Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars Read online

  Praise for the works of Elena Maria Vidal:

  “Poetic, lyrical passages….Readers [are] steeped in the culture, influences and motivations of a family unified by forces that invade their close-knit world and change the course of their lives.” —D. Donovan of The Midwest Book Review on The Paradise Tree

  “An imaginative, meticulously told history.” —Kirkus Reviews on The Paradise Tree

  “This is a stunningly lovely book, the perfect thing to get lost in for an afternoon.” —San Francisco Book Review (starred review) on The Paradise Tree

  “Meticulous research….lush provocative details.” —Portland Book Review on The Paradise Tree

  “Exhaustively researched and yet completely accessible for those who wish to understand the events from a very personal perspective.” —Genevieve Kineke, Canticle Magazine on Trianon

  “An unforgettable portrait of a royal life... Madame Royale is a fantastic tribute to one of Europe's most tragic, but courageous princesses.” —Gareth Russell, author of Popular and The Emperors on Madame Royale

  “A master of storytelling, the author makes you laugh and cry, right along with the characters. A true masterpiece, I rank this book along with the great Classics.” —Wilsonville Public Library Blog on Trianon Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna of Habsburg-Lorraine, Archduchess of Austria, in April 1770.

  Marie-Antoinette

  Daughter of the Caesars:

  Reflections on Her Life, Her Death, Her Legacy

  By Elena Maria Vidal

  Mayapple Books

  St.Michaels, Maryland

  www.mayapplebooks.net

  Cover image: Marie-Antoinette by Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun

  All illustrations are in the public domain.

  Copyright © 2016 by M. E. Russell

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission of the author except for review purposes.

  ISBN-13: 978-1530934485

  ISBN-10:1530934486

  DEDICATION

  For my mother.

  And with a special dedication to Sainte Jehanne d’Arc, the Maid of Lorraine, patroness of France.

  “I was born for this.”

  Books by Elena Maria Vidal

  Trianon: A Novel of Royal France

  Madame Royale: A Novel

  The Paradise Tree: A Novel

  The Night’s Dark Shade: A Novel of the Cathars

  Please visit www.emvidal.com and the Tea at Trianon Blog, http://teaattrianon.blogspot.com.

  “It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...”―Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790

  “She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr.” ―The Life of Marie-Antoinette by M. de la Rocheterie, 1893

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  Preface

  Prologue

  Introduction

  x

  xi

  1

  4

  1

  A Daughter of the Caesars

  11

  2

  The Maid of Lorraine

  35

  3

  The House of Bourbon

  59

  4

  Scandal

  90

  5

  The Temple of Love

  97

  6

  Death and Coronation

  110

  7

  Their Most Christian Majesties

  126

  8

  Follies and Escapades

  153

  9

  Marie-Antoinette and the Arts

  163

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  Marie-Antoinette and Music

  Marie-Antoinette and Fashion

  Marie-Antoinette and Her Journey of Faith

  Holidays at Versailles

  The Children of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette

  Marie-Antoinette and Friendship

  Gentlemen Friends

  The Fersen Legend

  Palaces, Châteaux, and Gardens

  The Diamond Necklace

  The Revolution

  At the Tuileries

  Les Adieux

  The Agony

  The Orphans

  Legacy

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  About the Author

  List of Illustrations

  Print of “Archduchess Maria Antonia”

  “La Reine” in Court Dress

  “Marie-Antoinette d’Autriche”

  “Antoinette and Louis in their wedding clothes”

  “Birth of Louis XVI”

  “Marie-Antoinette in peasant costume”

  “At the Court Ball”

  “Antoinette with a bust of Louis”

  “Louis and Antoinette in a Eucharistic Procession”

  “Marie-Antoinette prays before death”

  “Dauphin Louis-Joseph”

  “Madame Royale with her nurse”

  “Marie-Antoinette at her churching”

  “Dauphin Louis-Charles”

  “Gabrielle de Polignac”

  “Madame Élisabeth of France”

  “Count Hans Axel von Fersen”

  “Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in profile”

  “Marie-Antoinette as Vesta” by Dumont

  “Incarceration of the Royal family in the Temple”

  “Murder of the Princesse de Lamballe”

  “Louis XVI at his execution, Jenuary 21, 1793”

  “Marie-Antoinette on trial”

  “Marie-Antoinette and Madame Royale in prison”

  “Marie-Antoinette on her way to be executed”

  “Madame Royale in the Temple prison”

  “Duchesse d’Angoulême”

  “Royalist print of Louis XVI received by St. Louis IX in Heaven”

  177

  187

  197

  206

  218

  233

  276

  291

  311

  340

  349

  373

  411

  429

  457

  477

  486

  522

  539

  549

  ii

  viii

  10

  58

  89

  161

  162
<
br />   186

  196

  196

  229

  230

  230

  231

  232

  275

  290

  371

  372

  409

  410

  426

  427

  428

  455

  456

  476

  485

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Marie-Antoinette: Daughter of the Caesars has been made possible due to the efforts and research of many scholars from across the globe. The internet has made accessible not only out-of-print memoirs, books of letters, and old histories but has made it easier to be in touch with historical experts. I would be nowhere without the expertise of Professor Maryse Demasy in Brussells, Belgium, who is perhaps one of the foremost specialists on Marie-Antoinette in the world. I wish also to thank author Catherine Delors, an expressive writer and meticulous in historical analysis. As of this writing, we await the publication of the biography of Princesse de Lamballe by author Geri Walton. Geri’s articles have been helpful and I am grateful for her generosity in sharing her findings with me. My gratitude also extends to British historian and author Gareth Russell, whose research is always captivating. I would like to thank the members of the forum Boudoir de Marie-Antoinette whose expertise has been invaluable. Thanks to the writers on the various history blogs, including author Leah Marie Brown of Titillating Tidbits, Lauren on Marie-Antoinette’s Gossip Guide, author Melanie Clegg of Madame Guillotine, Louise Boisen Schmidt at This is Versailles, Catherine Curzon of A Covent Garden Gilflurt's Guide to Life, “Tiny-Librarian” of She who pwns people with history and writer Anna Gibson of Vive la Reine and Reading Treasure. And I would be nowhere without my editor Robyn Mendelsohn, formerly of the BBC. I would also like to thank Egil Totland, Hillary Cotter, Lauren Boxhall, Genevieve Montgomery, Zsófia Hacsek, Meghan Ferrara, Felio Xilas Tsacrios, Christine Niles and Kaitlyn McCracken, who have been supportive over the years of my research.

  Preface: What this book is and what it is not….

  Marie-Antoinette, Daughter of the Caesars is not meant to be a full biography of the Queen. The great biographies have all been written. Rather it is a collection of reflections about her life, her death and her legacy, based upon my research over the last thirty years. Whenever possible I have let the historical persons speak for themselves out of memoirs and letters. I try not repeat too many of the well-known anecdotes that are rehashed in other books but if I do, it is to look at the incident from a different angle. As far as biographies in English go, I cannot recommend highly enough the 1930’s two volume work by Nesta Webster. If one can get around Nesta’s extremist politics, her character studies of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette are astute and based upon original documents. Her research is exhaustive. I will cite other biographies as well throughout the course of the book. As for the subtitle, Daughter of the Caesars, I think it is important to see Marie-Antoinette in light of her Imperial heritage as a child of the Habsburg dynasty. The Habsburgs assumed the crown of the Holy Roman Empire in the 1400’s, the crown which had originated with Charlemagne in the year 800, seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire of the West. The Habsburgs and their allies kept the Muslims from overrunning Europe at both the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and at the battle of Vienna in 1683. Indeed, the four crowns which adorn the tombs of the Habsburgs in the Capuchin crypt in Vienna are the crowns of the Empire, of Hungary, of Bohemia, and of Jerusalem1 the latter being a throwback to the days of the Crusaders. In those four crowns are symbolized much of the history of Christendom. The fall of Marie-Antoinette, as both Queen of France and the youngest daughter of the Imperial Family, is indicative of the end of Christian civilization and the birth of the secular state, which was the object of the French Revolution. Through her death, Marie-Antoinette has been dubbed “Martyred Queen of Christian Europe”2 for in killing her the revolutionaries also symbolically killed all that she represented, the ancient heritage of Christendom.

  Marie-Antoinette is often called the “last queen” of France. Indeed, she was the last consort of a reigning monarch to bear the title of Reine de France et Navarre. Those who followed lived in her shadow. Two of the women who replaced her as consorts of French rulers were of her blood. Marie-Louise of Austria, Empress of the French, was Marie-Antoinette’s great niece; Marie-Amélie of Naples, styled “Queen of the French” was her niece. Her daughter, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, as first lady of the courts of Louis XVIII and Charles X, caused disappointment when she was not a carbon copy of her mother. As historian Chantal Thomas notes of Napoleon’s betrothal to Marie-Louise:

  So that…the farce of legitimacy could be taken to the limit, the marriage contract sent to Vienna was an exact copy of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette’s. And to celebrate the event, Gluck’s Iphigénie en Aulide was performed at the Opera, in front of the Emperor of Germany, Franz II, and his entire court. Its first performance in Paris in 1774 had been a personal triumph for Marie-Antoinette. Seated next to her father, the future bride had listened to Agamemnon singing, on stage, of the pain of having to sacrifice his daughter….Napoleon awaited her at Compiègne, at the very spot where Louis XV and the dauphin had come to greet Marie-Antoinette. 3

  Empress Joséphine and Empress Eugénie, both from non-royal backgrounds, reverenced Marie-Antoinette’s memory and felt honored to live in the places where she had once dwelt. Joséphine imitated the Queen with her gardens and Eugénie had herself painted costumed as Marie-Antoinette at Petit Trianon. And so, although she was much-maligned, Marie-Antoinette has remained for her people the archetypal queen, to whom all queens who followed would be compared.

  This book would have been impossible a decade ago, because the French language sources necessary for such a work were often difficult to acquire even on interlibrary loan. However, so much is now available on the internet and, to my joy, out-of-print books that I thought I would never find, I have discovered online, or tracked down in vintage book stores by googling. Rare books, such as the Authentic Trial at Large of Marie-Antoinette, which is the first English translation of the Queen’s trial as originally printed in British newspapers in 1793, are now accessible online. Since I want this book to be a helpful tool for young scholars I have made sure there are lots of notes with further information. I expect this book to go through future editions since my own studies on the Queen never end; there is always more to learn.

  Elena Maria Vidal

  Solemnity of St. Joseph

  March 19, 2016

  St. Michaels, Maryland

  Prologue: Marie-Antoinette and Me

  I began reading about Marie-Antoinette when I was nine. I was so moved by her story that I covered my school notebooks with drawings of her, and liked to coiffure my Barbie dolls in eighteenth century poufs with plumes which were duck feathers gathered in the park. I continued to read various books about Antoinette throughout the years. I first visited the Petit Trianon when I was seventeen years old. It was January, but the birds were singing in the gardens. There was a strong sense of timelessness that I experienced then and on successive trips. Others have confided to me a similar feeling of enchantment when wandering through the gardens of Trianon. The incident stayed with me for many years.

  People frequently ask me why I write about Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. One of the reasons is that I keep encountering educated people who really think that Antoinette said “Let them eat cake.” I continue to encounter Christians who think that Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette were killed as punishment for some egregious wickedness or, at least, for unforgivable stupidity. Having read books about the royal couple since childhood, I knew they were misunderstood; it was only after a great deal more research that I came to see how completely false are the common beliefs about the King and Queen. But the demonization of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette in the popular mind is necessary in order to justify the excesses of the French Revolution. When people have
a false and distorted view of history, then it is difficult for them to grasp the present, and almost impossible to meet the future with any kind of preparedness.

  The French Revolution was not necessary, simply because it is never necessary to murder tens of thousands of people. Reform certainly was needed, but reform can happen without death. Louis XVI was an intrepid reformer. He was not afraid to break with the past and abolish outdated customs, while introducing new ways of doing things. Louis was not resistant to change, although that is how he is usually portrayed. The changes were slow but over time might have been effective, had the violent upheavals not swept everything away. Too often the violence is represented as a sad but unavoidable means of achieving freedom and democracy. For the French Revolution overturned not only the social order but it was ultimately an attack on the Catholic Church. Many Catholics were killed, especially those peasants who did not want their religion taken away.

  Contemporary people love Marie-Antoinette for her glamor and style but mostly for her courage when the glamor disappeared. Hers is a tragedy akin to those of ancient Greece, yet without the element of total despair. For Antoinette remains a Christian heroine and her end is characterized by virtues which can be found in many an acta sanctorum. While we weep for her, we are simultaneously uplifted. Perhaps this quotation from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess best expresses why Antoinette continues to inspire so many of us:

  It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.