XXV. EFFECT PRODUCED ON THE PUBLIC MIND BY THESE ARRESTS.—THE ENEMIES OF THE QUEEN.

It is impossible to conceive the sensation produced throughout France, and indeed throughout Europe generally, by these arrests and the extravagant rumours to which they gave rise. Marie-Antoinette in various ways had unfortunately made numerous enemies—through her persistent efforts, for instance, to get the Duke de Choiseul appointed prime minister; through her too decided partiality for particular favourites, for whom she secured both places and pensions; and through what was affectedly styled her want of prudence—in other words, her open disregard of the rigid formalities of French court etiquette. Arrayed against her were many of the oldest families in France, each of whom cherished some particular grievance of its own. The consequence was, there were many hostile interests at work intent upon destroying her reputation and bringing about her ruin if need be, even at the expense of the monarchy itself, so that the great fraud of the Diamond Necklace was altogether regarded in the light of a political event, and no time was lost by the different inimical factions in twisting it to serve their own purposes, without the slightest regard being paid by any one of them to the real character of the act itself.

We will here interrupt the course of our narrative to examine at some length into the origin of this widespread animosity against the queen, and to trace the causes of its rapid extensions through all classes of French society. To do this it will be necessary for us to go back to the very outset of her career.

When Marie-Antoinette, then a young girl of fifteen, first set foot on French soil, nothing could exceed the enthusiasm with which she was welcomed. Her progress from Strasbourg to Versailles was one long ovation. At Versailles, save the dauphin’s old maiden aunts, who made themselves sufficiently disagreeable, and the king’s mistress, Madame Dubarry, who could not tolerate this fair and pure young spirit, every one was more or less charmed with her. The old king, worn out by excesses, and weary of the deceptive flattery which he daily had to listen to, was captivated, not merely by her personal graces, but by her frank and lively nature, her open unaffected ways. The women may have secretly envied her, but the men could not help adoring her. She far excelled the young female members of the royal family in beauty. At the time of her marriage her form was not fully developed: her stature was short, and her figure altogether small, though perfectly proportioned; her arm was finely rounded and of a dazzling whiteness, her hand plump, her fingers tapering, her nails transparent and rose-coloured, her foot charming. When she grew taller and stouter the foot and hand remained perfect, her figure only became a little inelegant, and her chest a trifle too broad. Her face formed a rather long oval; her complexion, which was really dazzling, displayed the most tender shades of colour, from pearly white to delicate rose tint; her eyes were blue, soft, and animated, and shaded by long, full lashes; her nose was aquiline, and slightly tapered at the end; her mouth was small and delicate and well arched, her lower lip prominent, after the Austrian type; her neck was slender and a trifle long, but well set; her forehead was convex, and furnished with too little of her beautiful chestnut-colour hair. The coiffure of the empire would have accomplished marvels for her, for the hair turned down over her forehead would have given to her face a regular beauty.⁠[218]⁠

Though the young dauphiness was addicted to reverie, and displayed a fondness for retirement in the society of a few chosen friends, she was far from being of a reserved disposition; indeed, she was a good deal given to gaiety of that light, playful, almost pert character which imparts movement and life to all around. She forced every one to laugh with her. She cared nothing for the restraints imposed by the barriers of etiquette. If it did not please her to walk in stately fashion, she would run and skip about, regardless of her train or her ladies of honour. In winter-time she would scamper over the slippery ground, dragging after her the youngest lady of her court, whose duty it was to hold up her train, and delighted while glancing behind at the score of racing trains which etiquette required should follow in procession. In the old king’s days she was known to have even laughed out loud in the royal box at Preville’s funny face, to the great scandal of those who only deigned to smile.⁠[219]⁠

At the very first court she held after she became queen, provoked by some pleasantries on the part of one of her ladies, and the ridiculous figures cut by certain ancient court dames who had come to pay their respects to her, she could not refrain from laughing at them behind her fan. This naturally enough gave great offence to these antiquated dowagers, who vowed the queen had mocked at them, that she had not a proper respect for age, and was utterly wanting in propriety. The name of “moqueuse” was given to her in consequence.⁠[220]⁠

The young queen, with the full sanction of her husband, went early one morning to see the sun rise from the highest point of Marly gardens—a harmless enough proceeding, one would think, but which nevertheless gave rise to most disgraceful calumnies. On another occasion she displayed her skill as a charioteer, by driving about Marly in a cabriolet, preceded merely by a single officer of the king’s body-guard. This spectacle astonished the old courtiers, who had never seen a queen handle the reins before, and who therefore pronounced the proceeding highly unbecoming, if not, indeed, improper. At Marly, too, Marie-Antoinette established a kind of café, to which the lords and ladies of the court betook themselves in their morning gowns. All etiquette was set aside, and people enjoyed here the same kind of liberty which was ordinarily to be met with in establishments of this class. Every one had his own little table, at which he was served with whatever he asked for.⁠[221]⁠

Marie-Antoinette, who was fond of dancing, organized a series of fancy dress balls in the Salle de Comédie at Versailles, into the spirit of which her brothers-in-law and their young wives entered most heartily. Being herself a good dancer, she was glad to secure good dancers for these entertainments, but had to undergo no end of reproaches because she, a young queen of twenty years of age, had appealed to the minister of war to grant leave of absence to certain officers, favourites at these fêtes, who had been ordered to rejoin their regiments. Everything she did was wrong. She was blamed for being present at the summer promenades on the terrace of the château of Versailles, then open to the general public, when, attired in a plain white cambric dress and a simple straw hat, she and Madame Elisabeth, and perhaps her married sisters-in-law, would mix unobserved among the crowd, or seated on a bench, would listen to the music performed by the king’s guards; watching and commenting meanwhile on the secret flirtations which under cover of the night were carried on on these occasions.

The foregoing incidents seem to have been harmless enough, but the same can hardly be said of her excursions to the bals de l’opéra, when “lost in their vortex, she was happy or trembling under her mask,” and whither she would resort attended merely by a single lady of the court and with her servants in undress grey liveries. On one of these occasions her carriage broke down, and she was obliged to have recourse to a public vehicle. On entering the theatre she is reported to have exclaimed to her friends, “It is I, come in a fiacre! Isn’t it droll?” One can well conceive an incident like this giving rise to much unpleasant scandal, and can sympathise in the reproaches which her brother the Emperor Joseph addressed to her on her frequent presence at these entertainments.

It was the misfortune of Marie-Antoinette to have made for herself a host of enemies almost from the very first day she was called upon to share a throne. Among others, of her brother-in-law, the Count de Provence, who, attached to her at the outset of her career, took to quizzing her, and criticising her conduct, and even to caricaturing her, while preserving an outward appearance of friendship towards her, soon after she became a queen. The Prince de Condé, allied to the Cardinal de Rohan by marriage, was embittered against her because she very properly declined to receive his mistress, Madame de Monaco, at court. A warm friendship had sprung up between Marie-Antoinette and the young Duke de Chartres, afterwards Orléans Égalité, on her first arrival in France; but after a time, Louis XVI., who disliked the duke, and made a point of insulting his friends whenever he got the chance, availed himself of the duke’s known immorality to forbid the queen associating with him on the same familiar terms as heretofore. The consequence was, the duke, who was unaware of the real cause of his disgrace, conceived a strong dislike for the queen, who on her part retaliated by saying many spiteful things respecting him. Dislike grew into hatred, and hatred grew bitter and more bitter, until at last the duke pursued Marie-Antoinette with a relentless vengeance that was positively diabolic, and which only terminated with her life. Dissolute, gouty old De Maurepas, prime minister, and all his kin, and more particularly his nephew, the Duke d’Aiguillon, a former creature of the Dubarry’s, and now a creature of the Duke d’Orléans, and whose disgrace at court had been brought about by the queen’s influence, were arrayed against her on account of the persistent exertions she made to get her favourite, De Choiseul—whom Catherine of Russia used to style the coachman of Europe, as when in power he directed all the cabinets—appointed prime minister in De Maurepas’ stead. M. de Vergennes too, whose handsome Greek wife the queen would not consent to receive, cherished a steady hatred of her—all the more dangerous because it was concealed—and even wrote regular reports respecting her to Louis XVI, which the king kept secret, and which only came to light on the discovery of the famous “armoire de fer” in the wall of the royal closet in the Tuileries, a few months before the king’s death.

At the head of the enemies the queen had succeeded in making among her own sex were, Mesdames Adelaide and Louise, two of the king’s aunts, the former of whom had for a while exercised a control over her nephew, and was now jealous and irritated beyond measure at the influence which the young queen had acquired over her husband. Since their exile to Lorraine, however, these old ladies had been comparatively powerless for mischief. The partiality which Marie-Antoinette displayed for the society of the Countess Jules de Polignac, had had the effect of estranging her sisters-in-law from her. Count d’Artois, wishing to bring about a reconciliation, said one day to the queen, on kissing her hand, “My little sister, for a very long time you have slighted your sisters-in-law, who are much attached to you, and who feel much afflicted at your behaviour. I beg you to bestow on them your warmest friendship, for they are worthy of it.” The queen replied somewhat petulantly, “These ladies do not render me the deference which is my due; they ought to remember that I am queen, and, moreover, that I belong to the House of Austria, which takes precedence of all.” The Count d’Artois could not help smiling, and, pressing the queen’s hand, said, “My little sister, since you jest about the affair, I am enchanted, as it proves to me that, whatever rancour may exist at present, will not last long.”⁠[222] The count, however, did not prove himself a true prophet, for the ladies never became completely reconciled, and showed merely a distant regard for each other. Perhaps the most dangerous enemy the queen had was the stiff old Countess de Marsan—herself a Rohan, and cousin of the cardinal, for whom in past years she had secured the post of grand almoner—who during the late reign had been governess to the king’s grandchildren, and who had been from the very first greatly scandalized at Marie-Antoinette’s freedom of manners: the dauphiness’s most innocent acts being magnified by this old prude into crimes. If she glanced at any one, it was set down to coquetry; if she chanced to laugh, it was either unbecoming, or else her gaiety was all forced; if she wore her hair loose, she was compared to a bacchante; and even her simple white muslin dresses were pronounced to be stage costumes, worn solely to create an effect. The Duchess de Noailles, who had been Marie-Antoinette’s chief lady of honour from the moment of her arrival in France, and Madame de Cossé, her lady of the bedchamber, threw up their posts on the Princess de Lamballe being appointed mistress of the queen’s household, and both enlisted themselves among the malcontents, which comprised, in addition to those we have already mentioned, the powerful families of Conti, Montmorency, Clermont-Tonnerre, La Rochefoucauld, and Crillon.