XXVI. LITTLE TRIANON, AND THE QUEEN’S SOCIETY THERE.

The enemies of the queen at the moment the Necklace scandal burst upon the public were many and formidable; the real friends that she had capable of defending her were but few. The Baron de Breteuil was well enough disposed towards her, still it was not so much the shielding of the queen’s reputation as compassing the downfall of his enemy, the Cardinal de Rohan, that he had at heart. The Abbé de Vermond, who had been Marie-Antoinette’s instructor, and was now a sort of secretary to her, had only his fidelity to recommend him. He could influence the queen, but wanted the head to direct her wisely. Specious M. de Calonne was too busy raising new loans to supply a continually emptying royal exchequer to trouble himself about necklaces or cardinals; besides, no particular friendship existed now between the queen and him. He no longer gallantly told her that if what she required was simply difficult it was already done, and that if it was impossible, it should be done. The Duke de Choiseul had been dead these several months past. Those intimate friends of Marie-Antoinette’s with whom her daily life was chiefly spent, and who formed what was styled her society, shared her unpopularity to some extent, for it was the favours heaped upon certain members of the Trianon set which had estranged so many of the old nobility from her. Moreover, with the exception of the Count d’Artois and the Duke de Coigny, there was not a man of influence among them who could do her real service in the hour of need.

The habitués of the Little Trianon—“the queen’s society,” as they were styled—comprised, first, her youngest brother-in-law, the Count d’Artois, who danced with her, hunted with her, acted with her, and entered generally into the spirit of her amusements; then there was his wife, the countess, exceedingly short of stature, with a complexion as fresh as a rose, and a prepossessing if not a pretty face, yet with a nose which, as Marie-Antoinette wickedly remarked, had never been finished; at one time, too, there were the Count and Countess de Provence, the latter an elder sister of the Countess d’Artois, and the reverse of good-looking. Louis XVI. in his blunt way once told his brother that his wife was by no means handsome, to which the Count de Provence quietly replied, “Sire, I find her to my taste, and that is quite sufficient.”⁠[223] Then there was the queen’s sister-in-law, Madame Elisabeth, her true and loving friend until death; next there were the Polignacs, foremost among whom was the Countess Jules, the queen’s most particular favourite, who was very handsome, with expressive blue eyes, a ravishing mouth, beautiful small white teeth, a nose just a trifle retroussé, a forehead perhaps a little too high, magnificent brown hair, a skin almost as white as alabaster, low shoulders and a well set neck which seemed to give height to her small figure. A touching sweetness formed the foundation of her physiognomy—looks, features, smiles, everything with her partook of the angelic. She had, moreover, wit and grace, and a natural ease and abandon which were positively charming. Negligence was her coquetry, dishabille her full dress. It has been said of her that she never looked better than when in a loose morning gown, and with a simple rose, perhaps, in her hair. When the queen first took notice of her, she and her husband, with their two young children, were living in a very humble style (we have heard what Madame de la Motte had to say of her poverty)⁠[224] on a miserable income of three hundred and twenty pounds a year. A pension of six thousand livres was immediately granted her, and ere long she was appointed governess of the royal children, with a salary of fifty thousand livres and her husband named postmaster-general, and master of the horse to the queen, with a salary of eighty thousand livres; in addition to which a joint pension of eighty thousand livres was conferred upon them, besides other considerable emoluments which brought their income almost up to three hundred thousand livres.⁠[225] The count, who through the influence of the queen had been raised to the dignity of a duke, seems to have been an amiable sort of man, very generally liked, for he had not allowed his good fortune to spoil him. His sister, the Countess Diane, one of Madame Elisabeth’s ladies of honour, was given, we are told, to gallantry and intrigue; her son by the Marquis d’Autichamp—the same wicked rake who was so anxious to escort Madame de la Motte from Lunéville to Paris—entered the Russian service, and was killed at the battle of Austerlitz.⁠[226] Her personal appearance was the very reverse of engaging. She was compared to a brown owl (she was a southern brunette), with all its feathers in disorder, and to a paroquet, with a crooked beak and round eyes surrounded by dark circles.⁠[227] Nevertheless, she had only to open her mouth to have face, form, toilette, the little she had received from nature, and the little that she herself did to render herself pretty, entirely forgotten. It was impossible to know her and not to be prepossessed in her favour. Her arch way of looking at a subject, her piquant turn of thought, which was almost epigrammatic, her sudden changes from gaiety to sadness, from irony to sensibility, her audacity, which nothing could intimidate, her daring and contagious recklessness, made her a general favourite in the society over which she to some extent dominated. A woman like her was invaluable to a court already depressed with melancholy, to put life into the conversation, to dissipate dull thoughts, to defy alarm, to prophesy fine weather, and display a perfect disregard for the future.

The young Princess de Lamballe, one of the earliest friends Marie-Antoinette made in France, ranked next to the Countess Jules de Polignac in her favour. She was a trifle jealous at having been supplanted by her rival, and rather held aloof from the Trianon coterie. Extremely beautiful, as amiable as she was handsome, and left a widow when she was only eighteen—her husband, son of the old Duke de Penthièvre, who received Madame de la Motte so courteously at Château-Villain, having fallen a victim to early debauchery—a peculiar interest attached to her. A native of the sunny south, she nevertheless possessed all the northern graces. The sweet serenity of her countenance was its great charm: there was tranquillity even in the flash of her eye. On her beautiful forehead, shaded by her long fair hair, not a cloud, not a trace existed of the early grief she had been called upon to suffer. Her mind had all the serene beauty of her face. She was gentle, affectionate, full of caresses, always just, always ready to make sacrifices, devoted even in trifles, and disinterested above everything. Who has not felt pity for her subsequent unhappy fate?

No one occupied a more prominent position in the queen’s society at the Little Trianon than the Baron de Besenval, a handsome-looking man past middle age, tall and well proportioned, with sharply-defined profile and large well-formed nose, quick, intelligent eye, and a small mouth curled up in a mocking and disdainful pout. Of cultivated tastes, full of insolent grace, perfectly content with himself and ever ready to laugh at others, pleasure was the sole pursuit of his life until the death of Louis XV. brought him into closer contact with the Count d’Artois, colonel-general of the Swiss guards, in which corps Besenval, himself a Swiss, held a command. Of the count he made a friend, got presented through his influence to the queen, whose confidence he secured and whom he almost directed; was appointed lieutenant-general of the army, grand cross commander of St.-Louis, and inspector-general of the Swiss guards, without seeming at all astonished at his good fortune. In the hour of danger, however, he was found singularly wanting, and it was soon evident that he was not the man to save the monarchy or stem the tide of revolution. His conduct while in command of the army of Paris has been very generally and deservedly condemned.

M. de Vaudreuil was another prominent member of the Trianon coterie, who, entering early in life the highest and most exclusive society of Versailles, had come to the conclusion that human nature, as it was to be found in courts, was neither so very beautiful nor so very great as was commonly represented. Intellect charmed him, and above all that intellect which sparkled with wit. He was the friend of all clever men, spoke but rarely himself, but would lie in wait behind the hubbub of the talkers and suddenly discharge his arrow right at the mark. What made him a favourite with the queen was the fact of his being the best private actor of his day. When young he had been remarkably handsome, but the small-pox had destroyed his good looks. Suffering from disease of the lungs, and subject to nervous twitchings of the body and to frequent fits of depression, he had all the immunities of a sick person accorded him. The good nature of the Duchess de Polignac and the indulgence of his friends caused them to tolerate his caprices and whims. His disposition changed daily according to his bodily ailments; still he was not without certain vigorous virtues, for he was noble, generous, frank, loyal, and a devoted and constant friend.

Next on the list of the queen’s favourites comes M. d’Adhémar, whose musical skill and admirable voice had procured him the applause of the master of the king’s music. He wrote verses and songs, acted well, and accompanied himself on the harpsichord. His was but a little mind; nevertheless, under a guise of modesty and humility he nourished grand schemes of ambition, and eventually succeeded in securing for himself the English embassy, in connection with which we shall hear of him again. His complaisance was proverbial; he courted every one, offended no one, made innocent jokes in an undertone of voice, and never lost his temper. It will be understood what manner of man he was when we remark, that the women spoke to him when they had nothing to say, the men when they had nothing to do. Harmless as he appears to have been, he did not escape the notice of the lampooners of the time, who characterized him as—

The remaining habitués of the Little Trianon were the three Coignys: the Duke de Coigny, the queen’s most constant friend, whom the Trianon set desired to make her lover, which the Duke d’Orléans maintained he already was—styling the young dauphin “Le fils de Coigny;”⁠[229] the Count de Coigny, a big, good-tempered man; and the Chevalier de Coigny, an agreeable flatterer, whom all the women strove to secure to themselves, and who was a favourite wherever he went; the Duke de Guines, the “Versailles Journal,” as he was styled, who knew and repeated all the scandal of the court, ridiculed everybody, and was consequently disliked by everybody, who was an excellent musician, and prided himself immensely on having played the flute with the great Frederick; the Prince d’Henin, a philanthropist at court like a fish out of water; the Bailli du Crussol, who made jokes with a most serious air; the Count de Polastron, who played the violin in a ravishing style, and his pale and languishing wife—the amiable “Goddess of Melancholy,” as she was called; the Count and Countess de Châlons; the Count and Countess d’Andlau; the sensible, witty, and good-natured Madame de Coigny; the Duke de Guiche, captain of the king’s guards, and his young and lovely duchess, daughter of the Duchess Jules de Polignac.⁠[230] Besides the foregoing, there were a few distinguished foreigners, such as Prince Esterhazy, the Prince de Ligne, the Count de Fersen, a prominent member of the Swedish aristocracy, who was styled by the women the “Beau Fersen,” and who in subsequent years drove the berline in which the royal family sought to escape from France, and eventually lost his life in an émeute at Stockholm in the year 1810; and the Baron de Stedingk, the intimate friend of Fersen and a great favourite with Marie-Antoinette, who said to him, on parting with him in 1787: “Remember, M. de Stedingk, that under no circumstances can any harm happen to you;”⁠[231] implying that her influence, which she believed to be paramount, would be exercised for his protection in whatever quarter of the world he might chance to be, and little dreaming that in a very few years there would not be another woman in all France so powerless as she.

Having made acquaintance with the queen’s society at the Trianon, let us now see what the Trianon itself was like; that Little Trianon to which Marie-Antoinette retired to escape the splendours, the restraints, the intrigues, and, most of all, the slanders of the court, and enjoy the society of friends of her own choosing; a retirement which unhappily gave rise to new calumnies—calumnies which it does not seem in nature for one woman to invent or propagate of another, but which Madame de la Motte more than insinuates in her lying “Mémoires Justificatifs,” and which have outlived the other hideous slanders of which Marie-Antoinette was the victim; that Little Trianon, where Madame de la Motte asserts most of her pretended interviews with the queen took place, and where she affirms Marie-Antoinette was accustomed to receive the Cardinal de Rohan, who, according to the countess’s statements, would come late at night disguised as a valet, and spend hour after hour with the queen in a small pavilion in the gardens while she remained outside on the watch.⁠[232] On one occasion the Cardinal de Rohan certainly did go to the Little Trianon, and in a partial disguise, but it was by bribing the gatekeeper that he gained admission to the grounds. It was at the time when both building and gardens were brilliantly illuminated in honour of the visit of the Grand Duke Paul of Russia—afterwards the mad and luckless Emperor Paul—and his Grand Duchess, who were travelling about Europe under the titles of Count and Countess du Nord. The cardinal, who professed great anxiety to see these illuminations, promised the gatekeeper to remain in his lodge until all the company had left for Versailles; instead of which, when the man’s back was turned, he slunk into the gardens, and, with his cardinal’s red stockings showing below his overcoat, took up the most prominent position he could select, where he waited for the royal family and its suite to pass. The queen saw him and recognised him, and next day gave orders for the instant dismissal of the gatekeeper; but Madame Campan, who had been informed of all the circumstances, appealed to Marie-Antoinette in the man’s behalf, and succeeded in getting him retained in his post.⁠[233]⁠

To console Marie-Antoinette for not having appointed her favourite, the Duke de Choiseul, prime minister, Louis XVI. is said to have given her the Little Trianon, which skirts the park of Versailles and adjoins the gardens of the Great Trianon, to do as she pleased with. “You love flowers,” said he: “ah! well, I have a bouquet for you—the Little Trianon.”

The repairing and embellishing of this miniature palace, the alteration and enlargement of its grounds, with a host of artists and gardeners subject to her sway, was for the next year or two Marie-Antoinette’s greatest delight. The building, erected by the architect Gabriel, for Louis XV., is of a square form, and each of its sides has a frontage of only seventy feet. It is in the Italian style, and its different façades are ornamented with Corinthian columns or pilasters and enriched friezes and cornices. The depraved old king in the last years of his life was enamoured with this “little corner of his grand Versailles.” It was to his taste, for here he could live in retirement and at his ease. In addition to its flower garden, laid out in the formal French style, there was a botanical garden, which Louis XIV., at the time he lived at the Great Trianon, caused to be planted with exotic trees and shrubs of multifarious tints and perfumes then almost unknown in France.

The principal entrance to the Little Trianon leads immediately to the grand staircase with its handsome gilded balustrade, in the interlacings of which the initials M. A. are prominently displayed. Facing the landing, as if in menace, is a head of the Medusa, which proved powerless however to keep out scandal. After a small antechamber comes the salle-à-manger, decorated with paintings of the four seasons by Dejeune, and bathing and fishing subjects by Pater, and the re-joined parquet of which shows traces of the opening through which Loriot’s flying table was accustomed to ascend at the orgies of Louis XV. In this apartment commence the ornaments upon the panelling—crossed quivers surmounted by wreaths of roses and garlands of flowers—executed by order of Marie-Antoinette. The little salon near the salle-à-manger displays in relief upon its sides emblems of the vintage and the attributes of the genius of comedy. Hanging from festoons of grapes are bunches and baskets of fruit, masks and tambourines, flutes and guitars, and beneath the marble beards of the goats that support the mantelpiece more bunches of grapes are entwined. At the four corners of the cornice of the grand salon are groups of cupids at play. Each panel, surmounted by the emblems of literature and the arts, springs from a stalk of triple flowering lilies, garlanded with laurel and with a wreath of full-blown roses by way of crest. Four paintings by Watteau—of those graceful Decameron-like subjects in which he excelled—are on the walls of this apartment. In the little cabinet which precedes the queen’s bedchamber the finest arabesques run over the woodwork; here are cupids bearing cornucopias overflowing with flowers, cooing doves, smoking tripods, and crossed bows and arrows hanging to ribbons. Bouquets of poppies intermingled with thousands of small flowers, all most delicately rendered, are scattered over the panels of the bedroom; the bed with its light blue silk hangings, the chairs and couches en suite, and the console tables, looking-glasses, clock and chandeliers being, it is said, much as they were in the days of Marie-Antoinette.

The most elegant façade of the little palace, with its four fluted Corinthian columns and its four flights of steps in the form of an Italian terrace, looks over the French garden, with its flower beds of geometric form and the flowers themselves planted in straight lines. In the centre of this garden, which is bordered by cool green arcades formed of trees clipped into shape, is a small pavilion with groups of cupids surmounting each of its four entrances. This was the summer dining-room of both Louis XV. and Marie-Antoinette. At the end of one of these leafy arcades is the theatre, where the queen and her friends performed alike comedies and operas. Sculptured in high relief above the principal entrance is a cupid grasping a lyre and a crown of laurel, with torches, trumpets, and rolls of music lying at his feet. The interior decorations of the theatre are white and gold; the orchestra stalls and fronts of the boxes are covered with blue velvet, the panels being decorated with cupids suspending garlands of flowers. On either side of the stage two gilded nymphs gracefully twist themselves into candelabra, and above the curtain two other nymphs support the escutcheon of Marie-Antoinette.

At the back and to the right of the little palace is the queen’s production, the English garden as it is called, laid out with an absence of formality which almost rivals the productions of Nature’s self. The waters apparently wind according to their own fancy, the trees and shrubs seem to have been sown at the will of the wind. Nearly a thousand varieties of trees, some among them being most rare, join their shade and mingle the different tints of their leaves, which vary from the lightest and deepest greens to dark purple and cherry red. The flowers appear to have been planted at hazard; the ground rises and falls at its will; paths wind and go out of the way with provoking pertinacity; stones have been converted into rocks, and small patches of grass made to resemble meadows.

From a hillock in the midst of a thicket of roses, jasmine, and myrtle, rises a belvidere, from whence the queen was accustomed to take in a view of the whole of her domain. This octangular pavilion, with its four windows and its four doors, and its eight sphinxes crouching upon the steps, has repeated eight times over, in figures upon its skirtings and in emblems over its entrances, the allegory of the four seasons, carved by perhaps the cleverest chisel of the century. The interior is paved with coloured marbles, and coloured arabesques run along its walls, with more bows and arrows and quivers, more bouquets and garlands of flowers and musical instruments, together with cameos and cages hanging from ribbons, and little monkeys and squirrels that scratch the sides of a crystal vase or play with the fishes. In the centre of the pavilion, a table, from which hang three rings, rests upon three claws of gilt bronze; this is the table at which Marie-Antoinette breakfasted, for this belvidere was her morning salle-à-manger.

From here she could overlook her grotto and the group of artificial rocks; the waterfall, and the trembling bridge thrown across the little torrent; the lake, and, under the shade of the shrubs, the embarking and landing-places, with the galley dotted all over with fleurs-de-lis; the temple of love open to all the winds, with its statue, by Bouchardon, of Cupid trying to trim for himself a bow out of the massive club of Hercules; the groves that skirt the river’s bank; and, finally, at the most remote part of the garden—the background, so to speak, of the picture—the hamlet where Marie-Antoinette had the king disguised as a miller, and the Count de Provence as a schoolmaster. Here are the little houses of the village nestled together like members of one family. The queen’s is the prettiest of them all, for it has vases filled with flowers, and grape-vines in front of it. On the opposite side of the lake, and near to the water’s edge, is the white marble dairy, with its four goat’s-head fountains, and close beside it, and near to a weeping-willow planted by the queen’s own hand, is the tower of Marlborough, so called from the nursery song which the young dauphin’s bonne used to sing to him. Nothing is wanting to this pretty village of the stage, neither the curé’s house nor that of the bailiff; nor the mill, with its wheel which actually turns; neither the farmhouse, with the stone troughs for the cattle, and the little barns to store away the corn; nor the thatched roofs, the wooden balconies, the little diamond-paned windows, and the flights of steps at the sides of the cottages. Marie-Antoinette and Hubert Robert, the painter, had thought of everything, even of painting rents in the stone work, cracks in the plaster, with here and there beams and bricks jutting out of place, as if time would not wither with sufficient rapidity this pleasantry of a queen.⁠[234]⁠

Marie-Antoinette put aside all regal authority at the Trianon. Here she was no longer queen, but merely the mistress of the establishment, which was like an ordinary country-house, with its small retinue of servants and all its unrestrained habits. When the queen entered the salon, the ladies neither quitted the piano nor their embroidery-frames, nor the men their games at billiards or backgammon. The king would come to Trianon on foot, and unattended. The queen’s guests arrived at two o’clock to dinner, and returned to Versailles at midnight. Marie-Antoinette’s occupations and amusements were exclusively those of a country life. Attired in a white muslin dress, a lace shawl, and a straw hat, she would run about the gardens, or visit her farm, where she would take her guests to drink her milk and eat her new-laid eggs; or she would conduct the king to a summer-house, where he could read his book undisturbed until she summoned him to a lunch on the grass; after which she would amuse herself by watching the milking of her cows, or with fishing in the lake, or, seated on a rustic seat, would occupy herself by winding up the distaff of some young villager. Now and then she would give some grand ball, to which all the courtiers from Versailles would be invited, when dancing would go on under a large tent on the lawn in the day-time until the sun set, and at night-time almost until it rose again.

All this must have been a great relief from Versailles and Marly and the troop of intriguing courtiers that migrated backwards and forwards according as royalty pitched its tent at one château or the other. There was something too morally foul in the atmosphere of both these places. Most of the evenings not given up to dancing were spent at play, which some letters of court gossip of the time characteristically describe as being “murderous.” The Count d’Artois, after losing two million francs, was exiled by the king to Fontainebleau. On one occasion a certain M. de Chalabre lost as much as 42,000 louis at a sitting, and being without sufficient ready cash to discharge the whole of his obligations, had to hand over debts due to him from the Countesses de Provence and d’Artois, for fifty thousand and twenty-five thousand crowns respectively. The queen, who was a winner of 7000 louis of poor Chalabre’s money, sent the next day, we are told, for Mdlle. Bertin, her milliner, and paid her account. Among the persons of rank and position admitted to these assembles there seem to have been both sharpers and pickpockets, for on one occasion a rouleau of fifty counterfeit louis was placed on a card by M. du Luc d’Andilly, an ex-mousquetaire, and son of Count du Luc of Picardy. On the cheat being discovered, the king ordered the culprit to be degraded from his nobility and declared incapable of serving him in future. At another time, Count Arthur Dillon, one of the queen’s intimate friends, had his pocket picked of his purse filled with bank notes. It was suggested that everybody in the salon—some forty in number—should be searched, but nothing was done, and the count never saw his purse again.⁠[235]⁠

Private theatricals were at this time in great favour with the queen, whose Trianon troupe comprised the Count d’Artois, who is said to have danced passably well on the tight rope, but only acted in a manner that was just bearable,⁠[236] M. de Vaudreuil, M. d’Adhémar, the Duke and Duchess de Guiche, the Countess Diane de Polignac, and M. de Crussol: occasionally the Baron de Besenval, the Countess de Polastron, and Counts Esterhazy and de Coigny had parts assigned them. The Count de Provence and his wife considered these diversions beneath their rank, and the king, moreover, disapproved of them. Out of politeness to the queen, he was now and then present at the representations, when he habitually hissed the actors. On one occasion, when the “Devin du Village” was being played, and the queen was singing an air with more than her accustomed taste, all at once a whistle was heard from the back of one of the boxes. Marie-Antoinette soon perceived that it was from the king himself that this interruption proceeded. Advancing to the footlights, she bowed profoundly, and said, with a smile: “Sir, if you are dissatisfied with the performers you can leave, and your money will be returned to you.”⁠[237] She then resumed her song, which she was permitted to finish without further interruption. Beaumarchais’ comedy of the “Barbier de Seville,” for which, Madame Campan tells us, Marie-Antoinette was studying her part at the time she made the disclosure to her of the conversation she had had with Böhmer respecting the Necklace, was the last piece performed by this aristocratic troupe. It was played on the 19th of August, 1785, the very day on which the Countess de la Motte was lodged in the Bastille.