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THE ERA OF LOUIS XVI. AND OF MARIE ANTOINETTE.*

It is surprising how much has been done within the last few years to rehabilitate the pure fame of the lovely Marie Antoinette. The ink was scarcely dry with which we epitomised the eloquent and striking defence of that unfortunate queen written by the brothers De Goncourt, than we had to study Count d'Hunolstein's selections from her unpublished correspondence, the countess having been attached to the queen's household, and we have now before us the still more extensive collection of correspondence illustrative of the same epoch, collected by the praiseworthy industry of M. Feuillet de Conches. Certainly of all rehabilitations none can be more impressive than those that issue from the very mouths, as it were, of the accused. No other person of so high a birth, so exalted a rank, so fair in person, so lively and amiable in disposition, and so chaste and pure in mind, has been so calumniated by the social corruption of the land of her adoption, as Marie Antoinette. Although some of those who lent themselves to this base system of defamation are still alive, the day has come when, in France itself, the character of the persecuted daughter of Maria Theresa is at length better understood and more truly appreciated.

It is a mere coincidence, but it is not a little curious, that as Hecuba dreamt that she had brought into the world a burning torch, as Iphigenia and her mother Clytemnestra, and Polyxena and Andromache had their warnings, so had Marie Antoinette, and so, indeed, had Josephine. It is all superstition, but so deep were Josephine's convictions, that while the Duchess d'Aiguillon, Madame de Fontenay (afterwards Tallien), and other fair prisoners were weeping at the order come for their removal previous to trial, Madame de Beauharnais actually laughed. Nay, so hurt was Madame d'Aiguillon at this ill-timed levity, that, aware of Josephine's convictions, she said to her tartly, "Well, why don't you appoint us at once to your household!" "Do not let that give you any anxiety, duchess," was the reply; "you shall be my lady of honour." The empress used to take pleasure in repeating this strange story herself. The fall of Robespierre took place next day, and their lives were saved.

Marie Antoinette, with an extreme sensibility and a somewhat romantic imagination, as shown in her acts of life, especially at Trianon, had the pardonable weakness of dwelling at times, but only for a moment, upon unlucky warnings. She would chase such away with the smile of a better faith and a juster reason, but they were so numerous, that, in moments of grief, they would, despite of herself, force themselves upon her. She could. never rid herself, for example, of the reminiscence that the day of her birth was signalised by the terrible earthquake at Lisbon. She knew, too, that at the dauphin her husband's birth, a courier had been despatched to the king at Choisy, that he was thrown and killed, and that thus the message was never delivered. But can we blame Marie Antoinette for her superstitious sensibility, when Goethe himself was troubled with the

*Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elizabeth. Lettres et Documents inédits publiés. Par F. Feuillet de Conches. Tome I. 2 N

VOL, LVI.

fact that a celebrated thaumaturgist of the day, the Tyrolese doctor Gassner, interrogated by Maria Theresa as to the future of her then infant girl, turned pale and declined to reply?

By some curious coincidence the hut on the island of the Rhine, in which Marie Antoinette was welcomed after a strange fashion into French territory, was hung with Gobelins representing Jason, Medea his wife, and her revenge on Creusa-a representation of the most fatal marriage perhaps on record. It is not surprising, with such an excessive sensibility to impressions of this kind, that the fearful loss of life that attended upon the festivities of her marriage (twelve hundred killed and wounded) should also have had an effect that was never entirely effaced, and which, indeed, every now and then manifests itself in gloomy forebodings that are to be met with in her correspondence.

The first portion collected by M. de Conches naturally begins with the events that followed upon her first separation from home-her journey to France to be wedded. But here, we may remark, Marie Antoinette's more confidential correspondence was written at this epoch to her sister, Maria Christina, "la seule à qui j'ose parler à cœur ouvert," she says herself in one of her earliest letters; and hence M. d'Hunolstein's collection, which we have previously noticed, is more interesting than M. de Conches', which contains at first only the more formal letters written to her mother. An additional letter to Maria Theresa, recording the progress in France, dated May 15, 1770, intimates that it was by the advice of the "good Duke of Choiseul" that she requested to see the king's daughter, Madame Louise, at her convent of Carmelites. This letter was dated "Château de la Muette," where Louis XV. is said to have shown so little respect for a girl of fourteen and a half years of age, and the daughter of Maria Theresa, as to have allowed Madame du Barry to be present at supper. Marie Antoinette had, however, the tact to make no mention of the circumstance to her mother till after the lapse of a year or two. M. de Conches repeats the old story, that when asked how she liked the favourite, she contented herself with replying, "Charmante." On another occasion, a supplicant had not contented herself with applying to the dauphine, but had also laid her griefs before Madame du Barry. Mischief-making courtiers soon reported this to Marie Antoinette, who merely observed, "Well, she has done quite right; in such a case, if it had been necessary, I would have thrown myself at the feet of Zamore." The supplicant pleaded, it may be noticed, for her son's life. Zamore was Madame du Barry's black page.

The letter to her mother announcing her marriage appears both in the De Conches and the Hunolstein collections. So also of the letter informing her mother of the sad accidents that happened on the occasion of the rejoicings. Letters to her sister Christina appear, however, shortly afterwards in De Conches', in addition to what are met with in the Hunolstein collection, while, at the same time, some in the latter collection are wanting in De Conches'. In one of these she repeats a favourite allusion to her sister Charlotte-the friend of Lady Hamilton-who, when sent to her Neapolitan husband, said she was being "cast into the sea," and, in another to her brother Joseph, having said she was a "Dauphine en biscuit de pâte tendre." She says, laughingly, "It is now four months since I am dauphine pâte tendre, and the compliments on the

subject have not yet ended. Only imagine, that they have just presented to the king a picture in which I figure amidst all sorts of flowers-I am placed in the centre of a rose: only that! The king was pleased, so I was obliged to say it was very pretty and very like, and the artist withdrew delighted. I really wish they would get to an end with all these insipidities." To a correct taste and judgment, Marie Antoinette added, indeed, all the more sterling qualities of her mother. Visiting the Duchess of Mazarin, who gave herself the airs of one of the divinities of Mignard and Le Brun, she observed, "She has the appearance of a Calypso!"

In a letter in the De Conches collection, Marie Antoinette alludes, as early as December 27, 1770, to the overthrow of the De Choiseul ministry. All she says, however, is: "I have been much moved by the event, for M. de Choiseul has always been a friend of the family, and has upon all occasions given me good advice. It is no use being Dauphine of France; one remains not less, do what one will, a stranger." This was a feeling that Marie Antoinette never got over, nor was she indeed ever permitted to do so. Here is a charming little cabinet picture: "Monsieur de Provence holds his head still higher since he knows that his marriage has been declared by the King of Sardinia, and that his affianced has received the official compliments. Monsieur d'Artois, always lively, and who has a word for everything, has declared that he also intends to carry off a Sabine. Now, the good Princess Christina of Saxony, whose appearance you are acquainted with, is expected here. Monsieur de Provence said to him that would just suit him, and advised him to carry her off, which caused so much laughter that the king was compelled to join in it."

Marie Antoinette could only converse with M. de Mercy, the Austrian representative, at court balls, and anything that was not strictly etiquette was severely controlled by Madame de Noailles, yet she was always doing good. In one of her letters to her sister, she grieves for one Hackenberg, wounded by an explosion in the camp of Luxembourg, and, she adds, that she was going to Compiègne, where the wounded man's sister was in a situation, and that it would give her an opportunity of doing something for her. On another occasion, she writes: "I lately married two young girls, concerning whom I had most touching information. No one has an idea how many qualities and virtues lie hid among the lower classes; and there are some among these poor good people to whom publicity is only wanting to make examples of them, there are so many traits that do them honour."

The day of the king's death the Dauphin wrote as follows to the Abbé Terray, controller-general of finances: "Monsieur the controller-general, I beg of you to have two hundred thousand francs distributed among the poor of the parishes of Paris, in order that they may pray for the king. If you find that it is too much considering the demands of the state, you will draw upon my pension and that of Madame the Dauphine." This letter had a very good effect, and impressed the public with promises of a happy reign. How the Dauphine wrote to her mother that they were both terrified at the idea of reigning so young, we have noticed before. The letter appears in both the De Conches and Hunolstein collections. Louis XV. perished of small-pox; his sisters, who attended him, even

contracted the virulent disorder, and no sooner was his death known by the rush of courtiers from the ante-chamber of the departed sovereign to congratulate Louis XVI., and the noise of which is declared to have been like "thunder," than the court took its departure for Choisy, and the very next day the king wrote to the Duc de la Vrillière :

"Sir, in the frightful trouble in which we were yesterday, I was not enabled to send you my orders with respect to Madame the Countess of Barry. It is necessary, as she knows many things, that she should be shut up too soon rather than too late. Send her a lettre de cachet to the effect that she goes to a convent in the country, with orders that she sees no one. I leave it to you to determine the place and pension which (so that she may live respectably) I give her in consideration of the memory of my grandfather. Tell me at once what you shall decide upon."

The next day the king alludes to orders which must have been issued in the same brief space of time against Madame du Barry's brother, "a wretch who trafficked upon his sister's immorality, and robbed her at the same time," and, he adds, that no mercy is to be shown to the Doctors Suton (probably Sutton, as they were apparently English quacks), and who appear to have offered some panacea for the late king's malady, and then refused to interfere. The following, written the same month (May, 1774), is not quite so creditable to the new monarch's ideas of justice. It is addressed to the Duc de la Vrillière:

"Monsieur, my aunt Sophia takes a deep interest in Mademoiselle Gilbert, niece to her first woman of the chamber, whom her father wishes to withdraw from a convent in which she is, in opposition to her own wishes; my aunt asks for a lettre de cachet to keep her there. You had better send it too soon than too late." It is true that "que son père veut faire retirer du convent ou elle est, malgré elle," may, by a various punctuation, be read "as from a convent in which she is, in opposition to her wishes to remain there." At all events, it shows the many and various applications of the lettre de cachet. In contrast with this infinitesimal bit of absolutism inspired by "Aunt Sophia," is a more creditable letter written to the Duc de la Vrillière upon the occasion of the dismissal of M. de Maupeon, whom he accuses, from documents before him, of great harshness and inhumanity, and who, he says, deserved a lettre de cachet. He expresses himself favourable to parliamentary action, as wished for by all classes, and he adds: "It is better to make oneself loved than feared, and I wish to be loved." Speaking in another letter of a reward he had given to Euler, he says: "I would wish to recompense thus all the great talents, that do honour to their age by contributing to civilisation and to the welfare of the people." So, likewise, on the occasion of the presentation of the physician Portal: "I have heard," he writes, "on all sides of this doctor, who is, it appears, a learned man, and a friend of humanity. I wish to treat him well. His salutary methods must be made known in every direction. . . . There are no little things when the welfare of the people is concerned." Of Buffon he said: "All that I have seen and heard of this writer prove to me that he will be the glory of my reign." These are sentiments that would do honour to the most able men that were ever called to a throne.

Marie Antoinette had learnt music under Gluck, and hence the maestro's success and reputation were always dear to her. In the Hunolstein Correspondence we find her relating how she took the Emperor of Austria to hear "Iphigénie en Aulide," how "he ensconced himself at the bottom of the box, and how, at a decisive moment, she took him by the arm and led him forward, when he was received with acclamation by the public, and went home delighted at his reception and at the success of our good Gluck.'" She apparently infused the same enthusiasm into her husband, for Louis XVI. writes, under date of January 14, 1775:

"I was charmed by the opera of 'Iphigénie en Aulide,' by the Chevalier Gluck, which I heard yesterday in Paris. The queen, madame, and my two brothers were transported as well as myself. It is a work of the greatest beauty. I testified my satisfaction to the author after the performance. I wish to send him a present, which will show the respect in which I hold his person and his talents."

Here is a delightful little confidential letter of Marie Antoinette's, when all was youth and hope:

"Beloved sister, you must have been for now some days past far away from Presbourg, and you are all gathered together around the empressqueen in the family circle. I transport myself there in imagination, and surprise you by my arrival. I kiss you with all affection, and I pray Monseigneur Albert, who has not written to me for so long a time, to permit me to make him a beautiful curtsey, after having kissed the hand of my good mamma, and respectfully saluted his majesty the emperor. I should wish nothing better than to receive the compliments which the Queen of Naples has so well deserved since the beginning of this month.* But there are no appearances of such a thing, and I do not like to be spoken to about it. We amuse ourselves here well; we dance and play without dreading the wolves, with which you tell me they are infested in Hungary. You quite terrified me with your midnight stories. I read nothing, I do nothing with my ten fingers, and yet I am so busy as not to know when to steal a minute. Adieu, dear Christine! Mind you give to each what belongs to them, and especially kiss dear mamma's hand for me. Heavens! how I press you all to my bosom in my imagi

nation !"

The contrast between the styles of Louis XVI. and his queen is very striking. There is a great deal of good sense in all the king wrote, only here and there obscured by his horror of Protestants and philosophers, and by that stern adhesion to monarchical rights even while professing to encourage parliamentary reforms. It was this that alienated the sympathy of the English from him long before he began to be carried along in the vortex of a revolution, which even the Constitutionalists found it impossible to arrest. But in Marie Antoinette's early letters all is airy, graceful, charming, and clever-not the studied cleverness of Louis XVI., who, when he says a good thing, seems, like Pelham, to think it is time to depart or to conclude, but that natural spontaneous effusion of inborn talent which seizes at once upon the bearing of every act and word, and which, when applied to more serious matters, became *The Queen of Naples, her sister, gave birth to a prince on the 4th of January,

1775.

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