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

held always to require the appointment of a governor and deputy-governors, with a corresponding staff of underlings, while she should only require a porter at the outer gate. The advantage of such a plan was so obvious that it was at once adopted. The porters and servants wore the queen's livery; and all notices of the regulations to be observed were signed "In the queen's name.[1]" Yet so busy were her enemies at this time, that even this simple arrangement, devised solely for the benefit of the people who were intimately concerned in every thing that tended to diminish the royal expenditure, gave rise to numberless cavils. Some affirmed that the issue of such notices in the name of the queen instead of in that of the king was an infringement on his authority. One most able and influential counselor of the Parliament, Duval d'Espremesnil, who in more than one discussion in subsequent years showed that in general he fully appreciated the principles of constitutional government, but who at this time seems to have been animated by no other feeling than that of hatred for the existing ministers, even went the length of affirming that there was "something not only impolitic but immoral in the idea of any palace belonging to a queen of France.[2]" But when the arrangements had once been made, Marie Antoinette not unnaturally thought her honor concerned in not abandoning it in deference to clamor so absurd, as well as so disrespectful to herself; and St. Cloud, to which she had always been partial, continued hers, and for the next five years divided her attention with the Trianon.

But though she herself disregarded all such attacks with the calm dignity which belonged to her character, her friends were not free from serious apprehensions as to the power of persistent detraction and calumny. It was one of the penalties which the nation had to pay for the infamies which had stained the crown during the last three centuries, that the people had learned to think that nothing was too bad to say and to believe of their kings; and Marie Antoinette seemed as yet a fairer mark than usual for slanderous attack, because her position was weaker than that of a King.[3] It depended on the life of her husband and of a single son, who was already beginning to show signs of weakness of constitution. It was therefore with exceeding satisfaction that in the autumn of 1784 her friends learned that she was again about to become a mother. They prayed with inexpressible anxiety that the expected child should prove a son; and on the 27th of March, 1785, their prayers were granted. A son was born, whom his delighted father at once took in his arms, calling him "his little Norman," and, saying "that the name alone would bring him happiness," created Duke of Normandy. No prophecy was ever so sadly falsified; no king's son had ever so miserable a lot; but no forebodings of evil as yet disturbed his parents. Their delight was fully shared by the body of the people; for the cabals against the queen were as yet confined to the immediate precincts of the court, and had not descended to infect the middle classes. It was with difficulty when, after her confinement, she paid her visit to Paris to return thanks at Notre Dame and St. Genevieve, that the citizens could he prevented from unharnessing her horses and dragging her coach in triumph through the streets.[4] And their exultation was fully shared by the better-intentioned class of courtiers, and by all Marie Antoinette's real friends, who felt assured that the birth of this second son had given her the security which had hitherto been wanting to her position.

Meanwhile, she was again led to interest herself greatly in foreign politics, though in truth she hardly regarded any thing in which her brother's empire was interested as foreign, so deep was her conviction that the interests of France and Austria were identical and inseparable, and so unwearied were her endeavors to make her husband's ministers see all questions that concerned her brother's dominions with her eyes. Throughout the latter part of 1784, and the earlier months of 1785, Joseph, who was always restless in his ambition, was full of schemes of aggrandizement which he desired to carry out through the favor and co-operation of France. At one moment he projected obtaining Bavaria in exchange for the Netherlands, at another he aimed at procuring the opening of the Scheldt by threatening the Dutch with instant war if they resisted. But, as all these schemes were eventually abandoned, they would hardly require to be mentioned here, were it not for the proofs which his correspondence with his sister affords of his increasing esteem for her capacity, and his evident conviction of her growing influence in the French Government, and for the light which some of her answers to his letters throw on her relations with the ministers, which had perhaps some share in increasing the annoyance that the affair of "the necklace," as will be presently mentioned, caused her before the end of the year. Her difficulties with Louis himself were the same as she had already described to her brother on former occasions. "It was impossible to induce him to take a strong line, so as to speak resolutely to M. de Vergennes in her presence, and equally so to prevent his changing his mind afterward;[5]" while she distrusted the good faith of the minister so much that, though she resolved to speak to him strongly on the subject, she would not do so till she could discuss the question with him "in the presence of the king, that he might not be able to disfigure or to exaggerate what she said." Yet she did not always find her precautions effectual. Louis's judgment was always at the mercy of the last speaker. She assured her brother that "he had abundant reason to be contented with the king's personal feelings on the subject. When he received the emperor's letter, he spoke to her about it in a way that delighted her. He regarded Joseph's demands as just, and his motives as most reasonable. Yet--she blushed to own it even to her brother--after he had seen his minister, his tone was no longer the same; he was embarrassed; he shunned the subject with her, and often found some new objection to weaken the effect of his previous admissions."

At one time she even feared a rupture between the two countries. Vergennes was urging the king to send an army of observation to the frontier; and, if it were sent, the proximity of such a force to the Austrian troops in the Netherlands would, to her apprehension, be full of danger. There was sound political acuteness in her remark that the dispatch of an army of observation was not "in itself a declaration of war, but that when two armies are so near to one another an order to advance is very soon executed;" and, with a shrewd perception of the argument which was most likely to influence the humane disposition of her husband, she pressed upon him that "the delays and shuffling of his ministers might very probably involve him in war, in spite of his own intentions." However, eventually the clouds which had caused her anxiety were dissipated; the mediation of France had even some share in leading to a conclusion of these disputes in a manner in which Joseph himself acquiesced; and the good understanding between the two crowns, on which, as Marie Antoinette often declared, her happiness greatly depended, was preserved, or, as she hoped, even strengthened, by the result of these negotiations.

But on one occasion of real moment to the personal comfort and credit of the queen, Louis behaved with a clear good sense, and, what was equally important, with a firmness which she gratefully acknowledged,[6] and contrasted remarkably with the pusillanimous advice that had been given by more than one of the ministers. That the affair in which he exhibited these qualities should for a moment have been regarded as one of political importance, is another testimony to the diseased state of the public mind at the time; and that it should have been possible so to use it as to attach the slightest degree of discredit to the queen, is a proof as strange as melancholy how greatly the secret intrigues of the basest cabal that ever disgraced a court had succeeded in undermining her reputation, and poisoning the very hearts of the people against her.[7]

Boehmer, the court jeweler, had collected a large number of diamonds of unusual size and brilliancy, which he had formed into a necklace, in the hope of selling it to the queen, whose fancy for such jewels had some years before been very great. She had at one time spent sums on diamond ornaments, large enough to provoke warm remonstrances from her mother, though certainly not excessive for her rank; and Louis, knowing her partiality for them, had more than once made her costly gifts of the kind. But her taste for them had cooled; her children now engrossed far more of her attention than her dress, and she was keenly alive to the distress which still prevailed in many parts of the kingdom, and to the embarrassments of the revenue, which the ingenuity of Calonne did not relieve half so rapidly as his rashness encumbered it. Accordingly, her reply to Boehmer's application that she would purchase his necklace was that her jewel-case was sufficiently full, and that she had almost given up wearing diamonds; and that if such a sum as he asked, which was nearly seventy thousand pounds, were available, she should greatly prefer its being spent on a ship for the nation, to replace the _Ville de Paris_, whose loss still rankled in her breast.

The king, who thought that she must secretly wish for a jewel of such unequalled splendor, offered to make her a present of the necklace, but she adhered to her refusal. Boehmer was greatly disappointed; he had exhausted his resources and his credit in collecting the stones in the hope of making a grand profit, and declared loudly to his patrons that he should be ruined if the queen could not be induced to change her mind. His complaints were so unrestrained that they reached the ears of those who saw in his despair a possibility of enriching themselves at his expense. There was in Paris at the time a Countess de la Mothe, who, as claiming descent from a natural son of Henri II., had added Valois to her name, and had her claim to royal birth so far allowed that, as she was in very destitute circumstances, she had obtained a small pension from the crown. Her pension and her pretensions had perhaps united to procure her the hand of the Count de la Mothe, who had for some time been discreditably known as one of the most worthless and dangerous adventurers who infested the capital. But her marriage had been no restraint on a life of unconcealed profligacy, and among her lovers she reckoned the Cardinal de Rohan, who, as we have already seen, was as little scrupulous or decent as herself.

As, however, the cardinal's extravagance had left him with little means of supplying her necessities, Madame La Mothe conceived the idea of swindling Boehmer out of his necklace, and of making de Rohan an accomplice in the fraud. The one thing which in the transaction is difficult to determine is whether the cardinal was her willing and conscious assistant, or her dupe. That his capacity was of the very lowest order was notorious, but he was a man who had been bred in courts; he knew the manner in which princes transacted their business, and in which queens signed their names. He