highly above all others; and whereas science and modesty will be
combined in you, you will succeed in becoming an accomplished woman.
The talents which you cultivate have their pleasant side, and if you
devote to them a portion of the day, you will unite the agreeable to
the useful." [Footnote: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol.
i., p. 110.]
This is what Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted. His wife, through her
knowledge, was to be highly exalted above all others. She was to
study the sciences, and become what is now called a learned woman,
but what was then termed a philosophical woman.
The ambition of the ardent viscount required that his young wife
should be the rival of his learned, verse-writing aunt, the Baroness
Fanny de Beauharnais; that Josephine, if not the most beautiful and
most intellectual woman of Paris, should be the most accomplished.
But these extravagant expectations did not, unfortunately, coincide
entirely with the tastes and mental tendencies of Josephine. No one
was less qualified than she to be a philosophical woman, and to make
the sciences a serious study. It was far from her ambition to desire
to shine by her knowledge; and the learned and scientific Baroness
de Beauharnais only excited fear and antagonism on account of her
stiff and pretentious pedantry, which seemed to Josephine to have
but little in harmony with a woman's being.
Josephine loved the sciences and the arts, but she did not wish to
convert herself into their devoted priestess. She wished merely to
adorn herself with their blossoms, to take delight in their
fragrance, and to rejoice in their beauty. With instinctive
sentiment she did not wish to have the grace and youthful freshness
of her womanly appearance marred by knowledge; her heart longed not
for the ambition of being called a learned woman; she only wished to
be a beloved wife.
But the viscount, instead of recognizing and cherishing the tender
and sacred treasures which reposed in the heart of his young wife,
ridiculed her for her sensitiveness; allowed himself, through
displeasure at her uncultivated mind, to utter unreasonable
reproaches, and to act harshly toward his wife; and her tears were
not calculated to conciliate him or to gain his heart. He treated
Josephine with a sort of contemptuous compassion, with a mocking
superiority, and her young, deeply-wounded soul, intimidated and
bleeding, shrank back into itself. Josephine became taciturn,
embarrassed, and mute, in her husband's presence; she preferred
being silent, rather than by her conversation, which might not
appear intellectual and piquant enough for the viscount, to annoy
and irritate him.
Confidence and harmony had flown away from the household of the
young couple. From his timid, silent wife, with tears in her eyes
and a mute complaint on her trembling lips, the husband rushed away
into the world, into society, to the boisterous joys of a garrison's
life, or else to the dangerous, intoxicating amusements which the
refined world of the drawing-rooms offered him.
Scarcely after a two years' marriage, the young bridegroom was again
the zephyr of the drawing-room; and, breaking asunder the bonds with
which the marriage and the household had bound him, he fluttered
again from flower to flower, was once more the gallant cavalier of
the belles, forgot duty and wife, to pay his attentions and bring
his homage to the ladies of the court.
But this neglect which she now experienced from her husband, this
evident preference for other women, suddenly awoke Josephine from
her painful resignation, from her quiet melancholy. The young,
patient, retreating wife was changed at once into an irritated
lioness, and, amid the refinements of the French polish, with all
its gilded accompaniments, uprose the glowing, impassioned,
threatening creole.
Josephine, wounded both in her vanity and in her love - Josephine
wished not and could not bear, as a passive, silent sufferer, the
neglect of her husband; he had insulted her as a woman, and the
wrath of a woman rose within her. She screened not her jealousy from
her husband; she reproached him for preferring other women to his
wife, for neglecting her for the sake of others, and she required
that to her alone he should do homage, that to her alone he should
consecrate love and allegiance. She wept, she complained, when she
learned that, whilst she was left at home unnoticed, he had been
here and there in the company of other women; she allowed herself to
be so carried away by jealousy as to make violent reproaches against
her husband.
But tears and reproaches are not in the least calculated to bring
back to a wife the heart of a husband, and jealousy recalls not a
husband's love, when that love has unfolded his pinions and flown
away. It only causes the poor butterfly to feel that marriage had
tied its wings with a thread, and that it constantly recalls him
away, with the severe admonitions of duty, from the beautiful
flowers toward which he desires to fly.
The complaints and reproaches of Josephine, however much they proved
her love, had precisely the contrary effect from what she expected.
Through them she wanted to bring back her husband to her love, but
she repelled him further still; he flew away from her complaints to
the merry society of his friends, male and female, and left
Josephine alone at Noisy to weep over her wretchedness.
Notwithstanding all this, they were both to be again reunited one to
another in a new bond of love and happiness. On the 3d of September,
1781, Josephine presented to her husband a son, the heir of his
name, and for whom the father had already so long craved. Alexandre
came to Noisy to be present at the birth of his child, and with
true, sincere affection he embraced son and mother, and swore
everlasting love and fidelity to both.
But circumstances were stronger than the will of this young man of
twenty-two years. The monotonous life of Noisy, the quietude which
prevailed in the house on account of the young mother, could not
long retain captive the fiery young man. He endured this life of
solitude, of watching at the bedside, of listening to the child's
cries, for a whole week, and then was drawn away with irresistible
attraction to Paris; the father's tenderness could no longer
restrain the glowing ardor, the impassioned longings for distraction
in the young man; and the viscount left Noisy to lead once more in
Paris or with his garrison the free, unrestrained dissipations of
his earlier days.
Josephine was comfortless. She had hoped the son would retain the
father, but he left her alone, alone with the child, and with all
the torments of her jealousy.
It is true, he came back now and then to see his son, his little
Eugene, and also to make amends to the young, sick, and suffering
mother, by a few days' presence, for the many days of absence.
But Josephine, irritated, jealous, too young, too inexperienced to
reflect, Josephine committed the fault of receiving her husband
every time he came, with reproaches and complaints, and of meeting
him with violent scenes of jealousy and of offended dignity. The
viscount himself, so young, so impassioned, had not the patience to
go with calm indifference through the purgatory of such scenes. His
proud heart rebelled against the chains with which marriage would
bind him; he was angry with this woman who dared reproach him; he
was the more vexed that his conscience told him she was unjust
toward him, that he was the innocent one. He returned her complaints
with deriding scorn; he allowed himself to be carried away by her
reproaches to the manifestation of violent anger; and the tempest of
matrimonial discord raged through this house, which at first seemed
to have been built for a temple of peace and happiness.
The parents of the young couple saw with deep, heartfelt concern the
gap deepening between them both, and which every day widened more
and more, and as their warnings and wishes now remained fruitless,
they resolved to try if a long absence might not heal the wounds
which they both had inflicted upon their own hearts. At the request
of his father and of Madame de Renaudin, the viscount undertook a
long journey to Italy, from which he returned only after nearly nine
months' absence.
What the relatives had hoped from this journey seemed to be
realized. The viscount returned home to his Josephine with a
penitent, tender heart; and Josephine, enchanted with his
tenderness, with the pliant loveliness of his whole being -
Josephine, with a smile of blessedness and with happy dreams of the
future, rested once more on the bosom of the man whom, even in her
angry moods, she had never ceased to love.
But after a few months passed in happiness and harmony, the viscount
was once more obliged to separate himself from his wife, to meet his
regiment, which was now in Verdun. Absence soon broke the slender
threads which had bound together the hearts of husband and wife.
Alexandre abandoned himself to his tendencies to dissipation, and
Josephine to her jealousy. During the frequent visits which the
viscount paid to his wife in Noisy, he was received with tears and
reproaches, which always ended in violent scenes of anger and
bitterness.
Such an existence, full of ever-recurring storms and ceaseless
discord, weighed heavily on the hearts of both husband and wife, and
made them long for an issue from this Labyrinth of an unhappy
marriage. Yet neither of them dreamed of a separation; not only
their son, the little Eugene, kept them from such thoughts, but also
the new hopes which Josephine carried in her bosom would have made
such thoughts appear criminal. It was necessary to endeavor to bear
life as well as one could, and not allow one's self to be too much
lacerated by its thorns, even if there was no further hope of
gathering its roses.
Alexandre de Beauharnais, even if he lacked the skill of being a
faithful, devoted husband, was a noble and goodnatured man, whose
generous heart wanted to punish himself alone for the error of this
marriage, which weighed so heavily on husband and wife; and, in
order to procure peace to both, he resolved to become an exile, to
tear away pitilessly the attractive ties which society, friends, and
women, had woven around him. If he could not be a good husband, he
might at least be a good soldier; and, whereas his heart could not
adopt the resolution of devoting itself with exclusive affection to
his wife, he resolved to devote himself entirely to that love to
which he had never been disloyal, the love of fame. His ambitious
nature longed for honors and distinction; his restless, youthful
courage craved for action and battle-fields; and, as no opportunity
offered itself on land, Alexandre de Beauharnais decided to search
on the seas for what was denied him on land.
The Marquis de Bouille, governor of Martinique, had just arrived in
France, to propose to the government a new expedition against the
British colonies in the Antilles. Already this fearless and
enterprising man, since he had been in Martinique, with the forces
at his disposal, with the help of the young creoles, and supported
by the squadrons which lay in Port Royal, had conquered Dominique,
Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Christophe, Mievres, and Montserrat, and
now he contemplated an attack upon the rich and important island of
Jamaica, whose conquest he trusted would force the English into
peace.
Alexandre de Beauharnais wanted nothing more attractive than to join
this important and daring enterprise of the Marquis de Bouille. With
recommendations from his uncle, the Duke de la Rochefoucauld, the
viscount hastened to the Marquis de Bouille, begged of him instantly
the privilege of serving under him, and offered his services as
adjutant.
The marquis received with kindness a young man so earnestly
recommended, and gave him the hope of fulfilling his wishes. These
hopes were not, however, realized; and the viscount, no longer able
to endure the burden of uncertainty and of domestic discord, decided
to leave France on his own responsibility, to sail for Martinique,
and there to enlist as a simple volunteer, under the orders of the
governor.
In September, 1782, he left Noisy for Brest, there to embark for
Martinique. At the hour of departure the love, which for so long had
been hidden under the dark cloud of jealousy and discord, awoke in
all its glow and energy in the hearts of the young couple. With
streaming eyes Josephine embraced her husband, and in the most
touching tones entreated him to remain with her, entreated him not
to tear the father away from the son, who already recognized him and
stretched his little hands toward him, nor from the child yet unborn
in her bosom. Carried away by so much intensity of affection, by
such a fond, all-pardoning love, Alexandre was deeply moved; he
regretted the past, and the decision he had taken to leave his wife
and his family. All the sweet emotions of peace, of home, of
paternal bliss, of married life, overcame him in this hour of
farewell with, resistless power, and in Josephine's arms he wept
bitter tears of repentance, of love, of farewell.
But these tears, no more than his wife's regrets, could make him
waver in his determination.
The word of separation had been spoken, and it had to be fulfilled.
Amid the anguish of parting, he felt for himself the necessity of
breaking, by means of a long absence, with the evil practices of the
past, and to make amends for the sad errors of his youth.
He left his home to win in a distant land the happiness which he had
in vain sought at the side of his wife, of his son, and of his
family. Before the ship upon which he was to embark for his journey
weighed anchor, he took a last farewell of his family in a letter
addressed to Madame de Renaudin.
"I have," said he, "received the letter which tells of your good
wishes for the future, and I have read with the deepest interest the
assurances of your attachment. These assurances would still have
been more flattering to me, could they have convinced me that my
actual course has your approbation, and that you estimate rightly my
determination, and the sacrifice I am making. However, I have on my
side conscience, which applauds me for preferring, to the real,
actual joys of a quiet and pleasurable existence, the prospect, even
if a remote one, of preferment, which may secure me a distinguished
position and a distinction which may be of advantage to my children.
The greater have been my sacrifices, the more commendable it is to
have made them; and if chance only favors my determination, then the
laurels I will win shall make ample amends for all troubles and
hardships, and shall change all my anguish into joy! - Be kind
enough, I pray you, to embrace for me, my father, my wife, and
Eugene!" [Forward: "Histoire de l'Imperatrice Josephine," vol. i, p.
133.]
It is evident that Alexandre de Beauharnais had gone to Martinique
to win fame and to fight for laurels. But chance favored not his
resolves. He had no sooner landed in Martinique, than the news
spread that negotiations had begun between England and France. M. de
Bouille received strict orders to make no attack on Jamaica; and a
few weeks after, on the 20th of January, 1783, the preliminaries of
peace were signed at Versailles. A few months later, peace was
concluded, and all the conquests made by the Marquis de Bouille were
returned to England.
Alexandre de Beauharnais had then come in vain to Martinique. No
fame was to be won - no laurels could be gathered there.
Unfortunately, however, the viscount found another occupation for
his restless heart, for the vague cravings of his affections. He
made the acquaintance there with a young creole, who had been a
widow for the last six months, and who had returned to Martinique
from France to pass there her year's mourning. But her heart had no
mourning for her deceased husband; it longed for Paris, it craved
for the world and its joys. She was yet, though a few years older
than the viscount, a young woman; she was beautiful - of that
wondrous, enticing beauty peculiar to the creoles; she was an
accomplished mistress in the difficult art of pleasing, and she
formed the design of gaining the heart of the impulsive Viscount
Alexandre de Beauharnais. This design was not undertaken because he
seemed worthy of love, but because she wanted to revenge herself on
the family of Tascher de la Pagerie, which family had been for a
long time at enmity with her own, and had given free and open
expression against the too easy manners and light behavior of the
beautiful widow. She wanted to take vengeance for these insults by
seducing from M. de la Pagerie his own son-in-law, and by enjoying
the triumph of having charmed away the husband from his daughter.
The proverb says, "What woman will, woman can!" and what the
beautiful Madame de Gisard wanted was not so very hard to achieve.
All she wished was to hold complete sway over the heart of a young
man who felt heavily burdened with the fetters of marriage; who, now
that the schemes of ambition had failed, reproached his young wife
that she was the cause of his misfortune; that for her sake he had
exiled himself from home, and sentenced himself to the dulness and
loneliness of a village-life in Martinique. The society of the
beautiful Madame de Gisard brought at least novelty and distraction
to this loneliness; she gave occupation to the heart weary with
connubial storms; she excited his fancy and his desires.
Madame de Gisard knew how to use all these advantages; she wanted to
triumph over the family of De la Pagerie, she wanted to return to
Paris in the company of a young, handsome, and distinguished lover.
It was not enough to win the love of the viscount; she had to drive
him into the resolution of separating from his wife, of accusing her
of unfaithfulness and guilt, so as to have the right of casting her
away, in order that she herself might openly occupy her place.
Madame de Gisard had the requisite talent to carry out her plans,
and to acquire full control over the otherwise rebellious and proud
heart of the young man. She first began to lead him into open
rupture with his father and mother-in-law. Through respect for them,
the viscount had avoided appearing in public with Madame de Gisard,
and betraying the intimacy which existed between them. Madame de
Gisard ridiculed his bashfulness and submissive spirit; she
considered this servility to the head of the family as absurd, and
she drove the viscount by means of scorn and sarcasm to open revolt.
Then, after separating him from his wife's family, she attacked the
wife herself. With all the cunning and smoothness of a seducing
demon, she encompassed the young man's heart, and filled it with
mistrust against Josephine. She accused the forsaken one with levity
and unfaithfulness; she filled his heart with jealousy and rancor;
she used all the means of perfidy and calumny of which a woman is
capable, and in which she finds a refuge when her object is to ruin,
and she succeeded completely.
Alexandre de Beauharnais was now entirely hers; he was gathering
against Josephine anger and vengeance; and even when he received the
news that, on the 13th of April, 1783, his young wife had given
birth to a daughter at Noisy, his soul was not moved by soft
emotions, by milder sentiments of reconciliation.
Madame de Gisard had taught him that henceforth he need no more be
on the defensive in reference to the reproaches of Josephine, but
that he now must be the aggressor; that, to justify his own
guiltiness, he must accuse his wife of guilt. She had offered
herself as the price of his reconquered freedom; and the viscount,
overcome with love, anger, and jealousy, was anxious to become
worthy of this price.
He left Martinique and returned to Noisy, not to embrace and bless
his daughter Eugenie Hortense, but to bow down the mother's head
with the curse of shame. He accused, without listening to any
justification, and, with all the vehemence of misguided passion, he
asked for an immediate separation, an immediate divorce. Vain were
the expostulations, the prayers of his father and of Madame de
Renaudin. Vain were the tears, the assurances of innocence from
Josephine. The tears of an injured woman, the prayers of his
sorrowing relatives, were impotent against the whisperings and the
seducing smiles of the beautiful Madame de Gisard, who had secretly
accompanied him to France, and who had now over him an unconditional
sway.
The viscount brought before Parliament a complaint for separation
from his wife, and based it upon the most improbable and most
shameless accusations.
Josephine, who, for two years in loneliness and abandonment, had
awaited the return of her husband; Josephine, who had always hoped,
through the voice of her children, to recall her husband to herself,
saw herself suddenly threatened with a new, unexpected tempest. Two
years of suffering were finally to be rewarded by a scandalous
process, which exposed her person to the idle and malicious tongues
of the Parisians.
She had, however, to submit to fate; she had to bow her head to the
storm, and trust for her justification to the mercy of God and to
the justice of the Parliament. During the time of the process she
withdrew, according to custom, into a convent, and for nearly one
year hid herself with her shame and her anguish in the abbey of
Pantemont, in the street Grenelle, St. Germain. However, she was not
alone; her aunt, Madame de Renaudin, accompanied her, and every day
came the Marquis de Beauharnais, her husband's father, bringing her
the children, who, during the time of the unfortunate process, were
to remain at Noisy, under the guardianship of their grandfather and
of a worthy governess. The members of her husband's family rivalled
each other in their manifestations of affection to a woman so much
injured and so incriminated, and openly before the world they
declared themselves against the viscount, who, blinded by passion
and entirely in the chains of this ensnaring woman, was justifying
the innocency of his wife by his own indiscreet demeanor - by the
public exhibition of his passion for Madame de Gisard, and thus
caused the accusations launched against Josephine to recoil upon his
own head.
At last, after one year of debates, of careful considerations and
investigations, of receiving evidence, and of hearing witnesses, the
Parliament pronounced its decision.
Josephine was declared absolutely innocent of the crimes brought
against her, and was entirely acquitted of the accusation of
unfaithfulness. The Parliament pronounced the solemn decree: The
accusation directed against the Viscountess de Beauharnais was
simply a malicious calumny. The innocency of the accused wife was
evident, and consequently the Viscount de Beauharnais was bound to
receive again his wife into his house. However, the viscountess was
permitted and allowed not to share the same residence with her
husband, and to separate herself from him. In this case the viscount
was condemned to pay to his wife an annual pension of ten thousand
francs, and to leave with her mother his daughter Eugenie Hortense,
while he, the father, should provide for the education of the son.
Exonerated from the disgraceful imputation of faithlessness,
Josephine was again free to leave the convent and return to the life
of the world. It was her husband's family which now prepared for the
poor young woman the most beautiful and most touching triumph. The
father of her, accuser, the Marquis de Beauharnais, as well as his
elder son and wife, the Duke and Duchess de la Rochefoucauld, and
the Baroness Fanny de Beauharnais, came in their state carriages to
the abbey to receive Josephine and lead her back to Paris. They had
been joined by a great number of the most respectable and most noble
ladies of the Parisian aristocracy, all in their state carriages,
and in the splendor of their armorial trappings and liveries, as if
it were to accompany a queen returning home.
Josephine shed tears of blessed joy when quitting her small, sombre
rooms in the abbey. She entered into the reception-room to bid
farewell to the prioress, and there met all these friends and
relatives, who saluted her with looks of deepest tenderness and
sympathy, and embraced her in their arms as one found again, as one
long desired. This hour of triumph indemnified her for the sorrows
and sufferings of the unhappy year which the poor wife of scarcely
twenty years of age, and fleeing from calumny and hatred, liar!
sighed away in the desolate and lonesome convent. She was free, she
was justified; the disgrace was removed from her head; she was again
authorized to be the mother of her children; she saw herself
surrounded by loving parents, by true friends, and yet in her heart
there was a sting. Notwithstanding his cruelty, his harshness,
though he had abandoned and despised her, her heart could not be
forced into hating the husband for whom she had so much wept and
suffered. Her tears had impressed his image yet deeper in her heart.
He was the husband of her first love, the father of her children;
how could Josephine have hated him, how could her heart, so soft and
true, cherish animosity against him?
At the side of her husband's father, and holding her daughter in her
arms, Josephine entered Paris. Behind them came a long train of
brilliant equipages, of relatives and friends. The passers-by
stopped to see the brilliant procession move before them, and to ask
what it meant. Some had recognized the viscountess, and they told to
others of the sufferings and of the acquittal of the poor young
woman; and the people, easily affected and sympathizing, rejoiced in
the decision of the Parliament, and with shouts and applause
followed the carriage of the young wife.
The marquis, her father-in-law, turned smilingly to Josephine.
"Do you see, my daughter," said he, "what a triumph you enjoy, and
how much you are beloved and recognized?"
Josephine bent down toward the little Hortense and kissed her.
"Ah," said she, in a low voice, "we are returning home, but the
father of my children will not bid us welcome. For a pressure of his
hand, for a kind word from him, I would gladly give the lofty
triumph of this hour."
No, Alexandre de Beauharnais did not bid welcome to Josephine in his
father's house, which they had occupied together. Ashamed and
irritated, he had sped away from Paris, and returned to his regiment
at Verdun.
On the arm of the Marquis de Beauharnais, Josephine traversed the
apartments in which she had lived with her husband, and which she
now saw again as a widow, whom not death but life had separated from
her husband. Her father-in-law saw the tears standing in her eyes,
and, with the refined sympathy of a sensitive mind, he understood
the painful thoughts which agitated the soul of the young wife.
He fondly folded her in his arms, and laid his blessing hand on the
head of the little Hortense.
"I have lost my son Alexandre," said he, "but I have found in his
stead a daughter. Yes, Josephine, you are and will remain my
daughter, and to you and to your children I will be a true father.
My son has parted from us, but we remain together in harmony and
love, and as long as I live my daughter Josephine will never want a
protector."
CHAPTER VI.
TRIANON AND MARIE ANTOINETTE.
Whilst the Viscountess Josephine de Beauharnais, the empress of the
future, was living in enforced widowhood, the life of Marie
Antoinette, the queen of the present, resembled a serene, golden,
sunny dream; her countenance, beaming with youth, beauty, and grace,
had never yet been darkened with a cloud; her large blue eyes had
not yet been dimmed with tears.
In Fontainebleau, whither Josephine had retired with her father-in-
law, who through unfortunate events had lost the greatest part of
his fortune - in Fontainebleau lived the future Empress of France in
sad monotony; in Versailles, in Trianon, lived the present Queen of
France in the dazzling splendor of her glory, of her youth, and of
her beauty. In Trianon - this first gift of love from the king to his
wife - the Queen of France dreamed life away in a pleasant idyl, in a
joyous pastoral amusement; there, she tried to forget that she was
queen, that is to say, that she was the slave of etiquette; there
she tried to indemnify herself for the tediousness, the emptiness,
the heartlessness of the great festivals in the Tuileries and in
Versailles.
In Trianon, Marie Antoinette desired to be the domestic wife, the
pleasant, youthful woman, as in the Tuileries and at Versailles she
was the proud and lofty queen. Marie Antoinette felt her days
obscured by the splendors of royalty; the crown weighed heavily on
her beautiful head, which seemed made for a crown of myrtle and
roses; life's earnestness had not yet cast its breath on those rosy
cheeks and robbed of youth's charm the smile on those crimson lips.
And why should not Marie Antoinette have smiled and been joyous?
Every thing shone round about her; every thing seemed to promise an
enduring harvest of felicity, for the surface of France was calm and
bright, and the queen's vision had not yet been made keen enough by
experience to penetrate below this shining surface and see the
precipices already hidden underneath.
These precipices were yet covered with flowers, and the skies
floating above them seemed yet cloudless. The French people appeared
to retain yet for the royal family that enthusiastic devotedness
which they had manifested for centuries; they fondly proclaimed to
the queen, whenever she appeared, their affection, their admiration;
they were not weary with the expressions of their rapture and their
worship, and Marie Antoinette was not weary of listening to these
jubilant manifestations with which she was received in the theatre,
on the streets, in the gardens of the Tuileries, on the terraces of
Versailles; she was not weary of returning thanks with a friendly
nod or with a gracious smile.
All the Parisians seemed still to be, as once, at the arrival of the
Dauphin, they had been called by the Baron de Vesenval, "the queen's
lovers," and also to rival one another in manifesting their
allegiance.
Even the fish-women of Paris shared the general enthusiasm; and
when, in 1781, the queen had given to her husband a son, and to his
people a future monarch, the ladies of "the Halls" were amongst the
most enthusiastic friends of the queen. They even came to Versailles
to congratulate the royal couple on the dauphin's birth, to salute
the young dauphin as the heir to the crown of France, and to sing
under the window of the king some songs, one of which so pleased the
king that oftentimes afterward, in his quiet and happy hours, he
used to sing a verse of it with a smile on his lip. This Terse,
which even Marie Antoinette sang, ran thus:
"Ne craignez pas, cher papa,
D' voir augmenter vot' famille,
Le bon Dieu z'y pourvoira:
Faits-en taut qu' Versailles en fourmille;
Yeut-il cent Bourbons cheu nos
Ya du pain, du laurier pour tous."
[Footnote: Madaine ile Carapan, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," vol.
i., p. 218.]
In Trianon, Marie Antoinette passed her happiest hours and days;
there, the queen changed herself into a shepherdess; there, vanished
from her the empty splendors of purple and ermine, of etiquette and
ceremonial; there, she enjoyed life in its purity, in its innocency,
in its naturalness; such was the ideal Marie Antoinette wished to
realize in Trianon.
A simple dress of white muslin, a light kerchief of gauze, a straw
hat with a gayly-colored ribbon, such was the attire of the queen
and of the princesses whom Marie Antoinette invited. For the only
etiquette which prevailed at Trianon was this: that no one from the
court, even princes or princesses, should come to Trianon without
having received an invitation from the queen to that effect. Even
the king submitted to this ceremonial, and had expressly promised
his consort never to come to Trianon without an invitation, and, so
as to please the queen, no sooner did she announce her intention of
retiring to her country-residence, than he was always the first who
hastened to obtain the favor of an invitation.
In Trianon, Louis ceased to be king as well as Marie Antoinette
ceased to be queen. There Louis XVI. was but the farmer of the lady
of the castle; the Count d'Artois was the miller, and the learned
Count de Provence, the schoolmaster. For each of them had been
erected in the gardens of Trianon a separate house suited to their
respective avocations.
The farmer Louis had his farm-house built in Swiss style, with a
balcony of finely-carved wood at the gable-end, and with stalls
attached to the house, and where bellowed the stately red cows of
Switzerland; behind the house was a small garden in which the
variegated convolvulus and the daisy shed their fragrance.
The Count d'Artois had, near the stream which flowed through the
park, his miller's house, with an enormous wheel, made of wooden
spokes joined together, and which moved lustily in the water, and
adorned the clear brook with wavelets of foam.
The Count de Provence had, under the shadow of a mulberry-tree, his
house, with a large school-room in it; and oftentimes the whole
court-society were converted into scholars of both sexes, who took
their seats on the benches of the school-room, whilst the Count de
Provence, in a long coat with lead buttons and with an immense rod
in his hand, ascended the cathedra and delivered to his school-
children a humorous and piquant lecture, all sparkling with wit.
The princesses also had in this "grove of Paradise," as Marie
Antoinette called the woods of Trianon, their cottages, where they
milked cows, made butter, and searched for eggs in the hens' nests.
In the midst of all these cottages and Swiss houses stood the
cottage of the farming Marie Antoinette; it was the finest and the
most beautiful one of all, adorned with vases full of fragrant
blossoms and surrounded by flowering plants and by cozy bowers of
verdure. This cottage was the highest delight of the queen's life,
the enchanting toy of her happiness. Even the little castle of
Trianon, however simple and modest, seemed too splendid for the
taste of the pastoral queen. For in Trianon one was always reminded
that the lady of this castle was a queen; there, servants were in
livery; there, officials and names and titles were to be found, even
when etiquette was forbidden entrance into the halls of the little
castle of Trianon. Marie Antoinette was no more queen there, it is
true, but she was the lady of the palace to whom the highest respect
was shown, and who therefore had been constrained expressly and
strictly to order that at her entrance into the drawing-rooms the
ladies would not interrupt the piece begun on the piano, nor stand
up if seated at their embroidery, and that the gentlemen would keep
on undisturbed their billiard-party or their game at trictrac.
But in her cottage all rank disappeared; there, was no distinction;
there, ceased the glory of name and title, and no sooner was the
castle abandoned for the cottages than each named the other with
some Arcadic, pastoral appellation, and each busied himself with his
rural avocations. How lustily the laughter, how merrily the song
sounded from these cottages amid these bowers and groves; how the
countenance of the farming-lady was lighted up with happiness and
joy; with what delight rested upon her the eye of the farmer Louis,
who in his blue blouse, with a straw hat on his head, with a rosy,
fleshy, good-natured face, was exactly fitted for his part, and who
found it no difficult task to hide under the farmer's garment the
purple of the king!
How often was Marie Antoinette seen in her simple white dress, her
glowing countenance shaded by a straw hat, bounding through the
garden as light as a gazelle, and going from the barn to the milk-
room, followed by the company she had invited to drink of her milk
and eat of her fresh eggs! How often, when the farmer Louis had
secreted himself in a grove for the sake of reading, how often was
he discovered there by the queen, torn away from his book and drawn
to a dejeuner on the grass! When that was over, and Louis had gone
back to his book, Marie Antoinette hastened to her cows to see them
milked, or she went into the rocking-boat to fish, or else reposed
on the lawn, busy as a peasant, with her spindle.
But this quiet occupation detained not long the lively, spirited
farming-lady; with a loud voice, she called to her maids or
companions from the cottages, and then began those merry,
unrestrained amusements which the queen had introduced into society,
and which since then have been introduced not only into the drawing-
rooms of the upper classes, but also into the more austere circles
of the wealthy burghers.
Then the queen with her court played at blindman's bluff, at pampam,
or at a game invented by the Duke de Chartres, the future Duke
Philippe d'Orleans, Egalite, and which game was called "descamper,"
a sort of hide-and-seek amusement, in which the ladies hid
themselves in the shady bushes and groves, to be there discovered by
the gentlemen, and then to endeavor by flight to save themselves,
for if once caught and seized they had to purchase their liberty
with a kiss.
When evening came all left the cottages for the little castle, and
the pastoral recreations gave way to the higher enjoyments of
refined society. Marie Antoinette was not in the castle of Trianon
queen again, but she was not either the simple lady of the farm, she
was the lady of the castle, and - the first amateur in the theatrical
company which twice a week exhibited their pieces in the theatre of
Trianon.
These theatrical performances were quite as much the queen's delight
as her pastoral occupations in her farm cottages, and Marie
Antoinette was unwearied in learning and studying her parts. She had
chosen for teachers two pensioned actors, Caillot and Dazincourt,
who had to come every day to Trianon to teach to the noble group of
actors the small operas, vaudevilles, and dramas, which had been
chosen for representation, and in which the queen naturally always
played the part of first amateur, while the princesses, the wives of
the Counts de Provence and Artois, the two Countesses de Polignac,
undertook the other parts, even those of gentlemen, when the two
brothers of the king, the only male members of this theatrical
company, could not assume all the gentlemen's parts.
At first the audience at these representations was very limited.
Only the king, the princes and the princesses of the royal
household, not engaged in the performance, constituted the audience;
but afterward it was found that to encourage the actors a little, a
larger audience was needed; then the boxes were filled with the
governesses of the princesses, the queen's waiting-women, whose
sisters and daughters with a few other select ladies had been
invited.
It was natural that those who had been thus preferred, and who
enjoyed the privilege of seeing the Queen of France, the princes and
princesses, appear as actors, should be full of admiration and