“The victim might want to howl,” says Mercier, “but the exempt is delivered so very meekly! If you had a pistol you would do better to fire it into the air rather than at him. Better to bow low, and enter into a exchange of politenesses with the man. You could pile up the mutual compliments until nothing stood between you and your rival in courtesy but iron bars.”
One can hardly wonder that the people who directed public opinion felt such venomous resentment towards the prevailing system.
The power of popular sentiment derived from the sociable disposition of the French character and the extroverted, outward-looking nature of French society. “Most foreigners,” wrote Necker, the great banker, who was himself of foreign origin, “have not the slightest conception of the importance of public opinion in France. They find it hard to understand that such an invisible form of power could exist. Without financial resources, official protection or a standing army, it imposes its laws on the city, the Court and even the Royal Palace.” Necker was absolutely right: foreigners do not understand it. Even Wahl, the modern German scholar who is the greatest expert in every aspect of the years leading up to the Revolution, fails to grasp the French mentality. In his book he reproaches Necker, and all those who were in power in the final years of the Ancien Régime, for placing so much emphasis on public opinion. He cannot understand how it could be that while the King could nominate ministers, public opinion could bring them down, and he would certainly have found Chamfort’s remark incomprehensible: “Everyone hates a fishwife, but none of us will accost one when she makes her way through the market hall.” It seems that in Germany either the fishwives hold their tongues, or the self-confidence of the bourgeoisie is so unshakeable that they pay them no attention.
The extent to which the power of popular sentiment had grown is wonderfully seen in this well-known anecdote:
Louis XVI once asked the elderly Richelieu, who had lived through three reigns, what had been the difference between them.
“Sire,” the Marshal replied, “in Louis XIV’s day no one dared utter a word; when Louis XV was on the throne, they spoke in whispers; under Your Highness they shout at the top of their voices.”
And now public opinion began to influence the necklace trial. Initially, people were against Rohan. He had brought this on himself long before, by his worldly behaviour and general voluptuousness so unbefitting a man of the cloth; the word now was that he kept a harem, consisting of all the women featuring in the case. Everyone ‘knew’ that Jeanne, d’Oliva and Mme Cagliostro were his mistresses. Much play was made of his position of Grand Almoner, and caricatures showed him collecting alms to pay off his debts. The age of Voltaire, with its underlying contempt for the clergy, wallowed in this slander.
But then the mood changed. He soon came to be seen as the pitiable victim of ‘despotism’ and signs of sympathy for him began to appear. The ladies, who, as we have seen, liked to express their opinions through their coiffures, now started to sport red and yellow ribbons on their heads: red above and yellow below, to signify “the Cardinal lying on straw”, that is to say, in a dungeon. These women, as a contemporary noted, were eternally grateful to the gallant Rohan for taking care, even in his hour of crisis, to burn the love letters which would have compromised so many fine ladies.
This reversal of public opinion strongly affected the Parlement, which, proud as it was of the independent spirit displayed by its judges with regard to the supreme power in the land, was prepared to make any number of compromises to preserve its popularity, and was by no means independent-minded where its public standing was concerned.
The change in the public mood was so rapid and so complete that one has to assume a degree of orchestration from above. This originated at the highest level, from government ministers and Versailles. Marie-Antoinette had lost her popularity with the public long before, but her real enemies remained those at Court. It was only there that anyone had a real interest in her emerging from the trial in disgrace. First of all, there were the Rohan clan, Mme de Marsan, Mme de Brionne and all the fairy godmothers, who had always despised the young Queen for her attack on protocol. But she had even more powerful foes, such as Calonne, the Finance Minister, who had never forgiven her for opposing his appointment; and there was the powerful family of the late Prime Minister Maurepas, who were still furious that she had wanted the banished Choiseul to be put in charge.
And, in the background, there lurked even loftier enemies: the two royal princes, counting on the demise of Louis XVI to bring one of them to the throne. One was the Comte de Provence, that witty and cunning free spirit; the other was the Duc d’Orléans, Philippe-Égalité, who flirted with revolution, and who, as the elder son, was waiting for the throne to become vacant. There is something rather eerie about the fact that at the time of our story there were three people living at Versailles who would attain the French crown through the beheading of Louis XVI: the Comte de Provence, later Louis XVIII; the Comte d’Artois, as Charles X and the twelve-year-old Duc de Chartres, the son of Philippe-Égalité, who became Louis-Philippe, the Citizen King. And there was a fourth, the infant Duc de Normandie, who after his father’s death became the legitimate King of France, Louis XVII, but never ascended to the throne. His story was lost during the Revolution in circumstances of insoluble mystery. One thinks of Macbeth when the witch conjured up the ‘horrible sight’ of the line of future Kings of Scotland, not one of whom carried his own features.
Representatives of the Church also met and drew up a statement of protest, asking the King to allow Rohan to be tried under their jurisdiction, as the Parlement was not an appropriate body to arraign a prince of the Church. Even the Pope protested, though when he understood the more intimate details of the case he backed off. People sang this satirical song:
Mais le Pape, moins honnête
Pourrait dire a ce nigaud:
Prince, à qui n’a point de tête,
Il ne faut point de chapeau!
A man with no head has no need of a Cardinal’s hat!
But at the same time the rabble ‘knew’ that Marie-Antoinette certainly had the necklace and was simply denying the fact.
Mme Cagliostro, whose complete innocence became clear in the course of the trial, was duly freed. She was the first of Rohan’s entourage to leave the Bastille. It now became apparent for the first time just how far popular feeling had shifted towards Rohan and away from the Queen. Mme Cagliostro was enthusiastically fêted, was received in the highest places, and three hundred people signed the visitors’ book at her home on a single day.
Another sympathetic female prisoner in the Bastille also had a happy result: the comely Nicole d’Oliva gave birth to a healthy boy, who was christened Jean-Baptiste Toussaint, his natural father Toussaint de Beausire having had no hesitation in acknowledging him.
At last the Procureur Général, Joly de Fleury, completed his indictment. He read it out on 30th May. It invited the jury to agree that the documents signed ‘Marie-Antoinette de France’ were fraudulent; that the Comte de la Motte in absentia and Réteaux de Villette should be sentenced to the galleys for life; that the Comtesse de la Motte should be birched, branded with a hot iron and imprisoned for life in the Salpêtrière. Rohan was to be given eight days to confess before the Grand chambre that he had recklessly given credence to the meeting in the Venus Bower, and that he had contributed to the deception of the jewellers; and should therefore express his full repentance, and ask pardon of the King and Queen; in addition he should resign all his official positions, give alms to the poor, and keep away from the royal residence for the rest of his life.