Martin. It was completed in record time, due to monetary incentives from Antoinette, who dearly loved the entire opera experience, taking great care over the design and décor of her new box. Her presence at the Opera on any given evening assured the monetary success of the performance, since people bought tickets as soon as they heard she would be attending.1 From childhood, Antoinette had loved music, and as an adult composed her own songs. Singing soprano, she performed in operettas in her prvate theater at Petit Trianon. Some of the musical comedies she enjoyed took a swipe at the nobility, such as Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny’s opera Le Roi et le Fermier (“The King and the Farmer”) in 1780. As a young girl, she studied under the famous composer Christoph Willibald Gluck whom she later brought to France when she was Queen. Among his most famous operas is Orpheus and Eurydice, which originally debuted in Vienna in 1762. It is based upon the myth of Orpheus, who tried to release his beloved wife from the underworld. Unlike the myth, the opera of Gluck has a happy ending. One of the loveliest pieces from Orpheus and Eurydice is the “Dance of the Blessed Spirits.” It is interesting that the Queen so loved this opera; to listen to it is to have a glimpse into her soul. In another opera by Gluck, Iphigénie en Aulide, the chorus of “Sing, let us celebrate our queen” immediately became Antoinette’s anthem, as it was sung to praise her at the Paris debut of the opera in 1774. “Let us sing, celebrate our Queen! / Hymen, who binds you in his laws/ Will make us happy forever.” As the Queen’s maid, Madame Campan, describes it:

  Paris did not cease, during the first years of the reign, to give proofs of pleasure whenever the Queen appeared at any of the plays of the capital. At the representation of ‘Iphigenia in Aulis,’ the actor who sang the words, ‘Let us sing, let us celebrate our Queen!’ which were repeated by the chorus, directed by a respectful movement the eyes of the whole assembly upon her Majesty. Reiterated cries of ‘Bis!’ and clapping of hands, were followed by such a burst of enthusiasm that many of the audience added their voices to those of the actors in order to celebrate, it might too truly be said, another Iphigenia. The Queen, deeply affected, covered her eyes with her handkerchief; and this proof of sensibility raised the public enthusiasm to a still higher pitch.2

  The opera Iphigénie was a political and moral triumph for the young Queen. The road to production had been a bumpy one. The composer also had to contend with Madame du Barry, who favored the Italian Piccini over Gluck. Even before Gluck arrived in Paris, Louis XV’s mistress tried to undermine him, and many silly lies were spread about his character and abilities. All falsehoods were put to flight when Gluck appeared and conquered Paris with his Iphigénie. Professor Amy Wygant of the University of Glasgow describes in her article entitled “Fire, Sacrifice, Iphigénie” how the sacrifice of Iphigenia in Gluck’s opera foreshadowed that of Antoinette herself:

  And it seems that, in the midst of the public mania occasioned by the opera, [Marie-Antoinette's] identity had so
mehow merged with that of the erstwhile sacrificial victim. We know…that on the night of 10 January, when the new queen was in the audience, Le Gros, singing the part of Achille, modified the second act chorus, ‘Chantez, célébrez votre reine’, sung as he introduces Iphigénie to his countrymen. On this occasion, Le Gros turned to the queen and sang, ‘Chantons, célébrons notre Reine,/Et l'hymen qui sous ses lois l'enchaîne/Va nous rendre à jamais heureux!’ The queen reportedly wept tears of joy….In about twenty years, in 1793, this crowd would see to her execution, and this returns us to the odd ability of music to prefigure the political. Marie-Antoinette had literally patronized a revolution in music, and allowed herself from its beginning to be collapsed upon its most fragile figure. Both of them, Iphigénie and the young queen, in these early days, frustrated the structure of sacrifice.3

  The anthem “Chantons, célébrons notre reine!” would be sung again for Antoinette’s niece Marie-Louise, as well as for Antoinette’s own daughter Marie-Thérèse when she returned to France in 1814 after twenty years of exile. The triumph of Iphigénie was followed by the successes of the operas Armide and Iphigénie en Tauride. Gluck arranged his music to suit Antoinette’s tastes and he proclaimed that being in France had rejuvenated his creativity.

  Louis had his own anthem, too. The royalist anthem “Vive Henri IV” was from Collé’s 1770 opera La partie de chasse d’Henri IV. In 1774 it was often sung to honor Louis XVI, became popular again during the Restoration in 1814. Here are the lyrics which celebrate the monarch who was seen by the French people as the epitome of justice, kindness, and virility.

  Vive Henri IV

  Vive ce roi vaillant !

  Vive Henri IV

  Vive ce roi vaillant !

  Ce diable à quatre

  A le triple talent

  De boire de battre

  Et d'être un vers galant.

  A translation would be: “Long live Henri IV! /Long live this valiant king! / That devil with/A triple talent/ Drinking, fighting/And being gallant.” It was an attempt to identify the Bourbon dynasty with the popular first Bourbon monarch, Henri IV, who was also the last monarch to summon the Estates-General. Louis XVI had also been seen as sharing with the King from Navarre an easy manner with the common folk, a rough, friendly manner, a love of the chase, as well as a strong sense of justice. Early in their reign, the King and Queen held a costume ball where everyone came in dress from the era of le bon roi Henri, with Antoinette herself garbed as Henri's beloved mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées.4 It was part of the Queen’s attempt to show that she was loved by her husband, and that she was his mistress as well as his wife. During the Restoration, members of the Bourbon family, especially the daughter of Louis XVI, the Duchesse d’Angoulême, were frequently welcomed with the anthem.5 After the fall of the Bourbons in 1830, the anthem was no longer played, and soon became a relic of the past.

  Another of Antoinette’s favorite composers was André Grétry (1741-1813). Grétry was a staunch supporter of the throne and the Queen was godmother of his daughter, Antoinette. One of his most popular operas was Richard Coeur-de-Lion, which debuted at the Comédie-Italienne in 1784. Blondel’s aria “Ô Richard! Ô mon roi,” sung in honor of the imprisoned English crusader king, became the royalist anthem during the French Revolution. It is often forgotten that numerous French people continued to honor and love the sovereigns in spite of the troubles and the tidal wave of revolutionary propaganda. The knowledge that they had some loyal subjects encouraged Louis XVI and Antoinette to stay in the country in 1789 when they probably should have departed. Here are the words of first stanza of the aria, in French and English:

  Ô Richard! Ô mon roi!

  L'univers t'abandonne;

  Sur la terre il n'est donc que moi

  Qui m'intéresse à ta personne!

  Moi seul dans l'univers,

  Voudrais briser tes fers,

  Et tout le reste t'abandonne!

  O Richard! O my king!

  The Universe abandons you!

  On earth, it is only me

  Who is interested in you!

  Alone in the universe

  I would break the chains

  When everyone else deserted you!

  “Ô Richard! Ô mon roi!” was sung by the Flanders regiment and the Royal Bodyguards at a banquet at the Versailles opera house on October 1, 1789. The Bodyguards were holding the banquet to honor the regiment which had been brought to Versailles to protect the Royal Family due to the recent disturbances. The Royal Family appeared to overwhelming cheers; the little Dauphin Louis-Charles walked the length of the banquet table without upsetting a single glass. As the Queen had feared, the appearance of the Royal Family at the dinner was distorted by the gazettes, and was seen as being an attack on the National Assembly. On October 5 the château was invaded by rioters, and Louis XVI, Antoinette, Madame Élisabeth and the children were taken to live at the Tuileries in Paris. In four years the King and Queen would both be dead, with Madame Elisabeth soon to follow, and the children left to languish in prison. “Ô Richard! Ô mon roi” continued to be sung by royalists; the words were sometimes changed to “Ô Louis, Ô mon roi.” As for Monsieur Grétry, although he lost all of his property during the Revolution he did not lose his life, and continued to be honored for his music.

  Musicians from various nations and backgrounds were welcomed at Versailles by Louis XVI. Joseph Boulogne (1745-1799), the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, known as le Mozart noir or “the black Mozart,” was one of the most enigmatic gentlemen at Versailles in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution. The son of a Caribbean slave woman, the Chevalier’s presence in the highest circles of society contradicts the view many people have of royal France being a place of restriction. On the contrary, the reign of Louis XVI was a truly open and diverse era, in which talent was rewarded and the gifted could go far. Antoinette called the Chevalier “my favorite American” and asked that the gifted violinist and composer give her musical instruction; the King nominated Saint-Georges director of the Royal Opera House in Paris. Unfortunately, the nomination was sabotaged by three women who sang and danced in the Paris Opera. They petitioned the Queen, saying the delicacy of their consciences would not permit them to take orders from “a mulatto.” In order to save the Queen from embarrassment, Joseph withdrew his name. The Queen responded by inviting him to play duets with her at musicales at Versailles. A crack shot and master horseman, Joseph was known as a ladies’ man. A skilled athlete and swordsman, the Chevalier also frequented the Palais Royal in Paris and was part of the coterie of the Duc d’Orléans. With such company, it is not surprising that he became the first African French freemason and eventually fought for the revolutionary government. Nevertheless, he had so many aristocratic connections that his art was not as appreciated by the new regime as it had been by Louis and Antoinette. Joseph died of a bladder disease four years after the King and Queen were killed, in 1799.

  There came for Antionette a last night at the Opera. Scottish aristocrat Grace Elliot was a warm-hearted, rather scandalous lady. She had great sympathy for the plight of the French Royal Family during the Revolution, in spite of her intimacy with the Duc d’Orléans. Mrs. Elliot recorded her impressions of the last public appearance of Antoinette at a theater, as follows:

  After the 20th of June, the people who wished well to the King and Queen were desirous that her Majesty should sometimes appear in public, accompanied by the Dauphin, a most interesting, beautiful child, and her charming daughter, Madame Royale. In consequence of this she went to the Comédie Italienne with her children, Madame Élisabeth, the King’s sister, and Madame Tourzelle, governess to the royal children. This was the very last time on which her Majesty appeared in public. I was there in my own box, nearly opposite the Queen’s; and as she was so much more interesting than the play, I never took my eyes off her and her family. The opera which was given was Les Evénemens Imprévus, and Madame Dugazon played the soubrette [female servant]. Her Majesty, from
her first entering the house, seemed distressed. She was overcome even by the applause, and I saw her several times wipe the tears from her eyes.

  The little Dauphin, who sat on her knee the whole night, seemed anxious to know the cause of his unfortunate mother’s tears. She seemed to soothe him, and the audience appeared well disposed, and to feel for the cruel situation of their beautiful Queen. In one of the acts a duet is sung by the soubrette and the valet, where Madame Dugazon says: Ah! Comme j'aime ma maîtresse [Ah! How I love my mistress]. As she looked particularly at the Queen at the moment she said this, some Jacobins, who had come into the playhouse, leapt upon the stage, and if the actors had not hid Madame Dugazon, they would have murdered her. They hurried the poor Queen and family out of the house, and it was all the Guards could do to get them safe into their carriages.6

  “Antoinette with bust of Louis XVI”

  11 Marie-Antoinette and Fashion

  “A dress of white percale, a gauze fichu, a straw hat—such was the toilet at Trianon, a fresh and charming toilet which set off the supple figure and brilliant complexion of the goddess of place but whose extreme simplicity enraged the sellers of silk at Lyons….”—M. de la Rocheterie

  As a young Dauphine, Antoinette was criticized for her shabby clothes and undignified manner. She was encouraged to show more interest in fashion by Louis XV and the Mesdames Tantes.1 Slowly, she began to take an interest in clothes. She tended to get ideas from Madame du Barry rather than from the Mesdames Tantes, however, and as Queen she hired the most creative couturière in Paris, Rose Bertin. Since then, Antoinette has been the symbol of extravagance and decadence of the ancien-régime. It is overlooked that from the moment of their succession in 1774, she joined her husband in desiring to cut back on the enormous expenses of the court. She refused to collect the customary droit de ceinture tax levied on behalf of the queen at the beginning of every reign. Moreover, her charities were quite extensive. The Queen’s spending on hairstyles and gowns was nothing compared to the extravagance of the mistresses Madame du Barry and Madame de Pompadour in the previous reign. Antonia Fraser in her biography of Antoinette says that when the eighteen-year-old queen adopted the elaborate poufs, it actually caused a lucrative trade in feathers to spring up in Paris. Patronizing French luxury goods was a duty of the crown. According to Lady Fraser: