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

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"The Queen, perhaps, was more liberal to this lady than to any other
actress upon the stage. She had frequently paid her debts, which were
very considerable, for she dressed like a Queen whenever she represented
one.

"Gluck's consciousness of the merit of his own works, and of their
dignity, excited no small jealousy, during the getting up of Armida, in
his rival with the public, the great Vestris, to whom he scarcely left
space to exhibit the graces of his art; and many severe disputes took
place between the two rival sharers of the Parisian enthusiasm. Indeed,
it was at one time feared that the success of Armida would be endangered,
unless an equal share of the performance were conceded to the dancers.
But Gluck, whose German obstinacy would not give up a note, told Vestris
he might compose a ballet in which he would leave him his own way
entirely; but that an artist whose profession only taught him to reason
with his heels should not kick about works like Armida at his pleasure.
'My subject,' added Gluck, 'is taken from the immortal Tasso. My music
has been logically composed, and with the ideas of my head; and, of
course, there is very little room left for capering. If Tasso had
thought proper to make Rinaldo a dancer he never would have designated
him a warrior.'

"Rinaldo was the part Vestris wished to be allotted to his son. However,
through the interference of the Queen, Vestris prudently took the part as
it had been originally finished by Gluck.

"The Queen was a great admirer and patroness of Augustus Vestris, the god
of dance, as he was styled. Augustus Vestris never lost Her Majesty's
favour, though he very often lost his sense of the respect he owed to the
public, and showed airs and refused to dance. Once he did so when Her
Majesty was at the opera. Upon some frivolous pretext he refused to
appear. He was, in consequence, immediately arrested. His father,
alarmed at his son's temerity, flew to me, and with the most earnest
supplications implored I would condescend to endeavour to obtain the
pardon of Her Majesty. 'My son,' cried he, 'did not know that Her
Majesty had honoured the theatre with her presence. Had he been aware of
it, could he have refused to dance for his most bounteous benefactress?
I, too, am grieved beyond the power of language to describe, by this mal
apropos contretemps between the two houses of Vestris and Bourbon, as we
have always lived in the greatest harmony ever since we came from
Florence to Paris. My son is very sorry and will dance most bewitchingly
if Her Majesty will graciously condescend to order his release!'

"I repeated the conversation verbatim, to Her Majesty, who enjoyed the
arrogance of the Florentine, and sent her page to order young Vestris to
be set immediately at liberty.

"Having exerted all the wonderful powers of his art, the Queen applauded
him very much. When Her Majesty was about leaving her box, old Vestris
appeared at the entrance, leading his son to thank the Queen.

"'Ah, Monsieur Vestris,' said the Queen to the father, you never danced
as your son has done this evening.'

"'That's very natural, Madame,' answered old Vestris, 'I never had a
Vestris, please Your Majesty, for a master.'

"'Then you have the greater merit,' replied the Queen, turning round to
old Vestris--'Ah, I shall never forget you and Mademoiselle Guimard
dancing the minuet de la cour.'

"On this old Vestris held up his head with that peculiar grace for which
he was so much distinguished. The old man, though ridiculously vain, was
very much of a gentleman in his manners. The father of Vestris was a
painter of some celebrity at Florence, and originally from Tuscany."




SECTION IX.


"The visit of the favourite brother of Marie Antoinette, the Emperor
Joseph the Second, to France, had been long and anxiously expected, and
was welcomed by her with delight. The pleasure Her Majesty discovered at
having him with her is scarcely credible; and the affectionate tenderness
with which the Emperor frequently expressed himself on seeing his
favourite sister evinced that their joys were mutual.

"Like everything else, however, which gratified and obliged the Queen,
her evil star converted even this into a misfortune. It was said that
the French Treasury, which was not overflowing, was still more reduced by
the Queen's partiality for her brother. She was accused of having given
him immense sums of money; which was utterly false.

"The finances of Joseph were at that time in a situation too superior to
those of France to admit of such extravagance, or even to render it
desirable. The circumstance which gave a colour to the charge was this:

"The Emperor, in order to facilitate the trade of his Brabant subjects,
had it in contemplation to open the navigation of the Scheldt. This
measure would have been ruinous to many of the skippers, as well as to
the internal commerce of France. It was considered equally dangerous to
the trade and navigation of the North Hollanders. To prevent it,
negotiations were carried on by the French Minister, though professedly
for the mutual interest of both countries, yet entirely at the
instigation and on account of the Dutch. The weighty argument of the
Dutch to prevent the Emperor from accomplishing a purpose they so much
dreaded was a sum of many millions, which passed by means of some monied
speculation in the Exchange through France to its destination at Vienna.
It was to see this affair settled that the Emperor declared in Vienna his
intention of taking France in his way from Italy, before he should go
back to Austria.

"The certainty of a transmission of money from France to Austria was
quite enough to awaken the malevolent, who would have taken care, even
had they inquired into the source whence the money came, never to have
made it public. The opportunity was too favourable not to be made the
pretext to raise a clamour against the Queen for robbing France to favour
and enrich Austria.

"The Emperor, who had never seen me, though he had often heard me spoken
of at the Court of Turin, expressed a wish, soon after his arrival, that
I should be presented to him. The immediate cause of this let me
explain.

"I was very much attached to the Princesse Clotilde, whom I had caused to
be united to Prince Charles Emanuel of Piedmont. Our family had, indeed,
been principally instrumental in the alliances of the two brothers of the
King of France with the two Piedmontese Princesses, as I had been in the
marriage of the Piedmontese Prince with the Princess of France. When the
Emperor Joseph visited the Court of Turin he was requested when he saw me
in Paris to signify the King of Sardinia's satisfaction at my good
offices. Consequently, the Emperor lost no time in delivering his
message.

"When I was just entering the Queen's apartment to be presented, 'Here,'
said Her Majesty, leading me to the Emperor, 'is the Princess,' and, then
turning to me, exclaimed, 'Mercy, how cold you are!' The Emperor answered
Her Majesty in German, 'What heat can you expect from the hand of one
whose heart resides with the dead?' and subjoined, in the same language,
'What a pity that so charming a head should be fixed on a dead body.'

"I affected to understand the Emperor literally, and set him and the
Queen laughing by thanking His Imperial Majesty for the compliment.

"The Emperor was exceedingly affable and full of anecdote. Marie
Antoinette resembled him in her general manners. The similitude in their
easy openness of address towards persons of merit was very striking. Both
always endeavoured to encourage persons of every class to speak their
minds freely, with this difference, that Her Majesty in so doing never
forgot her dignity or her rank at Court. Sometimes, however, I have seen
her, though so perfect in her deportment with inferiors, much intimidated
and sometimes embarrassed in the presence of the Princes and Princesses,
her equals, who for the first time visited Versailles: indeed, so much as
to give them a very incorrect idea of her capacity. It was by no means an
easy matter to cause Her Majesty to unfold her real sentiments or
character on a first acquaintance.

"I remember the Emperor one evening at supper when he was exceedingly
good-humoured, talkative, and amusing. He had visited all his Italian
relations, and had a word for each, man, woman, or child--not a soul was
spared. The King scarcely once opened his mouth, except to laugh at some
of the Emperor's jokes upon his Italian relations.

"He began by asking the Queen if she punished her husband by making him
keep as many Lents in the same year as her sister did the King of Naples.
The Queen not knowing what the Emperor meant, he explained himself, and
said, 'When the King of Naples offends his Queen she keeps him on short
commons and 'soupe maigre' till he has expiated the offence by the
penance of humbling himself; and then, and not till then, permits him to
return and share the nuptial rights of her bed.'

"'This sister of mine,' said the Emperor, 'is a proficient Queen in the
art of man training. My other sister, the Duchess of Parma, is equally
scientific in breaking-in horses; for she is constantly in the stables
with her grooms, by which she 'grooms' a pretty sum yearly in buying,
selling, and breaking-in; while the simpleton, her husband, is ringing
the bells with the Friars of Colorno to call his good subjects to Mass.

"'My brother Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, feeds his subjects with
plans of economy, a dish that costs nothing, and not only saves him a
multitude of troubles in public buildings and public institutions, but
keeps the public money in his private coffers; which is one of the
greatest and most classical discoveries a Sovereign can possibly
accomplish, and I give Leopold much credit for his ingenuity.

"'My dear brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Milan, considering he is only
Governor of Lombardy, is not without industry; and I am told, when out of
the glimpse of his dragon the holy Beatrice, his Archduchess, sells his
corn in the time of war to my enemies, as he does to my friends in the
time of peace. So he loses nothing by his speculations!'

"The Queen checked the Emperor repeatedly, though she could not help
smiling at his caricatures.

"'As to you, my dear Marie Antoinette,' continued the Emperor, not
heeding her, 'I see you have made great progress in the art of painting.
You have lavished more colour on one cheek than Rubens would have
required for all the figures in his cartoons.' Observing one of the
Ladies of Honour still more highly rouged than the Queen, he said, 'I
suppose I look like a death's head upon a tombstone, among all these
high-coloured furies.'

"The Queen again tried to interrupt the Emperor, but he was not to be put
out of countenance.

"He said he had no doubt, when he arrived at Brussels, that he should
hear of the progress of his sister, the Archduchess Maria Christina, in
her money negotiations with the banker Valkeers, who made a good stock
for her husband's jobs.

"'If Maria Christina's gardens and palace at Lakin could speak,' observed
he, 'what a spectacle of events would they not produce! What a number of
fine sights my own family would afford!

"'When I get to Cologne,' pursued the Emperor, there I shall see my great
fat brother Maximilian, in his little electorate, spending his yearly
revenue upon an ecclesiastical procession; for priests, like opposition,
never bark but to get into the manger; never walk empty-handed; rosaries
and good cheer always wind up their holy work; and my good Maximilian, as
head of his Church, has scarcely feet to waddle into it. Feasting and
fasting produce the same effect. In wind and food he is quite an
adept--puffing, from one cause or the other, like a smith's bellows!'

"Indeed, the Elector of Cologne was really grown so very fat, that, like
his Imperial mother, he could scarcely walk. He would so over-eat
himself at these ecclesiastical dinners, to make his guests welcome,
that, from indigestion, he would be puffing and blowing, an hour
afterwards, for breath.

"'As I have begun the family visits,' continued the Emperor, 'I must not
pass by the Archduchess Mariana and the Lady Abbess at Clagenfurt; or,
the Lord knows, I shall never hear the end of their klagens.--[A German
word which signifies complaining.]--The first, I am told, is grown so
ugly, and, of course, so neglected by mankind, that she is become an
utter stranger to any attachment, excepting the fleshy embraces of the
disgusting wen that encircles her neck and bosom, and makes her head
appear like a black spot upon a large sheet of white paper. Therefore
klagen is all I can expect from that quarter of female flesh, and I dare
say it will be levelled against the whole race of mankind for their want
of taste in not admiring her exuberance of human craw!

"'As to the Lady Abbess, she is one of my best recruiting sergeants. She
is so fond of training cadets for the benefit of the army that they learn
more from her system in one month than at the military academy at
Neustadt in a whole year. She is her mother's own daughter. She
understands military tactics thoroughly. She and I never quarrel, except
when I garrison her citadel with invalids. She and the canoness,
Mariana, would rather see a few young ensigns than all the staffs of the
oldest Field-marshals!'

"The Queen often made signs to the Emperor to desist from thus exposing
every member of his family, and seemed to feel mortified; but the more
Her Majesty endeavoured to check his freedom, and make him silent, the
more he enlarged upon the subject. He did not even omit Maria Theresa,
who, he said, in consequence of some papers found on persons arrested as
spies from the Prussian camp, during the seven years' war, was reported
to have been greatly surprised to have discovered that her husband, the
Emperor Francis I., supplied the enemy's army with all kinds of provision
from her stores.

"The King scarcely ever answered excepting when the Emperor told the
Queen that her staircase and antechamber at Versailles resembled more the
Turkish bazars of Constantinople than a royal palace. 'But,' added he,
laughing, 'I suppose you would not allow the nuisance of hawkers and
pedlars almost under your nose, if the sweet perfumes of a handsome
present did not compensate for the disagreeable effluvia exhaling from
their filthy traffic.'

[It was an old custom, in the passages and staircase of all the royal
palaces, for tradespeople to sell their merchandise for the accommodation
of the Court.]

"On this, Louis XVI., in a tone of voice somewhat varying from his usual
mildness, assured the Emperor that neither himself nor the Queen derived
any advantage from the custom, beyond the convenience of purchasing
articles inside the palace at any moment they were wanted, without being
forced to send for them elsewhere.

"'That is the very reason, my dear brother,' replied Joseph, 'why I would
not allow these shops to be where they are. The temptation to lavish
money to little purpose is too strong; and women have not philosophy
enough to resist having things they like, when they can be obtained
easily, though they may not be wanted.'

"'Custom,' answered the King--

"'True,' exclaimed the Queen, interrupting him; custom, my dear brother,
obliges us to tolerate in France many things which you, in Austria, have.
long since abolished; but the French are not to be: treated like the
Germans. A Frenchman is a slave to habit. His very caprice in the
change of fashion proceeds more from habit than genius or invention. His
very restlessness of character is systematic; and old customs and
national habits in a nation virtually spirituelle must not be trifled
with. The tree torn up by the roots dies for want of nourishment; but,
on the contrary, when lopped carefully only of its branches the pruning
makes it more valuable to the cultivator and more pleasing to the
beholder. So it is with national prejudices, which are often but the
excrescences of national virtues. Root them out and you root out virtue
and all. They must only be: pruned and turned to profit. A Frenchman is
more easily killed than subdued. Even his follies generally spring from
a high sense of national dignity and honour, which foreigners cannot but
respect.'

"The Emperor Joseph while in France mixed in all sorts of society, to
gain information with respect, to the popular feeling towards his sister,
and instruction as to the manners and modes of life and thinking of the
French. To this end he would often associate with the lowest of the
common people, and generally gave them a louis for their loss of time in
attending to him.

"One day, when he was walking with the young Princesse Elizabeth and
myself in the public gardens at Versailles and in deep conversation with
us, two or three of these louis ladies came up to my side and, not
knowing who I was, whispered, 'There's no use in paying such attention to
the stranger: after all, when he has got what he wants, he'll only give
you a louis apiece and then send you about your business.'"




SECTION X.


"I remember an old lady who could not bear to be told of deaths. 'Psha!
Pshaw!' she would exclaim. 'Bring me no tales of funerals! Talk of
births and of those who are likely to be blest with them! These are the
joys which gladden old hearts and fill youthful ones with ecstasy! It is
our own reproduction in children which makes us quit the world happy and
contented; because then we only retire to make room for another race,
bringing with them all those faculties which are in us decayed; and
capable, which we ourselves have ceased to be, of taking our parts and
figuring on the stage of life so long as it may please the Supreme
Manager to busy them in earthly scenes! Then talk no more to me of weeds
and mourning, but show me christenings and all those who give employ to
the baptismal font!'

"Such also was the exulting feeling of Marie Antoinette when she no
longer doubted of her wished-for pregnancy. The idea of becoming a
mother filled her soul with an exuberant delight, which made the very
pavement on which she trod vibrate with the words, 'I shall be a mother!
I shall be a mother!' She was so overjoyed that she not only made it
public throughout France but despatches were sent off to all her royal
relatives. And was not her rapture natural? so long as she had waited
for the result of every youthful union, and so coarsely as she had been
reproached with her misfortune! Now came her triumph. She could now
prove to the world, like all the descendants of the house of Austria,
that there was no defect with her. The satirists and the malevolent were
silenced. Louis XVI., from the cold, insensible bridegroom, became the
infatuated admirer of his long-neglected wife. The enthusiasm with which
the event was hailed by all France atoned for the partial insults she had
received before it. The splendid fetes, balls, and entertainments,
indiscriminately lavished by all ranks throughout the kingdom on this
occasion, augmented those of the Queen and the Court to a pitch of
magnificence surpassing the most luxurious and voluptuous times of the
great and brilliant Louis XIV. Entertainments were given even to the
domestics of every description belonging to the royal establishments.
Indeed, so general was the joy that, among those who could do no more,
there could scarcely be found a father or mother in France who, before
they took their wine, did not first offer up a prayer for the prosperous
pregnancy of their beloved Queen.

"And yet, though the situation of Marie Antoinette was now become the
theme of a whole nation's exultation, she herself, the owner of the
precious burthen, selected by Heaven as its special depositary, was the
only one censured for expressing all her happiness!





"Those models of decorum, the virtuous Princesses, her aunts, deemed it
highly indelicate in Her Majesty to have given public marks of her
satisfaction to those deputed to compliment her on her prosperous
situation. To avow the joy she felt was in their eyes indecent and
unqueenly. Where was the shrinking bashfulness of that one of these
Princesses who had herself been so clamorous to Louis XV. against her
husband, the Duke of Modena, for not having consummated her own marriage?

"The party of the dismissed favourite Du Barry were still working
underground. Their pestiferous vapours issued from the recesses of the
earth, to obscure the brightness of the rising sun, which was now rapidly
towering to its climax, to obliterate the little planets which had once
endeavoured to eclipse its beautiful rays, but were now incapable of
competition, and unable to endure its lustre. This malignant nest of
serpents began to poison the minds of the courtiers, as soon as the
pregnancy was obvious, by innuendoes on the partiality of the Comte
d'Artois for the Queen; and at length, infamously, and openly, dared to
point him out as the cause?

"Thus, in the heart of the Court itself, originated this most atrocious
slander, long before it reached the nation, and so much assisted to
destroy Her Majesty's popularity with a people, who now adored her
amiableness, her general kind-heartedness, and her unbounded charity.

"I have repeatedly seen the Queen and the Comte d'Artois together under
circumstances in which there could have been no concealment of her real
feelings; and I can firmly and boldly assert the falsehood of this
allegation against my royal mistress. The only attentions Marie
Antoinette received in the earlier part of her residence in France were
from her grandfather and her brothers-in-law. Of these, the Comte
d'Artois was the only one who, from youth and liveliness of character,
thoroughly sympathised with his sister. But, beyond the little freedoms
of two young and innocent playmates, nothing can be charged upon their
intimacy,--no familiarity whatever farther than was warranted by their
relationship. I can bear witness that Her Majesty's attachment for the
Comte d'Artois never differed in its nature from what she felt for her
brother the Emperor Joseph.

[When the King thought proper to be reconciled to the Queen after the
death of his grandfather, Louis XV., and when she became a mother, she
really was very much attached to Louis XVI., as may be proved from her
never quitting him, and suffering all the horrid sacrifices she endured,
through the whole period of the Revolution, rather than leave her
husband, her children, or her sister. Marie Antoinette might have saved
her life twenty times, had not the King's safety, united with her own and
that of her family, impelled her to reject every proposition of
self-preservation.]

"It is very likely that the slander of which I speak derived some colour
of probability afterwards with the million, from the Queen's
thoughtlessness, relative to the challenge which passed between the Comte
d'Artois and the Duc de Bourbon. In right of my station, I was one of
Her Majesty's confidential counsellors, and it became my duty to put
restraint upon her inclinations, whenever I conceived they led her wrong.
In this instance, I exercised my prerogative decidedly, and even so much
so as to create displeasure; but I anticipated the consequences, which
actually ensued, and preferred to risk my royal mistress's displeasure
rather than her reputation. The dispute, which led to the duel, was on
some point of etiquette; and the Baron de Besenval was to attend as
second to one of the parties. From the Queen's attachment for her royal
brother, she wished the affair to be amicably arranged, without the
knowledge either of the King, who was ignorant of what had taken place,
or of the parties; which could only be effected by her seeing the Baron
in the most private manner. I opposed Her Majesty's allowing any
interview with the Baron upon any terms, unless sanctioned by the King.
This unexpected and peremptory refusal obliged the Queen to transfer her
confidence to the librarian, who introduced the Baron into one of the
private apartments of Her Majesty's women, communicating with that of the
Queen, where Her Majesty could see the Baron without the exposure of
passing any of the other attendants. The Baron was quite gray, and
upwards of sixty years of age! But the self-conceited dotard soon caused
the Queen to repent her misplaced confidence, and from his unwarrantable
impudence on that occasion, when he found himself alone with the Queen,
Her Majesty, though he was a constant member of the societies of the De
Polignacs, ever after treated him with sovereign contempt.

"The Queen herself afterwards described to me the Baron's presumptuous
attack upon her credulity. From this circumstance I thenceforward totally
excluded him from my parties, where Her Majesty was always a regular
visitor.

"The coolness to which my determination not to allow the interview gave
rise between Her Majesty and myself was but momentary. The Queen had too
much discernment not to appreciate the basis upon which my denial was
grounded, even before she was convinced by the result how correct had
been my reflection. She felt her error, and, by the mediation of the
Duke of Dorset, we were reunited more closely than ever, and so, I trust,
we shall remain till death!

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