The Duke de Luynes had once sent the Queen a casket as a New-Year’s gift. Marie Leczinska thanked him in the following note, dated January 1, 1751: “It is useless to say the casket is charming, new in style, in a word, nothing so pretty in the world; one knows all that. But what one doesn’t know is that I am like a child with a plaything that pleases it. It pleases me with the same candor, except that the gratitude proceeds from a person who knows the world a little, and even at her own expense, and whom God has granted the grace of having amiable and estimable friends wholly corrupt though she is.”
Among other things the casket contained a pair of spectacles of which the good Queen’s eyes stood in need. “Here I am gay for the whole day from Madame de Luynes’ good-night,” she wrote to the Duke, January 2, 1751. “Do you know what I was doing when I received Monseigneur’s letter? I was with ... guess who? ... my fine new spectacles (les beaux yeux de ma cassette). Never did l’Avare love his own so much. I am hurrying to get to High Mass. I embrace Madame de Luynes, I bow before Monseigneur, and I wish you good-day.”
The Duchess’s shortest absences seemed like an eternity to Marie Leczinska. At such times she wrote letter on letter to her lady of honor, saying that long correspondences are the delights of friendship. Here is a letter which shows what a tender friend the Queen was. On receiving this heartfelt epistle, the Duchess de Luynes must have been profoundly affected:—
“January 23, 1751.—Do you know what pleasure I gave myself last evening? I went to surprise M. de Luynes in his apartment; I found him just as he had finished his supper with Monseigneur (the Bishop of Bayeux), in his pretty little room. I cannot tell you what joy I felt in seeing your apartment again; I rested there a moment in order to preserve it, for, not finding you there yet, I began to be afraid of what might succeed it. Pleasures which are only imaginary need to be taken care of. I impatiently await the real ones.”
To great goodness Marie Leczinska joined solid information. She knew six languages,—Polish, French, Italian, German, Swedish, Latin. Men of letters were struck by the shrewdness of her judgments on the things of the mind. Several of her maxims have been preserved, which attest a lofty soul and a profound knowledge of the human heart. Here are some of them: “We ought not to reflect more on the faults of others than will suffice to preserve ourselves from them.—Human wisdom teaches us to conceal our pride; religion alone destroys it.—To live peaceably in society, we must open our eyes to the qualities which please us, and shut them on the follies and caprices which shock us.—The women who pique themselves most on knowing what it is allowable for them to be ignorant of are those who care least about instructing themselves concerning what it is shameful not to know.—Many princes having regretted, when dying, that they had made war, we never see any who repented of having loved peace.—Good kings are slaves, and their people are free.—The only thing which can make amends for the slavery of the throne is the pleasure of doing some good.—In politics, as in morals, the shortest way to make men happy is to endeavor to make them virtuous.”
The sovereign who expressed such thoughts as these was not an ordinary woman. She surpasses all the favorites of her husband, not merely in heart and virtue, but also in intelligence, knowledge, and wit.
XIV
MARIE LECZINSKA AND HER DAUGHTERS
Marie Leczinska was a tender mother. She surrounded her daughters and her son with the most devoted cares, and knew how to inspire them with Christian sentiments. M. Michelet, who, in his latest works, tried to sully whatever he touched, has tried in vain to cast odious ridicule on the daughters of Louis XV. In spite of his venomous insinuations, his calumnious influence, he has been unable to extinguish the aureole of purity surrounding the brows of these virtuous princesses. The truth may be found in the excellent work of M. Édouard de Barthélemy, an impartial judge, a critic full of sagacity.[62] A curious book, recently published by M. Honoré Bonhomme,[63] has also avenged the memory of the daughters of Louis XV. against attacks which the most bitter adversaries of the monarchy and the most violent of pamphleteers had not permitted themselves.
All of the daughters of the King, with the exception of Madame Adelaide, spent their childhood at the Abbey of Fontevrault. Cardinal Fleury thought the presence of the little princesses at Versailles entailed too much expense, and Louis XV., yielding to the suggestions of his parsimonious minister, regretfully determined on separating himself from his children. Adelaide alone, by dint of prayers and supplications, was able to escape the abbey. On returning from Mass, she threw herself at her father’s feet, and, although only seven years old, succeeded in gaining her cause. The King wept a little, says Barbier, and promised her that she should not go away.
It is easy to comprehend how much the good Queen must have suffered from this parting with her daughters. She wrote to the Duchess de Luynes, October 12, 1747: “The King surprised me by showing me the portraits of my daughters from Fontevrault. I did not know they had been painted. The two eldest are really beautiful, but I have never seen anything so agreeable as the little one. She has an affecting expression, very remote from sadness. I have never seen anything so singular; she is touching, sweet, spiritual. If you find my letter too long, make allowances for the tenderness of a mother and the confidence of a friend.”