The Life of Marie Antoinette

[8] The Duc de la Vauguyon, who, after the dauphin's marriage, still retained his post with his younger brother.

CHAPTER VI. [1] Mercy's letter to the empress, August 14th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 335.

[2] Mercy to Maria Teresa, November 14th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 307.

[3] Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, December 15th, 1772, Arneth, i., p. 382.

[4] Her sister Caroline, Queen of Naples.

[5] Her brother Leopold, at present Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterward emperor. His wife, Marie Louise, was a daughter of Charles III. of Spain.

[6] They, with several of the princes of the blood and some of the peers, as already mentioned, had been banished for their opposition to the abolition of the Parliaments; but now, in the hopes of obtaining the king's consent to his marriage with Madame de Montessan, a widow of enormous wealth, the Due d'Orleans made overtures for forgiveness, accompanying them, however, with a letter so insolent that it might we be regarded as an aggravation of his original offense. According to Madame du Deffand (letter to Walpole, December 18th, 1772, vol. ii., p. 283), he was only prevented from reconciling himself to the king some months before by his son, the Due de Chartres (afterward the infamous Egalite), whom she describes as 'a young man, very obstinate, and who hopes to play a great part by putting himself at the head of a faction.' The princes, however, in the view of the shrewd old lady, had made the mistake of greatly overrating their own importance. 'These great princes, since their protest, have been just citizens of the Rue St. Denis. No one at court ever perceived their absence, and no one in the city ever noticed their presence.'

[7] Lord Stormont, the English Embassador at Vienna, from which city he was removed to Paris. In the preceding September Maria Teresa had complained to him of being 'animated against her cabinet, from indignation at the partition of Poland.'

[8] That is, sisters-in-law-the Princesses Clotilde and Elizabeth.

[9] The Hotel-Dieu was the most ancient hospital in Paris. It had already existed several hundred years when Philip Augustus enlarged it, and gave it the name of Maison de Dieu. Henry IV. and his successors had further enlarged it, and enriched it with monuments; and even the revolutionists respected it, though when they had disowned the existence of God they changed its name to that of L'Hospice de l'Humanite. It had been almost destroyed by fire a fortnight before the date of this letter, on the night of the 29th of December.

[10] St. Anthony's Day was June 14th, and her name of Antoinette was regarded as placing her under his especial protection.

CHAPTER VII. [1] They have not, however, been preserved.

[2] Mercy to Maria Teresa, June 16th, 1773, Arneth, i., p. 467.

[3] 'Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et la Famille Royale', p. 23.

[4] Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, July 17th, Arneth, ii., p. 8.

[5] 'Histoire de Marie Antoinette,' par M. de Goncourt, p. 50. Quoting an unpublished journal by M.M. Hardy, in the Royal Library.

[6] It is the name by which she is more than once described in Madame du Deffand's letters. See her 'Correspondence,' ii., p. 357.

[7] Mercy to Maria Teresa, December 11th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 81.

[8] 'Memoires de Besenval,' i., p. 304.

CHAPTER VIII. [1] Mercy to Maria Teresa, August 14th, 1773, Arneth, ii., p. 31.

[2] The money was a joint gift from herself as well as from him. Great distress, arising from the extraordinarily high price of bread, was at this time prevailing in Paris.

[3] The term most commonly used by Marie Antoinette in her letters to her mother to describe Madame du Barri. She was ordered to retire to the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, near Meaux. Subsequently she was allowed to return to Luciennes, a villa which her royal lover had given her.

[4] Madame de Mazarin was the lady who, by the fulsomeness of her servility to Madame du Barri, provoked Madame du Deffand (herself a lady not altogether sans reproche) to say that it was not easy to carry 'the heroism of baseness and absurdity farther.'

[5] Lorraine had become a French province a few years before, on the death of Stanislaus Leczinsky, father of the queen of Louis XV.

[6] Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, May 18th, and to Mercy on the same day, Arneth, ii., p. 149.

[7] See his letter of 8th May to Maria Teresa. 'Il faut que pour la suite de son bonheur, elle commence a s'emparer de l'autorite que M. le Dauphin n'exercera jamais que d'une facon convenable, et ... ce serait du dernier danger et pour l'etat et pour le systeme general que qui ce soit s'emparat de M. le Dauphin et qu'il fut conduit par autre que par Madame la Dauphine.'-ARNETH, ii., p. 137.

[8] 'Je parle a l'amie, a la confidente du roi.'-Maria Teresa to Marie Antoinette, May 30th, 1770, Arneth, ii., p. 155.

[9] 'Jusqu'a present l'etiquette de cette cour a toujours interdit aux reines et princesses royales de manger avec des hommes.'-Mercy to Maria Teresa, June 7th, 1774, Arneth, ii, p. 164

[10] 'Elle me traite, a mon arrivee, comme tous les jeunes gens qui composaient ses pages, qu'elle comblait de bontes, en leur montrant une bienveillance pleine de dignite, mais qu'on pouvait aussi appeler maternelle.'- Marie Therese, Memoires de Tilly, i., p. 25.

[11] Le don, ou le droit, de joyeux avenement.

[12] La ceinture de la reine. It consisted of three pence (deniers) on each hogs-head of wine imported into the city, and was levied every three years in the capital.-ARNETH, ii, p. 179.

[13] The title 'ceinture de la reine' had been given to it because in the old times queens and all other ladies had carried their purses at their girdles.

CHAPTER IX. [1] The title by which the count was usually known: that of the countess was madame.

[2] St. Simon, 1709, ch. v., and 1715, ch. i, vols. vii. and xiii., ed. 1829.

[3] Ibid., 1700, ch xxx., vol. ii., p. 469.

[4] Arneth, ii, p. 206.

[5] Madame de Campan, ch. iv.

[6] Madame de Campan, ch. v., p. 106.

[7] Id., p. 101.

[8] 'Sir Peter. Ah, madam, true wit is more neatly allied to good- nature than your ladyship is aware of.'-School for Scandal, act ii., sc. 2.

CHAPTER X. [1] 'Elle avait entierement le defaut contraire [a la prodigalite], et je pouvais prouver qu'elle portait souvent l'economie jusqu'a des details d'une mesquinerie blamable, surtout dans une souveraine.'- MADAME DE CAMPAN, ch. v., p. 106, ed. 1858.

[2] Arneth, ii., p. 307.

[3] See the author's 'History of France under the Bourbons,' iii., p. 418. Lacretelle, iv., p. 368, affirms that this outbreak, for which in his eyes 'une pretendue disette' was only a pretext, was 'evidemment fomente par des hommes puissans,' and that 'un salaire qui etait paye par des hommes qu'on ne pouvait nommer aujourd'hui avec assez de certitude, excitait leurs fureurs factices.'

[4] La Guerre des Farines.

[5] Arneth, ii., p. 342.

[6] 'Souvenirs de Vaublanc,' i., p. 231.

[7] August 23d, 1775, No. 1524, in Cunningham's edition, vol. vi., p. 245.

[8] The Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, who were just at this time astonishing London with their riotous living.

CHAPTER XI. [1] 'Gustave III. et la Cour de France,' i. p. 279.

[2] The Duc d'Angouleme, afterward dauphin, when the Count d'Artois succeeded to the throne as Charles X.

[3] Marie Antoinette to Maria Teresa, August 12th, 1775, Arneth, ii., p. 366.

[4] 'Le projet de la reine etait d'exiger du roi que le Sieur Turgot fut chasse, meme envoye a la Bastille ... et il a fallu les representations les plus fortes et les plus instantes pour arreter les effets de la colere de la Reine.'- Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.