II. 89. Madame and Ma of her situation by the elegance of her manners, the CHAP. discretion with which she exercised her power, and the encouragement which she afforded to literature and the arts; but when Madame du Barri,* with younger years, Pompadour more seducing charms, and more abandoned habits, suc- and ceeded to the royal favour, no bounds were set to the Barri. general license and corruption which prevailed. What is very remarkable, her lasting ascendency was founded, in a great degree, on the skill with which she sought out, and the taste with which she arrayed, other rivals to herself; and the numerous beauties of the establishment called the Parc-aux-Cerfs, who were successively led to the royal couch, never diminished her lasting influence. Though resplendent with personal attractions herself, she never failed to exert her utmost powers to prevent the inclinations of the King from becoming torpid by want of variety, and studied to exhibit a constant succession of profit to themselves; and she was so conscious of her power to please, that she afterwards admitted that from the first she had a secret presentiment she was destined to captivate the King. She was early married to Lenormand, a landed proprietor; but her disposition to gallantry being decided, after being for some time the chosen favourite of a select circle of admirers, it was resolved to try the effect of her charms on royalty. For this purpose she drove out in an open calèche, elegantly dressed, in the forest of Senart, where the King hunted, and was purposely made to cross the royal path. The monarch was so captivated by her grace and beauty that he sent her the spoils of the chase; but the reigning favourite, the Duchesse de Chateauroux, succeeded at that time in keeping her at a distance from the court. After the duchess's death, in 1744, he again met her at a masked ball in Paris, and on this occasion her conquest was complete: she was soon after removed to apartments in Versailles, received a pension of 240,000 francs (£10,000) a-year, was made Dame de Palais to the Queen, created Marchioness of Pompadour, and soon saw all France at her feet. The Jesuits, the Jansenists, the noblesse, the parliaments, alternately experienced her indulgence and her persecution. Her sway continued nearly unabated till her death, in 1764, at the age of forty-two. Her tastes were elegant and refined, though expensive; and she made, on the whole, a better use of her unbounded power than might have been expected. See Biographie Universelle, (POMPADOUR,) 283, 290. * Madame du Barri was born at Vaucouleurs, in 1744, of humble parentsthe same district which had, by a singular coincidence, given birth to Joan of Arc, the noble and immortal defender of the throne. Her extraordinary beauty led to her being early sent to Paris, to make her way in that great mart of corruption, where she was placed with a marchande de modes, the usual school for such aspirants. She was shortly transferred to a celebrated establishment of courtesans, of which, under the name of Mademoiselle Lange, she soon made the fortune; and her celebrity attracted the notice of Lebel, CHAP. II. new objects of desire to his palled senses. Yet, in the midst of these undisguised scenes of scandal, she was treated with the highest honours at court; the longestablished influence of the Duc de Choiseul over the royal mind was overturned by her intrigues; Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were obliged to submit to the degradation, to them to the last degree galling, of dining at table with her; and the destruction of the whole parliaments of France, in 1771, which first brought the crown into open collision with the country, and was the first step in the Revolution, was occasioned by the anxiety of the monarch to secure a presentation at court to the 172, 173. abandoned favourite, who, after having exhausted in person all the arts of profligacy, had become the directress of the royal seraglio.1 1 Lac. iii. Weber, i. 37. 90. Dissolute habits of young Egalité. Corruption in exalted stations can hardly be conceived to exceed this: but the Orleans family, with some honourable exceptions, showed that the first prince of the blood could outdo royalty itself in unbridled license of manners. The taint introduced by the Regent descended, with its accompanying curse, through some noble individuals, to the third and fourth genera the valet-de-chambre of Louis XV., who introduced her to the monarch, who was soon entirely captivated by her charms and address. She was in form married to Count du Barri, and gradually acquired such an ascendant over the King that she was formally presented at court in 1769, and had influence enough to occasion the downfall of his favourite minister, Choiseul, and to place her creatures, the Duc d'Aiguillon and Maupeou, in his stead. Her name will appear again, on a mournful occasion, in the course of this history.-See Biographie Universelle, (BARRI,) vol. iii. 431, 432. * It augments the indignation which all must feel at this conduct, that no pains were spared to discover, even in respectable families, new objects of desire for the King, and that they were immediately abandoned, after they had gratified his caprice, to misery and destitution. "La corruption," says Lacretelle, "entrait dans les plus paisibles ménages, dans les familles les plus obscures. Elle était savamment et longtemps combinée par ceux qui servaient les débauches de Louis. Des émissaires étaient employées à séduire des filles qui n'étaient point encore nubiles, à combattre dans de jeunes femmes des principes de pudeur et de fidélité. Amant dégrade, il livrait à la prostitution publique celles de ses sujettes qu'il avait prématurement corrompues. 11 souffrait que les enfans de ses infâmes plaisirs partageassent la destinée obscure et dangereuse de ceux qu'un père n'avoue point."-LACRETELLE, iii. 171, 173. tions. CHAP. II. Without polluting these pages by the details of the private life of other members of the family, it is sufficient to say, that the dissipations of the Duc de Chartres, afterwards so well known in Paris as Duke of Orleans, and who ultimately perished on the scaffold, were carried to a length of which modern Europe had not hitherto exhibited an example. It renders credible all that is narrated in Suetonius and the historians of the Roman empire, as to the manners of the ancient rulers of the world. The French annalists must speak for themselves on this subject, for the scenes they describe could hardly bear the eye of an English reader in our own language: yet, painful as the quotation is, it must be made.* It is indispensable to see the private habits of those who sometimes take the lead in the much-vaunted regeneration of society-and the details do not more paint an individual than portray an epoch, for no individual hardihood can much outstrip the manners of those with whom it associates. It is not to be imagined, however, that the manners of the young Duc de Chartres were universal, or even general, in the aristocratic circles, or that many estimable characters did not yet remain at that period among the French nobility. Their conduct in adversity proved that many que such existed. But it may be imagined to what a Louis XVI. height general corruption must have risen, when, even Weber, i. in a single palace, such scenes could have been wit- val, ii. 295. nessed without reprobation by numerous spectators. * M. le Duc de Chartres avait réussi à épouser Mademoiselle de Penthièvre; et la cour et la ville s'accordaient à dire que toutes les vertus étaient réunies dans cette princesse, comme toutes les vices et toutes les erreurs l'étaient dans l'esprit et le cœur de son mari. Uni à cette femme aussi vertueuse que belle, le Duc de Chartres continua de vivre en libertin, de parcourir les lieux de débauche de la capitale, et d'y commander des soupers fins. Les plaisirs du mariage n'avaient pour lui rien de piquant; les orgies sales étaient ses délices. Il avait élevé près de Paris un temple à la prostitution, où sa cour se permettait des scènes impudiques de toutes les espèces; il avait donné à ce mauvais lieu le nom de Folies de Chartres. Là étaient conduites, de nuit et les yeux bandés, les prostituées les plus hardies, plutôt que les plus séduisantes; et elles y étaient transportés quelque 1 Soulavie, ii. 103, 104. 317. Besen CHAP. Contrast to of the mid dle classes at that period. It was the peculiarity of that age, that manners had assumed this frivolous and corrupt tone in the higher 91. circles, at the same time that nobler and more generous the manners sentiments had, from the progress of knowledge and the spread of civilisation, sprung up in the middle ranks. Madame Roland, a citizen's daughter, has given a graphic picture of the horror with which the rising ambition and conscious talent of the middle classes regarded the frivolity and vices of their hereditary rulers. It excited my early astonishment," says she, that such a state of things did not occasion the immediate fall of the empire, or provoke the avenging wrath of heaven." But with the overthrow of the aristocracy these evils did not cease. The example of vice is contagious; it seldom fails to descend in society. With the acquisition of the power 'which belonged to the old noblesse, the middle classes have since succeeded to their licentiousness, and it has now descended, in Paris and the chief towns, to the lowest. The nobility in France are now, for the most part, religious. Irreligion has become unfashionable, having gone down to the labouring ranks, at least in the towns. But the attractions of profligacy remain the same, and have now become more wide-spread in their effects than ever they were in the ancient monarchy. The effects of this general dissoluteness of principles have appeared in the strongest manner, both in the habits of the fois jusqu'au nombre de cent à cent-cinquante. Elles y trouvaient un repas splendide, qu'elles étaient obligées de prendre toutes nues; et lorsque les vins brûlans, les liqueurs, et les alimens du plus haut goût, avaient jeté ces femmes dans la situation des bacchantes de l'antiquité, elles tombaient ivres et pêle-mêle dans les bras des laquais du Duc d'Orléans, dans les siens, et dans ceux de la compagnie."-SOULAVIE, Règne de Louis XVI., ii. 103, 104. Weber in his Memoirs gives the same account:- "Epoux de l'incompar able fille du Duc de Penthièvre, il se dérobait à ses chastes embrassemens pour se livrer à des orgies dont la description étonnerait encore, si elle n'avait pas eu, dans toutes les classes de la société, d'aussi nombreux témoins qui en déposent encore aujourd'hui. Aux auteurs seuls appartient la tâche de dévoiler ces honteux mystères."-WEBER, Mémoires, i. 317; Rév. Mém. vol. xiv. See also Mémoires du Baron de BesenvAL, i. 264, 279. people and in the literature of the age. From thence CHAP. II. has flowed that stream of depravity and licentiousness which has so long been peculiarly and characteristically the disgrace of French literature; and from these examples has followed that general profligacy of manners 1 Dupin, which has now descended, with the growth of sceptical Force Comprinciples, so far that the illegitimate births in Paris vol. i. 99. will possibly in time be equal to the legitimate, and Mém.i.112. already every third child to be seen in the streets is a bastard.1* merciale, Roland, 92. XIX. Embarrassment in the finances was the immediate cause of the Revolution. It compelled the King Embarrassto summon the States-general as the only means of finances. avoiding national bankruptcy. Previous ministers had tried temporary expedients, and every effort had been made to avert the disaster; but the increasing expense arising from the weight of the annual charge of the debt rendered them all abortive. The annual deficit, at the time the Revolution broke out, was 189,000,000 francs, or above SEVEN MILLIONS AND A HALF sterling. No adequate provision was made for the liquidation or reduc * In 1824, out of 27,812 births, 18,591 only were the result of marriage; 9221 were illegitimate. The proportion of illegitimate births is now greater. In 1831, the legitimate births were 19,152; the illegitimate 10,378.—Statistique de la France; art. Administration Publique, 64, 68. The ment of Etat de la Dette Publique, 1790, or p.8. Young, 576, 577, 578, 579. The net revenue for the year 1789 amounted to 469,938,245 francs, or £18,800,000; the debt to 6,500,000,000 francs, or £260,000,000 sterling; and its annual charge to 259,000,000 francs, or £10,400,000 sterling." annual expenses at this period amounted to 400,000,000 francs, £16,000,000, exclusive of the charges of the debt; so that while the annual expenses were 400,000,000 francs, or £16,000,000 Interest of debt, 259,000,000 francs, or 10,400,000 3 Necker, de l'Administration des Fin £26,400,000 nances, i. 92, and ii. 517. or 18,800,000 Lac. vi. 110. or £7,600,000 The following Table will exhibit the steady progress of the deficit under the various administrations which preceded the Revolution : |