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

not the minister whom she would have preferred, he made it his especial business to win her confidence; and he had not been long installed in office when she expressed to him her wish that he would find means of accomplishing some object which she desired to promote. "Madame," was his courtly reply, "if it is possible, it is done already. If it is impossible, I will take care and manage it." But being very unscrupulous himself, he overshot his mark when he sought to propitiate her further by offering to represent as hers acts of charity which she had not performed. The winter of 1783 was one of unusual severity. The thermometer at Paris was, for some weeks, scarcely above zero; scarcity, with its inevitable companion, clearness of price, reduced the poor of the northern provinces, and especially of the capital and its neighborhood, to the verge of starvation. The king, queen, and princesses gave large sums from their privy purses for their relief; but as such supplies were manifestly inadequate, Louis ordered the minister to draw three millions of francs from the treasury, and to apply them for the alleviation of the universal distress. Calonne cheerfully received and executed the beneficent command. He was perhaps not sorry, at his first entrance on his duties, to show how easy it was for him to meet even an unforeseen demand of so heavy an amount; and he fancied he saw in it a means of ingratiating himself with Marie Antoinette. He proposed to her that he should pay one of the millions to her treasurer, that that officer might distribute it, in her name, as a gift from her own allowance; but Marie Antoinette disdained such unworthy artifice. She would have felt ashamed to receive praise or gratitude to which she was not entitled. She rejected the proposal, insisting that the king's gift should be attributed to himself alone, and expressing her intention to add to it by curtailing her personal expenditure, by abridging her entertainments so long as the distress should last, and by dedicating the sums usually appropriated to pleasure and festivity to the relief of those whose very existence seemed to depend on the aid which it was her duty and that of the king to furnish. For there was this especial characteristic in Marie Antoinette's charity, that it did not proceed solely from kindness of heart and tenderness of disposition, though these were never wanting, but also from a settled principle of duty, which, in her opinion, imposed upon sovereigns, as a primary obligation, the task of watching over the welfare of their subjects as persons intrusted by Providence to their care; and such a feeling was obviously more to be depended upon as a constant motive for action than the most vivid emotion of the moment, which, if easily excited, is not unfrequently as easily overpowered by some fresh object.

Meanwhile events were gradually compelling her to take a more active part in politics. Maurepas had been jealous of her influence, and, while that old minister lived, Louis, who from his childhood had been accustomed to see him in office, committed almost every thing to his guidance. But, as he always required some one of stronger mind than himself to lean upon, as soon as Maurepas was gone he turned to the queen. It was to her that he now chiefly confided his anxieties and perplexities; from her that he sought counsel and strength; and the ministers naturally came to regard her as the real ruler of the State. Accordingly, we find from her correspondence of this period that even such matters as the appointment of the embassadors to foreign states were often referred to her decision; and how greatly the habit of considering affairs of importance expanded her capacity we may learn from the opinion which her brother, the emperor, who was never disposed to flatter, or even to spare her, had evidently come to entertain of her judgment. In one long letter, written in September of the year 1783, he discussed with her the attitude which France had assumed toward Austria ever since the dismissal of Choiseul; the willingness of her ministers to listen to Prussian calumnies; the encouragement which they had given to the opposition in the empire; and their obsequiousness to Prussia; while Austria had not retaliated, as she had had many opportunities of doing, by any complaisance toward England, though the English statesmen had made many advances toward her. It is a curious instance of fears being realized in a sense very different from that which troubled the writer at the moment, that among the acts of France of which, had he been inclined to be captious, he might justly have complained, he enumerates her recent acquisition of Corsica, as one which, "for a number of reasons, might be very prejudicial to the possessions of the house of Austria and its branches in Italy." It did indeed prove an acquisition which largely influenced the future history, not only of Austria, but of the whole world, when the little island, which hitherto had been but a hot-bed of disorder, and a battle-field of faction burdensome to its Genoese masters, gave a general to the armies of France whose most brilliant exploits were a succession of triumphs over the Austrian commanders in every part of the emperor's dominion. His letter concludes with warnings drawn from the present condition and views of the different states of Europe, and especially of France, whose "finances and resources, to speak with moderation, have been greatly strained" in the recent war; embracing in their scope even the designs of Russia on the independence of Turkey; and with a request that his sister would inform him frankly what he is to believe as to the opinions of the king; and in what light he is to regard the recent letters of Vergennes, which, to his apprehension, show an indifference to the maintenance of the alliance between the two countries.[1]

It is altogether a letter such as might pass between statesmen, and proves clearly that Joseph regarded his sister now as one fully capable of taking large views of the situation of both countries. And her answer shows that she fully enters into all the different questions which he has raised, though it also shows that she is guided by her heart as well as by her judgment; still looks on the continuance of the friendship between her native and her adopted country as essential not only to her comfort, but even in some degree to her honor, and also that on that account she is desirous at times of exerting a greater influence than is always allowed her.

"Versailles, September 29th, 1783.

"Shall I tell you, my dear brother, that your letter has delighted me by its energy and nobleness of thought and why should I not tell you so? I am sure that you will never confound your sister and your friend with the tricks and manoeuvres of politicians.

"I have read your letter to the king. You may be sure that it, like all your other letters, shall never go out of my hands. The king was struck with many of your reflections, and has even corroborated them himself.

"He has said to me that he both desired and hoped always to maintain a friendship and a good understanding with the empire; but yet that it was impossible to answer for it that the difference of interests might not at times lead to a difference in the way of looking at and judging of affairs. This idea appeared to me to come from himself alone, and from the distrust with which people have been inspiring him for a long time. For, when I spoke to him, I believe it to be certain that he had not seen M. de Vergennes since the arrival of your courier. M. de Mercy will have reported to you the quietness and gentleness with which this minister has spoken to him. I have had occasion to see that the heads of the other ministers, which were a little heated, have since cooled again. I trust, that this quiet spirit will last, and in that case the firmness of your reply ought to lead to the rudeness of style which the people here adopted being forgotten. You know the ground and the characters, so you can not be surprised if the king sometimes allows answers to pass which he would not have given of his own accord.

"My health, considering my present condition,[2] is perfect. I had a slight accident after my last letter; but it produced no bad consequences: it only made a little more care necessary. Accordingly I shall go from Choisy to Fontainebleau by water. My children are quite well. My boy will spend his time at La Muette while we are absent. It is just a piece of stupidity of the doctors, who do not like him to take so long a journey at his age, though he has two teeth and is very strong. I should be perfectly happy if I were but assured of the general tranquillity, and, above all, of the happiness of my much-loved brother, whom I love with all my heart.[3]"

Another letter, written three months later, explains to the emperor the object of some of the new arrangements which Calonne had introduced, having for one object, among others, the facilitation of a commercial intercourse, especially in tobacco, with the United States. She hopes that another consequence of them will be the abolition of the whole system of farmers-general of the revenue; and she explains to him both the advantages of such a measure, and at the same time the difficulties of carrying it out immediately after so costly a war, since it would involve the instant repayment of large sums to the farmers, with all the clearness of a practiced financier. She mentions also the appointment of the Baron de Breteuil as the new minister of the king's household,[4] and her estimate of his character is rendered important by his promotion, six years later, to the post of prime minister. The emperor also had ample means of judging of it himself, since the baron had succeeded the Cardinal de Rohan as embassador at Vienna. "I think, with you, that he requires to be kept within bounds; and he will be so more than other ministers by the nature of his office, which is very limited, and entirely under the eyes of the king and of his colleagues, who will be glad of any opportunities of mortifying his vanity. However, his activity will be very useful in a thousand details of a department which has been neglected and badly managed for the last sixty years." And though it is a slight anticipation of the order of our narrative, it will not be inconvenient to give here some extracts from a third letter to the same brother, written in the autumn of the following year, in which she describes the king's character, and points out the difficulties which it often interposes to her desire of influencing his views and measures.

It may perhaps be thought that she unconsciously underrates her influence over her husband, though there can be no doubt that he was one of those men whom it is hardest to manage; wholly without self-reliance, yet with a scrupulous wish to do right that made him distrustful of others, even, of those whose advice he sought, or whose judgment he most highly valued.

"September 22d, 1784.

"I will not contradict you, my dear brother, on what you say about the short-sightedness of our ministry. I have long ago made some of the reflections which you express in your letter. I have spoken on the subject more than once to the king; but one must know him thoroughly to be able to judge