THE MARRIAGE FESTIVITIES OF MARIE ANTOINETTE

WE have just seen the Dauphiness arriving at the château of Versailles. It is ten o’clock on the morning of the 16th of May, 1770. In a little while the nuptial benediction will be given to the spouses. Every glance is fixed on the young Princess with respectful curiosity. She is in morning dress, and her hair is carelessly arranged. Presently she will reappear in the dazzling wedding toilette. This is her portrait as drawn by Bachaumont: “She is very well made, symmetrical in all her members. Her hair is a beautiful blonde; one fancies it will some day be a pale chestnut. Her forehead is fine; her face, a somewhat long, but a graceful, oval; her eyebrows as well marked as a blonde’s can be. Her eyes are blue without being dull, and sparkle with a vivacity full of intelligence. Her nose is aquiline, rather thin at the tip. Her mouth is small; her lips are thick, especially the under one, which one knows to be the Austrian lip. Her skin is of dazzling whiteness, and she has a natural color which needs no rouge. Her bearing is that of an archduchess, but her dignity is tempered by sweetness. It is difficult to see this Princess without feeling a mingled respect and tenderness.”

At one o’clock the Dauphiness, in full dress, and followed by a numerous cortège, goes to the chapel with the Dauphin. The officiating priest is the Archbishop of Rheims, Monseigneur de La Roche-Aymon, Grand Almoner of France. The pair advance to the altar and kneel down. The chapel is decked with flowers and garlands, and glitters with a thousand lights. The Archbishop blesses thirteen pieces of gold and a gold ring. These he presents to the Dauphin, who puts the ring on the fourth finger of the left hand of the Dauphiness, and afterwards gives her the thirteen gold pieces. After the “Our Father” has been said, the canopy of silver brocade is held over them by the Bishop of Senlis on the side of the Prince, and the Bishop of Chartres on that of the Princess. The spouses, profoundly moved, plight each other an affection which death itself will not have the power to interrupt.

At this moment all Paris is at Versailles. The people have been coming on foot since daybreak. The citizens have been arriving, some on hired horses, some in cabs, some in carriages from livery stables. The park is thronged by an immense crowd. Alas! The sad omens are about to be renewed. At three in the afternoon the sky is overcast by clouds. Rain pours down in torrents. The thunder rumbles. Every one seeks shelter. There is a general panic. In the evening the weather is so bad that the fireworks cannot be set off. The illuminations are drowned in rain; the streets and squares of Versailles are like a desert.

But if the approaches to the château are dismal in the evening, it is dazzling within. All the splendors of aristocracy, riches, luxury, and the fine arts are accumulated there. There is a game of lansquenet in the Gallery of Mirrors, and a supper is served _au grand couvert_ in the hall known as the Queen’s Antechamber (No. 117 of M. Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_). The next day, May 17, the new theatre, begun in 1753, and designed by the architect Gabriel, is opened for the first time. (This is now the Senate Chamber at Versailles.) The piece presented is the opera of _Persée_, words by Quinault, music by Lulli. May 19, a grand dress ball, opened by the Dauphin and the Dauphiness, is given in this new play-house.

That morning, Madame Du Deffand had written to Horace Walpole: “There have been bickerings without number; the minuet which is to be given this evening by Mademoiselle de Lorraine, has vexed a great many people.” The minuet, in fact, is a great affair, and the whole court is in commotion over it. What is it all about? Louis XV., in order to be agreeable to the Empress Maria Theresa, has decided that Mademoiselle de Lorraine, on account of her relationship to the Dauphiness, shall dance a minuet immediately after the princes and princesses of the royal family. People have taken the notion this displays a tendency to establish for the house of Lorraine an intermediate rank between the princes of the blood and the great nobles. Thereupon ensues a flood of jealousy and anger. The dukes unite to convoke an assembly of the principal members of the nobility at the house of the Bishop of Noyon, a brother of Marshal de Broglie. There they draw up a grand memorial to the King, in which they say: “Sire, the great lords and nobles of the realm lay with confidence at the foot of the throne the just alarms awakened in them by the widespread rumors that Your Majesty has been solicited to grant the house of Lorraine a rank immediately after the princes of the blood, and that you have ordered that at the dress ball of Monsieur the Dauphin’s marriage, Mademoiselle de Lorraine shall dance before all the ladies of the court.... They believe, Sire, that they would be lacking in what is due to their birth if they did not manifest to you how greatly a distinction as humiliating to them as it is novel, would add to the grief of losing the advantage they have always had of not being separated from Your Majesty and the royal family by any intermediate rank. In all states, the grandeur of the highest ranks denotes that of the nations, and the grandeur of the nations makes that of the kings. It would be to doubt the pre-eminence of France in Europe, to doubt the pre-eminence of those who, in the words of one of your ancestors, make a part of its honor and the essential honor of its kings.” All that for a minuet!

The public is rather amused by the presentation of this request by a bishop. On seeing certain new names among the old ones signed to it, some one remarks that the descendants of such or such persons would some day say with pride: “One of our ancestors signed the famous request of the minuet, at the marriage of the grandson of Louis XV.; so our name was then reckoned among the most illustrious of the monarchy.” The request was parodied as follows:—

“Sire, les grands de vos États Verront avec beaucoup de peine Une princesse de Lorraine Sur eux au bal prendre le pas. Si Votre Majesté projette De les flétrir d’un tel affront, Ils quitteront la cadenette, Et laisseront là les violons. Avisez-y, la ligue est faite. Signe: l’Evêque de Noyon, La Veaupalière, Beaufremont, Clermont, Laval et De Villette.”[44]

This is a new Fronde, a veritable insurrection. Louis XV. replies to the request by the following note: “The ambassador of the Emperor and the Empress-queen has asked me, on the part of his masters, to show some mark of distinction to Mademoiselle de Lorraine on the present occasion of the marriage of my grandson with the Archduchess Marie Antoinette. The dance at the ball being the only thing which could entail no consequences, since the choice of dancers depends solely on my will, without distinction of place, rank, or dignities, excepting the princes and princess of my rank, who cannot be compared or put in rank with any other Frenchmen; and being unwilling, moreover, to innovate in anywise on what is practised at my court, I rely upon it that the great and the nobles of my realm, seeing the fidelity, submission, attachment, and even friendship which they have always shown to me and my predecessors, will never be the occasion of anything that might displease me, especially in this occurrence, wherein I desire to prove my gratitude to the Empress for the present she has made me, which I hope, as you do, will cause the happiness of the remainder of my days.” Notwithstanding this, Louis XV. is obliged to go to the length of a threat. The ball at last takes place. Mademoiselle de Lorraine dances the minuet which provoked so many quarrels. Fireworks are set off the same evening on the terrace of the château, and are succeeded by an illumination of the park, terminating, at the extremity of the grand canal, in a splendid decoration representing the Temple of the Sun. The canal is covered with gaily decked barks. The great fountains are playing amidst the illuminations. The equestrian statue of the King is resplendent. The principal decoration represents the Temple of Hymen. Surrounded by a sort of parapet at the four corners of which are dolphins who are vomiting flame from their yawning mouths, this multicolored temple rests against the statue of Louis XV. Near the statue, on the Seine side, rises the bastion from which the rockets stream upward in glittering sheaves. Acclamations resound. The crowd utter shouts of joy. All of a sudden a misdirected rocket falls on the yew trees and sets them afire. At the same time, the column of sightseers who are making their way to the boulevards though the rue Royale meets another column which is going toward Place Louis XV. They come into collision. The arrival of the firemen adds to the confusion. The moats of the Tuileries and the gardens of the place are so many precipices over which a quantity of victims fall. The cries of the wounded increase the terror. There is nothing but dead and dying people. All is horror and desolation on this accursed place, destined, before the end of the century, to be the scene of so many crimes.

At this moment a carriage, coming from the Cours-la-Reine, arrives at the Champs-Elysées. In this carriage is a young woman, still more adorned by the splendor of her grace and beauty than by the glitter of the precious stones shining in her hair and on her dress. It is the Dauphiness, entering Paris for the first time,—the Dauphiness, who wishes to see the illuminations of this place, marked by fatality. She is reflecting that to-day there has been no tempest, that the sky is clear this time, and that all hearts are glad. She herself rejoices to see this city of Paris, so beautiful and famous. But what is that she hears? Are those cries of joy or of terror? The carriage stops. The Dauphiness asks what is going on. She is answered that blood is flowing on Place Louis XV.; that the number of the dead, though unknown as yet, is considerable, and that it will not do to go any further in a city so grievously stricken. The carriage retraces its road. Marie Antoinette returns disconsolate to Versailles, while the dead are being taken to the cemetery of the Madeleine, where, some years later, other victims will be deposited. Thus terminated the nuptial festivities of the martyr King and Queen. Such is the prologue to the tragedy which will wring tears from future eyes; such are the first rumblings of the most terrible of tempests.