But there came a day when the queen began to see that she was not the ruler but the ruled,--when she saw that she was not acting out her own will, but was tyrannized over by those who had been made powerful through her favor.
"I have been compelled to take part in political affairs," said she, "because the king, in his noble, good-humored way, has too little confidence in himself, and, out of his self-distrust, lets himself be controlled by the opinions of others. And so it is best that I should be his first confidante, and that he should take me to be his chief adviser, for his interests are mine, and these children are mine, and surely no one can speak more truly and honestly to the King of France than his queen, his wife, the mother of his children!
And so if the king is not perfectly independent, and feels himself too weak to stand alone, and independently to exert power, he ought to rest on me; I will bear a part in his government, his business, that at any rate they who control be not my opponents, my enemies!"
For a while she yielded to her friends and favorites who wanted to stand in the same relation to the queen that she did to the king--she yielded, not like Louis, from weakness, but from the very power of her love for them.
She yielded at the time when Diana de Polignac, urged by her brother-in-law, Polignac, and by Lord Besenval, conjured the queen to nominate Lord Calonne to be general comptroller of the finances.
She yielded, and Calonne, the flatterer, the courtier of Polignac, received the important appointment, although Marie Antoinette experienced twinges of conscience for it, and did not trust the man whom she herself advanced to this high place. Public opinion, meanwhile, gave out that Lord Calonne was a favorite of the queen; and, while she bore him no special favor, and considered his appointment as a misfortune to France, she who herself promoted him became the object of public indignation.
Meanwhile the nomination of Lord Calonne was to be productive of real good. It gave rise to the publication of a host of libels and pamphlets which discussed the financial condition of France, and, in biting and scornful words, in the language of sadness and despair, developed the need and the misfortune of the land. The king gave the chief minister of police strict injunctions to send him all these ephemeral publications. He wanted to read them all, wanted to find the kernel of wheat which each contained, and, from his enemies, who assuredly would not flatter, he wanted to learn how to be a good king. And the first of his cares he saw to be a frugal king, and to limit his household expenses.
This time he acted independently; he asked no one's counsel, not even the queen's. As his own unconstrained act, he ordered a diminution of the court luxury, and a limitation of the great pensions which were paid to favorites. The great stable of the king must be reduced, the chief directorship of the post bureau must be abolished, the high salary of the governess of the royal children as well as that of the maid of honor of Madame Elizabeth, sister of the king, must be reduced.
And who were the ones affected by this? Chiefly the Polignac family.
The Duke de Polignac was director of the royal mews, and next to him the Duke de Coigny. The Duke de Polignac was also chief director of the post department. His wife, Diana de Polignac, was also maid of honor to Madame Elizabeth, and Julia de Polignac was governess of the children of Prance.
They would not believe it; they held it impossible that so unheard-of a thing should happen, that their income should be reduced. The whole circle of intimate friends resorted to Trianon, to have an interview with the queen, to receive from her the assurance that she would not tolerate such a robbing of her friends, and that she would induce the king to take back his commands.
The queen, however, for the first time, made a stand against her friends.
"It is the will of the king," said she, "and I am too happy that the king has a will, to dare opposing it. May the king reign! It is his duty and his right, as it is the duty and right of all his subjects to conform to his wish and be subject to his will."
"But," cried Lord Besenval, "it is horrible to live in a country where one is not sure but he may lose tomorrow what he holds to-day; down to this time that has always been the Turkish fashion."
[Footnote: His very words. See Goncourt's "Histoire de Marie Antoinette," p. 181.]
The queen trembled and raised her great eyes with a look full of astonishment and pain to Besenval, then to the other friends; she read upon all faces alienation and unkindly feeling. The mask of devoted courtiers and true servants had for the first time fallen from their faces, and Marie Antoinette discovered these all at once wholly estranged and unknown countenances; eyes without the beam of friendship, lips without the smile of devotion.