Thus miserably perished, by a death fit only for the vilest of criminals, Marie Antoinette, the daughter of one sovereign, the wife of another, who had never wronged or injured one human being. No one was ever more richly endowed with all the charms which render woman attractive, or with all the virtues that make her admirable. Even in her earliest years, her careless and occasionally undignified levity was but the joyous outpouring of a pure innocence of heart that, as it meant no evil, suspected none; while it was ever blended with a kindness and courtesy which sprung from a genuine benevolence. As queen, though still hardly beyond girlhood when she ascended the throne, she set herself resolutely to work by her admonitions, and still more effectually by her example, to purify a court of which for centuries the most shameless profligacy had been the rule and boast; discountenancing vice and impiety by her marked reprobation, and reserving all her favor and protection for genius and patriotism, and honor and virtue. Surrounded at a later period by unexampled dangers and calamities, she showed herself equal to every vicissitude of fortune, and superior to its worst frowns. If her judgment occasionally erred, it was in cases where alternatives of evil were alone offered to her choice, and in which it is even now scarcely possible to decide what course would have been wiser or safer than that which she adopted. And when at last the long conflict was terminated by the complete victory of her combined enemies- when she, with her husband and her children, was bereft not only of power, but even of freedom, and was a prisoner in the hands of those whose unalterable object was her destruction-she bore her accumulated miseries with a serene resignation, an intrepid fortitude, a true heroism of soul, of which the history of the world does not afford a brighter example.
FOOTNOTES
PREFACE
[1] 0ne entitled "Marie-Antoinette, correspondance secrete entre Marie- Therese et le Comte Mercy d'Argenteau, avec des lettres de Marie-Therese et de Marie-Antoinette." (The edition referred to in this work is the greatly enlarged second edition in three volumes, published at Paris, 1875.) The second is entitled "Marie-Antoinette, Joseph II., and Leopold II," published at Leipsic, 1866.
[2] Entitled "Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette, et Madame Elizabeth," in six volumes, published at intervals from 1864 to 1873.
[3] In his "Nouveau Lundi," March 5th, 1866, M. Sainte-Beuve challenged M. Feuillet de Conches to a more explicit defense of the authenticity of his collection than he had yet vouchsafed; complaining, with some reason, that his delay in answering the charges brought against it "was the more vexatious because his collection was only attacked in part, and in many points remained solid and valuable." And this challenge elicited from M.F. de Conches a very elaborate explanation of the sources from which he procured his documents, which he published in the Revue des Deux Mondes, July 15th, 1866, and afterward in the Preface to his fourth volume. That in a collection of nearly a thousand documents he may have occasionally been too credulous in accepting cleverly executed forgeries as genuine letters is possible, and even probable; in fact, the present writer regards it as certain. But the vast majority, including all those of the greatest value, can not be questioned without imputing to him a guilty knowledge that they were forgeries-a deliberate bad faith, of which no one, it is believed, has ever accused him.
It may be added that it is only from the letters of this later period that any quotations are made in the following work; and the greater part of the letters so cited exists in the archives at Vienna, while the others, such as those, addressed by the Queen, to Madame de Polignac, etc., are just such as were sure to be preserved as relics by the families of those to whom they were addressed, and can therefore hardly be considered as liable to the slightest suspicion.
CHAPTER I. [1] Sainte-Beuve, "Nouveaux Lundis," August 8th, 1864.
CHAPTER II. [1] "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," par E. and J. de Goncourt, p. 11.
[2] How popular masked halls were in London at this time may be learned from Walpole's "Letters," and especially from a passage in which he gives an account of one given by "sixteen or eighteen young Lords" just two months before this ball at Vienna.-Walpole to Mann, dated February 27th, 1770. Some one a few years later described the French nation as half tiger and half monkey; and it is a singular coincidence that Walpole's comment on this masquerading fashion should be, "It is very lucky, seeing how much of the tiger enters into the human composition, that there should be a good dose of the monkey too."
[3] "Memoires concernant Marie Antoinette," par Joseph Weber (her foster- brother), i., p. 6.
[4] "Goethe's Biography," p. 287.
[5] "Memoires de Bachaumont," January 30th, 1770.
[6] La maison du roi.
[7] Chevalier d'honneur. We have no corresponding office at the English court.
[8] The king said, "Vous etiez deja de la famille, car votre mere a l'ame de Louis le Grand."-SAINTE-BEUVE, Nouveaux Lundis, viii., p. 322.
[9] In the language of the French heralds, the title princes of the royal family was confined to the children or grandchildren of the reigning sovereign. His nephews and cousins were only princes of the blood.
CHAPTER III. [1] The word is Maria Teresa's own; "anti-francais" occurring in more than one of her letters.
[2] Quoted by Mme. du Deffand in a letter to Walpole, dated May 19th, 1770 ("Correspondance complete de Mme. du Deffand," ii., p.59).
[3] Mercy to Marie-Therese, August 4th, 1770; "Correspondance secrete entre Marie-Therese et la Comte de Mercy Argenteau, avec des Lettres de Marie-Therese et Marie Antoinette," par M. le Chevalier Alfred d'Arneth, i., p. 29. For the sake of brevity, this Collection will be hereafter referred to as "Arneth."
[4] "The King of France is both hated and despised, which seldom happens to the same man."-LORD CHESTERFIELD, Letter to Mr. Dayrolles, dated May 19th, 1752.
[5] Maria Teresa died in December, 1780.
[6] Mme. du Deffand, letter of May 19th, 1770.
[7] Chambier, i., p. 60.
[8] Mme. de Campan, i., p. 3.
[9] He told Mercy she was "'vive et un peu enfant, mais," ajouta-t-il, "cela est bien de son age.'"-ARNETH, i., p. 11.
[10] Arneth, i., p.9-16
CHAPTER IV. [1] Dates 9th and 12th., Arneth, i., pp. 16, 18.
[2] Marly was a palace belonging to the king, but little inferior in splendor to Versailles itself, and a favorite residence of Louis XV., because a less strict etiquette had been established there. Choisy and Bellevue, which will often be mentioned in the course of this narrative, were two others of the royal palaces on a somewhat smaller scale. They have both been destroyed. Marly, Choisy, and Bellevue were all between Versailles and Paris.
[3] Mem. de Goncourt, quoting a MS. diary of Hardy, p. 35.
[4] De Vermond, who had accompanied her from Vienna as her reader.
[5] See St. Simon's account of Dangeau, i., p. 392.
[6] The Duc de Noailles, brother-in-law of the countess, "l'homme de France qui a peut-etre le plus d'esprit et qui connait le mieux son souverain et la cour," told Mercy in August that "jugeant d'apres son experience et d'apres les qualites qu'il voyait dans cette princesse, il etait persuade qu'elle gouvernerait un jour l'esprit du roi."-ARNETH, i., p. 34.
[7] La petite rousse.
[8] "De monter a cheval gate le teint, et votre taille a la longue s'en ressentira."-Marie-Therese a Marie-Antoinette, Arneth, i., p. 104.
[9] "On fit chercher partout des anes fort doux et tranquilles. Le 21 on repeta la promenade sur les anes. Mesdames voulurent etre de la partie ainsi que le Comte de Provence et le Comte d'Artois."-Mercy a Marie- Therese, September 19, 1770, Arneth, i., p. 49.