MARIE ANTOINETTE from the painting by F. H. Drouais (Photo: Haclietle) ^^ M A R IE \'-\ V A N T O I N E T TE r STEFAN ZWEIG Translated by Eden and Cedar Paul HALLAM EDITION No: \^^8^^ 1 2- Sf With half-tone frontispiece ANGRAU 1 If) C«ntr«l Library I M Ra)*ndraii*g*r ! Wi \ ^ ^. \0 CASSELL • LONDON '% CASSELL& COMPANY LTD " '35 Red tidifS^i^re • London W.C.i and at MELBOURNE " SYDNEY ' TORONTO ' CAPE TOWN JOJiAIWWfURG • AUKLAND All rights reserved First published in the Hallam Edition, December 1952 Second Hallam Edition, July 1955 Third Hallam Edition, November 1960 Printed in Great Britain by Lo\A'e and Brydone (Printers) Limited, London, N.W.io 36o There is a history in all men's lives. Figuring the nature of the times deceased; •' The which observed, a man may prophesy. With a near aim, of the main chance of things As yet not come to life, which in their seeds And weak beginnings lie intreasured. Such things become the hatch and brood of time. SECOND "PART OF KING HENRY IV Actlll, Sc. 1. Contents CHAPTER INTRODUCTION . IX 1 A CHILD MARRIAGE I II SECRET OF THE ALCOVE 23 III D:£BUT AT VERSAILLES 38 IV FIGHT FOR A WORD 51 V CONQUEST OF PARIS . 72 VI THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KINO 84 VII PORTRAIT OF A ROYAL COUPLE 94 VIII QUEEN OF THE ROCOCO no IX TRIANON . 129 X THE NEW SOCIETY 144 XI A FRATERNAL VISIT 156 170 XII MOTHERHOOD . 180 Xni THE QUEEN BECOMES UNPOPULAR . XIV A THUNDERCLAP IN THE ROCOCO THEATRE 195 XV THE DIAMOND NECKLACE 213 XVI TRIAL AND SENTENCE . 235 XVII THE PEOPLE AND THE QUEEN AWAKEN 251 XVIII THE DECISIVE SUMMER 261 XIX FRIENDS DESERT 273 XX THE FRIEND APPEARS . 285 XXI WAS HE OR WAS HE NOT? 299 XXII THE LAST NIGHT IN VERSAILLES 313 XXIII THE HEARSE OF THE MONARCHY . 325 XXIV SELF-AWARENESS 336 XXV MIRABEAU 351 XXVX PREPARATIONS FOR ESCAPE 366 XXVII THE FLIGHT TO VARENNES 379 XXVIII THE NIGHT IN VARENNES 392 XXIX RETURN TO PARIS 400 VII CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXX RECIPROCAL DECEPTION . . • 412 XXXI THE FRIEND'S LAST APPEARANCE . . 423 XXXII FLIGHT INTO WAR . . .. 435 XXXIII LAST CRIES . . . .. 445 XXXiy THE TENTH OF AUGUST . . . 453 XXXV THE TEMPLE . . . .. 467 XXXyi MARIE ANTOINETTE ALONE . . . 485 XXXVH FINAL SOLITUDE . . .. 496 XXXVIIl THE CONCIERGERIE . . . , 5 11 XXXIX A LAST ENDEAVOUR . . . . 52O XL THE SUPREME INFAMY . . . 531 XLI PRELIMINARY EXAMINATION . •. , 545 XLII ON TRIAL BEFORE THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL . . . .. 553 XLIII DRIVE TO THE SCAFFOLD . . . 571 XLIV THE KEENING . . . . . 580 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE . . . 589 POSTFAGE . . . . .. 593 INDEX . . . . .. 603 VIII Sntrodii iction 1 O tell the story of Marie Antoinette means to reopen a trial which took place more than a century and a half ago, in which the accusers and the defenders .volleyed invectives at one another. The accusers were responsible for the passionate tone of the discussion. To assail the monarchy effectively, the Revolution had to attack the Queen, and in the Queen the woman. Sincerity and politics are rarely to be found dwelling under one roof, and little justice is to be expected from the exponents and manufacturers of what is styled public opinion, when, to gain some demagogic end, they undertake the description of a character. In pursuance of the determination to send Marie Antoinette to the guillotine, no calumny was spared. Newspapers, pamphlets, and books denounced the "louve autrichienne" as guilty of every crime, every form of moral corruption, every perversion. In the very law-court, the public prosecutor did not hesitate to com pare the "Widow Capet" with the most notoriously loose women of history, with Messalina, Agrippina, and Frede- gond. Naturally, therefore, a decisive change of note was sounded when, in 1815, a Bourbon remounted the French throne. In order to flatter the dynasty, the picture of the bitch-wolf was painted out, and overlaid with the brightest and oiliest colours. In almost all the descrip tions dating from this period, the Queen is decked with a halo, and we seem to sniff the incense as we read. Panegyric followed panegyric. Marie Antoinette's inviol able virtue was fiercely championed; her readiness for self-sacrifice, her kindness of heart, her spotless heroism, were celebrated in prose and verse; a veil of anecdotes, richly bedewed with tears, and woven for the most IX A* INTRODUCTION part by aristocratic hands, was prepared to half-con ceal the transfigured countenance of the "martyred Queen." In this matter, as in most, truth lies somewhere near the middle. Marie Antoinette was neither the great saint of royalism nor yet the great whore of the Revolution, but a mediocre, an average woman; not exceptionally able nor yet exceptionally foolish; neither fire nor ice; devoid of any vigorous wish to do good and of the remotest inclination to do evil; the average woman of yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow; lacking impulse towards the daimonic, uninspired by the will to heroism, and there fore (one might fancy) unsuited to become the heroine of a tragedy. But history, the demiurge, can construct a profoundly moving drama even though there is nothing heroic about its leading personalities. Tragical tension is not solely conditioned by the mighty lineaments of central figures, but also by a disproportion between man and his destiny. This disproportion is invariably tragical. It may manifest itself dramatically when a titan, a hero, a genius, finds himself in conflict with his environment, which proves too narrow and too hostile for the performance of his allotted task. Such is the tragedy of a Napoleon, prisoned on the remote island of St. Helena; of a Beethoven immured in deafness; of every great man denied scope for his powers. But tragedy arises no less when a momentous position, a crushing responsibility, is thrust upon a mediocrity or a weakling. Indeed, tragedy in this form makes a strong appeal to our human sym pathies. A man out of the ordinary run is unconsciously impelled to seek a fate out of the ordinary run. His super- dimensional temperament makes him organically in clined to live heroically, or (to use Nietzsche's word) "dangerously." He challenges the world because it is his nature to do so. Thus in the last analysis the genius is partly responsible for his own sufferings, since his inward X INTRODUCTION vocation mystically craves for the fiery ordeal which can alone evoke his uttermost energies. His relentless fate drives him swiftly, and uplifts him as the storm a sea- gull. The mediocrity, on the other hand, is temperamentally disposed towards an easy and peaceful existence. He does not want, does not need, tension, but would rather live quietly and inconspicuously, where the wind blows not fiercely and destiny does her work in milder fashion. That is why he adopts the defensive, that is why he grows anxious, that is why he flees, whenever an unseen hand tries to thrust him into the forefront of the fray. Far from craving for a position of historical responsibility, he shrinks from it. He does not seek suffering, but has to bear it when it is forced upon him. If he is ever com pelled to transcend his own standards, the compulsion has come from without, not from within. Precisely be cause the average man, the mediocrity, lacks vision, lacks insight, his sorrow seems to me as great as—and perhaps more moving than—that of the true hero whose misfor tunes stir the popular imagination; for poor Everyman has to bear his cross unaided, and has not, like the artist, the spiritual salvation of being able to transform his torment into work and thus give it lasting form. The life of Marie Antoinette is perhaps the most signal example in history of the way in which destiny will at times pluck a mediocre human being from obscurity, and with commanding hand, force the man or the woman in question to overstep the bounds of mediocrity. During the first thirty of her eight-and-thirty years, she pursued her inconspicuous course, though in an exalted sphere as far as social station was concerned; never transgressing the conventional standards whether for good or for evil; a tepid creature, an average woman; and, historically regarded, to begin with, nothing more than a lay-figure decked in a queen's robes. Had it not been for the out- XI