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HEROINES OF FRENCH SOCIETY
HEROINES OF FRENCH SOCIETY
IN THE COURT, THE REVOLUTION THE EMPIRE, AND THE RESTORATION By Mrs. Bearne Author of “A Queen of Napoleon’s Court,” “Early Valois Queens,” etc., etc. ILLUSTRATED NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET MCMVII ( All rights reserved. ) THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ANNA AND KATE IN the histories of the four women whose lives are here related, I have tried, as far as is possible in the limited space, to give an idea of the various ways in which the Revolutionary tempest at the cl
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
WHEN Elisabeth Louise Vigée was born at Paris, April, 1755, the French court and monarchy were still at the height of their splendour and power. Only a few years since, the chronicler Barbier had remarked, “It is very apparent that we make all Europe move to carry out our plans, and that we lay down the law everywhere.” [2] Louis XV. was upon the throne; the manners and customs of the ancien régime were in full force, though mitigated and softened by the growing enlightenment and liberalism whic
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
She always kept this drawing, her foretaste of the brilliant success that began so early and never forsook her. Lise, or Lisette, as she was generally called, was a delicate child, and her parents, who were devotedly fond of her and very anxious about her, frequently came and took her home for a few days, greatly to her delight. With them and her brother Louis, their only child besides herself, she was perfectly happy. Louis was three years younger, and did not possess her genius for painting, b
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Her first great dinner-party was at the house of the sculptor Le Moine, where she met chiefly artists and literary people. It was the custom to sing at dessert, a terrible ordeal for young girls, whose alarm often spoilt their song, but who were obliged to sing all the same. Joseph Vernet had a little son of whose talent for drawing he was very proud; and one day at a party where his friends joked him on his infatuation, he sent for the child, gave him a pencil and paper, and told him to draw. H
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Marie Antoinette was tall, well-formed, with perfectly shaped arms, hands and feet, a brilliant complexion, bluish-grey eyes, delicate though not regular features, a charming expression and a most imposing air, which very much intimidated Mme. Le Brun during the first sitting. But the kindness and gentleness with which the Queen talked to the young artist soon set her at ease, and when the portrait, which was to be presented to the Emperor Joseph II., was finished, she was desired to make two co
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
to which she had to answer: as she sang these words she laid her hand upon her heart and, turning to the Queen’s box, bowed profoundly. As this was in the beginning of the Revolution, there were many who wished to revenge themselves in consequence, and tried to force her to sing one of the horrible revolutionary songs which were then to be heard constantly upon the stage. She refused indignantly, and left the theatre. Her husband, Dugazon, the comic actor, on the contrary, played an atrocious pa
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
When the storm had subsided the peasants were crying and lamenting over the destruction of their crops, and all the large proprietors in the neighbourhood came most generously to their assistance. One rich man distributed forty thousand francs among them. The next year he was one of the first to be massacred. As time went on and affairs became more and more menacing, Mme. Le Brun began to consider the advisability of leaving the country, and placing herself and her child out of the reach of the
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
PASSING through Chambéry, the little party arrived at Turin in pouring rain, and were deposited late at night in a bad inn, where they could get nothing to eat; but the next day the celebrated engraver, Porporati, insisted on their removing to his house, where they spent five or six days. At the Opera they saw the Duc de Bourbon and his son, the unfortunate Duc d’Enghien, whose murder was the blackest stain upon the fame of Napoleon. The Duc de Bourbon looked more like the brother than the fathe
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
IN the autumn of 1790 Lisette went to Naples, with which she was enchanted. She took a house on the Chiaja, looking across the bay to Capri and close to the Russian Embassy. The Ambassador, Count Scawronski, called immediately and begged her to breakfast and dine always at his house, where, although not accepting this invitation, she spent nearly all her evenings. She painted his wife, and, after her, Emma Harte, then the mistress of Sir William Hamilton, as a bacchante , lying on the sea-shore
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
TWO years and a half had passed and Mme. Le Brun had no desire to leave Vienna, when the Russian Ambassador and several of his compatriots urged her strongly to go to St. Petersburg, where they said the Empress Catherine II. would be extremely pleased to have her. She had a great wish to see this Empress, whose strange and commanding personality impressed her, besides which she was convinced that in Russia she would soon gain enough to complete the fortune she had resolved to make before returni
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
FROM Catherine II. to Paul I. was indeed a fearful change. The sudden accession to supreme power after a life of repression increased the malady which was gaining ground upon him. It was evident that his brain was affected, and the capricious violence and cruelty which he was now free to exercise as he pleased left nobody in peace or safety. Nobody could feel sure when they got up in the morning that they would go safely to bed at night; the slightest offence given to the Emperor meant imprisonm
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
ANNE PAULE DOMINIQUE DE NOAILLES was by birth, character, education, and surroundings a complete contrast to our last heroine. She belonged to the great house of Noailles, being the fourth of the five daughters of the Duc d’Ayen, eldest son of the Maréchal Duc de Noailles, a brilliant courtier high in the favour of Louis XV. The Duchesse d’Ayen was the only daughter of M. d’Aguesseau de Fresne, Conseiller d’état , and grand-daughter of the great Chancellor d’Aguesseau. From her mother, daughter
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
“THE first family in France after the royal family, is evidently that of Lorraine; the second without dispute that of Rohan, and the third La Tour d’Auvergne, or Bouillon-Turenne, after that La Trémoille,” [66] and then come a whole string of illustrious names, Mailly-de-Nesle, Créquy, Harcourt, Clermont-Tonnerre, Saint Jean, Thoury; Sabran, La Rochefoucauld, Montmorency, Narbonne-Pelet, Béthune, Beauvoir, Beauffremont, Villeneuve (premier Marquis de France), and many others. The writer of these
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
TWO years after her marriage the Duchesse d’Ayen had a son who, to her great grief, lived only a few months, and whose death was followed by the birth of Louise, called Mlle. de Noailles, Adrienne Mlle. d’Ayen, Thérèse Mlle. d’Epernon, Pauline Mlle. de Maintenon, and Rosalie Mlle. de Montclar. In 1768, a year after the birth of her youngest girl, she had another boy, and at the same time was dangerously ill of small-pox. The Duke, in terror for her life, would not allow her to be told what was t
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
AT the end of seven weeks her husband went back to rejoin his regiment, and Pauline was left with her father-in-law and her new aunt, Mme. de Bouzolz, a very young, lively woman, whose husband had also just returned to the army. Both were very kind and fond of her, but their ideas were not so strict as those of the Duchesse d’Ayen. Mme. de Bouzolz delighted in novels, balls, and all the amusements natural to her age; was affectionate, good-hearted, rather thoughtless, but with no harm in her. Sh
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
THERE was a striking contrast between the position of Louis XVI. and that of his predecessors on the throne of France. Everybody was afraid of Louis XIV., and even of Louis XV. At any rate, they ruled. They commanded, and their subjects obeyed. But nobody was afraid of Louis XVI., and when he did command he was by no means sure of obedience. He had ascended the throne with the most excellent intentions, abolished all sorts of abuses, and wanted to be the father of his people. But a father who ca
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
PAULINE was so ill after this that her husband took her and their remaining child to Aix-les-Bains, and then to their château of Plauzat in Auvergne, a curious, picturesque building, part of which dated from the twelfth or thirteenth century, which dominated the little town of the same name, and was surrounded by the most beautiful country. Hearing that the peasants, still attached to them, and untouched by revolutionary ideas, were about to receive them in the old way, with cross and banner and
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
DIRECTLY M. and Mme. de Montagu got to London they heard of the death of Pauline’s aunt, the Duchesse de Lesparre, another grief for her; but really at that time for any one to die peacefully among their own people was a subject of thankfulness to them all. Pauline, who was very delicate, never took proper care of herself, and was always having dreadful trials, began by being very ill. When she was better they established themselves in a pretty cottage by the Thames at Richmond. But in a short t
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
THIS fearful shock brought on so violent an attack of illness that Pauline’s friends feared for her reason. Her aunt nursed her with the deepest affection, her husband arrived to comfort her with his love and sympathy, and the anxiety about Rosalie gave her a new object of interest. The Duke went to see the Princesse de Broglie, who had just come to the neighbourhood from France; she knew nothing; but a smuggler was found who knew all the paths of the Jura, and who was willing to go to Franche C
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
THE time had now come when the friendly farm at Wittmold, which had sheltered them in adversity, must be given up. The emigrés were returning; Mme. de la Fayette and Mme. de Grammont urged their sister to do the same, and Mme. de Tessé was longing to see Paris again. Mme. de Montagu started first with her husband, leaving her boy with her aunt and her girl with a friend. As they were still on the proscribed list they travelled under the names of M. et Mme. Mongros. They took up their quarters in
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
AN abyss of separation lies between the two women whose life-histories have just been related, and the one of whose stormy career a sketch is now to be given. In education, principles, conduct, and nationality, they were absolutely different, but each of them was typical of the time, the class, and the party to which she belonged. Térèzia Cabarrus was a Spaniard, though she had also French blood in her veins. Her father, director of an important bank in Madrid, distinguished himself in the finan
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
AS M. Arsène Houssaye truly remarks, the French Revolution was not made by the people. They imagine that they made it, but the real authors were Voltaire, Condorcet, Chamfort, the two Mirabeau, La Fayette and his friends, Necker, Talleyrand, Barras, Saint-Just, &c., nearly all gentlemen, mostly nobles; by Philippe-Égalité, Duke of Orléans and prince of the blood; by Louis XVI. himself. The new ideas were the fashion, people, especially young people, believed with enthusiastic fervour in
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
ON the 10th of August, 1792, as every one knows, the fury of the Revolution broke out in the attack upon the Tuileries. For the third time Térèzia saw Tallien soon after that carnival of horror and bloodshed of which he was one of the leading spirits; when a few days after it she sat in one of the tribunes of the Assembly and applauded the fiery speech in which he defied the enemies of France, for the armies of the allies and the emigrés were gathering on the frontier, eager to avenge the atroci
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE next day was the divorce. M. de Fontenay hurried away towards the Pyrenees and disappeared from France and from the life and concerns of the woman who had been his wife. And Térèzia, released from a marriage she had long disliked and to which no principle of duty or religion bound her, although she could scarcely be called free, fulfilled the conditions and accepted the part offered her willingly enough. She loved Tallien, who worshipped her with a passionate adoration which, far from concea
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
VOLUMES of denunciation, torrents of execration have been and are still poured forth against the Bastille, the tyranny and cruelty it represented, the vast number and terrible fate of the prisoners confined there and the arbitrary, irresponsible power of which it was the instrument. Many of the stories told and assertions made upon the subject are absolutely false, others greatly exaggerated; although nobody who has ever studied the history of any country would imagine that any prison ever exist
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
ROBESPIERRE was dead, and Tallien, for the time, reigned in his stead; and with him and over him, Térèzia, or, as she may be called, Mme. Tallien, for although Tallien before spoke of her as his wife, it was only after the 9th Thermidor that some sort of marriage ceremony was performed. But the name she now received, amongst the acclamation of the populace, was “Notre Dame de Thermidor.” For it was she who had brought about the deliverance of that day; for her and by her the Terror had been brok
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CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
THE last of the four French heroines whose histories are here to be related, differed in her early surroundings and circumstances from the three preceding ones. She was neither the daughter of a powerful noble like the Marquise de Montagu, nor did she belong to the finance or the bourgeoisie like Mme. Le Brun and Mme. Tallien. Her father was noble but poor, her childhood was spent, not in a great capital but in the country, and as she was born nearly ten years before the first and six-and-twenty
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
THE Marquis de la Haie, uncle of Félicité by the second marriage of her grandmother, strongly disapproved of the way in which his mother treated his half-sister and her children. He vainly tried to influence her to behave better to them, and showed them much kindness and affection himself. Unfortunately he was killed at the battle of Minden. A strange fatality was connected with him, the consequences of which can scarcely be appreciated or comprehended. He was one of the gentilhommes de la manch
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
AFTER her confinement the Maréchale d’Etrée came to see Félicité, brought her a present of beautiful Indian stuffs, and said that her parents, M. and Mme. de Puisieux, would have the pleasure of receiving her when she was recovered. Also that Mme. de Puisieux would present her at Versailles. To this she looked forward with some trepidation, being dreadfully afraid of Mme. de Puisieux, who at first did not like her, and was extremely stiff. She drove down to Versailles in her carriage alone with
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
THE society of the Palais Royal was at that time the most brilliant and witty in Paris, and she soon became quite at home there. The Comtesse de Blot, lady of honour to the Duchesse de Chartres, was pleasant enough when she was not trying to pose as a learned woman, at which times her long dissertations were tiresome and absurd; she was also ambitious, and what was worse, avaricious. Mme. de Clermont had been married at fifteen to the Comte de Choisi, who was much older than herself, and of whom
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
ONE of the Royal palaces was La Muette, and it was on one of the journeys there that the Queen took it into her head to see the sun rise. It appeared a harmless fancy enough, and she suggested it to the King. “Indeed,” he said, “you have a strange fancy. Night is made to sleep in; however, if it amuses you I have no objection so long as you do not expect me to be of the party.” Mme. de Noailles, to whom it was also necessary to speak of the proposed plan, was much perturbed. “Really,” she said,
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
THE Duke of Orléans died 1785, and Mme. de Montesson, having been forbidden by Louis XVI. to put her household into mourning or assume the position of a Duchess Dowager of Orléans, retired for a few weeks into a convent and then returned to her usual life, having inherited a great fortune from the late Duke. Philippe-Égalité was now Duc d’Orléans, and his eldest son Duc de Chartres. That young prince was about seventeen, and like all the Orléans family, except the Duchess and the Comte de Beaujo
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
WHILE Mme. de Genlis was safe and enjoying herself in England terrible events were happening in France. The Duke of Orléans, already infamous in the eyes of all decent people, was beginning to lose his popularity with the revolutionists. “He [125] could not doubt the discredit into which he had fallen, the flight of his son [126] exposed him to dangerous suspicions; it was decided to get rid of him. He had demanded that his explanations should be admitted, but he was advised to ‘ask rather, in t
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
OBLIGED to leave Tournay, they took refuge at a small town called Saint Amand, but they soon found themselves forced to fly from that also, and Mme. de Genlis, alarmed at the dangers and privations evidently before them, began to think that Mademoiselle d’Orléans would be safer without her, in the care of her brother. The camp of Dumouriez lay close at hand, and he had been very good to them; but there would probably be fighting very shortly, and it was said that he and many of his officers had
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
IT will not be possible in a biography so short as this, to give a detailed account of the wandering, adventurous life led by Mme. de Genlis after the severance of her connection with the Orléans family. She had now only her niece, Henriette, with her, and they set out again upon their travels. M. de Valence, after serving the revolutionists, had been proscribed by them, and was living in exile at Utrecht. There, accordingly, they joined him, and set up a joint ménage , first there, afterwards a
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
ALL the great artists, musicians, actors, and literary people who had returned to Paris after the Terror came to the salon of Mme. de Genlis; and many were the strange and terrible stories they had to tell of their escapes and adventures. Talma had, in the kindness of his heart, concealed in his house for a long time two proscribed men. One was a democrat and terrorist, who had denounced him and his wife as Girondins. For after the fall of Robespierre the revolutionary government, forced by the
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