Chapter I: Front Matter

MARIE ANTOINETTE

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BY THE SAME AUTHOR

THE PYRENEES

PARIS

HILLS AND THE SEA

ON NOTHING AND KINDRED SUBJECTS

ON EVERYTHING

EMMANUEL BURDEN, MERCHANT

THE CHANGE IN THE CABINET

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THE LAST ACT OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY
ORDER GIVEN ON 10TH AUGUST, 1792, TO THE GUARD AT THE TUILERIES TO
CEASE FIRE AND RETURN TO BARRACKS
_On the authenticity of this document see Appendix C_
]

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_MARIE
ANTOINETTE_

BY

H. BELLOC

πολυ κρεισσων ἡ αναγκη

WITH THIRTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS AND FIVE MAPS

THIRD EDITION

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

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_First Published_ - _October 14th, 1909_
_Second Edition_ - _January 1910_
_Third Edition_ - _1910_

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TO

_GEORGE WYNDHAM_

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INTRODUCTORY NOTE

THE eighteenth century, which had lost the appetite for tragedy and almost the comprehension of it, was granted, before it closed, the most perfect subject of tragedy which history affords.

The Queen of France whose end is but an episode in the story of the Revolution stands apart in this: that while all around her were achieved the principal miracles of the human will, she alone suffered, by an unique exception, a fixed destiny against which the will seemed powerless. In person she was not considerable, in temperament not exalted; but her fate was enormous.

It is profitable, therefore, to abandon for a moment the contemplation of those great men who recreated in Europe the well-ordered State, and to admire the exact convergence of such accidents as drew around Marie Antoinette an increasing pressure of doom. These accidents united at last: they drove her with a precision that was more than human, right to her predestined end.

In all the extensive record of her actions there is nothing beyond the ordinary kind. She was petulant or gay, impulsive or collected, according to the mood of the moment: acting in everything as a woman of her temper—red-headed, intelligent and arduous—will always do: she was moved by changing circumstance to this or that as many million of her sort had been moved before her. But her chance friendships failed not in mere disappointments but in ruin; her lapses of judgment betrayed her not to stumbling but to an abyss; her small, neglected actions matured unseen and reappeared prodigious in the catastrophe of her life as torturers to drag her to the scaffold. Behind such causes of misfortune as can at least be traced in some appalling order there appear, as we read her history, causes more dreadful because they are mysterious and unreasoned: ill-omened dates, fortunes quite unaccountable, and continually a dark coincidence, reawaken in us that native dread of Destiny which the Faith, after centuries of power, has hardly exorcised.

The business, then, of this book is not to recount from yet another aspect that decisive battle whereby political justice was recovered for us all, nor to print once more in accurate sequence the life of a Queen whose actions have been preserved in the minutest detail, but to show a Lady whose hands—for all the freedom of their gesture—were moved by influences other than her own, and whose feet, though their steps seemed wayward and self-determined, were ordered for her in one path that led inexorably to its certain goal.

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CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE
I. THE DIPLOMATIC REVOLUTION 1

II. BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 17

III. THE ESPOUSALS 32

IV. THE DU BARRY 45

V. THE DAUPHINE 52

VI. THE THREE YEARS 73

VII. THE CHILDREN 116

VIII. FIGARO 130

IX. THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 154

X. THE NOTABLES 170

XI. THE BASTILLE 193

XII. OCTOBER 215

XIII. MIRABEAU 240

XIV. VARENNES 263

XV. THE WAR 292

XVI. THE FALL OF THE PALACE 307

XVII. THE TEMPLE 324

XVIII. THE HOSTAGE 348

XIX. THE HUNGER OF MAUBEUGE 365

XX. WATTIGNIES 377

APPENDICES 402

INDEX 419

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LAST ACT OF THE FRENCH MONARCHY. _Frontispiece_
ORDER GIVEN ON 10TH AUGUST, 1792, TO
THE GUARD AT THE TUILERIES TO CEASE
FIRE AND RETURN TO BARRACKS

MARIA THERESA - From the tapestry 13
portrait woven for Marie Antoinette
and recently restored to Versailles

MADAME DE POMPADOUR - From the Portrait 18
by Boucher in the National Gallery,
Edinburgh. From a photo by T. R. Annan
& Sons

THE FIRST DAUPHIN (THE FATHER OF LOUIS 26
XVI.)

LOUIS XVI. - From the principal bust at 70
Versailles

THE EMPEROR JOSEPH II. - From the 103
tapestry portrait woven for Marie
Antoinette and recently restored to
Versailles

MARIE ANTOINETTE - From the principal 117
bust at Versailles

THE COUNTESS OF PROVENCE - From the bust 129
at Versailles

MARIE ANTOINETTE - After the painting by 154
Madame Vigée Le Brun. From photo
kindly lent by Duveen Bros., Old Bond
Street

PORTRAIT BUST OF THE DUKE OF NORMANDY, 163
THE SECOND DAUPHIN, SOMETIMES CALLED
LOUIS XVII., WHO DIED IN THE TEMPLE

AUTOGRAPH NOTE OF LOUIS XVI. RECALLING 213
NECKER, ON THE 16TH OF JULY, AFTER THE
FALL OF THE BASTILLE

THE TUILERIES, FROM THE GARDEN OR WEST 231
SIDE, IN 1789

FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE 260
ADDRESS TO THE FRENCH PEOPLE WRITTEN
BY LOUIS XVI. BEFORE HIS FLIGHT

PÉTION 286

BARNAVE 289

FACSIMILE OF THE FIRST PAGE OF THE 297
LETTER WRITTEN ON THE 3RD SEPTEMBER,
1791, BY MARIE ANTOINETTE TO THE
EMPEROR, HER BROTHER, PROPOSING ARMED
INTERVENTION

EAST FRONT OF THE TUILERIES (THE SIDE 314
ATTACKED BY THE MOB) IN ITS LAST STATE
BEFORE THE COMMUNE OF 1871, AFTER THE
CLEARING AWAY OF THE STREETS AND
HOUSES IN FRONT OF IT

AN EARLY VIEW OF THE APPROACH TO THE 322
TUILERIES FROM THE CARROUSEL, SHOWING
THE THREE COURTYARDS

CONTEMPORARY PRINT OF THE FIGHTING IN 327
THE COURTYARD

INSCRIPTION ON THE BROKEN BUST OF THE 329
DAUPHIN. A RELIC OF THE SACK OF THE
PALACE

THE TOWER OF THE TEMPLE AT THE MOMENT OF 333
THE ROYAL FAMILY’S IMPRISONMENT

A ROUGH MINIATURE OF THE PRINCESSE DE 337
LAMBALLE Preserved at the Carnavalet

SANSON’S LETTER ASKING THE AUTHORITIES 343
WHAT STEPS HE IS TO TAKE FOR THE
EXECUTION OF THE KING

AUTOGRAPH DEMAND OF LOUIS XVI. FOR A 344
RESPITE OF THREE DAYS

REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS THAT ALL IS 346
DULY ARRANGED FOR THE BURIAL OF LOUIS
CAPET AFTER HIS EXECUTION

FIRST PAGE OF LOUIS XVI.’S WILL 348

ORDER OF THE COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY 356
IN CAMBON’S HANDWRITING, DIRECTING THE
DAUPHIN TO BE SEPARATED FROM HIS
MOTHER

LAST PORTRAIT OF MARIE ANTOINETTE, BY 365
KOCHARSKI Presumably sketched in the
Temple, and now at Versailles

GATEWAY OF THE LAW COURTS THROUGH WHICH 380
THE QUEEN WENT TO HER DEATH

FIRST PAGE OF MARIE ANTOINETTE’S LAST 395
LETTER

FACSIMILE OF THE DEATH-WARRANT OF MARIE 398
ANTOINETTE

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LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS

MAP OF THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES AND THE 263
RETURN

SKETCH MAP OF THE ROAD FROM PARIS TO 267
VARENNES, JUNE 21, 1791

SKETCH MAP TO ILLUSTRATE DROUET’S RIDE 278

ELEMENTS OF THE STRATEGIC POSITION, 359
JULY-OCTOBER, 1793

BATTLE OF WATTIGNIES, OCT. 15 AND 16, 377
1793, AND THE RELIEF OF MAUBEUGE

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MARIE ANTOINETTE