This is no place in which to discuss at length a most intricate question, all hedged about by obscurity, uncertainties and mysteries which will, perhaps, never be solved. At all events, the story which I have told of her trial and her last moments is true. For the rest, both Royalists and Republicans agree that Marie Antoinette was born at Vienna, in 1755, and was the daughter of Francis of Lorraine, Emperor of Germany, and of Marie Theresa of Austria. In May, 1770, she married the Dauphin Louis, who was grandson of Louis XV of France, and who, in 1774, ascended the French throne as Louis XVI. It would not seem that Marie Antoinette was absolutely beautiful, as beautiful, say, as Queen Louisa of Prussia, or as the Empress Eugene, still there is a tolerably unanimous consensus of opinion that she was handsome, lively, amiable, and thoroughly kind-hearted. It is possible that she may have been a little thoughtless in her youth; and the ledgers of Madame Eloffe certainly show that, as regards her toilet, Marie Antoinette was a most prodigal Queen. But is it a mortal sin in a young, pretty and sprightly woman to spend a good deal of money on dress? How many hundred dresses did our chaste Queen Elizabeth leave behind her, in her wardrobe, at her death?
It must be granted that when the dissensions of the Revolution began, Marie Antoinette was on the Conservative side, and that she tried her hardest to incline her husband to that side. Was it so very unnatural that she should do so? Her brother, the Emperor Joseph, used to say that “Royalty was his trade”; and poor Marie Antoinette may have laboured under a similar persuasion. But the times were very bad indeed for the “trade” of Royalty, and there arose a grim conviction among the working millions that the best way of mending matters was to dethrone, plunder, and murder their masters and mistresses.
The influence of Marie Antoinette in the councils of Louis has been, I should say, considerably exaggerated by her enemies. Her husband, naturally disposed to concession, was by temper irresolute, and he allowed himself to be led away by the course of events, instead of striving to control and direct them. There can be little doubt, either, that Marie Antoinette was one of the chief advisers of the flight of the King and Royal Family to Varennes; and that imprudent enterprise served, even more fiercely, to inflame the public animosity against herself and her husband.
But again, I fail to see the criminality of this attempted escape. The King and Queen knew well enough that the Revolutionists intended to deprive them of their crowns, and, in all probability, of their lives, they had no adequate armed force with which to resist the mob. Were they not justified in running away? After the deposition of Louis, all the elements of grandeur in the character of Marie Antoinette began to manifest themselves. She showed the greatest courage during the dastardly attacks made on the Royal Family; and she appeared to be always more anxious for the safety of her husband and children than for her own. She shared their captivity with noble resignation, and her demeanour under the most trying circumstances never lost an iota of its dignity. In the presence of her judges her fortitude never forsook her; her burst of indignant maternal feeling overawed even the butchers who were perverting and burlesquing the law to bring her to the shambles; and her behaviour in almost unparalleled misfortunes, has won for her not only the pity and the sympathy, but the reverent admiration of posterity.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
More sitters—Mr. John Burns walks and talks—We buy his only suit—Mr. George Bernard Shaw has to work for his living—General Booth—Four leading suffragettes—Christabel’s model “speaks”—The Channel swimmer.
The most restless of all my sitters was the Right Honourable John Burns, when he was plain John Burns.
I modelled him in the year 1889 or 1890, at the time of the great Dock Strike. Mr. Burns was then throwing all his magnetic personality into the cause of the workers, and he brought some of that magnetic personality into my studio. Only in a technical sense did he “sit” to me. He was walking and talking all the time.