At the outbreak of the Revolution, she was living at Luciennes in great luxury on the fortune left her by the duke. Probably she would have escaped the guillotine had she not been so possessed with the idea of retaining her wealth. Four trips to England were undertaken by her, and on her return she found her estates usurped by a man named Grieve, who, anxious to obtain possession of her riches, finally succeeded in procuring her arrest while her enemies were in power. From Sainte-Pelagie they took her to the Conciergerie, to the room which Marie Antoinette had occupied.

Accused of being the instrument of Pitt, of being an accomplice in the foreign war, of the insurrection in La Vendee, of the disorders in the south, the jury, out one hour, brought in a verdict of guilty, fixing the punishment at death within twenty-four hours, on the Place de la Republique. Upon hearing her sentence, she broke down completely and confessed everything she had hidden in the garden at Luciennes. On her way to the scaffold, she was a most pitiable sight to behold—the only prominent French woman, victim of the Revolution, to die a coward. The last words of this once famous and popular mistress were: "Life, life, leave me my life! I will give all my wealth to the nation. Another minute, hangman! A moi! A moi!" and the heavy iron cut short her pitiful screams, thus ending the life of the last royal mistress.



Chapter XII

Marie Antoinette and the Revolution

The condition of France at the end of the reign of Louis XV. was most deplorable—injustice, misery, bankruptcy, and instability everywhere. The action of the law could be overridden by the use of arbitrary warrants of arrest—lettres de cachet. The artisans of the towns were hampered by the system of taxation, but the peasant had the greatest cause for complaint; he was oppressed by the feudal dues and many taxes, which often amounted to sixty per cent of his earnings. The government was absolute, but rotten and tottering; the people, oppressively and unjustly governed, were just beginning to be conscious of their condition and to seek the cause of it, while the educated classes were saturated with revolutionary doctrines which not only destroyed their loyalty to the old institutions, but created constant aspirations toward new ones.

Thus, when Louis XVI., a mere boy, began to reign, the whole French administrative body was corrupt, self-seeking, and in the hands of lawyers, a class that dominated almost every phase of government. In general, inefficiency, idleness, and dishonesty had obtained a ruling place in the governing body; the few honest men who had a minor share in the administration either fell into a sort of disheartened acquiescence or lost their fortunes and reputations in hopeless revolt.

Under these conditions Louis XVI. began his reign; and although peace seemed to exist externally, the country was in revolution. France was as much under the modern "ring rule" as any country ever was—a condition of affairs largely due to the nature of the young king, whose predominant characteristics might be called a supreme awkwardness and an unpardonable lack of will power. He was a man who, during the first part of his reign, led a pure life; he possessed good and philanthropic intentions, but was hampered by a weak intellect and a stubbornness which bore little resemblance to real strength of will. Also, he entertained strong religious convictions, which were extremely detrimental to his policy and caused disagreements with his ministers—Turgot, on account of his philosophical principles, Necker, on account of his Protestantism.

His wife had those qualities which he lacked, decision and strength of character; unfortunately, she wielded no influence over him in the beginning, and when she did gain it, she used it in a fatal manner, because she was ignorant of the needs of France. Throughout her career of power, she evinced headstrong wilfulness in pursuing her own course. Thus, totally incapable of acting for himself, Louis XVI. was practically at the mercy of his aunts, wife, courtiers, and ministers, who fitted his policy to their own desires and notions; therefore, the vast stream of emoluments and honors was diverted by the ministers and courtiers into channels of their own selection. There were formed parties and combinations which were constantly intriguing for or against each other.

At the time of the accession of Louis XVI., when poverty was general over the kingdom, the household of the king consisted of nearly four thousand civilians, nine thousand military men, and relatives to the enormous number of two thousand, the supporting of which dependents cost France some forty-five million francs annually. Luckily there was no mistress to govern, as under Louis XV., but, in place of one mistress who was the dispenser of favors, there were numerous intriguing court women who were as corrupt and frivolous as the men. These split the court into factions. As the finances of the country sank to the lowest ebb, odium was naturally cast upon the whole court, without exception, by the people; hence, the wholesale slaughter of the nobility during the Revolution.

In this period, the most critical in the history of France, the queen, Marie Antoinette, as the central figure, the leader of society, the model and example to whom all looked for advice upon morals and fashions, played an important role. Although not of French birth, she deserves to be ranked among the women influential in France, since she became so thoroughly imbued with French traits and characteristics that she forgot her native tongue. French life and spirit moulded her in such fashion that even the French look upon her as a French woman.

Before judging this unfortunate princess who has been condemned by so many critics, we must take into consideration the demands that were made upon her. Parade was the primary requisite: she was obliged to keep up the splendor and attractiveness of the French monarchy; in this she excelled, for her manner was dignified, gracious, and "appropriately discriminating. It is said that she could bow to ten persons with one movement, giving, with her head and eyes, the recognition due to each one." It is said, also, that as she passed among the ladies of her court, she surpassed them all in the nobility of her countenance and the dignified grace of her carriage. All foreigners were enchanted with her, and to them she owes no small part of her posthumous popularity.

She was reproached by French women for being exclusively devoted to the society of a select, intimate circle. Moreover, her conduct brought slander upon her; as her companions she chose men and women of bad reputation, and was constantly surrounded by dissipated young noblemen whom she permitted to come into her presence in costumes which shocked conservative people; she encouraged gambling, frequented the worst gambling house of the time, that of the Princesse de Guemenee, and visited masked balls where the worst women of the capital jostled the great nobles of the court; her husband seldom accompanied her to these pleasure resorts.

During part of the reign of Marie Antoinette the country was waging an expensive war and was deeply in debt, but the queen did not set an example of economy by retrenching her expenses; although her personal allowance was much larger than that of the preceding queen, she was always in debt and lost heavily at gambling. Generally, she avoided interference with the government of the state, but as the wife of so incapable a king she was forced into an attempt at directing public matters. Whenever she did mingle in state affairs, it was generally fatal to her interests and popularity. She usually carried out her wishes, for the king shrank from disappointing his wife and dreaded domestic contentions.

He permitted her to go out as she did with the Comte d'Artois, her brother-in-law, to masked balls, races, rides in the Bois de Boulogne, and on expeditions to the salon of the Princesse de Guemenee, where she contracted the ills of a chronically empty purse and late hours. When attacked by measles, to relieve her ennui—which her ladies were not successful in doing—she procured the consent of the king to the presence of four gentlemen, who waited upon her, coming at seven in the morning and not departing until eleven at night; and these were some of the most depraved and debauched among the nobility—such as De Besenval, the Duc de Coigny, and the Duc de Guines.

While in power, she always sided with extravagance and the court, against economy and the nation. If we add to all these defects a vain and frivolous disposition, a nature fond of admiration, pleasure, and popularity, and lending a willing ear to all flattery, compliments, and counsels of her favorites, her Austrian birth, and as "little dignity as a Paris grisette in her escapades with the dissipated and arrogant Comte d'Artois," we have, in general, the causes of her wide unpopularity.

It will be seen that as long as she was frivolous and imprudent, she was flattered and admired; as soon as she became absolutely irreproachable, she was overwhelmed with harsh judgments and expressions of ill will. The first period was during the first years of the reign of Louis XVI., while he was still all-powerful and popular; the second phase of her character developed during the trying days of the king's first fall into disfavor and his ultimate imprisonment and death. From this account of her career, it will be seen that Marie Antoinette, as dauphiness and queen, was rather the victim of fate and the invidious intrigues of a depraved court than herself an instigator and promulgator of the extravagance and dissipation of which she was accused.

We must remember the atmosphere into which Marie Antoinette was thrust upon her arrival in France. One of the first to sup with her was that most licentious of all royal mistresses, Mme. du Barry, who asked for the privilege of dining with the new princess—a favor which the dissipated and weak king granted. Louis XV. was nothing more than a slave to vice and his mistresses. The king's daughters—Mmes. Adelaide, Victoire, and Sophie—were pious but narrow-minded women, resolutely hostile to Mme. du Barry and intriguing against her. The Comtes de Provence and d'Artois were both pleasure-loving princes of doubtful character; their sisters—Mmes. Clotilde and Elisabeth—had no importance. The family was divided against itself, each member being jealous of the others. The dauphin, being of a retiring disposition and of a close and self-contained nature, did little to add to the happiness of the young princess. Thus, she was literally forced to depend upon her own resources for pleasure and amusement and was at the mercy of the court, which was never more divided than in about 1770—the time of her appearance.

At that time there were two parties—the Choiseul, or Austrian, party, and those who opposed the policy of Choiseul, especially in the expulsion of the Jesuits; the latter were called the party of the devots and were led by Chancellor Maupeau and the Duc d'Aiguillon. This faction, with the mistress—Mme. du Barry—as the motive power, soon broke up the power of Choiseul. The young and innocent foreign princess, unschooled in intrigue and politics, could not escape both political parties; upon her entrance into the French court, she was immediately classed with one or the other of these rival factions and thus made enemies by whatever turn she took, and was caught in a network of intrigues from which extrication was almost impossible.

Here, in this whirl of social excesses, her habits were formed; hers being a lively, alert, active nature, fond of pleasure and somewhat inclined toward raillery, she soon became so absorbed in the many distractions of court life that little time was left her for indulgence in reflection of a serious nature. Her manner of life at this time in part explains her subsequent career of heedlessness, excessive extravagance, and gayety.

At first her aunts—Mmes. Adelaide and Sophie—succeeded in partially estranging her from Louis XV., who had taken a strong fancy to his granddaughter; but this influence was soon overcome—then these aunts turned against her. Her popularity, however, increased. Innumerable instances might be cited to show her kindness to the poor, to her servants, to anyone in need—a quality which made her popular with the masses. In time almost everyone at court was apparently enslaved by her attractions and endeavored to please the dauphiness—this was about 1774, when she was at the height of her popularity.

However, there developed a striking contrast between the dauphiness and the queen; Burke called the former "the morning star, full of life and splendor and joy." In fact, she was a mere girl, childlike, passing a gay and innocent life over a road mined with ambushes and intrigues which were intended to bring ruin upon her and destined eventually to accomplish their purpose. By being always prompt in her charities, having inherited her mother's devotion to the poor, she won golden opinions on all sides; and the reputation thus gained was augmented by her animated, graceful manner and her youthful beauty.

Little accustomed to the magnificence that surrounded her, she soon wearied of it, craving simpler manners and the greater freedom of private intercourse. When, as queen, she indulged these desires, she brought upon herself the abuse and vilification of her enemies. While dauphiness, her actions could not cause the nation's reproach or arouse public resentment; as queen, however, her behavior was subject to the strictest rules of etiquette, and she was responsible for the morals and general tone of her court. This responsibility Marie Antoinette failed to realize until it was too late.

Upon the accession of Louis XVI., a clean sweep was made of the licentious and discredited agents of Mme. du Barry, and a new ministry was created. The former mistress, with her lover, the Duc d'Aiguillon, was banished, although Mme. Adelaide succeeded in having Maurepas, uncle of the Duc d'Aiguillon, made minister. Marie Antoinette had little interest in the appointment after she failed to gain the honor for her favorite, De Choiseul, who had negotiated her marriage.

The queen then proceeded to carry out her long-cherished wishes for society dinners at which she could preside. Her every act, however, was governed by inflexible laws of etiquette, some of which she most impatiently suffered, but many of which she impatiently put aside. With this manner of entertaining begins her reign as queen of taste and fashion, for Louis XVI. left to his wife the responsibility of organizing all entertainments, and her aspiration was to make the court of France the most splendid in the world. From that time on, all her movements, her apparel, her manners, to the minutest detail, were imitated by the court ladies. This custom, of course, led to reckless extravagance among the nobility, for whenever Marie Antoinette appeared in a new gown, which was almost daily, the ladies of the nobility must perforce copy it.

Tidings of these extravagances of the queen and her court in time reached the empress-mother in Vienna. Marie Therese severely reproached her daughter, writing: "My daughter, my dear daughter, the first queen—is she to grow like this? The idea is insupportable to me." Yet, "to speak the exact truth," said her counsellor, Mercy, when writing to the empress-mother, "there is less to complain of in the evil which exists than in the lack of all the good which might exist." It is chronicled to her credit that all her expenditure was not upon herself alone, but that she was equally lavish when she attempted charity.

Her first political act, the removal of Turgot, was disastrous. She thought she was humoring public opinion, which was strongly against the minister on account of his many reforms, but her primary reason was rather one of personal vengeance. Turgot had been openly hostile to her friend and favorite, the Duc de Guines. She was then in the midst of her period of dissipation; "dazzled by the glory of the throne, intoxicated by public approval," she overstepped the bounds of royal propriety, neglecting etiquette and forgetting that she was secretly hated by the people because of her origin; her greatest error was in forgetting that she was Queen of France and no longer the mere dauphiness.

Under the escort of her brother-in-law, the Comte d'Artois, she was constantly occupied with pleasures and had time for little else. The king, retiring every night at eleven and rising at five, had all the doors locked; so the queen, who returned early in the morning, was compelled to enter by the back door and pass through the servants' apartments. Such behavior gave plentiful material to M. de Provence, the king's brother, who remained at home and composed, for the Mercure de France, all sorts of stories, from so-called trustworthy information, on the king, on society, and especially on the doings of the queen.

Marie Antoinette's fondness for the chase and the English racing fad, for gambling, billiards, and her petits soupers after the riding and racing, gave ample opportunity to the gossipmongers and enemies. In spite of the vigorous remonstrances of her mother, the empress, she persisted in her wild career of dissipation and extravagance, and drew upon herself more and more the disrespect of the people, especially in appearing at places frequented by the disreputable of both sexes, by entering into all noisy and vulgar amusements, by her disregard and disdain of all the conventionalities of the court. She increased her unpopularity by reviving the sport of sleighing; for this purpose she had gorgeous sleighs constructed at a time when the population of France was in misery. Such proceedings caused libels, epigrams, and satirical chansonnettes to flow thick and fast from her enemies. Her one idea was to seek congenial pleasures: she appeared to be wholly oblivious to the disapproval of public opinion.

The slanderous tongues of her husband's aunts, the "jealousies and bitter backbiting of her own intimate circle of friends," the infamous accusations brought against her by her sisters-in-law, the attacks of the Comte de Provence, and the indifference of the king himself, all helped to increase her unpopularity.

Among her personal friends was the Princesse de Lamballe, whose influence was preponderant for several years; she was not a conspicuously wise woman, but one of spotless character. Her ambitions, personal and for her relatives, often caused much trouble, for she became the mouthpiece of her allies and her clients, for whom she "solicited recommendations with as much pertinacity as if she had been the most inveterate place hunter on her own account." Her favors were too much in one direction to suit the queen, for, much attached to the memory of her husband, the princess naturally sympathized with the Orleans faction. As superintendent of the household of the queen, replacing the Comtesse de Noailles, she gave rise to much scandal. Her salary, through intrigues, had been raised to fifty thousand ecus, while her privileges were enormous; for instance, no lady of the queen could execute an order given her without first obtaining the consent of the superintendent. The displeasure and vexation which this restriction caused among the court ladies may be imagined; complaints became so frequent that the queen tired of them, and her affection for her friend was thus cooled.

She sought other friends, among whom Mme. de Polignac was the favorite and almost supplanted the Princesse de Lamballe in the regard of the queen. To her she presented a large grant of money, the tabouret of a duchess, the post of governess to the children of France; and her friends received the appointments of ambassadors, and nominations to inferior offices. She was not by nature an intriguing woman, but was soon surrounded by a set of young men and women who made use of her favor and took advantage of her influence; the result was the formation of a regular Polignac set, almost all questionable persons, but an exclusive circle, permitting no division of favor, and undoing all who endeavored to rival them. This coterie of favorites may be said to have caused Marie Antoinette as much unpopularity and contributed as much to her ruin, and even to that of royalty, as did any other cause originating at court. Mme. de Lamballe was no match for her rival, so she retired, a move which increased the influence of Mme. de Polignac, to whose house the whole court flocked. The queen followed her wherever she went, made her husband duke, and permitted her to sit in her presence.

By spending so much of her time at the salons of Mme. de Polignac and the Princesse de Guemenee, the queen excited the displeasure and enmity of many of the court and the people; at those places, De Besenval, De Ligny, De Lauzun,—men of the most licentious habits and expert spendthrifts,—seemed to enjoy her intimate friendship, a state of affairs which caused many scandalous stories and helped to alienate some of the greatest houses of France. This injudicious display of preference for her own circle of friends also fostered a general distrust and dislike among the people. The first families of France preferred to absent themselves from her weekly balls at Versailles, since attendance would probably result in their being ignored by the queen, who permitted herself to be so engrossed by a bevy of favorites and her own amusements as scarcely to notice other guests.

Her eulogists find excuse for all this in her lightness of heart and gay spirits, as well as in the manner of her rearing, having been brought up in the court of Louis XV., where she saw shameless vice tolerated and even condoned. Although she preserved her virtue in the midst of all this dissipation, she became callous to the shortcomings of her friends and her own finer perceptions became blunted. Thus, in the most critical years of her reign, her nobler nature suffered deterioration, which resulted fatally.

Despite many warnings, she could not or would not do without those friends. She excused anything in those who could make themselves useful to her amusement: everyone who catered to her taste received her favor. M. Rocheterie, in his admirable work, The Life of Marie Antoinette, gives as the source of her great love of pleasure her very strongly affectionate disposition,—the need of showering upon someone the overflowing of an ardent nature,—together with the desire for activity so natural in a princess of nineteen. As a place in which to vent all these emotions, these ebullitions of affections and amusements, the king presented her with the chateau "Little Trianon," where she might enjoy herself as she liked, away from the intrigues of court.

Marie Antoinette has become better known as the queen of "Little Trianon" than as a queen of Versailles. At the former place she gave full license to her creative bent. Her palace, as well as her environments, she fashioned according to her own ideas, which were not French and only made her stand out the more conspicuously as a foreigner. From this sort of fairy creation arose the distinctively Marie Antoinette art and style; she caused artists to exhaust their fertile brains in devising the most curious and magnificent, the newest and most fanciful creations, quite regardless of cost—and this while her people were starving and crying for bread! The angry murmurings of the populace did not reach the ears of the gay queen, who, had she been conscious of them, might have allowed her bright eyes to become dim for a time, but would have soon forgotten the passing cloud.

There was constant festivity about the queen and her companions, but no etiquette; there was no household, only friends—the Polignacs, Mme. Elisabeth, Monsieur, the Comte d'Artois, and, occasionally, the king. To be sure, the amusements were innocent—open-air balls, rides, lawn fetes, all made particularly attractive by the affability of the young queen, who showed each guest some particular attention; all departed enchanted with the place and its delights and, especially, with the graciousness of the royal hostess. There all artists and authors of France were encouraged and patronized—with the exception of Voltaire; the queen refused to patronize a man whose view upon morality had caused so much trouble.

Music and the drama received especial protection from her. The triumph of Gluck's Iphigenie en Aulide, in 1774, was the first victory of Marie Antoinette over the former mistress and the Piccini party. This was the second musical quarrel in France, the first having occurred in 1754, between the lovers of French and Italian music, with Mme. de Pompadour as protectress. After Gluck had monopolized the French opera for eight years, the Italian, Piccini, was brought from Italy in 1776. Quinault's Roland was arranged for him by Marmontel and was presented in 1778, unsuccessfully; Gluck presented his Iphigenie en Aulide, and no opera ever received such general approbation. "The scene was all uproar and confusion, demoniacal enthusiasm; women threw their gloves, fans, lace kerchiefs, at the actors; men stamped and yelled; the enthusiasm of the public reached actual frenzy. All did honor to the composer and to the queen."

Marie Antoinette, however, also gave Piccini her protection. Gluck, armed with German theories and supporting French music, maintained for dramatic interest, the subordination of music to poetry, the union or close relation of song and recitative; whereas, the Italian opera represented by Piccini had no dramatic unity, no great ensembles, nothing but short airs, detached, without connection—no substance, but mere ornamentation. Gluck proved, also, that tragedy could be introduced in opera, while Piccini maintained that opera could embrace only the fable—the marvellous and fairylike. This musical quarrel became a veritable national issue, every salon, the Academy, and all clubs being partisans of one or the other theory; it did much to mould the later French and German music, and much credit is due the queen for the support given and the intelligence displayed in so important an issue.

All singers, actors, writers, geniuses in all things, were sure of welcome and protection from Marie Antoinette; but she permitted her passion for the theatre to carry her to extremes unbecoming her position, for she consorted with comedians, played their parts, and associated with them as though they were her equals. Such conduct as this, and her exclusiveness in court circles, encouraged calumny. Versailles was deserted by the best families, and all the pomp and traditions of the French monarchs were abandoned. The king, in sanctioning these amusements at the "Little Trianon," lost the respect and esteem of the nobility, but the queen was held responsible for all evil,—for the deficit in the treasury, and the increase in taxes; to such an extent was she blamed, that the tide of public popularity turned and she was regarded with suspicion, envy, and even hatred.

In the spring of 1777 the queen's brother, the Emperor Joseph II. of Austria, arrived in Paris for a visit to his sister and the court of France. The relations between him and Marie Antoinette became quite intimate; the emperor, always disposed to be critical, did not hesitate to warn his sister of the dangers of her situation, pointing out to her her weakness in thus being led on by her love of pleasure, and the deplorable consequences which this weakness would infallibly entail in the future. The queen acknowledged the justness of the emperor's reasoning, and, though often deeply offended by his frankness and severity, she determined upon reform. This resolution was, to some extent, influenced by the hope of pregnancy; so, when her expectations in that direction proved to be without foundation, so keen was the disappointment thus occasioned, that, in order to forget it, she plunged into dissipation to such an extent that it soon developed into a veritable passion. Bitterly disappointed, vexed with a husband whose coldness constantly irritated her ardent nature, fretful and nervous, there naturally developed a morbid state of mind which explains the impetuosity with which she attempted to escape from herself.

In December, 1778, a daughter was born to the queen, and she welcomed her with these words: "Poor little one, you are not desired, but you will be none the less dear to me! A son would have belonged to the state—you will belong to me." After this event the queen gave herself up to thoughts and pursuits of a more serious nature. In 1779 the dauphin was born, and from that period Marie Antoinette considered herself no longer a foreigner.

After the death of Maurepas, minister and counsellor to the king, the queen became more influential in court matters. She relieved the indolent monarch of much responsibility, but only to hand it over to her favorites. The period from 1781 to 1785 was the most brilliant of the court of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, one of dissipation and extravagance, the rich bourgeoisie vying with the nobility in their luxurious style of living and in lavish expenditure. "The finest silks that Lyons could weave, the most beautiful laces that Alencon could produce, the most gorgeous equipages, the most expensive furniture, inlaid and carved, the tapestry of Beauvais and the porcelain of Sevres—all were in the greatest demand." Necker was replaced by incompetent ministers, the treasury was depleted, and the poor became more and more restless and threatening. Once more, and with increased vehemence, was heard the cry: A bas l'Autrichienne!

During the American war of the Revolution, Marie Antoinette was always favorable to the Colonial cause, protecting La Fayette and encouraging all volunteers of the nobility, who embarked for America in great numbers. She presented Washington with a full-length portrait of herself, loudly and publicly proclaiming her sympathy for things American. She assured Rochambeau of her good will, and procured for La Fayette a high command in the corps d'armee which was to be sent to America. When Necker and other ministers were negotiating for peace, from 1781 to 1785, she persisted in asserting that American independence should be acknowledged; and when it was declared, she rejoiced as at no political event in her own country.

Her political adventures were few; in fact, she disliked politics and desired to keep aloof from the intrigues of the ministers. She may have been instrumental in the downfall of Necker—at least, she secured the appointment, as minister of finance, of the worthless Calonne, who, it will be remembered, brought about the ruin of France in a short period. In time, however, the queen recognized his worthlessness and would have nothing to do with him, thus making in him another implacable enemy.

Events were fast diminishing the popularity of the queen. When, after the long-disputed question of presenting the Marriage of Figaro, she herself undertook to play in The Barber of Seville in her theatre at the Trianon, she overstepped the bounds of propriety. Then followed the affair of the diamond necklace, in which the worst, most cunning, and most notorious rogues abused the name of the queen. That was the great adventure of the eighteenth century. Boehmer, the court jeweler, had, in a number of years, procured a collection of stones for an incomparable necklace. This was intended for Mme. du Barry, but Boehmer offered it to the queen, who refused to purchase it, and he considered himself ruined. It may be well to add that the queen had previously purchased a pair of diamond earrings which had been ordered by Louis XV. for his mistress; for those ornaments she paid almost half her annual pin money, amounting to nine hundred thousand francs. The jeweler, therefore, had good reason to hope that she would relieve him of the necklace.

An adventuress, a Mme. de La Motte, acquainted at court and also with the Prince Louis de Rohan, who had incurred the displeasure of the queen, informed the cardinal that Marie Antoinette was willing to again extend to him her favor. She counterfeited notes, and even went so far as to appoint a meeting at midnight in the park at Versailles. The supposed queen who appeared was no other than an English girl, who dropped a rose with the words: "You know what that means." The cardinal was informed that the queen desired to buy the necklace, but that it was to be kept secret—it was to be purchased for her by a great noble, who was to remain unknown. All necessary papers were signed, and the necklace turned over to the Prince de Rohan, who, in turn, intrusted it to Mme. de La Motte to be given to the queen; but the agent was not long in having it taken apart, and soon her husband was selling diamonds in great quantities to English jewelers.

In time, as no payments were received and no favors were shown by the queen, an investigation followed. The result was a trial which lasted nine months; the cardinal was declared not guilty, the signature of the queen false, Mme. de La Motte was sentenced to be whipped, branded, and imprisoned for life, and her husband was condemned to the galleys. Nevertheless, much censure fell to the share of the queen. It was the beginning of the end of her reign as a favorite whose faults could be condoned. She was beginning to reap the fruits of her former dissipations. In about 1787, when she least deserved it, she became the butt of calumny, intrigues, and pamphlets.

During these years she was the most devoted of mothers; she personally looked after her four children, watched by their bedsides when they were ill, shutting herself up with them in the chateau so that they would not communicate their disease to the children who played in the park. In 1785 the king purchased Saint-Cloud and presented it to the queen, together with six millions in her own right, to enjoy and dispose of as she pleased. That act added the last straw to the burden of resentment of the overwrought public; from that time she was known as "Madame Deficit." Also she was accused of having sent her brother, Joseph II., one hundred million livres in three years. She was hissed at the opera. In 1788 there were many who refused to dance with the queen. In the preceding year a caricature was openly sold, showing Louis XVI. and his queen seated at a sumptuous table, while a starving crowd surrounded them; it bore the legend: "The king drinks, the queen eats, while the people cry!" Calonne, minister of finance, an intimate friend of the Polignacs, but in disfavor with the queen, also made common cause with the enemies, in songs and perfidious insinuations. Upon his fall, in 1787, the queen's position became even worse.

The last period of the life of the queen, La Rocheterie calls the militant period—it was one in which the joy of living was no more; trouble, sorrows upon sorrows, and anxieties replaced the former care-free, happy radiance of her youth. At the reunion of the States-General, while the country at large was full of confidence and the king was still a hero, the queen was the one dark spot; calumny had done its work—the whole country seemed to be saturated with an implacable hatred and prejudice against her whom they considered the source of all evil. Throughout the ceremonies attending the States-General, the queen was received with the same ominous silence; no one lifted his voice to cheer her, but the Duc d'Orleans was always applauded, to her humiliation.

Whatever may have been the faults and excesses of her youth, their period was over and in their place arose all the noble sentiments so long dormant. When the king was about to go to Paris as the prisoner of the infuriated mob, La Fayette asked the queen: "Madame, what is your personal intention?" "I know the fate which awaits me, but my duty is to die at the feet of the king and in the arms of my children," replied the queen. During the following days of anxiety she showed wonderful courage and graciousness, "winning much popularity by her serene dignity, the incomparable charm which pervaded her whole person, and her affability."

Upon the urgent request of the queen the Polignac set departed, and Mme. de Lamballe endeavored to do the honors for the queen, by receptions three times a week, given to make friends in the Assembly. At those functions all conditions of people assembled, and instead of the witty, brilliant conversations of the old salon there were politics, conspiracies, plots; instead of the gay and laughing faces of the old times there were the worn and anxious faces of weary, discouraged men and women. There was, indeed, a sad contrast between the gay, frivolous, haughty queen of the early days, and this captive queen—submissive, dignified, "majestic in her bearing, heroic, and reconciled to her awful fate."

Her period of imprisonment, the cruelty, neglect, inadequate food and garments, her torture and indescribable sufferings, the insults of the crowd and the newspapers, her heroic death, all belong to history. "The first crime of the Revolution was the death of the king, but the most frightful was the death of the queen." Napoleon said: "The queen's death was a crime worse than regicide." "A crime absolutely unjustifiable," adds La Rocheterie, "since it had no pretext whatever to offer as an excuse; a crime eminently impolitic, since it struck down a foreign princess, the most sacred of hostages; a crime beyond measure, since the victim was a woman who possessed honors without power."

Because Marie Antoinette played a romantic role in French history, it is quite natural to find conflicting and contradictory opinions among her biographers. The most conflicting may be summed up in these words: the queen's influence upon the Revolution was great—her extravagances, her haughty bearing, her scorn of the etiquette of royalty, her enemies, her prejudices, the arrests which she caused, etc. Then her pernicious influence upon the king, after the breaking out of the Revolution—she caused his hesitancy, which led to such disastrous results, and his plan of annihilating the States Assembly; the gathering of the foreign troops and his many contradictory and uncertain commands were all laid at her door, making of her an important and guilty party to the Revolution. Another estimate is more humane and, probably, is the result of cooler reflection, yet is not always accepted by Frenchmen or the world at large. It represents her as neither saint nor sinner, but as a pure, fascinating woman, always chaste, though somewhat rash and frivolous. Proud and energetic, if inconsiderate in her political actions and somewhat too impulsive in the selection of friends upon whom to bestow her favors, she is yet worthy of the title of queen by the very dignity of her bearing; always a true woman, seductive and tender of heart, she became a martyr "through the extremity of her trials and her triumphant death."

Although history makes Marie Antoinette a central figure during the reign of Louis XVI. and the period of the Revolution, yet her personal influence was practically limited to the domain of the social world of customs and manners; her political influence issued mainly from or was due to the concatenation of conditions and circumstances, the results of her friends' doings, while her social triumphs were products of her own activity. The two women—her intimate friends—who during this period were of greatest prominence, who owed their elevation and standing entirely to the queen, were women of whom little has survived. In her time, Mme. de Polignac was an influential woman, wielding tremendous power, contributing largely to the shaping and climaxing of France's fate; yet this influence was centred in reality in the Polignac set, which was composed of the most important, daring, and consummate intriguers that the court of France had ever seen. She escaped the guillotine, and by doing so escaped the attention of posterity.

Mme. de Lamballe, who wrote nothing, did nothing, effected nothing, is better known to the world at large, is more respected and honored, than is Mme. de Polignac or even the great salon leaders such as Mme. de Genlis or Mlle. de Lespinasse. She owes this prominence to her undying devotion to her queen, to her marvellous beauty, and to her tragic death on the guillotine. She was not even bright or witty, the essentials of greatness among French women—not one bon mot has survived her; but she may well be placed by the side of her queen for one sublime virtue, too rare in those days,—chastity. She was Princess of Sardinia; upon the request of the Duke of Penthievre to Louis XV. to select a wife for his son, the Prince of Lamballe, she was chosen. A year after the marriage the prince died; and although the marriage had not been a happy one, because of the dissolute life of the prince, his wife forgave him, and "sorrowed for him as though he deserved it."

When in 1768 the queen died, two parties immediately formed, the object of both of them being to provide Louis XV. with a wife: one may be called the reform party, striving to keep the old king in the paths of decency; while the other was composed of the typical eighteenth century intriguers, endeavoring to revive the "grand old times." The candidate of the former was Mme. de Lamballe, that of the latter, the dissolute Duchesse du Barry. This state of affairs was made possible by the disagreement of the political and social schemes of the court and ministry. Soon after, in 1770, the king negotiated the marriage of Marie Antoinette and the dauphin, and from that time began the friendship of the future queen and the Princesse de Lamballe. Entering the unfamiliar circle of this highly debauched court, the young dauphiness sought a sympathetic friend, and found her in the princess. No figure in that society was more disinterested and unselfishly devoted. In all the queen's undertakings, fetes, and other amusements, she was inseparable from the princess, who was indeed a rare exception to the majority of the women of that time.

The friendship of these two women was uninterrupted, save for a period extending from 1778 to 1785, when Mme. de Polignac and her set of intriguers succeeded in estranging them and usurping all the favors of the queen. When the outside world was accrediting to Marie Antoinette every popular misfortune, when she lost by death both the dauphin and the Princess Beatrice, when fate was against her, when the future promised nothing but evil, she found no stauncher friend, better consoler, more ardent admirer, than her old companion. Learning of the removal of the royal family to the Tuileries, she rejoined the queen. In 1791, with the escape of the royal fugitives, the princess left for England, to seek the protection of the English government for her royal friends.

Mr. Dobson says she was scarcely the discrete et insinuante et touchante Lamballe, with a marvellous sang-froid, hardly the astute diplomatist, that De Lescure makes her. "She was rather the quiet, imposing Lamballe of old, interested in her friends and what she could do for them, but never shrewd and diplomatic." In November she returned to France, to meet her queen and to suffer death for her sake,—and for this unswerving devotion she has a place in history. She stands out also as the one normal woman in the crowds of impetuous, shallow, petty, and, in many cases, pitifully debauched women of the time. Not majestic greatness, but a direct, unaffected sweetness and consistent goodness entitle her to rank among the great women of France.



Chapter XIII

Women of the Revolution and the Empire

Many women of the revolutionary period have no claim for mention other than a last glorious moment on the guillotine—"ennobled and endeared by the self-possession and dignity with which they faced death, their whole life seems to have been lived for that one moment." The society which had brought on and stirred up the Revolution was enervated and febrile. Paris was one large kennel of libellers and pamphleteers and intriguers. The salon frequenters were trained conversationalists and brilliant beauties who danced and drank, discoursed and intrigued. It was a superficial elegance, with virtue only assumed. The art of pleasing had been developed to perfection, but, instead of the actual accomplishments of the old regime, there was merely the outward appearance—luxury, dress, and magnificence; the bearing and language were of the ambitious common people. "The great women are those who, the day before, were taken from the cellar or garret of the salon."

During the Directorate, luxury and libertinism reigned almost as absolutely as during the monarchy. Barras was supreme. He had his mistress, or maitresse-en-titre, in the beautiful Mme. Tallien, the queen of beauty of the salon of la mode. Ease and dissolute enjoyment were the aims of Barras, and in these his mistress was his equal. They gave the most sumptuous dinners, prepared by the famous chefs of the late aristocratic kitchens, while the people were starving or living on black bread. She impudently arrayed herself in the crown diamonds and appeared at the reception given to Napoleon.

The salons under the Empire are said to have preserved French politeness, courtesy, and the usages of la bonne compagnie, but intolerance and tyranny reigned there; the spirit of intrigue only was obeyed. From the beginning of the Revolution to the Empire, it may be said that the streets of Paris from one end to the other were a wild turmoil of people in fever heat—ready for any crime or cruelty, anxious for anything promising excitement. Where formerly the elegant lovers of the nobility were wont to promenade, the rabid populace held undisputed possession.

These were years, about 1780 to 1800, during which women shared the same fate with men; and, consigned to the same prisons, ever resigned and ready to die for principle, they knew how to die nobly. It was truly an age of the martyrdom of woman—an age in which she lived, through almost superhuman conditions, at the side of man. She was all-powerful, triumphant as never before; not, however, through her intellectual superiority as in the previous age, but through her courage. There was not one powerful woman standing out alone, but groups of them, hosts of them. It was during the Directorate especially that woman controlled almost every phase of activity.

The woman who embodied all the heterogeneous vices of the past nobility and the rising plebs was Mme. Tallien, the goddess of vice and of the vulgar display of wealth. Her caprices were scrupulously followed, while about her jealousy and slanders were thick. Then immorality had no veil, but was low, brutish, and open to everyone. With the accession of Napoleon to absolute power, there was a fusion of the element just described with the remnant of the old regime. Josephine soon formed a select and congenial social circle, excluding Mme. Tallien and the Directorate adherents. Evidences of saddening memories of the past and a general gloom were visible everywhere in this circle. The disappointment of the nobility on returning from their exile was somewhat lessened by the very select bi-weekly reunions in the salon of Talleyrand, and by the brilliant suppers of the old regime, which were revived at the Hotel d'Anjou.

The salon of Mme. de Stael was a political debating club rather than a purely social reunion. She being an ardent Republican, it was in her salon that the Royalist plot to bring back the Bourbons was overthrown. In a short time there were a number of brilliant salons, each one showing a nature as distinct as those of the eighteenth century. Thus, Joseph Bonaparte received the distinguished governmentals and the intriguing women of society at the Chateau de Mortfoulaine; at Lucien Bonaparte's hotel youth and beauty assembled; at Mme. de Permon's salon there were music and conversation, tea, lemonade, and biscuits, twice a week. It remains but to characterize these different ages of French social and political evolution by the great women who, each one of her age, are the representative types.

The woman who, during the Revolution, not only added her name to the long list of martyrs, but who also made history and contributed to the very nature of those days of terror and uncertainty, was Mme. Roland, whom critics both extol and condemn—the fate of all historical characters. It would be difficult to estimate this remarkable person and her work without some details of her life.

When a mere girl she showed signs of a tempestuous future; she was seductive, but impulsive, with an inborn love for the common people—which is not always credited to her—and for democracy. These qualities were quickened during her experience at Versailles, for while there for a few days' visit she saw the pitiless social world in all its orgies, revelries of luxury, and wanton extravagances. There, also, she contracted that deep-seated hatred for the queen and royalty.

There was, indeed, a long list of suitors for the hand of the impulsive maiden; but owing to her views as to a husband and her restless, unsettled state of mind, she could not decide upon any one of them. To her mother, when urged to accept one, she said: "I should not like a husband to order me about, for he would teach me only to resist him; but neither do I wish to rule my husband. Either I am much mistaken, or those creatures, six feet high, with beard on their chins, seldom fail to make us feel that they are stronger; now, if the good man should suddenly bethink himself to remind me of his strength he would provoke me, and if he submitted to me he would make me feel ashamed of my power." For such a woman marriage was certainly a difficult problem. Finally, Roland de la Platieres came within her circle; and although somewhat adverse to him at first, after a number of his visits she wrote: "I have been much charmed by the solidity of his judgment and his cultured and interesting conversation." Just such a man appealed to her nature and was in harmony with her views. After months of monotonous life in the convent to which she had retired, she at last consented to become the wife of Roland, not from expectations of any fortune, but purely from a sense of devoting herself to the happiness of an honorable man, to making his life sweeter.

Roland, scrupulously conscientious, painstaking, and observing, had won the position of inspector of manufactures, which took him away on foreign travels part of the time. He had acquired a thorough knowledge of manufacturing and the principles of political economy. The first years of their life were spent in each other's society exclusively, as he was insanely jealous of her; she rarely left his side, and they studied the same works, copied and revised his manuscripts, and corrected his proofs. In this she was indispensable to him. But her activity did not stop with literary work; she managed her husband's household, and for miles around her home the peasants soon learned to know her through her charitable deeds. She was the village doctor, often going for miles to attend the poor in distress. With her own hands she prepared dainty dishes with which to tempt her husband's appetite. Thus, her best years were spent upon things for which much less ability would have sufficed. She watched with breathless interest the installation of Necker and the dismissal of Turgot, the convocation of the notables, the struggles for financial recovery, and, finally, the calling of a States-General, which had not been in session since 1614. During the first stormy years, 1789-1790, she wrote burning missives to her friend Bosc, at Paris, which appeared anonymously in the Patriote Francais, edited by Brissot, the future Girondist leader. Soon came the commission of Roland as the first citizen of the city of Lyons, which had a debt of forty million francs, to acquaint the National Assembly with its affairs.

When, in 1791, Mme. Roland arrived at Paris—for she accompanied her husband—she had already become an ardent Republican. She immediately threw herself into the whirlwind of popular enthusiasm. Her house became the centre of an advanced political group, which met there four times a week to discuss state questions. There Danton, Robespierre, Petion, Condorcet, Buzot, and others were seen. She ably aided her husband in all his work as commissioner to the National Assembly. She was indefatigable in penning stirring letters and petitions to the Jacobin societies in the different departments. A staunch friend of Robespierre, she did much to protect him in his first efforts in public. On returning home, after her husband had completed his mission, she was no longer the same quiet, contented, submissive woman; she longed for activity in the midst of excitement.

With the meeting of the Legislative Assembly, in 1791, the group of men sent up from the Gironde immediately became the leaders, and when Mme. Roland returned to Paris she became the centre of this circle, exhorting and stimulating, advising and ordering. Through her friend Brissot, who was all-powerful in the Assembly, about February, 1792, as leader of the Girondists, who were looking for men not yet practically involved in politics, but qualified by experience for political life, her husband was made minister of the interior, and in March, 1792, he and his wife entered upon their duties. She was a keen reader of human nature, at first glance giving her husband a penetrating and generally truthful judgment of men. Being able to comprehend the temperaments of the ministers, she managed them with inimitable tact. Although all the Girondist ministers were supposed friends, she readily saw how difficult it would be for a small group of men with the same principles to act in concert. Seeing the political machine in motion at close range, she lost some of her enthusiasm for revolutionary leaders; above all, she recognized the need of a great leader. As wife of the minister, installed in the ministerial residence with no other woman present, she gave two dinners weekly to her husband's colleagues, to the members of the Assembly, and to political friends.

Her husband, the French Quaker of the Revolution, in all his simplicity of dress and honesty, was being constantly duped by the apparent good nature and sincerity of the king, against whom his wife was constantly warning him. It was she who, convinced of the king's duplicity and the need of a safeguard for the country, originated the plan of a federate camp of twenty thousand men to protect Paris when war had been declared against Austria. It was she who wrote a letter to the king in the name of the council, but sent in Roland's own name, imploring him not to arouse the mistrust of the nation by constantly betraying his suspicion of it, but to show his love by adopting measures for the welfare and safety of the country. The effect of this letter, which became historical, was the fall of the ministers. After their recall, her husband became more and more powerful. The political circulars which were published by his paper, The Sentinel, were composed by her. Then came the horrible massacres and executions by the hundreds, which inspired Mme. Roland with hatred for Danton, a feeling she communicated to the whole Girondist party. She desired above everything to see punished the perpetrators of the September massacres. In this plan the Girondists failed. Robespierre, Danton, and Marat were victorious, and Mme. Roland and her party fell.

When all parties and the whole populace vied with each other in welcoming back the victorious General Dumouriez, there seemed to be a possibility of a reconciliation between Danton and Mme. Roland, for when the general went to dine with her he presented her with a bouquet of magnificent oleanders. This dinner, on October 14th, auguring good fortune to all, was the last success of Mme. Roland. She had been pushed to the very front of the Revolution. She cooeperated in composing and promulgating the numerous writings of her husband by which public opinion was to be instructed. But she retained her implacable hatred for Danton, who, when her husband, ready to resign, was pressed to remain in office, cried out in the convention: "Why not invite Mme. Roland to the ministry, too! everyone knows that Roland is not alone in the office!" At this period her husband made the fatal mistake of appropriating a chest of important state papers and examining them himself instead of calling together a commission. As is known, the papers turned out to be fatal to Louis XVI. Libels and denunciations were pronounced against Roland, but his wife, called before the convention, not only succeeded in turning aside all accusations, but was voted the honors of the sitting.

At the time of the trial of the king, the power and influence of the Girondists were waning; then the Rolands became the butt of many violent and unreasonable outbursts. With the resignation of Roland on January 22, 1792, the day of the execution of the king, the fate of the Girondists was sealed. This time the minister was not asked to reconsider; in fact, his exposure of the pilfering then going on among the officials made him one of the most unpopular men in Paris. Upon their return to private life, Mme. Roland was accused of forming the plot to destroy the republic. When an armed force arrived one morning at half-past five o'clock to arrest her husband, she resisted them, herself going to the convention to expose the iniquity of such a proceeding. Failing in this, she returned to her husband, to find him safe with a friend. Being again arrested, she met the ordeal with her accustomed courage; and when the officers offered to pull down the blinds of the carriage, to shield her from the gaze of the unfriendly public, she said: "No, gentlemen! innocence, however oppressed, should not assume the attitude of guilt. I fear the eyes of no one, and do not wish to escape even those of my enemies." "You have much more character than many men," they replied; "you can calmly await justice," "Justice!" she cried; "if it existed, I should not be in your power! I would go to the scaffold as calmly as if sent by iniquitous men. I fear only guilt, and despise injustice and death!"

She has been deeply criticised for her letters written to her friend Buzot while she was in prison; yet it should be remembered that there was not the slightest chance of their meeting again, and, besides, the letters reveal the terrible struggle through which she had passed. While in prison, her beauty, grace, and fearlessness won and humanized nearly all who came under her spell. She was once unexpectedly set at liberty, but only to be sentenced to the lowest of prisons—Sainte-Pelagie. There, in the space of about one month, her memoirs, now among the French classics, were written. At the Conciergerie, where the lowest criminals and the filthiest paupers were crowded into cells with the highest of the nobility, and where the cowardly Mme. du Barry spent her last hours, Mme. Roland, by her quiet dignity and patient serenity, commanded silence and respect, and calmness and peace replaced angry and pitiful wrangling. The prisoners clung to her, crying and kissing her hand, while she spoke words of advice and consolation to the doomed women, who "looked upon her as a beneficent divinity." Her conduct under these circumstances alone is sufficient to keep alive her memory. In the last days, she clung to and upheld most passionately her principles of liberty and moderation, and in her conversation with Beugnot it was evident that she had been the real inspiration in the Girondist party for all that was best and most uplifting.

The charge against her when before the bar of judgment of Fouquier-Tinville, the terrible prosecutor, consisted in her relation to the Girondists who had been condemned to death as traitors to the republic. She met her death heroically, as became a woman who had lived bravely. At the very last moment of her life, she offered consolation to fellow victims. Her death was that of the greatest heroine of the Revolution, the climax of a life the one ambition of which had been to save her country and to shed her blood for it. As she rode through the city in her pure white raiment, serenely radiant in her own innocence, she was the embodiment of all that was highest and purest in the Revolution—one of the best and greatest women known to French history. She stands out as a representative of the French Republic.

There are a number of traits of Mme. Roland which should be considered before giving a final estimate of her character, of her role in French history, and of her right to be ranked among the most illustrious women of France. Critics in general seem to show her a marked hostility; such men as Caro assert that she had no modesty, that she lacked sentiment, delicacy, and reserve. M. Saint-Amand said that she reflected the vices and virtues of her age, summing up the passions and illusions, being intellectually and morally the disciple of Rousseau, but socially personifying the third estate, which in the beginning asked for nothing, but later demanded all. Politics made her cruel at times, although by nature she was good and sensible. He declared that with her acquaintance with Buzot began her career of love and ambition. In love, she believed herself a patriot, but all the various phases of her public career were simply the results of her emotions. Thus, for example, in order to see Buzot, she persuaded her husband to return to Paris to seek his fortune and make the realization of her dreams possible. She desired to play a role for which her origin had not destined her, which made her actions appear theatrical and affected. It is evident that she hated both the king and the queen, and at the council for the Girondist ministry demanded the death of the royal couple. And yet, Saint-Amand cites her as the most beautiful of that group of martyrs who lost their lives in the first heat of the Revolution—as the genius among them by her force, purity, and grace—the brilliant and austere muse in all the saintliness of martyrdom.

The two maxims which Mme. Roland followed throughout her career had much to do with her fall: security is the tomb of liberty; indulgence toward men in authority is the means of pushing them to despotism. These maxims as her motto or impulse, united with the spirit of push, energy, and at times rashness and impropriety, naturally led her to her ruin in those days of revolutionary ideas. She was a woman of powerful passion controlled by reason, and with frankness, devotion, courage, and fidelity as forces impelling her to activity. But there was one great defect which was at the bottom of her misfortunes,—a too great ambition, which often led her into perilous paths, even to the scaffold, which, in its turn, covered her errors.

She is said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure, disinterested love impossible. Her husband was in many respects her intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility. Being her senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness and unhappiness. Then there developed in her that terrible struggle between loyalty to her husband and passion for Buzot, in which reason conquered. This devotion to duty was indeed rare in those days, when passion was supreme and pure love was almost unknown. Mr. Dobson says that this one trait by which she gave real expression of virtue is profoundly a product of her mental self. Her instinct would have led her to self-abandonment, so common in that day, but her "man by the head" self was stronger than her "woman by the heart" self. These two sides of her character, fostered by incessant reading, incited her fearful and unrelenting hatreds as well as her passion, "masculine enough to be mistrusted and feminine enough to be admired." These two qualities made her a power and an attraction. Her better side will continue to shine clearer as the horror of those days is revealed. Whatever may be the effects of her ambitious nature and of her unfortunate passion for Buzot, by the very virtue of her intellect and reasoning she will remain the one great woman of the Revolution who willingly and conscientiously sacrificed her life for her country.

A type perhaps more universally known in her relation to the Revolution than is Mme. Roland, though no better understood, was Charlotte Corday. Possessed of a most intense patriotism and an unusual emotional nature, she represented better than any other woman of her age the peculiar French trait—namely, the emotional perfectly combined with the mathematical. She was unique; her compatriots practised the art of studying themselves, in order to be attractive, and thus accomplished their ends, while her ambition was not to please merely, but to be of some real, practical value to her troubled country. She stands out, however, as the product of the end of the eighteenth century, a natural result of the reading of philosophy and political pamphlets. Quite naturally, she entertained such philosophical sentiments as this: "No one will lose in losing me, and the country may be better off for the sacrifice. Death comes only once, and let us use it to the good of the country or the greatest number of people." Thus, her philosophy led her to a complete detachment from her individual self, and fostered the idea of dying for her country.

Her decision to rid France of Marat was arrived at by degrees of silent brooding over the evils which beset her native land; at last she felt herself called to some great act which would necessitate the loss of her life. "The time brought forth desperation, intense warmth of feeling, concentrated upon some purpose or object;" the reasoning self seemed to be stifled by the intensity of the emotion. Yet, reason was to conquer in her. When the Girondists returned to Caen and described Robespierre and Marat in the darkest colors, she at once felt moved to put forth all her efforts to rid France of that evil blot—Marat. She was beautiful, strong, and graceful, presenting a most striking appearance. Loved by all, she felt love and devotion only for her country. Desperate and determined, she set out to fulfil her mission. She was a mere expression of the conservative element which acts only when driven by sheer necessity. Her reason impressed her with her duty and circumstances; the time acted upon her mind. "Easy, calm, resigned, she looked upon the angry masses of people who cursed her," confident that she had done her country a service, and proud that she had been the fortunate one to render it. This was her glory, and for this she will be remembered in history.

Possibly the rarest phenomenon in the history of the illustrious women of France is Mme. Recamier, who, by force of her beauty and social fascination, and without intellectual gifts or even wit, won for herself the position of queen of French society, which she held for nearly half a century. The very name of Recamier has come to evoke a vision of beauty, a beauty so well known to every lover of art who has visited the Luxembourg and gazed upon the figure "so flexible and elegant, with head well poised, brilliant complexion, little rosy mouth with pearly teeth, black curling hair, soft expressive eyes, and a bearing indicative of indolence and pride, yet with a face beaming with good nature and sympathy." Her beauty has been considered perfect, but a recent writer has proved this to be an error. M.J. Turquan, in a new volume on Mme. Recamier, is everything but sympathetic to the woman at whom criticism has rarely been pointed. "Quite a contrast to her extraordinary beauty of face," he declares, "were her hands, with big fingers square at the end and having flat nails. The same may be said of her feet, which were not only big, but were without the slightest trace of finesse in their lines." But though Turquan has raised numerous points in her disfavor, they are not at all likely to detract from her unrivalled reputation for beauty.

Critics have made of her a sort of enigmatic figure, supernatural and having only the form of the human. Thus, in Lamartine we find the following description: "The young girl was, they say, a sous-entendu of nature: she could be a wife, she could not be a mother. These are the two mysteries we must respect, but which we must know to have been the secret of the entire life of Mme. Recamier—a mournful and eternal enigma which will never have its words divined,... All her looks produced an intoxication, but brought hope to no heart. The divine statue had not descended from its pedestal for anyone, as though such a performance would have been too divine for a mortal." Her beauty was so marked, so singular, that wherever she appeared—at the ball, the theatre—it caused a sensation; all turned to look at her and admire in subdued astonishment. Her form was said to be marvellously elegant and supple, her neck of an exquisite perfection, her mouth "deliciously small and pink, her teeth veritable pearls set in coral, her arms splendidly moulded, her eyes full of sweetness and admiration, her nose most attractive in its regularity, her physiognomy candid and spiritual, her air indolent and haughty, and her attitude reserved. Before this ensemble, you remained in ecstasy." All this beauty was particularly well set off by an exquisite white dress adorned with pearls—a style she affected the year around.

But her beauty alone could hardly have contributed to the marvellous success of Mme. Recamier, as some critics assert. Guizot, for instance, suspects her nature to have been less superficial than other writers might lead one to suppose. He said: "This passionate admiration, this constant affection, this insatiable taste for society and conversation, won her a wide friendship. All who approached and knew her—foreigners and Frenchmen, princes and the middle classes, saints and worldlings, philosophers and artists, adversaries as well as partisans—all she inspired with the ideas and causes she espoused." Her qualities outside of her beauty were tact, generosity, and elevation of soul, combined with an amiable grace which was unlimited, however superficial it may have been. Knowing how to maintain, in her salon, harmony and even cordial relations between men of the most varied temperaments and political ideas, it was possible for her to remain all her life an intelligent and warm-hearted bond between the elite minds and their diverse sentiments, which she tactfully tempered. Though ever faithful to one cause, she admitted men and women of all parties to her salon. She was moderate and just in the midst of the most arduous struggles, tolerant toward her adversaries, generous toward the conquered, sympathetic to all, and remarkably successful in conciliating all political, literary, and philosophical opinions as well as the passions which she aroused in her worshippers. To these qualities, as much as to her beauty, were due the harmony of her life, the unity of her character—which were never troubled by the turmoils of politics or the emotions of love. She was not wife, mother, or lover; "she never belonged to anyone in soul or sense." Always mistress of her imagination as well as of her heart, she permitted herself to be charmed but never carried away—receiving from all, but giving nothing in return. Her life was brilliant, but there was lurking in the background the demon of sadness and lassitude and the terrible disease of the eighteenth century,—ennui.

Two splendid portraits of Mme. Recamier are left to us: one by her passionate but unsuccessful lover, Benjamin Constant, picturing her as the personification of attractiveness; the other by M. Lenormant, showing that she desired constant admiration: "She lacked the affections which bring veritable happiness and the true dignity of woman. Her barren heart, desirous of tenderness and devotion, sought recompense for this need of living, in the homage of passionate admiration, the language of which pleases the ears." Mme. Recamier, while still a child, seemed to realize the power of her beauty, and even before her marriage in 1793 she would often say, when demanded in marriage: "Mon Dieu! how beautiful I must be already!" A mere girl when married, being only sixteen years of age, she felt no love for her husband, who was her senior by twenty-five years. Soon after the terrible times of "the Reign of Terror" she found herself one of the most beautiful women in Paris, and her husband one of the wealthiest of bankers. The three rival women of the times were Mme. Recamier, Mme. Tallien, and Josephine. The terrible days of the guillotine were succeeded by an uninterrupted reign of pleasure, "when a fever of amusement possessed everyone, and the desire for distraction of all kinds seemed to have been pushed to its limits." M. Turquan states that in the reign of dissolute extravagance, immorality, and gorgeous splendor, Mme. Recamier formed a striking contrast by her simplicity. Her first triumph was at the church Saint-Roche, the most fashionable of Paris, where she was selected to raise a purse for charity. On one occasion the collection amounted to twenty thousand francs, all due to the beauty of the woman passing the plate. She was soon invited by her friend Barras to all the balls and fetes under the Directorate.

In 1798 M. Recamier bought the house formerly tenanted by Necker, and later established himself in a chateau at Clichy, where he received his friends, among whom was Lucien Bonaparte, who attempted the ruin of the beautiful hostess, but without success. Napoleon himself attempted in vain to win her to his court as maid of honor and as an ornament, her refusal incurring his anger, especially as she was the height of fashion and courted by all the great men of the age. Through her preference for the Royalists—persisting in her line of conduct in spite of her friend Fouche—she finally incurred the enmity of the emperor. Even the Princess Caroline endeavored to obtain Mme. Recamier's friendship for Napoleon, "but, although the princess gave her loge twice to the favorite, and upon each occasion the emperor went to the theatre expressly to gaze upon her, she remained firm in her refusal, which was one of the causes of the downfall of her banker husband, whom Napoleon might have saved had his wife been the emperor's friend." Napoleon certainly resented her refusal, for when requested to save Recamier's bank he replied: "I am not in love with Mme. Recamier!" Thus, because his wife preferred the aristocracy to the favors of Napoleon, the banker lost his fortune.

She, however, bore her misfortunes with great reserve, immediately selling her jewels and her hotel; after which they both retired to small apartments, where they were even more honored and had greater social prestige than ever. She at once made her salon the centre of hostility against the emperor, who, according to Turquan, did not banish her, but her friend Mme. de Stael, with whom she passed over into Switzerland. Here began her romance with Prince August of Prussia, who became so enamored of her that he asked her hand in marriage. Encouraged by Mme. de Stael, she even went so far as to ask her husband for a divorce, that she might wed the royal aspirant. Her husband generously consented to this, but at the same time set forth to her the peculiar position which she would occupy, an argument that opened her eyes to her ingratitude, and she refused the prince.

Upon the fall of Napoleon, Mme. Recamier returned to Paris and, her husband's fortune being restored, gathered about her all the great nobles of the ancient regime. But fortune was unkind to her husband for the second time, and she withdrew to the Abbaye-au-Bois, where she occupied a small apartment on the third floor. Here her distinguished friends followed her—such as Chateaubriand and the Duc de Montmorency. Between her and the famous author of Le Genie du Christianisme there sprang up a friendship which lasted thirty years. During this time it is said that he visited her at a certain hour each day, the people in the neighborhood setting their clocks by his appearance. When he was absent on missions, he wrote her of every act of his life. Both, weary of the dissipations of society and its flatteries, sought a pure and lofty friendship, spiritual and affectionate, with no improper intimacy. There was mutual admiration and mutual respect. Even Chateaubriand's wife, who was an invalid and with whom he spent every evening, encouraged his friendship with Mme. Recamier. When, through the fall of Charles X., Chateaubriand lost his power, the friendship did not cease. M. Turquan insists that he did not really care seriously for Mme. Recamier, that his visits were the outgrowth of mere habit. But it is to be seen that throughout his book Turquan has little sympathy for his subject, whom he pictures as a beautiful, heartless, intriguing woman with immense hands, flat, square fingers, and large feet.

The influence possessed by Mme. Recamier was most remarkable; for with the new statesmen, Thiers, Guizot, Mignet, De Tocqueville, Sainte-Beuve, as well as the nobles and princes, she was on most cordial terms, and was received in any salon which she chose to visit. Her unbounded sympathy, tact, and common sense made her friendship and counsel much in demand by great men. One trait, however, her exclusiveness, caused much discomfort in her life, such as bringing upon her the ill will of Napoleon.

In her later years her physical beauty gradually developed into a moral beauty. She was never a passionate woman, but rather passively affectionate; purely unselfish, her one desire always was to make people love her and to be happy. Her friendship with Chateaubriand in the later days was possibly the most ideal and noble in the history of French women. He never failed to make his appearance in the afternoon at the abbaye, driven in a carriage to her threshold, where he was placed in an armchair and wheeled to a corner by her fireplace. On one of those visits, he asked her to marry him—he being seventy-nine, she seventy-one—and bear his illustrious name. "Why should we marry at our age?" Mme. Recamier replied. "There is no impropriety in my taking care of you. If solitude is painful to you, I am ready to live in the same house with you. The world will do justice to the purity of our friendship. Years and blindness give me this right. Let us change nothing in so perfect an affection." Her charm never deserted her, and she continued to the very last to receive the greatest men and women of the day. Still the reigning beauty and the queen of French society, she died at the age of seventy-two, of cholera.

There is a wide difference between Mme. Recamier and Josephine, the two women of the Napoleonic era who exerted so powerful an influence upon the social and political fortunes of France. At the time of Napoleon's first success, the former was only twenty-one, with Madonna-like charms and attractiveness; the latter, thirty-five, but with exquisite taste in dress and skill in beautifying. Possessed of unstudied natural grace and elegance, and always attired in perfect harmony with her beauty of face and form, she could easily stand a comparison with the other beauties of the day, all of whom studied her air and manner and marked the aristocratic ease and poise of her real noblesse of the old regime.

"Josephine had a faded and brown complexion, which she remedied with rouge and powder; her small mouth concealed her bad teeth; her elegant figure and graceful movements, refined expression, gentle voice and dignity, all dexterously expressed with an air of coquetry, made her delightful." The happiest part of the life of Napoleon and Josephine was during their stay in Italy, when he was absolutely faithful to her. As soon as Napoleon left for Egypt, Talleyrand secured the erasure of many noble names from the list of the proscribed exiles and soon gathered about him a large number of Royalists, who immediately began to pay court to Josephine. Napoleon had enjoined her to keep her salon according to the means he provided and to entertain all influential people. To this she was equal; and all men of elevated rank, the most distinguished artists, men of letters, orators, and musicians, found her salon an enjoyable retreat. No greater galaxy of talent and genius ever assembled under the old regime than was found there,—David, Lebrun, Lesueur, Gretry, Cherubini, Mehul, J. Chenier, Hoffman, Ducis, Desaugiers, Legouve, and others.

But her life was not without its difficulties. She was always annoyed by the Bonaparte family, who were jealous of her influence over Bonaparte. Exceedingly extravagant, in fact a spendthrift, she was always in need of money. Her virtues, however, easily offset these defects. Josephine never offended anyone, never argued politics; she made friends in all classes, thus conciliating Republicans and aristocrats; therefore, her greatest influence was as a mediator between two classes of society, by which she, more than any other woman, unconsciously contributed to the forming of a new social France. Napoleon was wise enough to recognize such diplomacy, and encouraged her to intrigue like an experienced diplomat. She was the most efficient aid and means to his future plans, and M. Saint-Amand says that without her he would possibly never have become emperor. When he returned from Egypt and found her away,—she had gone to meet him, but missed him,—his suspicions were aroused as to her fidelity, as she had been accused of many misdeeds. When the reconciliation finally took place, after a day of sobbing and pleading, she put to work all her tact and knowledge of Parisian society to help her husband to the coup d'etat.

She was always of great service to Napoleon in his relations with the men of whom he wished to make use; fascinating them and drawing them over to him, she charmed such persons as Barras, Gohier, Fouche, Moreau, Talleyrand, Sieyes, and others. By her skill she kept hidden Napoleon's plans until all was ripe for them. She was in the secret of the 18th Brumaire; "nothing was concealed from her. In every conference at which she was present, her discretion, gentleness, grace, and the ready ingenuity of her delicate and cool intelligence were of great service." During the Directorate she allayed jealousies and appeased the differences between Republicans and Royalists. As wife of the First Consul, she conciliated the emigres. At that time she was probably the most important figure in France. The emigres would call at her salon in the morning so as to avoid meeting her husband, with whom they refused to associate. Her task was not easy, but she knew so well how to say a kind word to all, and her tact was so great that when she became empress the duties and requirements of that office were natural to her. She won the Republicans by her friendship with Fouche, the representative of the revolutionary element—the aristocracy, by her dignity and refinement. Her whole appearance had a peculiar charm.

In 1803 the conditions began to be reversed. In 1796 Josephine had worried Napoleon on account of her inconstancy; she was then young and beautiful, while he was penniless and ailing. In 1803 he was thirty-four and she forty—he in his prime, wealthy and popular, she faded and powerless, no longer able to give cause for suspicion. However, nothing could make Napoleon reject her, because she was useful to him. "Her kindness was a weapon against her enemies, a charm for her friends, and the source of her power over her husband." "I gained battles, Josephine gained me hearts," are the well-known words of Napoleon. As empress she had every wish gratified, but she realized that a woman of her age could not continue indefinitely her fascination over a man as capricious as Napoleon. In the brilliant court of Fontainebleau she held the highest place, and no one could suspect the anxieties that tormented her, so cool and happy did she appear.

Josephine did many things that later on gradually helped reconcile Napoleon to a divorce: her pride, her aristocratic tendencies, extravagance and lavishness; her objection to the marriage of Hortense to General Duroc on the grounds of humble birth; her religious tendencies; her difficulty in keeping secrets, which led to highly tragic scenes between her and Bonaparte; the encouragement she gave to the jealousies and hatred of her brothers and sisters-in-law, who maliciously slandered her at every opportunity; and finally, her barrenness.

Her career after her divorce was honorable, and to-day Josephine is still held in the highest esteem in France and in the world at large. Her greatness is not in having been the wife of a great emperor, but in knowing how to adapt herself to the conditions in France into which she was suddenly thrust. As a conciliator and a mediator between two almost hopelessly irreconcilable classes of society, she deserves a prominent place among great French women.