The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, Charles Duke Yonge [e book reader android txt] 📗

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One of her first acts of liberality of this kind was exercised in favor of a countryman of her own, the celebrated Gluck. Music was one of her most favorite accomplishments. She still devoted a portion of almost every day in taking lessons on the harp; but the French music was not to her taste; while, since the death of Handel, Gluck's superiority to all his other musical contemporaries had been generally acknowledged in all countries. She now, by the gift of a pension of 6000 francs, induced him to visit Paris. It was at the French opera that many of his most celebrated works were first given to the world; and an incident which took place at the performance of one of them showed that, if the frequenters of Versailles were dissatisfied at the inroads lately made on the old etiquette, the queen had a compensation in the warm attachment with which she had inspired the Parisians. Instead of conveying the performers to Versailles, as had been the extravagant practice of the late reign, Louis and Marie Antoinette went into Paris when they desired to visit the theatre. The citizens, delighted at the contrast which their frequent visits to the capital afforded to the marked dislike of it shown by the late king, crowded the theatre on every night on which they were expected; and on one of these occasions Gluck's "Iphigenie" was the opera selected for performance. It contains a chorus in which, according to the design of the dramatist, Achilles was directed to turn to his followers with the words

"Chantez, celebrez votre reine."

But the French opera-singers were a courtly race. The French opera had been established a century before as a Royal Academy of Music by Louis XIV., who had issued letters patent which declared the profession of an opera-singer one that might be followed even by a nobleman; and it seemed, therefore, quite consistent with the rank thus conferred on them that they should take the lead in paying loyal compliments to their princes. Accordingly, when the performer who represented the invincible son of Thetis, the popular tenor singer, Le Gros, came to the chorus in question, he was found to have prepared a slight change in his part. He did not address himself to the myrmidons behind him, but he came forward, and, with a bow to the boxes and pit, substituted the following,

"Chantons, celebrons notre reine,
L'hymen, que sous ses lois l'enchaine,
Va nous rendre a jamais heureux."

The audience was taken by surprise, but it was a surprise of delight. The whole house rose to its feet, cheering and clapping their hands. For the first time in theatrical history, the repetition of a song was demanded. The now familiar term of "Encore!" was heard and obeyed. The queen herself was affected to tears by the enthusiastic affection displayed toward her, nor at such a moment did she suffer her feeling of the evanescent character of popularity among so light-minded a people to dwell in her mind, or to mar the pleasure which such a reception was well calculated to impart.

Popularity at this moment seemed doubly valuable to her, because she was not ignorant that the feeling of disappointment at the unproductiveness of her marriage had recently been increased by the knowledge that the young Countess d'Artois was about to become a mother. And the attachment which she inspired was not confined to the play-goers; it was shared by a body so little inclined to exhibitions of impulsive loyalty as the Parliament. It has been seen that Louis XV. had abolished that body; but one of the first proposals made by Maurepas to the new king had had its re-establishment for its object. The question had been discussed in the king's council, and also in the royal family, with great eagerness. The ablest of the ministers protested against the restoration of an assembly which had invariably shown itself turbulent and usurping, and the king himself was generally understood to share their views. But Marie Antoinette, led by the advice of Choiseul, was eager in her support of Maurepas, and it was believed that her influence decided Louis. If it was so, it was an exertion of her power that she had ample cause to repent at a subsequent period; but at the time she thought of nothing but showing her sense of the general superiority of Choiseul, and so requiting some of the obligations under which she considered that she lay to him for arranging her marriage; and she received a deputation from the re-established Parliament with marked pleasure, and replied to their address with a graciousness which seemed intended to show that she sincerely rejoiced at the event which had given cause for it.

It was not till Christmas that the royal family went out of mourning; but, as soon as it was left off, the court returned to its accustomed gayety-- balls, concerts, and private theatricals occupying the evenings; though the people remarked with undisguised satisfaction that the expenses of former years had been greatly retrenched. It was also noticed that many foreigners of distinction, and especially some English ladies of high rank, gladly accepted invitations to the balls, which they certainly would not have done while their presence was likely to bring them into contact with Madame du Barri. Lady Ailesbury is especially mentioned as having been received with marked distinction by the queen, and also by the king, who was careful to show his approval of her entertainments by the share which he took in them; and, as he paraded the saloons arm-in-arm with her, to distinguish those whom she noticed, so that, to quote the words of one of the most lively chroniclers of the day, their example seemed to be fast bringing conjugal love and fidelity into fashion. She even persuaded him to depart still further from his usual reserve, so as to appear in costume at more than one fancy ball; the dress which he chose being that of the only predecessor of his own house whom he could in any point have desired to resemble, Henry IV. He had already been indirectly compared to that monarch, the first Bourbon king, by the ingenious flattery of a print- *seller. In the long list of sovereigns who had reigned over France in the five hundred years which had passed by since the warrior-saint of the Crusades had laid down his life on the sands of Tunis, there had been but two to whom their countrymen could look back with affection or respect-- Louis XII., to whom his subjects had given the title of The Good, and Henry, to whom more than one memorial still preserved the surname of The Great. And the courtly picture-dealer, eager to make his market of the gratitude with which his fellow-citizens greeted the reforms with which the reigning sovereign had already inaugurated his reign, contrived to extract a compliment to him even out of the severe prose of the multiplication-table; publishing a joint portrait of the three kings, Louis XII., Henry IV., and Louis XVI., with an inscription beneath to testify that 12 and 4 made 16.

In the spring of 1775, Marie Antoinette received a great pleasure in a visit from her younger brother, Maximilian. He was the only member of her family whom she had seen in the five years that had elapsed since she left Vienna. But, eagerly as she had looked forward to his visit, it did not bring her unmixed satisfaction, being marred by the ill-breeding of the princes of the blood, and still more by the approval of their conduct displayed by the citizens of Paris, which seemed to afford a convincing evidence of the small effect which even the queen's virtues and graces had produced in softening the old national feeling of enmity to the house of Austria. The archduke, who was still but a youth, did not assert his royal rank while on his travels, but preserved such an _incognito_ as princes on such occasions are wont to assume, and took the title of Count de Burgau. The king's brothers, however, like the king himself, paid no regard to his disguise, but visited him at the first instant of his arrival; but the princes of the blood stood on their dignity, refused to acknowledge a rank which was not publicly avowed, or to recollect that the visitor was a foreigner and brother to their queen, and insisted on receiving the attention of the first visit from him. The excitement which the question caused in the palace, and the queen's indignation at the slight thus offered, as she conceived, to her brother, were great. High words passed between her and the Duc d'Orleans, the chief of the recusants, on the subject; and one part of her remonstrance throws a curious additional light on the strange distance which, as has been already pointed out, the etiquette of the French court had established between the sovereigns and the very highest of their subjects, even the nearest of their relations. The duke had insisted on the _incognito_ as debarring Maximilian from all claim to attention from a prince like himself whose rank was not concealed. She urged that the king and his brothers had not regarded it in that light. "The duke knew," she said, "that the king had treated Maximilian as a brother; that he even invited him to sup in private with himself and her, an honor to which no prince of the blood had ever pretended." And, finally, warming with her subject, she told him that, though her brother would be sorry not to make the acquaintance of the princes of the blood, he had many other things in Paris to see, and would manage to do without it.[2] Her expostulation was fruitless. The princes adhered to their resolution, and she to hers. They were not admitted to any of the festivities of the palace during the archduke's stay, and were even excluded from all the private entertainments which were given in his honor, since she made it known that the king and she would refuse to attend any to which they were invited. But, though their conduct was surely both discourteous to a foreigner and disrespectful to their sovereign, the Parisian populace took their part; and some of them who showed themselves ostentatiously in the streets of the city on days on which there were parties at Versailles were loudly applauded by a crowd which was not entirely drawn from the lower classes. It was noticed that the Duc de Chartres, the son of the Duc d'Orleans, was one of the foremost in exciting this anti-Austrian feeling, the outbreak of which was especially remarkable as the first instance in which the enthusiasm of the citizens for Marie Antoinette seemed to have cooled, or at least to have been interrupted. And this change in their feelings produced so painful an impression on her mind, that, after her brother's departure, she abandoned her intention of going to the opera, though Gluck's "Orfeo" was to be performed, lest she should meet with a reception less cordial than that to which she had hitherto been accustomed.

This ebullition against the house of Austria, however, was at the moment dictated rather by discontent with the Home Government than by any settled feeling on the subject of foreign politics. Corn had been at a rather high price in Paris and its neighborhood throughout the winter; and the dearness was taken advantage of by the enemies of Turgot, and employed by them as an argument to prove the impolicy of his measures to introduce freedom of trade. They even organized[3] formidable riots at Paris and Versailles, which, however, Turgot, whose resolution was equal to his capacity, prevailed on the king to repress by acts of vigor very