第8章 MADAME ADELAIDE.(3)

"I know, madame, that that letter which I then received from Madame Louise was an affront directed by the princess against the Queen of France, and I shall protect the majesty of my station from a similar affront. Unquestionably this letter is similar in tone to that one.

That one contained charges which went so far as to involve open condemnation, and contained proffers of counsel which meant little less than calumny. [Footnote: Gondrecourt, "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 59.] And what would this be likely to contain different, which your highness takes the trouble to bring to me?"

"Well," cried Madame Adelaide, angrily, "its purport may be similar to that of the former letter; for, unfortunately, the causes are the same, and we may not wonder if the effects are also the same."

"Ah! one can easily see that your highness knows the contents of the letter," said Marie Antoinette, smiling, "and you will therefore certainly pardon me for not reading it. It was unquestionably written in the presence of your highness, in the pious cell of the prioress. She gave over for a while her prayers for the repose of the departed king, in order to busy herself a little with worldly things, and to listen to the calumnies which Madame Adelaide, or the Count de Provence, or the Cardinal de Kohan, or some other of the enemies of my person, have sought to hurl against the Queen of France."

"Calumnies!" replied Madame Adelaide, with an angry flash in her eyes. "Would to God, madame, that it were calumnies with which we have to do, and that all these things which trouble and disturb us were only malicious calumnies, and not sober facts!"

"And will your highness not have the goodness to communicate these facts to me?" said the queen, undisturbed, but smiling, and so only increasing the anger of the princess.

"These facts are of so varied kinds that it would be a difficult thing to choose out any separate ones among them," cried she, with fiery tone. "Every day, every hour of the life of your majesty, brings new facts to light."

"Oh!" said Marie Antoinette, "I had no idea that your highness had such tender care for me."

"And I had no idea, madame, that your frivolity went so far as continually to wound the laws, the customs, and the hallowed order of things. You do it--you do it, scorning every thing established with the random wantonness of a child that plays with fire, and does not know that the waves will flare up and consume it. Madame, I have come here to warn you once more, and for the last time."

"God be thanked, for the last time!" cried the queen, with a charming glance of her eyes.

"I conjure you, queen, for your own sake, for your husband's, for your children's, change your course; take a new direction; leave the path of danger on which you are hastening to irretrievable destruction."

The countenance of the queen, before so pleasant and animated, now darkened. Her smile gave way to a deep earnestness; she raised her head proudly and put on a royal bearing.

"Madame," said she, "up to this time I have been inclined to meet your biting philippics with the quiet indifference which innocence gives, and to remain mindful of the reverence due to age, and not to forget the harsh eyes with which the aged always look upon the deeds of youth. But you compel me to take the matter more earnestly to heart, for you join to my name that of my husband and my children, and so you appeal to my heart of hearts. Now, then, tell me, madame, what you have to bring against me."

"Your boundless frivolity, your culpable short-sightedness, your foolish pleasures, your extravagance, your love of finery, your mixing with politics, your excessive jovialness, your entertainments, your--"

Marie Antoinette interrupted this series of charges with loud, merry laughter, which more enraged the princess than the most stinging words would have done.

"Yes," she continued, "you are frivolous, for you suppose the life of a queen is one clear summer's day, to be devoted to nothing but singing and laughing. You are short-sighted, for you do not see that the flowers of this summer's day in which you rejoice, only bloom above an abyss into which you, with your wanton dancing, are about to plunge. You indulge in foolish pleasures, instead of, as becomes a Queen of France, passing your life in seclusion, in devout meditation, in the exercise of beneficence, in pious deeds. You are a spendthrift, for you give the income of France to your favorites, to this Polignac family, which it has been reckoned receives alone a twentieth part of the whole income of the state; to these gracious lords and ladies of your so-called 'society,' supporting them in their frivolity, allowing them to make golden gain out of you. You are a lover of finery, not holding it beneath your dignity to spend whole hours with a poor milliner; allowing a man to dress your hair, and afterward to go into the toilet chambers of the Parisian dames, that their hair may be dressed by the same hands which have arranged the hair of a queen, and to imitate the coiffure which the Queen of France wears. And what kind of a coiffure is that which, invented by a queen, is baptized with a fantastic name, and carried through Paris, France, and all Europe?"

"But," said Marie Antoinette, with comical pathos, "these coiffures have, some of them, horrid names. We have, for example, the 'hog's bristles coiffure,' the 'flea-bite coiffure,' the 'dying dog,' the 'flame of love,' 'modesty's cap,' a--"