Marie Antoinette: The Journey

by Antonia Fraser

  When Fersen originally planned to depart, one of the Queen’s Dames du Palais, the Duchesse de Saint-James, had teased Fersen about his “conquest” of the Queen, a light remark that probably would not have been made if it had had serious substance. Then she asked him: “Are you abandoning your conquest?” Fersen was quick to reply with that modesty and discretion he would show throughout his life: “If I had made one, I would not abandon it.” He went on: “Unhappily I depart . . . without leaving any regrets behind me.” It was not strictly speaking true. When Marie Antoinette wrote to her mother in April of her fervent prayers for the embarkation of the French expedition—“May God grant that they arrive successfully!”—it is plausible to think that she had the Swedish Count as well as the French soldiers in mind. Fersen, on the other hand, as ever turning to attractive female company, was soon finding the women of Newport, Rhode Island, to his great satisfaction, “pretty, friendly and coquettes,” while the people in general were “cheerful and straighforward.”19

  It was the Polignac set that remained Marie Antoinette’s “family.” It formed the basis of the group known as the Queen’s Private Society (Société Particulière de la Reine), which included at least six Polignac relations. As such exclusive clubs always are, the Private Society—a form of salon, something that had a long tradition among ladies in France, both grand and intellectual—was resented and criticized by those outside it. None of the members was a very “elevated character,” wrote the Comte de La Marck, and there were many to point out how greedy all of them were.20 Certainly the Queen gave lavishly or rather saw to it that the King gave. Comte Jules was created a Duc and “Guichette’s” magnificent dowry at her wedding in the summer of 1780 was the talk of the court.

  Yet it is important to note that Louis XVI felt about the Polignac set rather as he felt about the theatre: here were people and activities who diverted his wife. In the case of the Duchesse de Polignac, as she had become, she understood how to handle Marie Antoinette’s mercurial moods, one of her methods being to stand silently and offer a concoction of soothing orange-flower water into which sugar had been stirred. On a personal level, the charming Yolande was one of the few women the King actually liked and trusted. On 5 May 1780 she gave birth to a son whose paternity was generally ascribed to her lover, the Comte de Vaudreuil. Wags asked whether the father was perhaps the Queen, since it could not be the Duc de Polignac (there had been a gap of nine years since the births of Aglä ié and Armand).21 Louis XVI, undeterred by such gossip, paid the new mother a visit of courtesy; hers was the only private house in Paris he had entered since his accession.

  Since this was the court of France, and for the first time there was no royal mistress in sight, sporadic efforts were made to put other women in the King’s way. In January 1778 even Marie Antoinette had braced herself for the King taking a mistress now that their marriage was fully consummated. She promised her brother Joseph in a letter that if there were liaisons, she would do everything to win the King back. It was not for nothing that Henri IV, of celebrated virility, was the most popular king in French history; the image of both Louis XIV and Louis XV included sexual prowess. Thus the King’s supposed interest in an actress at the Comédie Française or even his casual inspection of a young woman at a card party through his lorgnette—he asked who she was—caused prurient excitement. To all of this the King’s reaction is best summed up by an incident in which the Duc de Fronsac, heir to the dissipated Duc de Richelieu, dangled his own mistress, an opera singer known as “la petite Zacharie,” as bait in front of the King. “Be gone, Fronsac,” said the King in disgust. “It’s obvious whose son you are . . .”22

  In February 1782 the King himself made his position quite clear: “Everyone would like me to take a mistress but I have no intention of doing so. I do not wish to re-create the scenes of the preceding reigns . . .”23 Louis XVI’s way of dealing with such rumours consisted of sitting safely beside the gentle and unthreatening Yolande de Polignac at a ball. The obstinacy that had enabled him to hold out against the consummation of his marriage for so many years was not likely to desert the King now in favour of behaviour that he found both distasteful and immoral. Nevertheless the position of royal mistress remaining unfilled meant that there was in a sense a vacancy at court. Courtiers could not seek out favours from the ma"tresse-en-titre as they had been accustomed to do; nor could they play off the royal mistress against the royal consort. The future would show whether the Queen of France was, against precedent, to fill the position and enjoy the influence of both wife and mistress.

  The politics of the autumn of 1780 presented the Polignacs with an opportunity for advancing their own. On 13 October Necker managed to secure the dismissal of Antoine Sartine, the Minister for the Navy, whose management of the finances of the fleet had earned his disfavour. The Polignac candidate to replace Sartine was the military aristocrat the Marquis de Castries, a brilliant soldier in the Seven Years’ War who had been a protégé of the Duc de Choiseul. It was, however, the approval of Necker that clinched the job for Castries rather than purely and simply the influence of the Queen. Mercy and Vermond were in any case anxiously counselling her to step back from the Polignac intrigues, in order to concentrate her talents on supporting Austria.24

  The Minister of War was also to be replaced. This time the Polignacs strongly forwarded a member of the Queen’s Private Society, the Comte d’Adhémar. But once again Mercy struck home. Adhémar was passed over and a second military aristocrat, also a hero of the Seven Years’ War, the Marquis de Ségur, was appointed; a man of great authority, Ségur was descended illegitimately from that Duc d’Orléans who had been Regent. Marie Antoinette now had two service ministers, Castries and Ségur, who owed their advancement at least partly to her patronage, to parallel the increasing interest she was taking in military and naval appointments.25

  None of this amounted to a genuine power base. The Queen’s influence was limited and the Polignac influence more limited still. Maurepas, although nearly eighty and increasingly debilitated by ill health, continued to exercise political domination over the King, in alliance with Vergennes. Where the Queen scored small victories, it was because these ministers had decided to avoid unnecessary confrontation. Significantly, Mercy still complained of the Queen’s lack of a really intelligent commitment to politics. Her general, rather vague, benevolent attitude to patronage led her rather to please those she liked than think the matter through.26

  The death in the summer of 1780 of Marie Antoinette’s uncle on her father’s side, the veteran Prince Charles of Lorraine, presaged a far greater family loss in the late autumn. Marie Antoinette, ever conscious of the need to promote Lorrainers in France in order to please her mother, wrote a nostalgic letter to Maria Teresa about her sadness at the end of the (royal) House of Lorraine. For the Prince, the childless widower of Maria Teresa’s younger sister, had never remarried; instead, as Governor of the Austrian Netherlands he had pursued the arts and women with equal zest, showing a true Lorrainer’s instinct for enjoyment of life.

  Maria Teresa herself was failing. Her last letter to her daughter was dated 3 November, the day after Marie Antoinette’s twenty-fifth birthday. It struck a wistful note about the child she had not seen for over ten years: “Yesterday I was all day more in France than in Austria.” The Empress was only sixty-three but dropsy had been aggravating her sufferings with her legs for some years. Now her lungs began to “harden”; she complained of a burning sensation inside, and repeatedly demanded the opening of her windows. There were five days of intense illness, which would later be movingly described by her eldest daughter, the Archduchess Marianne, the invalid who had never left home.27

  To the very end the Empress still exercised her formidable will. She sent away her daughters (the Archduchesses Marie Christine and Elizabeth as well as Marianne) because she did not want them to see her die; they were also forbidden to attend the funeral. The three daughters who were the repositories of her dynastic ambitions we
re of course far away: the Queens of France and Naples, and the Duchess of Parma. And the Empress firmly refused to go to sleep: “At any moment I may be called before my Judge. I don’t want to be surprised,” she said. “I want to see death come.” Finally death did come—on the morning of 29 November.

  It was a full week before the information reached the French court, where Louis XVI decreed grand mourning for his fellow sovereign and mother-in-law. He requested that the Abbé de Vermond should break the news to the Queen on his regular morning visit to her apartments. Louis XVI even went so far as to express his personal thanks to Vermond for doing him “this service”; the King had never chosen to speak to Vermond before, although the latter had been his wife’s confidential advisor for all the years of her sojourn in France. Louis’ tenderness, coming from this notoriously awkward man, left Marie Antoinette touched and grateful.

  It was to Joseph II that Marie Antoinette, on 10 December, expressed her full despair: “Devastated by this most frightful misfortune, I cannot stop crying as I start to write to you. Oh my brother, oh my friend! You alone are left to me in a country [Austria] which is, and always will be, so dear to me . . . Remember, we are your friends, your allies. I embrace you.”28

  It remained to be seen, once mourning was over—the merry pastimes of the Private Society were all temporarily abandoned—whether the Emperor really did remember that he was supposed to be the friend and ally of France, or whether, as Vergennes feared, his current offers of mediation in the American war meant that Joseph was actually veering in the direction of England.

  Without Marie Antoinette immediately realizing it, her own situation apropos her homeland had subtly changed. It was not so much that the opportunity to live up to her august mother’s expectations had gone for ever although that was true enough. It was more that Count Mercy’s secret channel of communication with Maria Teresa was not replaced by anything at all similar with Joseph II. As a result, Marie Antoinette’s own relationship with her brother assumed greater importance. How fortunate then that at the beginning of 1781 the Emperor was careful to soothe the French on the subject of the alliance: “Our links with France are natural, advantageous and infinitely preferable to those with England.”29

  It was in this favourable atmosphere that the Queen of France began to hope that the great event for which Maria Teresa had so fervently hoped—but had not lived to see—might actually be happening. As February wore on, she knew it was possible that she might be pregnant once more. Such a secret, of course, could hardly be kept in Versailles. As early as 2 March the Marquis de Bombelles, in Ratisbon on a diplomatic mission, heard the news from his mother-in-law. The Queen herself had told Madame de Mackau in graceful terms: “I am going to cause you further bother because I am enceinte. I assure you that in spite of my joy, I regret the increase in your trouble.” On 17 March—what she took to be the two months’ mark—Marie Antoinette broke the great news to Princess Louise of Hesse; she continued to keep her informed of progress. On 7 May, for example, she reported that her health was “perfect” and that she was putting on “a lot of weight.” The Queen added that Louise’s witchcraft (sorcellerie) was very charming to predict a son for her.30

  The attitude of the Emperor Joseph was typically blunt. He told Count Mercy that the news had given him personally great pleasure. As for his sister, the pregnancy would essentially contribute to her happiness, “if she knows how to make use of it.” In the course of the summer, as the Queen’s condition progressed—her health in general was excellent, better than in 1778—the Emperor decided to come and once more in person give his advice to his sister on “matters of state.”31

  French internal politics were certainly intricate enough. While the expensive American war wound on into its fourth year, Necker took a calculated risk. Necker’s official accounting, which was made public (his so-called compte rendu au roi), proposed against all the odds that there was actually a surplus rather than a deficit in the royal finances. This conjuring trick caused more than one raised eyebrow among observers of the political scene. Nevertheless it was not for his accounting but for his demands over status that Necker found himself in crisis in May. Necker’s Protestant religion had always been a complication in a country where certain titular offices could not be occupied by a non-Catholic. When Necker attempted to better his public position, given his existing responsibilities, he failed, whereupon he allowed himself to be provoked into resignation by Maurepas.32

  “Count Falkenstein”—once again the Emperor came incognito—arrived in France on 29 July. And once again he demanded a hotel in Versailles rather than more lavish apartments within the palace itself. His suite consisted of two servants only, with an official from his chancellery. This low-key style suited the Queen. Joseph’s visit was only to last a week, but Marie Antoinette was determined to see as much of him as possible; it was helpful that her activities were by now considerably curtailed given that she was in the seventh month of her pregnancy. Ridiculous rumours were being reported by the Chief of Police, Lenoir, that the Queen was using her brother’s visit to pass him immense amounts of money from “the royal treasure.” They seemed at the time to be no more than rumours—and were very far from the truth. Economy was to be the watchword of the French court. When a performance of Iphigénie en Tauride was given in the new theatre at the Trianon, the Queen was careful to point out that the limited seating meant the event would not be all that expensive. The sum of 500 livres spent on the burning of “good wood” to illuminate the Temple of Love was less frugal.33

  It was the Emperor Joseph who was invited to act as godfather to the expected baby on this occasion, as his mother had been three years before. This gave him the right to choose the baby’s name, and also to appoint proxies at the instant baptism. On 14 October, Joseph wrote to Count Mercy that the two younger brothers, the Comtes de Provence and d’Artois, should take his place at the christening.*50 He told the ambassador that he wanted to know every single detail of the Queen’s impending accouchement, for he yielded nothing to his mother in that respect. For his part, Mercy assured the Emperor that Marie Antoinette was showing real zeal and affection “in everything that concerns your Majesty.”34

  The Queen went into labour on the morning of 22 October. She had spent a good night, according to the meticulous account of her progress in the King’s Journal, had a few pains on waking, but was still able to have her morning bath. It was only at midday that the King gave orders to cancel the shoot that was about to be held at Saclé. In the next half an hour the douleurs increased. There were present, according to the King, “only” the Princesse de Lamballe, the Comte d’Artois, Mesdames Tantes, the Princesse de Chimay, the Comtesse de Mailly, the Comtesse d’Ossun, and the Comtesse de Tavannes.35 The most important personage allowed into the royal bedchamber was, however, the Princesse de Guéméné. At present the Royal Governess only had Marie Thérèse, not quite three, in her care, but it was in her hands that the new baby would immediately be placed. Members of the two households were, as in 1778, close by. This time the King had taken precautions that the flow of fresh air should not be impeded, for fear of a recurrence of the Queen’s fainting fit.

  Finally Marie Antoinette lay down on the little white delivery bed. Then: “At exactly a quarter past one by my watch she was successfully delivered of a boy.” The italics are those of the King. For those outside, there were fifteen minutes of suspense, before one of the Queen’s women, her dress dishevelled and in a state of tremendous excitement, rushed in and cried out: “A Dauphin! But you must not mention it yet.” Inside, the Queen herself was still unaware of the sex of her baby, and imagined from the profound silence around her that it must be another girl. It was the King himself who broke the news. These were his words, as he wrote them down: “Madame, you have fulfilled our wishes and those of France, you are the mother of a Dauphin.”36

  Afterwards a tender story was told about the Queen’s anxiety. “You can see I’m behaving very well,” she said.
“I’m not asking you anything.” At this point the King thought it time to put her out of her agony. Holding the baby, with tears in his eyes, he told his wife: “Monsieur le Dauphin asks to come in.”37 Yet the King’s actual words—for his own account of what he said must be preferred—if less playful, are in a sense even more touching. For they indicate formally that Marie Antoinette had at last achieved what as a foreign princess she had been sent to do. It had taken eleven and a half years. She had borne an heir, half Habsburg, half Bourbon.

  Outside the bedchamber, the world went mad. Good intentions of secrecy went for very little. Count Curt Stedingk, a Swedish soldier who was a great favourite with the Queen (like Fersen, he had served bravely on the French side in America), was among those present. He gave an unforgettable picture of his encounter with the Comtesse de Provence, rushing towards the apartment of her sister-in-law “at a great gallop.” Forgetting in his enthusiasm exactly whom he was addressing—a woman whose husband had just been demoted from his position as heir presumptive—he cried out: “Madame, a Dauphin! What joy!” Elsewhere the Marquis de Bombelles ran through his own house like a madman, shouting to his wife: “A Dauphin? A Dauphin! Is it possible? Yes, it’s really true. What are they saying, what are they doing at Versailles?”38

  The scenes at Versailles were indeed almost religious. For they centred on the adoration of a tiny child, arriving as a saviour. As Royal Governess, the Princess de Guéméné took the baby in her arms. Carried in a chair, she paraded him through Versailles on the way to her own apartments. The noise of the acclamation and the sound of clapping penetrated even the Queen’s room. Everyone wanted to touch the baby, or failing that, the Princesse’s chair. “We adored him,” wrote Stedingk. “We followed him in a great crowd.”