Marie Antoinette: The Journey

by Antonia Fraser

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE FLOWERS OF THE CROWN

  “She as yet knew nothing of the crown but its flowers . . .”

  MARQUIS DE SÉGUR ON MARIE ANTOINETTE, 1783

  “The happiest and most important event for me”: so Marie Antoinette described the birth of her son in a letter to her friend, Princess Charlotte of Hesse-Darmstadt. Such a jubilant reaction was not confined to the baby’s mother. The baptism, according to custom, was performed in the afternoon following the birth. The child was named Louis Joseph for his Bourbon forefathers and his Habsburg godfather (and uncle) with the additional names of Xavier and François. The King wept throughout the ceremony. Soon, as Madame Campan noted, he was framing his conversation so that the words “my son the Dauphin” could be introduced as frequently as possible.1

  “Oh Papa!” exclaimed the little Duc d’Angoulême when shown the Dauphin. “How tiny my cousin is!”

  “The day will come,” replied Artois with meaning, “when you will find him great enough.”2

  It was true that Angoulême had just been dispossessed of the illustrious position of heir in the next generation, which had been his since his birth in August 1775. More importantly, the Comte de Provence, displaced in his own generation, was now one step further away from the throne.

  At this baptism, however, there were no impertinent allusions as there had been in 1778. Provence held his peace. Nevertheless there was a discordant note. As with the baptism of Marie Thérèse, the ceremony had by right to be performed by the Grand Almoner. This was none other than that Prince Louis de Rohan, now Cardinal, whose appointment the Queen had tried so hard to block. Even the Cardinal’s hat, granted in 1778, had been the subject of dispute. Louis XVI, egged on by his wife, had refused to exercise his prerogative—the so-called “nomination of crowns”—to put forward Rohan’s name. But the Queen was foiled once again by the Rohan family’s skill at intrigue; as a result Prince Louis was nominated by the King of Poland.3

  The presence of this bad man—as the Queen firmly believed he was, bad as in immoral, bad as in trouble-making—in such a prominent role at the baby’s christening could not dampen the happiness of the royal parents. The coral and multi-diamonded rattle donated by the Tsarina of Russia, valued at 24,000 livres, represented an alternative and splendid omen of the baby’s future happiness.4

  The response of the French nation as a whole was summed up in a letter from Count Mercy to Prince Kaunitz in Vienna: “Tumultuous joy reigns here.” Some celebrations were more elegant than others. On 27 October the new Opera House—built to replace one that had burnt down—opened with a free performance of Adèle et Ponthieu by Gluck’s rival Piccinni. Eighteen hundred people were expected; in the event 6000 forced their way in, jamming the boxes. Cries of “Long live the King,” “Long live the Queen” and “Long live Monsieur le Dauphin” came from the happy audience. In the world of fashion, however, a new colour was termed caca-dauphin, as though even the royal baby’s natural functions needed somehow to be fêted. Perhaps the new and widely copied short feathery hairstyle created for the Queen by Léonard, to help with her hair-loss, named coiffure à l’enfant, struck a better note.5

  In Austria, pride in the achievement of “their” princess was uncontained. Gluck reported how all Vienna rejoiced, not so much for the sake of the French, of course, as for the sake of the Queen. In the case of the Emperor, Joseph confessed that he had thought himself incapable of a young man’s enthusiasm (he was forty), yet now found that he was staggered by his own emotion. After all, “this sister, who is the woman I love best in the world” was at this very moment “the most happy” being on earth.6

  About this time the eleven-year-old Henrietta Lucy, daughter of Madame Dillon, who as the Marquise de La Tour du Pin would write perceptive memoirs of the period, saw the Queen for the first time. Marie Antoinette was wearing a blue dress strewn with sapphires and diamonds, and she was opening the ball given by the royal bodyguards at Versailles with one of the guardsmen: “She was young, beautiful and adored by all; she had just given France a Dauphin . . .” This was the outwardly brilliant period of which the Comte de Ségur would later write that the French “of every class” regarded the Queen as one among the sweetest ornaments of the fêtes that embellished the court. Encouraging literature, protecting the arts, dispensing many benefits and disobliging no one, “she as yet knew nothing of the crown but its flowers.” The Queen did not foresee that she was soon to feel “the crown’s dreadful weight.”7

  Of course it was not literally true that the Queen had not felt this weight. The libellistes did not ignore the birth of the Dauphin, any more than they had ignored that of Madame Fille du Roi. The official medal might bear the legend in Latin “Public Happiness.” But a malicious engraving showed Marie Antoinette cradling her baby, accompanied by Louis XVI wearing a cuckold’s horns and an angel with a trumpet who was supposed to “announce to all parts” the birth of the Dauphin: “But be careful not to open your eyes to the secret of his birth.” The Spanish chargé d’affaires passed on another scurrilous rhyme whose refrain on the subject of the Dauphin was: “Who the Devil produced him?” Suggestions included the Duc de Coigny as before, and the Comte d’Artois. One of the most notorious embroideries on this latter theme had appeared during the Queen’s pregnancy. This was Les Amours de Charlot [Artois] et Antoinette, a lewd and ludicrous romp in which a page kept appearing to interrupt the moment of climax because the Queen inadvertently pressed the bell beside her as she thrashed about in ecstasy.8

  Similarly Jean Lenoir, the Chief of Police, whose business it was to see to these things, reported with horror that a pamphlet printed in English, Naissance du Dauphin, ascribed the paternity of the baby to “another royal prince.” Another scabrous pamphlet, which would go through many stages (and numerous editions), began life in December 1781 as La Vie d’Antoinette. Yet for the time being the Queen was able to continue her policy of studied indifference, enjoying the flowers of the crown while the police in France and the French ambassador in London attempted the impossible task of buying up all the editions and pulping them.9

  The welfare of the baby himself was her prime concern at this time. There was no talk on this occasion of the Queen nursing him. Louis Joseph was entrusted to a woman nicknamed “Madame Poitrine” for the vast bosom that would nurture the little Prince. This strong-minded lady, the wife of a gardener, absolutely refused to have her hair powdered, according to court custom, saying that a lace cap was just as good. She also introduced a little rhyme, which she crooned over the baby’s head, beginning: “Marlbrouck s’en va à la guerre . . .” This folk-song, referring to the English general engaged in the wars of Louis XIV, had remained popular in her village down the years. It now became the fashion at a court that was enchanted by every manifestation of Madame Poitrine’s rusticity.10

  Where a more recent war was concerned, it seemed a wonderful augury for France that there had been a great victory overseas on 19 October 1781, three days before the birth of its long-awaited Dauphin. At Yorktown, Virginia, George Washington’s forces, supported by the French fleet under Admiral de Grasse, defeated the English army led by General Cornwallis. As the news reached Europe, even more important than the military reverse was the sapping of the English will to continue the struggle. The way was open for peace negotiations, not only with the former colony but with her allies France and Spain. Although these negotiations themselves would be protracted, the French “heroes” of the American struggle now began to return to their own country, regaling their compatriots with stories brought back from the New World. These stories concerned a country where American rebels—with French assistance, of course—had taken charge of their own destiny and cast off the oppressive rule of a king, creating thereby a very different political system.

  The Marquis de La Fayette, for example, arrived back in Paris to his wife’s family home of the Hôtel de Noailles on 21 January 1782. This happened to be the day set apart for the official c
elebrations of the birth of the Dauphin, now three months old. There was the ceremony of “churching” for the royal mother at the cathedral of Notre-Dame (a rite of purification after childbirth), followed by a banquet at the Hôtel de Ville, and in the end a huge display of fireworks. The Queen, taking the Marquise de La Fayette, a member of her household, into her own coach, proceeded to the Hôtel de Noailles, where she graciously received La Fayette himself at the door. It was the kind of considerate gesture at which Marie Antoinette excelled. It did not, however, stop La Fayette observing of a subsequent lavish court ball that the cost would have equipped a whole regiment in America . . . He was literally and metaphorically coming from a different place.11

  There was another rite of passage a month after the Dauphin’s birth. On 21 November 1781 Louis XVI recorded in his laconic Journal: “Nothing,” meaning no hunting, then: “Death of Monsieur de Maurepas at eleven-thirty in the evening.” Joseph II was quick to point out that the disappearance of the King’s mentor, his chief servant for over seven years, presented an obvious political opportunity for the Queen in the first flush of her triumph as the mother of the Dauphin. Marie Antoinette’s advisor, the Abbé de Vermond, put forward the name of the ambitious Archbishop of Toulouse, Loménie de Brienne, as a substitute, who would act as the Queen’s man. But the King, with a new sense of his own independence, declined angrily.12

  The real gainer from Maurepas’ death was not Marie Antoinette but Vergennes, who was able to slip unostentatiously into the position of confidence that his patron Maurepas had formerly occupied. By February 1782 Mercy was back with his usual litany of complaints about the Queen’s unreliable behaviour where politics were concerned; how she let the King believe she was bored with affairs of state and did not even want to know about them. Her “great credit” with her husband was used only to dispense favours.13

  It might have been better for Marie Antoinette’s reputation in France if she had maintained the apolitical stance that obviously accorded with her own deepest wishes, despite family pressure from Austria. Unfortunately—for her—she continued to be an important chess piece in the predatory foreign schemes of Joseph II, as she had once been a pawn in her mother’s game of matrimonial alliances. Over the next few years, the Emperor made relentless demands on his sister. She must assure him of French support by exerting her influence with the King. Yet in most areas, the foreign policy of Austria, as interpreted by the Emperor, brought him into conflict with French interests. Nevertheless Joseph urged on Marie Antoinette what he called “the finest and greatest role that any woman ever played.”14 (He had forgotten the late Empress Maria Teresa, it seems, in his attempt to galvanize his sister.)

  The previous year, the Emperor and the Tsarina Catherine of Russia had concluded a secret alliance against Turkish attack. Now Joseph gave Marie Antoinette instructions for the warm reception to be accorded to the Tsarina’s heir, the Grand Duke Paul, and his Grand Duchess, a German princess. Arriving in May as the “Comte and Comtesse du Nord,” the imperial couple were subjected to the full panoply of Versailles, including a performance of Iphigénie en Aulide. There was also a masked ball in which Marie Antoinette appeared as Gabrielle d’Estrées, mistress of Henri IV, in shining silver gauze and a black hat whose massive white plumes were fastened by diamonds including the “Pitt” jewel. The customary lavish display of fireworks was only marred by the discovery of the Cardinal de Rohan who had bribed a porter to smuggle him in, despite his marked lack of invitation. The Cardinal was unmasked because he wore his trademark red stockings beneath his coat. The unforgiving Marie Antoinette was predictably furious and had the porter in question sacked, until Madame de Campan—by her own account—successfully pleaded for him to be reinstated.15

  A visit to the porcelain factory at Sèvres was part of the entertainment. Louis XVI loved the traditional royal patronage of the factory, including the annual “Sèvres week” instituted in 1758. The new season’s porcelain would be laid out in the King’s private dining room, and the courtiers were heavily encouraged to buy, the King and Queen themselves setting an example with their purchases. In 1782, for example, there was “jewelled” Sèvres for sale whose garniture made it extremely expensive.*51 Such things were, as Bombelles wrote, objects of luxury “but a luxury essential to support.” At the factory the Grand Duchess was enchanted to discover that a ravishing service of lapis lazuli and gold, including a mirror with two Cupids at its base pointing to the words “She is yet more beautiful,” was intended for her.16

  In fact the stout Grand Duchess was not a beauty, whatever the Cupids might pretend, and Marie Antoinette found her rather formidable with her stiff “German demeanour” despite her tactful interest in French sculpture and opera.17 Nevertheless, the Queen was eager to display goodwill towards the Russians, given her brother’s new foreign initiative. Yet this initiative could hardly be pleasing to France. On the one hand Turkey, which was menaced by Catherine of Russia, was her natural ally; on the other hand France feared the increased influence of the meddlesome Emperor in the Balkans. In any case, the expense of the American war ruled out any military reaction. The French had to confine themselves to diplomatic manoeuvres.

  Over the Emperor’s next two projects, however, he needed French cooperation rather than French passivity. Joseph II planned to reopen the mouth of the Scheldt River; this was for the sake of the city of Antwerp upstream, which had been blocked from access to the sea by the Treaties of Westphalia of 1648 that had ended the Thirty Years’ War. On this occasion it was the energetic Dutch Republic with its great commercial port of Amsterdam which could be expected to resist. Undeterred, the Emperor took the line that France was bound to approve his conduct not only by the terms of their alliance but also because he had upheld their campaign against England.

  At the end of 1782 Marie Antoinette promised Mercy that she would raise the issue with Louis XVI, and throughout February she mounted a campaign on the subject. Yet by June her efforts were still not bearing the fruit that the ambassador expected, and he begged her yet again to “prove her devotion to the august house and family.” (He did not mean the Bourbons.) The following year Mercy despaired once more over Marie Antoinette’s reluctance to use her personal ascendancy over her husband in a constructive political way. She remained maddeningly content merely to implement her “persistent desire” to help people who petitioned her, springing, in the words of the Comte de La Marck, from “a rare goodness of heart.” The Emperor was less interested in his sister’s goodness of heart than in what he hopefully termed her “feminine wiles.”18 Alternately wooing and bullying Marie Antoinette, he instructed her to make use of these weapons of a pretty woman when dealing with her husband’s ministers. Nevertheless, the Scheldt Affair languished, thanks to the absolute hostility of the King and his ministers. This was guided by Vergennes, for whom no feminine wiles could make up for such an extension of the Emperor’s influence.

  The second of Joseph’s projects concerned an exchange of territories: the Elector Charles Theodore of Bavaria and the Palatine would receive the Austrian Netherlands in return for his own lands. But the French were equally hostile to this scheme, which would immeasurably strengthen the Emperor in Germany. None of this was liable to lead to good relations between France and Austria. Vergennes wrote frankly to the French ambassador in Vienna: “We have stopped the progress of the Emperor three times and that’s not easily forgiven”—the first occasion having been the War of the Bavarian Succession in 1778.19

  On 1 September 1784 Joseph irritably accused his “dear sister” of being “the dupe” (his italics) of the French Council of State, headed by Vergennes. In reply Marie Antoinette wrote a revealing letter to her “dear brother” about her relationship with her husband and its limitations.20 Whilst she did not contradict Joseph on the subject of French policy, having spoken to the King on the subject “more than once,” the Queen described quite forcefully “the lack of means and resources” that she had available to establish contact wit
h him, given his character and his prejudices. Louis XVI was “by nature very taciturn” and often did not speak to her about affairs of state, without exactly planning to hide them from her. “He responds when I speak to him, but he hardly can be said to keep me informed, and when I learn about some small portion of a business, I have to be cunning in getting the ministers to tell me the rest of it, letting them believe that the King has told me everything.” When she reproached the King with not informing her about certain matters, he was not angry, but merely looked rather embarrassed; sometimes the King confessed that he had simply not thought to do so.

  It was at this point that Marie Antionette made an important reference to the King’s Austrophobe upbringing. The King’s innately suspicious nature had been fortified by his tutor, the Duc de Vauguyon. Long before Louis’ marriage, Vauguyon had frightened him with tales of the dominance—empire—that his Austrian wife would wish to exert over him. Vauguyon’s “dark spirit” was pleased to frighten his pupil “by all the phantoms invented against the House of Austria.” As a result, the Queen had never been able to persuade the King of Vergennes’ various deceits and trickeries. “Would it be wise of me,” she asked pointedly, “to have scenes with his minister over matters on which it is practically certain the King would not support me?”

  Of course, Marie Antoinette let the public believe that she had more influence than she actually had, “otherwise I would have still less.” This confession to her brother was not good for her self-esteem but she wanted to make it so that Joseph could understand her predicament. Was there a glimmer of realization that the proper duty of the Queen of France, the mother of the Dauphin, was not necessarily to pursue all the interests of the House of Austria? Not so far. The habit of family loyalty, encouraged by Joseph II at a distance and Mercy closer to home, was still too strong.