Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Now that everything is settled, and the young people like each other, we must begin to make preparations for the marriage. It will take place at Versailles. I have obtained the position of lady-in-waiting to the queen for my charming sister-in-law, with an apartment in the palace. We shall be always together; she shall be not only a sister to me, but a cherished child. I love to think that with us she cannot fail to be happy. 24

  The wedding was simple and small for Versailles and the bridegroom, elevated to the rank of colonel, departed to take command of his regiment immediately after the ceremony, and was gone for a year. As Madame de Gontaut says: “In those days, this was often the way young couples made each other’s acquaintance.”25 The Duchesse de Montaut-Navailles (mother of Madame de Gontaut) “idolized” Louise and was resolved to watch over her at court, as was the kind-hearted Duchesse de Guiche (Madame de Polignac’s daughter), for Louise had a “gentle spirit” and “the splendors held out before her had not the power to dazzle her.”26

  After the marriage, preparations began for Louise to be formally presented to the Queen. Her gown was designed by Mademoiselle Bertin and her hair dressed by Monsieur Léonard, as she was instructed in the etiquette of the proper manner of curtsying to the Queen. Louise was presented to Antoinette by the Duchesse de Polignac, along with her daughter the Duchesse de Guiche and Madame de Montaut-Navailles. However, disaster struck. The new young Vicomtesse de Polastron forgot everything she had learned and froze before the Queen, the princes, and all their entourages. She stood stiff and motionless, even when Antoinette came forward to embrace her. This was an unspeakable disgrace which set all of the courtiers whispering and tittering. But the Comte d’Artois was moved by her timidity and gentle manner. He spoke to her the next day when everyone else was avoiding her. Artois was the King’s handsome, charming, youngest brother. He chased women, gambled, and spent exhorbitant amounts of money on his country-house, the Bagatelle. He was unhappily married to Marie-Thérèse de Savoie, whose heart he had broken many times by his infidelities. Used to easy conquests, he was enchanted by Louise’s virtue and restraint, and fell deeply in love with her. As Madame de Gontaut describes:

  Madame de Polastron was very agreeable, without being pretty; her figure was slender and supple, and her expression was mournful and touching. She was too timid to speak very loud; her voice had a wonderful charm, and she expressed herself with dignity and grace. She was neither humble nor arrogant, but very retiring; and to know her it was necessary to make an effort to draw her out. The Prince, who felt compassion for her, sought her out and made this effort.27

  In 1782 Louise became a dame du palais in the service of the Queen. Artois caused a great stir at court by hovering around Madame de Polignac’s apartments so as to be close to Louise, unable to hide his admiration. Antoinette noticed and cautioned Louise about Artois’ attentions. Louise was too guileless and innocent to fully understand. Madame de Gontaut relates in her memoirs that her mother, the Duchesse de Montaut-Navailles, who had been given the special charge of watching over Louise de Polastron, was herself too naïve about life to protect her from the amorous advances of the Comte d’Artois. Madame de Montaut-Navailles saw that the prince held Louise in high regard, which was obvious to the entire court, but “feeling that [Louise] merited it by her noble and simple conduct, she would have felt that as though she were committing a sin if she had attached to this regard the slightest suspicion of gallantry.”28 Thus Louise continued to be constantly thrust into the prince’s presence and being the focus of his disturbing but highly flattering flirtatious behavior.

  Louise’s husband the Vicomte de Polastron finally returned to Versailles after being with his regiment for a year. Polastron lacked his sister Gabrielle de Polignac’s charm and people did not like him. He did not care for the royal court and longed to be back with his regiment. Nevertheless, he managed to get his wife with child and they had a son named Louis, to whom Louis XVI and Antoinette stood as godparents. Motherhood brought Louise great happiness and, although her husband could be surly and disagreeable, she slowly grew in confidence. Soon she had a small circle of friends, while continuing to wait upon the Queen.

  The prince only became more enraptured with Louise and constantly sought her company, so that tongues were wagging. He finally wrote her a passionate love letter, promising to make any sacrifice in order to win her. Louise, deeply touched but filled with confusion, showed the letter to the Duchesse de Montaut-Navailles, who insisted that she send it back to the prince with no reply. Then Louise opened her heart to the Queen and to her sister-in-law the Duchesse de Polignac. Antoinette encouraged her to withdraw from the palace and move to Paris, returning only on the days when she was in waiting. Soon it was all over Paris that Madame de Polastron was exiled and that the prince was in despair. According to Madame de Gontaut:

  The Comte d’Artois was dejected and hurt by this removal which the queen had sanctioned; the more obstacles he encountered, the more ardently he tried to overcome them. He took care to let Louise know that he would seize every opportunity to meet her, that even if he could not speak to her he would at least see her at any price.29

  Artois discovered what night Madame de Montaut-Navailles would visit the opera, accompanied by Louise. He vested himself in an outlandish disguise, huge wig, embroidered cravat, and a voluminous riding coat. He took a taxi to the theatre instead of his own coach, but in spite of his pretenses, everyone recognized him, and his presence caused a great commotion at the Opera. He dramatically cast aside the wig and great coat, hoping to catch Louise's eye. Louise, humiliated, hid in the back of her cousin’s opera box. Gossip had already declared her to be his mistress; many who spread such false rumors were themselves compromised in illicit situations and did not understand Louise’s determination to be a faithful wife.

  Louise tried to resist temptation, continuing to avoid the prince while always praying for him, but her married life was difficult and the times were full of foreboding. Artois found himself in the thick of the political controversy because of his conservatism and resistance to all revolutionary ideas. In July of 1789, after the disturbances following the capture of the Bastille, Artois and his family were obliged to flee the country, as well as the Polignacs. Louise returned to Versailles to be at the Queen’s side, but Antoinette implored her to escape while she could and join the Polignacs abroad. Louise’s husband had already departed to be with his regiment.

  Louise journeyed with her son to Turin where the Polignacs were temporarily staying. Word then came to her from Germany of the Comte d’Artois with his colony of émigrés, that they had no money and were low on supplies. Louise begged her grandfather for her dowry money which had never been paid. With her son and two servants, she traveled by coach to Coblentz, through many dangers and difficulties, hardly even knowing where to go. At last she found the army of the Prince de Condé, also at Coblentz, along with the Comte d’Artois. There was quite a sensation as she arrived, and a crowd gathered. Artois, who had thought that he would never see her again, slowly walked towards her coach in a daze. As Madame de Gontaut describes:

  Monseigneur did not understand what had brought her, and questioned her; astonished at finding so much devotion, resolution, and courage in that timid soul, he was greatly touched, and overwhelmed with gratititude. But already he foresaw for her the consequences of her imprudence….30

  The people fell silent as the prince doffed his hat and bowed, asking what her orders for him were. “To find some shelter,” Louise replied, wearily. Artois immediately arranged for quarters to be prepared for her, but as she was being escorted there, someone from the crowd cried out, “Whore!”31

  After Madame de Polignac died of cancer in Vienna in 1793, her family and friends scattered; many eventually found their way to Scotland, where Artois was holding court at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh, courtesy of the English monarch. He was openly living with Louise de Polastron in the castle which had seen many dramatic episodes in the life of Ma
ry Stuart. Madame de Montaut-Navailles, when visiting after many years of exile, found Louise sad and unhappy; she felt deep pity for her. Louise had for so long borne the stigma of being a fallen woman, in spite of her innocence, that when she surrendered at last to the passion of the Comte d’Artois, being censured by the world was nothing new to her. However, being a woman with a strong sense of honor, a lifestyle which violated her religious beliefs and moral principles could not bring her happiness. Nevertheless, having become so emotionally attached to Artois, and he to her, she found it beyond her strength to leave him. Louise reared her son and sent him to college; she was not reunited with her husband, nor Artois with his wife, who remained on the continent. Artois’ younger son the Duc de Berry was often with them in Scotland; the older son the Duc d’Angoulême, who had married the King and Queen’s daughter, remained in Mitau in Courland with Louis XVIII, as is told in the novel Madame Royale.

  As for Artois, he possessed at last the lady of his heart, and was content, although he had little income, and could only go riding on Sundays, for Scottish law forbade the arrest of debtors on the Lord’s Day. Every evening he and his entourage played cards in Louise’s salon. He made ends meet by gambling, occasionally traveling to London for bigger stakes. He took Louise with him and it was there in 1804 that she was reunited with her cousin Madame de Gontaut. Madame de Gontaut was shocked to find Louise coughing and pale. She never complained and those who surrounded her seemed to be unaware that she was sick; most especially Artois, who appeared oblivious. With great difficulty, Madame de Gontaut was able to get Louise at last to the physician of King George III, Sir Henry Halford, who diagnosed her as being in the last stages of consumption. When the doctor broke the news to Artois, telling him that the Vicomtesse de Polastron must be taken to the country and given total rest, the prince was shocked. “Do anything to save her!” he implored.32

  Madame de Gontaut found a house in the country at Brompton for her dying cousin and had her moved there, where she cared for her tenderly. She especially was concerned about the lack of peace and interior despair that Louise revealed to her in their conversations. She sent for a priest, Abbé Latil. He heard Louise's confession and restored her tranquility, speaking to her of the goodness of God. He asked one sacrifice of her, however, that she not see Artois again. Louise agreed, asking only that she might see him at the hour of her death. The priest consented. Artois was beside himself with grief but departed from Louise’s side as Abbé Latil demanded. It was only for a week, since Louise was failing fast. She said farewell to her son, her faithful servants, and her loyal remaining friends, asking their pardon for the public scandal she had given. All were present as the last moment drew near and knelt around the bed as she received the last rites and the prayers for the dying were recited. Artois rushed to the house when summoned. He paused in the doorway of Louise’s room. Trembling and gasping for breath, she raised her hands to heaven and said: “A favor, Monsieur, grant me one request. Give yourself to God!”

  Artois fell on his knees. “As God is my witness, I swear it!”

  “Entirely to God!” Louise repeated, and her head fell on her cousin’s shoulder as she breathed her last.

  Artois cried out and lifted his arms as if to embrace her departing soul. “I swear it!” he promised again.

  He asked Abbé Latil to receive him as a penitent; making his own peace with God. He took a vow of chastity, although, as the writer Lamartine recorded, “he was young, handsome, a prince, and a king.” He kept his vow until his own death in 1836. 33

  Louise Elisabeth de Croÿ-Havré, Marquise de Tourzel (1749-1832) was a devout lady chosen by Antoinette to be governess of her children. Madame de Tourzel was a widow with five children whose husband, Louis François du Bouchet de Sourches, Marquis de Sourches de Tourzel had been grand prévost of France. He had died in 1786 while hunting with Louis XVI. After Madame de Polignac had to flee from the Revolution in July of 1789, Madame de Tourzel was chosen to replace her as Gouvernante des Enfants de France. There are many people who wonder why the Queen and her children did not also try to escape at that time. It is because Antoinette would not desert her husband., saying that it was her duty to die at the feet of the King and in the arms of her children.34 Louis XVI, of course, would not abandon his people. Early in the crisis the King and Queen made the decision that they would not be parted from their children, but would keep them close at hand, not knowing what was going to transpire next in the tidal wave of events. So Antoinette chose as governess as trustworthy and reliable a person as she could find. “I entrusted my children to friendship,” she remarked. “I entrust them now to virtue.”35 Madame de Tourzel was loving but strict; the Dauphin and Madame Royale playfully called her “Madame Sévère.” The Queen wrote detailed and explicit directions about the care of her two surviving children for Madame de Tourzel, whose youngest daughter Pauline was a teenager. Pauline became a close friend of young Madame Royale. Both mother and daughter were devoted to Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte and the rambunctious Louis-Charles as well as to the saintly Madame Élisabeth.

  Madame de Tourzel was with the Royal Family on the October night in 1789 when Versailles was stormed. It is she who reported in her memoirs how the Queen’s bed was slashed by the mob. The governess and her daughter accompanied the Royal Family to Paris and shared their house arrest at the Tuileries. She recorded how one of the first actions of the Queen at the Tuileries was to build a staircase joining her room with the King’s, so that the family could get to each other if the mob attacked again, which it did in June and in August of 1792. Madame de Tourzel was with the Royal Family when they tried to escape in 1791 and shared the long ordeal of the re-capture. When Louis and Antoinette and their family were imprisoned in the Temple, Madame de Tourzel and Pauline were not permitted to join them but were placed in one of the prisons in Paris. Somehow, they escaped the September Massacres, in which the Queen’s friend Madame de Lamballe was torn to pieces.

  Madame de Tourzel lived to see the Restoration in 1814 and in 1830 Charles X made her a duchess. She and Pauline were united with Louis XVI’s daughter the Duchesse d’Angoulême, whom Pauline served as lady-in-waiting until the fall of the Bourbons in 1830.

  In addition to ladies of the nobility, the French court was a place where women from a middle class background also found honorable and lucrative employment. Jeanne-Louise-Henriette Genet, Madame Campan (1752-1822) was the première femme de chambre, the first chamber maid, of Queen Antoinette. She is author of the famous memoirs, detailing life at Versailles. Madame Campan was an educated and cultured lady from a bourgeois family who began her career at Versailles as the Reader to the daughters of Louis XV, from whom she heard an earful of gossip. Married in 1774, she mentions her husband only once or twice in her memoirs; theirs was an unhappy marriage, although they had a son to whom Madame Campan was devoted. Monsieur and Madame Campan separated in 1790. In the same year of her marriage, Madame Campan received her post as the Queen’s femme de chambre, which meant she probably spent more time around Antoinette than practically anyone else. As Antoinette’s maid, she attended to the details of the running of the Queen’s household. She stayed with the Queen until the flight of the Royal Family from the Tulieries on August 10, 1792. Madame Campan had to flee herself since the Tuileries was stormed amid a gruesome massacre. She went to her house in Paris to find it burning, and so had to escape to the countryside, where she went into hiding until the Revolution was over.

  After the Revolution, Madame Campan opened a school for girls which was a success, and she included housekeeping skills as part of the curriculum. She also brought up her three orphaned nieces: Antoinette, Aglaé and Adèle Auguié. One of her pupils was Hortense de Beauharnais, Napoleon’s step-daughter. In 1807 Napoleon placed Madame Campan at the head of an academy for the education of the orphaned daughters of members of his Légion d’honneur. The academy was closed at the time of the Restoration in 1814 and the return of the Bourbons. Madame Campan was never rec
eived at the court of Louis XVIII, due to her close connections with the Bonapartes. She died in 1822.

  Madame Campan has often been accused of exaggerating her role in Antoinette’s life, especially where the Diamond Necklace scandal is concerned. That may very well be; it is easy to picture Madame Campan as an old lady at the finishing school she ran for the daughters of revolutionaries, carried away by memories of a glittering past. I do not, however, think she deliberately softened her portrayal of Antoinette in order to get back into the good graces of the Queen’s daughter, the Duchesse d’Angoulême. In that case, she would not have been so critical of Louis XVI, since it was well-known that the princess idolized her dead father. Here are some passages in which Madame Campan does not speak too highly of the Queen:

  Marie Antoinette took little pains to promote literature and the fine arts....The most indifferent artists were permitted to have the honour of painting the Queen. A full-length portrait, representing her in all the pomp of royalty, was exhibited in the gallery of Versailles. This picture, which was intended for the Court of Vienna, was executed by a man who does not deserve even to be named, and disgusted all people of taste. It seemed as if this art had, in France, retrograded several centuries.

  The Queen had not that enlightened judgment, or even that mere taste, which enables princes to foster and protect great talents. She confessed frankly that she saw no merit in any portrait beyond the likeness. When she went to the Louvre, she would run hastily over all the little ‘genre’ pictures, and come out, as she acknowledged, without having once raised her eyes to the grand compositions. 36