17th. About noon the Emperor sent for me; he had just finished his breakfast. He was no better than he had been yesterday. He endeavoured to converse a little, and then read in English a few pages of the Vicar of Wakefield. He still complained of drowsiness, and, after several vain efforts to rouse himself, he retired to his chamber to try to get a nap. He was the more astonished that this heaviness should continue, as he said he had slept well during the night.
He did not leave his chamber until dinner was ready, and after dinner he tried to read a little of Don Quixote; but he almost immediately laid down the book, and retired. As it was very early, he sent for me after he had gone to bed, and I remained with him nearly an hour conversing on different subjects.
We spoke of Louis XVI., the Queen, Madame Elizabeth, their martyrdom, &c. He asked me to tell him what I knew of the King and Queen, and what they had said to me on my presentation. The forms and ceremonies of the Court were, I informed him, the same as those which were adopted during the Empire. As to character, I observed, it was generally admitted that the Queen had disappointed public expectation. During the first moments of the revolutionary storm, there was every reason to suppose her to be a woman of great talent and energy; but subsequently these qualities seemed entirely to forsake her. With regard to the King, I mentioned the opinion formed of him by M. Bertrand de Molleville, with whom I had been well acquainted, and who was Minister of Marine to Louis XVI. at the height of the crisis. He pronounced the King to have possessed considerable information, sound judgment, and excellent intentions; but there it all ended. He lost himself by the multiplicity of advice which he solicited, and by his irresolute and wavering mode of following that advice.
The Emperor, in his turn, retraced the portrait of the Queen, by Madame Campan, who, he observed, having been her confidante, and having served her with zeal, affection and fidelity, might be expected to have known a great deal about her, and deserved to be considered as good authority. Madame Campan, he said, had communicated to him many details of the private life of the Queen; and he related some particulars which he had derived from that source.
The Queen, according to Madame Campan, was a fascinating woman, but destitute of talent: she was better calculated to be a votary of pleasure than a participator in affairs of State. She possessed an excellent heart, was parsimonious, rather than extravagant, and by no means possessed strength of character equal to the trying circumstances in which she was placed. She obtained regular information of the schemes that were carrying on abroad; and she never entertained a doubt of her deliverance, even up to the fatal 10th of August, the catastrophe of which was brought about solely by the intrigues and hopes of the Court, which were developed to the world through the imprudence of the King and those who surrounded him.
“On the terrible night of the 5th of October,” said the Emperor, “a person for whom the Queen entertained a high regard, and whom I afterwards treated very ill at Rastadt, hastened to join the Princess at Versailles: whether he had been sent for, or whether he went of his own accord to share her dangers, I know not. It is in these trying moments,” continued the Emperor, “that we feel most in need of the advice and consolation of those who are devoted to us. At the moment of the catastrophe, when the palace was stormed, the Queen fled for refuge to the King’s apartments; but her confident was exposed to the greatest dangers, and only escaped by leaping out of a window.”
I informed the Emperor that the Queen had greatly fallen in the estimation of the emigrants, by her conduct during the events of Varennes; she was reproached for not having allowed the King to set out alone, and for having betrayed a want of skill and energy during the flight of the Royal family. Nothing indeed, could be more ill managed and confused than the journey to Varennes. A curious circumstance connected with that event was, that Leonard, the Queen’s famous coiffeur, found means to pass, in his cabriolet, through the midst of the tumult; and he arrived at Coblentz, bringing with him the Marshal’s baton, which, it was said, the King had carried away from the Tuileries, in order to deliver it to M. de Bouillé, when he should join him.
“It was,” said the Emperor, “an established rule with the members of the House of Austria to observe profound silence respecting the Queen of France. Whenever Marie Antoinette was mentioned, they cast down their eyes, and dexterously changed the conversation, as if to avoid a disagreeable and embarrassing subject. This rule,” continued the Emperor, “was adopted by all the members of the family, and recommended to their agents abroad. The efforts lately made by the French Princes in Paris to revive the interest attached to the memory of the unfortunate Queen must certainly have been displeasing to the Court of Vienna.”
The Emperor next asked me some questions concerning the Princess de Lamballe, of whom he said he knew nothing. I was enabled to answer his questions, as I had known the Princess well. One of my cousins had been her lady of honour; and, on my arrival at Aix-la-Chapelle[Aix-la-Chapelle], at the commencement of my emigration, I was received as one of her household, and treated with the utmost kindness.
At Aix-la-Chapelle the Princess de Lamballe had assembled round her many of the wrecks of Versailles: she was surrounded by nobles and persons of fashion, who had been connected with the old Court. She was also visited by many illustrious foreigners; and while I remained with her, I frequently saw Gustavus III., King of Sweden, who went by the name of the Count de Haga; Prince Ferdinand of Prussia, and his children, the eldest of whom (Prince Louis) was killed just before the battle Jena; the duchess of Cumberland, widow of a brother of the King of England, &c.