Book: The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3
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Unknown >> The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3
"Maria Theresa was no less astonished at these disclosures of the
Cardinal than the Dauphine had been at his communication concerning her.
She plainly saw that all her plans were known, and might be defeated from
their detection.
"The Cardinal, having succeeded in alarming the Empress, took from his
pocket a fabulous correspondence, hatched by his secretary, the Abbe
Georgel. 'There, Madame,' said he, 'this will convince Your Majesty that
the warm interest I have taken in your Imperial house has carried me
farther than I was justified in having gone; but seeing the sterility of
the Dauphine, or, as it is reported by some of the Court, the total
disgust the Dauphin has to consummate the marriage, the coldness of your
daughter towards the interest of your Court, and the prospect of a race
from the Comtesse d'Artois, for the consequences of which there is no
answering, I have, unknown to Your Imperial Majesty, taken upon myself to
propose to LOUIS XV. a marriage with the Archduchess Elizabeth, who, on
becoming Queen of France, will immediately have it in her power to
forward the Austrian interest; for LOUIS XV., as the first proof of his
affection to his young bride, will at once secure to your Empire the aid
you stand so much in need of against the ambition of these two rising
States. The recovery of Your Imperial Majesty's ancient dominions may
then be looked upon as accomplished from the influence of the French
Cabinet.
"The bait was swallowed. Maria Theresa was so overjoyed at this scheme
that she totally forgot all former animosity against the Cardinal. She
was encouraged to ascribe the silence of Marie Antoinette (whose letters
had been intercepted by the Cardinal himself) to her resentment of this
project concerning her sister; and the deluded Empress, availing herself
of the pretended zeal of the Cardinal for the interest of her family,
gave him full powers to return to France and secretly negotiate the
alliance for her daughter Elizabeth, which was by no means to be
disclosed to the Dauphine till the King's proxy should be appointed to
perform the ceremony at Vienna. This was all the Cardinal wished for.
"Meanwhile, in order to obtain a still greater ascendency over the Court
of France, he had expended immense sums to bribe secretaries and
Ministers; and couriers were even stopped to have copies taken of all the
correspondence to and from Austria.
"At the same crisis the Empress was informed by Prince Kaunitz that the
Cardinal and his suite at the palace of the French Ambassador carried on
such an immense and barefaced traffic of French manufactures of every
description that Maria Theresa thought proper, in order to prevent future
abuse, to abolish the privilege which gave to Ministers and Ambassadors
an opportunity of defrauding the revenue. Though this law was levelled
exclusively at the Cardinal, it was thought convenient under the
circumstances to avoid irritating him, and it was consequently made
general. But, the Comte de Mercy now obtaining some clue to his
duplicity, an intimation was given to the Court at Versailles, to which
the King replied, 'If the Empress be dissatisfied with the French
Ambassador, he shall be recalled.' But though completely unmasked, none
dared publicly to accuse him, each party fearing a discovery of its own
intrigue. His official recall did not in consequence take place for some
time; and the Cardinal, not thinking it prudent to go back till Louis XV.
should be no more, lest some unforeseen discovery of his project for
supplying her royal paramour with a Queen should rouse Du Barry to get
his Cardinalship sent to the Bastille for life, remained fixed in his
post, waiting for events.
"At length Louis XV. expired, and the Cardinal returned to Versailles. He
contrived to obtain a private audience of the young Queen. He presumed
upon her former facility in listening to him, and was about to betray the
last confidence of Maria Theresa; but the Queen, shocked at the knowledge
which she had obtained of his having been equally treacherous to her and
to her mother, in disgust and alarm left the room without receiving a
letter he had brought her from Maria Theresa, and without deigning to
address a single word to him. In the heat of her passion and resentment,
she was nearly exposing all she knew of his infamies to the King, when
the coolheaded Princesse Elizabeth opposed her, from the seeming
imprudence of such an abrupt discovery; alleging that it might cause an
open rupture between the two Courts, as it had already been the source of
a reserve and coolness, which had not yet been explained. The Queen was
determined never more to commit herself by seeing the Cardinal. She
accordingly sent for her mother's letter, which he himself delivered into
the hands of her confidential messenger, who advised the Queen not to
betray the Cardinal to the King, lest, in so doing, she should never be
able to guard herself against the domestic spies, by whom, perhaps, she
was even yet surrounded! The Cardinal, conceiving, from the impunity of
his conduct, that he still held the Queen in check, through the influence
of her fears of his disclosing her weakness upon the subject of the
obstruction she threw in the way of her sister's marriage, did not resign
the hope of converting that ascendency to his future profit.
"The fatal silence to which Her Majesty was thus unfortunately advised I
regret from the bottom of my soul! All the successive vile plots of the
Cardinal against the peace and reputation of the Queen may be attributed
to this ill-judged prudence! Though it resulted from an honest desire of
screening Her Majesty from the resentment or revenge to which she might
have subjected herself from this villain, who had already injured her in
her own estimation for having been credulous enough to have listened to
him, yet from this circumstance it is that the Prince de Rohan built the
foundation of all the after frauds and machinations with which he
blackened the character and destroyed the comfort of his illustrious
victim. It is obvious that a mere exclusion from Court was too mild a
punishment for such offences, and it was but too natural that such a mind
as his, driven from the royal presence, and, of course, from all the
noble societies to which it led (the anti-Court party excepted), should
brood over the means of inveigling the Queen into a consent for his
reappearance before her and the gay world, which was his only element,
and if her favour should prove unattainable to revenge himself by her
ruin.
"On the Cardinal's return to France, all his numerous and powerful
friends beset the King and Queen to allow of his restoration to his
embassy; but though on his arrival at Versailles, finding the Court had
removed to Compiegne, he had a short audience there of the King, all
efforts in his favour were thrown away. Equally unsuccessful was every
intercession with the Empress-mother. She had become thoroughly awakened
to his worthlessness, and she declared she would never more even receive
him in her dominions as a visitor. The Cardinal, being apprised of this
by some of his intimates, was at last persuaded to give up the idea of
further importunity; and, pocketing his disgrace, retired with his hey
dukes and his secretary, the Abbe Georgel, to whom may be attributed all
the artful intrigues of his disgraceful diplomacy.
"It is evident that Rohan had no idea, during all his schemes to supplant
the Dauphine by marrying her sister to the King, that the secret hope of
Louis XV. had been to divorce the Dauphin and marry the slighted bride
himself. Perhaps it is fortunate that Rohan did not know this. A brain
so fertile in mischief as his might have converted such a circumstance to
baneful uses. But the death of Louis XV. put an end to all the then
existing schemes for a change in her position. It was to her a real,
though but a momentary triumph. From the hour of her arrival she had a
powerful party to cope with; and the fact of her being an Austrian,
independent of the jealousy created by her charms, was, in itself, a
spell to conjure up armies, against which she stood alone, isolated in
the face of embattled myriads! But she now reared her head, and her foes
trembled in her presence. Yet she could not guard against the moles busy
in the earth secretly to undermine her. Nay, had not Louis XV. died at
the moment he did, there is scarcely a doubt, from the number and the
quality of the hostile influences working on the credulity of the young
Dauphin, that Marie Antoinette would have been very harshly dealt
with,--even the more so from the partiality of the dotard who believed
himself to be reigning. But she has been preserved from her enemies to
become their sovereign; and if her crowned brow has erewhile been stung
by thorns in its coronal, let me not despair of their being hereafter
smothered in yet unblown roses."
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