LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter VI.

       The Court and the Parliament

       Table of Contents

      Death of Louis XV.—Education of Louis XVI.—Maurepas, Prime Minister.—Turgot; his Expulsion from Office.—Necker.—Franklin.—Sympathy with the Americans.—La Fayette.—Views of the Court.—Treaty with America.—Popularity of Voltaire.—Embarrassment of Necker.—Compte Rendu au Roi.—Necker driven into Exile.—Enslavement of France.—New Extravagance.—Calonne.

      As the clock of Versailles tolled the hour of twelve at midnight of the 10th of May, 1774, Louis XV., abandoned by all, alone in his chamber, died. In the most loathsome stages of the confluent small-pox, his body had for several days presented but a mass of corruption. Terror had driven all the courtiers from the portion of the palace which he occupied, and even Madame du Barry dared not approach the bed where her guilty paramour was dying. The nurse hired to attend him could not remain in the apartment, but sat in an adjoining room. A lamp was placed at the window, which she was to extinguish as soon as the king was dead. Eagerly the courtiers watched the glimmering of that light that they might be the first to bear to Louis, the grandson of the king, the tidings that he was monarch of France.

Louis was then hardly twenty years of age.39 His wife, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Theresa, Queen of Austria, was scarcely nineteen. They had been married four years. Marie Antoinette was one of the most beautiful of women, but from infancy she had been educated in the belief that kings and nobles were created to illustrate life by gayety and splendor, and that the people were created only to be their servants.40

The taper was extinguished, and the crowd of courtiers rushed to the apartment of the Dauphin to hail him as Louis XVI. The tidings, though expected, for a moment overwhelmed them both, and, encircled in each other's arms, they fell upon their knees, while Louis exclaimed, "O God! guide us, protect us, we are too young to govern."41 They then entered the grand saloon, where they received the congratulations of all the dignitaries of the Church and the State. All were anxious to escape from the palace whose atmosphere was tainted, and hardly an hour elapsed ere the new court, in carriages and on horseback, left Versailles and were passing rapidly to the Chateau of Choisy, one of the favorite rural palaces of Louis XV. The loathsome remains of the king were left to the care of a few under-servants to be hurried to their burial.

It was not yet four o'clock in the morning. The sleepless night, the chill morning air, the awful scene of death from which they had come, oppressed all spirits. Soon, however, the sun rose warm and brilliant; a jocular remark dispelled the mental gloom, and in two hours they arrived at the palace a merry party exulting in the new reign. The education of Louis XVI. had been such that he was still but a boy, bashful, self-distrusting, and entirely incompetent to guide the kingdom through the terrific storm which for ages had been gathering. He had not the remotest idea of the perils with which France was surrounded. He was an exceedingly amiable young man, of morals most singularly pure for that corrupt age, retiring and domestic in his tastes, and sincerely desirous of promoting the happiness of France. Geography was the only branch of learning in which he appeared to take any special interest. He framed, with much sagacity, the instructions for the voyage of La Pérouse around the world in 1786, and often lamented the fate of this celebrated navigator, saying, "I see very well that I am not fortunate."42 How mysterious the government of God, that upon the head of this benevolent, kind-hearted, conscientious king should have been emptied, even to the dregs, those vials of wrath which debauched and profligate monarchs had been treasuring up for so many reigns!