The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France Part 23

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 t.i.tle "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 t.i.tle 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 x.x.x., 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 ladys.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sez de cert.i.tude, 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 astonis.h.i.+ng 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 cha.s.se, 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.

[5] The compiler of "Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI., et La Famille Royale"

(date April 24th, 1776) has a story of a conversation between the king and queen which ill.u.s.trates her feeling toward the minister. She had just come in from the opera. He asked her "how she had been received by the Parisians; if she had had the usual cheers." She made no reply; the king understood her silence. "Apparently, madame, you had not feathers enough."

"I should have liked to have seen you there, sir, with your St. Germain and your Turgot; you would have been rudely hissed." St. Germain was the minister of war.

[6] Mercy to Maria Teresa, May 16th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 446.

[7] January 14th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 414.

[8] The ground-floor of the palace was occupied by the shops of jewelers and milliners, some of whom were great sufferers by the fire.

[9] In a letter written at the end of 1775, Mercy reports to the empress that some of Turgot's economical reforms had produced real discontent among those "qui trouvent leur interet dans le desordre," which they had vented in scandalous and seditious writings. Many songs of that character had come out, some of which were attributed to Beaumarchais, "le roi et la reine n'y ont point ete respectes."--_December 17th_, 1775. Arneth, ii, p.

410.

[10] Mercy to Maria Teresa, November 15th, 1776, Arneth, ii., p. 524.

CHAPTER XII.