hollowed by channels in which myrtle-leaves are displayed,
while the lid has projecting leaves crowned with a group of
roses.

There is, in fact, an entire toilet-service of gold with
which her desire is gratified and for which Roettiers gets
the order. All Paris talks about it. It is said that the
Government made an advance to Roettiers of the fifteen
hundred gold marks, which he asked for setting about the
work. 1 The inquisitive gathered round the silversmith's
establishment, and those who are lucky enough to get in
front feel glad at having seen the mirror surmounted by two
Cupids holding a wreath. But scandal, or rather the ex-
cessive expense, brought the work to a stop ; and we find
in Madame du Barry's accounts an indemnity to Roettiers
for a gold toilet-service which he had commenced. All
those beautiful things, so much wealth, this furniture worth
millions, those rare objects, those trifles and those marvels,
required a temple suitable for them, a nest, a fairy pavilion,
which should be, in its grace, in the charm of its details,
in the miniature perfection of its proportions, in the delicacy
of its magnificence, the worthy little abode of the minor arts
of the eighteenth century. This temple will be Luciennes,
built in three months, as if at the command of an enchan-
tress, by the architect Ledoux, whom Madame du Barry
thanked by getting him into the Academy. 2

1 " Anecdotes about Madame du Barry." 1775.

2 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Vol. VII.

134



Madame Du Barry-
It will be a palace-boudoir in which everything will have
the finish and the preciousness of a jewel. The industry
of the time will seem to have employed there, even in noth-
ings, the invention, the patience, and the taste of a thousand
little genii. The slightest ornaments will be unique, ex-
quisite, and recherche; and, from room to room, the master-
pieces of handicraft will display there the supreme effort
and the delicious refinement of elegant designs and excellent
implements. The carved woodwork, the flowerings, the
acanthus-leaves, the laurel-branches, the birds pecking in
the intertwined myrtles, will be carved and re-carved and,
so to speak, perfected by chiselling. There will be in the
gildings and the overgildings of the furniture so many leaves
of gold and so many touches of the burnishing stick, such
an exhibition of care and pains, that the gilder will ask
5,915 livres for the bed. 1 And it will be by Gouthiere that
the bronzes will be wrought in amorous fashion. 2 He will

1 See in the Appendix the detailed description of this bed made,
in the beginning, for the mansion at Versailles.

8 Gouthiere claimed, after Madame du Barry's death, 756,000 francs.
The carving in bronze of a single pedestal was fixed at 50,000 francs ;
the mounting and adjustment of the ornaments of this pedestal at
46,000 francs ; the gilding at 63,000 francs ; the placing of the pedestal,
in which was included the journey of the three workmen, at 5,000
francs. The three other pedestals were reckoned up at 420,000
francs. Although he consented to reduce his bill to 640,000 francs,
keeping certain articles not finished and not delivered, Gouthiere
was not paid by the Government, was obliged to ask for admission
to an almshouse, and died in want.

His son having entered a protest as against the indemnity which
was paid to Madame du Barry's legal representatives, under the law

135



Madame D\i Barry

shape the flames, arms, locks, sash-fastenings, and door-
handles which will lose nothing by their proximity to those
little bronzes preserved by the Museum of Naples as the
most charming things transmitted to us by the art of former
days.

Luciennes was a small square edifice with five windows
on each side, which had in front a peristyle of four columns
with a pediment showing a Bacchanalian group of children
carved in bas-relief by Lecomte.

The peristyle opened on a vestibule leading into the
dining-room; and we have this dining-room at Luciennes,
all animation, all filled with guests, all alive, so to speak, in
the clever water-colour of the younger Moreau, now in
possession of the Museum of the Louvre. 1 In the middle of
the ceiling, at either side of which were gilt tumbrils, there
are floating clouds of Olympus and sportive Cupids. The
white marble walls are rut by Corinthian pilasters with
capitals, bases, and stems of gilt bronze. Between the
capitals, bas-reliefs, framed in gold, display Loves, the
portrait of Louis XV. and the united arms of the King and

1 This water-colour, exhibited in No. 1196, has on the back, with
the arms of Madame du Barry, this manuscript note: "Fete given
at Luciennes, December 2?th, 1771." With this drawing of Moreau
and Villiers's description it is easy to rebuild the palace-bijou of the
Favourite.

of April 25th, 1825, a judgment of the Tribunal of First Instance in
Paris declared the protest effectual to the extent of 80,000 francs, and
the legal representatives were held liable to pay 32,000 francs to
Gouthiere Fils. (Gasette de Tribunal, February 28th, 1836.)

136



Madame Du Barry

Madame du Barry. Four galleries, where Madame du Bar-
ry's musicians repeated, on each occasion of returning from
the chase, the sound and the dying echo of the horn, are full
of women leaning on the balcony rails, and fanning them-
selves. Throughout the apartment, all white and gold,
a vapour of light seems to rise from the lustres hanging
in front of the mirrors between the columns, shedding on
them flashes to which other flashes respond in other mir-
rors, handfuls of flame which fling into the air four figures
of women carved in marble by Pajou, Lecomte, and Moi-
neau, and standing on marble socles with golden wreaths.
Around the table, surrounded by curious lookers-on, behind
the round backs of the armchairs and the clubs of the chat-
tering guests' perukes, the attendants, the servants, the per-
sons carrying dishes, keep coming and going rapidly, some
in yellow straw livery, others in crimson velvet coats with
facings, with blue collars and wrist-bands, with white boot-
tops and white gaiters, three-cornered hats on their heads
and swords by their side. You see even little Zamore in
a turban with feathers, a rose-coloured vest and breeches,
gliding towards a lady who has, doubtless, left some bon-
bons on her plate. The crystal, the silver, the structure re-
sembling an opera-scene which rises above the table-cloth,
the cordons bleus, the diamonds, the smiles on the faces of
the guests, all keep the table in a glow ; and in the brilliant
light shed around there is seen by the side of Madame du
Barry's pretty countenance the handsome, noble face of
Louis XV.

137



Madame Do Barry

The dining-room opened on the square salon where the
view from the windows embraced Saint Germain, the Vesi-
net, Saint Denis, the Seine in all its windings, and, there
below, Paris. This salon, the arabesques of which had
been sculptured by Metivier and Feuillet, was decorated
with a cornice with a console in which Gouthiere surpassed
himself ; and the spaces above the doors exhibited the gayest
touches of brilliant colourings from Fragonard's brush,
given by Drouais to Madame du Barry. 1

Two parlours communicated with the large salon. The
one at the right presented, in a series of four big pictures
by Vien, a symbolic history of love in young girls' hearts.
It had tables of precious marble, and two marble figures
by Vasse represented, the one of them Love, the other
Knavery holding his mask. At the left, the oval parlour,
where Briard had painted on the ceiling the charming
allegory of love of the country, was all full of mirrors,
which reproduced the superb mantelpiece of lapis-lazuli in
the form of a tripod with a prodigious wealth of bronze. 2
Nothing was lacking in this enchanted palace. There was
even, as in one of Veronese's illustrations of a fairy tale,
a familiar negro-boy, something like a human chimera, to
carry the trays with refreshments, to hold the parasol and
to roll himself on the carpets. He was one of those pretty
little monsters whom that age of grotesques loved so much,

1 "Miscellanies of Literature and History." Published by the
Society of Bibliophiles.

2 " Manual of a Traveler in the Neighbourhood of Paris." By Vil-
liers. Paris X. Vol. I.

138



Madame Dvi Barry

a. two-legged pug, whom the Prince of Conde christened
Zamore. It seems to me that I can see him in this sketch
which I have under my eyes, in this drawing of the very
amusing coxcomb, Portail, with his tuft of white and red
feathers, his silk head-dress from which escape at the
temple and at the neck locks of hair, with his big white eye,
his flat nose, his mouth like a pomegranate, his ear wear-
ing a pearl, his big waistcoat, his fine coat, his proud frill
and his ruffles, a bush of lace from which issues an ebony
hand. Zamore and Luciennes ! They were so well adapted
to each other, the chateau was so suitable a cage for the
negro-boy, that, on one evening of folly, the King gave
Zamore, who was playing at his feet, the management of
the chateau and the grounds of Luciennes, with a salary
of 600 livres. 1 Luciennes ! should we not speak of it as
the palace of one of those funny sovereignties such as the
books of the eighteenth century show us in those Turkisms,
in which, subjected to the whims of a favourite odalisque,
the erratic good-pleasure of a capricious sultan holds sway ?
For such extravagant expenditure, for this rain of gold
poured out on all the arts and all the industries, for so much
money flowing daily from the two open hands of the Fa-
vourite, there was needed a bottomless chest, a banker al-
ways ready to pay. Madame du Barry had found the banker
in the Controller-General, the chest in the coffers of the

1 Does the Royel warrant really exist? I have made a minute
examination of the registers of warrants in the National Archives
from 1769 to 1774 without being able to find it.

139



Madame Du Barry

State. This Terray, this species of priest, this lugubrious
joker, 1 this pale Satyr, for all the statesmen grouped
around the Du Barry are of a bilious mould : Maupeou is
green, D'Aiguillon is yellow, Terray is livid, this Terray, in
his complaisances towards the Favourite's caprices so pecu-
liar to fast women, showed a baseness, a laxity, a shameless-
ness, which have no parallel in the history of any minister
of finance in any other country. In the commencement of
Madame du Barry's vogue, at the moment when the mistress
had as yet only an allowance of 30,000 livres a month, he
got this allowance doubled by persuading the King that
there would be an economy in suppressing the lady's little
notes and private money-orders, which were unlimited.
When the allowance was doubled, it may well be doubted
whether the little notes and the private money-orders did
not go on as in the past.

On New Year's Day, 1770, he obtained for her as a New
Year's gift the " Nantes Lodges," with a revenue of 40,000
livres.

In 1771, on the death of the Comte de Clermont, he
suggested to the King that it was necessary to think about
Madame du Barry, who had until now been solely occupied
with the task of pleasing His Majesty, and therefore had
no thought on her means, so that she found herself in a

1 The Abbe Terray's joke about the fetes on the occasion of Marie
Antoinette's marriage is well known. When Louis XV. asked him
what he thought of the fetes, the Controller-General, with his clouded
face, replied : " Sire they are beyond payment."

140



Madame DXJ Barry-
precarious State. And he proposed, without in any way
disarranging the plan of economy which Louis XV. had
imposed on himself, to give 100,000 livres a year for life
to the Favourite out of the 300,000 of which the Comte de
Clermont's death had caused the extinction. 1 Some time
afterwards, he got for the Favourite, on the renewal of the
lease for gunpowder, a good- will of 100,000 livres, a good-
will which bad tongues accused the Abbe of having, in
the beginning, stipulated for getting on his own account.
But these gifts, these good-wills, however enormous they
were, had their limits, and they did not amount to very much
in comparison with the immense and unknown sum of money
which came into Madame du Barry's hands through the
shameful acceptance by the Abbe Terray of bonds of Ma-
dame du Barry as bonds of the King, so that Madame du
Barry drew, without counting, from Choisy, from Trianon,
on Baujon the banker of the Court, to whom she gave orders
for payment of any sum she wished, leaving him to settle
accounts with the Controller-General. And do we not know
that Madame du Barry's bonds on Baujon since 1769, the
first year when she occupied the place of Favourite, to
1774, the year of King Louis XV. 's death, amounted to the
sum of 6,427,803 livres? 2 All the policy, all the science,

" Memoirs concerning the administration of Finances under the
Abbe Terray, Controller-General. London, Jolin, Adamson, 1776.

2 M. le Roi, in his elaborate study of curious information, has made
an estimate of the sums spent by Madame du Barry. Here it is as he
has given it:

141



Madame D\i Barry-
all the labour of the Abbe Terray to sustain himself con-
sisted in never letting Madame du Barry be in want of
money.

1. Furniture given by the King to Madame du

Barry on her marriage 30,ooo/. s. d.

2. Sums paid for Madame du Barry by Ban j on.

banker of the Court, from the year 1769 to

the year 1774 6,427,8o3/. s. lid.

3. For the purchase of her mansion at Versailles

by Monsieur, brother of the King, October

24th, 1775 224,ooo/. -s. d.

4. For the exchange of 50,000 livres of a life an-

nuity for 1,250,000 livres delivered by the
Royal Exchequer by the King's decree of
April, 1784 i,25o,ooo/. s. d.

5. Madame du Barry enjoys 150,000 livres of a

life annuity out of the city of Paris, the
States of Burgundy and the Lodges of
Nantes, from the year 1769 to 1784, which
gives a total of 2,4OO,ooo/. s. d

6. From the year 1784 to 1793 she has no more

than a life-annuity of 100,000 livres, which

gives a total of 900,ooo/. s. d.

7. The enjoyment of the Chateau of Luciennes

and of its numerous dependencies, the Cha-
teau and the construction of the Pavilion
may be estimated at a revenue of 50,000
livres a year, making from 1767 to 1793. , . i,25o,ooo/. s. d.



The general total of all these sums is. .. I2,48i,8o3/. s. d.



143



IX.



Efforts of the Favourite to have Social Intercourse with Marie
Antoinette. Mercy-Argenteau's Interview with the Comtesse du
Barry. Madame Adelaide preventing Marie- Antoinette from Speak-
ing to the Favourite. The Roue's Unreasonable Claims. The
" Drolesse " Ballad. The Low Amusements of Luciennes. The
Lowering of Royalty through Contact with a Courtesan.

IN the midst of the complete satisfaction of her hatreds,
her passions, her tastes, her caprices, and her fancies, the
favourite sultana had her existence and her nerves wor-
ried by the insulting disdain of the Dauphiness. In those
salons of Marly, of Choisy, of Versailles, of Fontainebleau,
in those salons, now humbled and reverential, Madame du
Barry had to endure the silence of the haughty little red-
haired beauty 1 and all that the latter conveyed by such
silence. In spite of the maternal orders of Maria Theresa,
who took the preliminary steps to obtain Louis XWs for-
giveness for the partition of Poland, 2 in spite of the letters
of Prince Kaunitz, in spite of the objurgations of Mercy-

1 Madame du Barry called Marie Antoinette "the little rousse"
and the future Louis XVI. " the little ill-bred boy."

3 Maria Theresa writes to Marie Antoinette : " It is sufficient for
the King to distinguish such a woman or a man for you to owe the
person respect without sifting their merits."

M3



Madame D\i Barry

Argenteau, the Empress-Queen's ambassador, Marie An-
toinette could not conquer the insurmountable repugnance
which she felt for " the most silly and impertinent creature
imaginable." 1 Nobody had the power to compel the young
Princess to hold conversation with the Favourite, to make
her address to Madame du Barry in society one of those
commonplaces which would be the pledge and the mark of
the acceptance of her person amongst the ladies of the
Court. Madame du Barry, thus wounded publicly every
day, kept wearying the King with her complaints, with her
despairs, with her tears, asking his intervention as a father-
in-law in order to put a stop to this cruel state of affairs,
so that in the month of July, 1771, at Compiegne, Louis XV.
conveyed to Mercy-Argenteau his desire to have an inter-
view with Maria Theresa's confidential adviser. The Due
d'Aiguillon, the bearer of the message, gave him a rendez-
vous the next day but one, after his return from hunting,
at the house of the Comtesse du Barry informing him that
Louis XV. wished to say he was not housed at Compiegne in
a way to receive him suitably, and therefore wished him
to call at the Favourite's abode. The step was a delicate
one, the greater number of foreign ambassadors having up
to this time refused to visit Madame du Barry. However,
Mercy-Argenteau obeyed the King's orders.
Mercy-Argenteau called at the Favourite's house at seven



1 Letter of Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, published in
" Maria Theresia und Marie- Antoinette." By Arneth, Vienna, 1865.

144




MARIE ANTOINETTE



To face page 144



Madame D\i Barry-
o'clock. The Due d'Aiguillon informed him that the King
had finished dressing, and, under the pretext of examin-
ing a picture, he brought away the ladies who happened to
be in the salon, and left the Empress-Queen's ambassador
alone with Madame du Barry, who made him sit down be-
side her.

The Favourite seized the opportunity to say to Mercy-
Argenteau that she was very glad the idea of the King
speaking to him at her house had put it in her power to make
his acquaintance, and that she wished to take advantage
of it to talk to him confidentially about a painful subject
which greatly affected her. She was not unaware that for
some time past people had been busy in poisoning the Dau-
phiness's mind against her, and that, in order to succeed in
so doing, the had recourse to the most atrocious calumnies,
daring to attribute to her remarks by no means respectful
with reference to the Princess. Madame du Barry protested
that this was utterly without foundation, that even far from
having to reproach herself with such an enormous of-
fence, she had always been on the side of those who be-
stowed well-merited praise on the charms of the Arch-
duchess. She declared that, though this Princess had con-
stantly treated her with rigour and a species of contempt,
she had never indulged in complaints against her Royal
Highness, but only against those who inspired her with
these feelings of aversion. Madame du Barry added that,
when there was a question of some object which the Dau-

145 10



Madame Dxi Barry

phiness appeared to desire, as, on a former occasion, a de-
mand for payment for that princess's house, she had made it
her business to represent to the King that he could not
shrink from complying with the wishes of the Dauphiness."

At this stage of the conversation the King arrived by
a little staircase, and the Comtesse withdrew.

" Till now you have been the Empress's ambassador ;
now I beg of you to be my ambassador, at least for some
time," said the King, as he entered, to Mercy-Argenteau.
Then, with a certain embarrassment, he talked to him about
Marie Antoinette, saying to him that he loved the Princess
with all his heart, that he thought her charming, but that
she was young and lively, " and that having a husband who
was not capable of guiding her," it was impossible that she
could avoid the snares which were directed against her by
intrigue. He remarked with displeasure that she gave her-
self up to prejudices, to hatreds, which did not enanate from
her, but which had been suggested to her; that she treated
badly and even with affectation the ladies whom the King
admitted into his intimate circle. Louis XV. ended by re-
peating several times to Mercy-Argenteau : " See the Dau-
phiness often : I authorize you to say to her anything you
wish on my behalf. She is badly advised, and she should
not follow such bad advice."

In consequence of this interview, Mercy-Argenteau placed
Marie- Antoinette in this dilemma : either she wanted to indi-
cate by her conduct that she was aware of Madame du
Barry's role with the King, in which case it was due to her

146



Madame Dut Barry-
dignity to insist on the Comtesse being excluded from the
Court circle, or else she wanted to appear ignorant of the
Favourite's position, in which case she should treat her like
every other woman who had been presented at Court.

Next day the Dauphiness informed Mercy-Argenteau that
she would speak once to the Comtesse du Barry on the
first opportunity.

A few days later Mercy-Argenteau intimated to the
Dauphiness that Madame du Barry would be joining the
Court circle on the following day accompanied by the Duch-
esse de Valentinois. Marie Antoinette promised to speak.
It was agreed that, when play was over, Mercy-Argenteau
should approach the Favourite and enter into a conversa-
tion with her, while the Archduchess, in the act of taking
her usual turn, should address some remark to Madame du
Barry. Mercy-Argenteau, delighted with his victory, left
the Dauphiness, making her give her word of honour not
to tell the royal aunts about this little arrangement. So
next day the Comtesse du Barry, accompanied by the Duch-
esse de Valentinois, was in the Court circle. Play was
nearly finished. Mercy-Argenteau had been sent by the
Dauphiness to sit down beside Madame du Barry, who felt
quite happy, as she saw Marie Antoinette advancing to-
wards her ready to speak, when Madame Adelaide, who
was in the secret, suddenly raising her voice, said :

" It is time to go ! Come ! Let us wait for the King at
my sister Victoire's." And the Dauphiness followed Ma-



147



Madame D\i Barry

dame Adelaide without having had time to address a word
to the unhappy and humiliated Favourite. 1

Madame du Barry had another annoyance in her life her
brother-in-law. There had been since the beginning of her
regime as Favourite demands every day for money and for
notes to appease creditors, " to lift him out of the depths of
the tomb," as the Roue tragically wrote. 2 In order to get
out of the depths of the tomb, a moment before Terray's ac-
cession to office, the Comte Jean had conceived the bril-
liant idea of overthrowing the Controller-General, Maynon
d'Invau, and replacing him by a friend of his, by one of his
" pals," Guenee de Brochau, Procureur-General of Requests
at the Hotel. Guenee de Brochau once Controller-General, it
would mean the Comte Jean's hand in the public exchequer.
Unfortunately the plot was found out ; Brochau was put into
the Bastille, and the Comte Jean got orders to travel for
the good of his health always at the expense of the Com-
tesse du Barry. Still, if the Favourite had been tormented
merely by Jean du Barry's need of money, it would have

1 " Secret Correspondence between Maria-Theresa and Mercy- Ar-
genteau." Published by the Chevalier Arneth, 1875. Tome I.

a Letter from Jean du Barry without any date, published by the
Revue de Paris in the year 1836. Tome XXXV. Hardy, in his " Man-
uscript Journal," relates that in the month of December, 1769, Jean
du Barry had been driven from Court, and forbidden to reappear
there. On this point a story was told that the Comtesse, having asked
for 600,000 livres to pay her debts, and the King, having applied for
this sum to the Controller-General, the Due de Choiseul procured
incontestable proofs that this money was destined for the brother-in-
law, and submitted them to the King.

148



Madame D\i Barry

been well enough; but he was continually harassing her,
persecuting her with his advice, with his plans of conduct,
with his monitions, wishing to make her profit, according
to his own phrase, " by the flashes of his genius." 1 How-

1 Letter -of the Comte du Barry, published in the Revue Retrospect-
ive, 3rd Series, Vol. I. The letter deserves to be cited as the letter
of a rascally pimp, of an intriguing politician :

" M. Jame has not left me ignorant, my dear sister, that it was at
the bottom of your heart he found the best advocate of my cause.
Would to Heaven that this heart had never yielded to the sugges-
tions of those who were interested in disuniting it from mine ! How