Prince Henry came, as Frederick’s brother, to feel and to influence; to see how much could be done by way of separating Vienna from Versailles. It was a strain on the Queen. What could she know of these intrigues and counter-intrigues? She saw things, now as ever, few and plain; she saw a Prussian attempt to separate her House and the House into which she had married. Therefore Prince Henry’s visit was a difficulty to her. She solved it as one might expect of her character, by avoiding him. She wrote to the King of Sweden a little too familiarly, and assured him that she had hardly seen the visitor: she “was at Trianon continually, with intimates only.” Paris thought much of him (for Prussia was then, as now, efficient); she was very properly fatigued, but, improperly, she did not conquer her fatigue. During all his stay he saw her perhaps not half-a-dozen times, though he (as might be expected of his character or of any of his descendants, ancestors, or collaterals) stayed on and on and on.... He stayed steadily on in France till November!—and before November enough had happened!
The little Dauphin was really ill. His mother was anxious. St. Cloud was bought for him, in some vague hope that the “air” was better there—as though the “air” of one suburb more than another could cure the rickets of the Bourbons.
Next, it was known that the Queen was again with child. She wrote of it (familiarly enough) to the King of Sweden.
More than this, war was apparent. The Emperor’s smouldering quarrel with the Dutch had broken into flame; upon the 4th of October 1784 an Imperial ship had sailed up the Scheldt to see if the Dutch would oppose an entry. The Dutch did oppose it; they shot at the Imperial ship and took it, and every ruler in Europe put his hand to the hilt of his sword.
So far Marie Antoinette had done little at Versailles but be worried by all this complex quarrel; a fortnight before the incident she had told her brother that “really she was not so important at Versailles”; she hoped it was a thing to shirk. Now that the guns had begun, she was in a panic and made a call upon her old and natural violence. She effected little: Vergennes and the tradition of French diplomacy were too much for such tantrums, but the superficial aspect of her action was striking. It was known that she continually saw the King, that she made scenes, that she stormed. It was known that she was “Austrian” in all this—if it was not understood by the people that she had failed. On the contrary, when in the upshot a compromise was arranged, she appeared once more in that most odious light—a woman sending French tribute to Vienna.
For when the Emperor consented to the closing of the Scheldt (it was not till February of the next year that he gave way), the French Cabinet, which had firmly supported Holland, was gradually influenced to guarantee the indemnity which the dignity of the Imperial Crown demanded: it was close on ten million florins.[[7]] The Dutch refused so large a sum. The Queen wrote, cajoled, insisted in favour of her brother, her House and Austria. The French Foreign Office, true to its tradition of taking material interests seriously, stood firm and backed Holland steadily. At last the French agreed to take over and to pay as sponsors for Holland one-half the sum demanded of the Dutch Government, if thereby they might avoid war in Europe.
[7]. The fiction of the indemnity is entertaining. The Dutch were to “yield” Maestricht as the equivalent to the Emperor’s granting the closing of the Scheldt. The indemnity was to “redeem” Maestricht.
The payment was due to the Queen’s vigour or interference, and meanwhile there had arisen one of those large and sudden affairs which give everything around them a new meaning, which emphasise every coincident evil, and draw together into their atmosphere every ill-will and every calumny. Just before Marie Antoinette appeared before the populace as one who was sending millions of French treasure to her foreign brother came the explosion—in the interval of all this diplomacy and negotiation—of what is called in history “The Affair of the Diamond Necklace.” The truth with regard to that famous business is as follows:—
When the Cardinal de Rohan left the Park that midnight of July after the rapture of a word from the ridiculous d’Oliva, he was fallen wholly in the hands of the La Motte. She it was, as he thought, who had done this great thing for him. She had given him the Queen; and he was now entirely sure of his right to act for Marie Antoinette and to serve her. The La Motte began by begging money of him for the Queen’s pet charities. She obtained it: first, two or three thousand pounds at the end of August. Rétaux wrote the letter: “It was for people whom she wanted to help.” Rétaux signed it with his “Marie Antoinette”: and Rohan paid. A few pounds of it went to the unhappy woman whom La Motte had used, the rest to creditors or show. Much at the time when the Scheldt business was at its height, just as Prince Henry was leaving and all were talking of the Queen, in the autumn of 1784 a new letter came (again from Rétaux’ hand) asking for four thousand. There was the signature “Marie Antoinette,” there the beloved terms, and Rohan blindly paid: his man took the money to the La Motte, “to give the Queen.” The Cardinal was sure of his way now; he was a master; the Queen was under obligations to him. The money was spent in a very lavish display by the male and the female La Motte. They travelled with grandeur; they visited in a patronising manner the earlier home of their poverty; they lived high. With the end of the year 1784 more money was needed—and here enters into history that diamond necklace which had so long been waiting its cue to come upon the stage.
