Was the penury of the country and the starving condition of the poor at the bottom of this earthquake? But why visit them upon the Court? People must know that she and the King were most kindly and anxious and troubled for all. They had reduced every possible expense in their household. Had she not nine years ago refused the diamond necklace on account of its expense? She had not gambled in old days more than others; neither had she enriched her friends more than sovereigns were in the habit of doing. The Pompadours and Dubarrys had rolled in wealth. What was the cost of Trianon compared to the millions of money spent in building the Palace at Versailles?[[93]] It was unjust to make her and her children bear the punishment of the sins of former generations.
Were such writers as Voltaire and Rousseau responsible in any degree for the gathering forces that were crashing all law and order as they had been hitherto understood? The Queen knew something of their views, but their invectives against kings as tyrants seemed unjust and exaggerated, and had repelled her. To her mind, her mother, husband, and brothers were not selfish oppressors; they meant to be useful to their subjects, and would have been unwise to have rejected the wisdom of former times embodied in traditions and old customs. Moreover, any truths uttered by Voltaire were vitiated to the Queen by his declared hostility to religion as she knew it. Such overwhelming forces as were destroying France could not be the outcome of such feeble views; there must be stronger reasons than such writings could account for.
But here there was some tangle of ideas which could not be unravelled. The Queen’s mind was not one to dwell on abstractions; it was wholly untrained and incapable of thinking out points of philosophical or religious argument. She could not disentangle the various points of view which distracted her mind.
As the long hours went on, her sorrows which admitted of no comfort: the strange impassiveness of the king: the sight of her weeping companions: the efforts of the children not to give trouble: and the physical suffering entailed on all alike, boxed up in this stifling hole on a hot August afternoon, filled her with maddening oppression. Whilst the cold and insolent words of the hostile Assembly, the unspeakable insults incessantly hurled at her by the cruel voices outside, the noise, the heat, the smells, the want of room, added to the effects of sleepless nights and absence of nourishment, must have filled her with an uncontrollable longing to get away. As the afternoon wore on with no hope of relief, black, helpless despair closed in on the mind of the tired Queen. She must have felt that, if she was not to go mad, it was necessary to extricate herself from her present surroundings by at least a semi-unconsciousness of them. Her brain was on fire. Could she not force her imagination to take some rest? Even in happy times some natural impatience in the Queen’s nature made it imperative to her to run away and be alone sometimes. It was at the Petit Trianon that she had found relief from tiresome restrictions, importunities of etiquette, and obsequious crowds. There at least she could have her own way and her love of simple pleasures and country freedom had been satisfied. If only she could fly to that beloved spot away from this horrible smell of blood, what happiness it would be to her jaded spirits! Only to think of it afforded her a dim pleasure overcoming the inevitable bitterness of the recollection.
Yes; it was the Petit Trianon which of all places in France she loved best. The bare memory of its trees and grass and cool shadows brought a little refreshment. It was there that she had always found a reprieve from the stately formalities of Versailles and that she had been able to unqueen herself and be on an equality with her friends. But was there no pang as she realised with fresh point that the King had just been deposed, and that she, by the voice of the only authority at present recognised in the country, was no longer Queen of France? That favourite pastime of pretending to be no queen in the privacy of Trianon had been a dangerous game! Marie Antoinette had not attempted to be on an equality with the old haute noblesse whose absence at this moment was so deplorable. Such familiarity would have lowered them in their own eyes; for their rank and consideration rested on their service to the sovereigns, and only by etiquettes rigorously kept could the princes and old nobility find their own raison d’être. With keen pain the truth flashed upon her that a thoughtless Queen had done her best to undermine Cardinal Richelieu’s policy in bringing the great feudal princes to squabble in small rivalries about positions at Court rather than leave them to combine into factions and fight each other in wars dangerous to the State. Etiquettes had been laughed at, and the nobles superseded in her favour by persons without claim to the titles and fortunes lavished upon them. But was it possible that such small considerations had really alienated the most powerful class in France? The Queen had only to recollect the restrained indignation of the Comtesse de Noailles: those dismal years when no one attended her balls at Versailles[[94]]: the immense offence given to the distinguished families of Soubise, Condé, Rohan, Guemenée, and all who were connected with them, by her furious and undignified anger with Cardinal Rohan[[95]]: besides the murmurs of all who considered themselves wronged by their exclusion from her friendship at Trianon to realise bitterly what had alienated the aristocracy from her, beyond, apparently, hope of recall.
Too worn and sad to pursue such painful thoughts, it was a relief to let the vision of her favourite home float before her mind’s eye and to remember the loyalty of her Trianon servants, such as Antoine Richard, jardinier en chef, who had succeeded to the post so long held by his father Claude Richard.[[96]] How loyally they had carried out her wishes, and, under the direction of her architect Mique,[[97]] had altered their much loved nursery gardens into a fashionable “jardin anglais”! It had been delightful planning that garden and altering the arrangements and decorations of the house and grounds with her own rare good taste, until scarcely any part was left bringing to mind the sojourn there of Madame de Pompadour, but the house itself,[[98]] and the little ménagerie with its vacherie, bergerie, and poulaillers,[[99]] or of Madame du Barry, but the formal French garden,[[100]] the chapel,[[101]] with the kitchens beyond.
In the stuffy dirty loge the royal family had resigned itself to a melancholy silence, the Dauphin was sleeping across her knee, and the Queen surrendered herself to a trance-like condition in which she saw again with extreme vividness and longing the place of former enjoyment. She was again free, opening all the gates with her own passe-partout, and wandering into all the corners of the grounds.[[102]] The beautiful trees planted by the two Richards in rich variety were, she recollected, in full summer foliage, and she would fain have felt some breath of the cool evening air, which she knew well must be blowing at that moment, though not for her. Or she was again in the mazy wood beyond the Vergelay bridge following in thought the sound of the light operatic music, so often played on bright afternoons, which drifted past her as she made her way along the wood paths. Well-known bars of Monsigny’s music mingled with reminiscences of Sacchini’s and Grétry’s operas. Was it not on an August day, twelve years ago, that she first acted herself in the charming little newly-built theatre?[[103]] It was in a play of Sedaine (Le Roi et le Fermier) for which Monsigny had written music, especially for the Trianon; and with pain it was remembered that the plot of the play was the favourite one at Trianon, viz. the superiority of the farmer’s condition over that of the King. Vaudreuil had acted the part of the farmer lover to her Jenny. The Queen’s thoughts flew to another, and the last, acting,[[104]] so immediately followed by the frightful episode of the diamond necklace when outrage first touched her and personal popularity was finally lost.[[105]] Under pressure from the Comte de Vaudreuil she had prevailed with the King, against his better judgment, to allow the Mariage de Figaro to be acted in Paris.[[106]] In the following year, the older version of the same play had been performed at Trianon;[[107]] she had acted Rosina, the Comte d’Artois had taken the part of Figaro, and Vaudreuil that of Almaviva. Four years later the King’s prophecy had come true, and the destruction of the Bastille had been the signal for Vaudreuil’s hurried flight from the country.[[108]]
Well she remembered that false friend,[[109]] whom she had willingly received into her most intimate circle, though latterly he had often wearied her with his violent temper and importunities for more lucrative posts.[[110]]
There was one day in that last summer at Trianon, shortly before Vaudreuil’s final departure in July, which stood out, every detail being imprinted on her memory. She had wandered up the lane past the logement des corps de gardes, and had noticed on the ground near the lodge gates the old plough,—a reminiscence of Louis XVI.’s boyhood.[[111]] Coming towards the porte du jardinier, she had seen Rodolphe and Fidel Bersy[[112]] in the long green coats of the petite livrée of the gardes.[[113]] They were directing some strangers. These guards were special friends of hers. Had she not paid all expenses out of her own purse when Rodolphe’s children had been ill with smallpox?[[114]] Whilst passing them she had noticed Marie Anne Lemaignan[[115]] standing near her mother[[116]] on the steps of their cottage outside the enclosure.[[117]] The Queen calculated that the girl, who had then been fourteen years old,[[118]] must now be a young woman of seventeen, and with her promise of beauty[[119]] would soon marry: probably, she thought, to young Charpentier,[[120]] who was already, she knew, attached to the girl. The Queen’s intimacy with her servants at Trianon had been a never-failing happiness, and she thought with infinite tenderness of the troubles their loyal sympathy for her must be causing them now.
Passing through the gardeners’ enclosure and the porte d’entrée she had come into the English garden. Advancing a few steps, she had suddenly caught sight of Vaudreuil sitting by the small circular “ruine,”[[121]] dressed, she remembered, in the slouch hat and large cloak which had become fashionable since he had acted in such as Almaviva.[[122]] He turned and looked at her, but did not rise or make the smallest gesture of recognition. It was by her own orders that at Trianon her ladies and gentlemen did not rise or put away their occupations when the Queen entered a room; but she had lately become sensitive, and on this occasion she had felt his rudeness.[[123]] After all, she was the Queen; he was there as her honoured guest, where the highest in the land desired to be, and ordinary good manners required him to do more than sit still and look at her without seeming to notice her. The Queen remembered her sensation of displeasure. And now her extraordinarily excited memory which was enabling her to see Trianon again down to the smallest details of the scenery, also revealed to her her short-sighted folly in undermining the first principles of that mutual courtesy which constitutes best Court life, at a time when France was on the verge of an immense political whirlpool.