My children have always been accustomed to feel great confidence in me, and when they have done wrong, to tell me of it themselves; consequently in scolding them I have appeared more troubled and grieved than angry at what they have done. I have trained them all to believe that a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ pronounced by me is irrevocable; but I always give them a reason within the reach of their comprehension, that they may not think it caprice on my part.
My son cannot read, and learns with great difficulty, for he is too heedless to apply himself. He has not the slightest idea of haughtiness in his head, and I am most desirous that this should continue. Our children always learn soon enough what they are. He loves his sister well and heartily. Whenever anything gives him pleasure,— whether it be to go somewhere or to be given something,— his first act is always to ask the same for his sister. He was born light-hearted. He has need for the sake of his health to be much in the open air; and I believe it is better for his health to let him play and dig in the ground on the terrace than to take him a greater distance. The exercise which children get in running and playing out of doors is more wholesome than when they are forced to walk, which often tires their backs.
I will now speak of those who surround him. Three undergovernesses,—two Mesdames de Soucy (mother-in-law and daughterin-law) and Madame de Villefort. Madame de Soucy, the mother, is an excellent woman, very lenient and exact, but vulgar. The daughter-in-law has the same air, — there is no hope for her. For several years she has not been with my daughter, but with the little boy there is no risk. In other respects, she is faithful and even a little severe with the child. Madame de Villefort is just the opposite, and spoils him. She is also quite as vulgar, and even more so in appearance. They all get along well together. The first two women are both strongly attached to the child. Madame Lemoine, however, is an insufferable gossip and chatterbox, telling everything she knows in the room, whether before the child or not,—it makes no difference. Madame Neuville has an agreeable exterior, intelligence, and polite manners; but she is said to be ruled by her mother, who is very intriguing. Brunier, the physician, has my entire confidence whenever the children are ill; but beyond that he must be kept in his place. He is familiar, ill-tempered, and boastful. The Abbé d’Avaux may be very good to teach my son his letters; but in other respects he has neither the tone nor any of the qualifications necessary for the charge of my children. It is for this reason that I have at present decided to withdraw my daughter from under him. You must take great care that he does not settle himself in my son's apartments outside of lesson-hours. The intercourse with the under-governess was one of the things which gave Madame de Polignac the greatest trouble, and with all her efforts she could not always control it. Ten days ago I heard of some ungrateful remarks by this Abbé, which displeased me greatly.
My son has eight waiting-maids. They serve him with zeal, but I cannot count much upon them. Lately there has been much evilspeaking in the prince’s chamber, but I cannot say exactly by whom. There is, however, one—a Madame Belliard—who does not hide her sentiments. Without suspecting any one, you can be on your guard. All of the men-servants are faithful, devoted, and quiet.
My daughter has two first women, and seven waiting-maids. Madame Brunier, wife of the physician, has been with her since her birth, and serves her with zeal. Though I have no objections to her personally, I would never intrust to her more than attendance on the princess; she has the same
disposition as her husband. In addition, she is avaricious and greedy of the small gains which are to be made in the small chamber.
Her daughter [Madame Fréminville] is a person of real merit. Although only twenty-seven years of age, she possesses all the qualities of mature years. She has attended my daughter since her birth, and has never lost sight of her. I [arranged her marriage]; and the time which she does not spend with my daughter she gives up entirely to the education of her three little girls. She has a gentle, pliable disposition, is highly cultivated, and it is she whom I choose to continue the lessons in place of the Abbé d'Avaux. She is well fitted for the task; and since I have the good fortune to be sure of it, I find her preferable to all the others. Besides, my daughter loves her, and has confidence in her. Seven other women are excellent persons, and this chamber is much more tranquil than the other. There are also two very young girls, but they are supervised by their mother, — one belonging to my daughter, and the other to Madame Lemoine. The men have served her since her birth. They are absolutely insignificant creatures; but as they have nothing to do but wait upon her, and do not remain in her room except for that, this is of no importance to me.1
Here is a letter Antoinette wrote in August 1789 to Madame de Tourzel concerning Louis-Charles’ temper. It is interesting that she addresses Madame de Tourzel as “dear heart” which was usually reserved for Madame de Polignac. “My dear heart, our tenderness for this child should be stern. We must not forget that we are educating him not for ourselves, but for the nation. The first impressions of childhood are so strong that I am, in truth, frightened when I think that we are bringing up the king.”2
In Paris, the Royal Family were surrounded by their enemies and exposed to the fickleness of popular opinion with its violent demonstrations. The Royal Family endured a life of virtual house arrest from October of 1789 until August of 1792. The following passages from Imbert de Saint-Amand describe the tightening of security around the family after their escape attempt in June 1791. The Queen, especially, was closely guarded; as anyone can see, it would have been impossible for her to have privately entertained Count Fersen, as some authors claim. To quote from Baron Saint-Amand’s Marie-Antoinette at the Tuileries:
It had been resolved that [the queen] should have no personal attendant except the lady’s maid who had acted as a spy before the journey to Varennes. A portrait of this person was placed at the foot of the staircase leading to the Queen's rooms so that the sentinel should permit no other woman to enter. Louis XVI was obliged to appeal to Lafayette in order to have this spy turned out of the palace where her presence was an outrage on Marie Antoinette. This espionage and inquisition pursued the unfortunate Queen even into her bedroom. The guards were instructed not to lose sight of her by night or day. They took note of her slightest gestures, listened to her slightest words. Stationed in the room adjoining hers they kept the communicating door always open so that they could see the august captive at all times.3
The family continued to assist at daily Mass, albeit with difficulty.
The precautions taken were so rigorous that it was forbidden to say Mass in the palace chapel because the distance between it and the apartments of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette was thought too great. A corner of the Gallery of Diana, where a wooden altar was erected, bearing an ebony crucifix and a few vases of flowers became the only spot where the son of Saint Louis, the Most Christian King, could hear Mass.4
However, their fortitude was admirable.
The royal family endured their captivity with admirable sweetness and resignation and concerned themselves less about their own fate than that of the persons compromised by the Varennes journey, who were now incarcerated....Louis XVI, instead of indulging in recriminations against men and things, offered his humiliations and sufferings to God. He prayed, he read, he meditated. Next to his prayer book his favorite reading was the life of Charles I either because he sought, in studying history, to find a way of escaping an end like that of the unfortunate monarch, or because an analogy of sorrows and disasters had established a profound and mysterious sympathy between the king who had been beheaded, and the king who was soon to be so.5
The unfolding of events revealed that the attack on the royal sovereignty coincided with an attack on Church authority. In November of 1789 all Church property was confiscated by the government. The legislation was backed by anti-clerical propaganda, including plays which either ridiculed the Church, or portrayed priests and nuns as being wicked and licentious. In July of 1790 the National Assembly v
oted to nationalize the Catholic Church in France under the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Henceforth, bishops and priests would be elected by the State, and no longer invested by the Pope. On November 27 of the same year, the Assembly passed a decree mandating every priest and bishop to swear an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, and the King was pressured to sign the decree. The King appealed to the Pope for advice, and the Holy Father appointed two archbishops to guide him. When his two advisors urged him to sign the decree, the King did so out of obedience to the representatives of the Vicar of Christ, but against his conscience. While the worldly clergy freely took the oath, the more fervent priests and bishops refused; they began to be hunted and turned out of their parishes. The King’s aunts, Mesdames Adélaïde and Victoire, would have nothing to do with the new national church, and escaped to Rome, in spite of public indignation.
On March 31, 1790, Wednesday of Passion Week, Madame Royale, age eleven, made her First Holy Communion at the church of Saint Germain de l’Auxerrois, which was the parish church of the Tuileries. Before the ceremony Antoinette told her daughter to kneel before the King and ask his blessing. Louis blessed her and then gave her a talk about the great mystery she was about to receive.
It is from the bottom of my heart that I bless you, my child, while praying Heaven to grant you a full realization of the great act which you are about to accomplish. Your heart is innocent in the eyes of God; your vows should be acceptable to him; offer them to him for your mother and for me. Ask him to accord me the grace necessary to bring about the happiness of those over whom he has given me empire, and whom I should consider as my children. Beg of him that he deign to preserve religious purity in the kingdom; and remember, my daughter, that our holy religion is the source of all happiness, and our support in the adversities of life. Do not believe yourself secure from them. You are very young, but you have already more than once seen your father in affliction.
You do not know, my daughter, to what Providence destines you: whether you are to remain in the kingdom, or whether you are to go to live in another. To whatever place the hand of God may lead you, remember that you must teach others by your example, and do good whenever you find the opportunity; but, above all, my child, relieve the unfortunate as much as is in your power. God has placed us in this rank of life only that we may work for their happiness, and console them in their sorrows.6
The ceremony was one of extreme simplicity, with the princess accompanied only by her governess Madame de Tourzel and her sub-governess Madame de Mackau. The Queen, who had made her Easter communion two days before, attended incognito, dressed like a bourgeoise, sitting in the shadows, but those present saw her reverence and devotion and how her eyes did not move from her child.7
The King became gravely ill. His illness was undoubtedly the result of the stress of the upheavals which he had tried to prevent, as well as the fact that his conscience was troubling him about signing the Catholic Church in France over to the revolutionary government, severing the ties with Rome. With the guidance of his non-juring confessor, a Eudist priest Abbé Hébert, he drafted a Vow to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In the 1600's a Visitation nun, Saint Margaret Mary, had claimed that Jesus had requested that the King of France consecrate France to His Sacred Heart. The consecration had never been performed. So, with the help of Abbé Hébert, Louis promised that he would perform the solemn consecration should he be restored to his former power. He sealed the Vow in the walls of his apartments at the Tuileries. The Vow was not found until the palace had been partially burned by the Commune and was being torn down in 1871. It was discovered still sealed in the wall of the King’s room. Louis was a locksmith and was fascinated with construction, so building a hiding place for his papers would not have been beyond him. He was known for his penchant for secrecy and his hiding of private papers from prying eyes. The fact that the Vow was not discovered until the 1870’s demolishes the claim of some that it was merely a product of pious forgery during the 1814-1830 Restoration. The methodical legality of the document is typical of Louis XVI, who as an amateur cartographer was characterized by his precision and attention to detail. Here is the Vow:
Dedication of France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus by King Louis XVI
You see, O my God! all the wounds which tear my heart, and depth of the abyss into which I have fallen. Evils without number surround me on all sides. My personal misfortunes and those of my family, which are dreadful, overwhelm my heart, as well as those which cover the face of the kingdom. The cries of all the unfortunate ones, the moaning of oppressed religion resounds in my ears, and an interior voice still informs me that perhaps Your justice reproaches me with all these calamities, because, in the days of my power, I did not repress the license of the people and the irreligion, which are the principal sources; because I served the weapons of heresy which triumphed, by supporting it by laws which doubled its forces and gave it the audacity to dare all.
I will not have temerity, O my God! to justify to myself before You; but You know that my heart was always subject to faith and morals; my faults are the fruit of my weakness and seem worthy of Your great mercy. You forgave King David, who caused your enemies to blaspheme You and King Manassès, who had involved his people in the idolatry. Disarmed by their penitence, you restored them one and the other on the throne of Juda; you made them reign with peace and glory. Would You be inexorable today towards a son of Saint Louis, who takes these penitent kings for models, and which, with their example, wishes to repair his faults and to become a King according to Your Heart?
O Jesus Christ! divine Redeemer of all our iniquities, it is in Your Adorable Heart that I want to deposit the overflowing of my afflicted heart. I call upon the help of the tender Heart of Mary, my majestic protector and my mother, and the assistance of Saint Louis, my most famous patron and of my ancestor. O adorable Heart, by the so pure hands of my powerful intercessors, receive with kindness the wishes that confidence inspires in me and that I offer to You like the humble expression of my feelings. If, by an effect of the infinite kindness of God, I recover my freedom, my crown and my royal power, I promise solemnly:
1. To revoke as soon as possible all the laws which will be indicated to me, either by the Pope, or by a Council, or by the four Bishops chosen among most enlightened and most virtuous of my kingdom, with the purity and the integrity of the faith, the discipline and the spiritual jurisdiction of Holy Catholic, Apostolic Church, Roman, and in particular to revoke the Civil Constitution of the Clergy.
2. To take, in a one year interval, in union with the Pope and the Bishops of my kingdom, all measurements necessary to establish, according to the canonical forms, a solemn festival in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which will be celebrated in perpetuity in all France, on the first Friday after the octave of the Blessed Sacrament, and always followed by a general procession, in repair of the insults and profanations made in the time of the disorders, by the schismatics, the heretics and the bad Christians.
3. To go myself in person, within three months from the day of my delivery, to the church of Notre Dame of Paris, or in any other principal church of the place where I will be, and to pronounce, one day of Sunday or festival, at the foot of the high altar, after the offertory of the Mass, and between the hands of the celebrant, a solemn act of dedication of my person, my family and my kingdom to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, promising to give to all my subjects, the example of the worship and the devotion which are due to this adorable Heart.
4. To set up and to decorate at my own expense, in the church which I will choose for it, within one year from the day of my delivery, an altar which will be dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and which will be used as an eternal monument of my recognition and my confidence without end in the infinite merits and in the inexhaustible treasures of grace which are contained in this Crowned Heart.
5. Finally, to renew every year, in the place where I will be, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, the act of dedication expressed in th
e third article, and to attend the general procession which will follow the Mass of this day. Today I pronounce only in secrecy this promise, but I would sign it my blood if it were needed; and the most beautiful day of my life will be that where I will be able to aloud publish it in the temple. O Adorable Heart of my Savior! Let my right hand be forgotten and let me curse myself, if I forget Your blessings and my promises, if I cease to love You, finding my confidence in You and all of my consolation. Amen.8
On March 10, 1791, the bull Charitas of Pope Pius VI condemned the Civil Constitution of the Clergy as being schismatic. The Holy Father declared all bishops elected by the State to be invalid and their consecrations a sacrilege. He suspended every priest and bishop who had taken the oath. When the bull was made public, the persecution began in earnest, with the burning of the Pope in effigy in Paris. Grey Nuns were beaten in the streets by fierce poissardes. In so many ways, however, Charitas came as a relief. Now all faithful Catholics knew exactly where they stood, including the King, who would not now receive Holy Communion from a juring priest. “Juring” meant that they had sworn an oath to the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Underground Masses became the norm. On March 17,1791, a week after the papal bull was published, the Abbé Henry Edgeworth de Firmont, an Irish ex-patriate, made his first visit to the Tuileries Palace as the new confessor and spiritual director to the King’s sister, Madame Élisabeth of France. Her former confessor had taken the oath. Like the Queen, who could be seen about Paris visiting hospitals, orphanages, factories, and mental asylums, Madame Élisabeth occupied herself in charitable works. The Queen also dismissed her juring confessor and found one who had not taken the oath.
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