MARIE ANTOINETTE AND MADAME DU BARRY

Surrounded by admiration and universal homage, Marie Antoinette appears at the summit of happiness. On the surface, her destiny is magnificent. But the depths of her heart are already sorrowful. The inexplicable coldness of her husband is not her only chagrin. Young as she is, she already begins to see the snares of every kind which malicious people are laying for her. Naïve, gentle, ingenuous, she has been transported in spite of herself into an atmosphere of mean passions, Machiavellian calculations, and interminable intrigues. She is perforce the object of minute and often malicious inspection. All eyes are fixed upon her. Under an appearance of hyperbolical eulogies and enthusiastic adulations there are many criticisms, many jealousies; and if one could believe it, many hatreds. Some people begrudged the Dauphiness her youth and beauty. Converted coquettes, old maids, ambitious or intriguing women, find it hard to endure this superiority of birth, rank, grace, and beauty. Envy skilfully conceals itself under the mask of politics. The Dauphiness is censured as representing the Austrian alliance; an alliance which, they say, is contrary to the traditions of French diplomacy. They have a spite against her for being the daughter of the great Empress whose genius has wrought prodigies. The creatures of Madame Du Barry are offended by the young couple to whom belongs the future, and who are at present like the mute protest of virtue against vice, what is honest against what is scandalous. All the “Basils” of the court, and God knows there are plenty of them, would already be glad to begin softly, very quietly, on the sly, the calumnious murmurs whose _crescendo_ is terrible.

One of Marie Antoinette’s sufferings came from the obligation of meeting the Du Barry, that worthless woman who wanted to treat with her as power to power, that woman whom Maria Theresa, perhaps a trifle too politic, had ordered her to treat with deference, out of respect for Louis XV.; that woman who is the enemy of the Duke de Choiseul, the principal partisan of the Austrian alliance at the court of Versailles. Revolted in her youthful pride, throwing back her fine and haughty head, the Dauphiness remembers the blood which flows in her veins, the lightning which flashes in her eyes, and the daughter of Cæsars conceives disgust for the favorite who is debasing the throne. She writes to Maria Theresa, July 9, 1770: “The King shows me a thousand kindnesses, and I love him tenderly, but it is pitiable to see the weakness he has for Madame Du Barry, who is the most stupid and impertinent creature imaginable.” The two women are on opposite sides in politics; one desires Choiseul’s retention in the ministry, the other his dismissal. Two camps are formed, the excitement is keen; Madame Du Barry will triumph. The Duke de Choiseul, intoxicated by success, and long accustomed to vanquish all obstacles, has come to believe himself not merely necessary, but indispensable. The powerful minister would have been willing to say of his enemies just what the Duke de Guise said shortly before he was struck down: “They would not dare.” The political chessboard was so complicated, that a man like him, who knew all the pieces so well, believed that Louis XV. would not have the courage to dismiss him. Baron de Gleichen, one of Choiseul’s best friends, thought him imprudent to the point of blundering. “It would have been very easy for him,” says the Baron in his curious _Souvenirs_, “to come to terms with Madame Du Barry, who would have asked nothing better than to be delivered from the rapacious and tyrannous claws of her brother-in-law, her protectors, and all the roués whose instrument she was. She was a good-natured creature, moreover, who disliked being employed to do harm, and whose joyous humor would have made her dote on M. de Choiseul as soon as she began to know him. The King would certainly have done the impossible to favor and consolidate the union between his favorite and his minister, whom he was very sorry to lose; nothing proves this better than a billet he wrote him towards the last, when they wrote oftener than they saw each other. M. de Choiseul complaining to his master of a horrible annoyance by which he was menaced, the latter replied, ‘What you imagine is false; people deceive you; be on your guard against those who surround you whom I do not like. You do not know Madame Du Barry; all France would be at her feet, if.... Signed: Louis.’ Does not this billet, which I have seen, express the wish for an arrangement, a prayer to lend himself to it, and the avowal, strange enough from a king, that the simple suffrage of his minister would do more than all that lay in his royal power?”[47] This reflection which is added by M. de Gleichen, is in the taste and style of the eighteenth century: “It is most astonishing that the sensitive heart of M. de Choiseul could have resisted so much kindness, the desire to play a trick on his enemies, and the certainty of reigning more comfortably by the aid of a woman who would have been entirely at his orders.”

The Duke de Choiseul had been the favorite of the Marquise de Pompadour. It was not morality, then, which prevented his being on good terms with the Countess Du Barry, for, from the point of view of scandal, the two mistresses were on an equality, and from the point of view of the goodness of character, the Countess was much better than the Marquise.

The great noble, prouder of his person than of his place, the audacious statesman, more influential, more flattered than his master, and saying to those about him: “Don’t outbid the King; that is not worth while,” the brilliant duke and peer who remembered that in former times a man of his rank would have thought he degraded himself by accepting a place as secretary of state, and who fancied he was doing a great honor to Louis XV. in being willing to be his minister, Choiseul, infatuated with his triumphs, was no longer the skilful courtier of the days of Madame de Pompadour.

The idea of inclining before an inferior sultana revolted the pride of this grand vizier who did not dread the bowstring. As has been very well said by M. Jobez in his book, _La France sous Louis XV._, he was “one of those men of pleasure who occupy themselves with public affairs as a diversion agreeable to both their imagination and their vanity.” He would not endure anything contrary to his convenience or his tastes. Madame Du Barry displeased him; he defied her. To believe that the minister who had concluded the family compact and annexed Corsica to France; who had dared to break a lance in the face of the most powerful of modern associations, the Jesuits; who was the idol of the nobility, the Parliaments and the philosophers; who, celebrated in every tone by all the trumpets of Fame, had been able to make himself feared and admired by Europe,—to believe that he, the Duke de Choiseul, would be sacrificed to a creature of the Du Barry sort, seemed to him unlikely and absurd.

It was this, however, which occurred. Let us affirm, for the rest, that the enmity of the Countess was not the sole cause of the minister’s downfall. If he was upheld by the Dauphiness, he had an adversary in the Dauphin, because, several years before, he had said to the father of this Prince: “Monseigneur, I shall perhaps have some day the misfortune to be your subject, but I will never have that of being your servant.” Religious people reproached him with the expulsion of the Jesuits and the friendship of Voltaire. The conservatives accused him of a weakness for the Parliaments. The peace party found his foreign policy bungling and disquieting. They accused him of being on the point of doing what Louvois had done under the reign of Louis XIV., of setting Europe afire in order to prove that the Ministry of War had been well conducted. Louis XV., who grew more timid as he grew older, became frightened, possibly not without reason. The alliance of the Northern courts already existed in principle. England was menacing. A conflict between the English and the Spanish had just broken out in the Falkland Islands. Louis XV. was persuaded of the imminence of a coalition, and a new Seven Years’ War, which would be due, said they, to the imprudence and levity of Choiseul. The enemies of the minister then apprised Madame Du Barry that the time had come to be done with him. The story-tellers pretend that, tossing up oranges, she exclaimed, bursting with laughter: “Skip, Choiseul! skip, Praslin!” They add that, after having announced to Louis XV. that she had just discharged her cook, she said to her royal lover: “I have got rid of my Choiseul; when will you get rid of yours?”

December 24, 1770, the minister received the following letter from the King:—

“My Cousin,—The discontent caused me by your services forces me to exile you to Chanteloup, whither you will repair within twenty-four hours. I would have sent you further, if it were not for the particular esteem I have for Madame the Duchess de Choiseul, whose health interests me much. Take care that your conduct does not make me take another course. Whereupon, I pray God, my cousin, that He may have you in His holy keeping. Signed: Louis.”

Then was seen, as has been remarked by M. Henri Martin, what had never been seen before,—the court faithful to the person in disgrace. During the few hours that elapsed before the Duke and Duchess de Choiseul quitted Paris, an innumerable crowd of great lords and ladies, magistrates, military men, citizens, men of letters, came to inscribe their names on the register of his house. The young Duke de Chartres, that prince who was afterwards to be called Philippe-Égalité, forced his way in to throw himself into the arms of the exiled minister.[48] The highest personages solicited the King’s authorization to pay visits to Chanteloup. Did this signify that human nature was better, more generous, than at other epochs? Not at all. It was simply that opposition was then in fashion. It was thought, moreover, that Choiseul would return to power. Count de Ségur has said in his Memoirs:—

“The King remained almost alone in his mistress’s boudoir. A column put up at Chanteloup, on which the numerous visitors of the exile inscribed their names, served as a monument of this new Fronde. The impressions of youth are keen, and never shall I forget that produced in me by the pleasure of seeing my father’s name and mine traced on this column of opposition, the presage of other resistances which afterwards assumed such grave importance.... From one end of the kingdom to the other, people made a point of honor of the opposition; to lofty minds it seemed a duty, to generous men a virtue, to the philosophers a useful weapon to regain liberty; in fine, a means of becoming conspicuous, and, so to say, a fashion which the young seized upon with ardor. The Parliaments made remonstrances, the preachers sermons, the philosophers books, the young courtiers epigrams. Feeling that the government was in unskilful hands, everybody defied a government which no longer inspired either confidence or respect.”

Madame Du Barry, little adapted to political contests, was all surprise at her victory. Marie Antoinette had seen, and not without keen vexation, the downfall of a friend devoted to the house of Austria. Alarmed by this event, Maria Theresa desired her daughter to treat the powerful favorite with deference. But the disgust which this woman inspired in the Dauphiness was daily on the increase. Count de Mercy-Argenteau wrote to the Empress, September 2, 1771: “Your Majesty will have deigned to observe in my first and very humble report, that Monsieur the Dauphin had approved of my representations as to the utility it would be to Madame the Dauphiness not to treat the Countess Du Barry too badly. This point appears to me more essential than ever, because it is the focus of all the annoyances and regrettable proceedings into which the King might allow himself to be drawn in order to show his resentment toward his children. The occasions which I have had to see this favorite have given me an opportunity to become acquainted with her; she seems to have little intelligence, and much levity and vanity, yet without displaying a wicked or hateful character. It is very easy to make her talk, and in many cases one can profit largely by her indiscretion. I am certain that if Madame the Dauphiness could be induced to speak to her only once, it would then be very easy for me to curb any further pretensions and to prevent the thousand embarrassments arising from the singular position of the interior of this court.”

Maria Theresa abounded in the same sense as her ambassador. She wrote a letter, September 30, 1771, to Marie Antoinette, in which she recommended her to treat Madame Du Barry as a lady admitted to the court and the society of the King. Declaring that the Dauphiness, as first subject of the sovereign, owed obedience and submission to Louis XV., she added: “You owe the example to the court and the courtiers, that the wishes of your master should be executed. If base actions or familiarities were required of you, neither I nor any one else could counsel them to you, but an indifferent word, certain attentions, not for the lady, but for your grandfather, your master, your benefactor!” In spite of all Maria Theresa could say, it was none the less regrettable that a grandfather should wish to impose such an associate on the wife of his grandson.

This was a real suffering for the legitimate pride of Marie Antoinette. “The ascendancy taken by the Countess Du Barry over the King’s mind has scarcely any bounds,” wrote Count de Mercy, December 19, 1771; “it visibly influences whatever concerns the royal family, and the more the favorite is mortified by ill treatment, the more use she seeks to make of advantageous moments to show her resentment.” Count de Mercy, acting on the instructions of the Empress, did not cease trying to induce the Dauphiness to be polite to the favorite, and ended by gaining his cause in a certain measure. He relates it with satisfaction in a letter written to Maria Theresa, August 14, 1772. He says that Madame Du Barry having arrived after the King’s Mass, with the Duchess d’Aiguillon, “Madame the Dauphiness spoke to the latter; turning toward the favorite afterward, she made some remarks about the weather and the hunting parties, in such a way that, without directly addressing the Countess Du Barry, the latter might nevertheless believe that these remarks were made to her as much as to the Duchess d’Aiguillon. Nothing more was needed to make the favorite very well contented. The King, apprised of what had passed, seemed much satisfied with it, and showed as much to Madame the Dauphiness by the little attentions he paid her the same evening at the state dinner.”

Marie Antoinette, however, in spite of her desire to conform to her mother’s recommendations, could not conceal the repugnance inspired in her by the woman whose favor was such a shameful scandal.

In a letter addressed to her mother, January 21, 1772, the Dauphiness was unable to dissimulate her feelings of revolt against certain requirements: “Madame my very dear mother,” said she, “you may well believe that I will always sacrifice my prejudices and repugnances, so long as nothing ostentatious or contrary to honor is proposed to me. It would be the unhappiness of my life if misunderstandings arose between my two families; my heart will always be for my own, my duties here will be very hard to fulfil. I shudder at this idea.”

Marie Antoinette’s noble candor stung Maria Theresa to the quick. The Empress, accustomed to domination both as mother and sovereign, replied to her daughter, February 13: “You have made me laugh by fancying that either I or my minister could ever give you counsels against honor, or even against the least decorum. Such traits show what a hold prejudices and unwise counsels have on your mind. Your agitation after a few words makes one tremble for you. What interest could I have but your good and even that of your State, the Dauphin’s happiness and your own, the critical situation in which you and all the realm and the family find yourselves, the intrigues and factions? Who can advise you better than my minister, who knows the kingdom thoroughly and the instruments at work there.... It is necessary to follow all the counsels, without exception, which he will give you, and, by a measured and consistent course of conduct to undertake to satisfy everybody.”

If Maria Theresa insisted with so much vivacity, it was because she knew that at this very moment the powers hostile to Austria were redoubling their efforts to conciliate the favorite and break the alliance between the courts of Vienna and Versailles. “We know for sure,” she wrote to her ambassador, “that England and the King of Prussia want to gain over the Du Barry; you ought to know better than I if you think the thing is so. The King is constant in his friendships, and I dare appeal to his heart; but he is feeble, his surroundings do not leave him time to think.... If France smirks with Prussia, which will surely betray her, then I must tell you that this is the only point where I could not prevent myself from changing, even to my great regret; but that would be infallible. To prevent these evils and annoyances for the monarchy and the family everything must be employed, and there is no one but my daughter, the Dauphiness, assisted by your counsels and acquaintance with the locality, who could render this service to her family and her country. Above all, she must cultivate the good graces of the King by her assiduity and affection; let her try to divine his thoughts, avoid shocking him in any way, and treat the favorite well. I do not require base actions, still less intimacies, but the attentions due in consideration of her grandfather and master, and of the good which may result for us and our two courts; perhaps the alliance depends on it.” O nothingness of human grandeurs! A woman of mind, of heart, of genius, a Maria Theresa, subordinating the friendships of the most powerful empires on earth, the maintenance of the general equilibrium, the destinies of Europe, to the goodwill of a Du Barry! The unfortunate Marie Antoinette, more to be pitied than envied, in spite of all her éclat, her beauty, and prestige, began to become what she was to be until her death: the victim of policy.