The Maréchale de Mouchy was furious because the Queen had created or revived an office which she said lessened the importance and dignity of the one she held, and after much fuss and disturbance she resigned her appointment. All the Noailles took her part and went over to the opposition. Although the riches, power, and prestige of that family were undiminished, they were not nearly so much the favourites of the present royal family as they had been of Louis XIV. and Louis XV., which was natural, as they were so much mixed up with the ultra-Liberals, whose ranks had been joined by so many of their nearest relations.
Mme. de Tessé, younger sister of the Duc d’Ayen, was well known for her opinions. La Fayette, de Noailles, and de Ségur had returned from America, and their ideas were shared by Rosalie’s husband, de Grammont, and to a certain extent, though with much more moderation, by M. de Montagu. All the remaining daughters of the Duc d’Ayen except Pauline shared the opinions of their husbands; M. de Thésan and M. de Beaune were opposed to them, as was also the Duchesse d’Ayen, whose affection for her sons-in-law did not make her share their blind enthusiasm and unfortunate credulity.
Inheriting the cool head, calm judgment, and commonsense of her father and grandfather, she did not believe in these extravagant dreams of universal happiness and prosperity. On the contrary, her mind was filled with gloomy forebodings, and during a severe illness that she had, she called her daughters round her bed and spoke to them of her fears for the future with a sadness and earnestness only too prophetic, and with which Pauline was more strongly impressed than her sisters.
Adrienne especially believed implicitly in her husband, who was now the supreme fashion amongst the Liberals, fêted, flattered by high and low, and just at this time the idol of the people; a popularity which soon gave place to hatred, and which did no good while it lasted.
For La Fayette was neither a genius, nor a great man, nor a born leader; the gift of influencing other people was not his; he had no lasting power over the minds of others, and as to the mob, he led them as long as he went where they wanted to go. When he did not agree with all their excesses they followed him no longer.
A man full of good qualities, brave, disinterested, honourable, a good husband, father, and friend, full of enthusiastic plans and aspirations for the regeneration of society and the improvement of everybody, La Fayette was a failure. He did more harm than good, for, like many other would-be popular leaders, he had gifts and capacity enough to excite and arouse the passions of the populace, but not to guide or control them.
He was, in fact, a visionary, credulous enthusiast, with an overweening vanity and belief in his own importance; obstinate and self-confident to a degree that prevented his ever seeing the fallacy of his views. His own conceit, and the flattery and adulation of his family and friends, made him think that he, and no other, was the man to save and direct France. His very virtues and attractions were mischievous in converting others to his unpractical and dangerous views.
His Utopian government and state of society would have been all very well if they had been attainable, but he had no knowledge or comprehension of the instruments and materials of which they were to be composed, no insight into character, no correctness of judgment, no decision or promptitude in emergencies, and what he did or helped to do was that most dangerous of proceedings, to set in motion a force he could not control.
In spite of all their engagements, Pauline and her sisters found time for an immense amount of charitable work of all sorts. They all took an active part in one way or another, and Pauline even managed to make use of the evenings she spent in society, for she collected money at the houses to which she went to help the poor during the hard winters. During that of 1788 she got a thousand écus in this way. M. de Beaune used to give her a louis every time he won at cards, which was, or he good-naturedly pretended to be, very often.