Marie Antoinette and the Downfall of Royalty

by Imbert de Saint-Amand

Clearly, the veritable idol of the Egeria of the Girondins is not the republic, but Buzot. He is so elegant, so distinguished! His mind and his person have so many charms! Poor Roland! You think that your better half is solely occupied with your ministry. Alas! this learned woman has other thoughts in her head. Your position as a minister has not augmented your prestige in the region of sentiment. Though you lord it in the Hotel Calonne, yet, in spite of the throng of petitioners and flatterers who surround you, you will never be a Lovelace, and your romantic spouse will not allow herself to be affected by your appearance, like that of a Quaker in Sunday clothes. You thought you were doing wonders in presenting yourself at the council of ministers with lanky, unpowdered locks, a round hat, and shoes minus buckles. This peasant costume, which so greatly scandalized the master of ceremonies, doubtless made the best impression at the Jacobin Club, but your wife prefers the careful dress of her too dear Buzot.

Madame Roland, who had just completed her thirty-eighth year, was still very charming. Lémontey thus paints her portrait as she appeared at this epoch: "Her eyes and hair were remarkably beautiful; her delicate complexion had a freshness and color which made her look singularly young. At the beginning of her husband's ministry she had lost nothing of her air of youth and simplicity; her husband resembled a Quaker whose daughter she might have been, and her child hovered round her with hair floating to her waist; one might have thought them natives of Pennsylvania transported to the drawing-room of M. de Calonne."

Count Beugnot, who was the companion of her captivity in the Conciergerie, is severe on the female politician, but he admires the pretty woman. "Her figure was graceful," he says, "and her hands perfectly modelled. Her glance was expressive, and even in repose her face had something noble and subtly attractive in it. One surmised her wit without needing to hear her speak, but no woman whom I have ever listened to, spoke with more purity and elegance. She must have owed her faculty of giving to French a rhythm and cadence veritably new, to her familiar knowledge of Italian. The harmony of her voice was still further heightened by graceful and appropriate gestures and the expression of her eyes, which grew animated in conversation. I daily experienced new charm in listening to her, less on account of what she said than because of the magic of her delivery."

If Madame Roland, a prisoner, crushed by misfortune, on the very threshold of the scaffold, after so many sleepless nights and so many tears, had preserved such attractions, what a charm must she not have exercised at the Ministry of the Interior, when hope and pride illumined her beautiful face, and when, after appearing to her electrified adorers as the Muse of the new régime, the magician, the Circe of the Revolution, she touched so profoundly their minds and hearts! She who knew so well how to love and how to hate, who felt so keenly, who had so much energy, so much vigor, what fascination must she not have exerted with her glance of fire, her long black tresses, her more than ornate eloquence, her inspired, lyric, enthusiastic bearing, and that consummate art which, according to the remark of Fontanes, made one believe that in her everything was the work of nature!

IX.

DUMOURIEZ, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

Madam Roland had wished to reign alone. She saw an influential rival in Dumouriez, and at once conceived for him an instinctive repugnance and suspicion. She met him first on March 23, 1792, at the time when, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, he came to salute Roland, just named Minister of the Interior, as his colleague. As soon as he departed: "There," said she to her husband, "is a man with a crafty mind and a false glance, against whom it is probably more necessary to be on one's guard than any other person; he expressed great satisfaction at the patriotic choice he was deputed to announce; but I should not be at all surprised if he were to have you dismissed some day." She thought she recognized in Dumouriez at first sight, "a witty roué, an insolent chevalier who makes sport of everything except his own interests and glory."

Later on she drew the following portrait of him: "Among all his colleagues, he had most of what is called wit, and less than any of morality. Diligent and brave, a good general, a skilful courtier, writing well and expressing himself with ease, capable of great enterprises, all he lacked was character enough to balance his mind, or a cooler brain to carry out the plans he had conceived. Agreeable to his friends, and ready to betray them, gallant to women, but not at all suited to succeed with those among them who are susceptible to affectionate relations, he was made for the ministerial intrigues of a corrupt court."