The Queen’s anger was appeased in a moment, and she placed her right hand upon the General’s arm in token of reconciliation.
Thus it was that this unhappy woman, who had begun life so extravagantly, while the masses were starving, irritated the people, and especially all those who had dealings with her, by the apparent childishness and weakness of her general character. It was felt that no reliance could be placed upon her. Born of the great feudal Austrian family about whom etiquette was so plastered, that only nobles could sit down in the presence of the royal family, and then upon a very low stool, she was brought to France at a very early age, to a Court almost as ridiculous as the one she had left. But while the Austrians had been excited to no feelings of hate against their Emperor, Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, had taught the French to look upon royalty as made up of merciless, greedy puppets; and, unfortunately, Marie Antoinette—a pure and noble-hearted woman in herself—had the appearance of totally agreeing with this description.
While the people were starving, her passion for jewels became absorbing; while mothers were begging meals for their little ones, she was taking parts in little comedies at Versailles.
Her memory can scarcely be blamed. She had never seen the people; and, as a proof that she knew nothing about them and their wants, we hear about her the celebrated anecdote, which helped to send her to the scaffold. Being told the people wanted bread, she replied, “If there is no bread, why do they not eat cake?”
The people never forgave that—she washed those words only partly out with her blood. Did she really mean what she said, or were the words intended for a joke? Did she really think that if there was no bread there must be cake; or did she utter that fatal sentence as a witticism? I venture to think that she was ignorant of the very meaning of starvation; for courtiers treat kings and queens like children. A misfortune this, when the people expect them to be men and women—the condition of things when the Revolution broke out.
Louis XVI was incapable of managing anything but a lock; his wife thought she could govern for him, and she made a sorry mistake.
The King’s grandfather, Louis XV, the preceding King, had said, “After me, the deluge.” The deluge was upon the royal family, sweeping around them, and was to overwhelm the family.
The popular feeling was far stronger against the Queen than the King.
“See,” she said, one day, before Dumouriez and the King, and pointing through a window near her; “a prisoner in this palace, I dare not venture to present myself at a window that overlooks the garden. But yesterday I wished to breathe the air, and went to the window. An artilleryman used the language of a guard-room, and hurled his words at me; held up his sword, and said he should like to see my head on it. I have seen them murdering a priest, and meanwhile, not ten yards away, children and their nurses are playing at ball. What a country, and what people!”
That the Queen incessantly conspired to induce a foreign army to march into France, is very certain.