The Last Years of Old France

OF the making of books devoted wholly or in part to Marie Antoinette there is indeed no end ; histories often extravagant in praise or blame, in some instances mere calumnies. But when in 1864 Alfred von Arneth, the Austrian Imperial Archivist, published the correspondence of Maria Theresa and her youngest daughter from the time the child-bride entered France till the mother’s death ten years later, a work followed in 1874 by the letters of the Empress and her ambassador, Count Mercy-Argenteau, and supplemented by the still later issue of the correspondence of the Count and the Emperor Joseph, it was found that the series of volumes were authentic documents, unequaled in precision and truthfulness, regarding the French Monarchy in its last years. It is somewhat surprising that the general English-reading public has waited so long for the story, in any complete form, of the youthful dauphiness and queen and her entourage, as given with extraordinary vividness in these letters. Fortunately the author of The Guardian of Marie Antoinette ¹ has shown in some ways a special fitness for her task; she can realize the world of which she writes, and make it live for her readers. Graphic touches of characterization abound, sketches often so true even when slightest, that one regrets the more an occasional flippant sharpness of tone, as in dealing with the unfortunate daughters of Louis XV. Their position, that at the best would have been difficult enough in a society in which the natural destiny of a demoiselle leaving childhood was either marriage or a convent, was actually one to make all healthy development of any natural gift or grace wellnigh impossible. They were not old in these years, though they are here continually so stigmatized, as if it were one of their shortcomings ; but the narrow groove in which they were compelled to move, the petty forms which had become the habitude of their lives, must have destroyed even the memory of any youthful audacity or aspiration. They could work endless mischief, but neither guide nor protect.

To these aunts, bred in the distrust of Austria traditional in their house, and to a husband more of a child than herself, the dullest, slowest, and most irresolute of boys, came as a seal of the alliance of her country and France the unformed and ill-taught, but bright, quick-witted, high-spirited, and proudly honest little archduchess. Maria Theresa was a wise and affectionate mother, but she was empress above all ; her country, with its interests, was her first, her absorbing thought, and her children belonged to the state. Her daughter must never forget the alliance, and she must also learn to bear herself with discretion and dignity in the most immoral of courts. Then began the secret, but very real and potent guardianship of Count Mercy-Argenteau. Day by day, nay hour by hour, he watched over his charge with never tiring vigilance and affection. A consummate diplomatist, one of the keenest, shrewdest, and most adroit of men, knowing the world about him and the almost impossible path which must be trod by those careless young feet, he was quick to discern dangers and, if might be, to turn them aside, and to seize the right moment for advice and admonition, never resented, if often unheeded, by dauphiness or queen. That she heartily disliked flattery Mercy records, being well able to appraise its value, and he adds, “I doubt if there is any living person of her rank besides herself to whom one can always speak the truth without fear.”

Miss Smythe has deftly woven extracts from Mercy’s letters, and from those of the Empress and her daughter as well, with her own comments thereon, into a continuous narrative, thus giving a series of living pictures of those latter days in that crowded little world of Versailles. The lavish splendor (and appalling discomfort), the ceaseless intrigues, plots, and counter-plots, the grace, the charm,—what Talleyrand was sadly to remember as “the sweetness of life ” forever passed away, — the unspeakable greed, baseness, treachery, all are faithfully depicted, with the ambassador’s provoking, enchanting young princess ever the central figure. It is the seamy side of that brilliant tapestry we see oftenest, for Mercy noted with ever growing dread the evil and confusions of the time, and the Empress writes with sad prescience: “In the King, in his ministers, in all the kingdom itself, there is nothing that gives me hope.” Her misgivings could have been in no wise allayed by the thoroughgoing investigations of the Emperor Joseph when that monitory visitor appeared at Versailles, comprehending perfectly the impossible financial situation of France, and finding the wellmeaning king equally apathetic in body and mind. The radiant queen came as a delightful surprise to the elder brother who remembered only a child, and though he lectured her, not without reason, in and out of season, he wrote with true insight: “She is a sweet-natured and straightforward woman, young and thoughtless, but with a basis of uprightness and honesty truly wonderful in her situation.” The next year brought to her the gift of motherhood, the source of her greatest happiness, and, alas, in the end, her acutest agony. And in the very days, so soon to pass, when the world seemed to her blissfully transformed, the crafty, scheming Provence, always aided by the volatile but equally treacherous Artois, was in his angry disappointment stealthily setting afloat those unspeakable calumnies, which ever spreading outward and growing in vileness were to poison the mind of the whole nation. Miss Smythe rightly lays stress upon the fact, not always recognized, that Marie Antoinette’s worst foes were of her own household, and among those responsible for her death, and for suffering worse than death, must be reckoned the brothers of the king, each of whom was to wear later the simulacrum of the crown they then coveted. Almost the last words written to Mercy by the Empress commended anew her daughter to his care ; and he was faithful to the end, one of the small company — there were but four — in whom the queen could absolutely trust in the evil days.

A word as to the exceedingly interesting portraits (would that a larger proportion of them had been photogravures) that add very greatly to the value of the book, and are here reproduced for the first time from the originals at the Château d’Argenteau. Especially noteworthy are the charming, childlike face of the sixteen-year-old Dauphiness and the picture of Mercy-Argenteau, which could very truthfully be labeled the Portrait of a Gentleman. The refined, sensitive features, the glance at once observant and thoughtful, the somewhat anxious expression which may well have become habitual, all accord with the testimony of the letters. It must be said that the index appended to these handsome and otherwise wellmade volumes is in its inadequacy a thing to wonder at.

A memoir of Madame Élisabeth² forms the natural close of the Versailles Historical Series, and Miss Wormeley has compiled her sketch from the only authoritative biographies. Truth to tell, the memoirs of this noble and heroic young woman are inspired by a courtier-like and religious devotion which hardly makes vital the human qualities of the princess and saint. But she has left a sufficiently clear presentment of her temper, mind, and heart in her letters, a considerable number of which are here given. Proud, resolute, vivacious, one to enjoy life in a healthy way and to help others to enjoy it, she was opposed with all her heart to any compromise with the Revolutionists. Yet she deliberately, after a manner, sanctioned such concessions by casting her lot with the king, and not escaping with her younger brothers, who, as may be seen from hints in the queen’s correspondence, really influenced her opinions on public matters more than could the good, slow-witted Louis to whom she was so loyally devoted. One of Madame Élisabeth’s letters not printed in this volume, relating to the decree of the Assembly giving political rights to certain Jews, shows that her feeling on that subject did not differ materially from that likely to be held by an equally devout Frenchwoman of to-day. But if she had little tolerance, her piety was real, ardent, and, in the end, exalted, and it glorifies the cruel details of what may truly be termed her martyrdom. The tragic history of the aunt is fittingly supplemented by the narrative which the niece, the only survivor of the doomed family, wrote in the last days of her solitary confinement in the Temple. Its simplicity and self-restraint make doubly poignant its record of unexampled suffering. With the abiding memory of those six terrible years, “the most unhappy creature in all the world,” as the child inscribed herself on the wall of her prison, lived till old age. Madame Élisabeth had the more fortunate fate. These painfully interesting memoirs can hardly be commended to those who like to view the Revolution with coldly philosophic eyes.

S. M. F.