Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars

by Elena Maria Vidal

  Of course, a ring once worn by a queen is of great value, just like a cap once worn by the Pope. Nesta Webster’s commentary on the rings and letters must be quoted in its entirety:

  These letters have again been quoted as evidence that there was a liaison between Antoinette and Fersen, and that Esterhazy being in on the secret, the Queen did not hesitate to confide in him on the subject. But in reality, what do they prove? Nothing more than that she had great affection for him. That a captive Queen should send royalist rings to two of her oldest and most faithful friends is nothing extraordinary, that she should have referred to Fersen as “him” was only in accordance with the plan of avoiding all names in writing. As to the words “qu’on aime,” aimer is a verb that in French…may mean either to like, to be fond of, to love with affection or to be in love with. It cannot have been in the last sense that Marie Antoinette employed it here, since she applies it in the plural—“les gens qu’on aime”—that is to say, her friends in general….If she had used it in the amorous sense of one whom Esterhazy knew to be her lover, would she not have said, “celui qu’on aime?”33

  There is much controversy over a certain night in February 1792, when some biographers, including Stanley Loomis and Vincent Cronin, think that Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen may have finally consummated their passion in her suite in the Tuileries palace. The theory has occurred over a smudged out phrase in Fersen’s diary. However, no one knows for certain if the erased phrase was indeed Resté là, Fersen’s usual term indicating that he had slept with a lady. Also, the Queen, following her escape attempt, was more closely guarded than ever, with a sentry keeping watch at her door all night, and checking every once in awhile to see if she was in her room—how could she have entertained a lover? 34 The purpose of Count Fersen’s final visit to his friends Louis and Antoinette was to discuss the dire political situation and persuade them to try to escape again, which Louis would not do. Fersen may have had to linger in the palace overnight in order to avoid the revolutionary authorities, but not in the Queen’s bed. At his earliest convenience, he made his way to the welcoming arms of his mistress Eleonore Sullivan and stayed at her house in the attic hideaway.

  According to the Queen’s maid Madame Campan, Antoinette spent her nights at the Tuileries reading in order to calm her agitated mind. Madame Campan also writes in her memoirs of how the Queen found a confessor who had not taken the constitutional oath, whom she would secretly receive. For Easter of 1792, she would not make her Easter duty in public but arranged to hear Mass privately with a non-juring priest. As Madame relates:

  The Queen did perform her Easter devotions in 1792; but she went to the chapel attended only by myself. She desired me beforehand to request one of my relations, who was her chaplain, to celebrate a mass for her at five o’clock in the morning. It was still dark; she gave me her arm and I lighted her with a taper. I left her alone at the chapel door. She did not return to her room until the dawn of day.35

  So instead of liaisons with a lover, Antoinette was at that season of her life preparing her soul for the sufferings and death which lay ahead, of which her keen sense of the escalating events gave her a strong premonition. I see no reason why Madame Campan would have fabricated such events, which are similar to other reports of the Queen’s religious beliefs and practices, especially her own final testament. Furthermore, at the Tuileries, as at Versailles, a private passage linked the Queen’s room to her husband’s. According to Madame de Tourzel, the royal governess, in her memoirs, one of the first things the Queen did after being forcibly dragged to the Tuileries was to have a private staircase constructed between her room and the King’s. It would not be very convenient to dally with a lover when a husband might walk in at any moment from behind the hidden door in the paneling.36

  The psychology of Count Fersen in his later years must also be taken into account. He was proud of his daring and initiative which had intially delivered Louis XVI, Antoinette and their family from the Tuileries in June, 1791. However, the failure of the Royal Family to escape to Montmédy he blamed on the fact that he had not accompanied them after they left Paris; he was haunted by the night of Varennes for the rest of his life. Indeed, he was murdered by a mob in Stockholm about twenty years later on the exact anniversary of the Royal Family’s escape, June 20. He saw his failure as not only costing the lives of his dear friends, but also for destroying what would have been the glory of his career, to have been the one responsible for the rescue of the French Royal Family. Webster maintains that the count seemed to be always looking for signs that the Queen had loved him. He pinned in his diary a scrap of a letter that she had written to someone else, that was passed on to him after her death by Madame de Korff, the Russian lady whose passport Madame de Tourzel had used in the foiled escape. The scrap contained the words: Adieu, mon coeur est tout à vous, “Farewell, my heart is all yours.”37 The Queen expressed herself in such a gushing style to all of her friends and family and although the words were in her handwriting there is no indication to whom it was written. There is evidence, however, that Fersen transcribed known letters of the Queen into his journal, and at least in one case altering the original text to make it more personal. He claimed that the Queen had once used his seal with the motto: Tutto a te mi guida. “Everything leads me to thee.” Webster claims that she had also used the seal of the monarchist Quentin Crauford in her correspondence – using other people’s seals was a subterfuge employed in sensitive diplomatic correspondence, but Fersen thought the words were meant as a message for himself. As Webster says: “Everything could certainly not be guiding her to Fersen when she was imprisoned in the Temple and had just refused Jarjayes’ plan of escape, saying she could have no happiness apart from her children and therefore she abandoned the idea without even feeling any regret.”38

  A phrase from the Queen’s final letter of October 16, 1793, written a few hours before her death to her sister-in-law Madame Élisabeth, has often been interpreted as referring to Fersen. “I had friends. The idea of being separated for ever from them and their troubles forms one of my greatest regrets in dying. Let them know that up to my last moment I was thinking of them….”39 While the count was probably included among the “friends,” it is more likely that the Queen was thinking specifically of the Polignac family. Antoinette had often referred to the Duchesse de Polignac as her “dear heart,” and had entrusted her children to her care. The two families had been close, with Louis XVI writing to Madame de Polignac and confiding in her, and they had been rearing their children together. Antoinette had a great capacity for friendship, and the persistence of authors in interpreting her friendly interactions in terms of sex and romance is to obscure what was a beautiful aspect of her personality in itself. As she wrote to Élisabeth of her children in her last letter:

  Let them learn from our example how much the consolation of our affection brought us in the midst of our unhappiness and how happiness is doubled when one can share it with a friend—and where can one find a more loving and truer friend than in one’s own family?40

  For in those last days of Antoinette it is vital to understand her as a mother who had been violently separated from her children. They were the chief subject of her thoughts, and while she showed indifference to her own fate, the mention of them would reduce her to tears. She was in anguish over her eight year old son, as would any parent whose child had been torn from their arms. Not only was she, like any mother, concerned for his diet and hygiene while in the hands of his captors, but she knew that they were beating him, giving him excessive alcohol, teaching him lewd songs, and subjecting him to other forms of unspeakable abuse. Any mother would almost lose her mind; as for the Queen, she only wanted to survive and so someday be united with her son and put her arms around him. What parent would not be tormented if a beloved child was ill in the hospital and they could not be at his side? And yet, in a recently published novel about the Queen, I was sickened when the author with extreme mawkishness portrayed the despe
rate Antoinette wrapped up in Fersen fantasies while in prison. Such sentimentality and romanticism are obscene, considering the actual bitter and tragic circumstances, expressed by the Queen herself to Élisabeth in her last letter: “I embrace you with all my heart, together with those poor dear children. My God! What agony it is to leave them forever! Adieu! Adieu! I shall henceforth pay attention to nothing but my spiritual duties.” 41

  I would just like to add that Antoinette being a Catholic martyr has nothing to do with whether or not she had an affair with Count Fersen. Since genuine martyrdom wipes away all past sins then if the Queen did truly die a martyr’s death her martyrdom would blot out past offenses. An extramarital affair may keep one from being officially beatified but there are many whose martyrdom is known only to God. However, those of us who do not believe the Queen and Fersen were lovers do so not because we are trying to prove she was a martyr; we do so because of the historical evidence or lack thereof.

  1 8 Palaces, Châteaux, and Gardens

  “They walked together to the Belvedere. To Madame Élisabeth, coming to Trianon was like entering another world. At Montreuil she had gardens which were quite beautiful, but there was something magical about Antoinette's arcadian retreat. One always had a sense of expectation, as if there were some hidden enchantment only waiting to be discovered. She experienced a repose in the solitude of its groves and winding paths, where one could easily and happily become lost.” —from Trianon by Elena Maria Vidal

  Shortly after her husband’s succession to the throne of France in 1774, Antoinette was given the Petit Trianon as a refuge from the public life at the main palace of Versailles. Part of the reason for Louis XVI’s generous gift was that he wanted to keep his Austrian born wife from meddling in politics. Early on, he may at times have seen her as a foreign spy from whom he had to hide state secrets. He also thought by secluding her, she would be safe from her enemies at court. By giving her Trianon, he was only following a royal tradition. His grandmother Queen Marie used to frequently retire to the nearby Grand Trianon in order to escape the court, as did Louis XIV and Louis XV. Yet when Antoinette sought privacy it was seen as a dereliction of duty.

  Antoinette loved nature, gardening and solitude. She wanted her domain at Petit Trianon to have a natural landscape, albeit a fabricated one. She remodeled the Trianon gardens in the informal English-style and she started a farm. Every Sunday the Queen would open the gardens of Trianon to the public; she had large tents erected where all were welcomed to dance and listen to music. She herself would join the dancing, which often included square dancing. Many parents and nannies would bring their small children, and Antoinette, clothed in white linen, would receive them, making conversation regardless of rank or social class. Occasionally, the gardens were used for entertaining foreign guests, in a simple manner which did not add overmuch to the national debt. As consort of the most powerful monarch in Europe, it was expected that the Queen entertain foreign visitors in grand style. The French government was nearly bankrupt due to the help given by King Louis XVI to the American colonists in their war for independence from Britain. To save money, Antoinette would use her private gardens as the site of the entertainments by illuminating the gardens and having everyone wear white. As Baroness Oberkirch remarked, “…The gardens of many private individuals have cost more.”1 Most of the nobles had very extravagant gardens and unlike theirs, the Queen’s were not just for pleasure, but had a purpose.

  The eighteenth century saw the popularity of gardens that resembled nature as closely as possible. To achieve the effect of rusticity, artificial waterfalls and grottoes were constructed. Antoinette’s gardens, designed by Mique and Hubert Robert, were where she enjoyed the outdoors with her family and friends. The Belvedere was also called “the music pavilion,” perfect for small concerts, suppers and teas. Nearby was a Grotto on the lake, also designed by Mique. The Grotto, more than any place else, was a spot where the Queen would go for solitude. As Maxime de la Rocheterie describes:

  Not far from the Belvedere, and half hidden in a narrow ravine shaded by thick masses of trees, was a grotto which was only reached after a thousand turnings by a sombre stair cut in the rock. The rivulet which traversed it exhaled a delicious freshness; the light penetrated but dimly through a crack in the roof; a bushy growth concealed it from indiscreet eyes; the moss which carpeted the walls and ceiling prevented the noises of the outer world from entering. It was a place for retirement and rest until the day when the queen was to hear the first murmurs of October 5.2

  As Madame Campan relates:

  On the evening of the 5th of October, the King was shooting at Meudon, and the Queen was alone in her gardens at Trianon, which she then beheld for the last time in her life. She was sitting in her grotto absorbed in painful reflection, when she received a note from the Comte de Saint-Priest, entreating her to return to Versailles.3

  We hope that in those quiet moments of repose she found the strength to face the storm.

  In May of 1782 Paris was in a flurry over the visit of the “Comte and Comtesse du Nord,” the pseudonyms adopted by Grand Duke Paul and Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna, future Tsar and Empress of Russia. The imperial couple traveled incognito so as to lessen the formality of their European tour, which otherwise would have entailed a variety of stiff state receptions. As it was, the young pair were able to meet with other royals, such as Louis and Antoinette, on a more informal basis. They even won the approval of the Orléans clan by sending calling cards to all the Princes of the Blood the day after their arrival in Paris. Although Paul was called a “Tartar,” Maria’s tact and wit made the visit of the Russian heirs a social success.

  Grand Duke Paul, the son and heir of Empress Catherine the Great, was known for his mercurial temperament and general oddness. He was loved, however, with unconditional and endless devotion by his second wife, Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, who upon her conversion to Orthodoxy became “Maria Feodorovna.” When Maria married Paul in 1776 she was hailed as “an angel incarnate.” They made family life a priority and had ten children, two of whom later became Tsars of Russia. Maria Feodorovna had a tenuous relationship with her mother-in-law Empress Catherine, whom she rivaled in both intellect and sense of style. Maria was a skilled horticulturist and the gardens she created at the imperial palace of Pavlovsk lasted for generations to come. She came to Paris with her childhood friend Baroness Oberkirch, whom she called “Lanele.” In her memoirs, the Baroness wrote a detailed account of every single event she witnessed with her Imperial friends in Paris and at the French court.4

  Like many who traveled to the court of Louis XVI and Antoinette, “the Nords” were impressed with the magnificence of the royal palace and the gracious conduct of the sovereigns. Antoinette was uncomfortable at first, since she had heard that the Grand Duchess was an intellectual. And Maria Feodorovna asked, “Am I as beautiful as the Queen?”5 As one biographer describes the meeting:

  At first sight the grand-duchess, who had a beautiful figure, though somewhat too fat for her age, and who was stiff in her bearing, and fond of displaying her learning, had displeased [Marie-Antoinette]. By an unusual accident, the queen, whose manners were easy, and who had always an amiable word to say, had been embarrassed before these imperial visitors; she had retired to her chamber as though overcome with faintness, and had said, on asking for a glass of water, that she had just discovered that the role of queen was more difficult to play in the presence of other sovereigns, or of princes destined to become sovereigns, than before courtiers. This embarrassment, however, was but momentary; and her reception of her new guests was, on the whole, as affable and gracious as usual....

  The first interview was cold; the Queen, as we have said, was disturbed; the King appeared timid. That evening, at dinner, all embarrassment disappeared. The grand-duchess exhibited wit; the grand-duke, who was extremely ugly, and had a face like a Tartar, made up for his ugliness by the vivacity of his eyes and conversation. The queen, ‘beautiful as the da
y,’ animated all by her presence.6

  Antoinette and the Grand Duchess were soon getting along as if they had known each other all of their lives. Louis and Paul found much in common as well, after Louis’ initial shy muttering. They were both religious men who valued family life and simple pleasures; neither was known to have been unfaithful in marriage. Antoinette displayed her usual kindness and thoughtfulness which charmed Maria and Paul. They wanted to see the Children of France; Grand Duke embraced the Dauphin Louis-Joseph and questioned his governess as to his progress, while the Grand Duchess spoke kind words to him. Little Madame Royale sat on the lap of the Grand Duke, and in her outspoken way declared that she liked him and planned to come see him in Russia. Ironically, as an adult Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte would indeed seek refuge in the Russian empire, and Tsar Paul, remembering her sweetness, would readily offer asylum.

  Antoinette received Baroness Oberkirch who, it may be recalled, had been present at the border to greet the new Dauphine in 1770. “Madame,” said the Queen, “I do not know which I ought to envy most, you the friendship of the Countess du Nord, or her the possession of so faithful a friend, as I understand you to be.” The Baroness later penned in her memoirs: “Never shall these words be effaced from my remembrance, nor the gentle glance by which they were accompanied. The Queen made me sit behind her and the Countess du Nord, between Madame de Beckendorf and Madame de Vergennes, and did me the honour of addressing me five or six times during the concert.”