THE SCAFFOLD OF MADAME DU BARRY

The fatal year, 1793, has sounded. Nineteen years have elapsed since the death of Louis XV. How many changes! What revolutions! No throne, no altars, no aristocracy. Versailles is a solitude. There are sick-beds in the gilded galleries. Sheep browse in the gardens. Grass grows between the flagstones of the courtyards. The fountains are dry. The marble statues, the bronze groups, are thrown down or mutilated. The greatest crime in all French history has just been accomplished; the head of the son of Saint Louis, the Most Christian King, has fallen on the scaffold.

What has become of Madame Du Barry in the tempest? Where is that woman who contributed so greatly to the enfeebling of the monarchical principle, and, consequently, to the present catastrophes? Since October, 1792, she has been in London. She has not emigrated, and it was only after having made herself all right with the authorities of the day that she went to England to prosecute legally the authors of the robberies committed at Luciennes. The guilty persons have crossed the Channel, and Madame Du Barry is searching for them.

But before speaking of this pursuit, let us go back a little and recall the fate of the favorite after the accession of Louis XVI. Exiled at first to a convent in the suburbs of Metz, the abbey of the Bernardines of Pont-aux-Dames, she received after a few months an authorization to return to her dear pavilion of Luciennes. Her affairs, which at first had been embarrassed on account of enormous debts, were nearly settled. She always lived in great luxury, with a numerous household. Many of her relations with the court had remained unbroken, and though it seems that she gave her royal lover more than one successor, she retained a sort of mundane veneration for his memory. Distinguished foreigners always made a point of being presented to the late King’s mistress.

When the Emperor Joseph II. came to pay a visit to his sister, Marie Antoinette, he went to Luciennes and walked in the garden with the Countess Du Barry. His Imperial Royal and Apostolic Majesty offered her his arm. In her later years the Countess had made a conquest of an accomplished gentleman, the Duke de Cossé-Brissac, a true type of the great noble, heroically brave and exquisitely courteous. Not merely did the Duke take Madame Du Barry seriously, but he showed her as much attention and respect as to the highest placed lady in the kingdom. To enthusiastic admiration he united the most vivid and profound attachment. As has been said by MM. de Goncourt, there is in this attachment of M. de Brissac such a bestowal of himself, such delicate attentions, such eagerness to oblige, so profound a worship, that it troubles and disconcerts one’s judgment on the woman esteemed worthy of such a love. Still beautiful, Madame Du Barry thought herself destined to a happy and tranquil ending, since she had disarmed her enemies themselves by her sweetness, gaiety, and good nature. Luciennes was still a delightful place. But the storm was rumbling in the distance, and the Countess, always improvident, had reckoned without the revolutionary tide which was rising, rising incessantly, and which was to submerge all.

Madame Du Barry will abjure neither the court nor the monarchy. The woman of the people will remain a royalist, not forgetting that she is a countess and has been the mistress of a king. In 1789, after the October Days, she had sheltered the body-guards at Luciennes and carefully tended their wounds. The Queen had thanked her for this courageous act, and the former favorite of Louis XV. had written to the wife of Louis XVI. a letter cited in the Memoirs of Count d’Allonville, in which she thus expressed herself: “These wounded youths have no other regret than that of not having died for a princess so worthy of all homage as is Your Majesty. What I have done for these heroes is far less than they deserve. I console them, and I venerate their wounds when I think, Madame, that but for their devotion Your Majesty would perhaps be no more.

“Luciennes is yours, Madame; was it not your benevolence which restored it to me? All that I possess came to me from the royal family: I have too much gratitude ever to forget it. The late King, by a sort of presentiment, forced me to accept a thousand precious objects before removing me from his person. I had the honor to send you this treasure at the time of the meeting of the notables; I offer it to you again, Madame, with eagerness. You have so many expenses to provide for, and numberless benefits to confer!”

In 1791, Madame Du Barry had spent several days in Paris at the house of the Duke de Brissac. Thieves profited by her absence from Luciennes to enter the pavilion of the château and possess themselves of the magnificent gems contained in the jewel cases of the Countess. Then they had carried their spoil across the Channel. The next year, the Duke de Brissac had been massacred at Versailles. He left a will in which, speaking of his daughter, Madame de Mortemart, whom he made his universal legatee: “I earnestly recommend to her a person who is very dear to me, and whom the misfortunes of the times may reduce to the greatest distress. My daughter will have a codicil from me which will indicate to her what I ordain on this subject.”

The codicil contained an important legacy to Madame Du Barry. “I beg her,” said the Duke, “to accept this feeble pledge of my sentiments and my gratitude, for which I am all the more her debtor because I was the involuntary cause of the loss of her diamonds; and if she ever succeeds in getting them back from England, those which remain lost, and the cost of the different journeys rendered necessary by the search for them, in addition to the reward to be paid, would amount to the actual value of this legacy. I entreat my daughter to make her accept it. My knowledge of her heart assures me of the exactitude with which she will acquit herself of it, whatever may be the charges with which my estate will be burdened by my testament and my codicil, it being my will that none of my other legacies shall be paid until this one has been entirely accomplished.”

The theft of the jewels was to prove fatal to the Countess. She had been so imprudent, in this time of jealousies and hatreds, as to attract public attention to her riches by posting on the walls of Luciennes and its environs a bill whereon might be read: “Two thousand louis reward: diamonds and jewels lost.” Then followed an enumeration of the diamonds, pearls, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. Greed was aroused. The village of Luciennes had its club; it was claimed there that the Countess possessed countless treasures, that incalculable riches were concealed in the pavilion, that it was the mine from which the royalists drew with full hands, that the Countess was going to direct and pay the reactionaries.

M. Sardou has said: “When History makes a drama, she makes it well.” The true historic drama, that which is no fiction but reality, has its vicissitudes, its contrasts, its gradations. It has above all its traitors. Do you remember Zamora, that child of Bengal, whom the mistress of Luciennes had held at the baptismal font and whom she had overwhelmed with benefits, that little negro who carried a parasol over the favorite’s head, and whose inky blackness threw into relief the snowy whiteness of the Countess’s visage? Well, the miserable Zamora is a traitor. In league with Madame Du Barry’s former steward, he is the accomplice of one Greive, who styles and signs himself “Official defender of the brave sans-culottes of Luciennes, friend of Franklin and of Marat, factionist and anarchist of the first rank, disorganizer of despotism in the two hemispheres for twenty years.” This hideous crew pursues the Countess with its hatred. She is a prey that the tigers who scent the odor of blood will be sure to find the way to devour. Zamora has sworn that he will make his benefactress ascend the scaffold, and Zamora will keep his word.

Madame Du Barry had made four journeys to England in pursuit of those who stole her jewels. Her last stay on the other side of the Channel had lasted four months and a half, from the middle of October, 1792, to the beginning of March, 1793. Why did this woman, who certainly did not shine by her courage, conceive the fatal idea of returning to France? Was the fear of never seeing again the treasures hidden in the pavilion of Luciennes stronger than her sentiment of prudence? Or rather, was not the victim dragged on by a sort of inexplicable fatality, by the vertigo, the fascination, of the abyss?

She leaves London, March 3, 1793, lands at Calais the 5th, is detained there until the 18th to await new passports, and arrives at Luciennes the 19th. She finds seals on the pavilion. Zamora and his accomplices, that band of infamous servants to whom Madame Du Barry had been so gentle, kind, and generous, ruthlessly continued their odious denunciations. The Convention rendered, June 2, a decree expressed in these terms: “The constituted authorities, throughout the whole extent of the Republic, shall be obliged to have seized and placed in arrest all persons notoriously suspected of incivism.” Madame Du Barry’s persecutors availed themselves of this decree to arrest her. Once she has been released and reinstated in her pavilion. But hatred is not discouraged. The wretches take an address to the Convention in which, speaking in the name of “the brave sans-culottes of Luciennes,” they call for the definitive arrest of a woman who, say they, “has been able, by means of her riches and her caresses learned at the court of a feeble and dissolute monarch, to escape, in spite of her notoriously incivic relations, from the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and has made her château the centre of liberticide projects against Paris.” The Convention applauds this stupid language and felicitates the commune of Luciennes on its patriotism. The thing is done. Madame Du Barry is ruined.

September 22, surrounded by gendarmes, she quits the pavilion of Luciennes, which she is never again to see. She is transferred to the prison of Sainte-Pelagie, where she is placed in the chamber that had been occupied by Queen Marie Antoinette. What funereal presentiments! What alarms! What dismal thoughts! In her prison, she who had been the mistress of Louis XV. could think of the corpse of her royal lover. A few days before, August 10, the Convention had executed its decree concerning the violation of the tombs of Saint Denis, of that Saint Denis which the favorite formerly beheld from the heights of the terrace of Luciennes. They had exhumed “these former kings and queens, princes and princesses.” They had broken the coffins, and melted the lead of them. The corpse of Louis XV., like that of Louis XIV. and his predecessors, had been cast into the common pit.

The Countess Du Barry shudders. Now it is her time to die. December 7, 1793, at nine o’clock in the morning, she appears all trembling before the revolutionary tribunal. Fouquier-Tinville is spokesman, in virtue of his office as public prosecutor, and in his requisition he yields to what he calls “his indignation as an honest man and a patriot.” He declaims in that cruel and inflated jargon, odious and grotesque, of which this infamous epoch has the secret. He declares that he “does not wish, through modesty, to lift the veil which should cover forever the frightful vices of the court.” The modesty of Fouquier-Tinville!... Several of the former domestics of Madame Du Barry, Zamora at their head, are cowardly enough to depose against her. The penalty of death is pronounced. The poor woman grows pale and totters. The gendarmes are obliged to support her so that she may not fall. She is to mount to-morrow the fatal cart, the bier of the living, as Barrère calls it.

Mad with terror, breathless, the condemned woman passes a night of anguish. She revolves every means of prolonging her existence for some hours, some minutes. She says she will make revelations, she will show at Luciennes the hiding-places of all her jewels, all her treasures. The public prosecutor sends a substitute to her cell. She details, like a woman who is afraid of forgetting something, all the items of her inventory, because she imagines that every word adds a second to her life. But the executioner is waiting. She must go.

It is the 8th of December, 1793. Fifty-three days before, another woman, a queen, had come out of the same prison, the same chamber, to go likewise to execution. The cart was filthy. For a seat a board. On the board neither hay nor straw. Behind the victim, Sanson the executioner, holding the ends of a thick cord which tied the condemned Queen’s arms behind her. A poor comic actress had lent her a gown in which she could decently present herself at the scaffold. Well! in this sorry attire, amidst the yelling of the crowd, on a cold morning in October, the daughter of the Cæsars had been more sublime, more majestic, than on the throne. Dressed in white, like a phantom, a little red on the cheekbones, but otherwise pale, the eyes injected, not with tears, but blood, the hair whitened by grief, she was to the very end calm, serene, magnanimous, and regarded with mildness and compassion the infernal tumult that surrounded her. For one instant only did her impassible features betray emotion. When the cart was passing rue Saint Honoré, opposite the Oratory, a little child in its mother’s arms threw a kiss to the Queen, and at this salute of innocence Marie Antoinette wept. On arriving at Calvary, she sadly contemplated that sacrilegious spot where her husband had been executed, that accursed spot where, twenty years before, had occurred a catastrophe which was an omen. She turned her eyes toward that cemetery of the Madeleine where the victims were then entombed, and where her own headless body was soon to be placed. Then she cast a last glance toward the Tuileries, which to her had been so fatal, the Tuileries, her first prison, and, happening to step on the foot of the executioner, she said to him with queenly politeness: “Sir, I beg your pardon.” She died, but it was the death of heroines and martyrs. She died, but the purple of her blood has covered her with a second royal mantle, and her head, cut off, is resplendent with the flames of an aureole which will shine from age to age. She died, but the pure, the radiant angels have borne her beautiful soul to heaven.

Madame Du Barry does herself justice. She feels that she cannot have so magnificent a death. The apotheosis of the saint is not for her, but the expiation of the sinner. The wife of Louis XVI. had looked death in the face. The mistress of Louis XV. will not have that courage. She is frightened, she sobs, she utters such heartrending cries that it is much if the Terror itself, the unpitying Terror, is not for the first time moved to compassion.

As the cart passes in front of the Palais Royal, the victim perceives the balcony of a millinery establishment from which a number of working-women are looking at the funereal procession. She recognizes the house; it was there she worked as a milliner’s apprentice when a very young girl. Alas! why did she become Madame the Countess Du Barry? Her countenance is by turns of a livid pallor or a deep red. She struggles so between the executioner and his two assistants that they can hardly keep her on her bench. Her cries redouble. “Life! life!” she says; “only let them leave me life, and I will give all my property to the nation.” Then, from the crowd, a man replies: “You would only give the nation what belongs to it, since the tribunal has just confiscated your property.” A charcoal peddler, standing in front of this man, turns round and gives him a slap in the face. The victim begins anew her supplications. “My friends,” she cries, “my friends, I have never done harm to any one! In the name of heaven, I beg you, save me!” Who knows? the stocking-knitters themselves, the furies who lick the guillotine, are perhaps going to be affected by these accents of the woman of the people. This time it is not a queen who is about to die; it is a countess, but a countess who was first a working-woman. The horses are whipped up, the end is hastened to stop the compassion of the crowd. At last the cart arrives at the place which was formerly called Place Louis XV.; there where once rose the statue of the monarch, the scaffold is erected where they are going to execute his mistress. It is half-past four o’clock. “Help! help!” she cries. “Mercy! mercy! Monsieur Executioner! Once more....” The knife falls. It is all over with Madame Du Barry.

Had we not reason to say, at the beginning of this study, that history is a long funeral oration? Ah! as Virgil has said, there are tears in things, and all that is mortal affects our soul:—

_Sunt lacrymæ rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt._

If we confine ourselves to the surface of the ages, we remain cold, indifferent; but if we descend to their depths, if we penetrate the secret of souls, if we lend an attentive ear to voices from beyond the tomb, to the groanings, the cries of anguish issuing from the abyss of the past, we are possessed by an invincible sadness, a salutary melancholy. We perceive, in the language of Bourdaloue, “that all these grandeurs on which the world glorifies itself and the pride of man is fed, that this birth on which they pique themselves, this credit which flatters them, this authority of which they are so proud, these successes of which they vaunt, these goods in which they glory, these charges and dignities of which they take advantage, this beauty, valor, reputation which they idolize, is nothing but a lie.” The lessons of history are neither less instructive nor less eloquent than the best sermons of the preachers. All destinies have their conclusion and all deaths their instruction. One feels surrounded by a host of phantoms, sometimes livid, sometimes bloody, whose sepulchral aspect causes a shudder, and whose dismal voices say: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou must return.—_Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris._”

Behold the women of the court of Louis XV.; behold the royal mistresses, once so flattered, who appear for the last time, and one after another take up the word!

“I,” says the Countess de Mailly, “when banished by an earthly king, found my consolation at the feet of the King of heaven. I have wept sincerely for my faults, and God, in His mercy, has deigned to grant me time for repentance.”

“I,” says the Countess de Vintimille, “had barely crossed the threshold of that fatal château of Versailles, when stricken as by a thunderbolt, I died in giving birth to the infant of my crime.”

“I also,” says the Duchess de Châteauroux, “I passed like the grass of the field which withers in a day. Crushed by affronts and anguish, I lost my miserable sceptre, and at the moment when I seized it again, I died very young, I died enwrapped in my shameful triumph as in the most sorry of shrouds.”

“And I,” says the Marquise de Pompadour, “never tasted a single instant of real happiness in all my twenty years of power. I had everything except the esteem which cannot be bought. At the bottom of my intrigues and pretended pleasures I found only nothingness. My conscience spoke louder than my flatterers; I felt my own wretchedness. My life, brilliant externally, was inwardly replenished with sorrow and darkness. A sorceress had predicted it to me: I died of nothing but chagrin.”

“I,” says the Countess Du Barry, the last of the royal mistresses, she whose execution is as it were the summing up, the symbol of the expiations, “I have paid very dear for the enjoyments of luxury and sensuality; I knew neither how to live nor how to die. At an epoch when heroism was a common thing, I weakened, I was afraid, I shuddered on the scaffold!”

After the favorites, it is the turn of the sovereign whose fatal love was the cause of all their misfortunes.

“I,” he says, “have seen, like the Preacher, all that is done under the sun, and I have found that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. I became voluntarily the victim of guilty passions which, when once the inebriation was over, left nothing in the soul but a painful stupor and a cruelly felt void. I was disgusted with others and with myself. I did not believe in the prestige of my own crown, and in spite of my riches, my power, my ability to realize all my caprices, there was incarnated in me that gnawing evil, ennui. If my weaknesses have given scandal, horrible has been the chastisement. I have been punished in myself and punished in my race, punished as man, punished as king.”

When, in the silence of mind and heart one has just listened to these lessons of history and death, one reflects. After meditating on instructions so austere, one finds the problems of human destiny less insoluble, and recognizing the point from which things must be viewed, one discovers, as Bossuet says, that what at first seems confusion is in fact only concealed art, an ensemble of combinations admirably ordained by Providence. Then earthly grandeurs appear in their true light, and one feels better, calmer, less ambitious, less disposed to complain of the inequalities of fate. The shades of princes and princesses, of great lords and ladies, have their mysterious language, and all combine to say in unison these words from the _Imitation of Christ_, the most affecting and purest of all books, if the Gospel did not exist:—

“It is vanity to amass perishable riches and place one’s hope in them.

“It is vanity to seek for honors and elevate one’s self to the chief places.

“It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh and to love that which in the end will merit rigorous chastisements.

“It is vanity to desire long life and to be so little concerned to have it good.

“It is vanity to think only of present things and not to foresee those that are to come.

“It is vanity to love that which passes so quickly, and not to be eager to gain heaven where joy endures forever.”

FOOTNOTES

[1] Residences of the Duke of Orleans and the Prince of Condé, then in disgrace for having taken sides with the former Parliament against that of Chancellor Maupeou.

[2] The Duke de Choiseul’s place of exile.

[3] M. Taine, _Les Origines de la France Contemporaine_.

[4] Grimm, _Correspondance littéraire_, 1770.

[5] Memoirs of Madame du Hausset.

[6] Manuscript Memoirs of Regnaud, procureur to the Parliament of Paris at the time of the _coup d’État_ of 1771.

[7] Manuscript Memoirs of Siméon Prosper Hardy.

[8] M. Charles Aubertin, _L’Esprit public au XVIIIe siècle_.

[9] La Bruyère.

[10] Massillon.

[11] The Marquis d’Argenson.

[12] _Gustave III. et la cour de France_, by M. A. Geffroy.

[13] _Memoirs of the Duc de Lauzun._

[14] Marivaux, _La Réunion des Amours_.

[15] Buffon, _Discours sur la nature des animaux_.

[16] Messrs. de Goncourt, _L’Amour au XVIIIe Siècle_, a very witty and pleasant volume. Dentu.

[17] Messrs. de Goncourt.

[18] M. Taine, _Origines de la France contemporaine_.

[19]

When Boufflers appeared at court, People thought they saw the mother of Love; Every one was eager to please her, And every one did so in his turn.

[20] Duke de Levis, _Souvenirs et portraits_.

[21] Prosper Mérimée, article in the _Moniteur Universel_ of April 29, 1867.

[22] See M. Grasset’s fine study, _Madame de Choiseul et son temps_.

[23] Now the Ministry of War.

[24] She was born in 1699.

[25] See the excellent introduction by M. Charles de Morey prefaced to the _Correspondance du roi Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et de Madame Geoffrin_, a very interesting volume, published by Plon.

[26] See the remarkable study by M. Lescure prefaced to the _Correspondance de la Marquise Du Deffand_. 2 vol. Plon.

[27] M. Taine, _Origines de la France contemporaine_.

[28] January 25, 1766.

[29]

And my hand would twist the entrails of the priest, Lacking another cord to strangle kings.

[30] Letter of March 17, 1771.

[31] Letter of January 25, 1766.

[32] Letter of October 19, 1765.

[33] Letter of December 5, 1765.

[34] The Carthusian convent at Paris, rue d’Enfer. At that time Lesueur’s Saint Bruno, now in the Louvre, might be seen there.

[35] _Gustave III. et la Cour de France_, par M. A. Geffroy.

[36] Memoirs of Madame Campan.

[37] The house is No. 2 at present.

[38] The wisest takes fire and pledges himself without knowing how.

[39] Sénac de Meilhan, _Portraits et Caractères des personnes distinguées de la fin du XVIIIe. siècle_.

[40]

Long live the King! The deuce take Love! The rogue has played me a trick Which may take down my presumption. The Du Barry, cold as ice to me, Is about, they say, to change my destiny. Of old I owed my fortune to wantons; I am going then to owe them my disgrace.

[41]

Here thy journey begins. If thou wert never to return!... Thy poor mother has no courage To leave thee, to bless thee. Labor well, say thy prayer; Prayer gives courage; And think sometimes of thy mother, That will bring thee happiness. Adieu, my child, adieu! To God’s grace I commend thee!...

She goes, the gentle exile, To earn her bread ’neath other skies; A long time yet, in the valley, The poor mother follows her with her eyes; Then, when her bitter sorrow Is no longer witnessed by her child, She weeps, poor mother, For the child who says from afar: Adieu, mother, adieu! To God’s grace I commend thee!...

[42] Madame the Countess d’Armaillé, _La Mère et la Fille_, (Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette).

[43] Memoirs of Madame Campan.

[44]

Sire, the great of your state Behold with much pain A princess of Lorraine Preferred before them at the ball. If Your Highness project This affront to inflict, They will cut off their queues, And all dancing refuse. Take heed: all is said, The league has been made. Signed: the Bishop of Noyon, La Veaupalière, Beaufremont, Clermont, Laval and De Villette.

[45] Room No. 115 of M. Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_.

[46] Room No. 117 of M. Soulié’s _Notice du Musée_.

[47] _Souvenirs de Baron de Gleichen_, preceded by a notice by M. Paul Grimblot.

[48] See M. de Grasset’s interesting work, _Madame de Choiseul et son Temps_. 1 vol. Didier.

[49] See M. de Lescure’s interesting work: _La Princesse de Lamballe_.

[50]

Pious like Boaz, gentle though austere, You love mankind and yet the Lord you fear. One prop your family yet lacks, alas! You wed not Ruth, who takes a daughter’s place.

[51] Count de Mercy-Argenteau’s letter to Maria Theresa, February 25, 1771.

[52]

Yes, that Maupeou, alone, from the labyrinth of the laws Has been able to withdraw the crown, That he alone has returned it to the palace of our kings, This is what I have seen, this is what amazes me. I avow with antiquity That its heroes are admirable; But, unfortunately, they are fables; And this is the verity.

[53]

What! two kisses toward the end of my life! What a passport you deign to send me! Two! that is one too many, adorable Egeria, I shall be dead of pleasure at the first one.

[54]

You cannot prevent this homage, The feeble tribute of all who have eyes. ’Tis for mortals to adore your image, The original was made for the gods.

[55] _Les Maîtresses de Louis XV._, by MM. de Goncourt.

[56]

Over thy double portrait, charming Du Barry, The perplexed spectator wishes to admire thee everywhere; If thou changest thy sex before his eyes, He has only to change his taste. If he sees thee as woman, in his soul He feels all the pleasure of being man; Thou becomest man, And suddenly he is all desire to be a woman.

[57] Room No. 126 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Soulié.

[58] Room No. 120 of the _Notice du Musée de Versailles_, by M. Soulié.

[59]

There thou art, poor Louis, In a coffin at Saint Denis! There doth grandeur expire. For a long time, one must needs say, Incompetent to give the law, Thou hast borne the idle name of king Under the tutelage and the empire Of tyrants who reigned for thee.

Wert thou good? It is a problem Which can easily be resolved. A good prince never causes The wretchedness of a people who love him, And one cannot call good A king without restraint or reason, Who lives for no one but himself....

Feeble, timid, insincere, And caressing more than ever Him who had managed to displease thee, Up to the moment when of thy wrath He was about to feel the effects: That, I think, was thy character. Lover of loose speeches, Famous drinker, and king celebrated For hunting and for wantons: That is thy funeral oration.

INDEX

Adelaide, Madame, 146, 167, 191.

Agen, Duke d’, his words concerning Madame Louise, 111.

Argenson, Marquis d’, his words prophetic of revolution, 24.

Artois, Count d’, his character, 144, 145, 174, 191.

Atheism in France, Walpole’s words concerning, 68, 72; Diderot’s words concerning, 71.

Barbier, quoted, 68.

Beaumarchais, 26; the hero of the day, 27; censured by the court, 27, 28.

Beaumont, Christopher de, Archbishop of Paris, visits Louis XV. during the King’s last illness, 191.

Beauvais, Abbé de, 20.

Boufflers, Duke de, 52.

Boufflers, Madame de, 56; her words at death of Louis XV., 195, 196.

Breteuil, Baron de, 84.

Brissac, M. de, see Cossé-Brissac, Duke de.

Broglie, Count de, engaged in secret diplomacy, 83, 84.

Buffon, his words concerning love, 47-50.

Campan, Madame, quoted, 79; reads to Madame Louise, 105, 106; visits Madame Louise at Saint Denis, 110; her words concerning dinners of royal family, 146; her words concerning Madame Sophie, 147.

Carmelite convent at Saint Denis, the, 107 _et seq._

Catherine II., Czarina, 58; Diderot’s adoration of, 71.

Chamfort, his definition of love, 46.

Chartres, Duke de, 155.

Chateaubriand, his words concerning society during last years of Louis XV., 87, 181.

Châteauroux, Duchess de, quoted, 212.

Choiseul, Duchess de, her salon, 54; her sound sense, 54; her criticism of Rousseau, 54-56; her purity, 56; words of Walpole concerning, 56.

Choiseul, Duke de, character of, 88, 89; his enemies, 89, 97; his attitude toward Madame Du Barry, 101-104; his power weakening, 104; meets Marie Antoinette, 132; his downfall, 151-155; exiled, 155, 156.

Church, a revolution forming against, 25.

Clergy of France during last years of Louis XV., 18-21.

Clotilde, Madame, 145.

Cossé-Brissac, Duke de, his attachment to Madame Du Barry, 200, 201; massacred, 202; his legacy to Madame Du Barry, 202, 203.

D’Aiguillon, 187, 190.

D’Alembert, 51; his love for Mademoiselle de Lespinasse, 62, 67.

Dauphin, the, marriage of, to Marie Antoinette, 121; letter to, from Marie Antoinette, 121; meets Marie Antoinette, 132; celebration of his marriage, 136-142; his character, 144; his hostility to Choiseul, 154, 191; his words at death of Louis XV., 193; departs for Choisy, 193.

Deer Park, 80, 85, 90, 98.

Deffand, Marquise du, the salon of, 57, 60-63; compared with Madame Geoffrin, 60; her blindness, 60; her wit and satire, 62; her letters, 62; Voltaire’s fear of, 62; her religious inclinations, 65; her words on life and death, 65, 66; her affection for Horace Walpole, 66; her criticism of Madame Louise, 111.

Desalleurs, Count, 84.

Diderot, his words concerning atheism, 71; his adoration for the Empress Catherine II., 71.

Du Barry, Count Jean, 94, 95.

Du Barry, Count William, his marriage, 95.

Du Barry, Madame, Louis XV.’s passion for, 9, 42; suit between heirs of, 91-93; her birth, 92; her early years, 93; called Mademoiselle l’Ange, 94; delights Louis XV., 94; her marriage, 95; becomes mistress of Louis XV., 95; presented at Versailles, 97, 98; her apartments at Versailles, 98; her house in the city and her riches, 99; her personal charms, 99, 100; Walpole’s words concerning, 100, 101; her position at court, 101-104; her attitude toward Duke de Choiseul, 101-104; her words concerning Madame Louise, 112; her relations to Marie Antoinette, 150 _et seq._; her victory over Choiseul, 151-155; her attitude towards Parliament, 177, 178; letter to, from Voltaire, 179, 180; feelings of the people for, 180, 181; makes her mother Marquise de Montrable, 181; compared with Madame de Pompadour, 179, 181, 186, 187; her life after death of Louis XV., 200 _et seq._; her conquest of the Duke de Cossé-Brissac, 200, 201; shelters royal body-guards at Luciennes, 201; her letter offering hospitality of Luciennes to Marie Antoinette, 201, 202; her pavilion at Luciennes robbed, 202, 203; her trips to England, 199, 204; betrayed by her servants, 204-206; taken from Luciennes to prison, 206; appears before the revolutionary tribunal, 206, 207; condemned to death, 207; her execution, 209, 210, 212.

Durfort, Marquis de, demands Marie Antoinette for the Dauphin, 121.

Egmont, Countess d’, 42.

Elisabeth, Madame, 145.

Eon, Chevalier d’, 83.

Epinay, Madame d’, her words concerning modesty, 47.

Étioles, Lenormand d’, 186.

Encyclopedists, Madame Geoffrin’s attitude towards, 64.

Fouquier-Tinville, 206, 207.

Francis, Emperor, 116, 117.

Gassner, forecasts future of Marie Antoinette, 117.

Genet, Mademoiselle, afterwards Madame Campan; see Madame Campan.

Geoffrin, Madame, her salon, 57-60; her husband, 57; her character and manners, 59; the greatest nobles pay court to her, 58; her visits to Warsaw and Vienna, 58, 117, 118; Walpole’s admiration for, 59, 60; compared with Madame du Deffand, 60; her relations toward the Encyclopedists, 64; meets Marie Antoinette, 118.

Gleichen, Baron de, 151, 152.

Goethe, his words concerning marriage of Marie Antoinette, 128.

Goëzman, Counsellor, 26, 27.

Guibert, M. de, Mademoiselle de Lespinasse’s love for, 67.

Gustavus III. of Sweden, letters to, 41-43, 177.

Henriette, Madame, 86.

Joseph II., Emperor, his visit to Luciennes, 200.

Laborde, M. de, 179; his _Pandora_, 180.

La Bruyère, quoted, 68.

La Harpe, 51.

La Marck, Countess de, 43.

Lamballe, Princess de, 173.

Lespinasse, Mademoiselle de, her salon, 57, 63; sketch of, 62, 63; her unhappy love, 67.

Lorraine, Mademoiselle de, accorded preference by Louis XV. in the minuet at Marie Antoinette’s marriage festivities, 137-140.

Louise of France, Madame, in the Convent of the Carmelites, 104; her preparation for convent life, 105, 106; obtains permission to enter the religious state, 107; letters to, from the King and her sisters, 107-110; enters convent at Saint Denis, 107, 108; visited by Madame Campan, 110; criticisms of, 111; her life of religious devotion, 112-114; visited by Marie Antoinette, 133; takes the habit of the Carmelites, 147, 148.

Louis XV., the court during last years of, 2 _et seq._; his old age, 9 _et seq._; a _pater_ dedicated to, 9; feelings of the people towards, 12, 85, 86; a type of the ancient _régime_, 12; his character, 12-14; his passion for Madame Du Barry, 9; his victory over Parliament, 12, 13, 25; his words to Marshal de Richelieu, 20; his horror of the magistracy, 23; feelings of the middle classes for, 30; love during reign of, 45-50; suffers family bereavements, 79, 80; his attention to Marie Leczinska in her last illness, 80; urged to lead a virtuous life, 80; his apathy and indifference, 81, 82, 88; his secret intriguing policy, 82-84; his lack of will, 85; his personal appearance during later years, 85; the personification of his epoch, 87; makes Madame Du Barry his mistress, 94, 95; closes establishment at Deer Park, 98; gives Madame Du Barry a house in the city, 99; grants Madame Louise permission to enter the religious state, 107; his letters to Madame Louise, 107, 108; meets Marie Antoinette, 132; accords Mademoiselle de Lorraine preference in the minuet at Marie Antoinette’s marriage celebration, 137-140; his affection for Marie Antoinette, 145; his reply to Choiseul, 152; dismisses Choiseul, 155; at the pavilion of Luciennes, 181-183, 185; forbodes his death, 188, 189; his melancholy, 188; criticised, 189; taken ill with smallpox at the Little Trianon, 190; urged to receive extreme unction, 190; on his deathbed, 192; receives communion, 192, 193; dies, 193; Count de Ségur’s words at death of, 194; his burial, 195; public indignities to corpse of, 195, 196; satirical verses on, 196, 197; his words concerning his own life, 213.

Love during reign of Louis XV., 45-50; Chamfort’s definition of, 46; Buffon’s words concerning, 47-50.

Little Trianon, the, 190.

Luciennes, pavilion of, 181-186, 199, 200, 202.

Luxembourg, Maréchale de, 51; her position in society, 52-54; fascinates Rousseau, 53; her manners and conversation, 53, 54.

MacMahon, Julienne de, 113.

Magistracy of France during last years of Louis XV., 22-28; horror of Louis XV. for, 23.

Mailly, Countess de, quoted, 211.

Maria Theresa, Empress, 58; her character, 115, 162, 163; her instruction of Marie Antoinette, 116; consults Gassner concerning future of Marie Antoinette, 117; forms Marie Antoinette after manner of the court of France, 118; her sorrow at parting with Marie Antoinette, 121; her _Rule to be Read Every Month_, 125, 126; urges Marie Antoinette to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 157, 160; her correspondence with Count de Mercy-Argenteau, 162 _et seq._; her jealous watchfulness, 167, 168; her exhortations to Marie Antoinette, 168-172; her tenderness, 170.

Marie Antoinette, 104; her birth, 115; her childhood, 116 _et seq._; loses her father, 117; her future forecast by Gassner, 117; trained to the manner of the court of France, 118; her beauty, 119; her marriage arranged, 120, 121; her letter to the Dauphin, 121; leaves Vienna, 122; chanson addressed to, 123; superstitious presentiments concerning, 124; sees France for the first time, 127; the symbolical ceremony of delivery of, 128, 129; arrives at Strasburg, 130; Prince Louis de Rohan’s address to, 130, 131; her route to Paris, 131-133; meets Duke de Choiseul, the Dauphin, and Louis XV., 132; visits Madame Louise, 133; arrives at Versailles, 134; description of, by Bachaumont, 135, 136; festivities at her marriage, 136-142; her reception by the French people, 143; her affection for Louis XV., 145; her apartment, 145; her daily life, 145, 146; witnesses ceremony of the taking of the veil by Madame Louise, 147, 148; the object of ill-feeling, 149, 150; her relations to Madame Du Barry, 150 _et seq._; advised to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 157, 160; her repugnance for Madame Du Barry, 150, 159; her simple, child-like nature, 164, 165; surrounded by enemies, 149, 150, 166; spied upon, 166, 167; lectured by her mother, Maria Theresa, 168, 169; her filial devotion, 171; the idol of the court, 172, 176; dances in apartments of, 173; goes to Choisy with the Dauphin, 193; invited by Madame Du Barry to come to Luciennes, 201, 202; death of, 207, 208.

Marie Leczinska, 79; last illness and death, 80, 95.

Maupeou Parliament, see Parliament, Maupeou.

Maximilian, Archduke, serves as proxy for the Dauphin in marriage of Marie Antoinette, 121.

Mercy-Argenteau, Count de, 157; urges Marie Antoinette to treat Madame Du Barry deferentially, 158, 159; his correspondence with Maria Theresa, 162 _et seq._; his character, 163, 164.

Middle classes in France during last years of Louis XV., 29-33; their feelings toward Louis XV., 30; religious sentiment among, 32.

Mirepoix, Maréchale de, 56; her criticism of Madame Louise, 111.

Montesquieu, his words concerning the ruling classes of France, 24.

Montrable, Marquise de, 181.

Nobility of France during last years of Louis XV., 15-17; intimacy of, with men of letters, 51.

Ogny, M. d’, 83.

Olbach, Baron d’, 74.

_Pandora_, Laborde’s, 180.

Paris, salons of, see Salons of Paris.

Parliament, victory of Louis XV. over, 12, 13; the Maupeou, 25, 178, 179.

_Pater_, dedicated to Louis XV., 9.

Penthièvre, Duke de, 173.

People, of France during last years of Louis XV., 34-39; La Bruyère’s words concerning, 34; Massillon’s words concerning, 34.

Philosophers, the, during last years of Louis XV., 68-76; their position in society, 69, 70; Walpole’s words concerning, 70, 73, 74; their gravity, 73.

Place Louis XV., catastrophe of, 142, 143.

Poisson, Abel, 187.

Political women, see Women, political.

Pompadour, Madame de, compared with Madame Du Barry, 179, 181, 186, 187; her unhappiness, 212.

Poniatowski, Stanislas, 58.

Provence, Count de, his character, 144, 191.

Richelieu, Marshal de, 100, 191, 192.

Rohan, Prince Louis de, his address to Marie Antoinette, 130, 131.

Rousseau, his _Nouvelle-Héloise_, 49-51; fascinated by the Maréchale de Luxembourg, 53; the Duchess de Choiseul’s criticism of, 54-56.

_Rule to be Read Every Month_, Marie Theresa’s, 125, 126.

Saint-Germain, Count de, 83.

Saint-Priest, M. de, 84.

Salons of Paris, 51 _et seq._

Ségur, Count de, quoted, 86, 87; his words concerning society during last years of Louis XV., 88; his words at death of Louis XV., 194.

Society in France during last years of Louis XV., Chateaubriand’s words concerning, 87; Count de Ségur’s words concerning, 88.

_Society of the Moment_, The, 48.

Sophie, Madame, 146, 147, 191.

Tarouka, Duke de, his wager with the Empress Maria Theresa, 115.

Trianon, the Little, 190.

Vergennes, M. de, 84.

Vermond, Abbé de, instructor of Marie Antoinette, 120.

Versailles, during last years of Louis XV., 9-11; after death of Marie Leczinska, 79; Madame Du Barry’s apartments at, 98; deserted, 199; too vast for Louis XV., 181.

Victoire, Madame, 146, 147, 191.

Vintimille, Countess de, quoted, 212.

Voltaire, 51; his fear of Madame du Deffand, 62, 68; his show of religious devotion, 71, 72; his letter to Madame Du Barry, 179, 180.

Walpole, Horace, letters of, quoted, 11, 51, 52, 56, 59, 68; Madame du Deffand’s affection for, 66; his words concerning the philosophers, 70, 73, 74; his words on atheism, 68, 72; his retirement to Chartreuse, 74; his words concerning Madame Du Barry, 100, 101.

Women of the court of Louis XV., lessons of their lives, 211-214.

Women, political, in France during last years of Louis XV., 40-44.

Zamora, 183, 184; a traitor, 204, 205.

Norwood Press: J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith. Boston, Mass., U.S.A.

FAMOUS WOMEN OF THE FRENCH COURT.

From the French of Imbert de Saint-Amand.

_Each with Portrait, 12mo, $1.25._

_THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE._

MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD RÉGIME. MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY.

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CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

_FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE._

THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS.

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THE YOUTH OF THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULÊME. THE DUCHESS OF ANGOULÊME AND THE TWO RESTORATIONS.

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CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, PUBLISHERS

Former series of M. Imbert de Saint-Amand’s historical works have depicted the great French historical epochs of modern times. The stirring events of the Revolution, of the Consulate and Empire, and of the Restoration period, ending with the July revolution of 1830 and the accession of Louis Philippe, are grouped around the attractive personalities of Marie Antoinette, the Empresses Josephine and Marie Louise, and the Duchesses of Angoulême and of Berry. The remarkable and uniform success of these works has induced the publishers to undertake the translation and publication of a previous series of M. de Saint-Amand’s volumes which deal with epochs more remote, but not for that reason less important, interesting, or instructive. The distinction of the cycle now begun with the “Women of the Valois Court” and ending with “The Last Years of Louis XV.,” is that, whereas in former series several volumes have been devoted to the historical events associated with each of the titular personalities to which they were closely related, in the present instance a more condensed method is followed. The color of the present series is more personal, and therefore more romantic, as is to be expected in the annals of a period during which the famous women of the French Court were not only more numerous but more influential than their successors of later times. The dawn of the modern era, chronicled in M. de Saint-Amand’s “Marie Antoinette and the End of the Old Régime” was the beginning of the extinction of the feminine influence that flourished vigorously in affairs of state from Marguerite of Angoulême to Madame Dubarry. It is the history of this influence that the author has graphically written in the four volumes now announced—“Women of the Valois Court,” “The Court of Louis XIV.,” and “The Court of Louis XV.,” and “The Last Years of Louis XV.”

The first volume is devoted to Marguerite of Angoulême and Catherine de’ Medici and their contemporaries at the French court during the days of the last of the Valois—the most romantic period of royalty probably in all history. The two principal figures are depicted with striking vividness,—the half Catholic, half Protestant sister of Francis I., the grandmother of Henry IV., the author of the famous “Heptameron,” and one of the most admirable historical figures of any epoch; and the diplomatic, ambitious, unscrupulous but extremely human Catherine, universally held responsible for the awful Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. But the subordinate though scarcely less famous women who adorned the Valois Court—Diane de Poitiers, the Duchess d’Étampes, Marguerite of Valois, Marie Stuart, and others—are described with an equally brilliant and illuminating touch.

The volumes on the women of the great Bourbon epoch, the epoch of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., when the Bourbon star was in the zenith, contain a great deal of intimate history as well as setting in relief the interesting personalities of the famous La Vallière and Montespan and that perennial historical enigma, Madame de Maintenon, in the volume devoted to the court of the “Sun King,” and those of Madame de Pompadour, Madame Dubarry, Queen Marie Leczinska, and other celebrities who made Versailles what it was during the long and varied reign of Louis XV. The study of Madame de Maintenon is a real contribution to history, and the pictures of the clever and dazzling beauties who controlled so long the destinies not only of France but measurably of Europe itself from the accession of “le Grand Monarque” to the first threatenings of the Revolution “deluge” are extremely lifelike and skilfully executed. The historical chronicle of the time is by no means lost sight of by the author, but in this series even more than in his works heretofore published in English he appears not only as an interesting and impartial historian, but as a brilliant historical portraitist.

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_THREE VOLUMES ON MARIE ANTOINETTE._

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MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE END OF THE OLD RÉGIME. MARIE ANTOINETTE AT THE TUILERIES. MARIE ANTOINETTE AND THE DOWNFALL OF ROYALTY.

In this series is unfolded the tremendous panorama of political events in which the unfortunate Queen had so influential a share, beginning with the days immediately preceding the Revolution, when court life at Versailles was so gay and unsuspecting, continuing with the enforced journey of the royal family to Paris, and the agitating months passed in the Tuileries, and concluding with the abolition of royalty, the proclamation of the Republic, and the imprisonment of the royal family,—the initial stage of their progress to the guillotine.

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CITIZENESS BONAPARTE. THE WIFE OF THE FIRST CONSUL. THE COURT OF THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE.

The romantic and eventful period beginning with Josephine’s marriage, comprises the astonishing Italian campaign, the Egyptian expedition, the _coup d’état_ of Brumaire, and is described in the first of the above volumes; while the second treats of the brilliant society which issued from the chaos of the Revolution, and over which Madame Bonaparte presided so charmingly; and the third, of the events between the assumption of the imperial title by Napoleon and the end of 1807, including, of course, the Austerlitz campaign.

_FOUR VOLUMES ON THE EMPRESS MARIE LOUISE._

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THE HAPPY DAYS OF MARIE LOUISE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE DECADENCE OF THE EMPIRE. MARIE LOUISE AND THE INVASION OF 1814. MARIE LOUISE, THE RETURN FROM ELBA, AND THE HUNDRED DAYS.

The auspicious marriage of the Archduchess Marie Louise to the master of Europe; the Russian invasion, with its disastrous conclusion a few years later; the Dresden and Leipsic campaign; the invasion of France by the Allies, and the marvellous military strategy of Napoleon in 1814, ending only with his defeat and exile to Elba; his life in his little principality; his romantic escape and dramatic return to France; the preparations of the Hundred Days; Waterloo and the definitive restoration of Louis XVIII. closing the era begun in 1789, with “The End of the Old Régime,”—are the subjects of the four volumes grouped around the personality of Marie Louise.

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THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF LOUIS XVIII. THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE COURT OF CHARLES X. THE DUCHESS OF BERRY AND THE REVOLUTION OF JULY, 1830.

The Princess Marie Caroline, of Naples, became, upon her marriage with the Duke of Berry, the central figure of the French Court during the reigns of both Louis XVIII. and Charles X. The former of these was rendered eventful by the assassination of her husband and the birth of her son, the Count of Chambord, and the latter was from the first marked by those reactionary tendencies which resulted in the dethronement and exile of the Bourbons. The dramatic Revolution which brought about the July monarchy of Louis Philippe, has never been more vividly and intelligently described than in the last volume devoted to the Duchess of Berry.

“_In these translations of this interesting series of sketches, we have found an unexpected amount of pleasure and profit. The author cites for us passages from forgotten diaries, hitherto unearthed letters, extracts from public proceedings, and the like, and contrives to combine and arrange his material so as to make a great many very vivid and pleasing pictures. Nor is this all. The material he lays before us is of real value, and much, if not most of it, must be unknown save to the special students of the period. We can, therefore, cordially commend these books to the attention of our readers. They will find them attractive in their arrangement, never dull, with much variety of scene and incident, and admirably translated._”—THE NATION, _of December 19, 1890_.