CHAPTER IV

Society of the Palais Royal—Philippe-égalité—An Apparition—Mlle. Mars—M. Ducrest—Marriage of Mme. de Montesson—Marly—The Prime Minister of France.
Capital letter T

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 she was dreadfully afraid; but he was killed at the battle of Minden, and she had just married the Comte de Clermont, who was deeply in love with her. She was young, pretty, very capricious, and a friend of Mme. de Montesson, and with all her faults never dull or tiresome, but full of merry talk and amusing stories; the Comtesse de Polignac and the Marquise de Barbantour were also among the ladies of the household [387] with whom Félicité was now associated; two much older ones were the Comtesses de Rochambault and de Montauban.

The Duchesse de Chartres, née Mlle. de Penthièvre, was an angel of goodness and kindness. She had conceived so violent a passion for the Duc de Chartres, when she had met him for the first time, that she declared she would either marry him or take the veil. It was a most unfortunate choice to have been made, especially by so saintly a personage, for the court and society of Louis XV. did not include a more corrupt and contemptible character than the notorious Philippe-égalité.

The attraction he felt for Mme. de Genlis, which had such a powerful influence upon her life and so disastrous an effect upon her reputation, had not begun when she first took up her abode at the Palais Royal.

It was said by his illegitimate brothers, MM. de Saint-Far and Saint-Albin, to have begun on a certain evening when a quadrille arranged by Mme. de Genlis, in which each couple represented proverbs, went to the Opera ball, as the custom of those days permitted, and was suddenly disarranged by an enormous cat, which, mewing and clawing, rolled itself suddenly into the midst of the dancers. The cat proved to be a little Savoyard boy, dressed up in fur, dreadfully frightened at the abuse and kicks he received.

This elegant trick was traced to the Duc de Chartres and his friends; and the good temper and general demeanour of Mme. de Genlis on this provoking occasion struck the Duke with [388] admiration and compunction. Philippe-égalité, contemptible as his disposition undoubtedly was, had also been very badly brought up, and when he was fifteen his father had given him a mistress who was afterwards notorious as Mlle. Duthé; he was always surrounded with a group of the fastest young men at court, the Chevalier de Coigny, MM. de Fitz-James, de Conflans, &c.

“The social existence of Mme. de Genlis,” writes Mme. d’Abrantès, [115] “is always a problem difficult to resolve; it is composed of a mass of contradictions, one more extraordinary than the other. Of a noble family, whose name and alliances gave her the right to be chanoinesse of the Chapter of Alix, she was called until her marriage Comtesse de Lancy. She married M. de Genlis, a man of high rank, nearly related to most of the great families in the kingdom, and yet Mme. de Genlis had never in society the attitude of a grande dame.... The important part this woman played in the destinies of France is of such a nature that one must notice it, more especially as she denies a mass of facts, the most notorious of the time in which her name is mixed up, ... pretending never to have spoken to men of whom she must not only have been an acquaintance but a friend. Long before the first outbursts of the Revolution, Mme. de Genlis helped to prepare the influence which afterwards burst like an accursed bomb, covering with its splinters even the woman who had prepared the wick and perhaps lighted the match.
 
“It was an eccentric existence that she led in her youth, it must be confessed. That wandering, restless life had a character all the more strange because at that time it was so unusual; going perpetually from one chateau to another, roaming about the country disguised as a peasant, playing tricks on everybody, eating raw fish, playing the harp like Apollo, dancing, acting, fencing....”

And now she was dame pour accompagner to the Duchesse de Chartres, and her influence was soon felt in the society of the Palais Royal.

On the nights when there was an opera, the Palais Royal was open to any one who had been presented there. The first invitation to supper meant a standing one for those days, therefore the Palais Royal was then crowded with guests; and on other evenings the petits soupers, generally consisting of eighteen or twenty guests, were composed of those of the intimate society of the Duke and Duchess, who also had a general invitation.

The Duchesse de Chartres continued for a long time very fond of Mme. de Genlis, who was exceedingly attractive, not only because of her beauty, talents, and accomplishments, but because she was so interesting and amusing that it was impossible to be dull in her company. And though she had many faults she had also many excellent qualities. She was very affectionate and kind to those for whom she really cared, she was charitable, good tempered, and courageous; her reputation so far was good, and her respect for religion made her shun the atheistical philosophic set whose opinions on those points she detested. One friend she had [390] among them, the Comte de Schomberg, was an exception to this rule. He was a friend of Voltaire, and a pronounced atheist, but it was an understood thing that no religious subject should be discussed between them, and no word of impiety spoken in her presence. The events of the Revolution converted M. de Schomberg, and he died some years after it an ardent Christian.

Many of these disbelievers in Christianity were terribly afraid of ghosts. “Je n’y crois pas, mais je les redoute,” as somebody once remarked.

She made one or two journeys to Holland and Belgium when she wished for a change, but in 1775 a terrible grief overtook her, in the death of her son, now five years old. The children were living near, and her mother was then with them when she herself caught measles, and as often happens when they are taken later in life than is usual, she was extremely ill, and it was impossible to tell her that her children had the same complaint.
E. H. Bearne
AMSTERDAM

M. de Genlis, who had also a post at the Palais Royal, was nursing her, and her mother came every day to see her.

The child died at five o’clock one morning. “At the same hour,” she writes, “of the same day, I was alone with my nurse, and, raising my eyes to the canopy of my bed, I distinctly saw my son in the form of an angel ... holding out his arms to me. This vision, without exciting any suspicions, caused me great surprise. I rubbed my eyes several times, but always saw the same figure. My mother and M. de Genlis came at about eleven; they were overcome with grief, but I was not surprised, for I [391] knew I was ill enough to make them very anxious. I could not help looking always at the canopy of my bed with a sort of shudder, and my mother, knowing that I was afraid of spiders, asked if I saw one ... at last I said I would not tell them what I saw lest they should think my brain was deranged, but they pressed me until I told them.”

They concealed the calamity for five weeks, and then brought her a miniature of the child as an angel.

Félicité recovered, and went to Spa, and to travel in Belgium. After her return, as she was walking one day in the Palais Royal gardens, she met a young girl with a woman of seven or eight and thirty, who stopped and gazed at her with an earnest look. Suddenly she exclaimed—

“It is Mlle. Mars!” Embracing each other with joy, they arranged to meet the following day, and Mlle. Mars presented herself accordingly at the Palais Royal, where they spent the morning talking of old times and of present circumstances. Mlle. Mars was not very happy where she now lived, and Félicité succeeded in placing her as governess to the children of the Princess Louise de Condé, meanwhile seeing her every day. She married soon afterwards.

About this time she arranged for her brother an excellent marriage which turned out very happily. She had the young people to live with her at first, and M. de Genlis was extremely kind to them; but at the end of some months Mme. de Montesson, in whom she had contrived to arouse an interest in them, took them to live permanently with her.
 
As Saint-Aubin had long been sold, her brother now called himself M. Ducrest.

In her “Memoirs,” Mme. de Genlis says that the years she spent at the Palais Royal were the most brilliant and the most unhappy of her life.

The brilliant social success, and the life, a perpetual scene of pleasure, excitement and intense interest, were chequered with all sorts of annoyances. The envy she excited by her social triumphs, the favour of the Duchess, and later, of the Duc de Chartres, displayed itself as usual in slanders, misrepresentations, and different spiteful actions; while the hostility she aroused caused her more astonishment than would have been expected in a woman possessing so much knowledge of the world, and more unhappiness than one might suspect in one so entirely self-satisfied.

And although she was undoubtedly maligned, like many persons who gave less opportunity for gossip; still it was the consequence of her own act in placing herself in such a position, and identifying herself with such a crew. Her futile attempts to whitewash Philippe-égalité can deceive nobody: he was too well-known. When she lays all his faults to his being badly brought up and surrounded with bad companions, one recollects the numbers of men and of women too, who, brought up and living under the same conditions, suffered and died with a heroism and loyalty that redeemed the faults and follies of their past.

And as to Mme. de Genlis, it appears more than probable that if she had followed the advice of Mme. de Custine, as she promised to do, and remained [393] at the h?tel de Puisieux she would still have been a great literary and social success and also a better and happier woman.

Mme. de Montesson had so far succeeded in her plan that she had, in 1773, been privately married to the Duke of Orléans. The marriage was celebrated at midnight in the presence of a small number of persons of high position. But the marriage, though known and recognised in society, was only a morganatic one. Louis XV. would never hear of her taking the rank and title of Duchess of Orléans, or any precedence that would have been the consequence. This was of course a continual grievance to her, but she was obliged to resign herself and make the best of the position, at any rate far more exalted than any to which she had the least pretension to aspire. She had an unbounded influence over the Duc d’Orléans, in whose household and amongst whose friends she was always treated as a princess, and with whom she led a life of unbounded luxury and magnificence. Like Mme. de Maintenon after her morganatic marriage with Louis XIV. she renounced the title of Marquise and was known as Mme. de Montesson, possibly thinking like the hero of the well-known incident: “Princesse je ne puis pas, Marquise je ne veux pas, Madame je suis.” 

The year after the marriage Louis XV. died, but Louis XVI. would not depart from the attitude his grandfather had assumed, with regard to the morganatic marriage of the Duc d’Orléans.

The journeys of the court to the different country [394] palaces, Versailles, Compiègne, Fontainebleau, Marly, &c., were affairs of enormous expense, and ceremony so preposterous, that, for instance, there was one sort of court dress for Versailles, and another, equally magnificent and uncomfortable, for Marly. On the 1st of January Louis XV. always arranged with care and consideration the journeys for the year to the different palaces, of which there were a great number. Mme. Campan [117] in her “Mémoires,” says that Marly, even more than Versailles, transported one vividly to the reign of Louis XIV.; its palaces and gardens were like a magnificent scene in an opera; fountains, pavilions, statues, marble basins, ponds and canals, thickets of shrubs, groups of tall trees, trellised walks and arbours, amongst which the ladies and gentlemen of the royal households and court walked about in full dress; plumes, paniers, jewels, and trains making any enjoyment of the country out of the question, but impressing with awe and admiration the crowds who were admitted to the gardens, and to the suppers and gambling at night. Every trace of this palace and gardens disappeared in the Revolution.

During the latter part of the reign of Louis XV. the rule of perpetual court dress at Marly was given up, and when Louis XVI. came to the throne he tried, but without success, to discourage the gambling, which he hated; but what Marie Antoinette disliked was the stiffness, fatigue, and restraint of these journeys, and she insisted that at Trianon, which the King had given her, she should be free from the [395] intolerable gêne of the etiquette which the last two reigns had so increased as to be an intolerable burden, in former centuries unknown at the court of France.

The party in opposition to the Queen, absolutely unscrupulous and vindictive, hesitated at no calumny or exaggeration that might do her injury; and everything seemed to create fresh enemies for her.

When she received the ladies of the Court on her accession, Mme. de Clermont-Tonnerre, a thoughtless girl of sixteen, sat on the carpet all the time, hidden by the ladies of the household who stood before her, making grimaces behind her fan, whispering nonsense, pulling the dresses of her companions and making them all, even the Queen herself, unable to restrain their laughter; so that great offence was given and the blame of course laid on the Queen. The King was very angry, sent for Mme. de Clermont-Tonnerre and reprimanded her; whereupon she turned all her spite against the Queen, and all the Clermonts went into opposition.

When first he succeeded to the throne and the question arose who was to be prime minister, Madame Victoire wrote to Louis XVI., recommending M. de Machault, then exiled from Paris.

The King accordingly wrote a letter summoning him; but meanwhile Madame Adéla?de, supported by her two youngest sisters, Mesdames Sophie and Louise, and having persuaded the Queen to join them, appealed to him in favour of M. de Maurepas, a man as stupid, prejudiced, and incapable as could be found.
 
However, the King soon began to yield.

“But my letter has gone,” he said; “what shall I do?”

“I hope not,” said the Queen, “we shall see.” And she rang the bell. “Campan, the King has an order to give you.”

“Go,” said Louis XVI. in a tone of vexation, “and tell the page of the grande écurie to bring me back the letter I gave him.” “But Madame,” turning to the Queen, “I warn you that if he is gone it is all the better for M. de Machault. I cannot recall my confidence when he holds the proof in his hand.” [118]

Campan ran; the page was already in the saddle, but was altering a stirrup, which changed the destiny of France. The letter was brought back.

When Maurepas received this summons he jumped and capered with joy; danced round the room with his wife and told his cat it should have the entrée at Versailles. Thus he prepared to govern the kingdom of France.