I still possess a sketch of Mademoiselle de Fauveau standing with her hand on a favourite dog, which was drawn by my dear governess, Miss Redgrave, from a full-length statuette which the sculptress herself had modelled. The dress, oddly enough, is almost exactly similar to a tailor-made costume of to-day; but in 1842 it was considered a very great eccentricity, and used, I recollect, to excite almost as much astonishment as the lady’s cropped head. Nevertheless, Mademoiselle de Fauveau was a very dignified figure, her face, curiously enough, bearing a considerable resemblance both in feature and expression to the martyred Queen whose memory she adored.
Though it is now a hundred and fourteen years since Marie Antoinette mounted the scaffold and became the victim of a crime which, according even to Napoleon, was far worse than regicide, the very mention of her name evokes as great a feeling of sympathetic compassion as it did at the time of her brutal execution. No one who has studied the story of the terrible persecution and mental torture to which she was subjected can fail to be moved by the sufferings of this royal martyr, whose dignified bearing in some measure actually impressed the howling mob which shouted for her blood. The progress of the unfortunate Queen to the place of execution was an awful one, for the squalid cart in which she was placed was escorted by a band of furies, whose raucous howls and ignoble jests disgusted even the rough soldiery who guarded the august prisoner’s road to death. As the tumbril, it is said, passed the church of Saint Roch a band of wretches seated on the steps actually clapped their hands as if at a circus; the only open expression of sympathy, indeed, came fitly enough from a little child, which, as the rueful procession wended its way past the Oratoire, rose to its feet and kissed its little hands to the poor Queen, a last message of love, as it were, from the true heart of France.
THE PETIT TRIANON
When one thinks of the respectful affection, amounting almost to adoration, which Marie Antoinette inspired in men like Fersen, the Chevalier de Rougeville, and others, it would seem that there hung about her graceful personality an atmosphere of mesmeric fascination, something of which still seems to linger in certain places closely connected with her romantic memory. Notably is this the case at the Petit Trianon, where she must always remain almost a living figure to the visitor of any imagination. Strolling through the beautiful grounds on a fine spring day, the graceful trees bathed in a golden light, one well imagines the beautiful Queen surrounded by her children and friends wending her way to her hameau, the toy village in which she took so much interest and delight.
To this lovely retreat, when the leaves were beginning to fall and the lilies of France to fade came the news of the arrival at Versailles of the crowd of Parisian rabble, who on the 5th of October 1789 invaded that stately palace. The same day Marie Antoinette decided to join the King, and flying to his side, abandoned for ever her beautiful Trianon, the enchanting spot in which some of the happiest days of her life had been passed, and which she was never to see again.
From that moment nothing but sorrow and misfortune were to be her lot. Versailles was in a turmoil, and on her arrival there she soon found that her life itself was in danger. Oh the following day (6th October), she spent some terrible hours at the windows of the room known as the bedroom of Louis XV., to which she had been forced to fly from her own private apartments, whilst the crowd without the palace savagely called for her blood. Only did its fury abate when both she and the King, appearing on the balcony of an adjoining apartment, promised to set out forthwith for Paris and to take up their residence at the Tuileries.
A mysterious legend has always declared that before taking their departure the Royal couple caused a considerable sum of money, together with many valuables, to be secretly buried in the park adjoining the palace, but though careful search has often been made nothing has hitherto come to light. At the present time, however (April 1907), there is a rumour that, owing to the discovery of an old manuscript indicating the place of concealment, the authorities in charge of the palace of Versailles are on the point of discovering the exact locality of this long-hidden treasure. It is much to be hoped that such a report should prove true, for in all probability, in addition to the financial and artistic value of such a discovery, some documents of the highest historical interest are almost certain once more to be brought to the light of day.
MADAME DU BARRY
There must, undoubtedly, be much treasure and many jewels buried during the great Revolution still lying hidden under the soil of France, for before going into exile numbers of emigrés buried their most valuable possessions in the earth, with the intention of recovering them on that return which in many cases was never to take place. A great portion of the splendid jewellery of Madame du Barry has never been satisfactorily accounted for, though it has often been declared that it still remains intact and untouched in an unopened case lying in the strong-room of Coutts’ Bank. Be this as it may, I believe that it is an absolute fact that, this famous firm of bankers are still the guardians of a large number of cases deposited there by French emigrés, who having returned to France in order to forward the Royalist cause, met their death without having left any instructions as to the disposal of their property lodged in England. The rule, I believe, in such cases is for the bank to allow the boxes literally to moulder to pieces, carefully wrapping up in paper any objects which may fall out, and replacing them in a heap on the top of what is left. It seems a pity that no Act of Parliament should ever have been passed to deal with such cases, for there are probably many priceless works of art slowly drifting to utter decay in these old brass-bound chests fast mouldering into dust.
Though, as has been said, a legend declares that some of the jewels of Madame du Barry still lie in the strong-room of Coutts’ Bank, it is difficult to see how such can be the case unless she deposited her valuables with more than one London banker; for it is absolutely certain that the firm with whom she usually banked when in England was that of Messrs. Hammersley and Morland of Pall Mall, in whose keeping, according to her own estimate, she at one time had over 300,000 livres’ worth of diamonds. The firm in question has long ceased to exist, and I do not know who took over their business. At the end of 1794, after the death of Madame du Barry, diamonds left by her in England were sold by order of the Court of Chancery, and realised 13,300 guineas.