Part 19 (2/2)
She had no rancor or desire for vengeance; she never humiliated those whom she could destroy; she always punished by silence, yet never won eternal silence by letters patent; generous to a fault, giving and permitting everything about her to be taken, she opened her purse to all who were kind to her and to all who happened in some way to please her. Keeping the heart of Louis XV. was no easy matter, as the case of Mme. de Pompadour clearly showed. The majority of his friends and her enemies endeavored to force a new mistress upon the king; surrounded on all sides by candidates for her coveted position, Mme. du Barry managed to hold her own. When the king was prostrated by smallpox, he sent her away on the last day.
The reign of Mme. du Barry was not one of tyranny, nor was it a domination in the strict sense of that word; for she was a nonent.i.ty politically, without ideas or plans. ”Study the favor of Mme. du Barry: nothing that emanates from her belongs to her; she possesses neither an idea nor an enemy; she controls all the historical events of her time, without desiring them, without comprehending them....
She serves friends.h.i.+ps and individuals, without knowing how to serve a cause or a system or a party, and she is protected by the providential course of things, without having to worry about an effort, intrigues, or grat.i.tude.”
Her power and influence cannot be compared with those of her predecessor, Mme. de Pompadour. Modes were followed, but never invented by her. ”With her taste for the pleasures of a grisette, her patronage falls from the opera to the couplet, from paintings and statuaries to bronzes and sculptures in wood; her _clientele_ are no longer artists, philosophers, poets--they are the G.o.ds of lower domains, mimics, buffoons, dancers, comedians.” She was the lowest and most common type of woman ever influential in France.
After the death of the king, she was ordered to leave Versailles and live with her aunt. Later on, she was permitted to reside within ten leagues of Paris; all her former friends and admirers then returned, and she continued to live the life of old, buying everything for which she had a fancy and living in the most sumptuous style, never worrying about the payment of her debts. After a few years she was entirely forgotten, living at Luciennes with but a few intimate friends and her lover, the Duc de Brissac.
At the outbreak of the Revolution, she was living at Luciennes in great luxury on the fortune left her by the duke. Probably she would have escaped the guillotine had she not been so possessed with the idea of retaining her wealth. Four trips to England were undertaken by her, and on her return she found her estates usurped by a man named Grieve, who, anxious to obtain possession of her riches, finally succeeded in procuring her arrest while her enemies were in power.
From Sainte-Pelagie they took her to the Conciergerie, to the room which Marie Antoinette had occupied.
Accused of being the instrument of Pitt, of being an accomplice in the foreign war, of the insurrection in La Vendee, of the disorders in the south, the jury, out one hour, brought in a verdict of guilty, fixing the punishment at death within twenty-four hours, on the Place de la Republique. Upon hearing her sentence, she broke down completely and confessed everything she had hidden in the garden at Luciennes. On her way to the scaffold, she was a most pitiable sight to behold--the only prominent French woman, victim of the Revolution, to die a coward. The last words of this once famous and popular mistress were: ”Life, life, leave me my life! I will give all my wealth to the nation. Another minute, hangman! _A moi! A moi!_” and the heavy iron cut short her pitiful screams, thus ending the life of the last royal mistress.
CHAPTER XII
MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE REVOLUTION
The condition of France at the end of the reign of Louis XV. was most deplorable--injustice, misery, bankruptcy, and instability everywhere.
The action of the law could be overridden by the use of arbitrary warrants of arrest--_lettres de cachet_. The artisans of the towns were hampered by the system of taxation, but the peasant had the greatest cause for complaint; he was oppressed by the feudal dues and many taxes, which often amounted to sixty per cent of his earnings.
The government was absolute, but rotten and tottering; the people, oppressively and unjustly governed, were just beginning to be conscious of their condition and to seek the cause of it, while the educated cla.s.ses were saturated with revolutionary doctrines which not only destroyed their loyalty to the old inst.i.tutions, but created constant aspirations toward new ones.
Thus, when Louis XVI., a mere boy, began to reign, the whole French administrative body was corrupt, self-seeking, and in the hands of lawyers, a cla.s.s that dominated almost every phase of government. In general, inefficiency, idleness, and dishonesty had obtained a ruling place in the governing body; the few honest men who had a minor share in the administration either fell into a sort of disheartened acquiescence or lost their fortunes and reputations in hopeless revolt.
Under these conditions Louis XVI. began his reign; and although peace seemed to exist externally, the country was in revolution. France was as much under the modern ”ring rule” as any country ever was--a condition of affairs largely due to the nature of the young king, whose predominant characteristics might be called a supreme awkwardness and an unpardonable lack of will power. He was a man who, during the first part of his reign, led a pure life; he possessed good and philanthropic intentions, but was hampered by a weak intellect and a stubbornness which bore little resemblance to real strength of will. Also, he entertained strong religious convictions, which were extremely detrimental to his policy and caused disagreements with his ministers--Turgot, on account of his philosophical principles, Necker, on account of his Protestantism.
His wife had those qualities which he lacked, decision and strength of character; unfortunately, she wielded no influence over him in the beginning, and when she did gain it, she used it in a fatal manner, because she was ignorant of the needs of France. Throughout her career of power, she evinced headstrong wilfulness in pursuing her own course. Thus, totally incapable of acting for himself, Louis XVI. was practically at the mercy of his aunts, wife, courtiers, and ministers, who fitted his policy to their own desires and notions; therefore, the vast stream of emoluments and honors was diverted by the ministers and courtiers into channels of their own selection. There were formed parties and combinations which were constantly intriguing for or against each other.
At the time of the accession of Louis XVI., when poverty was general over the kingdom, the household of the king consisted of nearly four thousand civilians, nine thousand military men, and relatives to the enormous number of two thousand, the supporting of which dependents cost France some forty-five million francs annually. Luckily there was no mistress to govern, as under Louis XV., but, in place of one mistress who was the dispenser of favors, there were numerous intriguing court women who were as corrupt and frivolous as the men.
These split the court into factions. As the finances of the country sank to the lowest ebb, odium was naturally cast upon the whole court, without exception, by the people; hence, the wholesale slaughter of the n.o.bility during the Revolution.
In this period, the most critical in the history of France, the queen, Marie Antoinette, as the central figure, the leader of society, the model and example to whom all looked for advice upon morals and fas.h.i.+ons, played an important role. Although not of French birth, she deserves to be ranked among the women influential in France, since she became so thoroughly imbued with French traits and characteristics that she forgot her native tongue. French life and spirit moulded her in such fas.h.i.+on that even the French look upon her as a French woman.
Before judging this unfortunate princess who has been condemned by so many critics, we must take into consideration the demands that were made upon her. Parade was the primary requisite: she was obliged to keep up the splendor and attractiveness of the French monarchy; in this she excelled, for her manner was dignified, gracious, and ”appropriately discriminating. It is said that she could bow to ten persons with one movement, giving, with her head and eyes, the recognition due to each one.” It is said, also, that as she pa.s.sed among the ladies of her court, she surpa.s.sed them all in the n.o.bility of her countenance and the dignified grace of her carriage. All foreigners were enchanted with her, and to them she owes no small part of her posthumous popularity.
She was reproached by French women for being exclusively devoted to the society of a select, intimate circle. Moreover, her conduct brought slander upon her; as her companions she chose men and women of bad reputation, and was constantly surrounded by dissipated young n.o.blemen whom she permitted to come into her presence in costumes which shocked conservative people; she encouraged gambling, frequented the worst gambling house of the time, that of the Princesse de Guemenee, and visited masked b.a.l.l.s where the worst women of the capital jostled the great n.o.bles of the court; her husband seldom accompanied her to these pleasure resorts.
During part of the reign of Marie Antoinette the country was waging an expensive war and was deeply in debt, but the queen did not set an example of economy by retrenching her expenses; although her personal allowance was much larger than that of the preceding queen, she was always in debt and lost heavily at gambling. Generally, she avoided interference with the government of the state, but as the wife of so incapable a king she was forced into an attempt at directing public matters. Whenever she did mingle in state affairs, it was generally fatal to her interests and popularity. She usually carried out her wishes, for the king shrank from disappointing his wife and dreaded domestic contentions.
He permitted her to go out as she did with the Comte d'Artois, her brother-in-law, to masked b.a.l.l.s, races, rides in the Bois de Boulogne, and on expeditions to the salon of the Princesse de Guemenee, where she contracted the ills of a chronically empty purse and late hours.
When attacked by measles, to relieve her ennui--which her ladies were not successful in doing--she procured the consent of the king to the presence of four gentlemen, who waited upon her, coming at seven in the morning and not departing until eleven at night; and these were some of the most depraved and debauched among the n.o.bility--such as De Besenval, the Duc de Coigny, and the Duc de Guines.
While in power, she always sided with extravagance and the court, against economy and the nation. If we add to all these defects a vain and frivolous disposition, a nature fond of admiration, pleasure, and popularity, and lending a willing ear to all flattery, compliments, and counsels of her favorites, her Austrian birth, and as ”little dignity as a Paris grisette in her escapades with the dissipated and arrogant Comte d'Artois,” we have, in general, the causes of her wide unpopularity.
It will be seen that as long as she was frivolous and imprudent, she was flattered and admired; as soon as she became absolutely irreproachable, she was overwhelmed with harsh judgments and expressions of ill will. The first period was during the first years of the reign of Louis XVI., while he was still all-powerful and popular; the second phase of her character developed during the trying days of the king's first fall into disfavor and his ultimate imprisonment and death. From this account of her career, it will be seen that Marie Antoinette, as dauphiness and queen, was rather the victim of fate and the invidious intrigues of a depraved court than herself an instigator and promulgator of the extravagance and dissipation of which she was accused.
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