I want to mention a few of the Queen’s less famous ladies so as to put her relationships in perspective; she was not just clinging to one or two people but had a wide circle of friends. Several of Antoinette’s ladies had served the late Queen Marie Leszczyńska and were, for the most part, virtuous and devout like the Polish Queen. A few of them were closely related or had similar names, so it can be difficult to keep track of them. For instance, there are two Duchesses de Gramont and two Duchesses de Maillé, as well as a Madame de Mailly. When each lady died or retired, their places in Antoinette’s household were often filled by their daughters. Like everything else at Versailles, such positions were hereditary, which is why when Antoinette brought in people who were not part of the old court families, there was much indignation. There remained, however, many from the traditional families until the Revolution and even throughout the Restoration.
Laure-Auguste de Fitz-James, the Princesse de Chimay (1744-1815), was one of Antoinette’s first close friends at Versailles and her chief lady-in-waiting from 1775 until 1789. The Princesse was a great granddaughter of James II of England, and thus distantly related to Antoinette through the Stuarts. Proud of her royal Stuart blood, Laure’s family was one of the several Scottish and Irish noble Catholic families who had been transplanted to France in order to have the freedom to practice their faith. Married to the Prince de Chimay, Philippe d'Alsace-Hénin-Liétard, the Princesse had served Queen Marie Leszczyńska. She was one of the ladies sent to greet Antoinette at the French border; the Dauphine befriended the Princesse at once and found her worthy of her confidence. When Antoinette became Queen she promoted her friend to first Dame d’Honneur, supplanting Madame de Noailles. The childless Princesse was known for her piety and religious devotion as well as for her love of music and opera. She kept a monkey as a pet which she would dress in a suit and let him scamper through the gardens of Versailles. Highly favored by Antoinette as Queen, she was given a suite of twelve rooms at Versailles. She stayed at the Queen’s side through many troubles until the Royal Family was carried away from Versailles to Paris; then the Queen asked the Princesse to escape for the Queen’s ladies were being targeted for harassment by the Revolutionaries. She left France with her husband and lived in exile abroad for many years, returning when law and order were restored after the Revolution, living a life devoted to prayer and charitable works.
Marie-Claudine-Silvie de Thiard de Bissy, Duchesse de Fitz-James (1752-1812), was the sister-in-law of the Princesse de Chimay, married to her older brother, Jacques-Charles, Duc de Fitz-James (1743-1805). Like the Princesse, she was one the the ladies chosen to attend the Dauphine upon her arrival in France, although she probably was not present at the handing-over ceremony due to pregnancy. The mother of four children, she was highly esteemed by Antoinette, and served her until 1790. Her daughter, Henriette-Victorine de Fitz-James, joined the Queen’s ladies as a dame du palais in 1781. Henriette became known as the Duchesse de Maillé when she married Charles-François de Maillé de la Tour Landry, Duc de Maillé. The Duchesse de Fitz-James’ father, Henri de Thiard, Comte de Bissy, died on the guillotine during the Terror. The Queen encouraged Marie-Claudine to flee to Rome with her family in 1790, writing a letter of recommendation for the Duchesse to the Duc de Fitz-James’ cousin, Henry Stuart, Cardinal York, brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie.10 The Queen also wrote to her friend the Duchesse de Polignac, asking her to take care of the Duchesse de Fitz-James and ask the protection of Cardinal de Bernis. The Queen corresponded with Marie-Claudine as long as she was able, sending her a lock of hair which was kept as a relic by the Fitz-James family for generations. The Duc de Fitz-James died in exile, but the Duchesse de Fitz-James survived to return to France, where she died in 1812 at age sixty. The other Duchesse de Maillé was Madeleine de Bréhant, second wife of Charles de Maillé de la Tour Landry and mother-in-law of Henriette de Fitz-James. Madeleine served Antoinette as a dame du palais, displaying enormous courage by staying at the Queen's side throughout the attacks on the Tuileries until separated by imprisonment in August 1792. She escaped the guillotine only through the death of Robespierre, and lived to see the Restoration, dying in 1819.
Another former lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Leszczyńska, Marie-Jeanne de Talleyrand-Périgord, Comtesse de Mailly d’Haucourt (1747-1792), was also present at the handing over ceremony of the Arduchess Antoine in May 1770. Known for her wit, wisdom and vivacity, she and the Dauphine became friends immediately. Happily married, with children, Madame de Mailly was popular at Versailles as well as a relative of the famous bishop-diplomat, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. When she lost her son in 1770, Antoinette rushed to her side to comfort her. The Comtesse died during the Revolution, in 1792, a year before Antoinette herself. Close to the Comtesse was Marie-Paule d’Albert de Luynes, Duchesse de Chaulnes-Picquigny (1744-1781), who was part Italian like the Princesse de Lamballe. She had been a dame du palais of Queen Marie Leszczyńska, as had her mother. She traveled across France with Madame de Noailles in 1770 to become a lady-in-waiting of the new Dauphine. Marie-Paule’s was an unfortunate case; her husband the Duc de Chaulnes was a horticulturist from an eccentric family. For some reason he refused to consummate his marriage. The Duchesse de Chaulnes always wore white to show that she was still a virgin. She died in 1781 at age thirty-seven.
Thérèse-Lucy de Rothe, Comtesse Dillon (1751 –1782), was the wife of her second cousin General Arthur Dillon, both the descendants of several noble Irish families. She was one of Antoinette’s first ladies-in-waiting, closer to her in age than the others, but without their spotless reputations. She and the Queen were great friends at first but Antoinette drifted away as she was known to do when people bored or disappointed her. Madame Dillon’s husband, known at court as le beau Dillon, was away fighting most of the time. Beautiful and vivacious Madame Dillon became the mistress of the Prince de Guéméné, whose wife was the Royal Governess. According to her daughter, she was also good friends with the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen, who came to their house every day.11 Madame Dillon died of tuberculosis in her early thirties. Later, her daughter, Henriette-Lucie Dillon, Madame de la Tour de Pin de Gouvernet (1770-1853), entered the Queen’s service. Lucie had been brought up in Paris by her grandmother at the house of her great uncle, who was a bishop, and came to court as a young married woman. As an old lady, Lucie wrote her memoirs, which remain an excellent source of information about Versailles and the French Revolution. She is often critical of Antoinette in her writings so when she praises the Queen, we know it is genuine. Lucie and her husband Frédéric truly loved each other and had several children. They escaped the guillotine and went to Albany, New York where they operated a dairy farm. They experienced a deep religious transformation after they lost two of their children to death. They later returned to France and were there for decades of political ups and downs, which ended with them in exile again. Lucie died in Italy in 1853.
Among the thousands murdered during the French Revolution, one of the most notorious cases was that of the death of Marie-Thérèse-Louise de Savoie-Carignan, Princesse de Lamballe (1749-1792). The fury of the new order of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity vented itself upon her frail form in a manner of extreme violence. It was as strange as it was hideous, because other than being a confidante of the Queen’s, Madame de Lamballe could be counted among the more liberal, “enlightened” aristocrats, devoted to works of charity and civil improvements. Contrary to the standard depiction of Madame de Lamballe as a lovely but simpering idiot, the princess was intelligent as well as cultured. She was the Grande Maitresse of all the French masonic ladies’ lodges, for she saw freemasonry as a tool for creating a better world, as did many of her contemporaries. Her liberal politics were one of the reasons that King Louis XVI encouraged his wife towards the Polignacs, and away from Madame de Lamballe and her Orleanist salon. Madame de Lamballe discovered before the end that utopian politics that seek to create an earthly paradise inevitably lead to social chaos.
Marie-
Thérèse-Louise was born in Turin on September 8, 1749. In 1767 she was married to Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, Prince de Lamballe, heir to one of the greatest fortunes in France. He was the son of the kindly Duc de Penthièvre, a grandson of Louis XIV by Madame de Montespan. Marie-Thérèse-Louise had been chosen for her piety and beauty, with the hope that she could reform the wild libertine young bridegroom. He soon grew restless, however, and a few months into their marriage he ran away with his mistress. He contracted a venereal disease from which he died, in his wife’s arms, having returned to her in his illness. Antoinette pitied the young widow and took her sleigh-riding. According to Madame Campan, the Queen’s chambermaid:
It was at the time of the sleighing-parties that the Queen became intimately acquainted with the Princesse de Lamballe, who made her appearance in them wrapped in fur, with all the brilliancy and freshness of the age of twenty,–the emblem of spring, peeping from under sable and ermine. Her situation, moreover, rendered her peculiarly interesting; married, when she was scarcely past childhood, to a young prince, who ruined himself by the contagious example of the Duc d’Orleans, she had had nothing to do from the time of her arrival in France but to weep. A widow at eighteen, and childless, she lived with the Duc de Penthievre as an adopted daughter. She had the tenderest respect and attachment for that venerable Prince; but the Queen, though doing justice to his virtues, saw that the Duc de Penthievre’s way of life, whether at Paris or at his country-seat, could neither afford his young daughter-in-law the amusements suited to her time of life, nor ensure her in the future an establishment such as she was deprived of by her widowhood.12
Antoinette made Madame de Lamballe, known for her benevolence, the Superintendent of her household, which was controversial at the time since there were other courtiers who felt the position was due to them. There was also the small matter of the expense of the salary due the Superintendent, as Mercy warned. In spite of the furor, the two women became good friends. However, the Princesse tried at times to monopolize the Queen. Once the Princesse invited the Queen to a party at her house; Antoinette, having dressed with care, arrived to find that no party had been planned but only a private supper. No doubt the dinners of Madame de Lamballe had a tendency to focus on lengthy discourse, as that was the way of Freemasonry. Annnoyed, Antoinette left and went on to a party at the Palais Royale. Overall, Madame de Lamballe was too intellectual for Antoinette and so the Queen, with Louis’ approval, eventually became closer to the Polignacs. She always remained friends with Madame de Lamballe, though.
When the Revolution erupted in 1789, Madame de Lamballe returned to France from the safety of England in order to be share the troubles of the Royal Family. She became closer than ever to the King’s devout sister, Madame Élisabeth of France, and was horrified at how the masonic principles she had thought to be so constructive had contributed to such a violent revolution. When the Royal Family was arrested and sent to the Temple prison in August 1792, Lamballe was separated from them and sent to the prison of La Force. When the September Massacres broke out, in which thousands were killed and the streets ran with blood, Madame de Lamballe was asked to renounce her loyalty to the King and the Queen. She refused, and was delivered over to the mob. She was bludgeoned and stabbed to death, and by some accounts raped and mutilated. She was definitely decapitated, and the valet of Louis XVI, Hanet-Cléry, gave an account of how the mob brought her head on a pike to the Temple prison for the Queen to kiss.
We were hardly seated before a head at the end of a pike was presented at the window. Tison’s wife screamed loudly; the murderers thought it was the queen’s voice, and we heard the frantic laughs of those barbarians. Thinking that Her Majesty was still at table, they had raised the victim's head so that it could not escape her sight; it was that of the Princesse de Lamballe. Though bloody, it was not disfigured; her blond hair, still curling, floated around the pike.13
Such excesses became typical of the French Revolution, stirred up by propaganda which played upon the fears of frightened people. The Princesse de Lamballe was a bit misguided but ultimately heroic and loyal, and the grisly death to which she was subjected exemplified the misogyny of the new order.
At the French court in the Old Regime the office of governess of the royal children was among the most coveted and influential in the land. La Gouvernante des Enfants de France had the duty of bringing up the heir to the throne which meant that in the future she —and her family—would have a unique connection to the King. The royal governess was the only woman in France who would swear loyalty directly to the King.14 Now before the reign of Louis XVI the royal governess was only chosen from certain high families. Victoire-Armande-Josèphe de Rohan, Princesse de Guéménée (1743-1807) was originally made the governess of the young Madame Élisabeth, chiefly because she was born a Rohan. The Rohans were a tremendously important family and their members were usually picked for the chief positions in the royal household. Cardinal Louis de Rohan was appointed Grand Almoner in spite of his scandalous personal life and the Queen's repugnance for him. It was among one of the more frustrating traditions which Louis and Antoinette sought to abolish, to the outrage of many courtiers.
Although it might seem like an inefficient practice to install someone in an office based upon their family connections rather than their qualifications, Madame de Guéménée proved capable of guiding the education of Madame Élisabeth. She was appointed in 1775, when her aunt Madame de Marsan retired after Madame Clothilde’s marriage. Madame de Guéménée was a charming and elegant lady, with several of her own children. She was concerned that Élisabeth’s upbringing under Madame de Marsan had been too rigid and stifling. She encouraged Élisabeth to take part in dancing and outdoor games in the park of Montreuil, which belonged to the Guéménés before they went bankrupt. When Madame Élisabeth no longer needed a governess and when Madame Royale was born, Madame de Guéménée continued as royal governess but of the King’s children rather than of his sister.
However, the Guéménés were part of a fast set. Both the Prince and the Princesse had lovers outside of marriage, the Prince with Madame Dillon and the Princesse with the Duc de Coigny, a friend of the Queen’s. In her careless youth, Antoinette frequented Madame de Guéménée’s extravagant card parties because the stakes were high and the crowd boisterous. Thus the Guéménés were seen as belonging to the Queen’s circle of friends, although Antoinette had no deep affection for them.15 Madame de Guéménée, a disciple of Mesmer, had some odd views, such as her conviction that spirits communicated with her through her dogs. According to a biography of the Austrian ambassador Comte de Mercy:
The Royal Governess was the Princesse de Guéménée, who received this appointment by virtue of her relationship to Madame de Marsan, the function of instruction being considered vested in the family of de Rohan. There was no doubt that the Princesse de Guéménée was capable of instructing upon many matters. She was a great lover of little dogs, and invariably appeared surrounded by a multitude of them. ‘She offered to them a species of worship, and pretended, through their medium, to hold communication with the world of spirits.’ She had been convicted of cheating at cards on several occasions. She was distinguished for the urbanity of her manner towards the ladies honoured by her husband’s preference, paying the most delicate attentions to each in turn; thus she compelled admiration for her exemplary fulfillment of a wife's highest duty. She entertained magnificently, royally, outshone the whole Court by her dress, and paved the way for the greatest bankruptcy known in France—the failure that affected all classes of society and plunged France into ruin; for all, from dukes to poor Breton sailors, had invested their moneys in the house of de Guéménée. ‘Only a King or a Rohan could have made such a failure,’ was the consoling sentiment of the Princesse, as she contemplated her bootmaker's bill of 60,000 livres [£2,400], or the amount of 16,000 livres [£640] owed to her paper-hanger. And the ruin of the Rohans hastened the Revolution.16
After the Guéménés left court, t
he Queen insisted upon choosing a governess for her children not from one of the great families but from an impoverished, unknown family called the Polignacs. Madame de Polignac had by that time become Antoinette's best friend, a friendship encouraged by Louis XVI, since Madame de Poliganc had a calming and steadying influence upon the high-strung and easily distracted Queen. The choice of Madame de Polignac as the new royal governess and the subsequent rise of her family to power caused outrage among the nobility, especially those who thought they had a better claim upon the job. Trouble would come of the Queen's choice, unfortunately.
The closest confidante of Antoinette’s was Yolande-Martine Gabrielle de Polastron, Duchesse de Polignac (1749-1793). Gabrielle is usually portrayed in books and films as Antoinette's “bad girl” friend, responsible for leading the young Queen of France into a wild, decadent lifestyle. Often depicted as a greedy, spendthrift slut, Gabrielle preferred simplicity, was a devoted mother and loyal friend of both Louis and Antoinette. Part of the rehabilitation of Antoinette’s reputation is a careful look at her relationship with Gabrielle. Gabrielle, born on September 8, 1749, came from an old family of Languedoc. After her mother's death when she was three, Gabrielle was given to the care of an aunt, Madame d'Andlau, who had once been a governess to the daughters of Louis XV. As a small child, Gabrielle was placed in a convent school, where she was reared by the nuns. Girls of high and low estate were educated by nuns in those days, including Louis XV’s mistress, Madame du Barry. In Gabrielle’s case, perhaps because she was separated from her family at such an early age, there seems to have been some influence of the religious life on her personal habits. She chose simple, tasteful clothes, and never wore perfume or diamonds. One of the only pictures of her in formal court attire shows her wearing fresh flowers in place of jewelry. Cheerful and discreet, a lover of music and the outdoors, Gabrielle emerged from the convent as a lady with polished manners and a straightforward demeanor. With delicate features, violet eyes, ivory skin and black curling hair, Gabrielle was petite and well-proportioned. Her defining trait was a lack of pretense; she had a gentle, forthright manner of speaking, totally at odds with the highly sophisticated wit so valued by high society. Her enemies would later attribute to her powers of great cunning and manipulation, but her strength was in her honesty, and most of all, in her discretion. The same cannot be said of her relatives, however.
Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars Page 22