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

a sprightly boy of six years old, was taken into the nursery to see, or, in the court language, to pay his homage to, the heir to the throne, he said to his father, as he left the room, "Papa, how little my cousin is!" "The day will come, my boy," replied the count, "when you will find him quite great enough." And it seemed as if the whole nation, and especially the city of Paris, thought no celebration of the birth of its future king could be too sumptuous for his greatness. It was a real heart-felt joy that was awakened in the people. On the day following the birth, chroniclers of the time remarked that no other subject was spoken of; that even strangers stopped one another in the streets to exchange congratulations.[5]

The different trades and guilds led the way in the expression of these loyal felicitations. When his royal highness was a week old, he held a grand reception. Deputations from different bodies of artisans, each with a band of music at its head, and each carrying some emblem of its occupation, marched in a long procession to Versailles. The chimney-sweeps bore aloft a chimney entwined with garlands, on the top of which was perched one of the smallest of their boys; the chairmen carried a chair superbly gilt, on which sat in state a representative of the royal nurse, with a child in her arms in royal robes; the butchers drove a fat ox; the pastry-cooks bore on a splendid tray a variety of pastry and sweetmeats such as might tempt children of a larger growth than the little prince they had come to honor; the blacksmiths beat an anvil in time to their cheers; the shoe-makers brought a pair of miniature boots; the tailors had devoted elaborate and minute pains to the embroidering of a uniform of the dauphin's regiment, such as might even now fit its young colonel, if his parents would permit him to be attired in it. The crowd was too great to be received in even the largest saloon of the palace; but it filled the court-yard beneath; and, as the weather was luckily favorable, the dauphin was brought to the balcony and displayed to the people, while they greeted him with cheers, which were renewed from time to time, even after he had been withdrawn, till the shouting seemed as if it would have no end.

One deputation, consisting of members of the fairer sex, received even higher honors. Fifty ladies of the fish-market vindicated the long-acknowledged claims of their body by forming a separate procession. Each dame was dressed in a gown of rich black silk, their established court-dress, and nearly every one had diamond ornaments. To them, the celebrated antechamber, from the oval window at the end known as the Bull's Eye, was opened;[6] and three of their body were admitted even into the queen's room, and to the side of the bed. The popular poet La Harpe, whom the partiality of Voltaire had designated as the heir of his genius, had composed an address, which the spokeswoman of the party had written out on the back of her fan, and now read with a sweet voice, which had procured her the honor of being so selected,[7] and with very appropriate delivery. The queen made a brief but most gracious answer, and then, on their retirement, the whole company, with a train of fish-women of the lower class, was entertained at a grand banquet, which they enlivened with songs composed for the occasion. One of them so hit the fancy of the king and queen that they quoted it more than once in their letters to their correspondents, and Marie Antoinette even sung it occasionally to her harp:

"Ne craignez pas,
Cher papa,
D' voir augmenter vot' famille,
Le Bon Dieu z'y pourvoira:
Fait's en tant qu' Versailles en fourmille
Y eut-il cent Bourbons chez nous,
Y a du pain, du laurier pour tous."

The body-guard celebrated the auspicious event by giving a grand ball in the concert-room of the palace to the queen on her recovery; it was attended by the whole court, and Marie Antoinette opened it herself, dancing a minuet with one of the troop, whom his comrades had selected for the honor, and whom the king promoted, as a memorial of the occasion and as a testimony of his approval of the loyalty of that gallant regiment.

Amidst all the troubles of later years, the fidelity of those noble troops never wavered. They had even in one hour of terrible danger the honor, in the same palace, of saving the life of their queen. But it is a melancholy proof of the fleeting character and instability of popular favor which is supplied by the recollection that these very artisans who were now so vociferous, and undoubtedly at this moment so sincere in their profession of loyalty, were afterward her foul and ferocious enemies. And yet between 1781 and 1789 there had been no change in the character or conduct of the king and queen, or rather, it may be said, the intervening years had been a period during which a countless series of acts of beneficence had displayed their unceasing affection for their subjects.

The festivities were crowned in the most appropriate manner by a public thanksgiving, offered by the queen herself to Heaven for the gift of a son, and for her own recovery. But that celebration was necessarily postponed till her strength was entirely re-established; and it was not till the 21st of January that the physicians would allow her to encounter the excitement of so interesting but fatiguing a day. The court had quit Versailles for La Muette the day before, to be nearer the city; and on the appointed morning, which the watchers for omens delightedly remarked as one of midsummer brilliancy,[8] the most superb procession that even Paris had ever witnessed issued from the gates of the old hunting-lodge, whose earlier occupants had been animated by a very different spirit.[9]

That the honors of the day might be wholly the queen's, Louis himself did not accompany her, but followed her three hours later, to meet her at the Hotel de Ville. Nineteen coaches, glittering with burnished gold, and every panel of which was embellished with crowns, wreaths, or allegorical pictures, marching on at a stately walk toward the city gate, conveyed the queen, radiant with beauty and happiness, the sisters and aunts of the king, the long train of her and their ladies, and all the great officers of her household. Squadrons of the body-guard furnished the escort, riding in front of the queen's carriage and behind it, but not on either side, she herself having forbidden any arrangement which might intercept the full sight of herself from a single citizen. Companies of other regiments awaited the procession at different points, and closed up behind it as it passed, swelling the vast train which thus grew at every step. An additional escort, almost an army in itself, in double rank, lined the whole road from the barrier of the Champs Elysees of the great cathedral; and, as the royal coach passed through the city gate, a herald proclaimed that "The king wishing to consecrate by fresh acts of kindness the happy moment when God showered his mercies on him by the birth of a dauphin, and at the same time to give to the inhabitants of his good city of Paris some special mark of his beneficence, granted an exemption from the poll-tax to all the burgesses, traders, and artisans who were not in such circumstances as made the payment easy."

The proclamation was received with all the thankfulness of surprise; the cheers, which had never censed from the moment that the procession first came in sight, were redoubled, and it was amidst shouts of congratulation both to themselves and to her that the queen proceeded onward to Notre Dame. Having paid her vows and made her offerings in the cathedral of the nation, she passed on to the Church of Ste. Genevieve, the especial patroness of the city, and repeated her thanksgiving before the tomb of Clovis, the founder of the monarchy. At the Hotel de Ville she was met by the king, with the princess, his brothers, the great officers of his household, and the ministers; and there (after having first come forward on the balcony to afford the multitude, who completely filled the vast square in front of the building, a sight of their sovereigns), the royal pair, sitting side by side, presided at a banquet of unsurpassed magnificence and luxury. In compliance with the strictest laws of the old etiquette, none but ladies were admitted to the king's table, but other tables were provided for the male guests. The most renowned musicians performed the sweetest airs, but the melodies of Gluck and Gretry were drowned in the cheers of the multitude outside, who thus relieved their impatience for the re-appearance of their queen.

The banquet was succeeded by a grand reception, with its singular but invariable accompaniment of a gaming-table,[10] and the whole was concluded by a grand illumination and display of fireworks, in which the pyrotechnists had exhausted their allegorical ingenuity. A Temple of Hymen occupied the centre, and the God of Marriage--never, so far as present appearances indicated, more auspiciously employed--presented to France the precious infant who was the most recent fruit of his favor; while the flame upon his altar, which never had burned with a brighter light, was fed by the thank-offerings of the whole French people. As each new feature of the display burst upon their eyes, the acclamations of the populace redoubled, and their enthusiasm was kindled to the utmost pitch when Louis and Marie Antoinette descended the stairs, and, arm-in-arm, walked out among the crowd, ostensibly to see the illuminations from the different points which presented the most imposing spectacle; but really, as the citizens perceived, to show their sympathy with the joy of the people by mingling with the multitude, and thus allowing all to approach and even to accost them; while they, and especially the queen, replied to every loyal cheer or homely word of congratulation by a cordial smile or expression of approval or thanks, which long dwelt in the memory of those to whom they were addressed.


CHAPTER XVII.

Madame de Guimenee resigns the Office of Governess of the Royal Children. --Madame de Polignac succeeds her.--Marie Antoinette's Views of Education.--Character of Madame Royale.--The Grand Duke Paul and his Grand Duchess visit the French Court.--Their Characters.--Entertainments given in their Honor.--Insolence of the Cardinal de Rohan.--His Character and previous Life.--Grand Festivities at Chantilly.--Events of the War.-- Rodney defeats de Grasse.--The Siege of Gilbralter fails.--M. de Suffrein fights five Drawn Battles with Sir E. Hughes in the Indian Seas.--The Queen receives him with great Honor on his Return.

The post of governess to the royal children was one which was conferred for life, and did not even cease on the accession of a new sovereign, and the birth of a new royal family. Madame de Guimenee, therefore, having been appointed to that office on the birth of the first child of the late dauphin, the father of Louis XVI., still retained it, and on the birth of Madame Royale transferred her services to that princess. The arrangement had been far from acceptable to Marie Antoinette, who had no great liking for the lady, though, with her habitual kindness of disposition, she had accepted her attentions, and had often condescended to appear as a guest at her evening parties, taking only the precaution of ascertaining beforehand whom she was likely to meet there.[1] But, in the spring of 1782, the Prince de Guimenee became