“You love flowers; I give you a bouquet of them by offering you Le Petit Trianon entirely for your own private use. There you may reign sole mistress; for the Trianons, by right, belong to you, having always been the residence of the favorites of the kings of France.” For Louis XVI. this speech was a great effort of gallantry. It delighted Marie Antoinette. Here, then, was that for which she had so often longed; a place to which she could retire from the cares of state, and throw aside the pomps and punctilios of etiquette. She loved not the grand old gardens of Versailles, with their terraces and clipped yews. She would have an English garden of the day, with its thickets, waterfalls, and rustic bridges, such as the Prince de Ligny had made at Bel-œil and the Marquis de Caraman at Roissy. Le grand simple is to take the place of le grand magnifique, and attired in white muslin, with a a plain straw hat, and followed by a single attendant, the queen roams through the gardens and groves of the Petit Trianon. Through the lanes and byways she chases the butterfly, picks flowers free as a peasant girl, and leaning over the fences, chats with the country maids as they milk the cows.
This freedom from restraint was etiquette at the court of Vienna; it was barbarism at the court of Versailles. The courtiers were amazed, the ceremony-stricken dowagers were shocked; and Paris, France, and Europe, were filled with stories of the waywardness and eccentricities of Marie Antoinette. And Mesdames, the king’s aunts, from their retreat at Bellevue, and Madame du Barry, from her domain of Luviciennes, lost no opportunity to gather reports unfavorable to the reputation of the queen, and spread them far and wide.
Still another surprise was in store for the nobility, for upon one occasion, at Trianon, when the queen seated herself, she requested in a lively, nonchalant manner the whole of the ladies, without distinction, who formed her intimate circle, to seat themselves also! What a blow to those who held so dear the privileges they derived from distinction of office and superiority of rank! La haute and la petite noblesse, in spite of their cherished distinctions, all are to sit down together! It is terrible! How many enemies are made, and allies added to the circles at Bellevue and Luviciennes, by that little act! Poor thoughtless Marie Antoinette!
But she proposed to reign at Trianon, not as queen of France, but simply as a lady of the manor, surrounded by her friends. And so she built the Swiss cottages, with their thatched roofs and rustic balconies; for it was her good pleasure that she, her king, and her friends, should be country people for the nonce. The queen’s cottage stood in the centre, and she was the fermière. The king was the miller, and occupied the mill, with its joyous tick-tack. Monsieur le Comte de Provence, figured as schoolmaster, while the Comte d’Artois was in his element as gamekeeper. However, one may be sure that these simple country folk had no want of retainers to do their behests. In the dairy, where the cream was put in the blue and white porcelain of Trianon, on marble tables, diligent dairymaids skimmed and churned, and displayed fresh butter and eggs. Down by the lake were more masqueraders,—washerwomen this time; and Madame la Comtesse de Chalons beat the clothes with ebony beaters. In the stable, the sheep, unconscious of the honor to be done them, stood ready for clipping with golden shears. “The Duc de Guines might not assist at this, because he was so stout and so desperately bent on resorting to art to restrain his bulk, that his valet, in selecting his master’s garments every morning, was fain to ask, ‘Does my lord the Duke sit down to-day?’ But there were other helpers,—the big, jovial Duc de Coigny, and the rough-voiced, stiff-jointed Comte d’Adhémar, who could, at least, hoist sacks of corn up the mahogany steps to the granary.” Madame la Fermière distributed refreshments as she overlooked and encouraged her workers. And so the dainty work, which was the idlest pastime, went on to the accompaniment of gay jests and rippling laughter.
This descent from the throne, which was so congenial to the queen, was loudly condemned. In their first efforts for reform the people had no wish to detract from the hereditary splendor of the crown, or the “divinity,” which for so many centuries had hedged the kings of France. It was the king and queen who took the first steps. Winter comes, and with it a heavy fall of snow, and Marie Antoinette longs again for the merry sleigh rides of Vienna. “The old court sledges are brought forth—these being professedly economical times—for examination as to their possibly serviceable condition. A glance, however, suffices to show that disuse and neglect have put them completely hors de service.” So new ones of great magnificence are prepared, with “abundance of painting and gilding, trappings of embroidered crimson leather and velvet, with innumerable tinkling bells of gold or silver.” The horses, with nodding plumes and gorgeous caparisons, dazzled the eyes of the Parisians as they swept through the Champs Élysées, drawing their loads of lords and ladies enveloped in furs. The people frowned disapprovingly. It was a new amusement—an innovation; and angry, envious tongues declared that the “Autrichienne had taken advantage of the rigor of the season which had caused such widespread misery to introduce her Austrian pastimes into the capital of France.”
Marie Antoinette was imprudent, very imprudent; that was her only crime. But much allowance must be made for one, who, at the age of fifteen years, was made la premiere dame in a court the most gorgeous, and, after that of Catherine II. of Russia, the most dissolute, in Europe.
The people had already begun to compute the cost of equipages, palaces, crown jewels, and courtiers. And some few of the grands seigneurs, even, had begun to recognize the growing power of the vox populi; but Marie Antoinette did not yet know that public opinion was of any importance to her. “The slanderous tongues of Mesdames and the pious circle of Bellevue, the innuendoes of Luviciennes, and the insidious attacks of Monsieur le Comte de Provence,—all this she understood, and resented. It seemed a matter of course that it should be thus; but the right of the people to interfere with her amusements and to call in question their propriety, was something she could not understand.” Alas! poor queen; the dreadful significancy of that expression “THE PEOPLE,” and the vengeful acts to which an infuriated populace could be driven, were two terrible lessons she had yet to learn.
On the 22d of October, 1781, a child is born at Versailles. The king advances towards the queen’s couch; with a profound bow, and in a voice that falters with emotion, he exclaims, “Madame, you have fulfilled the dearest wishes of my heart and the anxious hopes of the nation; you are the mother of a Dauphin.” Nothing could exceed the public rejoicings; the triumph became well-nigh frantic. For it is recorded that their superabundant joy found expression in a sort of delirium,—people of all grades, and who had no previous acquaintance with each other, indulging in fraternal embraces in the street. The king himself went through a similar display of excessive joy. He laughed, he wept, the tears streaming down his fat face. He ran in and out of the antechamber, presenting his hand to kiss or to shake—or both, if they pleased—to all and each indiscriminately, from the solemn grandees, who were there to attest the birth, to the humblest lackey in attendance. “The royal infant, splendidly arrayed and with the grand cross of St. Louis on his breast, was placed in his satin and point-lace bassinet to receive the homage of the great officers of state. It is recorded that he replied in a most suitable manner to the many flattering speeches addressed to him; and this being the first opportunity he had had of exhibiting the power of his lungs, he availed himself of it freely.” Madame Royale had been born three years before; two other children were subsequently added,—the Duc de Normandie, and the Princess Sophie; but only Madame Royale and the Duc de Normandie were destined to survive to endure those woes which eventually overwhelmed the royal family.
Marie Antoinette was now in the flower of her beauty, on which French biographers love to dwell. Tilly said, “Her eyes recalled all the changes of the waves of the sea, and seemed made to reveal and reflect the blue of the sky.” Her fine throat and the lofty carriage of her head were remarkable; and she once said, laughingly, to Madame Le Brun, “If I were not a queen, should not I look insolent?”
“As one would have offered a chair to another woman, one would have offered a throne to her; and when she descended the marble staircase at Versailles, preceded by the officers who announced her approach, saluted in the great court by the beating of drums and the presentation of arms, all heads were uncovered respectfully, all hearts were filled with admiration of the woman, as well as with loyalty to the queen.”