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+The Project Gutenberg Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, v3
+#3 in our series by Madam Campan
+#49 in our series Historic Court Memoirs
+
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+Title: The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, v3
+
+Author: Madame Campan
+
+Official Release Date: March, 2003  [Etext #3886]
+[Yes, we are about one year ahead of schedule]
+[The actual date this file first posted = 07/29/01]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+The Project Gutenberg Etext Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, by Campan, v3
+*********This file should be named cm49b10.txt or cm49b10.zip*********
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+
+MEMOIRS OF THE COURT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, QUEEN OF FRANCE
+
+Being the Historic Memoirs of Madam Campan,
+First Lady in Waiting to the Queen
+
+
+
+BOOK 3.
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+During the first few months of his reign Louis XVI. dwelt at La Muette,
+Marly, and Compiegne.  When settled at Versailles he occupied himself
+with a general examination of his grandfather's papers.  He had promised
+the Queen to communicate to her all that he might discover relative to
+the history of the man with the iron mask, who, he thought, had become so
+inexhaustible a source of conjecture only in consequence of the interest
+which the pen of a celebrated writer had excited respecting the detention
+of a prisoner of State, who was merely a man of whimsical tastes and
+habits.
+
+I was with the Queen when the King, having finished his researches,
+informed her that he had not found anything among the secret papers
+elucidating the existence of this prisoner; that he had conversed on the
+matter with M. de Maurepas, whose age made him contemporary with the
+epoch during which the story must have been known to the ministers;
+and that M. de Maurepas had assured him he was merely a prisoner of a
+very dangerous character, in consequence of his disposition for intrigue.
+He was a subject of the Duke of Mantua, and was enticed to the frontier,
+arrested there, and kept prisoner, first at Pignerol, and afterwards in
+the Bastille.  This transfer took place in consequence of the appointment
+of the governor of the former place to the government of the latter.
+It was for fear the prisoner should profit by the inexperience of a new
+governor that he was sent with the Governor of Pignerol to the Bastille.
+
+Such was, in fact, the truth about the man on whom people have been
+pleased to fix an iron mask.  And thus was it related in writing, and
+published by M. ----- twenty years ago.  He had searched the archives of
+the Foreign Office, and laid the real story before the public; but the
+public, prepossessed in favour of a marvellous version, would not
+acknowledge the authenticity of his account.  Every man relied upon the
+authority of Voltaire; and it was believed that a natural or a twin
+brother of Louis XIV. lived many years in prison with a mask over his
+face.  The story of this mask, perhaps, had its origin in the old custom,
+among both men and women in Italy, of wearing a velvet mask when they
+exposed themselves to the sun.  It is possible that the Italian captive
+may have sometimes shown himself upon the terrace of his prison with his
+face thus covered.  As to the silver plate which this celebrated prisoner
+is said to have thrown from his window, it is known that such a
+circumstance did happen, but it happened at Valzin, in the time of
+Cardinal Richelieu.  This anecdote has been mixed up with the inventions
+respecting the Piedmontese prisoner.
+
+In this survey of the papers of Louis XV. by his grandson some very
+curious particulars relative to his private treasury were found.  Shares
+in various financial companies afforded him a revenue, and had in course
+of time produced him a capital of some amount, which he applied to his
+secret expenses.  The King collected his vouchers of title to these
+shares, and made a present of them to M. Thierry de Ville d'Avray, his
+chief valet de chambre.
+
+The Queen was desirous to secure the comfort of Mesdames, the daughters
+of Louis XV., who were held in the highest respect.  About this period
+she contributed to furnish them with a revenue sufficient to provide them
+an easy, pleasant existence: The King gave them the Chateau of Bellevue;
+and added to the produce of it, which was given up to them, the expenses
+of their table and equipage, and payment of all the charges of their
+household, the number of which was even increased.  During the lifetime
+of Louis XV., who was a very selfish prince, his daughters, although they
+had attained forty years of age, had no other place of residence than
+their apartments in the Chateau of Versailles; no other walks than such
+as they could take in the large park of that palace; and no other means
+of gratifying their taste for the cultivation of plants but by having
+boxes and vases, filled with them, in their balconies or their closets.
+They had, therefore, reason to be much pleased with the conduct of Marie
+Antoinette, who had the greatest influence in the King's kindness towards
+his aunts.
+
+Paris did not cease, during the first years of the reign, to give proofs
+of pleasure whenever the Queen appeared at any of the plays of the
+capital.  At the representation of "Iphigenia in Aulis," the actor who
+sang the words, "Let us sing, let us celebrate our Queen!"  which were
+repeated by the chorus, directed by a respectful movement the eyes of the
+whole assembly upon her Majesty.  Reiterated cries of 'Bis'! and clapping
+of hands, were followed by such a burst of enthusiasm that many of the
+audience added their voices to those of the actors in order to celebrate,
+it might too truly be said, another Iphigenia.  The Queen, deeply
+affected, covered her eyes with her handkerchief; and this proof of
+sensibility raised the public enthusiasm to a still higher pitch.
+
+The King gave Marie Antoinette Petit Trianon.
+
+     [The Chateau of Petit Trianon, which was built for Louis XV., was
+     not remarkably handsome as a building.  The luxuriance of the
+     hothouses rendered the place agreeable to that Prince.  He spent a
+     few days there several times in the year.  It was when he was
+     setting off from Versailles for Petit Trianon that he was struck in
+     the side by the knife of Damiens, and it was there that he was
+     attacked by the smallpox, of which he died on the 10th of May,
+     1774.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
+
+Henceforward she amused herself with improving the gardens, without
+allowing any addition to the building, or any change in the furniture,
+which was very shabby, and remained, in 1789, in the same state as during
+the reign of Louis XV.  Everything there, without exception, was
+preserved; and the Queen slept in a faded bed, which had been used by the
+Comtesse du Barry.  The charge of extravagance, generally made against
+the Queen, is the most unaccountable of all the popular errors respecting
+her character.  She had exactly the contrary failing; and I could prove
+that she often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony actually
+blamable, especially in a sovereign.  She took a great liking for
+Trianon, and used to go there alone, followed by a valet; but she found
+attendants ready to receive her,--a concierge and his wife, who served
+her as femme de chambre, women of the wardrobe, footmen, etc.
+
+When she first took possession of Petit Trianon, it was reported that she
+changed the name of the seat which the King had given her, and called it
+Little Vienna, or Little Schoenbrunn.  A person who belonged to the
+Court, and was silly enough to give this report credit, wishing to visit
+Petit Trianon with a party, wrote to M. Campan, requesting the Queen's
+permission to do so.  In his note he called Trianon Little Vienna.
+Similar requests were usually laid before the Queen just as they were
+made: she chose to give the permissions to see her gardens herself,
+liking to grant these little favours.  When she came to the words I have
+quoted she was very, much offended, and exclaimed, angrily, that there
+were too many, fools ready, to aid the malicious; that she had been told
+of the report circulated, which pretended that she had thought of nothing
+but her own country, and that she kept an Austrian heart, while the
+interests of France alone ought to engage her.  She refused the request
+so awkwardly made, and desired M. Campan to reply, that Trianon was not
+to be seen for some time, and that the Queen was astonished that any man
+in good society should believe she would do so ill-judged a thing as to
+change the French names of her palaces to foreign ones.
+
+Before the Emperor Joseph II's first visit to France the Queen received a
+visit from the Archduke Maximilian in 1775.  A stupid act of the
+ambassador, seconded on the part of the Queen by the Abbe de Vermond,
+gave rise at that period to a discussion which offended the Princes of
+the blood and the chief nobility of the kingdom.  Travelling incognito,
+the young Prince claimed that the first visit was not due from him to the
+Princes of the blood; and the Queen supported his pretension.
+
+From the time of the Regency, and on account of the residence of the
+family of Orleans in the bosom of the capital, Paris had preserved a
+remarkable degree of attachment and respect for that branch of the royal
+house; and although the crown was becoming more and more remote from the
+Princes of the House of Orleans, they had the advantage (a great one with
+the Parisians) of being the descendants of Henri IV.  An affront to that
+popular family was a serious ground of dislike to the Queen.  It was at
+this period that the circles of the city, and even of the Court,
+expressed themselves bitterly about her levity, and her partiality for
+the House of Austria.  The Prince for whom the Queen had embarked in an
+important family quarrel--and a quarrel involving national prerogatives--
+was, besides, little calculated to inspire interest.  Still young,
+uninformed, and deficient in natural talent, he was always making
+blunders.
+
+He went to the Jardin du Roi; M. de Buffon, who received him there,
+offered him a copy of his works; the Prince declined accepting the book,
+saying to M. de Buffon, in the most polite manner possible, "I should be
+very sorry to deprive you of it."
+
+     [Joseph II, on his visit to France, also went to see M. de Buffon,
+     and said to that celebrated man, "I am come to fetch the copy of
+     your works which my brother forgot."--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
+
+It may be supposed that the Parisians were much entertained with this
+answer.
+
+The Queen was exceedingly mortified at the mistakes made by her brother;
+but what hurt her most was being accused of preserving an Austrian heart.
+Marie Antoinette had more than once to endure that imputation during the
+long course of her misfortunes.  Habit did not stop the tears such
+injustice caused; but the first time she was suspected of not loving
+France, she gave way to her indignation.  All that she could say on the
+subject was useless; by seconding the pretensions of the Archduke she had
+put arms into her enemies' hands; they were labouring to deprive her of
+the love of the people, and endeavoured, by all possible means, to spread
+a belief that the Queen sighed for Germany, and preferred that country to
+France.
+
+Marie Antoinette had none but herself to rely on for preserving the
+fickle smiles of the Court and the public.  The King, too indifferent to
+serve her as a guide, as yet had conceived no love for her,
+notwithstanding the intimacy that grew between them at Choisy.  In his
+closet Louis XVI. was immersed in deep study.  At the Council he was
+busied with the welfare of his people; hunting and mechanical occupations
+engrossed his leisure moments, and he never thought on the subject of an
+heir.
+
+The coronation took place at Rheims, with all the accustomed pomp.  At
+this period the people's love for Louis XVI.  burst forth in transports
+not to be mistaken for party demonstrations or idle curiosity.  He
+replied to this enthusiasm by marks of confidence, worthy of a people
+happy in being governed by a good King; he took a pleasure in repeatedly
+walking without guards, in the midst of the crowd which pressed around
+him, and called down blessings on his head.  I remarked the impression
+made at this time by an observation of Louis XVI.  On the day of his
+coronation he put his hand up to his head, at the moment of the crown
+being placed upon it, and said, "It pinches me."  Henri III. had
+exclaimed, "It pricks me."  Those who were near the King were struck with
+the similarity between these two exclamations, though not of a class
+likely to be blinded by the superstitious fears of ignorance.
+
+While the Queen, neglected as she was, could not even hope for the
+happiness of being a mother, she had the mortification of seeing the
+Comtesse d'Artois give birth to the Duc d'Angouleme.
+
+Custom required that the royal family and the whole Court should be
+present at the accouchement of the Princesses; the Queen was therefore
+obliged to stay a whole day in her sister-in-law's chamber.  The moment
+the Comtesse d'Artois was informed a prince was born, she put her hand to
+her forehead and exclaimed with energy, "My God, how happy I am!"  The
+Queen felt very differently at this involuntary and natural exclamation.
+Nevertheless, her behaviour was perfect.  She bestowed all possible marks
+of tenderness upon the young mother, and would not leave her until she
+was again put into bed; she afterwards passed along the staircase, and
+through the hall of the guards, with a calm demeanour, in the midst of an
+immense crowd.  The poissardes, who had assumed a right of speaking to
+sovereigns in their own vulgar language, followed her to the very doors
+of her apartments, calling out to her with gross expressions, that she
+ought to produce heirs.  The Queen reached her inner room, hurried and
+agitated; he shut herself up to weep with me alone, not from jealousy of
+her sister-in-law's happiness,--of that he was incapable,--but from
+sorrow at her own situation.
+
+Deprived of the happiness of giving an heir to the crown, the Queen
+endeavoured to interest herself in the children of the people of her
+household.  She had long been desirous to bring up one of them herself,
+and to make it the constant object of her care.  A little village boy,
+four or five years old, full of health, with a pleasing countenance,
+remarkably large blue eyes, and fine light hair, got under the feet of
+the Queen's horses, when she was taking an airing in a calash, through
+the hamlet of St. Michel, near Louveciennes.  The coachman and postilions
+stopped the horses, and the child was rescued without the slightest
+injury.  Its grandmother rushed out of the door of her cottage to take
+it; but the Queen, standing up in her calash and extending her arms,
+called out that the child was hers, and that destiny had given it to her,
+to console her, no doubt, until she should have the happiness of having
+one herself.  "Is his mother alive?" asked the Queen.  "No, Madame; my
+daughter died last winter, and left five small children upon my hands."
+"I will take this one, and provide for all the rest; do you consent?"
+"Ah, Madame, they are too fortunate," replied the cottager; "but Jacques
+is a bad boy.  I hope he will stay with you!"  The Queen, taking little
+Jacques upon her knee, said that she would make him used to her, and gave
+orders to proceed.  It was necessary, however, to shorten the drive, so
+violently did Jacques scream, and kick the Queen and her ladies.
+
+The arrival of her Majesty at her apartments at Versailles, holding the
+little rustic by the hand, astonished the whole household; he cried out
+with intolerable shrillness that he wanted his grandmother, his brother
+Louis, and his sister Marianne; nothing could calm him.  He was taken
+away by the wife of a servant, who was appointed to attend him as nurse.
+The other children were put to school.  Little Jacques, whose family name
+was Armand, came back to the Queen two days afterwards; a white frock
+trimmed with lace, a rose-coloured sash with silver fringe, and a hat
+decorated with feathers, were now substituted for the woollen cap, the
+little red frock, and the wooden shoes.  The child was really very
+beautiful.  The Queen was enchanted with him; he was brought to her every
+morning at nine o'clock; he breakfasted and dined with her, and often
+even with the King.  She liked to call him my child,
+
+     [This little unfortunate was nearly twenty in 1792; the fury of the
+     people and the fear of being thought a favourite of the Queen's had
+     made him the most sanguinary terrorist of Versailles.  He was killed
+     at the battle of Jemappes.]
+
+and lavished caresses upon him, still maintaining a deep silence
+respecting the regrets which constantly occupied her heart.
+
+This child remained with the Queen until the time when Madame was old
+enough to come home to her august mother, who had particularly taken upon
+herself the care of her education.
+
+The Queen talked incessantly of the qualities which she admired in Louis
+XVI., and gladly attributed to herself the slightest favourable change in
+his manner; perhaps she displayed too unreservedly the joy she felt, and
+the share she appropriated in the improvement.  One day Louis XVI.
+saluted her ladies with more kindness than usual, and the Queen
+laughingly said to them, "Now confess, ladies, that for one so badly
+taught as a child, the King has saluted you with very good grace!"
+
+The Queen hated M. de La Vauguyon; she accused him alone of those points
+in the habits, and even the sentiments, of the King which hurt her.
+A former first woman of the bedchamber to Queen Maria Leczinska had
+continued in office near the young Queen.  She was one of those people
+who are fortunate enough to spend their lives in the service of kings
+without knowing anything of what is passing at Court.  She was a great
+devotee; the Abbe Grisel, an ex-Jesuit, was her director.  Being rich
+from her savings and an income of 50,000 livres, she kept a very good
+table; in her apartment, at the Grand Commun, the most distinguished
+persons who still adhered to the Order of Jesuits often assembled.  The
+Duc de La Vauguyon was intimate with her; their chairs at the Eglise des
+Reollets were placed near each other; at high mass and at vespers they
+sang the "Gloria in Excelsis" and the "Magnificat" together; and the
+pious virgin, seeing in him only one of God's elect, little imagined him
+to be the declared enemy of a Princess whom she served and revered.
+On the day of his death she ran in tears to relate to the Queen the
+piety, humility, and repentance of the last moments of the Duc de La
+Vauguyon.  He had called his people together, she said, to ask their
+pardon.  "For what?"  replied the Queen, sharply; "he has placed and
+pensioned off all his servants; it was of the King and his brothers that
+the holy man you bewail should have asked pardon, for having paid so
+little attention to the education of princes on whom the fate and
+happiness of twenty-five millions of men depend.  Luckily," added she,
+"the King and his brothers, still young, have incessantly laboured to
+repair the errors of their preceptor."
+
+The progress of time, and the confidence with which the King and the
+Princes, his brothers, were inspired by the change in their situation
+since the death of Louis XV., had developed their characters.  I will
+endeavour to depict them.
+
+The features of Louis XVI.  were noble enough, though somewhat melancholy
+in expression; his walk was heavy and unmajestic; his person greatly
+neglected; his hair, whatever might be the skill of his hairdresser,
+was soon in disorder.  His voice, without being harsh, was not agreeable;
+if he grew animated in speaking he often got above his natural pitch,
+and became shrill.  The Abbe de Radonvilliers, his preceptor, one of the
+Forty of the French Academy, a learned and amiable man, had given him and
+Monsieur a taste for study.  The King had continued to instruct himself;
+he knew the English language perfectly; I have often heard him translate
+some of the most difficult passages in Milton's poems.  He was a skilful
+geographer, and was fond of drawing and colouring maps; he was well
+versed in history, but had not perhaps sufficiently studied the spirit of
+it.  He appreciated dramatic beauties, and judged them accurately.  At
+Choisy, one day, several ladies expressed their dissatisfaction because
+the French actors were going to perform one of Moliere's pieces.  The
+King inquired why they disapproved of the choice.  One of them answered
+that everybody must admit that Moliere had very bad taste; the King
+replied that many things might be found in Moliere contrary to fashion,
+but that it appeared to him difficult to point out any in bad taste?
+
+     [The King, having purchased the Chateau of Rambouillet from the Duc
+     de Penthievre, amused himself with embellishing it.  I have seen a
+     register entirely in his own handwriting, which proves that he
+     possessed a great variety of information on the minutiae of various
+     branches of knowledge.  In his accounts he would not omit an outlay
+     of a franc.  His figures and letters, when he wished to write
+     legibly, were small and very neat, but in general he wrote very ill.
+     He was so sparing of paper that he divided a sheet into eight, six,
+     or four pieces, according to the length of what he had to write.
+     Towards the close of the page he compressed the letters, and avoided
+     interlineations.  The last words were close to the edge of the
+     paper; he seemed to regret being obliged to begin another page.  He
+     was methodical and analytical; he divided what he wrote into
+     chapters and sections.  He had extracted from the works of Nicole
+     and Fenelon, his favourite authors, three or four hundred concise
+     and sententious phrases; these he had classed according to subject,
+     and formed a work of them in the style of Montesquieu.  To this
+     treatise he had given the following general title: "Of Moderate
+     Monarchy" (De la Monarchie temperee), with chapters entitled, "Of
+     the Person of the Prince;"  "Of the Authority of Bodies in the
+     State;"  "Of the Character of the Executive Functions of the
+     Monarchy."  Had he been able to carry into effect all the grand
+     precepts he had observed in Fenelon, Louis XVI. would have been an
+     accomplished monarch, and France a powerful kingdom.  The King used
+     to accept the speeches his ministers presented to him to deliver on
+     important occasions; but he corrected and modified them; struck out
+     some parts, and added others; and sometimes consulted the Queen on
+     the subject.  The phrase of the minister erased by the King was
+     frequently unsuitable, and dictated by the minister's private
+     feelings; but the King's was always the natural expression.  He
+     himself composed, three times or oftener, his famous answers to the
+     Parliament which he banished.  But in his letters he was negligent,
+     and always incorrect.  Simplicity was the characteristic of the
+     King's style; the figurative style of M. Necker did not please him;
+     the sarcasms of Maurepas were disagreeable to him.  Unfortunate
+     Prince! he would predict, in his observations, that if such a
+     calamity should happen, the monarchy would be ruined; and the next
+     day he would consent in Council to the very measure which he had
+     condemned the day before, and which brought him nearer the brink of
+     the precipice.--SOULAVIE, "Historical and Political Memoirs of the
+     Reign of Louis XVI.," vol.  ii.]
+
+This Prince combined with his attainments the attributes of a good
+husband, a tender father, and an indulgent master.
+
+Unfortunately he showed too much predilection for the mechanical arts;
+masonry and lock-making so delighted him that he admitted into his
+private apartment a common locksmith, with whom he made keys and locks;
+and his hands, blackened by that sort of work, were often, in my
+presence, the subject of remonstrances and even sharp reproaches from
+the Queen, who would have chosen other amusements for her husband.?
+
+     [Louis XVI. saw that the art of lock-making was capable of
+     application to a higher study, He was an excellent geographer.  The
+     most valuable and complete instrument for the study of that science
+     was begun by his orders and under his direction.  It was an immense
+     globe of copper, which was long preserved, though unfinished, in the
+     Mazarine library.  Louis XVI.  invented and had executed under his
+     own eyes the ingenious mechanism required for this globe.--NOTE BY
+     THE EDITOR.]
+
+Austere and rigid with regard to himself alone, the King observed the
+laws of the Church with scrupulous exactness.  He fasted and abstained
+throughout the whole of Lent.  He thought it right that the queen should
+not observe these customs with the same strictness.  Though sincerely
+pious, the spirit of the age had disposed his mind to toleration.
+Turgot, Malesherbes, and Necker judged that this Prince, modest and
+simple in his habits, would willingly sacrifice the royal prerogative to
+the solid greatness of his people.  His heart, in truth, disposed him
+towards reforms; but his prejudices and fears, and the clamours of pious
+and privileged persons, intimidated him, and made him abandon plans which
+his love for the people had suggested.
+
+Monsieur--
+
+     [During his stay at Avignon, Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII,
+     lodged with the Duc de Crillon; he refused the town-guard which was
+     offered him, saying, "A son of France, under the roof of a Crillon,
+     needs no guard."--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
+
+had more dignity of demeanour than the King; but his corpulence rendered
+his gait inelegant.  He was fond of pageantry and magnificence.  He
+cultivated the belles lettres, and under assumed names often contributed
+verses to the Mercury and other papers.
+
+His wonderful memory was the handmaid of his wit, furnishing him with the
+happiest quotations.  He knew by heart a varied repertoire, from the
+finest passages of the Latin classics to the Latin of all the prayers,
+from the works of Racine to the vaudeville of "Rose et Colas."
+
+The Comte d'Artoisi had an agreeable countenance, was well made, skilful
+in bodily exercises, lively, impetuous, fond of pleasure, and very
+particular in his dress.  Some happy observations made by him were
+repeated with approval, and gave a favourable idea of his heart.  The
+Parisians liked the open and frank character of this Prince, which they
+considered national, and showed real affection for him.
+
+The dominion that the Queen gained over the King's mind, the charms of a
+society in which Monsieur displayed his wit, and to which the Comte
+d'Artois--[Afterwards Charles X.]-- gave life by the vivacity of youth,
+gradually softened that ruggedness of manner in Louis XVI. which a
+better-conducted education might have prevented.  Still, this defect
+often showed itself, and, in spite of his extreme simplicity, the King
+inspired those who had occasion to speak to him with diffidence.
+Courtiers, submissive in the presence of their sovereign, are only the
+more ready to caricature him; with little good breeding, they called
+those answers they so much dreaded, Les coups de boutoir du Roi.--[The
+literal meaning of the phrase "coup de boutoir," is a thrust from the
+snout of a boar.]
+
+Methodical in all his habits, the King always went to bed at eleven
+precisely.  One evening the Queen was going with her usual circle to a
+party, either at the Duc de Duras's or the Princesse de Glumenee's.
+The hand of the clock was slily put forward to hasten the King's
+departure by a few minutes; he thought bed-time was come, retired, and
+found none of his attendants ready to wait on him.  This joke became
+known in all the drawing-rooms of Versailles, and was disapproved of
+there.  Kings have no privacy.  Queens have no boudoirs.  If those who
+are in immediate attendance upon sovereigns be not themselves disposed to
+transmit their private habits to posterity, the meanest valet will relate
+what he has seen or heard; his gossip circulates rapidly, and forms
+public opinion, which at length ascribes to the most august persons
+characters which, however untrue they may be, are almost always
+indelible.
+
+NOTE.  The only passion ever shown by Louis XVI. was for hunting.  He was
+so much occupied by it that when I went up into his private closets at
+Versailles, after the 10th of August, I saw upon the staircase six
+frames, in which were seen statements of all his hunts, when Dauphin and
+when King.  In them was detailed the number, kind, and quality of
+the game he had killed at each hunting party during every month, every
+season, and every year of his reign.
+
+The interior of his private apartments was thus arranged: a salon,
+ornamented with gilded mouldings, displayed the engravings which had been
+dedicated to him, drawings of the canals he had dug, with the model of
+that of Burgundy, and the plan of the cones and works of Cherbourg.  The
+upper hall contained his collection of geographical charts, spheres,
+globes, and also his geographical cabinet.  There were to be seen
+drawings of maps which he had begun, and some that he had finished.  He
+had a clever method of washing them in.  His geographical memory was
+prodigious.  Over the hall was the turning and joining room, furnished
+with ingenious instruments for working in wood.  He inherited some from
+Louis XV., and he often busied himself, with Duret's assistance, in
+keeping them clean and bright.  Above was the library of books published
+during his reign.  The prayer books and manuscript books of Anne of
+Brittany, Francois I, the later Valois, Louis XIV., Louis XV., and the
+Dauphin formed the great hereditary library of the Chateau.  Louis XVI.
+placed separately, in two apartments communicating with each other, the
+works of his own time, including a complete collection of Didot's
+editions, in vellum, every volume enclosed in a morocco case.  There were
+several English works, among the rest the debates of the British
+Parliament, in a great number of volumes in folio (this is the Moniteur
+of England, a complete collection of which is so valuable and so scarce).
+By the side of this collection was to be seen a manuscript history of all
+the schemes for a descent upon that island, particularly that of Comte de
+Broglie.  One of the presses of this cabinet was full of cardboard boxes,
+containing papers relative to the House of Austria, inscribed in the
+King's own hand: "Secret papers of my family respecting the House of
+Austria; papers of my family respecting the Houses of Stuart and
+Hanover."  In an adjoining press were kept papers relative to Russia.
+Satirical works against Catherine II.  and against Paul I.  were sold in
+France under the name of histories; Louis XVIII. collected and sealed up
+with his small seal the scandalous anecdotes against Catherine II., as
+well as the works of Rhulieres, of which he had a copy, to be certain
+that the secret life of that Princess, which attracted the curiosity of
+her contemporaries, should not be made public by his means.
+
+Above the King's private library were a forge, two anvils, and a vast
+number of iron tools; various common locks, well made and perfect; some
+secret locks, and locks ornamented with gilt copper.  It was there that
+the infamous Gamin, who afterwards accused the King of having tried to
+poison him, and was rewarded for his calumny with a pension of twelve
+thousand livres, taught him the art of lock-making.  This Gamin, who
+became our guide, by order of the department and municipality of
+Versailles, did not, however, denounce the King on the 20th December,
+1792.  He had been made the confidant of that Prince in an immense number
+of important commissions; the King had sent him the "Red Book," from
+Paris, in a parcel; and the part which was concealed during the
+Constituent Assembly still remained so in 1793.  Gamin hid it in a part
+of the Chateau inaccessible to everybody, and took it from under the
+shelves of a secret press before our eyes.  This is a convincing proof
+that Louis XVI. hoped to return to his Chiteau.  When teaching Louis XVI.
+his trade Gamin took upon himself the tone and authority of a master.
+"The King was good, forbearing, timid, inquisitive, and addicted to
+sleep," said Gamin to me; "he was fond to excess of lock-making, and he
+concealed himself from the Queen and the Court to file and forge with me.
+In order to convey his anvil and my own backwards and forwards we were
+obliged to use a thousand stratagems, the history of which would: never
+end."  Above the King's and Gamin's forges and anvils was an,
+observatory, erected upon a platform covered with lead.  There, seated on
+an armchair, and assisted by a telescope, the King observed all that was
+passing in the courtyards of Versailles, the avenue of Paris, and the
+neighbouring gardens.  He had taken a liking to Duret, one of the indoor
+servants of the palace, who sharpened his tools, cleaned his anvils,
+pasted his maps, and adjusted eyeglasses to the King's sight, who was
+short-sighted.  This good Duret, and indeed all the indoor servants,
+spoke of their master with regret and affection, and with tears in their
+eyes.
+
+The King was born weak and delicate; but from the age of twenty-four he
+possessed a robust constitution, inherited from his mother, who was of
+the House of Saxe, celebrated for generations for its robustness.  There
+were two men in Louis XVI., the man of knowledge and the man of will.
+The King knew the history of his own family and of the first houses of
+France perfectly.  He composed the instructions for M. de la Peyrouse's
+voyage round the world, which the minister thought were drawn up by
+several members of the Academy of Sciences.  His memory retained an
+infinite number of names and situations.  He remembered quantities and
+numbers wonderfully.  One day an account was presented to him in which
+the minister had ranked among the expenses an item inserted in the
+account of the preceding year.  "There is a double charge," said the
+King; "bring me last year's account, and I will show it yet there."  When
+the King was perfectly master of the details of any matter, and saw
+injustice, he was obdurate even to harshness.  Then he would be obeyed
+instantly, in order to be sure that he was obeyed.
+
+But in important affairs of state the man of will was not to be found.
+Louis XVI. was upon the throne exactly what those weak temperaments whom
+nature has rendered incapable of an opinion are in society.  In his
+pusillanimity, he gave his confidence to a minister; and although amidst
+various counsels he often knew which was the best, he never had the
+resolution to say, "I prefer the opinion of such a one."  Herein
+originated the misfortunes of the State.--SOULAVIE'S "Historical and
+Political Memoirs Of the Reign Of LOUIS XVI.," VOL ii.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The winter following the confinement of the Comtesse d'Artois was very
+severe; the recollections of the pleasure which sleighing-parties had
+given the Queen in her childhood made her wish to introduce similar ones
+in France.  This amusement had already been known in that Court, as was
+proved by sleighs being found in the stables which had been used by the
+Dauphin, the father of Louis XVI.  Some were constructed for the Queen in
+a more modern style.  The Princes also ordered several; and in a few days
+there was a tolerable number of these vehicles.  They were driven by the
+princes and noblemen of the Court.  The noise of the bells and balls with
+which the harness of the horses was furnished, the elegance and whiteness
+of their plumes, the varied forms of the carriages, the gold with which
+they were all ornamented, rendered these parties delightful to the eye.
+The winter was very favourable to them, the snow remaining on the ground
+nearly six weeks; the drives in the park afforded a pleasure shared by
+the spectators.
+
+     [Louis XVI., touched with the wretched condition of the poor of
+     Versailles during the winter of 1776, had several cart-loads of wood
+     distributed among them.  Seeing one day a file of those vehicles
+     passing by, while several noblemen were preparing to be drawn
+     swiftly over the ice, he uttered these memorable words: "Gentlemen,
+     here are my sleighs!"--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
+
+No one imagined that any blame could attach to so innocent an amusement.
+But the party were tempted to extend their drives as far as the Champs
+Elysees; a few sleighs even crossed the boulevards; the ladies being
+masked, the Queen's enemies took the opportunity of saying that she had
+traversed the streets of Paris in a sleigh.
+
+This became a matter of moment.  The public discovered in it a
+predilection for the habits of Vienna; but all that Marie Antoinette did
+was criticised.
+
+Sleigh-driving, savouring of the Northern Courts, had no favour among the
+Parisians.  The Queen was informed of this; and although all the sleighs
+were preserved, and several subsequent winters lent themselves to the
+amusement, she would not resume it.
+
+It was at the time of the sleighing-parties that the Queen became
+intimately acquainted with the Princesse de Lamballe, who made her
+appearance in them wrapped in fur, with all the brilliancy and freshness
+of the age of twenty,--the emblem of spring, peeping from under sable and
+ermine.  Her situation, moreover, rendered her peculiarly interesting;
+married, when she was scarcely past childhood, to a young prince, who
+ruined himself by the contagious example of the Duc d'Orleans, she had
+had nothing to do from the time of her arrival in France but to weep.
+A widow at eighteen, and childless, she lived with the Duc de Penthievre
+as an adopted daughter.  She had the tenderest respect and attachment for
+that venerable Prince; but the Queen, though doing justice to his
+virtues, saw that the Duc de Penthievre's way of life, whether at Paris
+or at his country-seat, could neither afford his young daughter-in-law
+the amusements suited to her time of life, nor ensure her in the future
+an establishment such as she was deprived of by her widowhood.  She
+determined, therefore, to establish her at Versailles; and for her sake
+revived the office of superintendent, which had been discontinued at
+Court since the death of Mademoiselle de Clermont.  It is said that Maria
+Leczinska had decided that this place should continue vacant, the
+superintendent having so extensive a power in the houses of queens as to
+be frequently a restraint upon their inclinations.  Differences which
+soon took place between Marie Antoinette and the Princesse de Lamballe
+respecting the official prerogatives of the latter, proved that the wife
+of Louis XV. had acted judiciously in abolishing the office; but a kind
+of treaty made between the Queen and the Princess smoothed all
+difficulties.  The blame for too strong an assertion of claims fell upon
+a secretary of the superintendent, who had been her adviser; and
+everything was so arranged that a firm friendship existed between these
+two Princesses down to the disastrous period which terminated their
+career.
+
+Notwithstanding the enthusiasm which the splendour, grace, and kindness
+of the Queen generally inspired, secret intrigues continued in operation
+against her.  A short time after the ascension of Louis XVI. to the
+throne, the minister of the King's household was informed that a most
+offensive libel against the Queen was about to appear.  The lieutenant of
+police deputed a man named Goupil, a police inspector, to trace this
+libel; he came soon after to say that he had found out the place where
+the work was being printed, and that it was at a country house near
+Yverdun.  He had already got possession of two sheets, which contained
+the most atrocious calumnies, conveyed with a degree of art which might
+make them very dangerous to the Queen's reputation.  Goupil said that he
+could obtain the rest, but that he should want a considerable sum for
+that purpose.  Three thousand Louis were given him, and very soon
+afterwards he brought the whole manuscript and all that had been printed
+to the lieutenant of police.  He received a thousand louis more as a
+reward for his address and zeal; and a much more important office was
+about to be given him, when another spy, envious of Goupil's good
+fortune, gave information that Goupil himself was the author of the
+libel; that, ten years before, he had been put into the Bicetre for
+swindling; and that Madame Goupil had been only three years out of the
+Salpetriere, where she had been placed under another name.  This Madame
+Goupil was very pretty and very intriguing; she had found means to form
+an intimacy with Cardinal de Rohan, whom she led, it is said, to hope for
+a reconciliation with the Queen.  All this affair was hushed up; but it
+shows that it was the Queen's fate to be incessantly attacked by the
+meanest and most odious machinations.
+
+Another woman, named Cahouette de Millers, whose husband held an office
+in the Treasury, being very irregular in conduct, and of a scheming turn
+of mind, had a mania for appearing in the eyes of her friends at Paris as
+a person in favour at Court, to which she was not entitled by either
+birth or office.  During the latter years of the life of Louis XV. she
+had made many dupes, and picked up considerable sums by passing herself
+off as the King's mistress.  The fear of irritating Madame du Barry was,
+according to her, the only thing which prevented her enjoying that title
+openly.  She came regularly to Versailles, kept herself concealed in a
+furnished lodging, and her dupes imagined she was secretly summoned to
+Court.
+
+This woman formed the scheme of getting admission, if possible, to the
+presence of the Queen, or at least causing it to be believed that she had
+done so.  She adopted as her lover Gabriel de Saint Charles, intendant of
+her Majesty's finances,--an office, the privileges of which were confined
+to the right of entering the Queen's apartment on Sunday.  Madame de
+Villers came every Saturday to Versailles with M. de Saint Charles, and
+lodged in his apartment.  M. Campan was there several times.  She painted
+tolerably well, and she requested him to do her the favour to present to
+the Queen a portrait of her Majesty which she had just copied.  M. Campan
+knew the woman's character, and refused her.  A few days after, he saw on
+her Majesty's couch the portrait which he had declined to present to her;
+the Queen thought it badly painted, and gave orders that it should be
+carried back to the Princesse de Lamballe, who had sent it to her.  The
+ill success of the portrait did not deter the manoeuvrer from following
+up her designs; she easily procured through M. de Saint Charles patents
+and orders signed by the Queen; she then set about imitating her writing,
+and composed a great number of notes and letters, as if written by her
+Majesty, in the tenderest and most familiar style.  For many months she
+showed them as great secrets to several of her particular friends.
+Afterwards, she made the Queen appear to write to her, to procure various
+fancy articles.  Under the pretext of wishing to execute her Majesty's
+commissions accurately, she gave these letters to the tradesmen to read,
+and succeeded in having it said, in many houses, that the Queen had a
+particular regard for her.  She then enlarged her scheme, and represented
+the Queen as desiring to borrow 200,000 francs which she had need of, but
+which she did not wish to ask of the King from his private funds.  This
+letter, being shown to M. Beranger, 'fermier general' of the finances,
+took effect; he thought himself fortunate in being able to render this
+assistance to his sovereign, and lost no time in sending the 200,000
+francs to Madame de Villers.  This first step was followed by some
+doubts, which he communicated to people better informed than himself of
+what was passing at Court; they added to his uneasiness; he then went to
+M. de Sartine, who unravelled the whole plot.  The woman was sent to St.
+Pelagie; and the unfortunate husband was ruined, by replacing the sum
+borrowed, and by paying for the jewels fraudulently purchased in the
+Queen's name.  The forged letters were sent to her Majesty; I compared
+them in her presence with her own handwriting, and the only
+distinguishable difference was a little more regularity in the letters.
+
+This trick, discovered and punished with prudence and without passion,
+produced no more sensation out of doors than that of the Inspector
+Goupil.
+
+A year after the nomination of Madame de Lamballe to the post of
+superintendent of the Queen's household, balls and quadrilles gave rise
+to the intimacy of her Majesty with the Comtesse Jules de Polignac.  This
+lady really interested Marie Antoinette.  She was not rich, and generally
+lived upon her estate at Claye.  The Queen was astonished at not having
+seen her at Court earlier.  The confession that her want of fortune had
+even prevented her appearance at the celebration of the marriages of the
+Princes added to the interest which she had inspired.
+
+The Queen was full of consideration, and took delight in counteracting
+the injustice of fortune.  The Countess was induced to come to Court by
+her husband's sister, Madame Diane de Polignac, who had been appointed
+lady of honour to the Comtesse d'Artois.  The Comtesse Jules was really
+fond of a tranquil life; the impression she made at Court affected her
+but little; she felt only the attachment manifested for her by the Queen.
+I had occasion to see her from the commencement of her favour at Court;
+she often passed whole hours with me, while waiting for the Queen.  She
+conversed with me freely and ingenuously about the honour, and at the
+same time the danger, she saw in the kindness of which she was the
+object.  The Queen sought for the sweets of friendship; but can this
+gratification, so rare in any rank, exist between a Queen and a subject,
+when they are surrounded, moreover, by snares laid by the artifice of
+courtiers?  This pardonable error was fatal to the happiness of Marie
+Antoinette.
+
+The retiring character of the Comtesse Jules, afterwards Duchesse de
+Polignac, cannot be spoken of too favourably; but if her heart was
+incapable of forming ambitious projects, her family and friends in her
+fortune beheld their own, and endeavoured to secure the favour of the
+Queen.
+
+     [The Comtesse, afterwards Duchesse de Polignac, nee Polastron,
+     Married the Comte (in 1780 the Duc) Jules de Polignac, the father of
+     the Prince de Polignac of Napoleon's and of Charles X.'s time.  She
+     emigrated in 1789, and died in Vienna in 1793.]
+
+The Comtesse de Diane, sister of M. de Polignac, and the Baron de
+Besenval and M. de Vaudreuil, particular friends of the Polignac family,
+made use of means, the success of which was infallible.  One of my
+friends (Comte de Moustier), who was in their secret, came to tell me
+that Madame de Polignac was about to quit Versailles suddenly; that she
+would take leave of the Queen only in writing; that the Comtesse Diane
+and M. de Vaudreuil had dictated her letter, and the whole affair was
+arranged for the purpose of stimulating the attachment of Marie
+Antoinette.  The next day, when I went up to the palace, I found the
+Queen with a letter in her hand, which she was reading with much emotion;
+it was the letter from the Comtesse Jules; the Queen showed it to me.
+The Countess expressed in it her grief at leaving a princess who had
+loaded her with kindness.  The narrowness of her fortune compelled her to
+do so; but she was much more strongly impelled by the fear that the
+Queen's friendship, after having raised up dangerous enemies against her,
+might abandon her to their hatred, and to the regret of having lost the
+august favour of which she was the object.
+
+This step produced the full effect that had been expected from it.  A
+young and sensitive queen cannot long bear the idea of contradiction.
+She busied herself in settling the Comtesse Jules near her, by making
+such a provision for her as should place her beyond anxiety.  Her
+character suited the Queen; she had merely natural talents, no pedantry,
+no affectation of knowledge.  She was of middle size; her complexion very
+fair, her eyebrows and hair dark brown, her teeth superb, her smile
+enchanting, and her whole person graceful.  She was seen almost always in
+a demi-toilet, remarkable only for neatness and good taste.  I do not
+think I ever once saw diamonds about her, even at the climax of her
+fortune, when she had the rank of Duchess at Court.
+
+I have always believed that her sincere attachment for the Queen, as much
+as her love of simplicity, induced her to avoid everything that might
+cause her to be thought a wealthy favourite.  She had not one of the
+failings which usually accompany that position.  She loved the persons
+who shared the Queen's affections, and was entirely free from jealousy.
+Marie Antoinette flattered herself that the Comtesse Jules and the
+Princesse de Lamballe would be her especial friends, and that she should
+possess a society formed according to her own taste.  "I will receive
+them in my closet, or at Trianon," said she; "I will enjoy the comforts
+of private life, which exist not for us, unless we have the good sense to
+secure them for ourselves."  The happiness the Queen thought to secure
+was destined to turn to vexation.  All those courtiers who were not
+admitted to this intimacy became so many jealous and vindictive enemies.
+
+It was necessary to make a suitable provision for the Countess.  The
+place of first equerry, in reversion after the Comte de Tesse, given to
+Comte Jules unknown to the titular holder, displeased the family of
+Noailles.  This family had just sustained another mortification, the
+appointment of the Princesse de Lamballe having in some degree rendered
+necessary the resignation of the Comtesse de Noailles, whose husband was
+thereupon made a marshal of France.  The Princesse de Lamballe, although
+she did not quarrel with the Queen, was alarmed at the establishment of
+the Comtesse Jules at Court, and did not form, as her Majesty had hoped,
+a part of that intimate society, which was in turn composed of Mesdames
+Jules and Diane de Polignac, d'Andlau and de Chalon, and Messieurs de
+Guignes, de Coigny, d'Adhemar, de Besenval, lieutenant-colonel of the
+Swiss, de Polignac, de Vaudreuil, and de Guiche; the Prince de Ligne and
+the Duke of Dorset, the English ambassador, were also admitted.
+
+It was a long time before the Comtesse Jules maintained any great state
+at Court.  The Queen contented herself with giving her very fine
+apartments at the top of the marble staircase.  The salary of first
+equerry, the trifling emoluments derived from M. de Polignac's regiment,
+added to their slender patrimony, and perhaps some small pension, at that
+time formed the whole fortune of the favourite.  I never saw the Queen
+make her a present of value; I was even astonished one day at hearing her
+Majesty mention, with pleasure, that the Countess had gained ten thousand
+francs in the lottery.  "She was in great want of it," added the Queen.
+
+Thus the Polignacs were not settled at Court in any degree of splendour
+which could justify complaints from others, and the substantial favours
+bestowed upon that family were less envied than the intimacy between them
+and their proteges and the Queen.  Those who had no hope of entering the
+circle of the Comtesse Jules were made jealous by the opportunities of
+advancement it afforded.
+
+However, at the time I speak of, the society around the Comtesse Jules
+was fully engaged in gratifying the young Queen.  Of this the Marquis de
+Vaudreuil was a conspicuous member; he was a brilliant man, the friend
+and protector of men of letters and celebrated artists.
+
+The Baron de Besenval added to the bluntness of the Swiss all the
+adroitness of a French courtier.  His fifty years and gray hairs made him
+enjoy among women the confidence inspired by mature age, although he had
+not given up the thought of love affairs.  He talked of his native
+mountains with enthusiasm.  He would at any time sing the "Ranz des
+Vaches" with tears in his eyes, and was the best story-teller in the
+Comtesse Jules's circle.  The last new song or 'bon mot' and the gossip
+of the day were the sole topics of conversation in the Queen's parties.
+Wit was banished from them.  The Comtesse Diane, more inclined to
+literary pursuits than her sister-in-law, one day, recommended her to
+read the "Iliad" and "Odyssey."  The latter replied, laughing, that she
+was perfectly acquainted with the Greek poet, and said to prove it:
+
+          "Homere etait aveugle et jouait du hautbois."
+
+          (Homer was blind and played on the hautboy.)
+
+     [This lively repartee of the Duchesse de Polignac is a droll
+     imitation of a line in the "Mercure Galant."  In the quarrel scene
+     one of the lawyers says to his brother quill: 'Ton pere etait
+     aveugle et jouait du hautbois.']
+
+The Queen found this sort of humour very much to her taste, and said that
+no pedant should ever be her friend.
+
+Before the Queen fixed her assemblies at Madame de Polignac's, she
+occasionally passed the evening at the house of the Duc and Duchesse de
+Duras, where a brilliant party of young persons met together.  They
+introduced a taste for trifling games, such as question and answer,
+'guerre panpan', blind man's buff, and especially a game called
+'descampativos'.  The people of Paris, always criticising, but always
+imitating the customs of the Court, were infected with the mania for
+these childish sports.  Madame de Genlis, sketching the follies of the
+day in one of her plays, speaks of these famous 'descampativos'; and also
+of the rage for making a friend, called the 'inseparable', until a whim
+or the slightest difference might occasion a total rupture.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+The Duc de Choiseul had reappeared at Court on the ceremony of the King's
+coronation for the first time after his disgrace under Louis XV. in 1770.
+The state of public feeling on the subject gave his friends hope of
+seeing him again in administration, or in the Council of State; but the
+opposite party was too firmly seated at Versailles, and the young Queen's
+influence was outweighed, in the mind of the King, by long-standing
+prejudices; she therefore gave up for ever her attempt to reinstate the
+Duke.  Thus this Princess, who has been described as so ambitious, and so
+strenuously supporting the interest of the House of Austria, failed twice
+in the only scheme which could forward the views constantly attributed to
+her; and spent the whole of her reign surrounded by enemies of herself
+and her house.
+
+Marie Antoinette took little pains to promote literature and the fine
+arts.  She had been annoyed in consequence of having ordered a
+performance of the "Connstable de Bourbon," on the celebration of the
+marriage of Madame Clotilde with the Prince of Piedmont.  The Court and
+the people of Paris censured as indecorous the naming characters in the
+piece after the reigning family, and that with which the new alliance was
+formed.  The reading of this piece by the Comte de Guibert in the Queen's
+closet had produced in her Majesty's circle that sort of enthusiasm which
+obscures the judgment.  She promised herself she would have no more
+readings.  Yet, at the request of M. de Cubieres, the King's equerry,
+the Queen agreed to hear the reading of a comedy written by his brother.
+She collected her intimate circle, Messieurs de Coigny, de Vaudreuil, de
+Besenval, Mesdames de Polignac, de Chalon, etc., and to increase the
+number of judges, she admitted the two Parnys, the Chevalier de Bertin,
+my father-in-law, and myself.
+
+Mold read for the author.  I never could satisfy myself by what magic the
+skilful reader gained our unanimous approbation of a ridiculous work.
+Surely the delightful voice of Mold, by awakening our recollection of the
+dramatic beauties of the French stage, prevented the wretched lines of
+Dorat Cubieres from striking on our ears.  I can assert that the
+exclamation Charming! charming! repeatedly interrupted the reader.  The
+piece was admitted for performance at Fontainebleau; and for the first
+time the King had the curtain dropped before the end of the play.  It was
+called the "Dramomane" or "Dramaturge."  All the characters died of
+eating poison in a pie.  The Queen, highly disconcerted at having
+recommended this absurd production, announced that she would never hear
+another reading; and this time she kept her word.
+
+The tragedy of "Mustapha and Mangir," by M. de Chamfort, was highly
+successful at the Court theatre at Fontainebleau.  The Queen procured the
+author a pension of 1,200 francs, but his play failed on being performed
+at Paris.
+
+The spirit of opposition which prevailed in that city delighted in
+reversing the verdicts of the Court.  The Queen determined never again to
+give any marked countenance to new dramatic works.  She reserved her
+patronage for musical composers, and in a few years their art arrived at
+a perfection it had never before attained in France.
+
+It was solely to gratify the Queen that the manager of the Opera brought
+the first company of comic actors to Paris.  Gluck, Piccini, and Sacchini
+were attracted there in succession.  These eminent composers were treated
+with great distinction at Court.  Immediately on his arrival in France,
+Gluck was admitted to the Queen's toilet, and she talked to him all the
+time he remained with her.  She asked him one day whether he had nearly
+brought his grand opera of "Armide" to a conclusion, and whether it
+pleased him.  Gluck replied very coolly, in his German accent, "Madame,
+it will soon be finished, and really it will be superb."  There was a
+great outcry against the confidence with which the composer had spoken of
+one of his own productions.  The Queen defended him warmly; she insisted
+that he could not be ignorant of the merit of his works; that he well
+knew they were generally admired, and that no doubt he was afraid lest a
+modesty, merely dictated by politeness, should look like affectation in
+him.
+
+     [Gluck often had to deal with self-sufficiency equal to his own.
+     He was very reluctant to introduce long ballets into "Iphigenia."
+     Vestris deeply regretted that the opera was not terminated by a
+     piece they called a chaconne, in which he displayed all his power.
+     He complained to Gluck about it.  Gluck, who treated his art with
+     all the dignity it merits, replied that in so interesting a subject
+     dancing would be misplaced.  Being pressed another time by Vestris
+     on the same subject, "A chaconne!  A chaconne!"  roared out the
+     enraged musician; "we must describe the Greeks; and had the Greeks
+     chaconnes?"  "They had not?"  returned the astonished dancer; "why,
+     then, so much the worse for them!"--NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
+
+The Queen did not confine her admiration to the lofty style of the French
+and Italian operas; she greatly valued Gretry's music, so well adapted to
+the spirit and feeling of the words.  A great deal of the poetry set to
+music by Gretry is by Marmontel.  The day after the first performance of
+"Zemira and Azor," Marmontel and Gretry were presented to the Queen as
+she was passing through the gallery of Fontainebleau to go to mass.  The
+Queen congratulated Gretry on the success of the new opera, and told him
+that she had dreamed of the enchanting effect of the trio by Zemira's
+father and sisters behind the magic mirror.  Gretry, in a transport of
+joy, took Marmontel in his arms, "Ah! my friend," cried he, "excellent
+music may be made of this."--"And execrable words," coolly observed
+Marmontel, to whom her Majesty had not addressed a single compliment.
+
+The most indifferent artists were permitted to have the honour of
+painting the Queen.  A full-length portrait, representing her in all the
+pomp of royalty, was exhibited in the gallery of Versailles.  This
+picture, which was intended for the Court of Vienna, was executed by a
+man who does not deserve even to be named, and disgusted all people of
+taste.  It seemed as if this art had, in France, retrograded several
+centuries.
+
+The Queen had not that enlightened judgment, or even that mere taste,
+which enables princes to foster and protect great talents.  She confessed
+frankly that she saw no merit in any portrait beyond the likeness.  When
+she went to the Louvre, she would run hastily over all the little "genre"
+pictures, and come out, as she acknowledged, without having once raised
+her eyes to the grand compositions.
+
+There is no good portrait of the Queen, save that by Werthmuller, chief
+painter to the King of Sweden, which was sent to Stockholm, and that by
+Madame Lebrun, which was saved from the revolutionary fury by the
+commissioners for the care of the furniture at Versailles.
+
+     [A sketch of very great interest made when the Queen was in the
+     Temple and discovered many years afterwards there, recently
+     reproduced in the memoirs of the Marquise de Tourzel (Paris, Plon),
+     is the last authentic portrait of the unhappy Queen.  See also the
+     catalogue of portraits made by Lord Ronald Gower.]
+
+The composition of the latter picture resembles that of Henriette of
+France, the wife of the unfortunate Charles I., painted by Vandyke.  Like
+Marie Antoinette, she is seated, surrounded by her children, and that
+resemblance adds to the melancholy interest raised by this beautiful
+production.
+
+While admitting that the Queen gave no direct encouragement to any art
+but that of music, I should be wrong to pass over in silence the
+patronage conferred by her and the Princes, brothers of the King, on the
+art of printing.
+
+     [In 1790 the King gave a proof of his particular good-will to the
+     bookselling trade.  A company consisting of the first Parisian
+     booksellers, being on the eve of stopping payment, succeeded in
+     laying before the King a statement of their distressed situation.
+     The monarch was affected by it; he took from the civil list the sum
+     of which the society stood in immediate need, and became security
+     for the repayment of the remainder of the 1,200,000 livres, which
+     they wanted to borrow, and for the repayment of which he fixed no
+     particular time.]
+
+To Marie Antoinette we are indebted for a splendid quarto edition of the
+works of Metastasio; to Monsieur, the King's brother, for a quarto Tasso,
+embellished with engravings after Cochin; and to the Comte d'Artois for a
+small collection of select works, which is considered one of the chef
+d'oeuvres of the press of the celebrated Didot.
+
+In 1775, on the death of the Marechal du Muy, the ascendency obtained by
+the sect of innovators occasioned M. de Saint-Germain to be recalled to
+Court and made Minister of War.  His first care was the destruction of
+the King's military household establishment, an imposing and effectual
+rampart round the sovereign power.
+
+When Chancellor Maupeou obtained from Louis XV. the destruction of the
+Parliament and the exile of all the ancient magistrates, the
+Mousquetaires were charged with the execution of the commission for this
+purpose; and at the stroke of midnight, the presidents and members were
+all arrested, each by two Mousquetaires.  In the spring of 1775 a popular
+insurrection had taken place in consequence of the high price of bread.
+M. Turgot's new regulation, which permitted unlimited trade in corn, was
+either its cause or the pretext for it; and the King's household troops
+again rendered the greatest services to public tranquillity.
+
+I have never be enable to discover the true cause of the support given to
+M. de Saint-Germain's policy by the Queen, unless in the marked favour
+shown to the captains and officers of the Body Guards, who by this
+reduction became the only soldiers of their rank entrusted with the
+safety of the sovereign; or else in the Queen's strong prejudice against
+the Duc d'Aiguillon, then commander of the light-horse.  M. de Saint-
+Germain, however, retained fifty gens d'armes and fifty light-horse to
+form a royal escort on state occasions; but in 1787 the King reduced both
+these military bodies.  The Queen then said with satisfaction that at
+last she should see no more red coats in the gallery of Versailles.
+
+From 1775 to 1781 were the gayest years of the Queen's life.  In the
+little journeys to Choisy, performances frequently took place at the
+theatre twice in one day: grand opera and French or Italian comedy at the
+usual hour; and at eleven at night they returned to the theatre for
+parodies in which the best actors of the Opera presented themselves in
+whimsical parts and costumes.  The celebrated dancer Guimard always took
+the leading characters in the latter performance; she danced better than
+she acted; her extreme leanness, and her weak, hoarse voice added to the
+burlesque in the parodied characters of Ernelinde and Iphigenie.
+
+The most magnificent fete ever given to the Queen was one prepared for
+her by Monsieur, the King's brother, at Brunoy.  That Prince did me the
+honour to admit me, and I followed her Majesty into the gardens, where
+she found in the first copse knights in full armour asleep at the foot of
+trees, on which hung their spears and shields.  The absence of the
+beauties who had incited the nephews of Charlemagne and the gallants of
+that period to lofty deeds was supposed to occasion this lethargic
+slumber.  But when the Queen appeared at the entrance of the copse they
+were on foot in an instant, and melodious voices announced their
+eagerness to display their valour.  They then hastened into a vast arena,
+magnificently decorated in the exact style of the ancient tournaments.
+Fifty dancers dressed as pages presented to the knights twenty-five
+superb black horses, and twenty-five of a dazzling whiteness, all most
+richly caparisoned.  The party led by Augustus Vestris wore the Queen's
+colours.  Picq, balletmaster at the Russian Court, commanded the opposing
+band.  There was running at the negro's head, tilting, and, lastly,
+combats 'a outrance', perfectly well imitated.  Although the spectators
+were aware that the Queen's colours could not but be victorious, they did
+not the less enjoy the apparent uncertainty.
+
+Nearly all the agreeable women of Paris were ranged upon the steps which
+surrounded the area of the tourney.  The Queen, surrounded by the royal
+family and the whole Court, was placed beneath an elevated canopy.  A
+play, followed by a ballet-pantomime and a ball, terminated the fete.
+Fireworks and illuminations were not spared.  Finally, from a
+prodigiously high scaffold, placed on a rising ground, the words 'Vive
+Louis!  Vive Marie Antoinette!'  were shown in the air in the midst of a
+very dark but calm night.
+
+Pleasure was the sole pursuit of every one of this young family, with the
+exception of the King.  Their love of it was perpetually encouraged by a
+crowd of those officious people who, by anticipating the desires and even
+the passions of princes, find means of showing their zeal, and hope to
+gain or maintain favour for themselves.
+
+Who would have dared to check the amusements of a queen, young, lively,
+and handsome?  A mother or a husband alone would have had the right to do
+it; and the King threw no impediment in the way of Marie Antoinette's
+inclinations.  His long indifference had been followed by admiration and
+love.  He was a slave to all the wishes of the Queen, who, delighted with
+the happy change in the heart and habits of the King, did not
+sufficiently conceal the ascendency she was gaining over him.
+
+The King went to bed every night at eleven precisely; he was very
+methodical, and nothing was allowed to interfere with his rules.  The
+noise which the Queen unavoidably made when she returned very late from
+the evenings which she spent with the Princesse de Gugmenee or the Duc de
+Duras, at last annoyed the King, and it was amicably agreed that the
+Queen should apprise him when she intended to sit up late.  He then began
+to sleep in his own apartment, which had never before happened from the
+time of their marriage.
+
+During the winter the Queen attended the Opera balls with a single lady
+of the palace, and always found there Monsieur and the Comte d'Artois.
+Her people concealed their liveries under gray cloth greatcoats.  She
+never thought she was recognized, while all the time she was known to the
+whole assembly, from the first moment she entered the theatre; they
+pretended, however, not to recognise her, and some masquerade manoeuvre
+was always adopted to give her the pleasure of fancying herself
+incognito.
+
+Louis XVI. determined once to accompany the Queen to a masked ball;
+it was agreed that the King should hold not only the grand but the petit
+coucher, as if actually going to bed.  The Queen went to his apartment
+through the inner corridors of the palace, followed by one of her women
+with a black domino; she assisted him to put it on, and they went alone
+to the chapel court, where a carriage waited for them, with the captain
+of the Guard of the quarter, and a lady of the palace.  The King was but
+little amused, spoke only to two or three persons, who knew him
+immediately, and found nothing to admire at the masquerade but Punches
+and Harlequins, which served as a joke against him for the royal family,
+who often amused themselves with laughing at him about it.
+
+An event, simple in itself, brought dire suspicion upon the Queen.  She
+was going out one evening with the Duchesse de Lupnes, lady of the
+palace, when her carriage broke down at the entrance into Paris; she was
+obliged to alight; the Duchess led her into a shop, while a footman
+called a 'fiacre'.  As they were masked, if they had but known how to
+keep silence, the event would never have been known; but to ride in a
+fiacre is so unusual an adventure for a queen that she had hardly entered
+the Opera-house when she could not help saying to some persons whom she
+met there: "That I should be in a fiacre!  Is it not droll?"
+
+From that moment all Paris was informed of the adventure of the fiacre.
+It was said that everything connected with it was mysterious; that the
+Queen had kept an assignation in a private house with the Duc de Coigny.
+He was indeed very well received at Court, but equally so by the King and
+Queen.  These accusations of gallantry once set afloat, there were no
+longer any bounds to the calumnies circulated at Paris.  If, during the
+chase or at cards, the Queen spoke to Lord Edward Dillon, De Lambertye,
+or others, they were so many favoured lovers.  The people of Paris did
+not know that none of those young persons were admitted into the Queen's
+private circle of friends; the Queen went about Paris in disguise, and
+had made use of a fiacre; and a single instance of levity gives room for
+the suspicion of others.
+
+Conscious of innocence, and well knowing that all about her must do
+justice to her private life, the Queen spoke of these reports with
+contempt, contenting herself with the supposition that some folly in the
+young men mentioned had given rise to them.  She therefore left off
+speaking to them or even looking at them.  Their vanity took alarm at
+this, and revenge induced them either to say, or to leave others to
+think, that they were unfortunate enough to please no longer.  Other
+young coxcombs, placing themselves near the private box which the Queen
+occupied incognito when she attended the public theatre at Versailles,
+had the presumption to imagine that they were noticed by her; and I have
+known such notions entertained merely on account of the Queen's
+requesting one of those gentlemen to inquire behind the scenes whether it
+would be long before the commencement of the second piece.
+
+The list of persons received into the Queen's closet which I gave in the
+preceding chapter was placed in the hands of the ushers of the chamber by
+the Princesse de Lamballe; and the persons there enumerated could present
+themselves to enjoy the distinction only on those days when the Queen
+chose to be with her intimates in a private manner; and this was only
+when she was slightly indisposed.  People of the first rank at Court
+sometimes requested special audiences of her; the Queen then received
+them in a room within that called the closet of the women on duty, and
+these women announced them in her Majesty's apartment.
+
+The Duc de Lauzun had a good deal of wit, and chivalrous manners.  The
+Queen was accustomed to see him at the King's suppers, and at the house
+of the Princesse de Guemenee, and always showed him attention.  One day
+he made his appearance at Madame de Guemenee's in uniform, and with the
+most magnificent plume of white heron's feathers that it was possible to
+behold.  The Queen admired the plume, and he offered it to her through
+the Princesse de Guemenee.  As he had worn it the Queen had not imagined
+that he could think of giving it to her; much embarrassed with the
+present which she had, as it were, drawn upon herself, she did not like
+to refuse it, nor did she know whether she ought to make one in return;
+afraid, if she did give anything, of giving either too much or too
+little, she contented herself with once letting M. de Lauzun see her
+adorned with the plume.  In his secret "Memoirs" the Duke attaches an
+importance to his present, which proves him utterly unworthy of an honour
+accorded only to his name and rank
+
+A short time afterwards he solicited an audience; the Queen granted it,
+as she would have done to any other courtier of equal rank.  I was in the
+room adjoining that in which he was received; a few minutes after his
+arrival the Queen reopened the door, and said aloud, and in an angry tone
+of voice, "Go, monsieur."  M. de Lauzun bowed low, and withdrew.  The
+Queen was much agitated.  She said to me: "That man shall never again
+come within my doors."  A few years before the Revolution of 1789 the
+Marechal de Biron died.  The Duc de Lauzun, heir to his name, aspired to
+the important post of colonel of the regiment of French guards.  The
+Queen, however, procured it for the Duc du Chaatelet.  The Duc de Biron
+espoused the cause of the Duc d'Orleans, and became one of the most
+violent enemies of Marie Antoinette.
+
+It is with reluctance that I enter minutely on a defence of the Queen
+against two infamous accusations with which libellers have dared to swell
+their envenomed volumes.  I mean the unworthy suspicions of too strong an
+attachment for the Comte d'Artois, and of the motives for the tender
+friendship which subsisted between the Queen, the Princesse de Lamballe,
+and the Duchesse de Polignac.  I do not believe that the Comte d'Artois
+was, during his own youth and that of the Queen, so much smitten as has
+been said with the loveliness of his sister-in-law; I can affirm that I
+always saw that Prince maintain the most respectful demeanour towards the
+Queen; that she always spoke of his good-nature and cheerfulness with
+that freedom which attends only the purest sentiments; and that none of
+those about the Queen ever saw in the affection she manifested towards
+the Comte d'Artois more than that of a kind and tender sister for her
+youngest brother.  As to the intimate connection between Marie Antoinette
+and the ladies I have named, it never had, nor could have, any other
+motive than the very innocent wish to secure herself two friends in the
+midst of a numerous Court; and notwithstanding this intimacy, that tone
+of respect observed by persons of the most exalted rank towards majesty
+never ceased to be maintained.
+
+The Queen, much occupied with the society of Madame de Polignac, and an
+unbroken series of amusements, found less time for the Abbe de Vermond;
+he therefore resolved to retire from Court.  The world did him the honour
+to believe that he had hazarded remonstrances upon his august pupil's
+frivolous employment of her time, and that he considered himself, both as
+an ecclesiastic and as instructor, now out of place at Court.  But the
+world was deceived his dissatisfaction arose purely from the favour shown
+to the Comtesse Jules.  After a fortnight's absence we saw him at
+Versailles again, resuming his usual functions.
+
+The Queen could express herself with winning graciousness to persons who
+merited her praise.  When M. Loustonneau was appointed to the reversion
+of the post of first surgeon to the King, he came to make his
+acknowledgments.  He was much beloved by the poor, to whom he had chiefly
+devoted his talents, spending nearly thirty thousand francs a year on
+indigent sufferers.  The Queen replied to his thanks by saying: "You are
+satisfied, Monsieur; but I am far from being so with the inhabitants of
+Versailles.  On the news of your appointment the town should have been
+illuminated."--"How so, Madame?" asked the astonished surgeon, who was
+very modest.  "Why," replied the Queen, "if the poor whom you have
+succoured for the past twenty years had each placed a single candle in
+their windows it would have been the most beautiful illumination ever
+witnessed."
+
+The Queen did not limit her kindness to friendly words.  There was
+frequently seen in the apartments of Versailles a veteran captain of the
+grenadiers of France, called the Chevalier d'Orville, who for four years
+had been soliciting from the Minister of War the post of major, or of
+King's lieutenant.  He was known to be very poor; but he supported his
+lot without complaining of this vexatious delay in rewarding his
+honourable services.  He regularly attended the Marechal de Segur,
+at the hour appointed for receiving the numerous solicitations in his
+department.  One day the Marshal said to him: "You are still at
+Versailles, M. d'Orville?"--"Monsieur," he replied, "you may observe that
+by this board of the flooring where I regularly place myself; it is
+already worn down several lines by the weight of my body."  The Queen
+frequently stood at the window of her bedchamber to observe with her
+glass the people walking in the park.  Sometimes she inquired the names
+of those who were unknown to her.  One day she saw the Chevalier
+d'Orville passing, and asked me the name of that knight of Saint Louis,
+whom she had seen everywhere for a long time past.  I knew who he was,
+and related his history.  "That must be put an end to," said the Queen,
+with some vivacity.  "Such an example of indifference is calculated to
+discourage our soldiers."  Next day, in crossing the gallery to go to
+mass, the Queen perceived the Chevalier d'Orville; she went directly
+towards him.  The poor man fell back in the recess of a window, looking
+to the right and left to discover the person whom the Queen was seeking,
+when she thus addressed him: "M. d'Orville, you have been several years
+at Versailles, soliciting a majority or a King's lieutenancy.  You must
+have very powerless patrons."--"I have none, Madame," replied the
+Chevalier, in great confusion.  "Well! I will take you under my
+protection.  To-morrow at the same hour be here with a petition, and a
+memorial of your services."  A fortnight after, M. d'Orville was
+appointed King's lieutenant, either at La Rochelle or at Rochefort.
+
+     [Louis XVI. vied with his Queen in benevolent actions of this kind.
+     An old officer had in vain solicited a pension during the
+     administration of the Duc de Choiseul.  He returned to the charge in
+     the times of the Marquis de Montesnard and the Duc d'Aiguillon.  He
+     urged his claims, to Comte du Muy, who made a note of them.  Tired
+     of so many fruitless efforts, he at last appeared at the King's
+     supper, and, having placed himself so as to be seen and heard, cried
+     out at a moment when silence prevailed, "Sire."  The people near him
+     said, "What are you about?  This is not the way to speak to the
+     King."--"I fear nothing," said he, and raising his voice, repeated,
+     "Sire."  The King, much surprised, looked at him and said, "What do
+     you want, monsieur."--"Sire," answered he, "I am seventy years of
+     age; I have served your Majesty more than fifty years, and I am
+     dying for want."--"Have you a memorial?"  replied the King.  "Yes,
+     Sire, I have."--"Give it to me;" and his Majesty took it without
+     saying anything more.  Next morning he was sent for by the, King,
+     who said, "Monsieur, I grant you an annuity of 1,500 livres out of
+     my privy purse, and you may go and receive the first year's payment,
+     which is now due."  ("Secret Correspondence of the Court: Reign of
+     Louis XVI.") The King preferred to spend money in charity rather
+     than in luxury or magnificence.  Once during his absence, M.
+     d'Augivillers caused an unused room in the King's apartment to be
+     repaired at a cost of 30,000 francs.  On his return the King made
+     Versailles resound with complaints against M. d'Augivillers: "With
+     that sum I could have made thirty families happy," he said.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+From the time of Louis XVI.'s accession to the throne, the Queen had been
+expecting a visit from her brother, the Emperor Joseph II.  That Prince
+was the constant theme of her discourse.  She boasted of his
+intelligence, his love of occupation, his military knowledge, and the
+perfect simplicity of his manners.  Those about her Majesty ardently
+wished to see at Versailles a prince so worthy of his rank.  At length
+the coming of Joseph II., under the title of Count Falkenstein, was
+announced, and the very day on which he would be at Versailles was
+mentioned.  The first embraces between the Queen and her august brother
+took place in the presence of all the Queen's household.  The sight of
+their emotion was extremely affecting.
+
+The Emperor was at first generally admired in France; learned men, well-
+informed officers, and celebrated artists appreciated the extent of his
+information.  He made less impression at Court, and very little in the
+private circle of the King and Queen.  His eccentric manners, his
+frankness, often degenerating into rudeness, and his evidently affected
+simplicity,--all these characteristics caused him to be looked upon as a
+prince rather singular than admirable.  The Queen spoke to him about the
+apartment she had prepared for him in the Chateau; the Emperor answered
+that he would not accept it, and that while travelling he always lodged
+at a cabaret (that was his very expression); the Queen insisted, and
+assured him that he should be at perfect liberty, and placed out of the
+reach of noise.  He replied that he knew the Chateau of Versailles was
+very large, and that so many scoundrels lived there that he could well
+find a place; but that his valet de chambre had made up his camp-bed in a
+lodging-house, and there he would stay.
+
+He dined with the King and Queen, and supped with the whole family.  He
+appeared to take an interest in the young Princesse Elisabeth, then just
+past childhood, and blooming in all the freshness of that age.  An
+intended marriage between him and this young sister of the King was
+reported at the time, but I believe it had no foundation in truth.
+
+The table was still served by women only, when the Queen dined in private
+with the King, the royal family, or crowned heads.
+
+     [The custom was, even supposing dinner to have commenced, if a
+     princess of the blood arrived, and she was asked to sit down at the
+     Queen's table, the comptrollers and gentlemen-in-waiting came
+     immediately to attend, and the Queen's women withdrew.  These had
+     succeeded the maids of honour in several parts of their service, and
+     had preserved some of their privileges.  One day the Duchesse
+     d'Orleans arrived at Fontainebleau, at the Queen's dinner-hour.  The
+     Queen invited her to the table, and herself motioned to her women to
+     leave the room, and let the men take their places.  Her Majesty said
+     she was resolved to continue a privilege which kept places of that
+     description most honourable, and render them suitable for ladies of
+     nobility without fortune.  Madame de Misery, Baronne de Biache, the
+     Queen's first lady of the chamber, to whom I was made reversioner,
+     was a daughter of M. le Comte de Chemant, and her grandmother was a
+     Montmorency.  M. le Prince de Tingry, in the presence of the Queen,
+     used to call her cousin.  The ancient household of the Kings of
+     France had prerogatives acknowledged in the state.  Many of the
+     offices were tenable only by those of noble blood, and were sold at
+     from 40,000 to 300,000 franca.  A collection of edicts of the Kings
+     in favour of the prerogatives and right of precedence of the persons
+     holding office in the royal household is still in existence.]
+
+I was present at the Queen's dinner almost every day.  The Emperor would
+talk much and fluently; he expressed himself in French with facility, and
+the singularity, of his expressions added a zest to his conversation.  I
+have often heard him say that he liked spectacculous objects, when he
+meant to express such things as formed a show, or a scene worthy of
+interest.  He disguised none of his prejudices against the etiquette and
+customs of the Court of France; and even in the presence of the King made
+them the subject of his sarcasms.  The King smiled, but never made any
+answer; the Queen appeared pained.  The Emperor frequently terminated his
+observations upon the objects in Paris which he had admired by
+reproaching the King for suffering himself to remain in ignorance of
+them.  He could not conceive how such a wealth of pictures should remain
+shut up in the dust of immense stores; and told him one day that but for
+the practice of placing some of them in the apartments of Versailles he
+would not know even the principal chef d'oeuvres that he possessed.
+
+     [The Emperor loudly censured the existing practice of allowing
+     shopkeepers to erect shops near the outward walls of all the
+     palaces, and even to establish something like a fair in the
+     galleries of Versailles and Fontainebleau, and even upon the
+     landings of the staircases.]
+
+He also reproached him for not having visited the Hotel des Invalides nor
+the Ecole Militaire; and even went so far as to tell him before us that
+he ought not only to know what Paris contained, but to travel in France,
+and reside a few days in each of his large towns.
+
+At last the Queen was really hurt at the Emperor's remarks, and gave him
+a few lectures upon the freedom with which he allowed himself to lecture
+others.  One day she was busied in signing warrants and orders for
+payment for her household, and was conversing with M. Augeard, her
+secretary for such matters, who presented the papers one after another to
+be signed, and replaced them in his portfolio.  While this was going
+forward, the Emperor walked about the room; all at once he stood still,
+to reproach the Queen rather severely for signing all those papers
+without reading them, or, at least, without running her eye over them;
+and he spoke most judiciously to her upon the danger of signing her name
+inconsiderately.  The Queen answered that very wise principles might be
+very ill applied; that her secretary, who deserved her implicit
+confidence, was at that moment laying before her nothing but orders for
+payment of the quarter's expenses of her household, registered in the
+Chamber of Accounts; and that she ran no risk of incautiously giving her
+signature.
+
+The Queen's toilet was likewise a never-failing subject for animadversion
+with the Emperor.  He blamed her for having introduced too many new
+fashions; and teased her about her use of rouge.  One day, while she was
+laying on more of it than usual, before going to the play, he pointed out
+a lady who was in the room, and who was, in truth, highly painted.  "A
+little more under the eyes," said the Emperor to the Queen; "lay on the
+rouge like a fury, as that lady does."  The Queen entreated her brother
+to refrain from his jokes, or at all events to address them, when they
+were so outspoken, to her alone.
+
+The Queen had made an appointment to meet her brother at the Italian
+theatre; she changed her mind, and went to the French theatre, sending a
+page to the Italian theatre to request the Emperor to come to her there.
+He left his box, lighted by the comedian Clairval, and attended by M. de
+la Ferte, comptroller of the Queen's privy purse, who was much hurt at
+hearing his Imperial Majesty, after kindly expressing his regret at not
+being present during the Italian performance, say to Clairval, "Your
+young Queen is very giddy; but, luckily, you Frenchmen have no great
+objection to that."
+
+I was with my father-in-law in one of the Queen's apartments when the
+Emperor came to wait for her there, and, knowing that M. Campan was
+librarian, he conversed with him about such books as would of course be
+found in the Queen's library.  After talking of our most celebrated
+authors, he casually said, "There are doubtless no works on finance or
+on administration here?"
+
+These words were followed by his opinion on all that had been written on
+those topics, and the different systems of our two famous ministers,
+Sully and Colbert; on errors which were daily committed in France, in
+points essential to the prosperity of the Empire; and on the reform he
+himself would make at Vienna.  Holding M. Campan by the button, he spent
+more than an hour, talking vehemently, and without the slightest reserve,
+about the French Government.  My father-in-law and myself maintained
+profound silence, as much from astonishment as from respect; and when we
+were alone we agreed not to speak of this interview.
+
+The Emperor was fond of describing the Italian Courts that he had
+visited.  The jealous quarrels between the King and Queen of Naples
+amused him highly; he described to the life the manner and speech of that
+sovereign, and the simplicity with which he used to go and solicit the
+first chamberlain to obtain permission to return to the nuptial bed, when
+the angry Queen had banished him from it.  The time which he was made to
+wait for this reconciliation was calculated between the Queen and her
+chamberlain, and always proportioned to the gravity of the offence.  He
+also related several very amusing stories relative to the Court of Parma,
+of which he spoke with no little contempt.  If what this Prince said of
+those Courts, and even of Vienna, had been written down, the whole would
+have formed an interesting collection.  The Emperor told the King that
+the Grand Duke of Tuscany and the King of Naples being together, the
+former said a great deal about the changes he had effected in his State.
+The Grand Duke had issued a mass of new edicts, in order to carry the
+precepts of the economists into execution, and trusted that in so doing
+he was labouring for the welfare of his people.  The King of Naples
+suffered him to go on speaking for a long time, and then casually asked
+how many Neapolitan families there were in Tuscany.  The Duke soon
+reckoned them up, as they were but few.  "Well, brother," replied the
+King of Naples, "I do not understand the indifference of your people
+towards your great reforms; for I have four times the number of Tuscan
+families settled in my States that you have of Neapolitan families in
+yours."
+
+The Queen being at the Opera with the Emperor, the latter did not wish to
+show himself; but she took him by the hand, and gently drew him to the
+front of the box.  This kind of presentation to the public was most
+warmly received.  The performance was "Iphigenia in Aulis," and for the
+second time.  the chorus, "Chantons, celebrons notre Reine!" was called
+for with universal plaudits.
+
+A fete of a novel description was given at Petit Trianon.  The art with
+which the English garden was not illuminated, but lighted, produced a
+charming effect.  Earthen lamps, concealed by boards painted green, threw
+light upon the beds of shrubs and flowers, and brought out their varied
+tints.  Several hundred burning fagots in the moat behind the Temple of
+Love made a blaze of light, which rendered that spot the most brilliant
+in the garden.  After all, this evening's entertainment had nothing
+remarkable about it but the good taste of the artists, yet it was much
+talked of.  The situation did not allow the admission of a great part of
+the Court; those who were uninvited were dissatisfied; and the people,
+who never forgive any fetes but those they share in, so exaggerated the
+cost of this little fete as to make it appear that the fagots burnt in
+the moat had required the destruction of a whole forest.  The Queen being
+informed of these reports, was determined to know exactly how much wood
+had been consumed; and she found that fifteen hundred fagots had sufficed
+to keep up the fire until four o'clock in the morning.
+
+After staying a few months the Emperor left France, promising his sister
+to come and see her again.  All the officers of the Queen's chamber had
+many opportunities of serving him during his stay, and expected that he
+would make them presents before his departure.  Their oath of office
+positively forbade them to receive a gift from any foreign prince; they
+had therefore agreed to refuse the Emperor's presents at first, but to
+ask the time necessary for obtaining permission to accept them.  The
+Emperor, probably informed of this custom, relieved the good people from
+their difficulty by setting off without making a single present.
+
+About the latter end of 1777 the Queen, being alone in her closet, sent
+for my father-in-law and myself, and, giving us her hand to kiss; told us
+that, looking upon us both as persons deeply interested in her happiness,
+she wished to receive our congratulations,--that at length she was the
+Queen of France, and that she hoped soon to have children; that till now
+she had concealed her grief, but that she had shed many tears in secret.
+
+Dating from this happy but long-delayed moment, the King's attachment to
+the Queen assumed every characteristic of love.  The good Lassone, first
+physician to the King and Queen, frequently spoke to me of the uneasiness
+that the King's indifference, the cause of which he had been so long in
+overcoming, had given him, and appeared to me at that time to entertain
+no anxiety except of a very different description.
+
+In the winter of 1778 the King's permission for the return of Voltaire;
+after an absence of twenty-seven years, was obtained.  A few strict
+persons considered this concession on the part of the Court very
+injudicious.  The Emperor, on leaving France, passed by the Chateau of
+Ferney without stopping there.  He had advised the Queen not to suffer
+Voltaire to be presented to her.  A lady belonging to the Court learned
+the Emperor's opinion on that point, and reproached him with his want of
+enthusiasm towards the greatest genius of the age.  He replied that for
+the good of the people he should always endeavour to profit by the
+knowledge of the philosophers; but that his own business of sovereign
+would always prevent his ranking himself amongst that sect.  The clergy
+also took steps to hinder Voltaire's appearance at Court.  Paris,
+however, carried to the highest pitch the honours and enthusiasm shown to
+the great poet.
+
+It was very unwise to let Paris pronounce with such transport an opinion
+so opposite to that of the Court.  This was pointed out to the Queen,
+and she was told that, without conferring on Voltaire the honour of a
+presentation, she might see him in the State apartments.  She was not
+averse to following this advice, and appeared embarrassed solely about
+what she should say to him.  She was recommended to talk about nothing
+but the "Henriade," "Merope," and "Zaira."  The Queen replied that she
+would still consult a few other persons in whom she had great confidence.
+The next day she announced that it was irrevocably decided Voltaire
+should not see any member of the royal family,--his writings being too
+antagonistic to religion and morals.  "It is, however, strange," said the
+Queen, "that while we refuse to admit Voltaire into our presence as the
+leader of philosophical writers, the Marechale de Mouchy should have
+presented to me some years ago Madame Geoffrin, who owed her celebrity to
+the title of foster-mother of the philosophers."
+
+On the occasion of the duel of the Comte d'Artois with the Prince de
+Bourbon the Queen determined privately to see the Baron de Besenval,
+who was to be one of the witnesses, in order to communicate the King's
+intentions.  I have read with infinite pain the manner in which that
+simple fact is perverted in the first volume of M. de Besenval's
+"Memoirs."  He is right in saying that M. Campan led him through the
+upper corridors of the Chateau, and introduced him into an apartment
+unknown to him; but the air of romance given to the interview is equally
+culpable and ridiculous.  M. de Besenval says that he found himself,
+without knowing how he came there, in an apartment unadorned, but very
+conveniently furnished, of the existence of which he was till then
+utterly ignorant.  He was astonished, he adds, not that the Queen should
+have so many facilities, but that she should have ventured to procure
+them.  Ten printed sheets of the woman Lamotte's libels contain nothing
+so injurious to the character of Marie Antoinette as these lines, written
+by a man whom she honoured by undeserved kindness.  He could not have had
+any opportunity of knowing the existence of the apartments, which
+consisted of a very small antechamber, a bedchamber, and a closet.  Ever
+since the Queen had occupied her own apartment, these had been
+appropriated to her Majesty's lady of honour in cases of illness, and
+were actually so used when the Queen was confined.  It was so important
+that it should not be known the Queen had spoken to the Baron before the
+duel that she had determined to go through her inner room into this
+little apartment, to which M. Campan was to conduct him.  When men write
+of recent times they should be scrupulously exact, and not indulge in
+exaggerations or inventions.
+
+The Baron de Besenval appears mightily surprised at the Queen's sudden
+coolness, and refers it to the fickleness of her disposition.  I can
+explain the reason for the change by repeating what her Majesty said to
+me at the time; and I will not alter one of her expressions.  Speaking of
+the strange presumption of men, and the reserve with which women ought
+always to treat them, the Queen added that age did not deprive them of
+the hope of pleasing, if they retained any agreeable qualities; that she
+had treated the Baron de Besenval as a brave Swiss, agreeable, polished,
+and witty, whose gray hairs had induced her to look upon him as a man
+whom she might see without harm; but that she had been much deceived.
+Her Majesty, after having enjoined me to the strictest secrecy, told me
+that, finding herself alone with the Baron, he began to address her with
+so much gallantry that she was thrown into the utmost astonishment, and
+that he was mad enough to fall upon his knees, and make her a declaration
+in form.  The Queen added that she said to him: "Rise, monsieur; the King
+shall be ignorant of an offence which would disgrace you for ever;" that
+the Baron grew pale and stammered apologies; that she left her closet
+without saying another word, and that since that time she hardly ever
+spoke to him.  "It is delightful to have friends," said the Queen; "but
+in a situation like mine it is sometimes difficult for the friends of our
+friends to suit us."
+
+In the beginning of the year 1778 Mademoiselle d'Eon obtained permission
+to return to France, on condition that she should appear there in female
+dress.  The Comte de Vergennes entreated my father, M. Genet, chief clerk
+of Foreign Affairs, who had long known the Chevalier d'Eon, to receive
+that strange personage at his house, to guide and restrain, if possible,
+her ardent disposition.  The Queen, on learning her arrival at
+Versailles, sent a footman to desire my father to bring her into her
+presence; my father thought it his duty first to inform the Minister of
+her Majesty's wish.  The Comte de Vergennes expressed himself pleased
+with my father's prudence, and desired that he would accompany him to the
+Queen.  The Minister had a few minutes' audience; her Majesty came out of
+her closet with him, and condescended to express to my father the regret
+she felt at having troubled him to no purpose; and added, smiling, that a
+few words from M. de Vergennes had for ever cured her of her curiosity.
+The discovery in London of the true sex of this pretended woman makes it
+probable that the few words uttered by the Minister contained a solution
+of the enigma.
+
+The Chevalier d'Eon had been useful in Russia as a spy of Louis XV.
+while very young he had found means to introduce himself at the Court of
+the Empress Elizabeth, and served that sovereign in the capacity of
+reader.  Resuming afterwards his military dress, he served with honour
+and was wounded.  Appointed chief secretary of legation, and afterwards
+minister plenipotentiary at London, he unpardonably insulted Comte de
+Guerchy, the ambassador.  The official order for the Chevalier's return
+to France was actually delivered to the King's Council; but Louis XV.
+delayed the departure of the courier who was to be its bearer, and sent
+off another courier privately, who gave the Chevalier d'Eon a letter in
+his own writing, in which he said, "I know that you have served me as
+effectually in the dress of a woman as in that which you now wear.
+Resume it instantly; withdraw into the city; I warn you that the King
+yesterday signed an order for your return to France; you are not safe in
+your hotel, and you would here find too powerful enemies."  I heard the
+Chevalier d'Eon repeat the contents of this letter, in which Louis XV.
+thus separated himself from the King of France, several times at my
+father's.  The Chevalier, or rather the Chevalaere d'Eon had preserved
+all the King's letters.  Messieurs de Maurepas and de Vergennes wished to
+get them out of his hands, as they were afraid he would print them.  This
+eccentric being had long solicited permission to return to France; but it
+was necessary to find a way of sparing the family he had offended the
+insult they would see in his return; he was therefore made to resume the
+costume of that sex to which in France everything is pardoned.  The
+desire to see his native land once more determined him to submit to the
+condition, but he revenged himself by combining the long train of his
+gown and the three deep ruffles on his sleeves with the attitude and
+conversation of a grenadier, which made him very disagreeable company.
+
+     [The account given by Madame Campan of the Chevalier d'Eon is now
+     known to be incorrect in many particulars.  Enough details for most
+     readers will be found in the Duc de Broglie's "Secret of the King,"
+     vol.  ii., chaps.  vi.  and g., and at p.  89, vol.  ii.  of that
+     work, where the Duke refers to the letter of most dubious
+     authenticity spoken of by Madame Campan.  The following details will
+     be sufficient for these memoirs: The Chevalier Charles d'Eon de
+     Beaumont (who was born in 1728) was an ex-captain of dragoons,
+     employed in both the open and secret diplomacy of Louis XV.  When at
+     the embassy in London he quarrelled with the ambassador, his
+     superior, the Comte de Guerchy (Marquis do Nangis), and used his
+     possession of papers concerning the secret diplomacy to shield
+     himself.  It was when hiding in London, in 1765, on account of this
+     business, that he seems first to have assumed woman's dress, which
+     he retained apparently chiefly from love of notoriety.  In 1775 a
+     formal agreement with the French Court, made by the instrumentality
+     of Beaumarchais, of all people in the world, permitted him to return
+     to France, retaining the dress of a woman.  He went back to France,
+     but again came to England, and died there, at his residence in
+     Millman Street, near the Foundling Hospital, May 22, 1710.  He had
+     been a brave and distinguished officer, but his form and a certain
+     coldness of temperament always remarked in him assisted him in his
+     assumption of another sex.  There appears to be no truth in the
+     story of his proceedings at the Russian Court, and his appearing in
+     female attire was a surprise to those who must have known of any
+     earlier affair of the sort.]
+
+At last, the event so long desired by the Queen, and by all those who
+wished her well, took place; her Majesty became enceinte.  The King was
+in ecstasies.  Never was there a more united or happier couple.  The
+disposition of Louis XVI. entirely altered, and became prepossessing and
+conciliatory; and the Queen was amply compensated for the uneasiness
+which the King's indifference during the early part of their union had
+caused her.
+
+The summer of 1778 was extremely hot.  July and August passed, but the
+air was not cooled by a single storm.  The Queen spent whole days in
+close rooms, and could not sleep until she had breathed the fresh night
+air, walking with the Princesses and her brothers upon the terrace under
+her apartments.  These promenades at first gave rise to no remark; but it
+occurred to some of the party to enjoy the music of wind instruments
+during these fine summer nights.  The musicians belonging to the chapel
+were ordered to perform pieces suited to instruments of that description,
+upon steps constructed in the middle of the garden.  The Queen, seated on
+one of the terrace benches, enjoyed the effect of this music, surrounded
+by all the royal family with the exception of the King, who joined them
+but, twice, disliking to change his hour of going to bed.
+
+Nothing could be more innocent than these parties; yet Paris, France,
+nay, all Europe, were soon canvassing them in a manner most
+disadvantageous to the reputation of Marie Antoinette.  It is true that
+all the inhabitants of Versailles enjoyed these serenades, and that there
+was a crowd near the spot from eleven at night until two or three in the
+morning.  The windows of the ground floor occupied by Monsieur and Madame
+--[The wife of Monsieur, the Comte de Provence.]-- were kept open, and
+the terrace was perfectly well lighted by the numerous wax candles
+burning in the two apartments.  Lamps were likewise placed in the garden,
+and the lights of the orchestra illuminated the rest of the place.
+
+I do not know whether a few incautious women might not have ventured
+farther, and wandered to the bottom of the park; it may have been so; but
+the Queen, Madame, and the Comtesse d'Artois were always arm-in-arm, and
+never left the terrace.  The Princesses were not remarkable when seated
+on the benches, being dressed in cambric muslin gowns, with large straw
+hats and muslin veils, a costume universally adopted by women at that
+time; but when standing up their different figures always distinguished
+them; and the persons present stood on one side to let them pass.  It is
+true that when they seated themselves upon the benches private
+individuals would sometimes, to their great amusement, sit down by
+their side.
+
+A young clerk in the War Department, either not knowing or pretending not
+to know the Queen, spoke to her of the beauty of the night, and the
+delightful effect of the music.  The Queen, fancying she was not
+recognised, amused herself by keeping up the incognito, and they talked
+of several private families of Versailles, consisting of persons
+belonging to the King's household or her own.  After a few minutes the
+Queen and Princesses rose to walk, and on leaving the bench curtsied to
+the clerk.  The young man knowing, or having subsequently discovered,
+that he had been conversing with the Queen, boasted of it in his office.
+He was merely, desired to hold his tongue; and so little attention did he
+excite that the Revolution found him still only a clerk.
+
+Another evening one of Monsieur's body-guard seated himself near the
+Princesses, and, knowing them, left the place where he was sitting, and
+placed himself before the Queen, to tell her that he was very fortunate
+in being able to seize an opportunity of imploring the kindness of his
+sovereign; that he was "soliciting at Court"--at the word soliciting the
+Queen and Princesses rose hastily and withdrew into Madame's apartment.--
+[Soulavie has most criminally perverted these two facts.-MADAME CAMPAN.]-
+I was at the Queen's residence that day.  She talked of this little
+occurrence all the time of her 'coucher'; though she only complained that
+one of Monsieur's guards should have had the effrontery to speak to her.
+Her Majesty added that he ought to have respected her incognito; and that
+that was not the place where he should have ventured to make a request.
+Madame had recognised him, and talked of making a complaint to his
+captain; the Queen opposed it, attributing his error to his ignorance and
+provincial origin.
+
+The most scandalous libels were based on these two insignificant
+occurrences, which I have related with scrupulous exactness.  Nothing
+could be more false than those calumnies.  It must be confessed, however,
+that such meetings were liable to ill consequences.  I ventured to say as
+much to the Queen, and informed her that one evening, when her Majesty
+beckoned to me to go and speak to her, I thought I recognised on the
+bench on which she was sitting two women deeply veiled, and keeping
+profound silence; that those women were the Comtesse du Barry and her
+sister-in-law; and that my suspicions were confirmed, when, at a few
+paces from the seat, and nearer to her Majesty, I met a tall footman
+belonging to Madame du Barry, whom I had seen in her service all the time
+she resided at Court.
+
+My advice was disregarded.  Misled by the pleasure she found in these
+promenades, and secure in the consciousness of blameless conduct, the
+Queen would not see the lamentable results which must necessarily follow.
+This was very unfortunate; for besides the mortifications they brought
+upon her, it is highly probable that they prompted the vile plot which
+gave rise to the Cardinal de Rohan's fatal error.
+
+Having enjoyed these evening promenades about a month, the Queen ordered
+a private concert within the colonnade which contained the group of Pluto
+and Proserpine.  Sentinels were placed at all the entrances, and ordered
+to admit within the colonnade only such persons as should produce tickets
+signed by my father-in-law.  A fine concert was performed there by the
+musicians of the chapel and the female musicians belonging to the.
+Queen's chamber.  The Queen went with Mesdames de Polignac, de Chalon,
+and d'Andlau, and Messieurs de Polignac, de Coigny, de Besenval, and de
+Vaudreuil; there were also a few equerries present.  Her Majesty gave me
+permission to attend the concert with some of my female relations.  There
+was no music upon the terrace.  The crowd of inquisitive people, whom the
+sentinels kept at a distance from the enclosure of the colonnade, went
+away highly discontented; the small number of persons admitted no doubt
+occasioned jealousy, and gave rise to offensive comments which were
+caught up by the public with avidity.  I do not pretend to apologise for
+the kind of amusements with which the Queen indulged herself during this
+and the following summer; the consequences were so lamentable that the
+error was no doubt very great; but what I have said respecting the
+character of these promenades may be relied on as true.
+
+When the season for evening walks was at an end, odious couplets were
+circulated in Paris; the 'Queen was treated in them in the most insulting
+manner; her situation ranked among her enemies persons attached to the
+only prince who for several years had appeared likely to give heirs to
+the crown.  People uttered the most inconsiderate language; and those
+improper conversations took place in societies wherein the imminent
+danger of violating to so criminal an extent both truth and the respect
+due to sovereigns ought to have been better understood.  A few days
+before the Queen's confinement a whole volume of manuscript songs,
+concerning her and all the ladies about her remarkable for rank or
+station was, thrown down in the oiel-de-boeuf.--[A large room at
+Versailles lighted by a bull's-eye window, and used as a waiting-room.]--
+This manuscript was immediately put into the hands of the King, who was
+highly incensed at it, and said that he had himself been at those
+promenades; that he had seen nothing connected with them but what was
+perfectly harmless; that such songs would disturb the harmony of twenty
+families in the Court and city; that it was a capital crime to have made
+any against the Queen herself; and that he wished the author of the
+infamous libels to be discovered and punished.  A fortnight afterwards it
+was known publicly that the verses were by M. Champcenetz de Riquebourg,
+who was not even reprimanded.
+
+     [The author of a great many songs, some of which are very well
+     written.  Lively and satirical by nature, he did not lose either his
+     cheerfulness or his carelessness before the revolutionary tribunal.
+     After hearing his own sentence read, he asked his judges if he might
+     not be allowed to find a substitute.--MADAME CAMPAN.]
+
+I knew for a certainty that the King spoke to M. de Maurepas, before two
+of his most confidential servants, respecting the risk which he saw the
+Queen ran from these night walks upon the terrace of Versailles, which
+the public ventured to censure thus openly, and that the old minister had
+the cruelty to advise that she should be suffered to go on; she possessed
+talent; her friends were very ambitious, and longed to see her take a
+part in public affairs; and to let her acquire the reputation of levity
+would do no harm.  M. de Vergennes was as hostile to the Queen's
+influence as M. de Maurepas.  It may therefore be fairly presumed, since
+the Prime Minister durst point out to his King an advantage to be gained
+by the Queen's discrediting herself, that he and M. de Vergennes employed
+all means within the reach of powerful ministers in order to ruin her in
+the opinion of the public.
+
+The Queen's accouchement approached; Te Deums were sung and prayers
+offered up in all the cathedrals.  On the 11th of December, 1778, the
+royal family, the Princes of the blood, and the great officers of State
+passed the night in the rooms adjoining the Queen's bedchamber.  Madame,
+the King's daughter, came into the world before mid-day on the 19th of
+December.--[Marie Therese Charlotte (1778-1861), Madame Royale; married
+in 1799 Louis, Duc d'Angouleme, eldest son of the Comte d'Artois.]--
+The etiquette of allowing all persons indiscriminately to enter at the
+moment of the delivery of a queen was observed with such exaggeration
+that when the accoucheur said aloud, "La Reine va s'accoucher," the
+persons who poured into the chamber were so numerous that the rush nearly
+destroyed the Queen.  During the night the King had taken the precaution
+to have the enormous tapestry screens which surrounded her Majesty's bed
+secured with cords; but for this they certainly would have been thrown
+down upon her.  It was impossible to move about the chamber, which was
+filled with so motley a crowd that one might have fancied himself in some
+place of public amusement.  Two Savoyards got upon the furniture for a
+better sight of the Queen, who was placed opposite the fireplace.
+
+The noise and the sex of the infant, with which the Queen was made
+acquainted by a signal previously agreed on, as it is said, with the
+Princesse do Lamballe, or some error of the accoucheur, brought on
+symptoms which threatened fatal consequences; the accoucheur exclaimed,
+"Give her air--warm water--she must be bled in the foot!"  The windows
+were stopped up; the King opened them with a strength which his affection
+for the Queen gave him at the moment.  They were of great height, and
+pasted over with strips of paper all round.  The basin of hot water not
+being brought quickly enough, the accoucheur desired the chief surgeon to
+use his lancet without waiting for it.  He did so; the blood streamed out
+freely, and the Queen opened her eyes.  The Princesse de Lamballe was
+carried through the crowd in a state of insensibility.  The valets de
+chambre and pages dragged out by the collar such inconsiderate persons as
+would not leave the room.  This cruel custom was abolished afterwards.
+The Princes of the family, the Princes of the blood, the chancellor, and
+the ministers are surely sufficient to attest the legitimacy of an
+hereditary prince.  The Queen was snatched from the very jaws of death;
+she was not conscious of having been bled, and on being replaced in bed
+asked why she had a linen bandage upon her foot.
+
+The delight which succeeded the moment of fear was equally lively and
+sincere.  We were all embracing each other, and shedding tears of joy.
+The Comte d'Esterhazy and the Prince de Poix, to whom I was the first to
+announce that the Queen was restored to life, embraced me in the midst of
+the cabinet of nobles.  We little imagined, in our happiness at her
+escape from death, for how much more terrible a fate our beloved Princess
+was reserved.
+
+
+NOTE.  The two following specimens of the Emperor Joseph's correspondence
+forcibly demonstrate the vigour, shrewdness, and originality of his mind,
+and complete the portrait left of him by Madame Campan.
+
+Few sovereigns have given their reasons for refusing appointments with
+the fullness and point of the following letter
+
+                                To a Lady.
+
+MADAM.--I do not think that it is amongst the duties of a monarch to
+grant places to one of his subjects merely because he is a gentleman.
+That, however, is the inference from the request you have made to me.
+Your late husband was, you say, a distinguished general, a gentleman of
+good family, and thence you conclude that my kindness to your family can
+do no less than give a company of foot to your second son, lately
+returned from his travels.
+
+Madam, a man may be the son of a general and yet have no talent for
+command.  A man may be of a good family and yet possess no other merit
+than that which he owes to chance,--the name of gentleman.
+
+I know your son, and I know what makes the soldier; and this twofold
+knowledge convinces me that your son has not the disposition of a
+warrior, and that he is too full of his birth to leave the country a hope
+of his ever rendering it any important service.
+
+What you are to be pitied for, madam, is, that your son is not fit either
+for an officer, a statesman or a priest; in a word, that he is nothing
+more than a gentleman in the most extended acceptation of the word.
+
+You may be thankful to that destiny, which, in refusing talents to your
+son, has taken care to put him in possession of great wealth, which will
+sufficiently compensate him for other deficiencies, and enable him at the
+same time to dispense with any favour from me.
+
+I hope you will be impartial enough to see the reasons which prompt me to
+refuse your request.  It may be disagreeable to you, but I consider it
+necessary.  Farewell, madam.--Your sincere well-wisher,
+                                                       JOSEPH
+LACHSENBURG, 4th August, 1787.
+
+
+The application of another anxious and somewhat covetous mother was
+answered with still more decision and irony:
+
+                                To a Lady.
+
+MADAM.--You know my disposition; you are not ignorant that the society of
+the ladies is to me a mere recreation, and that I have never sacrificed
+my principles to the fair sex.  I pay but little attention to
+recommendations, and I only take them into consideration when the person
+in whose behalf I may be solicited possesses real merit.
+
+Two of your sons are already loaded with favours.  The eldest, who is not
+yet twenty, is chief of a squadron in my army, and the younger has
+obtained a canonry at Cologne, from the Elector, my brother.  What would
+you have more?  Would you have the first a general and the second a
+bishop?
+
+In France you may see colonels in leading-strings, and in Spain the royal
+princes command armies even at eighteen; hence Prince Stahremberg forced
+them to retreat so often that they were never able all the rest of their
+lives to comprehend any other manoeuvre.
+
+It is necessary to be sincere at Court, and severe in the field, stoical
+without obduracy, magnanimous without weakness, and to gain the esteem of
+our enemies by the justice of our actions; and this, madam, is what I aim
+at.
+                                             JOSEPH
+VIENNA, September, 1787.
+
+(From the inedited Letters of Joseph IL, published at Paris, by Persan,
+1822.)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+During the alarm for the life of the Queen, regret at not possessing an
+heir to the throne was not even thought of.  The King himself was wholly
+occupied with the care of preserving an adored wife.  The young Princess
+was presented to her mother.  "Poor little one," said the Queen, "you
+were not wished for, but you are not on that account less dear to me.  A
+son would have been rather the property of the State.  You shall be mine;
+you shall have my undivided care, shall share all my happiness, and
+console me in all my troubles."
+
+The King despatched a courier to Paris, and wrote letters himself to
+Vienna, by the Queen's bedside; and part of the rejoicings ordered took
+place in the capital.
+
+A great number of attendants watched near the Queen during the first
+nights of her confinement.  This custom distressed her; she knew how to
+feel for others, and ordered large armchairs for her women, the backs of
+which were capable of being let down by springs, and which served
+perfectly well instead of beds.
+
+M. de Lassone, the chief physician, the chief surgeon, the chief
+apothecary, the principal officers of the buttery, etc., were likewise
+nine nights without going to bed.  The royal children were watched for a
+long time, and one of the women on duty remained, nightly, up and
+dressed, during the first three years from their birth.
+
+The Queen made her entry into Paris for the churching.  One hundred
+maidens were portioned and married at Notre-Dame.  There were few popular
+acclamations, but her Majesty was perfectly well received at the Opera.
+
+A few days after the Queen's recovery from her confinement, the Cure of
+the Magdelaine de la City at Paris wrote to M. Campan and requested a
+private interview with him; it was to desire he would deliver into the
+hands of the Queen a little box containing her wedding ring, with this
+note written by the Cure: "I have received under the seal of confession
+the ring which I send to your Majesty; with an avowal that it was stolen
+from you in 1771, in order to be used in sorceries, to prevent your
+having any children."  On seeing her ring again the Queen said that she
+had in fact lost it about seven years before, while washing her hands,
+and that she had resolved to use no endeavour to discover the
+superstitious woman who had done her the injury.
+
+The Queen's attachment to the Comtesse Jules increased every day; she
+went frequently to her house at Paris, and even took up her own abode at
+the Chateau de la Muette to be nearer during her confinement.  She
+married Mademoiselle de Polignac, when scarcely thirteen years of age, to
+M. de Grammont, who, on account of this marriage, was made Duc de Guiche,
+and captain of the King's Guards, in reversion after the Duc de Villeroi.
+The Duchesse de Civrac, Madame Victoire's dame d'honneur, had been
+promised the place for the Duc de Lorges, her son.  The number of
+discontented families at Court increased.
+
+The title of favourite was too openly given to the Comtesse Jules by her
+friends.  The lot of the favourite of a queen is not, in France, a happy
+one; the favourites of kings are treated, out of gallantry, with much
+greater indulgence.
+
+A short time after the birth of Madame the Queen became again enceinte;
+she had mentioned it only to the King, to her physician, and to a few
+persons honoured with her intimate confidence, when, having overexerted
+her strength in pulling lip one of the glasses of her carriage, she felt
+that she had hurt herself, and eight days afterwards she miscarried.  The
+King spent the whole morning at her bedside, consoling her, and
+manifesting the tenderest concern for her.  The Queen wept exceedingly;
+the King took her affectionately in his arms, and mingled his tears with
+hers.  The King enjoined silence among the small number of persons who
+were informed of this unfortunate occurrence; and it remained generally
+unknown.  These particulars furnish an accurate idea of the manner in
+which this august couple lived together.
+
+The Empress Maria Theresa did not enjoy the happiness of seeing her
+daughter give an heir to the crown of France.  That illustrious Princess
+died at the close of 1780, after having proved by her example that, as in
+the instance of Queen Blanche, the talents of a sovereign might be
+blended with the virtues of a pious princess.  The King was deeply
+affected at the death of the Empress; and on the arrival of the courier
+from Vienna said that he could not bring himself to afflict the Queen by
+informing her of an event which grieved even him so much.  His Majesty
+thought the Abbe de Vermond, who had possessed the confidence of Maria
+Theresa during his stay at Vienna, the most proper person to discharge
+this painful duty.  He sent his first valet de chambre, M. de Chamilly,
+to the Abbe on the evening of the day he received the despatches from
+Vienna, to order him to come the next day to the Queen before her
+breakfast hour, to acquit himself discreetly of the afflicting commission
+with which he was charged, and to let his Majesty know the moment of his
+entering the Queen's chamber.  It was the King's intention to be there
+precisely a quarter of an hour after him, and he was punctual to his
+time; he was announced; the Abbe came out; and his Majesty said to him,
+as he drew up at the door to let him pass, "I thank you, Monsieur l'Abbe,
+for the service you have just done me."  This was the only time during
+nineteen years that the King spoke to him.
+
+Within an hour after learning the event the Queen put on temporary
+mourning, while waiting until her Court mourning should be ready; she
+kept herself shut up in her apartments for several days; went out only to
+mass; saw none but the royal family; and received none but the Princesse
+de Lamballe and the Duchesse de Polignac.  She talked incessantly of the
+courage, the misfortunes, the successes, and the virtues of her mother.
+The shroud and dress in which Maria Theresa was to be buried, made
+entirely by her own hands, were found ready prepared in one of her
+closets.  She often regretted that the numerous duties of her august
+mother had prevented her from watching in person over the education of
+her daughters; and modestly said that she herself would have been more
+worthy if she had had the good fortune to receive lessons directly from a
+sovereign so enlightened and so deserving of admiration.
+
+The Queen told me one day that her mother was left a widow at an age when
+her beauty was yet striking; that she was secretly informed of a plot
+laid by her three principal ministers to make themselves agreeable to
+her; of a compact made between them, that the losers should not feel any
+jealousy towards him who should be fortunate enough to gain his
+sovereign's heart; and that they had sworn that the successful one should
+be always the friend of the other two.  The Empress being assured of this
+scheme, one day after the breaking up of the council over which she had
+presided, turned the conversation upon the subject of female sovereigns,
+and the duties of their sex and rank; and then applying her general
+reflections to herself in particular, told them that she hoped to guard
+herself all her life against weaknesses of the heart; but that if ever an
+irresistible feeling should make her alter her resolution, it should be
+only in favour of a man proof against ambition, not engaged in State
+affairs, but attached only to a private life and its calm enjoyments,--in
+a word, if her heart should betray her so far as to lead her to love a
+man invested with any important office, from the moment he should
+discover her sentiments he would forfeit his place and his influence with
+the public.  This was sufficient; the three ministers, more ambitious
+than amorous, gave up their projects for ever.
+
+On the 22d of October, 1781, the Queen gave birth to a Dauphin.--
+[The first Dauphin, Louis, born 1781, died 1789.]--So deep a silence
+prevailed in the room that the Queen thought her child was a daughter;
+but after the Keeper of the Seals had declared the sex of the infant, the
+King went up to the Queen's bed, and said to her, "Madame, you have
+fulfilled my wishes and those of France:, you are the mother of a
+Dauphin."  The King's joy was boundless; tears streamed from his eyes; he
+gave his hand to every one present; and his happiness carried away his
+habitual reserve.  Cheerful and affable, he was incessantly taking
+occasion to introduce the words, "my son," or "the Dauphin."  As soon as
+the Queen was in bed, she wished to see the long-looked-for infant.  The
+Princesse de Guemenee brought him to her.  The Queen said there was no
+need for commending him to the Princess, but in order to enable her to
+attend to him more freely, she would herself share the care of the
+education of her daughter.  When the Dauphin was settled in his
+apartment, he received the customary homages and visits.  The Duc
+d'Angouleme,  meeting his father at the entrance of the Dauphin's
+apartment, said to him, "Oh, papa! how little my cousin is!"--"The day
+will come when you will think him great enough, my dear," answered the
+Prince, almost involuntarily.--[Eldest son of the Comte d'Artois, and
+till the birth of the Dauphin with near prospects of the succession.]
+
+The birth of the Dauphin appeared to give joy to all classes.  Men
+stopped one another in the streets, spoke without being acquainted,
+and those who were acquainted embraced each other.  In the birth of a
+legitimate heir to the sovereign every man beholds a pledge of prosperity
+and tranquillity .
+
+     [M. Merard de Saint Just made a quatrain on the birth of the Dauphin
+     to the following effect:
+
+          "This infant Prince our hopes are centred in,
+          will doubtless make us happy, rich, and free;
+          And since with somebody he must begin,
+          My fervent prayer is--that it may be me!"
+
+     --NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]
+
+The rejoicings were splendid and ingenious.  The artificers and tradesmen
+of Paris spent considerable sums in order to go to Versailles in a body,
+with their various insignia.  Almost every troop had music with it.  When
+they arrived at the court of the palace, they there arranged themselves
+so as to present a most interesting living picture.  Chimney-sweepers,
+quite as well dressed as those that appear upon the stage, carried an
+ornamented chimney, at the top of which was perched one of the smallest
+of their fraternity.  The chairmen carried a sedan highly gilt, in which
+were to be seen a handsome nurse and a little Dauphin.  The butchers made
+their appearance with their fat ox.  Cooks, masons, blacksmiths, all
+trades were on the alert.  The smiths hammered away upon an anvil, the
+shoemakers finished off a little pair of boots for the Dauphin, and the
+tailors a little suit of the uniform of his regiment.  The King remained
+a long time upon a balcony to enjoy the sight.  The whole Court was
+delighted with it.  So general was the enthusiasm that (the police not
+having carefully examined the procession) the grave-diggers had the
+imprudence to send their deputation also, with the emblematic devices of
+their ill-omened occupation.  They were met by the Princesse Sophie, the
+King's aunt, who was thrilled with horror at the sight, and entreated the
+King to have the audacious, fellows driven out of the procession, which
+was then drawing up on the terrace.
+
+The 'dames de la halle' came to congratulate the Queen, and were received
+with the suitable ceremonies.
+
+Fifty of them appeared dressed in black silk gowns, the established full
+dress of their order, and almost all wore diamonds.  The Princesse de
+Chimay went to the door of the Queen's bedroom to receive three of these
+ladies, who were led up to the Queen's bed.  One of them addressed her
+Majesty in a speech written by M. de la Harpe.  It was set down on the
+inside of a fan, to which the speaker repeatedly referred, but without
+any embarrassment.  She was handsome, and had a remarkably fine voice.
+The Queen was affected by the address, and answered it with great
+affability,--wishing a distinction to be made between these women and the
+poissardes, who always left a disagreeable impression on her mind.
+
+The King ordered a substantial repast for all these women.  One of his
+Majesty's maitres d'hotel, wearing his hat, sat as president and did the
+honours of the table.  The public were admitted, and numbers of people
+had the curiosity to go.
+
+The Garden-du-Corps obtained the King's permission to give the Queen a
+dress ball in the great hall of the Opera at Versailles.  Her Majesty
+opened the ball in a minuet with a private selected by the corps, to whom
+the King granted the baton of an exempt.  The fete was most splendid.
+All then was joy, happiness, and peace.
+
+The Dauphin was a year old when the Prince de Guemenee's bankruptcy
+compelled the Princess, his wife, who was governess to the children of
+France, to resign her situation.
+
+The Queen was at La Muette for the inoculation of her daughter.  She sent
+for me, and condescended to say she wished to converse with me about a
+scheme which delighted her, but in the execution of which she foresaw
+some inconveniences.  Her plan was to appoint the Duchesse de Polignac to
+the office lately held by the Princesse de Guemenee.  She saw with
+extreme pleasure the facilities which this appointment would give her for
+superintending the education of her children, without running any risk of
+hurting the pride of the governess; and that it would bring together the
+objects of her warmest affections, her children and her friend.  "The
+friends of the Duchesse de Polignac," continued the Queen, "will be
+gratified by the splendour and importance conferred by the employment.
+As to the Duchess, I know her; the place by no means suits her simple and
+quiet habits, nor the sort of indolence of her disposition.  She will
+give me the greatest possible proof of her devotion if she yields to my
+wish."  The Queen also spoke of the Princesse de Chimay and the Duchesse
+de Duras, whom the public pointed out as fit for the post; but she
+thought the Princesse de Chimay's piety too rigid; and as to the Duchesse
+de Duras, her wit and learning quite frightened her.  What the Queen
+dreaded as the consequence of her selection of the Duchesse de Polignac
+was principally the jealousy of the courtiers; but she showed so lively a
+desire to see her scheme executed that I had no doubt she would soon set
+at naught all the obstacles she discovered.  I was not mistaken; a few
+days afterwards the Duchess was appointed governess.
+
+The Queen's object in sending for me was no doubt to furnish me with the
+means of explaining the feelings which induced her to prefer a governess
+disposed by friendship to suffer her to enjoy all the privileges of a
+mother.  Her Majesty knew that I saw a great deal of company.
+
+The Queen frequently dined with the Duchess after having been present at
+the King's private dinner.  Sixty-one thousand francs were therefore
+added to the salary of the governess as a compensation for this increase
+of expense.
+
+The Queen was tired of the excursions to Marly, and had no great
+difficulty in setting the King against them.  He did not like the expense
+of them, for everybody was entertained there gratis.  Louis XIV. had
+established a kind of parade upon these excursions, differing from that
+of Versailles, but still more annoying.  Card and supper parties occurred
+every day, and required much dress.  On Sundays and holidays the
+fountains played, the people were admitted into the gardens, and there
+was as great a crowd as at the fetes of St. Cloud.
+
+Every age has its peculiar colouring; Marly showed that of Louis XIV.
+even more than Versailles.  Everything in the former place appeared to
+have been produced by the magic power of a fairy's wand.  Not the
+slightest trace of all this splendour remains; the revolutionary spoilers
+even tore up the pipes which served to supply the fountains.  Perhaps a
+brief description of this palace and the usages established there by
+Louis XIV.  may be acceptable.
+
+The very extensive gardens of Marly ascended almost imperceptibly to the
+Pavilion of the Sun., which was occupied only by the King and his family.
+The pavilions of the twelve zodiacal signs bounded the two sides of the
+lawn.  They were connected by bowers impervious to the rays of the sun.
+The pavilions nearest to that of the sun were reserved for the Princes of
+the blood and the ministers; the rest were occupied by persons holding
+superior offices at Court, or invited to stay at Marly.  Each pavilion
+was named after fresco paintings, which covered its walls, and which had
+been executed by the most celebrated artists of the age of Louis XIV.
+On a line with the upper pavilion there was on the left a chapel; on the
+right a pavilion called La Perspective, which concealed along suite of
+offices, containing a hundred lodging-rooms intended for the persons
+belonging to the service of the Court, kitchens, and spacious dining-
+rooms, in which more than thirty tables were splendidly laid out.
+
+During half of Louis XV.'s reign the ladies still wore the habit de cour
+de Marly, so named by Louis XIV., and which differed little from, that
+devised for Versailles.  The French gown, gathered in the back, and with
+great hoops, replaced this dress, and continued to be worn till the end
+of the reign of Louis XVI.  The diamonds, feathers, rouge, and
+embroidered stuffs spangled with gold, effaced all trace of a rural
+residence; but the people loved to see the splendour of their sovereign
+and a brilliant Court glittering in the shades of the woods.
+
+After dinner, and before the hour for cards, the Queen, the Princesses,
+and their ladies, paraded among the clumps of trees, in little carriages,
+beneath canopies richly embroidered with gold, drawn by men in the King's
+livery.  The trees planted by Louis XIV. were of prodigious height,
+which, however, was surpassed in several of the groups by fountains of
+the clearest water; while, among others, cascades over white marble, the
+waters of which, met by the sunbeams, looked like draperies of silver
+gauze, formed a contrast to the solemn darkness of the groves.
+
+In the evening nothing more was necessary for any well-dressed man to
+procure admission to the Queen's card parties than to be named and
+presented, by some officer of the Court, to the gentleman usher of the
+card-room.  This room, which was very, large, and of octagonal shape,
+rose to the top of the Italian roof, and terminated in a cupola furnished
+with balconies, in which ladies who had not been presented easily
+obtained leave to place themselves, and enjoy, the sight of the brilliant
+assemblage.
+
+Though not of the number of persons belonging to the Court, gentlemen
+admitted into this salon might request one of the ladies seated with the
+Queen at lansquenet or faro to bet upon her cards with such gold or notes
+as they presented to her.  Rich people and the gamblers of Paris did not
+miss one of the evenings at the Marly salon, and there were always
+considerable sums won and lost.  Louis XVI.  hated high play, and very
+often showed displeasure when the loss of large sums was mentioned.  The
+fashion of wearing a black coat without being in mourning had not then
+been introduced, and the King gave a few of his 'coups de boutoir' to
+certain chevaliers de St. Louis, dressed in this manner, who came to
+venture two or three louis, in the hope that fortune would favour the
+handsome duchesses who deigned to place them on their cards.
+
+     [Bachaumont in his "Memoirs," (tome xii., p. 189), which are often
+     satirical; and always somewhat questionable, speaks of the singular
+     precautions taken at play at Court.  "The bankers at the Queen's
+     table," says he, "in order to prevent the mistakes [I soften the
+     harshness of his expression] which daily happen, have obtained
+     permission from her Majesty that before beginning to play the table
+     shall be bordered by a ribbon entirely round it, and that no other
+     money than that upon the cards beyond the ribbon shall be considered
+     as staked."--NOTE By THE EDITOR.]
+
+Singular contrasts are often seen amidst the grandeur of courts.  In
+order to manage such high play at the Queen's faro table, it was
+necessary to have a banker provided with large, sums of money; and this
+necessity placed at the table, to which none but the highest titled
+persons were admitted in general, not only M. de Chalabre, who was its
+banker, but also a retired captain of foot, who officiated as his second.
+A word, trivial, but perfectly appropriate to express the manner in which
+the Court was attended there, was often heard.  Gentlemen presented at
+Court, who had not been invited to stay at Marly, came there
+notwithstanding, as they did to Versailles, and returned again to Paris;
+under such circumstances, it was said such a one had been to Marly only
+'en polisson';--[A contemptuous expression, meaning literally "as a
+scamp" or "rascal"]--and it appeared odd to hear a captivating marquis,
+in answer to the inquiry whether he was of the royal party at Marly, say,
+"No, I am only here 'en polisson'," meaning simply "I am here on the
+footing of all those whose nobility is of a later date than 1400."  The
+Marly excursions were exceedingly expensive to the King.  Besides the
+superior tables, those of the almoners, equerries, maitres d'hotel, etc.,
+were all supplied with such a degree of magnificence as to allow of
+inviting strangers to them; and almost all the visitors from Paris were
+boarded at the expense of the Court.
+
+The personal frugality of the unfortunate Prince who sank beneath the
+weight of the national debts thus favoured the Queen's predilection for
+her Petit Trianon; and for five or six years preceding the Revolution the
+Court very seldom visited Marly.
+
+The King, always attentive to the comfort of his family, gave Mesdames,
+his aunts, the use of the Chateau de Bellevue, and afterwards purchased
+the Princesse de Guemenee's house, at the entrance to Paris, for
+Elisabeth.  The Comtesse de Provence bought a small house at Montreuil;
+Monsieur already had Brunoy; the Comtesse d'Artois built Bagatelle;
+Versailles became, in the estimation of all the royal family, the least
+agreeable of residences.  They only fancied themselves at home in the
+plainest houses, surrounded by English gardens, where they better enjoyed
+the beauties of nature.  The taste for cascades and statues was entirely
+past.
+
+The Queen occasionally remained a whole month at Petit Trianon, and had
+established there all the ways of life in a chateau.  She entered the
+sitting-room without driving the ladies from their pianoforte or
+embroidery.  The gentlemen continued their billiards or backgammon
+without suffering her presence to interrupt them.  There was but little
+room in the small Chateau of Trianon.  Madame Elisabeth accompanied the
+Queen there, but the ladies of honour and ladies of the palace had no
+establishment at Trianon.  When invited by the Queen, they came from
+Versailles to dinner.  The King and Princes came regularly to sup.  A
+white gown, a gauze kerchief, and a straw hat were the uniform dress of
+the Princesses.
+
+     [The extreme simplicity of the Queen's toilet began to be strongly
+     censured, at first among the courtiers, and afterwards throughout
+     the kingdom; and through one of those inconsistencies more common in
+     France than elsewhere, while the Queen was blamed, she was blindly
+     imitated.  There was not a woman but would have the same undress,
+     the same cap, and the same feathers as she had been seen to wear.
+     They crowded to Mademoiselle Bertin, her milliner; there was an
+     absolute revolution in the dress of our ladies, which gave
+     importance to that woman.  Long trains, and all those fashions which
+     confer a certain nobility on dress, were discarded; and at last a
+     duchess could not be distinguished from an actress.  The men caught
+     the mania; the upper classes had long before given up to their
+     lackeys feathers, tufts of ribbon, and laced hats.  They now got rid
+     of red heels and embroidery; and walked about our streets in plain
+     cloth, short thick shoes, and with knotty cudgels in their hands.
+     Many humiliating scrapes were the consequence of this metamorphosis.
+     Bearing no mark to distinguish them from the common herd, some of
+     the lowest classes got into quarrels with them, in which the nobles
+     had not always the best of it.--MONTJOIE, "History of Marie
+     Antoinette."]
+
+Examining all the manufactories of the hamlet, seeing the cows milked,
+and fishing in the lake delighted the Queen; and every year she showed
+increased aversion to the pompous excursions to Marly.
+
+The idea of acting comedies, as was then done in almost all country
+houses, followed on the Queen's wish to live at Trianon without ceremony.
+
+     [The Queen got through the characters she assumed indifferently
+     enough; she could hardly be ignorant of this, as her performances
+     evidently excited little pleasure.  Indeed, one day while she was
+     thus exhibiting, somebody ventured to say, by no means inaudibly,
+     "well, this is royally ill played!"  The lesson was thrown away upon
+     her, for never did she sacrifice to the opinion of another that
+     which she thought permissible.  When she was told that her extreme
+     plainness in dress, the nature of her amusements, and her dislike to
+     that splendour which ought always to attend a Queen, had an
+     appearance of levity, which was misinterpreted by a portion of the
+     public, she replied with Madame de Maintenon: "I am upon the stage,
+     and of course I shall be either hissed or applauded."  Louis XIV.
+     had a similar taste; he danced upon the stage; but he had shown by
+     brilliant actions that he knew how to enforce respect; and besides,
+     he unhesitatingly gave up the amusement from the moment he heard
+     those beautiful lines in which Racine pointed out how very unworthy
+     of him such pastimes were.--MONTJOIE, "History of Marie
+     Antoinette."]
+
+It was agreed that no young man except the Comte d'Artois should be
+admitted into the company of performers, and that the audience should
+consist only of the King, Monsieur, and the Princesses, who did not play;
+but in order to stimulate the actors a little, the first boxes were to be
+occupied by the readers, the Queen's ladies, their sisters and daughters,
+making altogether about forty persons.
+
+The Queen laughed heartily at the voice of M. d'Adhemar, formerly a very
+fine one, but latterly become rather tremulous.  His shepherd's dress in
+Colin, in the "Devin du Village," contrasted very ridiculously with his
+time of life, and the Queen said it would be difficult for malevolence
+itself to find anything to criticise in the choice of such a lover.
+The King was highly amused with these plays, and was present at every
+performance.  Caillot, a celebrated actor, who had long quitted the
+stage, and Dazincourt, both of acknowledged good character, were selected
+to give lessons, the first in comic opera, of which the easier sorts were
+preferred, and the second in comedy.  The office of hearer of rehearsals,
+prompter, and stage manager was given to my father-in-law.  The Duc de
+Fronsac, first gentleman of the chamber, was much hurt at this.  He
+thought himself called upon to make serious remonstrances upon the
+subject, and wrote to the Queen, who made him the following answer: "You
+cannot be first gentleman when we are the actors.  Besides, I have
+already intimated to you my determination respecting Trianon.  I hold no
+court there, I live like a private person, and M. Campan shall be always
+employed to execute orders relative to the private fetes I choose to give
+there."  This not putting a stop to the Duke's remonstrances, the King
+was obliged to interfere.  The Duke continued obstinate, and insisted
+that he was entitled to manage the private amusements as much as those
+which were public.  It became absolutely necessary to end the argument in
+a positive manner.
+
+The diminutive Duc de Fronsac never failed, when he came to pay his
+respects to the Queen at her toilet, to turn the conversation upon
+Trianon, in order to make some ironical remarks on my father-in-law, of
+whom, from the time of his appointment, he always spoke as "my colleague
+Campan."  The Queen would shrug her shoulders, and say, when he was gone,
+"It is quite shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal
+de Richelieu."
+
+So long as no strangers were admitted to the performances they were but
+little censured; but the praise obtained by the performers made them look
+for a larger circle of admirers.  The company, for a private company, was
+good enough, and the acting was applauded to the skies; nevertheless, as
+the audience withdrew, adverse criticisms were occasionally heard.  The
+Queen permitted the officers of the Body Guards and the equerries of the
+King and Princes to be present at the plays.  Private boxes were provided
+for some of the people belonging to the Court; a few more ladies were
+invited; and claims arose on all sides for the favour of admission.  The
+Queen refused to admit the officers of the body guards of the Princes,
+the officers of the King's Cent Suisses, and many other persons, who were
+highly mortified at the refusal.
+
+While delight at having given an heir to the throne of the Bourbons, and
+a succession of fetes and amusements, filled up the happy days of Marie
+Antoinette, the public was engrossed by the Anglo-American war.  Two
+kings, or rather their ministers, planted and propagated the love of
+liberty in the new world; the King of England, by shutting his ears and
+his heart against the continued and respectful representations of
+subjects at a distance from their native land, who had become numerous,
+rich, and powerful, through the resources of the soil they had
+fertilised; and the King of France, by giving support to this people in
+rebellion against their ancient sovereign.  Many young soldiers,
+belonging to the first families of the country, followed La Fayette's
+example, and forsook luxury, amusement, and love, to go and tender their
+aid to the revolted Americans.  Beaumarchais, secretly seconded by
+Messieurs de Maurepas and de Vergennes, obtained permission to send out
+supplies of arms and clothing.  Franklin appeared at Court in the dress
+of an American agriculturist.  His unpowdered hair, his round hat, his
+brown cloth coat formed a contrast to the laced and embroidered coats and
+the powder and perfume of the courtiers of Versailles.  This novelty
+turned the light heads of the Frenchwomen.  Elegant entertainments were
+given to Doctor Franklin, who, to the reputation of a man of science,
+added the patriotic virtues which invested him with the character of an
+apostle of liberty.  I was present at one of these entertainments, when
+the most beautiful woman out of three hundred was selected to place a
+crown of laurels upon the white head of the American philosopher, and two
+kisses upon his cheeks.  Even in the palace of Versailles Franklin's
+medallion was sold under the King's eyes, in the exhibition of Sevres
+porcelain.  The legend of this medallion was
+
+          "Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."
+
+The King never declared his opinion upon an enthusiasm which his correct
+judgment no doubt led him to blame.  The Queen spoke out more plainly
+about the part France was taking respecting the independence of the
+American colonies, and constantly opposed it.  Far was she from
+foreseeing that a revolution at--such a distance could excite one in
+which a misguided populace would drag her from her palace to a death
+equally unjust and cruel.  She only saw something ungenerous in the
+method which France adopted of checking the power of England.
+
+However, as Queen of France, she enjoyed the sight of a whole people
+rendering homage to the prudence, courage, and good qualities of a young
+Frenchman; and she shared the enthusiasm inspired by the conduct and
+military success of the Marquis de La Fayette.  The Queen granted him
+several audiences on his first return from America, and, until the 10th
+of August, on which day my house was plundered, I preserved some lines
+from Gaston and Bayard, in which the friends of M. de La Fayette saw the
+exact outline of his character, written by her own hand:
+
+         "Why talk of youth,
+          When all the ripe experience of the old
+          Dwells with him?  In his schemes profound and cool,
+          He acts with wise precaution, and reserves
+          For time of action his impetuous fire.
+          To guard the camp, to scale the leaguered wall,
+          Or dare the hottest of the fight, are toils
+          That suit th' impetuous bearing of his youth;
+          Yet like the gray-hair'd veteran he can shun
+          The field of peril.  Still before my eyes
+          I place his bright example, for I love
+          His lofty courage, and his prudent thought.
+          Gifted like him, a warrior has no age."
+
+     [During the American war a general officer in the service of the
+     United States advanced with a score of men under the English
+     batteries to reconnoitre their position.  His aide-de-camp, struck
+     by a ball, fell at his side.  The officers and orderly dragoons fled
+     precipitately.  The general, though under the fire of the cannon,
+     approached the wounded man to see whether any help could be afforded
+     him.  Finding the wound had been mortal, he slowly rejoined the
+     group which had got out of the reach of the cannon.  This instance
+     of courage and humanity took place at the battle of Monmouth.
+     General Clinton, who commanded the English troops, knew that the
+     Marquis de La Fayette generally rode a white horse; it was upon a
+     white horse that the general officer who retired so slowly was
+     mounted; Clinton desired the gunners not to fire.  This noble
+     forbearance probably saved M. de La Fayette's life, for he it was.
+     At that time he was but twenty-two years of age.--"Historical
+     Anecdotes of the Reign of Louis XVI."]
+
+These lines had been applauded and encored at the French theatre;
+everybody's head was turned.  There was no class of persons that did not
+heartily approve of the support given openly by the French Government to
+the cause of American independence.  The constitution planned for the new
+nation was digested at Paris, and while liberty, equality, and the rights
+of man were commented upon by the Condorcets, Baillys, Mirabeaus, etc.,
+the minister Segur published the King's edict, which, by repealing that
+of 1st November, 1750, declared all officers not noble by four
+generations incapable of filling the rank of captain, and denied all
+military rank to the roturiers, excepting sons of the chevaliers de St.
+Louis.
+
+     ["M. de Segur," says Chamfort, "having published an ordinance which
+     prohibited the admission of any other than gentlemen into the
+     artillery corps, and, on the other hand, none but well-educated
+     persons being proper for admission, a curious scene took place: the
+     Abbe Bossat, examiner of the pupils, gave certificates only to
+     plebeians, while Cherin gave them only to gentlemen.  Out of one
+     hundred pupils, there were not above four or five who were qualified
+     in both respects."]
+
+The injustice and absurdity of this law was no doubt a secondary cause of
+the Revolution.  To understand the despair and rage with which this law
+inspired the Tiers Etat one should have belonged to that honourable
+class.  The provinces were full of roturier families, who for ages had
+lived as people of property upon their own domains, and paid the taxes.
+If these persons had several sons, they would place one in the King's
+service, one in the Church, another in the Order of Malta as a chevalier
+servant d'armes, and one in the magistracy; while the eldest preserved
+the paternal manor, and if he were situated in a country celebrated for
+wine, he would, besides selling his own produce, add a kind of commission
+trade in the wines of the canton.  I have seen an individual of this
+justly respected class, who had been long employed in diplomatic
+business, and even honoured with the title of minister plenipotentiary,
+the son-in-law and nephew of colonels and town mayors, and, on his
+mother's side, nephew of a lieutenant-general with a cordon rouge, unable
+to introduce his sons as sous-lieutenants into a regiment of foot.
+
+Another decision of the Court, which could not be announced by an edict,
+was that all ecclesiastical benefices, from the humblest priory up to the
+richest abbey, should in future be appanages of the nobility.  Being the
+son of a village surgeon, the Abbe de Vermond, who had great influence in
+the disposition of benefices, was particularly struck with the justice of
+this decree.
+
+During the absence of the Abbe in an excursion he made for his health, I
+prevailed on the Queen to write a postscript to the petition of a cure,
+one of my friends, who was soliciting a priory near his curacy, with the
+intention of retiring to it.  I obtained it for him.  On the Abbe's
+return he told me very harshly that I should act in a manner quite
+contrary to the King's wishes if I again obtained such a favour; that the
+wealth of the Church was for the future to be invariably devoted to the
+support of the poorer nobility; that it was the interest of the State
+that it should be so; and a plebeian priest, happy in a good curacy, had
+only to remain curate.
+
+Can we be astonished at the part shortly afterwards taken by the deputies
+of the Third Estate, when called to the States General?
+
+
+
+
+ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
+
+Elegant entertainments were given to Doctor Franklin
+Fashion of wearing a black coat without being in mourning
+Favourite of a queen is not, in France, a happy one
+History of the man with the iron mask
+Of course I shall be either hissed or applauded.
+She often carried her economy to a degree of parsimony
+Shocking to find so little a man in the son of the Marechal
+Simplicity of the Queen's toilet began to be strongly censured
+The charge of extravagance
+The three ministers, more ambitious than amorous
+Well, this is royally ill played!
+While the Queen was blamed, she was blindly imitated
+
+
+
+
+End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Memoirs of Marie Antoinette, v3
+by Madame Campan
+