The Girls' Book of Famous Queens

“It is the 10th of May, 1774, – a lovely evening following a bright spring day. The sun has sunk below the horizon; the brilliant hues of the western sky have faded into the dark shades of the advancing night, and the Château of Versailles, in its sombre grandeur, looms larger in the increasing gloom. On the terrace are saunterers in earnest conversation; carriages and horses and a throng of attendants in the marble court. A group of impatient pages, écuyers booted and spurred, an escort of the household troops, eager for an order to mount, – all are watching, with anxious eyes, the flickering glare of a candle that faintly illumines the window of a chamber in the château.”

In that chamber lies Louis, once the “well-beloved,” in the last stages of confluent small-pox. As the clock of Versailles tolls the hour of twelve, at midnight, the flame is extinguished; the king is dead! Louis XV. has breathed his last! Instantly all is movement and animation in the courtyard, while through the gilded galleries of Versailles resounds the cry, destined to be heard never again within its walls, “The king is dead! Long live the king!” as, with a noise like thunder, the courtiers rush from the antechamber of the dead monarch to the apartments of the Dauphin, to hail him king of France. This extraordinary tumult, in the silence of midnight, conveyed to Louis and Marie Antoinette the first intelligence that the crown of France had fallen upon their brows; and, overcome by the violence of their emotions, they fell upon their knees exclaiming, “O God! guide us, protect us; we are too young to govern!”

Preparations had been made for an immediate flight; for all alike were anxious to escape the infectious air of the petits appartements and grande galerie, whose deadly atmosphere claimed yet a hecatomb of victims. Three hours after the king’s death Versailles was a desert; for the young king and the queen, with the whole court in retinue, had set out in their carriages for Choisy. A few under-servants and priests of the “inferior clergy” remained to pray beside the body, which was ultimately placed in a coffin filled with lime, thrust into a hunting-carriage, and, followed by a few attendants, with no signs of mourning, the cortège set out, “au grand trot” for St. Denis.

There were none to mourn the departed monarch; and in an hour Louis the Well-Beloved was forgotten, or remembered but to be despised. But a single Fontenoy veteran, inspired by the memories of other days, rushed forward and presented arms as the scanty funeral cortège of the once vaunted hero of a brilliant fight passed through the gates of Versailles, in the dead of night, on the 13th of May, 1774. “What matters it,” murmured the old soldier, regretfully; “he was at Fontenoy!”

“It was a momentous crisis in the history of the nation when Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette ascended the throne of France. The time had arrived when the abuses of the Old Régime could no longer be tolerated, and sweeping reforms were demanded. The nation, hitherto politically a nullity, had awakened to a sense of its rights; while absolute sovereignty, with its arbitrary dictum, ‘L’état c’est moi,’ and its right divine to govern wrong, had lost its prestige, and had apparently no prospect of regaining it.”

The people, indeed, regarded the young monarch as the “hope of the nation,” and named him “Louis le Desire,” – a testimony to the ardor with which they had looked forward to his accession. And it is probable that, had a more able pilot – “a king more a king” than that feeblest of monarchs, Louis XVI. – been called to the helm at that period, “the vessel of state might have been safely guided through the shoals and quicksands surrounding her, and escaped the eddies of that devastating whirlpool in which she was eventually engulfed.” Indeed, if sincerely wishing to see his people prosperous and happy could have made them so, France would have had no more beneficent ruler than Louis XVI. But his good wishes and intentions were rendered of no avail by his utter want of energy and ability to carry them out. Infirm of purpose at the first, he remained so to the end. The decree, “Let there be light,” unfortunately, never went forth to quicken his mental faculties. The queen, on the other hand, possessed all the courage and resolution of her imperial mother, Maria Theresa; and, had she been able to control affairs, the revolution would have been crushed in its infancy with an iron hand. Again, had the king been able to hold to his milder measures, to maintain on the following day that which he had declared the day before, it is possible that France might have passed quietly from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. But the self-will and determination of the one, and the weakness and instability of the other, rendered a union of ideas impossible and the revolution inevitable.

Little was known by the nation at large of the mental qualities of the young king. He was now in his twentieth year; and it had been noised among the people that he had inherited all the virtues of his father, “Le Grand Dauphin” to which were added the frugal tastes, the genial temper, and the air of bonhomie to which the gallant Henry IV. owed so much of his popularity.

“No wonder, then, that the accession of Louis XVI. was hailed throughout France with general delight, or that the enthusiastic people – their many expected reforms already conceded in imagination – should have written in conspicuous characters, ‘RESURREXIT,’ beneath the statue of the gallant Henry, whose jovial humor and pliant conscience enabled him to gratify his Catholic subjects with his presence at a Te Deum.”

When the king made his public entry into the capital, the joyous demonstrations of the Parisians affected him deeply. “What have I done,” he exclaimed, “that they should love me so much?” Ah, Louis! you have as yet done nothing; but much, very much, is expected from you!

But Louis XVI. possessed no energy; and the torpid action of his mind was but too plainly evinced by the sluggish inactivity of his heavy frame, as, stolid in his immense corpulence, he sat lolling in his chariot.

Perhaps, in their eagerness for reforms, the Parisians displayed unreasonable impatience. But when, a few weeks later, the young monarch again passed through Paris, he remarked – though unfortunately the lesson was lost on him – that the acclamations of the people were far less frequent and fervid than on the former occasion. And his eyes were filled with tears when he perceived that the conspicuously displayed “RESURREXIT” was transferred from the statue of the gallant Henry to that of the slothful Louis XV. Still, with all his vices, Louis the Well-Beloved, on those rare occasions when he appeared in public, had always commanded the respectful homage of his subjects, simply by the dignity of his bearing. By the same means he imposed silence on his courtiers, when, in license of speech, they infringed the limits within which it was sometimes his bon plaisir to restrain them. Occasionally, too, when the parliament opposed his edicts, or the dissentient opinion of a minister roused him from his habitual indolence, he could at once assume the arbitrary tone, the “je le veux” of the absolute monarch, and carry out his purposes with all the hauteur of his royal ancestor, the Grand Monarque. “And it is probable that his handsome person and majestic air – for, whatever may have been his shortcomings in other and more essential qualities, in appearance he was every inch a king – may have gone far in preventing the utter extinction of the enthusiastic affection which on several occasions during his reign the people so singularly, yet so generally, expressed towards the royal débauché. A lingering spark of that once ardent feeling must have smouldered on in their hearts to the end; for, grievously oppressed though they were, and vicious as they knew him to be, they still toiled on under their burdens, not exactly uncomplainingly, yet in a spirit of toleration towards him; while the yearned-for relief was, as if by the tacit consent of his subjects, to be claimed only from his successor.” Truly, indications were not wanting of the approaching storm. But “Après nous le deluge!” cried Madame de Pompadour, gayly; and the king and the court echoed the cry. Madame la Marquise was right. The deluge came; and the royal authority which Richelieu, Mazarin, and Louis XIV. had raised to such gigantic heights, and which Louis XV. had so shamefully abused, was hurled prostrate in the dust.

Bright shines the sun on this 10th day of June, 1775; and, heavy in its massive architecture, the grand old cathedral of Rheims looms up against the clear blue sky. The interior is hung with crimson cloth of gold. On the right of the altar, arrayed in their red and violet robes, point lace, gold crosses, chains, and mitres, sit the great grandees of the church. On the left, in their mantles of state, stand the temporal peers of the realm, and a brilliant crowd of gold-embroidered naval and military uniforms surrounds them; while above, in the lofty galleries of the nave, in the midst of pearls and diamonds, gold, and precious stones, and lofty, waving plumes, is Marie Antoinette, proud and radiant, surrounded by the ladies of her retinue.

For on this 10th day of June, “good Louis XVI.,” as the country people say, is to be crowned. Maria Theresa was anxious that Marie Antoinette should be crowned with the king; but she evinced not the slightest inclination, and, indeed, it was only at Vienna that such an event seems to have been expected or desired. But among the glittering throng which fills the cathedral, one sees not the king. He waits in the sacristy, whither two of the dignitaries of the church proceed to lead him to the front of the altar. The door forthwith flies open, and Louis XVI. appears in all the insignia of royalty. The mantle of state is placed upon his shoulders, and anointing him with the seven unctions of the sacre, the archbishop cries aloud, “Vivat rex in aeternum!” The grand old organ peals forth as he approaches the altar, and the fresh young voices of the choristers swell through the aisles and naves as they sing the choral service. How startling is the effect when, during a sotto voce passage of the service, the archbishop places the crown upon the king’s head, and he, suddenly raising his hand, thrusts it aside, exclaiming, “Elle me gêne!” Poor Louis! Truly he was destined to find it gênant in every sense. Henry III. had said, “Elle me pique!” All knew what had been his end. “The queen, who had been a deeply interested spectator of the scene, exhibited so much agitation at the moment of the king’s exclamation, that she was near fainting, and was conducted from the cathedral.” The ceremony is concluded; and the clanging of bells, the roaring of cannon, the lively chirping of thousands of birds, freed from their cages, to symbolize the “vieilles franchises” of France, and the tumultuous shouts of “Vive le roi!” proclaim to the multitude that “Louis le Desire,” is crowned king of France.

Marie Antoinette had been reared in all the freedom of the Austrian court, and it was some time before she could habituate herself to the etiquette-laden atmosphere of Versailles, where every look, every motion, every gesture, were governed alike by the inexorable rules of la grande politesse, laid down with such precision and exactitude by King Louis XIV. From the cradle to the tomb, in sickness and in health, at table, at council, in the chase, in the army, in the midst of their court, and in their private apartments, kings and princes, in France, were governed by ceremonial rules. The pomp and glitter at Versailles dazzled the beholder. There all breathed of greatness, of exaltation, and of unapproachableness; and the people, awestruck at the splendor and gorgeous trappings of royalty, fell prostrate before the throne.

Madame Campan thus describes her feelings upon first entering this charmed spot: —

“The queen, Marie Leckzinska, wife of Louis XV., died just before I was presented at court. The grand apartments hung with black, the great chairs of state raised on several steps and surmounted by a canopy adorned with plumes, the caparisoned horses, the immense retinue in court mourning, the enormous shoulder-knots embroidered with gold and silver spangles which decorated the coats of the pages and footmen, – all this magnificence had such an effect upon my senses, that I could scarcely support myself when introduced to the princesses.

“How well was the potent magic of grandeur and dignity, which ought to surround sovereigns, understood at Versailles!

“Marie Antoinette, dressed in white, with a plain straw hat, and a little switch in her hand, walking on foot, and followed by a single servant, through the walks leading to the Petit Trianon, would never have thus disconcerted me. And I believe this extreme simplicity was the first and only real fault of all those with which she is reproached.”

The illusions of etiquette were necessary to Louis XV. Louis XIV. might have dispensed with them. His throne, resplendent with the triumph of arms, literature, and the fine arts, was glorious enough without them. But he would be more than a great king, this mighty Louis! And so this demi-god, when age and calamity had taught him that he was but human, endeavored to conceal the ravages of time and of disease beneath the vain pomp of ceremony. He, Louis “the Magnificent,” the most accomplished of gentlemen, habitually exacted and received from the noblest of his realm adulations and menial services better becoming the palace of Ispahan than the Château of Versailles.

“All service to the king and queen, and, in a lower degree, to the Dauphin and Dauphiness, was regarded as an honor to the persons serving, – an honor to be keenly contended for by persons of the highest rank, no matter what delay, or inconvenience, or unutterable weariness of spirit was experienced by the individuals thus served.” Her Majesty the queen could not pass from one apartment to the other, without being followed by the lords and ladies of her retinue. The ceremonies of rising and dressing were accompanied by laws and rites as irrevocable as the decrees of the Medes and Persians.

The petites entrées and the grandes entrées had each their appropriate ceremonies. At the former, none but the physicians, reader, and secretary had the privilege of being present, whether her Majesty breakfasted in bed or out of it. At the grande toilette, the toilet table, which was always the most splendid piece of furniture in the apartment, was brought forward, and the queen surrendered herself to the hands of her hairdresser. Then followed the grande entrée; sofas were ranged in circles for the ladies of the household. The members of the royal family, the princes of the blood, and all the great officers, having the privilege, paid their court. Only grandes dames of the haute noblesse could occupy the tabouret in the royal presence. There were well-defined degrees of royal salutation, – a smile, a nod, a bending of the body, or leaning forward as if to rise, which was the highest form of acknowledgment. If her Majesty wished her gloves, or a glass of water, what she desired was brought by a page upon a gold salver, and the salver was presented in turn with solemn precision, according to the rank of the persons present, by the femme de chambre to the lady-in-waiting; but if the chief dame d’honneur, or a princess of the blood, or any member of the royal family entered at the time, the salver was returned to the femme de chambre, and by her offered again to the dame d’honneur, or to the princess, that she might have the privilege of presentation, till, at last, the article reached its destination.

One winter’s morning, Marie Antoinette, who was partially disrobed, was just about to put on her body linen. The lady-in-waiting held it ready unfolded for her. The dame d’honneur entered. Etiquette demanded that she should present the robe. Hastily slipping off her gloves, she took the garment, but at that moment a rustling was heard at the door. It was opened, and in came Madame la Duchesse d’Orleans. She must now be the bearer of the garment. But the laws of etiquette would not allow the dame d’honneur to hand the linen directly to Madame la Duchesse. It must pass down the various grades of rank to the lowest, and by her be presented to the highest. The linen was consequently passed back again from one to another, till it was finally placed in the hands of the duchess. She was just upon the point of conveying it to its proper destination, when suddenly the door opened, and the Comtesse de Provence entered. Again the linen passed from hand to hand until it reached Madame la Comtesse. She, perceiving the uncomfortable position of the queen, who sat shivering with cold, without stopping to remove her gloves, placed the linen upon her shoulders. Her Majesty, however, was quite unable to restrain her impatience, and exclaimed, “How disagreeable, how tiresome!” Such was the etiquette of the court of Versailles, and its inexorable rules governed alike every action in the lives of the king and queen, while the cavaliers and grandes dames observed with the greatest minuteness every punctilio of la grande politesse et la grande galanterie, that by so doing they might widen the gulf already existing between them and the new ideas of liberté and égalité which were beginning to pervade the realm.

“You love flowers; I give you a bouquet of them by offering you Le Petit Trianon entirely for your own private use. There you may reign sole mistress; for the Trianons, by right, belong to you, having always been the residence of the favorites of the kings of France.” For Louis XVI. this speech was a great effort of gallantry. It delighted Marie Antoinette. Here, then, was that for which she had so often longed; a place to which she could retire from the cares of state, and throw aside the pomps and punctilios of etiquette. She loved not the grand old gardens of Versailles, with their terraces and clipped yews. She would have an English garden of the day, with its thickets, waterfalls, and rustic bridges, such as the Prince de Ligny had made at Bel-œil and the Marquis de Caraman at Roissy. Le grand simple is to take the place of le grand magnifique, and attired in white muslin, with a a plain straw hat, and followed by a single attendant, the queen roams through the gardens and groves of the Petit Trianon. Through the lanes and byways she chases the butterfly, picks flowers free as a peasant girl, and leaning over the fences, chats with the country maids as they milk the cows.

This freedom from restraint was etiquette at the court of Vienna; it was barbarism at the court of Versailles. The courtiers were amazed, the ceremony-stricken dowagers were shocked; and Paris, France, and Europe, were filled with stories of the waywardness and eccentricities of Marie Antoinette. And Mesdames, the king’s aunts, from their retreat at Bellevue, and Madame du Barry, from her domain of Luviciennes, lost no opportunity to gather reports unfavorable to the reputation of the queen, and spread them far and wide.

Still another surprise was in store for the nobility, for upon one occasion, at Trianon, when the queen seated herself, she requested in a lively, nonchalant manner the whole of the ladies, without distinction, who formed her intimate circle, to seat themselves also! What a blow to those who held so dear the privileges they derived from distinction of office and superiority of rank! La haute and la petite noblesse, in spite of their cherished distinctions, all are to sit down together! It is terrible! How many enemies are made, and allies added to the circles at Bellevue and Luviciennes, by that little act! Poor thoughtless Marie Antoinette!

But she proposed to reign at Trianon, not as queen of France, but simply as a lady of the manor, surrounded by her friends. And so she built the Swiss cottages, with their thatched roofs and rustic balconies; for it was her good pleasure that she, her king, and her friends, should be country people for the nonce. The queen’s cottage stood in the centre, and she was the fermière. The king was the miller, and occupied the mill, with its joyous tick-tack. Monsieur le Comte de Provence, figured as schoolmaster, while the Comte d’Artois was in his element as gamekeeper. However, one may be sure that these simple country folk had no want of retainers to do their behests. In the dairy, where the cream was put in the blue and white porcelain of Trianon, on marble tables, diligent dairymaids skimmed and churned, and displayed fresh butter and eggs. Down by the lake were more masqueraders, – washerwomen this time; and Madame la Comtesse de Chalons beat the clothes with ebony beaters. In the stable, the sheep, unconscious of the honor to be done them, stood ready for clipping with golden shears. “The Duc de Guines might not assist at this, because he was so stout and so desperately bent on resorting to art to restrain his bulk, that his valet, in selecting his master’s garments every morning, was fain to ask, ‘Does my lord the Duke sit down to-day?’ But there were other helpers, – the big, jovial Duc de Coigny, and the rough-voiced, stiff-jointed Comte d’Adhémar, who could, at least, hoist sacks of corn up the mahogany steps to the granary.” Madame la Fermière distributed refreshments as she overlooked and encouraged her workers. And so the dainty work, which was the idlest pastime, went on to the accompaniment of gay jests and rippling laughter.

This descent from the throne, which was so congenial to the queen, was loudly condemned. In their first efforts for reform the people had no wish to detract from the hereditary splendor of the crown, or the “divinity,” which for so many centuries had hedged the kings of France. It was the king and queen who took the first steps. Winter comes, and with it a heavy fall of snow, and Marie Antoinette longs again for the merry sleigh rides of Vienna. “The old court sledges are brought forth – these being professedly economical times – for examination as to their possibly serviceable condition. A glance, however, suffices to show that disuse and neglect have put them completely hors de service.” So new ones of great magnificence are prepared, with “abundance of painting and gilding, trappings of embroidered crimson leather and velvet, with innumerable tinkling bells of gold or silver.” The horses, with nodding plumes and gorgeous caparisons, dazzled the eyes of the Parisians as they swept through the Champs Élysées, drawing their loads of lords and ladies enveloped in furs. The people frowned disapprovingly. It was a new amusement – an innovation; and angry, envious tongues declared that the “Autrichienne had taken advantage of the rigor of the season which had caused such widespread misery to introduce her Austrian pastimes into the capital of France.”

Marie Antoinette was imprudent, very imprudent; that was her only crime. But much allowance must be made for one, who, at the age of fifteen years, was made la premiere dame in a court the most gorgeous, and, after that of Catherine II. of Russia, the most dissolute, in Europe.

The people had already begun to compute the cost of equipages, palaces, crown jewels, and courtiers. And some few of the grands seigneurs, even, had begun to recognize the growing power of the vox populi; but Marie Antoinette did not yet know that public opinion was of any importance to her. “The slanderous tongues of Mesdames and the pious circle of Bellevue, the innuendoes of Luviciennes, and the insidious attacks of Monsieur le Comte de Provence, – all this she understood, and resented. It seemed a matter of course that it should be thus; but the right of the people to interfere with her amusements and to call in question their propriety, was something she could not understand.” Alas! poor queen; the dreadful significancy of that expression “THE PEOPLE,” and the vengeful acts to which an infuriated populace could be driven, were two terrible lessons she had yet to learn.

On the 22d of October, 1781, a child is born at Versailles. The king advances towards the queen’s couch; with a profound bow, and in a voice that falters with emotion, he exclaims, “Madame, you have fulfilled the dearest wishes of my heart and the anxious hopes of the nation; you are the mother of a Dauphin.” Nothing could exceed the public rejoicings; the triumph became well-nigh frantic. For it is recorded that their superabundant joy found expression in a sort of delirium, – people of all grades, and who had no previous acquaintance with each other, indulging in fraternal embraces in the street. The king himself went through a similar display of excessive joy. He laughed, he wept, the tears streaming down his fat face. He ran in and out of the antechamber, presenting his hand to kiss or to shake – or both, if they pleased – to all and each indiscriminately, from the solemn grandees, who were there to attest the birth, to the humblest lackey in attendance. “The royal infant, splendidly arrayed and with the grand cross of St. Louis on his breast, was placed in his satin and point-lace bassinet to receive the homage of the great officers of state. It is recorded that he replied in a most suitable manner to the many flattering speeches addressed to him; and this being the first opportunity he had had of exhibiting the power of his lungs, he availed himself of it freely.” Madame Royale had been born three years before; two other children were subsequently added, – the Duc de Normandie, and the Princess Sophie; but only Madame Royale and the Duc de Normandie were destined to survive to endure those woes which eventually overwhelmed the royal family.