Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars
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Every age has its peculiar colouring; Marly showed that of Louis XIV even more than Versailles. Everything…appeared to have been produced by the magic power of a fairy’s wand. Not the slightest trace of all this splendour remains; the revolutionary spoilers even tore up the pipes which served to supply the fountains. Perhaps a brief description of this palace and the usages established there by Louis XIV may be acceptable. The very extensive gardens of Marly ascended almost imperceptibly to the Pavilion of the Sun, which was occupied only by the King and his family. The pavilions of the twelve zodiacal signs bounded the two sides of the lawn. They were connected by bowers impervious to the rays of the sun. The pavilions nearest to that of the sun were reserved for the Princes of the blood and the ministers; the rest were occupied by persons holding superior offices at Court, or invited to stay at Marly….During half of Louis XV’s reign the ladies still wore the habit de cour de Marly, so named by Louis XIV, and which differed little from, that devised for Versailles. The French gown, gathered in the back, and with great hoops, replaced this dress, and continued to be worn till the end of the reign of Louis XVI. The diamonds, feathers, rouge, and embroidered stuffs spangled with gold, effaced all trace of a rural residence; but the people loved to see the splendour of their sovereign and a brilliant Court glittering in the shades of the woods. After dinner, and before the hour for cards, the Queen, the Princesses, and their ladies, paraded among the clumps of trees, in little carriages, beneath canopies richly embroidered with gold, drawn by men in the King’s livery. The trees planted by Louis XIV were of prodigious height, which, however, was surpassed in several of the groups by fountains of the clearest water; while, among others, cascades over white marble, the waters of which, met by the sunbeams, looked like draperies of silver gauze, formed a contrast to the solemn darkness of the groves.21
Antoinette eventually talked Louis out of spending time at Marly, seeing it as a boring waste of money. In spite of Marly being a popular spot for the public to come and watch the Royal Family “recreate” it was destroyed with a particular vengeance by the revolutionaries. Nothing of the château remains although parts of the gardens have been restored in recent times.
Montreuil was given to Madame Élisabeth of France in 1781 by Louis XVI and Antoinette. Since life at the royal palace afforded little or no privacy, the King and the Queen decided to give the seventeen year old princess a place to call her own. Built in 1776 for the Princesse de Gueménée when she was Royal Governess, Louis XVI bought it when the Gueménés went bankrupt. Élisabeth had played there as a child so the estate already had happy connotations for her. There were paths amid the shady groves; from the property one could glimpse Paris glittering in the distance. According to Imbert de Saint-Amand's Marie-Antoinette and the End of the Old Regime:
In spite of her love of solitude, she was the only princess of the royal family who had no country-house. One day in 1781, Marie Antoinette and Madame Élisabeth were driving along the Avenue de Paris. ‘If you like,’ said the Queen to her young sister-in-law, we will stop at that house in Montreuil, where you used to like to go when you were a little girl.’
‘I shall be delighted,’ answered Madame Élisabeth; ‘for I have spent many happy hours there.’
The Queen and the Princess got out of their carriage, and just as they were crossing the threshold, Marie Antoinette said, ‘Sister, you are now in your own house. This is to be your Trianon. The King has the pleasure of offering this present to you, and has given me the happiness of informing you.’ Madame Élisabeth was then but seventeen years old. The King decided that she should not sleep at Montreuil until she was twenty-five….The first thing that Madame Élisabeth did with her new property was to give to Madame de Mackau [the sub-governess] a little house adjacent, upon the estate. She thought that the best way of inaugurating her taking possession was by sharing it with her former instructress. The Baroness of Mackau, who was not rich, accepted gratefully the gift of the Princess, and established herself at Montreuil with her daughter, Madame de Bombelles, whom Madame Élisabeth treated like an old friend.22
Henceforth, the princess spent all her days at Montreuil, living an almost monastic existence with her household. After morning Mass in the Royal Chapel, they would walk or ride to her estate, where the day was strictly regulated into hours of prayer, work and recreation. She and her ladies would dine together at the same table; in the evening they would recite the night prayer of Compline before returning to the palace for the night. Like Petit Trianon, Montreuil had a grotto, an orangerie, and a dairy. Madame Élisabeth donated the milk to poor children. One of her maids was a Swiss girl who had left the man she loved behind in Switzerland. When Antoinette heard of the girl’s plight, she sent for the fiancé, called Jacques Bosson, and paid for the wedding. The incident inspired a popular song, Pauvre Jacques.
Pauvre Jacques, quand j'étais près de toi
Je ne sentais pas ma misère;
Mais à présent que tu vis loin de moi
Je manque de tout sur la terre.
Poor Jack, while I was near to thee,
Tho’ poor, my bliss was unalloyed;
But now thou dwell’st so far from me,
The world appears a lonesome void.
Madame Élisabeth was at Montreuil on October 5, 1789 when word came that the mob was marching on Versailles. Although she had many opportunities to leave France, she chose to be imprisoned with Louis XVI, Antoinette and their children. She shared all of their humiliations and hardships in the Temple prison, without regret. The following incident is recorded from December 1792:
On 7th December a deputation from the Commune brought an order that the royal family should be deprived of ‘knives, razors, scissors, penknives, and all other cutting instruments.’ The King gave up a knife, and took from a morocco case a pair of scissors and a penknife; and the officials then searched the room, taking away the little toilet implements of gold and silver, and afterwards removing the Princesses’ working materials. Returning to the King’s room, they insisted upon seeing what remained in his pocket-case. ‘Are these toys which I have in my hand also cutting instruments?’ asked the King, showing them a cork-screw, a turn-screw, and a steel for lighting. These also were taken from him. Shortly afterwards Madame Élisabeth was mending the King’s coat, and, having no scissors, was compelled to break the thread with her teeth.
‘What a contrast!’ he exclaimed, looking at her tenderly. ‘You wanted nothing in your pretty house at Montreuil.’
‘Ah, brother,’ she answered, ‘how can I have any regret when I partake your misfortunes?’ 23
Bellevue was a country estate originally built by Louis XV for Madame de Pompadour. It was on a hill overlooking the Seine and the forest of Meudon; the view was said to be truly magnificent. In 1775, after he had become king, Louis XVI gave Bellevue to his maiden aunts Adélaïde, Victoire, and Sophie, the surviving daughters of Louis XV, known as Mesdames Tantes. Madame Louise having already entered the Carmelite monastery, Louis thought it would be good for his other aunts to have a retreat from the court, a house they could call their own. For all their genuine piety, Mesdames Tantes had manipulated Louis and gossiped about Antoinette in the early years of their marriage, coining the term L'Autrichienne, an epithet that would later be taken up by the revolutionaries. It probably helped maintain the peace at court for Antoinette to be at her Trianon while the Aunts were at their Bellevue. According to the Comte d’Hézecques, who in his capacity as a page at Versailles witnessed the inner workings of the court:
The position of Mesdames at Court being obscure and unsatisfactory, they were seldom seen there. They spent the chief part of the year either at Bellevue, on that splendid height that commands the proud city and the charming country around it...Madame Adélaïde and Madame Victoire were the only survivors of the four daughters of Louis XV who outlived their father. The third, Madame Sophie, had died two years before....Mesdames the Aunts only came to Paris in the winter, as they had been able to
stay at Bellevue up to the 5th of October. Seeing that they were of very little use to their nephew, unable to enjoy his confidence, and fearing measures opposed to their religious opinions, they at last decided on going to Rome. Possibly in their solitude, standing in a position whence they could form a better judgment of the course of events, theirs was the surer presentiment of all the trouble that hung over their family; therefore, they separated themselves from it for life, but they could not prevail on Madame Élisabeth to leave her brother and accompany them. . . . No doubt Mesdames did not find themselves happy at Rome. The news of the fall of the throne of their fathers and the sorrows of their family came to disturb the peace they might have enjoyed in the Eternal City. They could at least carry their tears and prayers for their guilty country to the foot of the altar, till the day when they were forced to quit the hospitable city that had received them, by conquests that the noble head of the Church could neither arrest nor foresee. So they left Rome to retire to Naples; and, after several changes of their place of refuge, Madame Adélaïde, had the sorrow of seeing her younger sister die at Trieste. Her own mournful existence was shortened by grief, and she soon died herself at Klagenfurth. 24
In the 1780's Mesdames Tantes had Mique create an English-style garden at Bellevue, complete with a tower, a lake, a mill, a dairy and a grotto, similar to what Antoinette had at Trianon. It is fascinating that while they did not always approve of the Queen they imitated her in that for which she was greatly criticized, the creation of fanciful gardens. The tower and some other structures of the gardens of Bellevue survived well into the twentieth century; little is left of it today. The palace was looted during the Revolution. In 1823, it was demolished.
Miniature palaces surrounded by elaborate gardens being the style of the 1770’s and 80’s, the Comte d'Artois, youngest brother of Louis XVI, and prince of the fashionable world, was not to be outdone. Artois’ Bagatelle was in the Bois de Boulogne on the outskirts of Paris, which made it immensely convenient for a prince who so enjoyed the night life of the capital. Indeed Parva sed apta “small but convenient” were the words which Artois had graven over the entrance of his new house. Originally built as a small hunting lodge for Maréchal d'Estrées, Artois bought the property in 1775, tearing down the old house. He hired the architect François-Joseph Bélanger to build a small neo-classical structure which he called “Bagatelle” from the Italian word “bagatella” which meant “trifle.” Antoinette wagered that the house could not be finished within three months; Artois won the bet. The house and the gardens cost around two million livres. The park of Bagatelle was designed by the Scotsman Thomas Blaikie, with sham ruins, ponds, primitive hermits’ huts, a pagoda, waterfalls and grottoes. It became the site of many parties and entertainments held by the Artois family. While Artois lost his Bagatelle during the Revolution, along with everything else, he regained it during the Restoration. It stayed in his family until the Revolution of 1830.
The gardener Thomas Blaikie also worked for Antoinette at times; it seems she enjoyed his outspoken, curmudgeonly ways. She came to see him at the Bagatelle immediately after the Royal Family was brought to live in the Tuileries in October 1789. Blaikie had not been paid everything that Artois and the Duc d’Orléans owed him and was in need of funds. The Queen visited him in his cottage which she found quite clean and neat; they talked about the Revolution and she told him she would never forget him.25 Later, he worked for Joséphine at Malmaison. He was eventually given a pension by the son of Orléans, Louis-Philippe the Citizen-King.
While the young Artois is usually dismissed as being a shallow and decadent character he had a deeper side. Later in life, after the death of his last mistress Madame de Polastron, Artois (Charles X) became so devout that his enemies accused him of having been secretly ordained a priest. He was falsely rumored to be secretly offering Mass at the Tuileries, a deed no one would have tried to pin on the young Artois. The château and gardens of Bagatelle still exist and are open to the public.
The Palais de Luxembourg was built in 1615 by Henri IV’s widow Queen Marie de Médicis during her regency on behalf of her son, Louis XIII. Decorated in an elaborate Florentine style, its long galleries were perfect for displaying the gigantic canvases painted by Peter Paul Rubens of Queen Marie’s life and her husband’s. The gardens were vast and magnificent. She bequeathed the palace to her second son, Gaston d’Orléans; it passed through many hands until it came to Louis XIV in 1694. Louis let his scandalous grand-niece, Marie-Louise Élisabeth d’Orléans, live there, giving the place a bad name, until her death in 1719. The palace became a museum in 1750, a function later taken by the Louvre. In 1778, Louis XVI made it the property of his brother, the Comte de Provence. It became the Paris residence of the Comte and Comtesse de Provence and thus the center of much political plotting and intrigues. At the heart of the cabal was Madame de Balbi. While Louis XVI broke with tradition and refused to take a mistress, it was not so with his brothers. When the Comtesse de Provence became inordinately attached to one of her ladies-in-waiting, Madame de Gourbillon, the Comte de Provence, the future Louis XVIII, sought the company of a certain Madame de Balbi. Anne Jacobé Nompar de Caumont La Force, Comtesse de Balbi, born in 1758, was not a beauty but her biting wit kept Provence entertained. She had once been the governess of the children of the Comte d’Artois. She soon gained ascendancy over his circle, known for its political plots. According to The Nation:
The Countess de Balbi, who first became the favorite of the Count de Provence, was the daughter of Bertrand de Caumont La Force and of Madeleine de Galard de Brassac de Béarn. M. de Caumont was one of the Count's gentlemen, and his daughter was appointed ‘dame pour accompagner’ and afterwards ‘dame d’atours’ of the Countess, who was called Madame. M. de Balbi, her husband, was of a Genoese family and served as Colonel in the regiment of Bourbon. Madame de Balbi was tolerably pretty, was a great coquette, and was feared for her wit, which spared nothing and nobody. She pleased the Count de Provence by her conversation more than by her charms. The Count de Balbi was a jealous husband (a rare being at that time), but he was exiled to Senlis; he afterwards emigrated and returned to France at the beginning of the Consulate. Madame de Balbi became the great power in the house of the Count de Provence.
‘She was a sort of Dubarry, but well born.’26
Some historians have claimed the relationship between Provence and Madame de Balbi was strictly platonic; others claim the contrary. Whatever it was that went on between them, other than conniving at late night suppers and having lively games of backgammon, Provence installed Madame de Balbi in apartments at both the Petit Luxembourg and at Versailles. He also named some gardens after her. She no longer lived with her husband but remained a fixture in the household of Provence until the emigration. She was ridiculed by the Revolutionary pamphleteers for her influence over a prince who was politically liberal but who clung to his royal dignity in hopes for someday gaining the throne. It was Madame de Balbi who, quite ironically, counseled Provence on certain matters of conscience in regards to receiving Holy Communion from constitutional priests. In Essays on the Early Part of the French Revolution, John Wilson Croker remarks:
In stating the motives that induced [Provence] to quit France he mentions his reluctance to accept the services of the revolutionized clergy:— ‘I was convinced,’ he says, ‘that I had no choice between apostasy and martyrdom; the former revolted me, and I will own I felt no great vocation for the latter. I talked a great deal with Madame de Balbi on this subject, and we agreed that there was a third course open to me, which was to abandon a country where the usual exercise of our religious duties was about to be proscribed.’ Now Madame de Balbi (née Caumont de la Force) was a lady separated from her husband, and supposed to be higher in Monsieur’s favour than she ought to be; and we wish we could only smile at the simplicity with which the Prince makes a public confession that, though he would not accept the ministration of a Constitutional priest, he consulted Madame de Balbi on the sp
iritual concerns of his conscience! 27
I suppose we should be edified that Provence contemplated the possibility of martyrdom, in light of some of his other behaviors. His own account of events dwells a great deal on what he had to eat and drink in the inns at which he stayed during his escape. He was a Bourbon, after all; the Bourbons appreciated good food, Provence perhaps more than the others. As for Madame de Balbi, they parted during Louis XVIII’s years of exile, when he had to endure poverty and humiliation, which he expected his wife and family to share with him but not his mistress. Besides, Madame de Balbi gave birth to twins who were not fathered by Louis XVIII. She returned to France during Napoleon’s reign and lived in the provinces. She died in 1842, long after the Bourbons had been restored and exiled again.28
One of the Revolutionary leaders and greatest adversaries of Louis and Antoinette was their mutual cousin Philippe d'Orléans. He was married to the lovely and devout Adélaïde de Bourbon-Penthièvre, the sister-in-law of the Princesse de Lamballe, and sole heiress of one of the greatest fortunes in France. Philippe and Adélaïde, who were then the Duc and Duchesse de Chartres, had six children in eight years, one of whom was Louis-Philippe, the future Citizen-King. In spite of her devotion to him and their offspring, Philippe grew bored with his wife and took up with the writer Madame de Genlis, who liked to be counter-cultural by not wearing make-up. To the surprise of Paris, he made his mistress, who was also his wife’s best friend, the governess of his children. She had them chop firewood and other menial chores in an effort to make them democratic. Although Philippe Égalité, as he came to be called during the Revolution, liked to portray himself as a man of the people, he was not averse to creating his own stately gardens. The Parc Monceau was in the English style, like the gardens of Trianon; while Antoinette was criticized for her gardens, Orléans was not. The Parc Monceau was designed by Louis Carrogis Carmontelle, at the request of the Duc de Chartres, later the Duc d'Orléans, on a small parcel of land he had purchased. The Scottish gardener Thomas Blaikie also worked on parts of it. The landscaping included a pavilion as well as a windmill, a pyramid, and some Corinthian pillars near the pond. There are said to be many masonic references in the designs of the park, which is not surprising since Philippe was Grand Master of the Grand Orient de France, the governing body of French freemasonry. The Parc Monceau is featured in the novel Madame Royale as the setting of the picnic to which Louis-Philippe invites Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte.