Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI Part 11

"Gluck's consciousness of the merit of his own works, and of their dignity, excited no small jealousy, during the getting up of Armida, in his rival with the public, the great Vestris, to whom he scarcely left s.p.a.ce to exhibit the graces of his art; and many severe disputes took place between the two rival sharers of the Parisian enthusiasm. Indeed, it was at one time feared that the success of Armida would be endangered, unless an equal share of the performance were conceded to the dancers.

But Gluck, whose German obstinacy would not give up a note, told Vestris he might compose a ballet in which he would leave him his own way entirely; but that an artist whose profession only taught him to reason with his heels should not kick about works like Armida at his pleasure.

'My subject,' added Gluck, 'is taken from the immortal Ta.s.so. My music has been logically composed, and with the ideas of my head; and, of course, there is very little room left for capering. If Ta.s.so had thought proper to make Rinaldo a dancer he never would have designated him a warrior.'

"Rinaldo was the part Vestris wished to be allotted to his son. However, through the interference of the Queen, Vestris prudently took the part as it had been originally finished by Gluck.

"The Queen was a great admirer and patroness of Augustus Vestris, the G.o.d of dance, as he was styled. Augustus Vestris never lost Her Majesty's favour, though he very often lost his sense of the respect he owed to the public, and showed airs and refused to dance. Once he did so when Her Majesty was at the opera. Upon some frivolous pretext he refused to appear. He was, in consequence, immediately arrested. His father, alarmed at his son's temerity, flew to me, and with the most earnest supplications implored I would condescend to endeavour to obtain the pardon of Her Majesty. 'My son,' cried he, 'did not know that Her Majesty had honoured the theatre with her presence. Had he been aware of it, could he have refused to dance for his most bounteous benefactress?

I, too, am grieved beyond the power of language to describe, by this mal apropos contretemps between the two houses of Vestris and Bourbon, as we have always lived in the greatest harmony ever since we came from Florence to Paris. My son is very sorry and will dance most bewitchingly if Her Majesty will graciously condescend to order his release!'

"I repeated the conversation verbatim, to Her Majesty, who enjoyed the arrogance of the Florentine, and sent her page to order young Vestris to be set immediately at liberty.

"Having exerted all the wonderful powers of his art, the Queen applauded him very much. When Her Majesty was about leaving her box, old Vestris appeared at the entrance, leading his son to thank the Queen.

"'Ah, Monsieur Vestris,' said the Queen to the father, you never danced as your son has done this evening.'

"'That's very natural, Madame,' answered old Vestris, 'I never had a Vestris, please Your Majesty, for a master.'

"'Then you have the greater merit,' replied the Queen, turning round to old Vestris--'Ah, I shall never forget you and Mademoiselle Guimard dancing the minuet de la cour.'

"On this old Vestris held up his head with that peculiar grace for which he was so much distinguished. The old man, though ridiculously vain, was very much of a gentleman in his manners. The father of Vestris was a painter of some celebrity at Florence, and originally from Tuscany."

SECTION IX.

"The visit of the favourite brother of Marie Antoinette, the Emperor Joseph the Second, to France, had been long and anxiously expected, and was welcomed by her with delight. The pleasure Her Majesty discovered at having him with her is scarcely credible; and the affectionate tenderness with which the Emperor frequently expressed himself on seeing his favourite sister evinced that their joys were mutual.

"Like everything else, however, which gratified and obliged the Queen, her evil star converted even this into a misfortune. It was said that the French Treasury, which was not overflowing, was still more reduced by the Queen's partiality for her brother. She was accused of having given him immense sums of money; which was utterly false.

"The finances of Joseph were at that time in a situation too superior to those of France to admit of such extravagance, or even to render it desirable. The circ.u.mstance which gave a colour to the charge was this:

"The Emperor, in order to facilitate the trade of his Brabant subjects, had it in contemplation to open the navigation of the Scheldt. This measure would have been ruinous to many of the skippers, as well as to the internal commerce of France. It was considered equally dangerous to the trade and navigation of the North Hollanders. To prevent it, negotiations were carried on by the French Minister, though professedly for the mutual interest of both countries, yet entirely at the instigation and on account of the Dutch. The weighty argument of the Dutch to prevent the Emperor from accomplishing a purpose they so much dreaded was a sum of many millions, which pa.s.sed by means of some monied speculation in the Exchange through France to its destination at Vienna.

It was to see this affair settled that the Emperor declared in Vienna his intention of taking France in his way from Italy, before he should go back to Austria.

"The certainty of a transmission of money from France to Austria was quite enough to awaken the malevolent, who would have taken care, even had they inquired into the source whence the money came, never to have made it public. The opportunity was too favourable not to be made the pretext to raise a clamour against the Queen for robbing France to favour and enrich Austria.

"The Emperor, who had never seen me, though he had often heard me spoken of at the Court of Turin, expressed a wish, soon after his arrival, that I should be presented to him. The immediate cause of this let me explain.

"I was very much attached to the Princesse Clotilde, whom I had caused to be united to Prince Charles Emanuel of Piedmont. Our family had, indeed, been princ.i.p.ally instrumental in the alliances of the two brothers of the King of France with the two Piedmontese Princesses, as I had been in the marriage of the Piedmontese Prince with the Princess of France. When the Emperor Joseph visited the Court of Turin he was requested when he saw me in Paris to signify the King of Sardinia's satisfaction at my good offices. Consequently, the Emperor lost no time in delivering his message.

"When I was just entering the Queen's apartment to be presented, 'Here,'

said Her Majesty, leading me to the Emperor, 'is the Princess,' and, then turning to me, exclaimed, 'Mercy, how cold you are!' The Emperor answered Her Majesty in German, 'What heat can you expect from the hand of one whose heart resides with the dead?' and subjoined, in the same language, 'What a pity that so charming a head should be fixed on a dead body.'

"I affected to understand the Emperor literally, and set him and the Queen laughing by thanking His Imperial Majesty for the compliment.

"The Emperor was exceedingly affable and full of anecdote. Marie Antoinette resembled him in her general manners. The similitude in their easy openness of address towards persons of merit was very striking. Both always endeavoured to encourage persons of every cla.s.s to speak their minds freely, with this difference, that Her Majesty in so doing never forgot her dignity or her rank at Court. Sometimes, however, I have seen her, though so perfect in her deportment with inferiors, much intimidated and sometimes embarra.s.sed in the presence of the Princes and Princesses, her equals, who for the first time visited Versailles: indeed, so much as to give them a very incorrect idea of her capacity. It was by no means an easy matter to cause Her Majesty to unfold her real sentiments or character on a first acquaintance.

"I remember the Emperor one evening at supper when he was exceedingly good-humoured, talkative, and amusing. He had visited all his Italian relations, and had a word for each, man, woman, or child--not a soul was spared. The King scarcely once opened his mouth, except to laugh at some of the Emperor's jokes upon his Italian relations.

"He began by asking the Queen if she punished her husband by making him keep as many Lents in the same year as her sister did the King of Naples.

The Queen not knowing what the Emperor meant, he explained himself, and said, 'When the King of Naples offends his Queen she keeps him on short commons and 'soupe maigre' till he has expiated the offence by the penance of humbling himself; and then, and not till then, permits him to return and share the nuptial rights of her bed.'

"'This sister of mine,' said the Emperor, 'is a proficient Queen in the art of man training. My other sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Parma, is equally scientific in breaking-in horses; for she is constantly in the stables with her grooms, by which she 'grooms' a pretty sum yearly in buying, selling, and breaking-in; while the simpleton, her husband, is ringing the bells with the Friars of Colorno to call his good subjects to Ma.s.s.

"'My brother Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, feeds his subjects with plans of economy, a dish that costs nothing, and not only saves him a mult.i.tude of troubles in public buildings and public inst.i.tutions, but keeps the public money in his private coffers; which is one of the greatest and most cla.s.sical discoveries a Sovereign can possibly accomplish, and I give Leopold much credit for his ingenuity.

"'My dear brother Ferdinand, Archduke of Milan, considering he is only Governor of Lombardy, is not without industry; and I am told, when out of the glimpse of his dragon the holy Beatrice, his Archd.u.c.h.ess, sells his corn in the time of war to my enemies, as he does to my friends in the time of peace. So he loses nothing by his speculations!'

"The Queen checked the Emperor repeatedly, though she could not help smiling at his caricatures.

"'As to you, my dear Marie Antoinette,' continued the Emperor, not heeding her, 'I see you have made great progress in the art of painting.

You have lavished more colour on one cheek than Rubens would have required for all the figures in his cartoons.' Observing one of the Ladies of Honour still more highly rouged than the Queen, he said, 'I suppose I look like a death's head upon a tombstone, among all these high-coloured furies.'

"The Queen again tried to interrupt the Emperor, but he was not to be put out of countenance.

"He said he had no doubt, when he arrived at Brussels, that he should hear of the progress of his sister, the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Christina, in her money negotiations with the banker Valkeers, who made a good stock for her husband's jobs.

"'If Maria Christina's gardens and palace at Lakin could speak,' observed he, 'what a spectacle of events would they not produce! What a number of fine sights my own family would afford!

"'When I get to Cologne,' pursued the Emperor, there I shall see my great fat brother Maximilian, in his little electorate, spending his yearly revenue upon an ecclesiastical procession; for priests, like opposition, never bark but to get into the manger; never walk empty-handed; rosaries and good cheer always wind up their holy work; and my good Maximilian, as head of his Church, has scarcely feet to waddle into it. Feasting and fasting produce the same effect. In wind and food he is quite an adept--puffing, from one cause or the other, like a smith's bellows!'

"Indeed, the Elector of Cologne was really grown so very fat, that, like his Imperial mother, he could scarcely walk. He would so over-eat himself at these ecclesiastical dinners, to make his guests welcome, that, from indigestion, he would be puffing and blowing, an hour afterwards, for breath.

"'As I have begun the family visits,' continued the Emperor, 'I must not pa.s.s by the Archd.u.c.h.ess Mariana and the Lady Abbess at Clagenfurt; or, the Lord knows, I shall never hear the end of their klagens.--[A German word which signifies complaining.]--The first, I am told, is grown so ugly, and, of course, so neglected by mankind, that she is become an utter stranger to any attachment, excepting the fleshy embraces of the disgusting wen that encircles her neck and bosom, and makes her head appear like a black spot upon a large sheet of white paper. Therefore klagen is all I can expect from that quarter of female flesh, and I dare say it will be levelled against the whole race of mankind for their want of taste in not admiring her exuberance of human craw!

"'As to the Lady Abbess, she is one of my best recruiting sergeants. She is so fond of training cadets for the benefit of the army that they learn more from her system in one month than at the military academy at Neustadt in a whole year. She is her mother's own daughter. She understands military tactics thoroughly. She and I never quarrel, except when I garrison her citadel with invalids. She and the canoness, Mariana, would rather see a few young ensigns than all the staffs of the oldest Field-marshals!'

"The Queen often made signs to the Emperor to desist from thus exposing every member of his family, and seemed to feel mortified; but the more Her Majesty endeavoured to check his freedom, and make him silent, the more he enlarged upon the subject. He did not even omit Maria Theresa, who, he said, in consequence of some papers found on persons arrested as spies from the Prussian camp, during the seven years' war, was reported to have been greatly surprised to have discovered that her husband, the Emperor Francis I., supplied the enemy's army with all kinds of provision from her stores.

"The King scarcely ever answered excepting when the Emperor told the Queen that her staircase and antechamber at Versailles resembled more the Turkish bazars of Constantinople than a royal palace. 'But,' added he, laughing, 'I suppose you would not allow the nuisance of hawkers and pedlars almost under your nose, if the sweet perfumes of a handsome present did not compensate for the disagreeable effluvia exhaling from their filthy traffic.'

[It was an old custom, in the pa.s.sages and staircase of all the royal palaces, for tradespeople to sell their merchandise for the accommodation of the Court.]

"On this, Louis XVI., in a tone of voice somewhat varying from his usual mildness, a.s.sured the Emperor that neither himself nor the Queen derived any advantage from the custom, beyond the convenience of purchasing articles inside the palace at any moment they were wanted, without being forced to send for them elsewhere.

"'That is the very reason, my dear brother,' replied Joseph, 'why I would not allow these shops to be where they are. The temptation to lavish money to little purpose is too strong; and women have not philosophy enough to resist having things they like, when they can be obtained easily, though they may not be wanted.'

"'Custom,' answered the King--

"'True,' exclaimed the Queen, interrupting him; custom, my dear brother, obliges us to tolerate in France many things which you, in Austria, have.

long since abolished; but the French are not to be: treated like the Germans. A Frenchman is a slave to habit. His very caprice in the change of fashion proceeds more from habit than genius or invention. His very restlessness of character is systematic; and old customs and national habits in a nation virtually spirituelle must not be trifled with. The tree torn up by the roots dies for want of nourishment; but, on the contrary, when lopped carefully only of its branches the pruning makes it more valuable to the cultivator and more pleasing to the beholder. So it is with national prejudices, which are often but the excrescences of national virtues. Root them out and you root out virtue and all. They must only be: pruned and turned to profit. A Frenchman is more easily killed than subdued. Even his follies generally spring from a high sense of national dignity and honour, which foreigners cannot but respect.'

"The Emperor Joseph while in France mixed in all sorts of society, to gain information with respect, to the popular feeling towards his sister, and instruction as to the manners and modes of life and thinking of the French. To this end he would often a.s.sociate with the lowest of the common people, and generally gave them a louis for their loss of time in attending to him.

"One day, when he was walking with the young Princesse Elizabeth and myself in the public gardens at Versailles and in deep conversation with us, two or three of these louis ladies came up to my side and, not knowing who I was, whispered, 'There's no use in paying such attention to the stranger: after all, when he has got what he wants, he'll only give you a louis apiece and then send you about your business.'"