MARIE ANTOINETTE
FROM THE PRINCIPAL BUST AT VERSAILLES
The Elector of Bavaria had died while Versailles and all the Court were in the height of their absorption in the American Rebellion; just in that last December which had been full of the first active approach of Vergennes towards the American envoys. The passing of the Electorate to another branch of the family, and that branch childless, or rather lacking direct legitimate issue, threw the musty anarchy of German archives open to the lawyers; they were rummaged, and a dust arose. The various fragments out of which the old Duchy and the newer Electorate were pieced together found claimants everywhere, and the two heads of antagonism were necessarily Vienna and Berlin: Berlin, which would support the heir to the old Duchy—at a price; Vienna, which would protect the reigning Elector for the reversion—on doubtful pleas of inheritance—to some half of the mosaic over which he ruled.
There was here no plain conscience of civilised right against a northern and blundering atheism such as had earlier supported the defence of Maria Theresa against the too successful cynicism of Frederick the Great. The ambitions of Joseph were the ambitions of a philosopher; they were at least as empty and by no means as thorough as the soldierly ambitions of his opponent the King of Prussia: the injury was mutual, the contempt of justice equal, for Joseph was a pupil of Frederick’s in wrong-doing. To each, however, the complex little territorial quarrel seemed of secular magnitude. Maria Theresa was maddened with anxiety, and wrote, so maddened, despairing appeals to her daughter at Versailles. Mercy moved all his persuasion to persuade the intervention of France. Vergennes as resolutely refused to be involved. England was approaching Austria, to the detriment, it was hoped, of the Bourbons, the whole weight of diplomatic thought was at work, and Europe was warned and threatened with incredible futures as one or the other of the two enemies armed for the acquisition of a titular sovereignty over the tortuous and overlapping boundaries of a feudal ruin. Such were the petty concerns of statesmen and even of demagogues in a year when the young men who were to fight at Valmy were already boys. The politicians wrangled over the Bavarian succession as we to-day wrangle over colonial things, imagining them to contain the future fate of Europe.
The Queen at first did little. Mercy complained of her detachment. She was occupied in the greater matter of her maternity, passing all the time of the first leaves and the early summer rains in quietude at Marly; she would have no Court about her, and when she wrote to Maria Theresa it was perpetually of the child. That seclusion and that hope so much attached to her the new affections and the new pride of Louis that when at last she spoke to him, and spoke with increasing violence, for her family and for Vienna, she largely accomplished her aim. She did not intend to involve the Foreign Office—Vergennes was apparently immovable—but so great was now her influence with Louis that by autumn she did obtain a tardy intervention, and until she obtained it she showed in every way her determination to be heard. The first acts of war in July moved her to countermand a feast at Trianon; during August she frequently disturbed the Council by her presence. In September she put forward an uncertain proposal for mediation. It was refused, and her anger added to the difficulties of the French Crown. But she did obtain—the forgotten act was to re-arise, enormous, at her scaffold—she did obtain a subsidy. Treaty demanded it: it had been refused: the whole duty of the Bourbon Crown was to watch finance—yet fifteen million went to Austria. The taverns made it a whole convoy of gold; there were songs against the Queen, accusing her of “paying out French gold.” Older and worse stories about her were revived. The printed obscenities from London and Amsterdam began to flow. The set at Court which had called her openly “the Austrian” before her accession, and since her accession had in secret still so called her, passed on the term to the street, and the nickname was common in Paris before the end of the year.
All these things she had forgotten before the winter closed upon her and her hour approached. They were indeed little things, seedlings. Much greater was the coming of an heir—and Fersen’s return.
He had come back late in August. The moment she had seen him, with his tall, upstanding gait and serious eyes, she came forward and reminded him (and those about her) of his old acquaintance—he was a friend. The lad was still quite young; here was she now a woman, and the effect of four years, changing her so greatly in body had less changed him in body; it had less changed her in heart. For as the days fell shorter and autumn lapsed into winter, his rare and brief notes betray the growing charm of the woman who perpetually remembered him. All through the months of the cold, through the time of her approaching childbirth, and through the gaieties of the new year that succeeded, he remained. Many noted her visage and her tone, once especially when she sang and looked at him during her singing. At last he also—when in April he left the Court, bitten with the gallant adventure of America, like so many of his rank—he also had understood. She followed him perpetually with her eyes; she followed him as he left her rooms again for the last time, and it was noted that there were tears in her eyes.... A wealthy woman rallied Fersen, as he left, upon his conquest; he was now old enough to deny gravely that any woman of that Court had deigned to consider him: having so denied it, he was gone.
As for the Queen, she wrote or spoke of him in public as a young nobleman only, now known and worthy of advancement, and since she kept the rest strictly in her heart no emphasis here of that which lay at the root of her life would give it dignity or value in these pages. Yet throughout these pages the name of Fersen should be the chief name.
He was gone for five more years after so brief a sight of new things.