own Position and Prospects.-Court Life at Versailles.-Marie Antoinette shows her Dislike of Etiquette.-Character of the Duc d'Aiguillon.-Cabals against the Dauphiness.-Jealousy of Mme. du Barri.- The Aunts, too, are Jealous of Her.-She becomes more and more Popular.- Parties for Donkey-riding.-Scantiness of the Dauphiness's Income.-Her Influence over the King.-The Duc de Choiseul is dismissed.-She begins to have Great Influence over the Dauphin.
Marie Antoinette herself was inclined to be delighted with all that befell her, and to make light of what she could hardly regard as pleasant or becoming; and two of her first letters to her mother, written in the early part of July,[1] give us an insight into the feelings with which she regarded her new family and her own position, as well as a picture of her daily occupations and of the singular customs of the French court, strangely inconsistent in what it permitted and in what it disallowed, and, in the publicity in which its princes lived, curiously incompatible with ordinary ideas of comfort and even delicacy.
'The king,' she says, 'is full of kindnesses toward me, and I love him tenderly. But it is pitiable to see his weakness for Madame du Barri, who is the silliest and most impertinent creature that it is possible to conceive. She has played with us every evening at Marly,[2] and she has twice been seated next to me; but she has not spoken to me, and I have not attempted to engage in conversation with her; but, when it was necessary, I have said a word or two to her.
'As for my dear husband, he is greatly changed, and in a most advantageous manner. He shows a great deal of affection for me, and is even beginning to treat me with great confidence. He certainly does not like M. de la, Vauguyon; but he is afraid of him. A curious thing happened about the duke the other day. I was alone with my husband, when M. de la Vauguyon stole hurriedly up to the doors to listen. A servant, who was either a fool or a very honest man, opened the door, and there stood his grace the duke planted like a sentinel, without being able to retreat. I pointed out to my husband the inconvenience that there was in having people listening at the doors, and he took my remark very well.'
She did not tell the empress the whole of this occurrence; she had been too indignant at the duke's meanness to suppress her feelings, and she reproved the duke himself with a severity which can hardly be said to have been misplaced.
'Duke de la Vauguyon,' she said, 'my lord the dauphin is now of an age to dispense with a governor; and I have no need of a spy. I beg you not to appear again in my presence.[3]'
Between the writing of her first and second letters she had heard from Maria Teresa; and she 'can not describe how the affection her mother expresses for her has gone to her heart. Every letter which she has received has filled her eyes with tears of regret at being separated from so tender and loving a mother, and, happy as she is in France, she would give the world to see her family again, if it were but for a moment. As her mother wishes to know how the days are passed; she gets up between nine and ten, and, having dressed herself and said her morning prayers, she breakfasts, and then she goes to the apartments of her aunts, whore she usually finds the king. That lasts till half-past ten; then at eleven she has her hair dressed.
'At twelve,' she proceeds to say, 'what is called the Chamber is held, and there every one who does not belong to the common people may enter. I put on my rouge and wash my hands before all the world; the men go out, and the women remain; and then I dress myself in their presence. Then comes mass. If the king is at Versailles, I go to mass with him, my husband, and my aunts; if he is not there, I go alone with the dauphin, but always at the same hour. After mass we two dine by ourselves in the presence of all the world; but dinner is over by half-past one, as we both eat very fast. From the dinner-table I go to the dauphin's apartments, and if he has business, I return to my own rooms, where I read, write, or work; for I am making a waistcoat for the king, which gets on but slowly, though, I trust, with God's grace, it will be finished before many years are over. At three o'clock I go again to visit my aunts, and the king comes to them at the same hour. At four the abbe[4] comes to me, and at five I have every day either my harpsichord-master or my singing-master till six. At half-past six I go almost every day to my aunts, except when I go out walking. And you must understand that when I go to visit my aunts, my husband almost always goes with me. At seven we play cards till nine o'clock; but when the weather is fine I go out walking, and then there is no play in my apartments, but it is held at my aunts'. At nine we sup; and when the king is not there, my aunts come to sup with us; but when the king is there, we go after supper to their rooms, waiting there for the king, who usually comes about a quarter to eleven; and I lie down on a grand sofa and go to sleep till he comes. But when he is not there, we go to bed at eleven o'clock.'
The play-table which is alluded to in these letters was one of the most curious and mischievous institutions of the court. Gambling had been one of its established vices ever since the time of Henry IV., whose enormous losses at play had formed the subject of Sully's most incessant remonstrances. And from the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV., a gaming-table had formed a regular part of the evening's amusement. It was the one thing which was allowed to break down the barrier of etiquette. On all other occasions, the rules which regulated who might and who might not be admitted to the royal presence were as precise and strict as in many cases they were unreasonable and unintelligible. But at the gaming-table every one who could make the slightest pretensions to gentle birth was allowed to present himself and stake his money; [5] and the leveling influence of play was almost as fully exemplified in the king's palace as in the ordinary gaming-houses, since, though the presence of royalty so far acted as a restraint on the gamblers as to prevent any open explosion, accusations of foul play and dishonest tricks were as rife as in the most vulgar company.
Marie Antoinette was winning many hearts by her loveliness and affability; but she could not scatter her kind speeches and friendly smiles among all with whom she came into contact without running counter to the prejudices of some of the old courtiers who had been formed on a different system; to whom the maintenance of a rigid etiquette was as the very breath of their nostrils, and in whose eyes its very first rule and principle was that princes should keep all the world at a distance. Foremost among these sticklers for old ideas was the Countess de Noailles, her principal 'lady of honor,' whose uneasiness on the subject speedily became so notorious as to give rise to numerous court squibs and satirical odes, the authors of which seemed glad to compliment the dauphin and to vex her ladyship at the same time, but who could not be deterred by these effusions from lecturing Marie Antoinette on her disregard of her rank, and on the danger of making herself too familiar, till she provoked the young princess into giving her the nickname of Madame Etiquette; and, no doubt, in her childish playfulness, to utter many a speech and do many an act whose principle object was to excite the astonishment or provoke the frowns of the too prim lady of honor.
There can be no doubt that, though she often pushed her strictness too far, Madame de Noailles to some extent had reason on her side; and that a certain degree of ceremony and stately reserve is indispensable in court life. It is a penalty which those born in the purple must pay for their dignity, that they can have no friend on a perfect equality with themselves; and those who in different ages and countries have tried to emancipate themselves from this law of their rank have not generally won even the respect of those to whom they have condescended, and still less the approbation of the outer world, whose members have perhaps a secret dislike to see those whom they regard as their own equals lifted above them by the familiarity of princes.
This, however, was a matter of comparatively slight importance. An excess of condescension is at the worst a venial and an amiable error; but even at the early period plots were being contrived against the young princess, which, if successful, would have been wholly destructive of her happiness, and which, though she was fully aware of them, she had not means by herself to disconcert or defeat. They were the more formidable because they were partly political, embracing a scheme for the removal of a minister, and consequently conciliated more supporters and insured greater perseverance than if they had merely aimed at securing a preponderance of court favor for the plotters. Like all the other mistresses who had successfully reigned in the French courts, Madame du Barri had a party of adherents who hoped to rise by her patronage. The Duc de Choiseul himself had owed his promotion to her predecessor, Madame de Pompadour, and those who hoped to supplant him saw in a similar influence the best prospect of attaining their end. One of the least respectable of the French nobles was the Duc d'Aiguillon. As Governor of Brittany, he had behaved with notorious cowardice in the Seven Years' War. He had since been, if possible, still more dishonored by charges of oppression, peculation, and subornation, on which the authorities of the province had prosecuted him, and which the Parisian Parliament had pronounced to be established. But no kind of infamy was a barrier to the favor of Louis XV. He cancelled the resolution of the Parliament, and showed such countenance to the culprit that d'Aiguillon, who was both ambitious and covetous, conceived the idea of supplanting Choiseul in the Government. As one of Choiseul's principal measures had been the negotiation of the dauphin's marriage, Marie Antoinette was known to regard him with a good-will which was founded on gratitude. But,
