In her personal deportment, and in the circle of her court, she was kind, easy, and good-humored. Her serenity of temper and composure of manner were remarkable; and the contrast between the simplicity of her deportment in private and the grandeur of her situation rendered her exceedingly fascinating.
She possessed so many accomplishments, was so elegant and dignified, and performed with such majesty and decorum all the external functions of royalty, that none approached her without respect and admiration; but her selfishness and her depravity spoiled all, and made her what we have seen her.
Among all the famous queens of history, there is not one, save Catherine de’ Medici, whose career is so utterly devoid of noble acts, so entirely dictated by “selfishness, lust, and sordid greed,” as that of Catherine II., removed by the grace of God on the 10th of November, 1796, from being longer empress of all the Russias, and from the world which she had done so much to pollute.
MARIE ANTOINETTE.
A.D. 1755-1793.
“It is our royal state that yields
This bitterness of woe.”—Wordsworth.
IN the grand salon of Trianon stood King Louis XV., and near him, on a gold and crimson sofa, sat the Marchioness of Pompadour. In his hand the king held a letter which vividly depicted—far too vividly for royal ears—the desolation of the kingdom and the ruinous state of the finances; and his Majesty frowned gloomily as he gazed upon it, for it was not the habit of King Louis the Well-Beloved to concern himself with the interests or the wishes of his subjects, or with what took place within his wide domain of France. Turning suddenly to Madame de Pompadour, the king read aloud the missive: “Sire,—Your finances are in the greatest disorder, and the great majority of states have perished through this cause; your ministers are without capacity. Open war is waged against religion. Lose no time in restoring order to the state of the finances. Embarrassments necessitate fresh taxes, which grind the people and induce toward revolt. A time will come, sire, when the people will be enlightened, and that time is probably near at hand”; then, turning upon his heel, he added angrily, “I wish to hear no more about it. Things will last as they are as long as I shall.” And Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, rising from her gold and crimson sofa, cried gayly, “Right, mon roi! Things will last as long as we shall, and après nous le deluge!” Madame la Marquise de Pompadour spoke truly, and when at last the storm burst in all its fury, and the Duc de Liancourt announced to Louis XVI. that the Bastile had fallen, and upon its smouldering ruins a people bid defiance to their king, his Majesty, astonished and alarmed, exclaimed, “It is a revolt, then!”
“Nay, sire,” replied Liancourt, “it is a revolution!”