Lebrun, painter

Page 63* — i. aignihcation, le^I notice.

The affair of the queen*s necklace, insignificant as it seems in itself, may well be looked upon as one of the determining causes, coming after so many others, of the French Révolution. The facts of the case are thèse: A band of adventurers, led by /a Valois^ tried to get possession of a highly valuable necklace by making the rich and dissolute Cardinal de Rohan (in love with the queen) believe that Marie- Antoinette wished him to buy it for her. When it was necessary to pay for the jewels the matter became public, and rétribution fell upon the guilty. The foes of the queen (who was innocent) tried to incriminate her, and Michelet takes sides against her. Marie-Antoinette was, indeed, a most unfortunate woman. She encountered jealousy and suspicion from the time of her arrivai in France. Although she herself wrote to her brother Joseph II. : Enfin, mon cher frère, je suis maintenant Française avant d'être Autrichienne, yet the French people, to whom Austria was the hereditary foe, never forgave her for being an Autrichienne, It was a part of the policy of Maria Theresa and Joseph to bring about a rapprochement between Austria and France. Marie-Antoinette's marriage was a step towards this end. As an

Austrian the queen favored the plan. Hence her nationality became a cause for charges on the part of her foes (to which Michelet is far too ready to give ear).

Unfortunately, to Marie-Antoinette's ill-luck must be added certain faults of her own, which may well be pardoned in the thoughtless young girl of fifteen who came to France to be the Dauphin's bride : she was, until she knew better, inconsiderate, coquettish and sarcastic. In this way she became disliked by the court of jealous and intriguing men and women who couldnot forgive her for preferring others to themselves. The gossip of thèse people gradually spread until it became fierce and brutal calumny, until a woman of the best intentions became to the scandal-mongering multitude the embodiment of ail that is hateful.

The delight of thèse people over such a titbit as the affaire du collier may be imagined. Marie-Antoinette^s réputation never recovered, and to this day writers may be found, among them Michelet, to blâme her for that of which she was innocent. For the truth of the following narrative is open, as so many of Michelet's statements, to attack. It may be said, in the strongest terms, that no direct évidence whatever can be brought to prove Marie- Antoinette guilty of any connection at ail with the fraudulent purchase of the diamonds. The évidence against her is entirely that of lying intriguers anxious to save themselves or their f riends. Michelet's own " conclusive argument " is a mère inf erence. AU the most récent writers on the question acquit the queen. The latest work on the subject in France is a séries of articles in the Revue de Paris (i 900-01) by F. Funck-Brentano. The whole affair is elaborately told for English readers in "The Story of the Diamond Necklace," by Henry Vizetelly. Carlyle has written essays on the diamond necklace and the Cardinal de Rohan. The story has more than once been brought into literature. Mention need be made only of Alexandre Dumas' novel Le Collier de la Reine and Goethe's Der Grosskophta. The following characteristic passage from Carlyle*s French Révolution may be read as a counterspasm to Michelet:

" Or consider that unutterable business of the Diamond Necklace. Red-hatted Cardinal Louis de Rohan; Sicilian jail-bird Balsamo Cagliostro; milliner Dame de Lamotte, * with a face of some piquancy*: the highest Church Dignitaries waltzing, in Walpurgis

p. 65-«l NOTES 1 23

Dance, with quack-prophets and pickpurses; — a whole Satan's Invisible World displayed; working there continually under the daylight visible one; the smoke of its torment going up foreverl The Throne has been brought into scandalous collision with the Treadmill. Astonished Europe rings with the mystery for nine months ; sees only lie unf old itself f rom lie ; corruption among the lofty and the low, gulosity, credulity, imbecillity, strength nowhere but in the hunger. Weep, fair queen, thy first tears of unmixed wretchedness ! Thy fair name has been tamished by foui breath ; irremediably while life lasts. No more shalt thou be loved and pitied by living hearts, till a new génération has been born, and thy own heart lies cold, cured of ail its sorrows."

Page 65. — i. Calonney minister of Louis XVI. (1783-87), unsuccessful in his administration. He said : Ce. qui est possible est faity ce qui est impossible se fera. The queen disliked him.

2. Mesmer, a German physician, who in 1766 enunciated the theory that the heavenly bodies diffuse a subtle influence which acts on the nervous System. The doctrine of mesmerism or animal magnetism had a revival about the middle of this century.