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Madame Du Barry 
 

 BE GON COURT 
 
 WITH PHOT* 
 FIFTEEN OTHER 
 
 E AND 
 
 LONDOJ 
 
 JO 
 
 NORRIS STREET, H, 
 
 

MADAME DU BARRY 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMOND AND JULES DE GONGOURT 
 
 WITH PHOTOGRAVURE AND 
 FIFTEEN OTHER PORTRAITS 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN LONG, LIMITED 
 
 NORRIS STREET, HAYMARKET 
 
 MGMX1V 
 
JC/35" 
 
DC 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. 
 
 Hardy's Journal dated February ist, 1769 Esther du Barry and 
 " Haman " Choiseul. The struggle between the Encyclopedic Party 
 and the Devotee Party. The " Republican Multitude." Choiseul on 
 his defence with regard to his religion. Certificate of birth of 
 Jeanne Bequs, called "La Du Barry." Her Childhood. She takes 
 up her Abode with "La Frederique." The Community of Sainte- 
 Aure. The Chateau of Cour-Neuve. Madame Labille's Millinery 
 Establishment. The Comte du Barry. His Past. His second-hand 
 Traffic in Mistresses. The Supper at Lebel's 3 
 
 II. 
 
 Guillaume du Barry ordered to Paris. The Forged Vaubernier 
 Certificate of Birth. The articles of the Contract of Marriage with 
 the Comte Guillaume. The Bride's Share. The Celebration of the 
 Marriage and the Husband's Return to Toulouse. Madame du Barry 
 taking possession of Lebel's Quarters. The furniture of the Apart- 
 ments at Versailles 26 
 
 III. 
 
 The Choiseul Monarchy. The Minister's Brutality towards Ma- 
 dame d'Esparbes. Influence of the Duchesse de Gramont on her 
 Brother. The " Bourbonnaise " and the Satirical Prints. The Roue's 
 Diplomacy aided and sustained by "La Chon."The Marechal de 
 Richelieu in the role of protector. The Presentation of the Comtesse 
 du Barry at Versailles. The Perfection and the Childlike Daintiness 
 of the Woman's Beauty , , 42 
 
Contents 
 
 IV. 
 
 Repugnances of titled women towards the Favourite. Purchase of 
 the Marechale de Mirepoix's " Chaperonnage." The Duchesse de 
 Valentinois, the Marquise de 1'Hopital, the Princesse de Montmo- 
 rency. Skilful effacement of the Favourite. The Bellevue Supper. 
 The Gift of Luciennes. The Courtiers' Meannesses and the Che- 
 valier de la Marliere's Dedication. Portrait of Chancellor Mau- 
 peou 59 
 
 V. 
 
 The Review in the Royal-Lieu at Compiegne. The Honqurs of 
 Chantilly paid by the Prince of Conde to the Comtesse du Barry. 
 The Two Portraits by Drouais in the Salon of 1769. Choiseul's Act 
 of Submission. Louis XV.'s Letter "with reference to his Mistress. 
 Chignons a la Du Barry. Flung from a Stag to the King's Pavilion. 
 Bouret's Design 74 
 
 VI. 
 
 Nomination of the Abbe Terrai to the post of Controller-General. 
 Choiseul alarms the Favourite with the announcement of the Dauph- 
 iness's Arrival. The Continuation of the Case of D'Aiguillon Ac- 
 cused of Acts-which stained his Honour. The Chancellor's "Job- 
 bery." Madame du Barry becoming D'Aiguillon's Mistress ancl the 
 Instrument of Choiseul's Dismissal. Removal from the Records of 
 the Palais de Justice of the Minutes of the D'Aiguillon case. Cool- 
 ness of the King towards Choiseul. Denunciation of the Abbe de la 
 Ville. -The Rising of the Council of September 21, 1770 89 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Signature of Contracts on Sunday, September 23, 1770. 
 The Intrigues of Cromot with the Prince of Conde. Lettre de 
 Cachet exiling the Due de Choiseul to Chanteloup. Monteynard's 
 Appointment to the War Office. Madame du Barry's " I take back 
 my Promise." The Gracious Intervention of the Favourite in the 
 Dismissal of M, de Choiseul from his Post of Colonel-General of 
 
Contents 
 
 S w i ss .-_ The Purchase of Vandyke's Picture representing Charles 
 I. The Due d'Aiguillon's Appointment as Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs made the occasion of a Dinner at Luciennes Mortal Appre- 
 hensions amongst Choiseul's Party. The "respectful" Homage of 
 the Princes of the Blood 104 
 
 VIII. 
 
 The Luxury of a Woman of Pleasure. The Accounts of Madame 
 du Barry. Invoices of Mile. Bertin, of the " Traits Galants," of 
 Roettiers, &c. The Gold Toilet The Palace-Boudoir of Luciennes. 
 The Dining-room. The Square Salon. The Two Parlours. 
 Zamore. The Complaisances of the Controller-General 128 
 
 IX. 
 
 Efforts of the Favourite to have Social Intercourse with Marie 
 Antoinette. Mercy-Argenteau's Interview with the Comtesse du 
 Barry. Madame Adelaide preventing Marie-Antoinette from Speak- 
 ing to f-he Favourite. The Roue's Unreasonable Claims. The 
 " Drolesse " Ballad. The Low Amusements of Luciennes. The 
 Lowering of Royalty through Contact with a Courtesan 143 
 
 X. 
 
 Madame du Barry's Qualities as a " Good-natured Girl of the 
 Town/' Her Family. Her Daughter, Madame de Boissaisson. 
 Marriage of the Vicomte Adolphe. Fresh Attempts of the Favourite 
 to Get into Marie Antoinette's Good Graces. The Ear-rings worth 
 700,000 livres. Project of a Dissolution of the Du Barry's Marriage 
 by the Pope 159 
 
 XL 
 
 Intrigues of Women Seeking to dispossess Madame du Barry of 
 the King's Heart. Madame Louise, the Carmelite. The Chancellor 
 passing over to the Devotee Party. The Physique of Old Louis XV. 
 The Remark of the Surgeon, La Martiniere. The Lent of 1773. 
 
 vii 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Madame du Barry Frontispiec 
 
 Madame de Pompadour facing page 22 
 
 Louis the Dauphin 52 
 
 Louis XV 66 
 
 Madame du Barry 88 
 
 Madame Necker n8 
 
 Marie Antoinette 144 
 
 Madame Louise ...... 180 
 
 Madame de Chateauroux 192 
 
 Louis XVI 202 
 
 Princesse de Lamb'alle ,, 246 
 
 Marat . . 258 
 
 Due d' Angouleme . . . . . . 270 
 
 Duchesse d' Angouleme 290 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville .... . . 304 
 
 Madame Elisabeth 322 
 
 2 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 i. 
 
 Hardy's Journal dated February ist,.i769. Esther du Barry and 
 "Haman" Choiseul. The struggle between the Encyclopedic Party 
 and the Devotee Party. The " Republican Multitude." Choiseul on 
 his defence with regard to his religion. Certificate of birth of 
 Jeanne Bequs, called "La Du Barry." Her Childhood. She takes 
 up her Abode with "La Frederique." The Community of Sainte- 
 Aure. The Chateau of Cour-Neuve. Madame Labille's Millinery 
 Establishment. The Comte du Barry. His Past. His second-hand 
 Traffic in Mistresses. The Supper at Lebel's. 
 
 HARDY, a citizen of Paris, who in the eighteenth century 
 had the patience to keep a record of the various events of 
 his time, the rumours and news of the city of Paris, all the 
 things that he saw, heard, and learned, relates in his 
 " Manuscript Journal/' 1 hitherto unpublished, that on the 
 ist of February, 1769, CancfTdmas^Eye, a priest, who was a 
 friend of his, went to dine at a house trte-name of which is 
 not mentioned. It was the moment when the gossip of 
 Paris was all about the Comtesse du Barry. At dessert, 
 another priest, who was dining at this house with two of 
 his brethren, invited Hardy's friend, as well as the rest of 
 the company, to drink " to the presentation ;" and as Hardy's 
 friend was not quite sure as to what this meant, and asked 
 whether it referred to the presentation of Our Lord in the 
 
 1 Fragments of this Journal have been published by the Nouvelle 
 Revue Encyclopedique, but the manuscript has not yet been pub- 
 lished in book form. 
 
I 
 
 Madame D\i Barry- 
 Temple which was to take place next day, the priest who 
 had proposed the toast, said to him in reply : " It refers 
 to the presentation which took place yesterday, or is going 
 to take place to-day the presentation of the new Esther, 
 who is to replace Haman and to rescue the Jewish people 
 from oppression." * 
 
 Ponder over this scene and those words : they furnish the 
 explanation of Madame du Barry's good-fortune. 
 
 In that war of ideas, the great war of the eighteenth 
 century, in that conflict of minds, and of souls, ardent and 
 ruthless, in that civil war of consciences, in which blood no 
 longer flowed, but in which persecution continued, in the 
 time of the excommunication and proscription of public 
 opinion, when a sort of retaliation for the Edict of Nantes 
 was exercised against the militant order of the Jesuits 
 on that army of old men driven by the hand of Choiseul out 
 of that France where their houses were falling into ruin, 
 in the midst of that rending and clash between the usages 
 of the old French spirit and the new audacities which had 
 for their minister M. de Choiseul between those two ir- 
 reconcilable extremes, the Church and Royalty on one side, 
 the Revolution on the other, thinking mea-ito longer saw 
 in Madame du Barry the woman, the courtesan, the lady of 
 the pavement, "theT5u Barry": they only saw in her an 
 instrument, a weapon, by means of which a party kills a 
 party. And so it was strange fact that in this eighteenth 
 
 1 " Journal of Events as they came to my knowledge." By Hardy. 
 National Library MSS. 6680-6682. 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 century, accustomed to make woman the agent whereby 
 changes of Government could be brought about, Madame 
 du Barry unwittingly rallied around her all the religious 
 sentiments and all the political sentiments which had been 
 thwarted, wounded, humiliated by the minister, Choiseul. 
 All that was left of old France rooted in her beliefs, and 
 terrified by the chain of incredulity in which the links con- 
 necting Fontenelle with Voltaire were joined together by 
 the physician La Mettrie, the geologist Demaillet, the 
 physicist Boulanger, the naturalist Buffon, the geometri- 
 cian d'Alembert, all the men whose minds were disturbed 
 by the attack which the knowledge of natural things, the 
 exact, positive, material sciences, provoked against the 
 mysteries of the supernatural world, the men who were 
 opposed to the novelty of governmental theories, to the 
 dream of systems, to the experiment of progress, those 
 who, after the meeting of the Bishops, believed that the 
 Church and the State were united in life and in death, and 
 saw a political revolution at the end of a religious revolu- 
 tion, those who so far back as 1765 announced that " the 
 philosophic spirit was destined to give birth to the stran- 
 gest revolutions and to precipitate France into the horrors 
 of anarchy," those again who thought that the human 
 mind was held fast and safeguarded in the future by the 
 education imparted to youth by the Jesuit body 1 all this 
 
 1 In 1762, President d'Aiguilles declared that, with the destruction 
 of the Jesuits, " Anglicism," otherwise called Republicanism, " would 
 on:: day form the spirit of the nation." 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 great party was condemned to silence its repugnances in 
 order to push forward Madame du Barry into the position 
 in which she might be of service to it. A thousand pas- 
 sions, a thousand devotions, the relations, friendships, 
 memories, interest which a great order leaves behind it, 
 the fright of Louis XV.'s heart in the presence of the " Re- 
 publican multitude," 1 over which his successor should 
 reign, the secret resentments of the Dauphin and the 
 Dauphiness against Choiseul, bequeathed in the testament 
 of Louis XVL, the hopes of the Queen embroidering with 
 her hands, which were soon to be chilled by death, an or- 
 nament for the first house of the Jesuits after their restora- 
 tion all rallied or attached themselves through the party 
 to this State presentation. Hence this understanding, this 
 instinctive complicity around the mistress, those hands and 
 those invisible succours which sustained the Du Barry; 
 hence that breath and that aid of a strong public opinion 
 which carried her to power on the cloud of Psyche. 
 
 M. de Choiseul did not deceive himself as to the mean- 
 ing of Madame du Barry's accession to favour. His reply 
 to every reproach made in detail to his administration was 
 that which he had made in 1765 when the party grouped 
 by Soubise behind Madame d'Esparbes, the same which 
 he again found behind Madame du Barry, had sought to 
 effect his dismissal. " What though people may say," re- 
 
 1 An expression used in a letter of Louis XV. to Choiseul dated 
 Fontainebleau, October 15, 1765, and communicated by the Due de 
 Choiseul to the Revue de Paris, 1829, Vol. IV. 
 
 6 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 marked M. de Choiseul in a sort of justification addressed 
 to the King, " that I have striven to drive out the Jesuits 
 and that I have upheld the claims and pretensions of the 
 Parliaments, on every side, I have taken no step to pro- 
 mote these objects, and have had no other ideas save those 
 which your Majesty has observed when my advice was 
 asked for in the Council Chamber. . . . Finally the 
 great reproach falls on my religion. It is difficult to at- 
 tack me positively on this serious matter. I never speak 
 about the subject; but, as far as form is concerned, I pay 
 strict attention to decency, and in the conduct of affairs 
 my principle is to sustain religion." 1 And the Duke did not 
 deceive himself. Three years after that time, in a family 
 assembly at the residence of Mesdames, in the presence of 
 the Dauphiness, whom the King's aunts knew to be se- 
 cretly attached to the person and the policy of Choiseul, 
 the conversation happening to turn on the fall of his min- 
 istry, Madame Adelaide exclaimed that the exile of the 
 Duke had saved religion in France, inasmuch as it was 
 manifest that this minister's object had been to destroy it 
 utterly. 2 
 
 What, nevertheless, was this woman to whom the ironies 
 of History assigned and thought fit to entrust such a part 
 as the restoration of the monarchic authority and of the 
 
 1 Memoirs of the Due de Choiseul, delivered up to the King in 
 1765, and referred to in the Revue Franqaise of July, 1828. 
 
 " Secret Correspondence of Mercy- Argenteau." Didot, 1875. 
 Despatch from Mercy to Maria Theresa, May 18, 1773. 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 religious authority? We are going to tell, as best we can, 
 the story of this woman's life. 
 
 "Jeanne, natural daughter of Anne Bequs called Quan- 
 tiny, was born on the I9th of August, in the year one 
 thousand seven hundred and forty-three and was baptized 
 the same day. Her godfather was Joseph Demange and 
 her godmother Jeanne Birabin who have attached their sig- 
 natures along with mine. 
 
 "L. GALON, 
 "Vicar of Vaucouleurs 
 " Jeanne Birabin. 
 
 " Joseph Demange/' 1 
 
 Such is the certificate of Madame du Barry's birth, the 
 truth as to her origin, a truth hitherto ignored or mis- 
 understood by history. 
 
 In the midst of contradictory narratives, in view of the 
 evident hostility of the anecdotes and memoirs published 
 the day after Louis XV. 's death, in view of the predisposi- 
 tion towards the paradox of rehabilitations since attempted, 
 and in the face of biographies which seem to take into ac- 
 count only the novel-reading public, it is rather difficult to 
 trace up, to distinguish, and to determine the exact truth 
 with regard to the childhood and early youth of Madame 
 
 1 This certificate of the birth of Madame du Barry, extracted from 
 the records of the civil government of the town of Vaucouleurs, and 
 delivered to Saint-Mihiel, on the 25th of September, 1827, has been 
 confirmed for us by a letter of the Mayor of Vaucouleurs, date the 
 30th of November, 1859. 
 
 8 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 du Barry. It is necessary, it seems to us, to be satisfied 
 with probable truth. Besides, that is sufficient for biog- 
 raphies of this kind, and posterity may console itself for 
 not possessing absolute certainty and perfect knowledge as 
 to the precise degree of weakness to which a woman de- 
 scended who has become a historic personage by chance, 
 and, as it were, by sheer inadvertence. 
 
 Out of all the traditions of the eighteenth century which 
 agree in giving Madame du Barry a certain Gomard de 
 Vaubernier as a father, an error to which we shall find the 
 key later on, and a financier named Dumonceau as a god- 
 father, it seems that there is scarcely any authentic fact 
 to be gathered save that the mother and daughter endured 
 great privations in Paris, and perhaps that, before going 
 to Paris, Anne Becu had been the recipient of charity and 
 kindness at the hands of this M. Dumonceau, who was one 
 of the principal persons interested in supplying provisions 
 to the army. It is in this sense that we are going to follow 
 the narratives of the time. 
 
 Little Jeanne's mother, left without resources, conceived 
 the idea of setting out for Paris to try her luck there, and 
 her first visit was to the rich financier, whose memory and 
 whose acts of kindness had left an impression on her 
 heart. M. Dumonceau, who had almost forgotten his lit- 
 tle protegee, was astonished at her pretty face and her arch 
 manner. He gave the mother twelve livres, promising to 
 allow her an equal sum every month to enable little Jeanne 
 to learn to read and write. At the end of some months 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 and some dozens of livres, the worthy Dumonceau became 
 deeply interested in the mother's distress; and, in the in- 
 genuousness of his character, he could think of nothing 
 better than to send the mother and daughter to live with 
 his mistress, Mademoiselle Frederique, a courtesan, who 
 enjoyed almost a reputation at this period. 1 
 
 The pretty child was developing into a charming young 
 girl when Mademoiselle Frederique, who was a lively 
 young woman, thought she was growing very quickly, and 
 began to have some apprehensions as to the future. She 
 persuaded M. Dumonceau, who on another side was 
 preached at by a very pious parent, to make little Jeanne 
 enter the convent of Sainte-Aure. 2 
 
 1 La Frederique, also known by the name of Souville, had origi- 
 nally been kept in rather a mean style by M. de Vouvray, Master of 
 Requests. To M. de Vouvray had succeeded one M. de Boisgelin, a 
 follower of the Due de Berry, who had the beauty removed from the 
 Rue de la Truanderie and installed in a pretty apartment in the Rue 
 de Richelieu and liberally supplied her with everything she needed. 
 This did not prevent La Frederique from being a gay woman and 
 frequenting the suppers at the little house of La Brissault and others. 
 La Frederique was a tall, beautiful girl, very red-haired, and cele- 
 brated for her "accomplished debauchery." Journal of M. de Sar- 
 tines's Inspectors. Dentu, 1863. 
 
 a "Anecdotes about the Comtesse Du Barry." London, 1775. 
 This is the book containing the greatest amount of documentary in- 
 formation as the life of Mme. du Barry, and a great portion of it 
 has been made out of the " Secret Memoirs," a book which other 
 books that followed it have only copied and paraphrased. But let 
 us give here a list of the favourite's biographies : 
 
 "Authentic Memoirs of the Comtesse de Barre (sic), Mistress of 
 Louis XV., King of France, extracted from a manuscript in the pos- 
 session of the Duchesse de Villeroy." By the Chevalier Fr. V. . . ., 
 
 10 
 
Madame Dm Barry 
 
 The daughters of Sainte-Aure were a community whose 
 specialty and aim were quite peculiar. Sainte-Aure did 
 not serve the purpose of a refuge for the frail, a retreat for 
 sinners: this convent was intended to save persons from 
 
 London. Printed at the expense of the Publishers, 1772 (one volume, 
 I2mo). This is a little romance which has not the slightest resem- 
 blance to the history of Madame du Barry. 
 
 " Historic Summary of the Life of the Comtesse du Barry, with 
 her Portrait." Paris, 1774 (one small volume, I2mo or 8vo). 
 
 " Cythera's Gazette, or the Secret History of Madame du Barry." 
 London, 1775 (one small volume, I2mo). 
 
 " History and Life of the Comtesse du Barry." Pont-aux-Dames, 
 1775 (one small volume, I2mo). 
 
 "Remarks on the Anecdotes of the Comtesse du Barry." By 
 Madame S. G. (oudar). London, 1777 (one small volume, I2tno). 
 
 " The Pleasures of the City and of the Court, or Refutation of the 
 Anecdotes and Summary of the Life of the Comtesse du Barry, 
 written by Herself." London, 1778 (one volume, I2mo). A rare 
 little romance which paraphrases the "Anecdotes." 
 
 " Letters of the Comtesse du Barry, with those of the Princes, 
 Noblemen, Ministers and others who have written to her, gathered 
 from all Possible Sources." London, 1779. (Apocryphal corre- 
 spondence.) 
 
 " Life of the Comtesse du Barry, followed by her epistolary Cor- 
 respondence and her Gallant and Political Intrigues." (8vo.) This 
 biography, in which her death is announced, contains a portrait with 
 the words underneath: "The Messalina whom you see. . . ." 
 
 " The Illustrious Victims Avenged." By Montigny. (8vo.) Con- 
 taining a long notice about Madame du Barry. 
 
 "Historic Memoirs of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier, Comtesse 
 du Barry. Prepared from Two Authentic Fragments." By M. de 
 Favrolles (Madame Guenard). Paris, Lerouge, 1803 (four volumes, 
 I2mo). This book, written without being subjected to stricture, con- 
 tains, in three or four volumes, the greater number of fragments 
 seized at Luciennes, and to-day in the National Archives. 
 
 " Memoirs of the Comtesse du Barri." By Lamothe-Langon. Abel 
 Ledoux, 1843 (five volumes, 8vo). A romance without the least his- 
 torical value. 
 
 ii 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 falling. According to the view of the reformers of this in- 
 stitution, it was an asylum open, at a modest cost of two 
 hundred francs, to every young woman who, born of a 
 virtuous family, " found herself in circumstances in which 
 she ran the risk of being ruined." 1 The ten livres were 
 paid for the bed ; the little girl was provided with two pairs 
 of sheets and six napkins 2 and the gates of the convent in 
 the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve were closed upon her. 
 
 To a young girl brought up in this fashion, knowing 
 nothing of life except what she had seen at Madamoselle 
 Frederique's, cradled in this luxury of a young girl's exist- 
 ence, with her head and her eyes dazzled by ribbons and fine 
 dresses, to a child spoiled by petting and caresses like this 
 pretty young creature, already coquettish, and already dis- 
 playing that roguish humour which even Versailles could 
 not restrain, the descent was great and the change severe. 
 
 Farewell to the charming little gown, fashionably cut, 
 
 1 " Picture of Humanity and Beneficence, or Historic Summary of 
 the Charities which are practised in Paris." 
 
 2 " State or Picture of the City of Paris." 1760. 
 
 " The Comtesse du Barry." By Capefigue. Amyot, 1858. 
 
 "Madame du Barry, 1768-1793." By J. R. Le Roy. Versailles, 
 1858. A pamphlet full of original documents of the greatest interest. 
 
 Two fragments are also connected with the history of the Favourite. 
 The first, " Equality Acquired Shadily, or the Little History of Pro- 
 tection," is the most complete narrative of the persecution to which 
 she was subjected in 1793 at Luciennes. The other has no interest 
 save that of its title : " The Descent of La Barry into Hell, and her 
 reception at Pluto's Court by the Widow Capet, who has become the 
 Favourite Fury of Proserpine." 
 
 12 
 
Madame Du Harry 
 
 which she wore at La Frederique's ! On this head so full 
 of gaiety behold a double veil of plain black stuff accom- 
 panied by a common " guimpe " without starch. Behold 
 on those fair tresses a band of coarse linen which con- 
 ceals them and falls down so as to cover three-fourths of 
 the forehead. Her gown is of white Aumale serge of an 
 ordinary pattern without any arrangement or superfluous 
 ornament, and her little feet are cased in calfskin shoes 
 yellow and unfashionable, fastened with two similar laces. 
 And no way of avoiding this pitiless discipline as to cos- 
 tume: do not the archives of the community preserve as a 
 model and as a pattern a hieratic statue thus attired? 
 
 And everything around little Jeanne is plain, severe, and 
 sad, like her new costume, in this community so curtailed 
 that she has no silver save the plate of the infirmary and 
 no gold save the gilding of the altar. It is the vow of pov- 
 erty in all its rigour, forbidding to each one personal pos- 
 session, suppressing the thine and the mine ; it is the work 
 of the hands, the work of instruction, while maintaining 
 deep silence. There are prohibited and punished the jests, 
 the dainty airs, the exaggerated or sudden outbursts of 
 laughter, every pleasant phrase, every bantering tone. 1 
 Vain prohibitions! over which little Jeanne soon jumped, 
 bringing into the austere house the gaiety of her age and 
 her disposition, and causing there the revolution of Vert- 
 
 " Constitution of the Nuns of Saint-Aure according to the rule 
 of Saint Augustine." Paris, at Simon's Printing-house, Printer to 
 the Archbishop of Paris, 1786. 
 
 13 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Vert. The noise, the bad example of such youthful mirth, 
 vainly chidden and curbed, the contagion of which was to 
 be feared, got the charming little madcap sent home to 
 her mother, that is to say to La Frederique's. La Frede- 
 rique, considering that the attractions of her protegee, now 
 grown up and formed, were more dangerous than ever, and, 
 tired of the mother, whom she suspected of spying on her 
 domestic concerns, conceived the idea of making a great 
 outcry as to the singularly familiar relations of Jeanne's 
 mother with a Capuchin friar named Gomard. Owing to 
 this scandal and the well-simulated indignation of La 
 Frederique, M. Dumonceau had the mother and daughter 
 turned out of doors. 
 
 It was about this time that the little girl of fifteen, 
 penniless, and left to face the world, showed herself in the 
 streets like the " Mignonne " of Retif de la Bretonne, carry- 
 ing in a little open box little " hardware " articles, going 
 from door to door, and offering to everyone who passed 
 her watch-guards, her snuff-boxes, her imitation pearls, 
 her pins with brilliants, her pin-cases, and all the paltry 
 goods which are bought on account of the tradeswoman's 
 bright eyes, and which are paid for as the purchase of her 
 smile; an open-air shop, a rough occupation, such an in- 
 significant business that it seemed a pretext, dubious wan- 
 derings up and down the slippery pavement, exposed to the 
 chance of being addressed and having proposals made to 
 her, to the want which leads into temptation, to the ser- 
 vants picking up whatever amuses their masters. Years 
 
 14 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 afterwards, the Comte de Genlis, one of the most fascinat- 
 ing libertines of the age, expressed his astonishment to the 
 Comte d'Allonville when he recognized at Versailles in the 
 woman to whom he was presented a little girl of the streets 
 whom his valet had once brought to him. 1 
 
 During this period a change took place in the family 
 which led to the young girl being rescued from this shady 
 existence. Her uncle, or her pretended uncle, the Capuchin 
 friar, who had got into the priesthood, became, by a plural- 
 ism worthy of the period and suited to the man, the al- 
 moner of the chapel and at the same time the prompter for 
 the plays performed at the chateau of Cour-Neuve, where 
 the aged wife of Lagarde, the Fermier-general, found 
 amusement for her closing years in society theatricals. The 
 Capuchin aroused in Madame Lagarde's breast such curi- 
 osity with regard to Jeanne that the old lady, becoming in- 
 terested in the pretty young girl, invited her to Cour- 
 Neuve, 2 was soon charmed by her face and by her babble, 
 and retained her services as a lady's companion, a chamber- 
 maid, if necessary. Unfortunately it so happened that 
 Madame Lagarde had sons who were young men ; ere long 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs from 1770 to 1830." By the Comte d'Allon- 
 ville. 1838. Volume I. 
 
 * An old residence in the neighbourhood of Paris entirely restored 
 in modern fashion, and retaining of its past only a double enclosure 
 of moats always filled with running water. The recreations of Cour- 
 Neuve have been the subject of description in a rare volume : " New 
 Year's Gifts of Cour-Neuve for the year 1774, dedicated to M. de la 
 Garde, Master of Requests." Cour-Neuve, 1774. 
 
 15 
 
Madame dia Barry 
 
 the chateau became the scene of the romance which might 
 naturally be anticipated, the commencement of an intrigue 
 with the seductive young creature; and once more the 
 mother and the daughter fell back from Cour-Neuve to the 
 streets of Paris. 
 
 There one must needs eat and live. The little peddleress 
 of haberdashery adopted a calling in which virtue was still 
 a somewhat difficult form of heroism, but in which the 
 temptations had not the same brutality. She entered, un- 
 der the name of Mademoiselle Lanqon, or perhaps Ranqon, 
 the name of the husband whom her mother had just 
 taken> the millinery establishment of M. Labille in the Rue 
 Saint-Honore, a brother of the female painter. 
 
 The history of milliners' apprentices in the eighteenth 
 century is neither very long in its course nor very varied 
 for the purposes of narration. Imagine stores, with glass 
 windows all round, where fascinating idlers, handsome 
 noblemen, kept ogling the girls from morning till night; 
 shutters which were used for correspondence, and which 
 allowed the notes folded up fan-fashion to be passed 
 through the peg-holes; little trips out of doors, where the 
 smart milliner's girl, such as Leclerc has sketched her in 
 the series of costumes of d'Esnault and Rapilly, trotted about 
 with a conquering air, her head covered with a big black 
 hat shaped like a calash allowing her fair curls to slip 
 down her rounded, shapely waist squeezed into a polonaise 
 of printed calico garnished with muslin; little shoes with 
 heels and buckles, and a light fan in her hand which she 
 
 16 
 
Madame du Barry- 
 kept moving about as she went along; imagine, at the end 
 of all this, conversations and proposals, and, after the pro- 
 posals and the responses to the proposals, it was for nearly 
 every one of them, as it was for the little Langon girl, some 
 Monsieur Lavauvenardiere, 1 or some Monsieur Duval, or 
 somebody else. 
 
 Some have held the view that Madame du Barry carried 
 her irregularity so far that she became the slave of de- 
 bauchery. They import into this stage of her career the 
 intervention of one of the most notorious procuresses of 
 the age. This is a point of controversy which we must 
 leave to scandal. However, in those first amorous experi- 
 ments of Madame du Barry may be seen sufficient liberty 
 of choice, sufficient fickleness, a taste and a disgust suffi- 
 ciently lively and personal to warrant us in assuming that 
 her heart was not quite shattered into fragments. 
 
 Soon comes her liason with Lamet the hair-dresser, so 
 quickly formed, so quickly broken off, when the milliner's 
 assistant, biting at luxury and acquiring extravagant tastes, 
 had eaten up the last coin of the hair-dresser in the furni- 
 ture which he bought for her. The hair-dresser fled to 
 England, and the young woman did not know what to do, 
 when her mother, who had become Madame Rangon, 
 brought her into contact with a neighbour, Madame Du- 
 quesnoy, who kept a gambling-house in the Rue de Bour- 
 bon. A gambling-house! this was always for women of 
 
 1 Lavauvenardiere was, according to Soulavie, the first acknowl- 
 edged or known lover of the Du Barry. 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 easy virtue the fitting rendezvous, the best place to snatch 
 at fortune; and at the house of the Duquesnoy, in the 
 midst of the circle attracted by her new and strange beauty, 
 the charming Jeanne was not slow in making a conquest of 
 the Comte du Barry, who promised to give her, in the kind 
 of seraglio which he had in Paris, the post of favourite 
 sultana. 1 
 
 The Comte du Barry was a gentleman from the neigh- 
 bourhood of Toulouse, who made a great boast about his 
 descent from the Barymores of England; 2 but whatever 
 nobility he had came from the municipal office of Toulouse. 
 He had remained in Toulouse up to his twenty-eighth year, 
 occupied in wasting his youth and in diminishing a rather 
 handsome fortune. Then, having exhausted provincial 
 life, 8 he came to Paris with ripened passions, a vague ap- 
 petite for change and fortune, an ambition which had no 
 object, and ready for anything. Through Madame de 
 Malause, he entered and established himself in good so- 
 ciety, and forced his way into acquaintanceships which en- 
 abled him subsequently to obtain for his son the position 
 
 1 " Anecdotes of the Comtesse du Barry." 
 
 2 The name Barrymore (not Barymore, as given in the text) is 
 well known in Ireland. The Barry family has for centuries resided 
 in the south of Ireland. One of the most distinguished Irish judges 
 bore this name. The title of Lord Barrymore is at present borne by 
 an Irishman, better known by his former name of the Hon. Smith- 
 Barry. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 8 Jean du Barry left behind in Toulouse his wife, a woman of 
 honorable family, who, it is stated in the " Anecdotes," never wished 
 to owe anything to the favor of the Du Barrys. 
 
 18 
 
Madame Dxa Barry 
 
 of page to the King. Foreign affairs had tempted him at 
 first; but the minister, Rouille, considering that his mind 
 was somewhat green, advised him to take a trip to Germany, 
 and tried his patience for some time by promising to em- 
 ploy him in the assembly of Franconia. After Rouille 
 came Bernis, who still kept him waiting with words; then 
 followed Choiseul, who brutally killed all the Comte's ex- 
 pectations. 
 
 Then, Du Barry, whose affairs were beginning to get 
 into an embarrassed condition, abandoned his dreams of 
 diplomacy and directed his attention towards more sub- 
 stantial objects. He obtained from De Berry er an interest 
 in the supplies for the Navy, from Belle-Isle an interest in 
 the military supplies, and then again an interest in the pro- 
 visions of Corsica. 1 His fortune, set once more afloat by 
 these three sources of income, made him more prodigal than 
 ever in his tastes, in his debaucheries, in gambling and 
 women, in that giddy life, cynical and unrestrained, which 
 gained for him the name of Roue. Between this man and 
 La Rangon or rather La Lange this was the assumed 
 name which the courtesan had adopted hardly anything 
 else could have happened but what did happen, a sailing- 
 match in which the parties only looked to what suited the 
 convenience of each of them. La Lange, who appears to 
 have given herself without much relish, remained attached 
 to this liaison on account of the money so liberally scat- 
 
 1 Correspondence of the Comte du Barry. Revue de Paris, No- 
 vember, 1836. 
 
 19 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 tered about by Du Barry, on account of that free, irregular, 
 glittering life which becomes a necessity to the woman of 
 pleasure, and perhaps also on account of the education which 
 she derived from that apprenticeship and from that friction 
 which moulded her into the ways of fashionable gallantry, 
 and washed out of her the grisette and the little milliner's 
 apprentice. She associated herself, in this sphere, with some 
 fashionable courtesans, and entered the salon of that species 
 of Ninon, Mademoiselle Legrand, who collected around 
 her the Colles and the Crebillons. 1 To Du Barry, accus- 
 tomed to overwork his caprices and to use up his passions, 
 when the intrigue was at an end and he had speedily sunk 
 into a state of indifference, the affair became a mere specu- 
 lation, and the Roue, excited by the ideas and the examples 
 
 1 " Memoirs of General Dumouriez," Paris, Baudouin, 1822. Vol- 
 ume I. The idea was not new with the Comte, for until then, apart 
 from gambling, Jean du Barry seems to have lived chiefly by discover- 
 ing pretty women, whom at first he found in their lodgings, then 
 made more presentable, and finally brought prominently into rela- 
 tionship with his distinguished acquaintances. A document of the 
 police leaves no doubt as to this kind of traffic at which the Roue 
 felt no shame. The " Journal of M. de Sartines's Police Inspectors " 
 says, at the date of October 2, 1762, with reference to a young lady 
 named Tricot, whom the Comte brought up secretly at the house 
 of a dressing-room keeper in the Rue Montmartre: "This is one 
 pretty mistress more, whom he will without doubt introduce to some 
 lords after a time, as he has done in the case of previous ones." 
 The same Journal had already said, at the date of September 5, 
 1761, with regard to one Mademoiselle Beauvoisin, likewise trained 
 by the Comte, who had just caught a rich man interested in the 
 yearly forage-supplies : " The Sieur Collet has only to stick on 
 well, for, as she always sees Du Barry secretly, his advice will not 
 fail to make things go swimmingly as far as money is concerned." 
 
 20 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 of the age, calculated the probabilities of the impossible, 
 and measured the scandal without being discouraged by it, 
 seeing that the entire reign and the entire kingdom turned 
 on women ; seeing that so many courtiers, so many ministers, 
 ruled, advanced, and rose and became great only through 
 the mistress. 
 
 Nevertheless, this was not the first experiment of the 
 sort made by the Comte du Barry. From the time of 
 Madame de Pompadour, he had sought to make Mademoi- 
 selle Dorothee Louis XV. 's mistress. The daughter of the 
 Strasburg water-carrier had even been invited to one of the 
 King's suppers, and her lover " claimed as an introductory 
 favour to be appointed minister at Cologne." It is 
 Madame de Pompadour who gives these details to Madame 
 de Hausset, and she adds : " I believe the King will not 
 dare to create such a scandal, and luckily Lebel, in order 
 to clear his conscience, has told the King that the fair 
 Dorothea's lover was eaten up with a nasty disease, and he 
 has added : ' Your Majesty does not get cured of that like 
 scrofula.' It was no longer necessary to drive off the 
 lady." 
 
 Erecting his batteries, Du Barry was seeking for a Plutus 
 and an opportunity, 1 when Richelieu, in the bad company 
 
 1 This idea of engaging in second-hand traffic in La Vaubernier 
 had been entertained by the Comte since 1764. We read in the frag- 
 ments of the " Police Journal," published by Rochefort (" Recollec- 
 tions and Miscellanies," Bossange, 1825, Tome II.), December I4th, 
 1764: "The Marquis du Barry, to whom we are indebted for hav- 
 ing brought the beautiful Dorothee to Paris from Strasburg, and 
 
 21 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 in which he sometimes found himself with the Roue, let it 
 escape from him in the other's presence that, since Madame 
 de Pompadour's death, Louis XV. no longer gave himself 
 up to private debaucheries and that he would be anxious to 
 get an acknowledged mistress. This phrase excited the 
 imagination of Jean du Barry, and he several times brought 
 La Lange to supper in the Marechal's town-house. One 
 day, while crying up the beauties of his mistress, half seri- 
 ously, half jocosely, he announced to the Duke that he in- 
 tended her for Louis XV. Richelieu, who had at first 
 found fault with Louis XV. 's fancy for Madame de Pom- 
 padour because she was not a person of title, and did not 
 want anyone to be the King's mistress unless she had been 
 presented, smiled with pity, giving him to understand that 
 if he had not other plans for making his fortune, he would 
 not make it very soon. The Roue was not disconcerted; 
 his cynical confidence in his success broke out into a thou- 
 sand follies, a thousand drolleries, brightening up this sup- 
 per so that the very recollection of it would amuse Riche- 
 lieu and that he would refer to it more than twenty times. 
 Du Barry was heard loudly declaring that he would him- 
 
 for having introduced the Demoiselle Beauvoisin into society, made 
 his mistress the Demoiselle Veauvarnier (sic) appear in his opera- 
 box last Monday at the Comedie Italienne. She is a lady of nine- 
 teen, tall, well-formed, with a noble air and the prettiest face. Cer- 
 tainly he is trying to dispose of her on advantageous terms. When 
 he has begun to get tired of a woman, he has always made use of 
 her in the same way. But, also, it must be admitted that he is a 
 connoisseur, and that his merchandise is always good value." 
 
 22 
 
- 
 
 
 MADAME DE POMPADOUR 
 
 To face page 22 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 self carry La Lange into the King's bed if nobody else was 
 willing to bring her there. Finally, Richelieu said to him 
 in a jesting tone: "Well, go and see Lebel; perhaps 
 through his agency your favourite will obtain for one day 
 the honours of the Louvre." 1 
 
 Many pieces of evidence exist as to the first meeting of 
 the King with the Du Barry. In a sort of justification and 
 account of his life addressed in Louis XV. 's reign to M. 
 de Malesherbes, the Comte du Barry, who introduces Ma- 
 dame du Barry as having charge along with her mother of 
 the management of his house, relates that, as he had given 
 up his interests in the Corsican supplies, interests reduced 
 to nothing by the arrangements of M. de Choiseul, Madame 
 du Barry went to Versailles to make an appeal to the min- 
 ister : it was, according to him, in the course of these solici- 
 tations that the King saw her. 2 Another story is more 
 
 " Private Life of the Marechal de Richelieu, containing his 
 Amours and his Intrigues." Buisson, 1791, Tome II. 
 
 3 Here is a narrative of the Roue in this letter, which is a sort of 
 autobiography : 
 
 " Having no other care at the time save that of watching over the 
 education of my son, a page of the King, and my health being shaky, 
 I confined myself to a narrow circle of acquaintances. And it was 
 then that I begged of Madame Rangon and her daughter, Mademoi- 
 selle Vaubernier, to look after the management of my house, and to 
 do the honours of it, which they did for several years with affection 
 and intelligence. 
 
 " Excited by gratitude and in order to fortify them against the 
 future, I gave up to them then the interest which I had in the Corsican 
 supplies, which they enjoyed for some months. 
 
 "The new arrangements of M. de Choiseul having the result of 
 depriving them of this source of income, they appealed to him to 
 
 23 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 worthy of credence; it is that of a man who lived in inti- 
 mate companionship with M. de Choiseul, and who seems 
 to have obtained his knowledge and his information 
 through the confidence of the minister. Dutens wrote to 
 the effect that, after the praises of Madame du Barry 
 poured into the King's ears by Lebel and Richelieu, won 
 by assurance of the Roue, a supper was given at Lebel's, at 
 which Mademoiselle Lange, Sainte Foix who, it was said, 
 had made her forget Du Barry and some women were 
 present. It was at this supper that, put at her ease and 
 emboldened by champagne, Du Barry's mistress, with the 
 freedom, the gaiety, and the bewitching follies of a woman 
 who does not think she is observed, charmed the eyes of the 
 King, who, having got notice, gazed at her through an 
 opening made in the wall of Lebel's dining-room. And 
 this first impression was so lively that the King sent for 
 her that very night. 
 
 Du Barry's mistress had, perhaps naturally and without 
 any mental reservation, the ingenuity not to affect embar- 
 rassment and the good faith not to deceive the King as to 
 her experience. She put aside those skilful grimaces with 
 
 let them keep it, and it was during the various journeys he compelled 
 them to make to Versailles that Mademoiselle Vaubernier attracted 
 the attention of the King. M. Lebel was entrusted with his com- 
 mands, and this last, with whom neither she nor I have had any 
 connection, carried out the execution of them with her alone. Be- 
 fore, however, leading her to Compiegne, he wished that she should 
 only appear there as my brother's wife, a suggestion to which I lent 
 myself then as well as he did, with no other motive certainly save 
 a blind and respectful obedience." 
 
 24 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 which Louis XV. was surfeited, and the copious display of 
 confusion which even the cleverest women thought they 
 owed as a tribute of homage towards the King. She did 
 not counterfeit ignorance or repugnance or awkwardness. 
 She was herself; she treated the King as a man, and the 
 man that was still left in the King came forth amorous 
 after this first interview. Lebel had not expected such 
 success; he looked upon it as one of those caprices which 
 morning dissipates. Terrified at the undignified character 
 of an attachment in which the King's heart was entangled 
 as well as his senses, he confessed to the King that he had 
 deceived him, that the woman whom he had introduced 
 to him was neither a married woman nor a lady of title, 
 and he thought it his duty to enlighten him as to the com- 
 promising consequences of having this further liaison with 
 her, when the King, stopping him, ordered him to have her 
 married, and, as soon as the marriage was over, to bring 
 her to Compiegne. 1 
 
 1 " Annals of Louis XV." A. Villefranche, at the house of the 
 Widow Liberty, 1782. Volume II. "Anecdotes about Madame du 
 Barri." " Historic Memoirs of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier, Com- 
 tesse Dubarry." By M. de Favrolle (Madame Guenard). Paris, 
 Year XL Vol.1. 
 
n. 
 
 Guillaume du Barry ordered to Paris. The Forged Vaubernier 
 Certificate of Birth. The articles of the Contract of Marriage with 
 the Comte Guillaume. The Bride's Share. The Celebration of the 
 Marriage and the Husband's Return to Toulouse. Madame du Barry 
 taking possession of Lebel's Quarters. The furniture of the Apart- 
 ments at Versailles. 
 
 BY order of the King, transmitted through Lebel, 1 the 
 Comte du Barry wrote to his brother Guillaume, a poor 
 officer in the marines, who lived in Toulouse with his 
 mother, and announced to him the good marriage which 
 he had thought of for him. 
 
 Guillaume du Barry hastened to prepare in Toulouse the 
 power of attorney 2 by which his mother the Lady Catherine 
 
 1 Some days after, Lebel died in such a sudden manner that it 
 was rumored he had been poisoned. Nothing of the kind had hap- 
 pened, but it would seem that, during the representations which he 
 made to the King as to the undignified character of his liaison, which 
 he expected to be only a passing fancy, the King, losing his temper, 
 had threatened to strike him with the tongs with which he was going 
 to stir the fire. This threat had brought about such a revolution in 
 "poor Dominique," who was subject to hepatic colics, that a colic 
 seized him and carried him off in two days. (" Private Life of the 
 Marechal de Richelieu." Buisson, 1791.) 
 
 * In the presence of the Royal Notary of the City of Toulouse and 
 witnesses named below were present Dame Catherine Delacaze, 
 widow of the nobleman, Antoine Du Barry, Chevalier of the Mili- 
 tary Order of St. Louis, an inhabitant of this city: 
 
 26 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Delacaze, widow of the noble Antoine du Barry, authorized 
 him to contract marriage with such person as he might 
 think fitting; and he rushed up to Paris, and dropped in 
 at his brother's mansion in the Rue Neuve des Petits 
 Champs with an eager and docile zeal in carrying out Jean 
 du Barry's plans. 
 
 The contract of marriage was immediately prepared. 
 But there were, in dealing with the future husband and with 
 the King himself, sentiments of pride and shame which 
 were offensive to the lowness of origin of the woman who 
 sought for a husband in order to belong to the King. The 
 real name of the future Madame du Barry, we have said, 
 was, according to the original produced in the suit of the 
 
 "Who has made and arranged through her general and special 
 attorney, M. Jean Gruel, merchant, Rue de Roule, Paris, to whom 
 she has given authority on her behalf and in her name, to consent 
 that the noble Guillaume du Barry, her son, ex-officer of infantry, 
 should contract marriage with such lady as he deems fitting, pro- 
 vided in the meantime that she is approved of and accepted by the 
 said attorney so appointed, and that the nuptial benediction should be 
 distributed according to the canonical constitutions by the first priest 
 called upon, without it being, however, understood that the aforesaid 
 lady giving authority is to give anything to her son in his contract 
 of marriage, holding, moreover, that the presents are to have effect 
 notwithstanding superannotation and until express revocation, en- 
 gaging, obliging, renouncing. 
 
 " Made and passed at Toulouse, in our office, the isth day of the 
 month of July, in the forenoon, in the year 1768, in the presence of 
 the Sieurs Bernard Joseph Fourmont and Bonaventure Calvet, prac- 
 titioners, residing in this city, undersigned, with the said lady giving 
 authority and our notary. 
 
 (Signed) " Delacaze, Du Barry, Fourmont and Sons, Notary." 
 
 27 
 
Madame D\ Barry 
 
 Du Barry heirs, Jeanne Bequs according to a communi- 
 cation of the Mayor of Vaucouleurs, Jeanne Becu. On the 
 authority of these two authentic testimonies, which only dif- 
 fer as to the orthography of the name, Jean du Barry's 
 mistress was a natural child. It was thought desirable to 
 disguise a civil condition of which indiscretion and public 
 malignity might make a weapon. These were subterranean, 
 shameful complaisances to which, without doubt, an almoner 
 of the King, Gomard de Vaubernier, connected at the same 
 time with the Ran^ons, Lebel, and Comte Jean, lent himself. 
 This Gomard would have given a father to the natural child 
 in the person of one of his brothers, Gomard de Vaubernier, 
 whose protests were not to be feared ; he had for some time 
 been dead. And in place of the genuine certificate of birth 
 of Madame du Barry, printed in the commencement of this 
 history, the notaries had, in order to set up their contract, 
 the forged certificate of birth by which hitherto the anec- 
 dotists, the romancers, and the historians have been duped. 
 Here is this forged certificate: 
 
 " Extract from the baptismal register of the parish of 
 Vaucouleurs, diocese of Toul, for the year one thousand 
 seven hundred and forty-six. 
 
 " Jeanne, daughter of Jean Jacques Gomard de Vau- 
 bernier and Anne Becu called Quantigny, was born on the 
 i Qth of August, one thousand seven hundred and forty- 
 six, was baptized the same day, had for her godfather 
 Joseph de Mange and for her godmother Jeanne de Bira- 
 bin, who have attached their signatures along with me. L. 
 
 28 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 GALON, Vicar of Vaucouleurs; Joseph DE MANGE and 
 Jeanne de BIRABIN." 
 
 We see that this forged document 1 certified by L. P. 
 Dubois, the cure of the parish and town of Vaucouleurs, 
 certified also by the Commissary Enquestor, examiner of 
 the town and provostship of Vaucouleurs, gave to the 
 natural daughter a father of noble name. 
 
 The witnesses became people of importance, and the peas- 
 ant, La Birabine, was transformed into the Dame de 
 Birabin. The flattery of the forgers went farther still; it 
 went so far as to make Guillaume du Barry's future wife 
 three years younger by making the date of her birth August 
 19, 1746, instead of August 19, 1743. 
 
 On the 23rd of July, 1768, the contract of this strange 
 stage-marriage was drawn up in the following terms : 
 
 1 Taking advantage of this forged certificate of birth, in 1814, on 
 the return of Louis XVIII. the Gomard heirs took steps to obtain 
 possession of certain articles which had belonged to Madame du 
 Barry, and which were in public establishments. They presented to 
 the Minister of Finances an Act of Notoriety, averring that the 
 Sieur Philbert Gomard, brother of Gomard de Vaubernier, father of 
 Madame du Barry, being the nearest relative of the Comtesse at the 
 time of her death, was her heir, an act likewise establishing their 
 filiation as heirs of the Sieur Philbert Gomard. They received author- 
 ity, in order to aid their researches, to take from the Prefecture of 
 the Seine-et-Oise a certain number of papers which were never given 
 back, but of which fortunately a file of documents, THE ACCOUNTS 
 OF MADAME DU BARRY, forms to-day part of the National Library, 
 Manuscript Department, Nos. 8157-8160. The Gomard heirs had as 
 yet obtained nothing from their claims except these papers, when on 
 the I7th of April, 1825, the law as to the indemnity of the emigres 
 was re-enacted. At the date of her death Madame du Barry did not 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " Before the Councillors of the King, notaries of the 
 ChStelet of Paris, were present : 
 
 " The high and mighty Seigneur Messire Guillaume, 
 Comte du Barry, Chevalier Captain of troops taken from 
 the naval forces, residing in Paris in the Rue Neuve-des 
 Petits-Champs, and parish of Saint-Roch, of full age, son 
 of the late Messire Antoine, Comte du Barry, Chevalier of 
 the Royal and Military Order of Saint-Louis and of Dame 
 Catherine Delacaze, his wife, and now his widow, residing 
 in Toulouse, contracting for him and in his name; 
 
 " Sieur Andre-Marie Gruel, Merchant, Paris, where he 
 resides in the Rue de Roule, parish of St. Germain 
 1'Auxerrois, in the name and as special proxy for the pur- 
 pose of the marriage hereinafter referred to of the afore- 
 
 possess any real estate, the gift of Luciennes being only for life ; but 
 then there came back to the recollection of those heirs the will of 
 the Due de Brissac and they claimed from the Montemart family, who 
 inherited from the Duke, and who had a considerable share in the 
 liquidation of the thousand million francs, the execution of the 
 legacy made for the benefit of Madame du Barry. Suddenly there 
 came on the scene the Been heirs, who had found out on the registers 
 of Vaucouleurs the genuine certificate of birth, and contested with 
 the Gomards their title of heirs to Madame du Barry. Hence a 
 lawsuit between the two branches, and judgment of the Tribunal of 
 First Instance of the Seine of the ipth of January, 1829, confirmed 
 by the decree of the Royal Court of Paris of the 22d of February, 
 1830, which gave the Becus the victory in the suit and recognized 
 them as Madame du Barry's sole heirs. 
 
 The Becu heirs, in a suit which lasted up to 1833, continued to claim 
 the Brissac legacy. Finally the Becus came to a settlement with the 
 Brissacs, but the sum which they received was almost entirely ab- 
 sorbed by the creditors of Madame du Barry and the costs of the 
 lawsuit. 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 said Dame du Barry Mere, entered into before Sans, Royal 
 Notary in Toulouse, in the presence of witnesses, on the 
 1 5th of July of the present year, the original of which duly 
 stamped and legalized is, by requisition, left annexed to 
 the minute of the presents previously certified by him to 
 be true, signed and initialed in the presence of the notaries 
 whose names are written hereunder : 
 
 " The said Sieur Gruel, by that name, being present and 
 authorizing so far as may be necessary the said Seigneur 
 Comte du Barry on the one part; 
 
 " And Sieur Nicolas Rangon, interested in the affairs of 
 the King, and the Dame Anne Becu, his wife, whom he 
 authorizes for carrying these presents into effect, residing 
 in Paris in the Rue du Ponceau, parish of St. Laurent, the 
 said Dame before mentioned widow of the Sieur Jean 
 Jacques Gomard de Vaubernier, interested in the affairs of 
 Mademoiselle Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, minor daugh- 
 ter of the said Dame Rangon and of the said late Sieur 
 Gomard de Vaubernier, her first husband, residing with 
 them, for this present and as to her consent on her own 
 behalf and in her name ; 
 
 " Who, in view of the marriage proposed and agreed 
 upon between the said Sieur Comte du Barry and the said 
 Demoiselle Gomard de Vaubernier, which will be celebrated 
 immediately in the face of the Church, have adopted by 
 these presents voluntarily made and reduced to writing the 
 civil clauses and conditions of the said marriage as it will 
 follow in the presence of and with the consent of the high 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 and mighty Seigneur, Messire Jean du Barry-Ceres, Gov- 
 ernor of Levignac, elder brother of the future husband, 
 the aforesaid nobleman, and of Claire du Barry, a lady of 
 full age, sister of the aforesaid future husband. 
 
 "FIRST ARTICLE. 
 
 " There is to be no community of goods between the said 
 Seigneur and the lady who is to be his future wife, derogat- 
 ing in this respect from the custom of Paris and from every 
 other which admits them to be united ; and on the contrary, 
 they are to be and are to remain separated as to goods, and 
 the said lady who is to be the future wife shall have, alone, 
 the enjoyment and administration of the goods, rights, and 
 actions, the movable and immovable property which be- 
 long to her and may belong to her as a consequence of such 
 claim as she may have. 
 
 "ARTICLE II. 
 
 " The lady who is to be the future wife marries with the 
 goods and the rights which belong to her, and which will 
 belong to her, in the course of events, of which she will 
 have the administration, as is above stated. And her per- 
 sonal effects consist of the amount of 30,000 livres, com- 
 posed of trinkets, diamonds, clothes, linen, lace, and house- 
 hold articles for her use, the entire proceeding from her 
 gains and economies, and of which, in order to avoid con- 
 fusion with the personal effects of the said nobleman, her 
 future husband, there has been made and drawn up an in- 
 
 32 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ventory transcribed on the two first pages of a sheet of 
 notepaper, which is, at their request, left annexed to the 
 minute of the presents, after having been, by the said con- 
 tracting parties, declared to be true, signed and initialed in 
 the presence of the notaries whose names are here under- 
 signed. 
 
 "ARTICLE III. 
 
 " All the furniture and effects which are in the houses 
 to be occupied by the future married pair as well in Paris 
 as in the country, other than those enumerated in the in- 
 ventory annexed as above will be deemed to belong, and 
 will in fact belong, to the said Seigneur, the future husband, 
 and, if in the course of time, the said lady who is to be the 
 future wife makes any purchase of furniture and effects, 
 she will be obliged to get a receipt from the notary to the 
 amount of the goods. 
 
 "ARTICLE IV. 
 
 "All the property belonging to the lady and the noble- 
 man, the future married pair, and those which they fall in 
 for during their married lives through whatever title, as 
 well movable as immovable, will be deemed to belong to 
 each of them and their successors in their respective lines 
 of descent. 
 
 "ARTICLE V. 
 
 " The said Seigneur, the future husband, has bestowed 
 upon and bestows upon the lady, his future wife, by way 
 
 33 ? 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of dowry 1000 livres in yearly income, the capital of which 
 laid out at five per cent interest will belong to the children 
 born of the said marriage. 
 
 "ARTICLE VI. 
 
 " In the event of the death of one of the future married 
 pair the survivor will have and take out of the effects of 
 the pre-deceased, in the form of right of survivorship, in 
 furniture and goods estimated at their proper value, the 
 amount of 10,000 livres or the like sum in cash, at the 
 option of the said survivor. 
 
 "ARTICLE VII. 
 
 " It is agreed that the said lady, the future wife, will 
 remain charged alone "with the management and with all the 
 expenses of the household, as well for food as for the rent 
 of apartments which they will occupy, servants' wages, 
 table-linen, household utensils, keeping up of equipages, 
 feeding of horses, and all other expenses without exception, 
 as well with regard to the said Seigneur her future husband 
 as with regard to the children that are to be born of the 
 said marriage, whom she will be bound to rear and 
 educate at her own expense, on the condition that the said 
 Seigneur, her future husband, will be obliged to pay to the 
 said lady his future wife, the sum of six thousand livres 
 as an annuity, so as to provide for his moiety of the said 
 expenses, and maintenance of the household each year from 
 six months to six months, and always in advance, so that 
 
 34 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 the first six months will be payable the day after the cele- 
 bration of the marriage. 
 
 " It is thus that the entire contract has been agreed upon 
 and settled between the parties promising, binding, and 
 renouncing. 
 
 " Made and carried out in Paris at the house of the said 
 Seigneur, Comte du Barry, the future husband as below 
 designated in the year 1768 on the 23rd of July, in the 
 afternoon; and have signed hereto: J. GOMARD DE VAU- 
 BERNIER, le CHEVALIER DU BARRY, GRUEL, le COMTE DU 
 BARRY-CERES, A. BECU, C. F. DU BARRY, RANgoN." 1 
 
 And let us not forget in this amusing and disgraceful 
 simulacrum of a union before notaries, the personal share of 
 the bride, that trousseau for the purpose of beginning 
 housekeeping estimated at thirty thousand pounds, the result 
 of " the gains and economies " of the lady, of which a> 
 reservation is made in the double sheet of notepaper at- 
 tached to the contract. Jeanne Becu wears a diamond 
 necklace of the finest quality worth eight thousand livres; 
 a tuft for the hair and a pair of earrings shaped like chan- 
 deliers valued at eight thousand livres. She wears thirty 
 gowns and petticoats of different materials, silk and gold 
 and silver for every season, estimated at three thousand 
 livres. She wears English, Brussels, Valenciennes, Arras 
 and other laces, as well in the trimming of her dresses as 
 in ruffles, caps, and otherwise, valued at six thousand 
 
 " Memoirs of the Society of Moral Sciences, Letters and Arts 
 of Seine-Oise/' Volume V., 1859. 
 
 35 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 livres. There are six dozen fine chemises of Holland linen, 
 garnished with embroidered muslin ruffles, one dozen 
 morning gowns all of different stuffs, silk or other ma- 
 terial, two dozen corsets, and many other linen and personal 
 articles of attire for the use of this lady, valued at two 
 thousand livres. Nothing is lacking in the wardrobe of 
 this bride, who brings with her, too, the complete bed, with 
 the curtains, head-board, canopy of green damask, hangings 
 of the same kind of damask, eight chairs, four arm-chairs, 
 and two green damask bed-screens, of the estimated value 
 of three thousand livres, and completing the bride's per- 
 sonal outfit to the amount of thirty thousand pounds. 
 
 A month after the contract, the marriage was celebrated. 1 
 The husband set out again for Toulouse. Madame du 
 Barry took possession of Lebel's quarters, 2 then of Madame 
 
 1 " On the ist of September, 1768, after publication of three banns 
 without any opposition in this parish of St. Laurent and in this 
 of St. Eustache on the 24th, 25th and 3ist of last July, in view of 
 the power of attorney given by the mother of the bridegroom to M. 
 Jean Gruel, merchant, of Paris, in the Rue de Roule, to whom she 
 gives power on her behalf and in her name to consent to the present 
 marriage, and in view likewise of the authority given by the step- 
 father and the mother of the bride to Messire Jean-Baptiste Gomard, 
 priest, almoner of the King, to whom they give the right to represent 
 them at the celebration of this marriage, the betrothal having been 
 to-day celebrated, Messire Guillaume, Comte du Barry, ex-captain, 
 and Mademoiselle Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, aged twenty-two, 
 daughter of Jean- Jacques de Vaubernier interested in the affairs of 
 the King, and of Anne Becu called Cantigny, have been married 
 by us." 
 
 1 All that autumn of the year 1768, Madame du Barry was the 
 mistress in a strictly incognito fashion of the King, for his Majesty 
 
 36 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 Adelaide's apartment. This apartment was situated in the 
 second story of Versailles, quite close to the King's apart- 
 ment. And Louis XV. could repair thither every hour 
 without being seen, either by a staircase opening on the bal- 
 cony of the " Stag's Park " 1 or through the library sit- 
 uated above the great cabinet, one door of which opened 
 on a little landing giving entrance to one of the two cabi- 
 nets placed at either side of Madame du Barry's bed-room. 8 
 
 1 The " Pare aux Cerfs," as the student of French history knows, 
 was the seraglio of that most amorous monarch, Louis le Bien-Aitne. 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 * Almost immediately (December 22, 1768) the steward of Ma- 
 dame du Barry's house took a lease in his mistress's name of a 
 mansion in the Rue d'Orangerie, intended to afford housing for 
 the equipages and the servants of the favourite. At the end of a 
 few years Madame du Barry's house became so imposing an estab- 
 lishment that her equipages and her servants could no longer remain 
 in the Rue d'Orangerie. The favourite was obliged to rent the 
 Hotel des Luynes, and soon purchased in the Avenue de Paris for 
 the purpose of erecting a large mansion there a pretty summer 
 residence built for Binet, Madame de Pompadour's valet and rela- 
 tive. Ledoux made there considerable enlargements. He even built 
 a chapel there, for which there was a regular chaplain. 
 
 In 1770, other quarters were prepared for Madame du Barry at 
 Versailles; but the suite of apartments was given definitely to the 
 Due de Cosse-Brissac, and Madame du Barry remained in her old 
 suite of apartments, which a plan of Gabriel " Plan of the Changes 
 and Additions to be made to the suite of apartments of the Comtesse 
 du Barry (July 22d, 1770)" shows to be completely modified as com- 
 pared with the former plan. This suite of apartments consisted of a 
 library, which had already existed at the time of Madame Adelaide, 
 a back-library, etc., a drawing-room cabinet, a large drawing-room 
 
 being in deep mourning for the Queen, it was not the correct thing, 
 as the " Anecdotes " say, for him to make a public display of his 
 pleasures. 
 
 37 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 Installed in Versailles, Madame du Barry from the start 
 gave full vent to her tastes for luxury and magnificence. 
 The courtesan who had thought green damask sufficient 
 for her yesterday commenced to surround herself with all 
 the beautiful and agreeable things which she came later on 
 to collect at Luciennes, as if in a boudoir of the furnishing 
 arts. In this dwelling provided for her by her new-found 
 good-fortune, in this succession of small low rooms, which 
 preserve still to-day in the half-light of their shutters with 
 closed wooden bolts the memory of a mysterious voluptu- 
 ousness, the King's mistress heaped together artistic ob- 
 jects, rarities, bronzes, marbles, chinaware. On the chim- 
 ney-piece of the salon there was a magnificent pillared clock 
 on which a crowd of china figures disported themselves. 
 In the centre of the salon stood a table garnished with 
 bronzes gilt in dead gold, and the upper portion of which 
 was a marvellous miniature painting after Le Prince. Two 
 chests of drawers faced each other, one of old lacquer-work, 
 of lacquer-work such as cannot now be found, from which 
 came out in full gold relief monkeys gaily dressed; the 
 other was adorned with five plates of Sevres porcelain, five 
 
 cabinet, and the room where one could see in the alcove the door of 
 the staircase leading towards the King's apartment. In June, 1772, 
 Gabriel made a large ball-room, which the old suite of apartments 
 lacked, and the cost of which amounted to 14,950 francs, while at the 
 same time he built new kitchens for the favourite. In 1774, Madame 
 du Barry's suite of apartments came into the possession of old 
 Maurepas, as Louis XVI. was anxious to have his minister under his 
 hand in the same way as Louis XV. had his mistress. (National 
 Archives, MSS. Plans of Royal Houses, October, 1773.) 
 
 38 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 plates which could not be matched in the whole world. 
 The former displayed on its marble surface a bronze group 
 of four figures, the "Abduction of Helen," the latter a 
 Bacchanalian group of boys which had come from the hands 
 of Sarrazin. From the ceiling hung a glittering lustre of 
 rock-crystal, which cost sixteen thousand livres. As the 
 mistress of the place was fond of play, there was in a corner 
 of the salon a chest containing four quadrille-boxes, made 
 of ivory with counters, consolation-fishes, and the other 
 figures encrusted with gold. In another angle slept the 
 harmonies of an English piano- forte, constructed in Paris 
 by the celebrated Clicot, with its flutes, pipes, lute, cymbals, 
 tubes, and blowers imprisoned in a box of rosewood gar- 
 nished with bronzes gilt in dead gold. 
 
 Madame du Barry's chamber was not second to this 
 salon. On the German clock which represented the " Three 
 Graces supporting the Vase of Time," the hour was in- 
 dicated by a Cupid's arrow. Everywhere porcelain reigned 
 and triumphed. Chests of drawers displayed pictures in 
 porcelain in the style of Watteau and Vanloo. Writing- 
 desks and cupboards framed in their wood plates of porce- 
 lain with a green background in which Sevres had loosened 
 its bouquets, while basins for putting in flowers with pat- 
 terns of blue and gold rockwork traced on them afforded a 
 glimpse of seamen in miniature or grotesque figures by 
 Teniers. 
 
 The cabinet had its little writing-table, all plated with 
 porcelain, its ink-horn formed of various portions gilt and 
 
 39 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 chased with consummate art, a timepiece with children's 
 sports painted in Sevres, and a gilt dragon with a dart of 
 marcasite. Passement had put his signature to the ther- 
 mometer and the barometer so richly mounted in gilt 
 bronze. A thousand objects, a thousand marvels encum- 
 bered the shelves: scent-boxes in old lacquer-work, tea-ser- 
 vices of Saxe with pictures and miniatures, were still wait- 
 ing there for the liqueur-case of rock-crystal which Ma- 
 dame du Barry was to buy afterwards at Madame de 
 Lauraguais's sale. 
 
 And this luxuriousness and this selectness in the furni- 
 ture extended into every portion of her apartments. 
 
III. 
 
 The Choiseul Monarchy. The Minister's Brutality towards Ma- 
 dame d'Esparbes. Influence of the Duchesse de Gramont on her 
 Brother. The " Bourbonnaise " and the Satirical Prints. The Roue's 
 Diplomacy aided and sustained by "La Chon" The Marechal de 
 Richelieu in the role of protector. The Presentation of the Comtesse 
 du Barry at Versailles. The Perfection and the Childlike Daintiness 
 of the Woman's Beauty. 
 
 M. DE CHOISEUL was master of France. He governed 
 through a ministry filled with followers who submitted to 
 the superiority of his talents, to the energy of his will. He 
 dominated through this people of creatures grouped under 
 him even to the lowest class in the State and devoted to 
 what was called " the Choiseul Monarchy." He reigned 
 through the supports which he had created abroad, through 
 the personal obligations of European cabinets towards him, 
 through the eclat of a ministry which had restored a sem- 
 blance of greatness to French politics, and which, taking 
 everything into account, had given peace to Europe, alarm 
 to England, arms to Turkey, and a province to France. He 
 had taken possession of the King, and had got into his good 
 graces by the force of custom, the easiness of his task, the 
 agreeability of his optimistic views, and the charms of his 
 domination; and even Choiseul's enemies, taking into con- 
 sideration the King's age, and no longer expecting from 
 
 41 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 his sixty years the passions and inconstancies of youth, 
 despaired of a sudden change of masters and of a revolution 
 in the palace deposing King ChoiseuL In the mean time, 
 the minister, wishing to make sure of the future and to 
 leave nothing to chance, strove to prevail upon the King to 
 marry an Austrian archduchess ; in this way he would have 
 his ministry associated with thankfulness in high quarters, 
 the gratitude of a throne, and obtain from the King directly 
 a guarantee of his favour. Thus, having got everything out 
 of his way, what would he have to fear? And did he not 
 already believe himself to be unshakable? 
 
 In 1765, a year after Madame de Pompadour's death, an 
 attempt had been made to place Madame d'Esparbes with 
 the King and to get her talked about in connection with 
 him. Madame d'Esparbes had the most beautiful pair of 
 hands at the Court, and the King had let himself be cap- 
 tivated by those pretty fingers which picked cherries so 
 gracefully. Madame d'Esparbes had gone to be proclaimed 
 at Marly, where she had apartments. When M. de Choi- 
 seul, in the insolence of his omnipotence, coming over to 
 her, with the consciousness of the insult he was about to 
 fling at her, it was on the great staircase before every- 
 body caught hold of her by the chin, and asked her: 
 " How is your business going on, my girl ? " 1 The mis- 
 tress was killed by these words; the suite of apartments 
 was taken away from her ; and the King, to whom Choiseul 
 
 1 Memoir of the Due de Choiseul, placed in the King's hands in 
 1765, cited in the Revue Fran^aise, 1828. 
 
 42 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 spoke about the way in which he had quizzed her, did not 
 dare to proceed further with Madame d'Esparbes, who, 
 some days after, received a letter under royal seal exempt- 
 ing her from paying her court to the King, and command- 
 ing her to retire to Montauban to rejoin there her father, 
 the Marquis de Lussan. 1 Therefore, M. de Choiseul, at 
 first, regarded the new intrigue with a certain contempt. 
 He saw there the hand of Richelieu, without deigning to 
 be annoyed with him. A chilling dignity was his response 
 to the advances of the mistress, who would very probably 
 in this opening period of her career, have willingly quitted 
 her leader in order to find an ally in the Due de Choiseul 
 and some friends in his camp. Then the minister came 
 to realize that he had no longer to deal with a caprice of 
 the King, with another d'Esparbes. He saw all the pas- 
 sion kindled in the master's heart, all the attractions and all 
 the solid fascinations of the favourite growing stronger 
 every day. The vulgarity of the intrigue, and the impossi- 
 bility, too, of suppressing it, the constraining force of his 
 thinly-veiled disdain, and the haughty nobility of his char- 
 acter, obliged him to be obstinately resolute and to persevere 
 in his attitude to the end. Besides, in the position in which 
 M. de Choiseul now happened to find himself, he lacked 
 the quality most essential to his role, coolness; he was led 
 into this war with a woman by the passion of a woman, of 
 his sister, the Duchesse de Gramont. 
 
 1 " Historic Summary of the Life of Madame du Barry." Paris, 
 1774- 
 
 43 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 In the little apartments where she lived bereft of all 
 female society since Madame de Pompadour's death, Ma- 
 dame de Gramont had conceived a plan for obtaining the 
 mastery over the King's habits almost by force, and of es- 
 tablishing over his weakness of resolution and his indolence 
 of mind an influence and an interest which would have 
 made him forget the reign of Madame de Pompadour. 
 And she flung herself on this idea with all the fire of her 
 nature, basing her hopes of success on the masculine force 
 of her spirit, associated as she was with half of her brother's 
 political speculations, on the seductive powers of her mind, 
 and above, all on a certain fascination of the dominant order 
 which she was supposed to possess. 1 But the King was 
 tired of the government of political women. Madame de 
 Pompadour's death had set him free, and he did not wish 
 at any cost to go back to this kind of servitude. In spite 
 of his coolness, Madame Gramont persevered; she was 
 putting her trust in obstinacy, in the continuance and the 
 audacity of her efforts, in the effects of obsession and 
 moral violence, when her whole dream was shattered by this 
 little girl of the streets who had been thrown into the Royal 
 bed. It was this disappointment, these resentments of Ma- 
 dame de Gramont, that proved a burden to the minister in 
 his management of public affairs. M. de Choiseul was 
 driven by his sister beyond hostility. Madame de Gramont 
 led him on to outrages; she organized that war of street- 
 ballads, vaudevilles, ribald verses, and satirical publications 
 
 1 " Private Life of Louif XV." London : Peter Lyton, 1785. 
 
 44 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 which had only the result of plunging the King deeper into 
 his love-affair. She launched forth the " Bourbonnaise," l 
 so as to awaken all the echoes of the street-crossings; she 
 got the past of this mistress of the King set to music by all 
 the lamplighters of Paris and of the provinces; and in the 
 zeal of her anger she suggested to Voltaire, whom the min- 
 ister Choiseul made the vehicle of his wit, the pamphlet of 
 the " King of Bedlam/' in which the vengeances of Chante- 
 loup passing over the head of the Du Barry, directed them- 
 selves even to her lover. 2 
 
 1 Air: "La Bourbonnaise" 
 
 " What a strange thing it is ! 
 A girl who is dirt ! 
 A girl who is dirt ! 
 
 What a strange thing it is ! 
 
 With a King's heart may sport 
 
 And be welcomed at Court." 
 
 The past of the mistress was not only described in songs paid for by 
 Choiseul; it also enjoyed the publicity of numerous sheets of paper 
 slipped under cloaks, with words like the following written on them : 
 " September 3, 1768. There has appeared at Compiegne a Comtesse 
 Dubarri, who had caused a great commotion by her face. It is said 
 that she has made herself agreeable at Court, and that the King has 
 given her a very good reception. Her beauty and this rapid celebrity 
 have led many persons to make inquiries about her. It has been 
 sought to trace up this woman's origin, and, if we are to believe what 
 has been made public about her, she is of very ignoble birth. She 
 has reached her present position by ways that are by no means 
 virtuous, and her entire life is a tissue of infamies. A certain Du- 
 barri, who claims that he is one of the Barymores, and who got her 
 to marry his brother, is the instigator of this new mistress. It is 
 contended that the taste and intelligence of this adventurer in the 
 details of pleasure made him aspire to the King's confidence, with 
 a view to furnishing His Majesty with amusements, and that he 
 will succeed the Sieur Lebel in this function." 
 8 See Voltaire's " Roi Petaut" TRANSLATOR. 
 
 45 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 The man who ran Madame du Barry, the Roue, the 
 Comte Jean, was not one of those vulgar debauchees who 
 drown themselves in the wine and the pleasures of life in 
 which they wallow. He had will, imagination, and that 
 fire of swaggering energy which drives the men of his 
 country towards adventures and launches them into the un- 
 known. At the core of him lived and concealed itself, 
 under the waste of low appetites, an activity ready for ac- 
 tion, the force to rush at anything big, the torment of de- 
 sires long wandering and aimless, perhaps the bitterness 
 caused by finding his career broken and by the refusal he 
 had endured at the hands of the Prime Minister. Nature 
 had flung him into life like a good gambler with the 
 audacity to stake his all. The crapulous world in which he 
 had lived, the filthy and ironical society of which he had 
 made the evil acquaintance, had given him that supreme 
 contempt for humanity which makes a man believe that 
 everything happens, and by which he often causes them to 
 happen. Nothing made him astonished at his luck save the 
 astonishment of others; and it was he who was, ere long, 
 to the great amazement of all those who yesterday called 
 him a madman, to pray to God for his brother's death so 
 as to give himself the pleasure of seeing this very stimulat- 
 ing event the marriage of the King of France to his ex- 
 mistress ! 
 
 Du Barry was a man of observation; one glance was 
 sufficient for him, in spite of the laughter of Lebel and 
 Richelieu, to divine the future of Madame du Barry. From 
 
 46 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 that day Du Barry revealed himself, and his genius as a 
 Mentor made itself seen. On this great theatre of the 
 Court, where Madame de Pompadour had been found to be 
 a gossip, it was no easy task to maintain the frolicsome girl 
 of the streets in the style, the proportion, andthe propriety 
 of her new role. It was necessary every moment to protect 
 her from yielding to the first impulse, to hold her back on 
 the brink of an awkwardness, of an extravagance, of a 
 grimace, of a glaring breach of propriety, to drive back into 
 the recesses of her breast her vivacity and mirthful outbursts, 
 the hot tears and the petty angers of the grisette. How many 
 wicked smiles from under fans, and how many laughs at 
 her expense outside, had that supper procured for fine ladies 
 at which, in a dispute with the King, the Du Barry, blub- 
 bering, so far forgot herself as to say loud enough for 
 everyone to hear her: " You are a liar, yes, a liar, and the 
 greatest liar in the world ! " * And how she amused the 
 servants with her innocent question about Mercury : " I 
 don't know what it is ; I wish someone told me." 2 And 
 what a delight it gave to those who took a hostile attitude 
 to repeat her comical way of asking and always with a 
 childish lisp for news as to the Marechale de Mirepoix's 
 sprain : 
 
 4 By the way, how is the little Maressale's old foot?" 3 
 
 " Complete Correspondence of Madame du Deffand." By M. 
 de Sainte-Aulaire. Michael Levy, 1866, Volume I. 
 
 2 " The Marquise du Deffand's Letters to Horace Walpole." Treut- 
 tel and Wurtz, 1812, Volume II. 
 
 " Complete Correspondence of Madame du Deffasid." By M. de 
 Sainte-Aulaire, Volume I. 
 
 47 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 Those blunders, those stupidities, those faults of education, 
 those treasons of nature Jean du Barry was skilful enough 
 to prevent the recurrence of too often. He had buttressed 
 his ex-mistress with the society, the surveillance of his ugly 
 but intelligent sister " Chon," who was slightly hunchbacked 
 and slightly lame. 1 He himself separated from the favour- 
 ite, hidden in the gloomy recesses of Paris, far from the 
 Court and from the eyes of the curious, protected her, fol- 
 lowed her, guided her, incessantly corresponding with her 
 through a service of boy-messengers, who carried the post on 
 foot between Paris and Versailles, and by means of whom 
 he roughly jotted down to the Du Barry her role,, her words, 
 and her responses. In short, it was such clever guidance, 
 and there was such an attentive prompter and one of 
 
 1 Jean du Barry had three sisters. One, named Claire, who was 
 familiarly called " Chon," as an abbreviation of Fanchon, did not lack 
 wit and a certain political sense. She had a taste for literature, and 
 had the distinction, the "Anecdotes" inform us, of seeing herself 
 in print in the " Mercure." She was the sister whom the Du Barry 
 preferred, and was the guiding spirit of the house. At one time, 
 the Marquise de Montmorency, to please the favourite, had attempted 
 to marry " La Chon " to the Due de Boutteville, a gentleman head 
 over ears in debt, but bearing one of the greatest names in France. 
 
 A second sister, baptized at one time Pischy and at another time 
 Bitschi and at a later period called Mademoiselle de la Serre, played 
 beside the " Chon " the part of a helpless creature. 
 
 The third sister, called Catin, was married to a peasant from Le- 
 vignac, one Filieuse, who was subsequently astonished at being him- 
 self ennobled. Jean du Barry had two brothers, Guillaume, husband 
 of the Du Barry, and Elie, who, as a recognition of the amorous 
 services rendered by the Comte to MM. de Richelieu and De Duras, 
 became a Colonel in the Queen's Regiment and married Made- 
 moiselle de Fumel. 
 
 48 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 such experience behind the wanton bombarded at Ver- 
 sailles, that, during the year which elapsed between the first 
 interview and the presentation, the King's mistress did not 
 give rise, so to speak, to the worst of scandals, to ridicule. 
 The Roue, who had never had any doubt as to success, no 
 longer had any fears. At a whistle from the " Bourbon- 
 naise," he responded secretly with the " Loves of the Due 
 de Choiseul with his sister the Duchess de Gramont," and 
 openly with a genealogy of the Du Barrys prepared with a 
 great splash in England and connecting the Du Barry with 
 the Barymores. Now that he had got the favourite out of 
 the " Parc-aux-Cerfs," from that common lodging-house 
 erected for the sake of caprice, where she would have dis- 
 appeared with those who did not even leave the recollec- 
 tion of them in the King's mind, the Comte Jean thought 
 the time had arrived for the presentation, and he urged 
 Madame du Barry to obtain this consecration which gave 
 the mistress so many rights the right not to be sent away, 
 the right to take part in the journeys of the Court, the 
 right to get into the royal coaches, the right to live pub- 
 licly with the King, the right to show herself in the 
 Dauphin's apartments, as well as in those of the King's 
 brothers, and those of Mesdames, the right to give orders 
 to the ministers, the right to receive ceremonial visits from 
 the great and from ambassadors, all the rights, in short, 
 without which the mistress was nothing but the mistress,* 
 with which the mistress was the favourite. This was what 
 Du Barry wanted, what he kept pushing Madame du Barry 
 
 49 4 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 towards without letting her rest. He did not allow himself 
 to be satisfied by conspicuous marks of royal favour, or 
 by the order sent to M. de Marigny to re-establish in the 
 royal dwellings the communications between the apart- 
 ments of the late Marquise de Pompadour and the apart- 
 ments of the King or by the pitiful figure made by the 
 King at the entertainments of the Comte de Noailles. 
 He began to find, in spite of all these steps, that 
 the presentation was put off, and he sought to guess at M. 
 de Choiseul's game and to defeat it. In anticipation, he had, 
 for the purpose of the ceremony, which required a woman 
 of title, discovered in Paris a Comtesse de Beam, a lady 
 by no means in comfortable circumstances, the widow of 
 a gentleman from Perigord, who had died leaving her five 
 children and a big lawsuit to carry on against the house of 
 Saluces a lawsuit which traced its commencement back 
 as far as Montaigne. Du Barry obtained for the Comtesse 
 a provision which enabled her to present herself and play 
 her part of solicitress in a condition suitable to her birth; 
 finally, he helped her to win her case, and thus secured for 
 himself a sponsor whose entrance upon the scene seemed to 
 be heralded by M. de la Vauguyons, attempts to compromise 
 with the repugnances of Mesdames. 
 
 In this big business of the presentation, the Comte Jean 
 had the support of Richelieu. Undecided at first, having no 
 great confidence in the duration of the King's caprice, hesi- 
 tating about publicly compromising himself, in connection 
 with such a low intrigue, held, moreover, in respect by 
 
 50 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Choiseul, whom he feared, flattered, and wished to man- 
 age, Richelieu had only joined the party of the mistress 
 in a very subterranean fashion; but when, owing to her 
 daily and familiar relations with the King, he had assured 
 himself that the royal fancy was a serious one, and that 
 it was safe to lay odds on the Du Barry, he took the risk. 
 Jealous of the great place which M. de Choiseul, " that mar- 
 plot," as he called him, had taken in the daily life of the 
 King, of his dictatorship in the ministry, Richelieu fore- 
 saw a means of having his revenge in the elevation of the 
 Comtesse. Devoured by spite, eaten up by a secret envy of a 
 great political position, to which his reputation for levity 
 and for dangling after women and engaging in amorous 
 negotiations had prevented him from having access, he 
 had not abandoned that dream to which the intrigues of 
 Madame de Lauraguais had driven him, on the death of 
 the Marechal de Belle-Isle the post of Prime Minister; 
 and the least that he hoped for was to enter the Council 
 behind the mistress when she became the Favourite. So it 
 was that the Comte Jean had a devoted ally with the King. 
 And Richelieu said besides that he would not be King if 
 he did not impose his choice on his Yninisters and his court. 
 It was thus, and as best he could, that Richelieu catechised 
 the King, stimulated his courage, and worked to bring 
 about the presentation. 
 
 But it was on one side of Richelieu, in the younger 
 branch of his family that Madame du Barry found her great 
 fulcrum, her boldest and most serious supporter. She found 
 
 Si 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 him in that representative of religious authority and of 
 monarchic authority, the protector of the Jesuits, the man 
 whose entire life had been a duel with M. de Choiseul, a 
 duel which at that moment threatened to have the scaffold 
 for its closing scene M. d'Aiguillon. 
 
 M. de Choiseul belonged to the Jansenists, to the Par- 
 liamentarians, to the philosophers, to the party of reform of 
 Church and State, to the first harvest of liberty, to the con- 
 spiracy of the future. M. d'Aiguillon belonged to the tra- 
 ditions of his family, to the school of his grand-uncle, Cardi- 
 nal de Richelieu, to the wisdom of the past, to the theory of 
 the absolute rights of power, to the party of social disci- 
 pline, to the doctrine which makes of monarchic government 
 a pleasant state of things tempered by a theocracy. In those 
 two men everything was antagonistic, the interior admin- 
 istration of the country as well as the plan of her alliances 
 on the map of Europe. They were the two champions and 
 the two extremities of their age. The conflict between their 
 personalities was a conflict of principles, and the ideas of 
 the time circulate around their quarrels. The Due d'Aiguil- 
 lon, the lover of Madame de Chateauroux 1 banished in 1745 
 from his little suite of*apartments through the jealousy of 
 Louis XV., and in disgrace for many years, did not obtain 
 admission to his old quarters till 1762, his re-entrance, so 
 to speak on the stage of Versailles, where he became the 
 
 1 Madame de Chateauroux was as yet only Madame de la Tournelle, 
 and the Due d'Aiguillon only the Due d'Agenois. The Du Barry's 
 future minister did not become Due d'Aiguiilon till January 31, 1750. 
 
 52 
 
To face page 52 
 
I 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 intimate friend of the Dauphin. Alarmed at the influence 
 of D'Aiguillon over the mind of the religious prince, and 
 knowing that from that moment he had been assigned the 
 post of Minister of Marine by the devotees of the Court, 
 Saint Sulpice, and perhaps the remorse of Louis XV., 
 Choiseul had raised up La Chatolais as the conqueror of 
 Saint-Cast. There, in that province of Brittany, where the 
 Jesuits, authorized by the Governor, D'Aiguillon, were tak- 
 ing steps to effect a restoration, Choiseul had launched that 
 cruel portrayer of the Jesuits, in his celebrated report. So 
 then, above D'Aiguillon, whom the Choiseul party accused 
 of extortions ; above Choiseul, whom the D'Aiguillon party 
 accused of having poisoned the Dauphin and the Dauphi- 
 ness, it was Jesuitism and Philosophism, which were wres- 
 tling for the mastery; and this great trial with eighteen 
 centuries as witnesses became the arena where the two spirits 
 which still divided France and contended for the world 
 struggled, advanced, recoiled, triumphed, and succumbed in 
 turn, according to the vicissitudes and the rebounds of hu- 
 man affairs. One day, the disappearance of Madame de 
 Pompadour gave Choiseul entire domination over the King. 
 Another day, a murmur from Broglie on Choiseul's Austrian 
 policy withdrew D'Aiguillon from his position of obscurity 
 and set him afloat once more. But at last the successive 
 deaths of the Dauphin, of the Dauphiness, and of the Queen 
 had left the adversary of the Minister-King very feeble and 
 quite ready to collapse in his duel, in his long and inter- 
 minable trial. And in the helpless condition in which 
 
 53 
 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 D'Aiguillon found himself and the ideas whose fate he held 
 in his hands, Choiseul's enemy turned towards Madame du 
 Barry as a suppliant. In order to deal out strong blows, 
 an acknowledged mistress was needed to promote the in- 
 terests of the devotee party. In spite of these supports, the 
 presentation was slow in coming. Already the month of 
 January was far off when Paris every day awaited the 
 event with feverish curiosity. It had been almost positively 
 announced that it would take place on Sunday, the 2Qth of 
 January. But M. de la Vauguyon, despatched by the Mare- 
 chal de Richelieu to Mesdames to inform them that, accord- 
 ing to the protocol, Madame du Barry had gone to visit 
 their ladies-in-waiting, had seen Madame Adelaide abruptly 
 turn her back to him and to the little discourse in which he 
 preached submission to the wishes of the King. It was only 
 a drawn game; the presentation would have certainly taken 
 place the following Wednesday, a day for which the King 
 in leading out the Duchesse de Choiseul, de Gramont, and 
 de Mirepoix, had only invited the last. No. And some days 
 after this, the King, while hunting, had a fall from his 
 horse, which once more put off the presentation. 1 In the 
 midst of all these delays the Comtesse got afraid of the con- 
 sequences which this presentation might have for her in 
 the future, and, pretending that she had sustained a sprain, 
 
 1 " The Marquise du Deffand's Letters to Walpole." Treuttel and 
 Wurtz, 1812. A missive emanating from the King's palace (Archives 
 Nationales 0*41 1) announces that the accident which had happened 
 to the King would not have any troublesome consequences, that 
 there was no fracture, but only a bad contusion. 
 
 54 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 remained obstinately fixed in her lounging-chair. In Feb- 
 ruary, Madame du Deffand, who boasted of having won 
 all her bets, laid a wager that the mistress would not be pre- 
 sented, that the King would not do such an indecent act 
 needlessly. 
 
 The months of February and March passed without any- 
 thing being done. Evidently the King was hesitating. He 
 was eager to overcome his last hesitations, to play a game 
 of bluff with regard to any feelings of shame he had left 
 on behalf of his daughters. The triumvirate of Du Barry, 
 Richelieu, and D'Aiguillon called upon their creature for 
 a supreme effort, a scene of tears in which, casting herself 
 at the King's feet, she implored of him to put a stop to the 
 insulting remarks as to her presentation which, though it 
 had been announced in the foreign newspapers, each day 
 seemed to defer. . . . The King gave way. On the 
 2 ist of April, 1769, on his return from the chase, Louis XV. 
 declared that the presentation would take place on the fol- 
 lowing day, that it would be unique, that it would be the 
 event that had been in question for a long time the pre- 
 sentation of the Comtesse du Barry. 1 
 
 The great day arrived. Paris rushed to Versailles. The 
 curiosity of an entire people beat at the gate of the park. 
 The presentation was to take place the night after the func- 
 tion. The hour was approaching. Richelieu, in his capacity 
 of First Gentleman, was at the King's side. Choiseul was 
 on the other side. Both were waiting, counting the minutes, 
 
 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barry," London, 1775. 
 
 55 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 glancing at each other, watching the uproar around them, 
 and keeping a keen eye all the time on the King. The King, 
 ill at ease, restless, agitated, was looking every moment at 
 his watch, and was astonished at the delay. He walked up 
 and down, mumbled words which he did not finish, grew 
 impatient at the noise which reached him from the gates and 
 the avenues, and the cause of which he wanted to know 
 from Choiseul. " Sire," replied Choiseul, with his sarcastic 
 finesse, " the people, having been informed that it is to-day 
 Madame du Barry is to have the honour of being presented 
 to Your Majesty, have rushed from every quarter to witness 
 her entry, not being able to be at the reception which Your 
 Majesty will give her." 
 
 The hour had long passed. Madame du Barry did not 
 make her appearance. Choiseul and his friends were radiant 
 with joy. Richelieu, at a window-corner, felt his assurance 
 giving way. The King went across to the window, and 
 glanced out into the night: nothing. At last, he made up 
 his mind, and opened his mouth to countermand the pre- 
 sentation. " Sire, here is Madame du Barry," exclaimed 
 Richelieu who came to recognize the Favourite's carriage 
 and livery ; " she will come in if you give the order." And 
 at these words, Madame du Barry appeared behind the 
 Comtesse de Beam. 1 She entered adorned with diamonds 
 worth a hundred thousand francs, which the King had 
 sent her, adorned with that superb headdress, the arrange- 
 
 1 "Memoirs of the Marechal Due de Richelieu" (by Soulavie), 
 1793. Volume IX. "Private Life of the Marechal de Richelieu." 
 
 56 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ment of which had made her miss the hour for the presenta- 
 tion, attired in one of those triumphal costumes which the 
 women of the eighteenth century called " a fighting cos- 
 tume/' armed with that toilette in which the eyes of a blind 
 woman, the intuition of Madame dii Deffand, saw the des- 
 tiny of Europe and the fate of ministers. 1 And it was an ap- 
 parition so radiant, so dazzling, that at the first moment of 
 surprise the greatest enemies of the Favourite could not 
 escape the fascination of the woman and gave up slander- 
 ing her beauty. 2 
 
 All the representations, all the portraits, all the pictures 
 which Madame du Barry has left of herself, all those mir- 
 rors which seek to immortalize immortal beauty marble, 
 canvas, engraving display and reflect in our eyes the most 
 charming seductions of form, the most delicate attractions, 
 the most dainty perfection of a body and a face which seem 
 to realize the ideal of the pretty Frenchwoman of the 
 eighteenth century. 8 
 
 1 " Letters of the Marquise du Deffand." 1812. Volume II. 
 
 "The Gazette of France" announces the presentation in these 
 terms : " At Versailles, April 26, 1769. On the 226. of this month, 
 the Comtesse du Barri had the honour of being presented to the 
 King and to the Royal Family by the Comtesse de Beam." 
 
 8 We trace this picture of Madame du Barry especially in the two 
 portraits of her by Drouais in the Devere sale (March 17, 1755), 
 portraits which seem to us the originals exhibited in the Salon of 
 1769. 
 
 To the amorous correspondence of Madame du Barry with Lord 
 Seymour, possessed by M, Barriere, was attached a lock of the Fa- 
 vourite's hair. I have been able to touch this hair, and I have never 
 met with any human being's hair so completely resembling silk 
 
 57 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Her hair was the most beautiful, the longest, the most 
 silky, the most blonde in the world, blonde of an auburn tint, 
 and curling like the hair of a child, hair which preserves 
 on the forehead of a woman, as it were, an adorable survival 
 of the little girl. She had (charming contrast!) dark eye- 
 brows, and curved dark lashes, almost curling around her 
 blue eyes, which one scarcely ever saw quite open, 1 and from 
 which stole coquettish sidelong glances out of those half- 
 shot orbs the genuine look of passion. Then came a little 
 nose finely cut and the delicate curve of a dainty mouth. 
 Hers was a skin, a complexion, which the age compared to 
 " a rose-leaf steeped in milk." Her neck resembled the neck 
 of an antique statue, lengthened by Parmian sculpture so 
 as to sway delicately on the round low shoulders. And then 
 an arm, a foot, a hand. . . . and a thousand beauties of 
 detail. There were in her the victorious youth, the life, 
 and, as it were, the divinity of a Hebe. Around her floated 
 that atmosphere of intoxication, that flame of an amorous 
 goddess which made Voltaire write this line on beholding 
 one of her portraits : 
 
 " Such beauty for the gods alone was made." 2 
 
 1 " Recollections of Madame Vigee Lebrun." Fournier, 1835, Vol- 
 ume I. Here we have the simpering look, the theatrical look of the 
 two portraits exhibited by Drouais in 1/69, criticized by the Salon 
 haunter of the " Secret Memoirs " without having seen. Madame du 
 Barry. 
 
 2 Literally : " The original was made for the gods." TRANSLATOR. 
 
IV. 
 
 Repugnances of titled women towards the Favourite. Purchase of 
 the Marechale de Mirepoix's " Chaperonnage." The Duchesse de 
 Valentinois, the Marquise de 1'Hopital, the Princesse de Montmo- 
 rency. Skilful effacement of the Favourite. The Bellevue Supper. 
 The Gift of Luciennes. The Courtiers' Meannesses and the Che- 
 valier de la Marliere's Dedication. Portrait of Chancellor Maupeou. 
 
 So the Comtesse du Barry had been presented by Madame 
 de Beam to the King, to Mesdames, to the Dauphin, and 
 to the children of France. The day after the presentation, 
 which was a Sunday, she was present at the King's mass, 
 in the chapel of the Chateau, the place which had been oc- 
 cupied by the late Marquise de Pompadour. That day, 
 there were very few lords and ladies of the Court in the 
 train of the King; but it was noticed that he was accom- 
 panied by a numerous train of bishops, at the head of whom 
 was the Archbishop-Duke of Reims to whom His Majesty 
 spoke several times during the service. After mass, 
 Madame du Barry appeared at Mesdames' concert, and also 
 at the Dauphin's. 1 
 
 All the wishes of Madame du Barry were crowned by 
 this presentation. She slept in the enjoyment of a great 
 victory ; but her triumph was not absolute. It remained for 
 
 "Journal of Events that Came to my Knowledge." By Hardy. 
 National Library MSS. 
 
 59 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 her to wipe away and to conquer the last sentiments of de- 
 cency of the Court, the repugnances of women of title, the 
 protestations and hesitations of the great names of Ver- 
 sailles, in the presence of an accession to power so abrupt, 
 a good-fortune so new. In the month of May, in the jour- 
 ney to Marly following the presentation, where the King 
 stayed until the Whitsuntide holidays, the women invited 
 displayed so much coldness that nearly everybody felt ill at 
 ease. The rumour even circulated that the Princesse de 
 Guemenee had failed to meet Madame du Barry, and that 
 she had received orders from the King to retire to the so- 
 ciety of the young ladies to whom she had been the govern- 
 ness in succession to Madame de Marsan. In the midst of 
 the sulkiness of the ladies who were present, play was car- 
 ried on in an icy fashion. Some noblemen refused to deal 
 the cards under the pretext of being short of money. The 
 Favourite, however, played, and (unhappy creature!) when 
 she punted at faro, had she not the ill-luck to exclaim : " Ah! 
 my goose is cooked " ? 1 " We must needs take your word 
 for it, Madame," one sharp-tongued player said in reply, 
 while picking up the money she had lost, " you ought to be 
 a good judge," 2 an insolent allusion to her mother's position 
 as cook to Mile. Frederique. Madame du Barry, made the 
 subject of puns, shunned, and isolated, was forced to beat 
 a retreat towards her own set, and to confine herself to a 
 very limited circle, in other words, to Madame d'Alogny 
 and that old lady-litigant, the Comtesse de Beam. 
 
 1 Literally: "Ah! I am fried" (i.e., done for). TRANSLATOR. 
 * " Anecdotes about Madame du Barry." London, 1775. 
 
 60 
 
Madame D\* Barry 
 
 The mistress's faction was secretly working to secure for 
 the Favourite some social props, to purchase for her the 
 " chaperonnage " of a great name under the monarchy. 
 For this role, the most strong-minded, of her counsellors 
 had cast eyes on the Marechale de Mirepoix, that needy 
 personage always plunged in debt, and always hunting for 
 a little ready money " which she spent in buying trifles." 
 Since the month of January, the King had been holding con- 
 ferences with " the little Marechale/' which seemed to have 
 had no result. At last, the weak woman, who was so much 
 crushed by debts, though her brother was the Marechal de 
 Beau van, and she was the friend and ally of Choiseul, con- 
 sented to become the Du Barry's travelling and supper com- 
 panion for the yearly sum of a hundred thousand francs, for 
 which she got neither a contract nor a warrant, but merely 
 a bond by means of which she was kept at will, and might 
 be subjected to every kind of humiliation. 1 The Marechale 
 had been promised the " Nantes Lodges " by the Du Barry, 
 but eventually the King made a gift of the place to the 
 Favourite herself. 2 In spite of this heart-breaking expe- 
 
 1 " Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." Vol- 
 ume II. 
 
 1 The " Nantes Lodges " were the present made by the King to the 
 Du Barry as a New Year's gift in 1770. The memoirs of the time 
 estimate the income at 40,000 livres a year. In the inventory of the 
 papers of the Comtesse du Barry, removed from Luciennes to the 
 Archives of the Seine-et-Oise on the occasion of the sequestration of 
 I793 delivered up to the Gomard heirs in 1825 and since lost, we 
 find : " New File of Papers. Documents relating to the letting of 
 booths, shops, sheds, erected on the counterscarp at Nantes, granted 
 
 61 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 rience of an influence utterly of no account at Court, the 
 offensive indifference of the Du Barry to her person and 
 to her health, the unfortunate old woman was destined to 
 descend to such abasement as to write to the Favourite on 
 the overthrow of Choiseul : " Madame, I present my compli- 
 ments to you on your triumph, which is as brilliant as your 
 conquest" a letter which drew from the indignant pen of 
 the Duchesse de Choiseul this terrible paragraph intended 
 for the benefit of the lady paying the compliment : " Never 
 imagine, I implore of you, my dear child, no matter under 
 what pretext, whatever turn you may take, for whatever 
 purpose in the world it may be, that you could render us 
 the least service through the Marechale. There are no evils 
 that I should not prefer to the opprobrium of being indebted 
 to anyone whom I despise." 1 
 
 But the " Fairy Urgele," as the old Marechale was called, 
 was not sufficient ; an entire train was needed to accompany 
 the mistress. It was easy to get the Duchesse de Valen- 
 tinois, who was already a little mad, already more or less 
 in a dying condition, but who had still some good days here 
 and there; and a conquest was made of Soubise's mistress, 
 the Marquise de 1'Hopital, whose reputation, torn by all the 
 
 " Complete Correspondence of Madame du Def fand." By M. de 
 Sainte-Aulaire. Levy, 1866. Volume I. 
 
 to Madame du Barry as only a usufruct during her life, by the 
 King's warrant dated December 23, 1769. Account of the Sieur 
 Dardel, manager, and of the Sieur Couilland de la Pironniere, re- 
 ceiver of the produce of the said shops, etc. Documents and plans 
 relating to them. Leases of the said property drawn up in 1771." 
 
 62 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 silly babblers of the time, had nothing that could be lost. 
 Finally, the Princesse de Montmorency was won by working 
 on her husband's desire to become the manager of the 
 Dauphin. 1 
 
 Madame du Barry, at bottom, filled her role very de- 
 cently, and it was impossible even for her enemies not to 
 render justice to the propriety of her demeanour. Raised 
 from such a low to such a high position, flung suddenly 
 towards such a height of greatness and into the dazzling 
 splendour of a world to which she had been an entire 
 stranger, she escaped dizziness, vertigo. She preserved, in 
 this perfectly superb adventure, coolness and an unruffled 
 ease of manner. She had, in everything and in the spectacle 
 which she furnished, an equilibrium which might not have 
 been expected from a life like hers, and which astonished 
 her enemies. Foreigners passing through Versailles praised 
 her manners, in which there was no boldness, arrogance, or 
 affectation. 2 Modesty was her style and her habitual prac- 
 tice. She avoided opportunities of exhibiting herself, out- 
 lets for the display of vanity. She dealt skilfully with the 
 jealousies of women, and she cleverly made it a matter of 
 prudence to be beautiful. At Court she did not lay great 
 store on her position, disposing of her favour in such a way 
 as to annoy nobody; and the madcap who was so ex- 
 travagant in the years that were to follow was satisfied at 
 
 1 " Letters of the Marquise du Def fand to Horace Walpole," Vol- 
 ume I. 
 8 "Letters of Horace Walpole." Didier, 1872. 
 
 63 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 this period with an interest which the King had given her 
 in the office of the Fermier-General Virly, and in the money 
 with which a very generous lender assisted her, her able 
 brother-in-law, the Comte Jean. The Roue knew how to be 
 the King's banker by lending to his mistress. 1 
 
 Gradually, around this favourite so easy-going, so par- 
 donable, better fixed, better established each day, more sta- 
 ble, the quarantine became less severe. Individualities ex- 
 tricated themselves from the bonds of an order, a faction, 
 a coterie. The conspiracy of coldnesses was dissipated ; the 
 fine airs became less dry; human respect, the fear of the 
 public and of neighbours became less great. People began 
 in corners of Versailles to gather in groups of two or three 
 in order to have the courage of a little levity ; and the end 
 of it was that scarcely anyone was scandalized at hearing at 
 Bellevue Madame Flavacour declaring herself ready to join 
 in a game with Madame du Barry, or the Due de Richelieu 
 saying in a loud tone, while taking his place beside her, that 
 " he was entirely Madame du Barry's." And the Marechal, 
 having presently got up a little game of lansquenet in order 
 to teach it to the mistress, gallantly lost 250 louis, and, 
 when the King laughed at him and asked him why it was 
 that he had lost so much money at such a quiet game, the 
 Marechal answered him with this snatch from an opera: 
 
 1 " Unpublished Correspondence of the Comte du Barry." Revue de 
 Paris, November, 1836. The Roue says in his letter addressed to M. 
 de Malesherbes : " In order to sustain her new position during the 
 first fifteen months, in which she received no pecuniary favour, I 
 drained my pocketbook and pledged the rest of my resources." 
 
 64 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " THe best of us all 
 
 Into debt may fall 
 Without knowing the reason why." 1 
 
 The King burst out laughing, and with the King every 
 other person in the salon of Belleville. 2 
 
 This supper at Bellevue in the month of June was much 
 commented on by the politicians of the Court. It became, 
 according to the expression of a manuscript sheet of the day, 
 the thermometer which was to advise the courtiers as to 
 " the degree of heat or cold " they were to import into their 
 respective assiduities with one or the other hostile party. 
 The amiably amorous words of the King were repeated, as 
 well as his open acknowledgment of the happiness he felt 
 at possessing her for the first time in this beautiful site. 
 Madame du Barry was exhibited, placed by the King at a 
 
 1 "Le plus sage 
 
 S'enflamme et s'engage 
 Sans savoir comment." 
 
 9 "Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." 
 Treuttel, 1812, Vol. I. The King set out from Marly on June 21, 
 1769, in order to go and sleep at Bellevue, and to repair to the Chateau 
 of Saint Hubert. The King came to Saint Hubert to observe, in 
 company with Madame du Barry, the passage of the planet Venus 
 across the sun, and the explanations of the royal lover to his igno- 
 rant mistress and his caressing efforts to make her see the star 
 through a telescope, gave occasion to some verses of a courtier : 
 
 "What shall we be told by this telescope, 
 
 This Venus and this sun ? " 
 ("Que nous diront ce telescope, 
 Cette Venus et ce soleil?") 
 
 65 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 table between him and the Comte de la Marche, on account 
 of the friendship of this Prince for the lady, as Louis XV. 
 put it, and he allowed the other guests to seat themselves 
 at table just as they liked. The remark was made that the 
 Comtesse's nephew, young Du Barry, who had quite re- 
 cently come from the King's apartment, had been admitted 
 to the conspicuous honour of this supper. To these shining 
 marks of favour shown towards the Du Barry faction were 
 pointed out by way of contrast some symptoms of Choiseul's 
 failing influence. He was represented as arriving at the 
 head of a group which, in the course of the guests' walk 
 around the park while waiting for supper, almost dissolved 
 in order to join the hostile group of the Marechale de Mire- 
 poix and of Madame de Flavacourt, so that in the end the 
 minister walked all alone. Allusions were made to the con- 
 centration of mind displayed by the minister at the supper, 
 which was very gay, and to the lines of care on his fore- 
 head while the King was playing whist. 1 
 
 As against the influence acquired by the mistress, the 
 Due de Choiseul had recourse to the manoeuvre which 
 Fleury had made use of with such success when he wanted 
 to bring force to bear on the will of Louis XV. : he left the 
 Court and went to Chanteloup. But, on his return, if he 
 found his credit again complete and the good graces of the 
 King at the same point, he also found Madame du Barry's 
 favour remarkably advanced with the King, who made her 
 
 1 "Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775. 
 
 66 
 
LOUIS XV 
 
 Tojacepage66 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 a gift of Luciennes, 1 and the circle of her acquaintances 
 strangely extended. The Favourite had made so many re- 
 cruits and in every grade at Court, she was already so well 
 propped up by those around her that she had been able to 
 show her gratitude to Madame de Beam. 2 The emulation 
 
 1 This chateau had been given up to the King by the Due de Pen- 
 thievre, who, having had the misfortune to see his son, the Prince de 
 Lamballe, die, had taken a disgust to it. Here is the deed of dona- 
 tion: 
 
 " Warrant of Gift of the Mansion of Louvetiennes in Favour of the 
 Comtesse du Barry. 
 
 " To-day, July 24th, one thousand seven hundred and sixty-nine, 
 the King, being at Compiegne, and wishing to give to the Comtesse 
 du Barry a mark of the benevolence with which His Majesty honors 
 her, has granted to her and made her the gift of the mansion of 
 Louvetiennes, its gardens and appurtenances, of which the enjoy- 
 ment had been already granted by His Majesty to the Comtesse de 
 Toulouse, and after her to the Due de Penthievre, who has resigned 
 them so as to enable them to be enjoyed by the said Comtesse du 
 Barry during her life in so far as the said mansion and appurte- 
 nances extend and allow, comformably to the plan laid down in the 
 His Majesty's General Direction of Buildings, which commands and 
 orders M. de Marigny, Lieutenant-General of the Province of Or- 
 leans to put his hand to the execution of the present warrant and 
 have it countersigned by me, Under- Secretary of State, and by his 
 commands. Signed LOUIS, and lower down, signed PHELY- 
 PEAUX (National Archives, Register of Warrants). 
 
 " It will be noticed that the donation is for life only, thus differing 
 from the donation made to Madame de Pompadour in the Champs 
 Elysees, which is made to her in such a way that she can dispose 
 of it as her own property without restriction." 
 
 3 The " Anecdotes " speak of a sum of 100,000 livres paid to the 
 Comtesse de Beam for the presentation of Madame du Barry. Is 
 the statement made in the "Anecdotes" exact? However that may 
 be, the Comtesse de Beam seems to have continued to find herself 
 in a rather wretched condition so far as her resources were con- 
 
 67 
 
 1 
 
Madame Dva Barry 
 
 in meannesses began to find an outlet, and a story was told 
 about the note of the humorous hunchback, the Due de 
 Tresmes, to the Favourite : " The Comtesse du Barry's 
 marmoset has come to return her visit." So then there was 
 no longer lacking to Madame du Barry anything that a Fa- 
 vourite can command at Court: she had friends, courtiers, 
 valets, and buffoons. She had not long to wait for men of 
 letters. Since the beginning of 1769, one of them had the 
 courage to send her his book with this dedication : 
 
 " Madame : Nature has lavished on you her rarest 
 gifts ; the happiest destiny seems to preside over your career, 
 and the affability, the beneficence, luckiness of character 
 still much more essential, will, without doubt, gain applause 
 with profitable competition. You will surrender yourself, 
 Madame, to everything most favourable which those esti- 
 mable qualities inspire in you. You will honour the sciences, 
 the arts, and all that appears to you worthy of marked dis- 
 tinction, and you will thereby show that discernment and 
 that real merit always independent of circumstances, and 
 
 cerned. In a letter sent on the 4th of July, 1771, it is said of the 
 King's house : " You ought to be persuaded, Madame, with all the 
 desire I have to be able to render you a service, and although the 
 circumstances may not be quite favourable for obtaining pecuniary 
 favours, that I shall not fail to speak to the King as well as to the 
 Comtesse du Barry about the situation in which you find yourself and 
 the need you have that H. M. should come to your succour." In 
 another letter sent on July 25th, 1772, advice is given to her to have a 
 request made by an advocate to the Council containing the reasons 
 which put her in the condition to ask for the favour which she so- 
 licits. (National Archives, "Letters Missive O 1 413, 414.) 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 much superior to those frivolous surfaces under which false 
 grandeur too often thinks it can hide its pcttinws from our 
 gaze. I am with respect, 
 
 " Madame, 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 " The Chevalier de la Morliere." 1 
 
 1 The book had for its title : " Fatalism, or Collection of Anec- 
 dotes to prove the influence of Fate on the History of the Human 
 Heart." By the Chevalier de la Morliere, 1769. The dedication 
 procured for the Chevalier the sale of his volume, and an invitation 
 to supper from the Favourite, who gave him "a distinguished re- 
 ception." 
 
 Other men of letters imitated the Chevalier de la Morliere, and 
 amongst the volumes which the library of Versailles possesses, while 
 some books bear the arms and the device of the Du Barry, four works 
 have in their first page a dedication to the Favourite. 
 
 The first bears the title of " Royalism, or Memoirs of Du Barry 
 of Saint- Aunet and of Constance de Cezelli, his Wife, Heroic Anec- 
 dotes under Henry IV." By M. de Limairac. The author, in his 
 dedicatory epistle, announces to the Favourite that the traits of 
 heroism which he develops are taken from her family. 
 
 The second work, of which the words are by Douin, Captain of 
 Infarrtry, while the flowers are designed and engraved by Chevalier, 
 Lieutenant of Infantry, and the text is printed by Drouet, an ex- 
 soldier of Infantry, is a small almanac published by Blaisot in Ver- 
 sailles, containing 50 plates and 48 mottoes, and as many horoscopes 
 for every state and age. This " Almanach of Flora" for 1774 has 
 at its head printed in red, with a portrait of Madame du Barry, a 
 sunflower looking towards the sun. 
 
 " The star is constant, 
 And faithful the flower." 
 
 The third work is entitled " Moral Tales and New Idyls of D," 
 and Solomon Gesner, Meister, Translator of the Idyls, addresses the 
 mistress of Louis XV. in these poetic terms: 
 
 69 
 
Madame Du. Barry 
 
 While the social circle of the Favourite began to be 
 formed, her faction made an important recruit ; it definitely 
 got hold of the man who had in 1768 been created by Choi- 
 seul Chancellor of France under the promise of ruining 
 D'Aiguillon in his suit brought up that year before the par- 
 liament of Paris. A strange figure of the time was this 
 Maupeou. A greenish countenance, like a mottled face, 
 as the Due de Brissac expressed it, a countenance whose ex- 
 travasated gall he sought to hide under a layer of white and 
 
 " May Beauty, Art and Genius win the praise 
 Of all who owe allegiance to their sway : 
 May my poor Eclogue, simple, harmless, gay, 
 
 Arrest for one brief moment your sweet gaze ! 
 Like you, its beauty needs no gaudy dress 
 To Nature's hand it owes its loveliness; 
 
 Like you, a subtle charm around it clings, 
 So that, when robed as a poor shepherdess, 
 
 It wins the hearts of heroes and of kings." 
 
 (This is nearly a literal rendering into English verse of the French 
 original. TRANSLATOR. ) 
 
 Finally, the last work is a poetic collection containing two comic 
 operas, " Love's New Year's Gifts " and " The Newly-Married 
 Man," of which the author, Cailhava, has written on the first page 
 these verses: 
 
 "Borne in a vision high into the air, 
 Methought I saw the Cytherea fair, 
 The tender Hebe to whom lovers pray, 
 Since she loves all things beautiful and gay; 
 Her bright eyes scanned my book, and by her smile 
 I guessed its pages did her soul beguile." 
 
 (This version, too, is as nearly literal as possible for an English 
 version of French verses. TRANSLATOR, 
 
 70 
 
Madame D\* Barry- 
 red, 1 eyes which seemed at the same time mistrustful of 
 snares and seeking for prey, 2 while they were veiled by a 
 look of kindness, a physiognomy slily villainous, disguised 
 under the sprightly mask of the comic actor. With this, 
 the tongue which loves gilded phrases, which is insinuating, 
 caressing, and fond of addressing others familiarly on the 
 slightest occasion, and which bores all who possess the 
 least influence with its politeness and exaggerated defer- 
 ence. While he never read a book on legislation, philoso- 
 phy, or politics, Maupeou read men through and through, 
 penetrating into their hidden recesses, and into the secret 
 basenesses of their mercenary souls. He had put aside the 
 magisterial get-up, that robe under which France was ac- 
 customed to see its Chancellor, and he could be seen play- 
 ing the agreeable at clubs, theatres, pleasure-resorts, sup- 
 pers, and balls. Surrounded with the delicate luxury of 
 a courtesan, the magistrate lived in a mansion, which 
 was a boudoir, sober by temperament, chaste through the 
 feebleness that accompanies a valetudinarian complexion. 
 Under those appearances and those lies of frivolity, Mau- 
 peou concealed the windings of an enormous ambition com- 
 bined with the perpetration of slow and premeditated ven- 
 geances. With such a man gratitude necessarily has little 
 weight; he was one of those who belong always to the 
 
 1 " The English Spy, or Correspondence between my lord All-Eye 
 and my lord All-Ear." John Adamson, 1774, Tome I. 
 
 a Extract from the " Memoirs of Horace Walpole." Year 1771. 
 " Letters of Horace Walpole." By the Comte Baillon. Didier, 1872. 
 
Madame Du, Barry 
 
 strongest, or rather the strongest belonged only to him. And 
 at that moment, when the struggle between the two parties 
 had been seriously entered upon it was D'Aiguillon's papers 
 which made the assertion 1 he was dreaming of hitting 
 two at once, he dreamed of destroying at the same time 
 Choiseul and D'Aiguillon, according only a brief respite to 
 the last. Besides, his political views let us say it by way of 
 justification on his behalf made ingratitude a duty with 
 him. A creature of Choiseul, he kept buried in his breast 
 sentiments and a political plan entirely opposed to Choiseul. 
 He secretly cherished a profound hatred against the Par- 
 liament, from which he had received marks of insulting dis- 
 trust, which wished to mercurialize him. A partisan of 
 authority like D'Aiguillon, but with other forms of develop- 
 ment, other methods of action, new methods, he had the 
 ambition to bring about a revolution against the Parliament 
 which, by putting into the hands of Royalty a complete 
 authority and an initiative without control, would have per- 
 mitted the King to give satisfaction to the rights and to the 
 interests which the Revolution of 1789 was destined to arm 
 against Royalty. 2 
 
 Since the presentation of Madame du Barry, the Chancel- 
 lor had laid claim to a relationship of which till now he had 
 kept the secret. He no longer called her anything but " my 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." Buisson, 
 1792. 
 
 J " Maupeou's Memoirs," yet unpublished, indicate the tendency 
 till then unknown of his plans and ideas. 
 
 72 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 cousin." * By his assiduities, by his indefatigable complais- 
 ances, by an abasement of character which nothing of- 
 fended, by all those courtier's buffooneries which drag the 
 Chancellor's robe into the farcicality of a masquerade, 
 Pantalon-Maupeou imparted to the Favourite, bored with 
 the seriousness of the Court, the habit and the need of his 
 person as an amusing butt. And it so happened that the 
 man who had promised Choiseul the ruin of D'Aiguillon 
 promised Madame du Barry the overthrow of Choiseul, 
 binding himself to obtain from the King the destruction of 
 that great force of M. de Choiseul the Parliaments. 
 
 1 " Private Life of Louis XV." London : Peter Lyton, 1785 
 Vol. IV. 
 
 73 
 
V. 
 
 The Review in the Royal-Lieu at Compiegne. The Honours of 
 Chantilly paid by the Prince of Conde to the Comtesse du Barry. 
 The Two Portraits by Drouais in the Salon of 1769. Choiseul's Act 
 of Submission. Louis XV.'s Letter with reference to his Mistress. 
 Chignons a la Du Barry. Flung from a Stag to the King's Pavilion. 
 Bouret's Design. 
 
 ON the loth of July, the King quitted Versailles to go to 
 the camp at Compiegne. Madame du Barry accompanied 
 him on the journey. Putting aside this time the modesty 
 of her external equipage, of her incognito, the Favourite 
 travelled in three carriages with horses, with relays ordered 
 at the different stages as if for the King. In the arrange- 
 ments made for the journey, Louis XV., in order to avoid 
 bickerings and manifestations of contempt towards his 
 mistress, had erased from the list of women drawn up in 
 the preceding year the Duchesse de Gramont, the Comtesse 
 de Brionne, the Comtesse d'Egmont, the three ladies of the 
 Court who had pretensions to beauty and the most incensed 
 at the Du Barry's triumph. 1 On the 22nd of July, the King 
 
 1 The exclusion gave occasion to a blackguard caricature referred 
 to in the " Secret Memoirs " and with the title of " The Battle of 
 the Anagrams." It represented the three beauties of the court in 
 the character of the Three Graces, flying in tears before a beauty 
 of the street, with a shameless countenance and lascivious attitudes 
 which were indicated by the anagram of the word " grace." Let us 
 
 74 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 brought Madame du Barry to witness the spectacle of the 
 review of the Swiss regiments of Boccard, Lochman, Sonne- 
 berg and of the German infantry of Royal Bavaria, Deux- 
 Ponts, Nassau, the Esterhazy hussars, a detachment of the 
 corps of Royal Artillery escorted by forty cannons, &C. 1 
 The Du Barry in her brilliant phaeton 2 was the queen of the 
 camp. She treated magnificently the officers of the regi- 
 ment of Beauce, in which her brother-in-law, Elie du Barry 
 was serving, and the Colonel, M. de la Tour du Pin, after 
 the King had passed, had the same honors paid to the car- 
 riage of Madame du Barry as are rendered to the carriage 
 of the Royal Family. Choiseul, raging at those high marks 
 of distinction accorded to the mistress, reprimanded M. de 
 la Tour du Pin, and forbade him to waste military honours 
 in this way in the future. What happened? Louis XV. 
 wrote rather sharply to his Minister of War : 
 
 " It is said that you have scolded the Chevalier de la Tour 
 du Pin about Madame du Barry, because she dined in the 
 
 1 The National Library possesses a little volume printed without 
 place or date, entitled : " Condition of the Troops which are to pass 
 in review before the King at Compiegne in the year 1769, and which 
 will form the camp in the plain of Verberie, which camp will begin 
 to be formed on the ist July and will be complete on the i$th of the 
 said month." 
 
 * " The Life and the Memoirs of General Dumouriez." By BerviUe 
 and Barriere, Baudouin Brothers, 1822. Vol. I. 
 
 here mention the rarity, at the present time, of caricatures of the 
 reign of Louis XV., and let us complain of not finding a single one of 
 the caricatures relating to Madame du Barry in the Cabinet of En- 
 gravings or in any other collection. 
 
 75 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 camp, and because the greatest number of officers dined 
 at her house on the day of the review. 
 
 " You have promised me that I should no more hoar her 
 talked about by you." 1 
 
 The journey to Compiegne had been preceded by a so- 
 journ of Louis XV. at Chantilly; but the presence of 
 Mesdames had not allowed apartments to be given to 
 Madame du Barry, who had done nothing, it was said, but 
 come there secretly to sleep one night. On the return from 
 Compiegne towards the end of August, the Comtesse was 
 officially invited to accompany the King to Chantilly. And 
 of this princely dwelling, of which a Conde had paid the 
 honours to Louis XIV. and his court, another Conde now 
 paid the honours to little Lange, driving her out in a calash 
 at hunts, showing her to the place of honour at public sup- 
 pers, and seeming finally to dedicate to her the flowers, the 
 fireworks, the flourishes of his entertainments. 
 
 The presentation at the Court was, for a mistress, like 
 emerging out of utter obscurity and being crowned with an 
 existence of glory at Versailles ; the exhibition of paintings 
 at the Salon of the Louvre was the presentation of the mis- 
 tress to Paris. All of a sudden came celebrity for her 
 beauty, her grace, for that face until now unknown, to-day 
 
 1 Letters of Louis XV. to the Due de Choiseul, communicated by 
 his nephew, the Due de Choiseul. Revue de Paris, 1829, Tome IV. 
 It is an autograph letter. In answer to this letter the Duke wrote 
 to the King giving a long explanation, in which he said he had only 
 given notice to M. de la Tour du Pin that honors ought not to be 
 paid to her when the King was in the camp. 
 
 76 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 brought into the light, and of which the charming and bril- 
 liant engraving of the period was about to make a popular 
 portrait, a portrait which all Europe bought. The friends 
 of Madame du Barry selected, then, to paint her this year, 
 when the exhibition took place, the artist who painted the 
 portraits of beautiful and pretty women of great reputation, 
 the painter of Madame de Pompadour's last portrait 
 Drouais. And this artist, captivated by the double charac- 
 ter of frankness and archness which constituted the origi- 
 nality of Madame du Barry's beauty, had conceived the 
 idea of representing the favourite in two portraits in which 
 she would be seen in one case under the veil of woman, in 
 another under the disguise of a man. 1 
 
 1 Diderot rather severely criticizes these two portraits, which, it 
 must be confessed, like all the portraits by Drouais, ?re rather me- 
 diocre pictures. Here is the appreciation of the critic : " If I am to 
 make any remark to you on these two portraits, it is that the original 
 was, for the time being, the talk of Paris. It was said, and by people 
 in good society, that they did not resemble each other, and that 
 Madame du Barry was better. The artist added that there were the 
 materials for producing a portrait more agreeable, that in her por- 
 trait as a man there was a constraint which it was painful to see, no 
 harmony, a head which did not belong to the body, and under this 
 disguise of costume a body thin, limp, shrunk. The artist did not 
 doubt that these two portraits would be the most stared at of all the 
 portraits in the Salon. He, therefore, put into them all his skill, and, 
 if they are bad, this proves that it is not always in an artist's power 
 to succeed. The efforts which he makes, then, the task which he 
 imposes beforehand on himself, are very capable of puzzling his brain 
 and of making his brush unreliable; this is certainly what happened 
 to Drouai, and what would have happened to a greater master than 
 he was." 
 
 77 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 In the first portrait 1 attired in a robe with a white tunic 
 all puffed out, over which ran a garland of roses round 
 the shoulders, the Du Barry appeared, with a string of 
 pearls on her neck, fresh and laughing with the innocence 
 of a young Flora, in a mythological costume, which she 
 wore habitually in her little suite of apartments and ar- 
 rayed in which the courtesan knew how to please the King. 
 In the second portrait, she is in a riding habit. 2 The co- 
 
 1 Here is the list of portraits of Madame du Barry engraved as 
 Flora : 
 
 The COMTESSE DU BARRY. Painted by Drouais, engraved by 
 Gaudier. 
 
 The place of this small portrait is at the artist's, with the privilege 
 of the King, and dated 1770; the second place is at Bigny's, the 
 King's Lancer, Riding Court of the Tuileries. 
 
 An engraved portrait, larger than that of Gaucher, shows her to us 
 in the costume of Flora in a frame of flowers, to which is attached 
 a quiver, a bow, and a lighted torch. On the tablet can be read : 
 
 " MADAME LA COMTESSE DU BARRY." 
 
 Finally, a copy from these different portraits has been made in 
 aquatint in England on a larger scale, and has been published with 
 the inscription underneath: 
 
 " THE COMTESS OF BARRE." 
 
 1 Here is the list of portraits engraved of Madame du Barry in her 
 riding-habit : 
 
 THE COMTESSE DU BARRY. Painted by Drouais, engraved by Bau- 
 varlet. The proofs before the letters are worth from 200 to 300 
 francs. 
 
 Another: THE COMTESSE DU BARRY. Marilly del. Lebeau sculp. 
 Frame ornamented at the base with doves pecking at each other, and 
 the verses : 
 
 " The Graces and Love her with worship surround ; 
 
 By the Arts in their turn she is graciously crowned ! " 
 (Les Graces et 1' Amour sans cesse 1'environnent 
 Et les Arts avec eux tour a tour eux couronnent.) 
 
 78 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 quettish print by Beauvarlet, which may be described as the 
 official portrait of the Favourite, shows us the waist caught 
 in a vest with military facings, while around her bare neck 
 and between her breasts plays, like a man's frill gaping 
 
 Another : THE COMTESSE DU BARRY. Paris : Duchaine, Rue Saint- 
 Jacques and Bligny, Riding school at the Tuileries. There is a list 
 before No. 213. 
 
 Another : Legrand, sculp., and at the end of the verse : 
 " To please is not her only care in life." 
 (Plaire n'est pas Funique soin pour elle.) 
 
 Four other detestable portraits, the first fabricated for a book 
 bearing above the words : Tome IV., page 159 ; the second, Printed 
 and sold by Henri van Dussen, London, 1775; the third, J. G. Jaen- 
 niske, sculp. ; the fourth, E. Bonneville, sculp., and below, M. Jne. 
 Gomart de Vaubernier. 
 
 There is still a sheet in which the portrait of the Du Barry figures 
 in the midst of portraits of Charlotte Corday, of Bailly, of Barnave, 
 of Luckner. 
 
 Finally a couple of aquatints of the portrait of Beauvarlet have 
 been made in England. The words inscribed on it are : " Drouais 
 pinxit; J. Watson fecit Madame de Barre. Engraved from a draw- 
 ing after the original picture painted by Drouais in possession of 
 Louis XV., published 25th Th., 1771." 
 
 Lastly, Bonnet has made of this portrait two reproductions in 
 colour : 
 
 The first, a pendant of the little portrait of Marie Antoinette, 
 but without any of her qualities, has in the frame beribboned and 
 surrounded with flowers the following inscription : " MADAME LA 
 COMTESSE DU BARRY." England, by Bonnet, 1769. The second 
 reproduction, drawn in red or in blue, and sometimes made to imitate 
 a pastel, is the head of Madame du Barry, represented at her natural 
 size in her riding-habit. The inscription is : " Drouais pinx. Bon- 
 net, sculp. MADAME LA COMTESSE DU BARRY, Paris, Bonnet, Rue Ga- 
 lande, between a candle-stick-maker and a packing-case-maker." 
 
 Let us complete the list of portraits engraved at the time by the 
 portraits which represent other paintings besides the two portraits of 
 Drouais. 
 
 79 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 slightly open, a large piece of English lace. She has a smooth 
 head-dress, and two or three patches stuck here and there 
 set off the rebellious expression of that charming, saucy 
 little face. 1 Therefore, what a crowd, what a crush there 
 
 1 Independently of the two portraits of the Salon of 1769 (sold at 
 the Devere Sale, March 17, 1855) Madame du Barry has been the 
 theme for portraiture many times by the painters of her time. 
 Drouais, the favourite painter of the Comtesse, has again on exhibi- 
 tion in the Salon for 1771 a picture of her as one of the Muses veiled 
 in transparent drapery, which accentuates the nudity of her entire 
 form and allows the legs to be seen as far as the knees. A critic 
 has said of this portrait: "Drouais has once more failed to give a 
 true portrait of the Comtesse du Barry, when he to-day presents her 
 to us with the attributes of a tarnished and almost faded Flora." 
 Whether it was owing to this criticism, or that there were quite 
 enough of nasty jokes as to the nudity of her charms, or whether it 
 was due to the clamour of the devotees, the portrait was withdrawn 
 almost as soon as it was exhibited. 
 
 The same year the " Secret Memoirs " announced that Greuze was 
 
 There is, first of all, a coarse portrait engraved by some anony- 
 mous person of Madame du Barry as a Bacchante. 
 
 Another portrait in which Madame du Barry is represented in 
 Court dress and with a large headdress of feathers, bears at the foot 
 of it these words: "Jeanne Gomard de Vaubernier, Comtesse du 
 Barry. Decapitated in Paris on the i8th Brumaire, the year II (pth 
 of December, 1793), at the age of 42. Bonivet, sculp, a la pointe. 
 This is the portrait which Favrolle put at the head of his " Historic 
 Memoirs." 
 
 Finally, a last portrait of Madame du Barry, the rarest of all her 
 portraits, without doubt done in London in one of her journeys in 
 search of her diamonds, the watch with a handkerchief tied with a 
 loose knot, a short tippet with big folds, a white robe, the waist of 
 which is under the breast, in fact, a toilet which already heralds the 
 fashion of the Directoire. Underneath, " R. Cosway, pinxit. J. Conde, 
 sculp. M. la Comtesse du Barry, London. Published by J. Conde, 
 February, 1794, and sold by I. Tompkins, No. 49 New Bond Street." 
 
 80 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 was around these, two canvases ! It was even so big a 
 crowd that, one day, Walpole, who had come to the exhi- 
 bition to see the two portraits, had to abandon the attempt. 1 
 On the day when Madame du Barry, accompanied by a 
 train of painters and sculptors, repaired to the Salon, every 
 one was ordered to go out, 2 according to the orders of M. 
 
 1 Letter of the 30th of August, 1769. " Horace Walpole's Letters." 
 Didier, 1872. 
 
 1 " Letters of Madame du Deffand to Walpole." Treuttel, 1872, 
 Tome I. 
 
 striving for a portrait of the favourite. It is the portrait figuring 
 under No. 46 amongst the objects chosen by the Committee of Arts 
 at Luciennes after the execution of the Comtesse; a portrait also 
 catalogued : " An Unfinished Picture representing the Dubarry as a 
 Bacchante." 
 
 Madame Lebrun relates in her " Memoirs " that she made three por- 
 traits of Madame du Barry. The first, painted in 1786, represented 
 the mistress of Luciennes in a three-quarters' bust, in a white dress- 
 ing gown, with a straw hat surmounted by a feather. A second por- 
 trait, painted, like the first for the Due de Brissac, showed the Com- 
 tesse du Barry dressed in white satin, and holding a crown in one 
 hand. Subsequently, Madame Lebrun found at a sale the face all 
 daubed with rouge. A third portrait, commenced by Madame Lebrun 
 in 1789, and which she had left with only the arms and waist outlined, 
 and found again by the emigre at the house of the Comte Louis of 
 Narbonne, on his return to France, was resumed and finished. 
 
 In a love letter of Rohan-Rochefort, there is a reference to a por- 
 trait begun under the Revolution by Letellier. 
 
 Finally, the Museum of Versailles preserves under the number 
 4537> a portrait of Madame du Barry by an unknown painter (is it a 
 copy of Drouais?) in which she is represented in a dressing-gown, 
 with her hair uncombed, leaning on a dressing-table, and stirring a 
 cup of coffee with a little spoon, with Zamor in front of her carrying 
 a tray. 
 
 And let us not forget also that she has been painted, in one of her 
 latest trips to England, by Cosway. 
 
 81 6 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 de Saint-Florentin, who prescribed for the new Favourite's 
 reception the same ceremonial as in the case of Madame 
 de Pompadour. 
 
 In view of all the conspicuous testimonies of favour 
 shown this year to Madame du Barry by the King, who was 
 becoming more infatuated about her from day to day, in 
 view of the increasing influence she employed from asso- 
 ciation with Richelieu, D'Aiguillon, Maupeou, Maillebois, 
 and Broglie, feeling the secret disloyalty to himself of men 
 of high rank whom he thought to be on his side and of il- 
 lustrious ladies who were only longing for the moment to 
 imitate the example of the Duchesse de Mirepoix, perceiv- 
 ing in short in the atmosphere of the Court the symptoms 
 of the serious and lasting domination of a woman establish- 
 ing her position by the love which she had won, Choiseul 
 thought it expedient to give way. The minister came to 
 declare to the King his respect for the wishes of his master 
 and for the desires of the woman who enjoyed his favour. 
 
 The graceful face of Madame du Barry was almost as frequently 
 made the subject of treatment by sculptors as by painters. Pajou 
 did a bust of her, that bust which had such a great success at the 
 Salon of 1771, that official bust reproduced in plaster. And this 
 bust he redeemed and modified in the attitude, the adjustment, and 
 the arrangement of the hair, even five times, as we may see in his 
 memorandum given in the Appendix. Caffieri in 1770 made that 
 delightful bust entirely in plaster which is in the Library at Ver- 
 sailles, a piece of sculpture much superior to that of Pajou, who 
 makes the mistress a Bourbonian and unintelligent, while Caffieri has 
 reproduced the archness, the complaisances, the effrontery of that 
 face so nymph-like, even to the saucy outlines of the quivering 
 nostrils. 
 
 82 
 
Madame Dxa Barry 
 
 He begged of the King not to hold him responsible for the 
 tone of hauteur adopted by his sister and his wife towards 
 Madame du Barry, as he had done everything in his power 
 to bring them to exhibit a very different attitude. But 
 Richelieu, the friend to suspend and to depend on, said to 
 Du Barry that she should be distrustful, as the Due de Choi- 
 seul was only keeping up a brave heart against ill-fortune. 
 And Madame Du Barry, who, in the beginning of her 
 favour, had told the Due that, if he wanted to make advances 
 to her, she would meet him half-way, found that he was too 
 slow in making these advances. 
 
 This act of submission on the part of M. de Choiseul 
 had not restored him to Louis XV.'s good graces. He found 
 himself very rarely summoned or invited to the cabinet sup- 
 pers. The favourite, when he was her partner at whist, did 
 not spare him the grimaces, the mockeries, the shrugs, all 
 the little revenges of the pensionnaire, which if they did not 
 lower his credit in his own department, " caused a fall in 
 his estimation amongst fools." At this time, the minister, 
 who, a year before, had been all-powerful, asked, for the 
 Vicomte de Choiseul, the post of captain-lieutenant of Light- 
 Horse: Madame du Barry prevented him from getting the 
 appointment. 
 
 Thus menaced, M. de Choiseul remained still confident in 
 the extent of his plans. He was reassured by the difficulties 
 of the political crisis with which Europe was threatened, by 
 the support of the magistrates, the men of letters, and all the 
 persons who were scandalized by the King's new love-af- 
 
 83 
 
Madame Dm Barry 
 
 fair either on moral or social grounds. Besides, the King 
 stuck to his minister. He lived in the belief that M. de 
 Choiseul was the only man capable of carrying on public 
 affairs, the only one who possessed the art of keeping the 
 enemies of France divided and deprived of the opportunity 
 of disturbing her. He regarded him as the man who was 
 necessary, indispensable, the keystone of European peace. 
 He dreaded a new figure on the scene, the bustle of a 
 change, the interference for even a moment with the cus- 
 tomary programme of the monarchy. Did he not see, at 
 the first rumour of Choiseul's disgrace, the Lieutenant of 
 Police coming to announce to him the lowering of the Royal 
 credits, the Prince of Starhemberg asking for explanations 
 on the part of the Prince de Kaunitz in the name of Austria, 
 and all the ministers of the Bourbons in Europe, attached 
 to M. de Choiseul by the " Pacte de Famille " * following 
 Prince Starhemberg? In order to get rid of his embarrass- 
 ment, Louis XV. broke through his ordinary habits, and, 
 without seeking to effect a reconciliation between his min- 
 ister and his mistress, as he had already tried to do in the 
 case of the Bellevue supper, he entered into an explanation 
 with M. de Choiseul, revealed to him how matters really 
 stood, and defended Madame du Barry against his hostility 
 and his suspicions. 
 
 The King wrote to his minister this letter, the authen- 
 ticity of which is incontestable : 
 
 1 Students of French history may remember the importance of 
 the " Pacte de Famille " in pre-Revolution days. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 84 
 
Madame Du. Barry 
 
 " I begin with M. d'Aiguillon. How can you believe that 
 he is able to replace you ? I like him well enough, it is true, 
 on account of the trick I played on him a long time ago. 1 
 Hated as he is, what good could he do? 
 
 " You carry on my affairs well ; I am perfectly satisfied 
 with you; but take care of followers and persons offering 
 you advice. You know Madame du Barry ; it certainly was 
 not M. de Richelieu who made me acquainted with her, 2 
 though he may know her, and does not venture to see her, 
 and the only time he has seen her for a moment was by my 
 express orders. I thought of making her acquaintance before 
 her marriage. She is pretty; I am satisfied with her, and 
 I am every day enjoining her to be careful about those who 
 gather about her and offer her advice; for you may well 
 imagine she has no lack of them. She has no hatred of you. 
 She knows your talent, and has no ill-will against you. The 
 exasperation against her has been frightful, and wrongly 
 so, for the most part. They would be at her feet if so goes 
 the world. 
 
 "She is very pretty; she pleases me; this ought to be 
 enough. Do people want me to take a girl of rank ? If the 
 Archduchess were a lady such as I might desire, I would 
 
 1 The King is here alluding to the Duchesse de Chateauroux, car- 
 ried off by him from the Due d'Aiguillon. 
 
 * Sara Goudar, in her " Remarks on the Anecdotes of Madame la 
 Comtesse Dubarri," says she had it on good authority "that the 
 King had by accident cast a glance at her in a crowd, and had then 
 lost sight of her; but this first glance having made an impression on 
 him, he imposed on Lebel the task of finding her again. 
 
 85 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 take her as a wife with great pleasure ; but I would like to 
 see her and know her beforehand. Her brother has been 
 looking out for one, and he has not succeeded. I believe 
 that I would be better able to judge than he is, for it is 
 necessary to bring things to an end ; and the fair sex other- 
 wise would always be giving me trouble ; for most certainly 
 you will not see a Madame de Maintenon in my case. Here 
 is, I think, enough about it for this time." 1 
 
 An interview, a three hours' conversation between M. de 
 Choiseul and Madame du Barry during the sojourn of the 
 Court at Fontainebleau, was the result of this letter, but 
 each of them brought to the conference their respective dis- 
 trusts, prejudices, and requirements. They remained on a 
 hostile footing with a little more display of hypocritical 
 forms. And M. de Choiseul was angry at the step he had 
 taken, which his friends looked upon as a fault, " since it 
 had not produced any good result." 2 
 
 Madame du Barry was beginning to occupy the attention 
 of Europe. What was told about her past, what was known 
 of her sway over the King's senses, what transpired of her 
 secret triumphs over the Prime Minister, what her engraved 
 portraits said of her beauty and her grace, made the Fa- 
 vourite an enigmatic personage, a historic figure full of 
 unexpectedness and novelty, towards whom the curiosity of 
 
 1 Letter of Louis XV. to the Due de Choiseul, communicated by his 
 nephew, M. le Due de Choiseul. Revue de Paris, 1829. Tome IV. 
 It is an autograph letter. 
 
 1 " Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Walpole." Trcuttel, 
 1812. Tome I. 
 
 86- 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 foreigners was attracted. And Walpole, having come across 
 from England, almost immediately after his arrival, hur- 
 ried to Versailles to have a look at the woman who was 
 loved by the King of France. He saw Madame du Barry 
 in the chapel. Accompanied by her inseparable sister-in- 
 law, the Favourite came and sat down at the foot of the 
 altar in the lower part of the church, without powder, with- 
 out rouge, without having made her toilet. 1 The English 
 lord, who compares himself somewhere in his carriage 
 painted and gilt to the grandfather of the Loves, strongly 
 expresses his astonishment at this small show of state, at 
 this absence of ceremony, on the part of the mistress in the 
 palace of Louis XIV. It was because Madame du Barry 
 brought to the Court the indolent and soft habits of body of 
 her former life, a gay woman's taste for free and easy ways, 
 a repugnance towards the exigencies and the sacrifices of 
 official full dress. She thought her hair too beautiful to 
 spoil it with powder, and always refused, Madame Lebrun 
 declares, to put on rouge. She loved to have around her 
 person the sense of being unrestrained by external things, 
 the floating of soft garments, the fluidity of tissues, a toilet 
 which retained a little of that deshabille of the bedroom, of the 
 boudoir. Even at the cabinet suppers, which had hitherto 
 seen women only in full dress, Madame du Barry accus- 
 tomed Louis XV. to see her come to table in her ordinary 
 costume. And, in this voluptuous fashion, she wore those 
 
 1 Letter of September 17, 1769. " Horace Walpole's letters to 
 George Montagu." Janet* 1818. 
 
 87 
 
Madame Du, Barry 
 
 loose chignons, invented, designed by her for her formei 
 lover, the hairdresser Lamet, those chignons a la Du Barry, 1 
 which, stuck to the head, though not appearing to stick 
 there, resemble a woman's hair ready to fall off with her 
 head thrown back. 
 
 The remainder of the autumn, in that nomadic life of the 
 Court, in those continual changes of place, by means of 
 which Louis XV. sought to beguile the solemn ennui of 
 Versailles; in those sojourns at Choisy, at Saint-Hubert, at 
 Fontainebleau, the King had the satisfaction of seeing 
 Madame du Barry with a train of fine ladies who had been 
 conquered and won. Madame du Barry most frequently 
 accompanied her Royal lover in that pretty masculine cos- 
 tume which Drouais' picture has popularised. It was in this 
 dress of a huntress that, during the journey of the Court 
 to Fontainebleau, she posed for the flinging of a stag to 
 the King's Pavilion with Bouret, the great inventor of adu- 
 lations towards courtesans. He led Madame du Barry 
 towards the Venus sculptured by Coustou for the King of 
 Prussia, a statue for which the gallant Fermier-General, di- 
 vining the love of the King, had got the Favourite's figure 
 substituted. 
 
 1 Madame du Barry could not merely be credited with inventing the 
 chignons which bear her name. The " Anecdotes " also attribute to 
 the taste and the coquetry of Madame du Barry the invention of the 
 " greluchon/' a long pin, the top of which was drawn into her chignon, 
 putting it in at the left. The name had made virtuous women dis- 
 approve of it, and the greluchon ("fancy man") had only been 
 adopted by fashionable ladies. 
 
fli. 
 
 MADAME DU BARRY 
 
 To face page 88 
 
VI. 
 
 Nomination of the Abbe Terrai to the post of Controller-General. 
 Choiseul alarms the Favourite with the announcement of the Dauph- 
 iness's Arrival. The Continuation of the Case of D'Aiguillon Ac- 
 cused of Acts which stained his Honor. The Chancellor's "Job- 
 bery." Madame du Barry becoming D'Aiguillon's Mistress and the 
 Instrument of Choiseul's Dismissal. Removal from the Records of 
 the Palais de Justice of the Minutes of the D'Aiguillon case. Cool- 
 ness of the King towards Choiseul. Denunciation of the Abbe de la 
 Ville. The Rising of the Council of September 21, 1770. 
 
 THE year 1769 ended badly for M. de Choiseul. On De- 
 cember 2 ist, at a council held in Versailles and composed 
 of members of the Councils of State, of Finances, of Mails, 
 the Controller-General, Maynon d'Invau, a creature of Choi- 
 seul, whose financial plans had been criticized by the Chan- 
 cellor, laid them down on the desk changed, corrected, 
 modified, declaring that he had nothing better to present. 
 Maupeou addressed the Council, and gave a highly-coloured 
 picture of the distress of France, and demonstrated the in- 
 sufficiency of the plans presented by the Controller-General. 
 Thereupon, Choiseul defended his protege and his opera- 
 tions. The Chancellor replied with much vehemence, and 
 triumphantly refuted the remarks of the Due de Choiseul. 
 The King, not hiding his ill-temper, broke up the council, 
 and withdrew into his cabinet, the door of which he shut 
 
 89 
 
Madame Dv* Barry 
 
 violently. 1 Then the Chancellor was sent for, and remained 
 for half an hour in conference with the King. There was 
 determined upon the nomination of the Abbe Terrai, whom 
 the Chancellor had beforehand buoyed up with the hope 
 of passing one day from the Controller-General's office to 
 some less dangerous department in the gap which would be 
 made by the approaching retirement of Choiseul. It was one 
 enemy the more and in possession to impede and thwart all 
 the projects of the minister, an enemy whose hostility Choi- 
 seul was sure to exasperate, owing to his levity of disposi- 
 tion, by uttering satires and mockeries with regard to his 
 economical ideas. On the evening of the Council, when the 
 Duke foresaw what would be the result next day of the con- 
 ference between the King and the Chancellor, he displayed a 
 gaiety which made him write to one of the women who 
 supped at his house : " It will be like Charles VII., to whom 
 people said, ' You cannot lose a kingdom more gaily.' " 2 
 
 M. de Choiseul, in spite of his gaiety and his affected 
 carelessness, was beginning to find, as he bluntly expressed 
 it, " that the jade caused him much embarrassment." 3 He 
 could not keep from feeling restless ; he moved about on the 
 high roads, rushing from Versailles to Chanteloup, and 
 
 1 " Memoirs concerning the Administration of Finances under the 
 Ministry of the Abbe Terrai, Controller-General." London : Adam- 
 son, 1776. 
 
 2 "Letters of the Marquise de Deffand to Horace Walpole." 
 Treuttel, i8ia. Tome I. 
 
 1 "The Life and Memoirs of General Dumouriez." By Berville 
 and Barriere. Baudouin, 1822, Tome I. 
 
 90 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 from Chanteloup to Metz, giving charge to those around 
 him and perhaps diverting his own thoughts with a kingly 
 train, a table with forty covers. He went even so far as to 
 make some concessions to circumstances. He confined 
 himself within the limits of his three ministerial offices 
 which he held through the Due de Praslin. He no longer 
 affected supremacy over the ministers of state. 1 The last 
 hope he had left rested on the Dauphiness's arrival, on the 
 influence which she would exercise, according to all antici- 
 pations, over the King, on the tone of decency which she 
 would bring back to the Court. Beforehand, he finessed 
 round Madame du Barry, who used to say that at times 
 the Court stank in her nostrils. He exercised a secret ter- 
 ror over her, had advice given to her by M. de Noailles to 
 go away, to yield up her place for a moment, to take the 
 waters at Barege. 2 Without Richelieu, Madame du Barry 
 would have gone; but Richelieu opened her eyes, and she 
 stayed, sustained in this resolution by D'Aiguillon. The 
 Archduchess once installed in Versailles, the umbrage with 
 which the Favourite inspired the King, the reports by means 
 of which she prejudiced his mind against the young Dauph- 
 iness, soon changed the original sentiments of Louis XV. 
 into coldness, and ruined, with Marie Antoinette's credit, 
 the last chances of the minister. 
 
 In the month of March of this year, 1770, Madame du 
 
 " History of France during the Eighteenth Century." By Lacre 
 telle Delaunay, 1812, Tome IV. 
 
 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775, 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Deffand, thanks to her apartment, which she compares to a 
 theatre with changes of scenery, in which the Mirepoix, the 
 D'Aiguillons, the Chabrillants, the Bedas, succeed to the 
 Beauvaus, the Stainvilles, the Praslins, who met without 
 fighting and without flying on this neutral ground thanks 
 to everything that was said, avowed, confessed around her 
 in the unconstraint of conversation, Madame du Deffand 
 predicted that the year would not pass without a great revo- 
 lution, 1 announced, nine months beforehand, the overthrow 
 of Choiseul and the accesion of D'Aiguillon to power. 
 
 The everlasting case of D'Aiguillon went on with ani- 
 mosities on each side carried to an absolute pitch of frenzy. 
 The Due de Choiseul understood that, in his contest with 
 Madame du Barry, the Due d'Aiguillon was the soul of the 
 " clique," as the society of Chanteloup called the opposite 
 faction : he wanted to bar against his rival the road to the 
 ministry by an infamous condemnation. D'Aiguillon, as 
 we have pointed out, finding himself at the same time the 
 butt of the hatred of the Chancellor and of Choiseul, was 
 glad to find a prop in the Du Barry. In the memoirs writ- 
 ten by Soulavie, on the authority of his papers, the Due 
 d'Aiguillon declares that he had not taken any step to secure 
 the protection of the Favourite, whom he did not know, and 
 whom he had never seen. Madame du Barry must have 
 taken the initiative in the matter. In her hatred of Choiseul, 
 and with the knowledge she possessed of the opposition 
 
 " Letters of the Marquise de Deffand to Horace Walpole." Treut- 
 tel, 1812, Tome II. 
 
 92 
 
Madame Du. Barry 
 
 which he exercised over D'Aiguillon, she proposed to him 
 this alliance. However, the support given in the beginning 
 by Madame du Barry to the Due d'Aiguillon had little ef- 
 fect. On the retirement of Marechal d'Estrees, she could 
 get nothing for him. 1 And for a long time the action of 
 D'Aiguillon, who had no official access to Versailles, was, 
 contrary to the assertions of the memoirs of the period, only 
 a subterranean action exercised through messages, intro- 
 ductions by private staircases, mysterious interviews, and 
 even this action was countermined by the tortuous machina- 
 tions of the Chancellor, who only backed up his new ally 
 in a half-hearted and very treacherous fashion. It was 
 he who, in spite of the rage of D'Aiguillon, had got the idea 
 of the judgment of the former governor of Brittany adopted 
 by that erratic Court of Peers which sat in the Queen's ante- 
 chamber. It was he, too, who, at the close of three sittings, 
 and on the matter taking a favourable turn, had the Peers' 
 judgment replaced by a Bed of Justice on the 27th of June, 
 where a declaration was registered annulling all the pro- 
 cedure a Bed of Justice which did not end the conflict, and 
 the clearest advantage of which to D'Aiguillon was to be 
 nominated for the journey to Marly and to be invited to sup 
 with the King. 2 From all this political perfidy of the Chan- 
 cellor resulted the famous decree of the 2nd of July, which 
 dishonoured the Due d'Aiguillon, declared him " accused 
 of acts which stained his honour," and suspended him from 
 
 1 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775. 
 
 1 " Private Life of Louis XV." London: Peter Lyton. Tome IV. 
 
 93 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 his functions as a peer until judgment had been given in his 
 case. 
 
 The brutality of the affair, of the act of the Parliament, 
 opened the eyes of the Favourite, who, very ignorant of po- 
 litical affairs, had perhaps to reproach herself with not hav- 
 ing rendered to D'Aiguillon all the services demanded 
 by his position and that not through lack of good will but 
 solely through a failure to see through all the Chancellor's 
 jobbery. 1 To-day, she felt herself personally touched and, 
 as it were, conjointly responsible for this infamous note 
 striking at the man whom she protected. Next, in order to 
 keep herself in the Favourite's mind, he had access to her 
 at all hours; his role of canvasser, concealed and almost 
 secret, had now ceased. Through his post of commander of 
 Light Horse in the King's Guard, which she had got re- 
 fused to the Comte de Choiseul and had obtained for 
 D'Aiguillon, Choiseul's antagonist had the right to work 
 with the King, to belong to the Council, and finally to be 
 on visiting terms at Versailles. And so well did the poli- 
 tician understand the importance of establishing himself 
 and becoming a personality at Court that for this command 
 of Light Horse, for which there had never before been paid 
 more than from five to six hundred thousand livres, he had 
 decided to give twelve hundred and fifty thousand livres. 2 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." Buisson, 
 1792. 
 
 3 " Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." Treut- 
 tel, 1812. Tome II. 
 
 94 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 It was then that D'Aiguillon, in conjunction with the 
 Chancellor, took hold of Madame du Barry, gave her a 
 daily lesson, and took care that her hatred of his rival 
 should be permanent. He forced her to use her influence 
 with the King to bring about the exile of the Comtesse de 
 Gramont. 1 He excited, he inflamed this nature without af- 
 fection, without resentment, without passion, without in- 
 terest for the people of Versailles, to whom at bottom the 
 new Favourite showed no more of her real nature than a 
 woman shows to actors with whom chance leads her to act 
 in a society theatre. He disturbed her self-satisfaction in 
 the midst of her triumphs. He filled her indolent mind with 
 alarm. He lost sight of nothing that could drag her lazy 
 and indifferent character into the struggle. He represented 
 to her untiringly that there would be no security for her so 
 long as the Due de Choiseul would remain at his post. He 
 
 1 In the month of July, 1770, at the performances which took place 
 at the theatre of Choisy, whose dimensions were too contracted to 
 contain the Royal Family with all their retinue, it happened that the 
 ladies of the Palace, having taken possession of the front seats, 
 refused to make room for the Comtesse du Barry, the Duchesse de 
 Mirepoix, and the Comtesse de Valentinois. Some sharp words were 
 exchanged, and the most malicious escaped from the lips of the 
 Comtesse de Gramont, lady in waiting to the Queen. The ladies 
 who had been subjected to this affront made a complaint, and the 
 King sent the Comtesse de Gramont into exile fifteen leagues away 
 from the Court. Let us point out once more that it was the Com- 
 tesse de Gramont, mother of the Due de Gramont, and not the 
 Duchesse, sister of the Due de Choiseul, as we have it printed 
 by mistake. Madame du Deffand said when speaking of the exiled 
 lady : " I only met her two or three times, She appears to me silly, 
 bold and gossiping," 
 
 95 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 repeated to her that her position made it necessary for her 
 to get the Prime Minister dismissed from office. He drove 
 into her light brain the idea that the best means of ruining 
 him was to confound his cause with the cause of the Parlia- 
 ments and to describe him to the King as the soul and mas- 
 ter of that ambitious body which was always ready for op- 
 position and for encroachment, and which was striving to 
 usurp the privileges of the throne. To show the King that 
 those two steps, simultaneous and working in harmony, the 
 dismissal of Choiseul and the subjection of the Parliaments, 
 would make obstacles disappear, would facilitate the pro- 
 gress of the Government and the recovery of taxes, would 
 remove, in short, all risk of war, such was the subject in 
 which D'Aiguillon, fostering his ambitions along with his 
 revenges, strove to make Madame du Barry take an interest. 
 He took advantage of her frolicsome disposition to train 
 her for the comedy, and to make her influence the King's 
 mind by taking part in a number of farcical scenes. He put 
 into her hands those oranges, with which she blew up the 
 ministry : " Away with Choiseul ! away with Praslin ! " The 
 gaiety of the Favourite, the element of the street arab in her 
 disposition, her young and riotous folly, her warbling laugh- 
 ter, her childlike arguments, her bird-like talk, that lisp so 
 pretty in her mouth, all were turned and bent by Choi- 
 seul's adversary towards that great object the overthrow 
 of the Ministry and the destruction of Parliament. 1 In this 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs to Serve for the History of the Republic of 
 Letters." Vols, V. and VI. " Annals of Louis XV." A. Villefranche 
 
 96 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 role which he made the Favourite play, D'Aiguillon was one 
 day touched by a tender sentiment, which gave the actress 
 persistence, heat, devotion, almost intelligence. As a man 
 of his time, he understood that, in order to make a woman 
 entirely his, he should become her lover. Perhaps, indeed, 
 he mingled with this diplomatic love a little desire for re- 
 venge for the nasty trick to which Louis XV. referred in 
 his letter. Nevertheless, whatever alloy of interest, of ven- 
 geance, of real passion there was in the court which he paid 
 to Madame du Barry, he knew how to touch this facile heart. 
 And when Madame du Def fand wrote, " The D'Aiguillon is 
 on good terms with the Du Barry," good in the full mean- 
 ing of the word the best possible, as it was then said she 
 only gave utterance to a fact of which all Paris was aware. 
 He was now the official " cavaliere servente " of the mis- 
 tress. During the illumination of the Park at Versailles, 
 when fetes were given at night in celebration of Marie-An- 
 toinette's marriage, Choiseul might be seen giving his arm 
 to the Princess de Beauvau while D'Aiguillon gave his arm 
 a lover's arm to Madame du Barry. 1 On the journey to 
 Compiegne, it was the same eagerness, the same attention, 
 the same arm given everywhere. Then, in the midst of 
 amorous words, the lover recalled his case, demonstrated the 
 
 1 " Historic and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI." 
 By Soulavie. Treuttel and Wurtz. X. Tome I. 
 
 at the house of the Widow Liberty. 1782. " Private Life of Louis 
 XV." London, 1785. " History of France during the Eighteenth 
 Century." By Lacretelle Delaunay, 1812. Tome IV. 
 
 97 7 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 inanity of the reversal of the decree of the 2nd of July, ap- 
 pealed for an act of good pleasure and royal favour, which 
 he at length succeeded in snatching through his mistress 
 from the vanquished King. 
 
 On the 3rd of September, the King arrived at full speed 
 early in the morning at the Palace in his hunting equipage, 
 preceded by Du Vol and the four bodies of huntsmen. 
 There, he fixed himself on the stool of the Duke of Noailles, 
 his captain of the guards, and gave orders to carry off from 
 the record-office the minutes of the D'Aiguillon case, of 
 which the Chancellor accordingly took possession. The Due 
 de Choiseul had refused to appear at the Palace, and had 
 set out on tHe previous night for Ferte Vidame. 1 The Min- 
 ister-King tottered under the blow. 
 
 The thanks of the Due d'Aiguillon to Madame du Barry 
 took the form of a princely present. The Duke gave her a 
 vis-a-vis, in which the entirely new arms of the Favourite 
 and her device, " Boutez en avant," were surrounded with a 
 bed of roses, in which doves were pecking in the midst of 
 pierced hearts, torches, and all the accessories of love, sur- 
 mounted by a splendid wreath an equipage much superior 
 in taste and in costliness to the carriages which the Dauphin 
 had gone to seek at Strasburg. 2 Everybody would see in 
 this present, which cost 52,000 livres, the public announce- 
 ment of a liaison, the suspicion of which did not seem to 
 displease M. d'Aiguillon. 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aigullon." Buisson, 1792. 
 ' " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Vol. V. 
 
 98 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Whilst this hostile influence was being exercised over the 
 King's mind by D'Aiguillon and the Chancellor against 
 Choiseul, against the Parliament, against the other Guise, 1 
 against that other League, to which a revolutionary spirit 
 was ever being imparted, the Duchesse de Gramont was 
 an exile from the Court and was carrying with her through 
 France her anger and her resentment. Under the pretext of 
 travelling, of taking the waters, she saw on her way the mem- 
 bers of the Parliaments had conferences with the leaders, 
 told them that the Parliaments depended for their existence 
 on her brother, bound them to the fortunes of a ministry 
 which would carry in its fall the liberties of Parliamentary 
 power, and thus organized over the Court and over the 
 King himself a sort of pressure on and intimidation of pub- 
 lic opinion. 2 The King, kept informed of the proceedings 
 and the violent remarks of his minister's sister, became 
 colder towards Choiseul. He continued working with him 
 and inviting him to his suppers, but without honouring him 
 with a word of civility or confidence. The cabal redoubled 
 its efforts, and instigated Madame du Barry to use all 
 her caresses to wrest from the King the lettre de cachet 
 which would bring the struggle to an end. The letter was 
 
 1 According to Soulavie, a note sent to Madame du Barry and 
 placed under the King's eyes, must have had something to do with 
 Louis XV.'s last determination. This note declared that M. de 
 Choiseul had Maria Theresa's promise in writing of a little province 
 in full sovereignty with a guarantee to his descendants, if he suc- 
 ceeded in indemnifying the House of Austria to the prejudice of the 
 Prussian monarchy for the losses it had caused. 
 
 ' " Private Life of Louis XV." Peter Lyton, 1785. Tome IV. 
 
 99 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 perhaps written one evening in a moment of intoxication, 
 of weakness, and of amorousness; but next morning noth- 
 ing could persuade the King to send it off. 
 
 An incident, at last, precipitated Louis XV. 's resolutions, 
 and compelled him to make up his mind definitely. One of 
 the forces on which Choiseul relied, as we have said, was 
 the impression made by him on the King that he alone pre- 
 served peace and was able to maintain it. This was the im- 
 pression towards which D'Aiguillon and Maupeou directed 
 their attack. They undermined it at first secretly and with 
 words of hidden meaning. They spread the story that the 
 Due de Choiseul, seeing his credit declining, was anxious to 
 excite war so as to make himself necessary, and they mur- 
 mured that he alone was able to rouse the Spaniards to at- 
 tack Falkland Island and to take the garrison prisoners, 
 that he alone had protracted the negotiations about this af- 
 fair. Louis XV., reading all Choiseul's despatches, was not 
 ignorant of the fact that his Minister considered the army, 
 the navy, and the finances in no condition at this moment 
 to support a war against England; but the persistence of 
 the accusations plunged him into greater doubts each day, 
 and prevented him from taking up Choiseul's defence. 1 
 
 1 The Duke's spirit, at the same time light and audacious, seemed, 
 it must nevertheless be admitted, at this critical moment, tempted by 
 the chances of a war, a descent on England. Do we not in the month 
 of November, a month before his fall, see the Minister display on the 
 Council-table the celebrated plan of a descent prepared by La Rosiere 
 and Beville by the orders of M. de Broglie, during the years 1764, 
 1765 and 1766. Did he not send for the Du Barrys exiled by him to 
 attend this Council to declare to the King the possibility of success? 
 
 100 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 When D'Aiguillon had led Louis XV. to the point of 
 irresolution and uncertainty that he wanted, he made 
 Madame du Barry come forward. Taking the King 
 unawares, the Favourite told him that, since she could 
 not persuade him, it was for the interest of the State and the 
 interest of his own peace to enlighten himself, that nothing 
 was easier, that he had only to send for and question the 
 Abbe de la Ville, M. de Choiseul's clerk, who was entrusted 
 with the task in question. Now the party knew that this 
 Abbe, ex- Secretary to the Embassy, 1 who had been highly 
 
 1 " The Abbe de la Ville," says Besenval, " started in the world by 
 becoming a Jesuit. He then left this order to become a secular 
 priest. Engaged as preceptor to M. de Fenelon's children, he fol- 
 lowed him in that capacity in his embassy to Holland where soon 
 his talent and his intrigues easily had the advantage over the limited 
 ability and shallow intellect of M. de Fenelon. The Abbe became 
 a confidential person, and was made Secretary to the Embassy. He 
 remained for a long time in Holland with success in that post, and 
 was only recalled to take the position of Chief Clerk in the office of 
 Foreign Affairs." 
 
 And on Terrai's refusal to supply the funds, he obtained a guarantee 
 for the purpose from Foulon. It was at this very Council that 
 Choiseul got for himself an order for three millions to pay his debts. 
 The King signed the order, but forgot to write " good for three mil- 
 lions." Foulon, to whom the Duke showed it on coming back from 
 the King's presence, drew his attention to the matter, which had been 
 forgotten. M. de Choiseul said he would have it set right at the 
 earliest opportunity. And this first opportunity was only indicated 
 by the date of the 22nd of December, the day when the King had 
 decided to dismiss him, so that this cash-order was not paid, and the 
 tail-end of the adventure necessitated the demolition of Choiseul's 
 mansion. (" Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." 
 Buisson, 1792.) 
 
 101 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 regarded and treated with the utmost confidence in the 
 office of Foreign Affairs, had ceased to be a clerk owing to 
 M. de Choiseul's habit of writing with his own hand des- 
 patches of even the smallest moment. He was sure to give 
 his support to everything that would be done against 
 a minister who despised his counsels, his experience, and 
 his person. On the 2ist of December, 1770, the King, in 
 the presence of Madame du Barry, asked the Abbe de la 
 Ville, whom he had secretly ordered to come to his cabinet, 
 where were the negotiations for the maintenance of peace, 
 and what were M. de Choiseul's intentions. The Abbe re- 
 plied that he could not give an account of the matter to His 
 Majesty, because the despatches of the Due de Choiseul had 
 not been communicated to him, but that if the King wished 
 to know the main portion of their provisions, he had only 
 to order that minister to have a letter sent to the King of 
 Spain declaring to that Prince that His Majesty absolutely 
 wanted peace, and that no consideration would make him 
 take part in the war if it were declared. " If M. de Choi- 
 seul obeys without any rejoinder," said the Abbe de la 
 Ville, " this is a proof that his designs are directed towards 
 peace; if he raises objections, it is because he wants war/' 
 The King entered the Council-chamber, and with that slight 
 quivering of the chin which was with him the sign of in- 
 ternal disturbance, he ordered M. de Choiseul to write a 
 letter to the King of Spain. M. de Choiseul, who had just 
 sent a courier into Spain with conciliatory proposals, and 
 the D'Aiguillon party was not ignorant of the fact, replied 
 
 102 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 to the King that, before writing, it was necessary to await 
 the answer to the plan for an arrangement, and that it 
 would be time enough to write when that was refused. 
 The King broke up the Council without saying a word. 1 
 
 1 "Memoirs of Baron de Besenval." Paris: Buisson, Year XIII. 
 Vol. II. 
 
 106 
 
VII. 
 
 The Signature of Contracts on Sunday, December 23, 1770. 
 The Intrigues of Cromot with the Prince of Condd. Lettre de 
 Cachet exiling the Due de Choiseul to Chanteloup. Monteynard's 
 Appointment to the War Office. Madame du Barry's " I take back 
 my Promise." The Gracious Intervention of the Favourite in the 
 Dismissal of M. de Choiseul from his Post of Colonel-General of 
 Swiss. The Purchase of Vandyke's Picture representing Charles 
 I. The Due d'Aiguillon's Appointment as Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs made the occasion of a Dinner at Luciennes. Mortal Appre- 
 hensions amongst Choiseul's Party. The " respectful " Homage of 
 the Princes of the Blood. 
 
 On Sunday, December 23rd, 1770, Louis XV., after 
 signing a contract, flung the pen angrily on the table in 
 place of giving it back to the Secretary of State. This 
 touch of irritation which the King displayed against the 
 Due de Choiseul was noticed. In the evening, the King 
 said to the Prince of Cond6: " Prince of Cond6, will you 
 be here to-morrow ? " " Yes, sire." And the Prince, con- 
 trary to his custom, slept at Versailles in order to be ready 
 for any emergency. 
 
 Now the Prince of Cond was not one of those who 
 waited with the least impatience the fall of Choiseul. He 
 had made arrangements with the Du Barry which would 
 place in his hands the direction of political affairs. Here 
 is what happened : Cromot, First Clerk of Finances, who 
 
 104 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 had been informed by Lebel in 1768, during the journey to 
 Compiegne, of the frantic love which the King had con- 
 ceived for his new mistress, and who had urged Laverdy 
 to tease Choiseul and entangle him in his plans, had been 
 discharged in the month of September of that year. 
 Brought back by the Abbe Terrai, 1 he resumed his post in 
 December, 1769, animated by the desire to avenge himself 
 and openly declaring that he would find a means of ruining 
 the Duke. Almost immediately, in the month of January, 
 he asked the Due de Choiseul, through the Abbe Terray 1 the 
 way in which sixty- four millions given for war purposes had 
 been applied. The Duke, accustomed to account to nobody 
 save the King, refused to answer. After this there was a 
 suspension of payment of rescriptions and great debates in 
 the Council, from which the Due de Choiseul issued exult- 
 ing over his somewhat ostentatious offer of Madame de 
 Choiseul' s diamonds to secure subsidies for Holland. 
 Thereupon, Cromot, enraged at finding himself beaten, fell 
 back on Madame de Monaco, the Prince of Conde's mis- 
 tress, whom he induced to win over the Prince by the bait 
 of the successorship to the Due de Choiseul. Nocturnal 
 meetings were held during Shrovetide at M. de Fontenelle's 
 house, and the Prince pledged himself to cooperate with the 
 Chancellor and the Abbe, and to be their advocate with the 
 King, on condition that Madame du Barry should grant 
 him: (i) the command of the armies, (2) the choice of suc- 
 
 1 This personage's name is spelled by MM. de Goncourt in both 
 ways " Terrai " and " Terray." TRANSLATOR. 
 
 105 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 cessor to the post of Minister of War, and (3) the post of 
 Grand Master of the Artillery. 
 The articles had been agreed to by the mistress. 1 
 The King, by way of keeping his word to the Prince of 
 Conde, went up to his own apartments, and before going to 
 bed directed the news of his minister's dismissal to be de- 
 spatched to the King of Spain, in accordance with a 
 formal pledge which he had given to inform him first 
 of this event. Choiseul, who enjoyed a still greater prepon- 
 derance at the Court of Madrid than at the Court of Ver- 
 sailles, 2 had asked and obtained a promise that, on this 
 pledge, the King of Spain should have the word of honour 
 of the King of France. The all-powerful minister con- 
 trolled the postal arrangements; he flattered himself that 
 he knew the courier well enough to ward off his disgrace 
 by some stratagem similar to that to which he had resorted 
 in February, 1765. But the courier was despatched by 
 side-roads that night; and, when the King was going out 
 to hunt next morning, he sent the lettres de cachet to M. 
 de la Vrilliere. The King's letter to M. de la Vrilliere con- 
 tained these words : " The Due de la Vrilliere will convey 
 the following orders to MM. de Choiseul, and will bring 
 back to me their resignations." 
 
 The lettre de cachet in the King's handwriting and not 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." Buisson, 
 1792. 
 
 3 " Memoirs of Baron de Besenval." Paris, Bandouin, 1821, Vol. I. 
 
 106 
 
Madame D\* Barry 
 
 countersigned, which the Due de Choiseul received from 
 De la Vrilliere was thus worded : 
 
 " I order my cousin the Due de Choiseul to place his 
 resignation of the post of Secretary of State and of Post- 
 master General in the hands of the Due de la Vrilliere, 
 and to withdraw to Chanteloup till there is a fresh order 
 
 from me. 
 
 " Louis. 0) 
 
 " At Versailles, this 24th of December, 1770." 
 
 Louis XV. when sending the lettres de cachet to M. de 
 la Vrilliere, said to him : " You will inform M. de Muy 
 that I give him the post of War Minister." M. de la Vril- 
 liere, after his interview with Choiseul, returned to Paris, 
 and communicated the orders of the King to the new Min- 
 ister of War, who accepted the office. But, as soon as 
 he had accepted the post, the honest man, he who was 
 called the " Montausier of Louis XVI. 's reign," spoke to 
 
 1 We give here the historic text of this letter communicated by the 
 Due de Choiseul to the Revue de Paris in 1829. To the letter for the 
 Due de Choiseul was annexed this letter of Louis XV. to the Due de 
 la Vrilliere : " The Due de la Vrilliere will convey the orders here- 
 with to MM. de Choiseul, and will bring back to me their resignations. 
 Were it not for Madame de Choiseul, I would have sent her husband 
 to another place, because his estate is in his management; he will 
 be as if he were not there, and will only see his family and those 
 whom I may permit to go there." The letter addressed to the Due 
 de Praslin, according to the ".Annals of Louis XV.," expressed in 
 the several terms, contained only these two lines : " I have no longer 
 any need of your services, and I exile you to Praslin, where you will 
 go in twenty-four hours." 
 
 107 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 La Vrilliere about his embarrassment. "What!" said M. 
 de la Vrilliere. " But Madame du Barry ! " replied De 
 Muy " how is that to be managed ? I cannot, all the 
 same, carry my portfolio there. I will never submit to it. 
 What am I to do?" 
 
 La Vrilliere, according to the terms of which he was 
 aware, had believed he saw at the first moment a suitable 
 man for the office of War Minister in the Prince of Conde. 
 He thought on the rage of the Prince, who was sure to 
 assume that he had been deceived. There came back, at 
 the same time, to his mind a vague remark of the King 
 which made him cherish the hope of the office for his 
 nephew D'Aiguillon. And in a Machiavellian fashion he 
 persuaded De Muy to write a line explaining his position 
 to the King. Thereupon De Muy wrote the clumsy letter 
 in which he spoke of " the inflexibility of his character." 
 
 The King, immediately on his return after hunting, saw 
 only one letter with reference to the post of War Minister. 
 He was not satisfied. He communicated the terms of the 
 letter to Madame du Barry, who uttered " peacock's 
 screams," and said that De Muy had insulted her. The 
 King got into an unmanageable temper, would listen to 
 nothing more, and went to bed. That night, all parties 
 went scouring the country. " Chon " sent a courier to De 
 Broglie. Cromot started for Chantilly. On the 26th, Ver- 
 sailles became the scene of pugnacious contests, " a Hell 
 and a bear-garden." The Chancellor, who had his usual 
 attack of catarrh, was confined to his bed since the 24th: 
 
 108 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 he had himself conveyed in the very crisis of his illness to 
 the Du Barry's residence. He declared that all was lost if 
 De Broglie appeared in the Ministry, and devoted himself 
 to gratifying the desires and ambitions of Conde, who 
 would bring to these combinations the authority of a Prince 
 of the Blood. 
 
 Next morning, the Prince of Conde, brought back by 
 Cromot, arrived at Chantilly in time for the mistress's little 
 levee. She listened politely to his complaints, and said: 
 " I have not been able to get the better of the King. He 
 has failed me don't be angry with me for it. But I warn 
 you that since yesterday nobody can approach him. He is 
 coming here, and you will have a chat with him. Wait 
 there ! " The King came in, said a few words, but did not 
 answer when addressed. Conde kept going round the sub- 
 ject : " But it is said De Muy refuses. . . . But if 
 your Majesty had not fixed on any choice. . . . But 
 there are some subjects. ... If Your Majesty per- 
 mitted, a person might be named. ... I will take good 
 care not to designate, much less to indicate " . . . . 
 Not a word from the King. The Prince of Conde snatched 
 up the Royal Almanac, stopped at Monteynard's name, 
 spoke well of him as one whom he had seen working under 
 his own orders, ended with the assurance that he doubted 
 whether a better man could be found. He offered to send 
 an express messenger for him. It was impossible to get 
 from the King a " Yes " or a " No." The Prince of Conde 
 left, despatched three couriers by three different routes into 
 
 109 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Dauphine. The sire was found supping in a melancholy 
 fashion with M. de Marcheval. He was brought up to 
 Paris. He was presented by the Prince of Conde, and here 
 was a Minister of War without the King having opened his 
 mouth. 1 
 
 But the news as to the influence and weight of the Prince 
 of Conde with regard to the new ministry spread over 
 Paris, and three carriages were at the gate of the Palais 
 Bourbon on New Year's Day, 1771. The Chancellor, mak- 
 ing a turn-about-face, gave the Du Barry to understand 
 that it was useless to overthrow a despotic minister if one 
 was to be re-created in a Prince of the Blood. And, some 
 time afterwards, when ordered to go to Chantilly by Mon- 
 teynard, who had to endure the affront of seeing his nomi- 
 nation of Maillebois brutally reversed by Louis XV., the 
 Prince of Conde found himself amongst the persons who 
 had come to have an audience with Madame du Barry. At 
 first, there was an embarrassing silence. The King, seated 
 in front of the fire, with his feet close to the mantelpiece, 
 kept gazing at Madame du Barry as she walked in the diago- 
 nal, laughing to herself at the annoyance of the prince, who, 
 having obtained nothing, and being no longer able to keep 
 his temper, ended by saying : " After all, this is very cruel ! 
 for you promised me the post of Grand Master of the Ar- 
 tillery." " It is true, I did promise it to you : well, I take 
 back my promise ! " the airy mistress hurled at his back 
 while she put out her tongue at him in the glass. 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." Buisson, 1792. 
 
 no 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Never perhaps did a Favourite work with less personal 
 animosity for the fall of a minister than Madame du 
 Barry did for the exile of Choiseul. She ended by exhib- 
 iting some conscience in the role which the enemies of 
 Choiseul assigned to her ; she never exhibited any zeal in it. 
 Were it not for those around her who drove her on, excited 
 her, and were every moment dragging her away from the 
 dainty task of arranging her toilet and from the light 
 thoughts of a pretty woman ; were it not for " the givers of 
 advice," who forced her to have opinions about matters 
 which bored her, to excite herself about the affairs of the 
 ministry and to have political views; were it not for the 
 lessons and the obsessions which would fain absolutely 
 mould her levity and her giddiness to a strong and con- 
 stant will; were it not for D'Aiguillon, who kept teasing 
 her, managing her, occupying her day and night with his 
 ambition and his hates, and trying to drive into her heart 
 a little of his vindictiveness ; were it not for this director to 
 whom Madame du Barry gave and was destined to give 
 with her changes and her caprices, " more trouble to rule 
 than all the foreign negotiations," there is no doubt that the 
 Favourite, yielding to her soft instincts, to her conciliatory 
 disposition, would have very speedily adopted an accommo- 
 dating course of action which would have spared her weak 
 brain the anxiety of an extreme conflict. 1 Since the be- 
 ginning she had sought for his good graces; and some of 
 
 1 It was she, the Du Barry, who said to the Marechale de Mirepoix : 
 " Just imagine one hating M. de Choiseul without knowing him ! " 
 
 in 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 her letters show us the amiable and almost humble tone of 
 her thanks to the minister. 1 Vainly did she, a little later, 
 make overtures of peace to him, while declaring herself 
 " ready to meet him half-way/' to let him be master of every 
 favour if he would only let her be free for all her whims. 
 Without bearing any spite for the contemptuous way in 
 which her advances were received, she got the reversion of 
 the governorship of Strasburg for Choiseul's brother, the 
 Comte de Stainville, or allowed him to get it. Even when 
 the war of insults was started and carried on by the 
 Duchesse de Gramont with all the violence of her char- 
 acter, Madame du Barry did not still lose patience or hope. 
 She did not give up the idea of bringing back M. de Choi- 
 seul by the aid of third parties. For a long time, she tried 
 to make him understand that he was persisting in a struggle 
 against an enemy more powerful than himself; and, when 
 driven to extremes, she only yielded without any zest to the 
 necessity of the situation. On his departure, though dis- 
 missed by the Favourite, M. de Choiseul did justice to the 
 woman. As he was quitting Versailles in obedience to the 
 King's lettre de cachet, seeing from the end of the court 
 a woman at the window of Madame du Barry's apartment, 
 and thinking that he recognized her, he bowed, and kissed 
 his hand to her. 2 It was a pretty gesture and a final act 
 
 1 " Letters of Madame du Barry addressed to the Due de Choiseul, 
 communicated by his nephew." Revue de Paris, 1829, Tome IV. See 
 appendix. 
 
 8 " Memoirs of a Traveller who is taking a Rest." By M. Dutens. 
 Bossange, 1806. Tome II. 
 
 112 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of courtesy, with which we feel glad to see M. de Choiseul's 
 ministry closing. 
 
 The victory only softened Madame du Barry's sentiments 
 with regard to the exile of Chanteloup. When D'Aiguillon, 
 the jaundiced and implacable man, who, longing to carry out 
 to its last extremity the ruin of Choiseul, wanted to de- 
 prive him of his post of Colonel-General of the Swiss Guards 
 and the Grisons without any indemnity, it was Madame du 
 Barry who selected M. du Chatelet, the common friend of M. 
 de Choiseul and M. d'Aiguillon, to move the King and obtain 
 some compensation for M. du Choiseul. It was to her that 
 M. du Chatelet thought it right to carry his complaints as 
 to M. d'Aiguillon's harshness and injustice. Madame du 
 Barry immediately replied that, in spite of the reproaches 
 she had to make against M. de Choiseul and the excessive- 
 ness of his demands, she would try to procure for him the 
 best treatment possible j 1 and, when M. du Chatelet seemed 
 to be doubtful about the matter, she gave her promise to 
 hold a bond chargeable on M. d'Aiguillon. On foot of this 
 charge amounting to two millions D'Aiguillon only con- 
 sented to allow M. de Choiseul a pension of 50,000 livres 
 to the account of the charge and 200,000 livres in ready 
 money. Finally, when all the hopes of Choiseul and of his 
 friends seemed about to be dashed by the obstinacy of 
 D'Aiguillon and the ill-will of the King, 2 M. du Chatelet 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Due de Choiseul, written by Himself and 
 Printed under his eye at Chanteloup in 1778." Paris, 1790. Second 
 Part. 
 
 a According to Madame du Deffand, who is well informed, in a 
 
 113 8 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 was astonished, touched, when he saw in the salon of Choisy 
 Madame du Barry talking in an almost angry fashion to M. 
 d'Aiguillon and exclaiming as she left him, " It is a nice 
 thing that this should be so ! " then going over to the King 
 who was leaning on the mantelpiece, speaking to him, beck- 
 oning towards M. d'Aiguillon to come and back up what 
 she said, and never letting the King slip away from her till 
 he uttered these words, as he sat down to play : " Sixty 
 thousand livres pension and one hundred thousand crowns 
 in cash." 1 
 
 Now that Choiseul was exiled, the Chancellor and D'Ai- 
 guillon, this time united by a common resentment, worked 
 together to give the final blows to the Parliament 2 which, a 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Due de Choiseul, written by himself." Paris, 
 1790. " Memoirs of Besenval." By Berville and Barriere. Bau- 
 douin, 1821. 
 
 3 The fall of Choiseul and the future dismissal of the Parliament 
 gave birth to a caricature, which, like all the caricatures of the eigh- 
 teenth century anterior to the Revolution, cannot be found. It is de- 
 scribed in the " Secret Memoirs," in which the Chancellor, the Con- 
 troller-General and the Comtesse du Barry are seated round the 
 King. The first President is depicted as carrying towards them a 
 little hamper containing heads, purses, and other things. Some of 
 the contents of the hamper suggest ideas contrary to decency, and 
 the point of the caricatures appears to be that while the Chancellor 
 makes a rush for the heads and the Controller-General for the purses, 
 Madame Du Barry's instincts lead her to rush for the unmentionable 
 articles in the hamper. (Note slightly modified from the original 
 for obvious reasons. TRANSLATOR.) 
 
 letter of which M. du Chatelet was the bearer, the Due de Choiseul 
 asked (i) for his liberty, (2) the payment of his debts, three or four 
 millions which he had spent of his wife's estate and two others from 
 
 114 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 few days before the fall of the Minister, had suspended the 
 examination of the affairs of private individuals, giving 
 as a pretext for this revolutionary measure that its mem- 
 bers in their profound grief had not their minds sufficiently 
 free to decide as to the goods, the life, and the honour of 
 the King's subjects. On the night of the iQth or 2Oth of 
 February, 1771, each member of Parliament was awakened 
 by two musketeers, who presented him with an order of the 
 King to resume his functions, to which he had to attach a 
 " yes " or " no " without making any remarks. Some of 
 them, influenced by the terror of their wives and children, 
 had the weakness to recant. 
 
 But, next day, when they were collected in a body, the 
 timid went back upon their feeble acquiescence of the pre- 
 vious night. On the following day, they were awakened a 
 second time by a prisoners' usher, who gave them notice 
 of a decree of the Council declaring their places confiscated, 
 forbidding them thenceforth to fulfil their functions, or 
 even assume the title of member of Parliament. And after 
 this usher came two musketeers bringing them lettres de 
 cachet which exiled them into distant provinces. 1 
 
 1 "Private Life of Louis XV." London: Peter Lyton, 1785. 
 Tome IV. 
 
 different creditors, and on this point he recalled the favour granted 
 in November by the King rendering null the omission of the words, 
 "Good for three millions." "Is this the resignation?" asked the 
 King of M. du Chatelet. " No, Sire, but the proposals which the Due 
 of Choiseul makes to Your Majesty." "I do not want the letter; 
 I want the resignation." And the unconditional resignation having 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 These violent measures were wrested from the will of 
 the King by the cackling of Madame du Barry, who, at 
 the promptings of her advisers, kept repeating after each 
 remonstrance of the provincial Parliaments : " Sire, one 
 more representation for the purpose of taking away from 
 you gradually the Royal authority, and coming a long dis- 
 tance to dethrone you! In the month of March, while 
 Maupeou was looking out for the elements and the men 
 of his new Parliament, intriguing, jobbing, corrupting, the 
 Favourite was induced to buy for 24,000 livres the portrait 
 by Vandyke of Charles I., King of England, from the col- 
 lection of Baron de Thiers. 1 This picture, hung so as to be 
 seen on entering Madame du Barry's apartment, suggested 
 to her a dramatic appeal to the imagination of the King, 
 who every day heard his mistress saying : " France, do you 
 see this picture? If you let your Parliament do it, it will 
 have your head cut off, as the Parliament of England had 
 Charles I.'s." z By these threats of dispossession of au- 
 thority, by these threats of violent death in the presence of 
 the portrait of the decapitated English King, issuing from 
 a beloved mouth at every possible opportunity, Madame du 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome V. Lon- 
 don John Adamson. 
 
 * "Annals of Louis XV." A. Villefranche, at the Widow Liberty's, 
 1782. " Private Life of Louis XV." London, 1785. Tome IV. 
 
 been sent from Chanteloup, the King put it into his pocket without 
 reading it. 
 
 116 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 Barry brought about that celebrated Bed of Justice of the 
 1 5th day of April, 1771, at which were read the three edicts, 
 the first dissolving the Parliament of Paris, the second dis- 
 solving the Court of Aids, and the third transforming the 
 Great Council in the new Parliament. The King termi- 
 nated the sitting with these imperious words : " I forbid 
 every deliberation contrary to my will and all representa- 
 tions in favour of my former Parliament, for I will never 
 change." And the phrase, " I will never change," was ut- 
 tered by the King, Madame Necker declares, while turn- 
 ing round towards Madame du Barry, concealed behind a 
 gauze curtain. 1 
 
 The complete victory gained at the same time by the Due 
 d'Aiguillon over Choiseul and over the Parliament did not, 
 however, permit Madame du ~Barry to introduce the ex- 
 Governor of Brittany into the ministry at the first moment. 
 At one time, the Due d'Aiguillon had been mentioned for 
 the Ministry of Marine, but the Favourite was persuaded 
 that the hour had not arrived for giving the post to her 
 protege, that this hasty appointment might put people's 
 minds into a greater ferment, that it was much better to 
 wait till " they were accustomed to look at the Duke in a 
 state of innocence." 
 
 The main result, it must be admitted, was that the pri- 
 vate animosities which divided the members of the Coalition 
 
 " Miscellanies extracted from the Manuscripts of Madame Neck- 
 er." Pougens, Year CI. Vol. III. 
 
 117 
 
Madame D\> Barry- 
 only ended in the exclusion of both sections, and prevented 
 any serious and definite appointment. 1 
 
 The Prince of Conde, who, in the opening months of the 
 year 1771, had considerable influence, was hostile to the 
 Due d'Aiguillon, and Monteynard, the Minister of War 
 manufactured by his Highness, was the servile instrument 
 of his antipathy. 
 
 Maupeou, when the business of the Parliament had been 
 disposed of, became again an ally from whom the Duke had 
 everything to fear. D'Aiguillon could not, and would not, 
 when he came at last to be minister, have the evidence pro- 
 duced at the hearing of his case given up : " The evidence 
 is there," said the Chancellor to everybody ; " they follow me 
 everywhere like the seals, to Compiegne, to Versailles, to 
 Paris, and to Fontainebleau. I can begin the proceedings 
 over again when I wish." 2 
 
 Terrai, who had obtained the temporary occupation of 
 the Ministry of Marine, and meant to keep it, belonged still 
 entirely to the Chancellor. 
 
 The Comte de Broglie, "the little intriguer" eternally 
 blinded by ambition, interest, and anger " three passions," 
 says Dumouriez, " which have always dominated him " the 
 Comte de Broglie, the protege of the Duchess de Mirepoix, 
 the cherished pet of the Du Barry's two sisters-in-law, the 
 
 1 "Private Life of Louis XV." Peter Lyton, 1785. Tome IV. 
 " Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." Treuttel, 
 1812. Tome II. 
 
 - " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon ' Paris, Buis- 
 son, 1792. 
 
 118 
 
MADAME NECKER 
 
 To face page 118 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " Chon " and the " Bischi," with the object of supplanting 
 D'Aiguillon, strove to give the Favourite as a lover one of 
 his intimate friends, the Chevalier de Jaucourt 1 the gentle- 
 man who was called " Moonshine " owing to his talent for 
 telling ghost-stories. Lastly, Maillebois, the third member of 
 the triumvirate composed of D'Aiguillon, De Broglie, and 
 Maillebois, who had the promise of the command of the 
 army under the orders of Conde, if France entered on a 
 campaign, and whose appointment to the post of one of 
 the four directors of the war had been so brutally annulled 
 by the King, no longer brought D'Aiguillon any warm co- 
 operation. 
 
 But D'Aiguillon had too great a hold over Madame du 
 Barry to allow all these smothered resentments and all 
 these secret intrigues to have any other result save to retard 
 by a few months the accession of the Duke to the ministry. 
 Since the month of April, he had got De Boynes, pushed on 
 by him, to obtain possession of the Ministry of Marine, 
 taken away from the Abbe Terrai. De Boynes was recog- 
 nized as the foremost man amongst the contending faction, 
 and Maupeou felt that he had been placed there by D'Aiguil- 
 lon as a substitute for him if he relaxed his efforts for the 
 destruction of the magistracy. 2 Behind the scenes, the Due 
 d'Aiguillon was already the master; it was he who made 
 the great administrative and diplomatic changes of the 
 
 " Memoirs of the Ministry of the Due d'Aiguillon." Buisson,i792. 
 "Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI." 
 By Soulavie. Treuttel, 1801. Tome I. 
 
 119 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 month of March and that during his sojourn for a week 
 at his chateau of Veret his object being that the big blows 
 should be struck during his absence. 1 Strong in the amor- 
 ous protection of the Favourite, he had also had, during his 
 journey to Paris, the support of the Prince Royal of Swe- 
 den, 2 to whom the first house that was open was the house 
 of the Dowager Duchesse d'Aiguillon, who had closely cul- 
 tivated the acquaintance of Count Schaeffer when he was 
 in the Swedish Embassy. The Due d'Aiguillon was nomi- 
 nated to the office of Minister of Foreign Affairs in the 
 month of June, 1771. 3 
 
 1 "Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." 
 Treuttel, 1812. Tome II. 
 
 2 The Prince of Sweden, while paying court to the Choiseul party, 
 presented a gold collar to Madame du Barry's dog. On his accession 
 to the throne, Gustavus III. wrote to her : " The part which you took 
 in my successes renders them still more agreeable to me. The Baron 
 de Lieven has made me a faithful report of the kindnesses which 
 you have shown him, and I thank you for them sincerely. I count 
 with confidence on the sentiments which you have always manifested 
 towards me, and I do not doubt that I may often have occasion for 
 speaking to you of the gratitude with which I pursue very sincerely 
 the Comtesse du Barry." 
 
 * The " Copy of a Letter written from Paris on June loth, 1771," 
 describes in those terms the notification of the appointment of the 
 Due d'Aiguillon : " Last Thursday all the foreign ministers, having 
 been invited to sup at the house of Due de la Vrilliere, went there 
 without being informed of the reasons for that supper, of which they 
 were for a long time ignorant. The King, having been told that 
 they were all assembled, appeared with a laughing face, accompanied 
 by the Due d'Aiguillon, whom he introduced to them himself with the 
 announcement that he had appointed him Minister of Foreign Af- 
 fairs, and that they should in the future deal directly with him for 
 
 120 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 The appointment of D'Aiguillon was celebrated by 
 Madame du Barry by a grand dinner at Luciennes where 
 sat at the Favourite's table with the minister's wife, his 
 mother, that patroness of the Encyclopedists, that har- 
 bourer of the Abbe de Prades during his persecution, that 
 gross atheist with a crooked nose, a wild look, and a dis- 
 ordered mind, 1 whom the society of Chanteloup never be- 
 lieved likely to meet the Favourite on terms of social equal- 
 ity. There were present at this dinner all the Ministers 
 of State, the entire diplomatic corps 2 with the exception of 
 the ambassadors to Spain and Naples, the only ambassadors 
 who were not on visiting terms with the Favourite. 
 
 The bilious nature of the man, the grudges he had ac- 
 cumulated for so many years, the experience of eating out 
 his own heart in disgrace and separation from the Court, 
 which had already planted in his diseased mind the irritat- 
 ing germs of a malady of which he would die, the liquified 
 
 1 " Unpublished Correspondence of Madame du Def fand." Colin, 
 1809. Tome II. 
 
 2 The ambassador for England was very favorable to the Due de 
 Choiseul's adversary, and Paris commented strongly on a dinner given 
 by him exclusively to the d'Aiguillon faction, in the month of Feb- 
 ruary, 1772. The Ambassador of Spain, that Power all devoted to 
 Choiseul, refused on the contrary to go to the dinners given by 
 d'Aiguillon and by Madame de Valentinois, at which the Sultana 
 was a guest. 
 
 all that would belong to this department. The assembly was so 
 speechless with the pleasure which this news gave it, that the Duke 
 was not in any way complimented, and the entire supper passed in 
 the most majestic silence." 
 
 121 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 bones, the bones like wax in the dog-days, 1 drove the Due 
 d'Aiguillon, in his hour of triumph, to personal vengeances. 
 Jarente, the Bishop of Orleans, was exiled; 2 M. d'Usson was 
 replaced in Sweden by M. de Vergennes. Breteuil, who 
 had already ordered his carnages, saw himself refused by 
 Madame du Barry the audience which had been promised 
 to him, and was recalled from the Ambassadorship of 
 Vienna. Rulhiere lost the post and the pension which he had 
 at the office of Foreign Affairs. 3 D'Aiguillon struck high 
 and low, right and left. Lettres de cachet were suspended 
 over the heads of the Archbishop of Toulouse, the Mare- 
 chal de Duras, Governor of Brittany, the Due de Goutant, 
 M. de Malesherbes, President of the Aides, M. de Tru- 
 daine, and even the Lieutenant of Police, M. de Sartine. 
 Madame du Barry, whose lover had for a moment aroused 
 anger by piquant anecdotes, and satirical verses and songs, 
 said openly that all Choiseul's friends were to be removed, 
 and his creatures deprived of posts and employments. There 
 were some months of terror; everybody was in a state of 
 mortal apprehension, 4 women as well as men. All the Court 
 
 1 " Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI." 
 By Soulavie. Treuttel, 1801. Vol. I. 
 
 2 The Bishop of Orleans had induced Madame Adelaide to go and 
 cast herself at the King's feet to ask for Choiseul's recall. 
 
 8 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome IV. 
 
 4 "Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole," 
 Treuttel, 1812. Tome II. In a letter of the nth of September, 1771, 
 published by the Comte de Sainte-Aulaire, the fear of the Duchesse 
 de Choiseul for her own friends and those of M. de Choiseul clothed 
 itself in a pretty simile : " I have a dreadful fear of M. d'Aiguillon. 
 
 122 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ladies who had been the leaders in the wars of the Salons, 
 and who had inflicted such cruel wounds on D'Aiguillon and 
 the Favourite with their jests and their pretty sarcasms, such 
 as Madame de Brionne whose contempt for the clique had 
 been so intense, Madame d'Egmont, who did not want to 
 have even her portrait in the same room with Madame du 
 Barry, 1 Madame de Noailles, whom a literary sketch of Gus- 
 tavus III. presents to us storming against the Chancellor, 
 against D'Aiguillon, against Du Barry, in short, against 
 all those patriotic and philosophic fine ladies who were at 
 the same time excited to almost revolutionary pitch in a sen- 
 timent of independence against the King's good pleasure 
 and of evecration against his mistress, those women felt 
 themselves menaced by D'Aiguillon through their husbands, 
 their lovers, their allies. It was thus that she whose action 
 had on the attitude of the Due de Choiseul towards Madame 
 
 1 Madame d'Egmont had promised her portrait to Gustavus III. She 
 wrote to him : " Put it in my power to send you my portrait. I 
 cannot do so without a positive assurance that you neither have nor 
 will have that of Madame du Barry." She returns to the charge in 
 another letter : " Sire, it is said that you have asked for Madame du 
 Barry's portrait; people even go so far as to say that you have writ- 
 ten to her. I have denied it at every risk, but it has been maintained 
 to me in such a positive manner that I beg of you to authorize me 
 to deny it on your behalf also. No ; it cannot be." Finally, in a last 
 letter she says: "I still ask you for an answer as to Madame du 
 Barry's portrait. Pray be kind enough to let me have your word of 
 honour that you neither have it nor will have it." " Gustavus III. and 
 the Court of France." By Geoffrey. Didier, 1867. Tome I. 
 
 He takes every kind of form. He is like the wicked genii of the 
 ( Thousand and One Nights/ " 
 
 123 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 du Barry an influence perhaps as great as that of the 
 Duchesse de Gramont, she who wished that the minister 
 should be " at daggers drawn " with her own sister-in-law, 
 the Marechale de Mirepoix, she whose insolence of speech 
 had never known any restraint, she who wrested from the 
 King almost with violence the permission to go to Chante- 
 loup 1 saw her husband, the Marechal de Beauvau, deprived 
 of his post of commander at Languedoc. Destitution, perse- 
 cution, exile, the illustrious lady bore in the assurance that it 
 was only a trifling thing to suffer compared with the honour 
 of securing liberty and preserving themselves against des- 
 potic power. Unhappily for the maintainance of such beauti- 
 ful doctrines, the people at Court were then all head over 
 ears in debt, and could only keep themselves up through the 
 favours of the King. The Marechal de Beauvau had 700,- 
 ooo livres of debts on which he paid interest and more than 
 450,000 francs demanding immediate payment. He was 
 obliged to petition the King in order to obtain a little money, 
 obliged to make an appeal to be allowed to remain employed 
 as Lieutenant General a position which gave him a salary 
 
 1 With regard to Chanteloup, let us give this letter addressed by 
 Vrilliere to Maynon d'Invau, asking permission 1 to call on the Due 
 de Choiseul. It refers to the displeasure felt by the King at these 
 visits without any attempt by him, however, to forbid them. " I have 
 submitted to the King the letter in which you express a desire to 
 go to Chanteloup, and His Majesty has done me the honour to say 
 in reply that he had never granted anyone permission to go there, but 
 that he had not refused, and that he had left those who asked him 
 for liberty to do it to decide for themselves as to what course they 
 would take in the matter." 
 
 124 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of 37,000 francs. And the superb household, which had 
 commenced by braving the King, ended by asking him for 
 alms. 1 
 
 So with the Beauvau household ; so with other households 
 of the Court, reduced, subdued, enslaved by the question 
 of money. 
 
 The intimidation of society, of the Salons, of women, hav- 
 ing thus been obtained, seduction was employed with 
 Princes of the Blood, who had been vainly invited by let- 
 tres de cachet to the Comte de Provence's marriage in order 
 to bring about their desertion in the business of the Parlia- 
 ment and to lead them back to the Court. In this negotia- 
 tion, Maupeou showed a knowledge of human nature in its 
 most secret depths, a discernment in the choice of agents 
 entrusted by him to work upon human weaknesses, a really 
 extraordinary skill in managing souls and corrupting men. 
 Before the Prince of Conde, who had been abandoned 
 by the Comte de Clermont's death to his floating, irreso- 
 lute character, so that he no longer remained obstinate in his 
 oppositions, he held out the dazzling perspective of the mar- 
 riage of " Mademoiselle " with the Comte d'Artois. Some 
 councillors, won over by Maupeou, insinuated to the Prince 
 de Conde that he should draw closer to the Court, and in- 
 flame, before it would become a question of a foreign 
 princess, the budding attachment of the Prince for his 
 daughter. The Prince of Bourbon was dragged by the 
 
 1 "Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." 
 Treuttel 1812. Tome II. 
 
 125 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Chancellor in his father's train by the paltry bait of the 
 Knighthood of the Holy Ghost, which the young Prince had 
 been disappointed in not getting at an age when the Princes 
 of the Blood are habitually decorated, which led some 
 jokers to say at the occasion of the first journey of the two 
 princes to Versailles " that the Father and the Son were go- 
 ing to look for the Holy Ghost." 
 
 After the letters of submission of the House of Conde, 
 the Chancellor was not slow in obtaining letters of submis- 
 sion from the House of Orleans. With the Due d'Orleans 
 Maupeou made use of Madame de Montesson's ambitious 
 desire to become Duchesse d'Orleans, to raise herself to the 
 dignity of first Princess of the Blood. Addressing himself 
 directly to the woman, he persuaded her, with his irresisti- 
 ble powers of speech that to induce the Prince of Orleans 
 to come back to the Court was the best way to win over to 
 the success of her project Madame du Barry, whose will 
 constituted the will of the King. 1 
 
 As for the Due de Chartres the Chancellor pandered to 
 his desire to be something by the possibility of succeed- 
 ing the Due de Penthievre in the post of Grand Admiral. 
 
 All the Princes of the Blood except old Conde, who re- 
 mained inexorable, became from that day forth devoted 
 friends of the Du Barry, courtiers of the antechamber, who 
 
 1 When the Prince subsequently urged Madame du Barry to obtain 
 from the King publicly permission for his marriage with Madame 
 de Montesson, the Favourite replied to his importunities: "Big 
 father, go and marry her; we'lJ see how to satisfy you better after- 
 wards." 
 
 126 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 implored of the Favourite to tell them the day and the hour 
 when they might have the honour of offering her their " re- 
 spectful " homage. 1 
 
 1 " The Annals of Louis XV." A. Villef ranche. At the Widow 
 Liberty's, 1782. Second Part. " Private Life of Louis XV." Peter 
 Lyton, 1785. Tome IV. 
 
 127 
 
VIII. 
 
 The Luxury of a Woman of Pleasure. The Accounts of Madame 
 du Barry. Invoices of Mile. Berlin, of the " Traits Galants," of 
 Roettiers, &c. The Gold Toilet. The Palace-Boudoir of Luciennes. 
 The Dining-room. The Square Salon. The Two Parlours. 
 Zamore. The Complaisances of the Controller-General. 
 
 THE life, the entire life of Madame de Pompadour be- 
 longs to history. It is a life of business, of intrigues, of 
 negotiations, a sustained political role, a public exercise of 
 power, hourly communications with ministers, ambassadors, 
 secretaries of state, military men, bankers, lawyers, man- 
 agement of the interests of the nation and of the will of the 
 King, a life which had a weighty influence on the desti- 
 nies of France and of Europe. The life of Madame du 
 Barry can neither justify nor satisfy a similar curiosity 
 on the part of posterity. It has neither the same share in 
 the business of the state nor the same claims on history. 
 Take away from it the one incident the conflict with Choi- 
 seu l it is nothing but the existence of the best-kept wanton 
 in the kingdom. It is the senseless dream of a woman of 
 pleasure, a frenzy of expenditure, a luxurious extravagance ; 
 it means millions flung away on caprices of fashion; mil- 
 lions flung away on rare jewellery, point-lace, silk, velvet; 
 millions on things the cost of which is immensely high 
 
 128 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 a river of money, the royal treasure scattered over a mob 
 of tailors, of milliners, of seamstresses, of embroiderers, 
 of lace-makers, of ornament-makers. . . . Every morn- 
 ing and this was, indeed, the little levee of this woman, 
 who set such slight store on honours and dignities the Fa- 
 vourite, half-nude, gave audience in bed to workmen and 
 workwomen of well-known reputation who brought for her 
 first awakening the prettiest objects invented by the imag- 
 ination of the maker of gewgaws, the most perfect articles 
 produced by the handiwork of the time, not letting a day 
 pass without buying something, without ordering some- 
 thing. 
 
 Orders, supplies, invoices, this made up her whole life: 
 it is contained in those four volumes of accounts purchased, 
 some years ago, by the National Library, 1 precious ac- 
 counts which are really the only memoir to which the Du 
 Barry regime has any just claim. 
 
 Open them, these accounts ; they will not fail to repay 
 you. They will tell you about the watch adorned with 
 diamonds bought from Lepaute for 5,400 francs by the 
 Comtesse, and the necklace " for a slave," and the " respect- 
 ful assortment of costumes " worn by her in such a year 
 and such a month. They will give you the name of the 
 book which she sent out to be bound at the Libraire Vente, 
 with her armorial device, " Put forward ! " 2 They give 
 
 1 " Madame du Barry's Accounts." National Library. Manu- 
 scripts. French Supplement, 8157, 8158. 
 
 2 The Library of Versailles possesses 349 volumes with the arms 
 of Madame du Barry. Some of them, bound during her regime as 
 
 129 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 you details of the theatre-dress of which she made a pre- 
 sent to Raucourt 1 or to Lekain, 2 and her coffee-napkins, 
 which she would have only of Indian dimity, and even the 
 last dressing-gown which she presented to the King with 
 the cushion and the slippers. Here it is her ordinary 
 livery of chamois-cloth and her full-dress livery of crimson 
 velvet. Even Zamore the " nigger," the trades-people 
 quite shortly and disrespectfully called him, you will find 
 with his green dress-coat of Saxony trimmed with gold- 
 lace, behind the Comtesse's pretty running-footman, who, 
 squeezed into his polonaise of sky-blue cloth and his legs 
 covered with chamois-colored knitted silk breeches, brand- 
 ished as he ran that superb cane-knob chased by Roettiers, 
 of which the inexorable accounts will tell you the price 
 almost down to a farthing. 3 If it pleases you to see Madame 
 du Barry's wardrobe, you may go over the review of full- 
 dress suits, robes with hoop-petticoats, robes of respecta- 
 
 1 The " Secret Memoirs " relate, under the date of January 10, 
 *773> that Madame du Barry having given the choice to Raucourt of 
 three robes for his use or a theatre-dress, Raucourt chose a theatre- 
 dress. 
 
 3 Madame du Barry gave Lekain a costume in the Greek style and 
 a costume in the Roman style. The two costumes cost 4,8o8/. 45^. 
 
 8 The entry dated the 4th April, 1774, gives the price of this cane- 
 knob as "5461 gs" TRANSLATOR. 
 
 Favourite, are in red morocco with the arms on the covers; the 
 others, more modestly bound, are covered with calf and sheepskin. 
 These last have on their backs, in the midst of myrtle-wreaths, the 
 arms and the device of the Favourite. I have found, in this style 
 of binding, the " Grecourt " of Madame du Barry. See the work 
 of M. Paul Lacroix on the Favourite s library. 
 
 130 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 bility and a robe de toilette, robes at 1,000, at 2,000, 
 at 3,000, at 5,000, and 10,000 livres, supplied by the or- 
 dinary dealers in silk-goods Buffand, Lenormand, As- 
 sorty, Barbier, Bourjot. Here we have coming from the 
 establishment of her dressmaker, Madame Sigly, robes 
 with a silver ground adorned with bouquets of feathers ; 
 robes with a white ground and wreaths of roses; robes 
 striped with big gold plates running into the flowers and 
 the eyelet-holes ; robes with a mosaic ground worked in gold 
 and framed with myrtle; and Amazon's robes of white 
 Indian silk, which cost 6,000 livres ! 
 
 But the gold and the silver are nqt enough: embroidery 
 comes to shed over the silk the flowering rain of its pat- 
 terns. Davaux, the Comtesse's embroiderer, embroiders 
 for her completely, after the patterns of Michel de Saint- 
 Aubin, white silk robes in silk-cloud and spangles of colour. 
 
 Then there are the ruinous trimmings, all the ornaments 
 which a robe in those days could bear, the thousand fan- 
 cies of that great artist in gewgaws, Pagelle, the man- 
 milliner of " Traits Galants " in the Rue Saint-Honore 
 the silver blond-laces, the chiccory head-bands set off and 
 picked out with jasmine, the little bouquets fastened with 
 little knots in the hollows of festoons, and the wreaths, 
 and the bracelets, and the fur-tippets, and the top-knots, 
 and the court-tassels, which brought up the price of a 
 robe to 10,500 livres. Then, when the robes were finished, 
 began the lace, the lace, that luxury of woman ; and reckon 
 
 ic trimmings of a dressing-gown at 2,500 livres, the 
 
 131 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 English morning- wrapper at 4,000 livres, the ruffles at 600, 
 the needle-stitched head-dresses at 1,400, and the toilettes 
 of Point-d'Argentan at 9,000 1 1 
 
 From the toilet, from this big business and this big waste- 
 fulness of Madame du Barry, the inventory of her follies 
 will lead you to her other caprices, to her temptations, to 
 her taste for bawbles, to her love of pretty nothings. You 
 will follow her in her purchase of porcelain at the King's 
 manufactory. The vases with ears and goats' heads, the 
 lozenged baskets, the chestnut trays, the tea-pots with green 
 ribbons and gilt hatching, the biscuit-groups, the basins of 
 royal blue for putting in flowers with trellises and birds, 
 dozens of which were destroyed by fire before being suc- 
 cessfully finished, the breakfast services with figures of 
 grotesque Chinese pattern, which were set apart for the 
 days when the King supped at Luciennes and necessitated 
 two months and a half of work from the first painter of 
 the manufactory, and the service with little roses and 
 wreaths of three hundred and twenty pieces, the ordinary 
 supper-service, all the Sevres of Madame du Barry is 
 summed up and exhibited for your benefit. 
 
 Soon, in this prodigious inventory of so many prodigali- 
 ties, in the list of expenditure in which seem to be set out 
 by the steward of a Cleopatra the cost and the particulars 
 of pearls melted through a woman's whim, you shall find 
 
 1 See in the Appendix some fragments of these accounts. The 
 estimated cost of cloth, lace, &c., after Madame du Barry's death, 
 reached more than 200,000 livres. 
 
 132 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 the precious metals silver, gold with which her table 
 shone proudly, with which her toilet decked itself. 1 Read 
 the memorandum 2 of that great carver- in silver, Roettiers, 
 whose association with Germain procured for the eighteenth 
 century the marvels of his plate utensils, those models, 
 those chasings, of which now only a wreck, a sample, is left 
 here and there. The memorandum describes in full detail, 
 it sketches so to speak with technical words, all this service 
 of Madame du Barry, of the most finished shape and car- 
 ried to the highest pitch of polish, on which the most skil- 
 ful of Roettiers's journeymen silversmiths spent half his 
 nights for whole months. An interweaving of myrtle and 
 laurel is the mark and, so to speak, the device of all the 
 pieces. The chandeliers with their rams' heads and their 
 laurel wreaths represent the four Elements; infants' sports, 
 with trophies of arrows and quivers, may be seen above the 
 doorways. 
 
 Ere long silver is not sufficiently rich and magnificent 
 for Madame du Barry. She aims at possessing the envy 
 and the insolence of a service entirely of gold, of which the 
 helvings will be blood-red jasper, spoons of gold in which 
 Cupids hold up garlands of roses, a gold coffee-pot adorned 
 
 1 M. Paul Lacroix has informed me that there is in the possession 
 of the successor of Lepot of Auteuil, Madame du Barry's notary, 
 a detailed inventory of all the household goods belonging to Madame 
 du Barry. I direct the attention of students of archaeological details 
 to this document, considering that the numerous descriptions of 
 artistic objects given here and in the Appendix are sufficient for a 
 general history of Madame du Barry. 
 
 2 See this Memorandum in the Appendix. 
 
 133 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 with feet and antique foliage, a gold milk-pot with a spout 
 hollowed by channels in which myrtle-leaves are displayed, 
 while the lid has projecting leaves crowned with a group of 
 roses. 
 
 There is, in fact, an entire toilet-service of gold with 
 which her desire is gratified and for which Roettiers gets 
 the order. All Paris talks about it. It is said that the 
 Government made an advance to Roettiers of the fifteen 
 hundred gold marks, which he asked for setting about the 
 work. 1 The inquisitive gathered round the silversmith's 
 establishment, and those who are lucky enough to get in 
 front feel glad at having seen the mirror surmounted by two 
 Cupids holding a wreath. But scandal, or rather the ex- 
 cessive expense, brought the work to a stop ; and we find 
 in Madame du Barry's accounts an indemnity to Roettiers 
 for a gold toilet-service which he had commenced. All 
 those beautiful things, so much wealth, this furniture worth 
 millions, those rare objects, those trifles and those marvels, 
 required a temple suitable for them, a nest, a fairy pavilion, 
 which should be, in its grace, in the charm of its details, 
 in the miniature perfection of its proportions, in the delicacy 
 of its magnificence, the worthy little abode of the minor arts 
 of the eighteenth century. This temple will be Luciennes, 
 built in three months, as if at the command of an enchan- 
 tress, by the architect Ledoux, whom Madame du Barry 
 thanked by getting him into the Academy. 2 
 
 1 " Anecdotes about Madame du Barry." 1775. 
 
 2 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Vol. VII. 
 
 134 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 It will be a palace-boudoir in which everything will have 
 the finish and the preciousness of a jewel. The industry 
 of the time will seem to have employed there, even in noth- 
 ings, the invention, the patience, and the taste of a thousand 
 little genii. The slightest ornaments will be unique, ex- 
 quisite, and recherche; and, from room to room, the master- 
 pieces of handicraft will display there the supreme effort 
 and the delicious refinement of elegant designs and excellent 
 implements. The carved woodwork, the flowerings, the 
 acanthus-leaves, the laurel-branches, the birds pecking in 
 the intertwined myrtles, will be carved and re-carved and, 
 so to speak, perfected by chiselling. There will be in the 
 gildings and the overgildings of the furniture so many leaves 
 of gold and so many touches of the burnishing stick, such 
 an exhibition of care and pains, that the gilder will ask 
 5,915 livres for the bed. 1 And it will be by Gouthiere that 
 the bronzes will be wrought in amorous fashion. 2 He will 
 
 1 See in the Appendix the detailed description of this bed made, 
 in the beginning, for the mansion at Versailles. 
 
 8 Gouthiere claimed, after Madame du Barry's death, 756,000 francs. 
 The carving in bronze of a single pedestal was fixed at 50,000 francs ; 
 the mounting and adjustment of the ornaments of this pedestal at 
 46,000 francs ; the gilding at 63,000 francs ; the placing of the pedestal, 
 in which was included the journey of the three workmen, at 5,000 
 francs. The three other pedestals were reckoned up at 420,000 
 francs. Although he consented to reduce his bill to 640,000 francs, 
 keeping certain articles not finished and not delivered, Gouthiere 
 was not paid by the Government, was obliged to ask for admission 
 to an almshouse, and died in want. 
 
 His son having entered a protest as against the indemnity which 
 was paid to Madame du Barry's legal representatives, under the law 
 
 135 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 shape the flames, arms, locks, sash-fastenings, and door- 
 handles which will lose nothing by their proximity to those 
 little bronzes preserved by the Museum of Naples as the 
 most charming things transmitted to us by the art of former 
 days. 
 
 Luciennes was a small square edifice with five windows 
 on each side, which had in front a peristyle of four columns 
 with a pediment showing a Bacchanalian group of children 
 carved in bas-relief by Lecomte. 
 
 The peristyle opened on a vestibule leading into the 
 dining-room; and we have this dining-room at Luciennes, 
 all animation, all filled with guests, all alive, so to speak, in 
 the clever water-colour of the younger Moreau, now in 
 possession of the Museum of the Louvre. 1 In the middle of 
 the ceiling, at either side of which were gilt tumbrils, there 
 are floating clouds of Olympus and sportive Cupids. The 
 white marble walls are rut by Corinthian pilasters with 
 capitals, bases, and stems of gilt bronze. Between the 
 capitals, bas-reliefs, framed in gold, display Loves, the 
 portrait of Louis XV. and the united arms of the King and 
 
 1 This water-colour, exhibited in No. 1196, has on the back, with 
 the arms of Madame du Barry, this manuscript note: "Fete given 
 at Luciennes, December 2?th, 1771." With this drawing of Moreau 
 and Villiers's description it is easy to rebuild the palace-bijou of the 
 Favourite. 
 
 of April 25th, 1825, a judgment of the Tribunal of First Instance in 
 Paris declared the protest effectual to the extent of 80,000 francs, and 
 the legal representatives were held liable to pay 32,000 francs to 
 Gouthiere Fils. (Gasette de Tribunal, February 28th, 1836.) 
 
 136 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Madame du Barry. Four galleries, where Madame du Bar- 
 ry's musicians repeated, on each occasion of returning from 
 the chase, the sound and the dying echo of the horn, are full 
 of women leaning on the balcony rails, and fanning them- 
 selves. Throughout the apartment, all white and gold, 
 a vapour of light seems to rise from the lustres hanging 
 in front of the mirrors between the columns, shedding on 
 them flashes to which other flashes respond in other mir- 
 rors, handfuls of flame which fling into the air four figures 
 of women carved in marble by Pajou, Lecomte, and Moi- 
 neau, and standing on marble socles with golden wreaths. 
 Around the table, surrounded by curious lookers-on, behind 
 the round backs of the armchairs and the clubs of the chat- 
 tering guests' perukes, the attendants, the servants, the per- 
 sons carrying dishes, keep coming and going rapidly, some 
 in yellow straw livery, others in crimson velvet coats with 
 facings, with blue collars and wrist-bands, with white boot- 
 tops and white gaiters, three-cornered hats on their heads 
 and swords by their side. You see even little Zamore in 
 a turban with feathers, a rose-coloured vest and breeches, 
 gliding towards a lady who has, doubtless, left some bon- 
 bons on her plate. The crystal, the silver, the structure re- 
 sembling an opera-scene which rises above the table-cloth, 
 the cordons bleus, the diamonds, the smiles on the faces of 
 the guests, all keep the table in a glow ; and in the brilliant 
 light shed around there is seen by the side of Madame du 
 Barry's pretty countenance the handsome, noble face of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 137 
 
Madame Do Barry 
 
 The dining-room opened on the square salon where the 
 view from the windows embraced Saint Germain, the Vesi- 
 net, Saint Denis, the Seine in all its windings, and, there 
 below, Paris. This salon, the arabesques of which had 
 been sculptured by Metivier and Feuillet, was decorated 
 with a cornice with a console in which Gouthiere surpassed 
 himself ; and the spaces above the doors exhibited the gayest 
 touches of brilliant colourings from Fragonard's brush, 
 given by Drouais to Madame du Barry. 1 
 
 Two parlours communicated with the large salon. The 
 one at the right presented, in a series of four big pictures 
 by Vien, a symbolic history of love in young girls' hearts. 
 It had tables of precious marble, and two marble figures 
 by Vasse represented, the one of them Love, the other 
 Knavery holding his mask. At the left, the oval parlour, 
 where Briard had painted on the ceiling the charming 
 allegory of love of the country, was all full of mirrors, 
 which reproduced the superb mantelpiece of lapis-lazuli in 
 the form of a tripod with a prodigious wealth of bronze. 2 
 Nothing was lacking in this enchanted palace. There was 
 even, as in one of Veronese's illustrations of a fairy tale, 
 a familiar negro-boy, something like a human chimera, to 
 carry the trays with refreshments, to hold the parasol and 
 to roll himself on the carpets. He was one of those pretty 
 little monsters whom that age of grotesques loved so much, 
 
 1 "Miscellanies of Literature and History." Published by the 
 Society of Bibliophiles. 
 
 2 " Manual of a Traveler in the Neighbourhood of Paris." By Vil- 
 liers. Paris X. Vol. I. 
 
 138 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 a. two-legged pug, whom the Prince of Conde christened 
 Zamore. It seems to me that I can see him in this sketch 
 which I have under my eyes, in this drawing of the very 
 amusing coxcomb, Portail, with his tuft of white and red 
 feathers, his silk head-dress from which escape at the 
 temple and at the neck locks of hair, with his big white eye, 
 his flat nose, his mouth like a pomegranate, his ear wear- 
 ing a pearl, his big waistcoat, his fine coat, his proud frill 
 and his ruffles, a bush of lace from which issues an ebony 
 hand. Zamore and Luciennes ! They were so well adapted 
 to each other, the chateau was so suitable a cage for the 
 negro-boy, that, on one evening of folly, the King gave 
 Zamore, who was playing at his feet, the management of 
 the chateau and the grounds of Luciennes, with a salary 
 of 600 livres. 1 Luciennes ! should we not speak of it as 
 the palace of one of those funny sovereignties such as the 
 books of the eighteenth century show us in those Turkisms, 
 in which, subjected to the whims of a favourite odalisque, 
 the erratic good-pleasure of a capricious sultan holds sway ? 
 For such extravagant expenditure, for this rain of gold 
 poured out on all the arts and all the industries, for so much 
 money flowing daily from the two open hands of the Fa- 
 vourite, there was needed a bottomless chest, a banker al- 
 ways ready to pay. Madame du Barry had found the banker 
 in the Controller-General, the chest in the coffers of the 
 
 1 Does the Royel warrant really exist? I have made a minute 
 examination of the registers of warrants in the National Archives 
 from 1769 to 1774 without being able to find it. 
 
 139 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 State. This Terray, this species of priest, this lugubrious 
 joker, 1 this pale Satyr, for all the statesmen grouped 
 around the Du Barry are of a bilious mould : Maupeou is 
 green, D'Aiguillon is yellow, Terray is livid, this Terray, in 
 his complaisances towards the Favourite's caprices so pecu- 
 liar to fast women, showed a baseness, a laxity, a shameless- 
 ness, which have no parallel in the history of any minister 
 of finance in any other country. In the commencement of 
 Madame du Barry's vogue, at the moment when the mistress 
 had as yet only an allowance of 30,000 livres a month, he 
 got this allowance doubled by persuading the King that 
 there would be an economy in suppressing the lady's little 
 notes and private money-orders, which were unlimited. 
 When the allowance was doubled, it may well be doubted 
 whether the little notes and the private money-orders did 
 not go on as in the past. 
 
 On New Year's Day, 1770, he obtained for her as a New 
 Year's gift the " Nantes Lodges," with a revenue of 40,000 
 livres. 
 
 In 1771, on the death of the Comte de Clermont, he 
 suggested to the King that it was necessary to think about 
 Madame du Barry, who had until now been solely occupied 
 with the task of pleasing His Majesty, and therefore had 
 no thought on her means, so that she found herself in a 
 
 1 The Abbe Terray's joke about the fetes on the occasion of Marie 
 Antoinette's marriage is well known. When Louis XV. asked him 
 what he thought of the fetes, the Controller-General, with his clouded 
 face, replied : " Sire they are beyond payment." 
 
 140 
 
Madame DXJ Barry- 
 precarious State. And he proposed, without in any way 
 disarranging the plan of economy which Louis XV. had 
 imposed on himself, to give 100,000 livres a year for life 
 to the Favourite out of the 300,000 of which the Comte de 
 Clermont's death had caused the extinction. 1 Some time 
 afterwards, he got for the Favourite, on the renewal of the 
 lease for gunpowder, a good- will of 100,000 livres, a good- 
 will which bad tongues accused the Abbe of having, in 
 the beginning, stipulated for getting on his own account. 
 But these gifts, these good-wills, however enormous they 
 were, had their limits, and they did not amount to very much 
 in comparison with the immense and unknown sum of money 
 which came into Madame du Barry's hands through the 
 shameful acceptance by the Abbe Terray of bonds of Ma- 
 dame du Barry as bonds of the King, so that Madame du 
 Barry drew, without counting, from Choisy, from Trianon, 
 on Baujon the banker of the Court, to whom she gave orders 
 for payment of any sum she wished, leaving him to settle 
 accounts with the Controller-General. And do we not know 
 that Madame du Barry's bonds on Baujon since 1769, the 
 first year when she occupied the place of Favourite, to 
 1774, the year of King Louis XV. 's death, amounted to the 
 sum of 6,427,803 livres? 2 All the policy, all the science, 
 
 " Memoirs concerning the administration of Finances under the 
 Abbe Terray, Controller-General. London, Jolin, Adamson, 1776. 
 
 2 M. le Roi, in his elaborate study of curious information, has made 
 an estimate of the sums spent by Madame du Barry. Here it is as he 
 has given it: 
 
 141 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 all the labour of the Abbe Terray to sustain himself con- 
 sisted in never letting Madame du Barry be in want of 
 money. 
 
 1. Furniture given by the King to Madame du 
 
 Barry on her marriage 30,ooo/. s. d. 
 
 2. Sums paid for Madame du Barry by Ban j on. 
 
 banker of the Court, from the year 1769 to 
 
 the year 1774 6,427,8o3/. s. lid. 
 
 3. For the purchase of her mansion at Versailles 
 
 by Monsieur, brother of the King, October 
 
 24th, 1775 224,ooo/. -s. d. 
 
 4. For the exchange of 50,000 livres of a life an- 
 
 nuity for 1,250,000 livres delivered by the 
 Royal Exchequer by the King's decree of 
 April, 1784 i,25o,ooo/. s. d. 
 
 5. Madame du Barry enjoys 150,000 livres of a 
 
 life annuity out of the city of Paris, the 
 States of Burgundy and the Lodges of 
 Nantes, from the year 1769 to 1784, which 
 gives a total of 2,4OO,ooo/. s. d 
 
 6. From the year 1784 to 1793 she has no more 
 
 than a life-annuity of 100,000 livres, which 
 
 gives a total of 900,ooo/. s. d. 
 
 7. The enjoyment of the Chateau of Luciennes 
 
 and of its numerous dependencies, the Cha- 
 teau and the construction of the Pavilion 
 may be estimated at a revenue of 50,000 
 livres a year, making from 1767 to 1793. , . i,25o,ooo/. s. d. 
 
 The general total of all these sums is. .. I2,48i,8o3/. s. d. 
 
 143 
 
IX. 
 
 Efforts of the Favourite to have Social Intercourse with Marie 
 Antoinette. Mercy-Argenteau's Interview with the Comtesse du 
 Barry. Madame Adelaide preventing Marie- Antoinette from Speak- 
 ing to the Favourite. The Roue's Unreasonable Claims. The 
 " Drolesse " Ballad. The Low Amusements of Luciennes. The 
 Lowering of Royalty through Contact with a Courtesan. 
 
 IN the midst of the complete satisfaction of her hatreds, 
 her passions, her tastes, her caprices, and her fancies, the 
 favourite sultana had her existence and her nerves wor- 
 ried by the insulting disdain of the Dauphiness. In those 
 salons of Marly, of Choisy, of Versailles, of Fontainebleau, 
 in those salons, now humbled and reverential, Madame du 
 Barry had to endure the silence of the haughty little red- 
 haired beauty 1 and all that the latter conveyed by such 
 silence. In spite of the maternal orders of Maria Theresa, 
 who took the preliminary steps to obtain Louis XWs for- 
 giveness for the partition of Poland, 2 in spite of the letters 
 of Prince Kaunitz, in spite of the objurgations of Mercy- 
 
 1 Madame du Barry called Marie Antoinette "the little rousse" 
 and the future Louis XVI. " the little ill-bred boy." 
 
 3 Maria Theresa writes to Marie Antoinette : " It is sufficient for 
 the King to distinguish such a woman or a man for you to owe the 
 person respect without sifting their merits." 
 
 M3 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Argenteau, the Empress-Queen's ambassador, Marie An- 
 toinette could not conquer the insurmountable repugnance 
 which she felt for " the most silly and impertinent creature 
 imaginable." 1 Nobody had the power to compel the young 
 Princess to hold conversation with the Favourite, to make 
 her address to Madame du Barry in society one of those 
 commonplaces which would be the pledge and the mark of 
 the acceptance of her person amongst the ladies of the 
 Court. Madame du Barry, thus wounded publicly every 
 day, kept wearying the King with her complaints, with her 
 despairs, with her tears, asking his intervention as a father- 
 in-law in order to put a stop to this cruel state of affairs, 
 so that in the month of July, 1771, at Compiegne, Louis XV. 
 conveyed to Mercy-Argenteau his desire to have an inter- 
 view with Maria Theresa's confidential adviser. The Due 
 d'Aiguillon, the bearer of the message, gave him a rendez- 
 vous the next day but one, after his return from hunting, 
 at the house of the Comtesse du Barry informing him that 
 Louis XV. wished to say he was not housed at Compiegne in 
 a way to receive him suitably, and therefore wished him 
 to call at the Favourite's abode. The step was a delicate 
 one, the greater number of foreign ambassadors having up 
 to this time refused to visit Madame du Barry. However, 
 Mercy-Argenteau obeyed the King's orders. 
 Mercy-Argenteau called at the Favourite's house at seven 
 
 1 Letter of Marie Antoinette to Maria Theresa, published in 
 " Maria Theresia und Marie- Antoinette." By Arneth, Vienna, 1865. 
 
 144 
 
MARIE ANTOINETTE 
 
 To face page 144 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 o'clock. The Due d'Aiguillon informed him that the King 
 had finished dressing, and, under the pretext of examin- 
 ing a picture, he brought away the ladies who happened to 
 be in the salon, and left the Empress-Queen's ambassador 
 alone with Madame du Barry, who made him sit down be- 
 side her. 
 
 The Favourite seized the opportunity to say to Mercy- 
 Argenteau that she was very glad the idea of the King 
 speaking to him at her house had put it in her power to make 
 his acquaintance, and that she wished to take advantage 
 of it to talk to him confidentially about a painful subject 
 which greatly affected her. She was not unaware that for 
 some time past people had been busy in poisoning the Dau- 
 phiness's mind against her, and that, in order to succeed in 
 so doing, the had recourse to the most atrocious calumnies, 
 daring to attribute to her remarks by no means respectful 
 with reference to the Princess. Madame du Barry protested 
 that this was utterly without foundation, that even far from 
 having to reproach herself with such an enormous of- 
 fence, she had always been on the side of those who be- 
 stowed well-merited praise on the charms of the Arch- 
 duchess. She declared that, though this Princess had con- 
 stantly treated her with rigour and a species of contempt, 
 she had never indulged in complaints against her Royal 
 Highness, but only against those who inspired her with 
 these feelings of aversion. Madame du Barry added that, 
 when there was a question of some object which the Dau- 
 
 145 10 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 phiness appeared to desire, as, on a former occasion, a de- 
 mand for payment for that princess's house, she had made it 
 her business to represent to the King that he could not 
 shrink from complying with the wishes of the Dauphiness." 
 
 At this stage of the conversation the King arrived by 
 a little staircase, and the Comtesse withdrew. 
 
 " Till now you have been the Empress's ambassador ; 
 now I beg of you to be my ambassador, at least for some 
 time," said the King, as he entered, to Mercy-Argenteau. 
 Then, with a certain embarrassment, he talked to him about 
 Marie Antoinette, saying to him that he loved the Princess 
 with all his heart, that he thought her charming, but that 
 she was young and lively, " and that having a husband who 
 was not capable of guiding her," it was impossible that she 
 could avoid the snares which were directed against her by 
 intrigue. He remarked with displeasure that she gave her- 
 self up to prejudices, to hatreds, which did not enanate from 
 her, but which had been suggested to her; that she treated 
 badly and even with affectation the ladies whom the King 
 admitted into his intimate circle. Louis XV. ended by re- 
 peating several times to Mercy-Argenteau : " See the Dau- 
 phiness often : I authorize you to say to her anything you 
 wish on my behalf. She is badly advised, and she should 
 not follow such bad advice." 
 
 In consequence of this interview, Mercy-Argenteau placed 
 Marie- Antoinette in this dilemma : either she wanted to indi- 
 cate by her conduct that she was aware of Madame du 
 Barry's role with the King, in which case it was due to her 
 
 146 
 
Madame Dut Barry- 
 dignity to insist on the Comtesse being excluded from the 
 Court circle, or else she wanted to appear ignorant of the 
 Favourite's position, in which case she should treat her like 
 every other woman who had been presented at Court. 
 
 Next day the Dauphiness informed Mercy-Argenteau that 
 she would speak once to the Comtesse du Barry on the 
 first opportunity. 
 
 A few days later Mercy-Argenteau intimated to the 
 Dauphiness that Madame du Barry would be joining the 
 Court circle on the following day accompanied by the Duch- 
 esse de Valentinois. Marie Antoinette promised to speak. 
 It was agreed that, when play was over, Mercy-Argenteau 
 should approach the Favourite and enter into a conversa- 
 tion with her, while the Archduchess, in the act of taking 
 her usual turn, should address some remark to Madame du 
 Barry. Mercy-Argenteau, delighted with his victory, left 
 the Dauphiness, making her give her word of honour not 
 to tell the royal aunts about this little arrangement. So 
 next day the Comtesse du Barry, accompanied by the Duch- 
 esse de Valentinois, was in the Court circle. Play was 
 nearly finished. Mercy-Argenteau had been sent by the 
 Dauphiness to sit down beside Madame du Barry, who felt 
 quite happy, as she saw Marie Antoinette advancing to- 
 wards her ready to speak, when Madame Adelaide, who 
 was in the secret, suddenly raising her voice, said : 
 
 " It is time to go ! Come ! Let us wait for the King at 
 my sister Victoire's." And the Dauphiness followed Ma- 
 
 147 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 dame Adelaide without having had time to address a word 
 to the unhappy and humiliated Favourite. 1 
 
 Madame du Barry had another annoyance in her life her 
 brother-in-law. There had been since the beginning of her 
 regime as Favourite demands every day for money and for 
 notes to appease creditors, " to lift him out of the depths of 
 the tomb," as the Roue tragically wrote. 2 In order to get 
 out of the depths of the tomb, a moment before Terray's ac- 
 cession to office, the Comte Jean had conceived the bril- 
 liant idea of overthrowing the Controller-General, Maynon 
 d'Invau, and replacing him by a friend of his, by one of his 
 " pals," Guenee de Brochau, Procureur-General of Requests 
 at the Hotel. Guenee de Brochau once Controller-General, it 
 would mean the Comte Jean's hand in the public exchequer. 
 Unfortunately the plot was found out ; Brochau was put into 
 the Bastille, and the Comte Jean got orders to travel for 
 the good of his health always at the expense of the Com- 
 tesse du Barry. Still, if the Favourite had been tormented 
 merely by Jean du Barry's need of money, it would have 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence between Maria-Theresa and Mercy- Ar- 
 genteau." Published by the Chevalier Arneth, 1875. Tome I. 
 
 a Letter from Jean du Barry without any date, published by the 
 Revue de Paris in the year 1836. Tome XXXV. Hardy, in his " Man- 
 uscript Journal," relates that in the month of December, 1769, Jean 
 du Barry had been driven from Court, and forbidden to reappear 
 there. On this point a story was told that the Comtesse, having asked 
 for 600,000 livres to pay her debts, and the King, having applied for 
 this sum to the Controller-General, the Due de Choiseul procured 
 incontestable proofs that this money was destined for the brother-in- 
 law, and submitted them to the King. 
 
 148 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 been well enough; but he was continually harassing her, 
 persecuting her with his advice, with his plans of conduct, 
 with his monitions, wishing to make her profit, according 
 to his own phrase, " by the flashes of his genius." 1 How- 
 
 1 Letter -of the Comte du Barry, published in the Revue Retrospect- 
 ive, 3rd Series, Vol. I. The letter deserves to be cited as the letter 
 of a rascally pimp, of an intriguing politician : 
 
 " M. Jame has not left me ignorant, my dear sister, that it was at 
 the bottom of your heart he found the best advocate of my cause. 
 Would to Heaven that this heart had never yielded to the sugges- 
 tions of those who were interested in disuniting it from mine ! How 
 many misfortunes we might have spared each other ! There remains 
 for you at your age a long career to enjoy: the decline of mine may 
 still shed on it some advantage by making use of my experience and 
 of the position in which at this moment I find myself. 
 
 " M. Jame can inform you of some of my views for the purpose 
 of being useful to you in my turn, and I would be ungrateful for the 
 first time in my life if when I owe to you the facility of appearing 
 in my own city with honour, I did not on my return sacrifice my time 
 and my attentions to serve you. This may be and will be so, my 
 dear sister ; you will still profit by some flashes of my genius. They 
 have often lighted up your path. I repeat to you, they will light it 
 up still. . . . You and he (M. Jame), my dear sister, are the 
 only friends I know. I have been repulsed with arms of brass by 
 persons whom blood and gratitude ought to render inviolably at- 
 tached to me: you alone will have the merit of having set me up 
 again on the top of the wheel. I am not laying a tax on the extent 
 of the service you have promised to render me. I shall receive with 
 thankfulness what will come from you. It is the last service of this 
 sort I have asked from you, and if there were within my reach any 
 negotiable bill or any article of furniture that could be sold, be sure 
 I could not have asked you for anything. It is with tears in my eyes, 
 I repeat to you, that I see you forced to deprive yourself of your 
 capital in order to assist me to get out of the abyss in which I am, 
 for I am firmly convinced that you are just as destitute of money 
 as I am myself ; but I have nothing except a life-mortgage, and if I 
 
 149 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 ever, in spite of his debts and of his creditors, the Comte 
 Jean lived in great style. He gambled in the most desperate 
 fashion, kept five mistresses, married the sultana of his 
 harem to a Chevalier of Saint-Louis, for whom he got a 
 pension of 2,000 crowns so that he might have the usufruct 
 of it to himself. He held under the baptismal font a child 
 of Beauvoisin whose baptism cost, in sugar plums and in 
 presents, 25,000 livres. Installed for a little while in the 
 chateau of Triel, where he had around him all the gamblers 
 of France, he lost 7,000 louis at one sitting, and he boasted 
 when rising from the table that he had got to his fifth mil- 
 lion. The Comte Jean appeared as a product of rotten civili- 
 zation, one of the decadents of his time, as a type in which 
 seems to exhibit itself in its shamelessness, in its cynicism, in 
 its scandalous contempt for every human religion, the moral- 
 ity of a " Rameau's Nephew." 1 It was the Comte Jean who 
 said, when people spoke of his losses at play, " Don't worry, 
 
 1 An allusion to Diderot's remarkable work, "Le Neveu de Ra- 
 meau," in which the vices of a parasite in the days of pre-Revolution- 
 ary France are ruthlessly gibbeted. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 die without having repaid by some service that which you render me, 
 you and I know that it is to no purpose. 
 
 " I do not insist on appearing at Luciennes on account of the pecu- 
 liar reasons you mention. I do not see, however, why you should 
 not make an appointment in Paris at the house of M. Darnet, or 
 elsewhere; perhaps an hour's conversation would be instructive and 
 profitable. 
 
 " May Heaven preserve you, my dear sister : I have been told that 
 it has taken care of your freshness and your figure, I thank it for 
 doing so." 
 
 ISO 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 my friends ; 'tis you'll have to pay for all this." It was the 
 Comte Jean who, with reference to a money-order refused 
 by the Abbe Terray, went shouting all over Paris that he 
 would blow up the Controller-General, that he would blow 
 up D'Aiguillon, that he would blow up the ministry. It was 
 the Comte Jean who came to demand from the Farming 
 Committee for his friend Desaint the directorship of Paris, 
 and, when he was told that the post had been already given 
 to the Sieur Chomel, cried out against it : " As if everyone 
 did not know it was he who had the honour to give a mistress 
 to the King . . . and let them take care not to put 
 him into a temper ! ' ?1 
 
 The scandal this time was too marked and too public. 
 He was advised to go and spend a few months in his mar- 
 quisate at Lisle in order to learn, as Madame du Barry put 
 it to him, to " turn his tongue seven times in his mouth 
 before speaking." He left in a state of dissatisfaction at 
 not having been sustained by his sister-in-law against the 
 ministers ; he returned home in a very bad temper at not 
 having seen his exile abridged by having credit given to 
 him, and, as a sequel to two or three scenes which he had 
 with her, the Roue launched against his former mistress the 
 cruel ballad which he composed or inspired: 
 
 " Woman of shame ! 
 Why are you so proud with me? 
 
 My Royal Dame ! 
 Whence comes all your dignity? 
 
 1 Horace Walpole says of Du Barry (Memoirs of the Reign of 
 George III., Vol. II., p. 200) : " He seems to have been a consum- 
 mate blackguard." TRANSLATOR. 
 
 ISI 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 If you ever get faded, and have to climb down 
 
 In the street, 
 
 You will meet 
 Some kind " pals " of yours on the town. 
 
 Woman of shame, etc. 
 
 " When the monk, your sire, said, 
 
 Mass to buy you a crust, 
 And your mother got bread 
 
 By the wages of lust, 
 You were humble and meek, 
 
 And just as you should be : 
 Then no more of your cheek 
 
 When you're dealing with me ! 
 Now listen ! be just your old self, 
 
 Or some day you may find yourself sold ; 
 And, though I love you better than pelf, 
 
 Let me show I can kick, as of old. 
 
 Woman of shame ! 
 Do you think I am broken at last ? 
 
 My Royal Dame ! 
 Don't forget what you were in the past ! " l 
 
 The ftes 2 were not discontinued at Luciennes, where 
 around this spring table of the King, who at first had at 
 either side of him only the Marchale de Mirepoix and the 
 Marquise de Montmorency, came to sit down in succession 
 all the ladies of the Court. In the beginning there were 
 the Duchesse and the Vicomtesse de Laval, then that Com- 
 tesse of Choiseul, whose husband was the personal enemy 
 
 J The original of the ballad, " Drolesse," is couched in much 
 stronger language than the translation here given of it. TRANS- 
 LATOR. 
 
 2 The " Secret Memoirs " refer to a fete given in March, 1773, by 
 Madame du Barry, at which there were four spectacles and a hun- 
 dred comedians, singers, and dancers from three theatres. At this 
 fte an armed Cupid came forth from an egg. 
 
 152 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of the Duke, then also Mesdames de Valbelle, de Nesle, 
 d'Avaray de 1'Aigle, d'Harville, and that Madame de Crenay 
 who had been lampooned in some verses : 
 
 " Crenay is a coquette, 
 And on light toe she trips, 
 And so plump is her waist that she often slips : 
 
 Then Fenelon lifts her in excellent style, 
 And each guest applauds with a ringing cheer ; 
 She is fair and fat and as round as a sphere, 
 
 But she dances all the whole." 1 
 
 The Duchesse de Mazarin with the Princesse Kinski con- 
 sented to be half admitted, 2 and, so to speak, remained on 
 the threshold of the little palace, ready to be replaced by 
 more illustrious ladies. And so with other and older names 
 in France. For with time they were all bound to " hop " to 
 the fetes. Would the news not go round one day that 
 Madame de Forcalquier, she who was known as the " Bel- 
 lissima," was at Choisy, which was the antechamber to 
 Luciennes ? " To see in a grated box the new actress in the 
 comedy?'* "No, madame, she must be supping there." 
 " Supping ! Ah ! I'm quite sure she's not. I know what she 
 thinks, and I'll bet on it against anyone who likes," " Do 
 
 1 " Crenay fait la coquette, 
 Et veut encore danser, 
 Sa taille rondelette souvent la fait glisser, 
 
 Notre Fenelon la releve en cadence, 
 Chacun s'ecrie a 1'unisson 
 Elle est bien grasse, elle est bien ronde 
 
 Mais tou jours va qui danse." 
 
 2 Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." Paris, 
 1812. Tome II. 
 
 153 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 not bet, Madame ! There can be nothing more certain." 1 In 
 fact the Duchesse de Forcalquier, who grew indignant, not 
 more than three months before, at being suspected of such 
 infamy, had allowed herself to be enrolled amongst the list 
 of ladies who supped with the Du Barry. 
 
 For these fine ladies, will Luciennes be what Bellevue 
 was? Will Versailles find in the enchanted palace noble 
 pleasures, charming amusements. No, the Court will meet 
 there only the broad and unrefined diversions of a common- 
 place household. The mistress of Luciennes will not invoke 
 Racine and Tragedy to distract the ennui of a King's old 
 age. She will not have recourse to the piquant comedies, to 
 the refined operas, to the delightful inventions of Madame 
 de Pompadour. She will not awaken the echoes of Belle- 
 vue's past, and the memory of those charming ballets, of 
 those felicitous allegories, of those pretty verses, of that 
 light, lively, warbling music. But she will give dressing- 
 room suppers bachelors' suppers, where ceremonial, wit, 
 epigrams, improvised couplets, and fashionable recreations 
 will be replaced by noisy mirth and the risky jests of Cour- 
 tille, from which nothing will be lacking save Ramponneau's 
 face. The Du Barry will have plays acted before the King 
 not by ordinary comedians, but by the comedians of the 
 Boulevard du Temple. 
 
 The Du Barry will inaugurate at the Court the repertoire 
 
 1 " Complete Correspondence of Madame du Deffand." By M. de 
 Sainte-Aulaire, Paris, 1866. Tome II. 
 
 154 
 
Madame Dm Barry 
 
 of the theatre of one Guimard. And the merriest of Colle's 
 comedies, the one that shows least regard for public decency, 
 " Truth in Wine/' will afford her the satisfaction of seeing 
 the fine ladies of Versailles blush. Then, during supper, 
 there will be sung by Larivet and his wife such gay couplets 
 that they will embarrass even the Favourite's own female 
 friends. After " Truth in Wine," after the shameful sug- 
 gestiveness and broad jokes, the Du Barry will introduce 
 the delights of Audinot's " Penny Show," which will one 
 morning astonish all Paris by the unexpected announce- 
 ment: 
 
 " His Majesty's booth comedians will to-day give no per- 
 formance at the theatre as they are going to Court." And 
 the most vulgar play in Audinot's choice repertoire will end 
 with the " Fricassee," that loose country-dance which the 
 common people dance in public-houses. 1 Vile, ignoble 
 laughs, which will teach the language of the streets, the 
 fashions and the accent of " forest fetes " to this corrupt 
 Court, which as yet had, however, preserved all the graces, 
 and, if we may say so, all the decencies of corruption. 
 
 Enboldened by their license, the Du Barry, abandoning 
 through familiarity her fine airs and the position in which 
 good-fortune had placed her, shook off the mask she wore 
 as Favourite, became " La Lange " of former days, and 
 
 "Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome VI. At 
 this representation, which took place on the 8th of April, 1771, Ma- 
 dame du Barry amused herself infinitely and laughed with her breast 
 exposed." 
 
 155 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 from her mouth burst forth the language of her protegee, 
 Madame la Loque, the fish woman. And the roofs of Ver- 
 sailles, astonished and filled with shame, had to listen to a 
 woman addressing a King of France in the language of the 
 gutter. Here was the great evil produced by the King's 
 intrigue with Madame du Barry: she ruined (deplorable 
 ruin!) the respect for royalty. In this scandal lay the sin 
 that is too light a word the crime for which Louis XV. 
 had no remorse, of which the Du Barry's conscience could 
 not realize the shamefulness, and of which the monarchy 
 had to endure the penalty. Dreadful and lamentable sample 
 of the law made for Kings and which condemns them not 
 to have it in their power to descend to the appetites of their 
 pleasures, or to compromise the familiarity of their hearts, 
 without compromising in their persons the human religion 
 which they represent, the principle of which they are the 
 image, the dignity which they betoken, royalty itself. 
 
 Indeed, by contact with the Du Barry, everything around 
 the King was debased and invisibly crumbling. The disci- 
 pline of Versailles was lost, while the curiosity of Paris grew 
 bolder. The sanctuary of the royal majesty flew open, and 
 showed the alcove of which the fair Bourbonnaise sportively 
 drew the curtains. 
 
 The people lost faith and illusion when this gay wanton, 
 excited by champagne, was heard smashing the glass of the 
 " Oeil de Bceuf." Everywhere in the midst of this royalty, 
 still standing and almost entire, Madame du Barry works 
 evil by following her vocation and obeying her instincts as 
 
 156 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 a courtesan. She is that charming instrument of destruc- 
 tion, a pretty mistress in a great heritage ; and in her phi- 
 losophy of nature, in her laughter which treats everything 
 familiarly, in her insolent spirit of camaraderie, in her mis- 
 chievousness and romping sluttishness, so brazen-faced, in- 
 genuous, and charming, in that intolerance of all hierarchies, 
 in that deprecation of all grandeur, in those aggressive out- 
 bursts of contempt for the men and women of the Court, 
 there is the groundwork and the fatal vengeance of every 
 woman of pleasure that curious tendency, like the wanton- 
 ness of a dreadful child breaking the things with which it 
 plays. One day when, after sipping punch out of a ladle, 
 she put it back into the bowl, the King reproached her for 
 compelling everybody to drink her spittle, and did she not 
 give this reply : " Well, I want everybody to drink my spit- 
 tle?" 1 
 
 Involuntarily and by her nature she discredits everything 
 that approaches her, everything that touches her. Whether 
 she pushes Zamore's fingers into the Chancellor's peruke, 
 or with her throat in the air gets the Papal Nuncio to pre- 
 sent her slippers to her while jumping out of bed in her 
 chemise, she always plays this part of scoffing at, lessening, 
 and lowering to her own tone and her own level, the insti- 
 tutions, the traditions, the qualities, and even the State 
 measures of the French Monarchy. Barriers, venerations, 
 
 1 Extract from the " Memoirs of Horace Walpole on the Reign of 
 George III." (year 1771), given in the "Letters of Horace Walpole," 
 published by the Comte de Baillon. Didier, 1812. 
 
 '57 
 
: Madame D\i Barry 
 
 the prestige and the solemnity of the representation of the 
 will, of the love even of the King, everything that places the 
 King above humanity even while he is brought into close 
 relations with it, sinks under the follies and caprices of the 
 last of the Royal Favourites. " Let some years pass away, 
 and the crown will be no more," said an Englishman, " than 
 the nightcaps of two lovers." This throne around which 
 y Louis XIV. had maintained the etiquette of adultery, this 
 \ throne in which Madame de Pompadour sat with some re- 
 / mains of decency, will resemble, under the insults and inso- 
 lences of the Du Barry that cord of Saint Louis on which 
 thejpyrtesan Lacour made the old Due de la Valliere spit ! 
 ^ And the idea occurs to you to ask yourself whether this 
 .^-Maughter of the people who introduces Billingsgate into 
 V Versailles was not predestined to be the portress of the 
 \ revolution in the palace of our Kings, and to open a way 
 V Vor the bloody work of October, 
 
 158 
 
X. 
 
 Madame du Barry's Qualities as a " Good-natured Girl of the 
 Town." Her Family. Her Daughter, Madame de Boissaisson. 
 Marriage of the Vicomte Adolphe. Fresh Attempts of the Favourite 
 to Get into Marie Antoinette's Good Graces. The Ear-rings worth 
 700,000 livres. Project of a Dissolution of the Du Barry's Marriage 
 by the Pope. 
 
 BUT, if, by the fatality of her nature, the Favourite did 
 all this injury, if she was guilty of being a courtesan and of 
 involuntarily using her instincts for the ruin of the mon- 
 archy, the woman redeems herself by the easy virtues " of a 
 good-natured girl of the town " we must have recourse to 
 this popular phrase; it is the only one which paints \yith 
 one touch Madame du Barry. Madame du Barry loved 
 neither vengeance nor spite; and even the books of the 
 Revolution rendered her this much justice : " she did not hu- 
 miliate even those whom she might have ruined/' 1 She com- 
 promised with the pamphlets; she punished her enemies 
 merely with roguish tricks. She did not silence people with 
 lettres de cachet; she did not send epigrams to the Bastille. 
 
 1 " The Gallery of French Dames to serve as a Sequel to the Gal- 
 lery of the States-General." London, 1790. Madame du Barry is 
 there represented under the name of Elmire. 
 
 159 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 The mystifier who parodied her just as she was, dressing 
 his mistress as Comtesse du Tonneau, 1 knew beforehand 
 that he did not risk martyrdom. It is she herself who asked 
 pardon for Sophie Arnould, at whose hands she had been 
 subjected to a calumnious attack. 2 Her reign had only one 
 Latude, a Latude in the enjoyment of freedom Theveneau 
 de Morande, whom she did not insist on having drowned or 
 suffocated, but whom she bought with a large sum of 
 money. 3 Her resentments and her angers were only out- 
 
 1 " The Countess of the Cask." 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome V. 
 
 * Theveneau de Morande, the author of the Breast-plated Gazet- 
 teer, had in 1774 forwarded to Madame du Barry from London, 
 where he had taken refuge, the prospectus of a book of which 6,000 
 copies were printed and which was entitled : " Secret Memoirs of a 
 Public Woman, or Essay on the Adventures of the Comtesse Dub 
 from her Cradle to the Bed of Honour." 8vo. London. 4 vol- 
 umes. Two negotiations, conducted by Bellanger and Preaudeau de 
 Chenilly, failed. The Duke determined to send Beaumarchais to treat 
 with the pamphleteer. Beaumarchais had an interview with Theve- 
 neau de Morande, who agreed to suppress every edition on the con- 
 dition that he would receive 32,000 livres in cash, and that a pension 
 of 4,000 livres would be secured to him, of which half would revert 
 to his wife on his death. Every copy was consumed in a brick-kiln 
 in the neighborhood of London, save one, of which the leaves were 
 cut in two, and each half was to remain hidden in the hands of Beau- 
 marchais and of Theveneau de Morande so as to provide against a 
 new publication of this work, in which case the conditions of the 
 agreement were to be null and void. This was the story told to 
 Dutens by Beaumarchais, who declared that the " Summary," the 
 "Anecdotes," in short, all the other books which appeared about 
 Madame du Barry, had no connection with the book of Theveneau 
 de Morande. Had the book been really quite destroyed? (" Memoirs 
 of a Traveller taking a Rest." By Dutens. Bossange, 1806. Tome 
 
 160 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 burst of childishness which subsided, like her resolutions, 
 like her obstinacies, like her refusals of permission to go to 
 Chanteloup, under the mockery, the laughter, and the pretty 
 sayings of the Marechale de Mirepoix. 1 She was generous 
 as grandly, as foolishly, as a courtesan who is not avaricious. 
 She gave and allowed to be taken everything around her, 
 working with her purse for the advantage of those who had 
 known, served, or pleased her. She had in her heart the de- 
 votedness of the people, their natural attachments, the senti- 
 ment of the family. She went, every fortnight, to spend a 
 day with her mother, whom she addressed as the Marquise of 
 Montrable, 2 to whom she had given quarters in the convent 
 of Saint Elizabeth as well as a carriage, a country-house, 
 and a little farm-house called the Maison Rouge 3 near Lon- 
 
 1 The story of the whip given by Madame du Barry's chamber- 
 maids to the Marquise de Rosen, her former darling, who had aban- 
 doned her, if the anecdote is true, is but a joke in very bad taste. 
 
 * The Marquise de Montrable had learned very little of orthog- 
 raphy in her new position. Here is a receipt truly curious for a 
 quarter of the pension which her daughter allowed her : " J'ay recu 
 de madame la comtesse du barry par les mens et de denier de mon- 
 sieur buffants la somme de trois cent livres pour un quartier de la 
 pension quelle a bien voula ma cor det Le dit quartier echu du i er 
 Juillet, 1777." Catalogue of Autograph Letters of the 21 st of Jan- 
 uary, 1856. 
 
 * We find in the accounts of Madame du Barry, who had re-entered 
 into possession of this little estate after her mother's death, a lease 
 of the property entered into with M. and Madame Morgan, commen- 
 cing the ist of April, 1792. This is the Morgan denounced by Greive 
 for his counter-revolutionary intrigues. 
 
 II.) The "Secret Memoirs" speak in May, 1773, of another book 
 printed at Strasburg, with obscene prints and forming a sequel to the 
 
 161 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 jumeau. On her mother's death, on the 2Oth of October, 
 1788, she assigned for the benefit of the Sieur Ran<;on de 
 Montrable, her mother's husband, a life annuity of 2,000 
 livres, to recompense Ran<;on for his kind conduct towards 
 his spouse. She gave a pension to Madame Quantiny, her 
 mother's sister; she obtained posts for and pushed on four 
 of the latter's children. She took with her the last comer, a 
 little girl, whom she brought up as her daughter, and whom 
 the public believed to be her child. This was the child chris- 
 tened " little Pierrot " or again " Betsi," whose roguish 
 face Drouais painted above the door of Luciennes. As long 
 as her life lasted, we find Madame du Barry in familiar and 
 helpful relations with her family. A very affectionate letter 
 of the 24th of August, 1788, dated from Metz and written 
 by a niece married to the Marquis de Boissaison 1 invites 
 Madame du Barry, while her husband will be under the cov- 
 ering of the camp, to come and spend some days with her. 
 She promises her fresh butter, eggs from her hens, sends 
 her delicious preserves, and ends her letter by saying that 
 her little Hercule a name which recalls Brissac does not 
 let a day pass without asking her : " When are we going to 
 return to Luciennes ? " But would not this niece be a 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals : The Du Barry's " Dossier." National 
 Archives W 16. 
 
 " Porter of the Carthusians." This book, which entered into details 
 as to the amours of the King and the Du Barry, would have been 
 seized, with its printed sheets, engravings and the manuscript, and 
 nobody would have possessed a copy of it. 
 
 162 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 daughter of Madame du Barry? No book of the period, I 
 am aware, affirms positively that Madame du Barry was 
 never a mother; and yet M. d'Allonville declares that 
 Madame du Barry had a daughter without knowing who 
 was the father, that she married her. with a dowry of 100,000 
 francs to a nobleman possessed of no means. He declares 
 that in 1838 this daughter and a granddaughter of Madame 
 du Barry resided in Munich, while the grandson (Herculc, 
 without doubt) was a major-general in Russia. M. D'Allon- 
 ville even mentions the name of the nobleman who was the 
 husband of Madame du Barry's daughter, who appears to 
 have been the Marquis de Boissaisson, an emigre during the 
 Revolution. 1 
 
 The injuries done by the Roue to his sister-in-law, 
 Madame du Barry's just resentment, the distance from her 
 person at which she kept him, did not prevent the Comte 
 Jean from recommending himself in some suppliant letters 
 to the Favourite in the name of the past, from soliciting her 
 " good heart " and her credit for the purpose of getting a 
 wife for his son, the Vicomte Adolphe, who had first been 
 a page of the King, then an officer in His Majesty's regi- 
 ment of infantry, then cornet of Light Horse of the Guard, 
 with the rank of campmaster of cavalry, and who boasted of 
 having in his pocket a commission as first equerry of the 
 King which he had carried off by assault from MM. de 
 Coigny and de Polignac. 2 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs." By the Comte D'Allonville. Werdet, 1838. 
 Tome I. 
 J The Vicomte Adolphe had only the promise of the post. The ap- 
 
 163 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 Many attempts to get the Vicomte Adolphe settled into a 
 great family had already been made by Madame du Barry. 
 At one time, she had taken it into her head to marry him 
 to Mile, de Bethune; she had been stopped by Louis XV. 's 
 cold reception of this proposal, perhaps because he consid- 
 ered it insolent pretension on the part of the Du Barrys to 
 seek to form an alliance with the Sully family. Then the 
 Favourite fell back on a natural daughter of the King 
 known under the name of Mile, de Saint Andre ; but the ne- 
 gotiations for this marriage were broken off owing to the 
 firmness and plain-speaking of the tutor before they were 
 already far advanced. 
 
 It was in consequence of this rupture that the Comte 
 Jean, in a letter which he asked the Favourite to read in her 
 residence at Luciennes, as " in a sentimental conversation," 
 denuding himself for a moment of all prepossessions in her 
 regard, dealt with the important question of his son's mar- 
 riage. " I have sought," he wrote, " in good faith and with 
 the utmost desire to succeed amongst the girls of rank at 
 the Court. You have partly seen the mortifications which 
 I have experienced." He next avowed that, in spite of his 
 aversion to the girls of the commercial class, he had just as 
 fruitlessly cast his eyes on some opulent families. Then he 
 
 pointment was prevented by this remark publicly made by the 
 Dauphin : " If he gets this position I will give him something with 
 my boot in the face the first moment he takes off his boots on his 
 arrival." ("Historic Memoirs of Stephanie Louise of Bourbon- 
 Conti." Paris, Floreal, Year VI. Tome I.) 
 
 164 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 came back to the two matches which had been broken off; 
 he reproached his sister-in-law, after the marks of satisfac- 
 tion shown by the King to the Abbe Terray and to Bertin, 
 when they spoke of the alliance with Mile, de Bethune, with 
 not having to give immediate results to these overtures, and 
 with having thereby herself provoked the coldness which 
 had subsequently come over Louis XV. He next spoke to 
 her about Mile, de Saint-Andre, the daughter of the King, 
 and about Morfil, Boucher's model, " who, on losing the 
 hope of becoming Madame du Barry's niece, had even aban- 
 doned the desire to please by denying herself every sort of 
 finery in the interior of the convent." He expressed keen 
 regret for the loss of this match, which would have brought 
 24,000 livres a year and an estate of the same value, and 
 all the more because " although it might have been, as a for- 
 tune, over that which she saw in the Rue de la Jussienne 
 and below that which he might have got in the Rue Neuve- 
 des-Petits-Champs, his position did not permit a dismember- 
 ment on his part in order to make a brilliant career for his son 
 by marrying him." Finally, the marriage with Mile, de Saint 
 Andre had this further advantage, that she was the only 
 person, wrote the man anxious about the future, who could 
 preserve for them a corner of modesty in the Dauphin and 
 prevent that Prince from one day yielding to the impulses of 
 hatred. 1 
 
 Madame du Barry, who at heart was interested in getting 
 
 1 Letter of the Comte Jean du Barry, published by the Revue de 
 Paris, year 1836, Tome XXXV. 
 
 165 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 her nephew married, in propping herself up by an alliance 
 with a great family, in feeling that she had beside her in 
 that world of the Court a young woman on whom she could 
 count, set out on a quest, passed in review the matches of 
 Paris and Versailles, announcing her intention to do some- 
 thing for the bride. She had not succeeded in finding any- 
 thing when her sisters-in-law " Chon " and " Bitschi " dis- 
 covered a young lady in Tournon. She belonged to the fam- 
 ily of Du Vivarais, which happened to be in very poor cir- 
 cumstances, as there were a great number of children, but 
 it was well-connected and related to the Soubises, and the 
 daughter was exceedingly beautiful. The marriage was 
 approved by the father and the son, and the marriage-arti- 
 cles were drawn up. By the first, second, third, fourth, 
 fifth, and sixth articles, the Comte Jean made a gift to his 
 son of the county of Lille Jourdain and the forest of Bou- 
 conne. By the seventh article, the Comte and Comtesse de 
 Tournon settled a sum of 60,000 livres, as a dowry on their 
 daughter. 1 By the fourteenth article the Comtesse du Barry 
 made, as well to Mile, de Tournon as to the Vicomte 
 Adolphe, to the exclusion of the children to be born, a gift 
 of the sum of 200,000 livres to be invested for their benefit 
 in the acquisition of landed estate or in mortgages or prefer- 
 ence shares. 
 
 1 The suit of the Comte du Barry with the Comtesse de Tournon, 
 containing the notes of the evidence on both sides. Amsterdam, 1781. 
 The dowry was never paid, the Comte states in his note, which goes 
 so far as to say that on her marriage the bride was without every- 
 thing, and that he had to supply linen, clothes, and effects. 
 
 166 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 The marriage was celebrated at Saint Roch. 1 After leav- 
 ing the church the married pair had lunch at the Controller- 
 Generars,and immediately started for Compiegne, where the 
 presentation was to take place. This marriage took place, at 
 the moment when Madame du Barry, always full of the 
 idea of disarming Marie-Antoinette and given up to the 
 
 1 This union ended in a tragic fashion. In 1778 the Vicomte went 
 with his wife and his sister-in-law, Mile, de Tournon, to Bath. He 
 had determined to accompany Lord Rice, an Irish nobleman, with 
 whom he had for eight years been on terms of intimate friendship. 
 The Vicomte du Barry and Lord Rice had been on the most friendly 
 footing when, one night, after midnight, they were both seen rushing 
 out of the house, followed by the Vicomtesse, who, having vainly 
 attempted to reach them, called out to them with loud shrieks. A 
 carriage conveyed themselves and their seconds outside the city, and 
 it was agreed, while waiting for daybreak, that the two adversaries, 
 placed at a distance of twenty-five paces, out of which they were 
 not to move, armed with their two pistols and their swords, should 
 advance towards one another, should use their weapons so that it 
 was to be understood the victorious combatant might finish his ad- 
 versary, even when he had fallen on the ground. At daybreak the 
 Vicomte jumped down from the carriage, fired first, and pierced 
 Lord Rice's thigh. The latter responded with a pistol-shot, which 
 passed through the Vicomte du Barry's breast, and advanced upon 
 him, sword in hand. The Vicomte exclaimed : " I ask for life from 
 you." " I give it to you," replied Lord Rice, who saw him at the same 
 moment sink on the ground and vomit forth a torrent of blood and 
 expire. The seconds were not informed of the motives for the duel. 
 Lord Rice, when questioned by Dutens, gave two or three different 
 versions of the cause of the quarrel; the general opinion was that 
 the Vicomte du Barry had been jealous of Rice. On her return to 
 France, the Vicomtesse du Barry got permission from the King to 
 erect into the barony of Tournon some fiefs which she acquired in 
 Corsica, and changed her name. At this insult, Du Barry, the Roue, 
 wanted her to take his name her husband's name. She replied by 
 a rather sad note, in which she said she did not know at first the 
 
 167 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 dream of a reconciliation with the future Queen of France, 
 in spite of continual disappointments, pursued her object 
 with obstinate determination, with the tenacity of a self- 
 willed child whom nothing can repulse. She was impelled 
 at the same time by a certain sentiment of respect, rather 
 fantastic in its contemptuous nature and by a natural fear 
 of the future and by the necessities of her present situation. 
 In view of the King's ennui, the incurable, splenetic ennui, 
 which had poisoned his whole life, and which was becoming, 
 in the summer of this year 1773, blacker than ever, Madame 
 du Barry felt that she no longer brought sufficient dissipa- 
 tion to her royal lover ; she wished, fearing the worst, to dis- 
 tract Louis XV. with the youthfulness of her two daughters- 
 in-law, with the animation and gay laughter of the Dauphi- 
 ness, which she knew amused the old King. So Madame du 
 Barry had appealed to Mercy-Argenteau to induce the 
 Dauphiness to testify to Louis XV. the desire she would 
 have to accompany the King in the little trips he was accus- 
 tomed to make to his country houses. Before attempting 
 this step the Favourite had assured herself of the friendly 
 
 role that Madame du Barry filled with Louis XV., accused her hus- 
 band of having inherited his father's vices and his love of play, which 
 had ruined him, and attributed his death to a scuffle the result of an 
 uncertain combination which had not turned out lucky, and for which 
 one of the parties to it demanded satisfaction from the other through 
 anger at having been baulked in his desires. Then in order the better 
 to get rid of her name she married again. " Memoirs of a Traveller 
 taking a Rest." By Dutens. Vol. II. " Summary of the Memories of 
 the Mile, de Tournon, Widow of Viscomte du Barry, in response 
 to that of her father-in-law, the Cornte du Barry." 
 
 168 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 disposition of the Comtesse de Provence, 1 and in concert 
 with D'Aiguillon she had gained over to her projects a lady 
 who ruled Madame Adelaide and would have a powerful in- 
 fluence in counteracting the devout antipathies and irre- 
 concilable hatreds of the Royal aunts for " the clique." 
 Through the influence of Madame de Narbonne, to whom 
 the Mayoralty of Bordeaux had been promised for her son, 
 and an interest in the approaching renewal of the lease o! 
 the farming rights for herself, Madame Adelaide was led 
 to treat Madame du Barry better, and was likely by her ex- 
 ample to drag the Dauphiness in her train. Thus, beguiled 
 and turned round all of a sudden, Madame Adelaide had al- 
 ready written a letter to the King, in which she assured him 
 of the efforts which she was going to bring to bear on the 
 minds of her children in order to please him in everything, 
 a letter to which the King replied that he was grateful to the 
 Princess for the marks of her affection and submissiveness, 
 but that he counted little on this attempt with the Dauphin, 
 who " showed an estrangement of the most marked charac- 
 ter towards the fair sex." Chon, the sister-in-law, the po- 
 
 1 As the attitude of Marie Antoinette towards Madame du Barry 
 was dignified, so that of Madame was basely temporizing. The Com- 
 tesse de Provence spoke to Madame du Barry at her table, at her 
 presentations, had received her in the interior of her apartment at 
 the fete given to her by the Comtesse de Valentinois, paid attentions 
 to her, in short, encouraged in those meannesses by Monsieur, with 
 whom Marie Antoinette, in the liveliness of her indignation, could not 
 avoid making scenes over her duplicity and her lack of dignity, vainly 
 striving to get rid of the " infernal household of D'Aiguillon and the 
 Du Barry." 
 
 169 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 litical Maitre Jacques of the cabal, having become hostile 
 to the Due d'Aiguillon, laughed at all these shufflings, and 
 never ceased repeating in every tone, with the bantering 
 irony peculiar to her, that, by her incessant and clumsy per- 
 sistence, Madame du Barry would only irritate the Dauphin 
 and the Dauphiness, and would end by being 1 more badly 
 treated by them. On the first step being taken by Madame 
 Adelaide towards a reconciliation with Madame du Barry, 
 the Dauphin made a display of temper, the gentle Madame 
 Victoire openly revolted against Madame de Narbonne's ne- 
 gotiation, and the diplomatic Comtesse de Narbonne aban- 
 doned the Favourite by ill-treating her. In view of the atti- 
 tude of the royal family, Madame Adelaide, confused and a 
 little ashamed, acknowledged that she had been deceived, led 
 into error, and declared that she would prevent the Comtesse 
 de Narbonne from ever speaking to her on that subject. 
 
 Thereupon d'Aiguillon got enraged, declared that he had 
 been betrayed by everybody, and the Favourite fell into 
 deep dejection at seeing, as a consequence of the ill-success 
 of her little intrigue, the presentation of the Vicomtesse, her 
 niece, adjourned and showing very little prospect of being 
 accomplished. 
 
 In fact, the presentation of the Vicomtesse Adolphe, 
 which ought to have taken place on the 25th of July, was put 
 off till the following Sunday, the ist of August, in the hope 
 of finding some means of obtaining a favourable reception 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence between Maria Theresa and the Comte 
 Mercy-Argenteau." By Arneth. Didot, 1875. Tome II. 
 
 170 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 for the person making the presentation, and for the person 
 presented. 
 
 At last, on the ist of August, in the afternoon, after the 
 salutation, the Comtesse du Barry, accompanied by the 
 Duchesse de Laval and the Comtesse de Montmorency, 
 presented her niece to the King. Then, in the midst of an 
 immense concourse of people, who had come to Compiegne 
 in order to see and compare and contrast the beauty of the 
 niece with the beauty of the aunt, a crowd making it almost 
 impossible to pass through the ante-chambers, the C^oitesse 
 and the Vicomtesse du Barry went up to the Dauphin's 
 apartments. The Prince was in the embrasure of a win- 
 dow, chatting with somebody, playing the devil's tattoo on 
 the panes. At an announcement from an usher of the cham- 
 ber, the Prince turned his head round, seemed not to have 
 noticed the two women, and continued his conversation and 
 his drumming without giving the embrace. 1 Marie An- 
 toinette made a slight bow to the Favourite, to the young 
 bride, and to the ladies who accompanied her, but did not 
 speak to anyone. It was the same way in the evening at 
 play, where it was the etiquette that the women who had 
 been presented should attend. It was the same way next 
 morning at the toilet, where it was still the etiquette that 
 the women presented should pay their court. In the 
 evening no more than in the morning 2 did the Dauphiness 
 
 "The English Spy." London: John Adamson, 1784. Tome I. 
 J Marie Antoinette, in the apprehension of some scolding from her 
 mother, tried to obtain pardon for her silence in a letter which she 
 
 171 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 address a word to any of the women. Marie Antoinette 
 pushed things further; although all the ladies who were 
 introduced and who danced were admitted as a matter of 
 right to the Dauphiness's ball, the Princess never wished 
 her lady-in-waiting to have permission to call the Vicomte 
 Adolphe. 
 
 The Roue, who had been refused admission at the Com- 
 tesse's door, had only obtained permission to spend two days 
 at Versailles. He was only to see his sister-in-law one mo- 
 ment during the second day of Louis XV.'s small-pox. 
 
 After such a complete humiliation, so many affronts, it 
 might have been supposed that the Favourite would give up 
 the task of attempting to overcome the Dauphiness's aver- 
 sion. No ; it was nothing of the kind ; on the contrary, the 
 unhappy Favourite clung more and more to the illusion of 
 making herself one day agreeable to Marie Antoinette, of 
 obtaining at last, through her own lips, that precious 
 exchange of words so humbly and so obstinately solicited. 
 She did not see that by this incessant and continual persecu- 
 tion she rendered the Dauphiness more hostile, less tractable, 
 as her sister-in-law Chon was constantly saying. In Septem- 
 
 wrote on the 3rd of August : " My dear Mother, The presentation 
 of young Madame du Barry passed off very well. A moment before 
 she came to see me I was told that the King had not said a word 
 either to the aunt or the niece ;I have done likewise. But, moreover, 
 I can well assure my dear mother that I have received them very 
 politely; everybody who was at my house has agreed that I had 
 neither embarrassment nor eagerness in seeing them go away. The 
 King has surely not been dissatisfied, for he has been in very good 
 temper with us all the evening." 
 
 172 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 her, I773 n the occasion of the harsh letter addressed by 
 the King to the Dauphiness soliciting the recall of the 
 Comtesse de Gramont, 1 when the news was brought to 
 the Comtesse du Barry that Marie Antoinette believed 
 the letter inspired or dictated by her, she immediately 
 sent for Mercy-Argenteau. In this interview, she de- 
 clared with the greatest warmth that she had no knowl- 
 edge of the request for the recall, she even offered to use 
 all her authority with the King to procure the Comtesse's 
 return, asking as a recompense only the assurance of the 
 good-will the Dauphiness would feel towards her. The 
 mind of the Favourite was yoked to a single idea, was per- 
 petually in search of a means, an invention, a stratagem, to 
 make the Dauphiness abandon her estrangement from her 
 person. In the month of November, she imagined that a 
 letter of the King might make an impression on the Dauphi- 
 ness and conquer her prejudices. The letter was waived on 
 the suggestion of Mercy-Argenteau that the Dauphiness 
 would be annoyed when she had no doubt of the pressure 
 exercised over her feelings, and the Favourite sought a new 
 combination. The Favourite was not to be discouraged by 
 
 1 Here is the letter of the King to the Dauphiness, as Mercy-Argen- 
 teau reports it : " You are very ill advised, my dear daughter, in 
 asking for the return of Madame de Gramont. This can only be 
 suggested to you by the Choiseul party, by the members of which 
 you are surrounded. The access which you give them does not 
 agree with the wise counsels which you receive from the Empress ; 
 therefore, what I believe it is best to do for you with regard to 
 your request is not to speak of it to anyone." 
 
 173 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 coldnesses, or disdains, or repulses, or the exclusion of the 
 Vicomtesse du Barry from the King's carriages while hunt- 
 ing, or the sad reception quite recently given to Mile, de 
 Fumel. 1 A softening in the glance, a trifling lack of hospi- 
 tality in the attitude, a less severe treatment than usual, 
 made the poor woman return to her fad. She said to herself 
 that now the Dauphiness abstained from talking about her 
 in a mortifying fashion, she strove to rob her contempt of 
 the character of aversion, and finally discovered in the neg- 
 ative treatment of Marie Antoinette, according to the ex- 
 pression of the Empress-Queen's ambassador, a vague 
 pledge of future reconciliation. 
 
 And, in order to arrive at the realization of her secret 
 dreams, did not the Du Barry's imagination and tact as a 
 courtesan suggest to her in January, 1774, this corrupting 
 device? A jeweller possessed ear-rings formed of four bril- 
 liants of extraordinary size and beauty estimated to be worth 
 700,000 livres. Knowing the Dauphiness 's passion for 
 precious stones, Madame du Barry persuaded the Comte de 
 Noailles to look at the marvellous diamonds, and to tell Her 
 Royal Highness that if they pleased her, she need not be 
 embarrassed either about the price or the payment, because 
 the means would be found to get the King to make a present 
 
 1 There was a proposal for a marriage between Elie du Barry, the 
 youngest of Du Barry's three brothers, with Mile, de Fumel, a 
 wealthy lady of high position. " On her presentation," says Mercy- 
 Argenteau, " the reception given by the Dauphiness, as at the pre- 
 sentation of the Vicomtesse Adolphe, was very cold and silent.'' 
 
 174 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 of them to her. The Dauphiness simply answered that she 
 had no idea of increasing her store of diamonds. 1 
 
 The Abbe Terray remained the cashier, with coffers al- 
 ways open, and money always ready for the whims, the 
 fancies, the extravagant expenditure of the Favourite. He 
 gave the Comte Jean money for play, for keeping his mis- 
 tress Madame Murat in luxury, for a dowry to her son the 
 Vicomte Adolphe; and in the scarcity of the Exchequer 
 he found money continually for all the Du Barrys in the 
 world. Destitute of every great political idea, without a 
 higher view of humanity, the Abbe had only the ambition 
 to accumulate honours, prerogatives, and ministries. It was 
 necessary for him to add to the office of Controller-General 
 the post of Director and Orderer-General of Buildings, Gar- 
 dens, Arts, Academies, and Royal Manufactories, and when 
 he had snatched this immense governing authority from the 
 Marquis de Merigny, he wanted again to carry off the small 
 things from the Due de Richelieu. Insatiable, he kept min- 
 ing under the Due d'Aiguillon, whom he laboured to place 
 on terms of coldness with the mistress, and openly coveted 
 the seals. In order to obtain all he wanted, he saw himself 
 obliged to grant everything. And even his poor imagination 
 devised plans for securing the attachment of Madame du 
 Barry, for making her the docile instrument of his inces- 
 sant claims through a gratitude still greater than that which 
 money creates. It was thus that he took up the idea, that 
 
 " Secret Correspondence between Maria Theresa and the Comte 
 Mercy-Argenteau. By Arneth. Didot, 1875. Tome II. 
 
 175 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 he gave a body to the chimera presented for a moment by 
 the Chancellor and the Due d'Aiguillon to the Favourite's 
 fancy 1 the dissolution of her marriage with the Comte and 
 a marriage of conscience with the King.- He drew up in 
 writing a consultation of which this is a resume: 
 
 " Madame du Barry represents to His Holiness that, little 
 acquainted with canonical rules, she only ascertained, since 
 the celebration of her marriage with the Comte Guillaume 
 du Barry, that it was forbidden for a woman to marry the 
 brother of a man with whom she has lived. She confesses 
 with all the sorrow of a repentant soul that she had weak- 
 nesses for the Comte Jean du Barry, her husband's brother ; 
 that she had happily been warned in time of the incest which 
 she was about to commit, and that her conscience, now en- 
 lightened, did not permit her to live with her new spouse ; 
 that, therefore, the crime has not yet been committed; and 
 she supplicates His Holiness to be kind enough to relieve 
 her of such a scandalous alliance." 
 
 By amusing and luring with this fantastic dream the 
 credulous creature, and by talking to her about interviews 
 with the Nuncio, the ironical Abbe entered into the Fa- 
 vourite's intimate confidence, and saw himself already the 
 directing minister the Minister of all the Ministries a 
 species of Choiseul. 
 
 1 The Memoir of Linguet for " Simon Sommer, Carpenter, Lan- 
 dau," by discussing whether the divorce could be legitimately al- 
 lowed, was a means of feeling the pulse of public opinion, perhaps 
 an attempt to get a general law passed, of which Madame du Barry 
 ought to have taken advantage. 
 
 " " Memorial concerning the Administration of Finances under the 
 Abbe Terray." London, 1776. 
 
 176 
 
XL 
 
 Intrigues of Women Seeking to dispossess Madame du Barry of 
 the King's Heart. Madame Louise, the Carmelite. The Chancellor 
 passing over to the Devotee Party. The Physique of Old Louis XV. 
 The Remark of the Surgeon, La Martiniere. The Lent of 1773. 
 Men Struck Dead by the King's side. Louis XV. falls ill at Trianon. 
 The Intrigues of the Aiguillonists and the Anti-Aiguillonists 
 around the Death-Bed. Dismissal of Madame du Barry. 
 
 THE possession of Louis XV.'s heart was not a tranquil 
 possession. Madame du Barry had to be protecting herself 
 every moment against the jobberies of the antechamber to 
 supplant her, the subterranean plots of very illustrious 
 pimps, shameless plans making a courtier's fortune depend 
 on the accession of a new mistress. 
 
 In 1771 Hardy speaks of the negotiations to give the 
 Princess of Monaco to the King ; in default of her, a young 
 lady named Smith; and lastly a third person the secret of 
 whose name is guarded. 
 
 A very pretty and very graceful creature, the wife of a 
 musician of the King's bed-chamber, Madame Beche, 
 created for some time very serious obstacles in the Favour- 
 ite's path. 1 
 
 " Secret Correspondence, Political and Literary." London, John 
 Adamson. Tome I. 
 
 177 12 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 Another lady, a Dutchwoman, Madame Pater, who had 
 become Countess of Newkerke, and whose beauty had, ten 
 years before, caused a revolution in Paris, was pushed for- 
 ward by the Due de Duras, 1 a gentleman of the bed-cham- 
 ber, who, it was said, received from Chanteloup instructions 
 from his friend the Due de Choiseul. The intrigue was skil- 
 fully and secretly carried on. The marriage, according to 
 the Protestant rite, of the Pater was dissolved, and she was 
 to be united to the King by secret nuptials. And when the 
 Du Barry was warned, what hand did she find? The hand 
 of D'Aiguillon drawing up and sketching instructions for 
 the Dutchwoman in her intimate relations with the King, 
 instructions in which is found a little of the Machiavellism 
 of the " Dangerous Liaisons." A scene followed, in which 
 Madame du Barry, with the vivacity of speech which was 
 natural to her, reproached her ally, her lover, for his treason. 
 She recalled to him that she had pushed him into the min- 
 istry in spite of the general reprobation, that she had main- 
 tained him in the office of Foreign Affairs, in spite of the 
 King, saying after the partition of Poland : "If Choiseul 
 had been there, it would not have happened," that she had 
 in fact saved him from the executioner. 21 However, Madame 
 du Barry had now, in all the feminine ambushes prepared 
 
 1 Madame du Barry put the Due de Duras outside the door of her 
 apartment, saying that he had not only presented the Pater to His 
 Majesty, but had held the candle, and for that reason she begged 
 him no longer to put his foot in her abode. 
 
 1 " The Annals of Louis XV." A. Villefranche at the Widow Lib- 
 erty's, 1782. Second Part. 
 
 178 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 against her, the surprise of finding behind women her best 
 friends. The Abbe Terray himself, the man who appeared 
 the most attached to her fortune, had placed near the Fa- 
 vourite one of his bastards, Madame d'Amerval, whose 
 youth, giddiness, and childishness amused Madame du 
 Barry. It was at the moment when the Abbe exhorted the 
 Favourite, while awaiting the dissolution of her marriage, to 
 follow the example of Madame de Pompadour, to yield to 
 the physical caprices of the King, softly urging her to put 
 La d'Amerval into the bed of Louis XV. But Madame du 
 Barry had the instinct that, under the cloak of a passing 
 fancy, the minister Bonneau was slyly raising up a rival 
 against her. 1 Finally, in her own family, in the person of 
 her niece, the beautiful Madame Adolphe du Barry, she had 
 to fear an instrument of ruin worked by the Comte Jean, 2 
 who, always ambitious of governing the kingdom, believed 
 that he was more easily master of his daughter-in-law than 
 of his sister-in-law. And there again did not Madame du 
 Barry find herself associated in the Roue's plans with the 
 Comte d'Aiguillon, whom people accused to the aunt of in- 
 fidelities with the niece? 3 
 
 1 " Memoirs concerning the Administration of Finances under the 
 Ministry of the Abbe Terray." London, 1786. 
 
 * When people spoke to Madame du Barry of the plans of the 
 Comte Jean and of the impression made on the King by the beauty 
 of Mile, de Tournon, the Favourite said gaily that " the office of 
 the King's mistress would not pass at least out of the family." But 
 at heart she felt very uneasy. 
 
 * Of infidelities the Due d'Aiguillon was very capable, but of mach- 
 inations to overthrow the Favourite it is far less credible that he 
 
 179 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 But more than all the light women of the Court and the 
 city there was to be dreaded on behalf of Madame du Barry 
 a more dangerous woman : this was Louis XV.'s daughter, 
 Madame Louise the Carmelite, who, under the mantle of 
 Saint Theresa, sent to her for the occasion of making her 
 vows, 1 wanted to rule France from the depths of her cell 
 Madame Louise, with whom the Chancellor, deserting Lu- 
 ciennes, went every eight days to communicate. 
 
 The great friendships between the cousins had grown 
 cold. The Favourite had not been able to obtain from the 
 Chancellor the pardon of the bankrupt Billard, the nephew 
 of Billard du Monceau. Then Maupeou had not been with- 
 out knowing of D'Aiguillon's secret attempts to re-establish 
 the Parliament on the assurance of the Princes that he 
 would be whitewashed; he was not ignorant of the support 
 given to these attempts by Madame du Barry up to the day 
 when she saw that the King, glad to be rid of the " black 
 robes/' determined to keep near him the man who had 
 delivered him from them. 2 The result was coldness and 
 almost hostility between the Minister and the Favour- 
 ite. But, apart from any little grievances which he 
 
 1 " Life of Madame Louise of France." By the Abbe Proyart 
 Perisse Freres. 1860. Tome I. 
 1 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775. 
 
 was guilty, and very slight credit is to be given to those stories, 
 which are belied by the courageous attachment of the Duke to the 
 Du Barry when she had fallen into disgrace. 
 
 180 
 
LOUISE.MARIE OF FRANCE 
 
 To face page 180 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 could have against the mistress, Maupeou was above all 
 driven to withdraw from her and from her party by 
 his knowledge of humanity, by the presentiment that 
 in the Bourbon growing old religion was quite ready 
 to reappear. And he thought that, at the present 
 moment, it was more useful to him to be on the side of 
 the confessor than on the side of the mistress. So the Chan- 
 cellor played the devotee, denouncing now the ministers 
 who were dragged at the feet of this woman of loose morals, 
 who lived only with comedians, singers, jugglers, all peo- 
 ple with talents which brought them ill-repute and reproba- 
 tion. Sustained by the Chancellor, Madame Louise assumed 
 more authority every day. The King often came to see her, 
 and at each of his visits Madame du Barry trembled. At 
 the beginning of 1772, the two of them, Madame Louise and 
 the Chancellor, had even arranged a marriage between the 
 King and the Archduchess Maria Elizabeth, sister of the 
 Emperor, she who had said that she would never marry the 
 King of France. And on the 25th of January, Madame du 
 Barry, seeing the King starting for Saint-Denis, flung her- 
 self at his feet, said to him that she knew her ruin was de- 
 termined upon, that she preferred to receive her conge from 
 the mouth of the King than to have the humiliation of re- 
 ceiving it from the Black Cabal, that the Chancellor and the 
 Archbishop were knaves, 1 and prevented by this scene the 
 
 " Journal of Events as they came to my Knowledge." By Hardy. 
 National Library. Manuscripts. French Supplement, 6680. 
 
 181 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Hsit of the King. Later on, it was again Madame Louise 
 and the Chancellor, who, playing upon a caprice of the King, 
 filled Louis XV. for a moment with the desire to marry the 
 Princess de Lamballe, and drew on Madame du Barry, when 
 she jested with the King about the report of this marriage, 
 the severe rejoinder: " Why, I might do much worse." 
 
 The proposed marriages did not take place, but the action 
 of the Carmelite on the King remained powerful, and be- 
 came greater as the years accumulated on Louis XV. 
 There was, above all, each year, an epoch which was 
 always a critical time, Easter week, when every effort 
 was made in order that, according to the expression of 
 Madame Louise, " the good God should take possession 
 of her father's heart 1 in order that the King should be 
 induced to go to Communion." In vain did the Favourite 
 make the gay remark, " Well, if His Majesty makes his 
 Easter duty, I'll make mine." 2 She spent no less than an 
 entire fortnight in a state of mortal apprehension. 
 
 The King was growing old ; and age, years, the fatigue of 
 life, the weariness of the soul, in place of appeasing his pas- 
 sions, only irritated the capriciousness of his desires. That 
 physical obsession, which takes possession of certain old 
 men, made its prey of Louis XV. with advancing years. The 
 love which had filled his head and his body was no longer 
 
 1 An expression of Madame Louise's letter when she learned about 
 the Du Barry's dismissal from her father's bedside. 
 
 2 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775. 
 
 182 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 more than an appetite and a brutality of his heart ; and he 
 seemed no longer to have living within him anything but 
 furious and half -dead desires. . . . For a moment, how- 
 ever, after Madame de Pompadour's death, the King en- 
 tered into a sort of Platonic liaison with a charming 
 woman, the Comtesse de Seran, whose tastes he gallantly 
 consulted by having a suite of apartments furnished for 
 her use in blue. 1 For some months there was a discreet, 
 respectful relationship, an interchange of polite language, 
 pleasant chats which had all the charm of familiarity, 
 court paid to the lady with those graces and those 
 courtesies so natural to Louis XV. when he wished to 
 please. It might be said that a rejuvenescence took 
 place in the King's thoughts, a return to his first 
 amours 2 with the Comtesse de Toulouse; and the Court 
 believed that this was the commencement of one of 
 those liaisons which border on love without quitting 
 friendship, one of those tender, delightful kinds of inter- 
 course which make even an old man's soul amorous. But 
 this Platonism of Louis XV. was quickly killed by the Du 
 Barry's caresses, those caresses of the brothel, attacking only 
 the physical side of love and leading into the rut of animal- 
 ism. Unsatiated, the King went from Madame du Barry to 
 others, and from caprice to caprice, exhausting love with- 
 out exhausting temptation, tormented, restless, burning, 
 trembling, and interrupting his pleasures only to throw him- 
 
 1 " Memoirs of a Father." By Marmontel. Paris, 1804. Tome III. 
 1 Nous revenons tou jours a nos premiers amours. TRANSLATOR. 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 self into religious acts which he made his female flatterers 
 share in. In this fever, wine, punch transported by 
 Madame du Barry from London drawing-rooms to the sup- 
 per of her own rooms in the palace, 1 every stimulant, was 
 used by the King, sustained him, lent him the energy to 
 keep him from growing old. Between the mistress and the 
 lover there was no longer any bond save that of habit and 
 sensuality, stripped of every bond of mind, stripped of 
 even all the decent coquetry and all the modest elegance 
 that had attached the King to Madame de Pompadour. 
 And just picture to yourself, Madame de Pompadour with 
 her shepherdess's costume, her straw hat, her ribbons, her 
 beauty in fitting attire, her charming veils; then see the 
 Du Barry in the costume which restores youth fulness to 
 the King, in her disguise as a Bacchante, 2 half-naked under 
 gauze, and her neck brazenly exposed, you will have a 
 representation of the two amours of the King. 
 
 In the meantime, the King was more than sixty years old. 
 These amorous excesses had produced in the case of the old 
 man ailments the nature of which he communicated to his 
 principal surgeon, La Martiniere. Louis XV. went to his 
 consultations, conformed with his prescriptions, even made 
 him sleep for several months in his own bed-room. And one 
 night in the month of May, 1773 of that month the whole 
 
 1 "The Breast-plated Gazetteer or Scandalous Anecdotes of the 
 Court of France." Printed a hundred leagues from the Bastille, at 
 the Sign of Liberty, 1781. "The Breast-plated Gazetteer" goes fur- 
 ther. 
 
 " Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." London, 1775. 
 
 184 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 of which Louis XV. would not see next year Madame du 
 Barry's elderly lover, talking about the sad decay of his 
 faculties, ended by saying with a sigh : "I see that I am 
 no longer young, that I must put on a break." " Sire," re- 
 plied La Martiniere with his plain-speaking, " you will do 
 better to unyoke." 
 
 The Lenten sermons preached by the Abbe de Beauvais 
 at the Court during the Holy Week of the year 1773 made a 
 deep impression on the King's mind. Suddenly there fell, 
 in this chapel of Versailles, on those lost fine ladies, on those 
 pandering courtiers, the bold language of an obscure man, 
 who flagellated everybody's turpitudes, who dared to mount 
 up to the King's person, assigning to Louis XV. and his 
 concubine this courageous Biblical allusion : " In short this 
 monarch (Solomon), sated with sensual indulgence, tired 
 from having exhausted with his withered senses every sort 
 of pleasure that surrounds a throne, ended by seeking for a 
 new sort in the vile remains of public license." To the in- 
 dignation of the courtiers, to the complaints of Madame du 
 Barry so pitilessly pointed at, Louis XV. contented himself 
 with answering that the Abbe de Beauvais was doing his 
 business. 
 
 Another sermon had a more decided effect on Louis XV., 
 returning day and night to his terrified imagination. It was 
 a sermon on Death, at which the young preacher protected 
 by Madame Louise, reducing to nothingness that list of 
 centenarians which had just been given by the editor of the 
 " Gazette de France " in order to fill the King with illu- 
 
 185 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 sions, and to make him believe in a far greater longevity in 
 his own century than in past centuries, brutally destroyed 
 the security brought by this lying adulator, showed the King 
 the Death of the Eighteenth Century leaning over the bed- 
 side of the men of his age. Then he brought back and 
 recalled to the King's memory the death of the Duke 
 of Burgundy, the death of the Dauphin, the death of the 
 Dauphiness, the death of the Queen, the deaths of beings 
 who had been dearest to him, of his mistresses whom he did 
 not name, but whom he recalled as having been carried oil 
 in the flower of their age, letting him understand that his 
 turn had long since arrived, and stamping and driving into 
 the brain of this Bourbon, haunted since youth by the dis- 
 turbing dream of nothingness, the fixed thought of an ap- 
 proaching end. 1 
 
 Thus penetrated and beset by those words, by those recol- 
 lections, by those menaces, by those predictions of death, 
 the King also reflected with a sense of dread that he was 
 in his sixty-third year, a time regarded as a climacteric date 
 fatal to old men. 2 Then there happened to take place around 
 Louis XV. a succession of startlingly tragic deaths. The 
 ambassador of Genoa, Sorba, whom he was accustomed to 
 see every day, died suddenly. D'Armentieres followed 
 
 1 For a moment it was said that the Abbe Beauvais had fallen 
 into disgrace. The contrary happened. The Abbe de Beauvais was 
 nominated Bishop of Seney, and, in the Lent of 1774, when he again 
 preached at Court, His Majesty laughingly challenged him to fulfil 
 the engagement he had made to preach at Court in the Lent of 1776, 
 although he was a Bishop. 
 
 * " Secret Anecdotes about the Comtesse du Barri." 1775. 
 
 186 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Sorba very closely. The Abbe de la Ville, the instrument of 
 Choiseul's ruin, coming to thank him for the place of Di- 
 rector of Foreign Affairs, was struck with apoplexy under 
 the King's eyes. Lastly, one evening, when Louis XV. was 
 playing picket with Madame du Barry, and the Marquis de 
 Chouvelin, that old friend and former associate in his pleas- 
 ures, sat propped up against the back of his arm-chair, 
 Madame du Barry, raising her eyes, said : " What a grimace 
 you are making, Monsieur de Chouvelin," whereupon the 
 King turned round: Chouvelin fell dead at his feet. 1 
 
 The Lent of 1774 came round, and a remark which fell 
 from the terrible mouth of the Abbe de Beauvais agitated 
 the King's mind like a summons from God. The young 
 preacher had just hurled against the walls of the chapel of 
 Versailles, the menace of the prophet : " Forty days more, 
 and Nineveh will be destroyed ! " 2 
 
 On her side, Madame du Barry, superstitious like all 
 women of pleasure of her kind, was devoured by vague 
 anxieties and secret presentiments, so that she several times 
 allowed this remark to escape from her before her intimate 
 friends : " I would be glad if this nasty month of April 
 had passed." This was the month when the Almanac of 
 Liege for the year 1774 announced that " a great lady who 
 played a role at a foreign Court would cease to do so." 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome VII. 
 
 2 In the " Conversations of the Other World," Louis XV., speak- 
 ing to the Prince of Conde, says : " You know well, cousin, that it 
 was that cursed sermon of Maundy Thursday that killed me." 
 
 187 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 The King now spoke about his sickly state of health and 
 the possibility of his death, and sometimes, at the end of his 
 remarks, about " the frightful account we would have to 
 render to the Supreme Being for the employment of the life 
 which he has bestowed upon us in this world." 1 The poli- 
 ticians, foreseeing the approaching entrance of the confessor 
 on the scene, under the pretext that the Abbe Maudoux's 
 sight was very weak, strove to replace that ecclesiastic, who 
 was opposed to intrigue and devoted to Marie Antoinette, 
 by a more pliable confessor. 
 
 The Favourite, of whose dismissal before six months 
 D'Aiguillon himself had given an intimation to Mesdames, 2 
 the Favourite, who realized the instability of her position, 
 and who knew that she could only hold her own by drag- 
 ging the King's mind out of the blackness of his thoughts, 
 set her wits to work to find voluptuous distractions for him. 
 She had triumphed in the Lent of 1773 by giving orders for 
 the performance of an erotic opera. She tried to kill the 
 action of the Lent of 1774 on the remorseful feelings of the 
 King by organizing a little pleasure-trip to Trianon in the 
 closing days of the month of April. 
 
 On the 27th of April, the King, who had arrived the pre- 
 vious night at Trianon, felt unwell, he could not follow the 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence between Maria Theresa and the Comte 
 Mercy-Argenteau." Didot, 1875. Tome I. 
 
 9 " Complete Correspondence of Madame du Def fand." By Sainte 
 Aulaire. Levy, 1866. Tome . 
 
 188 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 chase on horseback, and when he alighted from his carriage 
 on his return complained of a violent headache. 1 
 
 He retired to Madame du Barry's apartments, imagining 
 it was indigestion; but his illness grew worse, and in the 
 night he sent for Lemonnier, his principal physician. Le- 
 monnier found the King feverish, but no symptom of a na- 
 ture to cause uneasiness. Madame Du Barry, dreading the 
 weakness of the King's mind, that terror of the devil which 
 was now awakened in him by every attack on his health, 
 sought to prevail on him to get nursed at Trianon without 
 giving notice to the Royal family, and she was aided and 
 sustained in her desire by the Due d'Aumont, the first gen- 
 tleman of the Bed-chamber. The King's indisposition was 
 known during the day at Versailles. The Royal family did 
 
 The story of the passing fancy to which the King's death was at- 
 tributed is told in these terms by the Abbe. Beaudeau : "During the 
 last days of April, the King was at Trianon with the Du Barry. 
 While out walking he saw a little girl gathering grass for the cows 
 she was minding. He saw that she had very fine eyes. He came 
 over to her, and lifted up her head-dress and her hair. When she 
 had been cleaned up, the King thought she would be 'charming' if 
 she were dressed as a fine lady. 'Well! let us dress her.' Here is 
 their little peasant dressed like a lady with rouge and patches. She 
 is truly 'charming.' 'Let us make her sup with us- Her embarrass- 
 ment will amuse us.' Meanwhile, her brother died of smallpox; 
 next day she caught it, and died of it on Saturday. And there is the 
 tale or the history." Let us say that nothing is less proved than this 
 story of the King and the little cowherdess, as Beaudeau pretends. 
 Voltaire informs us that there was at this time an epidemic of small- 
 pox in the neighbourhood, and the King might very simply and very 
 naturally have fallen a victim to it. 
 
 189 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 not run the risk of coming to see the King, but the Dauphin 
 despatched to his grandfather the surgeon La Martiniere, 
 an enemy of the Du Barry, who had exercised a certain in- 
 fluence over the King's mind since those occasions when he 
 slept in Louis XV. 's bed-room the year before. 
 
 La Martiniere, having reached Trianon on Thursday, 
 April 28th, had no trouble, with his imperative and abrupt 
 style of speaking, in triumphing over the invalid's vacillat- 
 ing disposition. He prevailed on the King to set out as soon 
 as the carriages had arrived. He himself watched the prep- 
 arations for the journey; and the King, swathed in his 
 morning-gown, was put into a carriage and conveyed at 
 a walking pace to Versailles into the midst of the Court, 
 within reach of the Church. 
 
 The King, on his arrival, was carried up to bed, received 
 the Royal family, but only for an instant, and sent them 
 away, telling the Dauphin not to come back till he sent for 
 him. Then he spent the rest of the evening with Madame 
 du Barry. 
 
 The night of the 28th was bad. The King had fever and 
 some hallucinations ; he began to be frightened by his condi- 
 tion. The doctors, Lemonnier and La Martiniere, decided 
 on the morning of the 29th that the King should be bled, 
 and asked the patient to let other doctors be brought in, with 
 a view to opening a permanent consultation. The King, 
 at Madame du Barry's suggestion, named Bordeu, the Fa- 
 vourite's doctor, and Lorry, the Due d'Aiguillon's doctor. 
 The news of the bleeding produced a great impression 
 
 190 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 at Court. The antechamber was filled with courtiers, who 
 entered the patient's bed-chamber along with the doctors 
 summoned for the consultation. 
 
 The doctors, still ignorant of the King's malady, an- 
 nounced that there would be a second bleeding in the after- 
 noon and a third bleeding during the night or on the fol- 
 lowing day, if the second did not free the King from his 
 headache. 
 
 " A third bleeding," said the King ; " but in that case it 
 must be some disease. ... I would be glad if they 
 could avoid doing it to me." 
 
 A third bleeding was not only for the King a sign of a 
 grave malady ; it was a promise of victory for the Choiseul 
 party, a promise of defeat for the Du Barry party. The 
 anti-Aiguillonists, the anti-Bat ryites, began to have hopes 
 for their political views of a return to God through the ter- 
 ror inspired by this bleeding; the Aiguillonists and the 
 Barryites began to fear that it would lead to the mistress's 
 expulsion, so much so that D'Aiguillon, Richelieu, and 
 the Due d'Aumont circumvented Lorry and Bordeu and 
 got them to put aside all question of the third bleeding. 
 
 The second bleeding, in which four great basins of blood 
 were taken from the King, left him quite prostrated. 1 About 
 
 1 To this bleeding has since been attributed the bad course of the 
 King's malady and finally his death, as it had been effected in the 
 beginning of the eruption. The doctors were put on their guard 
 against the idea of small-pox by an eruption on the skin, which the 
 King had in his youth at Fontainebleau, and which had been de- 
 scribed as small-pox. 
 
 191 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 five o'clock, nevertheless, the King sent for his children, 
 and kept them for half an hour without uttering a word. It 
 was not a good evening with him ; the fever increased. The 
 Due d'Aumont wanted to send for Madame du Barry; but 
 an altercation broke out between the Duke and the doctors, 
 who were opposed to the admission of Madame du Barry, 
 The Due d'Aumont did not venture to go any further, and 
 Madame du Barry had to be satisfied with a conference 
 with the Due d'Aignillon. 
 
 On Saturday, the 3Oth of April, the King, having been 
 carried for the sake of the convenience of those around him 
 from a large bed to a small one, a doctor happened to draw 
 close to Louis XV. 's face a wax-candle, which brought into 
 full view on his forehead and cheeks red spots in which 
 pimples were already seen to have gathered. There could 
 be no doubt about it any longer. It was small-pox. 
 
 The doctors, as if relieved at having their uncertainty 
 ended, announced the disease almost gaily, saying that the 
 King was wonderfully prepared for it, and that all would go 
 well. And the Court was reassured, believing it meant eight 
 days' confinement to bed, in spite of the menacing response 
 of Bordeu : " By Jove . . . small-pox at sixty-four, 
 with a constitution like the King's, is a terrible disease ! " 
 
 In the pestiferous apartment Madame Adelaide, Madame 
 Victoire, and Madame Sophie had been shut up with their 
 father. . . . Louis XV. had sunk into a state of ex- 
 treme exhaustion, mingled with an anxiety which could not 
 be calmed. He no longer spoke. His eyes were at the same 
 
 192 
 
MADAME LA DUCHESSE DE CHATEAUROUX 
 
 To face page 192 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 time haggard and fixed. The party of the Du Barry began 
 to get frightened, and pushed into the King's chamber 
 the woman whom he loved in order to awaken in the dying 
 man a little of the sensual life, and in order to have it re- 
 peated out of doors that the favour of the mistress still con- 
 tinued. As a consequence of some strong words exchanged 
 between the Prince of Beauvau, Choiseul's friend, and the 
 Due d'Aumont, it was La Borde, valet of the quarter, who 
 was in the pay of the Du Barry party, who gave the order 
 in the King's room. So, every evening, La Borde sent out 
 everybody, went to look for the Favourite, and led her to 
 the bedside of the King, who showed in his weakened con- 
 dition little gladness at seeing her. 1 
 
 Meanwhile, the anti-Aiguillonists and the anti-Bar ryites 
 cried out against the scandal, demanding that the sacrament 
 should be administered to the King, urged the pious M. de 
 Beaumont to imitate the example of the Bishop of Soissons, 
 who in 1771 drove away from the side of the King the 
 Duchesse de Chateauroux. And it so happened (strange 
 fact!) that " in this jobbing and this trafficking in the con- 
 science of the King" this is the expression of Cardinal de 
 Luynes the party of the devotees and the Jesuits banded 
 themselves in a league to prevent the King from receiving 
 communion, while the Choiseul party, the party of the phi- 
 losophers and of the sceptics, entered into a league to impose 
 
 " Memoirs of the Baron de Besenval." Baudouin Freres, 1821. 
 Tome I. 
 
 193 13 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 this communion on the temporisings of the Archbishop of 
 Paris. 
 
 On Sunday the 1st of May, there was a fresh consultation 
 of the doctors, and an official announcement of the Arch- 
 bishop's visit. 
 
 On the 2nd of May, the Archbishop of Paris, though suf- 
 fering from the stone and passing blood, 1 came with the sac- 
 rament and with the intention of demanding a notorious and 
 anterior expulsion of the concubine. But there was secretly 
 in M. de Beaumont's breast, between his zeal and his con- 
 science, a sense of gratitude for the signal services which 
 Madame du Barry had rendered to the party of which he 
 was the chief ecclesiastic by the overthrow of Choiseul, the 
 elevation of D'Aiguillon, and the annihilation of the Par- 
 liaments. 
 
 Before the Archbishop's arrival, a conference took place 
 between Madame du Barry, D'Aiguillon, Richelieu, and 
 Fronsac, in which it was agreed that in order to get the 
 visit to come off in the presence of the Duke of Orleans, 
 it should be one of simple politeness, and that nothing should 
 be said about the sacrament. Even Madame Adelaide, on 
 whom the doctors of the Du Barry party had imposed the 
 idea that the question of eternity was perhaps premature, 
 and might give the patient his death-stroke, was won over to 
 this combination. When, therefore, at eleven o'clock in the 
 morning, the Archbishop presented himself at the door of 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence, Political and Literary." London, 1787. 
 
 194 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 the King's antechamber, Richelieu rushed forward to meet 
 him, and implored of him not to cause the King's death by 
 a theological proposition; then, with the cynicism of his 
 graceful manners, he proposed that the prelate should listen 
 to some pretty little sins of his own, swearing that he would 
 hear some the like of which he had never heard since he 
 became Archbishop of Paris. And passing from these 
 remarks to seriousness, he represented to the Archbishop, 
 that to send away Madame du Barry was to prepare the way 
 for Choiseul's triumph, to injure the woman who was a 
 friend in order to serve the enemy. Finally he flung at the 
 prelate by way of peroration what the Favourite had said 
 to him the night before : " Let the Archbishop leave us 
 alone, and he shall have a Cardinal's hat ; I will take care of 
 that and will answer for it." 1 
 
 The Archbishop entered the King's room, remained there 
 a quarter of an hour, and went away without speaking about 
 confession. The King, as if revived by the Archbishop's 
 silence, had Madame du Barry quickly sent for, and kissed 
 her beautiful hands with delight. 
 
 The Choiseul party turned to another man, Cardinal de 
 la Roche- Aymon, a nature ambitious and deceptive, who, 
 currying favour with the two parties, said that he could 
 not openly propose the sacraments, but that he would watch 
 and seize hold of the first opportunity. However, the fer- 
 vent and the enthusiastic amongst the clergy grew impa- 
 
 " Historical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI." 
 By Soulavie. Treuttel and Wurtz. Year X. Tome I. 
 
 195 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 tient. The Bishop of Carcassonne, showing his pectoral 
 cross to Cardinal de la Roche-Aymon, appealed to him in 
 the name of that cross not to let his King, the most Christian 
 King, die without being anointed, called on him to act in 
 such a way that the King should show an example of 
 repentance to France, to Christian Europe, which he had 
 scandalised. To the intimidations of Richelieu, and the 
 threats of Fronsac to throw him out of the window if he 
 spoke of confession to the King, the cure of Versailles 
 replied : "If you do not kill me, I will re-enter through 
 the door, for it is my right." x 
 
 During this tumult, these divisions, these comings and 
 goings, whilst the Eucharist was wandering through the 
 corridors, the King's disease was growing towards nausea, 
 and his body was covered with that leprosy which would 
 torment his agony with the fear that the pus of his pimples 
 might mingle with the Host.* 
 
 On the 3rd of May, the doctor's bulletin announced that 
 the King had been delirious during the night, and the 
 Due d'Aiguillon thereupon made a scene with the doctors 
 at the King's door, the noise of which reached Louis XV., 
 who asked what was the matter. And the minister came 
 in to the King, who spoke to him in the most tender terms 
 about his mistress, even asking to have her brought to him 
 that evening by La Borde. 
 
 1 " Memoirs of the Marechal de Richelieu." Buisson. 1793. Tome 
 IX. 
 
 2 The decomposition of Louis XV.'s body was such that the night- 
 men of Versailles had to be asked to put it into the coffin. 
 
 196 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 During the day, a conversation had taken place between 
 the King and the Archbishop, who had taken up his quarters 
 in the Lazarists' house at Versailles. ... In the eve- 
 ning, when Madame du Barry entered, still radiant after the 
 words of the morning, the King made her come over near 
 his bed, and said to her in a low voice : " Madame, I am 
 sick ; I know what I have to do ; I do not want to begin over 
 again the scene at Metz ; we must part. Go to Ruel, to M. 
 d'Aiguillon's ; be sure that I shall always feel for you the 
 tenderest friendship." And he pushed her away in a last 
 dismissal. 
 
 Scarcely had Madame du Barry left when Louis XV. 
 asked for her again, stammering in a voice which was begin- 
 ning to become delirious : " Ah ! she is gone . . . then 
 we must go, too at least we must pray to Saint Gene- 
 vieve." x 
 
 1 This account of Louis XV.'s death is taken, to a great extent, 
 from the two narratives given by Soulavie on the subject in the 
 " Memoirs of the Marechal Due de Richelieu " and in the " Histor- 
 ical and Political Memoirs of the Reign of Louis XVI." The infor- 
 mation with which the historian supplies us as to the end of the 
 King he got from M. de la Borde, first valet of the King's Bed- 
 chamber, who had communicated to him his " Memoirs of the Court 
 of Louis XV.," hitherto unpublished ; from the Abbe Dupinet, Canon 
 of Notre Dame, who repeated to him the conversation he had on 
 this subject with the Archbishop of Paris; lastly from Cardinal de 
 Luynes, from Madame d'Aiguillon, from the Due de Brissac, and 
 from the Marechal de Richelieu. It is time to lift Soulavie out of the 
 contempt in which he has been held, and to assure him his proper mer- 
 its as an authority for the facts of history. He had the good fortune 
 to see passing through his hands the most curious and most authentic 
 
 197 
 
XII. 
 
 The Nothingness of the Du Barry's Historic Role. The Patron- 
 age of Art conferred on Chasers of Bronze, on Carvers in Wood, 
 on Embroiderers, and Dressmakers, etc. Lettre de Cachet which 
 exiles the Favourite to Pont-aux-Dames. The Disbandment of the 
 Du Barrys. Purchase of the Estate of Saint- Vrain. Madame du 
 Barry playing a Twelve- Sous Piece and Losing 90,000 Livres. 
 Return to Luciennes. Love-letters of the Du Barry. Picture of 
 Luciennes before the Revolution. The Beauty of Madame du Barry 
 at Forty Years. 
 
 The reign of Madame Du Barry was finished. 
 
 There was in the Greek anthology this epitaph on a young 
 woman : " May the earth be light on her ! She weighed so 
 little on it ! " So we might say of the Favourite : " May 
 Posterity be light on her! She weighed so little on His- 
 tory." In fact, this reign of Madame du Barry is the reign 
 
 documents of the eighteenth century. I shall only cite as an example 
 the " Autograph Correspondence of Mademe de Chateauroux," pub- 
 lished by us from the originals in Rouen in the " Duchesse de Cha- 
 teauroux," a correspondence which he certainly consulted, and of 
 which even the smallest detail agrees so perfectly with Richelieu's 
 biography. I shall recall also as a proof of the esteem to which Sou- 
 lavie's information is entitled the two conversations of Madame de 
 Pompadour with the President of Meinieres, the first of which has 
 been lately republished by th Faculty of Bibliophiles from the man- 
 uscript of the President. 
 
 198 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 of a King's mistress which was peculiar and without a 
 parallel ; it is neither a tyranny nor a government. It is an 
 omnipotence without being a domination, a caprice without 
 being an initiative. It is power without the will, without 
 the personality, of power. The unconsciousness and irre- 
 sponsibility of a dream are its attributes, as they are the 
 excuses for it. Examine, study the character of Madame du 
 Barry as a favourite: nothing of what emanates from her 
 belongs to her position. She does not possess in herself a 
 single idea, nor has she a single enemy. She plays a part in 
 the great historic events of the time without either desiring 
 or comprehending them. Brought into the King's bed by 
 passions and interests which are unknown to her, she is kept 
 there by favourable circumstances which she allows to ope- 
 rate without observing them. She is devoted to friendships 
 and to individuals without having the least idea of devotion 
 to a cause, a system, or a party ; and she is protected by the 
 providential course of affairs, without having to encumber 
 herself with an effort, an intrigue, or a recompense for fa- 
 vours received. The exile of Choiseul, the exile of the 
 Parliaments, the sudden political changes, the revolutions 
 of the Palace, pass through her hands; they pass neither 
 through her heart nor through her head. Without having 
 to pursue good-fortune herself, the time raises her to a re- 
 markable position, surrounds her with servitors, leads 
 successively to her feet the Duke of Orltans, the Prince of 
 Conde, the Duke of Chartreg. That secret rivalry between 
 
 199 
 
Madame DXJ Barry 
 
 the Chancellor and the Abbe Terray, which puts these two 
 men at the mistress's feet, which renders them the slaves 
 of her whims and her squanderings, all those divisions of 
 the ministry and of the Court which deliver up ambitions 
 and consciences to her, are kindled underneath her and 
 without her. The seductions of women who compete 
 against her for favour, the beauties lying in ambuscade, 
 the fascination of a Baroness of Newkerque, of that 
 beautiful Madame Pater, demand, so to speak, from Ma- 
 dame du Barry neither a care nor an effort for the pur- 
 pose of sel f -protection : the attempts, the temptations, 
 miscarry of their own accord through the conflict of 
 opinions and the warring interests of the plotters. Thus 
 flows along softly and without a struggle the favour 
 of this spoiled child, who, without affections, without ha- 
 treds, repeating what she is taught to say, wishing for what 
 she is taught to wish for, without aim, without interest, 
 without passion, 1 forms the singular contrast with Madame 
 de Pompadour of a Favourite who reigns and does not gov- 
 ern. 
 
 Madame du Barry does not even keep, of the domination 
 of the woman who came before her, the part which is the 
 easiest to exercise control in, and the lightest to carry, 
 that patronage of literature and art of which a King's mis- 
 tress can make herself so great and so charming a distrib- 
 utor. Even the sway of good taste is not exercised by 
 
 1 "Letters of the Marquise du Deffand to Horace Walpole." Tome 
 II. 
 
 200 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Madame du Barry; and, as she did in political matters, she 
 abandons herself to her time in artistic matters. She fol- 
 lows the fashion, and in nothing does she figure as a leader. 
 Her patronage descends, with her pleasures and her tastes, 
 which were those of a grisette, from the opera to the coup- 
 let, from painters and sculptors to workers in bronze and 
 carvers in wood, from the Encyclopedic to La Morliere and 
 from Montesquieu to Audinot. The clientele, the persons 
 whose society is cultivated by her whom Voltaire calls 
 " figerie," are not by any means artists,, philosophers, or 
 poets. They are the gods of the lower empires the mim- 
 ics, the buffoons, the dancers, the comedians. She forgets 
 herself with them to the extent of downright familiarity; 
 she enters into their affairs ; she negotiates their promissory 
 notes; she meddles in and soils her fingers with their pas- 
 sions. And how great would have been the amazement of 
 those poor ambassadors of dying Poland who came to im- 
 plore the Favourite's aid in saving their country if they had 
 been able to read the real object of her brain's solicitude at 
 the moment ! All her thoughts were about Dauberval, who 
 threatened to go to Russia, or about Chasse, who had re- 
 fused to sing before her, or about Raucourt, of whom she 
 wished to make an influence, or about the old woman Du- 
 mesnil, the old woman whom she thought of dressing, or 
 about Mademoiselle Dubois, whom she wished to marry to 
 Dauberval, who did not want her I 1 Amongst the celebrities 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tomes VI and 
 VII. 
 
 2OI 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of her time Madame du Barry had only one artist at her 
 little levee : the painter Doyen, who owes this favour less to 
 his talent than to the pungency of his blackguard, filthy, 
 obscene conversation. 
 
 Madame du Barry, having started from Versailles on 
 Tuesday the 5th of May at three o'clock, surrounded still 
 with some remnant of Court-grandeur, and sustained and 
 consoled by Madame d'Aiguillon, persisted in taking a hope- 
 ful view of things, still placing confidence in that succes- 
 sion of carriages which encumbered the road between Ver- 
 sailles and Ruel. On the loth, a thunderbolt told the Fa- 
 vourite everything : the King had died at two o'clock. And 
 on the 1 2th a messenger from Versailles brought Madame 
 du Barry the following letter : 
 
 " VERSAILLES, May I2th, 1774. 
 
 " I hope, Madame, that you- will not have any doubts as 
 to all the pain I feel at being obliged to announce to you 
 that you are forbidden to appear at Court ; but I am obliged 
 to carry out the orders of the King, who wishes me to im- 
 press on you that his intention is not to allow you to come 
 there till there is a fresh order made by him. His Majesty, 
 at the same time, is kind enough to permit you to go and 
 see your aunt in the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, and I am 
 going for that reason to write to the Abbess in order that 
 you may not experience any difficulty in the matter. You 
 will be good enough to acknowledge the receipt of this letter 
 through the person who brings it to you, so that I may be 
 
 202 
 
To face page 202 
 
Madame Dxx Barry- 
 
 able to assure His Majesty of the fact that I have carried 
 out his orders. 
 
 " I have the honour to be, with respect, Madame, 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 " THE Due DE LA 
 
 Madame du Barry was, at first, overwhelmed, in spite of 
 the mildness of the terms of the " lettre de cachet " ; then, 
 regaining her powers of displaying anger in the presence of 
 the messenger who had brought her the unlucky news, she 
 indulged in the language of the street- walker : "A nice 
 . . . reign, that starts with a lettre de cachet!" 2 
 
 With the dawn of the new reign, all the followers, all the 
 relatives of the Favourite dispersed like a flock of adven- 
 turers. Removal from the Court, exile, flight, fear, shame, 
 executed justice on the entire family. 3 No more Du Barry! 
 
 1 Letters sent from the King's residence. National Archives, 
 O' 416. All the other lettres de cachet given of this period in 
 the old biographies as well as in the recent biographies are false. 
 Madame du Barry's aunt, spoken of in this letter, who had retired 
 into Pont-aux-Dames is, without doubt, Madame Quantiny, her 
 mother's sister. Here is the account which Hardy gives of her de- 
 parture: "Friday, May 13. It is understood that the Comtesse 
 du Barry started last night from the village of Ruel in obedience 
 to a lettre de cachet, to go to the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames with 
 the severest prohibitions against seeing anybody there or writing to 
 anybody. She was seen in her carriage with six horses, accom- 
 panied by only one chambermaid, and followed by a second vehicle 
 in which were two individuals, one of whom is an ' exempt/ " 
 
 a The words omitted arc certainly " the language of the gutter." 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 8 On the lath of May, the day when Madame du Barry received 
 the letter which relegated her to Pont-aux-Dames, the Vicomte 
 
 203 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 They fled, hid themselves, or exhibited all the signs of con- 
 scious degradation. A marquis's lady, Mademoiselle de 
 Fumelle, was seen to make the servants under her wear grey 
 surtouts, to conceal through a sense of humiliation her liv- 
 ery and her name. Du Barry, the Roue, " Mohammed " Du 
 Barry, threatened with the fortress of Perpignan, quitted in 
 hot haste his four mistresses La Thevenet, La Morance, 
 La Dubois, and La Breba and this pavement of Paris into 
 which he boasted that he had, since his sister-in-law's ac- 
 cession to the post of Favourite, flung eighteen millions of 
 francs. He hurried into Switzerland and did not take 
 breath till he arrived in Lausanne. 1 And what hootings 
 
 1 Eighteen months after his flight, the Roue wrote from Brussels 
 ^ November 4, 1774) to M. de Malesherbes, a heart-rending letter 
 of which we have already quoted some fragments. In this letter 
 he complains of his life of wandering from country to country, of 
 the harshness of his creditors, who, not satisfied with the sale of 
 his chattels, of his pictures, which had realized a sum of over 400,000 
 livres, demanded from him a still greater sum. He asked leave 
 to spend some days in Paris in order to see his creditors, oculists, 
 and doctors, and implored as a last favour that he should be allowed 
 to go and recruit his shattered health in some province in the 
 South. He obtained permission to return to Toulouse. In Tou- 
 louse he got married again; he built houses; he bought pictures; 
 
 Adolphe du Barry received this letter from De la Vrilliere : " It 
 is with much pain, Monsieur, that I fulfil the orders which the King 
 has just compelled me to transmit. His Majesty has wished me to 
 impress on you that you are not to appear at Court until there is a 
 fresh order made by him. You will be good enough to acknowl- 
 edge the receipt of my letter through the person who brings it to 
 you, so that I may be able to assure His Majesty of the fact that I 
 have carried out his orders. I have the honour, etc." (Letters 
 sent from the King's residence.) National Archives. O' 416. 
 
 204 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 there were at this skedaddle this escape? What furious 
 delight the public displayed at his deliverance ! His losses at 
 play, his efforts in disposing of damaged goods at the high- 
 est price in the market of Venus, were recalled to the minds 
 of those who knew his history. People spoke repeatedly 
 about his insolences and about his indecent familiarity in 
 addressing the King as " Comrade." 1 The public contempt 
 took its revenge. Ironies and witticisms were launched 
 against this flight and general smash-up the vengeances 
 
 1 "Frerot." The word is equivalent to the Socialistic word 
 " Comrade." It was applied in the thirteenth century to certain sec- 
 taries who rejected the idea of private property. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 he gave invitations to dinner ; he went to bed ; he got up : " It is a 
 very monotonous life for a man accustomed to high intrigue." And 
 in 1784 we find the Comte Jean in Paris, this time trying to make 
 some capital out of his wife a young, pretty, and virtuous woman 
 whom he had voluntarily familiarised with vice, whom he had 
 deliberately depraved, and who, introduced by him into the house of 
 the Controller-General, does now, after driving out the Vicomtesse 
 de Laval, the honours of M. de Colonne's table. Then, when his 
 big plans had utterly failed, the Comte Jean decided on returning to 
 Toulouse, where he resumes his career as a gambler, and continued, 
 during the first years of the Revolution, to fatigue Madame du Barry 
 with his applications for money, as the following letter annexed 
 to Madame du Barry's " Dossier " testifies : " Levignac, October 20, 
 1790. Far be from me, my dear sister, every reproach and every 
 repetition of the past. You know whether it is in a great measure 
 through my attention that my last journey has been worth 500,000 
 Hvres to you. You may remember your promises; you may recol- 
 lect having claimed 20,000 livres which I received as a slight instal- 
 ment. Is it fair that you should enjoy everything and that there is 
 left only to me the remembrance of a journey as ruinous to me 
 as it was profitable to you? . . ." 
 
 205 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 which the witty world of Paris can extract from a humilia- 
 tion of France. The joke of the hour was : " The coopers 
 will be very busy now : all the barrels are leaking i" 1 or else 
 the story of the Roue asking the advice of his friend Guys, 
 the well-known buffoon, as to the best expedient to have re- 
 course to: "Faith! my dear boy, the jewel-case and the 
 post-horses ; " and when the Roue did the indignant : " Oh ! 
 well, then, the post-horses and the jewel-case!" 2 And 
 while the effigy of the defaulting Du Barrys was thus 
 dragged in the gutter, 8 the mud covered at Toulouse the 
 forehead of the husband, the face of the Comte Guil- 
 laume. 
 
 Pont-aux-Dames was a sad dwelling after Luciennes. 4 
 The old buildings almost in ruin, that convent thrown by 
 the Carlovingians like a savage Saint-Denis into the midst 
 of the woods what a change! and what a sad penitential 
 retreat for this Favourite so soft and so much attached 
 to her ease that during the King's agony she sent for her 
 bed to Luciennes at Ruel ! 5 In the first months, the Fa- 
 vourite's immurement was nearly complete, as is shown 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence, Political and Literary." Tome I. 
 
 2 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome VII. 
 
 8 On the 30th of September, 1770, Paris was filled with the report 
 of a secret execution by torchlight of Du Barry the Roue. Hardy's 
 Manuscript Journal. 
 
 4 In a satirical print entitled " France Saved," the draughtsman 
 represented Louis XV. in the tomb, the Chancellor flying pursued 
 by justice, Louis XVI. radiant, and in a corner the Du Barry knock- 
 ing at the gate of a convent. 
 
 B "Journal of Abbe Baudeau." Revue Retrospective. Tome III, 
 
 206 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 by this letter emanating from the King's abode permitting 
 her as a favour to see her jeweller every time she would 
 consider it necessary for her affairs: 
 
 " August 6th, 1774. 
 
 " I have, Madame, as you desire, addressed to the Sieur 
 Aubert, jeweller to the Crown, a letter for the Abbess of 
 Pont-aux-Dames, by which I give her notice to let him enter 
 the convent every time that you deem it necessary for your 
 affairs, and that he presents himself there. 
 
 " I learn with pain that your health is not perfectly good. 
 I implore of you to be well persuaded of the real interest I 
 take in it, and that will be always as at all times. I hope 
 this indisposition will not have any consequences, and I sin- 
 cerely desire it. I have the honour to be 1 . . ." 
 
 Madame du Barry submitted to the order " forbidding 
 her to speak or write to anybody." She accustomed herself 
 to her imprisonment, to those hard natures, to those severe 
 walls, to those gothic roofs, to her dingy abode, to the ser- 
 vice of her only chambermaid. The agreeability, however, 
 of the Abbess softened for her the first harshness of this 
 abrupt change, and the shock of a life so different. She let 
 herself be distracted by the curiosity which all the sisters, 
 young or old, displayed at seeing her and approaching that 
 mythical personage, a King's mistress ! Her eyes were 
 
 1 Missives, National Archives, O'4i6. We may notice the tone 
 of this letter of La Vrilliere. The Abbe Terray had been more 
 brutal, he refused money to the Favourite in the last days of the 
 King's malady. 
 
 207 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 amused and tickled by the pretty dress of the Bernardines. 
 Soon Mile, du Barry and Mile, de Tournon, the wife of the 
 Vicomte Adolphe du Barry, got leave to come and reside at 
 Pont-aux-Dames and brought to the exile the resource of 
 their society, the animation of their gaiety, courage, and 
 patience. Then, with time, seclusion lost some of its rigor- 
 ousness. Madame du Barry almost resumed the train of 
 her past life. Her servants were let go back to her; her 
 women, some cooks, and an officer returned to her; and, 
 at her request, the King authorized her to summon to Pont- 
 aux-Dames the architect of Luciennes, Ledoux, who added 
 to the Abbey a wing in which Madame du Barry found 
 once more a souvenir of her dear palace. 1 Friendships came 
 to her; she charmed the whole convent by her politeness, 
 her amiability, her kind words to the credulous sisters, the 
 promise of an abbess-ship and a prioress-ship to another, as 
 soon as she returned to Court; finally, by a thousand little 
 presents scattered around her with the graciousness she 
 showed in giving ; and she ended by making herself popu- 
 
 1 Hardy gives these details : " Friday, June 3. This day, it is 
 rumoured that the Comtesse du Barri lives happy and content in 
 the Abbey of Pont-aux-Dames, that she received visitors there, that 
 three ladies connected with her, viz.: the Marquise du Barry, the 
 Vicomtesse du Barry, perhaps the Dame de Montrabe her mother, 
 formerly known by the name of Manon Giroux, are keeping her 
 company, that she has had an addition made to the building in 
 order to have more accommodation, that, finally, she has given 
 a general and special power of attorney to the Sieur Lepot d'Au- 
 teuil, notary in Paris, to manage her affairs and pay all her debts, 
 after the examination and liquidation has taken place." 
 
 208 
 
Madame Dxa Barry 
 
 lar in Pont-aux-Dames, where the good nuns were at her 
 feet as in a family where she was a welcome guest. 1 
 
 There was not enough of depth in Madame du Barry's 
 soul to make her remain overwhelmed very long at her fall. 
 She scarcely knew how to measure it. It was an awakening 
 which did not arouse her indignation. Her disgrace re- 
 vealed in her a simple and entirely natural philosophy which 
 some of the greatest hearts and greatest minds cannot at- 
 tain. She lost power as she had possessed it giddily. Her 
 first outburst of despair took the form of low language; 
 her regrets merely took the form of pouting. Through her 
 solicitations, through the support of friends whom she had 
 still at Versailles, Madame du Barry at length got permis- 
 sion to quit Pont-aux-Dames, but on condition that she 
 should reside ten leagues away from Paris and the Court. 
 It was then that with the purchase-money of her house in 
 Versailles, which she had sold to Monsieur, she bought the 
 estate of Saint- Vrain near Arpagon, which, as it happened, 
 was found to belong to M. Duval, that ex-clerk in the Min- 
 istry of Marine for whom she had conceived the first of her 
 youthful attachments. The park, one of the first parks in 
 France laid out in the English fashion, with its thickets of 
 green trees in the Italian style, pleased the prisoner of Pont- 
 aux-Dames the first moment she saw it. The Due d'Ai- 
 guillon, whose quite recent disgrace was due very largely to 
 his persistent attachment to the Favourite, and who in a 
 
 1 " Secret Correspondence, Political and Literary." London, 1787. 
 Tome I. 
 
 aog 14 
 
Madame D\* Barry- 
 lively conversation with Louis XVI. had declared to him 
 that independently of the personal debt of gratitude he owed 
 the woman, he was obeying the orders of the late King, who 
 on his death-bed had recommended his mistress to him, in- 
 stalled the new proprietress in her estate of Saint-Vrain, be- 
 fore setting out for his exile in D'Aiguillon. 1 On the 24th 
 of June, 1775, she was completely settled there, and Madame 
 du Barry sent round a circular letter in which she informed 
 the nobility of the neighbourhood that she would have a 
 table of twenty-five covers every day, and that she would 
 be perfectly delighted if they came and dined there. 2 
 
 Madame d'Aiguillon spent the entire summer with 
 Madame du Barry, who was beginning to find the house 
 dreadful and the park tiresome. Ere long she saw only a 
 solitude in this picturesque piece of ground. More free, but 
 more alone, more out of her element again in the country 
 than in a convent, she regretted her friends, her habits, so- 
 ciety, the fashionable throng, and above all, her dear Lu- 
 ciennes. Thereupon, she was pursued to Saint-Vrain by the 
 troubles of her entangled affairs, the embarrassment and 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome VIII. 
 Madame du Barry, in the summer and autumn of the year, made 
 two journeys to the estate of D'Aiguillon which the Duke could 
 not prevent. However, Madame du Barry rendered a money-ser- 
 vice to the Duke: she lent him 200,000 livres which the Duke did 
 not pay back till the 13th of August, 1784. 
 
 * " The Conversations of the Other World on that which takes 
 place in This, or Dialogues, Grotesque and Picturesque." London, 
 1784. 
 
 2IO 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 tiresomeness of her twelve hundred thousand livres of debts 1 
 and so inconstant was her mind, of so little consequence did 
 the next day seem to her, that she no sooner left than she 
 was importuned by the noise her stewards made around her 
 as to her most pressing debts. The most beautiful resolu- 
 tions passed through her mind; she thought of reforming, 
 reducing her expenditure. She wished to diminish her staff 
 of servants, to cast aside her train of attendants, to establish 
 order, to practise economy, fine promises with which she 
 satisfied herself every night, and which took flight at dawn ! 
 Money, expenses, went rolling on in the most large- 
 handed fashion. She gave orders, she made purchases, fool- 
 ishly, as in the past, without caring about payment; and 
 every moment she got the greatest surprises at being as- 
 sailed by claims of tradespeople or by demands for pay- 
 ment on account before beginning some work. At last, ow- 
 ing to the growing insolence of merchants, she determined 
 to open her eyes and to look into the figures ; alarmed, she 
 attempted to negotiate the sale of the Lodges of Nantes, and 
 found she could not carry it out. Almost about the same 
 
 1 Madame du Barry was also beginning to have the weariness and 
 the annoyance of pamphlets which spoke by no means sympathet- 
 ically about her. The " Historic Summary " made its entrance 
 into France in December, 1774, the "Anecdotes" appeared in Oc- 
 tober, 1775, and their success led to this letter being sent from the 
 King's residence to Albeit, Lieutenant of Police : " I have known 
 for some time, Monsieur, the very poor book of anecdotes about 
 the Comtesse du Barry. It is really a matter of some moment to 
 prevent the publicity of it, and you cannot take too many precautions 
 to attain that object." (Missives, National Archives, 6*417.) 
 
 211 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 time, in this brief spell of panic and of reason, she decided 
 to make greater sacrifices. Here is a list drawn up for her 
 notary, Lepot d'Auteuil, of all the beautiful things of which 
 she wanted to denude herself, so as to turn them into money ; 
 it contains the best and most precious things in her museum 
 at Luciennes. In addition to the Polembergs, the Ostades, 
 the Teniers, the Jacob Xaverys, and the pictures bought 
 in Rome by M. de la Borde, there are the " Four Hours of 
 the Day," by Vernet, the two large pictures of Casanova, the 
 four large pictures of Vien decorating the oval salon of Lu- 
 ciennes, and Greuze's well-known pictures the " Child Ca- 
 ressing a Spaniel," the " Child in his Shirt playing with a 
 Dog," a " Woman in a Polonaise," a " Woman in Her Che- 
 mise," the " Broken Pitcher," and the sketch of the " Prayer 
 to Love ; " then the " Children " of Drouais ; then four beau- 
 tiful Gobelin tapestries fabricated by Cozette, and again the 
 marble figures on gilt pedestals in the salon, and the por- 
 phyry vase with ormolu bas-reliefs in the central drawing- 
 room, and the four white marble candelabra in the dining- 
 room. 1 When she was free from these annoyances Madame 
 
 1 List of pictures, statues, groups, and other articles forming the 
 mass of the objects for sale. " Manuscript accounts of Madame du 
 Barry." National Library. French Supplement, 8157 to 8158. The 
 objects were given up to be sold to the highest bidder, but only in 
 1777. The sale, which was a collective sale, and in which Madame 
 du Barry's name does not appear, took place at the Hotel d'Aligre on 
 the 17th of February, 1777. A " Village Interior," by Ostade. coming 
 from the Choiseul collection, was sold for 7,250 livres ; a " Public- 
 House," by Teniers, coming from the collection of M. Lempereur, 
 for 6,500 livres ; a vase by Jacob Xavery, for 803 livres ; a " Venus 
 
 212 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 du Barry fell back again into the melancholy existence of 
 Saint-Vrain. With autumn, the few visitors from the sur- 
 rounding chateaux who came to see her deserted her. 
 Fevers arose out of the marshy meadows of the park. 1 In 
 the chateau, Madame du Barry killed time as best she could. 
 A document preserved in the National Archives shows her 
 to us a slave to her attendants, rushed about between the 
 perpetual indigestions of ona of her chambermaids and the 
 continual confinements of the other, carrying indulgence 
 and kindness so far as almost to live without the two in- 
 valids and get an additional servant. Age and disgrace had 
 no more matured her than they embittered her. She re- 
 mained at Saint-Vrain what she was at Versailles. She 
 had, in this sullen exile, the follies, the vanities, the modes 
 of amusement, and the obstinacies of childhood. She 
 spend days, she tries to pass a small portion of the night, 
 at cards, at nine-holes, playing without any calculation, los- 
 ing foolishly with friends discreet enough not to claim the 
 
 1 "Historic Memoirs of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier, Comtesse 
 Du Barry." By Favrolle, Year XI. Tome III. 
 
 Asleep " by Polemberg, for 240 livres ; the Greuzes realizing the high- 
 est price. The " Child in his Shirt playing with a Dog," taken from 
 the Choiseul collection, was sold for 7,200 livres ; the " Child Caress- 
 ing a Spaniel," for 2,612 livres; the "Prayer to Love," a smaller 
 copy of a picture of which the original belonged to the Due de 
 Choiseul, for 1,950 livres ; the " Woman in Her Chemise," for 2,599 
 livres; the "Woman in a Polonaise'' was withdrawn at 500 livres. 
 Finally, two pieces of tapestry, after Boucher, by Cozette, under 
 glass (H. 48 inches, L. 70 inches) reached the figure of 2,660 
 livres. The pictures by Vien and by Drouais, the .porphyry vases, 
 and the white marble candelabra, were not put up for sale. 
 
 213 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 money they had won. One day, she plays a piece of a dozen 
 sous, and undertakes not to lose more than the sum of six 
 livres. Before dinner, she has lost more than twenty thou- 
 sand livres, and from revenge to revenge, stubbornly con- 
 tinuing to play with the impatience of a young girl, deter- 
 mining with every fresh game to play better than her op- 
 ponent, finishes by losing one night 90,000 livres. 1 
 
 The day after this foolish loss (November 6th, 1775) 
 Madame du Barry started for Luciennes, to which, thanks 
 to Maurepas, she had obtained leave to go back. This first 
 permission had only been granted provisionally, and during 
 the absence of the Court from Versailles, only a little while 
 afterwards, she was allowed to resume definite possession 
 of her dear Luciennes. 2 
 
 In this sweet exile, in" this enchanted retreat of her dis- 
 grace, Madame du Barry is no longer the child of yes- 
 terday, the female gambler of Saint- Vrain, she is the 
 woman, the amorous woman whom we are going to find, 
 and luckily it will not be necessary to have recourse to wit- 
 nesses, or to stories which are often false, in order to paint 
 her : a bundle of little love-letters will open for us the secret 
 recesses of her heart, and it will be sufficient for us to read 
 over her shoulder in order to penetrate to her inner depths. 
 
 This romance of Madame du Barry has the most tedious 
 
 1 "Memoirs of the Chevalier de Langles to justify himself for 
 having won at play 90,000 livres from Madame du Barry and for 
 having sought to reconcile her with the Due de Choiseul." National 
 Archives. 
 
 * " Secret Memoirs of the Republic of Letters." Tome VIII. 
 
 214 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 and most commonplace commencement in the world. A 
 friend of Madame du Barry, Lord Seymour, 1 the English 
 Ambassador in France, has a daughter who is ill. Madame 
 du Barry is interested in the sick child, and writes to the 
 father : 
 
 " I am much touched, monsieur, at the cause which has 
 deprived me of the pleasure of seeing you at my house, and 
 I sympathize most sincerely with your daughter in her ill- 
 ness. I am sure your heart is sick, too, and I share in your 
 sensibility. I can only exhort you to take courage, since the 
 doctor reassures you as to the danger. If the interest I feel 
 in your trouble can in any way mitigate it, you should be 
 less agitated. 
 
 " Mile, du Barry is as sensitive as I am as to every- 
 thing which concerns you, and asks me to assure you of the 
 fact on her part. 
 
 " Our journey has been very happy. Cornichon does not 
 forget you, and speaks of you incessantly. It gives me great 
 pleasure to know that the little dog can amuse your daugh- 
 ter, even for a moment. 
 
 " Accept, monsieur, the assurance of the sentiments I feel 
 towards you. 
 
 " Luciennes, Saturday, 6 o'clock." 
 
 1 The only historical .evidence of this liaison of Madame du Barry 
 with Lord Seymour is this phrase of the Abbe Georgel : " On the 
 dismissal of the Comtesse du Barry, in the moment of her disgrace, 
 she appeared to console herself for her past grandeur with an Eng- 
 lishman, Lord Seymour." (Memoirs to serve for the History of the 
 Events of the End of the Eighteenth Century.) 
 
 215 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Then the letters became more caressing. These are the 
 first stages of the tender passion attentions and little kind- 
 nesses. 
 
 " It has long ago been said that little kindnesses preserve 
 friendship," is the first line of one of those letters. 
 
 Soon come the pretty acts of thoughtfulness, the sending 
 of " a piece of money wasted very foolishly on a little game 
 of loo; it is of the time of Louis XIV. M. Seymour is a 
 great admirer of this age so fruitful in marvels ; and here is 
 a little one sent him by the ladies of Luciennes. It is with 
 delight that they show their desire to honour him. They 
 deprive themselves of things belonging to them because 
 they are well aware that M. Seymour will realise the cost 
 of the sacrifice, and will be satisfied that the ladies would 
 be glad to find occasions more essential to mark their affec- 
 tion for him." 
 
 The day comes when love grows strong and breaks out, 
 abandoning itself, surrendering itself altogether, oozing 
 forth in avowals and passionate words, intense, luring, and 
 sweet. 
 
 " The assurance of your affection, my dear friend, make 
 the happiness of my life. Be sure that my heart finds these 
 two days very long, and that, if it were in its power to 
 shorten them it would have no more pain. I expect you on 
 Saturday with all the impatience of a soul entirely yours, 
 and I hope you will have nothing to desire. Adieu! I 
 am yours. 
 
 216 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " This Thursday at two o'clock/" 1 
 
 When the last letter was written, Lord Seymour's love 
 was dead. Madame du Barry writes to him : 
 
 " This Wednesday at midnight. 
 
 "It is useless to speak to you of my tender and sincere 
 affection: You know all about it. But what you do not 
 know is the pain I feel ; you have not deigned to reassure me 
 about what affects my soul. So I believe that my tran- 
 quillity and my happiness touch you very little; it is with 
 regret that I speak of it to you, but it is for the last time. 
 My head is all right ; my heart is sick. But with much care 
 and courage I shall succeed in conquering it. The work is 
 painful and grievous, but it is necessary ; it is the last sacri- 
 fice which remains for me to make: my heart has made all 
 the others. It is for my reason to make this. Adieu. Be- 
 lieve that you alone occupy my heart." * 
 
 1 We find in a catalogue of autographs (February 5, 1855) a dis- 
 1 Autograph letters of Madame du Barry communicated by M. 
 Francois Barriere. We give the little feminine touches with their 
 orthography in those love-letters; but this specimen seems to us 
 sufficient, and we shall give the other letters with an intelligible 
 orthography. 
 
 tracted letter forming part of this amorous correspondence of Ma- 
 dame du Barry, and written, without doubt, a very short time be- 
 fore or a very short time after the one which we have read : " My 
 heart is ycurs without division, and, if I failed to keep my promise, 
 my debts are responsible for it. I have been very much upset since 
 you left me, and I assure you that I have only the strength to think 
 of you. Adieu, my kind friend, I love you, I repeat to you, and I 
 feel happy in doing so. I embrace you a thousand times, and am 
 yours. Come early." 
 
 217 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 What an unexpected tone there is in this correspondence ! 
 Does it not seem to impart into this courtesan's life the un- 
 dreamt-of charm and the restrained emotion of the history 
 of Madame Michonin in Richelieu's memoirs ? And how 
 another Du Barry is revealed to you in the shadow, behind 
 the popular Du Barry of the pamphlets and romances! It 
 is no longer the courtesan ; it is no longer the Favourite ; it 
 is a loving woman. What astonishment! What an expia- 
 tion! Those humilities of a grisette, those timidities and 
 almost modesties, those effusions, those tears, those resigna- 
 tions, those stifled sighs like groans, those regrets which 
 possess the nobility of self-sacrifice! And what a light it 
 throws on the woman and what forgiveness it wins for her, 
 so full of love as she was and so charming in her sincere 
 avowals of affection ! 
 
 Time and Madame du Barry's levity of character cured 
 her of this love, of this wound, and left in her heart only a 
 tender memory. She recovered from it, and found a calm 
 happiness in that Luciennes which exile had made still 
 dearer to her; and there, without plans, without intrigues, 
 without that agitation which usually accompanies disgrace, 
 she lived in choice company, 1 in the midst of many friends. 
 She received with respectful kindness the illustrious stran- 
 gers and the Princes of Europe who were anxious to carry 
 away from France the recollection of a visit to Luciennes. 
 
 1 Amongst the women whom she received at her house, the " Gal- 
 lery of the States General " says she showed her appreciation of 
 gallantry as much as of prudery. 
 
 218 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 The affairs of Madame du Barry were now disentangled ; 
 her debts were paid off ; x she kept a fastidious equipage, and 
 had indulged in splendid luxury. The future seemed to her 
 to be no longer menacing; she now enjoyed peace, the de- 
 voted attachment of those who were left around her as well 
 as the affection of the new friends who were brought into 
 close contact with her and learned to understand her, and 
 the sympathy and consideration which her philosophy and 
 the propriety of her new existence won for her. 2 
 
 Meanwhile, the years went by, and gradually and almost 
 insensibly the woman was forgotten by her contemporaries. 
 Foreign sovereigns, on a visit to our country, no longer 
 took the road to Luciennes, and only the ambassadors of 
 Tippoo Sahib thought themselves still obliged to present 
 their homage on bended knees and in embroidered muslin 
 robes to the ex-mistress of Louis XV. The solitude of the 
 
 1 In reality, Madame du Barry was scarcely free from the worry 
 of her debts before April, 1784. At this date Louis XVI. settled 
 on her 60,000 francs a year in exchange for the sum of 1,250,000 
 livres, which had been handed over to the Exchequer. 
 
 3 Metra relates that in the month of January, 1779, Madame du 
 Barry had a desire for marriage, a fancy for a sacramental union 
 with an American whom she had met in the country at the house 
 of the celebrated player Sormanni. This American, whose name was 
 Bellanger, was a sort of young fool, very rich, son of a merchant 
 in San Domingo, who subsequently acquired a certain notoriety by 
 driving over a woman in Nantes and beating the substitute of the 
 Procureur-General of the Parliament of Brittany. But an order of 
 the King commanded her intended to leave France, and His Majesty 
 advised Louis XV.'s former mistress not to be so sensitive in the 
 future to the attractions of conjugal love. 
 
 219 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 little chateau was scarcely ever troubled now with visits, 
 and in 1785 Madame du Barry was almost reduced to the 
 society of Madame Souza, the wife of the Portuguese Am- 
 bassador, the Marquise du Brunoy, and her neighbour, M. 
 de Monville. And there were many days when, in summer 
 as well as in winter, the chilly little mistress of the chateau, 
 clad in a dressing-robe of cotton cambric or white muslin, 
 spent the entire day carrying her memories of the past 
 through the park or beyond it. 1 There were now some even- 
 ings when, very often reduced to a single listener, to a 
 Madame Lebrun who was painting her portraits, the Fa- 
 vourite, with her feet on the fender, spoke about Louis XV. 
 and the old Court, but with reserve, indulgence, freedom 
 from resentment, discretion, in language in which the vivid- 
 ness of her recollections and the boldness of her former 
 habits of speech were toned down and as if she were speak- 
 ing of a past far, far, far away. 
 
 The Comte d'Allonville, who saw her, during these years, 
 while staying at the house of the Due de Brissac, gives ex- 
 pression to his astonishment at the decency of her behaviour, 
 at the distinction of her manners, at the modest tone of the 
 new woman who had been formed in the house of Madame 
 
 1 She often went to visit the unfortunate, the sick, and the women 
 in confinement in the neighbourhood. Madame Lebrun tells 
 how she saw Madame du Barry in a passion at finding that the 
 linen, wine, and soup she had ordered for a poor woman who was 
 about to have a child in the district had not been brought to her, and 
 how on her return home she made a scene with her servants, push- 
 ing them out with a bundle of linen, and claret, and soup. 
 
 220 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 du Barry, and with whom no fault could be found save that 
 she still pronounced her words in a ridiculously childish 
 fashion out of place in a woman of her age. 
 
 " It was in this dining-room/' said Madame du Barry 
 one day to Madame Lebrun, as they were having a cup of 
 tea together, " it was in this room that Louis XV. did me 
 the honour to dine." And, after a moment's silence, she 
 added, as if talking to herself : " There was a stand over- 
 head for the musicians when they played and sang. . . . 
 There, in that Luciennes, persons and things had begun to 
 resemble a dream. And, in the midst of this country dis- 
 trict, in which the old straggling engine of Marly could be 
 heard emitting mournful groans in the distance, the little 
 chateau, silent and ruinous, with its deserted galleries, in 
 which were heaped together pell-mell, vases, columns, the 
 rarest marbles, the most precious furniture, while in some 
 corner lay stretched on a sofa that Royalty had once oc- 
 cupied a man enjoying a siesta, the little chateau assumed 
 the vague aspect of those palaces, buried in a deep sleep 
 by a fairy's wand. The man, sleeping in broad daylight, 
 was the Due de Brissac, who since Louis XV.'s death had 
 lived in Luciennes as a sort of husband-lover of Madame 
 du Barry, and his passion for his fair mistress seemed to 
 grow stronger each day. 
 
 Madame du Barry, in fact, was always beautiful, and, in 
 a fashion, more charming than ever. A portrait which Cos- 
 way 1 painted of her on the occasion of her journey to Eng- 
 
 1 Painted by Cosway, engraved by Conde. 
 
 221 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 land, and which was engraved in London after her death, 
 has preserved for us the most adorable image of her that 
 is left to us. With her head softly thrown back, her shoul- 
 ders lowered, her arms hanging freely, her hair loose and 
 flowing in wanton curls over her shoulders, she lets fall 
 from her coquettish laughing eyes, veiled in languor, spark- 
 ling with desire, one of those sweetly beaming glances 
 which seem like light seen through vapour. Her little nose 
 quivers; a half-smile plays round and tickles her curving 
 lips. And, looking at this enchanting visage, this oval 
 amorously rounded by the years, it seems to us that we be- 
 hold in his portrait the voluptuousness of the eighteenth 
 century a Bacchante of Greuze. 
 
 Madame Lebrun confirms the truth of this portrait by her 
 souvenirs of 1785 and 1789, saying that the face of Madame 
 du Barry was still charming while admitting that her com- 
 plexion was beginning to spoil. 1 
 
 1 " Souvenirs of Madame Vigee-Lebrun." Fournier, 1835. Vol. I. 
 
 222 
 
XIII. 
 
 The Year 1789. The Attacks and the Attempts at Blackmailing.- 
 Inconsistent and crack-brained Nature of the Favourite. Noble Let- 
 ter of the Mistress of Luciennes to Marie Antoinette. Tenderly 
 marital liaison of Brissac with Madame du Barry. The Duke's 
 Will. He is massacred on the 8th of September, 1792. Two Letters 
 of Madame du Barry on his Death. 
 
 THE year 1789 arrived, and then came the taking of the 
 Bastille, with reference to which during the cannonade 
 which the wind brought to Luciennes, Madame du Barry, 
 sitting opposite Madame Lebrun, repeated many times : 
 " If Louis XV. were living, surely this would not have been 
 so!" 
 
 Then, immediately followed the anxieties caused by the 
 articles in the Revolutionary newspapers, the printing of 
 the " Livre Rouge," the publication of the " Vies Privees," 
 the attempts at blackmailing, like that contained in this let- 
 ter from Avignon dated the I2th of November, 1789: 
 
 " Madame, Some days ago I learned that there has been 
 printed here a pamphlet which interests you personally. I 
 have taken all the necessary steps for verifying the fact, and 
 by means of some money which I gave the printer who 
 worked off the first copy, I was able to procure the opening 
 
 223 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 pages of this document which I have the honour of sending 
 you. It is a tissue of lies which are devoid of all foundation, 
 but which human wickedness might interpret differently. 
 It may be seen, from the plan of this libel, that the author 
 would like to induce the National Assembly to destroy 
 your income for the benefit of the State, alleging as a reason 
 that Louis could not give you an estate which did not belong 
 to him. To secure the success of his bad design, he must 
 send or bring a copy of it gratuitously to each deputy of 
 the National Assembly, and afterwards sell five or six thou- 
 sand copies of it in Paris and throughout the rest of the 
 Kingdom, for all these wickednesses have for their object 
 to gain money. . . . It is essential that it should not 
 appear in public, especially at this moment of fury and of 
 rage, when the least pretext is sufficient to make the popu- 
 lace rush into horrible excesses/' 1 . . . From that day 
 forth, there were continual alarms about her fortune up to 
 the moment when apprehensions were beginning to be felt 
 for the lives of the beings who were dearest to her heart. 
 Nevertheless, it must be recognized that Madame du Barry 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals : The Du Barry's " Dossier," National 
 archives, W 1 16. The correspondent signs his letter " M. Dupin, 
 Hotel de Lamoureux, Rue Verte, Faubourg Saint-Honore, Paris." 
 We read on this letter: "Letter threatening the Du Barry with a 
 pamphlet which is found in the hands of the Citizen Vouland." 
 Could this pamphlet be the "Life of the Comtesse du Barry," pub- 
 lished in 1790 and followed by her letters and her amorous and 
 political intrigues, from the Court Printing-office, containing a 
 portrait with verses commencing thus: 
 
 " The Messalina whom you see." . . . ? 
 
 224 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 did not seek to purchase pardon by a base desertion of the 
 persons connected with the Court, even by a certain crafti- 
 ness of conduct. Madame du Barry had in her nothing of 
 the virtues of prudence or of audacity which are the means 
 of safety in times of revolution. She was incapable of hid- 
 ing her riches, of deceiving people as to her expenditure, of 
 feigning privation and suffering, of making herself misera- 
 ble to escape jealousies and denunciations. She lacked, 
 moreover, that force of will, that energy of fear, which tears 
 you away from your country and from familiar habits, and 
 makes you take refuge abroad. In order to fly, she would 
 have had to quit that French life which was the life of 
 Madame du Barry; she would have had to separate herself 
 from Luciennes, which she could not leave. 
 
 She was, in short, in the highest degree, improvident, 
 thoughtless, babbling, crack-brained, incapable of restrain- 
 ing herself from talking, as is shown by those curious rec- 
 ommendations, which seem to come from some of the upper 
 servants in the chateau, to whom the mistress allowed a 
 familiar tone of plain-speaking: 
 
 " Does Madame la Comtesse not forget any necessary 
 papers ? I recommend to her much forethought. In every- 
 thing she must not speak if she can help it. In every mo- 
 ment of life, silence is good, and it is a matter of absolute 
 necessity in the present circumstances. Every one around 
 us has ears interested in listening to everything. 
 
 " Madame la Comtesse is not careful enough about what 
 belongs to her. She must keep her money and her jewels 
 
 225 15 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 herself. I recommend Madame la Comtesse, in short, to be 
 not merely beautiful and amiable but a woman of character, 
 and one who is mistress in her own house. " ] 
 
 And, at this time, a great danger of this nature was to 
 break out, to scatter aloft its indignations, to deliver up to 
 hostile ears both its horrors and its upheavals, with its heads 
 cut off and exposed to public gaze, with its crimes of a revo- 
 lution born in blood. Her lax-mindedness even made her 
 impervious to fear. She did not conceal the portraits of 
 Louis XV. and of Marie Antoinette. 2 She subscribed to the 
 aristocratic pamphlets and newspapers. 3 Finally (mortal im- 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals : The Du Barry's " Dossier." National 
 Archives, W 16. I believe they are the recommendations of Morin. 
 Madame du Barry's confidential man, who speaks at the close like 
 a philosopher of the cultivation of his garden, that garden in which 
 he must have buried a portion of his mistress's jewels and silver- 
 plate. 
 
 2 Morin, in his deposition of the 24th Frimaire (December I4th, 
 1793) declares, that it was only after she had been several times 
 advised not to leave in evidence any pictures which might fatigue 
 the sight of the Federates that he had, with the aid of Dehaut, the 
 floor-cleaner, concealed between the window and the blind of the 
 dining-room a portrait of Louis XV. and a portrait of Marie An- 
 toinette, which Madame du Barry does not seem to have relegated 
 to her dressing-room until later. 
 
 3 In the " Dossier " of Madame du Barry we find a statement of 
 her subscriptions to the newspapers ; 
 
 Subscription to the "Gazette de Paris " from January ist, 1790, to 
 May ist, 43 livres. 
 
 Subscription to the " Actes des Apotres," 36 livres. 
 
 Subscription to the " Logographe," 21 livres, 12 sols. 
 
 Subscription to the "Gazette Universelle," from June ist to Sep- 
 tember ist, 12 livres. 
 
 Subscription to the "Correspondence Politique," 12 livres. 
 
 226 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 
 prudence!) Madame du Barry could not refuse pity. She 
 would tender the humble homage of her services to that 
 Marie Antoinette whom, in the days when she was the 
 Favourite, she treated harshly as a rival: her devotedness 
 would only grow the bolder in proportion as that unhappy 
 Queen's misfortunes increase. She would confide to her 
 intimate friends all her zeal to serve Marie Antoinette; and 
 when, after October, in those fatal days which brought the 
 wife of Louis XVI. for the last time into close relations with 
 the mistress of Louis XV., the Queen would thank Madame 
 du Barry for her attentions to the Life Guards, who were 
 brought to Luciennes all covered with blood, Madame du 
 Barry would reply in this letter which should make all feel 
 indulgent to her memory : 
 
 " These young wounded soldiers have no other regrets 
 than that they have not died for a princess so worthy of all 
 homage as Your Majesty. What I have done for these 
 brave fellows is much less than they deserve. I console 
 them, and I respect their wounds, when I reflect, Madame, 
 that without their devotion, Your Majesty would, perhaps, 
 no longer exist. 
 
 " Lucienne is yours, Madame ; is it not your benevolence 
 which has restored it to me? All I possess comes to me 
 
 On this statement we find this note : 
 
 " Proof that she subscribed to all the aristocratic newspapers. As 
 ''soon as the 'Gazette de Paris' and the ' Actes des Apotres ' had 
 " ceased publication, she throws herself on the ' Gazette Universelle ' 
 " and the ' Correspondence de 1'Ami Dupan.' " National Archives, 
 
 227 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 from the Royal family ; I have too much gratitude ever to 
 forget it. The late King, by a sort of presentiment, forced 
 me to accept a thousand precious objects before separat- 
 ing me from his person. I have had the honour of address- 
 ing to you this treasure of the time of the notables ; I offer 
 it to you again, Madame, with all my heart. You have so 
 many expenses to meet and favours without number to 
 distribute! Allow me, I implore you, to give to Caesar 
 what is Caesar's." 1 
 
 But love still more than devotedness was destined to com- 
 promise Madame du Barry, and her liaison with the Due de 
 Brissac ought not to be forgotten in the fatalities which 
 pointed her out for death and led her to the scaffold. 
 
 Not the least of the adventures in Madame du Barry's ad- 
 venturous life was this conquest, the triumph of her beauty, 
 which relieves and ennobles in its closing pages the chron- 
 icle of her life. 
 
 The spoiled child of love, she ended by winning the ador- 
 ation of a true knight, the last of the chivalry of France. 
 The Governor of Paris, the man with the greatest escutch- 
 eon in France, the Captain-Colonel of a hundred guards of 
 the King's Guard, this splendid nobleman, who bore so great 
 a name in the train of the pages and the carriages accom- 
 panying him, this hero of another time, whose soul, like his 
 dress, belongs to the days of Louis XIV., this type, this su- 
 perb and venerated relic of honour and chivalry, this soldier 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs from 1770 to 1830." By the Comte d'Allonville. 
 Paris, 1838. Vol. I. 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 since his birth, the inheritor of the masculine virtues of old 
 France, as well as of its most polished and most noble gal- 
 lantries, this fine old man, the last courtier of women, this 
 son of Brissac, brought up in the religion and the traditions 
 of his family, in the world, and almost in the language, 
 of the high sentiments and refinements of tenderness of 
 Clelie and of Astree, . . . Louis-Hercule-Timoleon de 
 Cosse-Brissac, became the lover, the adoring and respectful 
 lover of the Comtesse du Barry. And truly there will be 
 seen in the attachment of M. de Brissac such a gift of him- 
 self, such delicate attentions, such eager forethought, such 
 deep worship, something so piously tender, that it disturbs 
 and staggers our judgment about the woman whom he 
 deemed worthy of so beautiful a love. It seems that in M. 
 de Brissac's eyes Madame du Barry appears in that bright 
 light in which M. d'Allonville saw her, with that decency 
 of tone, that distinction of manners, that demeanour 
 equally removed from pride and humility, from license 
 and prudery, that face which was sufficient to refute all 
 the pamphlets. 1 So open was Madame du Barry's heart 
 that it was impossible it should not be profoundly touched 
 by M. de Brissac, and that it should not let itself in fact 
 be penetrated by this love, this self-immolation, these 
 hourly tendernesses. In the Duke's letters to Madame 
 du Barry there are no expressions save those of the most 
 caressing adoration: 
 
 1 " Secret Memoirs from 1770 to 1830." By the Comte d'Allonville. 
 Paris, 1838. Vol. I. 
 
 229 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 "Adieu, my heart." "Come, my dearest heart." "A 
 thousand loves and a thousand thanks, my dear heart." 
 " Yes, it is my happiness to be loved by you." "It is you 
 alone that can touch my heart." " My only happiness is to 
 think of you and on the eternal sentiments I have vowed 
 to you." " Your heart and mine are but one for ever." 
 The only things spoken about in these impassioned letters 
 are the beauty, the goodness, the magnanimity of Madame 
 du Barry, above all " that perfect evenness of temper 
 which constitutes the charm of her habitual society." And 
 what a pretty expression of the feelings of a loving old man 
 we find in this end of a letter :..."! have not got 
 my spectacles, so I write to you one single line, which com- 
 prehends everything : I love you and for life." 1 
 
 The sentiment of the old Duke was so true, so entire, so 
 old-world that it disarmed the malignity of the public. 2 So- 
 ciety was not ignorant of the Due de Brissac's passion, and 
 was indulgent to this passion. There is even a curious testi- 
 mony to the knowledge of it by the Court. At the time of 
 the project of the flight to Varennes, the Due de Choiseul, 
 the Minister's nephew, wished to communicate the fact con- 
 fidentially to M. de Brissac, but Louis XVI. refused, say- 
 ing that he could not avoid speaking about it to Madame 
 du Barry. The Due de Choiseul gives another proof of 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals : Madame Du Barry's " Dossier." Na- 
 tional Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 * This amorous sentiment of the Duke went back far. In 1772, 
 Madame de Cosse, tiring-woman to Marie Antoinette, being invited 
 
 230 
 
Madame D\* Barry 
 
 the profound and inexplicable attachment of the Due de 
 Brissac to Madame du Barry. The decree disbanding the 
 King's Guard, as well as that under which its commander 
 was impeached, had been delivered at one o'clock in the 
 morning. Choiseul hurried to the. Tuileries to give notice of 
 it to the King and Queen, who had gone to bed. They sent 
 him immediately into Brissac's apartment to persuade him to 
 fly. On the announcement being made to him that the de- 
 cree would be without 'doubt proclaimed before two o'clock, 
 the Duke, refusing to effect his escape, got up out of bed 
 merely to write a letter a long letter to his mistress 
 which he had forthwith despatched to Luciennes by his 
 aide-de-camp, Maussabre. 1 
 
 The Due de Brissac was arrested and brought to Or- 
 leans. And Madame du Barry, whose anxiety had reached 
 1 Revue de Paris, 1829. Tome IV. 
 
 to sup by M. de la Vrilliere with Madame du Barry, refused. M. de 
 Cosse, according to the expression of Mercy-Argenteau, entirely 
 given up to the Comtesse du Barry, received bitter reproaches for it. 
 He was asked to use his authority with his wife. Not knowing how 
 to get out of the affair, the Duke thought of telling the Favourite 
 that his wife had acted according to Marie Antoinette's orders. And 
 thereupon the Duke wrote a letter to his wife a very strong letter 
 in which he exacted from her that she should show every sort of 
 attention to the Comtesse du Barry and should not refuse to do any- 
 thing that would please her. The Duchesse de Cosse, who had been 
 appointed, it is true, at the request of the Favourite, replied, that in 
 taking possession of her charge, she had gone to pay a visit to the 
 Comtesse du Barry, but that, after this step, she had decided not to 
 do anything which should make her be regarded as a person asso- 
 ciating with the Favourite, and that she preferred to send in her 
 dismissal. 
 
 231 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 its highest pitch, received on the 2nd of June, from Maus- 
 sabre, the Due de Brissac's letter reassuring her and adding 
 for her information that " he had reached the place of his 
 destination without the slightest incident having happened to 
 him." Already an object of suspicion owing to her liaison 
 with a servant of Royalty, already denounced, Madame du 
 Barry imports an element of bravery into her devotion to 
 her lover. Every day her postilion Augustin was on the 
 Orleans road bringing letters from the ex-Favourite and 
 bringing back replies from the prisoner. Of this correspon- 
 dence of love carried on thus in the antechamber of death, 
 two letters, one from the mistress, and the other from the 
 lover, have been preserved for us and are found in the 
 " Dossier " of the guillotine. 
 
 Here is Madame du Barry's letter : "I was seized with 
 a deadly fear, Monsieur le Due, when M. de Maussabre was 
 announced to me. He assures me that you are well, that 
 you have the calmness of a pure conscience. But this does 
 not suffice for my interest in you. I am far from you; I 
 am ignorant of what you are going to do ; you tell me that 
 you do not know yourself. I am sending the Abbe to know 
 what is happening, what you are doing. Why am I not near 
 you ? You would receive from me the consolation of a ten- 
 der and faithful friendship. I know you have nothing to 
 fear if reason and good faith reigned in that Assembly. 
 Adieu, I have no time to write to you more. The Abbe has 
 come into my room. I want to send him off quickly. I shall 
 not feel easy till I know what has become of you. I am 
 
 232 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 quite sure you have acted regularly on the question of the 
 formation of the King's Guard. So I have nothing to fear 
 for you on that head. Your conduct has been so pure since 
 you were at the Tuileries that nobody can impute anything 
 to you. You have done so many acts of patriotism that I 
 do not know what fault they can find with you. Adieu. 
 Tell me all the news about yourself and never doubt all 
 that I feel. 
 
 " This Wednesday at eleven o'clock." 
 
 And this is the letter written by the Due de Brissac in 
 the month of August : 
 
 "Orleans, 6 o'clock in the evening. 
 
 "I received this morning the kindest of letters and the one 
 which has given most delight to my heart. Yes, you shall 
 be my last thought." 1 
 
 And this was not a commonplace phrase. The Duke 
 spoke truly, for, almost at the same time that he wrote this 
 letter, he made on the day following the death of Royalty 
 his will, in which we find this injunction to the Duchesse de 
 Mortemart, his daughter : 
 
 " I recommend to her ardently a lady who is very dear to 
 me, and whom the misfortunes of the times may place in the 
 greatest distress. My daughter will have a codicil from me, 
 which will indicate to her what I direct on this subject." 
 
 1 At the foot of the letter we read: "Ne varietur, this gth day 
 of Brumaire, the year II. of the Rep." with the signatures of Voul- 
 land, G. Jagot, Du Barry. Revolutionary Tribunals : " Dossier " of 
 Madame du Barry. National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 233 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 This codicil is thus expressed : 
 
 " I give and bequeath to Madame du Barry of Luciennes, 
 over and above what I owe her, a life-annuity of 24,000 
 livres a year, free and exempt from all deductions, or else 
 the usufruct and enjoyment during her life of my estate of 
 La Rambaudiere and of La Graffiniere in Poitou, and the 
 household goods attached to it, or else again a sum of 300,- 
 
 000 livres paid all in one sum of money, the whole at her 
 own choice, so that, after she has made her election of the 
 aforesaid three legacies, the two others will be null and void. 
 
 1 beg of her to accept this feeble proof of my sentiments 
 and my gratitude, of which I owe her all the more inas- 
 much as / have been the involuntary cause of the loss of her 
 diamonds, and if ever she succeeds in getting them back 
 from England, those which will remain missing or the ex- 
 pense of the different journeys which the search for them 
 rendered necessary, as well as that of the premium to be 
 paid, will rise to the level of the actual value of this legacy. 
 I entreat my daughter to make her accept it. The knowl- 
 edge that I have of her heart assures me of the exactness 
 she will show in paying it, whatever may be the charges 
 with which my estate will find itself burdened by my will 
 and codicil, my will being that none of my other legacies 
 may be paid till this has been entirely satisfied. 
 
 "This nth of August, 1792. 
 [Signed:] 
 
 " LOUIS-HERCULE-TIMOL^ON DE COSSE-BRISSAC." * 
 1 " Madame du Barry." By I. A. Le Roi, Versailles, 1858. 
 
 234 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 This presentiment of his approaching and tragic death, 
 all those who were attached to the Duke had at the same 
 time as himself. They gathered in deep alarm around 
 Madame du Barry; and the mistress and the house of Lu- 
 ciennes were plunged into the most -cruel apprehensions. 
 
 Bernard d'Escourt, that ex-captain of cavalry, who made 
 himself, as it were, the knight of honour of the former Fa- 
 vourite, having been sent to Paris to see some deputies on 
 the reception of the news that the prisoners had been trans- 
 ferred from Orleans to Versailles, wrote to Madame du 
 Barry on the 6th of September, 1792: "The prisoners from 
 Orleans arrive to-morrow in Versailles. . . . We must 
 hope that they may arrive safe and sound, and that they may 
 gain time to save their lives. . . . There have come to 
 my hands ten letters from Orleans for actual deputies in- 
 timating beforehand that misfortune threatens those un- 
 happy persons believed to be in Orleans, that they will be 
 murdered on their arrival here : Madame de Maurepas, en- 
 lightened by the transfer of the Duke, wanted to go at once 
 to the Assembly ; she was prevented from doing so. She 
 has written to Danton and to the Abbe Fauchet. Madame 
 Flammarens and I have carried the letters; they [have] 
 deeply interested the Abbe Fauchet. 
 
 " My soul and body are overwhelmed, and I shall not feel 
 at peace till I know that the Duke is in Versailles. If we can 
 pass, I will send there; if I cannot go, send there on your 
 own account, but above all be careful to avoid any steps 
 
 235 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 which might become public and do you harm, and injure 
 both one and the other." * 
 
 The day after that on which this letter was written, the 
 8th of September, in accordance with the sad anticipations 
 of the Chevalier d'Escourt, the Orleans prisoners met with 
 the assassins of the prisons on reaching Versailles, and were 
 massacred. The Due de Brissac, armed with a knife d la 
 d'Estaing, sold his life dearly. 
 
 The grief and horror of this death break out in this letter 
 of Madame du Barry: 
 
 " Since that cruel day, monsieur, I am in a state of grief 
 which it is easy for you to conceive. There you see con- 
 summated that dreadful crime which renders me so un- 
 happy and delivers me up to eternal regrets. In the midst 
 of the horrors which surround me, my health keeps up. We 
 do not die of sorrow. I am sensibly touched, monsieur, by 
 your interest; it will soften my pains if I cannot feel them 
 at every moment. I have to-day heard from your wife. I 
 think she will soon come to see me. I expect her with im- 
 patience. It is such a consolation to be with persons who 
 share in our sentiments that I regret every instant I spend 
 without seeing her." 2 Madame du Barry returned to the 
 
 1 Letter presumed to be from the Chevalier d'Escourt. Revolu- 
 tionary Tribunals: Madame du Barry's "Dossier," National Ar- 
 chives, W 1 16. 
 
 * Autograph letter of Madame du Barry. National Archives, W*i6. 
 This letter and the greater part of the documents forming portion 
 of Madame du Barry's " Dossier," which are in the National Ar- 
 chives, were published as having previously been unpublished by M. 
 Dauban in "La Demagogic in 1793"; they had been already pub- 
 
 236 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 subject of this death in a letter addressed to the Due de 
 Brissac's daughter, the Duchesse de Mortemart: 
 
 " Nobody has felt more than I, Madame, the extent of the 
 loss you have had. I flatter myself that you have not mis- 
 understood the motive which has prevented me from paying 
 you sooner the sad compliment of mingling my tears with 
 yours. The fear of increasing your first grief will prevent 
 me from speaking to you about it. Mine has reached its 
 highest point. A destiny that ought to have been (so) 
 beautiful, so glorious, what an end, great God! The last 
 wish of your too unhappy father, Madame, was that I 
 should love you as a sister. This vow is too agreeable to 
 my heart for me not to fulfil it. Accept the assurance of it, 
 and never doubt the sentiments which attach me to you for 
 the rest of my life." 1 
 
 1 Madame du Barry's "Dossier" contains a letter, dated Septem- 
 ber 30th, from the Duchesse de Mortemart, who expresses herself in 
 these terms : " The last wish of him whom I loved and will always 
 regret is that of my heart; I will love you as a sister, and my at- 
 tachment for you will only end with my life." In a previous letter, 
 dated the 5th of June, and sent, I believe, from the waters of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle, she said to Madame du Barry that " she was greatly af- 
 flicted and that she believed she had compromised her father by re- 
 entering France with her husband who was an emigre," and she 
 added : " Can we make it a crime for a woman who is an invalid 
 to have gone to take the waters and to make it rebound on her 
 father?" Finally, in another letter sent as usual from abroad, 
 and dated June 20, the Duchesse de Mortemart, speaking always of 
 her father, wrote, almost reassured, to Madame du Barry: " I 
 
 lished in 1803 by M. de Favrolle (Madame Guenard) in the "His- 
 torical Memoirs of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier, Comtesse Du- 
 barry." 
 
 237 
 
XIV. 
 
 The Theft of the Night of January 10, 1791. "Two Thousand 
 Louis to Gain: Diamonds Lost." Madame du Barry's Three Jour- 
 neys to England. Madame du Barry's Letter on the Jams of Lu- 
 ciennes. Announcement of the Arrest of the Proprietress of Lu- 
 ciennes by the Courrier Frangais. Madame du Barry interrogated 
 by the Abbe Fauchet, President of the Committee of General 
 Safety. 
 
 THIS blood of Brissac, which the Revolutionary Press 
 cast in the Du Barry's face, marked her out for death. And 
 yet death was going to have so much work to do that per- 
 haps Louis XV. 's mistress would have been forgotten 
 amongst the crowd of victims were it not for a theft which 
 had occurred on the night of the loth or nth of January, 
 1791, during one of her sojourns at the Hotel Brissac. 1 
 
 1 It was not the first time that Madame du Barry had been robbed. 
 On the 20th of April, 1776, three thieves, one of whom wore the 
 Cross of Saint Louis, made their way into her presence, and, threat- 
 ening her with a pistol, stole from her a rich jewel-case. In a letter 
 
 render you a million thanks, madame, for the news you have had 
 the goodness to send me. As your letter has been delayed, I have 
 only received it with news of my father from his own hand, which 
 has given me great pleasure; I have learned since that he had been 
 interrogated and was not any longer au secret. Here is as tolerable 
 treatment as can be expected for a prisoner. In spite of his well- 
 known innocence, I am afraid the proceedings will not be long." . . . 
 
 238 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 This robbery brought about the denunciation against her 
 on account of her wealth ; it inflamed the resentments of the 
 " Revolutions of Paris " against the pomp of the ex-courte- 
 san and her contempt for the rights of man. 1 It directed 
 
 1 " Since the Revolution, the Dame du Barry had not ceased to 
 employ all the ascendency given her by great riches, acquired we 
 know how, in making misunderstanding prevail between the inhabit- 
 ants of the neighbourhood of Luciennes and the Swiss of Courbe- 
 vois. Her secret intrigues, concocted with the principal officers, 
 have not had all the success desired ; on the contrary, we have had 
 such unfavorable accounts of the mistress of ihe chateau of Lu- 
 ciennes, that we do not hesitate to raise doubts as to the reality 
 of the theft of the diamonds. The considerable reduction with which 
 the said lady's income has been threatened has given rise in her 
 mind, it is said, to the idea of rendering herself interesting by repre- 
 senting herself as the victim of a grievous event and procuring for 
 herself a claim to the indulgence of an inexorable National Assembly. 
 
 from her niece, Madame de Boissaisson, dated August 24, 1788, there 
 is a reference to a big theft of linen carried out by some thieves 
 who must have been thoroughly acquainted with the people of the 
 house. As to the theft of the night of the loth or nth of January, 1791, 
 here are the details given by Morin in his examination in Frimaire, 
 Year II. (December 18, 1793) : A Swiss dressed in red had to 
 keep guard without during the entire night and a gardener had to 
 sleep in the antechamber, according to "the orders" given by Ma- 
 dame du Barry. Nevertheless, by reason of the difficulty of putting 
 up a bed in this antechamber, Morin had exempted the gardener 
 from the necessity of sleeping there, saying to him : " We must hope 
 that nothing will happen this night." And with the aid of the porter 
 Girardin he took a ladder used by masons, left against the window 
 of Madame du Barry's dressing-room, and brought it across to the 
 ornamental pond. Some inner shutters fastening with brass hasps, 
 freshly settled by the upholsterer and left to be closed by the floor- 
 scrubber, were intact. It was only the outer blinds which were 
 smashed with a paving-stone. 
 
 239 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 public attention towards so much riches, the existence of 
 which had been unknown. It fixed on all the dead walls of 
 Paris this placard : " Two Thousand Louis to Gain : Dia- 
 monds Lost " this placard giving particulars of all the 
 stolen articles, which imprudently displayed before want, 
 before envy, before Revolution, the list and the fascination 
 of all these diamonds, all these sapphires, all these emeralds, 
 all these sardonyxes, all these engraved stones, these strings 
 of two hundred pearls, these brilliants with ten heads, 
 
 " However this may be, her conduct, in the position in which she 
 presents herself, is scarcely such as will gain her sympathy. The 
 said lady gave a very good salary to a Swiss soldier to serve as 
 door-keeper at Luciennes. The actual caretaker was a young man 
 of eighteen with a kindly and very honest face. On learning about 
 the removal of her jewels, the first step of the mistress of the cha- 
 teau was to drive in a carriage with four horses to the barracks 
 of the Swiss commander at Courbevois. She had no difficulty in 
 making him despatch to her house fifty grenadiers, who came at 
 once, but with regret, to take into custody the young Swiss, who 
 was generally esteemed and liked by all his comrades. He was con- 
 veyed to one of the prisons in Ruel, where orders were at the same 
 time given to put him in fetters in the darkest of the cells. 
 
 " We have all these facts from the lips of a Swiss from Courbe- 
 vois, a candid young man, who informs us at the same time that 
 all the prisoner's company, when freed from the restrictions of mili- 
 tary discipline, proposed to take the Dame du Barry aside and to 
 call upon her for a just reason for the violence exercised at her 
 entreaty on the person of a soldier at most only suspected. The 
 theft of the diamonds of Golconda would not justify this blow at 
 the rights of man and of the citizen; and, besides, is it an offence 
 sufficiently grave to be put in fetters on the mere suspicion of a 
 woman who is still proud of having been for a time the first courtesan 
 of the empire?" This Swiss confessed, a few days after, said the 
 " Feuille du Jour," that individuals whom he did not know had made 
 him drunk in a public house. 
 
 240 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 twenty heads, a Golconda inventory which the cupidity of 
 the passers-by spelled out at the street-corners. 1 
 
 And here we soon find the exaggerations of popular stu- 
 pidity unchained. . . . Rapacious ambitions, furious 
 and ill-concealed covetousness rise up everywhere around 
 the house, around this estate which sounds hollow under 
 the wooden shoe of the patriot and lets him guess what a 
 fortune lies hidden in its bowels this mine of gold coffee- 
 pots, sacks of double gold louis, porcelain jars mounted 
 with gold, bracelets of antique gold, washhand-basins and 
 water-pots of rock-crystal, gold cups with coral handles, 
 gold knives ornamented with diamonds, and statues and 
 miniatures. The prey was too beautiful not to tempt a Re- 
 public which had been accustomed to coin money in the 
 Place de la Revolution. 
 
 Finally this unfortunate theft led to Madame du Barry's 
 four journeys to England journeys which were destined 
 to get her accused of being an emigree, of being there on a 
 secret mission, of understandings with the enemies of the 
 Republic. 
 
 Thirty-five days after the theft of her jewels, February 
 1 5th, 1791, Madame du Barry received intelligence through 
 a courier from London to the effect that the thieves had 
 been arrested. 2 Madame du Barry, whose weak brain was 
 
 1 See in the Appendix the placard of Madame du Barry's lost 
 diamonds and trinkets. 
 
 1 Favrolle (Madame Guenard) thus describes their arrest from 
 the report of an English newspaper of February 20, 1791 : " When 
 they had reached London, five in number, and had put up at a tav- 
 ern in the city, these gentlemen asked for a single room, which 
 
 241 1 6 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 unhinged, and who, since her loss, had spent a good deal of 
 her time with fortune-tellers, started, in a state of wild de- 
 light, the day after 1 the lucky news reached her. She left 
 with Maussabre and D'Escourt, who were to accompany 
 her in her first three journeys. She took with her Prelry, 
 her valet, a man-servant named Marechal, and her cham- 
 bermaid, Roussel. She had the following letter despatched 
 to Morin, her confidential man : " The diamonds, my dear 
 Morin, have been found, and Madame la Comtesse is start- 
 ing to-morrow for Boulogne to go and identify them. 
 Forth has arrested the thieves, and has apprised Madame du 
 Barry of the fact. She entreats of you, my dear Morin, to 
 be doubly careful and to keep a watch around the chateau at 
 
 1 Note of Madame du Barry, preserved in her " Dossier." Na- 
 tional Archives, W 1 16. "I started the next day, the i6th (Feb- 
 ruary) ; I embarked at Boulogne on Sunday, the 2Oth, and remained 
 in London till the ist of March, when I left again for Luciennes, 
 where I arrived on Friday, the 4th." 
 
 seemed a surprising thing. They ordered a good dinner, and as 
 their equipage did not create a favourable impression, they said to 
 their host that their money had not yet been changed, but that next 
 day they would have an abundance of it. Having made this confi- 
 dential statement they went to the establishment of M. Simon, a rich 
 lapidary, and asked him for nearly one-sixth of the value of the jew- 
 els. The lapidary at first bought the portion of them which he had 
 for fifteen hundred pounds sterling. He inquired of these individ- 
 uals whether they had any more of them, and on getting an affirma- 
 tive answer, he went to give information about the matter to the 
 Lord Mayor. This magistrate got the entire gang arrested. A 
 search was made, and though they had hurriedly thrown the large 
 diamonds into the fire, the most important part of the stolen articles 
 is in safe custody. The person who acted as interpreter is an Eng- 
 lishman already well-known in connection with a great number of 
 
 robberies." 
 
 242 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 night." The diamonds had, in fact, been found. They were 
 shown to her. She identified them, declaring on oath that 
 they were her property. 
 
 But the legal proceedings were far from being terminated, 
 and, in place of bringing them away with her, she had to 
 leave her diamonds deposited with Messrs. Hamerleys and 
 Morland, bankers, sealed with her own and with the bank- 
 ers' seal. And the lady who had been robbed returned to 
 France, after this first journey undertaken too precipitately 
 and in too adventurous a spirit. 
 
 She set out again on the 4th of April, 1 bringing along 
 with her the jeweller Rouen, 2 and returned home on the 2ist 
 of May. In spite of her activity, in spite of the persons of 
 
 1 Note of Madame du Barry: "I left Paris on the 4th of April, 
 and arrived in London on the Qth. I remained there thirty-eight 
 days, that is to say, till the i8th of May, when I left for home. I 
 reached home on Saturday, the 21 st." 
 
 " Madame du Barry says in her secret examination that for her 
 three first journeys she had passports from the minister Montmorin. 
 Here is the passport for the second journey: 
 
 " IN THE KING'S NAME. 
 
 " To all officers, civil and military, charged with watching over and 
 maintaining public order in the different departments of the King- 
 dom, and to all others whom it may concern: Greeting. We com- 
 mand you and order that you have to let pass freely the Dame 
 du Barry going to London with the S. d'Escours, Knight of S., Rouen, 
 jeweller, two women and a valet and two couriers. Without placing 
 or allowing to be placed in her way any obstacle, the present pass- 
 port to be valid only for three months. LOUIS. 
 
 " Given at Paris, April 3rd, 1791." 
 
 Note of Madame du Barry. National Archives, W 9 16. " I have 
 been obliged to start for London again on Monday, the 23rd, having 
 received a communication on the night of my arrival informing me 
 
 243 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 great influence who interested themselves in the celebrated 
 woman, in spite of all the money she spent, her case, with 
 the tediousness of English legal procedure, did not finish. 
 The matter had, in reality, been clumsily initiated and more 
 clumsily conducted, as this tail-end of a letter dated June 
 3Oth, 1791, testifies: "I begin again to be convinced that 
 this business will be so costly that it will ruin the divinity. 
 It has been so badly conducted that one must not be aston- 
 ished if everything goes badly." 1 And the Du Barry came 
 back without her diamonds on the 25th of August, 1791. 
 
 During her stay in London, a letter of Madame du Barry, 
 relating to Luciennes and to the details of her home life, 
 paints for us the woman in her inconsistent nature, in her 
 light spirit, in her childish interest equally divided between 
 the most menacing and the most paltry things. We see her 
 occupying herself quite as much with her jams, which were 
 always too much cooked at her house, as with the precau- 
 tions that should be taken against the pillage of the rest of 
 her property. Here is an example in this letter addressed to 
 her confidential man, Morin: 2 
 
 1 The Du Barry " Dossier." National Archives, W'i6. 
 
 2 Morin had been for twenty-five years in the service of Ma- 
 dame. The son of a vinedresser from Auteuil, after having been 
 a servant to many ladies in Paris, he entered the Comte du Barry's 
 service by a mere chance on the 5th of June, 1768. Since that 
 time he had always been attached to the house of Madame du 
 Barry, in the capacity of a lackey for four years, and the rest of 
 the time in the capacity of a valet in the special service of Madame 
 du Barry. (Examination of Morin, on the 24th Frimaire. Year II. 
 December 14, 1793.) 
 
 that my presence was absolutely necessary in London, where I re- 
 mained till the 25th of August, when I returned/' 
 
 244 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " Morin will go to the Mayor, the Commander-in-Chief, 
 and the Justice of the Peace, to thank them on my behalf and 
 to tell them that I count on their zeal and their interest, that 
 I believe they will, in conjunction with my people, defend 
 what is left of my property if it should be attacked by 
 brigands. I flatter myself that we shall not be obliged to 
 come to this extremity and that peace and tranquility will 
 be restored. I am already rather unhappy at being sepa- 
 rated from my house, from my friends, and in a country, 
 whatever people may say, not as good as France before the 
 troubles which agitate it. 
 
 " I approve of Morin's plan for putting my effects beyond 
 the reach of thieves, and he is to consult the Duke about it. 
 But good care must be taken that nobody suspects it. 
 
 " I do not know why Maisieu 1 always wants to be a ridic- 
 ulous man, it is only by perfect agreement that we can 
 mutually serve each other, and render the efforts of the 
 wicked useless. 
 
 " I have given instructions to Piston to go to Luciennes 
 to assist Salenave in making the jams for the supplies of 
 my house. I do not know why he has not been there, for I 
 find that they are not well made in my house; they are al- 
 ways too much cooked. Morin will say to Mademoiselle 
 Roussel to put all my laces which are in the cupboard of the 
 chapel, into a trunk out of reach of any sort of attack, as 
 
 1 I have retained Madame du Barry's bad spelling of a well- 
 known w6rd in her own language. Unless she misspelled this 
 word through caprice, she here shows gross illiteracy. TRANS- 
 LATOR. 
 
 245 
 
Madame DM Barry 
 
 they are susceptible of being stolen or burnt. I hope that 
 we shall not be reduced to this sad extremity, but it is really 
 necessary to anticipate everything. I see with mortal pain 
 that I must still remain here up to the I4th of August, be- 
 cause the rascals who robbed me will not have their trial 
 finished before the end of this month. 
 
 " THE CTESSE DU BARRY. 
 "London, July 4th." 1 
 
 After Madame du Barry's return to France, the Legisla- 
 tive Assembly replaced the Constituent Assembly; the Na- 
 tional High Court entered upon its functions at Orleans; 
 the new mode of beheading prisoners sentenced to death, 
 called " Guillotine," 2 was adopted ; Brissac, the commander 
 of the King's military establishment, was ordered to be im- 
 peached ; the loth of August succeeded to the 2Oth of June ; 
 a National Convention was formed; the King and Royal 
 family were imprisoned in the Temple; the prisoners in the 
 Abbey were murdered; the Orleans prisoners were mas- 
 sacred ; and, what we have not yet said, Brissac's head was 
 flung on the table of the salon at Luciennes. 3 
 
 And when a portion of her lover's body was so ferociously 
 exhibited under her eyes, Madame du Barry had not enough 
 
 1 Signed autograph letter. The Du Barry "Dossier." National 
 Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 2 The guillotine was so called from Dr. Guillotin, a member of 
 the National Assembly, who introduced it as the swiftest and most 
 merciful mode of carrying the death punishment into effect. 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 3 Courrier Frangais, No. 259, September 15, 179*. 
 
 246 
 
PRINCESSE DE LAMBALLE 
 
 To face page 246 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of leisure to give herself up entirely to her grief. She was 
 forced to think of herself ; it was necessary for her to think 
 of defending her liberty, her life. She had to struggle 
 against the mistrusts and the suspicion and the espionage 
 which had for months been watc'hing the incessant goings 
 and comings, when Brissac was, day and night, either 
 galloping on his own horse, or making his aide-de-camp, 
 Maussabre, gallop on his horse towards Luciennes. The 
 growing unpopularity of Brissac had slowly and noiselessly 
 enveloped the mistress of the chateau. The Revolutionists 
 saw in Madame du Barry the accomplice of the aristocrat 
 who had recruited that Constitutional Guard of the King 
 with which he fondly hoped to fight the last battle of the 
 monarchy, so that, on the day when Brissac quitted Or- 
 leans to come to die at Versailles, this article appeared in 
 the Courrier Frangais, which made all Paris believe that 
 his mistress had been arrested and imprisoned : 
 
 " The justice of the people strikes equally the traitors who 
 conceal themselves behind gilded wainscotings. Madame 
 du Barry has been arrested at Luciennes, and has just been 
 brought to Paris. It has been noticed that this heroine of 
 the old regime was continually sending emissaries to Or- 
 leans. It was thought with reason that these frequent em- 
 bassies had some other object besides gallantry, to which 
 Madame du Barry must at length be quite a stranger. Mis- 
 tress and confidante of Brissac, she formerly shared his 
 treasures and his pleasures; she shares perhaps to-day his 
 counter-revolutionary ambition. 
 
 247 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " It will be fun for our young people to learn that 
 Madame du Barry was arrested almost at the very time that 
 the statue of La Pucelle was demolished at Orleans ; this ar- 
 rest was made on the night of the 3Oth or 3ist, at two o'clock 
 in the morning." 1 
 
 Madame du Barry sent her friends to carry on the cam- 
 paign, and D'Escourt wrote to her : 
 
 " I have found the editor of the Courrier Frangais, who 
 will retract to-morrow the falseness of the article which 
 refers to you ; I have promised him a recompense if the new 
 article is well done." 2 
 
 The Courrier Frangais did not contradict the statement 
 it had published, and Madame du Barry remained under the 
 impending stroke of the announcement which she was every 
 moment expecting to see realized. 
 
 During all these months of 1792 spent in France, Madame 
 du Barry's life is only one continual alarm, one succession 
 of violent deaths around her. To-day it is Brissac ; yester- 
 day it was Maussabre, who was torn away from the room 
 where she concealed him at Luciennes, and who said as he 
 was going that if they sent him to Paris he would be mas- 
 sacred* After the death of Maussabre and the death of 
 
 1 Courrier Frangais, No. 246, September 2, 1792. 
 
 3 Letter presumed to be from the Chevalier d'Escourt. Du Barry 
 " Dossier," National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 8 Here is the account of Maussabre s death as it is to be found in 
 " My Thirty-eight Hours' Agony," by Jourgniac Saint Meard : " The 
 Abbey, September 3rd. Eight o'clock in the evening. I had formed 
 a peculiarly close friendship with the Sieur Maussabre. who has only 
 been arrested because he had been M. de Brissac's aide-de-camp. He 
 
 248 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 D'Angremont,the first person guillotined during the Revolu- 
 tion and with whom she had had business relations, led to 
 her being summoned before the Committee of General 
 Safety of the Convention. She underwent an examination, 
 in which she answered in a way that satisfied the members 
 
 had frequently given proofs of courage; but the dread of being as- 
 sassinated had strained his heart. I succeeded, however, in some- 
 what dissipating his anxieties when he threw himself into my arms 
 saying: 'My friend, I am lost; I have just heard my name pro- 
 nounced in the street.' In vain did I say to him that perhaps the 
 persons he heard were interested in him ; that, moreover, fear would 
 cure nothing, and that, on the contrary, it might only destroy him. It 
 was all no use. He lost his head so that, not being able to conceal 
 himself in the chapel, he went up the chimney of the sacristy, 
 where he was stopped by gratings which he had even the folly to 
 try to break with his head. We asked him to come down ; 
 after many difficulties he came back to us; but his reason did 
 not come back. This is what caused his death, of which I will 
 speak in a moment. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 4. ONE O'CLOCK IN 
 THE MORNING. Jourgniac Saint Meard was led to the wicket, 
 lighted up by two torches, facing Maillard, who stood leaning 
 against a table on which we saw papers, a writing-desk, pipes 
 and bottles. They began to question him : " When the atten- 
 tion they showed in listening to me, and which, I confess I 
 did not expect, encouraged me, and I was going to make a resume 
 of the thousand reasons which caused me to prefer the Republican 
 regime to that of the Constitution, I was on the point of repeating 
 what I said every day in M. Desennes' shop, but at that moment 
 the door-keeper entered quite scared to give notice that a prisoner 
 had escaped through the window. The President said they should 
 have him fired at with pistols, but that, if he escaped, the jailer 
 would be answerable for his head. It was the unhappy Maussabre. 
 Some musket-shots were fired at him, and the jailer, seeing that 
 this device would not succeed, lighted some straw. The smoke 
 made him feel half stifled. He was despatched in front of the 
 wicket-gate. 
 
 249 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 of the first committee, in which there was still a little hu- 
 manity left. And the Abbe Fauchet who presided at the 
 Committee, struck with pity for the woman, said to her that 
 it was dangerous to have her name found compromised 
 in the examination of this villain, and, with the assent of his 
 colleagues he took up a pen, and erased in her presence 
 a few lines of D'Angremont's deposition. 1 
 
 1 Manuscript Deposition of Blache, the eighth made which does 
 not mention the oral deposition before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
 Du Barry's "Dossier," Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 250 
 
XV. 
 
 Letter of Madame du Barry to Lebrun with Reference to her Four 
 Journeys to London. Dinner in London with the Due de Choiseul. 
 Seals put on Luciennes, during her Absence. Greive, Factionist and 
 Anarchist of the First Order, and Disorganizer of Despotism in the 
 Two Hemispheres. His Denunciation of Madame du Barry, whose 
 Arrest is suspended by Boileau. Greive's Address to the Convention. 
 Arrest of Madame du Barry, who is released a few days later. 
 Letter full of Hysterical grief from Madame du Barry to the Ad- 
 ministrators of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Tenderness of the 
 Republican Lavallery. Last Amours of Madame du Barry with 
 Rohan-Rochefort. 
 
 THREE journeys to England had not yet restored the pos- 
 session of her diamonds to Madame du Barry. She was 
 obliged to return for the fourth time to London in the 
 month of October, 1792. 1 In the gravity of the circum- 
 stances and under the weight of the suspicions of which she 
 was the object, Madame du Barry took every precaution 
 against letting herself be disturbed, all the guarantees 
 
 1 Note of Madame du Barry on her fourth journey: " Since that 
 time (August 25, 1792) I remained at Luciennes till October 14, 1792, 
 when I set out again for London armed with passports and letters 
 from the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I arrived there on the 22nd, 
 and my case having been finished on February 27th last, the closing 
 da}' of the sitting of the Court, I hastened back from London on 
 March 3, and arrived on the $th at Calais, where I was kept till the 
 i8th, awaiting new passports from the executive power, as is proved 
 by my passport from the municipality of Calais and the certificate of 
 my residence there." 
 
 251 
 
Madame Dm Barry 
 
 against the accusation of being an emigree. She had ob- 
 tained a regular passport from Lebrun, but she did not con- 
 sider it sufficiently explanatory, and addressed to him this 
 letter : 
 
 " I have received, Monsieur, the letter which you have 
 done me the honour to write to me, and my passports. I 
 am sensibly touched by the care you have taken to have 
 them authenticated. But as there is no mention in your 
 letter, or in my passport, of my journey to London, where 
 my presence is necessitated by my wretched case, I fear I 
 may experience difficulties in my passage, and, besides, my 
 municipality, not seeing me authorized to travel in foreign 
 countries, may look upon me as being an emigree, and may 
 put the seals on my house. I venture, therefore, to hope, 
 monsieur, from your obliging disposition and the desire you 
 have testified to be useful to me, that you will be kind 
 enough to enlighten me on this subject. I believe that one 
 word from you might remove all difficulties and save me 
 from the unpleasantnesses to which I am liable to be sub- 
 jected. 
 
 " I beg of you, monsieur, to be convinced of the lively 
 gratitude with which I have the honour to be, 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant. 
 
 " Du BARRY. 
 
 " Luciennes, this 6th of October." 1 
 
 The minister, Lebrun, seems to have written for her the 
 
 1 Du Barry's " Dossier/' National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 252 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 line which she asked him for. 1 Then Madame du Barry in- 
 formed the municipality of Luciennes that she was not 
 abandoning her country, and in this letter in which the poor 
 woman seeks to humour the terrible Sans-culottes of the lo- 
 cality, she gives her word of honour to return to France : 
 
 " Since I have had the honour of living under your eyes, 
 you have been kind enough, messieurs, to recognize that on 
 every occasion I have given pledges of my civism and of 
 my respect for the laws. I flatter myself that, in the same 
 spirit of justice, you will be so good as to accept also the 
 present declaration by which I do not go across to England 
 to abandon my country and my ordinary residence, but that 
 I am compelled to go to London to finish there a case on 
 which depends the recovery of precious articles, which you 
 know have been stolen from me, and which compose the 
 principal part of my fortune, as the only security that my 
 creditors have. I declare at the same time that I give a 
 solemn undertaking to re-enter France as soon as my case 
 
 1 A note from Greive, in Madame du Barry's " Dossier," says that 
 in her last journeys Madame du Barry asked for passports from 
 Lebrun, who refused them; that she then made an application to 
 the municipality of Luciennes and the Department of Versailles. 
 Greive either deceived himself or lied. Madame du Barry's letter 
 to Lebrun attests that she had a regular passport from Lebrun, and 
 as for the line mentioning her journey to England, the deliberation 
 of the municipality which took place on the 8th of October appears 
 to acknowledge the receipt of this second letter. It is true, however, 
 that she says in her secret examination: "As for the fourth, I 
 have a passport from the municipality of Luciennes which has been 
 officially authenticated by the administration of Seine-et-Oise." 
 
 253 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 is finished." * This was not enough still. Not at all tran- 
 quillised by this declaration, owing to the decree made by 
 the municipality of Luciennes on October 8th, after her ap- 
 pearance before the official authorities the previous day, 2 
 she addressed the undertaking she had made to the munici- 
 pality to the President of the Convention : 
 
 " Monsieur le President, A theft which, twenty months 
 ago, carried off my precious effects, and the only security 
 that my creditors have, has occasioned legal proceedings in 
 England, for which I have been obliged to make two very 
 expensive journeys. I see myself forced to make a 
 third on the intimation conveyed to me that the case is 
 bound to be concluded this month, and that under the pen- 
 alty of being fined for default of appearance and of being 
 at the loss of the heavy sum I have expended in costs, it 
 is absolutely necessary for me to go to London. I have the 
 
 1 Du Barry " Dossier," National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 a " This day, October 7, 1792, the Year I. of the French Republic, 
 there appeared before us, municipal officers of the commune of Lu- 
 ciennes, district of Versailles, department of Seine-et-Oise, Dame 
 Vaubernier du Barry, a resident in the locality, who has declared 
 to us that, being obliged to go to London to be present at the convic- 
 tion of thieves, who on the night of the loth or nth of January, 
 1791, had stolen her jewels in her chateau of Luciennes, she has 
 made a declaration to us in order that she may not be regarded as 
 an emigree, or during her absence be treated as such by any con- 
 stituted authority, for which declaration she has requested us for a 
 certificate, which we have granted, in view of the letter of M. Le- 
 brun, Minister of Foreign Affairs, dated the 2d inst, which remains 
 annexed at the present minute, and the aforesaid Dame du Barry has 
 signed with us the same day and year as above. Good as a copy 
 compared with the original, October 8, 1792." Madame du Barry, 
 through Le Roi, Versailles, 1858. 
 
 254 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 honour to assure you, Monsieur le President, that my in- 
 tention is not at all to abandon my country, where I leave 
 all the property that is left to me, but, on the contrary, I give 
 a solemn undertaking to return to my residence at Lu- 
 ciennes as soon as my case is ended. I have in the same 
 way made this undertaking before my municipality, on the 
 part of whom I am well assured that I have only to wait 
 for attestations which will be favourable to me. 
 
 " I am with respect/' 1 
 
 Madame du Barry started " by the Calais diligence like 
 a genuine Sans-culotte," accompanied in this last voyage by 
 Labondie, D'Escourt's nephew. She thought her case 
 would be terminated in a few weeks, but the proceedings 
 dragged on for months. 2 During her sojourn abroad, 
 events hurried on in France to a tragic phase; Louis XVI. 
 was executed, and the guillotine threatened all the sus- 
 pects. Had the journeys of Madame du Barry, this last 
 sojourn in London, a political object, as Greive and Fou- 
 quier-Tinville wished to have it believed? Did Madame 
 du Barry give her services to a plan, a party, to political 
 aspirations ? The woman's levity scarcely permitted of such 
 an assumption. All her crimes against the Revolution were 
 probably loans to emigres, pecuniary services, generous 
 charities, acts of pity similar to those which had so quickly 
 changed the heart of the former Du Barry towards the 
 Queen. 
 
 In this journey, the Favourite who had overthrown Choi- 
 
 Du Barry "Dossier," National Archives, W 1 16. 
 8 Her case was not completely disposed of till Feb. 28, 1793. 
 
 255 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 seul found herself once at dinner at the house of the 
 banker Thelusson, beside the minister's nephew, who had 
 been anxious, through curiosity, to make her acquaintance. 
 During this dinner, at which she showed great amiability 
 towards her neighbour, she talked to him for a long time 
 about his uncle, deploring the advice which she had fol- 
 lowed, making him the avowal with a grace which the Duke 
 recognized as part of that real coquetry which she had, for 
 a moment, exercised over the minister, but which was 
 quickly killed by the cold dignity of Madame de Pompa- 
 dour's former lover. In the high society with which she 
 mixed, she several times saw Pitt, who gave her the medal 
 struck in his honour, which was to be so fatal to her. The 
 English minister urged her to remain in England, not to 
 attempt at the moment to go back to France, and, when she 
 spoke to him about her engagements of honour, he pre- 
 dicted for the beautiful and imprudent creature the doom 
 of Regulus. 
 
 In reality Madame du Barry would have easily forgotten 
 her engagements towards the municipality of Luciennes and 
 the President of the Convention if she could have taken her 
 means with her; but she was driven to return to France by 
 the feeling of a proprietress, by the attachment she naturally 
 felt for all those riches with which the little palace was 
 stored. And her return, in those perilous times, was per- 
 haps only brought about by the news of the setting of the 
 seals on the i6th of February, 1793.* 
 
 1 Note of Greive in Madame du Barry's " Dossier " : " She did 
 not return to France till after the news of the fixing of the seals 
 
 256 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 On resuming possession of her property, when the seals 
 had been removed from Luciennes, 1 Madame du Barry 
 found around her a terribly menacing state of affairs and an 
 alarming condition of things in the country. There had 
 come into the village an adventurer named Greive, a man 
 half English, half French, describing himself as a man of 
 
 1 " Citizens, Administrators. The citizeness Jeanne de Vaubernier 
 du Barry is astonished that after all the promises that she has fur- 
 nished you of showing the reasons which have compelled her to go 
 to England, you have treated her as an emigree. Before her de- 
 parture she communicated to you the declaration that she had made 
 to her municipality; you have it registered in your offices. You 
 know that it is the fourth journey she has been obliged to make for 
 the same motive. She hopes that you will be good enough to re- 
 move the seals which have been affixed to her house, contrary to 
 
 on her house. An unquestionable fact. Her passport from Lebrun 
 was but for six weeks, and she remained there five months." 
 The verification of the fact alleged by Greive is not possible; 
 Lebrun's passport does not exist in Madame du Barry's "Dos- 
 sier." Here is the document which led to the attachment of the 
 seals; it was a letter from the Procureur-General Syndic of the 
 district of Versailles, addressed to the administrators of the district 
 and expressed in these terms: 
 
 "The woman Dubarry, proprietress at Luciennes, left France by 
 means of a passport in the beginning of 1792, to prosecute in Eng- 
 land the perpetrators of a very considerable theft which took place 
 in her house. 
 
 " The doubt inspired as to this prosecution by the lapse of time and 
 by the ignorance as to her effects has necessarily given rise to un- 
 certainty. 
 
 "In this state of affairs the administration has thought it right 
 to take conservative measures, as to this woman's property, in order 
 to secure at the same time her rights and those of the nation. 
 
 "It authorizes me, in consequence, to invite you to affix the seals 
 on the house of the woman Du Barry at Luciennes, to appoint a 
 
 257 17 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 letters, and styling himself " official defender of the brave 
 Sans-culottes of Luciennes, friend of Franklin and of Marat, 
 a factionist and anarchist of the first order, and disorgan- 
 izer of despotism in two hemispheres." * He had organized 
 a club in this quiet spot, and had already secured by one of 
 his motions, the affixing of the seals on Luciennes. The re- 
 
 1 It is thus that Greive signs his very rare pamphlet bearing the 
 title of " Equality falsely Contrived, or Little History of the Protec- 
 tion containing the documents relating to the arrest of the Du Barry, 
 formerly mistress of Louis XV., to serve as an example to Patriots 
 who are too ardent, and wish to save the Republic and to the Mod- 
 erates who understood marvellously how to destroy it. As it is dif- 
 ficult to do good, . . ." (" Pere Duchesne.") 
 
 all justice, since the law has never forbidden those who are com- 
 pelled to go to a foreign country by private and pressing affairs 
 to leave the kingdom. All France has learned about the theft 
 which took place on the night of the loth or nth of January; 
 that the thieves have been arrested in London, that legal proceed- 
 ings followed, which were not ended till February 28 last, the 
 annexed certificate attests." 
 
 guardian over it, and to address to him the record which will be 
 prepared for the occasion. 
 
 " You will be good enough, citizens, to hurry with this operation, 
 and to let me know about it as soon as it is done." 
 
 Two days later the members of the directory of the district re- 
 sponded with this resolution: 
 
 " Having regard to the letter of the Procureur-General Syndic, the 
 directory of the district has appointed the citizen Brunette, one of its 
 members, to proceed, in the presence of two officers of the com- 
 mune of Luciennes, to affix the seals on all the furniture, title-deeds 
 and effects of the woman Du Barry, and to procure for the preserva- 
 tion of the said seals one or two solvent keepers. . . . Made at Ver- 
 sailles, October 16, 1793." (Archives of the Seine-et-Oise, document 
 cited by Le Roi in "Madame du Barry.") 
 
 258 
 
MARAT 
 
 To face page 258 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 turn from London of Madame du Barry, upsetting perhaps 
 his plans and his speculations with regard to the gold mine 
 of Luciennes, made him more enraged against the proprie- 
 tress of the chateau, as to the interior and the occupants of 
 which he had the most minute information through the 
 malignity and the perfidy of the butler, Salenave, and the 
 negro Zamore ; for those two servants of the chateau already 
 formed part of the popular club of Luciennes composed of 
 forty of the inhabitants. 
 
 Madame du Barry, as soon as she was reinstalled in her 
 own house, turned out of doors Salenave, whom she caught 
 stealing her chinaware. Greive, reinforced by the alliance 
 of the dismissed man-servant, who boldly declared himself 
 the open enemy of his former mistress, and presently sus- 
 tained by a certain Blache, who, under the mask of a pro- 
 fessor of French in England, had played the spy on Madame 
 du Barry in London, and who had been entrusted with a 
 mission of surveillance in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 
 Greive and these two men, taking advantage of the law 
 passed on the 2nd of June, ordering the authorities through 
 the entire length and breadth of the Republic to have all 
 persons notoriously suspected of aristocracy and want of 
 civic virtue seized and arrested, had an address to the ad- 
 ministrators drawn up by the club of Luciennes. This ad- 
 dress, for the preparation of which Greive had chosen the 
 day of the news of La Fleche having been taken by the Roy- 
 alist army, marked out the departments of Seine-et-Oise, 
 Mantes, Ruel, Bellevue, Meudon, Saint-Cloud, Suresne, 
 
 259 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Bougival, and Marly, as filled with male and female mis- 
 creants who held forth their hands towards the insurrection 
 which overflowed into the department of Eure-et-Loire 
 after the defeat of the Republicans at Saumur. It showed 
 a chain of aristocrats of both sexes along the Seine ready 
 to draw together the Seine and the Loire in a Royalist con- 
 spiracy. In this address, dated June 26th, 1793, the good 
 citizens of Luciennes, with the object of awakening the 
 paternal interest of the administrators in the perils of the 
 country and on the best measures to take, asked them to get 
 the terrible decree passed by the Convention on the 2nd of 
 June proclaimed. 
 
 The deputation, headed by Greive, Blache, and Salenave, 
 after having obtained from the administrators a correct copy 
 of the law of the 2nd of June, immediately convoked the 
 Commune for the purpose of proceeding to the formation of 
 a list of persons to be arrested; and the name of Madame 
 du Barry was put forward on the list. 
 
 Madame du Barry, having been informed of what had 
 happened, despatched Morin, her valet, with Labondie, who 
 had been arrested in her house a fortnight before, to plead 
 her cause with the members of the head-government. 
 Greive, and with him the mayor and the municipal officers 
 whom he had led in his train, were already at the chateau 
 on the 27th of June, and were on the point of arresting 
 Madame du Barry when Citizen Boileau, a member of the 
 district, arrived. Boileau thereupon called for a meeting of 
 the municipality, reprimanded it for having precipitated the 
 
 260 
 
Madame D\* Barry 
 
 execution of a law which was to be sent with restrictions 
 and modifications, and reinstalled Madame du Barry in her 
 house. 
 
 Greive was not discouraged. He drew up another ad- 
 dress and got it filled with signatures; and on the 3rd of 
 July he led the mayor and the municipal councillors to the 
 bar of the Convention to read there this new address, dated 
 the ist of July, 1793, the year II. of the Republic. "The 
 brave Sans-culottes of Luciennes," Greive said, " felicitated 
 the Convention on the wise, benevolent, and popular decrees 
 passed since the immortal insurrection of the 3ist of May. 
 .... These decrees had renewed the sacred fire ready 
 to be extinguished under the ice of moderation. The Sans- 
 culottes of Luciennes had just commenced their operations 
 with the arrest of a woman who had been able, in spite of 
 relations notoriously opposed to citizenship, by her riches 
 and her caresses, which she had learned at the court of a 
 weak and dissolute tyrant, to escape from the Declaration of 
 the Rights of Man ; of a woman who had made her chateau 
 the centre of liberticidal schemes against Paris, commenced 
 by Brissac, and continued by the aristocrats of every colour 
 with whom she was in perpetual correspondence ; of a woman 
 who by her luxury insulted the sufferings of the unhappy 
 women whose husbands, fathers, brothers, and children shed 
 their blood for equality in our armies " of the Du Barry, in 
 short, whose arrest was indispensable " in order to destroy 
 the vestiges of a false grandeur which fascinated the eyes 
 of the good and simple inhabitants of the country and to 
 
 261 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 put in practice the disregarded principles of equality. 1 The 
 brave Sans-culottes finished by asking for the printing of 
 their adress " in order to give an impetus to the other com- 
 munes of the department." 
 
 Having /ead his address, Greive, with skilful perfidy, 
 thanked the representative citizens for the decree passed 
 the evening before, a decree which, by prescribing that 
 decrees should be sent directly to the communes, took away 
 from the head-government the means of paralyzing their 
 measures, and put the people into immediate communication 
 with their representatives. 
 
 The President of the Convention, Thuriot, replied: 
 " The National Convention applauds the fresh proofs 
 which the commune of Luciennes has just given of its 
 patriotism, so well recognized since the commencement of 
 the Revolution, and which it manifests at this moment by 
 putting into execution the law of the 2d of June with re- 
 gard to a woman too long notorious for the misfortune of 
 France. The charges which you have just made against 
 her are too grave ; be sure that, if they are proved, her head 
 will fall on the scaffold." 2 Strengthened by the approbation 
 of the Convention, Greive and his friends arrested Madame 
 du Barry, and conducted her to Versailles so that she 
 might be incarcerated in the prison of the department. 
 Goujon, the Procureur-Syndic, inveighed against them, 
 
 1 " Equality falsely contrived, or Little History of Protection, con- 
 taining the Documents relating to the Arrest of the Du Barry." 
 8 Ibid. 
 
 262 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 declared that the arrest was opposed to the wishes of the 
 inhabitants of Luciennes and that the allegations against 
 Madame du Barry were exaggerated and destitute of proof, 
 complained bitterly of the despotism exercised by the club of 
 Luciennes on the neighbouring communes, and ended with 
 threats and with the declaration that he would make them 
 tremble; but all in vain. 1 The Club and Grieve had the 
 best of it; and Madame du Barry, her niece, Madame de 
 Boissaisson, wife of an emigre, and her servants, notoriously 
 suspected of aristocracy and lack of civic virtue, remained 
 under lock and key. 
 
 Meanwhile, Madame du Barry, having got information as 
 to the charges made against her, got a counter-address 
 drawn up, and soon had it covered with the signatures of all 
 the inhabitants of Luciennes hostile to the club. The peti- 
 tion, presented on the 6th of July, was addressed to the 
 Committee of Public Safety, which, after having deliberated 
 upon it, acceded to the request of Madame du Barry and 
 sent her before the department, which decreed that she 
 should be set at liberty. Madame du Barry was once more 
 saved. In her delight at regaining her liberty, she wrote 
 to a member of the Committee of General Safety: 
 
 " I was well persuaded, monsieur, that my cause being in 
 your hands, I should obtain the justice which was due to me. 
 I waited with much impatience for the termination of the 
 
 1 It was Goujon who, having been condemned by a military com- 
 mission on the 20th of May, 1795, stabbed himself while descending 
 the staircase of his prison. 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 incident to thank you fully. M. de la Bondie has not left 
 me in ignorance of the zeal with which you have embraced 
 my defence. I should consider myself very happy if ever 
 I should find opportunities to testify my gratitude to 
 you. To-day that you are no longer my judge and that I 
 have no longer to fear being suspected of having captured 
 your suffrage, I hope that you will be kind enough to 
 furnish me with occasions of making your acquaintance and 
 thanking you by word of mouth. If the place where I live 
 can excite your curiosity, I shall have real pleasure in re- 
 ceiving you there. I should always find it a genuine boon 
 to converse with you about my gratitude and the sentiments 
 with which . . . ." 1 Greive was not a man to let go his 
 victim. He wrote this pamphlet, which he published on the 
 
 1 Madame du Barry's " Dossier " contains a copy of this letter, at 
 the head of which we read : 
 
 " Letter written, as far as it appears, to some member of the Com- 
 mittee of General Safety of the Convention, after that Committee 
 had the guilty complaisance to send her back to her friends and 
 protectors, the administrators of Versailles, after her first arrest by 
 the Sans-culottes, in the beginning of the month of July. La Bondie 
 is nephew of the person who was formerly Chevalier D'Escourt, 
 Equerry of Brissac, and is now imprisoned in La Force. La Bondie, 
 who was formerly Chevalier, and who is suspected of being an 
 emigre, is from Cahors, where his goods were seized. He was one 
 of the frequenters of the chateau and an impudent aristocrat. It 
 was he who intrigued with the Committee on her behalf. He must be 
 in prison; if not, he is staying in the Hotel de Suede or the Hotel 
 du Bouloi." At the back of the letter we read: "This letter was 
 addressed to Delainville, whose residence she pretends not to know. 
 This Delainville was her official defender with the ex-Committee of 
 Safety. It is supposed that this letter was written to Bazire or to 
 Alquier, or to Julien of Toulouse." In a note in "L'J&galite Con- 
 
 264 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 3 ist of July, 1793. The " disorganizer of despotism in two 
 hemispheres " said in this pamphlet : "If the patriots of 
 Luciennes have appeared to give importance to this woman 
 in the address which they made to the National Convention, 
 this too great celebrity is only due to the intervention, as 
 singular as it is unbecoming, of certain administrators, to 
 the more than ordinary activity with which one of them has 
 flown to the Comtesse, to ward off the blows that menaced 
 her half -sacred head. It was in order to make other admin- 
 istrators who would be tempted to intervene between her and 
 the execution of the law feel ashamed that they have 
 thought fit to submit to the entire nation a small number of 
 petty details to prove that the suspicions of aristocracy 
 and lack of civism falling on her, if not known through the 
 misfortune of the administrators of Versailles, are at least 
 of a sufficiently great notoriety in the place where she lives. 
 It is in order to tranquillize the difficult consciences of the 
 adorers of great names that the Sans-culottes of Luciennes 
 are good enough to declare that in the step they have taken 
 they have had no object but the welfare of their country, 
 and that in asking for the decree of the 2d of June from 
 
 trouvee " Greive says : " This shameless woman has had the au- 
 dacity to get up an address to the Convention signed by herself and 
 by her official defender, Delainville, where she treats as defamatory 
 libels the facts put forward against her, where she represents her- 
 self as a phoenix of patriotism, where she pretends to have broken 
 off her liaisons with her old friends since the Revolution. . . . 
 What impudence. . . ." 
 
Madame IXi Barry 
 
 the department of Seine-et-Oise, far from any personal feel- 
 ing and from having ill-will against the former distributress 
 of the graces and favours of the Court, they have regarded 
 her with the same eye as her chambermaid, with the differ- 
 ence only that she has an income of fifty thousand crowns, 
 and that they have exhibited the same firmness against 
 Gouy, her concierge, Pretry, her private councillor, Morin, 
 her political go-between with the constituted authorities, 
 and the surgeon Devray." Then followed the reproduction 
 of the Addresses at the Convention, the President's reply 
 a sort of history of the prosecution which he carried on 
 against Madame du Barry, poisoned with deadly notes, de- 
 nunciations by persons in her service, conversations re- 
 ported, words like those which Greive put into the mouth of 
 the Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort, reproaching Madame du 
 Barry quite recently with living too well and not sending 
 her superfluities to the Vendeans. 1 
 
 Madame du Barry soon learned about this pamphlet. 
 She was astonished at the minute information about her 
 contained in it, which could only have been given to Greive 
 by some servants of her household. Instinctively, and with 
 the first impulse, her suspicions fastened on Zamore, that 
 
 1 On a manuscript note of Greive in the " Dossier " of the Du 
 Barry we read: "Lastly, the representation made by the woman 
 Rohan-Rochefort that her table was splendid, that it would have 
 been better to diminish it in order to furnish succour to the volun- 
 teers of La Vendee, to which the Du Barry replied, ' Drink, drink ! ' 
 with a disdainful air, as if she did not think them worth bothering 
 about." 
 
 266 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 negro, of whom the Revolution had made a man and of 
 whom treason was going to make a citizen. She knew the 
 ideas that he had adopted. She remembered that he alone 
 amongst her servants had not been arrested when she was 
 brought to Versailles. It was he-, this Zamore, on whom 
 she had heaped favours, who had been held over the bap- 
 tismal font by Madame du Barry and the Prince de Conti, 
 who sold to Greive the secrets of Luciennes. Madame du 
 Barry dismissed him immediately, she freed her house of a 
 spy ; she believed that she had banished an ingrate for ever 
 from her sight. But Zamore was destined to appear once 
 again and for the last time in Madame du Barry's life at 
 the Revolutionary Tribunal! 
 
 The club was becoming more menacing to the chateau, 
 more furious and more declamatory against Madame du 
 Barry. What months were those seven months passed by 
 the proprietress of Luciennes with Greive's club at her 
 door! 
 
 Every hour it was necessary to defend herself against im- 
 prisonment, against death. Madame du Barry escaped one 
 denunciation only to be exposed some days later to another 
 denunciation. She only left the prisons of Versailles to be 
 menaced by the prisons of Paris. Then, the unhappy 
 woman, as if she were distracted, wrote this letter: 
 
 " To the Citizens, Administrators of the Department of 
 Versailles. 
 
 " Hitherto, citizens, some agitators have made vain ef- 
 forts to disturb my tranquillity. I had to oppose to them my 
 
 267 
 
Madame Du. Barry 
 
 conscience and your equity, well convinced that I had in it 
 an assured rampart against their malevolence. They have 
 devised other means of tormenting me. But they will be 
 powerless since my cause is submitted to you. 
 
 " When I had only to repel a denunciation, the knowledge 
 of which the law attributes to you, and which it appears can- 
 not go beyond your jurisdiction or have any other issue after 
 your decision, I did not think I ought to have added en- 
 treaties to my petition or turn aside your attention from 
 important objects in order to fix itself on a matter which 
 was personal to me. But to-day the denunciation has as- 
 sumed a character of gravity and of publicity which im- 
 poses on me the duty of promptly repelling the calumny. 
 The malignity of my denouncers has reached such a point 
 that I have everything to fear from them. I am, therefore, 
 placed in a position that compels me to solicit from your zeal 
 the promptest execution. I venture to add, citizens, that 
 humanity makes this your duty. ... I do not want to 
 waste your time by explaining to you all my motives for 
 fear. I shall impart it to the commissary whom you deem 
 fit to appoint, and who will make you understand in his re- 
 port that I have deserved to have you come to my aid." * 
 
 The citizen Lavallery was sent to Luciennes, and he per- 
 suaded Madame du Barry to withdraw to Versailles under 
 the eyes and under the immediate protection of the depart- 
 ment. Madame du Barry confessed to him that all her for- 
 tune, consisting of cash, jewels, and plate, was concealed in 
 
 1 Madame du Barry's "Dossier," National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 268 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 different parts of her house, that the members of the club 
 knew it through Salenave, through Zamore, through her 
 chambermaid, the Widow Cottet, who gave information as 
 to everything about the house, and that her departure 
 would expose Luciennes to the avi<dity of the gang, to the 
 domiciliary visits and the rummagings of all these men, the 
 municipal officers on the one hand, and the National Guards 
 on the other. Nevertheless, on the following day, Madame 
 du Barry changed her mind, and made preparations to go 
 to Versailles j 1 but on the day after Lavallery's visit, the club 
 of Luciennes held a meeting and decreed that a deputation 
 should be sent to Versailles to denounce Madame du Barry 
 there beforehand to the Revolutionary Committee of the 
 commune. 
 
 At the same time, Blache, in his capacity of agent of the 
 Committee of General Safety, was to denounce her anew in 
 Paris to the Committee, whose members had been renewed. 
 The deputation from Luciennes, having reached Versailles, 
 agreed with the Revolutionary Committee of the city that a 
 petition should be made to the Committee of General Safety 
 in order to obtain an extension of powers, which would pre- 
 vent the department from mixing itself up in the arrest of 
 
 1 One day as she was getting ready to start for Versailles, a 
 woman named Renaut came and asked with screams and vocifera- 
 tions if Madame du Barry was really quitting Luciennes, and, as 
 "La Renaut" heard Madame du Barry asking a chambermaid who 
 was the person who was making so much noise, she flung at the pro- 
 prietress of the chateau this answer: "It is a woman who was in 
 this country before you, and who will be there after you, do you 
 understand ? " 
 
 269 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Madame du Barry. It was, moreover, agreed that three 
 members of the department should be denounced, amongst 
 whom was Lavallery, the avowed protector of Madame du 
 Barry. 1 
 
 In the midst of this life of mortal anxieties Madame du 
 Barry continued, however, to love. Like those illustrious 
 prisoners of the Luxembourg prison, who distracted their 
 thoughts from the contemplation of the scaffold by the ten- 
 der occupations of their hearts, the mistress of Luciennes 
 escaped every moment the menacing present by means of 
 what the age called " instants of happiness/' Another suc- 
 ceeded to Brissac, another who idolized this woman of fifty 
 with the passionate tenderness of the defunct old Duke. 
 
 1 In fact Lavallery had become her correspondent, her devoted 
 protector, and in all her difficulties the Comtesse addressed herself 
 to the humanity of the Republican, who was touched by the woman's 
 beauty and grace. Here is a letter addressed to Lavallery, which 
 forms a portion of Madame du Barry's "Dossier": "I have just 
 learned, citizen, that the Minister of Foreign Affair?, in sending on 
 to the administration of the department the translation of the cer- 
 tificates which were delivered to me in London, had drawn attention 
 to the fact that he had not seen without astonishment that in these 
 documents the title of Comtesse had been given to me. I am no less 
 astonished than he, and if I had known of the form in which these 
 certificates were sent to me, I should certainly not have allowed 
 to subsist a title which offends the laws of my country, to which I 
 will remain invariably attached. I have no knowledge of the English 
 language. I had to trust myself to an Englishman to conduct the 
 prosecution on my behalf, and this inadvertence might easily have 
 escaped his attention since he had previously known me under that 
 title; and it was under this title, which was not then prohibited, 
 that he began and continued the legal proceedings which he was 
 employed to conduct on my behalf." 
 
 270 
 
LE DUG D'ANGOULEME 
 
 To face page 270 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Truly, we must say it here, there is something inexplicable 
 in the charm which did not cease with age, the fascination of 
 this creature of love, the absolute sway she exercises over 
 the lover, and the tone of respectful and grateful adoration 
 of the letters which at the same time implore and thank the 
 divinity. During this liaison between Madame du Barry 
 and the Prince de Rohan-Rochefort, generated perhaps by 
 the tears poured out by them together over the death of 
 Brissac, it happened one day that the happy living one who 
 had taken the place of the dead was called upon to choose 
 a portrait of Madame du Barry amongst those which the 
 Duke had given orders to Madame Lebrun to do of his mis- 
 tress. And the entire story of this last love of Madame 
 du Barry is given and told us in this letter, so full of attach- 
 ment toward the woman and her image, in this letter which 
 preceded only by a fortnight the arrest of Louis XV/s 
 Favourite : 
 
 :i This Saturday, September 7th, 1793. 
 " I send you, my dear and tender friend, the picture which 
 you desired to have, sad and fatal present, 1 but which I feel 
 quite as much as you can yourself that you ought to desire 
 to have. In such a situation as ours, with so many sub- 
 jects for pain and unhappiness, it is some nourishment for 
 our melancholy which we seek and which suits us beyond 
 all else. 
 
 1 Doubtless a portrait of Brissac. This letter, which had already 
 been repubiished with some abridgements by Madame Guenard, 
 has been repubiished by M. Dauban, as one never before published. 
 
 271 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 " I have had a search made for the three portraits of you 
 which were in his possession. They are here. I have kept 
 one of the little portraits. It is the original of her who wears 
 a chemise or white dressing-gown with a feathered hat on 
 her head. 1 The second is a copy, with the head finished, 
 but the dress only printed in rough outline. Neither of 
 them is framed. The large picture by Madame Lebrun 
 is charming and bears a ravishing likeness to the original ; 
 it is a speaking picture with an infinite sweetness of ex- 
 pression; but truly I thought it would be indiscreet to 
 choose it, and the one I am keeping is so agreeable, so life- 
 like and so piquant that I am extremely content with it and 
 transported with happiness at possessing it. The portrait 
 commenced by Letellier is only a pencil-sketch, and the pic- 
 ture is hardly more than a rough draft which might become 
 a good likeness. 
 
 "As for your large portrait and the one I am keeping, 
 tell me, my dear friend, whether you wish me to send them 
 or whether I ought to have them brought back to where they 
 were, in short, what destination you think best for them. 
 I desire nothing more than to have one of them which I can 
 wear about me, and which will never leave me. Come, 
 then, dear love, to spend ten days here. Come and dine at 
 my house with whomsoever you choose. Come and give me 
 some instants of happiness there is none without you. 
 Reply about everything I have asked you to tell me. Come 
 
 1 Madame Lebrun says it is a portrait which she painted for the 
 Due de Brissac. 
 
 272 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 to see a mortal who loves you beyond everything up to the 
 last moment of his life. I kiss a thousand times the por- 
 trait of the most charming woman in the world, whose 
 heart is so good and so noble that it merits an eternal at- 
 tachment." 1 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals. The Du Barry's "Dossier," National 
 Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 273 1 8 
 
XVI. 
 
 Definitive Arrest of Madame du Barry : She is confined in Sainte- 
 Pelagie. The Anecdote about Madame de Mortemart. Heron de- 
 nouncing the Vandenyvers, the ex-Favourite's Bankers. Greive's 
 Annotations on the Papers seized. The Preparation of the Heads 
 of the Indictment by Greive. The List of Necessary Witnesses 
 drawn up by Greive. Transfer of the Accused to the Conciergerie. 
 
 A NEW petition had been drawn up by Greive, signed by 
 the members of the Committee of Versailles, and forwarded 
 to the Committee of General Safety, which this time author- 
 ized the Committee of Versailles to use for the public wel- 
 fare powers which had been entrusted to it, and declared 
 that the constituted authorities would be responsible for the 
 obstacles which might be opposed to the execution of these 
 decrees. Then Greive succeeded in procuring a list of the 
 sums paid to the account of Madame du Barry by Beaujon 
 and prepared by Montvallier, Madame du Barry's steward, 
 a list reaching six millions 1 ; and, armed with this document, 
 
 1 List of the sums paid to the account of the Comtesse du Barry 
 by Monsieur Beaujon while she was the Favourite at the Court of 
 France : 
 
 JULY ISTH, 1774. 
 Observation. 
 
 Montvallier has drawn attention to the fact that he cannot render 
 the work more complete, considering that he has not the continuation 
 of M. Beau jon's memoranda, and there is even a gap between that 
 of the isth of February, 1772, and that of the loth of September 
 following, and that a number of documents without memoranda 
 
 274 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 and with the decree of the Committee of General Safety, 
 he kept worrying and working upon the members of the 
 Committee of Versailles till he obtained the order to arrest 
 Madame du Barry. 
 On the 22nd of September, he repaired to Luciennes, 
 
 have been delivered up by Madame du Barry for this gap, mounting 
 up together to the sum of 93,200 livres, spent on the following arti- 
 cles, viz. : 
 
 FIRST ARTICLE. 
 
 From Goldsmiths, Jewellers, and Dealers in Trinkets : 
 
 Goldsmiths 3i3,328/. 4$. d. 
 
 Jewellers i,8o8,635/. 9^. d. 
 
 Dealers in Trinkets I58,8oo/. s. d. 
 
 2,280,7631. 13*. -d. 
 
 ARTICLE II. 
 
 From Silk merchants, Lace dealers, and Millinery establishments: 
 
 Silk stuffs 369,8io/. 15*. d. 
 
 Linen and Laces 2I5.988/. 6s. d. 
 
 Fashionable Articles of Dress Ii6,8i8/. 6^. d. 
 
 Haberdashery 35,443*. 14^. d. 
 
 738,061 /. is. 3d. 
 From different Perfumers, Furriers, Hatters, 
 
 Braziers S2,I48/. $s. d. 
 
 ARTICLE III. 
 
 For Furniture, Pictures, Vases and other ornaments : 
 
 Furniture 24,398/. iSs. d. 
 
 Pictures, Vases 9i,5i9/. 19*. d. 
 
 H5,9i8/. 17*. d. 
 
 ARTICLE IV. 
 
 From Tailors and Embroiderers : 
 
 Tailors 6o,322/. los. d. 
 
 Embroiderers . 47IJ78J. s. d. 
 
 S3I.SOO/. ioj. d. 
 275 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 accompanied by two gendarmes, the Mayor, the Justice of 
 the Peace, and a number of municipal officers, showed his 
 order to Madame du Barry, had the seals affixed by the 
 Justice of the Peace, and forced Madame du Barry to get 
 
 ARTICLE V. 
 
 For purchases of Carnages and Horses and Forage: 
 
 Carriages and keep 67,470*. is. d. 
 
 Horses 57,347*. s. d. 
 
 Forage 6,8io/. s. d. 
 
 131,627;. is. d. 
 
 ARTICLE VI. 
 
 From Painters, Sculptors, etc. : 
 
 Gilders 78,026/. s. d. 
 
 Sculptors 95,426*. s. d. 
 
 Gilders 48,78s/. 12*. 6d. 
 
 Founders 98,000*. s. d. 
 
 Marble-cutters 17,540*. Ss. lod. 
 
 From various working Joiners and Locksmiths 32,240*. Ss. d. 
 
 Total 370,018*. gs. 4d. 
 
 ARTICLE VII. 
 
 For the Old and New Works of Luciennes : 
 
 Old Works m,475*- 6j. gd. 
 
 Gardens 3,739*. 19*. d. 
 
 New Works 205,638*. i6s. Sd. 
 
 Gardens 3)0 oo*. s. d. 
 
 Total 323,854*. 2s. Sd. 
 
 ARTICLE VIII. 
 
 Sums paid which cannot be applied to different 
 accounts, the motives or payments not being 
 known 55,619*. 2s. d. 
 
 ARTICLE IX. 
 
 For extraordinary expenses, presents, gratuities, 
 
 alms 47,535*. 5* * 
 
 276 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 into a public vehicle called a " guinguette," where the gen- 
 darmes posted themselves at her side. 
 
 It is related that, during the journey, Greive, having 
 found near the engine of Marly the cabriolet of the Che- 
 valier d'Escourt, 1 left the gendarmes in the public vehicle, 
 and stepped into the cabriolet along with the woman whose 
 fate at last he held in his hands. What was it that took 
 place? Did Greive wish to sell life to Madame du Barry? 
 
 1 A note by Greive at the back of the printed heading of an in- 
 dictment gives us this information : " D'Escourt had already ar- 
 rived in a cabriolet with a man-servant at the Du Barry's door on 
 the day of her arrest; but, having ascertained what had occurred 
 in her house, he fled at full speed. Our brave Sans-culottes seized 
 him and caught him with some difficulty at the foot of the Bougival 
 mountain." ( Revolutionary Tribunals : the Du Barry's " Dossier," 
 National Archives, W 1 16.) 
 
 ARTICLE X. 
 
 Sums paid divided into three parts, the first con- 
 sidered as for the account of Madame du 
 Barry and the second for her affairs : 
 By Madame du Barry directly or on her 
 account to the Comte, Vicomte, and 
 
 Demoiselles du Barry and others i,o8l,052/. 15 s. gd. 
 
 By her agents and others, including the 
 acquisition of the Pavilion of the Ave- 
 nue de Versailles 66i,623/. i6s. gd. 
 
 ARTICLE XI. 
 
 To the account of the construction of the build- 
 ing of the said Pavilion i8,ooo/. j. d. 
 
 ARTICLE XII. 
 
 Balance payable 20,ooo/. s. d. 
 
 General total 6,52i,oo3/. s. d. 
 
 Certified to be correct and in accordance with the memoranda 
 mentioned above. At Luciennes, July I4th, 1774. 
 
 Signed: MONTVALLIER. 
 
 277 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Madame du Barry was provisionally lodged in the prison 
 of Sainte-Pelagie, and her servants were confined in La 
 Force. As she was without anything she required, she was 
 obliged to borrow two hundred and fifty livres from the 
 citizen Montrouy, who sent a bed to her in prison. 
 
 In his curious and veracious memoirs, 1 Dutens relates 
 this anecdote. An Irish priest found an opportunity of 
 seeing Madame du Barry in her prison. There he offered 
 to save her, if she could supply him with a certain sum of 
 money to bribe the gaolers and make the journey. Madame 
 du Barry asked him whether he could save two persons. 
 On receiving a negative answer from the priest, she said to 
 him : " In that case, I will give you certainly an order on 
 my bankers for the payment of the necessary sum, but I 
 prefer to let the Duchesse de Mortemart escape from death 
 rather than myself. She is concealed in a loft in a certain 
 house in Calais. Here is an order on my banker: fly to 
 her aid ! " The priest, after having urged her to allow him 
 to save her, seeing that she was determined to sacrifice her- 
 self, took the order, drew the money, went to Calais, rescued 
 the Duchesse de Mortemart, dressed her as a common 
 woman, and, taking her under the arm, made her travel on 
 foot with him, saying that he was a good constitutional 
 priest and that he was married to this woman. The people 
 shouted " Bravo ! " and let him pass. He thus passed 
 
 1 " Memoirs of a Traveller Taking a Rest." Paris : Bossange, 
 1806. Tome III. He says the Conciergerie ; it is more probable that 
 it is Sainte-Pelagie. 
 
 278 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 through the lines of the French army, and came to Ostend, 
 from which he set out for England with Madame de Mor- 
 temart, whom I saw in London. ... In the case of 
 Madame du Barry, in the case of this woman so much 
 attached to life, so cowardly up to a few days before her 
 death, the heroism of this devotion surprises, astonishes, 
 appears improbable. We hesitate to believe her to be 
 equal to so beautiful and noble an act of self-sacrifice in 
 favour of even the daughter of Brissac, of her whom she 
 had promised to love like a sister, and I would not refer to 
 Dutens's anecdote, if it did not appear from what he says 
 that he heard the story from the lips of the Duchess herself. 
 Now, did Madame du Barry really believe that she would 
 be sentenced to death, and was it not her view that the 
 Revolution would rest satisfied with the confiscation of her 
 property? This is an idea, a hope, which she is shown to 
 have cherished in Sainte-Pelagie, and it is confirmed by 
 the singular announcement which appeared in several news- 
 papers " that Madame du Barry had been set at liberty and 
 her goods confiscated for the benefit of the nation." 
 
 While Madame du Barry was in Sainte-Pelagie, Salenave, 
 that man-servant whom she had dismissed for his disloyalty 
 to her, had become a member of the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee of Versailles. Greive had an interview with him; 
 and both of them, uniting their efforts, drew on the Revo- 
 lutionary Committee to take recognizance of the fact that 
 the seals had been affixed to Luciennes by the Justice of 
 the Peace of Marly. They were authorized to cancel these 
 
 279 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 seals, 1 and they had Fournier Pere and Zamore, who had 
 been discharged from Luciennes for his patriotism, ap- 
 pointed keepers with a guard of six patriots. 
 
 On the other hand, the inhabitants who were attached to 
 Madame du Barry and who clung to the recollection of her 
 benevolent acts, drew up and signed a second petition to 
 obtain liberty for her. Greive, anxious as to the result of 
 the petition, called upon Heron, the member of the Com- 
 mittee of General Safety, to whom Madame du Barry's 
 " Dossier " had been entrusted. He found in Heron an old 
 enemy of Vandenyver, Madame du Barry's banker, with 
 whom he had formerly come into collision in a banking 
 transaction, and whom he had denounced with the assist- 
 ance of the pen and the gloomy dreams of Marat in a book 
 entitled : " Plot to cause a General Bankruptcy of France, 
 of Spain, and, as a result, of Holland and England." The 
 mania of this wretched fear-stricken madman was that he 
 had been continually pursued by these Dutch bankers. He 
 imagined that on the loth of August he had been shot at 
 five times by Vandenyver. Under the shock of these terrors, 
 under the promptings of his eagerness for revenge, Heron 
 precipitated the indictment against the bankers, who were 
 sure to drag Madame du Barry with them to the scaffold. 
 
 At the same time that Heron prepared the materials for 
 his report against Vandenyver, an information was lodged 
 on the evidence of the correspondence seized at Madame du 
 
 1 The Du Barry's " Dossier." National Archives. 
 280 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 Barry's house at Luciennes, an information which Heron 
 seems to have entirely given over to Greive.. 
 
 I have under my eyes all this faded paper, 1 in which are 
 mingled together marked copies of songs with accounts of 
 expenses, those letters written in .the security of peaceful 
 years or in the alarms of revolutionary years, these gallant 
 love-letters of courtiers, these billets-doux of fine ladies 
 with their framings of blue ribbons or of rosy shells, letters 
 of business, letters in which there is little trace of conspiracy, 
 at the sight of which you are filled with astonishment when 
 you see a cross traced violently in red pencilling on some 
 indifferent lines, and above, fastened by a big pin, a little 
 card containing an accusing commentary. Some of these 
 letters have at the bottom of them a touching, a heartrend- 
 ing entry : " Ne varietur. Sainte-Pelagie, Brumaire, Year 
 II.," which follow the three signatures of Voulland, Jagot, 
 and Du Barry. But let us give a sample of these 
 cards, of the criminality which the men of the Revolution 
 extracted from the most innocent relations of friendship, 
 from the least reprehensible portions of a correspondence 
 and finally from the regrets of beloved beings who were 
 ever most resigned. On an insignificant letter signed R. 
 R. R. we read : " Of the old aristocracy the person who 
 was formerly Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort, a woman as 
 
 1 Revolutionary Tribunals : " Dossier " of the woman named 
 Jeanne Vaubernier du Barry . . . and of Vandenyver, accused 
 of understandings and counter-revolutionary correspondence with 
 the emigres. National Archives, Box W 1 16. 
 
 281 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 wicked as foolish, and who enjoyed a certain favour with 
 several administrators of Versailles." On a letter not 
 signed asking Madame du Barry if she was always annoyed 
 by the smell of the river, we read : " This letter is from the 
 old man who was formerly Prince de Beauvau." On a 
 letter of Louis d'Armaille, which goes back so far as 1786, 
 we read : " Letter of the former Marquis d'Armaille, ar- 
 rested the other day by the order of the Commune of Paris." 
 On a letter of Madame Lebrun, dated from Naples, in which 
 she recalls herself to M. de Brissac's recollection as well 
 as to that of the wife of the Portuguese Ambassador and the 
 Marquise de Brunei, we read : "Letter of the woman Lebrun, 
 painter and mistress of Colonne." On a letter not signed, 
 in which one lady asks another for a loan of her Greek 
 chemises, we read : " Marcel thinks this letter is from the 
 woman Bondeville, wife of an ex-President, an enfeoffed 
 aristocrat. These women saw each other always on Fridays 
 at the Opera, a meeting-place of the aristocrats." On a 
 letter of Thelusson, we read : " He is one of the most im- 
 portant bankers in London, nephew of Thelusson, who was 
 formerly a partner of Necker, and a great enemy of the 
 Revolution." On a letter of Forth, the English police agent 
 whom Madame du Barry employed for the recovery of her 
 diamonds in London, we read : " Proof of her intrigues with 
 emissaries of the Court of London, of Berlin, and with 
 Forth, the celebrated English spy, who has never ceased 
 intriguing against France, and above all since Franklin's 
 time. He and Bethune Charost have been the most active 
 
 282 
 
Madame D\* Barry- 
 emissaries of the Court of London, of Berlin, and of The 
 Hague, and it is this Forth who, it is to be presumed, has 
 concocted with her at Luciennes the pretended theft of dia- 
 monds/' On a letter from Lord Hawksbury, paying her 
 compliments and adding that he would be enchanted to be 
 of use to her with regard to her case in his country, we read : 
 " Letter which proves her intrigues with the courtiers of 
 George III. Lord Hawksbury is the Privy Councillor of 
 the tyrant who governs Pitt himself, and who has really held 
 the reins of government for the last twenty years, though 
 sometimes apparently in disgrace. His son is the great po- 
 litical courier to-day between the Cabinet of London and 
 the coalition of the Powers in the Low Countries." On a 
 letter from Rouen, the jeweller whom she had brought to 
 London, a letter dated August 27th, 1793, and which con- 
 gratulates her on having done with the prosecutions, we 
 read : " Letter of Rouen, the jeweller, who has quite re- 
 cently intrigued in her favour, with too much success, with 
 the old Committee." On a letter which speaks of the Abbe 
 Billardy, we read : " This Abbe Billardy in the next place 
 has been one of her most constant guests since the Revolu- 
 tion, as well as the Abbe de Fontenille, the ex-Vicar of 
 Agen, guillotined the other day in Paris. Billardy is dead. 
 These Abbes were two inseparable friends, and Billardy 
 was as counter-revolutionary as the other. Here are the Du 
 Barry's friends ! " On a letter from Cochet de la Croix, 
 we read : " This bit of a letter is from a man named Cochet 
 de la Croix, who was formerly chevalier and attache to 
 
 283 
 
Madame D\z Barry 
 
 the former Due de Croisy. He is an impudent aristocrat, 
 whom I arrested in the month of May, at the moment when 
 he had applied to the Du Barry to be clothed and equipped 
 in order to enter the transport- wagons of the celebrated 
 company of Beaune- Winter, which was starting for La 
 Vendee. He is in the prisons of Versailles." 
 
 But it is not enough to make the commonplaces of friend- 
 ship or business correspondence in letters, some of which 
 were anterior to the Revolution, crimes on the part of 
 Madame du Barry ; Greive forces some letters to say what 
 they do not say, attributes to certain passages the blame of 
 events with which they have no connection. He imagines; 
 he supposes; he lies; he finally tortures the phrases and 
 the words, in order to extract an appearance of guilt neces- 
 sary for his plans, for his hatreds. It is thus that a letter 
 of Rohan-Chabot, with regard to the settlement of 9,000 
 livres a year on Madame du Barry, in return for a payment 
 of 200,000 livres paid at one time, has this comment : " It 
 is a question of the annexed settlement of 9,000 livres as a 
 yearly income for the Du Barry, in return for 200,000 paid 
 at once, would not this sum be destined for La Vendee? 
 We shall find another document in which she lends at the 
 same time 200,000 livres to the Bishop of Rouen? Now 
 which bishop, the former or the new? All this is more 
 than suspicious ! " A letter of Laneuville, which says that 
 he had lent 200,000 francs in 1787 to Madame du Barry, 
 and which was found in an envelope in the name of Calonne, 
 bears the note : " This letter has been probably given up to 
 
 284 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 the Du Barry during her sojourn in London, where she has 
 always seen Calonne's wife. Laneuville is in La Fource. I 
 arrested him at the Du Barrys' house." An account of the 
 expenditure of Madame du Barry during her sojourn in 
 London in November, 1792, has this comment: "Would 
 this not be money given to the emigres? The Du Barry 
 must be asked who are these persons whose names I have 
 underlined above all this Pauline. We believe she is the 
 Duchesse de Mortemart, daughter of Brissac." And in the 
 last place I will cite a letter an ordinary letter of 
 Madame du Barry, dated from La Meilleraie, the 9th 
 of April, 1793, with the comment: "Remark the epoch 
 of this letter; it is that of the treason of Dumouriez." 
 Two of the documents thus annotated are curious in so 
 far as they testify, at Madame du Barry's house on 
 the day of her arrest, to a certain resistance on her 
 part, the petty anger of a woman who kicks up a row 
 and is not afraid to snatch out of the hands of the com- 
 missaries the documents which they want to seize. One 
 of these documents, the lower part of which is torn, is a 
 letter from a Sieur Guillemin, soliciting from Madame du 
 Barry a lieutenancy of gendarmerie a letter on which 
 Greive has written : " Document seized from between the 
 hands of the Du Barry, and which she wanted to snatch 
 out of the hands of a man named Guenon, a brave Sans- 
 culotte of Luciennes, on the day of her arrest. She has even 
 succeeded in tearing off the signature from the end of the 
 letter, the sense of which can be understood." The other is 
 
 285 
 
Madame Dm Barry 
 
 the pamphlet of Bergoeng, a deputy of the department of the 
 Gironde, to his constituents. On this pamphlet, Greive has 
 written : " Document printed by the miscreants who took 
 refuge in Caen, and which I found on her table. She took it 
 out of my hand two or three times/' 
 
 Out of all these cards, out of all these annotations as 
 headnotes, or at the bottom of letters forming the two 
 bundles of papers, seized at Luciennes, Greive got the mate- 
 rials for an official document which he hurriedly drew up 
 for Fouquier-Tinville and which he styled " Heads of the 
 Accusation against the Du Barry." 
 
 He mentions in this official document the silver medal of 
 Pitt, struck in 1789, and found concealed at Luciennes in 
 the apartment of the chambermaid Roussel. 
 
 He detailed the books and liberticidal pamphlets, amongst 
 which he cited : " History of the Caricatures of the Revolt 
 of the French, by Boyer of Nismes,'' etc. 
 
 He referred to the bulletin of Madame du Barry's sub- 
 scription sending to London for twelve copies of the " Last 
 Picture of Paris," by Peltier. 
 
 He enumerated the pieces in honour of Marie Antoinette 
 kept and preserved by Madame du Barry : " Portrait of the 
 Queen of France/' translated from the English of Burke; 
 " Epitaph of Varicourt, killed at the Queen's door ; " man- 
 uscript verses on which we read in Greive's handwriting: 
 " We believe these verses are by the Abbe Dellile, the Du 
 Barry's regular poet." 
 
 He denounced the anti-revolutionary engravings of Lu- 
 
 286 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ciennes, amongst which there was a portrait of Charles 
 Philippe of France, Comte d'Artois. 
 
 He recalled, with reference to a receipt of the woman 
 Roussel of the I3th of September, 1793, that Madame du 
 Barry had always had herself called " Comtesse." . . . 
 Then Greive came back to the relations of Madame du Barry 
 with the Chevalier de Coigny, with the Portuguese Ambassa- 
 dor's wife (nee Canillac), a relative of La Fayette, one of the 
 most deadly enemies of the Revolution, with the former 
 Duchesse de Brancas, the former Marquis de Nesle, the 
 former Marquis de la Vaupaliere, with the former Chevalier 
 de Durfort, with the woman Angiviller, with the woman 
 Vougny, cmigree to London, whose husband was the friend 
 of Brissac, with Boissaisson, emigre, formerly major of 
 Conde's regiment of dragoons, who married Madame du 
 Barry's niece, with Breteuil, with Calonne, with Berthier, 
 with the D'Aiguillons, mother and son, with the Rohan- 
 Rochefort family, with the Polish princess Lubomirska, 
 whose letter contains this passage : 
 
 " The Queen is still at the Conciergerie ; it is false that 
 there is a project of bringing them back to the Temple: be 
 calm." 1 
 
 And Greive addressed to Fouquier-Tinville his counts 
 of the indictment 2 with this postscript : 
 
 1 Bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, Second Part. The Es- 
 premenil Case and others. 
 
 2 This is, I think, the nearest English equivalent to " chefs d'accu- 
 sation." TRANSLATOR. 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 " I do not know if the Committee has made you go over 
 a little three hours' work that I did the other day, at the 
 request of Vouland, to aid you in your operation. In any 
 case, here is a copy of it. It is very far from being complete, 
 but if it gives you ever so little assistance, occupied as you 
 are, my end will be attained. GREIVE. 
 
 " Charged with the Mission to Luciennes. 
 
 " 4th Frimaire, Year II. of the Republic." (November 24, 
 I793-) 
 
 These counts in the indictment, to which was soon to be 
 added the list of assassin witnesses which Greive was en- 
 gaged in drawing up and which he emphatically calls the 
 list of necessary witnesses, reveal to us, in this Du Barry 
 affair, all the subterranean homicidal work, all the secret 
 manipulation of a condemnation to death in those days. 
 
 Already, five days before, on the 29th Brumaire (Novem- 
 ber 1 9th) the Committee of General Safety had made the 
 following decree : 
 
 " On the 29th Brumaire, the second year of the French 
 Republic One and Indivisible : 
 
 " The Committee of General Safety having taken cog- 
 nizance of the various documents found in the house of the 
 Du Barry, who has been put under arrest with a view to the 
 general security as a suspected person under the terms of the 
 decree of the I7th of September last, considering that there 
 results from the whole of these documents that the woman 
 Du Barry is accused of being an emigree and of having, 
 
 288 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 during her sojourn in London from the month of October, 
 1792, to the month of March last, furnished to the emigres 
 who had taken refuge in London pecuniary aid and main- 
 tained with them suspicious correspondence . . . will 
 be transferred to the Revolutionary Tribunal to be there 
 prosecuted and judged with the utmost speed of the public 
 prosecutor." 1 
 
 On the 2nd Frimaire (November 22nd) Madame du 
 Barry, conveyed from the prison called Pelagic, where she 
 had already spent two months, day for day, was interrogated 
 at one o'clock in the afternoon in one of the halls of au- 
 dience of the Palais by Dumas, Vice- President of the Revo- 
 lutionary Tribunal in the presence of Fouquier-Tinville. 
 
 Madame du Barry declared in this examination that the 
 sums spent by her had been furnished by the private orders 
 given for each payment by Louis XV., and that Beaujon, 
 who had received the order from Bertin, was the only one 
 who had made payments on bonds signed by her. 
 
 She did not conceal the fact that she had influenced and 
 determined the King in the appointments he had made. She 
 acknowledged that she had solicited pensions and gratuities 
 for her proteges. 
 
 She declared that she had no relation with Louis XVI. 
 but the following : As she owed, at the death of Louis XV., 
 a sum of 2,700,000 livres, she had made a request to the 
 King to pay her debt. In 1782, she had petitioned to have 
 agreements for payment of yearly income belonging to her 
 1 Du Barry " Dossier " : National Archives, W 1 16. 
 289 19 
 
Madame Dv Barry 
 
 exchanged for cash to the extent of a million, which, with 
 the product of a part of the jewels, plate, and pictures which 
 she had sold to tne King, had enabled her to pay the 
 greater number of her creditors and reduce her debt to 
 250,000 livres. 
 
 She said she could not fix the value of her moveable 
 property, but would estimate at nearly 150,000 livres the dia- 
 monds which had been stolen from her in 1791, diamonds 
 which were only a part of those which she possessed, and 
 she admitted that she possessed 90,000 livres as a life-an- 
 nuity out of the Hotel de Ville, which she owed to the liber- 
 ality of Louis XV. 
 
 She confessed that she had given a room in her house 
 from the month of June to the month of September, 1792, 
 to Laroche-Fontenille, emigre priest. 
 
 She said she had received only one letter from Madame 
 de Calonne, to which she had not replied. 
 
 She gave the dates of her four journeys to England. 
 
 She said, in answer to the charge of having emigrated, 
 that she had left on business, and had been fortified with 
 regular passports. 
 
 She acknowledged that she saw in London M. de Crussol 
 and his wife, the Prince de Poix, M. and Madame de 
 Calonne, and Frondeville, formerly President of the Parlia- 
 ment of Rouen. She did not deny that she had given Fron- 
 deville twenty-two guineas, but added that it was in order 
 to play for her, and that Frondeville had returned them to 
 her in twenty- four hours. 
 
 290 
 
MARIE THERESE CHARLOTTE, DUCHESSE D'ANGOULEME 
 
 To face page 290 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 She declared that the money for her journeys to London 
 had been supplied to her by Vandenyver, her banker. 
 
 She acknowledged the loan of 200,000 francs to Rohan- 
 Chabot in payment of a settlement for 9,000 livres a year, 
 but she denied the loan to the former Bishop of Rouen, 
 w! om she c. 1 arel she did not know. 
 
 Str said finally that she had received some letters from 
 emigres, but declared that she had never answered them, 
 and had never thought it possible that her journeys to Eng- 
 land could bear the character of emigration. 
 
 In reply to the question of Dumas whether she had any 
 counsel to defend her, she said she had chosen citizens 
 Delainville and Laflauterie for that purpose. 1 
 
 A few days later, the /th Frimaire (November 27th), the 
 examination of the Vandenyver father and daughter took 
 place. 
 
 The trial was at hand. Greive had, at last, sent his re- 
 markable list of necessary witnesses to Fouquier-Tinville : 
 
 " Names of the necessary witnesses in the prosecution 
 of the Dubarry : 2 
 
 " Greive, charged with a mission by the Committee of 
 General Safety to arrest the Dubarry . . . He will 
 prove what her intrigues in England were, the expressions 
 she used, and other things. 
 
 1 Examination (secret) of Jeanne Vatibernier, Femme dti Barry, 
 on the 2nd day of Frimaire, Year the Second of Republic. "Dos- 
 sier" of the Du Barry: National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
 3 Except for some abbreviations, I give this document in accord- 
 ance with the original and with its underlined words. 
 
 291 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " Gentenot called Marcel, to prove the conversations she 
 carried on in the commencement of the Revolution on the 
 subject of Paris, as well as the conduct of her servants. 
 Marcel is an excellent patriot, a firm Republican on the 
 grounds of principle and reason. 
 
 " Salenave, to prove that she always kept up her relations 
 with the aristocrats, notably with D'Escourt, La Bondie, 
 the Abbe de Billardy, the Abbe de Nesle, named La Roche, 
 formerly Vicar of Agen, who was executed on the Place 
 de la Revolution, a month ago, and who dined at her house 
 on the day of Maussabre's arrest. He will likewise prove 
 some conversations with the former Chevalier de la Bondie 
 on the subject of the scoundrel Morgan, Colonel of the Hus- 
 sars of Liberty, and of her emigration and her return after 
 the ill-success of Dumouriez. He will likewise prove the 
 protection granted to Gouin, son of her concierge, an impu- 
 dent aristocrat ... as well as that granted to Choual- 
 let, her Swiss, attached to the army of the North. Salenave 
 will also prove to you that the old lady who was formerly 
 Princesse de Rohan-Rochefort proposed to the Dubarry to 
 send some money to La Vendee. Salenave is a man of great 
 character, who has been twenty years in the Dubarry's 
 service. He is a man full of merit, who, born with a Re- 
 publican soul, could never bow down even under the old 
 regime. For a long time, he has secretly communicated to 
 me his fears as to the public interest when he saw the bad 
 dispositions and the bad companionship in which the 
 Dubarry indulged. Sensibility, the inseparable companion 
 
 292 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of a beautiful and great soul, might have suggested to him 
 the desire to spare a woman whom he sought to believe 
 more weak than wicked, but, summoned by the imperious 
 voice of the country's danger, by his intimate knowledge 
 of the infernal plots whereby it was attempted to destroy 
 it, his warmth has made enemies for him in the house; he 
 has been persecuted; he has, so to speak, been driven out. 
 
 " Zainor will prove that the Dubarry household was filled 
 with aristocrats, that he has frequently attempted to turn 
 her aside from this patronage which could only end in her 
 loss. He will prove that he was sent away for his patriot- 
 ism at the same period as Salenave. Nota. Zamor is an In- 
 dian transported from the heart of Bengal by the slaves of 
 Louis XV., himself a slave of the Dubarry, for whom this 
 wretched child was snatched away at the age of four from 
 the arms of his parents who were unknown, and delivered 
 up to this vile courtesan like an ape or a parrot. But 
 what wonders does not education produce! 
 
 " Jean- Jacques Rousseau, that is to say, his works, having 
 fallen into the child's hands, he became a man, and, in spite 
 of the corrupting influences of the Court, he has always 
 shown himself the most zealous friend of the Revolution 
 and always equal to the circumstances of the hour. Well, 
 this unhappy child, to whom she owes protection and mater- 
 nity, she has treated since the manifestation of these prin- 
 ciples with atrocity, and has ended by sending him out of 
 doors under the most aggravating circumstances. He threw 
 
 293 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 himself on my bosom, abandoned as he was by all the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 " Froment, her ex-gardener, was dismissed for the same 
 cause. 
 
 " Devrey, a surgeon without a certificate of citizenship, 
 and formerly a young lad in a hairdresser's shop, was ar- 
 rested for aristocracy on the 2nd of July, the period of 
 the Dubarry's first arrest. He will prove to you that 
 the Dubarry spent the night in burning papers on the anni- 
 versary of the death of Brissac. If he does not care to do so, 
 Marcel, Montier, and Cave, notables of the commune of Lu- 
 ciennes, will prove to you that he said it. 
 
 " Xavier Audoin, assistant in the War Office, will prove 
 to you that on the occasion of the visit of the Marseillais and 
 of the Battalion of the Petit- Augustins, in August, 1792, the 
 Dubarry said that nobody was concealed in her house, that 
 the room in which Maussabre slept was a condemned room. 
 
 " Masson and Pierre Laporte, National Guards, will prove 
 to you that she said, when speaking to Masson : " Good ! 
 he is a fine young fellow, a good Royalist." 
 
 " Fournier, Justice of the Peace of the Canton of Marly, 
 will prove to you that Morin, her man of affairs, who will 
 be also brought before your tribunal, has avowed to him that 
 the woman Dubarry was sure of protection from the ad- 
 ministrators of Versailles through the agency of Lavelerie, 
 a villainous administrator who committed suicide the other 
 day to avoid the guillotine. 
 
 " Cochet de la Croix, formerly chevalier and creature of 
 
 294 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 Coigny, will be obliged to prove to you or in his default / 
 will prove that the Dubarry has supplied sums of money 
 several times since the flight and emigration of Coigny. 
 This La Croix is a villain, whom I arrested with my own 
 hands in the month of May, at the moment when he was 
 begging for money to go to La Vendee in the transport- 
 wagons of the infamous Beaune-W inter. This wretch 
 ought to be in the prisons of Versailles. 
 
 " The widow Cotte, relict of the late Cotte, upholsterer to 
 the Dubarry. It is from her, the aristocrat Devrey said, 
 that he ascertained the fact of the burning of Brissac's let- 
 ters. N. B. This impudent Devrey, though married, is 
 the ' good friend ' of the widow Cotte. 
 
 " Blache, called Dumas, commissary of the Committee of 
 General Safety with the 48 sections, . . . will prove to 
 you all her aristocratic intrigues in London, the protection 
 she enjoyed from the Court and the courtiers as well as the 
 confession that she made to him, Blache, at Luciennes, of 
 her innocent correspondence with the Mortemart and other 
 emigre es in violation of the law, and we judge of this inno- 
 cent correspondence by the expressions of the letter of 
 Mortemart, 1 written on the nth of August, 1793, on the 
 subject of Marie- Antoinette, in which she amuses herself 
 at the expense of the Convention, seeking to tranquillize 
 (knowing the cause) the good Citizeness Dubarry in order 
 to show the villainy of several members of the old Com- 
 mittee of Public Safety. 
 
 1 Greive here refers to the Duchsse de Mortwnarf as " Morte- 
 mart." TRANSLATOR. 
 
 295 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 " Boileau, a member of the district of Versailles, a cor- 
 rupt man who came to Luciennes to threaten the munici- 
 pality, to defy the laws, and to protect Dubarry. 
 
 " The Abbe Rotrue } Devaize, Chaillou, Gazon, members 
 of the department and the district of Versailles, guilty of 
 the most infamous protection of the Dubarry. 
 
 " Olivon, municipal officer of Luciennes, respectable pa- 
 triot, who will testify as to the infamous conduct of these 
 administrators and the persecution of the patriots. 
 
 " Renaud L'Aine, a virile and patriotic man, formerly 
 Vicar of Luciennes, as to the fact of the persecution of the 
 patriots. 
 
 " Ledoux, ex-Mayor, as to the same fact. 
 
 " L'Heureux, tutor, firm patriot, as to the same fact. 
 
 " Cheton, commandant of the National Guard of Luci- 
 ennes, as to the same fact. 
 
 " Moutier and Cave, notables, who will testify, as well as 
 the other inhabitants, as to the persecution and menaces that 
 I have endured for having sustained the cause of the Sans- 
 culottes. 
 
 " Blache, who is urgent to see, will furnish you with the 
 witness named La Touche, the witness named Beda, the 
 man-servant of an emigre in London whose name I have 
 forgotten, and other very interesting witnesses of the un- 
 citizen-like conduct of the Dubarry in London. The wit- 
 nesses are brave French patriots driven out of London by 
 the miscreant Pitt. 
 
 " I likewise send you the receipt of the representatives 
 
 Jagot and Vouland, to whom I have delivered 26 important 
 
 296 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 documents relating to the Dubarry and on which they have 
 based the examination to which they have subjected this 
 woman. . . . 
 
 " You will find, amongst other documents, an account of 
 the infamous prosecution of the unfortunate tailor Favier, 
 whom this woman has caused to be confined for twenty 
 years and a half in the prisons of Senlis for having been 
 a witness of the filthy loves of the crapulous tyrant, the 
 Sardanapalus of the French. He has been released by the 
 Constituent Assembly. You shall find amongst the docu- 
 ments the petition of Xavier and of his son and daughter, 
 and his attorney. Would it not be good to have them made 
 public? . . . Moreover, it is for you to decide whether 
 it would be necessary for us to have a conference before the 
 opening of the trial. . . . You should see Blache as 
 soon as possible. It will be well also to produce the Angus- 
 tin, her postilion, imprisoned with her men-servants in La 
 Force, but without giving him any previous notice of it, for 
 fear of his being indoctrinated by his comrades, in addition 
 to the fact that he is an aristocrat himself. It is he who 
 was the daily courier between her and Brissac at Orleans." 
 
 Blache, who under the cloak of a Professor of French, 
 played the spy on behalf of the Committee of Public Safety, 
 in London Blache, who is urgent to see Blache, whose 
 deposition Greive asks for three times in his list of necessary 
 witnesses, made a deposition in the following terms some 
 days afterwards :* 
 
 1 Extracts from the Deposition of the Citizen Blache. Revolution- 
 ary Tribunals : Du Barry " Dossier," W 1 16. 
 
 297 
 
In accordance 
 with the fact. 
 
 Madame D\* Barry 
 
 First fact. Deposes to having seen the 
 Dubarry on the occasion of her journey, the 
 day after her arrival, get into a carriage with 
 the woman Calonne, the man named Forth, an 
 English spy, who at the time of the American 
 war, came to Paris with my Lady Barimore to 
 prostitute her to the former Comte d'Artois, 
 with the sole object of causing, through this 
 channel, a variance between France and Amer- 
 ica; that in this first voyage, the Dubarry 
 took lodgings in the house of a man named 
 Grenier, that this Grenier had been cook of 
 Orleans in Paris, that this Grenier was in Lon- 
 don, since his establishment, the agent, the 
 steward of Orleans. 
 
 Has given n o 
 answer. 
 
 Second fact. The second journey of the 
 Dubarry to London takes place a short time 
 after her return to France; she went to lodge 
 in Margaret street, Oxford, that there she 
 received all the emigres of the upper class and 
 continued her relations with the woman Ca- 
 lonne. 
 
 Third fact. The Dubarry came back to 
 France . . . about October, 1792. Saint 
 Phar, putative brother of the Duke of Or- 
 leans, had taken furnished lodgings in Bolton 
 
 298 
 
In a*ordanee 
 with th fet. 
 
 In accordance 
 with the fact. 
 
 Madame Dxi Barry- 
 street Berkeley Square, for Bouille. As the 
 latter did not arrive, the lodgings were given 
 up by Saint Phar to the Dubarry, who occu- 
 pied this house with (i) Saint Phar, (2) La 
 d'Henin, (3) La Mortemart, (4) Bertrand de 
 Molleville, (5) Breteuil, and that at this pe- 
 riod the Dubarry made the young daughter of 
 D'Aiguillon emigrate, passing her off as one 
 of her chambermaids. 
 
 Fourth fact. In the month of January, the 
 Dubarry, after the death of Capet, wore 
 mourning with the greatest English pomp. 
 She was at all the services which were cele- 
 brated in the chapels of the powers hostile to 
 the Republic. 
 
 Sixth fact. That the witness, forced to quit 
 England by arbitrary order of the King, was 
 entrusted by the Committee of General Safety 
 with several important operations, which ne- 
 cessitated several journeys to Luciennes. In- 
 vited by the Dubarry to stay at her house, 
 he accepted her invitation. Chatting with the 
 Dubarry, he talked to her about journeys 
 which she, Dubarry, had made to London 
 and the association which she had made with 
 the persons before mentioned, that he re- 
 
 299 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 preached her with holding correspondence 
 
 The witness 
 
 tSS ?a e c a t r as n with La Calonne, La d'Henin, La Mortemart, 
 hede 8 ir.d. Bertrand de Molleville, and Breteuil, that the 
 Du Barry replied to him: " Yes, it is true; 
 but these were only commonplace things that 
 we wrote to each other about; I only keep up 
 by this correspondence some friendly connec- 
 tions, nothing more." That the deponent 
 placed under her eyes the law of March, the 
 law which punishes with death every individ- 
 ual who has correspondence direct or indirect 
 with the enemies of the Republic. That the 
 next day a lunch was served up to the muni- 
 cipal officers of Luciennes, to which he was 
 invited to come; that there the Dubarry, with 
 Morin, having strongly urged these officers 
 to declare why they had arrested La Bondie, 
 and these having declared that they did not 
 know, invited them to put this declaration 
 into a letter which led to the liberation of La 
 Bondie from prison that same evening, but 
 that Salenave having said that he was a "ci- 
 devant," whose parents had been emigres, as- 
 suming it to be an act of deliberate wrong- 
 doing, retired from the Dubarry's house. 
 
 Seventh fact. In another interview with 
 the Dubarry, Blache relates that, as she asso- 
 
 300 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 Had not been ciated with the Rohans and La Laporte ... 
 
 said by the , . . f . A , ., , 
 
 witness at the and as all this section of society described 
 
 time of his 
 
 deposition. themselves as Prince, Princesse, Comtesse, he 
 was protesting against these titles when the 
 Dubarry replied : " Why, that was only a 
 joke we made together." 
 
 On the 1 3th Frimaire (December) the indictment 1 
 against Jeanne VAUBERNIER, " Femme " DUBARRY, Jean- 
 Baptiste VANDENYVER, Edme-Jean-Baptiste VANDENYVER, 
 and Antoine-Augustin VANDENYVER, Dutch bankers, was 
 read and adopted in the council chamber, then printed, 
 then distributed at the meeting of the Jacobin Club, and 
 after that sent to the affiliated clubs. The witnesses 
 received subpoenas to appear on the i6th and I7th Fri- 
 maire. The indictment directed that Jeanne Vaubernier, 
 " Femme " DUBARSY, should be removed under good and 
 sure guard of the prison of Sainte-Pelagie in order to 
 be transferred to the house called the Conciergerie, in the 
 jail book of which her name would be entered to remain 
 there as in a place of legal confinement. Madame du Barry 
 occupied Marie- Antoinette's room in the Conciergerie, as if 
 it had been her fate to usurp even in the face of death the 
 bed of a Queen. 
 
 The attentions of the woman Richard could not arouse 
 
 Madame Du Barry out of her deep dejection. She had 
 
 learned through a lady whose statement could be relied on 
 
 " L'acte d'accusation." 
 
 301 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 that Zamore, that man-servant driven by her from her 
 house, was to-day master of Luciennes. She knew that her 
 cellar had been pillaged, that her most valuable card-boxes 
 of lace were disappearing every day, that, in short, her 
 pretty pavilion was searched, rummaged, and gradually 
 broken up. Then, under the blow of the mortal accusation, 
 to all those violent deaths which had, so to speak, brushed 
 past her the death of Brissac, the death of Maussabre, and 
 other deaths (sad and terrible omens!) came to be added 
 in these last days the death of that Republican who with his 
 life paid for the amorous sentiment he appeared to have felt 
 towards Madame du Barry, of that Lavallery who threw 
 himself into the Seine from the wharf at Marly. 1 
 
 1 Here is the closing part of a letter from this Lavallery ; from 
 this member of the district of Versailles to Madame du Barry, pub- 
 lished by M. le Roi : " Citizeness, be assured that if opportunities 
 arise in which I can make my efforts valuable, you have the right 
 to create them. Your sex gives you the right to desire tranquillity 
 and so does your amiability. A thousand pardons, citizeness; a 
 Republican and a stranger should only speak the language of busi- 
 ness. Accept the assurance of my respect and of all the interest 
 which you have the right to inspire." Lavallery, Versailles, May 
 i;th (Year II. of the Republic). 
 
 30* 
 
XVII. . 
 
 Sitting of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the l6th Frimaire, 
 Year II. (December 6th, 1793). Fouquier-Tinville's Address as 
 Public Prosecutor. Examination of Witnesses. Greive, Salenave, 
 Zamore, etc. Answer of the Accused. Summing-up by Vice-Presi- 
 dent Dumas. Condemnation of the Du Barry and of the Van- 
 denyvers. Cowardly Terror of the Condemned Woman. Her Dec- 
 laration between two wickets of the Conciergerie on the Morning 
 of the i8th Frimaire. Execution the same Day at Half-past Four 
 in the Afternoon. 
 
 ON the 1 6th Frimaire of the Year II. of the Republic 
 (December 6th, 1793), at nine o'clock in the morning, the 
 sitting of the Revolutionary Criminal Tribunal was opened. 
 
 The Tribunal was composed of the Citizens Rene-Fran- 
 qois Dumas, Vice-President acting for the President Fran- 
 c,ois- Joseph Denisot, Alexandre-Edme David, Charles Bra- 
 vet, Judges ; Antoine-Quentin Fouquier, Public Prosecutor, 1 
 and Robert Wolf, Registrar. On the jurymen's bench sat 
 the Citizens Trinchard, Prieur, Billion, Mercier, Klispis, 
 Meyer, Martin, Topino Lebrun, Lohier, Sambat, Vilatte, 
 Pay an. 
 
 The Tribunal and the jury having taken their places, the 
 woman Du Barry and the Vandenyvers, father and sons, 
 
 1 Literally, " Public Accuser," but the dignity of a trial seems to 
 justify the use of the word " Prosecutor " instead. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 303 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 were led into court, and also the citizens Chauveau and La- 
 fleutrie, men of law, advocates and official counsel for the 
 defence. 
 
 Dumas, V ice-President, to the Accused Woman. 
 
 Question. You, accused woman, who are seated in the 
 armchair, what are your names, your age, your profession, 
 birth-place, and residence? 
 
 Answer. Jeanne Vaubernier, aged forty-two, born at 
 Vaucouleurs, living on my income, usually residing at Lu- 
 ciennes. 
 
 Q. Are you not the wife of the man who was formerly 
 Comte du Barry? 1 
 
 A. We are legally separated. 
 
 Vandenyver, that old man of sixty-six years, and his two 
 sons, gave their names, their professions, and their resi- 
 dences. 
 
 Then after the President had called upon the accused to 
 pay attention, the Registrar read the indictment. 2 
 
 Antoine Quentin Fouquier, Public Prosecutor of the Ex- 
 
 1 Hardy says in his " Manuscript Journal," dated June 3d, 1772 : 
 "We have been informed that on the previous Monday the irre- 
 movables of the new Parliament had pronounced a judicial separa- 
 tion between the Comte du Barry and his wife, and it is alleged 
 that several noblemen of the Court had given evidence against the 
 Comte in order to favour and support his wife's claims. It is aston- 
 ishing that she did not get her marriage annulled and set aside 
 sooner. The suit of the heirs informs us that by the contradictory 
 sentence of the Chatelet of Paris of the 1st of April, 1772, she was 
 separated from the domicile of her husband, Guillaume du Barry, on 
 whom she settled 5,000 livres a year." 
 
 * "L'acte d'accusation." 
 
 304 
 
FOUQUIER-TINVILLE 
 
 To face page 304 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 traordinary and Revolutionary Criminal Tribunal, estab- 
 lished in Paris by decree of the National Convention of the 
 loth of March, 1793, the second year of the Republic, with- 
 out any recourse to the Tribunal for Reversal of Judgments, 
 explained that, by a resolution of the Committee of General 
 Safety and of Surveillance of the National Convention of the 
 I9th day of the last Brumaire, Jeanne Vaubernier, wife of 
 Du Barry, Jean-Baptiste Vandenyver and Antoine Augustin 
 Vandenyver had been transferred to the Revolutionary Tri- 
 bunal ; that the said Vaubernier, wife of Du Barry, had been 
 confined as a prisoner in Sainte-Pelagie, and that the Van- 
 denyvers, father and sons, bankers, had been confined as 
 prisoners in the prison of La Force, that the evidence to be 
 produced against the accused had been brought to the Pub- 
 lic Prosecutor on the 3<Dth day of Brumaire, and that the ac- 
 cused had been interrogated on the 2nd, 4th, and 7th Fri- 
 maire following by one of the judges of the tribunal. After 
 this preliminary statement and a history of the Du Barry's 
 life at the Court of Louis XV., he said that, on an examina- 
 tion " the Aspasia of the French Sardanapalus " l had been, 
 after the memorable victory of the French people, the instru- 
 ment and the accomplice of the emigres, the support and 
 the asylum of the former great ones left in France ; and he 
 mentioned by name Laroche, formerly a noble, Vicar of 
 Agen, condemned by the Revolutionary Tribunal, as hav- 
 
 1 This rhetorical flourish on the part of Fouquier-Tinville shows 
 thaf worthy's ignorance of classical history. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 305 20 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ing found a refuge in her house. He said that in the desire 
 to be useful to the emigres, she had counterfeited a theft of 
 diamonds 1 on the night of the loth or nth of January, 1791 ; 
 that this pretended theft had been a pretext and a comedy 
 concocted with Forth, an English agent, in order to bring 
 herself into relationship with all the agents of the counter- 
 revolution existing in London; that, in order to prosecute 
 the authors of this pretended theft, she had the talent to 
 manage to get different passports as well from the Minister 
 of Foreign Affairs as from the municipality of Luciennes 
 and from the department of Seine-et-Oise, of which many 
 members protected her openly, and especially the man named 
 Lavallerie, who had since taken his own life; that, during 
 her four sojourns in London, she had lived only with the 
 emigres, with the lords who were hostile to the Revolu- 
 tion, " with the infamous Pitt, that implacable enemy of the 
 human race, a medal of whom she had brought back con- 
 taining an effigy of the monster." He said that her treas- 
 ures were open to the enemies of the home country ; that she 
 had paid a sum of 200,000 livres in settlement of an annuity 
 to Rohan-Chabot, possessor of considerable estates in Ven- 
 
 1 When Fouquier, in his indictment ("acte d'accusation ") spoke 
 of a counterfeit theft, he knowingly lied in this statement in the 
 indictment, having in his possession all the proofs of this theft, and 
 notably Blache's manuscript deposition, in which it was acknowl- 
 edged that " he had seen at the office of the Lord Mayor of Lon- 
 don diamonds which he was told had been stolen in France at the 
 house of the accused woman" a deposition which the witness re- 
 peated in his examination. 
 
 306 
 
Madame DXJI Barry- 
 dee, " where had been formed," remarked Fouquier, " the 
 nucleus of the rebels ; " that through the interposition of the 
 Chevalier d'Escourt she had lent a like sum of 200,000 livres 
 to La Rochefoucauld, a former Bishop of Rouen; that, in 
 short, this same D'Escourt, the before-mentioned La Bondie, 
 his nephew, and the person who was formerly the Vicomte 
 de Jumilhac, an emigre, had received from her considerable 
 sums. He said that she had brought about assemblies in her 
 pavilion of Luciennes, " of which she wanted to make a lit- 
 tle stronghold, a fact sufficiently proved by the eight guns 
 out of which her good friend the villain D'Angremont 
 cheated the municipality of Paris for her benefit." He 
 spoke of all the treasures hidden by her, and, as a proof 
 of her faith in the counter-revolution, he mentioned the 
 rare collection of documents and engravings of a counter- 
 revolutionary character found in her house. He referred 
 to the mourning worn by her publicly in London, on the 
 occasion of the death of the tyrant. He spoke about her 
 perpetual correspondence with the most cruel enemies of 
 the Republic, the Crussols, the De Poix, Calonne, D'Aiguil- 
 lon, Beauvau, Chavigny, Mortemart, Brissac, Frondeville, 
 Coigny, Brancas, De Nesle, Maussabre, Breteuil, Boissais- 
 son, and Narbonne. 
 
 Passing to the Vandenyvers, Fouquier-Tinville painted 
 them as the intermediaries between the emigres and the Du 
 Barry. He accused them of having transmitted diamonds 
 belonging to the Du Barry into Holland. He accused them 
 of having supplied her in the space of two years with a let- 
 
 307 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 ter of credit for 6,000 livres sterling, another of 2,000, an- 
 other of 50,000, another for an unlimited sum, of having 
 supplied her with the 200,000 livres for La Rochefoucauld, 
 and of having supplied all these sums for the emigres, and 
 subsequent to the law against emigres which entitled them to 
 regard the Du Barry as an emigree. He also accused the 
 Vandenyvers of having at all times been enemies of France, 
 of having been in 1792 accomplices in a plot between 
 the tyrant and the King of Spain to bring about a bank- 
 ruptcy of the two nations, to swallow up the public wealth, 
 and to perpetuate the slavery of the French. Then, com- 
 ing back to the Revolution, he ended by accusing them of 
 having been amongst the number of knights of the dagger 
 and of having co-operated " for the massacre of the people." 
 
 Then begins the taking of evidence. 
 
 George Greive, aged forty-five, man of letters, born at 
 Newcastle, in England : 
 
 " Deposes that it is within his knowledge that the 
 accused woman Du Barry had prevented the recruiting 
 at Luciennes; that he found on the night of the 22nd 
 of September last, the day of her arrest, a considerable 
 quantity of plate in a place used for keeping the gar- 
 dener's tools, and, near a high-road, the celebrated ser- 
 vice of gold, and in another place buried louis and pieces 
 worth six livres, more bronzes, a bust of Louis XV. ; that 
 there had been found, within a recent period, in a heap 
 of dung near the high-road, a great quantity of precious 
 stones, gold and silver, and, a few days since, the portraits 
 
 308 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 of the Regent and of Anne of Austria, and furthermore, 
 in the room of the woman Roussel, the medal of Pitt 
 concealed in a drum, besides a great number of pieces 
 which had been announced as stolen, notably a pencil-case 
 and a gold opera-glass. Take note," continues the deponent, 
 " that Fournier, the Justice of the Peace of the district, has 
 drawn up a statement as to the effects which have been 
 discovered. There was a packet of 134 rubies; but he 
 could not say whether they formed a part of those carried 
 in the list of which he had spoken. 
 
 " In the gardens he found a tassel used for a watch- 
 chain, a gold pencil-case. . . . We found in the 
 papers of the accused a letter showing the signature 
 of Forth erased, as well as that of Betmaschuson, 
 who was closely allied with him. I have seen the ac- 
 cused woman, who had many domiciles in Paris, visited 
 by emigrants or their partisans. 1 With regard to the 
 diamonds of 1791, the general opinion in Luciennes was 
 that the theft was a pretended one. I notice that, on the 
 return of the accused woman on the occasion of the first 
 journey to London, there was shown me an English certi- 
 ficate signed by the Due Guicusbert, a great enemy of 
 the French Revolution. It is in accordance with this cer- 
 
 1 This information must have come from Salenave, who, in a letter 
 to Madame du Barry, exculpates himself as to her denunciation, and 
 declares that it was not he who said she had three residences in 
 Paris in the month of September last, and that it was not he who said 
 she had been secretly at the house of M. Nevernois. 
 
 309 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 tificate that she applied for all her passports to the depart- 
 ment and the Minister of Foreign Affairs." 
 
 Dumas, V ice-President, to the Accused Woman. 
 
 Q. Whose portrait is that of the woman which was found 
 in the garden buried in the dunghill with that of Louis XV., 
 dressed as a Carmelite? 
 
 A. / don't know. 
 
 Q. Have you received Forth at your house? 
 
 A. Yes. 
 
 Q. You stated in your first examination that, on your 
 return in March, 1793, your case was finished; now I ask 
 you why the certificates import that it was necessary for you 
 to return to England ? 1 
 
 A. It was to get my diamonds and pay the costs. 
 
 Greive continued his statement, and added that the ac- 
 cused had imposed on the Convention, in order to obtain 
 permission to go to England by pretending that her jewels, 
 said by her to be stolen, were her creditors' only security, 
 while she possessed immense wealth 150,000 livres a year 
 out of the Hotel de Ville of Paris; 186 shares in the Dis- 
 count Bank of the value of 700,000 to 800,000 livres, dia- 
 monds and precious stones, gold and silver coins in a consid- 
 
 1 On a card of Greive we read : " After her forced return from 
 London in the month of March, she did everything possible to get 
 a new passport, under the pretext that her presence was necessary 
 in London for the I7th of April. I have had between my hands 
 certificates for that purpose signed by the Duke of Queensberry and 
 and by a certain Whitshed Kesne, two of the meanest of George III/s 
 lackeys, most bitter enemies of the Revolution, a fact to which I 
 have alluded in my pamphlet." 
 
 310 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 erable quantity, an immense amount of worked gold and sil- 
 ver plate, an enormous wardrobe of stuffs and of the rich- 
 est merchandises ; considerable landed property, a fortune, in 
 fact, in moveables and immoveables, which might be esti- 
 mated at from ten to twelve millions, and that she kept at 
 the same time a house of the most ostentatious description, 
 with nearly forty servants. 
 
 Another witness is called. 
 
 Xavier Audouin, aged thirty-nine, clerk in the Ministry 
 of War, deposes that a few days after the loth of August, 
 1792, passing with an armed force through the neighbour- 
 hood of Saint Germain-en-Laye, he was warned that the 
 chateau of Luciennes was filled with persons who had for- 
 merly been noblemen of the Court. Making his way thither, 
 the accused woman ordered refreshments for them, and said 
 there was nobody in the house ; that, having asked her what 
 was in an apartment the door of which was closed, she an- 
 swered that it was soiled linen, and that she did not know 
 where the key was. Her prevarications appearing to him 
 suspicious, he had the door of the said room opened, and in 
 it was found a young man named Maussabre lying down; 
 that the accused woman took a great interest in this man : 
 seeing that they were determined to bring him on to Paris, 
 she offered her carriage to^convey him there. She even ap- 
 peared moved when this Maussabre began saying that if 
 they sent him to Paris he would be massacred. Since then 
 there appeared many times at her house, as he deposes, 
 a certain Chevalier d'Escotwt, in order to obtain the lib- 
 
 311 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 erty of the said Maussabre, a request with which he did 
 not wish to comply, seeing that this individual, when he 
 was arrested at the house of the accused woman, was not 
 found armed with any documents to indicate that he was a 
 patriot. 
 
 Another witness is called. 
 
 Jean-Baptiste Blache, aged forty-one, commissary of the 
 Committee of General Safety of the National Convention, 
 residing in No. 109 Rue du Temple, Paris, repeats in al- 
 most identical terms the written deposition cited above. 
 Dumas, V ice-President, to the Accused Woman. 
 
 Q. What answer have you to give to the witness's depo- 
 sition? 
 
 A. The answer I have to give is that I have seen Mes- 
 dames de Calonne and Mortemart as a matter of fact in 
 London, but all our relations were confined to mere friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Q. Have you worn mourning for Capet in London ? 
 
 A. / wore a black dress because I had not brought a dress 
 of any other colour with me. 1 
 
 Q. Have you petitioned for Labondie's liberation? 
 
 A. / have done so, because he had been arrested at my 
 house as a suspect. 
 
 Another witness is called. 
 
 Louis-Marguerite-Bernard Escourt, aged sixty-eight 
 
 1 The Tribunal had a deposition of the chambermaid Roussel, who 
 stated that Madame du Barry had brought with her black and some 
 white dresses. 
 
 312 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 years, ex-captain of cavalry, usually residing in the Rue de 
 Crenelle, Paris, and actually confined in La Force, deposes 
 that he knows the accused woman Du Barry, as well as 
 Vandenyver Senior and the elder of his two sons. It is about 
 two years since he made the acquaintance of the accused 
 woman, but he has rarely been at her house. She wrote to 
 him from London to assist her in getting a power of attor- 
 ney, and to go and ask for 200,000 livres from the Van- 
 denyvers, who lent them to Rohan-Chabot when he was 
 staying at the Hotel de la Rochefoucauld in the Rue de 
 Seine. 
 
 After three or four questions put by Dumas to the wit- 
 ness with regard to the negotiation of this loan, the public 
 prosecutor rises up. 
 
 " Seeing that the Sieur d'Escourt in his declaration has 
 not ceased to be manifestly in contradiction with himself, 
 from which contradictions it results that it is evident the 
 declarations of the said D'Escourt are false, that these shuf- 
 flings have for their object to hide the complicity existing 
 between him and other accomplices in a criminal correspon- 
 dence, the public prosecutor requires and orders that a pro- 
 ds-verbal will be drawn up by the President of the con- 
 tradictions, depositions, tergiversations, and falsities put 
 forward by the said witness in his declaration, and that the 
 said D'Escourt may be arrested, and conducted to the prison 
 of the Conciergerie in place of that of La Force, with a view 
 to his being prosecuted as one accused of forgery and com- 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 plicity in a criminal and counter-revolutionary correspon- 
 dence." 1 
 
 Dumas, Vice-President, to the Accused Woman. 
 
 Q. How did you happen to make the witness's acquaint- 
 ance? 
 
 A. / made his acquaintance at the house of M. de Brissac, 
 to whom he was aide-de-camp. 
 
 Then commenced the deposition of the witnesses recom- 
 mended, patronized by Greive. The latter for it was neces- 
 sary that every baseness, down to the baseness of the ante- 
 chamber, should be embraced by the Terror and wait upon 
 the guillotine the latter were servants dismissed for theft 
 or for patriotism, sent from the service to the Committee of 
 Surveillance of the district, avenging themselves by turn- 
 ing informers and bringing to the conduct of the case 
 grudges so vile that only the justice of the Revolution could 
 gather them together without being soiled. 
 
 Francois Salenave, aged thirty-eight, born at . . . 
 department of Basses-Pyrenees, formerly in the employment 
 of the accused woman, at present employed by the Commit- 
 tee of Surveillance at Versailles, deposes that he has seen 
 the accused woman visited by Levaupaliere, Brissac, La- 
 bondie, D'Escourt, the former Marquis Donissant, the ex- 
 
 1 On the 21 st Frimaire, Year II. (December nth, 1792), on the 
 depositions of Madame du Barry's chambermaids, on the deposition 
 of Frangois-Denis Nee, engraver, who declared that he had heard 
 the " assignats " decried to please the King and the Royal family, 
 Bernard Escourt was condemned to death and executed the same 
 day. 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 Vicomte de Pons, the former Marquise de Brunei, the far- 
 mer Duchesse de Brancas, with whom she made the journey 
 to London, and who remained there since then, and the 
 former Chevalier de Maussabre; adds that in his char- 
 acter of patriot he incurred the ill-will of the other ser- 
 vants of the house, who were aristocrats, and who preju- 
 diced against him the mind of the accused, who dismissed 
 him from her service. 
 
 The Accused Woman: I have to say to this deposition 
 that the Dame de Brancas is not an emigree. On the con- 
 trary, she even returned to France sooner than myself. 
 As for the witness, I did not turn him out of doors for his- 
 opinions, nor through the advice of anybody whomsoever, 
 but for his dishonesty with respect to chinaware, which dis- 
 appeared every day from the house. 
 
 Louis-Benoit Zamor, aged thirty-one, born in Bengal, in 
 India, employed by the Committee of Safety in Versailles, 
 residing there in the Rue de la Loi, declares that he was 
 brought up by the accused woman since the age of ten ; that 
 he was brought into France by a sea-captain; that seeing 
 that the patriotic newspapers often spoke of her rather 
 freely, he had advised her to sacrifice a part of her for- 
 tune towards the nation in order to retain the other part; 
 that the accused woman, very far from taking his wise ad- 
 vice into consideration, continued to receive aristocrats into 
 her house, as he assumed they were, on seeing them applaud 
 the checks experienced by the armies of the Republic; that 
 he renewed his appeals to the accused woman on this sub- 
 
 3iS 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 ject, but she did not condescend even to appear to pay 
 attention to him. " On the contrary, having learned that 
 I kept company with an old friend of Franklin, and Marat 
 (Greive), and that I was on very intimate terms with the 
 patriots Blache, Salenave, Fremont, and a great number of 
 others, she took the liberty of saying to me in an imperious 
 tone that she would give me three days to leave the 
 house." 1 
 
 The Accused Woman: It is false that I received aristo- 
 crats at my house. As for the advice which the witness says 
 he gave me, I have received none from him. With regard 
 to his expulsion, it was in connection with keeping company 
 with the persons he mentioned. 
 
 Jean Thenot, aged twenty-five, tutor at Luciennes, de- 
 poses to having served five years in the capacity of a man- 
 servant (he had left Madame du Barry three years since), 
 and to having heard it said by her in 1789, the time of the 
 death of Foulon and of Berthier, that the people were a pack 
 of wretches, of villains. 
 
 The Accused Woman, interrupting the witness : In what 
 place have you heard me making such a remark? 
 
 The Witness. It was while going to your melon-bed. 
 
 1 The work done by Zamore as an informer did not secure him 
 from persecution by the Sans-culottes, who did not forgive him for 
 his past. M. Dauban has dug up out of the National Archives, in one 
 of the registers consecrated to the correspondence of the police, 
 the following notice dated the gth Nivose, Year II. (December 29, 
 1793) ' "Arrest by the Commune of Sever, department of Seine-et- 
 Oise, of a man named Zamor, a pupil of the Du Barry." 
 
Madame D\x Barry 
 
 The Accused. This is a false statement; it is an atrocious 
 perfidy. 
 
 Then came the chambermaid's turn. 
 
 Henriette Picard, wife of Couture, aged twenty-three, in 
 the service of the accused woman, deposes to having accom- 
 panied her in her journeys to London with Pretry, the valet, 
 Marechal, a man-servant, the woman Roussel, and the for- 
 mer Chevalier d'Escourt ; has seen French emigres visit the 
 accused during her stay in London. 
 
 Marianne Labitte, Widow Cottet, aged forty-seven, up- 
 holsterer in Luciennes, deposes that to her knowledge at 
 the time of Brissac's arrest the accused woman spent the 
 night burning papers. 
 
 The Accused Woman. I did not burn any papers. 
 
 On the 1 7th Frimaire (December 7th) the same tribunal, 
 the same judges, and the same jury, resumed their sitting. 
 
 The same prisoners were brought in, and witnesses were 
 called who seemed the witnesses of the previous day. 
 
 Devrey, surgeon, declares that he cannot indicate the time 
 when, shortly after Brissac's arrest, the Widow Cottet told 
 him that the accused associated with the emigres. 
 
 So great was the Terror that except D'Escourt, none of 
 the witnesses, even when well-known for their sympathy and 
 pity for the accused, dared to seek to speak up even slightly 
 for the innocence of the wretched woman. There is to be 
 found amongst the witnesses, who knew that at the first 
 word they risked in favour of the proprietress of Luciennes 
 they would be accused, two curious testimonies of their 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 cowardly terror. To the summons served on that Boileau 
 who was opposed to the arrest in the month of June is an- 
 nexed a certificate from the officers of health of the Ver- 
 sailles Infirmary, attesting that " Paul Boileau is kept ill in 
 bed by a humoral fever accompanied by a violent headache, 
 that in consequence he is unable to leave his bed or to attend 
 to any business." To the summons served on Chaillou, 
 another patron of Madame du Barry, is also found a cer- 
 tificate annexed from the administrators of Versailles at- 
 testing that their colleague is ill in his bed for the past three 
 days, that his condition makes it impossible for him to get 
 to Paris to answer the summons served him by the public 
 prosecutor. 1 
 
 Nicolas Fournier, aged thirty-three years, measurer of 
 buildings, formerly Justice of the Peace for the District of 
 Marly and residing there, gives evidence from personal 
 knowledge of the precious objects found in the various 
 places connected with the residence of the accused woman. 
 The house where the goods were is situated on the high 
 road, and is occupied only by the gardener. Part of the 
 stuffs were cut, but the greater number were in parcels. 
 Witness observes that amongst the jewels which have been 
 found, he has recognized a watch-chain, an opera-glass, a 
 pencil-case, forming part of the articles alleged to have been 
 stolen, and contained in the stamped list according to the 
 verification made by the commissaries of the National Con- 
 vention. 
 
 1 Du Barry "Dossier": National Archives, W 1 16. 
 
Madame D\i Barr> 
 
 The Accused. I draiv the attention of the Tribunal to 
 the fact that the three objects of which the witness speaks 
 were sent to M. de Brissac, who gave a louis to the porter 
 and that they were then brought back to me. 
 
 Marie-Joseph Lamonte, wife of Roussel, aged fifty-four, 
 chambermaid of the accused woman, residing at Luciennes, 
 deposes the same facts as Couture. 
 
 Vandenyver Senior, in answer to Dumas, said he had 
 charge of the affairs of the accused woman for about four 
 years past; that the current expenses of her house were 
 1,200 livres a month; that he had supplied her with a first 
 letter of 6,000 livres sterling, a second of 2,000 livres ster- 
 ling; that he had written in the month of .December, 1792, 
 a letter to a London banker, by which he was ordered to 
 supply the accused woman with the little sums of which she 
 might have need ; . . . that he had signed the two let- 
 ters of credit. 
 
 Whereupon Vandenyver Junior said : "I point out to 
 the Tribunal that we have furnished letters of credit to 
 Madame du Barry > because she had established the fact and 
 satisfied us as to her having passports, and not being judges 
 of their validity, we .thought there was nothing improper in 
 supplying her with the sums she demanded/' 
 
 La Fleuterie pleaded on behalf of Madame du Barry, and 
 Chauveau on behalf of Vandenyvers Senior and his sons. 
 
 The Vice- President Dumas delivered a resume of the case, 
 in which he referred to " the courtesan of the predecessor of 
 Louis XVI.," the instrument of Pitt, the accomplice in the 
 
 319 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 war with foreign countries, the rising of Calvados, the insur- 
 rection of Vendee, and the troubles in the South. . . . 
 After which, he put the questions to the jury. 
 
 The death of Madame du Barry cost a quarter of an hour 
 more to the conscience of the Terror than the death of 
 Marie Antoinette. At the end of five quarters of an hour, 
 the jury re-entered court, the accused were brought back, 
 and heard their sentence : 
 
 " The Tribunal, according to the declaration of the jury, 
 giving judgment unanimously to the effect : that it is proved 
 machinations have been carried on and understandings held 
 with the enemies of the State and their agents in order to 
 induce them to commit hostilities, to point out to them and 
 favour the means of undertaking and directing them against 
 France, notably in making different journeys abroad to con- 
 coct hostile plans with our enemies by supplying them and 
 their agents with assistance in money : 
 
 " That Jeanne Vaubernier, wife of Du Barry, residing at 
 Luciennes, formerly courtesan, is found guilty of being one 
 of the agents or accomplices of these machinations and un- 
 derstandings : 
 
 " That Jean-Baptiste Vandenyver, Dutch banker, domi- 
 ciled in Paris, Edme- Jean-Baptiste Vandenyver, banker in 
 Paris, and Antoine-Augustine Vandenyver, banker in Paris, 
 are found guilty of being accomplices in these machinations 
 and understandings: 
 
 " The public prosecutor having been heard in his conclu- 
 sions on the application of the law : 
 
 320 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 " The said Jeanne Vaubernier, wife of Du Barry, the said 
 Jean-Baptiste Vandenyver, Edme-Jean-Baptiste Vanden- 
 yver, and Antoine-Augustine Vandenyver, banker in Paris, 
 are condemned to the penalty of death, in conformity with 
 the first article of the first section of the first title of the 
 second part of the Penal Code: 
 
 " The goods of the said woman Du Barry, Jean-Baptiste, 
 Edme-Jean-Baptiste and Antoine-Augustine Vandenyver 
 are declared forfeit to the Republic, conformably to the arti- 
 cle II. of title II. of the law of that loth of March, 1793. 
 
 " And it is ordered that with the utmost speed of the pub- 
 lic prosecutor the present judgment be executed in twenty- 
 four hours on the Place de la Revolution of this city, printed 
 and affixed throughout the entire Republic." 1 
 
 At the reading of this sentence, prostrated, overwhelmed 
 by stupor and horror, Madame du Barry suddenly lost the 
 coolness and the remnant of dignity which she had exhibited 
 in her answers. When she saw that all was over, that she 
 was about to be led away, and that the witnesses who had 
 been present during the scene rubbed their hands and en- 
 joyed her agony shamelessly, she was stricken with such fee- 
 bleness that the gendarmes were obliged to support her on 
 
 1 Proces- verbal of the sitting of the Revolutionary Criminal Tri- 
 bunal established by the law of the loth of March, 1793, and in 
 virtue of the law of the 3rd of April of the same year, sitting in 
 Paris in the Palais de Justice, the i6th and i;th Frimaire, Year II. 
 of the Republic. The case of Madame du Barry does not figure 
 in Clement's Bulletin of the Revolutionary Tribunal, the gap be- 
 tween the third and fourth part ranging from the 8th Frimaire to 
 the ist Germinal of the Year II. 
 
 321 21 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 their arms, and that the public was afraid that she would not 
 have the strength to live up to the time when she should die. 
 The trouble, the fright, the utter helplessness, the prostra- 
 tion of the woman in the presence of death, and of such a 
 death, were so great that she, who all her life had thought 
 only of living, in one moment forgot everything, affection, 
 gratitude, debts of love, sacred engagements, the secrets and 
 the devotions of those who had compromised themselves for 
 her. Hoping to save her life by selling the lives of others, 
 believing that she could buy pardon or at least a reprieve by 
 giving up what remained of hidden treasure, we find her 
 on the day of her execution, the day of her death, at ten 
 o'clock in the morning, quite pale after a night of terror, 
 trembling and supplicating between the two wickets of the 
 Conciergerie, flinging towards the advancing executioner, 
 towards the hour of doom so nigh, towards the guillotine 
 looming above her, the precipitate and breathless confession 
 of everything that she had buried, concealed, kept back 
 from the scent of the Republic, from the cupidities of the 
 country of the Year II. I 1 To Justice Denisot, to Claude 
 Roger, substitute of the public prosecutor, Madame du 
 Barry gives details as to the precious objects buried in the 
 
 1 See in the Appendix : Declaration of Madame du Barry, made 
 between two wickets of the Conciergerie after the Judgment which 
 condemned her to death. This document, which has to-day disap- 
 peared from the " Dossier " of Madame du Barry, is given by Fav- 
 rolles in his " Historic Memoirs of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier," 
 in which he has reproduced the greater part of the documents form- 
 ing part of the National Archives. 
 
 322 
 
MADAME ELISABETH 
 
 To face page 322 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 garden of Luciennes, buried in the thickets, concealed in 
 the corridors, in the cellar, in the garden of her valet, that 
 faithful Morin, who will pay afterwards with his head for 
 his mistress's disclosure, concealed in the house of the 
 woman Deliant, concealed on the premises of Citizen 
 Montrouy. Under the stroke of terror, she remembers, she 
 finds everything again, bit by bit, louis by louis, down to a 
 plate, down to a spoon, for it is her life she is going to re- 
 cover. In her zeal, in her anguish, fearing that all this 
 treasure would not suffice still to pay for her pardon, she 
 undertakes to write to London, if it is the good pleasure of 
 the Tribunal, to get back all the articles in the theft of 
 1791, deposited with Morland, with Moncelet, and Ram- 
 son . . . Unhappy being! She forgot that the Revo- 
 lution would be her heir! 
 
 It was a time when courage had no sex. Condemned 
 like men, women died like men. One might have said they 
 were jealous of the privilege of dying. Some of them 
 ascended the scaffold as if to a sacrifice; others as if 'to a 
 rostrum. Some appeared to march towards posterity, 
 others towards a fatherland. Each was worthy of all. The 
 women of the middle class died like Romans; the great 
 ladies died like grand seigneurs; the Queen died as a 
 King should die. But all had the strength of an idea, of 
 a principle, of a faith, of a duty, of a right, of a passion, of 
 an illusion, of something which in the end sustains the soul 
 and endures death's agony. But Madame du Barry had 
 none of these things to assist her in dying ; and if this is a 
 
 323 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 scandal in her history which we ought to forgive, it is the 
 scandal of a death which even moved the Terror to pity. 1 
 As she stepped up into the cart, Madame du Barry, to whom 
 that morning when she made her declaration between two 
 wickets the Justice Denisot had vaguely promised her par- 
 don, and who, when her hair had been already cut, did not 
 believe she would die, Madame du Barry turned pale as 
 the robe she wore. The crowd, the Sunday crowd, was 
 waiting for the unfortunate woman. And in that crowd in 
 the foreground the condemned one could perceive Greive, 
 who that evening said : " I never laughed so much as 
 
 1 The Comte Jean du Barry was guillotined almost at the same 
 time in Toulouse. In a petition addressed to the Corps Legislatif, 
 Anne-Marie-Therese Rabaudy, widow of Jean Baptiste du Barry, 
 asked permission to re-enter into the possession of a house in Tou- 
 louse of 20,000 livres, of a house in Levignac of 8,000 livres, of a 
 demesne in the same commune called the demesne of Ceres, the 
 whole of a value of 78,000 livres, which had been assured to her by 
 a will of April 20th, 1779. Almost the entire of the Comte Jean's 
 fortune consisted of an annuity of 80,000 livres which was extin- 
 guished by his death. The Widow du Barry terminates her peti- 
 tion in these words : " If you deign to consult the members of the 
 Haute-Garonne, they will tell you the sacrifices that my husband 
 made for the Revolution, the enormous expense he undertook on 
 its behalf. They will not leave you ignorant of the fact that almost 
 an entire legion at Toulouse of which he was for years colonel was 
 dressed, armed and equipped at his cost. They will inform you of 
 the resistance he made to the disorganizer Chalot during his sojourn 
 in Toulouse without a mission a resistance which was the sole cause 
 of his punishment." The Comte Guillaume, the husband of the Du 
 Barry, escaped the guillotine, and, after marrying a second time 
 Jeanne Madeleine Lemoine, died at Toulouse on the 2d of August, 
 1811, at the age of 79 years. 
 
 324 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 to-day, when I saw the grimaces that beauty made at 
 dying." 
 
 The horses began to walk at a slow pace. 
 
 The people pressed forward to look at the courtesan of 
 the former tyrant. 
 
 She whom they were staring at saw nothing, heard noth- 
 ing. She did nothing but moan, sob, suffocate. Her com- 
 panions on the journey, who were to be her companions at 
 the end of it, the Vandenyvers, sought to sustain her with 
 some cheering words; the conventional Christmastide was 
 urged as a ground for taking courage. She only replied to 
 them with lifeless words, movements of inert lips. 
 
 Suddenly, near the Palais Royal, at the Sergeant's Bar- 
 rier, raising her eyes, she saw the balcony of a millinery es- 
 tablishment at which the work-girls had planted themselves 
 in a row in order to get one last look at her who had 
 been Madame du Barry passing along. This was the very 
 establishment where she had been a working milliner's ap- 
 prentice. . . . Perhaps at that moment, in one of those 
 flashes of agony, in one of those lucidities of the final hour 
 which memory and the images of an entire life precipitate, 
 Madame du Barry revived her whole past, her youth, then 
 Versailles, then Luciennes. Dream of a second, from which 
 she started, breaking out into shrieks, piercing shrieks, 
 which reached from one end to the other of the Rue Saint- 
 Honore. 
 
 The executioner and his two assistants had difficulty in 
 supporting the condemned woman, in holding back on the 
 
 325 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 cart this frenzied body which the convulsions of fear urged 
 her to cast on the ground. 
 
 To violent movements, to shrieks, succeeded entreaties 
 mingled with tears; and the woman, her forehead and her 
 eyes swept by her short hair, leaned over towards those who 
 stood by curiously awaiting her death to say to them : " My 
 friends ! save me ! ... I have never done harm to any- 
 one ! In Heaven's name, save me ! " 
 
 The crowd was stunned. People had became so accus- 
 tomed to see others dying, to see them dying with a show of 
 bravado, that this woman seemed for the first time a woman 
 whom they were going to kill. She, in the meantime, still 
 weeping, repeated: 
 
 " Life ! Life ! Let them leave me life. ... I give 
 all my goods to the nation." 
 
 " Your goods ! But you cannot give the nation what al- 
 ready belongs to it. . . ." 
 
 A coal-heaver, standing in front of the insulter, turned 
 round, and, without saying a word, gave him a blow in the 
 face. 1 It rose up in the silent, stupefied crowd that first 
 emotion which amongst the populace is like the shock of 
 
 pity. 2 
 
 The officer had the horses drawing the cart moved for- 
 ward with a lash of the whip and hurried the spectacle to a 
 close. 
 
 1 Narrative of Madame du Barry's death extracted from the jour- 
 nal, "La Nouvelle Minerve." This narrative, given by M. le Roi 
 in his pamphlet, should be consulted with the distrust due to an 
 ocular witness who saw black hair on Madame du Barry. 
 
 1 "The Revolutions of Paris" (No. 219) attempt to deny this 
 
 326 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 The cart arrived at the Place de la Revolution at half-past 
 four in the afternoon. 1 Madame du Barry was the first to 
 descend. She was heard on the stairs of the scaffold, dis- 
 mayed, hopeless, wild with anguish and terror, struggling, 
 imploring, asking for mercy from the executioner, asking 
 " One minute more, Monsieur le Bourreau ! " 2 then, under 
 the knife, shrieking, " Help ! Help ! " like a woman assassi- 
 nated by thieves. 
 
 1 Proch-verbal of death: "The second year of the French Re- 
 public, on the i8th Brumaire, at the request of the citizen acting 
 as Public Prosecutor, the Extraordinary and Revolutionary Crim- 
 inal Tribunal established in Paris by the law of the loth of March, 
 1793, without any recourse to the Tribunal for Reversing Judgments, 
 which refers to the record of the said Tribunal sitting in Paris, we 
 , . . Crier of the said Tribunal, remaining in Paris as under- 
 signed, are transported into the House of Justice of the said Tri- 
 bunal for the execution of a Judgment given by the Tribunal of to- 
 day's date against the woman named Jeanne Vaubernier Femme 
 Dubarry, who has been condemned to the penalty of death for the 
 causes stated in that Judgment, and have delivered her up in conse- 
 quence to the executioner of Criminal Judgments and to the gen- 
 darmerie who have conducted her to the Place de la Revolution of 
 this city, where, on a scaffold on the said Place, the said Vaubernier 
 F. Dubarry has in our presence undergone the penalty of death at 
 half -past four in the afternoon, and of all that has taken place above 
 have made and drawn up the present proces-verbal, so as to serve 
 and be valid as justification for this legal act. DEGUAIGUE." 
 
 Registered gratis at Paris, the 22nd Frimaire, II. of the French 
 Republic One and Indivisible. 
 
 2 " Mr. Executioner." There is something childlike, pathetic, and 
 peculiarly characteristic of Madame du Barry in this appeal. TRANS- 
 LATOR. 
 
 sentiment, attested by all the different witnesses: "On the route, 
 she did not inspire the slightest pity. Moreover, her physiognomy 
 would have repelled it. She carried still on her face the imprints 
 of vice." 
 
 327 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 I come back to the bust all in plaster of Caffieri in the Library 
 of Versailles, a bust which is to me the only one that gives an 
 idea of the beauty of the Du Barry, and of the character of her 
 beauty. Pajou's bust the official image in marble of the Favourite 
 with the " Bourbonnien " nose, the eyes level with the head, the entire 
 effect of the sheep-like face betrays nothing of the perfection and 
 of the sprightly daintiness which is brought home to us by the 
 admiration of her contemporaries. I will say more: the nose 
 which Pajou gives her in his statue is not the nose of her por- 
 trait by Drouais, the nose of her portrait by Cosway; and the 
 graceful impudence of her face is only explained by the nose 
 which she has in Caffieri's bust, a nose slightly hooked, a nose 
 like Roxalana's with a gentle and almost imperceptible aquiline 
 curve. It was only thus that she appeared with the rebelliousness 
 of a young nymph, not a trace of which exists in Pajou's bust. 
 T am aware that some persons, confused by the lack of close re- 
 semblance between Caffieri's bust and Pajou's bust, are not dis- 
 posed to see in this plaster cast the portrait of the Favourite. It 
 must, however, be mentioned that the donor, M. Ferrand, the painter, 
 gave him, according to tradition, something like a portrait of 
 Madame du Barry, that, on the other hand, the Revue des 
 Documents historiques has published a receipt which attests in 
 the most positive manner the execution of a bust of the Comtesse 
 by Caffieri; 1 that finally the date /. /. Caffieri, 1770, the mo- 
 ment when the great favour of the mistress had been declared, 
 
 1 Here is the receipt republished by Guiffrey in his book entitled 
 " Les Caffieri," Morgand and Fatout, 1877 : " I acknowledge hav- 
 ing received from M. Humbert the sum of a thousand livres for hav- 
 ing finished the bust in marble of Louis XV. belonging to the 
 Comtesse du Barry, without prejudice to the fact that the Com- 
 tesse du Barry ought to have had her portrait taken by me. Given 
 at Paris this 5th of November, 1779, Caffieri." 
 
 329 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 renders very acceptable the theory of the modelling of the Du 
 Barry this year. As for me, I repeat it, until a positive proof 
 comes to demonstrate that it is the portrait of another woman, 
 I persist in being convinced that it is the portrait of the Du Barry 
 just as it evolves itself from the memoirs and the poetic ideas 
 of the time; and I ask that proofs in plaster may be taken from 
 this unknown bust, proofs destined to avenge the beauty of the 
 Favourite on Pajou's calumny. 
 
 "I have called at your house, Monsieur le Due, in order to 
 thank you for the lively interest you have taken in the favour 
 which the King has granted to my brother. I believe he owes 
 you, Monsieur le Due, the advantage of having been able to retain 
 his company of dragoons, a favour which my brother prizes 
 infinitely, just as I do, since it enables him to continue as before 
 to show his zeal for the King's service. 
 
 " I am, Monsieur le Due, with sentiments of the utmost respect 
 and gratitude. 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 
 " DUBARY. 
 
 " Compiegne, the loth." * 
 
 " I thank you, Monsieur le Due, for the courteous reception you 
 have given to the Sieur Nalet. You have known for a long time 
 all the interest I take in him ; I will be enchanted to see him re- 
 established in the post which he filled for many years. I believe 
 the moment is favourable for the purpose, and I will be infinitely 
 obliged if you put him in such a position that he may profit by it. 
 I have the honour to be, with extreme consideration, 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 
 "THE COMTESSE DUBARRY. 
 
 "From the Chateau of Versailles, this 30th of June." 
 
 1 The handwriting of this letter is very curious. The characters 
 are big and badly- formed, like those of a child beginning to write 
 characters which in no way resemble the little feminine hand which 
 makes us at once recognize the Favourite's letters, when she has 
 learned to write properly. The four letters which we give here, 
 written by Madame du Barry, in the early days of her career as the 
 Favourite, to the minister Choiseul, have been communicated by the 
 Due de Choiseul, nephew of the Minister, to the Revue de Pans 
 (November, 1836), in an article in which he refuted the false 
 memoirs published by Lamothe-Langon under the name of the Com- 
 tesse du Barry. 
 
 330 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 " You are deceived by those around you, Monsieur le Due, other- 
 wise it would have been impossible that you would have written 
 to me, six months ago, saying that as the interests of the King 
 required the supplies of Corsica to be looked after, you would 
 give the post to the Sieur Nalet, for the services with which you 
 were pleased, as soon as the Sieur de Lisle had arrived. It ap- 
 pears that this administrator has plans different from yours, since 
 he is so slow in complying with your orders. You must realize 
 better than I do how little necessary is his presence here for the 
 execution of your will. Whether he arrives or not, you can give 
 the contract to the Sieur Nalet if you continue to believe that 
 he is capable of fulfilling his duties. Let us speak no more about 
 it, Monsieur le Due. If you have changed your opinion, I shall 
 not remain less convinced that you intend to do something which 
 is agreeable to me. I have the honour to be, with extreme consid- 
 eration, Monsieur le Due, 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 "THE COMTESSE DUBARRY. 
 
 " VERSAILLES, December i6th, 1769." 
 
 " I take, Monsieur le Due, all the interest possible in M. d'Arambal. 
 You know better than anybody how good a servant he is to the 
 King, and I desire that my recommendation may be added to a 
 claim which is so precious to you. I shall see with the utmost 
 satisfaction all the benefit that you can obtain for him. I am, 
 Monsieur le Due, with extreme consideration, 
 
 " Your very humble and very obedient servant, 
 
 " THE COMTESSE DUBARRY. 
 "VERSAILLES, July sth, 1770." 
 
 The close examination of the catalogues of autograph letters 
 scarcely show anything more than signatures at the end of receipts 
 and orders for payments. I do not find a single letter of any 
 interest except one love-letter to Lord Seymour, given by Barrier 
 to Janin, who sold it, and that other letter dated July isth, 1780, 
 in which, when asking to have indispensable repairs made in the 
 chateau of Luciennes, she says: "The existing degradations cast 
 a dishonour on the buildings that wounds my amour-propre" 
 
 33i 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 ORIGINAL CONVERSATION 
 
 And which may serve as a History of the Eighteenth Century. 1 
 
 The Comte du Barry had an order for 17,000 livres on the Royal 
 Exchequer. Although he did not dare to hope for immediate pay- 
 ment, he had nevertheless applied for it to M. Turgot, and M. 
 de Vaines. His claim having appeared indisputable, it was im- 
 mediately paid. The gratitude of the Comte du Barry, or perhaps 
 his astonishment, induced him to call upon M. de Vaines in order 
 to convey his thanks to that gentleman. The latter was only too 
 delighted to have such a fine opportunity of making him chatter. 
 Here is their conversation and the way the Comte started it with his 
 Languedocian accent. 
 
 " Monsieur, I come to return thanks to you for having squared 
 my claim. 2 Never would that rascal of an Abbe Terray have 
 done so much for me." 
 
 " That is very astonishing, Monsieur, with all the credit that 
 you have." 
 
 " I, credit ! No. Once I put this hussy on the throne, she turned 
 her back on me." 
 
 " What ! she has done nothing for you ? " 
 
 "Excuse me the worst she could." 
 
 "And what did you do then?" 
 
 " Ah ! I am going to tell you. I got her valet and her chamber- 
 maid to sell themselves to me 1 paid well, and they kept me well 
 posted in what was going on. One day amongst others, I learned 
 soon after the occurrence that this creature had the ingratitude 
 to say to that scoundrel of an abbe in the King's presence : ' I 
 forbid you, abbe, to give anything to the Comte du Barry: not 
 
 1 This unpublished fragment, which paints in a rather lifelike 
 manner that immoral Gascon, the Comte Jean, was communicated 
 to me by M. Maurice Tourneux, the learned editor of Grimm's 
 Correspondence, published by the Garniers. The three stars placed 
 at the head of it indicate that it is an article communicated by 
 Madame d'Epinay to Meister, who arranged the " Correspondence " 
 in the place of Grimm. This conversation was written in Decem- 
 ber, 1775. 
 
 2 This is the nearest approach I can find in English for the Comte 
 Jean du Barry's slang. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 332 
 
Madame D\a Barry 
 
 one sou, I don't take any interest in him, and I don't want anyone 
 belonging to me to be a burden on the country.' . . . Do you 
 know, Monsieur, what I did? I came back to Paris like a shot; 
 I called on the abbe at his own house, and as soon as he came 
 home, 'Well,' said I, 'has that hussy over there played her part 
 nicely ? Has she displayed much disinterestedness before the 
 King? Was it a proper thing for her to declare that she did not 
 want you to do anything for me?' The abbe was gulled by this, 
 and I managed to get out of him this time a few ' thou ' not much 
 a trifle. I was only once able to drag nearly 40,000 livres out 
 of him faith, I believe that was all." 
 
 "However, you are rich?" 
 
 "Rich? No. I have a yearly income of 75,000 livres for life, 
 and I have had to give it up for four years to my creditors, and 
 I kept for myself 2,000 livres a month which the King pays me 
 out of the Exchequer. As I like the Republic and fish, I mean 
 to spend these four years in Marseilles." 1 
 
 " Madame du Barry must have some brains anyhow ? " 
 
 " Brains ? Not at all ; but in her case there is a close relation- 
 ship between mind and body. In the morning, when she gets up, 
 she is lovely, pretty, fresh as a rose it must be admitted she is 
 ravishing. About eleven o'clock, her jaws fall; her complexion 
 fades; yellow spots come under her eyes she is no longer any- 
 thing but a sapless rose, a mere rag. When the candles are 
 lighted, though, she picks up again, and becomes just as beautiful 
 as ever. Well, 'tis just the same way with her mind; she has 
 some flashes of wit, a good memory, and enough of skill to make 
 good use of what she hears sometimes charmingly clever things 
 drop from her lips as if out of Heaven. And then I have got up 
 a regular little academic college composed of the Abbe Arnaud, 
 Marin, Turpin, La Morliere and other clever people, who have 
 kept her well versed in current literature, and who have taught 
 her how to have a fling at philosophy. She has got some good out 
 of it more or less." 
 
 "Have you not lost your wife?" 
 
 1 Marseilles is a large seaport, and was then also a hotbed of 
 Republicanism. It was the men of Marseilles who, after the out- 
 break of the Revolution, marched to Paris singing the " Marseil- 
 laise." TRANSLATOR, 
 
 333 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 "You see me in mourning for her. I have taken off the 'weep- 
 ers,' because I have given up weeping over her. A decent woman, 
 handsome and well-deserving, though she hadn't a sou. She used 
 to pray to God every day as an atonement for my unfortunate life. 
 I had the greatest respect for her; but I didn't love her. She was 
 a relation of Malesherbes I mean soon to let him hear of this 
 bereavement. The fact is, we're not a lucky family. Tis only 
 that beggar who disowns his own family's name that makes his 
 fortune. He has married La Fumel, who will give him more than 
 200,000 crowns. I did a foolish stroke of business about my son's 
 match. I'm saddled with that Tournon girl; she had nothing, 
 but she was related to Soubise. She was a beauty, and the King 
 gave her a dowry. I had cherished some hopes; all these are 
 dashed." 
 
 "And what, Monsieur, has become of Madame de Muralt?" 
 
 "Ah! charming creature! she is relegated to some third floor, 
 I suppose. I have a great regard for her she has character. Just 
 fancy ! while I was wasting gold and jewellery on her, she said to 
 me: 'I hate you with the most deadly hatred; I detest you; I 
 execrate you. There's not a penny-boy hanging round the street- 
 corners that I wouldn't prefer to you !' Oh ! I must do her that 
 much justice she has character, that woman. Well, she is dying of 
 hunger in some hole or other." 
 
 They had got to this point when in came M. d'Harvelay. 
 
 The Comte rushed over to him. 
 
 "Ah! good day, Monsieur d'Harvelay. I'm the person am I 
 not ? that you made the Court's banker ? " 
 
 " I don't think so, Monsieur. M. de Vergennes, when he got into 
 the Ministry, thought fit to confide some details to me." 
 
 " Then apparently I've muddled it up. Well, good-bye, messieurs. 
 I'm off to see Malesherbes." 
 
 When he reached M. de Malesherbes' house, the Comte du Barry 
 communicated the fact of his wife's death to that gentleman on 
 the ground that she was related to him and the Chancellor Mau- 
 peou. 
 
 "How is that?" said M. de Malesherbes to him. 
 
 M. du Barry entered into an account of his wife's genealogy. 
 
 "Well, really," returned M. de Malesherbes, "she is much more 
 
 33* 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 of a relative of mine than she is of M. de Maupeou." 
 
 " Well," said Du Barry, in response to this remark, " I accept 
 the exchange." 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DUBARRY BY BUFFAULT, MERCHANT, 
 
 PARIS. 1 
 
 For her use. 
 
 September, 1769. Delivered to Madame Sigly* 14 ells % gross of 
 Tours, grey foundation plated with silver, broche silk and striped 
 silver netting-silk, at 60 livres 85S/. 
 
 September, 1769. Delivered to Madame Sigly 14 ells Y^ white 
 fluted persienne striped, white satin, broche rosette, plated with 
 gold and cherry-coloured chenille, at 48 livres 684/. 
 
 September, 1769. 16 ells of white ottoman silk striped, with a 
 satiny sheen, rose-coloured, at 15 livres 225/. 
 
 September, 1769. Delivered to Madame Sigly 20 ells white satin 
 foundation with medallions, broche, chenille, double foundations, 
 lilac and white, at 34 livres 68o/. 
 
 September, 1769. 17 ells jonquil foundation, fluted, striped, with 
 a white satiny gloss, spangled with shaded variegated bouquets, at 
 24 livres 4o8/. 
 
 November, 1769. Delivered to Madame Sigley, for a robe on the 
 large pannier, 15 ells, white satin foundation streaked with gold, 
 broche, bouquets of mother-of-pearl, chenille, and little wreath of 
 citron-coloured silk, at 54 livres 8io/. 
 
 June, 1771. For six rosewood parasols, taffeta of different col- 
 ours, trimmed with white silk and silver, at 39 livres each. . 234/. 
 
 1 I give here some fragments of the accounts of Madame du 
 Barry from the manuscripts in the National Library (French Sup- 
 plement, 8157, 8158). These accounts are not only interesting in 
 connection with the history of the Favourite : they give informa- 
 tion as to the value of the beautiful articles of the period, and give 
 us the exact prices of the most luxurious, the most showy specimens 
 of the artistic industry of the eighteenth century. I begin with the 
 orders for dress. Madame du Barry's silk-merchants were Buffault, 
 Lenormand, Barbier, Pour jot, Assorty. Her fringe-maker was Fre- 
 mont; her lace-maker was Lejeune; her button-maker was Kiriel. 
 
 Madame Sigly was the dressmaker who usually did most work 
 for Madame du Barry. 
 
 335 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DUBARRY BY LE NORMAND, PROSPER LE 
 DUG ET CIE., PARIS. 
 
 For her use. 
 Fourth of October, 1772. 
 
 FULL-DRESS COSTUMES. 
 
 A full-dress costume with large satin-body white foundation, em- 
 broidered with knots of rose-coloured spangles and gold and silver 
 spanglets, with the hemming of the end of the dress and of the 
 
 skirt-petticoat 56oo/. 1 g Q/ 
 
 Laid out on additional embroidery in gold spangles 240/. ) > 
 A beautiful robe on a foundation of white satin striped, plated, 
 with gold folds, forming waves, wreaths of small and large spangles, 
 bouquets of spangles enamelled with rubies, the whole very rich. 
 
 2400/. 
 ROBES ON THE PANNIER. 
 
 13 ells, foundation of plated silver striped with a large blade, 
 doubly embroidered, frieze of gold, wreaths of rosebuds and pinks, 
 little ribbon, shaded gold spangles, very rich, at 96 livres. I248/. 
 
 Satin foundation Marly white and silver, pea-roses, garland of 
 roses, rich shading 78/. 15^- 
 
 Satin broche, white foundation, a thousand flowers, little garland 
 of lilacs, marigold and rose shade, at 39 livres 5261. IDS. 
 
 Egyptian satin on a green foundation, spangled with a thousand 
 flowers, variegated shade, reduced to 24 livres 3I2/. 
 
 White satin with patches of rose-coloured striped chenille, Egyp- 
 tian white 324/. 
 
 ROBES SUITABLE TO RANK. 1 
 
 16 ells satin foundation, white, striped, silver wreath, strewn with 
 blue bouquets and bouquets of chenille lilac and rich green, at 
 51 livres 828*. 15$ 
 
 1 " Consideration Robes." 
 
 336 
 
Madame DM Barry 
 
 ROBES DE TOILETTE. 
 
 Satin mixed flesh colour and white ermine, at 8 livres . . I48/. 
 
 Satin flesh-coloured, polished rose-coloured, and little rose-col- 
 oured point-lace, at 8/. IQS 157*- 5^- 
 
 Indian silk, sky blue, at 14 livres igfcl. 
 
 October, 1773. A full-dress suit of white velvet, with the body 
 embroidered over with spangles large and small, shaded and 
 enamelled in addition to a beautiful border for the skirt and the 
 tail of the robe, the whole matched very richly I2,ooo/. 
 
 October, 1773. A full-dress costume satin, rose-coloured and 
 silver, with the large body embroidered in silver, embroidered over 
 with spangles, enamelled rose-colour with wreaths, very rich edg- 
 ing 1 7600;. 
 
 FURNISHED FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY LE NORMAND, PROSPER LE 
 
 DUC ET CIE. 
 
 For the Use o the King. 
 Fourth of July, 1773. 
 
 nth September, 1773. A white Indian silk morning-gown, with 
 embroidered edges, spangles, shades with the cushion and the slip- 
 pers, the entire matched and very rich 2,4OO/. 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY PAGELLE's MILLINERY 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT, The Pink of Fashion? 
 
 November, 1773. For having trimmed a full-dress costume of 
 white satin in variegated silver, embroidered with green and rose- 
 
 1 In the goods supplied by Le Normand, there are a certain number 
 of articles intended to be given as presents. We find there waist- 
 coats for seigneurs of the Court, dresses for the Duchesse d'Aiguil- 
 lon, for Mile. Emilie, etc. In October, 1772, mention is made of a 
 dress of white Ottoman silk for the little gardeneress of the Trianon. 
 
 "Aux traits galants." The name of M. Pagelle's establishment 
 is untranslatable. " The Pink of Fashion " conveys the idea. 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 Madame du Barry was not afraid to keep her trades-people wait- 
 ing. In a memorandum of Pagelle, of July, 1771, we read "Journey 
 to the Meuse, having waited from 2 to 7 o'clock in a hackney-coach." 
 
 337 
 
 22 
 
Madame DXJ Barry 
 
 coloured spangles, wreaths of roses and marten, a wreath of mar- 
 ten and roses in the lowest flounce, a wreath entwined at the top, 
 a wreath of roses and myrtle, with a net overhead to sustain the 
 wreath, the tail of the skirt puffed out, cut by some rows of wreaths 
 in branches, at the edge a wreath doubly entwined for the body, the 
 bracelets, the fur-tipped, the court tassels, the wreath for the head, 
 the topknot IO,SOQ/. 
 
 Carriage of the costume to Versailles io,5i2/. 
 
 November, 1773. For having trimmed a full-dress costume of 
 white satin in gold and silver blond with shells, puffed out above 
 and below, the columns festooned with bouquets of roses in the 
 hollows of the festoons, the tail of the dress matched with the 
 trimming of the body, tassels to set off the tail of the dress and 
 bracelets 12451. 
 
 March, 1774. For having trimmed a robe with a silver founda- 
 tion in blond lace with fine silver and jasmine, the robe fully 
 trimmed with a chicory-coloured border, heightened and picked out 
 with jasmine and borders of puffs, bouquets in the openings with 
 little knots, and for having edged the robe with silver 573/. 
 
 For having trimmed a silver robe with silver blond lace and 
 white plumes, the robe fastened, the flounces puffed out with a 
 festoon lower down, great plumes at the top of each shell, puffs in 
 the hollows of the sleeves, the knots, the plumes, the necklace, the 
 sleeve-knots and that of the chignon 45O/. 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY BERTIN, MILLINER TO THE 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 August, 1784. A cloak of Italian gauze bordered with a white 
 " comet " and trimmed with hemmed gauze 44/. 
 
 August, 1784. The trimming of a "Pierrot" corsage 1 of rose- 
 coloured taffeta, the petticoat trimmed with a gauze flounce with an 
 edging underneath of a beautiful black lace of great depth, English 
 foundation, a very fine chicory-coloured tulle lining. The " Pier- 
 rot" trimmed all around with beautiful black lace. A double 
 " chicoree," the same as the petticoat at the top. The upper collar 
 
 1 The " Pierrot " corsage had two little raised lappets at the end 
 of the back. It was, no doubt, originally suggested by a clown's 
 dress. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 338 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 bordered with very fine imitation lace, ruff of lace like the " Pier- 
 rot," the sleeves trimmed in raised fashion with imitation lace like 
 the upper collar 38o/. 
 
 September, 1784. A jockey cap, of yellow straw, tied round with 
 a white ribbon; a large ribbon striped brown and white around the 
 shape ; a knot on one side, and behind the same ribbon, a tuft side- 
 ways of five white feathers and a heron's feather I20/. 
 
 November, 1784. A white taffeta pelisse lined and wadded, trim- 
 med with very deep blond lace, a tulle foundation with shells. 30O/. 
 
 January, 1785. A crepe mourning-cap, the "papillon" with large 
 borders, the pinners the same, a gauze headdress of black wool. 36/. 
 
 March, 1785. A piece of ribbon cross of St. Louis 58/. 
 
 Two sword-knots of ribbon, at 15 livres 3O/. 
 
 July, 1785. A pair of little ruffles in two rows edged with pretty 
 blond lace 58*. 
 
 6 fichus of English gauze of one ell, at 12 livres J2L 
 
 August, 1785. A " Quakeress " hat of sarcenet-taffeta of English 
 deep-blue trimmed with a large rose-coloured and white ribbon, 
 striped and satiny 58/. 
 
 A band-box 3/. 
 
 December, 1785. The trimming of a Turkish robe of real English 
 violet satin, the facings trimmed with drapery in white satin and 
 lilac, a twisted piece of blond lace, foundations of point d'Alengon, 
 very rich, with folds on the reverse side; the under-petticoat of 
 white taffeta covered with beautiful broche gauze, hemmed with the 
 same blond lace as the robe, the same drapery as on the top of the 
 robe 3OO/. 
 
 January, 1786. A girdle worn like a scarf of very large English 
 green ribbon broche and white 34/. 
 
 May, 1786. A puff edged with a ribbon with white feathers with 
 the upper part blond ; a plume of three violet feathers, a knot below 
 of beautiful blond lace and a fichu of gauze behind I44/. 
 
 September, 1787. A cloak of beautiful black broche gauze, edged 
 and trimmed with black lace, of unusual length, the foundation of 
 Alengon with pea-coloured dots, rick border, the back trimmed with 
 a very beautiful crimpled tulle . 4OO/. 
 
 March, 1789. A hat a la Provcngale of gauze with a thousand 
 stripes, trimmed with many ribbons grey and white 54/. 
 
 339 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 February, 1791. A hat-bonnet of grey satin, edged with a high 
 black lace, on a background of Alengon with stars and a ribbon of 
 rose-coloured satin tied in a garland I20/. 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY VANOT, MERCHANT TO THE 
 
 KING, RUE SAINT DENIS, a la Picarde. 1 
 
 October, 1770. A very beautiful toilette of point d'Argentan and 
 her surtout 9,000!. 
 
 December, 1770. Two headdresses, with a background of exceed- 
 ingly fine point, three rows of ruffles in full made expressly ; I ell 
 Vu of point at the two sides for the fichu, and */ 3 of the frill for 
 two in front of the " turret," the whole amounting to 40OO/. 
 
 November, 1771. A mantle of superfine point and 6 ells of point 
 lace at the two sides as trimming 240O/. 
 
 March, 1772. Two gathered bodies on a foundation of point lace, 
 6 rows of ruffles in full, */ 3 frill for two in front of the "turret," 
 and two ells on two sides for the fichu 6ooo/. 
 
 June, 1772. Two gathered bodies and foundation of superfine 
 English lace. Six rows of ruffles complete, two well supplied with 
 ribbon and two well supplied with frilling, the whole 65OO/. 
 
 July, 1772. 41 ells VM of real Valenciennes, of great depth, at 90 
 livres 37067. 17^. 
 
 October, 1773. A gorgeous English morning-wrapper composed 
 of two rows of ruffles in full, fringed with silk and silver on both 
 sides, height four fingers, i ell Vu lace made expressly, fringed on 
 the two sides, V frill for the front of the " turret," 2 ells V of a 
 foot to trim the slopings; the whole of superfine English material. 
 
 45ooJ. 
 
 Same month. Another gorgeous morning-wrapper, the whole in 
 English material 7000/. 
 
 The account which begins in October, 1/70, and which stops at 
 the end of April, 1774, reaches the sum of 9i,i07/. los. on which she 
 had only paid an instalment of 54,000 livres. 
 
 1 Madame du Barry's lace and cloth-merchants were Gruel, Ga- 
 briel Dumoustier and others. We find an account of Gruel for 
 laces commencing July 1st, 1768, mounting up to 67,999 livres, on foot 
 of which Madame du Barry remained in debt to him 35,000 livres. 
 
 340 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 FURNISHED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY BERTIN, OF THE Great 
 
 Mogul. 
 
 October, 1779. A large shaped hat of white straw, raised at both 
 white and blue-fluted ribbon spotted with black, a large tuft of 
 black and white feathers which the Comtesse has furnished. 24/. 
 
 February, 1780. A large crepe apr6n striped with bands of white 
 satin cut up and sewn on the flat; a beautiful piece of blond lace, 
 of great length, with stars switched all round and a flat band of 
 satin on the seam 967. 
 
 August, 1780. A large-shaped hat of blue English straw lined with 
 taffeta ; a " turret " and two knots of large satine ribbon 24!. 
 
 December, 1783. A fichu edged at the bottom with a "comet" 
 of white satin and a beautiful blond background of Alengon lace 
 with straight edging, the frill trimmed with two rows of the same 
 blond and with white satin ribbon at the back I20/. 
 
 January, 1784. A chemise trimmed with crepe, the facings edged 
 with black velvet, the sleeves trimmed with flat folds, an armlet 
 in the middle of rose-coloured satin edged with black velvet, and a 
 steel buckle, a piece of crepe with two rows of steel buttons run- 
 ning over it at each side, an under-petticoat of crepe trimmed in 
 the lower part with a flounce edged above and below with black 
 velvet, a skirt of Italian taffeta edged with black velvet 1 1447. 
 
 May, 1784. The trimming of a robe a I'Anglaise of white stuff 
 with yellow stars, the facings trimmed with large chicory-coloured 
 Italian gauze cut in strips, with two cords of the same chicory ma- 
 terial in the under-petticoat 2 QO/. 
 
 With the arms of France, CHARDON, MERCHANT HATTER. The only 
 one in Paris who keeps the real English beavers for the ladies 
 wearing their natural plumes, shaggy or not shaggy, Amazon's 
 hats, hats for balls, for horseback, and for hunting, HAS FUR- 
 NISHED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY: 
 September, 1779. A superfine shaggy beaver 30/. 
 
 1 This fancy of Madame du Barry reminds us of the fact that 
 " good Queen Bess " wore a black velvet night-gown. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 2 A quantity of articles are sent by Le Normand, Pagelle, Mile. 
 Bertin, and Bertin of the ''Great Mogul," to Madame Sigly, Ma- 
 dame du Barry's dressmaker. 
 
 341 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 A trimming of large English ribbon, a bouquet of beautiful white 
 and fine feathers and a puce " follette " IO3/. 
 
 MEMORANDUM FOR MADAME DU BARRY OF THE WORKS AND VALUABLE 
 ARTICLES MADE BY CARLIER, MASTER-TAILOR IN PARIS. 1 
 
 March, 1774. For the courier, made a fashionable polonaise of 
 sky-blue cloth edged with silver lace, waistcoat and breeches of 
 chamois-coloured net silk I5/. 
 
 Furnished one ell and a half of sky blue cloth, at 22 livres an 
 ell 33'. 
 
 3^2 ells of twilled chamois for the lining of polonaise, at 61. IQS. 
 an ell 22/. i$s. 
 
 11 additional ells of silver lace to the ell which trims the 
 polonaise and waistcoat, weighing 7 ounces 2 grains, at 7/. 
 io.y 54i/. js. 6d. 
 
 Furnished 6 silver puffs trimmed with cord igl. 2s. 6d. 
 
 Two pieces of chamois silk network for the waistcoat and the 
 breeches, at 24 livres each 48/. 
 
 12 big silver buttons for the polonaise 61. los. 
 
 3 dozen and a half little ones similar to the waistcoat, breeches, 
 
 and sleeves of the polonaise ill. 7s. lod. 
 
 i pair of silver garters matched with the buttons I2/. 
 
 March, 1774. For Zemord (sic), made a polonaise, and supplied 
 two camlet breeches I2l. 
 
 Furnished 5 yards of iron-grey baracan for the polonaise and 
 2 pairs of breeches, at 6 livres 30/. 
 
 9 ells of flat silk braid for the trimming of the polonaise and 
 the waistcoat, at 12 livres for the one, etc 58'- 
 
 November, 1774. For Zemord. For having made a frock-coat 
 and waistcoat of English broadcloth, lined with braid to suit, the 
 button-holes made of the same and the breeches in like 
 fashion !2/. 
 
 April, 1775. For Zemord. For having made a complete dress- 
 coat, lined with gold lace, in the English fashion and two pairs of 
 breeches I5' 
 
 1 In this account there are particulars of a suit of clothes sup- 
 plied to M. Desontaines, the Comtesse du Barry's secretary. 
 
 342 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Furnished 3 yards of green Saxony for the dress-coat, waist- 
 coat, and breeches, at 26 livres each 78/. 
 
 8 ells of gold lace for lining the dress-coat and waistcoat, weigh- 
 ing 3 ounces 7 gross, at u livres 42/. I2S. 6d. 
 
 In Carlier's other accounts, preserved in the library of the City 
 of Versailles, M. le Roi has again turned out for Zamore: 
 
 A hussar's costume, white, with silver lace, coat, breeches, cap 
 and stout silk buskins, silver buttons, belt, and little sabre. 
 
 A plume on the cap, with tufts and spangles. 
 
 A hussar's costume of cherry velvet with silver lace, the belt and 
 the scabbard of the little sabre in velvet of the same colour. 
 
 Another costume, flesh-coloured, plume and tuft on the cap of 
 the same colour. 
 
 Another of rose-coloured ribbed material trimmed with silver. 
 
 Another of stuff of silver and rose-colour. 
 
 Another of white taffeta trimmed with silver. 
 
 A sailor's costume of Silesian dimity, cap and breeches of dimity, 
 the whole trimmed with silver braid, rose-coloured silk ribbons in 
 the cap, belt of taffeta with silver fringes. 
 
 This tailor's accounts, these accounts of Carlier, are, in reality, 
 full of historic revelations. Thus we see how the priest Gomard 
 de Vaubernier, who had held out his brother as the father of 
 " La Lange," and who was about to have the forged birth-certificate 
 fabricated for the marriage, was dressed at the Favourite's expense 
 in order that he might take the necessary steps for this purpose in 
 proper attire. In the month of March, 1768, Carlier got an order 
 for a complete suit of black cloth and two pairs of breeches 1 for 
 the Abbe, and in the month of August, still for the Abbe, a frock- 
 <;oat of maroon-coloured barracan with gold buttons, a coat, waist- 
 coat, and breeches of Lille camlet, a short cassock of cloth and a 
 cloak of Saint Maur nap frock coat, coat, cassock, and cloak having 
 been certainly all worn by Gomard de Vaubernier at the ceremony 
 of the marriage of " La Lange " with Guillaume du Barry, which 
 took place in the parish-church of Saint Laurent on the ist of 
 September, 1768. 
 
 1 " Bulletin of the Library of the City of Versailles." (Article of 
 M. le Roi.) No. in, 1872. 
 
 343 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 These accounts of Carlier present to our view all the Favourite's 
 staff of servants in their full-dress and their undress livery. 
 
 Madame du Barry had eight valets Degle, Pellier, Fremont, 
 Bellecour, Bourguignon, Augustin, Luxembourg, and Paris. She 
 had eight footmen Noel, Morin, Desmoulins, Francois, Raclot, 
 Deflandre, La France, and fitienne. 
 
 The full-dress livery consisted of a coat of scarlet cloth with gold 
 lace and lined with white Neapolitan stuff on the skirts, the front 
 of the coat and the sleeves adorned with braid and puffed out with 
 fringes, breeches and scarlet waistcoat with gold buttons, garters of 
 gold braid, the ends and the buckles of the breeches trimmed with 
 gold. 
 
 For the undress livery, the coat was of chamois cloth with gold 
 lace, waistcoat and breeches of chamois silk with silver buttons. 
 The garters under the breeches, as well as the ends and the buckles, 
 were of silver. 
 
 In bad weather, the lackeys wore over their livery a great-coat 
 of grey cloth. 
 
 There were two coachmen Comtois and Mazieres. Their livery 
 was of sky-blue cloth with chamois waistcoats and silver but- 
 tons. 
 
 The outriders who went in front of her carriage were Delorme, 
 Tavernier, and Morlot. Their uniform was of blue cloth slashed 
 with silver at all the seams and with silver-laced buttonholes. 
 
 The postilions Madame du Barry always driving with four 
 horses were named Lajeunesse, Durand, and Mathurin. They 
 wore blue cloth waistcoats with silver lace like the button-holes. 
 
 Two chair-bearers, then required when taking an outing in the 
 Park or paying visits, wore a livery of scarlet cloth with silver lace. 
 
 Five grooms, and two assistant grooms, in blue livery with gold 
 lace, completed the equipage. 
 
 Besides these, a steward, a butler, two wardrobe attendants, a 
 Swiss and two gardeners, all wearing blue livery with silver lace, 
 formed the male portion of the servants of the King's mistress. 1 
 
 1 " Bulletins of the Library of the City of Versailles." (M. le Roi's 
 Article), No. in, 1872. 
 
 344 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF FURNITURE EMBROIDERED FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY 
 BY TRIPPERET, MERCHANT AND EMBROIDERER TO THE KING NEAR THE 
 " NOUVELLES CATHOLIQUES," COMMENCED IN THE MONTH OF SEP- 
 TEMBER, 1769. 
 
 Twelve large armchairs of yellow Indian silk, embroidered 
 with edgings of silk flowers, shaded -naturally according to the 
 picture, in the midst of which edging there is for each a medallion 
 on a white ground, representing different landscapes and figures 
 also in accordance with the picture, embroidered in shaded and 
 sheeny silk, which medallion is held up by a beautiful knot of 
 striped ribbon; the arms of the said armchairs embroidered also 
 with edgings and medallions, at 60 livres 7,20O/. 
 
 Ottoman embroidered in the same way with six large medallions 
 representing " The Reapers " 2,400/. 
 
 Firescreen in the same style 45of. 
 
 MADAME DU BARRY'S BILL FOR WORK DONE AND DELIVERED BY ME, 
 DAVAUX, EMBROIDERER, RUE SAINT-DENIS. 
 
 January, 1770. Delivered a full-dress robe and the petticoat and 
 corset and the stomacher of silver tissue, embroidered with gold 
 and silver spangles and gold network, and patches of colour and 
 shaded silk with all kind of nosegays. Price arranged with the 
 Comtesse io,6oof. 
 
 October, 1770. Delivered an armchair on a white background with 
 a garland of roses embroidered in shaded silk for 432 J. 
 
 Besides, for having paid to M. de Saint-Aubin for the same arm- 
 chair 6o/. 
 
 Besides, for having paid to M. de Saint-Aubin for the design of 
 the full-dress robe 200/. 
 
 April, 1774. Delivered a pair of stockings, the four corners em- 
 broidered in gold and silver, small and large spangles of bright 
 colour 48^. 
 
 AMOUNT DUE FOR ARTICLES SUPPLIED AND FOR THE REPAIR OF MADAME 
 
 DU BARRY'S WATCH BY THE SAID SIEUR LEPAUTE. 
 For the price of a watch adorned with diamonds, sold by the 
 said Sieur to the said Lady, the sum of five thousand four hundred 
 livres 5.400/. 
 
 345 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 And for repairs to the watch of enamelled gold belonging to the 
 same lady, according to the memorandum of said Sieur of June 7th, 
 1774 96/. 
 
 LIST OF GOODS WHICH FONTAINES, DEALER IN FOREIGN STUFFS AT The 
 
 King's Laurel, HAS HAD THE HONOUR OF FURNISHING FOR THE 
 
 SERVICE OF MADAME DU BARRY. 
 
 December 6th, 1769. 1,500 flowers of Indian silk, embroidered 
 and shaded at the rate of 20 sous each, great and small indiscrimi- 
 nately i,50o. 
 
 A snuff box garnished with " burgos " of an oval shape 576/. 
 
 A pin case of arborized agate, garnished with gold 2401. 
 
 A ring of arborized agate, surrounded with brilliants 48o/. 
 
 January 2nd. 15 coffee-napkins of Indian dimity, at the rate of 
 15 livres each 2251. 1 
 
 For the cylinder 61 > 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF BINDINGS MADE FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY 
 VENTE., BOOKBINDER, PARIS. 
 
 March 3ist, 1774. Bound six quarto volumes in red morocco with 
 strings and edgings in gold, with the arms of the Comtesse, which 
 volumes contained the portraits and an extract from the lives of 
 celebrated men of every sort, at 15 livres the volume QO/. 
 
 Manufactory of Stores. 
 
 Delivered to the Comtesse du Barry by the Manufactory of porce- 
 lain to the King during the years 1771, '72, '73 and '74. 
 
 Viz.: 
 January 15th and January 30th, 1771. 25 children in biscuit 
 
 fashion, at 3O/. each 750/. 
 
 8 horns of plenty at 15 livres I20/. 
 
 I vase with garlands 48/. 
 
 i basket 3 6/. 
 
 NOTE. All the articles of sculpture and of biscuit-work have been 
 ordered by the Sieur Bonneval, Madame du Barry's chef, who 
 approved of them and had them placed on the table at dessert. 
 
 August 29th, 1771. A complete service with little roses and gar- 
 lands, composed of 145 plates at 42 livres, 8 salad-bowls at 96 livres, 
 
 346 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 4 lozenged baskets at 216 Hvres, 2 sugar-bowls at 120 livres, 2 
 butter-coolers at 96 livres, 2 mustard-pots at 78 livres, 2 cheese-bowls 
 at 120 livres, 12 salt-cellars in three parts at 48 livres, 4 olio-pots 
 and earthen jars at 600 livres, i punch-bowl and cover at 600 livres, 
 4 saucers at 54 livres, 36 pails for glasses at 60 livres, 4 pails for 
 liqueurs at 120 livres, 2 oval pails for liqueurs at 168 livres, 4 pails 
 for half-bottles at 156 livres, 8 pails for bottles at 216 livres, 4 
 crenelated pails at 240 livres, and 2 pails for ice at 252 livres, 
 amounting to 21,438*. 
 
 NOTE: This must be the service which the Comtesse was in the 
 habit of using at her large suppers. It had, so it was said, served 
 to replace the one which had been previously supplied to her by 
 the manufactory and which she had sold to the Sieur Bufau for* 
 England. 
 
 October 7th, 1771. I dejeuner service of lapis l6o/. 
 
 December, 1771. 6 biscuit-work services, one of which was for 
 
 the Dauphiness, at 144 livres 864/. 
 
 i water-jug and basin I26/. 
 
 1 tobacco-jar 27?. 
 
 2 pomatum-pots 20/. 
 
 i chamber-pot 42/. 
 
 Year 1772. 
 
 February 20th. i stewed fruit-dish of sky-blue colour with 
 
 flowers 54/. 
 
 March 30th. i goblet and saucer 6o/. 
 
 May I3th. 2 busts of Madame du Barry at 144 livres.... 288J, 
 
 October 5th. I pannier, green and gold I20/. 
 
 i goblet and saucer, purple and gold 6o/. 
 
 December. i olio-pot and ornamental tray 6oo/. 
 
 i mosaic dejeuner-service I44/. 
 
 I jug without basin 42/. 
 
 i milk jug 30*. 
 
 i " love-grinder " * g6/. 
 
 "Amour remouleur." Possibly some cosmetic or hygienic face 
 appliance. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 347 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 Year 1773. 
 
 January 26th. 2 very beautiful basins of stony material at 360 
 livres 720/. 
 
 February 22. 2 Verdun basins with garlands of flowers at 240 
 livres 48o/. 
 
 i Cottrteille basin with birds 240*. 
 
 NOTE: These basins for putting in flowers were ordered by the 
 Comtesse from designs chosen by her; and she is not ignorant of the 
 number of them which perished in the fire before succeeding with 
 those which have been delivered her. 
 
 1 eye-sponge with gold fillets 4/. 
 
 March 2nd. Delivered to M. Lebanc, on behalf of the Comtesse, 1 
 
 i bust after Lemoine I44/. 
 
 April 28th. Brought to Luciennes a Brie cheese tray, white in 
 colour 24/. 
 
 June 1 7th. Group representing the scene of the " Spanish Con- 
 versation " 432/. 
 
 2 groups at the sides 384^. 
 
 4 accessory figures 288/. 
 
 July 6th. 2 defective chestnut-dishes at 96 livres ig2l. 
 
 July 7th. I Courteille dejeuner of Chinese design 6oo/. 
 
 NOTE : This article ordered, tray and Chinese figures, by the 
 Comtesse, and delivered to herself, is of the most exquisite work- 
 manship. It cost two months and a half of work to the best 
 painter of the manufactory. 
 
 1 Baron Ch. Davillier informs us, in his pamphlet " Madame du 
 Barry's Sevres Porcelains," that the denominations of Verdun and 
 of Courteille came from the names of a shareholder and an admin- 
 istrator of Versailles, who, as much as the artists, gave a name 
 to a new form or a new decoration. There are the Duplessis vases, 
 the Bachelier vases, the Falconet, the Boizot, etc. M. Davillier also 
 points out the existence in the Museum of Sevres of a plate exe- 
 cuted for Madame du Barry in 1788. The edge is adorned with 
 ten loves holding garlands of flowers and tambourines on which 
 may be read the initials D, B. In the centre is represented Folly 
 shaking her bells. 
 
 348 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 August 2Qth. A group of Boizot: Zephyr and Flora 360*. 
 
 Love and Friendship 360^. 
 
 August 31 st Chinese service composed of 10 plates with figures 
 from pictures and Chinese miniatures, 4 shell stewed fruit-dishes, 
 i sugar-bowl, i triangular tray, three cups for ices, 2 pails for 
 half-bottles, 2 pails for bottles, i oval basket, amounting to. . 3,8o4/. 
 
 NOTE : This service was delivered at Luciennes the day the King 
 supped there. The pictures are as precious, and by the same painter, 
 as the Chinese dejeuner above-mentioned. 
 
 December. i chocolate-goblet and garland 84/. 
 
 I goblet with a portrait on a gold background and saucer. . p67. 
 
 NOTE. Presents made at Versailles by Madame to various per- 
 sons as in preceding years. 
 
 December. i service of roses and foliage composed of 36 plates, 
 II stewed fruit dishes, 4 salad-bowls, 2 pails for bottles, etc., with 
 a supplement of 12 plates etc. delivered on March I4th, the whole 
 amounting to 4,856/. 
 
 NOTE. The Comtesse du Barry made a present of this service to 
 the Marquis du Barry at the time of the Porcelain Exhibition at. 
 Versailles. 
 
 Year 1774. 
 
 January 21 st. i goblet and saucer with medallion of the 
 King 144^ 
 
 April 1 3th. Brought to Belle vue i large teapot, ribbons, verses, 
 and hatchings of gold and carmine 661. 
 
 The accounts rise in 1771 to 27,732 livres ; in 1772 to 2,760 livres ; 
 in 1773 to 15,426 livres; in 1774 to 3,101 livres; total, 49>oi9 livres, 
 on which sum had been paid 22,000 livres. 
 
 349 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 LIST OF FOUR PIECES OF TAPESTRY DEALING WITH THE SUBJECT OF THE 
 LOVES OF THE GODS FROM THE PICTURES OF MM. VANLOO, BOUCHER, 
 PIERRE AND VIEN, MADE IN THE MOST EXCELLENT STYLE OF WEAVING 
 IN THE GOBELINS MANUFACTORY FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY FROM 
 MEASURES GIVEN BY M. LE DOUX, ARCHITECT, WHICH PIECES WERE TO 
 BE EXECUTED BY THE SIEURS COZETTE AND AUDRAN. (iST OF NOVEM- 
 BER, 1772.) 
 
 Carl Vanloo: Neptune and Amimonna, 2 ells, n sticks, 8 
 
 tenths 3,554*. M*. 5d. 
 
 P ; erre : The Abduction of Euro pa 3,554^. 14^. Sd. 
 
 Boucher : Venus and Vulcan 3>554^. 14^. 5d. 
 
 Vien : Pluto and Proserpine 3,554^ 14$. $d. 
 
 May 2Qth, 1774- 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE THREE PIECES OF TAPESTRY MADE BY THE SIEUR 
 COZETTE, CONTRACTOR OF THE ROYAL MANUFACTORY OF GOBELINS, AT 
 448/. $S. THE ELL SQUARED THE ONE IN THE OTHER ON ACCOUNT OF 
 THE PIECE REPRESENTING VENUS, WHICH IS EXCEEDINGLY LADEN WITH 
 FIGURES AND DIFFICULT WORKS, SO AS TO RENDER THE DISBURSEMENT 
 FOR THE WORKMAN AND THE SILK MATERIALS, OWING TO THE 
 VARIETY OF TONES, VERY DEAR J FOR THE THREE SAID PIECES THE 
 SUM OF I2,496/. 
 
 By order of the Comtesse given to the workman who worked on 
 the said pieces 72/. 
 
 The Sieur Cozette has the honour to represent that for similar 
 pieces the late Madame de Pompadour gave him in 1752 as a 
 reward and honorarium for each piece 50 louis, which makes for 
 the three 3,6oo/. 
 
 The loth of June, 1775. 
 
 Venus and Vulcan. Girard, Worker in Tapestry, 87 weeks at 24*. ; 
 3 additional workers, 9 livres. 
 
 Pluto and Proserpine. Ostende, 50 weeks at 18 livres; 2 workers 
 at 12 livres. 
 
 The Abduction of Euro pa. Roby, 33 weeks, with two young 
 workmen under him ; 36 livres for the three ; next 48 weeks for two. 
 
 Given for drink to the workmen the last time Madame du Barry 
 came to the Gobelins 72/. 
 
 350 
 
Madame Dv* Barry 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE WORKS IN THE GILDING OF FURNITURE DONE FOR 
 THE COMTESSE DU BARRY, BY CAGNY, AS WELL IN HER APARTMENTS AT 
 VERSAILLES AS IN HER HOUSE OF LUCIENNES, THE SAID WORKS DONE 
 BY HER ORDERS IN THE COURSE OF THE YEARS 1769, I77O AND 1 77 1 BY 
 CAGNY, MERCHANT PAINTER AND GILDER IN PARIS, WHERE HE RESIDES 
 IN THE RUE DES MENETRIERS. 
 
 For Versailles. 
 
 The Salon. Twelve large oval armchairs with frames, gilt with 
 burnished gold. The back with wand cut with an ornament in the 
 shape of a diamond with laurel leaves and berries ; another wand or- 
 namented with ribbons in a screw with three pearls threaded through 
 a very rich bouquet in the middle of the back, with many flow- 
 ers tied with a ribbon. Acanthus-leaves with their berries. Branches 
 of olive-leaves, enwreathings and flowerets. Seven garlands of flow- 
 ers, very rich, with their falls as much in front as on both sides; 
 four feet fluted each with a dozen flutings, with sunleaves crown- 
 ing the said flutings, and a piece of rosework turning in each case. 
 The said armchair prepared, softened with water, repaired with care, 
 with constraint and precaution to revive the sculpture and enhance 
 its value afterwards when gilt with strong burnished gold, the most 
 beautiful gold, estimated with respect to the time of the restorers, 
 gilders, expenditure and double supply of gold, having regard to 
 the great richness and delicacy of the ornaments, and the entire 
 perfection of the articles the sum of 340/. 
 
 The eleven other armchairs, similar in every respect, together cost- 
 ing the sum of 3,740/. 
 
 A large sofa with six feet, on the same plan as the arm- 
 chair I,250/. 
 
 Twelve oval chairs and a large chair for the King at 150^. i,8oo/. 
 
 A large oval fire-screen 77S/. 
 
 Dining-room. Thirty chairs for table and a large chair for the 
 King at 8o/ 2,400/. 
 
 The Bed-room. A large gilt bed with four sides, the pillars in sheaths 
 adorned with squares forming volutes, with a semi-circular cutting 
 of folded ribbons surrounding ornaments threaded together, flower- 
 border, and wand cut in pearls, a gorge, square, and semi-circular 
 cutting of olive-leaves with their berries, a rosework shaped like a 
 shamrock on the volute with acanthus-leaves in the lower part, a 
 
 35i 
 
Madame Dm Barry- 
 decoration of rolled flowers and leaves, then another piece of rose- 
 work revolving in its case, a very rich garland of flowers bearing 
 volutes enveloping the said pillars, and drooping flowers on each side, 
 the pillars already mentioned even to the canopy fluted with a 
 dozen flutings adorned with flower-work interwoven with flower- 
 like water- jets, branches of leaves emerging from these floral orna- 
 ments and laurels, winding around the mouldings. Four strong feet 
 in their sheaths, fluting-work with a screw, laurel-leaves, ovolos, 
 and square cases with suns in the centre on the two front sides. 
 The two backs on an eminence, an arched eminence, carved on the 
 two surfaces, enriched with similar mouldings to the pillars and the 
 ornaments on the central portions of the bed, very rich intertwin- 
 ing flowers sustaining two pecking birds, with branches of myrtle 
 on one side and of olive on the other, together with their berries, 
 piastres threaded together, ribbons, a wand cut in pearls, ribbons, 
 and strings. Four very rich cross-beams, each adorned with three 
 wands, the one in the middle threaded with pearls, split leaves 
 winding round the surface of the said wand, a square, a flower- 
 border, another wand in the foreground adorned with pearls; in 
 the middle of the cross-beams, trophies of love and country life 
 very rich and with different variations, such as quivers, head- 
 bands, crowns of olive-leaves, a bow, and branches decked with 
 all kinds of little flowers. 
 
 The top of the bed with a very rich crown ornamented with 
 mouldings, cut with darts and ovolos, doucine in heart-rays, a great 
 gorge adorned with twinings of sunlight and flowers in the midst 
 of the two huge cross-beams, a medallion representing a vase sup- 
 ported by a trophy of love, garlands of flowers clinging to the 
 medallion with their drooping; two laurel branches in the shape 
 of chains and ribbons, four corner-pieces forming chests-of-draw- 
 ers, branches of poppies green and budding, enriched with mould- 
 ings of balusters and flower-work all very rich. Within the canopy, 
 two ovals one over the other adorned with mouldings of archi- 
 tecture, sustained by four curves in the shape of consoles, with 
 three faces; adorned with volutes in " collicornes " (sic), acan- 
 thus-leaves, and shapes of hearts on the mouldings and little 
 threaded flowerings, cleft-leaves and leaves formed of water on the 
 doucine, the wand ornamented with pearls and with filleted wedges, 
 a cord with its greenery and ends in osier entwined over the wand, 
 
 352 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 a. tail-piece in the midst of the said summit adorned with a 
 double piece of flower-work, garnished with berries and water- 
 flowers, estimated, having regard to its grandeur, richness, and 
 the delicacy of the ornaments and the carvings, the concentration 
 and the considerable time lost by the gilders and restorers, the 
 large expenditure for gold, false cutting, and double staff of persons 
 employed, at the sum of 5,945^ 
 
 The seats of the same sort 260!. 
 
 Six oval cabriolets for the little library. Two branches of myrtle 
 tied by a ribbon to the middle of the back, two birds overhead, 
 each at 290,'. 
 
 The Little Gallery. Eighteen gilt chairs and a large one for 
 the King. The back, trophied with such attributes as War, Music, 
 Science, Hunting, Love, Fishing, each at I42/. 
 
 Two canopies trophied with love, torches of love, vases, crowns, 
 branches of roses, each at 426*. 
 
 For Luciennes. 
 
 The Salon. Twenty-five chairs, six of which are gilt. Bands of 
 flowers, garlands of flowers, cut pearls, fir-cones, on the corners, 
 acanthus-leaves, arranged in flower-work, the chairs gilt at. . 298/. 
 
 The others at 237/. 
 
 Two large armchairs, each at i8o/. 
 
 A large table-claw with four consoles in a case, a medallion in 
 the middle, knotted with a ribbon, with a trophy in bas-relief I,OQO/. 
 
 The Gallery. Three big table-claws. The medallions in the cen- 
 tre ornamented with women's heads wearing Roman head-dresses, 
 each 995/. 
 
 Twelve large armchairs ; in the middle of the centre, a rich tro- 
 phy, some of the group representing Music, others Country Life 
 and the attributes of the Chase, each at 4QO/. 
 
 Thirty-one chairs gilt, at 84/. 
 
 Four large sofas with subjects of children and ornaments ana- 
 logous to the sciences, each at 450?. 
 
 A firescreen. Four women's figures holding up the fire- 
 screen 550/. 
 
 The Dining-room. Twenty-five chairs, vinestocks and clusters of 
 grapes, all kinds of fruit, each at 1 15/_ 
 
 353 23 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 A large gilt frame for the portrait of the Comtesse. 1 Two chil- 
 dren holding a crown of flowers and with horns of plenty, with 
 garlands of flowers and olive-branches, two turtle-doves and 
 branches of roses 2,250!. 
 
 Another frame for the portrait of Madame. Two figures at the 
 base lifting drapery, with a cartel adorned with Madame's ci- 
 pher 1,575!. 
 
 A gilt frame for the portrait of Zamor 135*. 
 
 The entire bill mounts up to 90,759 livres. 
 
 ARTICLES SUPPLIED TO THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY ROETTIERS FATHER 
 AND SON, GOLDSMITHS IN ORDINARY TO THE KING. 
 
 The 23rd of September, 1769. Two little chandeliers for the toi- 
 lette table, adorned with pearls 236*. iSs. 
 
 The 20th of January, 1770. Furnished with plate utensils adorned 
 with pearls and cut into a bend. 
 
 10 dozen of plates. 
 
 8 oval dishes. 
 
 In addition 12 flambeaux with their covers 30,174*. 
 
 The 8th of January, 1771. Furnished 4 flambeaux for chandeliers, 
 very rich and on new models, representing the four elements en- 
 riched with portions of rams' bodies and laurel- wreaths. . 11,837*. 
 
 The 4th of May, 1771. Furnished a milk-pot adorned with gold, 
 surrounded with garlands of flowers on the circumference, with 
 the entire coffeepot, the spout adorned with ornamental flutings 
 and hollow flutings in which are growths of myrtle-leaves, the cover 
 with projecting godroons is terminated by rods adorned with par- 
 
 1 This is the celebrated frame of the large portrait of the Com- 
 tesse as a Muse, which, having been exhibited at the Salon in 1771 
 before the picture was placed there, excited the admiration of con- 
 noisseurs. It is a masterpiece, the " Secret Memoirs "say, of carving 
 and gilding, the richness and the elegance of which we admire at 
 the same time. The top is shaded by foliage arranged with great 
 delicacy, in the midst of which are found two Cupids, one of whom 
 bends his bow, while the other, who springs forward in front of him, 
 holds a crown suspended and seems to be awaiting the goddess who 
 must have placed him there. At the bottom and, as it were, at his 
 feet are two doves who peck in the most voluptuous fashion. The 
 frame was selected under No. 40 by the Committee of Arts charged 
 to make a trio amongst the marvels of Luciennes. 
 
 354 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 sley-leaves which are intertwined. On the upper portion is a group 
 of roses; the hinge is also much ornamented, as well as the handle, 
 which sustains the haft and the knob. 
 
 Fashioned with the utmost finish and carried to the highest degree 
 of polish 2,6871. 
 
 The i3th of August, 1771. Furnished two olio-pots, trays and 
 spoons for two services, trays and forks of the richest kind being 
 adorned with children holding garlands, the four covers surmounted 
 by paintings on four different subjects. The arms in bas-relief, the 
 feet adorned with rams' heads, with trophies of flowers and quiv- 
 ers, the whole finished with the greatest care 24,ooo/. 
 
 Fashionable plate utensils in new models, adorned with laurel- 
 leaves and with clasps in all the surface, at 24 livres the half-pound, 
 being chased and finished with the greatest care 2O,25Q/. 
 
 On the 4th of March, 1773. For having paid a journeyman gold- 
 smith during three months, which are December, January and Feb- 
 ruary, 1773, who worked every day till midnight and on to two 
 o'clock in the morning, that is to say, for four months and a 
 half of days at 5 livres 675/. 
 
 On the 5th of March, 1773. Two sugar-spoons of gold very rich, 
 adorned with a Love holding garlands of roses, droopings of gar- 
 lands of roses, rosettes and a garland of vine-leaves, the entire exe- 
 cuted with the greatest care and polish 2,O54/. 
 
 On the ist of July, 1773. A mustard-pot, its stand with a double 
 ground, and a gold spoon, adorned with bas-relief and the arms also 
 in relief 5,i84/. 
 
 On the 4th of April, 1774. For the knob of a walking-stick for 
 Madame du Barry's courier 546/. ios. 
 
 From the 23rd of September, 1769, to the 2Oth of January, 1770, 
 the first bill of Roettiers Father and Son amounts to 34,735^ 
 
 The second from the 30th of November to the I3th of August, 
 1771, amounts to I56.028/. 
 
 The third from the 7th of September to the 2Qth of May, 1772, 
 amounts to S5,657/. 
 
 The fourth, from the I2th of June, 1772, to the 3rd of November, 
 1773, amounts to 93,6o6/. 
 
 355 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 DIFFERENT MODELS AND EXECUTIONS OF WORKS IN BRONZE, CHAS- 
 ING, AND GILDING BY THE ORDERS AND FOR THE SERVICE OF THE 
 COMTESSE DU BARRY BY GoUTHIERE, CHASER AND GlLDER FOR THE 
 KING'S PRIVY PURSE IN PARIS, QUAI PELLETIER, at the Golden 
 Buckle. 
 
 Memorandum for Models and Execution of works in bronze, chas- 
 ing and gilding done by Gouthiere. 1 
 
 OVAL DRAWING-ROOM. 
 Sketches and Models of Arms of Roses. 
 
 For the first sketch made with three branches, modelled in wax, 
 composed of branches of roses and myrtle, fastened with a knot of 
 ribbons, estimated at the sum of I70/. 
 
 For another model in wax with two branches, which model has 
 been destroyed ISO/. 
 
 For all the different models of roses and rose-buds of different 
 sizes and varieties, with their leaves and branches, as many roses 
 as myrtle and knots of ribbon, all of which models have been made 
 in wax and each finished separately with the greatest skill, es- 
 timated together to the sum of 3OO/. 
 
 For having moulded in plaster all the said models, having melted 
 
 1 M. de Roi did not discover the important memorandum of 
 Gouthiere for the works executed at Luciennes. I was not more 
 fortunate than he in the examination of the " Accounts of Madame 
 du Barry," preserved in the National Library. This account I have 
 at last found in the Library of the City of Versailles, in the papers 
 carried off from the archives of Seine-et-Oise and delivered up to 
 Madame du Barry's heirs, perhaps, which were restored to it a 
 few years ago. This memorandum, so interesting with regard to 
 the works of this great art-craftsman, shows a degree of refine- 
 ment, skill and luxuriousness in the decoration of Luciennes, which 
 was never carried to such a pitch in the details of the house-orna- 
 mentation. We shall find there window-knobs, handles of sash- 
 fastenings, bolts for which there had been models, mouldings in 
 plaster, meltings in copper and tin, castings, finishings with the 
 greatest exercise of craftsmanship, gildings and over-gildings. Of 
 this memorandum, which deserves to be published one day entire 
 in a " History of the Decorative Arts of the Eighteenth Century," 
 I give only a few extracts, so that the public may have an idea 
 of what an artistic jewel Luciennes was. (Library of the City of 
 Versailles. Papers of the Du Barry. Tome I.) 
 
 356 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 thick wax, restored and fixed each piece on moulds of plaster so 
 as afterwards to mould them in sand for that purpose <j6/. 
 
 For having moulded them in sand, having melted them in tin 
 and chased them, each arm valued at the sum of 1,000 livres, mak- 
 ing for the eight arms the sum of 8,oop/. 
 
 For the moulding and finishing of the solderings made with the 
 greatest craftsmanship, each arm valued at 300 livres, which makes 
 for the eight arms the sum of 2,400?. 
 
 For having gilded and double-gilded them with ormolu and having 
 them put into dead colouring; the gilding of each arm reaching the 
 
 sum of 1,200 livres, makes for the eight the sum 9,6oo/. 
 
 Models of the Chimney-piece. 
 
 For the models of the mounting of the space above the tablet, 
 having carried on this moulding in wood from two feet in length, 
 on which we have modelled in wax ornamental leaves of water, the 
 entire estimated at the sum of 6o/. 
 
 For having brought together with the claws two ends of the same 
 moulding 30/. 
 
 For having moulded the said mouldings in sand ISO/. 
 
 For having got a model of twining for the cross-beam cut in 
 wood 72/. 
 
 For the wax models of the twinings of rose-branches 2OO/. 
 
 For having moulded the twinings in plaster, having melted them 
 in tin and chased them 320/. 
 
 For the wax modelling of two rose-branches entwined for the 
 little panel of the cross-beam 40/. 
 
 For moulding the wax in plaster, melting it in tin and chas- 
 ing 6o/. 
 
 For the modelling in wood of the frame which surrounds the 
 rose-branches 61. 
 
 For one end of doucine moulding in wood on which we have mod- 
 elled heart-rays in wax 24/. 
 
 For moulding in sand, melting in wax, and chasing and scoop- 
 ing out of the heart-rays 72/. 
 
 For the model of a tripod decorated with two goats' heads, a 
 garland of vine, two bouquets of drooping flowers, a fillet with 
 hearts entwined, a vase isolated in the tripod, the said vase deco- 
 rated with a flame and a moulding, the said moulding cut in heart- 
 rays and berries SOQ/. 
 
 357 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 For a second moulding on the gorge cut in ovolos and darts, 
 a vine-branch winding in the gorge of the vase, an end-piece in 
 water-leaves and ornamental shell from which issues a stem bear- 
 ing a flower, a bud with berries from which issues a thyrsus, a fir- 
 cone and in the middle a serpent. All the large models and mould- 
 ings estimated in their entirety at the sum of SOQ/. 
 
 For the model of a ploughshare in which the tripod rests.. 3O/. 
 
 For moulding laurel-leaves in wax on a wreathing of wood 24*. 
 
 For moulding in sand, melting in copper and chasing 55*. 
 
 Execution of Bronzes for the Chimney-piece. 
 
 For 5 feet 5 inches of doucine moulding fixed on the tablet : 
 this moulding decorated with ornamented leaves and leaves of 
 water 325*. 
 
 For having cast a steel blade of the same length as the moulding, 
 for having filed it and polished it brightly 6o/. 
 
 For the panel underneath the moulding for which I have made 
 a frieze in double interlacing of rose-branches, the entire well- 
 chased and fastened with a folded screw so that no screw is 
 visible i,5oo/. 
 
 For two ornaments of rose-branches of the little cross-beam, 
 the said branches well-chased 30O/. 
 
 For having gilded in ormolu and dead gold colour i,6oo/. 
 
 For the two frames which surround the said ornaments. . 40/. 
 
 For having gilded these two frames in ormolu 48/. 
 
 For four goats' heads for the two tripods 240/. 
 
 For six posts for the said tripods decorated with ornamental work 
 all through and on the faces, and with a gorge behind 6oo/. 
 
 For the chasing of two fir-cones and two buds with berries . . 40^. 
 
 For two serpents on which the scales have been put on in 
 bits i6o/. 
 
 For two circles at the foot of a turret and for having fixed in 
 the piece entwined hearts with small ornamental leaves, chased 
 and with openings I44/. 
 
 For four other circles, with flower-borders introduced into 
 them 9&1. 
 
 For two circles decorated with ovolos, darts, and flower- 
 borders I44/. 
 
 358 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 For two garlands of vine with round embossments and four 
 bouquets of drooping flowers 3OO/. 
 
 For the vase, two end-pieces, with water-leaf and stalks of 
 flowers; also a little branch of vine winding around the neck 
 of the vase 3OO/. 
 
 For the two circles above the neck decorated with leaves, berries, 
 and a string I2O/. 
 
 For two flames on the said vase 6o/. 
 
 For the flower-borders and two fillets of ornamental leaves 246!. 
 
 For bodies of vases in steel 3OO/. 
 
 For having mounted the said tripods, without any screw being 
 visible 384*- 
 
 For the gilding of all the bronzes of the said tripods i,ooof. 
 
 For the marble pedestal for which I have made two laurel- 
 wreaths 967. 
 
 For thirty-five stems of laurel to put into the twisted flut- 
 ings 87/. los. 
 
 For two smooth bands above the f lutings 72/. 
 
 For having gilded with ormolu the entire garniture of two pedes- 
 tals 2501. 
 
 For the frame of the winding door-case, a frame decorated with 
 a doucine on which I have made heart-rays 2641. 
 
 For having cast eleven feet of steel bands, having Tiled them, 
 and polished them well I32/. 
 
 For having gilded and double-gilded the entire with ormolu 264/. 
 
 For having moulded in sand and melted in copper all the pieces 
 of bronze 286/. 155. 6d. 
 
 For having mounted all the bronzes on marble with screws, the 
 said mounting made with much skill 3OO/. 
 
 Also for having touched up all the steels with violet 48/. 
 
 Model of the Knob of the Window Shutting on the Lower Portion. 
 
 For having made a wooden knob modelled in wax, a crown of 
 roses, adorned with Madame's cipher, with a chaplet and a sun- 
 flower which serves as a rosette for the button, a plate and berrier 
 on which the sun's rays rest, the entire estimated at the sum of 48; 
 Model of the Sash-Fastening. 
 
 For a wooden handle scooped out in an open fashion in the for: 
 of a lyre, on which we have put at either side the heads of a chr 
 
 359 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 let. For another model in wood for the knob of the said handle, 
 for having modelled in this knob a branch of roses winding all 
 round the upper part, which knob is decorated with Madame's 
 cipher in the middle. Again, for having modelled a branch of 
 fleur-de-lys for the centre of the said handle. For two rosettes, 
 one of which serves to keep the knob on the handle, and the other 
 on the sash-fastening. All of which models, in wood as well as in 
 wax, are estimated together at 1 ISO/. 
 
 In the large salon, for which Gouthiere gives the estimate of a 
 second chimney-piece, there are all the details of door-locks, of 
 which he has made models as well as of bolts. It is an arabesque 
 decorated with Madame's cipher, an arabesque opening to the light. 
 
 The doors have also bronze decorations of which all the orna- 
 mentation is found in this long memorandum. 
 
 There is a further interest attached to Gouthiere's memorandum, 
 as he mentions in the most minute detail all the decoration in 
 bronze of the little palace, a fire for the salon with the bakehouse 
 adjoining, which is valued, including the bronzes and phasing, 
 framing and gilding in unpolished colour, at 5,000 livres. 
 
 The memorandum mounts up to 1 34,21 8/. Ss. 4d. 
 
 On this memorandum Gouthiere acknowledged having received 
 from Madame du Barry the sum of 99,218 livres, with which has 
 been adjusted the present memorandum of MM. Roettiers, gold- 
 smiths to the King, of the 31 st of December, 1773. 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE ADVANCES MADE BY THE SIEUR ALLEGRAIN, SCULP- 
 TOR TO THE KING, FOR THE ERECTION OF A STATUE OF DIANA, ORDERED 
 BY THE COMTESSE DU BARRY AND FROM THE ACCOUNTS HE HAS RE- 
 CEIVED. 
 
 Viz.: 
 
 For the preparations of the Model 150*. 
 
 For the models of women i,3OO/. 
 
 For the expense of the mould 5/. 
 
 For the models of women which have served to restore 
 a plaster-cast of the said figure in order to have it seen by 
 
 the Comtesse 3o/. 
 
 1 The execution of the bronzes of the sash-fastenings reached the 
 sum of 2,782/. iij. 3^. 
 
 360 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 For the transport of the block of marble from the Port 
 Saint-Nicolas to the Porte Saint-Martin, for having got 
 it placed in the work-yard and having a rough sketch 
 made of it ............................................... S,ooo/. 
 
 Total ................ 7,250;. 
 
 NOTE. The Sieur Allegrain observes that he has been occupied an 
 entire year, without distraction, in making the model in clay; that 
 he has spent three months in restoring the figure in plaster in order 
 that it might be in a condition to be seen by the Comtesse and the 
 ladies zvho came with her. The Sieur Allegrain cannot bring this 
 undertaking to a close 1 till he has been assured on the part of 
 the Comtesse that he will be paid on foot of the 18,000 livres, 
 including in this sum the 7,250 livres which he has expended in ad- 
 vance and the 2,000 livres of gratuities agreed upon according to the 
 assurance of the Sieur Ledoux, architect of the Comtesse. 
 
 And of foot of these 18,000 livres the Sieur Allegrain acknowl- 
 edges having received from the Comtesse the sum of 4,000 livres in 
 two payments. 
 
 LIST OF WORKS OF SCULPTURE DONE FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY BY 
 LE COMTE, SCULPTOR-IN-ORDINARY TO THE KING, ACCORDING TO HIS 
 ORDERS, GIVEN BY M. LE DOUX, ARCHITECT TO THE KING, COMMENCED 
 IN 
 
 A figure of four feet and a half in proportion in marble to serve 
 for a candelabrum in the dining-room of the pavilion of Luciennes, 
 for the model as well as for having moulded it, dissolved the 
 plaster, and having it executed in marble .................. io,ooo/. 
 
 For a little model of a girandole composed of ten female 
 figures, eighteen inches in proportion, bearing branches of 
 flowers, to receive the wax-candles, as much for the model 
 as for having restored some talcs, eight hundred livres.... 8oo/. 
 
 For her dwelling at Versailles the pediment \9bove the 
 entrance door composed of her arms, support, accessories, 
 
 1 The statue of Madame du Barry as "Diana at the Moment of 
 Entering the Bath " was not finished and brought to Lucienne till 
 July, 1780. (Secret Correspondence, Political and Literary, 
 Tome X.) 
 
 361 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 and two allegorical figures of six feet in proportion, ex- 
 ecuted on the spot in firestone, as well for the modelling, 
 moulding, execution, journeys, etc., seven thousand four 
 hundred livres 7.4OO/. 
 
 Idem. In the corners two centaurs nine feet high; 
 bas-relief executed in stone of Conflon, as well for the 
 modellings and execution, ravels, etc., two thousand six 
 hundred livres 2,6oo/. 
 
 Idem. For the niche of the horsepond, a figure of seven 
 feet in proportion, which is to be executed in lead as agreed 
 upon, according to the sketch, representing Hercules fight- 
 ing the Hydra, destined to serve as a fountain to fill and 
 renew the water of the horsepond. The model and the 
 hollow made ready to be cast for that object, finished, and 
 put in its place, four thousand eight hundred livres 4,8oo/. 
 
 Total 25,600*'. 
 
 Let us point out at the end of this memorandum of Le Comte 
 a receipt for 960 livres published by M. Paul Mantz, in the 
 " Archives of French Art," 1852, for the bas-relief forming the 
 pediment of the Pavilion of Luciennes ; a Bacchanalian group of 
 children, 22 feet long and 4 feet high, moulded and cast in talc. 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE WORKS OF STATUARY WHICH THE SIEUR PAJOU, 
 PROFESSOR OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY AND PENSIONER OF HIS MAJESTY, 
 HAS MADE FOR THE COMTESSE DU BARRY DURING THE COURSE OF THE 
 YEARS 1770, I77I, 1772, 1773, AND THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE PRES- 
 ENT YEAR I774. 1 
 
 ARTICLE i. 
 
 The portrait in clay of the Comtesse, of natural size, made at 
 Versailles at Easter, 1770, and exhibited in the Salon of the Louvre 
 on the 25th of August of the same year (this bust is in my pos- 
 session and I am prepared to deliver it up) ; for this i,20O/. 
 
 1 The memoranda of Pajou and Drouais have been published by 
 M. Pichon in the " Melanges," published by the Society of Biblio- 
 philes, 1856. 
 
 362 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 ARTICLE n. 
 
 Another bust of the Comtesse, half the size of the pre- 
 ceding one, ordered to be executed in porcelain in the Sevres 
 manufactory, which has been furnished and executed for the 
 ist of January, 1771 ; for this 6oo/. 
 
 ARTICLE in. 
 
 Another bust of Madame, of the same proportions, or- 
 dered and furnished at the manufactory of Sevres, arranged 
 and with the hair done differently from the preceding one, 
 and executed in porcelain ; for this 6oo/. 
 
 ARTICLE iv. 
 
 Another bust of Madame which she asked to have with 
 the hair dressed in the style of the Falconet's " Begneuse, ' 
 which, after having been made and occupied my time, and 
 compelled me to take many journeys to Versailles and to 
 other Royal houses, has not had the advantage of pleasing 
 and has been suppressed ; for this 6oo/. 
 
 ARTICLE v. 
 
 Another bust of Madame, of natural height, different from 
 the others in attitude and arrangements, which is executed 
 in white marble of the same size by the orders of the Com- 
 tesse, and has been exhibited in the Salon of the Louvre, 
 the 25th of August of the year 1773, and delivered to the 
 Comtesse while at Versailles (paid), including the materia 1 
 and the stand which is of marble of the colour of Aleppo 
 notch (a kind of wood) 6,ooo/. 
 
 ARTICLE vi. 
 
 A medallion of Madame's portrait which was made for 
 the pavilion of Luciennes and placed over the door g6/. 
 
 ARTICLE vii. 
 
 A white marble figure, of four feet two inches in propor- 
 tion, representing a young girl holding a horn of plenty, 
 
 363 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 which was intended to carry lights and to decorate a room 
 of the house at Luciennes (the dining-room). It has been 
 transported two days before the illness of the late King. 
 The price of this figure is the sum of io,oooJ. 
 
 If Madame finds this price too high, I ask to take back 
 my figure, for I believe my demand is fair. I shall have no 
 difficulty in getting purchasers at this price. 
 
 ARTICLE vm. 
 
 A plaster bust 1 restored carefully and supplied to a manu- 
 factory of porcelain established in the Faubourg du Temple, 
 to be executed of the same material, of natural size, which 
 has been made and presented to the Comtesse, which she has 
 received, and of which she has made a present to Mademoi- 
 , selle du Barry g6l. 
 
 Total 19,1921. 
 
 MEMORANDUM OF THE PAINTINGS ORDERED BY THE COMTESSE DU BARRY 
 FROM DROUAIS, PAINTER TO THE KING, FIRST PAINTER TO MONSIEUR 
 AND TO HIS WIFE, COMMENCING IN DECEMBER, 1768. 
 
 In the first place, in 1768 the portrait of the Comtesse du Barry 
 as Flora on an oval canvas of twenty, without hands, sent from 
 Toulouse i,2OO/. 
 
 1769. The second portrait of the Comtesse in hunting- 
 dress on an oval canvas of twenty, without hands, sent 
 to England i,2OO/. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, on an 
 oval canvas of twenty, without hands, sent to England 36o/. 
 
 A picture of a little boy holding an apple /20/. 
 
 1 A note by M. Pichon informs us that this bust was the one 
 executed and delivered in November, 1773, by the Sieur Loire, con- 
 tractor for the manufactory of German porcelain established in the 
 Rue Fontaine-le-Roi. The products are marked with two arrows. 
 He ventured to ask 12,000 livres for the execution in porcelain of 
 this bust. Madame du Barry wrote on his memorandum : " M. 
 de Montvallier (her steward) has made inquiries of the man of the 
 German manufactory; he has supplied only a bust. They are sold 
 at Sevres for six louis, and he asks 12,000 livr . . . For the 
 sake of accommodation Madame du Barry will give ten louis." 
 
 364 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 1770. On Sunday, June 24th, delivered to the Comtesse 
 four pieces over the door for the old pavilion of Luciennes, 
 one representing the Graces, the second Love embracing the 
 Universe, the third Venus and Cupid, and the remaining 
 piece Night. These four above the doors painted by Frago- 
 nard, painter to the King. They have been bought by the 
 Comtesse from the Sieur Drouais, to whom they belong i,20oJ. 
 
 According to the order of the Comtesse for having put on 
 canvas three of the pieces mentioned above the doors, for 
 having enlarged, made the enlargements correct in propor- 
 tion, money disbursed 420/. 
 
 The third portrait representing the Comtesse in her first 
 youth on an oval canvas, of twenty, with hands i,200/. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse, whose head has 
 been made twice, at different times and in different man- 
 ners, and whose costume as Flora, with the hands, has been 
 entirely made according to nature by M. Baujon i,20/. 
 
 On Friday, the 30th of August, delivered two of the de- 
 signs over the door for the old pavilion of Luciennes, one 
 representing the portrait of Mademoiselle Betzi, the other 
 a child holding a bird's nest 2,4OO/. 
 
 On Saturday, the 8th of September, delivered the portrait 
 of Mirza 3OO/. 
 
 On Sunday, the Qth of September, delivered the portrait of 
 Mademoiselle Luxembourg crowning Mirza 72O/. 
 
 1771. On the 1st of January delivered to the Comtesse her 
 miniature portrait in oval form 6oo/. 
 
 On Saturday the 2d of February, delivered to the Com- 
 tesse the portrait of Mademoiselle Betzi 1 playing with a cat 72O/. 
 
 On Monday, the 7th of October, delivered to the Com- 
 tesse a copy of a miniature of the King in oval form 288/. 
 
 A copy of a portrait of the Comtesse for the King of 
 Sweden. The attire of this portrait, consisting of a Court 
 robe, has been entirely made according to nature on an oval, 
 a canvas of twenty 672/. 
 
 1772. On the ist of August delivered to the Comtesse four 
 
 1 Portrait presumed to be that of a daughter of Madame Quan- 
 tiny. 
 
 365 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 pieces above the door for the new pavilion of Luciennes, one 
 representing Madame Betzi playing a triangle, the second 
 a little boy flying away with grapes, the third Mademoiselle 
 Laroque offering roses, and the fourth a little boy playing 
 a tambourine 2,88o/. 
 
 When some of the first works were executed by the Sieur 
 Drouais for the Comtesse, he was promised that he would 
 be supplied with the carriages necessary for the different 
 journeys and transports required from him, but temporary 
 difficulties have determined the Comtesse to ask the Sieur 
 Drouais to take at his own expense the carriages which he 
 would require, and to keep a note of the expenses so that 
 he would be reimbursed. According to the exact estimate 
 that he has made, from the I3th of December, 1768, down to 
 September, 1772, these expenses amount to l,75&l. 
 
 The fourth portrait of the Comtesse, full length, rep- 
 resenting a Muse on a canvas of six and a half feet high 
 by four feet five inches wide. 
 
 The artist entreats to have it taken into consideration that 
 this picture was at first entirely finished in a style of cos- 
 tume accepted by the Comtesse through all the gradations 
 of the first rough draft to the finished work, and that in 
 order to satisfy the desire of the Comtesse, who wished to 
 have the costume entirely changed, he has substituted the 
 present details, which have compelled him to have recourse 
 to a double expenditure of time and infinite trouble I5,ooo/. 
 
 1773. The fifth portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, on a 
 canvas of twenty, with the hands i,200/. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, retouched 
 from nature for the Marechal de Soubise. 
 
 It is to be noted that the Comtesse has fixed en all the 
 copies to be made for her from this picture, and to be re- 
 touched according to nature, at 600 livres each 6oo/. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed 6o/. 
 
 1774. A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, 
 retouched from nature for the Due d'Aiguillon 6oof. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed I2O/. 
 
 On Tuesday, the 8th of February, delivered to the Com- 
 tesse a copy in miniature of the portrait of the Due d'Aiguil- 
 
 366 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 Ion, ordered by the Comtesse, in order to make a present of 
 
 it to the Duchesse d'Aiguillon 288/. 
 
 The portrait of the Vicomtesse du Barry, on an oval, with 
 the hands, ordered by the Comtesse 720/. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed 6ol. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, retouched 
 from nature for Mademoiselle du Barry 6oo/. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed 6ol. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, retouched 
 from nature for the Prince des Deux-Ponts 6oo/. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed 6o/. 
 
 A copy of the portrait of the Comtesse as Flora, retouched 
 from nature for Madame de Montrapt (Montrab) 1 6oo/. 
 
 For the frame of the said picture, money disbursed 6ol. 
 
 A copy of the full-length portrait of Madame du Barry 
 representing a Muse, on a canvas six feet and a half high and 
 four feet five inches wide, the price of this copy, which has 
 been made for the landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, has been fixed 
 by the Comtesse at l,ooo/. 
 
 For the expenses of the journey and transports made since 
 the 27th of September, 1772, to this day, according to 
 the exact list of disbursements which has been made out 8Q4/. 
 
 Total 40,360^. 
 
 On which there has been received on account: 
 
 June 2nd, 1770 6,ooo/. 
 
 During July, 1771 3,ooo/. 
 
 September I7th 3,ooo/. 
 
 and 
 
 March loth, 1774 3,ooo/. 
 
 Total of the amount received I5,ooo/. 
 
 The artist would not be sorry to have notice taken of the fact 
 that in the employment of the time required for these sittings he 
 has lost, while waiting, the benefit of four entire months of his 
 time, and that the Comtesse, perceiving the very great disturbance 
 which this has caused to him, had promised to indemnify him for it. 
 
 The lady whose name was thus misspelled was the mother of 
 Madame du Barry. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 367 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 Madame du Barry wrote on a copy of this memorandum which 
 M. Pichon possesses: 
 
 To be deducted for the journeys not paid for i,758/. 
 
 In addition 894/. for the same object 894/. 
 
 Total 2,652/. 
 
 1 owed formerly on the account above set out 33,268/. 
 
 2,652*. 
 
 Total 30,6i6/. 
 
 / owe to Drois 30,6i6/. 
 
 He has received on account I5,ooo/. 
 
 There remains due to him I5,6i6/. 
 
 Reduce this sum to I5,ooo/. 
 
 To pay him 5,000 in cash 1 and bind myself to pay the remaining 
 10,000 at the end of next year ; Drois will be satisfied with this ar- 
 rangement. The portrait of Zamor will be a bust, and Drois will 
 forward all my pictures to Luciennes. 
 
 LA COMTESSE Du BARRY. 
 
 ACCOUNT OF LEDOUX, ARCHITECT. 
 
 Pavilion of Luciennes, of which I have made the designs, looked 
 after the workmen, settled the Bills, and made the necessary Jour- 
 neys. 
 
 For the bronzes of M. Goutier, of which I have made the designs 
 on a large scale, superintended the modelling and execution; the 
 bills prepared by M. Roettiers. 
 
 Abstract of the various articles which are included in his bill : 
 
 The dining-room 1,704^ 
 
 The vestibule 6p8/. 
 
 The square drawing-room I9,7o67. 
 
 The oval drawing-room 3i,272/. 
 
 The drawing-room adjoining the bake-house 6,66o/. 
 
 Ante-chamber and wardrobe I,IOQ/. 
 
 The pedestals, a capital, the whole not determined, esti- 
 mated at. . 20,oooJ. 
 
 Total 81,239*. 
 
 1 Madame du Barry spells the word " comptant " (ready money), 
 contant" She even misspells the painter's name. TRANSLATOR. 
 
 368 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 GENERAL LIST OF THE MEMORANDA AND CLAIMS OF THE DIFFERENT MER- 
 CHANTS, WORKMEN, AND TRADESPEOPLE OF THE COMTESSE DU BARRY: 
 
 Minot, sculptor 8,ooo/. 
 
 Feuillet and Motivier, sculptors, for works at Luciennes. . 37,6761. 
 
 Rostenne, musician of the Chapel I,5I2/. 
 
 Vien, painter i6,ooo/. 
 
 Vernet, painter, for the remainder of a picture 1 4,ooo/. 
 
 Caf fieri, sculptor, for his disbursements 3,oool. 
 
 Guichard, sculptor 6,409*. 
 
 Musson, painter 6,i20/. 
 
 Duvivier, contractor to the Soap Manufactory 9,087 /. 
 
 Pajou, sculptor i8,902/. 
 
 La Vallee, painter of equipages io,96o/. 
 
 Boileau, picture-dealer, for commissions and disburse- 
 ments 6si/. 
 
 Forty, painter 288/. 
 
 Greize, painter 2,8oo/. 
 
 On the 2nd of September, 1774, while Madame du Barry was in 
 Point-aux-Dames, and while we find her having permission only 
 to see her jeweller, she made up her mind to sell a fashionable 
 piece of finery, which she had got made for extraordinary recep- 
 tions, and which the jeweller thus describes: A body with two 
 cuttings in front and two behind, two epaulets, with a knot behind 
 called a "crupper." 2 The body itself adorned with 1013 diamond 
 brilliants; the cuttings behind had 1054 brilliants, and in the cut- 
 tings in front and the epaulets there were 1413 brilliants. Madame 
 du Barry had in addition ordered a diamond rose of exceptional 
 brilliancy to be attached to the belt, and, not caring to have this 
 toilet spoiled by ordinary pins she had ordered 22 pins, all of dia- 
 monds, the heads of which were composed of brilliants mounted con- 
 
 1 The " Anecdotes " relate that one day Madame du Barry chanced 
 to call in at Vernet's studio at the moment when two pictures were 
 being packed up to be sent abroad. She became suddenly seized 
 with a rage to get possession of them. And, when Vernet told her 
 that the pictures no longer belonged to him, that it would be quite 
 impossible to let her have them, the Favourite had them taken 
 away by force, flinging him a slip of paper on which she had just 
 written an order for 50,000 livres on Beaujon, banker to the Court 
 
 a Literally : " Tuck-up tail." TRANSLATOR. 
 
 369 24 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 spicuously and which cost 10,471 livres. So it was this article of 
 attire that the Favourite gave the Sieur Aubert to sell. Here is 
 the authority contained in the papers of the Du Barry preserved 
 in the Library of Versailles: 1 
 
 " I, the undersigned, consent and authorize the Sieur Aubert, to 
 whom I have given power to do so, by these presents, to conclude 
 the sale of my dress with large body mounted in diamonds, com- 
 posed of the body, the epaulets, four divisions and the knot called 
 the crupper, and that for the sum of 450,000 livres payable at the rate 
 of 50,000 livres every six months. 
 
 " Furthermore, I authorize him and give him the same power 
 aforesaid to conclude the sale of my dress adorned with rubies and 
 diamonds, composed of a collar with a knot and jewels and buttons 
 at the side, with a pair of earrings with knots and jewels, with four 
 topknots and a garland for the head, the said dress for the sum of 
 150,000 livres, for which I consent to sell the articles on condition that 
 this sum will be paid me in the space of three months, counting 
 from the day of the sale, of which the Sieur Aubert will give me 
 all immediately, reserving to myself, as of right, to make of the 
 amount of the one sum or the other such use as I please as belong 
 to me, not doubting that the Sieur Aubert will do everything in his 
 power, to take care of my interests and to procure for me the ut- 
 most advantage in the matter which I have entrusted to him. 
 
 " Signed, the Comtesse DU BARRY. 
 
 " Made at Pont-aux-Dames, September 22d, 1774." 
 
 According to a note which accompanies this authority, the large 
 dress appears to have been sold for 390,000 livres and the other for 
 188,000 livres to the Comtesse d'Artois. This note is followed by 
 the acceptance of these sums under the hand of Madame du Barry. 
 
 TWO THOUSAND LOUIS TO GAIN. 2 
 
 DIAMONDS AND JEWELS LOST. 
 
 "There were stolen from the house of Madame du Barry, the 
 chateau of Luciennes, near Marly, on the night of the loth or nth 
 
 1 Published by M. le Roi in the "Bulletin of the Library of 
 Versailles." 
 
 * This is the advertisement of the theft committed in Madame du 
 Barry's house one night in January, 1791. This exceedingly rare 
 
 370 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 of January, 1791, the diamonds and jewels below-mentioned: A 
 ring of white brilliants with a large diamond, weighing about 50 
 grains, mounted in a cage-shaped case, a ditto of brilliants weighing 
 about 50 grains, a ditto of brilliants from 26 to 28 grains, a ditto of 
 sapphire with a large square stone with a Cupid engraved upon it 
 and two brilliants showing in front ; a ring-box with a green rosette 
 containing from 20 to 25 rings, one of them being a large emerald 
 ring; jewelled watch without a case, weighing about 36 grains, of a 
 beautiful colour but very common, having the works very large; 
 an onyx ring representing the portrait of Louis XIII., of which the 
 hair and the moustaches are in sardonyx; one of a Caesar of two 
 colours, surrounded with brilliants; one of an emerald of large, 
 square form, weighing about 20 grains; one of a dark puce colour, 
 weighing from 14 to 16 grains; one of an antique Bacchus, en- 
 graved in relief on a burnt cornelian; one of yellow sardonyx en- 
 graved by Barrier, representing Louis XIV. with paltry Dutch roses 
 twined around his person; one a large heart-shaped sapphire, well 
 mounted and with diamonds encircling the stone and half of the 
 ring; the heart-shaped sapphire of Louis XIII. and the square 
 emerald are mounted in the same way and garnished with diamonds, 
 roses, and brilliants. There is, moreover, in this ring-case an an- 
 tique "bonus eventus " engraved on an onyx over the tissue paper; 
 a white brilliant weighing 29 grains; a ditto weighing 25 grains; a 
 ditto of pendant-form weighing 28 grains; a round ditto weighing 
 23 grains ; a ditto idem weighing 24 grains ; a ditto of inferior 
 quality, large and square, weighing 23 grains; three dittos idem, 
 each weighing 28^ grains; a pin-shaped brilliant, of long shape, 
 weighing 30 grains; a lozenge-shaped brilliant weighing 35 grains; 
 two very beautiful brilliants formed into ear-drops, each weighing 
 50 grains; two bracelets weighing together 24 grains, one of them 
 weighing from 15 to 16 grains; a rose finely mounted with 258 
 white brilliants, of which one large stone in the centre of crystal 
 weighs about 24 grains; a necklace of 24 beautiful brilliants finely 
 mounted in open bevil, 15 to 20 grains each; eight pieces of ribbon 
 in puffs, each with 21 brilliants, distinctly visible, and each brilliant 
 weighing from 4 to 8 grains ; a pair of shoe-buckles of 84 brilliants, 
 
 placard is to be found in the National Archives, in the "Dossier," 
 W 1 300. 
 
 37i 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 weighing 77 carats for a fourth part; a cross with 16 brilliants, 
 weighing from 8 to 10 grains each; 64 bezils, weighing from 6 to 10 
 grains; a beautiful pair of chandeliers with large brilliants of the 
 value of 120,000 livres; a silver purse in blue silk, with its slides, 
 its tassels, and their fringes, the whole in little brilliants finely 
 mounted; a double row of pearls with its fall worn by slaves, the 
 whole of about 200 pearls, weighing 4 or 5 grains each; a large 
 brilliant in the upper part of the fall, weighing 25 to 26 grains, and 
 below a tassel with fringes and its knot, the whole in brilliants 
 conspicuously mounted; a pair of bracelets with six rows of pearls, 
 weighing from 4 to 5 grains each. The ground of the bracelet is an 
 emerald surmounted by a cipher in diamonds, giving two L's for 
 the one, and a D and B for the other, and two padlocks of four 
 brilliants weighing from 8 to 10 grains ; a row of 104 stringed pearls, 
 weighing from 4 to 5 grains each; a portrait of Louis XV. painted 
 by Masse, surrounded by a gold frame with laurel leaves, the said 
 portrait from 5 to 6 inches high; another portrait of Louis XV., 
 painted by the same, smaller, in a gold medallion; a simple Romilly 
 gold watch ; a gold case with an enamelled tooth in green, with a 
 very large brilliant at the end, weighing about 12 grains, attached 
 to the whole by a screw; a pair of sleeve-buttons formed of an 
 emerald, a sapphire, a yellow diamond, and a ruby, the whole sur- 
 rounded with rose-coloured brilliants, weighing from 36 to 40 grains, 
 mounted in neck buttons; two strings of watch-guards composed of 
 sixteen links with three stones, one being a large emerald and two 
 brilliants of three or four grains on each side, and three other little 
 cords of two links each like to those above described. A cap with 
 a very big brilliant, large and square, weighing about 60 grains, 
 with three large emeralds underneath, weighing from 8 to 10 grains, 
 with two brilliants, one at each side, weighing one grain each, 
 mounted conspicuously: it must be observed that this cap is not of 
 elegant pattern; a ring with a brilliant of about 26 grains, well 
 mounted, with some brilliants on the body of the ring; two golden 
 chandeliers forming flambeaux mounted on two shafts of a column 
 of gold, enamelled in lapis-lazuli, surmounted by two silver turtle 
 doves ; quivers and arrows made by Durand ; a gold case enamelled 
 in green, at the end of which is a little watch made by Romilly, sur- 
 rounded by four diamond hoops, and at the other side armorial 
 bearings ; two other gold cases, one enamelled with blue ribbons and 
 
 372 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 the other in enamels of colour and landscapes; seventeen diamonds 
 entirely out of shape, weighing each from 25 to 30 grains, one of 
 them being a pendant mounted weighing 36 grains; two other en- 
 closures of bracelets detached equally from four diamonds each, 
 weighing the same on the other hand; sixty- four bevils in a single 
 thread, forming a necklace weighing 8, 9 and 10 grains each, in dia- 
 monds set prominently ; two earrings of pearl-shells with portrait of 
 Louis XIV. by Petitot ; another portrait of the late Monsieur, both in 
 enamel, as well as a portrait of a woman likewise by Petitot ; an ink- 
 horn of superb old lacquer adorned with gold and forming a work- 
 box, all the utensils in gold. Two souvenirs, one in red lacquer 
 work, and the other in lacquer with a gold background and figures, 
 the one mounted in gold and the other mounted in gold enamel; 
 two little silver candlesticks for a dressing-room, adorned with 
 pearls and armorial bearings, a box of rock crystal covered a double 
 box in open work ; Portuguese gold coins ; Spanish guineas and half- 
 guineas ; i ditto of Noailles, of Louis XV., struck nearly in this 
 shape; in every corner of this piece are fleur-de-lis, one of M. 
 de Bignon, of M. de la Michandiere, of M. Canmartin, with the arms 
 of the city; one of the Regency; in addition 40 diamonds, weighing 
 one carat each ; two opera-glasses, one enamelled in blue, the other in 
 red with the portrait of the late King, both mounted in gold; a 
 souvenir in blue enamel with pictures in grey, representing on one 
 side an offering and on the other side a flower-stand with a little 
 dog with long ears ; a reliquary of about an inch of very pure gold 
 enamelled in black and white ; a little cross mounted above, rather in 
 the Gothic style, and a fine pearl of the size of a pea below, and many 
 other jewels of very good value. 
 
 " Address to the house of Madame du Barry, Luciennes, near 
 Marly; and in Paris to the office of Maitre Rouen, notary, in the 
 Rue des Petits Champs, to M. Rouen, merchant, goldsmith, jeweller, 
 Rue Saint Louis, at the Palace, and to the Clerk of Works, Rue des 
 Orfeves. Reward fair and in proportion to the value of the objects 
 which will be brought back." 
 
 373 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 DECLARATION OF MADAME DU BARRY, MADE BETWEEN TWO WICKETS 
 OF THE CONCIERGERIE, AFTER THE JUDGMENT WHICH CONDEMNED 
 HER TO THE PENALTY OF DEATH. 1 
 
 To-day, the i8th Frimaire, the second year of the French Republic, 
 One and Indivisible (December 8th, 1793), 10 o'clock in the morning, 
 on the announcement being made to us that Jeanne Vaubernier 
 " Femme du Barry " had some important declarations to make : 
 
 We, Frangois Joseph Denisot, Judge of the Revolutionary Tri- 
 bunal, assisted by Claude Royer, substitute for the Public Prose- 
 cutor at the said Tribunal, and Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, Clerk and 
 Registrar, repaired to the Prison of the Conciergerie, where we found 
 the Citizen Dange, Administrator of Police, and the said Jeanne 
 Vaubernier, " Femme du Barry," who said to us : 
 
 (1) That in the place where the gardening implements are shut up, 
 opposite her ice-house at Luciennes, there is buried a gold dressing- 
 case containing a porcelain tray mounted in gold, a tea-pot in gold, 
 a kettle, a chafing-dish with spirits of wine, a milk jug, a large 
 chocolate-pot, a small coffee-pot, a bowl without a cover and its 
 plate, three small spoons, a little strainer for the tea-pot, a hundred 
 counters with her arms and the initials D. B., the entire in gold and 
 of very precious workmanship, attention being drawn to the fact that 
 the handles of the said articles are in blood-red jasper and mounted 
 in gold. 
 
 (2) In a box or basket, buried in the same place, 1531 gold louis 
 of twenty-four livres each ; a chain of diamonds with its two tassels 
 and the key mounted in an open style; two ear-chains, each com- 
 posed of nine or ten stones, those in front very large; three rings, 
 one of white diamonds, one of rubies and white diamonds, one in 
 emerald and white diamonds ; a very beautiful engraved stone, 
 mounted with chains of gold for a necklace; two coral necklaces, 
 one of which is mounted in gold ; a necklace of five pearls ; a collar 
 of pearls set in gold, and two or three gold chains for the neck; 
 a portrait of Louis XV., surrounded with a gold frame. 
 
 1 This declaration no longer exists in the National Archives in the 
 two " Dossiers " W*i6 and W 6 3OO, consecrated to Madame du Barry. 
 I give it from the copy which Madame Guenard must have taken of 
 it at the time, and which she has printed in her " Historic Memoirs 
 of Jeanne Gomart de Vaubernier Dubarry." Lerouge, 1803. 
 
 374 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 (3) In a little deal box, sent to the wife of a man named Deliant, 
 floor-cleaner, residing at Luciennes, a. repeater adorned with dia- 
 monds; a little packet of fourteen or sixteen diamonds of from 5 
 to 6 grains each ; a packet of small rubies ; two small flat diamonds 
 to mount in rings ; another portrait of Louis XV. in a worked frame 
 mounted and plated in gold, a little child in the form of a " tirelire " 
 in gold with blue enamel ; sixteen new half-guineas and two guineas 
 wrapped up in paper; a pair of gold spurs with ciphers, belonging 
 to the late M. de Brissac; a little cardboard box shut up in the box 
 aforesaid, in which is a chain of emeralds, and diamonds, one large 
 stone weighing 50 grains, the tassels of which chain are in the box 
 referred to in the second article; attention being drawn to the fact 
 that in the second or third article will be found a gold pencil adorned 
 with diamonds; a box likewise sent to the woman Deliant, contain- 
 ing a gold mustard-pot, a little tray, and two gold goblets, and many 
 other objects which do not come back to her memory; two liqueur- 
 cases filled with flagons of rock-crystal, one of which belongs to her 
 and the other to the late Brissac; a little vermilion bowl with its 
 tray. 
 
 (4) A chest covered with blue velvet, furnished with gilt silver, 
 placed under a staircase in an apartment forming a wardrobe, at the 
 side of that which she occupied, in which chest there are a dozen 
 gold covers with armorial bearings, four sugar-spoons, two olive- 
 spoons, a punch-ladle, the entire in gold; a case containing twelve 
 gold tea-spoons ; several portraits of women ; two gold seals, one an 
 office-seal, and a small one; three medals, one representing the 
 Bridge of Neuilly, the second the School of Surgery, and the third 
 the Mint ; the two other medals representing the marriage of the 
 former princes, also in gold; a very large gold medal belonging to 
 the late Brissac, and some other articles which she cannot designate ; 
 in addition, two Turkish daggers mounted in rubies and other stones. 
 
 (5) In the apartment at the side of the bed-room used as a passage, 
 in the chest-of-drawers, a pair of gold buckles, adorned with pearls, 
 a little box of smooth gold; a box of blond shell, mounted in gold, 
 with the portrait of a nun ; a stopper of a gold flagon in blue enamel, 
 with a large diamond. 
 
 (6) In a chest of drawers, in the bed-room, a water-jug and its 
 basin of rock crystal, garnished with gold, two cups cf blood-red 
 jasper mounted in gold; an antique bracelet mounted in gold, com- 
 
 375 
 
Madame Du Barry- 
 posed of different stones; a goblet of rock-crystal and two carafes 
 and the tray, all mounted in gold; twenty-one or twenty-two rings 
 of different engraved stones mounted in gold; a box mounted in a 
 gold case, with the portrait of Brissac's wife; a portrait of the 
 daughter of the latter, mounted in gold; a portrait of the son of the 
 same, also mounted in gold; another of his brother; a blond shell 
 box mounted in gold, with a very beautiful engraved white stone, 
 in which is a portrait of Brissac and of the woman making this 
 declaration; a jasper box mounted in gold, enamelled; another box 
 of mother-of-pearl, adorned with pearls and mounted in gold; a 
 portrait in enamel of Brissac's grandmother, two gold cups with 
 coral handles, and some other articles belonging to Brissac. 
 
 (7) In the cellar for ordinary use, under the stairs, a large pail, nine 
 dozen and seven plates, eighteen flambeaux, three of them with two 
 branches; a dozen saucepans; a large and a small porridge-pot, all 
 of silver ; nineteen large silver dish-covers ; sixty-four dishes also 
 of silver, and other articles of plate, the list of which is in her house. 
 
 (8) Several figures in bronze of different kinds. One portion of 
 them must be in one of the thickets near the pavilion, another above 
 the pavilion, the whole lightly covered with earth. 
 
 (9) In the garden of Morin, valet, are hidden eleven sacks of 
 1,240 double louis, brought from London on her last journey; a shell 
 box mounted in gold, on which is the portrait of Marie-Antoinette, 
 painted by Sauvage, and in which will be found a gold medal and 
 some other objects which are within the knowledge of Morin, who 
 has been charged by her to conceal all the said objects comprised in 
 the present article. 
 
 (10) Attention is drawn to the fact that she deposited with Mor- 
 lan, A. Moncelet, and Ramson and Company, bankers, at Palmer, in 
 London, all the articles relating to the thefts, except those underlined 
 in the margin and brought into the printed notice of the reward 
 promised for the discovery of the theft in general, which has been 
 initiated by her and by us, as well as by the Citizen Dange. 
 
 (n) That she has confided to the Citizen Montrouy a silver 
 syringe and three tubes, also of silver; a little flexible half-ell of 
 gold ; a ring with the name of " atriodes ; " a portrait of Brissac ; 
 two gold-bladed knives for removing powder, with two little hoops 
 of diamonds, and black handles; another gold knife enamelled; a 
 gold watch, and a little gold seal with an emerald; attention being 
 
 376 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 drawn to the fact that she has received from the said Montrouy two 
 hundred and fifty or three hundred livres by way of loan, as well as 
 the bed of which she has made use during her detention down to 
 this day. 
 
 The above declaration having been read to her, she says that it 
 contains the truth, and that she has nothing else to declare; adding 
 that if it is the good pleasure of the Tribunal, she will write to 
 London, and that without difficulty she will recover the objects con- 
 cerning the theft, paying at the same time the expenses which the case 
 has occasioned, and has signed this along with us Denisot, Judge; 
 Royer, Substitute for the Public Prosecuter; Jeanne Vaubernier du 
 Barry ; Dange, Administrator of Police ; Tavernier, Clerk and Reg- 
 istrar. 
 
 SEARCHES MADE BY THE ORDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY TRIBUNAL IN THE 
 CHATEAU AND PAVILION OF LUCIENNES, FOR THE PURPOSE OF CARRY- 
 ING AWAY JEWELS, GOLD AND SILVER, WHICH WERE CONCEALED THERE, 
 AND SUMMONSES SERVED ON MORIN, MADAME DU BARRY'S VALET, TO 
 DECLARE WHERE THEY ARE. 
 
 " The 24th Frimaire, the Second Year of the Republic One and In- 
 divisible. 1 
 
 "According to the invitation made by us to the Citizen Public 
 Prosecutor to the Revolutionary Tribunal in Paris, there appeared 
 before us, Commissioners, Justice of the Peace, and Mayor named 
 in the proces-verbal of the other parts, at 10 o'clock in the morning 
 Denis Morin, valet of the Dubarry, accompanied by Maximilien 
 Brassan, Pierre Ducolet, gendarmes of the ist division attached to 
 the tribunals, and by Jean Audray, Summoning Officer of the Tri- 
 bunal, which Auvray has produced to us the powers of which he was 
 the bearer, as much on his own behalf as on that of the above-named 
 gendarmes. 
 
 " We pointed out to the above named Morin, in the presence of 
 the aforesaid witnesses, that he is not ignorant of what has happened 
 to his mistress, the critical position in which he is himself, having al- 
 ways been recognized as her confidant, that he must not, moreover, be 
 ignorant of the fatal end of the former Chevalier d'Escourt ; that the 
 best thing he, the person appearing before us, could do, would be to 
 
 The original of Morin's two examinations exists in the National 
 Archives. 
 
 377 
 
Madame Dvi Barry- 
 answer the questions which would be put to him, with that truth, 
 that frankness, which inspire interest under all circumstances; that, 
 besides, all dissimulation would only serve to render him culpable, 
 the more so as we have information through the documents placed 
 in our hands, through sure testimonies, through formal declarations 
 and discoveries of deposits having been made by the Dubarry. 
 
 " To these first observations, the said Morin has replied that he 
 had his mistress' confidence apparently rather than in reality; that 
 they should not assume he enjoyed the entire confidence of the 
 Dubarry merely because his position as valet gave him more facilities 
 for receiving his mistress's orders and for communicating her orders 
 to those attached to her service; that, moreover, he was too great a 
 lover of truth to refuse to make any declarations which could not be 
 relied on, or to conceal anything which might give us information 
 with regard to the Dubarry. 
 
 " We then immediately called upon the said Morin to declare to 
 us what he had been doing before he was with Madame du Barry. 
 
 " Said in reply, that he was the son of a vine-dresser at Auteuil, 
 near Paris, after having been in the service of several other ladies 
 in Paris, and had, by mere chance, entered into the employment of 
 the former Comte Dubarry on the 5th of June, 1769; that since that 
 time he had always remained attached to the house of the Dubarry, 
 at first in the capacity of a lackey for four years, and in the capacity 
 of a valet for the rest of the period in the private service of the wife 
 of the former Comte Dubarry. 
 
 " We called upon the said Morin, to declare to us what had become 
 of the statues in bronze and a bust in marble, representing Louis XV. 
 
 " Said in reply, that he knew nothing about the statue of bronze, 
 that he only knew the concierge of the pavilion had been told by 
 the Dubarry to bury it in some place of which he was not aware, 
 probably to prevent it from being mutilated; that he had deposited 
 it in a conservatory with other marbles, with the assistance of the 
 before-mentioned Deliant, floor-cleaner and Picard, terrace-maker, 
 to whom had been given orders to that effect. 
 
 " We asked the said Morin what had become of the different pic- 
 tures, which were in the woman Dubarry's house. 
 
 " Said in reply that, after having been advised by several persons 
 as to the necessity of not leaving as evidence any pictures which 
 might fatigue the eyes of the Federates, he had himself, with the 
 
 3/8 
 
Madame D\i Barry- 
 assistance of the above-named Deliant and another lackey, hidden 
 between the window and the blind of the dining-room, one picture 
 representing Louis XV., and had no other knowledge with regard 
 to the portrait of Marie-Antoinette, than that he had seen it and left 
 it hanging in Madame Dubarry's dressing-room; that, moreover, 
 he had himself hidden, with the assistance of the said Deliant and 
 Pretry, the Dubarry's hair-dresser, a large picture in a frame and 
 on its sash representing Louis XV. in the dress of a knight, and that 
 this was in a press in the chapel ; attention being drawn to the fact 
 that all the deposits were only made by him by the Dubarry's orders ; 
 that the frame of the said picture had been brought to the pavilion, 
 that the armorial bearings which had been detached from it had been 
 shut up by him in a cupboard in an antechamber in one wing of the 
 buildings, in which cupboard there is also a picture representing a 
 frigate called ' The Comtesse Dubarry.' 
 
 " Declared immediately afterwards, spontaneously and without any 
 interpellation, that he had himself alone, without the assistance of 
 anybody, buried in the conservatory facing the ice-house, an oak chest 
 well bound with iron, containing, as he believed, a gold dressing-case 
 of which the Dubarry had the key, and that this was in a hole made 
 by himself alone; declared, besides, that he had buried in a hole in 
 the same place a wooden box, and as well as he could remember, 
 without being quite certain of it, a second box in the same hole, both 
 containing precious objects, the nature of which he did not know. 
 
 " Had buried by the Dubarry's orders, and at the pressing request 
 of the latter, in two holes opened at the left on entering into his 
 (witness's) garden, vis.: in the first hole about five or six bags of 
 money, sent to him by the Dubarry, the whole shut up in a box, 
 attention being drawn to the fact that besides this box, there was a 
 vermilion goblet belonging to the woman Roussel, and which she gave 
 him to hide ; and in addition about nine louis in pieces of about 
 six livres, a louis d'or, a guinea and a half-guinea in gold, the entire 
 shut up in a leathern bag belonging to him, Morin, the latter recalling 
 the fact that in the same box, concealed in the first hole, there were 
 a hundred silver counters with armorial bearings on them, belonging 
 to the Dubarry. 
 
 " Secondly, that in the other hole of which he had spoken already, 
 there was a little wooden box fastening with a hook, in which were 
 contained different precious objects which he could not designate, 
 
 379 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 not having had the curiosity to look at them, burying them in spite 
 of the opportunity he had of doing so. 
 
 " Having called upon the said Morin to declare to us the quantity 
 of silver which the first hole might contain : 
 
 " Said in reply, that he was unable to state exactly the quantity, 
 as these bags, which were more or less large, might contain some 
 1,200 livres, others more. 
 
 " On being asked whether there was not a louis d'or in the box in 
 question : 
 
 " Said in reply that, as a matter of fact, he had at first put into 
 this box two rouleaux, each composed of about fifty louis d'or; but 
 that, after the Dubarry's orders, he had taken them out and handed 
 them over to her about fifteen days before she was arrested ; that for 
 this purpose he had been obliged to unearth the box, and had then 
 replaced it in the same hole. 
 
 "We represented to the said Morin that, from knowledge which 
 we obtained, there should have been found a greater quantity of 
 silver than that announced in his declaration. 
 
 " In reply, said it was well within his knowledge that in the month 
 of September, 1792, he had hidden and buried in a corner of the 
 district, with the aid of Deliant, floor-cleaner, and Salenave, head- 
 butler, the sum of 10,000 francs in a number of bags, but that the 
 Dubarry, learning that many persons had been robbed of even what 
 had been hidden, and thinking no place of deposit sufficiently safe, 
 had given orders to the said Deliant and Salenave to remove them, 
 that in consequence the person appearing before us, with the 
 persons above-named, had disinterred the ten thousand francs re- 
 ferred to elsewhere; but that the bags they were in being rotten, 
 they found the money scattered about and brought it to the Dubarry, 
 and that, after they had cleaned it with the help of the woman 
 Deliant, they counted it, and found it was ten louis short of the said 
 sum, according to the count of the Dubarry herself, the person 
 appearing before us adding that it was through an error he told us 
 they had counted it themselves. The said Morin had added in answer 
 to further interpellation, that the money in question had been dis- 
 interred some time before the departure and the journey of the 
 Dubarry to London. 
 
 " Further questioned to tell us what had become of the money de- 
 livered up by him, Deliant, and Salenave to the Dubarry; 
 
 380 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 " Said in reply, that according to the fresh orders given by the said 
 Dubarry to himself, as well as to the said Deliant and Salenave, the 
 three of them had buried the said sum with the exception of the ten 
 louis, which were missing, in a hole made by them in the pound of 
 the chateau, after having put this money into two earthen jars. 
 
 " Declared that at the same period the above-mentioned persons had 
 also interred along with him two coffers, one of which contained the 
 Dubarry's dressing-case and the other many precious objects, each 
 in two particular holes made by them in the said pound; and adding 
 that he himself with the above-mentioned persons also interred at 
 the same time in a hole made by them in the orangery, a third chest 
 containing jewels, as he presumed, the said three chests being locked 
 and the Dubarry having the key to them 
 
 "That the said Dubarry, fearing lest the objects above described 
 should be stolen, and not thinking the place of deposit safe on many 
 grounds, gave orders to him as well as to the said Deliant to take 
 them away from the place where they were ; that in consequence the 
 person here appearing had in the course of last June, disinterred 
 along with the said Deliant, the above-mentioned chests, and the two 
 earthen jars, and had handed them over to the woman Dubarry. 
 
 " We interpellated the said Morin as to whether he knew what had 
 become of the three chests to which he referred, and the two jars con- 
 taining the money. 
 
 " Said in reply, that he had buried in the conservatory the chest 
 containing the dressing-case, as he had declared, that, with regard to 
 the two other chests, the Dubarry had got her joiner to open one of 
 them, and that he (Morin) did not know what had become of the 
 other. As for the money, it had remained in the hands of the said 
 Dubarry, but without doubt the objects contained in the last two 
 chests, as well as the money given up to the Dubarry, formed part 
 of the particular deposits made and ordered by her. 
 
 "Declared next, and without any interpellation, that in the loft 
 of the kitchen belonging to him near his garden, he had concealed a 
 small silver cross, a chalice, and its paten; in addition, that in the 
 woodwork near the walls in the fields there was a case containing 
 six gold tea-spoons. 
 
 "And thereupon the said Morin having offered to go himself 
 into his garden and the places adjoining it to point out the hidden 
 objects as to which he had made a declaration to us, we accompanied 
 
 38i 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 the said Morin forthwith into his garden, where we found in a place 
 at the left-hand side of the garden-gate, in a hole which had been 
 covered up, a deal box; and the said Morin then pointed out to us 
 another place not far from the first, in which, after having got him 
 to dig there, we found a second deal box. Two of us immediately 
 took charge of it, reserving to ourselves the right to open it at the 
 chateau which formerly belonged to the Dubarry. 
 
 " The said Morin, in order to follow up the purport of his declara- 
 tion, conducted us into a loft near the house where we found, in 
 accordance to his statement, and concealed behind a quantity of wood, 
 a silver crucifix, a chalice with its paten of vermilion, belonging to 
 the chapel of the former chateau. At the same moment and in the 
 same place we found a quadrille-box and besides it a rouleau of 
 paper so hidden that it could not be opened without breaking the 
 wax; and, afterwards, a little box of shagreen tied with a half- 
 rotten cord concealed behind the woodwork and the rafters abutting 
 on the garden wall and beside the dwelling of the said Morin. 
 
 " We took possession of all these articles and immediately we re- 
 turned to the drawing-room of the former chateau with the said 
 Morin, where in his presence we made an examination of all the 
 objects of which we had taken possession. 
 
 " Having opened the first box buried in the first hole, we found 
 in it and counted in the said Morin's presence: (i) a bag of 1,200 
 livres, (2) another bag of 1,248 livres, (3) a bag of 1,200 livres, (4) 
 a bag of 1,200 livres, (5) a bag of 900 livres; the entire of the money 
 in the five bags in question as we counted in the said Morin's pres- 
 ence, being composed of new six-franc pieces with the effigy of the 
 former Louis XVI. 
 
 "Having next opened the second bag, in Morin's presence, we 
 found there and counted in succession: (i) 99 hexagonal silver 
 counters, bearing on one side the Du Barry arms and having on the 
 other side a cipher; (2) 40 double louis d'or; (3) a bag of 1,185 
 livres of large and small old crown pieces; (4) nine louis less six 
 livres in white silver, a gold louis, a guinea, a half-guinea, the whole 
 enclosed in a little leathern bag, half-rotten, which sums and moneys 
 comprised in the fourth article the said Morin claimed to belong 
 to him; (5) a silver goblet inlaid with vermilion, belonging to the 
 woman Roussel. 
 
 " Having opened the quadrille-box, we found in it four little ivory 
 
 382 
 
Madame D\i Barry 
 
 boxes bearing on the lid the figures of a cushion, a shamrock, a pike, 
 and a heart incrusted with gold, the said boxes containing the ivory 
 cards marked and incrusted with gold, with similar figures. 
 
 "Proceeding, after the opening of the little box of shagreen, we 
 found there a dozen gold tea-spoons with strings and the armorial 
 bearings of the Dubarry. 
 
 " We immediately shut up all the articles above-mentioned with 
 the number and the nature of them, according to their different 
 kinds in one only and the same bag, which we tied up and on which 
 we affixed the seal in the presence of the said Morin. We put this 
 bag in another and larger bag, having shut up there the cross, the 
 chalices, paten and goblet referred to above, attached to it the seal, 
 leaving it in the drawing-room where we are, not being able to put 
 it elsewhere, as we would be obliged to take off the seals placed 
 on the cupboards, furniture, and apartments of the house. 
 
 " As for the rouleau of paper found behind the woodwork, we 
 interpellated the said Morin, calling on him to tell us if he had hidden 
 it and if he knew what it contained. 
 
 " Said in reply, that he had not hidden the rouleau in question, and 
 was absolutely ignorant of what it contained. 
 
 " We kept in our possession the said rouleau, 1 reserving to our- 
 selves the right to make a particular examination of it, and to send 
 to whomsoever it might belong the different papers contained in it. 
 
 " And thereupon at the hour of ten o'clock in the evening we closed 
 the present record with which we had been occupied since ten o'clock 
 in the morning, and for the continuation of our operations have ad- 
 journed and fixed to-morrow, the 25th Frimaire, at eight o'clock 
 in the morning, when all the above-named remaining here consent to 
 appear to-morrow. 
 
 " And immediately we had the said Morin's answers, declarations, 
 and our operations contained in the record read for him; the said 
 Morin declared they were the truth and persisted in them and has 
 signed with us: 
 
 " Signed to the minute, VILLETTE, FAIQUET, HURE, HOUDON, Bi- 
 CAULT, D. MORIN, and LEQUOY, Secretary to the Commission. As 
 
 1 Note by Favrolles. We have not been able to get any knowledge 
 of what became of this rouleau, in spite of the searches we made 
 for it. We presume it may contain Louis XV.'s letters to Madame 
 Dubarry, as they were not found amongst the papers. 
 
 383 
 
Madame DVJI Barry 
 
 a copy collated and conformable to the minute certified by us, under- 
 signed Commissioners of the Executive Council of the district of 
 Versailles, Justice of the Peace, Mayor of Luciennes, and Secretary 
 of the Commission of Luciennes, the 25th Frimaire, the second year 
 of the Republic. HOUDON, Justice of the Peace; BICAULT, Mayor; 
 VILLETTE, FAIQUET, and HURE, Commissioners; LEQUOY, Secretary 
 to the Commission. 
 
 NOTE. " The sitting of the 25th was only employed in hearing a 
 fresh reading of the said report and in consulting as to the remain- 
 ing interpellations to be put to Morin; after which we adjourned till 
 the following day. 
 
 CONTINUATION OF THE SEARCH MADE BY ORDER OF THE REVOLUTIONARY 
 TRIBUNAL IN THE CHATEAU AND PAVILION OF LUCIENNES FOR THE 
 PURPOSE OF TAKING POSSESSION OF THE JEWELS, GOLD, AND SILVER 
 WHICH WERE HIDDEN THERE. 
 
 " On the 26th Frimaire, the second year of the French Republic 
 One and Indivisible, before us, Commissioners, Justice of the Peace, 
 Mayor, denominated in the Report contained in the present docu- 
 ment, there again appeared the man Morin, ex-valet of the Dubarry. 
 
 " We at once pointed out to the said Morin that the discoveries which 
 he had enabkd us to make of several deposits by indicating to us the 
 places where they were put and interred in his garden, may give us 
 some inclination to believe in the fidelity of his declaration in this re- 
 spect ; but that, nevertheless, the examination of the various documents 
 in our hands, the comparison of the objects found in his garden with 
 the quantities, nature, and kinds of all the others which must have 
 been concealed in the said garden by him (Morin) made us feel 
 very great suspicions as to the fidelity of his declaration, and gave 
 us all reason to think that he (Morin) had taken away some money 
 and other objects from the chests and boxes entrusted to him by 
 the Dubarry, whether he concealed them in his own garden or had 
 the intention to remove them from our cognizance. We observed to 
 him, for example, that there ought to be found in the garden eleven 
 bags of 1,200 livres, whereas we found only six bags of about 1,200 
 livres, each conformably to his declaration. 
 
 " In reply to all these observations, he said he would swear upon his 
 honour that he had never put out of the way any of the objects con- 
 tained in the boxes interred by him, that if the notes in our hands 
 
 384 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 designated a greater number of effects than those discovered by us, 
 these effects were in no wise within his knowledge, that he had 
 indicated the only deposits made by him in his garden and assured 
 us that there was no other. 
 
 " In order to arrive at the discovery and the cognizance of all the 
 deposits and to convince the said Morin that we had been informed 
 by the Dubarry's declaration that he had himself been charged to 
 conceal many more things, we had read to him the entire declaration 
 of the Dubarry, and amongst other portions of it, the Article IX., 
 which designates several objects, and notably a shell-box mounted in 
 gold, on which was the portrait of Marie- Antoinette done by Sauvage. 
 
 "We interpellated the person appearing before us to declare to us if 
 he had knowledge of what had become of the box in question, ob- 
 serving to him that he had alone been charged by name to conceal 
 it with the other effects designated in the Article IX. 
 
 " Said in reply that he had no knowledge of the box which we 
 claimed, that in his capacity of valet to the Dubarry he had certainly 
 knowledge of all the articles which she mentioned, but that he was 
 ignorant of the use to which his mistress might have put them. The 
 said Morin added that notwithstanding the objects declared by his 
 mistress, we ought to find two covers and a gold teaspoon marked 
 with three ' fleurs-de-lis ' incrusted in gold, and two knives with gold 
 blades, mounted in Sevres porcelain. 
 
 " That he had in his room several effects belonging to the Dubarry, 
 which, not being in a conspicuous position, might have escaped dis- 
 covery by us, and forthwith he offered to conduct us there to give 
 us all the necessary indications. 
 
 "Whereupon we made our way to the buildings called the 'com- 
 munes/ and going up to the attics, after we had taken official notice 
 of the affixing of the seals to the room of the said Morin, we took 
 off these same seals, and we then entered this room, where the said 
 Morin indicated to us and enabled us to find in a little veneered cup- 
 board at the left, beside the chimney, eight curbs with large silver 
 bridle-studs with pearls marked in relief with the initials of the Du- 
 barry, a smaller curb of the same nature, another with a silver- 
 mounted bridle-stud, with another idem; a pair of bridle-studs with 
 strings and ciphers ; a gold-laced snaffle ; four ciphers in gilt copper 
 suitable to be put on carriages ; and five velvet strips of material 
 suitable for the lining of a carnage. 
 
 385 25 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 " In another cupboard, and hidden amongst the linen, a little silver 
 nutmeg-grater, fixed in a case also of silver, which is contained in 
 a cover of shagreen. In a little box containing old iron, a hand of 
 gilt silver. 
 
 " The said Morin having pointed out to us a bed of sacking under 
 the mattress of which he said we would find two velvet housings of 
 a carriage-seat embroidered with gold and silver fringes, and in the 
 same place a surtout of white cloth with gold lace, we only found 
 there a bearskin. 
 
 "Furthermore, having pointed out to us an oak press, in which 
 he had hidden two saddle-cloths of crimson velvet for a woman, and 
 a vest adorned with gold lace we found there nothing. 
 
 " Furthermore, on a board at the right where he had placed a bag 
 containing 400 livres in silver given to him to be deposited by the 
 person named Laroche, formerly Abbe, in the month of October, 
 1792, we there likewise found nothing. 
 
 " Having left the said Morin s room, carrying with us the sole and 
 only object found by us after the said Morin's indications, we closed 
 up the room, reaffixed the seals to the door, all in the presence of 
 the said Morin, and we next entered another little room beside the 
 first, after having meanwhile taken official cognizance of the seals 
 affixed to the door and taken them off. The said Morin indicated 
 to us a woman's hatbox, in which we discovered, with several packets 
 of seeds containing their names, nature, and species, a big packet 
 entitled parsnip-seeds, in which we found seventeen ells of silver lace 
 for liveries, and that after we had measured them. 
 
 "An interpellation having been made to the said Morin as to 
 whether he had cognizance of other objects concealed in his abode, 
 he said not. 
 
 " Coming out then from the said second room, we closed it up, 
 reaffixed the seals to it, and immediately we returned with the said 
 Morin to the drawing-room of the chateau, carrying with us the only 
 objects discovered by us on the indication of the said Morin. 
 
 " Having put to the person appearing before us an interpellation to 
 tell us if in a red house belonging to the Dubarry there were not 
 deposits hidden: 
 
 " Said he had no knowledge of any. 
 100 livres for getting a passport from the municipality of Luciennes : 
 
 " We asked the said Morin if he knew that the Dubarry had given 
 
 386 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 " Said in reply that he had never heard anything said as to a pass- 
 port having been solicited by his mistress, that he only remembered 
 having given by her orders the sum of 100 livres for the purpose of 
 assistance to one Louis Ledoux, ex-Mayor of Luciennes. 
 
 " Having interpellated the said Morin to declare to us all the infor- 
 mation he could give us as to the discovery of objects belonging to 
 the Dubarry and not found: 
 
 " Said in reply that he had no other declarations to make except 
 those embodied in the said report, has persisted in assuring us of the 
 truth of them, and has signed after having heard them read. 
 
 " Signed to the minute : D. MORIN, VILLETTE, HURE, FAIQUET, 
 HOUDON, BICAULT, L.EQUOY, Secretary of the Commission." 
 
 On the 28th Frimaire (i8th of December, 1793), in consequence 
 of the declarations of Morin, whose fate it was to be condemned to 
 death and executed on the 23d of December, 1793, the Commissioners 
 of the Executive Council of the directory of the district of the Com- 
 mittee of General Safety of Versailles addressed this letter to the 
 Citizen Public Prosecutor of the Criminal Tribune of Versailles : 
 
 "We address to you herewith copy of declarations, depositions 
 which have been made by Morin in the two examinations we made 
 him undergo on the 24th and 25th inst. The presence of this man 
 has been all the more useful to us, inasmuch as we discovered from 
 his indications, many precious objects hidden in his garden. 
 
 " The woman Roussel, chambermaid of the Dubarry, appearing to 
 us to have been informed of various facts by Morin, and her conduct 
 leading us to suspect that she might herself have concealed the pf- 
 fects belonging to the Dubarry, we invite you to have the said woman 
 Roussel transferred in the case only where the different declara- 
 tions made by her to the tribunal may lead you to think that the 
 presence of this woman might aid the discoveries which we are 
 charged to make." 
 
 Already on the 2ist Frimaire (nth of December, 1793), three days 
 after the death of the DuBarry, 1 the Commissioners were occupied 
 with the means for attaining the discovery of the stolen articles. 
 They had commenced by arresting the floor-cleaner Deliant and his 
 
 1 It is a curious illustration of the Commissioners' want of method 
 that in this letter they spell " Du Barry " both " Dubarry " and " Du 
 Barry." In their proces-verbal they invariably spell it " Dubarry." 
 TRANSLATOR. 
 
 387 
 
Madame Dxi Barry- 
 wife, against whom the Du Barry had given evidence in her declara- 
 tion between two wickets as the depository of two boxes containing 
 jewels, diamonds and other precious effects. The Commissioners 
 could extract little information from Deliant, who was already 
 dying, and whom they had conveyed to the Infirmary of Versailles, 
 where he died eight days afterwards. But the wife, after having 
 confessed that five or six days before her arrest the Du Barry had 
 put into her apron five or six packets covered with paper, which she 
 had concealed in the dungpit of the melon-bed, forwarded, next 
 morning to Greive, whilst the Commissioners were occupied in 
 searching through Morin's garden, 183 single gold louis entrusted 
 to her keeping by the Du Barry some time before her last journey 
 to England. 
 
 On the i6th Frimaire she was examined by the Commissioners. 
 She declared that the Du Barry, at the time of her last journey to 
 England, had sent her three chests containing many precious articles ; 
 that the day after the Du Barry's arrest, she had deposited them in 
 the house of the Widow Aubert, her mother, but that, in consequence 
 of the searches made in Luciennes and its out-buildings, fearing lest 
 they might find at her mother's the chests deposited, she had emptied 
 and concealed them in the dungpit near the melon-bed, with the ex- 
 ception of four rouleaux of single louis, a gold goblet with its cover, 
 a purse filled with silver count-s, and some flagons ; that her mother 
 had next day flung into the artificial pond of the Grand Jet de Marley 
 these objects, with the exception, however, of four rouleaux of louis, 
 which she had kept for herself without telling her husband about it. 
 
 Being present this day at the deposit made by Agathe Gournay of a 
 watch enriched with diamonds found in an ornamental pool in the 
 garden of Marly, the woman Deliant, on the pretext of some ordinary 
 troubles, cut her throat with a razor. 
 
 The Commissioners sought to fix the account of the money found 
 at Madame du Barry's house in order to remit it to the National 
 Treasury. After a close investigation of the facts set out in the re- 
 ports, they arrived at a sum of 51,801 livres. There was also a sum 
 of 3,143 livres in assignats found in the chest of drawers of the Du 
 Barry's bed-room, but this sum had been put by the Citizens Lacroix 
 and Musset, representatives of the people, at the disposal of the 
 Citizen Greive, to assist in defraying temporary expenses, and out 
 of this sum there was now left only 29 livres. And this was not the 
 
 388 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 only money spent by Greive; he had besides consumed with his 
 associates 3,000 livres furnished by Vouland and Jagot, and he, 
 moreover, owed 3,151 livres to eighteen bailiff's men whom he had 
 installed at Luciennes. The Commissioners, anxious to introduce 
 a little economy into the house, regretted to see "that the Citizen 
 Greive, too much occupied, without doubt, in the execution of the 
 great measures of general safety with which he announced that he 
 was entrusted, even by his public position, had no time to enter into 
 details," and they reduced the number of men in possession from 
 eighteen to six, and stopped the account of the baker, the butcher, 
 and other tradespeople whose bills they forwarded to the administra- 
 tion of the district of Versailles the entire amount of these accounts 
 reaching 2,749 livres. 
 
 The verification and the collection of the silver plate, jewels, and 
 diamonds gave terrible labour to the Commissioners, who said in 
 their reports : " Perhaps the pleasure of having made the discov- 
 eries and the precipitation with which an inventory was taken have 
 caused the necessary formalities in compilation, exactness of descrip- 
 tion, and examination of the various articles to be neglected, but in 
 general the Commissioners have observed a lack of order, and they 
 cannot prove this fact more clearly than by mentioning the great 
 number of effects not included in the inventories." They complained 
 gently, later on, of having found in different places in the house many 
 shagreen cases which contained, without doubt, some precious objects, 
 and which, however, "do not form part of those inventoried and 
 verified." And they ended with this bitter remark: "All these 
 cases have been found empty/' 
 
 The general Commission, aided by two other commissions, made 
 an inventory of stuffs at the moment unsaleable in France, sent to 
 Saint-Cyr, which had become a military hospital, the linen, the bed- 
 ding, the sugar and the brandy, making choice of fifty-five objects 
 now preserved in the Museums or the Royal Palaces i 1 
 
 1 The State also kept the Favourite's books, as is indicated by this 
 estimate dated Messidor, Year II. of the library of Madame du Barry. 
 (Papers of the Library of the City of Versailles.) 
 
 List of books in the Library estimated by the Sieur Blaizot, libra- 
 rian at Versailles, dated the 3d Prairial, Year IT., 14,500 Books. 
 
 The said library was naturally preserved in Versailles in the Na- 
 tional Library. Afterwards, during the ministry of M. Chaptal, it was 
 transferred to Paris, and since then to Malmaison and Saint Cloud. 
 
 389 
 
Madame Dvi Barry 
 
 i. Two Pictures by Vien. 
 
 2. A Case with Capital and Base of Italian Granite. 
 
 3. A Venus Callipyge (small proportion). 
 
 4. An Apollo Belvedere. 
 
 5. Theseus carrying away Hermione. 
 
 6. A Vestal nursing the Sacred Fire, followed by two Children. 
 
 7. A group representing Louis XV. carried by four Warriors. 
 
 8.A small bust of Louis XV. 
 
 9. A Fireplace in gilt-bronze, Stag, Wild-boar, and Attribute of the 
 
 Chase. 
 
 10. A Sea-piece by Vernet (height, 8 feet ; length, 5 feet) . 
 ii. Another picture of the same dimensions representing a Ruin. 
 12. Four Designs for the Upper Portions of Doors. 
 13. Nymph in Marble flying and a Cupid threatening her. 
 14. A Woman Bathing, by Falconet. 
 15. The Bust of Louis XV. in marble, by Pajou. 
 16. A clock representing Love borne by the Graces in bronze gilt, 
 
 with Ormolu. 
 
 17. Two Sevres Porcelain Vases, on an azure ground. 
 18. Two Porcelain Vases in the Etruscan Style. 
 19. A Barometer and Thermometer with Cartouches of Porclain 
 20. Two Vases in White Marble and Porphyry. 
 
 Figures. 
 
 21. Two Fireplaces in Ormolu of the richest kind. 
 22. Figures of White Marble, proportion of 2 feet. 
 23. Two Candelabra with three branches representing Two Women 
 
 grouped. 
 
 24. Two others in the form of a Bottle. 
 25. A Gilded Fireplace in the form of a Vase. 
 26. A Sevres Porcelain Table, Paintings after Vanloo. 
 27. A Porphyry Vase. 
 
 28. A Fireplace in the form of Scent-boxes and Fire-cones. 
 29. Three Chandeliers with three Branches in the form of Scent- 
 boxes. 
 
 390 
 
Madame Du Barry 
 
 30. The Bust of the Du Barry by Pajou, on its Case. 
 
 31. A Piano-Forte Party. 
 
 32. Two Large Porphyry Vases. 
 
 33. A Harp in its robe of Black Taffeta. 
 
 34. A Picture representing the Flight of Love. 
 
 35. The Female Trafficker in Loves, by Vien. 
 
 36. The Broken Pitcher, by Greuze. 
 
 37. Jupiter in Antiope. 
 
 38. A Pastoral, by Boucher. 
 
 39. A Landscape by Visnose. 
 
 40. An oval Frame 3 feet high richly carved and gilt. 
 
 41. Another 2 feet high. 
 
 42. A Chest of Drawers of old Lacquer. 
 
 43. Another plaque in Sevres Porcelain with very pretty Subjects 
 
 and Figures. 
 
 44. A Picture representing the " Visitation of Elizabeth." 
 45. Another representing the Virgin and the Infant Jesus. 
 46. Another not finished, representing the Du Barry as a Bacchante. 
 47. A Pastel, a Child playing a Tambourine, from Drouais. 
 48. A Child holding an Apple, painted by Drouais. 
 49. Picture of a Woman as a White Levite. 
 50. Another of Louis XV. in Review Dress. 
 51. Another of Louis XV. as a Child. 
 52. A coloured Engraving representing a Landscape. 
 53. Print representing Madame Lebrun. 
 54. A Picture painted on canvas by Robert, representing a Sketch of 
 
 the Mass (height 14 inches, length 16 inches). 
 
 After the particular labours of the different Commissions, the Gen- 
 eral Commission made a general abstract of all the minutes of inven- 
 tories, removals, verifications, and sales of furniture which took place 
 successively under its direction. 
 
 391 
 
Madame Dxi Barry 
 
 This general abstract is ended with the memorandum 
 of the only objects sold and estimated, which 
 reaches the sum of ............................ 707,2511. 
 
 The jewels, diamonds, crystals, etc., the price of 
 which is not obtained, are valued in the same 
 inventory ..................................... 4OO,ooo/. 
 
 The gold materials, 89 marks, 6 ounces, may be 
 estimated at least at ............................. 6o,ooo/. 
 
 Those of silver, 1,449 marks, at 45 livres per mark. . 6s,ooo/. 
 
 Those of vermilion, 84 marks at 50 livres ...... 4,2OO/. 
 
 Laces and Fringes, 34 marks ...................... 2,70O/. 
 
 Silver Lace and Brule Lace, 121 marks ............ 3,6oo/. 
 
 Copper, iron, lead, tin ............................. 4,000?. 
 
 General total of the valuation of the movable 
 effects confiscated in Madame du Barry's 
 House ..................................... 1,246,9561. 15$. 
 
 The creditors thereupon presented a series of bills reaching the 
 sum of 956, 124/. 13$. 4d. and were referred by the municipality of 
 Luciennes to a commission charged with using the utmost rigidity 
 in the verification of these claims. And such was the rigidity of the 
 Commission, says M. le Roi, 1 that scarcely any of the creditors were 
 paid. 
 
 SALE OF NATIONAL PROPERTY. 
 
 "In the third year of the French Republic One and Indivisible, 
 the fourth of the month of Thermidor, we, administrators composing 
 the Directory of the District of Versailles, have repaired accom- 
 panied by the Citizen Procureur Syndic to the ordinary hall for 
 meeting . . . conformably to the decrees of the National Con- 
 vention of loth, I2th, I5th and 27th Prairial of the Third Year, for 
 the first publication and reception of outbiddings in order to effect a 
 sale of the goods hereinafter described, indicated by the placard of 
 the i6th Messidor last .......... 
 
 A Belvedere Pavilion on the summit of the Mountain, being at 
 the end of a wide green carpet, composed of an antechamber, and a 
 
 1 " Madame du Barry," Versailles, 1858. A work prepared from 
 the official Documents in the Archives of Seine-et-Oise. 
 
 392 
 
Madame D\J Barry 
 
 grand salon on the ground floor adorned and garnished with white 
 marble and gildings with galleries and ceiling, two cabinets adja- 
 cent to the said salon, of which one is divided into two, and an- 
 other salon. . . . 
 
 To this advertising notice is attached a placard thus expressed: 
 
 " Canton of Marly. 
 
 Municipality of Luciennes. 
 
 Goods of the Dubarry Condemned. 1 
 
 Luciennes was knocked down on the gth Thermidor, Year III. 
 (7th of August, 1795), to Jean-Baptiste-Edward Delapalme, residing 
 at Vaux de Cernay, for the sum of 6,000,000 (in assignats). 
 
 1 " Dossiers " concerning the Du Barry and her family, preserved 
 in the Library of the City of Versailles. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 393 
 
INDEX. 
 
 ADELAIDE, Mme., 7, 54, 147, 192, 194. 
 Hostility to the Favourite overcome j 
 
 by Mme. Narbonne, 169, 170. 
 Age of Mme. du Barry : falsifica- j 
 tion in forged birth certificate, 29. | 
 Aiguilles, President d' : Jesuits as { 
 safeguard again Republicanism, 5 1 
 note. 
 
 Aiguillon, Due d', 82, 91, 307. 
 Advances of Mme. du Barry, 92-3. 
 Brittany Case, 53. 
 Chancellor's machinations, dis- 
 honouring decree obtained, 93 ; 
 counter stroke through Mme. 
 du Barry, 94. 
 
 Minutes of case carried off from 
 Record Office, 98 ; thanks to 
 Mme. du Barry, 98. 
 Choiseul and his Party, Antagonism 
 
 to : conflict of principles, 52. 
 Influence exercised through 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 95, 96, in. 
 Rancour after fall of Choiseul, 
 113, 114; personal vengeances, 
 122-5. 
 
 Soul of the " clique," 92. 
 " Chon's " hostility, 169. 
 Daughter, 299. 
 Diseased mind, 122. 
 Marie Antoinette's attitude towards 
 
 Aiguillon, Due d' cont. 
 
 Ministry, desire to enter after 
 
 Choiseul's fall. 
 Admission delayed, 117. 
 Animosities in the Coalition : 
 hostility of Conde", Montey- 
 nard, Maupeou, etc., 118. 
 Growing power of d' Aiguillon, 
 strength of hold over Mme. du 
 Barry, 119, 120. 
 
 Nomination as Foreign Minister, 
 120 ; celebration at Luciennes, 
 121. 
 
 Sweden, Prince Royal of, sup- 
 port, 1 20. 
 
 Mother of : dining at the Favour- 
 ite's table, 121. 
 
 Parliament, Effort to obtain dis- 
 missal, 114, 115. 
 
 Parliament, Secret attempts to re- 
 establish, 180. 
 
 Relations with Mme. du Barry. 
 " Cavaliere servente," 97. 
 Infidelity with her niece, alleged, 
 
 179. 
 
 Pater intrigue, instigation of, 178. 
 
 Persistence of attachment after 
 
 death of Louis XV, 209-10. 
 
 Terrai's, Abbe, secret hostility, 175. 
 
 Aiguillon, Mme. d' : visit to Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 121, 210. 
 Alembert, d', 5. 
 
 the Favourite, attempts to im- j Allegrain, Sculptor : accounts, App., 
 prove, 144, 145, 170. I 360. 
 
 395 
 
Index 
 
 Allonville, Comte d', 15, 220, 229. j Barry, Jean Du cont. 
 
 Daughter of Mme. du Barry, exist- 1 Brothers and sisters, 48 and note, 
 
 119 
 
 ence of, 163. 
 Alogny, Mme. d', 60. 
 Amerval, Mme. d' : rival to Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 179. 
 Angiviller, 287. 
 Angremont, d' 307. 
 
 Deposition, 250. 
 
 First person guillotined during the 
 
 Revolution, 249. 
 Arambal, M. d', App., 331. 
 Armaille, Louis d', 282. 
 Armentires, d' : sudden death, 186. 
 Armorial device of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 98, 129. 
 
 Arnould, Sophie, 160. 
 Arrest of Mme. du Barry, refer to 
 
 title Revolution. 
 Artois, Comte d', 287, 298. 
 Assorty : dealer in silk goods, 131. 
 Audinot's " Penny Show " at Lu- 
 
 ciennes, 155. 
 Audoin, Xavier : witness at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 294 ; evidence, 
 
 3- 
 
 Aumont, Due d' : First Gentlemen 
 of the Bed Chamber of Louis XV, 
 189, 192, 193. 
 
 Avaray de 1'Aigle, Mme. d', at Lu- 
 ciennes, 153. 
 
 BALLAD : " Drdlesse," 151. 
 Barbier : dealer in silk goods, 131. 
 Barimore, Lady, 298. 
 Barry, Claire du, see " Chon ". 
 Barry, Elie du, 75. 
 
 Marriage: wife's reception at 
 
 Court, 174. 
 Barry, Guillaume du : marriage to 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 26. 
 Contract, Terms of, 30-5. 
 Judicial separation in 1772, 304 
 
 and note. 
 
 Barry, Jean du (the Roue, " Moham- 
 med " du Barry). 
 
 see also names of brothers 
 and sisters. 
 Descent and early life, 18. 
 Force of character, 46. 
 Liaison with La Lange (La 
 
 Rancon), 20. 
 
 Mistress for the King, Attempts to 
 supply, 21 ; means taken to in- 
 troduce La Lange, 22. 
 Nicknamed the Roue", 19. 
 Pretty women, traffic in, 20 and note, 
 
 21 note. 
 Relations with Mme. du Barry as 
 
 Favourite. 
 
 Early days: "running" the 
 
 Favourite, intrigue to bring 
 
 about marriage with the King, 
 
 etc., 46-51. 
 
 Efforts to secure Presentation, 
 
 49. 
 
 Expense and Annoyance, 148, 
 149, 150; "Dr61esse" ballad, 
 
 151- 
 Help in getting a wife for his son, 
 
 Letters asking for, 163-6. 
 Intrigue to obtain control of Con- 
 troller-Generalship, 148. 
 Loans to Mme. du Barry, 64. 
 Rival put forward, 179. 
 Scandal raised by: temporary 
 
 exile, 151. 
 Switzerland, Flight to, on death of 
 
 Louis XV, 204. 
 Life at Toulouse, after return to 
 
 France, 204 note. 
 Popular feeling as to, 205-6. 
 Typical decadent, 150, 151. 
 
 "Original conversation," App., 
 
 332. 
 
 Victim of the Revolution : guil- 
 lotined at Toulouse, 324 note. 
 Barry, Mile, du, at Pont-aux-Dames, 
 
 208. 
 
 Barry, Vicomte Adolphe du : negotia- 
 tions for marriage. 
 Failures, 163-6. 
 
 Tournon, Mile, de, marriage to, 166, 
 167. 
 
 39 6 
 
Index 
 
 Barry, Vicomtesse Adolphe du, 166. Bethune, Mile, de : proposed marriage 
 
 167. 
 
 Pont-aux-Dames, residence at, 208. 
 Presentation delayed, 170. 
 
 to Vicomte Adolphe du Barry, 164, 
 165. 
 Billard, 180. 
 
 Dauphin and Dauphiness, bearing Billardy, Abbe, 283, 292. 
 
 of, 171. 
 Rival to Mme. du Barry : Comte 
 
 Jean's intrigue, 179. 
 Barymores of England, Jean du 
 
 Billion : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 Biographies of Mme. du Barry, List of, 
 
 10 note 2. 
 
 Barry's claim to descent from, 18 Birabin, Jeanne : godmother of Mme. 
 
 and note 2, 49. 
 
 du Barry, 8, 29. 
 
 Bastille, Fall of: cannonade audible Birth certificate, True, 8 ; Forged, 
 
 at Luciennes, 223. 28. 
 
 Baujon or Beaujon, Banker of the j " Bitschi," sister of Jean du Barry, 
 
 Court, 141, 274. 48 note, 119, 166. 
 
 Beam, Comtesse de: sponsor for ; Blache, spy on Mme. du Barry in 
 
 Mme. du Barry at her Presentation, 
 
 etc., 50, 56. 
 
 Reward, 67. 
 Beaumont, Monsieur de, visit to death 
 
 bed of Louis XV, etc., 193, 194, 197. 
 Beaune: Winter Company, 284, 295. 
 Beauty of Mme. du Barry. 
 
 Character of, 57, 58. 
 
 Enduring charm, 221, 270-1. 
 Cosway's portrait, 221-2. 
 Lebrun's, Mme., testimony, 222. 
 Beauvais, Abbe de : Lenten sermons, 
 
 1873, 185, 187. 
 Beauvarlet: portrait of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 79. 
 Beauvau, Marshal de : D'Aiguillon's 
 
 vengeance, 124. 
 
 Beauvau, Prince of, 193, 282, 307. 
 Beauvoisin : cost of Baptism of child, 
 
 150. 
 
 Beche, Mme. : rival of du Barry, 177. 
 Beda : witness at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 296. 
 
 Bellanger Incident, 219 note 2. 
 Bellevue, Mme. du Barry at, 64, 65, 
 
 66. 
 Bequs or Bcu, Anne (Mme. Ran9on, 
 
 Marquise de Montrable) : mother of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 8, 17, 31, 60. 
 Bergoeng, pamphlet of, 286. 
 Bernis, 19. 
 Berthier, 287. 
 Bertin, milliner : accounts of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, App. t 338, 34*- 
 
 London, and agent of Committee 
 of General Safety, 259, 269, 
 
 295- 
 
 Deposition, 297-300. 
 
 Evidence at trial, 312. 
 Boileau, Citizen : Protection of Mme. 
 du Barry, 260. 
 
 Witness at trial, 296 ; evasion of 
 
 summons, 318. 
 Boissaison, Marquise de, niece (or 
 
 ? Daughter) of Mme. du Barry, 162, 
 
 287, 307. 
 
 Bondeville, Mme., 282. 
 Bondie, M. de la, 255, 260, 264 and 
 
 note, 292, 307, 312, 314. 
 Bordeu, Mme. du Barry's doctor, 
 
 190, 191, 192. 
 Boulanger, 5. 
 Bourbon, Prince of : won over by 
 
 Du Barry faction, 126. 
 " Bourbonnaise," 45 and note. 
 
 Response of Jean du Barry, 49. 
 Bouret, 88. 
 Bourjot : goods supplied to Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 131. 
 " Boutez en Avant " : Mme. du 
 
 Barry's device, 98. 129. 
 Boynes, M. de : Ministry of Marine, 
 
 119. 
 
 Brancas, Duchesse de, 287, 307, 315. 
 Bra vet, Charles : Judge at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Breteuil, 287, 299, 300, 307 : 
 
 d'Aiguillon's vengeance, 122. 
 
 397 
 
Index 
 
 Brionne, Comtesse de : hostility to 
 
 Chaillou, witness of trial of Mme. 
 
 Mme. du Barry. du Barry, 296 ; Summons evaded, 
 
 Humiliation, 74. 318. 
 
 Vengeance of d'Aiguillon, 123. j Chantilly, Mme. du Barry at, 76. 
 Brissac, Due de : lover of Mme. du } Character, tastes, manners, etc., of 
 
 Barry after death of Louis XV, 
 
 70, 221, 230 note. 
 Attitude and knowledge of the 
 
 Court and society towards liaison, 
 
 230-1. 
 
 Character of the man and his at- 
 tachment, 228-31. 
 Danger involved for Mme. du Barry, 
 
 228, 238, 247, 307, 314. 
 Decreel disbanding King's Guards : 
 
 arrest of Brissac, 231. 
 Devotion and courage of Mme. du 
 
 Barry : correspondence after 
 
 arrest, 232-3. 
 Masacred at Versailles, 235. 
 
 Grief and horror of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 236, 237, 246. 
 Will : legacy to Mme. du Barry, 
 
 233-4. 
 
 Brochau, Guene"e de, 148. 
 Broglie, Comte de, 53, 82. 
 
 Hostility to d'Aiguillon, 118. 
 Brunoy, Marquise du, 220, 315. 
 Buffand : goods supplied to Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 131. 
 Buffbn, 5. 
 
 C. 
 
 CAFFIERI'S bust of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 Cagny, merchant painter and gilder : 
 Mme. du Barry's accounts, App., 
 
 Calonne, M. and Mme. de, 287, 290, 
 
 298, 300, 307. 
 
 Carcassonne, Bishop of, 196. 
 Caricatures of reign of Louis XV, 
 
 rarity, 74 note i. 
 
 Mme. du Barry. 
 Artistic and Literary Matters : 
 nonentity, grisette tastes, etc., 
 201. 
 Comparative propriety during early 
 
 days at Court, 63. 
 Courtesan Instincts and grisette 
 manners : ignorance, vulga- 
 rity of speech, etc., 7, 156-8, 
 184, 201. 
 
 Instances, 60, no, 156, 203, 245. 
 Ridicule and ruin brought on 
 
 Royalty, 156-8. 
 
 Death sentence and execution : 
 lack of courage and firmness, 
 321-6. 
 Good-nature and generosity, 159- 
 
 162, 213. 
 Charitable work at Luciennes, 
 
 220 note. 
 Choiseul, efforts on behalf of, 
 
 after his fall, 111-13. 
 Crimes against the Revolution, 
 
 probable nature, 254. 
 Marie Antoinette, relations with, 
 
 after 1789, 227, 286. 
 Mortemart, Duchesse de, rescue 
 
 of: Duten's anecdote, 278. 
 Free and easy ways in regard to 
 
 dress, etc., 87. 
 
 Historial unimportance and intel- 
 lectual nonentity, 128, 198-202. 
 Improvident, thoughtless, crack- 
 brained, 225-6. 
 
 Indolence and indifference, 95, in. 
 Levity and shallowness, 209, 213-14, 
 
 218, 244-6. 
 
 Modesty and propriety in later life, 
 220, 229. 
 
 Carlier, master tailor : Mme. du | Chardon, merchant hatter : Mme. du 
 Barry's accounts, App., 342. Barry's accounts, App., 341. 
 
 " Catin," sister of Jean du Barry, 48 
 
 note. 
 Cav6, witness at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 396. 
 
 Charles I of England : portrait used 
 to inflame the King against the 
 Parliament of Paris, 116. 
 
 Charost, Be"thune, 282. 
 398 
 
Index 
 
 Chartres, Due de : winning over to Choiseul, Due de cont. 
 
 du Barry faction, 126. 
 Chasse", 201. 
 
 Chateauroux, Mme. de, 52, 193. 
 Chatelet, M. du, 113. 
 Chauveau : Counsel for defence of i 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 304, 319. 
 Chavigny, 307. 
 Cheton, witness at trial of Mme. du ; 
 
 Barry, 296. 
 Choiseul, Comtesse de, at Luciennes, ! 
 
 152. 
 Choiseul, Due de, nephew of the i 
 
 Minister, 230-1. 
 
 Meeting with Mme. du Barry, 256. 
 Choiseul, Due de : struggle with du 
 
 Barry faction, etc. 
 Advances of Mme. du Barry, recep- 
 tion of, 43. 
 Aiguillon's, Due d', antagonism and 
 
 intrigues, 52, 53, 100. 
 Influence on Mme. du Barry, 95, 
 
 96, 97, in. 
 
 All-powerful in 1768: " The Choi- 
 seul Monarchy," 41. 
 Barry, Jean du, Relations with, 19. 
 
 Strength of position : King's belief, 
 position of Foreign Affairs, etc., 
 83, 84, 100. 
 Submission : advances to Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 82-3. 
 
 Explanation by the King : 
 'authentic letter, 84; result, 
 86. 
 
 Termination : Choiseul dismissed, 
 information conveyed to King 
 of Spain by stratagem, 106. 
 Compensation for deprivation of 
 posts, Mme. du Barry's efforts 
 to obtain, 113, 114. 
 Lettre de Cachet sent to M. de la 
 
 Vrilliere, 106 ; text, 107. 
 Life at Chauteloup : Court's dis- 
 regard of King's displeasure, 
 124 note. 
 
 Vengeance of d' Aiguillon on friends 
 and creatures of Choiseul, 122, 
 125. 
 Ville, Abbe de la, Treachery of, 
 
 IOI-2. 
 
 Chomel, Sieur : Director of Paris, 
 
 Dauphin and Dauphiness, Relations 
 
 with, 6, 7, 91. 
 
 Esparbes, Mme. d', Victory over, 42. 
 Expedient of temporary absence, 
 
 futility, 66. 
 Failing influence: symptoms, 66, 
 
 75, 89, 91, 99, 104. 
 Gramont's, Duchesse de, part in the \ signed to Mme. du Barry, 141. 
 
 struggle, 43-5, 99. I Club of Luciennes, refer to Greive. 
 
 Head of Encyclopaedist and anti- 1 Coigny, Chevalier de, 287, 307. 
 
 religious party, 4. Compiegne, Camp at, Mme. du 
 
 " Chou," 48 and note, 108, 119, 166, 
 
 169, 172. 
 
 Chouallet, Swiss, 292. 
 Chouvelin, M. de : sudden death in 
 
 presence of Louis XV, 187. 
 ! Clermont, Comte de : revenues as- 
 
 Justification of Choiseul by him- 
 self, 6. 
 
 Maupeou's intrigues, 72, 73, 88-90, j Conde", Prince of. 
 
 Barry's visit, 74, 75. 
 Conde", Old Prince of : inexorable 126. 
 
 too. 
 Personal animosity, absence in 
 
 Mme. du Barry, in, 112. 
 Presentation, presence at, 55, 56. 
 Principles at issue : Jansenists v. 
 
 Jesuits, Philosophy v. Religion, 4. 
 Richlieu's attitude, 51. 
 Satires and mockeries, effect of, go. 
 Secret terror exercised over Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 91. 
 
 Aiguillon, Due d', hostility to, 118. 
 Honours paid to Mme. du Barry, 
 
 76, 104. 
 War Ministry : intrigues, etc. 
 
 after Choiseul's dismissal, 109, 
 
 no. 
 Winning over to du Barry faction, 
 
 105, 125. 
 
 Convent of Saint Aure, Mme. du 
 Barry at, 10-14. 
 
 399 
 
Index 
 
 Cosse"-Brissac, see Brissac. j Demaillet, 5. 
 
 Cosway : portrait of Mme. du Barry, I Demange, Joseph, godfather of Mme. 
 221. du Barry, 8, 29. 
 
 Cottet or Cotte, Widow : perfidy to 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 269. 
 Witness at trial, 295 ; evidence 
 
 317. 
 
 Cour Neuve, 15 and note 2. 
 Coustou's Venus : substitution of 
 
 Mme. du Barry's figure, 88. 
 Cr^billon, 20. 
 
 Crenay, Mme. de, at Luciennes, 153. 
 Croix, Cochet de la, 283 ; witness 
 
 at trial of Mme. du Barry, 294. 
 Cromot, First Clerk of Finances : 
 
 intrigues against Choiseul, 104-5, 
 
 108. 
 Crussol, M. and Mme. de, 290, 307. 
 
 D. 
 
 DAUBERVAL, 201. 
 
 Daughter, reputed, of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 163. 
 
 Dauphin, see Louis XVI. 
 Dauphiness, see Marie Antionette. 
 Davaux : embroiderer, 13 1 ; 
 
 counts of Mme. Du Barry, App., \ 
 
 345- 
 David, Alexandre Edmd : Judge at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Death sentence on Mme. du Barry, 
 
 320. 
 
 Debts of Mme. du Barry : embarrass- 
 ments at Saint Vrain, etc., 210-12 
 App., 369. 
 
 Date of clearance, 219. 
 Doffand, Mme. du. 
 
 Choiseul's overthrow, prediction, 
 
 92. 
 Wager against Presentation, etc., 
 
 55, 57- 
 
 Delacaze, Dame Catherine, 26. 
 Delainville : Counsel for defence of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 291. 
 Deliant, floor-cleaner : implicated 
 
 in Mme. Barry's "declaration 
 
 ac-| 
 
 between two wickets," 323. 
 Suicide, App., 388. 
 Dellile,Abbe-, 286. 
 
 Denisot, Fra^ois Joseph : Judge at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Desaint, 151. 
 Devaize, witness at trial of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 296. 
 Devrey, Surgeon, 266, 295. 
 
 Witness at trial of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 294 ; evidence, 317. 
 Diamonds of Mme. du Barry, Theft of, 
 
 in 1791, 234, 238. 
 Advertisement of theft and reward 
 
 offered, 
 
 Imprudence, 239, 240-1. 
 Placard, App., 370. 
 Counterfeit theft, Fouquier's lie, 
 
 306 and note. 
 
 Details given by Morin, 239 note. 
 English journeys necessitated : ac- 
 cusations of secret mission, etc., 
 241, 251. 
 Mismanagement of affair, delay 
 
 due to, 244. 
 
 Passports obtained, 243, 252. 
 Political object : improbability, 
 
 255- . 
 Precautions for last journey, 
 
 251-5- 
 Reasons for return to France in 
 
 1793. 255. 
 
 Donissant, Marquis, 314. 
 Dorothee of Strasburg: intrigue, 21. 
 Doyen, painter. 202. 
 "Drolesse" ballad, 151. 
 Drouais, painter, 162. 
 
 Portraits of Mme. du Barry, 77, 78 ; 
 
 accounts, App., 364. 
 Du Barry, see Barry. 
 Dubois, Mile., 201. 
 Dumas, Rene-Francois : Judge at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Dumesnil, 201. 
 
 Dumonceau, M. : relations with Anne 
 Becu and her daughter, 9 et seq., 14. 
 Duquesnoy, Mme., gambling-house 
 
 keeper, 17. 
 Duras, Due de, and the Pater 
 
 trigue, 178. 
 400 
 
 In- 
 
Index 
 
 Duras, Mar6chal de (Governor of 
 Brittany) : d'Aiguillon's vengeance, 
 
 122. 
 
 Durfort, Chevalier de, 287. 
 Dutens' Memoirs. 
 
 First meeting between Mme. du 
 
 Barry and the King, 24. 
 Mortemart, Duchesse de, rescue by 
 
 means of Mme. du Barry, 278. 
 Duval, M., ex-clerk in Ministry of 
 Marine, 209. 
 
 E. 
 
 EARLY life of Mme. du Barry, see 
 Girlhood. 
 
 Egmont, Comtesse d' : hostility to du 
 
 Barry faction. 
 Humiliation, 74. 
 Vengeance of d'Aiguillon, 123. 
 
 Emigres, Mme. du Barry's relations 
 with, 290, 291 ; for particular per- 
 sons, see their names. 
 
 Escourt, Bernard d', 235, 242, 248, 
 
 292, 307. 3", 3 12 , 314. 3i7- 
 Evidence at trial of Mme. du Barry, 
 312 ; arrest ordered, 313. 
 
 Esparbes, Mme. d', 6 ; Choiseul's in- 
 sult, 42. 
 
 Estre"es, Marchal d', 93. 
 
 European fame of Mme. du Barry, 
 86. 
 
 Execution of Mme. du Barry, 324-7. 
 
 F. 
 
 FAMILY relations of Mme. du Barry. 
 
 162. 
 
 Fauchet, 235, 250. 
 Favier, tailor, 297. 
 
 Feuillet : frescoes at Luciennes, 138. 
 Piston, 245. 
 
 Flavacourt, Mme. de, 64, 66. 
 Fontaines, dealer in foreign stuffs : 
 
 accounts of Mme. du Barry, App., 
 
 345- 
 
 Fontelle, M. de, 5, 105. 
 Fontenilie(Laroche-Fontenille,Nesle), 
 
 Abb6 de, Vicar of Agen, 283, 290, 
 
 292, 305. 
 
 Forcalquier, Mme. de (Bellissima) at 
 
 Choisy, etc., 153, 154. 
 Foreign political situation, effect on 
 
 Choiseul's position, 83, 100. 
 Forth, English Police Agent, 282, 
 
 298, 306, 310. 
 Fouquier, Antoine Quentin (Fou- 
 
 quier-Tinville), Public Prosecutor at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Fournier, 280. 
 
 Witness at trial of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 294 ; evidence, 318. 
 Fragonard: paintings at Luciennes, 
 
 138- 
 
 Fr^derique, Mile., 10, 14, 60. 
 Froment, ex-gardener : witness at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 294. 
 Frondeville, 290, 307. 
 Fronsac, 196. 
 Fumel, Fumelle, Mile, de : marriage 
 
 to Elie du Barry, reception at 
 
 Court, etc., 174, 204. 
 
 G. 
 
 GALON, L., Vicar of Vaucouleurs : 
 
 signature of Mme. du Barry's birth 
 
 certificate, 8, 29. 
 Gazon : witness at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 296. 
 Genlis, Comte de, 15. 
 Gentenot called Marcel : witness at 
 
 trial of Mme. du Barry, 292. 
 Girlhood of Mme. du Barry, 9. 
 
 Duquesnoy's gambling house : 
 conquest of Comte du Barry, 17- 
 18. 
 
 First amorous experiments, 17. 
 
 Fre"derique's, Mile., protection, 10; 
 jealousy, 14. 
 
 Lagarde, Mme., service with, 15. 
 
 Milliner's apprentice, 15. 
 
 Streets, career in, 14, 16. 
 Gobelin Manufactory: accounts of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, App., 350. 
 Godfather and Godmother of Mme.du 
 
 Barry, 8, 28. 
 Gomard heirs : claims based on 
 
 forged birth certificate, 29. 
 Gouin, son of concierge, 292. 
 
 401 
 
 26 
 
Index 
 
 Goujon, Procureur-Syndic, 262. 
 Goutant, Due de, d'Aiguillon's ven- 
 geance on, 122. 
 
 Gouthiere, chaser and gilder, 135, 
 138 ; accounts of Mme. du Barry. 
 App. t 356. 
 
 Gouy, concierge, 266. 
 Gramont, Comtesse de, 95, 173. 
 Gramont, Duchesse de, 43-5, 74, 99. 
 Greive, George, machinations against 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 255, 258-61. 
 Arrest and liberation of Mme. du 
 Barry, machinations renewed, 
 264-6. 
 New petition, success of : powers 
 
 obtained, 274. 
 Evidence at trial, 308, 310. 
 
 Necessary witnesses, list, 288, 
 
 291, 292 et seq. 
 Execution, brutality at, 324. 
 Grenier, 298. 
 
 Gruel, Sieur Andre"- Marie, 30. 
 Gue'me'ne'e, Princesse de, 60. 
 Guicusbert, Due, 309. 
 Guillemin, Sieur, 285. 
 Guillotine adopted, 246. 
 Guimard's Theatre at Luciennes, 
 
 155- 
 
 Gustavus III of Sweden, relations 
 with Mme. du Barry, 120 note 2. 
 
 H. 
 
 HAMERLEYS and Morland, bankers: 
 
 Depositaries of Mme. du Barry's 
 
 diamonds, 243. 
 Handwriting of Mme. du Barry, App., 
 
 330 note. 
 
 Hardy's Journal, 3. 
 Harville, Mme. <T, at Luciennes, 153. 
 Hawkesbury, Lord, 283. 
 Heirs of Mme. du Barry : rival 
 
 claims of Gomards and Becus, 1814- 
 
 33, 29 note. 
 Henin, d', 299, 300. 
 Hercule, 162, 163. 
 Heron, Member of Committee of 
 
 General Safety entrusted with 
 
 " Dossier " of Mme. du Barry, 280. 
 Hdpital, Marquise de 1', 62. 
 
 Houses of Mme. du Barry, 37 
 note 2. 
 
 I 
 
 INFLUENCE of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 growth of, 67, 68, 70, 88. 
 European fame, 86. 
 Men of Letters, 68, 69 note. 
 Serious and lasting domination 
 established : Choiseul's submis- 
 sion, 82. 
 
 Introduction of Mme. du Barry to 
 the King : preliminary steps, etc., 
 
 22. 
 
 First meeting : various accounts, 
 
 23, 24, 85 note 2. 
 
 Invau, Maynan d', Controller- General, 
 fall of, 89, 148. 
 
 J- 
 
 JAGOT : examination of Mme. du 
 Barry, 296. 
 
 Jansenist Party, 52. 
 
 Jarante, Bishop of Orleans : exiled by 
 d'Aiguillon, 122. 
 
 Jaucourt, Chevalier de, Broglie's in- 
 strument against d'Aiguillon, 119. 
 
 Jesuits and Philosophism, struggle 
 between: "the du Barry" as an 
 instrument, 4, 53. 
 
 Jumilhac, Vicomte de, 307. 
 
 K. 
 
 KAUNITZ, Prince : Letters to Marie 
 
 Antoinette, 143. 
 Kinski, Princesse: half admitted at 
 
 Luciennes, 133. 
 Klispis : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 
 L. 
 
 LA BORDE, valet, 193, 196. 
 La Chatolais, 53. 
 
 1'Heureux : witness at trial of 
 Mme. du Barry, 296. 
 
 402 
 
Index 
 
 La Lange, name adopted by Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 19. 
 La Martiniere, Surgeon to Louis XV, 
 
 184, 185, 190. 
 La Mettrie, 5. 
 La Touche : witness at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 296. 
 Labille's millinery establishment : 
 
 Mme. du Barry's apprenticeship, 
 
 16, 325. 
 
 Labondie, see Bondie. 
 Ladies of the Court. 
 
 Coldness to Mme. du Barry, 60. 
 
 Gradual relaxation, 64. 
 
 Participation in fetes at Luciennes, 
 
 152. 
 Laflauterie (La fleutrie) : Counsel 
 
 for defence of Mme. du Barry, 291, 
 
 304, 3*9- 
 Lagarde, Mme., Mme. du Barry's 
 
 service with, 15. 
 Lalaise, Mme. de, 18. 
 Lamballe, Princesse de : marriage 
 
 with Louis XV proposed, 182. 
 Lamet, hairdresser, 17, 88. 
 Lan9on or Rancon : name adopted 
 
 by Mme. du Barry, 16. 
 Laneuville, 284. 
 Laporte, Pierre : witness at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 294. 
 Larivet at Luciennes, 155. 
 Laroche-Fontenille, see Fontenille. 
 Last love affair : liaison with Prince 
 
 de Rohan- Rochefort, 270 3. 
 Laura guais, Mme. de. 
 
 Intrigues against Richelieu, 51. 
 
 Sale, 40. 
 Laval, Duchesse and Vicomtesse de, 
 
 at Luciennes, 152. 
 
 Lavallery, Citizen : protection of 
 Mme. du Barry, 268, 306. 
 
 Denunciation by Club of Luciennes, 
 270. 
 
 Suicide, 302. 
 Lavauvenardiere, 17. 
 Lebel, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26. 
 
 Death, 26 note i. 
 Lebrun, Mme. : acquaintance with 
 
 Mme. du Barry, portraits, etc., 220, 
 
 221, 222, 271, 272, 282. 
 
 Lebrun, Minister: passport for Mme. 
 
 du Barry's journey to England, 252. 
 Lebrun, Topino : juryman at trial 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 Lecomte : sculptor, 137 ; accounts 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, App., 361. 
 Ledoux, architect : builder of Lu- 
 ciennes, 134 ; Accounts of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, App., 368. 
 Ledoux, ex-Mayor : witness at trial 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, 296. 
 Legrand's, Mile., Salon, 20. 
 Lekain, 130. 
 Lemonnier, Physician to Louis XV, 
 
 189, 190. 
 Lenornamd : dealer in silk goods, 
 
 131 ; accounts of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 App., 336. 
 Lepaute : diamonds supplied to 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 129 ; accounts, 
 
 APp., 345- 
 
 Lepot d'Auteuil, notary, 212. 
 Letellier : portrait of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 272. 
 Letters, Men of. 
 Choiseul, support of, 83. 
 Patronage by Mme. du Barry, 68, 
 
 69 note. 
 
 " Little Pierrot or Betsi," 162. 
 " Livre Rouge," publication in 1789, 
 
 223. 
 Lohier : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 Lorry, Due d'Aiguillon's doctor, 190, 
 
 191. 
 
 Louis XV. 
 Acknowledged mistress, anxiety 
 
 for, 22. 
 Age, effects of. 
 
 Choiseul's position, 41. 
 Passions and desires, 182-3, 184. 
 Choiseul, faith in, 84, 100. 
 Disease due to excesses, 184. 
 Ennui, 168. 
 Fall from horse, 54. 
 Infatuation with Mme. du Barry, 
 
 82. 
 
 Marie Antoinette and Mme. du 
 Barry : action taken to bring 
 about rapprochement, 144-6. 
 
 403 
 
Index 
 
 Louis XV. cont, 
 
 Marriages proposed, 181, 182. 
 Religious influences, susceptibility 
 to in last year, 181, 184, 185, 
 188, 189. 
 Anxieties and presentiments of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 187, 188. 
 Beauvais's, Abbe de, Lenten ser- 
 mons, 185, 187. 
 Death sermon, 185-6. 
 Sudden deaths, succession of, 
 
 effect on the King, 186. 
 Republican multitude, fear of, 6. 
 Smallpox, attack of: fatal illness, 
 
 189. 
 
 Bleeding, treatment by : doctors' 
 ignorance of nature of disease, 
 190-1. 
 Course of disease: condition of 
 
 the King's body, 196. 
 Infection, Story as to source of, 
 
 189. 
 
 Moving from Trianon to Ver- 
 sailles, 190. 
 
 Recognition of smallpox, 192. 
 Religious intrigues : " Jobbery 
 and traffic in the King's con- 
 science," rgi; 192, 194-7. 
 Archbishop's visit, official an- 
 nouncement of, 194, 197. 
 Favourite sent for, 193, 196; 
 
 dismissed, 197. 
 
 Termination in death : Due de la 
 Vrilliere's letter to Mme. du 
 Barry, 202. 
 
 Result : dispersal of Favourite's 
 relatives and followers, etc., 
 203-6, 219. 
 Louis XVI. 
 Brissac's liaison with Mme. du 
 
 Barry, Knowledge of, 230. 
 Choiseul, Secret resentment against, 
 
 6. 
 Hatred of du Barry faction, 165, 
 
 169, 170, 171-2. 
 Imprisonment in the Temple, 246 ; 
 
 execution, 255. 
 
 Relations with ex-Favourite, Mme. 
 du Barry's statement in her 
 examination, 289. 
 
 Louis the Dauphin (son of Louis 
 XV). 
 
 d'Aiguillon's influence, 53. 
 Death, 53. 
 Louise, Mme. : influence, 180, 181, 
 
 182. 
 Beauvais, Abb< de, protection of, 
 
 185. 
 
 Lubomirska, Princess, 287. 
 Luciennes : King's gift to Mme. du 
 Barry, 38, 67 and note i, 104-5, 
 136, 137- 
 
 Fetes at, 152, 154-5. 
 Return of Mme. du Barry permitted 
 
 (1775), 214. 
 
 Life at, after return, 218-22. 
 Sale in 1795, App., 393. 
 Lussan, Marquis de, 43. 
 Luxury and magnificence of Mme. du 
 
 Barry. 
 
 Apartments at Versailles, 38. 
 Estimate of sums spent, 141 note 2. 
 Frenzy of expenditure, 128; Ac- 
 counts, 129-36, App. 335 et seq. 
 Continuance after death of the 
 
 King, 211. 
 
 General list of memoranda and 
 claims of merchants, workmen 
 and trades- people, App., 369. 
 List of sums paid to account of 
 Mme. du Barry by Beaujon, 274 
 and note. 
 Luciennes, 38. 
 Refer also to title Wealth. 
 Luynes, Cardinal de, 193. 
 Luynes, Hotel des : rented by Mme. 
 du Barry, 37 note 2, 
 
 ML 
 
 MAGISTRATES: support ol Choiseul, 
 
 83. 
 Maillebois, 82. 
 
 Desertion of d'Aiguillon, 119. 
 
 Director of War: nomination re- 
 versed, no. 
 Malesherbes, M. de, d'Aiguillon's 
 
 vengeance on, 122. 
 Manners and tastes of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, refer to Character. 
 
 404 
 
Index 
 
 Marcel (Gentenot) : witness at trial 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, 292. 
 Marche, Comte de la, 66. 
 Marcheval, M. de, no. 
 Marchal, manservant, 242, 317. 
 Maria Elizabeth, Archduchess : pro- 
 posed marriage with Louis XV, 
 
 181. 
 Maria Theresa : instructions to Marie 
 
 Antoinette re Mme. du Barry, 143. I 
 Marie Antoinette. 
 
 Choiseul, sentiments in regard to, 
 6, 7, 91. 
 
 Credit with Louis XV ruined by 
 Mme. du Barry, 91. 
 
 Relations with Mme. du Barry, 
 
 143. 
 
 Bribery attempted, 174. 
 
 Dilemma, 146-7. 
 
 Louis XV, action taken by, inter- 
 view with Mercy-Argentean, 
 144-6. 
 
 Persistent efforts of Mme. du 
 Barry, 143 et seq., 167-8, 172, 
 
 173, 174. 
 
 Presentation of Vicomtesse 
 Adolphe du Barry : conduct 
 at, 171-2. 
 
 Promise to speak to the Favour- 
 ite : plan defeated by Mme. 
 Adelaide, 147. 
 
 Revolution: homage and ser- 
 vice by Mme. du Barry, 227, 
 286. 
 
 Marigny, M. de, 50. 
 Marly, Engine of, 221. 
 Marriage of Mme. du Barry ordered 
 
 by the King, 25, 26. 
 Celebration, 36. 
 Contract : terms, 30-5. 
 Dissolution and marriage of con- 
 science with the King: chimera 
 used by Abb6 Terray, 176. 
 Judicial separation 1772, 304 and 
 
 note i. 
 
 Marsan, Mme. de, 60. 
 Martin : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 
 Masson : witness at trial of Mme. du 
 Barry, 294. 
 
 Maupeou (Chancellor) 82. 
 
 Aiguillon, hostility to, 93, 118. 
 
 Appearance, character, ambition, 
 70-2. 
 
 Conquest of Mme. du Barry, 73. 
 
 Desertion to Mme. Louise, 180. 
 
 Devotee, character assumed, 181. 
 
 Parliament, intrigues to obtain dis- 
 missal of, 114, 115. 
 
 Princes of the Blood, winning over 
 to the du Barry faction, 125-6. 
 
 War Ministry : support of Conde's 
 claims, 109 ; right about face, 
 no. 
 Maurepas, 214. 
 
 Quarters in Versailles, 38 note. 
 Maurepas, Mme. de : appeals to 
 
 Danton and Fauchet on behalf of 
 
 the Due de Brissac, 235. 
 Maussabre, Aide-de-Camp to Due de 
 Brissac, 231, 242, 247, 294, 307, 
 
 3". 3i5- 
 
 Massacred by Revolutionaries, 248. 
 Mazarin, Duchesse de : half admitted 
 
 at Luciennes, 133. 
 Mercier : juryman at trial of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 303. 
 Mercy-Argenteau : attempts to bring 
 
 about recognition of Mme. du Barry 
 
 by Marie Antoinette, 143, 144-6, 
 
 168, 173- 
 
 Merigny, Marquis de, 175. 
 Mesdames. 
 
 Hostility to Mme. du Barry, 76, 
 147. 
 
 See also names of the King's 
 
 daughters. 
 Mtivier : Arabesques at Luciennes, 
 
 138- 
 Meyer : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 Milliner's apprentice, Mme. du Barry 
 
 as, 16, 325. 
 
 Mirepoix, Marechale de (Fairy 
 Urgele), travelling and supper 
 companion to the Favourite, 61, 
 62, 66, 161. 
 
 Vengeance of d'Aiguillon, 124, 152. 
 " Mohammed " du Barry, see Barry, 
 Jean du. 
 
 405 
 
Index 
 
 Moineau : sculptor, 137. 
 Molleville, Bertrand de, 299, 300. 
 Monaco, Mme. de, 105, 177. 
 Monteynard. 
 
 Appointed War Minister, 109-10. 
 
 Hostility to d'Aiguillon, 118. 
 Montmorency, Marquise de, 152. 
 Montmorency, Princesse de : won 
 
 over by du Barry faction, 63. 
 Montrable, Marquise de : mother of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 161. 
 Montrouy : loan to Mme. du Barry 
 
 in prison, 278. 
 Montvallier : steward, 274. 
 Monville, M. de, 220. 
 Morande, Theveneau de : Latude of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 160. 
 Moreau, the younger : water colour of 
 
 dining-room at Luciennes, 136. 
 Morfil, Boucher's model : proposed 
 
 marriage to Vicomte Adolphe du 
 
 Barry, 165. 
 
 Morin, Mme. du Barry's confidential 
 man, 226 note, 239 note, 244 note 
 2, 260, 266, 294, 300. 
 
 Declaration " between two wic- 
 kets," implication in, 323, App., 
 
 376. 
 Searches made and summonses 
 
 issued, App., 377, 384. 
 Morliere, Chevalier de la : book dedi- 
 cated to Mme. du Bary, 68. 
 Mortemart, Duchesse de, daughter of 
 Due de Brissac, 233, 285, 295, 
 299, 300, 307. 
 Correspondence with Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 237 and note. 
 Rescue of : Mme. du Barry's de- 
 votion, 278. 
 Moutier : witness at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 296. 
 
 Museums or Royal Palaces, objects 
 belonging to Mme. du Barry now 
 preserved in, App., 390. 
 Muy, M. de : appointed War Minister, 
 
 107. 
 
 Refusal on account of Mme. du 
 Barry: Letter to the King, 
 108. 
 
 406 
 
 N. 
 
 NALET, Sieur, letters on behalf of, 
 
 App., 330-1. 
 
 Nantes Lodges : King's gift to Mme. 
 du Barry, 61, 140. 
 
 Negotiations for sale after death of 
 
 Louis XV, 211. 
 Narbonne, Mme. de, 307 ; influence 
 
 on Mme. Adelaide, 169, 170. 
 National convention, formation, 246. 
 Necker, Mme., 117. 
 Nesle, Abb6 de, see Fontenille. 
 Nesle, Mme., at Luciennes, 153. 
 Nesle, Marquis de, 287, 307. 
 Newkerke, Countess of: intrigue 
 
 instigated by d'Aiguillon, 178. 
 Noailles, Comte de, 50, 91. 
 Noailles, Mme. de, d'Aiguillon 
 
 vengeance on, 123. 
 
 O. 
 
 OLIVON : witness at trial ot Mme. du 
 Barry, 296. 
 
 Origin of Mme. du Barry, 8, 28. 
 
 Orleans, Due. d', winning over to du 
 Barry faction, 126. 
 
 Orleans prisoners : massacre at Ver- 
 sailles, 236, 246. 
 
 P. 
 
 " PACTE DE FAMILLE " : importance, 
 8 4 . 
 
 Pagelle : Man milliner, 131 ; accounts 
 of Mme. du Barry, App., 337. 
 
 Pajou : sculptor, 137, App., 329, 362. 
 
 Pare aux Cerfs, 37. 
 
 Paris, Archbishop of: visit to death- 
 bed of Louis XV, 193, 194, 197. 
 
 Parliament. 
 Dismissal after fall of Choiseul, 114, 
 
 US- 
 Influence of Mme. du Barry on 
 the King : use made of portrait 
 of Charles I of England, 116. 
 Maupeou's intrigues, 72, 73. 
 Re-establishment, d'Aiguillon's se- 
 cret attempts, 180. 
 
Index 
 
 Parliament of Paris, Dissolution : 
 
 Bed of Justice of 15 April, 1771, 
 
 117. 
 Pater, Mme., Countess of Newkerke: 
 
 intrigue instigated by d'Aiguillon, 
 
 178. 
 Payan : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 Peddling haberdashery in the streets, 
 
 14, 16. 
 
 Philosophic spirit of eighteenth cen- 
 tury : progenitor of the Revolu- 
 tion, 5. 
 Picard, Henriette : evidence at trial 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, 317. 
 Pitt : meetings with Mme. du Barry, 
 
 medal given, etc., 256; mentioned 
 
 in indictment, 286, 306. 
 Poix, Prince de, 290, 307. 
 Pons, Vicomte de, 3 5. 
 Pompadour, Mme. de. 
 
 Contrast with Mme du Barry, 128 
 154, 158, 184, 200. 
 
 Dorothe affair, 21. 
 
 Gossip, 47. 
 Pont-aux-Dames, Mme. du Barry 
 
 banished to, after death of Louis 
 XV, 202, 206. 
 
 Permission to leave, 205. 
 Porcelain, Mme. du Barry's taste for 
 
 132 ; accounts, App. 346. 
 Portail : drawing of Zamore, 139. 
 Portraits of Mme. du Barry, paintings, 
 busts, etc.,, 76-81, 221, App., 329. 
 
 List, 78 note. 
 Position of a Favourite : intrigues of 
 
 rivals, etc., 177. 
 Prades, Abbe de, 121. 
 Presentation of Mme. du Barry, 3, 56. 
 
 Delays, 54, 55. 
 
 Rights conferred, 49, 59, 76. 
 
 Supreme effort to secure, 55. 
 Pr6try, valet, 242, 266, 317. 
 Prieur : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 
 Princes of the Blood : Seductions em- 
 ployed by Maupeou, 125-6. 
 Principles and Parties represented in 
 
 struggle between Choiseul and the 
 
 du Barry faction, 4, 53. 
 
 Provence, Comtesse de, attitude to- 
 wards Mme. du Barry, 169. 
 
 Quantiny, Mme., pension from Mme. 
 
 du -Barry, 162. 
 Queen. 
 
 Death of, 53. 
 
 Sympathies with the Jesuit party, 6. 
 
 R. 
 
 " RAMEAU'S nephew," prototype of 
 
 Jean du Barry, 150. 
 Ran9on, Sieur Nicolas, 31, 162. 
 Raucourt, 130, 201. 
 Renaud l'Ain . witness at trial of 
 
 of Mme. du Barry, 296. 
 Revolution, Outbreak of: danger of 
 Mme. du Barry's position, etc., 
 223. 
 
 Blackmailing attempts : " Livre 
 Rouge," and " Vies Privies," 
 223. 
 Brissac connection, effects of, 228, 
 
 238, 247, 307, 314. 
 Character of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 danger heightened by, 225. 
 First arrest of Mme. du Barry. 
 Announcement in Courrier Fran- 
 
 gais, 247-8. 
 Committee of General Safety, 
 
 examination by, 249. 
 Greive's machinations, perfidy of 
 servants, etc., 255, 258-60, 
 261. 
 Imprisonment of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 niece and servants, 262-3. 
 Liberation, 263. 
 
 Letter of gratitude to a 
 member of the Committee, 
 263, 264 note. 
 King's Guards, reception at Lu- 
 
 ciennes, 227. 
 
 Procedure of condemnation : sub- 
 terranean homicidal work, 288. 
 Progress of: massacres of prisoners, 
 etc., 246. 
 
 407 
 
Index 
 
 Revolution Outbreak of cont. 
 
 Renewed danger to Mme. du Barry : 
 further machinations of Greive, 
 etc. 
 Citizens of Versailles, Appeal to, 
 
 267. 
 Denunciation to Revolutionary 
 
 Committee, 269. 
 New petition by Greive, success, 
 
 274. 
 
 Second and definite arrest, 276; 
 imprisonment at Sainte-Pe"- 
 lagie, 278. 
 
 " Dossier," extracts from, 281-4. 
 Greive's manipulations, 284-5. 
 Heads of accusation, 286, 287. 
 Heron's enmity to Vandenyver, 
 
 effect of, 280. 
 
 Hopes of escaping death, 279. 
 Interrogation in presence of 
 
 Fouquier-Tinville, 289. 
 Marie Antoinette's room at Con- 
 
 ciergerie, occupation of, 301. 
 Petition from inhabitants of Lu- 
 
 ciennes, 280. 
 Resistance of arrest, 285. 
 Transfer to Revolutionary Tri- 
 bunal Decree, 288-9. 
 Trial and Execution of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, see that title. 
 Richard, attentions to Mme. du Barry 
 
 in prison, 301. 
 Richelieu, 82, 91. 
 
 Choiseul, attitude towards, 51. 
 Introduction of Mme. du Barry to 
 
 the King, help in, 21, 24, 43. 
 Losses at lansquenet : reply to the 
 
 King, 64, 65. 
 Louis XV's last illness : death-bed 
 
 intrigues, etc., 195, 196. 
 Presentation, support of Jean du 
 
 Barry, 50-1, 55. 
 Rivals of Mme. du Barry, 177-9. 
 
 Friends behind the women, 179. 
 Roche- Aymon, Cardinal de la, 195. 
 Roettiers, father and son, goldsmiths, 
 133, 134 ; accounts of Mme. du 
 Barry, App., 354. 
 Rohan-Chabot, 284, 291, 306, 313. 
 Rohan- Rochefort, Prince de: liaison 
 
 with Mme. du Barry, etc., 270-3, 
 
 281, 287, 292. 
 Rotrue, Abbe : witness at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 296. 
 Roue", see Barry, Jean du. 
 Rouen, Bishop of, 284, 307. 
 Rouen, jeweller, 243, 283. 
 Rouille", 19. 
 Roussel, chambermaid, 243, 245, 28.7, 
 
 317; evidence at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 319. 
 Royalty, effect on, of the du Barry 
 
 intrigue, 156. 
 Ruthiere, d'Aiguillon's vengeance on, 
 
 122. 
 
 S. 
 
 SAINT ANDR, Mile, de : proposed 
 
 marriage to Vicomte Adolphe du 
 
 Barry, 164, 165. 
 Saint Aubin, Michel de, 131. 
 Saint Aure, Convent of: Mme. du 
 
 Barry's sojourn, etc., 10-14. 
 Saint-Phar, 298-9. 
 
 Saint- Vrain near Arpagon : estate 
 purchased by Mme. du Barry, 209. 
 
 Settling in : general invitation to 
 nobility of the neighbourhood, 
 210. 
 
 Weariness of: boredom and em- 
 barrassments, 210-14. 
 Sainte Foix, 24. 
 Salenave, butler, 245. 
 
 Greive, alliance with, 259, 269. 
 
 Member of the Revolutionary Com- 
 mittee of Versailles, 279. 
 
 Witness at trial of Mme. du Barry, 
 
 292 ; evidence, 314. 
 Salon, reception of Mme. du Barry at, 
 
 81, 82. 
 Saluce, House of: Comtesse de 
 
 Beam's lawsuit, 50. 
 Sambat : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 
 Sartine, M. de, d'Aiguillon's ven- 
 geance on, 122. 
 Seran, Comtesse de : platonic liaison 
 
 with Louis XV, 183. 
 
 408 
 
Index 
 
 Servants of Mme. du Barry. 
 
 Full dress and undress livery : ac- 
 counts, App. t 344, for particular 
 servants, see their names. 
 Seymour, Lord, English ambassador : 
 liaison with Mme. du Barry, 214, 
 217, 218. 
 Sigly, Mme., dressmaker, 131, App., 
 
 335- 
 
 Smith, Miss: rival of du Barry, 177. 
 Social props, search for, by the du 
 
 Barry faction, 61. 
 Sophie, Mme., 192. 
 Sorva : sudden death, 185. 
 Soubise, 6. 
 
 Soulavie's Memoirs, 92. 
 Souza, Mme., 220. 
 Stainville, Comte de : Governorship 
 
 of Strasburg obtained through Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 112. 
 Streets, Mme. du Barry's career in, 
 
 14, 16. 
 Sweden, Prince Royal of: support of 
 
 d'Aiguillon, 120. 
 
 T. 
 
 TASTES of Mme. du Barry, refer to 
 
 Character. 
 
 Terrai (Terray), Abbe, 105. 
 Aiguillon, hostility to, 118. 
 Banker to Mme. du Barry, acting 
 
 as, 140, 141, 175. 
 Controller-General, 90. 
 Dissolution of marriage of Mme. du [ 
 Barry and marriage of conscience 
 with the King, suggestion, 176. 
 Intrigues against the Favourite, 
 
 179. 
 
 Ministry of Marine, temporary oc- 
 cupation, 118, 119. 
 Offices accumulated, 175. 
 Thelusson, Banker, 256, 282. 
 The"not, Jean : evidence at trial of 
 
 Mme. du Barry, 316. 
 Thuriot : reply to Greive's second ad- 
 dress, 262. 
 Tippoo Sahib : ambassador's homage 
 
 to ex-mistress of Louis XV, 219. 
 " Tonneau, Comtesse du," 160. 
 
 Toulouse, Archbishop of, d'Aiguillon's 
 
 vengeance on, 122. 
 Tour du Pin, M. de la: military 
 honours paid to Mme. du Barry, 75. 
 Tournelle, Mme. de la, afterwards 
 
 Mme. de Chateauroux, 52 note. 
 Tournon, Mile, de : marriage to 
 Vicomte Adolphe du Barry, 166, 
 
 167. 
 
 See also Barry, Vicomtesse. 
 Tresmes, Due de, 68. 
 Trial and execution of Mme. du 
 
 Barry. 
 
 Blache's deposition, 297, 300. 
 Counsel for the defence, 291, 304. 
 Dejection of Mme. du Barry, 301-2. 
 Examination of Vandenyyers, 319. 
 Indictment adopted, printed and 
 
 distributed, 301. 
 Indictment read by Fouquier, 304 ; 
 
 Vandenyvers, 307. 
 Opening of trial : composition of 
 
 tribunal and jury, 303. 
 Sentence of death, 320: prostration 
 of Mme. du Barry, attempts to 
 buy life, 320-3. 
 
 Declaration between two wickets 
 of the Conciergerie, implica- 
 tion of Morin, etc., 322-3, App., 
 
 374. 376-7, 384. 
 
 Terror on the way to execution, 324- 
 6 ; appeal to the executioner, etc., 
 
 327- 
 
 Witnesses at trial. 
 Evidence taken, 308. 
 List of necessary witnesses fur- 
 nished by Greive, 288, 291. 
 Terror : effect on favourable wit- 
 nesses, 317-18. 
 Trinchard : juryman at trial of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, 303. 
 
 Tripperet, merchant and embroiderer : 
 accounts of Mme. du Barry, App., 
 
 345- 
 
 Trousseau of Mme. du Barry : reserva- 
 tion attached to Marriage Contract, 
 
 35- 
 
 Trudaine, M. de, d'Aiguillon's ven- 
 geance on, 122. 
 
 409 
 
Index 
 
 u. 
 
 USSON, M. d' : replaced by M. de 
 Vergennes, 122. 
 
 V. 
 
 VALBELLE, Mme. de, at Luciennes, 
 
 153- 
 
 Valentinois, Duchesse de, 62. 
 Vandenyvers, bankers, 280. 
 
 Examination of father and daughter 
 by Revolutionary Tribunal, 291. 
 
 Indictment, trial, etc., with Mme. du 
 
 Barry, refer to title Trial. 
 Vanot, merchant: accounts of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, App., 340. 
 Varennes, flight to, 230. 
 Vass : sculptor, figures at Luciennes, 
 
 138. 
 Vaubernier, Gomard de : reputed 
 
 father of Mme. du Barry, 9, 23 
 
 note 2, 28. 
 
 Vauguyon, M. de la, 50, 54. 
 Vaupaliere, Marquis de la, 287, 314. 
 Vente, book-binder: accounts of Mme. 
 
 du Barry, App., 345. 
 Vergennes, M. de, replacing M. 
 
 d'Usson, 122. 
 Versailles : quarters assigned to Mme. 
 
 du Barry on her marriage, 36, 37 
 
 and note 2, 50. 
 
 Victoire, Mme., 147, 170, 192. 
 Vien : pictures at Luciennes, 138. 
 "Vies Privies," publication in 1789, 
 
 223. 
 Vilatte : juryman at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 303. 
 Ville, Abb< de la. 
 
 Share in Choiseul's downfall, 100-2. 
 
 Sudden death, 187. 
 Voltaire, 5. 
 
 "King of Bedlam" (Roi P^taut) 
 pamphlet, 45. 
 
 Portrait of Mme. du Barry, line 
 
 written on, 58. 
 Vougny, Emigre", 287. 
 Vouland : examination of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 296. 
 
 Vrilliere, M. de la, 106, 107. 
 
 Letter to Mme. du Barry announc- 
 ing the King's death, 202. 
 
 W. 
 
 WALPOLE, Horace: appearance of 
 Mme. du Barry in the King's 
 Chapel, 87. 
 Wealth of the Favourite : money 
 
 resources, etc. 
 Allowance, little notes and private 
 
 money orders, 140. 
 Bonds accepted as bonds of the 
 
 King, 141 ; amount of bonds on 
 
 Baujon, 141. 
 
 Clermont, Comte de, death : re- 
 venues assigned to Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 141. 
 General abstract of Inventories, 
 
 etc., App., 391. 
 Gunpowder, renewal of lease for 
 
 goodwill of, 141. 
 Loans from Jean du Barry, 64. 
 Sale at Luciennes, 1795, App., 393. 
 Statement in examination before 
 
 Revolutionary Tribunal, 290. 
 Sum found at Luciennes by the 
 
 Commissioners, App., 388. 
 Terray, Abb de as banker, 140, 
 
 175. 
 Virly, Fermier-Ge'ne'ral, interest in 
 
 office of, 64. 
 Refer also to Titles, Diamonds, 
 
 Houses, Luxury. 
 
 Wolf, Robert: Registrar at trial of 
 Mme. du Barry, 303. 
 
 ZAMORE, " the Nigger," 130, 138, 139. 
 Perfidy in 1793, 259, 266-7, 269, 
 
 280. 
 
 Master of Luciennes, 302. 
 Witness at trial of Mme. du 
 
 Barry, 293 ; evidence, 315. 
 Victim of the revolution : arrest, 
 Dec., 1793, 316 note. 
 
 410 
 
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