• Madame du Bnrrv. By IL Noel Williams. With 18
Illustrations in Photc- gravure. Loudon and Brothers. [We. net.]
—of which the degraded taste of Louis XV. was only one, and among which must be counted the general decay in manners and ideals which began with the Regent, as well as the free thinking which led to free living, and the jargon and cant of so-called followers of Nature—had lowered the whole tone of society, both in the Court and the country. Madame de Pompadour, a clever, practical, art-loving bourgeoise, did France much harm by her political interference, and was in many other ways one of the bad influences of the time. But she was a respectable woman compared with her successor.
Mr. Noel Williams does not go the whole way with the modern apologists for Madame du Barry, among whom. M. Charles Vatel stands pre-eminent; but nevertheless he finds it possible to compare her favourably with both Madame de Montespan and Madame de Pompadour. This preference seems from the first, however, rather half-hearted and illogical. "If we can for the moment forget the infamy of her early life, if we can forget the degradation which Louis XV.'s con- nection with a woman of such antecedents brought upon the monarchy," why then, we need only see a pretty and rather amiable woman in a position which, alas ! some of the noblest names in the France of that day would not have despised, on whom "the infatuated old King" squandered public money while his subjects were starving; who did not interfere in politics, unless, as in the Choiseul history, their leading minds interfered with her personal advantage ; and who, in her ignorance of morals and decency, expected to be received by the young Dauphiness as an honoured member of the French Court. It is difficult to see any reason why the disgraceful events of Madame du Berry's early life—a kind of life of which we never hear that she repented, for she remained "a light woman," selfish and immoral, during the twenty years between Louis XV.'s death and the tragic end of all—should be excused and forgotten because she was pretty and kind- hearted. There is no question about the facts of her early life, of which Mr. Noel Williams gives the unedifying account, for he is an honest biographer. The " Comtesse du Barry" reached her title in a curious way, through a labyrinth of im- morality, lies, and false pretensions which is rather sickening to read of; but one must remember in fairness that the society which endures and accepts such things is responsible for them. If people "lore to have it so," they lose the right to complain. But although Sainte-Beuve had the misfortune to live before M. Vatel, we do not find ourselves disagreeing with his opinion that a great gulf lay between Madame de Pom- padour and Madame du Barry.
It always seems odd to plead kind-heartedness, good nature, generosity, and virtues of that kind, as a set-off against vices of another kind,—another order, as Pascal would have said. But though certain good actions can hardly be weighed against certain sins, the two sets of qualities leading to these are not seldom found in the same person. One might suggest that connecting links exist between the two sides of the character, such as laziness and love of popularity. This being remembered, nobody can wish to deprive poor Madame du Barry of credit in begging off criminals or helping the distressed,—the latter, as Mr. Noel Williams puts it, "not only when she had the Treasury to draw upon."
However, on the whole, Madame du Barry need not ask posterity to save her from her friends. Her present biographer is strongly inclined to take her part in the Choiseul affair, and he is by no means singular. It is difficult to see the reason of this, in face of the fact that Choiseul represented. liberal opinions and the defeat of the Jesuits, while his rival d'Aiguillon, Madame du Barry's friend and ally, was every- thing of the most reactionary. The support of Madame du Barry by this party was one great sign of the rottenness of French society. Choiseul was by no means faultless, and the whole tissue of intrigue is hard to unravel ; but to us, at least, the life of the exiles at Chanteloup is pleasanter to contemplate than the reign of Madame du Barry at Versailles.
The story of Madame du Barry's struggle to obtain recog- nition from Marie Antoinette has often been told before. It may be true that Mesdames went too far in their efforts to set the young Dauphiness against their father's worthless favourite, but it seems bard to conclude that they were not right in the main. Call them narrow and prejudiced, if one will : accuse them of various motives for their opposition,
quite independent of respect for virtue and horror of vice; still, it is true that these despised Princesses represented morality in a Court from which it was almost absent, the worst Court in Europe in which a young innocent girl could suddenly take a high place. As to Marie Antoinette's own conduct, long study from various points of view only adds to one's admiration. The haughty young Dauphiness," as Mr. Noel Williams calls her, had plenty of qualities better than pride. It was not mere pride that made her unwilling to associate with the woman of degraded life whom she found so powerful in her father-in-law's Court. In spite of the worldly counsels of Maria Theresa and the faithful Mercy-Argenteau, Marie Antoinette did her beat, and rightly, to follow her own instincts in this matter. When she at length received Madame du Bally and spoke to her, it was in consequence of the political reasons pressed upon her by her mother, to whom the alliance with France was just then all-important.
The last part of Mr. Noel Williams's book will be found the newest and most interesting by many readers. Generally, one knows little more of Madame du Barry, after Louis XV.'s death, than her enforced retirement to a convent, and then, nineteen years later, her cruel death on the scaffold. But this considerable part of her life was by no means dull or eventless. To begin with, she remained a very short time at the convent, and it seems that the lettre de cachet which sent her there was dictated by the penitence of the dying King, and not by the severity of his successor. It is hardly surprising that she was not allowed to return to the Court, and could no longer draw on the Treasury for her charities and other expenses ; but Louis XV. left her a very rich woman, and she was not deprived of any of the property, real and personal, including a quantity of magnificent jewellery, which he had given her She purchased the château of Saint-Vrain, and led a gay and luxurious life there, with lovers and friends in plenty. All her great staff of servants followed her, and they seem to have been sincerely attached to her. There is a tradition—not drawn from any book or memoir, but handed down in a family—that after the Revolution some returned emigrants were trying, though very poor, to live once more in their old château, when an elderly man came to ask for the situation of cook in their household. The mistress of the house answered that she could not afford the wages of a man- cook. "Oh, Madame in Marquise," said the man, "let me come, and I will serve you for no wages at all. I was cook to Madame la Comtesse du Barry, and I cannot now resign myself to an inferior situation ! "
Saint-Vrain appears to have been considered a place of exile by Madame du Barry, and it was not long before she gained permission from Louis XVI. to return to her own château of Louveciennes, which had been given to her by Louis XV. Here she spent the rest of her life, sometimes gay and cheerful, sometimes melancholy enough and harping on the past, though she had various consolations—a visit from the Emperor Joseph, who thus indulged his curiosity with his usual obstinacy and bad taste—and at least two very serious love affairs, one with an English neighbour, Henry Seymour, a politician of good birth who had retired to France to econo- mise, and one, later on, with the Due de Brissac, which lasted till his death in 1792 at the hands of a Revolutionary mob.
It is possible that Madame du Barry might have remained undisturbed at Louveciennes through the Revolution, for she was popular in the neighbourhood, but unluckily for her, a quantity of her jewellery was stolen and taken to England. She visited London several times in the effort to recover it, which was indeed partly successful ; but these journeys, with the necessary passports, reminded Paris of her existence. Also she had a deadly enemy—for no known reason—in the person of a Jacobin agitator named Grieve, an Englishman who had established himself in the village of Louvecienses. He began by denouncing Madame du Barry as an imigree, because of her journeys to London ; and his persecution con- tinued till the unfortunate woman was arrested, conveyed to Sainte-Pelagie, then to the Conciergerie, and finally, after a trial in which Fouquier-Tinville played his full part as liar and murderer, was condemned to the guillotine. She suffered —not with the courage of most victims of the Terror—on December 8th, 1793, thus quickly following the King and the Queen. It is worth mentioning, to her credit, that one of the charges against her was that when in London she had worn
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