8. A Page From History

The dark clouds which hung yet over the future of Napoleon Bonaparte, the lieutenant of artillery, were gathering in heavier and heavier masses over all France, and already were overshadowing the throne of the lilies.

Marie Antoinette had already abandoned the paradise of innocency in Trianon, and when she came there now it was to weep in silence, to cast away the mask from her face, and under the garb of the proud, imperious, ambitious queen to exhibit the pallid, anxious countenance of the woman.

Alas! they were passed away, those days of festivity, those innocent joys of Trianon; the royal farmer's wife had no more the heart to carry the spindle, to gather eggs from the hens' nests, and to perform with her friends the joyous idyls of a pastoral life.

The queen had procured for herself a few years of freedom and license by banishing from Versailles and from the Tuileries the burdensome Madame Etiquette, who hitherto had watched over every step of a Queen of France, but in her place Madame Politique had entered into the palace, and Marie Antoinette could not drive her away as she had done with Madame Etiquette.

For Madame Politique came into the queen's apartments, ushered in by a powerful and irresistible suite. The failure of the crops throughout the land, want, the cries of distress from a famishing people, the disordered finances of the state--such was the suite which accompanied Politique before the queen; pamphlets, pasquinades, sarcastic songs on Marie Antoinette, whom no more the people called their queen, but already the foreigner, L'Autrichienne--such were the gifts which Politique brought for the queen.

The beautiful and innocent days of Trianon were gone, no longer could Marie Antoinette forget that she was a queen! The burden of her lofty position pressed upon her always; and, if now and then she sought to adorn her head with roses, her crown pressed their thorns with deeper pain into her brow.

Unfortunate queen! Even the circle of friends she had gathered round her person only urged her on more and more into the circle which politics had traced around her. In her innocency and thoughtlessness of heart she imagined that, to a queen as to any other woman, it might be allowed to have about her friends and confidants, to enjoy the pleasures of society, and to amuse one another! But now she had to learn that a queen dare not have confidants, friends, or social circles!

Her friends, in whose disinterestedness she had trusted, approached her with demands, with prayers; they claimed power, influence, and distinctions; they all wanted to rule through the queen; they all wanted through her to impose laws to king and state; they wanted to name and to depose ministers; they wanted their friendship to be rewarded with embassies, ministerial offices, decorations, and titles.

And when Marie Antoinette refused compliance with their wishes, her beautiful friends, the Duchesses de Polignac, wept, and her friends, Messieurs Vesenval, Vaudreuil, Coigny, and Polignac, dared be angry and murmur at her.

But when Marie Antoinette consented--when she used her influence with the king, to satisfy the wishes of her friends, and to make ministers of her facon--then the queen's enemies, with loud, mad-dog cry, lifted up the voice and complained and clamored that it was no more the king but the queen who reigned; that she was the one who precipitated the nation into wretchedness and want; that she gave millions to her friends, whilst the people were perishing with hunger; that she sent millions to her brother, the Emperor of Austria, whilst the country was only able to pay the interest of her enormous debt; that she, in unrestrained appetite and licentiousness, lived only for pleasure and festivities, whilst France was depressed under misery and want.

And the queen's enemies were mightier, more numerous, and more loyal one to another than the queen's friends, who were ever ready to pass into the camp of her foes as soon as Marie Antoinette gratified not their wishes and would not satisfy their political claims.

At the head of these enemies was the king's brother, the Count de Provence, who never forgave the queen for being an Austrian princess; there were also the king's aunts, who could never forgive her that the king loved her, that by means of this love to his wife they should lose the influence which these aunts, and especially Madame Adelaide, had before exercised over him; there was the Duke d'Orleans, who had to revenge himself for the disgust and dislike which Marie Antoinette publicly expressed against this vicious and wild prince; there was the Cardinal Prince de Rohan, whose criminal passion the queen had repelled with contemptuous disgust, and who had paid for this passion one million francs, with imprisonment, shame, and ridicule. For this passion for the queen had blinded the cardinal, and made him believe in the possibility of a return. In his blindness he had placed confidence in the whisperings and false promises of the insidious intriguer Madame de la Motte-Valois, who, in the queen's name, asked from him a loan of a million for the purchase of a jewelled ornament which highly pleased the queen, and which she, notwithstanding her exhausted coffers, was resolved to possess.

Yes, love had blinded Cardinal de Rohan, and with blind eyes he had accepted as letters from the queen those which Madame de la Motte brought him; and he could not see that the person who gave him a rendezvous in the gardens of Versailles was not the queen, but only a common, vicious woman, who had been clothed in the queen's garments.

The queen had been travestied into a wench, and the highest ecclesiastical dignitary of the land was the one who took this wench for his queen, was the one who, with a rendezvous, a kiss on the hand, and a rose, was rewarded for the million he had given to the jeweller for a necklace of diamonds!

It is true, the deception was discovered; it is true, it was Marie Antoinette herself who asked for a strict investigation, who with tears of anger required from her consort that this horrible intrigue which had been woven round her person should be investigated and judged publicly before the Parliament; that the Cardinal de Rohan should be punished for the criminal insult offered by him to the queen, since he thought her capable of granting him a rendezvous, of exchanging with him letters of tender passion, and of accepting gifts from him!

But the Parliament, which recognized the guilt of Madame de la Motte, which ordered her to be whipped, branded, and driven out of the country as an impostor and a thief, the Parliament declared the Cardinal de Rohan innocent; all punishments were removed from him, and he was re-established in all his dignities and rights. And the people, who in enormous masses had besieged the Parliament buildings, welcomed this decision of the judges with loud demonstrations and shouts of joy, and carried the cardinal in triumph through the streets, and honored and glorified him as a martyr and a saint.

This triumph of the cardinal was an affecting defeat to the queen; it was the first awful testimony, spoken loudly and openly, by the popular sentiment.

Hitherto her enemies had worked against her quietly, and in the darkness of night; but now, in open day, they dared launch against her their terrible accusations, and represent her imprudence as a crime, her errors as shameful and premeditated wickedness. No one believed in the queen's innocency in this necklace transaction; and whereas Cardinal de Rohan had been made a martyr, whereas Parliament had declared him innocent, the queen consequently must be the guilty one, to whose cupidity the cardinal and the unfortunate Madame de la Motte and also the beautiful D'Olivia, who in this horrible farce had played the part of the queen, had been sacrificed.

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