At the age of eighteen, La Belle Gabrielle was given in marriage to Comte Jules be Polignac of an ancient clan of Auvergne, as impoverished as her own family, as many nobles were in France at the time. Since the twenty-two year old bridegroom was a captain in the Royal Pologne regiment, they moved to Paris. The young couple had a small fortune from the recent harvest, besides the Comte’s pay, with which they had to support not only themselves but the indigent members of their large families. They most certainly could not afford to present themselves at court or even live in the town of Versailles, so they dwelt in Paris at an apartment at the Louvre, or at the family property at Claye with Madame d’Andlau. Gabrielle always preferred the country to the city.
In the meantime, Comte Jules’ sister, Diane de Polignac, had managed to acquire a position in the household of the Comtesse d’Artois, Antoinette’s sister-in-law. In the late summer of 1776, Diane invited Jules and Gabrielle to visit Versailles. There, in the Hall of Mirrors, they met Antoinette and, as Diane had hoped, Gabrielle’s charming, easy-going manner fascinated the twenty-year-old Queen, who was struggling with the iron restraints of the court etiquette. Antoinette wrote at once to her mother, saying she had found a new friend whom she “infinitely loved,” that is “une femme que j’aime infiniment.”17 Mercy also dashed off a letter to the Empress, expressing his fears that Gabrielle would be an adverse influence on the Queen, for Madame de Polignac was the niece of the Comtesse d’Andlau, a governess who had once let Madame Adélaïde read a naughty book Le Portier de Chartreux at Mass and had been banished from court by Louis XV. Mercy passed on the gossip that Gabrielle had a lover, her cousin the Comte de Vaudreuil; that she was equivocal in matters of dogma—she was indeed a Freeemason. Furthermore, Mercy reported, Dr. Lasonne had told Vermond that she would attaint the piety of the Queen. A year later in 1777, Mercy complained to the Empress that the Queen gave all her confidences to Gabrielle, a protegée of Maurepas. She had gained the Queen’s favor for Maurepas whom she even invited to Petit Trianon.18 Mercy’s main problem with Gabrielle is thus exposed; it was not her character he disliked but the fact that she had replaced himself as the Queen’s confidante, she who was also in league with Maurepas, Louis’ minister. It becomes clear that Gabrielle was a pawn at the center of a political chess game of intricate stragedy, and through her Louis defeated Mercy in his efforts to gain political influence over the Queen of France.
Now, it must be recalled that Antoinette had been sent to France as Louis’ bride in order to further Austrian interests. Louis XVI, however, did not want his wife to meddle in politics, knowing that as a foreigner it could lead to her unpopularity. He also feared to replicate the pattern of his grandfather Louis XV’s reign, in which at times it seemed like Madame de Pompadour was ruling France. As it might be gathered by now, Louis felt that Antoinette needed watching over, and by a non-Austrian; not because he thought she was bad, but because she was impulsive and imprudent. He could not watch her himself because of business and hunting, so he found someone else that could. He wanted to keep Antoinette from manipulation by the various factions at court, especially the liberal Orleanist clique, to which the Princesse de Lamballe belonged. Maurepas, Louis’ minister, was an uncle of Gabrielle de Polignac. Louis XVI and Maurepas encouraged the Queen to befriend Gabrielle, and thus created for her a circle of politically “safe” friends, who owed their social success to the King alone. Gabrielle thus became a sort of governess for Antoinette. At Antoinette’s request, Louis happily gave Gabrielle’s husband a lucrative position at court so the Polignacs could afford to live at Versailles. Over the next few years, he gave Polignac relatives high positions that traditionally went to other, more prominent families. Diane de Polignac became Madame Élisabeth’s first lady-in-waiting. Gabrielle herself became Royal Governess, after the Princesse de Guéménée retired from court due to bankruptcy. Jules and Gabrielle, who had a growing family of young children, were given a thirteen room apartment at Versailles; over the years they became good friends of both Louis and Antoinette. As the royal family increased, the King and Queen continued to entrust Gabrielle with their children, being that she had showed herself to be an exemplary mother of her own three. Gabrielle influenced the Queen to adopt simpler styles. In 1780, Gabrielle’s twelve-year-old daughter Aglaé married the Duc de Gramont de Guiche; the Queen called her “Guichette.” Guichette, a replica of her mother, had her first child in the summer of 1789, just as the Revolution was breaking out, making Gabrielle a grandmother even as she fled the country.
In 1780, Mercy mentions to the Empress that the King had visited Madame de Polignac at her house after giving birth to her son Jules, who would someday become prime minister of France.19 The Queen provided the baby’s layette. Jules was elevated to the rank of Duc and given Bitche, a county in Lorraine; hence Gabrielle was known as the Duchesse de Polignac. Madame de Polignac was the only person Louis XVI ever visited in a private home; he sat with her at the opera, and wrote to her when she left Versailles. His letter to her is quite affectionate, and he refers to Antoinette as “votre petite soeur,” “your little sister.”20 Some people believe Gabrielle was Loius’ mistress, but the reason for his high regard for her is obvious the more one understands Antoinette’s temperament.21 Let us recall that as a little child she experienced convulsions when distressed. Antoinette needed a calm, motherly companion, older than herself, to advise her about the difficulties in her intimate marital life, her possible fears about pregnancy and childbirth, which she may have had due to tales from her sister Maria Carolina and the horrific death of her sister-in-law, Isabella of Parma. Gabrielle was such a friend, soothing the Queen in her moments of hysteria and depression. At Gabrielle’s suite and with her family, Antoinette said, “Here I can be myself.”
However, the Polignac salon, called la société Polignac soon provoked envy and calumny among the courtiers who felt excluded from the Queen’s intimate circle, which often met for supper and cards at Petit Trianon. Among the men in the circle, Vaudreuil, Gabrielle’s much older Creole cousin, held the first place. Not handsome in the least due to a pock-marked countenance, he was witty and entertaining, as well as devoted to Gabrielle, according to the standards of chivalry. Rumors and gossip spread through the court and to Paris, growing in venom with each year, fed by the pamphlets and the Diamond Necklace scandal, convincing many that the Queen and her friend were loose women. Antoinette grew more and more distressed. Madame Campan told what happened when she entered the Queen’s room at Trianon one morning. To quote:
There were letters lying on the bed and she was weeping bitterly. Her tears and sobs were occasionally interrupted by exclamations of ‘Ah ! That I were dead!— wretches! monsters!What have I done to them?... If you love me, it would be better to kill me at once!’I suggested sending for the Duchess de Polignac…In less than ten minutes,
she was at the queen’s door…The queen stretched her arms towards her, and the Duchess rushed towards her. I heard her sobs renewed and withdrew.”22
The Polignacs were accused of greediness, but they were probably not greedier than any other family. Most courtiers received much more from the royal purse. The calumnies grew uglier as the propaganda machine, aimed at provoking the Revolution, produced pornographic pamphlets depicting Antoinette and Gabrielle as lesbian lovers, engaged in orgies at Trianon. Gabrielle became universally detested and was blamed for depleting the royal treasury, although it was war that had caused the bankruptcy. She often asked to retire from the court. ‘I am not made for living at Versailles,’ she kept repeating.23 The friendship cooled, as Gabrielle’s relatives became more grasping. Antoinette became more politically involved as Louis began to struggle with depression. Furthermore, Antoinette could no longer tolerate Vaudreuil, and asked Gabrielle to send him away, and Gabrielle refused. Antoinette and Gabrielle also disagreed on politics, especially the fall of the Polignac-backed Calonne, whom Antoinette blamed for making France’s financial situation worse than it already was.The Duches
s withdrew more into her private life, and there were rumors about her health. The Queen, who found the Polignacs ungrateful, began to spend her evenings elsewhere. My sense is that Gabrielle was torn between family loyalty and loyalty to Antoinette.
After the Diamond Necklace fiasco, Gabrielle went to England with Comtesse Diane, Guichette, and Monsieur and Madame de Vaudreuil. Gabrielle had traveled to England occasionally over the years, once with the Princesse de Lamballe; she visited with her friend Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Georgiana had visited France several times and had been received by the Queen at Versailles. Georgiana and her friends called the Duchesse de Polignac “Little Po” and Gabrielle had carried on a correspondence with the Duchess for many years. Gabrielle’s charge the Dauphin Louis-Joseph was in bad health, but the sub-governess Madame de Mackau had him in her care. Gabrielle’s official purpose was to go to Bath to “take the waters” which was considered a remedy for many indispositions. She also went on private business for the King and Queen, attempting to purchase the defamatory “memoir” by the notorious Madame de la Motte, which calumniated Antoinette to an obscene degree. She managed to buy the manuscript, but the La Mottes had another copy and published the book anyway. She returned to find France on the edge of the abyss.
The King wished to reform the feudal tax system and eliminate the deficit by taxing the nobility, and so he called the Estates-General in May 1789. The opening of the Estates-General coincided with the death of the King and Queen’s seven year old son, the Dauphin Louis-Joseph. The royal couple was devastated; with difficulty they met the escalating crisis. When violence erupted on July 14, 1789, Antoinette implored Gabrielle to leave, fearing that she would be assassinated. Gabrielle begged to stay with Louis and Antoinette in their hour of need, but the Queen said, “Remember that you are a mother.” On July 16, the Polignac clan left Versailles for a life of exile. They went to Rome but ended up in Vienna as Gabrielle’s health deteriorated. She had cancer as well as being consumed with horror and anxiety as she heard of the imprisonment and tragedies that befell Louis and Antoinette.
One of her friends wrote: ‘She did not stop crying. For six months, a deep sadness, great sufferings without certain causes weakened her each day more.’ A last blow hit her when they were forced to announce to her this horrible news: on October, 16th, 1793, Marie-Antoinette had been beheaded in Paris. This was the true beginning of Madame de Polignac’s agony. She could not survive the queen, and she herself died on December, 9th, 1793, one month and a half, precisely, after her friend. A witness told of her death: ‘Her last sigh was but her last breath, and to tell this in one word, her death was as sweet as she herself had been. She was buried in Vienna and they wrote on her tomb her name only, followed by this mention: “Dead from suffering” on December 9th, 1793.’23
I am more and more convinced that Gabrielle has been just as maligned as the Queen. What went on with the Polignac relations and friends was a common occurrence at every court of Europe: when you rose, your family rose with you, it was almost expected. If there had been no Revolution, no one would have given a second thought to the Polignacs, except perhaps to find them annoying, as many did. But with the complete upheaval of society in the Revolution, contemporaries and historians alike were grasping at straws to see what the Queen did that made herself so hated by the French people. They think it must have been the problems with La Barry, or the Queen’s dress allowance, or her Trianon, or Gabrielle's greedy relatives, etc, etc.
Be that as it may, Antoinette was hated because she was deliberately maligned by a careful campaign on the part of political enemies, which included dissimulating false and exaggerated rumors to the people, as well as every form of the vilest pornography. Gabrielle was routinely included in the pornographic depictions. People were scandalized and believed that some of it must be true. Gabrielle must have done something wrong. To this day Gabrielle is seen as the naughty, greedy friend, when in reality she probably saved Antoinette’s sanity. The powerful tools used to destroy the French monarchy and transform society into a totalitarian state are with us still, but on a much larger and more pervasive scale through technology and the media.
Geneviève de Gramont, Comtesse d’Ossun (1751-1794) was another close friend of the Queen’s and her dame d’atours, the Mistress of the Robes or lady-in-waiting in charge of her clothes. Madame d’Ossun was a niece of Choiseul and the older sister of the Duc de Gramont de Guiche, who married Aglaé de Polignac. Having charge of Antoinette’s wardrobe was a challenging occupation, but Madame d’Ossun was up to the task, although the expenses often went over budget. While not posessing the wit or beauty of Antoinette’s other friends, the Comtesse had the rare commodities of common sense and practicality. She was responsible for making sure all the merchants were paid. She was also genuinely loyal to the King and Queen. She directed a large staff in the maintenance of the Queen’s clothing. As Antoinette became disillusioned with the Polignac set for their avarice, she began to enjoy quiet musical evenings at Madame d’Ossun’s apartments, which were close to her own at Versailles. The King even gave Madame d’Ossun money to defray the expenses of entertaining the Queen, but most of it Madame d’Ossun paid for out of her own pocket. Such simple recreational evenings, and the fact that the Queen was imposing strict economies on herself and her household, caused some of the Polignac clan to complain and make up slanderous verses. However, Madame d’Ossun conducted herself with great dignity and would not speak against the Polignacs to the Queen. She continued to serve the Queen through many dangers until she was told to leave when the Royal Family tried to escape to Montmédy in June 1791. She fled to her château in the country. The revolutionaries tried to implicate her in the flight of the Royal Family but to no avail. They did eventually arrest her as a counter-revolutionary. She was guillotined in July of 1794, just as the Terror was about to end.
Louise Emmanuelle de Châtillon, Princesse de Tarente (1763-1814) was one of the younger ladies-in-waiting, succeeding the Princesse de Chimay as première dame d’honneur to the Queen in 1785. In 1781, she married Charles, Prince de Tarente, later Duc de la Trémouille. They had one child, a little girl who died as an infant. The marriage was unhappy and broke down eventually. The Princesse, greatly esteemed by Antoinette, stayed with the Royal Family until the fall of the monarchy on August 10, 1792, when they were all arrested. The Princesse was thrown into the Abbaye prison for refusing to testify against the Queen. She managed to disguise herself in order to avoid being massacred in the September massacres. She was released and escaped to England. She eventually went to Russia, where she served the Russian Imperial Family for many years, being especially favored by the wife of Alexander I, Empress Elisabeth Alexeyevna, who thought she was a saint. It was with a noble Russian family, the Golovines, that she returned to France at the time of the Restoration in 1814. The Princesse joined the suite of Antoinette’s daughter, the Duchess d’Angoulême, for a brief time, returning to her friends the Golovines in Russia, when her health failed. The Golivines, whom she had helped convert to Catholicism, were with her when she died in July of 1814.
Marie Louise d’Esparbès de Lussan, Vicomtesse de Polastron (1764-1804) was the sister-in-law of Gabrielle de Polignac, married to her younger half-brother, Denis de Polastron. After losing her mother shortly after birth, Louise was reared by a grandmother. At the age of twelve, she was sent to the convent of Panthemont to prepare for her First Communion, as was the custom. Shy, sweet and well-mannered, Louise was a favorite pupil of the nuns. She remained with them until age seventeen, when a marriage was arranged for her by her father, the Comte d’Esparbès, to the Vicomte de Polastron. The Vicomte’s sister Gabrielle de Polignac brought her brother to the convent to interview Louise. Gabrielle was at the time the governess of the royal children as well as being confidante of Queen Antoinette; an alliance with her family was seen as an excellent match for Louise. Gabrielle was charmed by the young girl’s modest demeanor and thought she was the perfect bride for her brothe
r. In the memoirs of Madame de Gontaut, a cousin of both Louise and the Polignacs, and later governess of Charles X’s grandchildren, Gabrielle is quoted as saying:
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