Upon the urgent request of the queen the Polignac set departed, and Mme. de Lamballe endeavored to do the honors for the queen, by receptions three times a week, given to make friends in the Assembly. At those functions all conditions of people assembled, and instead of the witty, brilliant conversations of the old salon there were politics, conspiracies, plots; instead of the gay and laughing faces of the old times there were the worn and anxious faces of weary, discouraged men and women. There was, indeed, a sad contrast between the gay, frivolous, haughty queen of the early days, and this captive queen—submissive, dignified, "majestic in her bearing, heroic, and reconciled to her awful fate."
Her period of imprisonment, the cruelty, neglect, inadequate food and garments, her torture and indescribable sufferings, the insults of the crowd and the newspapers, her heroic death, all belong to history. "The first crime of the Revolution was the death of the king, but the most frightful was the death of the queen." Napoleon said: "The queen's death was a crime worse than regicide." "A crime absolutely unjustifiable," adds La Rocheterie, "since it had no pretext whatever to offer as an excuse; a crime eminently impolitic, since it struck down a foreign princess, the most sacred of hostages; a crime beyond measure, since the victim was a woman who possessed honors without power."
Because Marie Antoinette played a romantic rôle in French history, it is quite natural to find conflicting and contradictory opinions among her biographers. The most conflicting may be summed up in these words: the queen's influence upon the Revolution was great—her extravagances, her haughty bearing, her scorn of the etiquette of royalty, her enemies, her prejudices, the arrests which she caused, etc. Then her pernicious influence upon the king, after the breaking out of the Revolution—she caused his hesitancy, which led to such disastrous results, and his plan of annihilating the States Assembly; the gathering of the foreign troops and his many contradictory and uncertain commands were all laid at her door, making of her an important and guilty party to the Revolution. Another estimate is more humane and, probably, is the result of cooler reflection, yet is not always accepted by Frenchmen or the world at large. It represents her as neither saint nor sinner, but as a pure, fascinating woman, always chaste, though somewhat rash and frivolous. Proud and energetic, if inconsiderate in her political actions and somewhat too impulsive in the selection of friends upon whom to bestow her favors, she is yet worthy of the title of queen by the very dignity of her bearing; always a true woman, seductive and tender of heart, she became a martyr "through the extremity of her trials and her triumphant death."
Although history makes Marie Antoinette a central figure during the reign of Louis XVI. and the period of the Revolution, yet her personal influence was practically limited to the domain of the social world of customs and manners; her political influence issued mainly from or was due to the concatenation of conditions and circumstances, the results of her friends' doings, while her social triumphs were products of her own activity. The two women—her intimate friends—who during this period were of greatest prominence, who owed their elevation and standing entirely to the queen, were women of whom little has survived. In her time, Mme. de Polignac was an influential woman, wielding tremendous power, contributing largely to the shaping and climaxing of France's fate; yet this influence was centred in reality in the Polignac set, which was composed of the most important, daring, and consummate intriguers that the court of France had ever seen. She escaped the guillotine, and by doing so escaped the attention of posterity.
Mme. de Lamballe, who wrote nothing, did nothing, effected nothing, is better known to the world at large, is more respected and honored, than is Mme. de Polignac or even the great salon leaders such as Mme. de Genlis or Mlle. de Lespinasse. She owes this prominence to her undying devotion to her queen, to her marvellous beauty, and to her tragic death on the guillotine. She was not even bright or witty, the essentials of greatness among French women—not one bon mot has survived her; but she may well be placed by the side of her queen for one sublime virtue, too rare in those days,—chastity. She was Princess of Sardinia; upon the request of the Duke of Penthièvre to Louis XV. to select a wife for his son, the Prince of Lamballe, she was chosen. A year after the marriage the prince died; and although the marriage had not been a happy one, because of the dissolute life of the prince, his wife forgave him, and "sorrowed for him as though he deserved it."
When in 1768 the queen died, two parties immediately formed, the object of both of them being to provide Louis XV. with a wife: one may be called the reform party, striving to keep the old king in the paths of decency; while the other was composed of the typical eighteenth century intriguers, endeavoring to revive the "grand old times." The candidate of the former was Mme. de Lamballe, that of the latter, the dissolute Duchesse du Barry. This state of affairs was made possible by the disagreement of the political and social schemes of the court and ministry. Soon after, in 1770, the king negotiated the marriage of Marie Antoinette and the dauphin, and from that time began the friendship of the future queen and the Princesse de Lamballe. Entering the unfamiliar circle of this highly debauched court, the young dauphiness sought a sympathetic friend, and found her in the princess. No figure in that society was more disinterested and unselfishly devoted. In all the queen's undertakings, fêtes, and other amusements, she was inseparable from the princess, who was indeed a rare exception to the majority of the women of that time.
The friendship of these two women was uninterrupted, save for a period extending from 1778 to 1785, when Mme. de Polignac and her set of intriguers succeeded in estranging them and usurping all the favors of the queen. When the outside world was accrediting to Marie Antoinette every popular misfortune, when she lost by death both the dauphin and the Princess Beatrice, when fate was against her, when the future promised nothing but evil, she found no stauncher friend, better consoler, more ardent admirer, than her old companion. Learning of the removal of the royal family to the Tuileries, she rejoined the queen. In 1791, with the escape of the royal fugitives, the princess left for England, to seek the protection of the English government for her royal friends.
Mr. Dobson says she was scarcely the discrète et insinuante et touchante Lamballe, with a marvellous sang-froid, hardly the astute diplomatist, that De Lescure makes her. "She was rather the quiet, imposing Lamballe of old, interested in her friends and what she could do for them, but never shrewd and diplomatic." In November she returned to France, to meet her queen and to suffer death for her sake,—and for this unswerving devotion she has a place in history. She stands out also as the one normal woman in the crowds of impetuous, shallow, petty, and, in many cases, pitifully debauched women of the time. Not majestic greatness, but a direct, unaffected sweetness and consistent goodness entitle her to rank among the great women of France.