“I remember an old lady who could not bear to be told of deaths. ‘Psha! Pshaw!’ she would exclaim. ‘Bring me no tales of funerals! Talk of births and of those who are likely to be blest with them! These are the joys which gladden old hearts and fill youthful ones with ecstasy! It is our own reproduction in children which makes us quit the world happy and contented; because then we only retire to make room for another race, bringing with them all those faculties which are in us decayed; and capable, which we ourselves have ceased to be, of taking our parts and figuring on the stage of life so long as it may please the Supreme Manager to busy them in earthly scenes! Then talk no more to me of weeds and mourning, but show me christenings and all those who give employ to the baptismal font!’
“Such also was the exulting feeling of Marie Antoinette when she no longer doubted of her wished-for pregnancy. The idea of becoming a mother filled her soul with an exuberant delight, which made the very pavement on which she trod vibrate with the words, ‘I shall be a mother! I shall be a mother!’ She was so overjoyed that she not only made it public throughout France but despatches were sent off to all her royal relatives. And was not her rapture natural? so long as she had waited for the result of every youthful union, and so coarsely as she had been reproached with her misfortune! Now came her triumph. She could now prove to the world, like all the descendants of the house of Austria, that there was no defect with her. The satirists and the malevolent were silenced. Louis XVI., from the cold, insensible bridegroom, became the infatuated admirer of his long-neglected wife. The enthusiasm with which the event was hailed by all France atoned for the partial insults she had received before it. The splendid fetes, balls, and entertainments, indiscriminately lavished by all ranks throughout the kingdom on this occasion, augmented those of the Queen and the Court to a pitch of magnificence surpassing the most luxurious and voluptuous times of the great and brilliant Louis XIV. Entertainments were given even to the domestics of every description belonging to the royal establishments. Indeed, so general was the joy that, among those who could do no more, there could scarcely be found a father or mother in France who, before they took their wine, did not first offer up a prayer for the prosperous pregnancy of their beloved Queen.
“And yet, though the situation of Marie Antoinette was now become the theme of a whole nation’s exultation, she herself, the owner of the precious burthen, selected by Heaven as its special depositary, was the only one censured for expressing all her happiness!
“Those models of decorum, the virtuous Princesses, her aunts, deemed it highly indelicate in Her Majesty to have given public marks of her satisfaction to those deputed to compliment her on her prosperous situation. To avow the joy she felt was in their eyes indecent and unqueenly. Where was the shrinking bashfulness of that one of these Princesses who had herself been so clamorous to Louis XV. against her husband, the Duke of Modena, for not having consummated her own marriage?
“The party of the dismissed favourite Du Barry were still working underground. Their pestiferous vapours issued from the recesses of the earth, to obscure the brightness of the rising sun, which was now rapidly towering to its climax, to obliterate the little planets which had once endeavoured to eclipse its beautiful rays, but were now incapable of competition, and unable to endure its lustre. This malignant nest of serpents began to poison the minds of the courtiers, as soon as the pregnancy was obvious, by innuendoes on the partiality of the Comte d’Artois for the Queen; and at length, infamously, and openly, dared to point him out as the cause?
“Thus, in the heart of the Court itself, originated this most atrocious slander, long before it reached the nation, and so much assisted to destroy Her Majesty’s popularity with a people, who now adored her amiableness, her general kind-heartedness, and her unbounded charity.
“I have repeatedly seen the Queen and the Comte d’Artois together under circumstances in which there could have been no concealment of her real feelings; and I can firmly and boldly assert the falsehood of this allegation against my royal mistress. The only attentions Marie Antoinette received in the earlier part of her residence in France were from her grandfather and her brothers-in-law. Of these, the Comte d’Artois was the only one who, from youth and liveliness of character, thoroughly sympathised with his sister. But, beyond the little freedoms of two young and innocent playmates, nothing can be charged upon their intimacy,—no familiarity whatever farther than was warranted by their relationship. I can bear witness that Her Majesty’s attachment for the Comte d’Artois never differed in its nature from what she felt for her brother the Emperor Joseph.
[When the King thought proper to be reconciled to the Queen after the death of his grandfather, Louis XV., and when she became a mother, she really was very much attached to Louis XVI., as may be proved from her never quitting him, and suffering all the horrid sacrifices she endured, through the whole period of the Revolution, rather than leave her husband, her children, or her sister. Marie Antoinette might have saved her life twenty times, had not the King’s safety, united with her own and that of her family, impelled her to reject every proposition of self-preservation.]