Book: The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete

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"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."




SECTION V.


"The accession of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette to the crown of France
took place (May 10, 1774) under the most propitious auspices!

"After the long, corrupt reign of an old debauched Prince, whose vices
were degrading to himself and to a nation groaning under the lash of
prostitution and caprice, the most cheering changes were expected from
the known exemplariness of his successor and the amiableness of his
consort. Both were looked up to as models of goodness. The virtues of
Louis XVI. were so generally known that all France hastened to
acknowledge them, while the Queen's fascinations acted like a charm on
all who had not been invincibly prejudiced against the many excellent
qualities which entitled her to love and admiration. Indeed, I never
heard an insinuation against either the King or Queen but from those
depraved minds which never possessed virtue enough to imitate theirs, or
were jealous of the wonderful powers of pleasing that so eminently
distinguished Marie Antoinette from the rest of her sex.

"On the death of Louis XV. the entire Court removed from Versailles to
the palace of La Muette, situate in the Bois de Boulogne, very near
Paris. The confluence of Parisians, who came in crowds joyfully to hail
the death of the old vitiated Sovereign, and the accession of his adored
successors, became quite annoying to the whole Royal Family. The
enthusiasm with which the Parisians hailed their young King, and in
particular his amiable young partner, lasted for many days. These
spontaneous evidences of attachment were regarded as prognostics of a
long reign of happiness. If any inference can be drawn from public
opinion, could there be a stronger assurance than this one of
uninterrupted future tranquility to its objects?

"To the Queen herself it was a double triumph. The conspirators, whose
depravity had been labouring to make her their victim, departed from the
scene of power. The husband, who for four years had been callous to her
attractions, became awakened to them. A complete change in the domestic
system of the palace was wrought suddenly. The young King, during the
interval which elapsed between the death and the interment of his
grandfather, from Court etiquette was confined to his apartments. The
youthful couple therefore saw each other with less restraint. The
marriage was consummated. Marie Antoinette from this moment may date
that influence over the heart (would I might add over the head and
policy!) of the King, which never slackened during the remainder of their
lives.

"Madame du Barry was much better dealt with by the young King, whom she
had always treated with the greatest levity, than she, or her numerous
courtiers, expected. She was allowed her pension, and the entire
enjoyment of all her ill-gotten and accumulated wealth; but, of course,
excluded from ever appearing at Court, and politically exiled from Paris
to the Chateau aux Dames.

"This implacable foe and her infamous coadjutors being removed from
further interference in matters of State by the expulsion of all their
own Ministers, their rivals, the Duc de Choiseul and his party, by whom
Marie Antoinette had been brought to France, were now in high expectation
of finding the direction of the Government, by the Queen's influence,
restored to that nobleman. But the King's choice was already made. He
had been ruled by his aunts, and appointed Ministers suggested by them
and his late grandfather's friends, who feared the preponderance of the
Austrian influence. The three ladies, Madame la Marechale de Beauveau,
the Duchesse de Choiseul, and the Duchesse de Grammont, who were all
well-known to Louis XVI. and stood high in his opinion for many excellent
qualities, and especially for their independent assertion of their own
and the Dauphine's dignity by retiring from Court in consequence of the
supper at which Du Barry was introduced these ladies, though received on
their return thither with peculiar welcome, in vain united their efforts
with those of the Queen and the Abbe Vermond, to overcome the prejudice
which opposed Choiseul's reinstatement. It was all in vain. The royal
aunts, Adelaide especially, hated Choiseul for the sake of Austria, and
his agency in bringing Marie Antoinette to France; and so did the King's
tutor and governor, the Duc de Vauguyon, who had ever been hostile to any
sort of friendship with Vienna; and these formed a host impenetrable even
to the influence of the Queen, which was opposed by all the leaders of
the prevailing party, who, though they were beginning externally to
court, admire, and idolize her, secretly surrounded her by their noxious
and viperous intrigues, and, while they lived in her bosom, fattened on
the destruction of her fame!

"One of the earliest of the paltry insinuations against Marie Antoinette
emanated from her not counterfeiting deep affliction at the decease of
the old King. A few days after that event, the Court received the
regular visits of condolence and congratulation of the nobility, whose
duty prescribes their attendance upon such occasions; and some of them,
among whom were the daughters of Louis XV., not finding a young Queen of
nineteen hypocritically bathed in tears, on returning to their abodes
declared her the most indecorous of Princesses, and diffused a strong
impression of her want of feeling. At the head of these detractors were
Mesdames de Guemenee and Marsan, rival pretenders to the favours of the
Cardinal de Rohan, who, having by the death of Louis XV. lost their
influence and their unlimited power to appoint and dismiss Ministers,
themselves became ministers to their own evil geniuses, in calumniating
her whose legitimate elevation annihilated their monstrous pretensions!

"The Abbe Vermond, seeing the defeat of the party of the Duc de Choiseul,
by whom he had been sent to the Court of Vienna on the recommendation of
Brienne, began to tremble for his own security. As soon as the Court had
arrived at Choisy, and he was assured of the marriage having been
consummated, he obtained, with the Queen's consent, an audience of the
King, for the purpose of soliciting his sanction to his continuing in his
situation. On submitting his suit to the King, His Majesty merely gave a
shrug of the shoulders, and turned to converse with the Duc d'Aiguillon,
who at that moment entered the room. The Abbe stood stupefied, and the
Queen, seeing the crestfallen humour of her tutor, laughed and cheered
him by remarking, 'There is more meaning in the shrug of a King than in
the embrace of a Minister. The one always promises, but is seldom
sincere; the other is generally sincere, but never promises.' The Abbe,
not knowing how to interpret the dumb answer, finding the King's back
turned and his conversation with D'Aiguillon continuing, was retiring
with a shrug of his own shoulders to the Queen, when she exclaimed,
good-humouredly, to Louis, laughing and pointing to the Abbe, 'Look!
look! see how readily a Church dignitary can imitate the good Christian
King, who is at the head of the Church.' The King, seeing the Abbe still
waiting, said, dryly, 'Monsieur, you are confirmed in your situation,'
and then resumed his conversation with the Duke.

"This anecdote is a sufficient proof that LOUIS XVI. had no
prepossession in favour of the Abbe Vermond, and that it was merely not
to wound the feelings of the Queen that he was tolerated. The Queen
herself was conscious of this, and used frequently to say to me how much
she was indebted to the King for such deference to her private choice, in
allowing Vermond to be her secretary, as she did not remember the King's
ever having held any communication with the Abbe during the whole time he
was attached to the service, though the Abbe always expressed himself
with the greatest respect towards the King.

"The decorum of Marie Antoinette would not allow her to endure those
public exhibitions of the ceremony, of dressing herself which had been
customary at Court. This reserve was highly approved by His Majesty; and
one of the first reforms she introduced, after the accession, was in the
internal discipline of her own apartment.

"It was during one of the visits, apart from Court etiquette, to the
toilet of the Queen, that the Duchesse de Chartres, afterwards Duchesse
d'Orleans, introduced the famous Mademoiselle Bertin, who afterwards
became so celebrated as the Queen's milliner--the first that was ever
allowed to approach a royal palace; and it was months before Marie
Antoinette had courage to receive her milliner in any other than the
private apartment which, by the alteration Her Majesty had made in the
arrangements of the household, she set apart for the purpose of dressing
in comfort by herself and free from all intruders.

"Till then the Queen was not only very plain in her attire, but very,
economical--a circumstance which, I have often heard her say, gave great
umbrage to the other Princesses of the Court of Versailles, who never
showed themselves, from the moment they rose till they returned to bed,
except in full dress; while she herself made all her morning visits in a
simple white cambric gown and straw hat. This simplicity, unfortunately,
like many other trifles, whose consequences no foresight would have
predicted, tended much to injure Marie Antoinette, not only with the
Court dandies, but the nation; by whom, though she was always censured,
she was as suddenly imitated in all she wore or did.

"From the private closet, which Marie Antoinette reserved to herself, and
had now opened to her milliner, she would retire, after the great points
of habiliment were accomplished, to those who were waiting with memorials
at her public toilet, where the hairdresser would finish putting the
ornaments in Her Majesty's hair.

"The King made Marie Antoinette a present of Le Petit Trianon. Much has
been said of the extravagant expense lavished by her upon this spot. I
can only declare that the greater part of the articles of furniture which
had not been worn out by time or were not worm or moth-eaten, and her own
bed among them, were taken from the apartments of former Queens, and some
of them had actually belonged to Anne of Austria, who, like Marie
Antoinette, had purchased them out of her private savings. Hence it is
clear that neither of the two Queens were chargeable to the State even
for those little indulgences which every private lady of property is
permitted from her husband, without coming under the lash of censure.

"Her allowance as Queen of France was no more than 300,000 francs. It is
well known that she was generous, liberal, and very charitable; that she
paid all her expenses regularly respecting her household, Trianon, her
dresses, diamonds, millinery, and everything else; her Court
establishment excepted, and some few articles, which were paid by the
civil list. She was one of the first Queens in Europe, had the first
establishment in Europe, and was obliged to keep up the most refined and
luxurious Court in Europe; and all upon means no greater than had been
assigned to many of the former bigoted Queens, who led a cloistered life,
retired from the world without circulating their wealth among the nation
which supplied them with so large a revenue; and yet who lived and died
uncensured for hoarding from the nation what ought at least to have been
in part expended for its advantage.

"And yet of all the extra expenditure which the dignity and circumstances
of Marie Antoinette exacted, not a franc came from the public Treasury;
but everything out of Her Majesty's private purse and savings from the
above three hundred thousand francs, which was an infinitely less sum
than Louis XIV. had lavished yearly on the Duchesse de Montespan, and
less than half what Louis XV. had expended on the last two favourites, De
Pompadour and Du Barry. These two women, as clearly appeared from the
private registers, found among the papers of Louis XV. after his death,
by Louis XVI. (but which, out of respect for the memory of his
grandfather, he destroyed), these two women had amassed more property in
diamonds and other valuables than all the Queens of France from the days
of Catherine de Medicis up to those of Marie Antoinette.

"Such was the goodness of heart of the excellent Queen of Louis XVI.,
such the benevolence of her character, that not only did she pay all the
pensions of the invalids left by her predecessors, but she distributed in
public and private charities greater sums than any of the former Queens,
thus increasing her expenses without any proportionate augmentation of
her resources."

[Indeed, could Louis XVI. have foreseen--when, in order not to expose the
character of his predecessor and to honour the dignity of the throne and
monarchy of France, he destroyed the papers of his grandfather--what an
arm of strength he would have possessed in preserving them, against the
accusers of his unfortunate Queen and himself, he never could have thrown
away such means of establishing a most honourable contrast between his
own and former reigns. His career exhibits no superfluous expenditure.
Its economy was most rigid. No sovereign was ever more scrupulous with
the public money. He never had any public or private predilection; no
dilapidated Minister for a favourite: no courtesan intrigue. For gaming
he had no fondness; and, if his abilities were not splendid, he certainly
had no predominating vices.]

NOTE:

[I must once more quit the journal of the Princess. Her Highness here
ceases to record particulars of the early part of the reign of Louis
XVI., and everything essential upon those times is too well known to
render it desirable to detain the reader by an attempt to supply the
deficiency. It is enough to state that the secret unhappiness of the
Queen at not yet having the assurance of an heir was by no means weakened
by the impatience of the people, nor by the accouchement of the Comtesse
d'Artois of the Duc d'Angouleme. While the Queen continued the intimacy,
and even held her parties at the apartments of the Duchess that she might
watch over her friend, even in this triumph over herself, the poissardes
grossly insulted her in her misfortune, and coarsely called on her to
give heirs to the throne!

A consolation, however, for the unkind feeling of the populace was about
to arise in the delights of one of her strongest friendships. I am come
to the epoch when Her Majesty first formed an acquaintance with the
Princesse de Lamballe.

After a few words of my own on the family of Her Highness, I shall leave
her to pursue her beautiful and artless narrative of her parentage, early
sorrows, and introduction to Her Majesty, unbroken.

The journal of the history of Marie Antoinette, after this slight
interruption for the private history of her friend, will become blended
with the journal of the Princesse de Lamballe, and both thenceforward
will proceed in their course together, like their destinies, which from
that moment never became disunited.]




SECTION VI.


[MARIA THERESA LOUISA CARIGNAN, Princess of Savoy, was born at Turin on
the 8th September, 1749. She had three sisters; two of them were married
at Rome, one to the Prince Doria Pamfili, the other to the Prince
Colonna; and the third at Vienna, to the Prince Lobkowitz, whose son was
the great patron of the immortal Haydn, the celebrated composer.

The celebrated Haydn was, even at the age of 74, when I last saw him at
Vienna, till the most good-humoured bon vivant of his age. He delighted
in telling the origin of his good fortune, which he said he entirely owed
to a bad wife.

When he was first married, he said, finding no remedy against domestic
squabbles, he used to quit his bad half and go and enjoy himself with his
good friends, who were Hungarians and Germans, for weeks together. Once,
having returned home after a considerable absence, his wife, while he was
in bed next morning, followed her husband's example: she did even more,
for she took all his clothes, even to his shoes, stockings, and small
clothes, nay, everything he had, along with her! Thus situated, he was
under the necessity of doing something to cover his nakedness; and this,
he himself acknowledged, was the first cause of his seriously applying
himself to the profession which has since made his name immortal.

He used to laugh, saying, "I was from that time so habituated to study
that my wife, often fearing it would injure me, would threaten me with
the same operation if I did not go out and amuse myself; but then," added
he, "I was grown old, and she was sick and no longer jealous." He spoke
remarkably good Italian, though he had never been in Italy, and on my
going to Vienna to hear his "Creation," he promised to accompany me back
to Italy; but he unfortunately died before I returned to Vienna from
Carlsbad.

She had a brother also, the Prince Carignan, who, marrying against the
consent of his family, was no longer received by them; but the
unremitting and affectionate attention which the Princesse de Lamballe
paid to him and his new connexions was an ample compensation for the loss
he sustained in the severity of his other sisters.

With regard to the early life of the Princesse de Lamballe, the arranger
of these pages must now leave her to pursue her own beautiful and artless
narrative unbroken, up to the epoch of her appointment to the household
of the Queen. It will be recollected that the papers of which the
reception has been already described in the introduction formed the
private journal of this most amiable Princess; and those passages
relating to her own early life being the most connected part of them, it
has been thought that to disturb them would be a kind of sacrilege.
After the appointment of Her Highness to the superintendence of the
Queen's household, her manuscripts again become confused, and fall into
scraps and fragments, which will require to be once more rendered clear
by the recollections of events and conversations by which the preceding
chapters have been assisted.]

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